His meaning was clear and needed no translation. The archers raised their bows, aimed down the bank, and loosed the arrows at close range. Cato winced as a barbed head burst through the inside of his shield, close to his face. To his right a man cried out as a shaft pierced his leg, chipping bone and cutting through muscle just below the knee. He staggered to a halt and crouched helplessly, unable to either continue the advance or shelter behind his shield and deal with the injury.
'Cut it out, man!' Cato yelled at him. 'Cut it out and move on, or stay here and die.'
The small formation closed up and continued forward into the storm of arrows, leaving their comrade behind. The shattering cracks and splitting of wood filled Cato's ears in a deafening cacophony as he paced forward at Macro's shoulder, hunched down behind his shield to protect his legs as best as he could. But being tall, his helmet and crest projected a little above the rim of the shield and an arrow tore through the crest, wrenching the helmet, and then another shot glanced off the top of it, knocking his head slightly to one side and making him briefly dizzy. Cato shook his head and staggered on, fearing that he might stumble and fall, and be at the mercy of the enemy archers. But the dizziness cleared and he clenched his jaw and followed Macro up and on to the bank.
The enemy loosed their last arrows before dropping their bows across their saddle horns and drawing their swords. They snatched up their reins and urged their camels towards the Romans. The beasts let out raw, throaty grunts as they charged with a loping gait.
'Hold!' Macro yelled, bracing his feet apart and pushing his shield out, ready to absorb the impact of the charge. Cato and the others followed suit and crouched, swords ready, sweating under the weight of their armour and the exertion of scrambling ashore and up the bank. The leading camel's neck stretched out above the rim of Macro's shield an instant before its heavy chest struck it a glancing blow. The rider reached out and forward, slashing down with his curved blade, which split the rim of the shield, leaving the tip a few inches from Macro's head. The Arab was at the limit of his reach and Macro rose up and hacked into the neck of the camel instead. The beast's jaw fell open and the tongue shot out as it gave a deep bleat of agony, then swerved aside, away from the small knot of Roman soldiers and straight across the path of the other riders. The camel staggered and collapsed on to its knees. Another animal stumbled into its flank, nearly unseating its rider. The rest stopped abruptly or tried to swerve aside. Their riders shouted angrily, struggling to regain control of their mounts, as dust swirled about the long spindly legs of the camels.
Macro instantly sized up the situation. 'Jackals! At 'em!'
He ran round the stricken camel as its rider tried to recover his balance and threw himself into the confusion of the riders and beasts beyond. Keeping his shield up, Macro hacked at the dark skin of a bare leg that appeared in front of him. Then, as the rider yelled and steered his mount away, Macro turned and saw another man above him, black against the glaring sun. Squinting, he could not see the blade he knew was slashing down towards him and could only throw up his sword arm to try and block the blow. There was a resounding clang of metal on metal and then the shock of the impact driving down Macro's arm, wrenching his strong wrists and the powerful muscles bunched around his elbow and shoulder joints. The Arab's blade struck the transverse crest of his helmet, breaking through the bronze strip and finally striking the iron reinforcement ridge that crossed his helmet from side to side. The blow would have killed him outright had he failed to block it, but the impact dazed him, blinding his vision with white sparks. He staggered, weaving from side to side, still holding his shield up while his sword arm hung limply at his side. A wave of nausea seized him and Macro feared that he might pass out.
'The fuck I will,' he growled to himself.
He shook his head and his vision began to clear. A fresh blow glanced off his shield, and then he heard a shocked gasp. Glancing to his side, he saw that Cato was between himself and the camel and had punched his sword up into its rider's guts. The Arab wheeled his camel away and clasped a hand to his wound as he rode out of the small cluster of men locked in combat. One of the legionaries was down, a long slash in his sword arm that had opened up flesh and muscle to reveal the bone beneath. But the enemy had lost two men, lying still in the dust, and more were wounded, and now they fell back, away from the heavily armoured infantrymen. Two men started after the enemy but Macro called them back angrily and then turned his attention back to Ajax.
The gladiator was trying to rally the camel archers but they were losing the fight along the riverbank. The legionaries were pushing their way up the slope and spilling out into the fields of wheat beyond. Ajax unleashed his rage at his men, bellowing at them to stand and fight. Though they shared no common tongue there was no mistaking his will, yet his men avoided his eye as they flowed back across the fields.
'Let's go at him,' Cato breathed heavily. 'While we have the chance.'
Macro turned to the other men. 'Come on!'
The two officers led the small party of legionaries towards the gladiator and the handful of mounted men who remained with him. Ajax was staring bitterly after his fleeing allies and was only alerted to the danger when one of his men called out to him and pointed towards the Romans quickly closing in on them. Ajax turned in his saddle and glared for a moment before his expression changed to one of a man in a torment of frustration. He reached for his sword handle and his hand hovered there briefly before he took up his reins and urged his horse away from the riverbank.
Cato felt a leaden pain in his heart at the prospect of Ajax evading them and he yelled out towards the horsemen, 'Stand and fight, cowards! Fight us!'
Ajax's horse high-stepped as his master locked eyes with Cato, then Ajax kicked his heels in and he and his men galloped away across the field, amid the fleeing forms of their Arab allies. Cato ran as hard as he could after them, crunching over the trampled wheat, but they made good their escape and he drew up, gasping for breath as he watched them head for the pale walls of a distant temple.
'Bastard,' Macro panted as he stopped beside Cato. 'Bastard didn't have the balls to stand… and face us.'
Cato licked his dry lips and fought for breath. His armour felt like a vice around his body, crushing him under the burden of its weight and the heat which prickled like that from an open oven. He took a deep breath and swallowed. Closing his eyes, Cato spoke through clenched teeth. 'He tasks us… tasks us to the limit of our endurance.'
Cato's eyes flickered open. He drew himself up, looked along the riverbank to see the legionaries wearily forming up around their standards. He let out an impatient breath. 'We'd better send word to the legate. Tell him we have secured the bank.'
'I'll see to it,' said Macro.
'And have the rest of your men and the artillery landed as quickly as possible.' Cato gestured towards the temple and continued harshly, 'If they think that they'll be safe in there, they're in for a surprise. They'll be caught. Trapped. This time there'll be no escape.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There was a dull thud as another ballista bolt tore into the mud bricks of the outer wall and a small cloud of dust shivered into the air. Ajax squinted down from the top of the pylon and by the failing light he saw that the interior of the wall was cracked and crumbling from top to bottom. The sun had already set and the sky was a deep violet, pricked by the steely glitter of the early evening stars. The Romans were already building fires around the perimeter of the temple wall to ensure that there would be some light to detect any attempt by the defenders to escape. After they had forced a way across the Nile they had brought up three more cohorts of legionaries and some cavalry as well as the battery of bolt throwers from the island.