The infiltrators broke on the men guarding the prisoners in a wave of iron and muscle, their captured armour buying them precious time while the men who stood in their path wasted their chances to defend themselves, fooled by the sight of Romans running towards them. Drawing their swords at the last possible moment, the dozen-strong raiding party tore into the guards with the abandoned ferocity of men who knew that they were already dead. At the cost of four of their number, they left ten men dead and dying on the thin grass, hurdling the fallen with desperate haste.
‘Intruders! Stand and fight!’
Marcus, standing by Osroes with an ear cocked for the sounds of battle from the camp’s perimeter, started as he heard the screams and shouts of closer combat. Realising what was happening, he pulled the dagger from his belt and handed it to Gurgen, who stared back at him in amazement.
‘Free your warriors.’
Marcus waved his good hand to indicate the men about them, then turned away, drawing the gladius from his left hip.
‘And be ready to defend your king. This is a suicide mission, and it can only have one purpose.’
Stalking forward with the sword held low, he watched as the fast-moving attackers stormed into the tent party of legionaries who stood between them and their quarry. Alerted, and with their blades drawn and shields set, the Romans advanced to meet them in a solid line, but from the moment that the two forces clashed it was evident that the fight was one-sided. While the legionaries fought in the way they had been drilled for years, their attackers, each of them bigger and better trained than the soldiers, and with the joy of battle surging in their veins, gave battle with unmatchable speed and purpose. Hacking their way into the guards without regard for their own danger, they wrought swirling, lethal chaos, killing two of the defenders for each one of them that fell.
As the last few men under his command fought for their lives, their centurion took one of the enemy down with a perfect shield punch and brutal sword stroke, disembowelling the Parthian despite his borrowed plate armour, then died in his turn with a sword blade rammed through his neck. The last two men turned to run, falling to the attackers’ swords as those of the raiding party still on their feet stormed through them, and came face-to-face with the gathered prisoners. Freed by Gurgen with swift strokes of the dagger Marcus had thrust upon him, they had been marshalled into a line that stood squarely in the path to the tent within which Osroes lay. Their leader limped forward, his sword arm red with the blood of the legionaries he had killed, his right leg a bloody ruin barely strong enough to keep him erect.
‘The king! Where is the king?!’
The newly freed men looked at the noble in silence, only Gurgen having the authority to challenge him.
‘Do you come to free him, or to kill him?’
Another man took a step forward, raising his gore-slathered blade.
‘They’ll kill him anyway, once they reach Nisibis! Stand aside!’
Gurgen shook his head, raising a hand.
‘They’ve promised to free us all! The king needs-’
Osroes could be seen in the tent’s doorway behind his protector, and the raiding party’s leader looked down his sword at the red-headed warrior, his face white with blood loss and fury.
‘I haven’t sold my life this night to buy your lies, Gurgen! Get out of my path, the king must die!’
Gurgen pointed at the would-be assassins, bellowing an order at the freed prisoners.
‘Defend the king!’
They stormed forward, the bravest of them dying on their amazed countrymen’s swords before the remainder overwhelmed the infiltrators in a flurry of fists and boots. Marcus turned away, a flicker of motion at the edge of his vision the only warning he got before the last of them was upon him. The man must have lagged behind, waiting for the opportunity to strike in case the assassins lacked the nerve to carry through their grisly task. Raising his sword the Roman barely managed to parry the first blow, and was still turning back to face the threat when a swift fist to the face staggered him for an instant, long enough for the assailant to hook his ankle and send him sprawling and momentarily unfocused, laying him wide open to the death stroke.
He tensed, knowing that his stunned wits were no match for the man looming over him with a shining bar of razor-sharp metal in his hand, but the attacker was already past him with the sword raised, ready to kill and closing in on Osroes with clear intent. As the assassin ran the last few steps, drawing the blade back to strike, a legion-issue javelin hit him squarely between the shoulder blades, dropping him onto his knees with a foot of iron protruding from his chest.
Pulled backwards by the weight of the spear’s wooden shaft he struggled forward a step, inching closer to the king, and Marcus rolled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his wounded arm to put the spatha’s blade at his throat. Shaking his head to regain his sense, he lifted the sword’s point, forcing the dying man back from his intended victim.
‘Give it up. You’re a dead man, with nothing left but go to your grave with dignity.’
The assassin’s head turned with painful slowness until he could see the Roman standing over him. Blood was running down the spear’s shaft and pooling at the base.
‘Should have … killed you.’
Marcus shook his head.
‘I didn’t throw the spear. He did.’
Gurgen stepped forward.
‘No one kills my king, not while I have the breath to resist.’
He stared at the stricken killer.
‘I know you. You’re Narsai’s man.’
The killer shrugged.
‘Tell them … how close … I came …’
He snatched at Marcus’s blade with quivering fingers, forcing it into his throat with a lunge that cut his palms to the bone and ripped through the veins in his neck. Bubbling an inaudible curse he sagged back onto the spear, ruined hands falling from the blade to hang on either side.
‘That was a good throw.’
The bidaxs shrugged.
‘I didn’t see anyone else in a position to stop him. And there’s your proof – Narsai wanted the king dead so that he could kill you all.’
‘Us all.’
They turned to find Julius and Scaurus behind them, both men holding their swords ready to use, and the legatus strolled forward with a grimace at the assassin’s corpse.
‘We’ll have the prisoners bound again shall we, First Spear? And I’d be altogether happier if that dagger you’re holding was to find its way back into the tribune’s sheath.’
Gurgen handed the weapon back to Marcus and held out his hands for the rope.
‘Not you. Tribune Corvus here needs someone to help with the king, and you’ve certainly proven your dedication to the man. We march at dawn.’
The enemy horse archers were waiting when the legion broke camp in the morning, and Julius stared at them with a grim expression as his soldiers prepared for the day’s march.
‘So now we get to find out just how much power Narsai has over Osroes’ nobles. If they’re willing to sacrifice their king, they’ll start loosing arrows at us the moment we’re out of camp.’
Scaurus cocked an eyebrow at the king.
‘What do you think, Your Highness? Do your nobles love you enough to resist Narsai’s pressure?’
Osroes shook his head, still perpetually weary.
‘Of course not. I’ve been their king for little more than two years, and the previous ruler was a much loved man. He may have died in his bed peacefully enough, but I suspect that his death was too well timed for some of them to accept as being without some other cause.’
‘And everyone loves the idea of a conspiracy, especially where the possibility of what they fear holds some credibility.’
‘Indeed. So in this case, Legatus, there are three factors in play.’
Scaurus frowned.
‘Three? I can see the balance between their fear of what Narsai might do to them if they don’t obey him and attack today, set against their fear of what your father might do to them if they do – what’s the third factor in play?’