‘Loose!’
The first flight of arrows was high in the air above the Parthians as the second volley flew in their pursuit, and again the archers reached behind them with movements almost too fast to follow.
‘Loose!’
The third volley was launched from the Roman line as the first struck, the isolated but crushing impact of Scorpion bolts suddenly augmented by something much deadlier to the men massed below the legion’s line. Cowering beneath their hopelessly inadequate wicker shields, the leading enemy ranks shivered under the rain of iron, scores of men dropping from their mounts, their bodies spitted by the arrows’ impacts, while some of the horses were hit by two or three of the broad-headed missiles. The screaming of men and animals rent the air, and the watching legionaries muttered to each other in genuine amazement as the Parthian advance slowed to no more than a walk, the ranks of horsemen following up behind obstructed by the dead and dying bodies of their comrades.
A horn blew, a clear and insistent command echoing out across the Parthian army, and the horsemen raised the bows that had been waiting for the command, arrows already nocked to their strings.
‘Have they got the range to hit us from that far out, shooting uphill?’
Qadir pursed his lips at the first spear’s question.
‘Shooting uphill, First Spear, their arrows will be robbed of much of their power to pierce our defences. They won’t be able to reach us here, and they won’t trouble the Scorpions, but they’ll be able to put their arrows into the infantry.’
Julius nodded to his trumpeter, and the horn sounded again.
‘Third legion – cover!’
The command was echoed down the line by his centurions, each century’s front rank promptly kneeling with their shields upright before them, while the second rank crouched behind them with their shields raised at an angle, the other two ranks standing with their boards held over their heads to provide protection against any arrows lofted high into the air above them.
‘Archers – cover!’
Stepping in behind the legion’s line, the Hamians ducked under the shield wall’s roof, while the big men waiting to either side of each Scorpion lifted the massive shields that had lain on the ground before each of the bolt throwers, holding them together to form a wooden wall behind which the crews continued to work their weapons.
The Parthian horns sounded again, and the horsemen loosed a massed volley of arrows that arced up the hillside, seemingly hanging in the sky for a moment before hissing down into the legion’s line, each heavy iron head smacking into the raised shields with a sharp thudding rattle that sounded like winter hail on a wooden roof.
‘The shields are working!’
All along the legion’s line the soldiers’ shields were studded with arrows, but where the missiles would normally have ripped through the wooden boards and into the men behind them, they had for the most part utterly failed to penetrate the enhanced protection afforded by the layers of linen and leather so painstakingly applied in Antioch. Here and there a lucky shot would slip through the inevitable small gaps in the wall of leather-faced wood to find a target, but along the line the Third Gallica’s cohorts were standing firm against the arrow storm. Scaurus grinned back at his genuinely amazed first spear.
‘I wonder which one of the three kings is going to be the most unhappy when they realise what’s happening!’
Few of the arrows had sufficient range to reach the legion’s line of Scorpions, but those that did had no more effect on the giant shields than upon those wielded by the legionaries, protruding in lonely solitude from the protective screens. With a slapping twang the nearest Scorpion spat a bolt over the legionaries’ heads, the missile vanishing into the mass of horsemen with unknown but deadly effect. Some of the Hamians were shooting arrows through small gaps in the line of shields, a rapidly swelling torrent of missiles raining down onto the Parthian archers and adding to the confusion on the plain below.
‘We’ve stopped their advance! They can’t perform their usual trot to within a hundred paces, loose and turn away, not with our Hamians shooting at them and dying horses struggling about the battlefield!’
Scaurus nodded, looking beyond the milling archers to where the Parthian heavy cavalry stood waiting for the moment that their monstrous power would be unleashed to deliver the legion’s death blow.
‘Indeed. I wonder what Osroes is making of this.’
‘They’re killing my archers! We have to do something!’
Narsai was bolt upright in his saddle, his thighs stiffened to raise his body higher for a better view. Ignoring the shouted imprecations of his fellow monarch, Osroes looked over the mass of the combined force of archers, their usual cycle of attack and retreat clearly reduced to a shambles by the growing number of horses and riders who were being killed and wounded by the Romans’ unceasing shower of arrows and artillery bolts. On the slope above them, the enemy line was apparently untroubled by the volleys of arrows that were being launched at them by the remaining archers.
‘There’s something wrong here …’
Narsai leaned in close to him, almost climbing out of his gold- and jewel-encrusted saddle in his urge to be heard, bellowing at Osroes with such vehemence that his saliva spattered across the king’s immaculate gilt armour.
‘The only thing that’s wrong is that we’re sat here doing nothing while good men die at the hands of those fucking invaders!’
Osroes stared at him for a moment before replying, as curiously calm as he always was when the release of violence beckoned him.
‘Show me that much disrespect just one more time, Cousin, and I’ll consider a change of heart as to whether I’m best off fighting the Romans or bringing your toothless little kingdom to heel.’
Narsai jerked backwards as if he’d been stung, one hand straying towards the handle of his mace, but the movement stalled as he considered the threat of the bodyguard clustered around the royal party. Osroes nodded grimly, gesturing at the magnificently equipped heavy cavalry of his most intimate bodyguard.
‘Wise, Narsai.’
He gestured towards the hill before them.
‘Our enemy seems to have our measure, at least so far. By now I would have expected to see gaps starting to appear in their line as our archers thinned out their numbers, but all I see is the Romans standing firm on that slope, seemingly untroubled. They have bolt throwers and archers behind their line, and by some trickery or other, their shields are resisting our arrows.’
He pulled at his lip thoughtfully.
‘And our archers are shooting uphill, at their longest range …’
Turning in his saddle he summoned his gundsalar, the general of his army, the bodyguard around him parting to make a path for the man’s horse.
‘Your counsel, Gundsalar.’
The cavalry commander bowed from the waist.
‘The archers are failing, Highness. They will not break that line, and while they continue to try they will also continue to take casualties. They should be withdrawn, and used to threaten the Romans from another direction to make a shattering blow from our cataphracti possible!’
Narsai nodded violently, pointing at the legion and almost screaming his agreement.
‘We must ride now, Osroes! Now! The honour of our nations depends upon it!’
The king of Media looked round to take the gauge of the third monarch’s commitment, finding Wolgash white-faced with fear.
‘Might a feigned retreat not lure them down from their positions?’
Osroes smiled despite himself, speaking kindly to the young man.