The army of Hatra had marched fifteen miles upstream to cross the Tigris at a shallow spot that Byrd and Malik had scouted during our march from Nisibus. My father had earlier sent horsemen to the exact same spot to ensure that the enemy did not use it to cross the river and then take us unawares. But the enemy’s attention was focused on the Plain of Makhmur and its wide ford, wide enough for a great army to move across with ease. So my father had marched his horsemen north, crossed the river and then headed south while the enemy attacked Dura’s army. And now Hatra’s horsemen smashed into the enemy’s unguarded right flank.
After the battle I heard from Byrd and Malik, who had ridden with my father, what had happened. It was mid-morning before Hatra’s cavalry were safely across the river and had deployed into their battle formations — cataphracts in the centre and horse archers on the wings. They then rode directly south towards the Plain of Makhmur, driving deep into the mass of unsuspecting horsemen who were waiting to cross the river.
The initial clash cut down thousands of light horsemen, but so many were the enemy that the charge slowed and then stopped as Hatra’s horsemen were literally swallowed by the hostile mass. My father was contemplating ordering a withdrawal but his unexpected arrival on the battlefield had panicked Cinnamus and Vologases, who ordered a general retreat, hence the withdrawal of the cataphracts from the river.
As the horsemen in front of us left the river and then rode away I sent a rider to Herneus with orders for him to bring his men to the river. Notwithstanding that our horses still had their legs their riders were in no fit state to conduct a pursuit. Ten minutes later he arrived.
‘The enemy appears to be retreating. Get your men across the river and harry them. If they reform and attack, fall back.’
‘Yes, majesty. I assume your father, the king, has achieved success.’
‘It would appear so,’ I agreed.
He raised his hand in salute and then rode back to his men who had formed into columns and were now filing into the river, threading their way between dead horsemen floating in the water. I gave orders for a general retreat back to our initial position behind the Exiles. I stayed with Orodes and the rear guard as Vagises and a company of his men joined us.
‘Some of their light horsemen got over the river,’ he reported. ‘We killed most of them before the rest retreated back to the east bank.’
‘What are your losses?’ I asked him.
‘Light, although we have yet to take a roll call.’ He looked at the dead bodies in the river. ‘And yours?’
‘It was a long fight,’ I answered grimly.
Two hours later I was standing with Domitus and Kronos behind the rows of stakes that had served them so well that day. In front of us was a great heap of enemy dead — men and horses victims of the legions’ javelins.
‘They tried another assault after their first one,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘but failed to get even near the stakes, let alone us. They were limited to hurling their spears at us, so we hurled a few more javelins back.’
‘After we emptied many more saddles they fell back,’ added Kronos.
‘What are your losses?’ I asked.
‘Four dead and seventy wounded,’ answered Domitus.
‘And yours, Kronos?’ I asked.
Kronos looked at Domitus. ‘Four dead and seventy wounded are our combined losses.’
It had been an amazingly one-sided fight, the consequence of well-trained men standing behind a wall of impenetrable stakes. My cataphracts had not been so lucky. A roll call revealed that a hundred had been killed and a further two hundred wounded, though at least Vagises’ horse archers had suffered only fifty dead and a hundred and fifty wounded.
The sun was abating in its fury now it was late afternoon but I was still glad to take off my scale armour and leg and arm armour. Already the squires, who had been lining the walls of Assur with their bows to cover any retreat we may have had to make to the city, were stripping their masters’ horses of their scale armour and loading it back onto their camels, as well as collecting the kontuses that had been dumped on the ground earlier. Losses among the cataphracts would be made good by promoting the eldest squires, and when we got back to Dura fresh squires would be inducted into the army.
Orodes had four squires, two for himself and two for me as he was always letting me know, and they now assisted me in unfastening the armoured suit that had protected Remus so well during the battle. As his squires packed his scale armour away, Alcaeus, who with his physicians had been treating the wounded, examined Orodes. Those seriously injured were taken back to the city on wagons where they could be treated more thoroughly.
Alcaeus gave Orodes a bandage to hold next to his wounded face. ‘Nothing serious, you’ll live. Just keep it clean.’
‘Make sure it does not leave a scar, Alcaeus,’ I said. ‘His future bride won’t like it.’
‘Future bride?’ said Alcaeus, mildly interested.
‘Orodes is to marry Queen Axsen of Babylon.’
Orodes looked daggers at me. ‘It is still uncertain,’ he snapped.
‘My congratulations,’ said Alcaeus. ‘I’m sure there will be no scar.’
He looked at my arm that was bleeding from where my armour had been dented by a mace, the white sleeve of my shirt showing red.
‘What about you?’
‘It’s fine, Alcaeus, I hope to have another scar to add to my collection.’
Alcaeus nodded slightly and then looked at the piles of dead horse carcasses and bodies intertwined on and in front of the stakes and then to the bodies floating in the river.
‘What about them?’
I shrugged. ‘What about them? They are dead.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘Notwithstanding your god-like powers of observation, the bodies need to be collected and burned quickly to avoid sickness spreading to the city.’
‘Oh, the city authorities can deal with that,’ I replied casually.
Alcaeus raised an eyebrow at me. ‘I would advise you to assume the responsibility. You can use those stakes for fuel. It would be a pity if having fought a battle to preserve this city, it was devastated by a plague.’
‘He’s right Pacorus,’ said Orodes, ‘I have seen with my own eyes what pestilence can do to cities.’
‘Very well,’ I agreed, ‘I will detail Domitus to organise it, seeing that his men were responsible for most of the carnage.’
In fact the city garrison did assist the legionaries in their grim task of piling dead horses and men onto a dozen pyres that were erected near the riverbank, but not before they were stripped of anything that could be reused: spearheads, helmets, scale armour and swords.
That night I stood on the walls at the Southern Gate with my father and watched the fires burn, an easterly wind fortunately saving our nostrils from the stench of roasting flesh. Thankfully there was not a scratch on him and losses among his men had been light like my own.
‘Herneus will snap at the enemy’s heels,’ he said, looking south at the funerals pyres that illuminated the night. ‘Tomorrow I will organise the dead on the Plain of Makhmur to be burned.’
‘How many dead are there?’
He smiled. ‘During our initial charge we must have been killing them at a rate of a thousand every minute. There’s probably around twenty thousand dead on the plain.’
‘We counted ten thousand corpses,’ I said. ‘A great victory, father.’
He screwed up his face. ‘They still have seventy thousand horsemen, Pacorus. I have prevented them from invading Hatra but they are still a threat.’
‘Herneus will inflict more casualties on them.’
‘Yes, he will harry them and hopefully force them further east but he will not be able to destroy them, and if he himself is under threat of being destroyed he will retreat.’
‘And then what?’
He spread out his hands. ‘Then we will have more war. I pray to Shamash that Farhad and Aschek still have their armies, for if they fall then Hatra is surely doomed.’