All thoughts of reinforcing Orodes disappeared as Surena, Gallia and I led Gordyene’s horse archers through the camel train to where my father’s men were battling the hill men. What I saw took my breath away.
As we halted and the horse archers formed into their companies behind us the land to the north of our position was filled with hill men being led by groups of horse archers. Directly ahead of us my father’s horsemen had driven deep into the enemy ranks and were now scything down the hill men around them. My father and Gafarn led over eleven thousand men against these heathens, but were vastly outnumbered by an enemy that now seemed certain to overwhelm them. Looking left and right I estimated that each formation of enemy horsemen numbered around a thousand men, and behind them came more than that number of hill men on foot.
Either side of my father’s army I counted ten such groups of horsemen — twenty thousand horse archers — not counting the ones that the Hatrans were fighting. If each one was accompanied by three times that number of hill men then there were at least eighty thousand enemy troops heading our way!
I turned to Surena. ‘We must aid my father else he will be surrounded.’
‘Yes, lord.’
He gave the command to his officers to prepare to charge as I passed word to the Babylonians to move forward as my father’s horsemen disappeared among an ocean of hill men. The enemy now surrounded them. Something caught my eye on the right and I saw two enemy groups peeling off to head towards Surena’s camp.
‘Surena,’ I called, pointing towards his camp, ‘who is still in your camp?’
‘Farriers, grooms, veterinaries, the wounded; four hundred or so.’
The enemy, who would butcher all those inside, would soon overrun his camp. Surena’s camel train and its drivers were located behind us, along with the camels of Hatra and Dura. The only chance of saving those inside the camp was to evacuate them via the western entrance and get them inside Dura’s camp, whose ramparts were manned by squires armed with bows.
‘Send a thousand of your men to intercept those soldiers heading for your camp,’ I ordered him, forgetting he was a king, ‘otherwise they will be slaughtered.’
He nodded and called forward one of his officers who then rode back to his men. Within minutes a thousand riders were galloping to intercept the enemy before they reached the camp.
‘Gallia,’ I shouted, ‘get the camel trains back to our camp. Take the Babylonians with you.’
She pointed her bow ahead. ‘I would rather fight that horde.’
‘Do as you are told,’ I shouted. ‘The battle hangs in the balance and I don’t have time to argue with you.’
She did not respond but tugged savagely on Epona’s reins to wheel her away, followed by the Amazons. I nodded at Surena who dug his knees into his horse to urge it forward. Behind us seven thousand horse archers from Gordyene galloped forward to save my father.
The air was thick with arrows as we charged among the enemy masses. The enemy horse archers broke left and right to avoid our arrowhead formation but the hill men were not so lucky. As we galloped forward the front ranks shot arrows in quick succession at those men on foot before us. The hill men had little discipline and fought as part of a rabble, relying on weight of numbers to overwhelm an opponent. Against disciplined soldiers in formation they were easy meat. Most tried to get out of our way, scattering left and right, though others attempted to make a stand and formed a ragged shield wall in front of our charge. Loosing up to seven arrows a minute we shot their flimsy defences to pieces before we reached them, and then we were through them to reach the Hatrans.
Surena rode off to order his men to deploy left and right behind my father’s troops to create a corridor of horsemen along which the Hatrans could withdraw.
I rode forward past companies of Hatran horse archers who were darting at the hill men with their swords drawn, obviously out of arrows. The enemy horse archers deployed behind the seething mass of hill men still had ammunition, however, and were thinning Hatran numbers with their accurate shooting. Fortunately this ceased abruptly when Surena’s companies began to shoot back at them, forcing them to retire.
I rode on to where a group of my father’s bodyguard was standing, my father’s banner being held by a dismounted cataphract next to them. I felt a knot in my stomach and knew something was terribly wrong. Other members of my father’s bodyguard faced outwards on their horses to form a cordon around this group, and beyond them the rest of my father’s heavy horsemen were keeping the enemy at bay with their swords, maces and axes, launching short, disciplined charges against the hill men, riding among them to split heads and pierce unarmoured bodies, before withdrawing to reform.
I rode up to the group of men on foot and slid off Remus’ back. They recognised me and parted, bowing their heads as they stepped aside, and then my knees nearly gave way. Lying on the ground in front of me, being cradled by Gafarn, was the bloodstained body of my father. I fell to my knees beside him and looked in despair at the ashen-faced Gafarn.
‘He was pulled from his horse and injured,’ my brother said quietly.
I looked at the blood seeping through the bandages near his left shoulder and realised that his attacker must have delivered the strike under the arm.
My father opened his eyes. ‘Ah, Pacorus.’
His voice was very weak.
I held his right hand, the tears coming to my eyes.
‘I am here, father.’
‘You are king now, my son.’
I felt grief grip my insides. ‘Nonsense. We will get you back to camp, father, to tend to your wound.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Take care of your mother and tell her that I have loved her always and will wait for her.’
He looked at Gafarn, who stared unblinking at our father. ‘You must take care of your brother, my son, for he is apt to get himself into trouble.’
‘I shall, father,’ Gafarn replied, tears running down his cheeks.
‘All will be well,’ my father’s voice was very faint, ‘Shamash be with you.’
My father’s eyes remained open but they were lifeless as they stared into the blue sky. As tears blurred my sight I closed his eyes with my hand and kissed his forehead. I had been unaware of Vistaspa’s presence but now I saw him standing at my father’s feet holding his head in his hands, sobbing like a small child. Thus died Varaz, King of Hatra, and son of Sames. The others around us stood with their heads bowed in stunned silence as Gafarn gently laid my father on the ground and covered his body with his cloak.
With difficulty I rose to my feet and took a few paces to be by Gafarn’s side. I took his arm and raised it aloft.
‘The king is dead. Long live the king, Gafarn, King of Hatra.’
As one they shouted. ‘Hail King Gafarn.’
Gafarn looked at me with tears still coursing down his cheeks. ‘What madness is this?’
‘No madness, brother. I relinquish my claim to Hatra’s throne. You are now its king. Rule long and wisely.’
An arrow slammed into the ground at our feet and I became aware once more of the sounds of battles raging all around us.
‘Our grief will have to wait, Gafarn. We must get out of this death trap.’
Hatra’s cataphracts, largely immune from the enemy’s arrows, were tiring under the relentless onslaught of the hill men, their dead piled high around the ring of Hatran steel. A stretcher was fashioned from lengths of broken kontus shafts and then four of my father’s bodyguard carried their king’s body back to my camp. His heavy cavalry formed a rear guard as Surena’s horse archers poured withering volleys into the enemy mass. Mercifully the enemy horse archers had stopped their shooting, having expended their own supply of arrows, thus enabling us to escape relatively unscathed.