This was the best possible news, gloated Tamshapur, dismissing the man. After dealing with the Romans’ puny force (the prisoner could prove useful here), he would occupy Palmyra, whose citizens, learning of the garrison’s fate, would scarcely dare to close the gates against the Persian host. With Palmyra secure and no one to oppose him, the whole Diocese of Oriens from the Euphrates to the Red Sea would fall into his hands like a ripe plum. And after Oriens — Egypt? The name of Tamshapur would then be forever remembered in the annals, as the commander who restored to Persia the lands filched centuries before by Alexander and since annexed by Rome. Filled with a sense of euphoric anticipation, Tamshapur gave the order for the army to advance.
When a distant line of dust-clouds signalled the Persian approach, the Numerus Euphratensis withdrew to the position which Roderic and Victor had reconnoitred a few days earlier. This was a long defile, with towering walls of red sandstone — open-ended, wide at the mouth, narrowing in the centre to a neck just broad enough to be spanned by three ranks of soldiers — a disposition which accounted for the unit’s entire strength, barring archers and a small force of cavalry, both stationed elsewhere.
Carrying oval shields of laminated wood and wearing scale-armour hauberks and traditional Attic helmets, the pedites or foot-soldiers waited, stiff with apprehension, their young faces pale and set with the effort of concealing their fear. In an elaborate show of nonchalance, their officers, resplendent in muscle cuirasses, lounged atop their horses or strolled among the men, smiling and murmuring encouragement. A little to the fore, the commander and his vicarius sat astride their mounts. The pedites’ equipment was standard regulation issue — with one startling exception. Instead of the normal seven-foot spear, each infantryman held an immensely long pike measuring fully twenty feet.
‘Remind you of anything, sir?’ Victor asked the general in breezy tones, in an attempt to break the tension, building as the minutes bled away. He waved towards the silent ranks behind them.
‘Should it?’
‘The three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae, sir — surely you’ve heard of them?’
‘You’re forgetting, Victor — your commanding officer is just an ignorant barbarian. Enlighten me.’
‘Well, sir, in order to buy time for the main Greek army to come up, an advance force of three hundred Spartans under their king, Leonidas, volunteered to block a narrow pass against an invading Persian army, numbering three hundred thousand. Odds of a thousand to one.’ He grinned. ‘With us, they’re only ten to one; should be a walkover.’
‘What happened to those Spartans?’
‘Another time, sir — listen!’
A faint susurration, like wind in a cornfield, could just be heard in the distance. This grew steadily to a pattering, then to a muted, rumbling roar. While the van of their army was yet invisible, a small advance party of Persian infantry preceded by a mounted herald came into sight round a bend in the canyon, some five hundred yards ahead. The foremost soldiers held aloft the Drafsh-i-Kavyan — the huge gold and silver Sassanian royal flag, stretched on crossed timbers. The herald cantered up, drawing rein before Roderic and Victor. Unfurling a scroll, he proceeded to read (in passable Greek) its contents in loud and contemptuous tones: ‘Tamshapur — most noble and illustrious of all the servants of the King of Kings, Protector of the Sacred Flame, and terror to all enemies of the Empire of Iran, out of the great goodness of his heart deigns to show mercy to the Romans who, in their deluded obduracy, have dared to come out in arms against him. Lay down your weapons as a token of surrender, and your lives will be spared. What answer shall I take back to the all-merciful, the ever-victorious Tamshapur?’
‘You may tell your master this,’ responded Roderic in mild tones. ‘Provided he undertakes to remove himself and his troops from the Diocese of Oriens and return forthwith beyond the Euphrates, then Rome is prepared, this once, to overlook such unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of her territory. If not, we will find ourselves compelled to deal with him severely.’
For a few moments, the herald stared at Roderic. Then, finding his voice, he snarled, ‘On your head be it, Roman. Learn then, the fate of any of your men unlucky enough to survive the coming battle — a reckoning you will have brought upon yourselves.’ And, wheeling his mount, he spurred back to his party.
Carried by several soldiers, a large wooden cross, to which was bound the Roman prisoner taken earlier, was swiftly erected before the Persian group, its base slotting into a massive timber support. Bundless of brush-wood were piled around the shaft, and — before any of the horrified Romans could intervene, ignited. Laughing, the Persians withdrew, while Roderic, Victor, and a detachment of his comrades raced to rescue the victim. Too late. A roaring column of fire shot upwards, enveloping the prisoner, who shrieked and writhed against his bonds — before a well-aimed arrow mercifully cut short his agony. As the Romans returned to their position, Victor noted that fury and grim determination had replaced earlier expressions of apprehension on the men’s faces. ‘If that was supposed to be an object lesson intended to intimidate us,’ he observed to Roderic, ‘I rather think it may have backfired.’
The ground began to tremble as, round the bend in the defile, the Persian van appeared, fronted by a dense mass of elephants — enormous beasts, with wrinkled grey hides and formidable-looking tusks.
‘Africans, I’m afraid, sir,’ said the vicarius to his commander. ‘Note the huge ears and saddle backs; Indian elephants have smaller ears and are round-backed. They’re also more docile than their African cousins, who tend to be exceedingly ferocious in attack.’
‘Thank you, Victor; just what I wanted to hear. Well, we can only hope that our men keep their nerve and remember the drill we’ve tried to teach them.’ Aware that horses were panicked by the smell of elephants, the two men dismounted and had their steeds taken behind the lines.
A brazen clang of trumpets rang out and the elephants advanced, gradually picking up speed. Faster and faster they moved, trumpeting wildly, huge ears spread like sails, as they rolled towards the Romans like a vast grey billow. Surmounting each animal, and secured by chains, was a squat crenellated turret in which stood two mahouts. ‘That Polybius fellow had better be right,’ muttered Roderic grimly, then gave a sharp nod to Victor. The vicarius raised a whistle to a mouth gone suddenly dry, and blew a loud blast. (He had found that, in the din and confusion of battle, a whistle’s shrill note was more easily distinguished than a trumpet call.)
Striding among the men, the campidoctores or drill-sergeants shouted orders, and — just when it seemed that nothing could prevent the Numerus Euphratensis from being overwhelmed and smashed to bloody pulp — in a twinkling blur of movement the three ranks of Romans suddenly transformed themselves into several long files with wide avenues between. Each column bristled with outward-pointing pikes.
Elephants, like horses, are motivated by self-preservation. Unwilling to face those screens of wicked blades, they thundered down the escape routes provided by the corridors between the files, and out into the empty gorge beyond. Archers, positioned on the canyon’s lips or on ledges in its walls, now loosed off a deadly sleet of shafts — skewering the mahouts in their turrets, thus annulling any attempt to reverse the elephants’ headlong charge. To make sure they kept moving, groups of soldiers followed, shouting and banging pots and pans from the field kitchen. Returning, as an extra precaution they sowed the ground with caltrops* in accordance with orders from the vicarius (orders which the vicarius had, however, refrained from divulging to his commanding officer).