Carrhae (69 page)

I thanked Shamash that Lucius Domitus commanded the army for as soon as he had discerned that both our wings had disappeared and that there was fighting in the rear he had disengaged his front cohorts from the Armenians swordsmen and formed square. He had also fortuitously ensured that the wagons carrying spare weapons and shields were within that square. An additional bonus was that most of the animals from Dura’s camel train had also sought sanctuary within the square so at least we had replacement arrows to shoot at the enemy.

The Armenian swordsmen did not follow the legionaries as they withdrew, having lost a not inconsiderable numbers of men to
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strikes. The Durans held the top and right-hand sides of the square, the Exiles its left-hand side and rear, as all round it enemy troops deployed into position.

I slid off Remus’ back as I saw the white-crested helmet of Domitus coming towards me. Gallia ordered Zenobia to dismount the Amazons as the rest of Dura’s horse archers also jumped down from their horses. A curious quiet engulfed the square as the officers of both sides worked feverishly to rearrange their men and ignored their opponents. Quartermasters issued fresh javelins, shields and swords to battered and bruised legionaries who formed orderly lines at the wagons while Alcaeus and his physicians ran around patching wounds and carrying the seriously wounded into the centre of the square.

Domitus had taken off his helmet and was wiping his sweaty forehead when he reached me. ‘Bit careless of you to lose both of your wings.’

I too took off my helmet and wiped my brow on my sleeve. ‘There are too many of them, I realise that now.’

‘What do you want to do?’

Chrestus ran over as Gallia began counting the arrows left in her quiver.

‘We are only half a mile from Hatra,’ I said. ‘Gafarn has most likely withdrawn to the city and Vistaspa is too good a soldier to allow his heavy horsemen to be trapped and destroyed, so I must deduct that he too has sought refuge in Hatra. We should do the same.’

Gallia was unimpressed. ‘You will give victory to the enemy?’

‘Either that or stay here and be slaughtered,’ said Domitus flatly.

‘We take the wounded with us,’ I said. ‘Those who are seriously injured can be loaded on the wagons, the others can walk back to the city.’

I smiled at Gallia. ‘Take command of the horse archers. Divide them between the four sides of the square and tell them to kill any slingers or archers they see. The enemy will try to soften us up with missiles before they launch a fresh assault.’

She nodded curtly and then went off with Zenobia to organise our archers.

‘It is best that the queen has something to occupy herself,’ I said to Domitus and Chrestus.

Domitus winked at Chrestus. ‘To stop her bending your ear, more like. Reminds me of that time when we were surrounded by Narses and Mithridates. The horsemen buggered off then as well.’

‘I sent them away,’ I corrected him. ‘Besides, it is not quite the same: at least we are within walking distance of safety.’

‘If we can break out of the position we are in,’ Chrestus reminded us both.

A roll call revealed that the legions had lost a hundred and fifty dead and nearly four hundred wounded, most of the casualties being inflicted in the mêlée with the Armenian swordsmen. The latter now stood facing the Durans in front of the top of the square, retreating fifty paces when the archers Gallia posted among the legionaries began shooting at them with great accuracy. The Durans on the right side of the square faced thousands of levy spearmen, our archers having great sport against these men who had already been badly mauled by the legions, shooting arrows that pierced thin wicker shields and struck unarmoured torsos, necks and faces. They were quickly withdrawn out of range. The Armenian slingers and archers took up position in front of the spearmen and attempted to counteract our missile fire, but our recurve bows had greater range than the Armenian ones and after a short while their archers also withdrew, leaving only the slingers to duel with our bowmen before they too were pulled back.

It was the same on the other side of the square where the Armenian commander also placed a great number of levy spearmen, who were very effectively culled by Dura’s expert archers before being pulled back. But it was a different story at the foot of the square where we would have to make our breakout attempt. Here the enemy placed his professional spearmen: soldiers wearing leather cuirasses and helmets and carrying large, rectangular wicker shields of almost shoulder height that were faced with leather. Our arrows were unable to penetrate them and so the archers were reduced to trying to hit the Armenian horsemen who were arrayed behind the spearmen, to no avail. I received a report from Chrestus whose Exiles faced these heavy spearmen that they numbered at least twenty thousand men. The Armenian general knew that this was the direction any breakout attempt would come from and had deployed his men accordingly. Smashing through such a barrier would be an epic struggle indeed.

The ordered calm was suddenly shattered by the sound of hundreds of kettledrums, trumpets and horns as the Armenian ring around us sprang into life and thousands of spearmen and swordsmen charged our square. The charges against the right and left sides of the square were disordered and half-hearted as hundreds of levy spearmen, their morale already fragile, were cut down by dozens of archers standing among the ranks of the legionaries. But at the top and bottom of the square it was a different story. The Armenian swordsmen, now without their javelins, locked shields and ran at the Durans with swords drawn. The latter, having been resupplied with javelins, hurled two volleys to cut down the first ranks of the Armenians and temporarily disrupt their momentum. But there were still many thousands of Armenians left and the two lines smashed into each other to recommence their grim close-quarters battle. At the bottom of the square the locked shields of the Armenian heavy spearmen advanced steadily and methodically but were stopped as the first five ranks of the Exiles hurled fifteen hundreds javelins at them. The thin, soft iron points embedded themselves in shields and bodies, chopping down hundreds of men in the front ranks and halting those behind. Then the Exiles charged, clambering over dead and injured spearmen to get to grips with those behind. The Armenians began to fall back slowly as
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points stabbed groins, necks and faces. But the truth was that the enemy was keeping us fixed where we were and he had greater numbers to grind us down with relentless attacks against all sides of the square, trading lives for time.

And then I heard a new sound to the northeast and heard the telltale low rumble created by thousands of hooves pounding the earth and knew that we were finished, for a new army had arrived on the battlefield.

It was then that I saw in the distance the Armenian commander; a figure wearing a tall white conical hat with a cuirass of shimmering steel plates, riding a huge black horse up and down behind his swordsmen, no doubt urging them on.

All thoughts of a breakout disappeared as I ran to where the Durans were having difficulty holding back the masses of swordsmen who were hacking at their front ranks. Behind the tiring cohorts dismounted horse archers and Amazons were still loosing arrows over the heads of the Durans and were undoubtedly finding targets, but their missiles were cutting down only a few of the tens of thousands of Armenians who were attacking the legionaries.

Gallia and Zenobia stood beside their female companions as others rushed off to bring fresh quivers from the camel train. Inside the square it was chaos as drivers struggled to retain control of camels and mules and horse archers tried to calm horses frightened by the screams, shrieks and war cries of tens of thousands of men.

I ran past Gallia to the rear of the line of cohorts where a steady stream of wounded men were either hobbling from the ranks or being dragged by medical orderlies and then unceremoniously dumped on the ground before being worked on. I saw one legionary, his mail shirt torn and bloody, stagger from the rear of a century. I ran over to him, put his arm over my shoulder and assisted him to where Alcaeus was binding the wounded arm of another soldier.

‘Another one for you,’ I said to him, gently easing the wounded man on to the ground.

Alcaeus said nothing, glanced at the man I had assisted and then called to one of his men to attend to him.

‘Pacorus.’

I turned to see Domitus sprinting towards me.

‘We are having trouble holding them,’ he said, his mail shirt torn and his helmet dented.

I pointed to the northeast. ‘Armenian reinforcements have arrived.’

I then heard a great whooshing noise as the new arrivals unleashed a volley of arrows. The legionaries instinctively hoisted their shields above their heads but I saw the line of Amazons and archers standing behind the battling cohorts and knew they would be scythed down in seconds.

‘Take cover!’ I screamed at Gallia.

But it was too late. She did not hear me above the din of battle and I watched, helpless and horrified, as my wife stood in the open to be engulfed by thousands of arrows. I held a clenched fist to my mouth in terror as I was given a front-row seat to my beloved’s death.

But nothing happened.

No arrows fell in the square, not one. I heard another mighty whooshing sound and looked into the sky. Nothing. Domitus likewise gazed upwards and then around and looked at me in bewilderment.

‘Perhaps we are already dead and this is the afterlife,’ he said.

The sounds of battle seemed to grow louder beyond the right side of the square as Gallia, in blissful ignorance, continued to shoot at the enemy. In between arrows she looked at me and spread her arms to suggest I should not be standing around conversing with Domitus while a battle was raging.

‘What’s he doing?’ I heard Domitus say.

I looked to where he was staring and saw the hulking figure of Thumelicus bounding towards us. He arrived panting and hardly able to speak.

‘Compose yourself, you great German oaf,’ said Domitus affectionately.

Thumelicus drew himself up and grinned at me.

‘You remember that filthy, half-starved wild boy you brought back with you from the marshlands all those years ago?’

I had no time for this. ‘Have you been hit on the head?’

‘Surena, your former squire,’ said Thumelicus, still grinning like an idiot.

‘What about him?’ asked Domitus.

‘Well, he and his army are beyond those groups of Armenian spearmen. Looks like he did not forget the debt he owed you, Pacorus.’

I too began grinning like a madman and jumped up and down as I hugged Thumelicus and then tried to embrace Domitus, who was having none of it. But he too looked relieved.

Within minutes word spread around the square that salvation had arrived as the Armenian army began to collapse. The enemy had methodically scattered our wings and surrounded our foot but now their troops were spread too thinly to even withstand an assault by fresh troops, let alone defeat it.

I gave orders that the horse archers were to mount up in preparation to ride out of the square as Gallia desisted her shooting and ran over to me.

‘What is happening?’

I grabbed her hands and kissed them. ‘Surena has arrived with his army, my love.’

In fact it was not only Surena who had arrived but also Silaces and his seven thousand horse archers. Reports reached me that as well as the lion banner of Gordyene, the four-pointed star flag of Elymais was also flying proudly beside it.

Surena’s first assault, in conjunction with Silaces, was against the levy spearmen who were assaulting the right side of our square. Fifteen thousand horse archers unleashed a series of devastating volleys – the whooshing noise I had heard – against their rear ranks, felling thousands and prompting those still living to flee in panic.

Having been on the verge of triumph the Armenian commander attempted to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by ordering his heavy cavalry, which were deployed behind his heavy spearmen to the rear of our square, to attack the relief force. But his horsemen were then suddenly assaulted from behind – Gafarn’s horse archers had returned to the fray.

My brother told me afterwards that he and his men had lured the Armenian horsemen on their left wing away from the battlefield, falling back in successive waves and shooting arrows as they did so. The Armenians continued their pursuit as Hatra’s horsemen whittled down their numbers with accurate archery. The Armenian bows did not have the range of those of their adversaries and so soon the enemy’s numbers had been considerably reduced. Gafarn led three thousand men back to the battlefield as the rest continued to toy with the Armenians and, more importantly, keep them occupied.

Gafarn’s reappearance panicked the Armenian horsemen backing up their spearmen, their alarm compounded when Surena’s two thousand medium horsemen struck their right flank. Assaulted from the rear by accurate archery and in the flank by hundreds of mounted spearmen, the Armenians retreated rapidly in the only direction that was open to them – west into the desert – straight into the ranks of Vistaspa’s cataphracts.

The Armenian mounted spearmen had been routed and scattered by the cataphracts easily enough in a battle that had spread across an area of several miles. Vistaspa’s horsemen charged and reformed several times as they cut the enemy to pieces, literally in some cases where Dura’s armoured horsemen used their new swords to sever arms, cut through sword blades and armour and split helmets with ease. Many Armenians fled north to escape the butchery and Vistaspa let them go, recognising that there was still a battle to be won. And now his companies of cataphracts smashed into the fleeing Armenian heavy horsemen, whose cohesion disintegrated in the face of this fresh onslaught.

The levy spearmen that had been massed to the left-hand side of our square were charged by ten cohorts of Exiles, led by Chrestus in person. Using the last of their javelins, the Exiles reaped a rich harvest in enemy dead when they hurled their missiles before charging the ill-armed enemy and driving deep into their ranks. In reality the spearmen were beaten before the Exiles had even launched their charge so low was their morale, and it became a test of who could run the fastest – helmetless spearmen wearing no armour or mail-clad legionaries – as the Exiles gave chase to a fleeing enemy. The legionaries were speedily recalled by whistles and trumpet calls and reformed in their ranks – the horsemen could round up the spearmen later.