The nearest of them turned and saw the pair approaching. A jabbering broke out and more heads turned. Pavo’s flesh crept as he saw Tamur and the pushtigban turn away from the battle to the disturbance. ‘Down!’ he hissed, pulling Sura to the sand.
‘Shut your mouths, dogs, or we will march you into the water to drown,’ a Median spearman near the front of the paighan mass shouted. In an instant, they fell silent. Pavo saw Tamur scowl at the chained men for a moment longer, then look back to the battle.
Nearest Pavo was a flat-nosed paighan wearing an off-white robe and a dark-brown felt cap. He gawped down at the prone Pavo. ‘Roman?’ he said in jagged Greek.
‘Aye, but not your enemy,’ Pavo replied in broken Parsi. ‘We come to free you.’ He held up his spatha and motioned towards the chains that bound him to the next malnourished wretch. The pair and those nearby looked to one another, doubtful.
‘And arm you,’ Sura added, lifting the pile of spears in his grasp.
At this, the flat-nosed man’s weary features bent into a smile. He held up his chains. Pavo lined up his spatha and hacked down. A thick iron clink accompanied it. Pavo ducked down and held his breath, waiting to see if the guards up front had heard. Nothing. Sura hacked at the chain on the other side of the man. Again, nothing. But the flat-nosed man, suddenly realising he was free, threw his arms in the air and made to cry out in joy. Pavo shot up a hand and clamped it over the man’s mouth.
‘Not a sound,’ he pressed a finger to his lips, ‘or we all die.’
The flat-nosed man nodded, then turned a disapproving look on his comrades, wagging a finger at them as if they were to blame. One by one, Pavo and Sura freed the paighan, handing them spears until thirty or more were crouched, ready to act.
‘Free the others,’ Pavo said, handing spears to those furthest forward. ‘Now, does anyone here know how to ride those beasts?’ he nodded towards the war elephants.
The flat-nosed man held his hands out wide with a grin, and a handful of others shuffled a little closer, nodding.
‘Come with us,’ Pavo beckoned them. They stole away from the rear of the paighan and back into the grassy dip in the dunes behind the elephants. Pavo eyed the nearest beast at the rear of the herd. An enormous bull. Its tusks were bronze-coated and serrated on the outside. A plate iron mask was fastened to its face. An iron scale apron, vast enough to cover a house, shrouded its body, masking many of the battle scars this animal had been subjected to. A mahout sat astride its neck holding a spiked cane ready, waiting on the order from Tamur to drive the creature into the battle. The crenelated howdah cabin on its back was packed with four archers, one at each edge, bows nocked and eager to enter the fray. A knotted rope dangled from one side of the cabin, the end swinging near the ground.
Sura stroked the matted tufts of his beard as if studying some legal scroll. ‘We climb up, we gut the bastards in the cabin, then we. . ’
Just then, a cry went up from the Median spearmen guarding the paighan and a raucous chorus of reply sounded from the freed men. Pavo looked over his shoulder to see the majority of the paighan rushing their captors, spearing with a vigour that told of their hatred. At this, Tamur spun to the disturbance, nostrils flaring in outrage.
‘Insolent dogs! At them!’ he cried, waving his pushtigban and the war elephants towards the rebelling paighan. The ground shuddered under the great beasts’ footsteps.
‘Bollocks! That makes it a bit harder,’ Sura spat as the nearest elephant thundered past at the back of the herd, the knotted rope jangling.
‘There’s no time. No other choice. Come on!’ Pavo wrenched Sura up from the grassy dip, waving the flat-nosed man and the others with him. The ground jostled before him as he ran, from his own stride and the mighty footsteps of the elephants. The rope danced violently as the elephants picked up pace. He reached out and snatched at it, the tether lifting him from the ground with a jolt. He shinned up the rope, his palms burning on the fibres. Halfway up, he looked down to see that Sura and the flat-nosed man had grappled the rope too. They were crying out to him, but a ferocious trumpeting from the beast drowned out their words. He glanced up to see the source of their alarm — an archer leaning over the side of the cabin, winking behind his nocked bow. He pressed flat against the elephant’s midriff, feeling a whoosh of air as the arrow zipped past him and punched into the sand. The archer fumbled to nock his next arrow and Pavo hauled himself up the last few feet. As the archer stretched his bowstring, ready to loose, Pavo clutched the edge of the cabin with one hand and reached up with the other to bat the bow out of line, the arrow falling from the string. The archer’s cry to his comrades perched at the other edges of the cabin never left his throat, as Pavo grasped at the man’s windpipe then hauled him over the edge of the cabin. A dull crack of bones sounded as he landed on the ground headfirst.
Pavo pulled himself into the cabin, immediately tearing his spatha from his scabbard. The other three archers were oblivious to the fate of their fourth colleague, too busy firing down upon the fleeing swarm of paighan. Pavo plunged his blade into the ribs of one and the other two spun at the guttural, gurgling roar the man emitted. The two gawped, then saw that Pavo wrenched desperately at his spatha blade, stuck fast in the dead archer’s ribs. The pair grinned, drawing long, curved blades from their belts. In the next heartbeat, Sura leapt into the cabin, bringing his spatha scything down on the nearest man’s forearm. With a crack of bone and a howl, the archer toppled to the floor of the howdah where Sura despatched him with a sharp downwards thrust to the heart. The flat-nosed paighan thumped into the cabin at this point, and the last Persian archer gawped at the three who glared back at him. Then he cast a quick glance over the edge and leapt with a shrill cry.
At this, the mahout sitting astride the elephant’s neck glanced over his shoulder, first with an irritated frown, then, on seeing the three unexpected faces there, with bulging eyes. He called out in alarm to the riders on the elephants ahead, but none heard — for the nearest three creatures were also now crawling with paighan, fighting desperately to seize control of the howdah cabins.
Pavo grappled the flat-nosed man by the shoulders. ‘We’ll deal with the mahout,’ he gestured to the man on the elephant’s neck, ‘but you must be ready to take the reins, yes?’
The flat-nosed man shrugged, smiled and nodded as if such an act was trivial.
Pavo nodded to Sura. ‘Ready?’
‘Never more so,’ Sura replied.
Pavo crept forwards, out of the cabin, Sura following close behind. The elephant’s shoulders rolled as it charged, and there was little to grip onto bar its furrowed flesh. He slipped and grasped out, inches from falling to the ground and under the beast’s stride.
‘I can’t get any purchase!’ Sura cried behind him.
The mahout, hoarse in his cries of alarm, twisted round again. This time his face drained of colour, seeing Pavo and Sura coming for him, albeit haphazardly. Immediately, he started thrashing at the top of the elephant’s skull with the iron hook-tipped cane. The beast trumpeted in fury, thrashing its head from side to side. Pavo felt the world shake as the beast thrashed, emitting a pained roar that seemed to shake him to his bones.
‘He’s trying to throw us off!’ Pavo cried, finding a modicum of purchase with one foot on the lip of the elephant’s iron plate mask.