Arsinoe’s eyes met his.
“Come here, Roman!” she commanded. “You will protect me from those savages! Come here, I say!”
“You are in good hands, princess,” Lucius replied, nodding to the two large bodyguards. “There is little else I can do here. My sword is better employed in the battle line.”
He then ducked back outside, ignoring her protests, and quickly took three javelins from one of the stacks of missiles piled behind the line of spearmen. He then joined the ranks, ducking beneath a shield just as another swarm of arrows began to strike all around the formed troops.
“When they come!” he heard Demetrius’s voice shout as the arrows pattered against the upraised shields. “Kill the beasts first! Understand? The camels first!”
XIII
The infidels must die!
From atop his war camel, the First Prophet observed the band of infidel spearmen disassemble and withdraw into the close-packed tents atop the flat dune. Whether the fools were fleeing in panic, or simply falling back, he did not know, nor did he care. His warriors far outnumbered them, and it was only a matter of time now before the infidels were either dead on the battlefield, or sacrificed on stakes, and the stolen sacred object back in its rightful place.
Having spent many arrows already, he did not wish to waste those he still had. They would come in handy once the infidels broke and his archers had to ride them down one by one. He ordered the camel archers to draw in closer to the south side of the camp while he personally led his four hundred spear riders to the right, to form up opposite to the east side of the camp. As the archers began to loose a few final volleys into the center of the camp, presumably where all of the infidels had retreated to, the First Prophet half-considered ordering his men to use fire arrows to set the tents ablaze. The stiff morning breeze would spread the fire quickly and would certainly smoke out the infidels, allowing his spears to easily ride them down. But the risk to the holy amulet was too great. Recovering the great Eye of Horus unspoiled was all that mattered.
A wave from one of the archers told the First Prophet that the arrow barrage was nearing an end. He now ordered the spears forward. The sound of a thousand hooves soon thundered all around him, and he could only guess what fear it struck in those waiting inside the camp. A great cloud of dust rose in the camels’ path, catching the wind and blowing in the same direction of their charge, as if the desert god had summoned a great sandstorm to follow them into battle. The rushing spear riders reached the camp perimeter with a cry of war, the bells on their shafts ringing incessantly. Like an ocean wave surging against a coastal rock, the four hundred black riders enveloped the camp, shouting with wild elation. They drove into the outer tents unopposed, crushing arrow-ridden bodies beneath their hooves and tearing the camp equipage to shreds. The obstructions were mere nuisances, but they forced a momentary pause in the charge long enough to allow the dust cloud to overtake the line. The red cloud quickly spread throughout the camp, instantly reducing the visibility to only a few paces and disorienting many of the riders. The line of charge soon turned into a disorganized jumble of camels running in all directions.
But the First Prophet was not disheartened. Before the charge, he had seen a streaming gold banner fluttering above a large tent in the camp’s center. He could just make out that banner now, ahead of him, whipping high above the thick swirling cloud of dust. He shouted to the spear riders near him to press on in spite of the clusters of confused camel riders cutting crossways in their path.
“Drive to the infidels’ banner!” the First Prophet commanded above the din. “To the banner! The banner!”
The riders nearby obeyed. Following his lead, they steered their mounts toward the gold standard and once again the charge was gaining speed. But they had advanced only a few dozen paces when the First Prophet saw a javelin dart out of the cloud to his front and bury itself in the chest of the rider next to him, knocking the shrieking man from the saddle to be trampled by the next rank of camels. An instant later, a dozen more javelins whipped out of the red cloud, striking down more riders. Some of the missiles glanced off of the riders’ crescent moon shields, others carried the shields away altogether. But the riders pressed on in blind obedience to their leader, rushing toward the banner with iron-tipped lances extended before them. More javelins came, and more riders fell. The First Prophet pressed on, expecting at any moment to come upon a disorganized cluster of confused enemy – and then the real retribution would begin. But he was shocked when, out of the cloud of dust, a double row of round shields materialized. The line of shields was firmly stationary and was laced with fourteen-foot-long sarissas held at such an angle that they were nearly invisible to the approaching riders. The First Prophet reined in his mount in time to avoid them, but many of his men were too late in seeing the danger. They drove their beasts headlong into the waiting pikes, splintering the long shafts and burying the deadly points deep within the breasts and necks of their shrieking mounts. Some of the beasts toppled, their momentum carrying their massive carcasses forward to crush clusters of pikemen beneath their own shields. Wounded camels trailed blood everywhere, stirring themselves into a wild frenzy, running this way and that, trampling friend and foe alike. The air was filled with the screams of dying men and dromedaries.
The First Prophet watched the chaos unfold as the battle quickly devolved into a mass melee of jabbing sarissas and spears. A few of his riders had made it through the enemy ranks, and he could see them above the enemy helmets, slamming the spiked butts of their spears down in quick movements onto enemy heads and shoulders. But eventually, one by one, their mounts succumbed to their wounds, and the unfortunate riders sank into a sea of hacking infidels. He saw one large warrior bearing a short sword slice off both hands of one of his riders in two quick sweeps of the weapon, and then finally bury the point of the sword in the rider’s neck. As more and more camels died, the piles of the distorted animal carcasses formed grisly barriers that the defenders readily used to stave off the charge of succeeding waves, and the black riders were now brought down at an alarming rate. Many of them, devout and fanatical followers of Horus since the day of their birth, now faced the horrors of hand-to-hand fighting for the first time in their religious zealot lives. The blood-covered sand, the spilling camel entrails mixing with those of men, the gouged eyes and crushed skulls spewing brains, was too much for many of them. They fled in terror, quite unable to control their own actions.
The First Prophet clearly saw that overrunning the infidels was now out of the question. He had no way of knowing how the combat fared on the other side of the enemy circle, but he assumed the same chaos reigned over there. His men were being slaughtered by the more experienced enemy, and although many of the infidels had fallen, far more watchers were either dead, dying, or fleeing for the dunes. As he considered his next course of action, a javelin struck his mount squarely through the eye, killing the beast instantly. Narrowly avoiding being crushed under the toppling beast, the First Prophet untangled himself from the reins, and then drew his sword from the saddle scabbard.
He cursed himself for ever ordering the attack in the first place, and begged that Horus would forgive him for such folly. The attack had not been necessary. The infidels had been deprived of their camels. The desert would have killed them just as well. He could have kept his riders at a safe distance, harassing the thirsty enemy for days, weeks, or as long as it took for every last one of them to drop dead of dehydration. Then, he could have retrieved the Eye without losing a single man.