‘Loose!’ the cry rang out at last from Varius. Three-hundred slings spat forth into the clibanarii front. A chorus of clattering iron filled the air as the shot thwacked into the plate-armour and facemasks. Muffled screams echoed from within. The rider hovering over Pavo seemed frozen, sword arm raised. A neat, dark hole in the forehead of his iron mask had appeared. Then a gout of black blood leapt from the hole, followed by more from the eye and mouth slits. The rider fell from the saddle with a crash of armour and the sound echoed along the clibanarii lines. The seemingly infallible plate-armour had been beaten, pierced by the shot or crumpling and crushing the bones of the riders within. The slings burred again and another volley sent hundreds more of the riders to the sand.
‘Slaughter those slingers!’ Tamur’s booming command sounded over the cacophony of battle. At once, the cataphractii gathered to charge back into the shallows, this time at the small pack of slingers.
‘Get them on the boats!’ Gallus cried out immediately. The funditores swiftly ceased their next volley and scrambled to the ropes dangling from the sides of the triremes. Many were too slow, cut down by the blades of the cataphractii. Fewer than half of the slingers made it up and onboard the vessels. The tide reddened with every heartbeat.
Meanwhile, the clibanarii had reformed and built up into a charge once more. A pack of twelve of them thundered for Pavo and the handful of legionaries clustered with him. This time, two lances were trained upon him. He hefted his shield at the last, and the impact swept his spear from his hands and nearly jolted his arm from its socket. He staggered back, struggling to stay on his feet, crimson water splashing around his shins and a tide of silver riders washing past him on either side. Nearby he saw legionaries disappear under hooves, bodies punched back on the end of Persian lances, heads struck from shoulders with Savaran blades until the sea was opaque with blood. Another charge swept past nearby and he heard Zosimus cry out in pain. When he twisted to see what had happened, another charge hit them from the side. A trailing hoof dashed against his helm and he fell from the cluster, blinded momentarily.
He shook the lights from his eyes and found himself prone on the sand, surrounded by the torn and broken bodies of Flavia Firma legionaries and Persian horsemen. A fervent war cry sounded from behind, and Pavo felt the sand shudder — hooves only feet away, coming for him. He scrambled round and to his feet to face the clibanarius racing for him, lance trained on his heart. Pavo yanked his shield round to deflect the blow, knowing only the iron shield boss would be able to absorb the momentum of the chained, two-handed spear. As soon as the lance tip skated off the boss, Pavo threw down his shield and grappled the chain, yanking it and pulling the lance from the rider’s grip. The clibanarius lost his balance and flailed to grapple the reins, but Pavo swung the stolen spear up to barge the man into the gory, churning sand and surf before despatching him with a sharp thrust to the throat. He leapt up onto the saddle but struggled to control the panicked mount. The stallion kicked, thrashed and bit at all nearby, Roman or Persian, one stray hoof dashing the helmet from an unsaddled Persian and the next smashing his skull and spraying his brains into the foaming waters.
Pavo steadied the mount just enough to take in what had happened. All around him was a maelstrom of swiping blades, thrusting spears, spraying blood and surf, whinnying horses and screaming men. The Savaran masses were swarming all around the beleaguered pockets of legionary resistance. The remaining slingers on the decks of the triremes did all they could to support their comrades, but it was too little. Legionary bodies littered the sand and bobbed in the surf. In the shallows, he saw Gallus’ plume whipping around in the fray, blood rising in gouts from all who took him on. He saw Tamur up on the marram grass dunes, mounted, safely withdrawn from the battle and watching on with a macabre grin — as if this was another bout of blood games. Moments, he realised, was all they had. And further up the coast, the Persian fleet was now drawing in to the shore, no doubt to land thousands of fresh riders and spearmen.
Pavo heeled the stallion around, ready to strike down another, ready to die, his dark locks plastered to his face with saltwater and blood. Then he glimpsed Sura in the fray, crimson-masked. His friend grimaced and hurled a plumbata. Pavo gawped as the dart soared straight for him. Sura was mouthing something. Down?
Pavo ducked at the last, the dart hissing over his helm and punching into something only inches behind. He twisted to see a cataphractus, sword raised and ready to cut down at him, the plumbata wedged in the rider’s cheek, dark blood pumping from the wound.
Sura barged through the melee, then shouldered the dead rider from the saddle and took his place. ‘Come with me!’ he beckoned hoarsely, then heeled his mount towards the fringes of the battle.
Pavo followed suit, kicking his mount then parrying and ducking as the battle thinned and the din fell away. ‘Sura?’ He cried out as they broke free.
Sura guided his mount to the south, then wheeled round up the beach, headed for the marram grass dunes behind those where Tamur, the pushtigban and the unused Savaran watched the battle. He flashed Pavo a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I have a plan. . ’
Crouching behind the grassy dunes, Pavo glanced up at the swishing tails of the twelve colossal war elephants. Terror swam in his guts. ‘Steal an elephant? That’s not a plan, Sura.’
‘We’re dead, all of us, unless we do something,’ Sura said, nodding to the bloodstained shoreline beyond the elephants where the Roman resistance was fading, fast.
‘If we take one step towards those things, they’ll spot us,’ Pavo hissed, pointing to Tamur and the cluster of pushtigban around him, then to the Persian archers perched in the howdah cabins atop the elephants’ backs. All had their backs turned, looking down upon the battle, but every so often one of the pushtigban would look over their shoulder, as if sensing something was wrong.
‘Then we find a distraction. How’s about those poor bastards?’ he pointed to the paighan, sitting or kneeling to the right of the war elephants, their shackled ankles raw and bloodied, their heads bowed. ‘If they’re given a chance of freedom, do you think they’d take it?’
Pavo looked to the haggard peasant-soldiers. There were some two thousand men there, chained and weary. Men drawn from their farms and families to fight to the death or act as human blockades against Persia’s enemies. He thought of poor Khaled, forced to fight like this. He glanced at the elephants once more, then heard the tortured scream as a legionary on the shore was ripped asunder by a pair of clibanarii lances. ‘Aye, but we must be swift.’
They flitted round behind the elephants and Tamur, ducking to stay concealed behind the grassy dunes until they came to the rear of the paighan mass. ‘We break the chains of the nearest, then we arm them,’ Pavo said, nodding to the nearby wagons loaded with spears. Two Median spearmen stood guard before these, backs turned on Pavo and Sura, both of them utterly transfixed on the battle. Sura nodded. They set down their shields and helms, carrying just their spathas and protected only by their scale vests. The pair stole round to the rear of the wagon, then crept around an edge each. Pavo lined up to grapple the Median nearest to him. He felt his heart thunder as if trying to give him away. At the last, he stepped on a piece of dry reed, which cracked. The Median swung round, but before he could bring his spear to bear, Pavo unleashed a fierce right hook. The man’s jaw cracked and Pavo had to stifle a cry as his knuckles did likewise. The Median crumpled. Alerted by the muted sound of scuffling, the second Median spun to gawp at Pavo in alarm, only for Sura to emerge behind him and smack the flat of his spatha over the man’s head. His eyes rolled and he too was grounded. Pavo and Sura grappled a handful of spears each, then crouched and flitted across the open ground to the rearmost paighan ranks.