Carrhae (20 page)

I sent a courier to the cataphracts to order them to wheel inwards to their right to attack the rear ranks of the Thracian foot, at the same time ordering Vagises to deploy his horse archers forward to give protection to the cataphracts. I had no idea what was happening on the right flank but knew that Nergal would have his men under tight control.

I could see the unbroken line of the cohorts being forced back under the ferocious pressure that the enemy was subjecting it to. But it did not break. Then the cataphracts launched their charge. They drove deep into the rear ranks of the enemy, spearing dozens on the end of
kontus
points before hacking at men on foot with their swords and maces. As they had been trained to do the hundred-man companies darted into groups of the enemy, killed as many as they could and then withdrew quickly to reform out of harm’s way. Their horses may have been covered in scale armour but the animals’ lower legs were still vulnerable to scything
rhomphaia
strikes.

The cataphract action lasted for perhaps ten minutes at most but it shattered the Thracians’ morale. Attacked from the rear by armoured horsemen, the rear ranks began to disengage and retreat back towards the city. And like an invisible wave the faltering morale rippled through the enemy soldiers. Small groups initially peeled off the main body to scurry back to Seleucia, running a gauntlet of arrows as they did so, then more and more Thracians locked shields over their heads and shuffled back to the city.

In the mêlée, meanwhile, the legionaries gained the upper hand. The hate-filled men in front of them began to tire as the legionaries they had been battling were replaced by soldiers from the rear ranks, matching their frenzy with their close-quarter weapons. And volley after volley of javelins was launched against the Thracians as fresh missiles were ferried from the cohorts in the second line. Then the Durans and Exiles began to press forward.

I leaned across to grab Gallia and kissed her as I heard a chant resonate across the battlefield – ‘Dura, Dura’ – and knew that the fight had been won. Then, suddenly, like a dam bursting, the Thracians gave way and ran for their lives. Many were cut down by a withering rain of arrows as they turned tail and fled back to the city, hundreds discarding their shields and weapons as they did so. The Durans and Exiles did not follow.

Hundreds of satisfied cataphracts rode past me to deploy once again to the left of the Durans. I rode with Gallia and the Amazons to find Domitus to congratulate him on his victory.

We cantered past members of Alcaeus’ medical corps tending to the wounded and organising their transport on wagons back to camp. I saw the colour party of the Durans guarding the golden griffin and caught sight of a white transverse crest on a helmet nearby and headed towards it. I saw also saw a helmetless Thumelicus shaking his head and knew that something was wrong.

I jumped from the saddle and pushed my way through a throng of soldiers who had gathered around Domitus, most of them stepping aside when they recognised me. Thumelicus said nothing as he walked away, holding his head in his hands. I froze when I looked down to see Domitus cradling the head of Drenis in his arms, tears running down his cheeks. Drenis, a Thracian and former gladiator who had shared the same
ludus
in Capua as Spartacus, a Companion whom I had fought beside for nearly twenty years, a man who had helped to turn Dura’s army into one of the most fearsome fighting machines in the world, was dead.

He had been killed fighting in the front rank where he could always be found, cut down by a plethora of
rhomphaia
blades but slaying many of the enemy before he fell. I could not believe what my eyes were revealing to me as Domitus stood up and wiped away his tears.

‘Take his body to the rear,’ he commanded, his voice firm and deep, ‘we will burn it tonight.’

I stood, numb, as a stretcher was brought and the gashed body was placed upon it, before being covered with a white cloak. Domitus laid a hand on his dead friend.

‘We will meet again, my brother.’

His face was a mask of grim determination as he came over to me.

‘They will regroup in the city. We need to get inside before they have a chance to reorganise.’

‘We can get in using those breaches they have made in the walls. It won’t take long.’

There was no emotion in his eyes just a cold anger. He said nothing about Drenis and neither did I. What was there to say? There was still enough of the day left to take out our hurt and anger on the enemy.

As Marcus and his men unloaded their machines from carts pulled by oxen the Durans and Exiles lent on their shields or lay on the ground. Nergal and Praxima came from the right flank and I told them about Drenis. We stood in a circle drinking water and holding the reins of our horses while the Amazons rested on the ground behind us. It was now mid-afternoon and there were still a few hours of daylight left.

‘Will you wait for the new day before you assault the city, Pacorus?’ asked Nergal.

‘No,’ I answered. ‘The attack will commence as soon as Marcus has set up his machines.’

‘What if Mithridates escapes across the Tigris into the east of the empire?’ said Praxima.

I had also considered that possibility, and in truth that is what he would probably do. He might have already fled Seleucia as far as I knew. It did not matter.

‘We will take Seleucia,’ I said, ‘and then we will hunt down Mithridates no matter how long it takes or how far he runs. This time he will not escape.’

An hour elapsed before Marcus’ machines were ready to commence their deadly work, by which time the wall breaches and gap where the gatehouse had been had all been sealed by locked Thracian shields. In addition, the surviving sections of the walls had been lined with archers, no doubt the survivors of the Cilician horsemen who had been dispersed earlier. Ordinarily an attacker would suffer heavy casualties crossing open ground under arrow fire to force an entry to the city, though a
testudo
formation would be largely immune from enemy missiles. Nevertheless the enemy would also throw rocks from the walls when my men were within range, which would inflict casualties. But I had no intention of exposing my men to enemy missiles.

Marcus had positioned one of his larger ballistae opposite each of the breaches in the walls, at a distance of six hundred paces away, a century of legionaries providing cover while his engineers set up and sighted their pieces. But the enemy were content to stand and watch as the strange machines that resembled giant bows laid horizontally on wooden frames were assembled. Marcus also had fifty smaller ballistae, each one operated by two men, which were positioned between the larger ones, ready to shoot at the men on the walls.

While Marcus and his men laboured to get their machines ready legionaries and horsemen withdrew out of the range of the archers on the walls. The city defenders took this as a sign that we were withdrawing for the night and started jeering and whistling and congratulating each other. Below them the Thracians who were defending the wall breaches remained immobile and silent. And in no-man’s land between the walls and our forces lay thousands of corpses, either cut down by Dura’s heavy horsemen or killed by arrows. But not all were dead: there were many injured whose bodies had been slashed and hacked by swords and maces or hit by arrows. The badly injured lay on the ground and moaned and sobbed, some crying out pitifully to their gods to save them, though most just called for their mothers.

Those who were able either staggered unsteadily to their feet to attempt to get back to the city, or crawled on the ground to try and reach safety. Seeing this, Gallia and the Amazons stood up and began shooting at these poor wretches. As they were using their bows at long range and the light was beginning to fail it required considerable skill to hit their targets. But my wife’s warriors were nothing if they were not accomplished archers. Soon they were joined by Vagises, Nergal, Praxima and several of the officers of Dura’s horse archers, their men sitting on their horses and cheering when one of the wounded was hit.

The jeering and whistling coming from the walls soon changed to cries of rage as they watched their wounded comrades being slaughtered. I wondered if it might provoke an assault by the Thracians who stood in the wall breaches, but they retained their discipline and kept their anger in check as Gallia hit a hobbling figure who spun round before collapsing on the ground. Arrows hitting targets at the furthest extent of their range would rarely inflict a fatal wound but would only add to the victim’s pain and misery, but this thought suited my mood at that moment as I watched my wife and her Amazons empty their quivers.

The sun was falling in the western sky behind us by the time Marcus ambled over to where I waited on Remus observing the walls.

‘We are ready, Pacorus,’ he said.

‘Begin,’ I ordered, ‘and do not stop until I tell you.’

He saluted then trotted back to the first large ballista that was pointing at the breach to the left of where the gatehouse had been. It was completely filled with locked shields, behind which I could see rows of helmets. I smiled.

‘This is for you, Drenis,’ I muttered as a loud crack announced the shooting of the first projectiles.

The ballistae were remarkable weapons of war, their projectiles shot by torsion produced by two thick skeins of twisted cords through which were thrust two separate wooden arms joined at their ends by the cord that propelled the missile forward. The large ballista could fire one missile a minute up to rage of around thirteen hundred feet, the smaller ones around four shots a minute up to range of around a thousand feet.

The first projectiles fired by the larger models were clay pots filled with the thick white liquid that came from China, though Marcus and Arsam had been perfecting their own variety at Dura for a number of years now. They kept the exact composition a closely guarded secret, but did tell me that the ingredients included naphtha, the thick black liquid that seeps from the earth throughout the Arabian peninsula and Mesopotamia, soap and oil derived from palm trees.

The pots were sealed and then coated with pitch, which had been ‘cooking’ over a brazier nearby, before being placed on the ballista and then set alight. On the ballista it sat in a cradle of chrysotile, the wondrous material that does not burn, so the flames would not incinerate the propelling cord, before it was shot towards the enemy.

We watched the flaming pot hurtle through the air and smash into the shield wall to produce a huge yellow and orange fireball as the contents ignited. We heard high-pitched screams as the burning liquid splashed faces, necks and arms. It burned fiercely and was almost impossible to extinguish and so the previously disciplined formation of soldiers dissolved as individuals’ flesh melted.

A minute later the ballista shot a solid stone ball weighing fifty pounds that smashed through torsos and skulls as it careered through the now faltering Thracian ranks. Then another volley of fireballs was launched at the wall breaches to inflict further horrendous casualties as men were tuned into human torches. The Thracians were beginning to melt away, many literally as their flesh was coated with the burning liquid that could not be put out.

And while the Thracians were being subjected to this torment the smaller ballistae were sweeping the walls with more diminutive missiles, mostly stones and iron-tipped projectiles that speared archers and crushed skulls with ease. Soon the walls were devoid of enemy soldiers.

Marcus’ machines kept shooting for nearly an hour until there were no longer any Thracians left guarding the wall breaches. It was early evening and what was left of the enemy had retreated from the city walls to the palace next to the Tigris, or perhaps across the stone bridge that spanned the river to seek refuge in Ctesiphon. Or perhaps they had only retreated a short distance from the city walls and were waiting for us to enter Seleucia. It was time to find out.

Domitus formed his men into four huge columns, two of Durans and two of Exiles, each one ten men across, and then directed them into the city via the breaches in the wall. I dismounted, acquired a shield and joined one of them with Domitus standing beside me in the front rank. News of the death of Drenis had spread through the army to produce a mood of grim determination among the men.

As soon as the ballistae had stopped shooting the columns advanced across no-man’s land, the men in the first five ranks with their swords drawn and those following clutching fresh javelins brought from camp. The columns had been issued with torches but the flames in and around the breaches made by the fireballs cast the corpse-filled ground in a red glow and allowed us to pick our way through the bodies. When we reached the walls our eyes beheld fresh horrors and our nostrils filled with the nauseating aroma of roasting flesh as we stepped over dead Thracians.

We moved into the city, past charred and disfigured bodies, to find that the enemy had fled. Seleucia is divided into two halves: north of the main street that runs from west to east is where the palace, temple district and government officers are located; to the south is where the crowded dwellings of the citizens are sited. After a quick assembly of senior officers half the Durans secured the area around the gatehouse while the rest undertook a sweep of the population’s homes to search for enemy soldiers. The Exiles pushed on towards the palace that overlooked the Tigris and the harbour area at the river.

The stone bridge across the river was secured easily enough, Domitus deploying men on both sides of the structure to ensure no one escaped the city. Ctesiphon was within striking distance but I decided to wait until Seleucia had been thoroughly searched before we captured the court of the king of kings and its treasury. I stood with Domitus on the western side of the bridge staring at the black waters below.

‘Mithridates is not here,’ he said. ‘He probably ran away as soon as the fighting started.’

He looked across the river.

‘He won’t be at Ctesiphon either.’