The army had not marched seven miles before Byrd and Malik returned to report that their scouts had detected another force approaching, this time from the southwest. Then they rode off to gather more information. This was getting tiring! For the third day the army deployed into its battle positions and waited for yet another enemy force to present itself. Would we ever get to Seleucia?
Again the cataphracts deployed behind the legions with the horse archers on the wings. The legionaries stood or sat on the ground and chatted to each other, relishing the thought of another day’s easy slaughter.
Domitus sauntered over to where I was sitting on Remus next to Orodes.
‘Your turn today, Orodes,’ he said.
‘Depends on what they send against us,’ I said.
‘If it’s a bunch of kitchen maids armed with spits then Orodes is your man,’ beamed Domitus. Orodes was far from amused.
We waited an hour before the familiar black shape of a large group of men appeared on the southwestern horizon. Worryingly neither Byrd nor Malik had returned to us. I prayed that they had not been captured or killed. I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. I would exchange all the victories I had won for their safety. I closed my eyes and prayed to Shamash to deliver them back to me safely.
The shapes grew bigger, shimmering in the heat and appearing like black liquid. Centurions blew whistles and their men dressed their ranks and awaited the coming clash in silence. The enemy was moving at speed, heading directly towards our right flank, a great banner fluttering in the centre of their line.
‘I recognise that banner,’ said Orodes straining his eyes. ‘It is Nergal.’
I did not believe him and stared at the approaching horsemen to identify them myself. Utter relief swept through me as I saw that it was indeed the banner of Mesene that came towards us. And beside Nergal rode Malik and Byrd, and I also saw the black-robed Yasser with them.
I clasped Nergal’s arm as he eventually halted before us, smiling as ever, and then greeted Orodes.
‘We found them wandering in the desert, lost,’ beamed Malik.
‘Glad to have your men with us, Nergal,’ I said. ‘Vagises told us that there is a great army gathering at Seleucia, which is now probably heading this way.’
He looked surprised. ‘No army is approaching, Pacorus. Narses and Mithridates have fled back across the Tigris, taking their army with them.’
‘And Babylon?’ Orodes looked momentarily concerned.
‘The city is safe. My horsemen made contact with the garrison yesterday.’
‘The last I heard,’ I said to Nergal, ‘you were beset by the hordes of King Phriapatius.’
‘If I can wash the dust out of my throat,’ he replied, ‘I will tell you our story.’
That night he revealed what had happened in Mesene and Babylon. The Carmanians under Phriapatius had indeed invaded Nergal’s kingdom and had marched towards Uruk. But Nergal had called on Yasser for help and as the enemy advanced on his capital Nergal’s horsemen launched a series of hit-and-run raids against the Carmanians.
‘Small parties, mostly,’ said Nergal, chewing on a biscuit, ‘just to slow their advance. But we kept up the pressure on them day and night to fray their nerves. And you know how Parthians hate to fight at night.’
‘I’ve never understood that,’ remarked Domitus. ‘War is not a game. The enemy is there to be beaten irrespective of whether it’s night or day.’
‘Those of us who follow Shamash believe that it is better to fight during the day when we have His protection,’ I replied, ‘though I would not expect a heathen such as you to understand that, Domitus.’
‘Better a living heathen than a dead worshipper,’ he sniffed.
‘The enemy got as far as Umma, a town less than fifty miles from Uruk,’ continued Nergal, ‘but I had strengthened its walls and the garrison was not to be intimidated, and we continued to launch raids against the besiegers until it was they who were besieged.’
He smiled at Yasser. ‘It got worse for them when Lord Yasser arrived. After five days the Carmanians gave up and fell back towards the Tigris. Two days later Phriapatius asked for a truce. So you see, there was never a battle and Uruk was never threatened.’
‘I get the impression that Phriapatius is a rather lukewarm player in the grand scheme of Mithridates and Narses,’ I said.
‘That is why I am here, Pacorus,’ replied Nergal, ‘to take you to see him.’
The next day I gave command of the army to Orodes and told him to take it directly to Babylon to secure the city. Mithridates and Narses may have retreated but there were still probably roving bands of the enemy at large that had either been deliberately left behind or had deserted and were nothing more than groups of brigands. I took a thousand horse archers with me as I accompanied Nergal and Yasser south. We travelled at speed through a land laid waste by a cruel enemy. Every village we came upon had been destroyed and its population either killed or carried off into slavery. The bodies of the slaughtered still lay where they had been cut down, the stench of decomposition filling our nostrils and making us want to retch. Occasionally we saw a dead dog next to a corpse where a master and his faithful servant had been killed side by side.
We rode into the now deserted Jem det Nasr and straight into a scene of horror. The enemy had obviously killed those remaining members of the population before they had fled. As we made our way to the centre of the city we rode through streets strewn with bodies, mostly the elderly, frail and children, those who were not strong enough to endure a forced march. Any able-bodied men and women and teenage girls would have been taken away as slaves, though we did come across the naked corpses of women whose breasts had been cut off, no doubt having first been raped before their mutilation and murder.
‘And they say that we are savages,’ remarked Yasser.
At that moment I was ashamed to be a Parthian, ashamed that Parthians could do such things to each other. It was worse than the scenes I had witnessed at Forum Annii in Italy when Crixus and his Gauls had stormed that place and butchered its inhabitants. There was literally no one left alive, in fact nothing left alive, just the usual repellent odour of death that hung over the whole city.
We reached the centre of the city where the Temple of Shamash stood, its massive twin doors shut. It fronted a large square and behind it was the governor’s palace and the royal barracks. We filed into the square and Nergal organised parties to search the palace grounds to see if there were any survivors. Fortunately the enemy had not had time to torch the city.
Yasser seated on his horse looked at the shut doors of the temple.
‘There are no braces against the doors, they must have been shut from the inside.’
‘Perhaps there are people in there,’ said Nergal.
I looked at the temple, the barred doors facing east like every temple dedicated to Shamash. They were set back from the yellow stone columns that surrounded the building on all four sides to support the high arched roof. There was a smaller entrance in the west wall of the temple but an officer reported that it too was closed.
I dismounted and walked up the dozen stone steps that led to the main entrance. There were square windows cut high in the walls allowing the rays of the sun to enter the temple. In the mornings the priests would welcome its first rays, signifying that Shamash had left the underworld to bring the sun to warm the earth once more. The sound of hundreds of horsemen riding into the square would have been carried through those windows to whoever, if anyone, was inside. Aside from horses scraping at the ground and chomping on their bits there was silence. Any people inside would probably be filled with terror at the thought that their tormentors had returned. I stood in front of the doors.