Triumph in Dust

by Ian Ross

The crowd gathered on the church steps resembled a tide of black rags in the midday sun. They scattered as Castus rode up with his escort behind him, shrinking back to either side as he reined in his horse and leaped from the saddle. Setting his jaw, seizing the hilt of his sword, Castus marched up the steps as a path opened before him. The sun glared back off the exposed marble, and he felt the tight ache gathering in his skull.

  Reaching the top, he stepped into the merciful cool of the church atrium. Several priests had already appeared at the doorway, gazing at him with worried expressions. With two troopers of his escort behind him, Castus pushed past the priests and entered the basilica. His studded boots grated on the mosaic floor, and he was blind in the deeply scented darkness.

  ‘What is this?’ one of the senior priests cried, a fat man with a pale face, rushing from the gloom with hands raised. ‘You cannot enter the House of the Lord in battle array!’

  Castus blinked heavily, pausing only long enough to make out the dimensions of the hall before striding forward again. The priest made a tentative effort at blocking his way, then fell back. At the far end of the chamber, before the apse where the high altar stood, what looked like a bundle of old clothes lay strewn on the floor. As Castus approached he made out the figure of a man: Iacob, lying full length and face down, his arms stretched out to either side of him.

  ‘Dominus, please,’ said the young presbyter, Ephraim, appearing from the shadows. ‘The Blessed Iacob is praying… He has been praying day and night for our salvation – do not disturb him, I beg you!’

  ‘He’ll be disturbed soon enough, and not by me,’ Castus growled.

  Now his eyes had adjusted, he could see that the great basilica was packed with people: many wore far better clothing than the ragged congregation on the steps outside. All glared at him in stark terror and open hostility.

  At the sound of the raised voices, the bishop had stirred from his prone position. Ephraim and another priest rushed forward at once, helping the old bishop to turn and sit upright, then struggle to his feet. Castus peered at them, unimpressed. It hardly seemed possible, but Iacob looked even older and more infirm than ever before. Had he really been starving himself all this time?

  ‘Listen to me, all of you,’ Castus declared, raising his voice so everyone in the basilica could hear him well. ‘The Persians intend to break down our eastern wall. They’ve dammed the river, and undermined the foundations by quarrying. Very soon, they’ll breach their dam and release the river water like a flood. The pressure will be enough to wash out the foundations, and the walls will come down.’

  Gasps from the packed multitude in the darkness.

  ‘Is that even possible?’ the fat senior priest asked, his voice quavering.

  ‘It might be…’ Ephraim said. ‘Many years ago, in the days of the Persecutor Diocletian, the river flooded at Edessa and brought down the walls! The same thing had happened before, during the reign of Severus…’

  ‘And doubtless Shapur knows all about that,’ Castus said grimly.

  He turned to face Iacob again. The bishop was standing upright, supported by the two priests. His jaw hung open, and his eyes appeared unfocused.

  ‘We need to build another wall,’ Castus told him. ‘Inside the first one. We need to do it fast, so when the outer wall comes down we’ll still have a defensive line. That means demolishing houses to give us rubble for building materials. It also means we need manpower. People. Even women and children. Anyone who can pick up a brick or lift a beam. We need thousands of them, and I can’t pull too many men off the ramparts. So – I need your help, bishop.’

  Iacob raised his head, and his mouth tightened into a smile. Castus inhaled slowly, fighting down his angry discomfort. He would not have come to Iacob like this unless he had no other choice. Already panic had gripped the streets of Nisibis. Most of the inhabitants of the north-eastern quadrant had abandoned their homes and fled to other parts of the city. Many of those that remained would fight to stop their houses and temples being torn down on Castus’s orders. He needed a civic leader, somebody with the power to command the people. Vorodes could never do it, and Dorotheus was unwilling. Castus had not forgotten the burning fields as he approached Nisibis. Only the bishop had the authority to direct what needed to be done.

  Iacob just stared, still with his slow, tired smile. Then he threw back his head and barked a laugh. ‘Man of blood!’ he said, his voice thin and hard. ‘Devil-worshipper! You ask for my help? I am fighting evil with the power of prayer – the power of Almighty God! The name of the Lord is a mighty fortress, and the righteous shall run to it and be saved!’

  A chorus of mutters came from the darkness: ‘Amen, amen…’

  Castus clenched his fists, tightened his jaw. He wanted to shout, to grab this scrawny old man by his filthy garments and shake him until he relented. ‘When the Persians break in here, the name of your god will be erased from Nisibis! Didn’t you say as much yourself, when you spoke to the councillors? You can hide in your dark church and pray as much as you like – it won’t save you!’

  But Iacob had subsided, his legs folding beneath him as the two priests eased him back to sit slumped on the floor before the altar. ‘A day of wrath is that day…’ the bishop muttered, chewing at the words. ‘A day of destruction and desolation...! Trumpet and battle cry, against the fortified cities… against the high towers…’

  Spitting a curse, Castus turned on his heel and stormed back towards the church doors. He had heard enough, and would not abase himself further before the bishop’s arrogance. Perhaps the fasting had addled the man’s mind; perhaps he had always been mad. But he could do nothing to save this city now.

  ‘Dominus,’ said the presbyter, Ephraim, hurrying after him. ‘Please, allow me to speak to the bishop. His mind is so fixed upon the glory of God, he has almost passed beyond the world of the flesh… But perhaps I can intercede in some way.’

  ‘Make him see sense, you mean?’ Castus snarled. ‘Good luck with that!’

  The sunlight outside the church doors was almost overpowering, the heat like a heavy weight falling across his shoulders. Castus stood in the archway as sweat burst on his brow, then he wiped his face and stamped down the steps, the crowd falling away before him.

  ‘Runner just came from the south gate, dominus,’ said the centenarius of his escort as Castus reached the bottom of the steps. ‘The enemy are moving – strong detachments of infantry and cavalry redeploying eastwards across the river.’

  Castus nodded curtly. Shapur was massing the greater strength of his entire force to the east of the city, ready for the assault when the walls fell. He swung himself up into the saddle. How many more hours remained? He gave the signal to move, then tugged on the reins, kicking his horse forward into a canter as he crossed the agora once more.

  *

  ‘Everything east of this line,’ Castus ordered, ‘we need it all destroyed. We’ll run our fortification up this street for four blocks, then angle around to the right to meet the wall.’

  The two centurions with him saluted, then ran to give the orders to their men.

  ‘And we’ll need the wounded evacuated from the baths,’ Castus went on, turning to another group of officers. ‘All the people from these blocks as well – use any force necessary.’

  Already the work had begun, and the streets north of the old bathhouse just inside the Gate of the Sun were a scene of chaos. The soldiers brought down from the ramparts laboured with enthusiasm, legionaries and Gothic warriors stripped to their tunics in the airless heat, glad of the chance to escape the withering archery volleys and turn their energies to fierce destruction. Men shouted, women screamed, and the noise of falling masonry was a crashing assault on the ears.

  This area was the old part of the city, and most of the buildings were of mud brick. A few more substantial structures stood among them, with stone walls and pillared porches; Castus watched as a gang of soldiers hauled down one portico with ropes. The pillars toppled, sending
a hot wave of gritty dust billowing down the street. Already the air was filled with a brown fog, and every breath Castus took rasped.

  ‘Water, dominus,’ Vallio said, appearing beside him with a slopping skin bag. Castus took it and drank, then poured the sulphurous liquid over his head. A brief gasp of relief, then the heat dried his scalp once more. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Vorodes strode from the dust cloud, with his son at his heels. Young Barnaeus was wearing an infantryman’s helmet that appeared too big for him, and carried a sword slung over his shoulder.

  ‘How long, do you think?’ the curator asked, scratching at his chin. His beard had grown ragged and wiry over recent days, and he no longer appeared as smoothly composed.

  ‘Could be hours,’ Castus told him. ‘Maybe they’ll wait until tomorrow morning. Not long enough, either way.’

  ‘May the gods give us strength,’ Vorodes said with a nervous smile.

  With the curator and his son following him, Castus made his way along the street, stepping around the heaps of debris, keeping an eye out for tumbling masonry. One whole block of buildings between the wall and the line of the new fortification was coming down; amid the wreckage Castus could see figures struggling and fighting, terrified citizens trying to gather their belongings, soldiers trying to herd them away. Looters too, he did not doubt. He had already given Barbatio orders to execute without mercy anyone caught stealing from the abandoned buildings, but the city was filled with the poor, the desperate and the daring.

  But while demolishing walls and porticos was easy enough, it would take many more men than Castus had available to rebuild the rubble into a new defensive fortification. Two hundred paces north of the bath portico, a runner found him with a message from Gunthia.

  ‘General!’ the man reported, breathing hard. ‘The enemy are pulling their engineers back from the river!’

  Castus cursed beneath his breath, then strode quickly towards the steps that climbed to the battlements. He was barely aware of the curator and his son following him.

  Gunthia met him at the head of the steps. ‘Just started moving,’ he said. ‘And look out there…’

  He pointed away across the river. In the dusty light the whole plain on the far side of the Mygdonius, both inside and outside the walls of the suburb, was thronged with men and horses. Banners stirred the air, and Castus could make out the distant sound of horns and shouted commands drifting in across the noise of the demolitions behind him.

  ‘Elephants too,’ Gunthia said. Castus spotted them a moment later, a double line of the massive beasts drawn up among the ranks of the army, each with an armoured fighting tower on its back. And beyond the elephants, on a raised mound, stood the Persian royal standard and the glittering block of the bodyguard troops. Shapur himself had come to watch his water ram bring down the walls.

  ‘Pull as many men back off the ramparts as you can,’ Castus told Gunthia. ‘I just want observers up here, nobody else. And have the men fed too – they’ll need their strength soon enough.’

  Gunthia nodded tautly, and Castus saw the flicker of a smile pass across the Gothic leader’s face. He knew the feeling: after all this time waiting and holding the walls, the real fighting was about to begin. It was a raw sensation, a fire in the blood.

  Leaning from the embrasure, Castus gazed down at the dry bed of the river, and the sight shocked him. Directly below, the cracked mud was almost obscured by a tangled mess of shattered wood and half-burnt hides, bodies sprawled in cloying lakes and runnels of gore, all of it hazed with flies. A powerful reek of death rose from the base of the wall.

  Castus was surprised to notice that the sun was already low behind him, the eastern sky a deep blue above the dust clouds. The distant margins of the plain were almost drowned in evening twilight. As he peered once more at the assembling Persian army he made out a mounted group riding along the far bank of the river, pausing at times to study the condition of the wall and the riverbank. Castus recognised Zamasp riding at the head of the party; the Persian officer halted right opposite where he stood on the ramparts. Only a few hundred paces separated them. A long bowshot could have plucked the Persian from the saddle. A ballista might even do it – Castus was about to give the order when he saw Zamasp raise his arm and kick his horse into motion again.

  Marching along the rampart towards his command post above the Gate of the Sun, Castus heard a shout from behind him, then another. He turned and saw the men on the walls gesturing wildly towards the river valley to the north. Stepping to the battlements, he glanced downwards from an embrasure, and his breath caught. A thickly corded stream of brown water was racing along the centre of the river’s dry bed, washing away the half-burnt remains of the Persian siege works and the heaped bodies of the slain.

  A sound reached him. A rushing hiss, like flames in dry thatch, but coupled with a low grinding noise that seemed to rise from the earth itself. Leaning outward, Castus looked to his left up the bed of the river. A moment later, he saw a wall of brown water, churning and boiling as it came, surging around the bend of the river below the walls. It rose taller than the height of two men, and rolled within it all the detritus of the collapsed Persian dam and the rock and earth it had scoured from the riverbanks.

  Castus could only stare as the water rushed onward, faster than a galloping horse, the noise so loud that it drowned out the yells of the men on the wall. In only a few heartbeats the head of the surge had passed beneath him, the enormous volume of water and mud and timber crashing around the masonry piers of the broken bridge, foaming upwards in dirty brown spouts and sprays.

  ‘Dominus, get back!’ he heard somebody shouting. ‘Get off the wall!’

  The flood tide was nearly forty feet below the level of the ramparts, but the spray was falling over the walkway as a dark rain. Castus could hear the water heaving at the base of the walls, rushing into the cuts and crevasses excavated by the Persian engineers and bursting open the bluffs of the riverbank below the foundations. The level of the river was still rising, the dark swirling mass of water bearing all before it.

  Screams from his left, and Castus pushed himself back from the embrasure. Men were spilling from the ramparts and down the steps off the walls. Too late; as Castus stared he saw one of the towers sway, the regular lines of brickwork appearing to shudder and ripple. Further along the wall, an enormous crack split the rampart walk. The tower collapsed into the seething water, raising a torrent of spray, and as it fell Castus saw the whole section of wall beyond it give way suddenly and topple outwards. Three men still remained on the wall, trying to manhandle a ballista from its mounting as the solid rampart beneath them dissolved into tumbling rubble.

  Castus took a step backwards, then another. Then the paving beneath his feet dropped and tilted, and for a long sickening moment he sensed the wall beneath him teetering on the brink of collapse. A jolt, and he lost his footing and fell sprawling.

  With a slow grinding motion that he felt through his entire body, the mass of brick and mortared rubble beneath him began to give way.

  XXIV

  ‘Dominus!’

  Castus rolled, scrabbling on the tilting slabs, and managed to get his knees beneath him. He felt hands grasping him and dragging him forward, and stumbled upright. Barnaeus was to one side of him, Gunthia to the other; ahead of them a gaping fissure was opening in the rampart, and the far side appeared to be lifting upwards. Running and stumbling, the three men reached the fissure and threw themselves across it. Solid masonry beneath them; a few more staggering strides, and they were dropping down the partially collapsed steps.

  Dust and grit filled his mouth, and Castus spat furiously. Tremors were still running through his body, and he was light-headed and reeling. Vorodes appeared, hugging his son to his chest, but Castus strode onwards, past the ruins of the demolished buildings. Only then did he halt, turn and look back at the wall.

  The section of rampart where he had been standing only moments before had dropped, but had not full
y collapsed. The wall had slumped downwards onto its foundations, great cracks opening in the brickwork to either side, but the rubble core had held solid. Castus gave a cry of relief; only a few feet more and the whole thing would have toppled beneath him. The air was still full of swirling gritty dust, figures staggering and running in confusion.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Castus yelled, his own voice ringing in his ears. ‘Report, quickly!’

  Runners came in from either side. The tower just to the north had collapsed, although the wall behind it still remained standing. But to the south, and a hundred paces further beyond the tower, the flood had brought down whole sections of the defences and breached the wall in two places.

  ‘The southern breach is narrow,’ a centurion of the Sixth Parthica reported. ‘But the northern one’s wide enough to march a formation of infantry through it!’

  Staring into the gathering gloom as the dust cleared, Castus could make out the shape of the northern breach from where he was standing. The wall was entirely demolished, as if a mighty hammer blow had smashed it. To either side the broken ramparts jutted up, dark and jagged against the evening sky.

  ‘All commanders to me,’ he called, the words rasping in his throat. Gunthia was already with him; Barbatio and a handful of junior officers gathered quickly. Castus stared back at the secondary line of defence, still only a wavering mound of rubble, barely knee-high in places. In the panic and confusion all discipline and unit cohesion appeared lost.

  ‘I need a hundred men to hold the southern breach,’ he ordered. ‘Twice that number to the northern one. Gather as many of your best troops as you can find. Get ballistae up onto the remaining stretches of wall, and archers as well – keep them clear of the weaker sections if you can, but they need to watch what the enemy are doing.’

  ‘You think they’ll come soon?’ Gunthia asked.

  ‘They’ll need to wait until the waters drop further. My guess is we have until dawn, but they may try and cross before that. The rest of your men need to keep building that second wall – push them to it. No sleep tonight, brothers!’