‘Most likely he is dead already,’ added Domitus, now dressed in his helmet, mail shirt and greaves.
I was toying with the idea of offering battle instead of running. Perhaps we could still be victorious, march on Ctesiphon and relieve Gotarzes. I voiced my opinion to the others. Surena thought it an excellent idea, though Domitus, Marcus and even Orodes had grave misgivings.
‘Even if we beat them,’ said Domitus, ‘there is no guarantee that there isn’t another army waiting on the other side of the Tigris.’
‘You may offer battle,’ added Orodes, ‘but there is no guarantee that my stepbrother and Narses will accept. Most likely they will sacrifice their foot and fall back with their horse, but they could still harry us as we marched east.’
‘Another battle will use up most of our water supplies, sir,’ said Marcus.
By now the enemy army had moved into its positions around the camp, the foot to the west, horse archers to the north and east and the cataphracts in the south with Mithridates and Narses. There were nearly forty thousand soldiers surrounding us now. I knew that my two legions were worth three of four times the number of the enemy’s foot, but I only had four thousand horsemen against nearly five times that number of enemy cavalry. I had over a thousand cataphracts and the enemy had around five thousand, to say nothing of outnumbering us five to one in horse archers.
I looked at each of their faces. I knew that if I gave the command to deploy for battle they would obey without question, and no doubt would be dead by the end of the day. I could not have that on my conscience.
‘Very well,’ I said, ‘we stick to the plan. To your positions.’
Surena, Marcus and Domitus scurried away back to their men, though I asked Orodes to stay behind. As ever before combat he looked very serious. He was not like Surena, who regarded battle as another opportunity to acquire more glory and viewed it like a game with a few risks. Orodes drew his sword reluctantly, though in the midst of battle he was as expert at killing the enemy as the rest of us. But he always ensured that his conduct was beyond reproach at all times, even in the cauldron of combat.
‘I would ask one more favour of you, my friend.’
‘Anything,’ he replied.
‘Keep an eye on Surena. Above all do not let him do anything rash. I want him to become a good commander rather than an heroic dead one.’
‘Very well,’ he said quietly.
We embraced and then he went back to his men. Mithridates’ ‘generous’ offer of an hour to resign ourselves to our fate did at least give the horsemen the opportunity to finalise their arrangements. While Surena and I had been in his company, Orodes, Marcus and Domitus had drawn up the legions and the horsemen ready for the breakout. The plan was for the two legions to charge the enemy foot drawn up beyond the western entrance to the camp while I organised a diversion at the southern side. The latter was to deceive Narses and Mithridates into thinking that I was launching an attack upon their own persons and they would hopefully rally their forces to them. That was the theory at least.
Orodes charged one of the best men in his bodyguard to take care of Remus, standing now with his scale armour covering his body, neck and head. Even his eyes had wire grills over them as protection against enemy arrows. I stroked him under his chin.
‘Orodes will take care of you, and when you get back to Dura Gallia will ensure your needs are met. May Shamash protect you my faithful friend.’
I nodded to Orodes’ officer who bowed his head and led Remus away towards the camp’s western entrance. It was the first time that I would not ride him in battle.
Though they had been deployed to the west of the camp yesterday, today Narses’ palace guard were drawn up around their king and Mithridates. This meant that the foot soldiers the legions would be attacking would not be élite troops. I thanked the gods for that.
A hundred horse archers had volunteered to remain with the legions and it was they who accompanied me on foot as I ran from the southern entrance across the open ground towards where Narses, Mithridates and their soldiers were grouped. Their cataphracts were drawn up in a long line of two ranks either side of the two kings who stood with the best foot soldiers in Persis, their bronze-faced shields presenting a wall of metal in front of a forest of spears. As we ran in one rank towards the enemy, to my right I could hear trumpet blasts coming from the camp — Domitus was attacking. We rushed across the ground to within five hundred paces of the enemy, horns and kettledrums answering our trumpets.
We halted, strung arrows in our bowstrings and released them, then kept on shooting at the enemy ranks. Our arrows arched high into the sky and then dropped onto the densely packed ranks of the enemy foot. We shot at least four volleys — sixteen hundred arrows — before groups of armoured riders from each flank on either side of the foot began trotting towards us.
‘Back to camp!’ I screamed. Then we were running as though all the demons in hell were snapping at our heels. Behind us the cataphracts broke into a canter and lowered their lances. Perhaps Narses himself was leading them. I saw the camp’s entrance ahead, my heart pounding in my chest. Don’t look back; keep moving; run faster! I heard the thunder of iron-shod hooves getting closer and the shouts of men on horseback closing on their quarry. We dropped our quivers as we neared the wide gap in the earth rampart and ran into the camp with only seconds to spare. As we did so groups of legionaries either side of us and on top of the rampart next to the entrance hurled caltrops into the gap. These comprised three stakes that were ordinarily used to construct the palisade around the camp lashed together with wire to form a three-headed stake. Where only half minute before there had been a gap wide enough for twelve men to march through abreast, there now stood a thick carpet of caltrops.
The enemy’s horses panicked and either tried to veer aside or pull up sharply to avoid crashing into the caltrops. Those behind smashed into the front ranks as dozens of horses and their riders were caught up in a giant, tangled press. Some horses reared up on their hind legs and threw their riders to the ground, to be trampled by other animals behind. It was chaos and I wished that I had fresh archers to shoot arrows into the faces of the horsemen and the unarmoured bellies of horses as they reared up, but all I had was a hundred men who stood panting and slapping each other on the back at their escape from the clutches of the enemy. More legionaries ran onto the rampart and hurled their javelins at the disorganised mass of horsemen. Most glanced off scale armour harmlessly; a few found flesh. Finding their way barred, the enemy officers reasserted control and began to pull their men back. They retreated out of arrow and javelin range and re-dressed their ranks. There were few empty saddles but, more importantly, we had created a diversion and given the army at the camp’s western entrance time to carry out its attack unhindered.
The Romans call it cuneus, meaning ‘wedge’, and as the attention of Mithridates, Narses and the cream of their horsemen was focused on what was happening immediately to their front, the Duran Legion and the Exiles were pouring out of the western entrance of the camp, straight into the enemy’s foot. Each legion charged at the enemy in one long column, each one made up of dozens of ranks of six men.
Immediately before they charged at the enemy a barrage of missiles was unleashed by the ballista operated by Marcus and his men. These had been placed on the ramparts either side of the western entrance. The smaller ballista were essentially over-sized and over-powered bows fixed horizontally on wooden stands that shot bolts, stones and solid metal balls over great distances.
The charge of the Durans and Exiles was a foregone conclusion, made quicker as the enemy actually advanced towards the camp and then stopped abruptly when ballista ammunition began tearing into their tightly packed ranks, some bolts and balls taking heads off and showering those around with bone and gore. Soon the ranks faltered and then fractured as some men attempted to turn around and run from the horror that was being visited upon them, while others tried to press on with their attack. And then they were hit by the legions.