Another scattering of arrows fell like iron sleet as the crew strained their bodies at the oars, their bodies stretched back over the men behind them with each stroke in an explosive effort inspired by the prospect of escape from the murderous rain of arrows from the far bank. A man close enough for Marcus to reach out and touch screamed as an arrow pinned his foot to the deck, but kept rowing despite the sudden horrific pain of the shattered bones. Realising the danger to Osroes, Martos snatched up the Parthian shield that Marcus had taken from the initial skirmish, holding it over the unconscious king to protect him from the arrows’ random paths.
With the river’s spate at their back, the Night Witch gained speed quickly, spearing out into the racing current where the Mygdonius and the Khabur’s courses met with her hull bucking against the chop, and Marcus threw the rudder over to his right to sling her into a sharp turn to the left, into the bigger river’s stream. More arrows fell around them, but the shooting was growing wilder as the distance between bowmen and target lengthened, the gusting storm winds toying with the lofted arrows and dropping them across the Khabur’s racing waters without regard to the archers’ aim.
Marcus realised that while Martos had managed to climb aboard as the boat’s stern had slid back into the river, Gurgen and Lugos were still clinging to the vessel’s bow.
‘Get them aboard!’
A pair of crewmen pulled their oars on board, rose and took a grip of Gurgen’s arms, pulling him over the boat’s side to flop exhausted on the deck in a pool of water from his soaked clothing, gasping for breath just from the effort of clinging onto the bow’s timbers as the river had pulled at his body. As they were struggling to drag Lugos’s massive weight on board, a final flight of arrows arched down out of the blackness that pressed down on the river from the north, one last volley loosed at a far greater distance than would have been possible without the wind behind the archers. One of the men hauling at Lugos’s arms released his grip and scrabbled with both hands at the arrow buried in his back, dropping to his knees with his spine arched and his mouth open in a scream that was lost in the wind’s howl. The big Briton pulled himself over the bow, his teeth gritted against the pain of his own wound, standing on the deck with blood running down his leg from the shaft protruding from the side of his thigh.
A bright flash of sheet lightning lit the bruised sky a sudden livid orange, the clap of thunder that followed an instant later seemingly loud enough to split the world in two, and with a hissing fury that tore the river’s roiling surface into watery chaos, a sheet of rain ripped across the landscape, instantly reducing visibility to a hundred paces and putting paid to any further archery. The boat’s exhausted crew slumped over their oars, the man closest to Marcus staring at his ruined foot in silent horror as the teeming rain washed away the blood that was still oozing around the arrow’s shaft, his comrades’ attention fixed on Thracius’s corpse. The big man who had declared himself the master’s second in command stood, walking down the boat’s length and bending to speak into Marcus’s ear.
‘Best if I steer her now, sir. We need to moor up until this rain lets up, or we’ll risk running into a rock and ripping her bottom out.’
The Roman stood, gesturing to the rudder.
‘As you think best. I doubt the enemy will be doing anything more constructive under this deluge.’
‘What the bloody hell do you think they’re up to?’
Scaurus looked out over the city’s northern wall, shading his eyes with a raised hand. The Parthian line that surrounded the fortress was unchanged, the soldiers busy at work deepening and extending the entrenchments that had been dug in a complete circle around the walls. A massive white tent had been erected across the Mygdonius’s course just outside the range of Nisibis’s bolt throwers, presumably to act as Narsai’s headquarters and makeshift palace, a stream of officers coming and going while smoke from cooking fires hazed the air above it.
‘King Narsai’s not a man to forego his luxuries, is he? How many other men have a river running through their tent?’
The prefect pulled a face.
‘If I could just get another fifty paces range out of the bolt throwers, I’d give that bastard the shock of his bloody life.’
Petronius had ordered his first spear to limit the bolt throwers to occasional harassing shots, not wanting to waste their stock of missiles, and so the enemy had dug more or less without interference while the prefect had laughed at their efforts.
‘Completely without any military value, given they’ve no means of putting a hole in the walls. Whereas whatever it is that they’re up to over there in the hills looks somewhat more interesting, don’t you think?’
The legatus nodded slowly, staring out over the enemy lines to a spot a mile or more distant, where the walls of the river’s valley ran down to merge with the plain, leaving the Mygdonius to run across the plain’s open expanse. The repetitive sound of axes striking wood echoed distantly across the landscape, and as they watched, a tree on the river’s banks toppled to the ground, the creaking roar of its fall reduced to a sigh by the distance.
‘They want wood, and in some quantity given they’ve been cutting trees down all morning. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re building something … but what? As you say, siege engines might be their best bet, if they want to have any chance of putting a big enough hole in the city wall to attack through.’
‘Indeed. Towers wouldn’t be any use, because the moat’s too wide for them to get close enough to the wall. And what else would they want all that wood for?’
Scaurus stared out at the mystery Parthian activity for a moment longer before replying.
‘Damming the river?’
Petronius shook his head briskly.
‘What would be the point? It’s a well-known fact that the city has several fresh water springs within the walls, that’s the reason why it was built here in the first place. They can piss in the river, float dead cows down it and yes, they could even dam it without my losing any sleep. No, it’ll be something much more sinister than that, I’d imagine. I just wish I could work out what on earth they’re intending do with all that wood.’
After an hour or so the rain abated from its constant roaring deluge to a relatively gentle downfall, and Marcus ordered the crew to stop bailing out the water that had been threatening to swamp the Night Witch. The sailors slumped exhaustedly onto their rowing benches, and the young tribune took a head count while they were temporarily still.
‘Six men.’
He turned to find Gurgen behind him.
‘And there were twelve of them when we left your fortress. Barely enough to handle the boat, I’d guess.’
Marcus shrugged.
‘Barely enough will have to do. I’m not going to give up now, not having got this far.’
‘And the horsemen pursuing us? What if they-’
‘Cross the river while it’s in flood? They won’t dare that feat until the water’s receded a good deal, and stopped flowing quite so fast. And their bowstrings will have been soaked in that downpour. No, we’re safe from Narsai’s men, for the time being. But we do need to put some distance between ourselves and the last place they saw us.’
He beckoned Thracius’s deputy over.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Tertius, Tribune.’
‘Well then, Tertius, we need to move from here, or the Parthians may appear over that hill to finish the job.’
He pointed over the sailor’s shoulder at the shallow rise in the ground that ran down to the Khabur’s left bank.
‘Not too far, just enough to convince them we’re long gone, when they manage to cross the Mygdonius.’
‘I don’t know, Tribune.’
The bearded crewman shook his head with a look of exhaustion.
‘The lads’re pretty much all done …’
He waved a hand at the remaining crew members, half of whom were already asleep where they had slumped. Marcus stepped closer to him, lowering his voice.