It was quite good. Bits of it – the river flank and the infantry column – were very good. But there were undeniable problems. There was not enough heavy infantry. Another five hundred legionaries in the van and in the rear, and the square would have been nigh on impregnable – or rather it would have been nigh on impregnable if everyone obeyed orders and held their position.
As it was, Ballista was worried about the obedience of his command. It was not really the two columns of baggage under Turpio. Yes, the sardonic ex-centurion had been mired in corruption when the northerner had first met him. Turpio had sworn that he had been blackmailed into it. Ballista did not know what it was that had laid Turpio open to such coercion. Turpio claimed that it was resolved, that it could not happen again. But one never knew. Ballista tried to shrug all this away. Turpio had more than redeemed himself in action since then, and Ballista liked him. You had to trust your judgement. As for the infantry on the other wing under 'hand-to-steel' – Aurelian might be something of a hothead but, in a paradoxical way, he was also the personification of old-style disciplina. Ballista had no real worries there – unlike with the cavalry. It all came back to Acilius Glabrio.
How much damage could the young patrician do? Ballista would take his position with the Equites Singulares. They should not be directly affected by any foolishness of Acilius Glabrio. The Equites Tertii Catafractarii Palmirenorum rode at the rear of the cavalry column. Ballista was between them and Acilius Glabrio. Their prefect, Albinus, was a sound man, a long-service career officer. They should be all right. Which left Equites Primi Catafractarii Parthi at the head of the column. Again, their prefect, Niger, was a sound man. Ballista had told Niger not to let his men follow Acilius Glabrio if he tried to do anything stupid. But would the men heed the sensible prefect or the glamorous patrician? Allfather, do not let that arrogant young fool lead them off in another mad charge. And what if he did? What would Ballista do then? Watch them become isolated, surrounded, cut down? Or try and rescue them – and run the risk of dragging the whole army down in bloody ruin?
Maximus rode between Ballista and the Roman army, breaking into his worries. 'Time to go.'
The Sassanid scouts were coming on at an easy, loose canter. There were more of them than before, maybe forty or fifty. They were strung out across the plain in no particular order. From time to time, as if on a whim, an individual horseman would turn, now angling towards the river, now the cliffs, then again heading straight for Ballista and his small party.
Some way behind the Persian scouts rose a large, whirling dust cloud. There was no breeze, and it rose straight and tall. Its base was some miles away. It was moving towards them.
'It could be onagers,' said Demetrius hopefully. 'Turpio told me that when a herd of wild asses is attacked by lions, they come together in a dense pack to frustrate the predators. He said the dust was often mistaken for that raised by troops.' Keen for reassurance, the young Greek talked on. 'Turpio has been out here a long time. He knows what he is talking about, knows about these plains.'
'It could be onagers.' The flat tone of Ballista's reply showed that his mind was elsewhere.
'Time to go,' said Maximus again, more loudly. As if woken from a reverie, Ballista realized that the Sassanid outriders were coming into bowshot. He hurriedly made the signal, and turned Pale Horse. The Romans rode hard and straight for the safety of the army, only jinking around the occasional scrub of camel thorn. Behind them, the easterners swooped across the plain like swallows.
A couple of hours later, mid-morning, about the time when, in Rome, the courts stop sitting, even Demetrius could not cling to the idea that the dust was raised by onagers.
A fold in the plain hid the Sassanid army until it was quite close. The first things that could be seen quite clearly were the big standards: fierce beasts – lions, wolves, bears; and abstract, minimal designs – here a straight line, there a curve, something like the shape of a cup. They flashed bright in the sunshine, all colours: scarlet, yellow, violet. Strange, thought Ballista, how the abstract patterns were more threatening than the animals. A bear is just a bear, but who in the Roman army could tell what powers and horrors the minimal and totally alien designs symbolized?
The Sassanids were drawing closer. As their cavalry breasted the slight rise, individuals could be easily made out. They were less than a thousand paces away now. Ballista looked carefully. He could just about determine that some wore pointed helmets and others domed caps, while the majority appeared bareheaded. Now they were less than seven hundred paces away, and advancing at a brisk canter. There were a lot of them. They filled the plain. The thunder of their coming preceded them.
'Steady, boys,' Ballista called as he rode along behind his front line. He had reinforced the two hundred Saracen archers led by Viridius with the three hundred and fifty slingers of Sandario, but the line still looked horribly thin. Light infantry will seldom stand a really determined charge by cavalry. It was a risk, but he did not want to weaken the rest of his formation. 'Steady, boys,' Ballista called again, as much to himself as anyone.
At five hundred paces he could pick out details of the Sassanid riders' accoutrements: flashes of colour, glints of metal, the paler smudges of their faces, the occasional white sock on a horse. The northerner felt a tentative sense of relief. He could see the riders' faces, see the legs of the horses. These were not the feared Sassanid clibanarii, the terrible, heavily armoured men on heavily armoured horses. Ballista's gamble with having only light infantry in his front line might work. These Sassanids were horse archers. These bowmen should have no intention of trying to charge home against an unbroken enemy.
'Hold the line, boys. They are just horse archers. They will never close with us.'
Ballista rode past Acilius Glabrio, to his left at the head of the central column of the army, the cavalry column. 'They will not charge home. Leave them to our infantry. Hold the line,' the northerner called. He did not notice any response from the patrician.
Ballista moved on, offering a few words of encouragement to the front line as he went. Now and then Demetrius would lean over and mutter in his ear, and then he would call out to junior officers and one or two men by name.
'No fear, Dominus. These easterners do not have the balls to face us,' shouted a grizzled slinger.
'True, comilitio, and they are only light cavalry – they are nothing close to the steel,' replied Ballista. He did not add, But the clibanarii, the heavy cavalry, they are out there somewhere, hidden by the drifting dust cloud, waiting, long spears in hand and murder in their hearts, and they, fellow-soldier, they are something, something terrible close to the steel.
Ballista pushed Pale Horse into a canter. The others followed: Maximus, Calgacus, Demetrius, the standard bearer called Bargas, a trumpeter and ten Equites Singulares. The great white draco hissed and snapped above their heads. Ballista had wanted to speak to Sandario, on the extreme left of the front line, before the attack came into range. Now it was obvious that was not going to happen.
Ballista was still some way short when he saw Sandario make the signaclass="underline" the trumpets called, the slings whirred round and he half-glimpsed the slingshots fly towards the enemy. A moment or two later Roman trumpets rang out behind Ballista. He turned in his saddle and watched Viridius' men loose their bows. Archers on foot outrange those on horseback, and slingers outrange both. For a short time, the Romans were in the god-like position of being able to kill without the least danger of being killed. With a clear view over his own infantry, Ballista could see the effect on the Sassanids. Men were knocked from saddles, some horses went down in a maelstrom of thrashing hooves and dust. But far, far too few to stop the charge.