‘They’re driving their men forward to be massacred. They know that every dead spear man makes it that much easier to get over the wall.’
Denied any means of retreat, the Parthian infantry had no choice but to advance across the acrid-smelling mire of blood, urine and faeces towards the makeshift wall, like cattle stampeding away from a hunting predator. All thoughts of retreat forgotten, as the crescent-shaped line of fully armoured men stalked forward and drove the infantry, now little better than a rabble, before them, the spear men washed back up against the defences, staggering almost apologetically back onto the defenders’ implacable spears.
‘Tribune?’
Varus shook his head, clearing the momentary spell of amazement, turning to find Dubnus at his shoulder. He nodded at the bearded centurion, drawing a deep breath.
‘Front rank – spears!’
Three hundred long spears swung from their resting positions, pivoting to point down at the hapless infantry being pressed up against the wall, more than one clearly already considering scrambling over the rough stone rampart to escape the crush.
‘Front rank – engage!’
Dubnus’s voice bellowed out over the Parthians’ terrified din, the unquestioned master of his craft calling his men to battle.
‘Strike!’
The long iron spear heads lanced out as the Tungrians lunged their right arms forward, stabbing into unprotected necks and faces with a ferocity that was made all the more devastating by the lack of resistance being offered by the enemy soldiers.
‘Back!’
Ripping their weapons free, the men around Varus leaned back, pulling their spear arms back behind their heads and waiting for the command, heads turning to the hard-faced first spear as he waited for the dead and dying enemy from their first strike to crumple, and for fresh targets to present themselves. Varus took a spear from a man in the second rank, swallowing his revulsion and swinging the weapon to point down at the milling infantry, drawing his arm back and waiting for the command the entire cohort knew was coming.
‘Strike!’
Thrusting the long shaft forward, he watched as an empty-eyed enemy infantryman opened his arms wide to take the blow, the Parthian’s body shivering as Varus’s foot-long blade slid through the base of his throat and erupted from his back, both wounds spraying fine mists of blood past the blade’s obstruction.
‘Back!’
This isn’t war, this is murder.
The thought struggled for escape through his mouth, the urge to murmur the heresy swelling to a need to scream it at the sky.
‘Strike!’
Looking down the spear’s blade he saw his next victim, a man who had been forced around in the panicking crush until his back was presented to the defenders, his helmet gone and the nape of his neck glistening with the sweat running from his scalp. The blade severed his spine as neatly as a priest’s ceremonial axe taking a bull’s life, dropping the stricken Parthian into the mud to increase the height of their ramp of bodies.
‘Back!’
This isn’t murder, this is slaughter.
‘Strike!’
His spear head lanced forward with those of the men to either side, part of a finely drilled war machine trained until it had no equal in the bloody art of war, three hundred spears striking out in perfect unison to flense the enemy army of its strength. A small part of Varus’s mind exulted in the joy of belonging, of brotherhood with the Tungrians’ warrior tribe and killing alongside men who had terrified him only a fortnight before, but even as he embraced the sheer joy of their collective deadliness, he looked down the spear again, and saw a soldier clearly no more than a child looking back up at him, blood flowing from his mouth as the long iron blade took his young life.
The cataphracts were concentrating again, closing ranks from the long crescent they had used to terrify their infantry forward and into the defenders’ spears, hammering their swords against their armoured shoulders in a rhythmic clash of iron that was slowly gathering pace as they stalked ahead. Spilling out to either side, the spear men scurried to clear a path for the oncoming knights as they headed towards the wall. Julius turned to his legatus with a grim expression, drawing his sword with an iron rasp.
‘I’m no use up here! This is going to come down to a goat fuck, with us as the goat if we’re not careful!’
He turned and was gone, running for the nearest tower with a snapped command to his trumpeter to follow him.
Realising the oncoming knights’ intentions, Varus turned to Dubnus.
‘They’re going to try to break through!’
The Briton nodded, drawing breath to shout a warning to his men.
‘Don’t let them across the wall!’
With terrifying abruptness, it seemed, the armoured men were up close, striding through the scatter of arrows lancing down into them from atop the walls to either side. One of them staggered, a shaft protruding between two iron plates that had become separated rather than overlapping, and as he tottered, his eyes narrowed with agony, the man behind him stepped in and administered the mercy stroke, pushing his corpse forward to lie face down in the mud. More knights flooded forward carrying the fascines that had been dropped by their infantry, swiftly throwing them across the heaped bodies that were piled up against the Roman defences, clearly working to provide a firm path across which an armoured man could pass without the risk of losing his balance, then pulled back to the main body that had halted twenty paces from the wall.
‘Oh no …’
The young tribune watched in horror as the cataphracts took the bows from across their shoulders, reaching back to quivers slung over their backs, and nocked arrows, drawing the strings until the flights touched their ears, forcing the power of their muscular frames into the weapons. The Tungrians needed no instruction, ducking behind their shields and into the wall’s cover, shouting warnings at the ranks of men wanting their turn at the wall, but the marines behind them had no time to ready themselves. The Parthians loosed, their arrows whirring across the makeshift wall and wreaking havoc among the blue tunicked men, nocking fresh arrows and shooting again, and again, each volley aimed a little higher, to fall among the cohorts waiting further back.
‘They’re trying to isolate us!’
Peering carefully over the wall, Varus realised that the enemy had dropped their bows and were striding towards the wall.
‘Up! Here they come!’
Moving as quickly as they could across the treacherously uneven surface of bodies piled up before the wall, and slowed by the weight of their armour, the Parthians were advancing with swords and maces drawn. Before the Tungrians could align their spears, the fastest among them were at the wall, throwing themselves at the low parapet with savage battle cries. Varus realised their predicament an instant before Dubnus, and bellowed the order that he knew was needed if the line was to hold under such an onslaught.
‘Rear rank! Swords!’
Leaping onto the wall’s top, the first of the attackers was still for an instant, regaining his balance and looking down at the soldiers before him, only his eyes visible between his helmet and the chain-mail veil that covered his nose and jaw.
‘Mazda!’
Striking down with the mace as he screamed the war cry, he smashed the closest soldier aside with brutal power, jumping down from the parapet and hacking about him with the sword in his other hand, seeking to drive the Tungrians away from the wall. The men in the rear rank came at him, three soldiers competing to be the one to claim his gold- and silver-chased armour, but the Parthian stepped into their attack with graceful purpose, allowing a stabbing sword to scrape along his armoured sword arm before backhanding the soldier away with his mace, a rising blow shattering his jaw with an audible crack. The other two men hesitated for an instant, and he was on them, stabbing his sword through the closer man’s throat, ripping it out and swinging it wide to strike fast at the last man, hacking the long blade into the base of his neck. Dubnus stepped in close behind him as the Parthian delivered the decapitating blow, swinging his axe’s pick blade into the square of the Parthian’s back, punching through the armour and contorting his body with the sudden agony as the centurion kicked him off the iron spike. But the damage was done. Seeing their comrade’s success in crossing the wall and engaging the defenders, a dozen more cataphracts had followed him up the grisly ramp and thrown themselves at the spot where he’d crossed the rampart. Hacking their way into the hedge of spears that sought to push them away, first one and then another of them succeeding in making it onto the wall’s top and jumping into the fight.