He gestured to the map, largely bare of any notable terrain.
‘The secret of success in battle, gentlemen, is very often rooted in the general’s choice of ground. And this particular piece of the world is so well suited to the style of war that the Parthians have evolved that we’re going to have to be exceptionally light on our feet to even the odds up.’
The march resumed the next day, the soldiers’ usual grumbling redoubled by each man being required to carry a piece of equipment that had until then been stacked in carts in the legion’s baggage train, exchanging their pack poles for long wooden stakes topped with a pointed iron head, an iron square having been nailed to the wood halfway down its length to enable it to be hammered into the ground.
Ten miles into the march, the leading cohort halted without warning, and on reaching the column’s head Julius found Procurator Ravilla staring out over the desert before his men with a bleak expression, his marines unusually quiet as they surveyed the scene of carnage laid out before them.
‘If I’d known we were going to stumble over this, I’d have asked to take the rearguard for the day. My lads aren’t as used to this sort of thing as your legionaries.’
Julius shook his head.
‘Seeing men die in battle’s one thing, but this …’
The human remains of a battle were strewn across the desert before them, hundreds of what had been dead bodies months before now reduced to scattered bones and what little was left of their equipment.
‘Get your men digging, Procurator, and I’ll have the rest of the legion collect up everything we can find ready for burial.’
Ravilla nodded gratefully, turning away to get his cohort organised as Scaurus reached the spot and stared out across the scene.
‘In all the months that these men have lain here, left to rot and as prey to the carrion birds and animals, not one of the passing trade caravans has thought to bury their remains. What does that tell you?’
Julius turned away from the grisly view.
‘It tells me that the traders who’ve passed this way either hated Rome enough to be happy to leave dead men unburied or didn’t want to be taken for sympathisers.’
The legatus nodded.
‘Which means that the men who did this haven’t gone very far. They know we have to react to this, and they want to be ready when we do.’
The two men looked at each other in shared understanding.
‘Do we have time to get what’s left of them underground?’
Scaurus nodded slowly.
‘Prefect Felix’s scouts will give us plenty of warning if the enemy are at hand. And these men need to see their fellow soldiers laid to rest as well as can be managed under the circumstances. Take the time you need …’
The Tungrians stood guard while the legion’s remaining cohorts stacked their shields and spears, formed a line and crossed the battlefield at a slow pace, the soldiers gathering together their dead comrades’ bones and broken equipment for burial. Tribune Varus stood with Marcus and watched as the collected remains were gathered close to where the marines were working away at a pit deep enough to take them. A soldier walked up with a helmet that had evidently been stoved in by a heavy blow, the remnant of a centurion’s crest holder bent over almost at a right angle.
‘That’s the first spear’s helmet.’
Varus walked over to the man and took the damaged helmet from him almost reverentially, turning back to Marcus. The iron bowl’s interior was black with dried blood, and the heavy iron brow guard was notched in three places.
‘He went down fighting.’
Varus nodded.
‘I never doubted it. He used to say that if he was going to the underworld he’d be taking a few men with him on the boat ride.’
‘Will you keep the helmet?’
The younger man shook his head.
‘It belongs here with the rest of him.’
He placed it down onto the pile of iron and bone, stepping back and bowing his head in a moment of silence.
‘I’ll come back this way when we’re done and tell him what happened. If we’re not all dead …’
The remainder of the day’s march was conducted in a sombre silence broken only by the rattling jingle of the legionaries’ equipment and their officers’ shouted commands. When Julius drove his men through a fresh series of drills incorporating the iron-tipped stakes, there was little of the usual complaint from men sobered by the day’s discovery. The same routine ensued the following night, each cohort competing to be the first to have all of their stakes set in the ground, and their legionaries set in a defensive line in front of the pointed iron heads. Called upon to judge the competition, Scaurus declared the result too close to call, and rewarded the legion with the promise of a day’s holiday once they reached Nisibis. He strolled back to the command tent with Julius and Marcus, musing thoughtfully on the likelihood of their seeing action the next day.
‘I thought they’d be on us the moment we left Constantina, given enough notice from their men in Edessa, but perhaps King Abgar was right when he told us that he’s killed every spy in the city. Whoever it is that’s commanding the opposition isn’t going to want to let us get much closer though, or he risks our slipping past him in the night and reaching Nisibis unchallenged. It has to be tomorrow, if it’s going to happen at all.’
‘Perhaps they’ve packed up and gone home, rather than face the might of Rome’s retribution?’
Scaurus laughed softly at Julius’s grim jest.
‘Perhaps.’
The legion marched at dawn, a brisk, cold wind out of the north ruffling the centurions’ crests and blowing the dust from the soldiers’ booted feet away, preventing it from rising in the usual choking cloud that frequently forced men to tie scarves across their faces. Felix’s Phrygians ranged forward to the east, tasked with seeing how far they could ride towards the city before encountering the enemy. He returned at the canter two hours later, his horses sweating heavily at their exertions. Reining his mount in alongside Scaurus, he pointed back the way he’d come.
‘Those friends you were expecting are somewhere close to hand. We ambushed a party of their scouts about ten miles further on.’
The legatus looked up at him, taking in the blood spattered across the prefect’s armour.
‘Did any of them get away?’
The cavalryman shook his head.
‘No, Legatus. I lost a dozen men, but we ran them all down. By the time we were done there was dust on the horizon. A lot of dust.’
Scaurus turned to his scout.
‘You know where we are. Does our plan still work, given this ground?’
The man answered without hesitation.
‘Yes. But we must move swiftly.’
Scaurus turned to Julius.
‘As we planned it last night then.’
The senior centurion saluted and turned away, beckoning his trumpeter to his side, while Scaurus looked back up at prefect Felix.
‘Lucky by name, lucky by nature, eh Felix?’
The younger man grinned down at him.
‘Sometimes, Legatus, sometimes. At least this time I managed not to get an arrow in my armpit.’
‘Just as well. Tribune Corvus’s wife won’t be there to perform miracles if you should manage to get yourself perforated this time.’
The legatus paused for a moment, looking down at his dusty boots as the trumpeter’s call rang out across the legion’s length.
‘You know what I need from you now, don’t you Prefect?’
His eyes narrowed at the sudden bray of Julius’s trumpeters, and both men watched as the column’s head abruptly turned left, leaving the road and heading north across the open landscape. Felix looked along the legion’s snakelike length with a fresh grin and raised an eyebrow at his commander.
‘I suspect I can guess, Legatus. Many of those unfriendly men over there …’
He waved a vague hand in the direction from which he had ridden.