Parthian Vengeance (30 page)

He shoved a great lump of cheese into his mouth. ‘Me and twenty thousand others itching to get to grips with the enemy.’

I nodded. ‘Excellent. You and the other lords will take up position behind my horse archers.’

A hurt look spread across his face. ‘Behind them?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him. ‘You will get a chance to empty your quivers.’

My lords were fearless in battle but totally undisciplined. They were like a bee. They had a powerful sting but could only sting once. On the battlefield each lord led his retainers oblivious to what was happening around him. Once committed the lords would charge headlong at the enemy in a great disorganised mass; their commitment thus required expert timing.

With Surena still absent, no doubt long dead, the command of the horse archers presented something of a dilemma. Ideally Orodes would lead the cataphracts, leaving me free to direct the whole army.

‘I would esteem it an honour if you would command Dura’s horse archers this day, lord prince,’ I said to Orodes.

Before he could answer Gallia spoke. ‘I will lead the horse archers so that Orodes may command your cataphracts.’

I looked at her and then Orodes, who said nothing.

‘Makes sense,’ said Spandarat with a mouthful of cheese, who then stood and nodded to me. ‘I will go and inform the other lords. They will be as chuffed as a bull in a herd of young cows.’

After he had left Orodes and I put on our scale armour. The short-sleeved, thigh-length hide coats were thick and heavy, made more so by the iron scales riveted onto them. Split up to the waist to facilitate sitting in the saddle, the hide itself was thick enough to stop a glancing blow from a sword or spear. The best hide for scale armour was made from the skin of a water buffalo. This being the case, Nergal’s officials in Uruk purchased these animals from the Ma’adan. They were then slaughtered and the skins sold to the armouries in Dura, Media, Atropaiene and even Hatra.

Next came the leg and arm armour – overlapping steel rings that extended from the shoulders to the wrists and from the thigh down to the ankles. Orodes wore an open-faced helmet with cheekguards and a neck flap and I wore my Roman officer’s helmet with its goose feather plume.

We walked outside to where Orodes’ squires held his horse and Gallia held Remus’ reins. Both animals wore their own suits of scale armour that covered their bodies, necks and heads, with metal grills over their eyes. The squires assisted the Prince of Susiana and myself into our saddles and then handed us our lances, the hafts as thick as our wrists and tipped with a long spearhead at one end and savage butt spike at the other. My own
kontus
sported a pennant showing a red griffin on a white background, that of Orodes an eagle clutching a snake.

I rode with Gallia and Orodes at the head of the army as it made a leisurely march south towards the enemy. We were approximately ten miles from the walls of Babylon and roughly the same distance east of the Euphrates. We were riding across the hard-packed earth of the desert but Vardan and my father were travelling over the cultivated ground north of Babylon, fed by the waters of the great river, which had now been despoiled by the enemy. The mud-brick homes of the villages in the immediate vicinity of the city had been destroyed and their inhabitants no doubt dragged off into slavery. Babylonia had no fortified outposts such as existed in my own land or the Kingdom of Hatra. It would have thus been easy for enemy riders to appear as if by magic to pillage the villages.

I took no chances when it came to our own security, sending parties of horse archers ahead and into the desert on our left flank to ensure we were not attacked from those directions. After snatching a couple of hours’ sleep, Byrd and his men were again in the saddle and scouting far and wide. My fears were allayed somewhat when the army of Mesene – five thousand horse archers – flooded the eastern horizon and provided security for my left flank. Nergal had been camped further north of our position and it had taken him and his men longer to assume their battle positions. With the Babylonians on my right flank and the Hatrans beyond them, the combined armies of four kings made an impressive sight and numbered over two thousand, seven hundred cataphracts, thirty-eight thousand horse archers, a thousand Babylonian mounted spearmen and Vardan’s royal bodyguard of five hundred men. And in the wake of my own army came a thousand camels carrying spare arrows; my father had a similar camel train transporting spare ammunition. Nergal had informed me that he also had a thousand camels for the same purpose.

The day was mild and sunny with only a few white, puffy clouds dotting an otherwise clear blue sky. There was a slight westerly breeze that barely troubled the banners of Dura and Susiana carried behind us as we trotted southwest so as to close up on the Babylonians. I deployed my cataphracts on the left of the Duran line, with the horse archers to their right and the lords and their men directly behind the latter. It would have been better if all the kings’ heavy horsemen were grouped together so they could deliver the killer blow against the enemy when the time came, but my father would never have agreed to this unless he, or Vistaspa, was given command over all of them, something that I would never accept.

When Nergal’s companies had dressed their lines on our left he and Praxima rode over to be with us, his banner fluttering behind them. As Nergal had formerly been my second-in-command and had raised and trained my own horsemen I had no fears that his Mesenians would not perform well this day.

‘Do you think Narses will give battle?’ asked Gallia.

‘He has no choice,’ I answered, ‘unless he wishes to give himself up and submit to our mercy.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Orodes. ‘But he may request a parley.’

‘To what end?’ asked Nergal.

‘To attempt to sow disharmony within our ranks.’ Orodes looked at me. ‘He already knows that the kings of Babylon and Hatra do not share Dura’s desire to see him destroyed.’

‘I shall not speak to him,’ I announced. ‘I have no interest in hearing his voice.’

‘He should be killed,’ said Praxima.

‘Some sense at last,’ I replied.

Orodes was most unhappy. ‘It is custom for all parties to be present at a parley, in the hope that bloodshed can be avoided.’

‘If we avoid bloodshed this day,’ I said in irritation, ‘then that will mean that Narses and his army will have escaped, which means that he and it will be free to attack another Parthian kingdom. Have you forgotten Gotarzes so quickly, Orodes?’

Anger flashed in his eyes. ‘Of course not!’

‘You forget yourself, Pacorus,’ said Gallia in rebuke.

I held up my hand to Orodes. ‘Forgive me, my friend, I did not mean to offend you.’

His amiable disposition returned. ‘No offence taken.’

We rode on in silence, but the thought of Narses slipping through our fingers was like a knife being twisted in my guts.

My mood was further darkened when a rider came from my father with a letter reminding me that our objective was to secure entry to Babylon via the Ishtar Gate and that I was to support the attack by ensuring that the left flank of the army was secure. I sent him back to my father with the reply that I was quite capable of securing his flank.

An hour later we were half a mile from the walls of Babylon, which rose majestically from the desert floor to a height of at least seventy feet, defensive towers at regular intervals all along their circumference. Once there had been outer walls that gave the city even greater protection. They were so high and wide that it was reputed that two chariots travelling along the top of them in opposite directions could pass each other without difficulty. These walls had long since gone, the only remnant being the paved road that linked where the outer wall had once stood to the Ishtar Gate. It was called
Aibur-shabu
– ‘the enemy shall not pass’ – and was built by King Hammurabi when Babylon had ruled the world.

Even from this distance the walls looked imposing and impregnable. I knew that they were constructed from large mud-bricks cemented together with bitumen, and that the moat that surrounded the city was also lined with bricks. Without siege towers and engines such as Dura possessed the enemy would have no chance of breaching those walls. But with the city surrounded the chance of starving a Babylon filled with many hungry mouths into surrender was a very real possibility. At least it was! Now relief had come.

Narses had scorned the chance of flight, obviously believing that even without Mithridates he had every chance of defeating us. He would have known that my legions had limped back home, for information was easily bought and word would have spread down the Euphrates that my foot soldiers were on their way back to Dura. He would have also known that the armies of Hatra, Mesene and Babylon had joined with my horsemen to make a formidable force. That said, he would have assumed, not unreasonably, that the Babylonians were second-rate compared to his own forces and would have assumed that Nergal’s soldiers were also inferior. Mesene had always produced ragtag armies composed of ill-equipped soldiers. He would have thus also discounted them. In his mind the only formidable troops he faced were my own and those of my father. That my father had brought only six and a half thousand horsemen with him must have filled Narses with confidence, the more so as we approached the city and it became apparent that we were greatly outnumbered by his own forces.

Narses had drawn up his army in three sections. On his left flank, occupying the space between the walls and my father’s Hatrans, was a great body of horsemen armed with lances and carrying round shields. They wore helmets on their heads and armless leather cuirasses on their bodies. Interspersed with these lancers were bodies of horse archers. Riders sent from my father and Vardan reported that they could see no cataphracts among these horsemen.

In the centre of the enemy’s line was a great mass of foot that must have numbered thirty thousand men or more, and which faced the horsemen of Babylon and extended right to face my own cavalry.

Officers barked orders at their men as the troops of both sides dressed their ranks and lines before the first clash. I clasped arms with Nergal as he and Praxima rode back to their horsemen that faced the mounted spearmen of the enemy’s right wing. I reached over and kissed Gallia on the lips before she took up her position in front of Dura’s horse archers.

‘Shamash be with you, my sweet, and remember not to unleash the lords until the enemy is breaking.’

‘God be with you, Pacorus.’ She closed her helmet’s cheekguards, tied the leather straps together under her chin and then pulled her bow from its hide case attached to her saddle. She held it over her head, a gesture reciprocated by the Amazons grouped behind her, and then dug her knees into Epona and galloped away to take command of the horse archers.

I rammed the butt spike of my
kontus
into the earth.

‘Come, Orodes, let us take a closer look at the enemy.’

He did the same and we trotted across no man’s land to with five hundred paces or so of the enemy’s front ranks. I kept an eye over to the left to where the enemy’s horsemen were grouped but in truth did not think they would charge us. The foot opposite us was firmly routed to the spot – it seemed that Narses would fight a defensive battle.

We edged our horses closer to the front ranks of the enemy, a long line of large wicker shields, rectangular in shape and almost the height of a man. Covered in thick leather and painted yellow, with the bird-god symbol of Persis painted on each one, they were held by Narses’ royal spearmen. Looking up and down their line I estimated that there were at least five thousand of them standing in three ranks or more. Each man wore a plumed, bronze helmet and probably wore leather armour. Reflecting their Persian heritage they most likely were armed with light battleaxes and daggers, in addition to the long spear each man carried. The shield was thick enough to stop arrows, though too large and cumbersome to form a roof under which the men could take shelter in an arrow storm. The front rank held their spears towards us at an angle of forty-five degrees, the ranks behind holding their spears upright. These soldiers were not a rabble but among the best that Persis could field. That Narses had brought mostly foot soldiers before the walls of Babylon did not surprise me. Horsemen are mostly useless in sieges but their mounts consume fodder that can easily exhaust the resources of the surrounding areas. In addition, Babylon lies only fifty miles from the Tigris and the Kingdom of Susiana, close enough to get an army of foot soldiers to the city within four days.

A group of arrows suddenly arched into the sky from behind the ranks of the spearmen to land harmlessly a few paces in front of us. No other volley followed but I thanked Shamash for this lack of discipline, for the enemy had revealed to me that there were foot archers standing behind the spearmen.

‘Time to retreat,’ I said to Orodes and wheeled Remus around.

I heard a thud and he suddenly bolted forward. I managed to bring him under control as Orodes galloped up to me.

‘They have slingers as well, then,’ he said, grinning at my temporary discomfort.

We rode to where Gallia waited in front of her Amazons with a knot of officers from my horse archers around her.

‘Don’t get too close to the foot opposite,’ I told them. ‘They have archers and slingers behind the spearmen.’

‘Don’t give them any cheap victories,’ I said to Gallia. ‘Just annoy them. Shoot high so your arrows fall on the heads of the front ranks. You will be able to thin them out but that’s about all.’

‘And your cataphracts?’ she asked.

I smiled at her and pointed to where the horsemen of the enemy right wing were standing.

‘That is where the key to the battle lies, my sweet.’

I smiled at her again and then dug my knees into Remus’ flanks to take me back to my cataphracts. It appeared that the enemy had no heavy cavalry, which evened the odds greatly. In my mind I quickly formulated a plan: shatter the enemy’s right wing with my heavy horsemen to allow Nergal’s horse archers to sweep around the enemy foot to attack their exposed flank and rear. Once that had been achieved Narses’ foot soldiers would be peppered with volleys of arrows that would both demoralise and decimate them. I did not worry about what would be happening on the enemy’s left flank where Narses faced the combined horsemen of Hatra and Babylon. The enemy’s mounted spearmen would be no match for my father’s cavalry. Orodes looked at me with concern as I began to whistle to myself. We had Narses cornered like a rat. So much for the lord high general of the Parthian Empire. Victory was so close I could taste it.