Cato took the chance to glance round and saw Junius dispatch an enemy with a savage cut to the head. Elsewhere the line had stopped giving ground and the better armour of the Romans meant that they were getting the best of the individual duels. Nor was the enemy pushing forward any more. They had been fought to a halt and as Cato saw, they were giving ground. The reason for this was clear enough. Over the heads of the men in front of him, Cato could see Roman arrows plunging down into the tight press of bodies behind. The Nubians there were anxiously doing their best to shield their bodies with the small round hide shields that most of them carried, but they were poor protection against the barbed iron points. Several men and horses were hit at a time, the wounded animals rearing as the pain of their injuries made them panic and impossible to control.
'Push them back!' Cato roared, edging his mount forward, pressing up against the riderless horse and forcing it aside. A Nubian passed in front of him, out of sword reach, and Cato stabbed his mount in the rump instead. The horse let out a shrill cry and kicked back, narrowly missing Cato's leg, but striking the flank of his mount so hard that Cato heard a rib snap beneath the glossy hide. Abruptly both animals reared up, the Nubian thrown back into Cato's side as he threw his weight forward and clung on tightly to the reins to stay in his saddle. The Nubian's flailing hand caught Cato's tunic above his knee and the fingers clenched. Cato felt himself shift to the side and the terrifying prospect of falling to the ground and being trampled seized him. He cursed the man through gritted teeth and then swung his sword arm over and tried to cut at the hand. But the gap was too cramped to get a swing and the edge pressed into the flesh and did not cut through. Cato desperately started a savage sawing movement in the space that he had and the Nubian howled and a moment later was forced to release his grip and fell beneath Cato's horse where his panicked cry was brutally cut short.
Looking up, Cato saw through the haze of dust that the rearmost ranks of the Nubian cavalry were falling back, away from the arrows that rained down mercilessly. The fear swiftly spread through the enemy and as the last of them turned their mounts and galloped off, Cato looked down the battle line. The auxiliaries stared after the Nubians in silence for a moment, too stupefied by the blood rushing through their veins to realise that they had beaten the enemy off. Then Prefect Herophilus thrust his bloodied blade up and let out a roar of triumph, instantly taken up by the rest of his men as they watched the enemy flee. Bodies of men and horses, many still living, lay scattered across the ground amid the angled shafts of arrows.
As the cheers began to die away, Cato was aware of the sound of fighting from the other flank where the enemy had made another attack in an effort to break the Roman cavalry. Cato squinted to make out the details. It seemed that the Alexandrian cavalry unit was holding its own well enough and on the left flank, the archers and bolt throwers were taking their deadly toll.
Cato sheathed his sword and walked his horse over to Herophilus. 'Well done! That's fine work by your men. Get them re-formed and ready for the next charge.'
'Yes, sir!'
Cato beckoned to Junius and the others and then trotted back towards the centre of the line. He made a quick estimate of the cohort's losses. No more than a tenth of the cavalry had been lost in the first struggle but the Nubians would surely make another charge. Each time they did, the cohort's strength would be whittled down. The Nubian army must be broken before such attrition broke the Roman cavalry.
The small party of officers made their way across the rear of the Roman line and returned to the centre. Macro looked back and nodded a relieved acknowledgement that Cato was still alive, then turned to face the front. Over the helmets of the First Cohort, Cato could see the main bulk of the enemy army advancing straight at them, no more than half a mile away, dense blocks of infantry, with the most heavily armoured making up the centre of the line under the banner of Prince Talmis. Cato wondered if Ajax was there amongst them, with the last of his followers from Crete. For an instant he fervently hoped that fate would give him, or Macro, the chance to face the gladiator one last time to settle the consuming hatred that had brought all three men to this battlefield on the fringe of the Empire.
He thrust thoughts of Ajax aside and turned to one of his orderlies. 'Tell the commanders of both bolt-thrower batteries to target the enemy infantry as soon as they come within range. The same order to the archers. Go.'
The officer nodded and wheeled his mount around and galloped off. Cato turned his attention back to the Nubians. It was impossible to gauge their number through the haze of dust rising up a short distance behind the leading ranks. If this was Prince Talmis's main blow, then there could be more than twenty thousand men tramping across the level ground towards the Roman line, three men to each of Cato's. The sheer weight of numbers would be certain to drive the small army back, which was what Cato had allowed for, indeed counted on, in his plan.
The steady rhythm of the enemy's drums and the clash of cymbals and blare of horns swelled in volume as the host advanced. Once the centurions were satisfied that the lines of their men were dressed as smartly as possible, they took up their places at the right of their commands and waited in silence. The Nubians were now close enough for Cato to make out their officers shouting encouragement and waving their men on with their gleaming swords. There was a moment when Cato felt tempted to say something, some word of comfort to the men around him, but he realised it would only betray the anxiety that bound his stomach in a vice-like knot. Far better to remain silent and seem calm and imperturbable in the face of an approaching sea of enemies.
On both sides the crews of the bolt throwers began to ratchet back the torsion arms with a sharp metallic clatter. Then the heavy, iron-tipped shafts, as long as a man's arm, were loaded on to the weapons and there was a brief pause before the order bellowed out, 'Loose!'
The brief chorus of cracks drowned out the enemy instruments as a veil of missiles seemed to waft up and over the intervening ground before disappearing in amongst the Nubian foot soldiers. Cato well knew the damage that such a volley could wreak amongst dense formations of men and yet the enemy came on without any sign of hesitation, or diminution of their battle cries. It was as if the host had simply absorbed the missiles rather than lost scores of men, pierced through and hurled back against their comrades by the force of the impact. A second volley arced towards the enemy, and this time the bolts struck some of the leading men, tearing through two or three at a time. Then the dead and wounded were lost from sight as their companions stepped round or over them and continued the advance.