Demetrius bowed cordially to her and gestured to the horde of camel warriors on the horizon.
“Who are they?” she demanded.
Ganymedes, who had accompanied her from her tent broke in before Demetrius could answer. “Those are the guardians of the Eye, Great One. They made off with our camels in the night, thanks to our captain’s incompetence, and now they want our heads!”
Arsinoe looked confused at first and then suddenly frightened.
“Is this true, Demetrius?” she asked anxiously, like a child to an older brother, as if the realization that her life was in danger had come over her for the first time.
A horn sounded across the dunes, prompting the attention of everyone in the camp. As they watched, the camel riders all along the black line held aloft their spears and shook them. A small strand of bells dangled from each spear, and this produced a great ringing clamor that devolved into an incessant clicking rhythm resonating across the empty space between the opposing forces. The bells were followed by a great cry from the six hundred-man army.
“What are they doing, Demetrius?” Arsinoe asked nervously, one hand on Demetrius’s arm.
“My queen,” Demetrius said curtly. “You must retire to your tent.”
“No, Demetrius! I wish to stay with you!” She struggled, but Demetrius motioned for the two guards to carry her away for her own safety, and they complied. The eunuch started to say a word in protest, but another glance at the shouting black-clad warriors made him reconsider and he scurried off after the queen.
As did Lucius, Demetrius concluded that an attack was imminent and immediately ordered men from the east side of the camp to reinforce the southwest side opposite the camel warriors. The royal guard formed two ranks of spears in an arc that hugged the southwest perimeter of the camp, and Demetrius placed the Nubian archers behind them. The black men strung their bows and then selected arrows with large barbed heads from their quivers. A single one of these heavy arrowheads could bring down a camel if it struck the beast in the right spot.
No sooner had the Alexandrians prepared, than the horns and shouting from the camel riders ceased and the great mass of mounted men began to move forward. Slowly at first, the lumbering beasts with their heads and long necks swaying back and forth, picked up speed, prodded on by the spike-tipped butts of their rider’s spears. A swarm of black enveloped the dunes in front of the Alexandrian ranks as it rapidly closed the distance. The living black carpet dipped behind one dune and then reappeared at its crest moments later before overtaking and swallowing it.
The royal guard braced. The archers pulled back on their bowstrings and let the first volley fly. But as the heavy-tipped arrows arched across the sky, the entire line of camel warriors came to an abrupt stop, allowing the score of Nubian arrows to stick harmlessly in the sand before them.
The spear riders now opened file to allow another rank of camel riders to take the front. These men carried bows.
“Shields!” shouted Demetrius.
Every man in the Alexandrian ranks crouched behind his shield and that of the man beside him. Lucius did the same, but not before catching a glimpse of the swarming black cloud of arrows taking flight from the line of camel archers. The first mass of arrows largely missed, striking the dune well in front of the Alexandrians’ position. The camel archers, their range increased by the height of their mounts, simply angled their bows higher and loosed again. The second wave of missiles clapped squarely into the Alexandrian line, like hail hitting a roof. The round shields absorbed the feathered projectiles by the dozen, and quickly became much more cumbersome. A few arrows found the gaps and sliced into men’s unprotected thighs, calves and feet. Several men lowered their shields to remove the agonizing arrows from their legs, but they quickly found this to be a lethal mistake as arrows from the succeeding volley found their mark in the exposed necks and shoulders of the writhing men. Men began to fall, and the shaded sand beneath the shield canopy began to run red with blood.
Many of the arrows overshot, slicing the tents behind into ribbons. After only a few volleys, the sands around the Alexandrian ranks had become a field of feathered shafts. But, eventually, the torrent ceased, or was lessened, such that Lucius and Demetrius could afford longer glances at their opponents.
“Why are they slowing?” Demetrius wondered out loud.
“I’ll wager to conserve arrows,” Lucius replied.
Demetrius nodded. “Then let us take advantage of it!” He waved a hand and shouted to one of his lieutenants. “Front rank, advance! Nubians, forward!”
Responding to the order without hesitation, the front rank of spears ran several paces forward and then planted their shields in the sand and squatted behind them. The Nubian archers followed on their heels, crouching low with feather-loaded quivers bouncing at their sides. The maneuver was performed to get the Nubians closer to get a better shot at the camel archers who had a height advantage from the high perches atop their mounts.
This time, the Nubians selected slender arrowheads, meant to cut through human flesh and light armor. They let the arrows fly, not in a massed volley this time, but individually as they ducked in and out of the protection afforded by the royal guardsmen’s shields.
A camel archer reeled in the saddle, groping at a shaft protruding from both sides of his neck. Another rider’s camel felt the sting of two of the pesky arrows and bolted straight ahead in the direction of the Egyptian lines. The lone rider became an easy target for the Nubians and was quickly dispatched by three arrows driven into his chest in rapid succession. A few others fell, or were maimed, but in spite of these successes, the overwhelming number of camel archers eventually ruled the exchange. One Nubian after another fell to the deadly missiles. Some twitched in the sand through multiple volleys, their glistening bodies absorbing one arrow after another even after the stillness of death overtook them.
Lucius saw one wounded Nubian grope for the rear using his hands alone. An arrow had lodged in the base of his back, rendering his legs immobile. The black man grimaced in pain with every movement, his own blood and sweat caking the white sand to his skin. But a final arrow eventually put him out of his misery, striking him in the back of the neck and pushing his face into the sand.
Then a movement in the enemy line caught Lucius’s eye. The camel riders in the rear ranks, the ones carrying the long spike-butted spears, were moving to the left en masse. Their line was extending to the left, well beyond the Alexandrian’s flank.
“Call your men back, Captain!” Lucius exclaimed, after groping his way over to Demetrius. “The riders are seeking to flank you.”
“Call them back to where?” Demetrius said hopelessly.
“Forget defending the camp perimeter. You are too far outnumbered. You must bring your troops inside the camp to form a final defensive stance – an orbis. Ring your troops in the center. Have them form around the queen’s tent. The outer tents will break up the enemy’s charge.”
Demetrius took only a moment to consider it before promptly ordering the advanced rank back to the line. He then commanded all of his troops to fall back and regroup at the center as Lucius had suggested. The Alexandrians responded quickly, falling back with their shields held behind them against the never-ceasing arrows which still managed to strike a few in the back. Reaching the center of the camp, the four score surviving royal guardsmen formed a double ranked row of spears and shields, completely enveloping their queen’s tent.
As they waited for the coming onslaught, Lucius ducked inside the tent, disregarding the impropriety of entering the queen’s private space unannounced. He had done this to warn Arsinoe, but he saw that both she and her handmaids – and Ganymedes – were already hunkering in the center of the tent beneath two giant rectangular shields held by the burly bodyguards.