Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire (48 page)

‘Form square!’ Gallus cried, eyes bulging as he saw the manoeuvre.

The plumbatae were dropped, unloosed as the lines scrambled to protect the flanks and rear. But they were too slow. The cataphractii plunged into the barely protected Roman flanks. They barged through the unprepared lines, sending groups sprawling, trampling and cutting down men. In moments, the legionary line had disintegrated into pockets. Pavo stumbled forward, the blood of some comrade in the rear ranks showering his back. He righted himself and rushed over to Sura, Quadratus, Zosimus and Gallus. They quickly clustered together with a handful of Flavia Firma men, swiping their spears this way and that.

The clibanarii swooped on this disorder, their mounts racing into the gaps between the clusters of legionaries, lancing and swiping, felling men like wheat. The cries of dying legionaries grew deafening. Pavo leapt back as one clibanarius’ lance scored across his scale vest, tearing the scales from it and stinging the skin of his chest. He saw the rider thunder onwards to burst the chests of two less fortunate legionaries, the smattering of plumbatae and spears hurled at the rider bouncing from the man’s armour. Then the all-iron riders swept out of the fray, circling further up the beach, readying to swoop in again. There was no time for the Roman lines to reform, but if they remained in clusters like this, they would be cut down. Pavo’s eyes darted. Something nagged at the depths of his mind. Something Khaled had once told him.

The clibanarii are invincible? I thought so too, once. The finest blades – lances and swords – all will blunt on their plate-armour. Then I saw a shepherd’s boy fell one of them with his sling.

Pavo snatched a glance to the water; there, the slingers had fled out into the waves, standing waist deep now. He roared to Gallus. ‘Sir, the funditores – have them fire on the clibanarii, at close range!’ he called to Gallus. Gallus looked at him with a scowl, as if he had been torn from a nightmare. ‘It’s something I heard in the mines – it might work.’ The tribunus frowned, then cried over the melee to where Varius braced with a hundred or so of his men.

The Flavia Firma standards swiped through the air and orders were barked to the slingers. In moments, a burring of slings picked up. In way of reply, Tamur’s battle cry sailed over the beach and the war drums thrashed in a frenzy. The clibanarii swooped for the legionary clusters.

Pavo braced, fingers flexing on his spear. ‘Come on, come on!’ he cried, glancing to the slingers and then to the clibanarius lancer coming for him. But the rider’s spear was upon him. It was too late. He heard his own battle cry as though from a great distance as he swept his spear up to parry, but the tip of the clibanarius’ lance punctured the flesh of his shoulder and blood burst into the air. The rider then tore out his shamshir blade and hefted it to cut through Pavo’s neck.

‘Loose!’ the cry rang out at last from Varius. Three-hundred slings spat forth into the clibanarii front. A chorus of clattering iron filled the air as the shot thwacked into the plate-armour and facemasks. Muffled screams echoed from within. The rider hovering over Pavo seemed frozen, sword arm raised. A neat, dark hole in the forehead of his iron mask had appeared. Then a gout of black blood leapt from the hole, followed by more from the eye and mouth slits. The rider fell from the saddle with a crash of armour and the sound echoed along the clibanarii lines. The seemingly infallible plate-armour had been beaten, pierced by the shot or crumpling and crushing the bones of the riders within. The slings burred again and another volley sent hundreds more of the riders to the sand.

‘Slaughter those slingers!’ Tamur’s booming command sounded over the cacophony of battle. At once, the cataphractii gathered to charge back into the shallows, this time at the small pack of slingers.

‘Get them on the boats!’ Gallus cried out immediately. The funditores swiftly ceased their next volley and scrambled to the ropes dangling from the sides of the triremes. Many were too slow, cut down by the blades of the cataphractii. Fewer than half of the slingers made it up and onboard the vessels. The tide reddened with every heartbeat.

Meanwhile, the clibanarii had reformed and built up into a charge once more. A pack of twelve of them thundered for Pavo and the handful of legionaries clustered with him. This time, two lances were trained upon him. He hefted his shield at the last, and the impact swept his spear from his hands and nearly jolted his arm from its socket. He staggered back, struggling to stay on his feet, crimson water splashing around his shins and a tide of silver riders washing past him on either side. Nearby he saw legionaries disappear under hooves, bodies punched back on the end of Persian lances, heads struck from shoulders with Savaran blades until the sea was opaque with blood. Another charge swept past nearby and he heard Zosimus cry out in pain. When he twisted to see what had happened, another charge hit them from the side. A trailing hoof dashed against his helm and he fell from the cluster, blinded momentarily.

He shook the lights from his eyes and found himself prone on the sand, surrounded by the torn and broken bodies of Flavia Firma legionaries and Persian horsemen. A fervent war cry sounded from behind, and Pavo felt the sand shudder – hooves only feet away, coming for him. He scrambled round and to his feet to face the clibanarius racing for him, lance trained on his heart. Pavo yanked his shield round to deflect the blow, knowing only the iron shield boss would be able to absorb the momentum of the chained, two-handed spear. As soon as the lance tip skated off the boss, Pavo threw down his shield and grappled the chain, yanking it and pulling the lance from the rider’s grip. The clibanarius lost his balance and flailed to grapple the reins, but Pavo swung the stolen spear up to barge the man into the gory, churning sand and surf before despatching him with a sharp thrust to the throat. He leapt up onto the saddle but struggled to control the panicked mount. The stallion kicked, thrashed and bit at all nearby, Roman or Persian, one stray hoof dashing the helmet from an unsaddled Persian and the next smashing his skull and spraying his brains into the foaming waters.

Pavo steadied the mount just enough to take in what had happened. All around him was a maelstrom of swiping blades, thrusting spears, spraying blood and surf, whinnying horses and screaming men. The Savaran masses were swarming all around the beleaguered pockets of legionary resistance. The remaining slingers on the decks of the triremes did all they could to support their comrades, but it was too little. Legionary bodies littered the sand and bobbed in the surf. In the shallows, he saw Gallus’ plume whipping around in the fray, blood rising in gouts from all who took him on. He saw Tamur up on the marram grass dunes, mounted, safely withdrawn from the battle and watching on with a macabre grin – as if this was another bout of blood games. Moments, he realised, was all they had. And further up the coast, the Persian fleet was now drawing in to the shore, no doubt to land thousands of fresh riders and spearmen.

Pavo heeled the stallion around, ready to strike down another, ready to die, his dark locks plastered to his face with saltwater and blood. Then he glimpsed Sura in the fray, crimson-masked. His friend grimaced and hurled a plumbata. Pavo gawped as the dart soared straight for him. Sura was mouthing something.
Down?

Pavo ducked at the last, the dart hissing over his helm and punching into something only inches behind. He twisted to see a cataphractus, sword raised and ready to cut down at him, the plumbata wedged in the rider’s cheek, dark blood pumping from the wound.

Sura barged through the melee, then shouldered the dead rider from the saddle and took his place. ‘Come with me!’ he beckoned hoarsely, then heeled his mount towards the fringes of the battle.

Pavo followed suit, kicking his mount then parrying and ducking as the battle thinned and the din fell away. ‘Sura?’ He cried out as they broke free.

Sura guided his mount to the south, then wheeled round up the beach, headed for the marram grass dunes behind those where Tamur, the pushtigban and the unused Savaran watched the battle. He flashed Pavo a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I have a plan . . . ’

Crouching behind the grassy dunes, Pavo glanced up at the swishing tails of the twelve colossal war elephants. Terror swam in his guts. ‘Steal an elephant? That’s not a plan, Sura.’

‘We’re dead, all of us, unless we do something,’ Sura said, nodding to the bloodstained shoreline beyond the elephants where the Roman resistance was fading, fast.

‘If we take one step towards those things, they’ll spot us,’ Pavo hissed, pointing to Tamur and the cluster of pushtigban around him, then to the Persian archers perched in the howdah cabins atop the elephants’ backs. All had their backs turned, looking down upon the battle, but every so often one of the pushtigban would look over their shoulder.

‘Then we find a distraction. How’s about those poor bastards?’ he pointed to the paighan, sitting or kneeling to the right of the war elephants, their shackled ankles raw and bloodied. ‘If they’re given a chance of freedom, do you think they’d take it?’

Pavo looked to the haggard peasant-soldiers. There were some two thousand men there, chained and weary. Men drawn from their farms and families to fight to the death or act as human blockades against Persia’s enemies. He thought of poor Khaled, forced to fight like this. He glanced at the elephants once more, then heard the tortured scream as a legionary on the shore was ripped asunder by a pair of clibanarii lances. ‘Aye, but we must be swift.’

They flitted round behind the elephants and Tamur, ducking to stay concealed behind the grassy dunes until they came to the rear of the paighan mass. ‘We break the chains of the nearest, then we arm them,’ Pavo said, nodding to the nearby wagons loaded with spears. Two Median spearmen stood guard before these, backs turned on Pavo and Sura, both of them utterly transfixed on the battle. Sura nodded. They set down their shields and helms, carrying just their spathas and protected only by their scale vests. The pair stole round to the rear of the wagon, then crept around an edge each. Pavo lined up to grapple the Median nearest to him. He felt his heart thunder as if trying to give him away. At the last, he stepped on a piece of dry reed, which cracked. The Median swung round, but before he could bring his spear to bear, Pavo unleashed a fierce right hook. The man’s jaw cracked and Pavo had to stifle a cry as his knuckles did likewise. The Median crumpled. Alerted by the muted sound of scuffling, the second Median spun to gawp at Pavo in alarm, only for Sura to emerge behind him and smack the flat of his spatha over the man’s head. His eyes rolled and he too was grounded. Pavo and Sura grappled a handful of spears each, then crouched and flitted across the open ground to the rearmost paighan ranks.

The nearest of them turned and saw the pair approaching. A jabbering broke out and more heads turned. Pavo’s flesh crept as he saw Tamur and the pushtigban turn away from the battle to the disturbance. ‘Down!’ he hissed, pulling Sura to the sand.

‘Shut your mouths, dogs, or we will march you into the water to drown,’ a Median spearman near the front of the paighan mass shouted. In an instant, they fell silent. Pavo saw Tamur scowl at the chained men for a moment longer, then look back to the battle.

Nearest Pavo was a flat-nosed paighan wearing an off-white robe and a dark-brown felt cap. He gawped down at the prone Pavo. ‘Roman?’ he said in jagged Greek.

‘Aye, but not your enemy,’ Pavo replied in broken Parsi. ‘We come to free you.’ He held up his spatha and motioned towards the chains that bound him to the next malnourished wretch. The pair and those nearby looked to one another, doubtful.

‘And arm you,’ Sura added, lifting the pile of spears in his grasp.

At this, the flat-nosed man’s weary features bent into a smile. He held up his chains. Pavo lined up his spatha and hacked down. A thick iron
clink
accompanied it. Pavo held his breath, waiting to see if the guards up front had heard. Nothing. Sura hacked at the chain on the other side of the man. Again, nothing. But the flat-nosed man, suddenly realising he was free, threw his hands in the air and made to cry out in joy. Pavo shot up a hand and clamped it over the man’s mouth.

‘Not a sound,’ he pressed a finger to his lips, ‘or we all die.’

The flat-nosed man nodded, then turned a disapproving look on his comrades, wagging a finger at them as if they were to blame. One by one, Pavo and Sura freed the paighan, handing them spears until thirty or more were crouched, ready to act.

‘Free the others,’ Pavo said, handing spears to those furthest forward. ‘Now, does anyone here know how to ride those beasts?’ he nodded towards the war elephants.

The flat-nosed man held his hands out wide with a grin.

‘Come with us,’ Pavo beckoned the man. They stole away from the rear of the paighan and back into the grassy dip in the dunes behind the elephants. Pavo eyed the nearest beast at the rear of the herd. Its tusks were bronze-coated and serrated on the outside. A plate iron mask was fastened to its face. An iron scale apron, vast enough to cover a house, shrouded its body, masking many of the battle scars this animal had been subjected to. A mahout sat astride its neck holding a spiked cane ready, waiting on the order from Tamur to drive the creature into the battle. The crenelated howdah cabin on its back was packed with four archers, one at each edge, bows nocked and eager to enter the fray. A knotted rope dangled from one side of the cabin, the end swinging near the ground.