Blood of Kings

by Andrew James

  Darius rubbed the back of his neck as he considered. When Cambyses heard he had mutinied against his Companion, Darius would be outlawed. His break with the King of Kings would be final. But Cambyses was far away and Zariadris was right: ten thousand men being led to their deaths by a fool was unfair. Technically Zariadris should assume command. He ranked higher than Darius. Until he became one of Cambyses’ Spearbearers, Darius had never been given any formal rank, just a series of special commands from Cyrus.

  Darius considered the Armenian. Likeable, like Dadarshi, he was a shorter, thinner version of his younger brother. He didn’t strike Darius as intensely ambitious and he doubted that, as an Armenian, he would have the nerve to oust a high-ranking Persian noble. Whereas Darius could. He thought it over, unable to ignore the hopeful eyes on his face. If he refused, Vinda would stay in command, which might well end in a disaster that could have been prevented. Put like that his duty was obvious. He took command.

  Darius was waiting impatiently by the outcrop of rock, staring towards the oasis, when he felt a touch on his shoulder. He spun round sword in hand and there the scout was, a thin, wiry man with a scar on his face. Darius was impressed; he hadn’t heard a thing. There was a gash on the scout’s arm and his gown was white with dust from scaling the limestone cliff. ‘About two thousand up top, sir. Mostly archers, perhaps five hundred spears. They’re living in the tombs.’ Added to the five thousand men discovered lurking in the palms, and a thousand cavalry discovered camped by the spring, it made eight thousand men. It was as well they hadn’t blundered in blind.

  The scout’s eyes were shining after his mission and he was slightly breathless. ‘There’s a good view from up there, sir,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘They can shoot down in a wide arc of fire, but cavalry could charge them from the west. The ground slopes down into the desert, it’s an easy ride.’ He tilted his hand to show the angle of the slope.

  ‘Thank you, you’ve done well,’ Darius said. ‘Go get some rest.’

  Listening to Darius dismiss the scout, Vinda gave a stubborn shake of the head. ‘Their whole army is only eight thousand. They can’t have brought it all.’

  ‘Why not? They know Phanes has to come through here to reach Siwa. Deny him the water from the spring and he’ll never get there.’

  ‘But they are leaving their homes undefended.’

  ‘The desert is their defence, Vinda.’ Darius was beginning to see that this Great Chief of the Desert Lands was subtle and shrewd. In a pitched battle eight thousand men could hardly hope to defeat fifty thousand. But an army stumbling into the oasis, exhausted and thirsty after a long desert march, was vulnerable. If the Ammonian commander concentrated his forces skilfully, he could use his local superiority of numbers to cut off the Persian army’s head and throw the entire column into panic. Forty thousand men marching six abreast, with a pace between each rank and gaps between each hazara, would form a column about fifteen thousand paces long. Almost a day’s march. Half the units would be so far behind they would not even know a battle was being fought, and by the time they found out it would be too late to take part. The Great Chief needn’t kill that many Persians. Just scatter the army, deny it water and let the desert do the killing.

  Now Darius understood the lack of campfires. To maximize the element of surprise, the Ammonians did not want to give away the number of men lying in wait.

  If that was their plan it had only half worked, because Phanes was a wily fox who had sent a force ahead to seize the oasis, guaranteeing his water supply in advance. But it left Darius in a dangerous dilemma. If he attacked now he would be facing an army almost as large as his own, holding a good defensive position on ground they knew well, fighting in defence of their families back in Siwa. Victory was far from certain. Darius considered waiting until Phanes arrived. The Yauna was an experienced soldier, and would understand the reasons for the delay. But Darius couldn’t wait. If he did the spring wouldn’t be dammed, the water wouldn’t have collected, and even if the Ammonians were driven off when Phanes got here, there would be tens of thousands of thirsty men and animals all trying to drink from a single inadequate spring. It would be chaos, animals stampeding, men fighting and getting crushed. And the water would quickly run out. They needed a large pool of water. And to make it ready in time, Darius needed to capture the spring now. Besides, his men had exhausted their own water getting here. Unless they took the spring they would not live long enough to see Phanes’s arrival.

  Whether Darius liked it or not, he had to attack.

  Dew lay heavy on the desert. The tamarisk trees were glistening with it, fat droplets running along the feathery leaves and dripping into the sand. In the east the sun warmed a cold sky with its first rays of gold. The sound of a late hunting owl floated across the oasis to be answered by a second, then a third. Hearing them, Darius looked at Dadarshi. ‘Everyone is in place. Let’s go.’

  There was a distant rumble of hooves, quickly drowned by a drumming closer at hand as the fifty asabari trotted forward. Darius rode at their head on one of their remounts, relieved to have a horse rather than a camel between his knees. Dadarshi rode at his left, ebullient at the prospect of a fight. Zariadris was beside him, the two brothers talking softly in their native Armenian. A crestfallen Vinda lagged behind on Darius’s right, his face tight. Following in a vast arrow formation came a thousand of the camel riders, and behind them the loud tramp of a thousand spearmen backed by two and a half thousand archers. Darius’s plan was to sweep the defenders off the plateau with the cavalry, then hold it against any counter-attack with the spearmen and archers. That would give him a secure foothold from which to command the rest of the oasis. The remaining thousand cavalry, and a thousand each of the spearmen and archers, were to launch a diversionary attack on the men in the palms to stop them coming to the aid of the Ammonians on the plateau. The remaining two thousand spearmen and five hundred archers were to advance in line formation to drive the Ammonian cavalry from the spring. Once they had taken it, the diversionary attack would pull back to help them hold it.

  The spring was key. Without it everyone would die.

  They had circled into the desert, coming at the plateau from the west as the scout suggested. Now they were riding with the sun rising in their eyes. Squinting, Darius saw low rolling dunes with outcrops of rock, and flat depressions of dew-dampened sand. As the angle of the sun on the dunes shifted, the expanses of sand turned from silver through bronze to gold. A scattering of palms appeared, changing from dark silhouettes into green fronds.

  The sun warmed the air and the air started to move, swaying the fronds in a breeze that was moist and sweet. Then there were men, masses of them, chanting in the morning chill. As they raised their bows, Darius kicked back his heels. ‘Yah! Yah!’ His men followed his lead, shouting and whipping their mounts. The horses surged forward, the ground shaking as they built up their charge. Arrows came at them like flurries of windblown hail, the flat, heavy heads clunking loudly against shields and armour. Darius was flung forward as his horse dipped into a depression in the sand. She ran along the bottom for ten paces, leaping clumps of camel thorn and tangles of reeds, then he was thrown back as she tore up the far side. As his head crested the lip he blinked his eyes against the rising sun. When he opened them an arrow was accelerating at him out of the glare. It expanded before him, seeming to hang in mid-air, then smashed into his chest. Darius stiffened, felt his heart skip a beat then rode on, shocked fingers feeling the dented scales in his armour. Next to him a man went down with a desolate cry.

  Catching his breath from the shock, Darius pulled the horn from his neck and blew with all his strength. The challenge rang across the plateau. In reply thousands of bowstrings were resonant behind him, arrows racing over his head with a rush of wind like a sudden gale; while ahead Ammonians were dying, crumpling silhouettes falling to the sand. Then suddenly there were spearmen in front of Darius, blocking his way with screaming, hate-filled faces and short iron-tipped w
eapons thrusting towards him.

  Darius blew two short blasts on the horn for ‘right wheel’. Hundreds of bronze harness rings jangled as reins were lifted, hooves thumped as camels and horses were dragged round by straining riders. As Darius led his squadrons away a great pounding of feet erupted behind him, as a thousand Persians lowered spears and crashed into the enemy line. Piercing Eastern cries became shouts of elation as Ammonian warriors were knocked flying to be trampled or speared. Darius was deafened by the clamour as the two armies locked in one groaning, heaving mass. In the rear ranks shields were pressed into backs, as men strained to push their comrades forward. In the front ranks men punched, kicked and stabbed in a vicious hand-to-hand brawl. Sunlight backlit the feathers in the Ammonians’ hair, throwing shadows across their feral faces and outlandish coats.

  Darius’s mount flared her nostrils and her flanks heaved. He shortened the reins to restrain her, needing time for the cavalry to re-form. When the ranks were dressed he blew the charge. The squadrons built up speed, trotting, cantering then galloping at the heaving mass to deliver the killing blow. Gripping hard with his thighs Darius braced for the impact, feeling the earth tilt as his horse reared up, seeing men scatter before her flailing hooves, hearing the sickening crack of snapping collarbones, smelling the blood and fear like plague in the air.

  Suddenly the mass of Ammonians quivered, fear a visible ripple shaking them end to end. Faces taut, high foreheads creased, nervous warriors stepped back, forcing the frightened archers behind them towards the cliff. Snarling and grinding his teeth Darius willed the Ammonians to break.

  They gripped their weapons, planted their feet firmly on the ground, and fought.

  Furious now, Darius kicked his horse forward, ploughing deep into the enemy. Warriors crowded round him, arms waving, bodies shifting, spears probing in short thrusts, shouting to each other as they summoned the courage to attack. Darius kept the horse moving, stamping, turning, avoiding the thrusts and driving men back with the threat of hooves, while he hacked with his kopis scimitar at shoulders and heads. The curved blade bit into a man’s scalp, spattering the feathers in the Ammonian’s hair with blood and brain. It lodged in his skull, his limbs convulsed, his body shook in spasm. Something clanged hard against the back of Darius’s armour, throwing him forward. Almost losing his grip on the scimitar he tore it out, scattering droplets of blood from its tip as he swept round, looking into terrified brown eyes that closed as the cutting edge of his blade smashed into them. The scimitar was blood-red iron now, feared and deadly as it swung its arc.

  Darius’s eyes were drawn to Vinda. The noble was slashing wildly with his pearl-hilted kopis, his features animated with rage. Spellbound, Darius saw him lean at impossible angles, gripping his horse’s knotted mane, reckless with battle fever as he forced his mount into the heart of the line, where warriors stepped aside rather than face him. He wielded his polished blade with a savageness that astounded Darius, cutting an Ammonian across the mouth, another in the neck, making no effort to avoid the spray of blood that jetted out, seeming to revel in it as he severed the wrist of a terrified archer tugging too late at the dagger on his belt.

  With Darius distracted, an Ammonian ducked under his horse and drove a spear into the soft of its belly. Her scream broke the spell and set his heart pounding. She kicked out blindly in pain, then stood very still. A torrent of blood suddenly poured from her, her legs buckled and she collapsed. Darius plummeted down. Realizing his legs would be crushed beneath her he pulled them out just in time, toppled onto his back and landed with a crash. Dazed, he looked up into the stunned faces of a knot of Ammonian warriors. For a heartbeat they stared, then a spear went up, a warrior grunted, and Darius knew the certainty of death as the blade came down. The glinting point froze his blood but instinct rolled him sideways. There was a shocking clang as iron drove through bronze, pinning his corselet to the ground. Speared like a fish Darius struggled and jerked but couldn’t pull free, while the blood rushed in his ears and snarling faces surrounded him like dogs around wounded prey. Still holding his sword he jabbed it in short, sharp thrusts that kept the warriors back until a vicious flying kick struck his wrist. His hand erupted with pain and Darius groaned as the sword spun away. He pulled the dagger from his belt but another warrior stared down into his eyes, stamped on his wrist and brought his spear down hard.

  Bracing with all his might, Darius pushed down with his thighs, arched his back and twisted his body sideways, pulling frantically at the spear that held him trapped. The corselet tore, letting his body turn sideways to the thrust. The spear ripped through his armour, scraped down his ribs and deflected into the ground. Darius knew a burning pain was searing into his chest but it seemed distant. As he looked up, weaponless into the warrior’s triumphant face, his fingers closed over a rock for a final, desperate chance. Then the Ammonian raised his arm.

  Sprawled on his back, rock in hand, Darius heard piercing cries as usabari cut their way through, then a roar and the sound of flailing hooves thumping into the Ammonians’ backs. There was the dull thud of a spear point sliding into flesh, then the triumph on the face of the warrior changed into confusion as a hand’s breadth of iron erupted from his stomach. Men dismounted and strong hands lifted Darius off the ground.

  A horse was found and Darius was lifted onto its back, his sword put back in his hand. After a moment he was calm enough to blow the ‘Attack’, and again the camels charged. The mass of Ammonian warriors reeled as the tall, powerful animals bit and kicked, and high on their backs the riders thrust down. The Ammonians’ spears were hampered in the crush, while the Persian spearmen drew short akinakes swords and thrust them into the warriors’ chests.

  Calling out to each other in fear the Ammonians began giving ground, slowly at first, step by bitter step, while the Persian archers added their weight to the heaving mass. The Ammonians’ bare feet scrabbled and slipped on the gravelly plateau, growling through gritted teeth as the pressure overwhelmed them.

  ‘Drive them to the cliff!’ Darius yelled, in no mood for mercy. His men used their camels and horses to herd the Ammonians, hemming them in like sheep in a pen, whipping them, goading them with spears, forcing them towards the drop. Warriors clung to anything they could find, mostly each other, as they struggled to avoid the edge. The Persians pushed harder, the Ammonians were crushed tighter. Then they started falling.

  Eyes wide, mouths screaming, arms raised in horror as the ground disappeared beneath their feet. There was a vile chorus of thump, thump, thump as bodies crashed far below, then the groans of the crippled and dying. Shocked by the carnage the resistance of the survivors suddenly collapsed.

  Bronze and iron rattled on stone as they threw their weapons down.

  Darius wiped the blood from his sword. The battle heat had already gone, leaving him numb. He knew when he looked over the edge of the cliff the numbness would be replaced by a sickness in the pit of his stomach, a despair at the waste. But he forced himself to look all the same. Piles of bodies lay at the base of the cliff, some still twitching and moaning, others very still, necks or limbs at broken angles. The plateau itself was littered with dead Ammonians, dead Persians, a few dead camels. He counted six horses dead or dying, including his own. Surrounded by death on all sides, Darius went and stood over her, touching her muzzle in sad farewell.

  Persian spearmen and archers were wandering around, some looting the dead, others staring at the strange clothes of the Ammonians, but most just looking dazed at the scale of the victory. Rounding up a couple of soldiers, Darius was about to order them to put the wounded horses out of their misery. Before he could say a word hands closed over his arms and shoulders and he was lifted onto a spara shield by eight soldiers, who raised him into the air and hailed their comrades. The plateau was swept by an almighty cheer.

  Dadarshi came over, bloody, filthy and exhausted but his face glowing. Delight at the men’s salute drove the despair from Darius’s heart. Laughing, he jumped down off
the shield and clasped Dadarshi’s wrist. The men cheered some more and the two commanders lifted clasped arms to acknowledge them. Several times during the fighting Darius had heard Dadarshi’s voice raised above the din, screaming abuse at the enemy, and now it was hoarse from shouting. ‘Well done, sir!’ he croaked. He looked anxiously at the tear in Darius’s armour and the wound in his chest. ‘You need to get that sewn up, sir. I’ll call someone.’

  Relief at surviving suddenly hit Darius. The image of the spear poised above him then crashing down was etched into his mind, and reliving it he felt the blood rush to his head. Carried by the emotion he grasped Dadarshi’s shoulders, hugged him and raised his voice so everyone could hear. ‘Tell the men they all fought well. And as for you, my friend … You fought like a crazy daeva! I remember as a boy hearing stories of the wild Urartian tribesmen in the hills. I thought you Armenians were civilized now, but one man at least still has the wild blood of his ancestors in his veins …’

  The men smiled. Dadarshi beamed with pride.

  Darius cast an eye over the corpse-strewn battlefield. ‘How many have we lost?’

  Dadarshi shook his head. ‘Don’t know yet, sir. But we’ve got three hundred prisoners, and we don’t have men to guard them, nor food to waste.’

  Darius knew what he was hinting at but was too tired, and suddenly in too much pain, to think clearly. He brushed the blood and grime from his face with the back of his hand then looked at the prisoners huddling miserably on the ground. Some were nursing wounds, all had the hollow look of defeated soldiers in their eyes. Alive, they were a threat. The sensible thing was to cut their throats, as Dadarshi was suggesting. Darius couldn’t work out why he was reluctant to order it. ‘Take them to the tombs. Tie their hands and feet. We can decide later. First we must find out whether the oasis is ours. Send riders down to the spring.’