Romulus pulled his gladius free, regretting that he would never get revenge on Gemellus. They would be lucky to survive the next hour.
Then Tarquinius glanced at the sky and to his relief, spoke with absolute certainty. 'We three will not die today.' He lowered his voice. 'Many will. But not us.'
A great gust of relief escaped Romulus' lips.
Brennus grinned from ear to ear, his faith stronger than ever.
There was a collective moan when the soldiers realised that the previous day's slaughter was about to be repeated. What seemed like hope had only been deceit.
Centurions and junior officers seized the initiative, ordering retreat down the slope. With Crassus gone, there would be no clear orders from the trumpeters. Men shuffled desperately to the flat ground, peering over their shoulders. A ragged line, three ranks deep, assembled in close formation at the bottom of the dune. Shields were raised against the storm of deadly missiles that would soon be hissing down.
Crassus' once proud army huddled together, preparing to die under the burning Mesopotamian sun. Few legionaries had any will to fight remaining.
The one-sided battle did not last long. Countless Parthian arrows filled the air, punching through scuta, decimating those beneath. With no means of retaliation, all the soldiers could do was to be killed where they stood. Any who broke and ran were soon butchered. Soon Roman casualties sprawled on the hot sand in their hundreds.
By the time cataphracts were sent in for the first time, the end was nigh. The heavy cavalry pounded down the slope, ploughing into the Roman centre. Lances ripped into men's chests, horses trampled bodies into the ground, swords hacked deep into flesh. A massive gap remained where their unstoppable momentum had carried the Parthians through.
The legionaries could not take much more before they were utterly routed.
The one surviving legate ordered his legion's eagle dipped to show the desire to surrender. Romulus would never forget the symbol of Roman military might being lowered to the sand. Since he had first seen them in Brundisium, proudly borne aloft by the standard-bearers, the silver birds had stirred Romulus' blood. As a slave and then a gladiator, he had never encountered anything to really inspire him. His worship of Jupiter was like that of everyone else — hope and belief in the intangible. But the eagles were solid metal, and hard evidence of the Republic's military might: something for him to have faith in. After all, he was a Roman. His mother was Italian and so was the bastard who had raped her. Why should he not follow the eagle into battle as the regular legionaries did?
He saw many break down in tears at the shame of the defeat. Some officers attacked the Parthians blindly, preferring to die fighting than live with the ignominy, but most soldiers surrendered with relief. The desert warriors surrounded the beaten Romans, their sweating horses pressing in close. The survivors were herded together like sheep while dark brown eyes stared from behind fully drawn bows. None dared resist any longer. These were arrows that had defeated an army of thirty-five thousand men.
All unit standards, potent symbols of power, were seized and the Parthians forced everyone to throw down their swords. Those not swift enough to obey were killed on the spot. Brennus dropped his longsword with reluctance, but the Etruscan seemed less concerned about his battleaxe and Romulus soon knew why. Groups of archers dismounted and began to pick up the weapons, tying them together in bundles. Camels were being loaded with the gladii and remaining pila. The weapons were going with the captives, evidence that their fate had already been decided. Tarquinius expected to retrieve his axe later. It gave Romulus hope.
But nearly half the force involved in the final battle had been killed. The remainder — approximately ten thousand legionaries and mercenaries — were now prisoners. Defeated and dejected, the soldiers were left with nothing but their clothes and armour. Once disarmed, it was simple for the Parthians to tie ropes round each man's neck.
In long lines of human misery, they were marched south towards Seleucia. As he trudged away, Romulus did not look back at the carnage.
Behind him, hundreds of vultures were starting to land.
Chapter XXVII: Crassus
Seleucia, capital of the Parthian Empire, summer 53 BC
Life in the circular stockade where Romulus and hundreds of soldiers were incarcerated had become almost routine. Positioned near a great brick archway leading into the city, the prison of thick logs was twice Brennus' height. The men sat miserably on hard dirt inside, packed so tightly they were barely able to stretch out their legs. Rumour had it that the other captives were being held in many similar locations around Seleucia. Even unarmed, the Parthians did not trust the Romans in very large groups.
Replaced by new suffering, Carrhae and the terrible march south had already become a distant memory. Freezing nights followed the searing hot days, increasing the hardship for wounded and whole alike. There was no shelter in the compound. The Roman soldiers shivered together in the dark and burned in the sun. All known officers had been taken elsewhere, leaving only a few low-rankers to rally spirits.
Tarquinius seemed content to wait, making few comments about wind or weather. No one else knew what their fate would be. They had been spared so far, but it still seemed likely the Parthians would execute them all. Thousands of comrades had been left to rot in the desert, a shame each man felt keenly. It was Roman custom to inter the dead with pomp and ceremony. Normally only criminals were left in the open and Romulus could vividly recall the putrid smell from corpses littering the pits on the eastern slopes of the Esquiline. Only the gods knew what Carrhae would have been like.
The prisoners were fed barely enough to survive. Chaos descended each time the guards shoved inside to leave provisions on the ground. Men were reduced to beasts, fighting over stale crusts and brackish water. It was thanks to Tarquinius' increasing stature that the friends ate and drank at all. Helped by Romulus, the Etruscan moved tirelessly among the wounded every day, cleaning wounds and administering herbs from a small leather pouch that he had miraculously saved from their captors. As soldiers became aware of his mystical ability, respect for the Etruscan soared even higher and food was kept back for him. It was through someone like the haruspex that a way might be found out of the hell they were in.
Many of the injured succumbed to dehydration and the bloated corpses were only hauled away by the Parthians if the prisoners carried them to the gate. To prevent disease spreading to the nearby city, the guards had constructed a huge pyre, constantly ablaze to cope with the number of dead. At night its ghostly light revealed thin, hungry faces. The smell of burning flesh was all-pervading, its acrid odour adding to the men's distress.
'Bastards should have executed us,' raged Romulus at dawn on the twelfth day. 'A few weeks and we'll all end up like them.'
More than twenty legionaries lay dead nearby.
'Patience,' counselled Tarquinius. 'The air is moving. Soon we will know more.'
Romulus nodded reluctantly but Felix was enraged at the sight of his comrades' corpses. 'What I'd give for a weapon,' he said, thumping the timbers with frustration.
The little Gaul's action caught the eye of a guard, who waved his spear in a clear gesture to stand back.
'Quiet!' hissed Brennus. He would wait as long as Tarquinius was happy to. 'You don't want to die like that legionary.'
The decomposing figure hanging from the T-shaped wooden structure outside was a brutal example of Parthian discipline. Two days before, a burly veteran of the Sixth had spat at the feet of a guard. He had been dragged outside immediately and fastened to a cross.