‘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.
And what of Peroz and his horse archers? Like Gafarn his soldiers utilised the greater range of their bows to shoot down their opponents. The Armenian commander had deliberately sacrificed the horse archers on his right wing to enable his mounted spearmen to charge into our rear. What were a few thousand horse archers compared to victory? Except that there was no Armenian victory, and as Peroz and his men reappeared on the battlefield the fate of the enemy was sealed.
As Surena’s horse archers amused themselves butchering hapless enemy spearmen the King of Gordyene rode up to me as Domitus was organising the Durans and Exiles for an assault on the last remaining body of enemy troops that had not been routed: the swordsmen. Surena jumped from his horse, his standard bearer grabbing the reins as his senior officers halted their horses. He walked up to me and smiled, and then we embraced each other.
‘It is good to see you, Surena.’
‘You too, lord. Men will speak of this day and your name with awe and respect.’
I slapped him on the back. ‘They will tell the truth: that the King of Gordyene saved my arse.’
He grinned. ‘With the King of Elymais, lord.’
‘Where is Silaces?’
‘With my Sarmatians, lord, ensuring that the enemy do not escape our wrath,’ he replied.