As they laid into the Tungrian front rank, forcing the spear-wielding soldiers to retreat before their flashing swords, more of them followed, their strength growing as the defenders to either side were pushed back until there were more than a dozen of them facing off to the defending soldiers. The cohort’s line was bowed around them, none of the men facing them eager to fight the armoured monsters who had hacked their way through their comrades, and with a sickening jolt of realisation, Varus saw that he was the only officer who could influence the rapidly worsening situation.
He looked around at the marines behind them, realising that Ravilla’s men were in no condition to fight. Fully half the cohort was dead or wounded, the prefect lying on his back with a pair of arrows protruding from his body in front of their ruined line. The remaining troops were effectively leaderless, it seemed, many of their officers seemingly caught in the barrage of arrows that had torn the heart out of their cohort. Making an abrupt decision, the young tribune turned away from the fight, ignoring Dubnus’s amazed stare.
Striding down the ramp he felt the eyes on him, knowing that Scaurus would be watching him from the wall above, and briefly wondered what the man would make of his apparent retreat from the fight that was developing at the makeshift wall. He stopped in front of the marines and raised his voice to a parade-ground bellow of the sort he’d heard the centurions using, but never expected to employ himself.
‘Marines!’
A few eyes lifted from the dead and dying men around them.
‘Marines!’
More men looked up at him, their faces hard with grief and anger.
‘Your comrades lie around you, killed without warning! Your officers are dead, and you do not know what to do! Those Parthian animals have pulled your world apart! And mine, marines, and mine! I have sworn an oath of vengeance to Mithras, that I will take my revenge or die in the act, and now is the time I intend to deliver on that oath! Are you with me?’
They stared at him in bemusement for a moment.
‘Are you with me? Will you stand here and cry over dead men or come with me and take bloody revenge on the bastards that killed them?’
A single marine stepped forward, drawing his sword and pulling the leather cord that held the cheek pieces of his helmet together to tighten their fit, ready to fight.
‘I’m with you, Tribune! I’ll have some of that …’
Another man joined him, and then, as if a collective decision had been made, with a low growl of anger that raised the hairs on the back of his neck, a flood of blue-tunicked soldiers stepped forward, until the only men not with him were either wounded or broken in spirit.
‘Arm yourselves! Swords only, this is going to be a close-quarters fight! Those men are too well armoured to fight fairly, so we’re going to kill them with weight of numbers! Get a man down, then find a gap in his armour and kill him, move on and do it again! My vow will be fulfilled when every one of those fuckers is either dead or on the other side of the wall! So if you’re with me …’
Varus turned back to face the Parthians and ran towards the fight, his last command a hoarse scream of fury.
‘Follow me!’
The gate opened, and Artapanes’ guard shepherded the comrades through it into the biggest garden Marcus had ever seen. Walled on all four sides, the brickwork high enough to obstruct any view from the adjacent palace, it stretched away before them, groves of trees, beds of riotously coloured flowers and stone terraces artfully arranged to provide a vista that was at once restful and stunningly beautiful. The priest gestured to the path before them, stepping forward to lead the three men into the garden.
‘This way.’
He led them into the garden’s grandeur, along a footpath formed of different-coloured paving stones and into a copse of trees, emerging onto a smoothly clipped lawn of lush grass around which stood four heavily armed and armoured palace guards. Beyond the two closest sentries was the familiar figure of Arsaces, deep in conversation with a man Marcus assumed was responsible for the garden’s maintenance, while a fifth guard waited close by with a short roll of golden cloth in his hands. Behind the king a pair of slaves were diligently working on a nearby flower bed, seeking out the first growths of weed and removing them with iron hand-trowels. Another stood close to the path, carefully raking away twigs and leaves that had fallen from the trees in the night, collecting them into neat piles before scooping up the debris with both hands and dropping it into a wooden barrow. Artapanes held up a hand.
‘The barbarians will wait here. Roman, you will come with me.’
Martos shrugged and gestured to Lugos, leading him away to the nearby copse, both men settling comfortably in the shadow of a fully grown cedar. Marcus followed the priest forward, past the closest two guards who turned to watch the two men as they passed, their eyes watchful despite the cleric’s trusted presence.
Prostrating himself, while Marcus bowed as deeply as he did at the first formal audience, Artapanes waited until the king turned from his conversation before speaking.
‘Majesty, I have delivered the Roman as you ordered.’
Arsaces gestured for him to rise, smiling at Marcus.
‘So, Marcus Tribulus Corvus, the time has come for you to leave us. As I promised, my oldest son Vologases will escort you to Nisibis in the company of a detachment of my Immortals. You are honoured. No Roman has ever ridden with them before, and I doubt the experience will be granted to any other. And here is your father’s sword.’
He held a hand out to the guard, who went on one knee to offer him the cloth-wrapped object.
‘I promised to return it to you. You would be wise not to draw it now, but I assure you that it is as it was when you surrendered it to my guards. Although I did suggest they sharpen it.’
Marcus reached out with his good arm and took the sword back, bowing again.
‘I think you, King of Kings. It will never be said in my presence that you fail to keep your word.’
Arsaces inclined his head fractionally.
‘And it will never be said in mine that all Romans lack hunar. I thank you once more for-’
Both men turned in surprise as the man who had handed the king Marcus’s sword grunted in surprise, staggering away from them with an arrow’s fletching sprouting from his chest. Spinning, Marcus saw the two guards closest to the trees slump, their armour inadequate to protect them against the deadly pointed arrows at such close range, then flinched as another pair of missiles zipped past to either side, felling the two men behind the king. Stepping in front of Arsaces, he tensed his body as the pair of archers who had stepped from the trees nocked arrows to their bows and raised them, ready to shoot, but the bowmen simply drew their strings halfway, ready to loose. A stocky armoured figure emerged from the copse behind them, stalking forward with the bow-legged gait of a man born in the saddle, and a moment later a slimmer, taller figure emerged from the foliage behind him. The shorter of the two paced forward slowly with one hand on his sword’s hilt, his words muffled by the silver chainmail across his mouth and nose.