Chapter XXXII

 

 

 

Mad, I take arms, yet in arms there is little reason. – Vergil, Aeneid

 

For Malorix the familiar smell of sun-baked leather, the rough smoothness of the reins wound tightly round his right hand, the light slap of the shield on his shoulder, and the reassuring rub of the cheek guards of Silo’s helmet are now the limits of his sensory world. His left hand moves instinctively through the leather thong at the base of his war axe, and his fingers wrap themselves firmly around the grip.

The Romans ride tight together, such that his knees are rubbed by horse and rider to either side. He feels more than sees Balera and Quirinus flanking him at the point of what has become a Roman wedge. They make no effort at tactics, or to save their horses by restraining them and releasing them to the gallop only at the last moment. This charge can have but one ending, so from the moment of their lightning turn they have pushed them to the limit. For though the Roman position is hopeless, such success as they are likely to muster depends on speed. Every Roman knows they must close the distance quickly to take the Parthian archers out of the battle.

Contact is made at last with a violence so jarring a hole is prised into the Parthian line like a deep, open wound. Steel meets screaming sinew. Within seconds the Romans lay waste to scores of horse archers. For lack of armour or ready shields, the lead Parthians are easy prey to the rapid thrusts of short swords in the unexpected close action. Malorix registers the terror on the faces of the enemy with satisfaction as they scramble to evade the onslaught and their front crumbles in confusion.

Malorix swings his axe with fury, raising it high over his head striking with powerful downward strokes into the crush of tightly packed horses and men. The violence is immediate and shocking, and at the same time somehow distant. His body engages with animal automaticity even as his mind remains detached, as though he is in the colosseum watching the bloody events unfold from the comfort of a spectator’s box. His axe splits helmets and shields, hungrily seeking the unprotected flesh beneath. Malorix registers the voice of Quirinus over the din bellowing, "Keep tight to the bastards, sons of Rome!"

Parthian officers scream unintelligible orders as their archers loose arrows like as not destined to kill their brethren as kill a Roman. The momentum of the Roman charge meanwhile has taken them deep inside the enemy formation, and the leading edges of the Parthian line now completely encircle the Roman rear. Volleys of arrows cease, and the Romans press outward, a circle within a circle. Malorix feels their savage ferocity and it feeds his own.

Across the jumble of helmeted horsemen he spies an officer in ornate black and golden armour. Vasiges. He urges Athroula in the direction of the Parthian commander, but movement proves impossible. A vast array of horses and men lies between them, each man inextricably enmeshed in his place within the death struggle.

The Parthian disorder is as total as their surprise is complete, but it cannot last. For every man engaged close to the centre of the clash, Malorix can make out three more lining up on the margins, their officers organizing them to unleash the first lethal volley. The Parthian horse archers give ground to heavily armoured cataphracts brought up from the rear. With ten-foot lances and armoured horses, they assemble in twos and threes near the line of engagement thrusting at exposed Roman arms and legs from behind the protection of their swordsmen. Armoured clibanarii carrying heavy shields and maces tipped with iron moved to the fray. Against these skilled troops Roman progress wanes.

The battlefield has become obscured by a curtain of fine particles propelled aloft by the pounding of horses’ hooves. Driving his axe deep into the crest of a helmet, Malorix feels rather than sees the shaft shatter and the axe head fall away. As the splintered remains fall from his hand he reaches down drawing his father’s sword from its sheath. A Parthian mace batters at his shield, sending splinters of wood flying into the air. He drives the rim into the throat of his assailant who disappears screaming into the maelstrom of animals and men.

A sword cuts his thigh forcing him to turn to meet this new threat. Soon his shield begins to feel heavy on his arm as he swings it repeatedly from side to side fending off the never-ending waves of attackers. Blows from the heavy Parthian maces work their incremental damage. When at last the iron boss of his shield is hammered flat and the wooden core can resist no longer, it shatters, leaving in its place a tangle of leather, wood and iron. Malorix throws the remnant in the face of his next assailant and grips his sword with both hands. Now, it must serve as sword and shield.

A trumpet sounds. Malorix senses hesitation in the Parthian ranks as he catches a glimpse of Alan horse archers circling the outer ring of the Parthian rear-guard. A second Alan band wheels around the opposite flank, releasing sweeping volleys of archer-fire from their powerful bows. Immediately, a force of Parthian cavalry peel from the main body to address this new threat.

"Well done, Alanis!" he shouts, despite knowing it changes nothing. Certainly not the outcome of this fight. The mêlée gathers fury, and though caught up facing one adversary after another Malorix is able to take account of the individual struggles around him. Among these, one in particular holds his attention, bringing into the open at last the forces that have led him to this strange end. The lone witness to heaven’s design. The unfolding of the battle within the battle.

Two champions, afoot, squared off—both Roman, both centurions. Blow exchanged for shattering blow, with a violence such as Malorix has never seen. Two dream figures, but he is not dreaming.

Before his eyes they clash in a scene lifted from the verses of Homer. The face of one a mask of rage and hate. The Reaper fights bound by unknowable forces on its quest to destroy the last vestiges of the IX^th Legion. Its opponent, like a god or some ancient hero of Troy returned to earth to join the Roman cause. Through glimpses that appear and reappear in the haze of battle, however, Malorix sees no god. This face is familiar, smiling, in its element. It is the face of battle, the face of Afranius Silo.

Gripped by this spectacle, it seems to Malorix that he has fallen out of time and that the battle raging around him is somehow distant now, a titanic struggle of Hector and Achilles beheld in a dream-state. Rude awakening comes by way of the business end of a Parthian spear that wedges between the bands of his cuirass and cuts his flesh. He breaks the shaft with his sword and with a cry of rage and pain resumes his own grim commerce in death.

Veterans sometimes speak of the clamour of battle, how it rises and falls in moments of greater and lesser intensity. Now is such a moment, as the tumult climbs to the very seat of the gods and the screams of the dying rend the air through the clash of metal on metal. Then, abruptly, all is transformed. Malorix is no longer assailed on all sides, though he can still see the indistinct shapes of the enemy in the choking obscurity. The sound ebbs, he loses contact with the enemy. Dust hangs in the air, suspended in roiling eddies. Are they alone? Dead?

The air clears, revealing that the Parthian commanders have managed to restore order among the horse archers. The clibanari have fallen back to create space for them to strike. The first volley arrives. Malorix feels the staccato percussion of arrows against his helmet and armour. Athroula staggers as she is hit. Horses and riders fall. A legionary lies on the ground nearby struggling to free himself from beneath his fallen horse. With the second volley, Malorix' cuirass bristles with the shafts embedded there.

The Parthian fire is heavy, pelting the Romans as rain will surge in a summer shower. Malorix can make out Quirinus swaying in the saddle, and feels the first sharp pain as an arrow penetrates his armour. A shaft protrudes from his thigh. He contemplates it with detachment then gazes upward. A glimpse of a blue sky, even a Parthian sky, would be a good thing with which to end his days. "It will happen now," he murmurs. His arms are heavy. He arches in the saddle, turns his face skyward and closes his eyes for the final volley. Targitai is surely satisfied with this.

Poised for death, Malorix waits—until he realises he has been waiting a very long time. The expected salvo does not arrive, the clash of weapons and the rattle of arrows no longer audible. He looks around, vaguely comprehending the bloodied image of Balera whose confused expression mirrors his own. To the northeast, he spies a dark line cresting the horizon and moving rapidly toward them. The line spreads longer and longer over the low hills, writhing like a living thing, a new and unknown entry in this deadly drama. He feels the nervous twitching of the Parthian horses, the tentative gestures of their riders, the turning to commanders, seeking orders. Indecision.

Without real understanding of the change in their circumstances Malorix shouts. "Romans to me! Romans to me!"

Those still among the living gather around him. Balera and Quirinus are yet mounted, the latter swaying dangerously in the saddle. His horse falls to its knees, the number of shafts arrows embedded in its flanks impossible to count. Unhorsed Roman soldiers stagger like drunken porcupines. Malorix parries a few half-hearted spear-thrusts from a thinning rank of cataphracts. A few Parthians yet remain close enough that he can read their eyes, and his spirit rises as he sees what is written there, the fading triumph, the fear. They are drifting away in the grip of the soldier’s worst enemy … uncertainty.

A trumpet sounds. The drift becomes a torrent. Malorix briefly considers pursuit, but in his pain and fatigue merely watches them leave. Unable to respond to the new threat he hangs in the saddle, watching in fascination as the wave, no longer distant, rolls towards him. A trio of Parthian horse archers shoot past in full flight, horses’ necks extended, ears full back, eyes wide, lungs straining. Malorix finds himself laughing wildly. The dark line of horsemen grows, and he is for the first time able to distinguish details of their appearance.

Their horses are of the steppe, short and shaggy, but these are not kinsmen of Alanis. The Alans ride tall, these are dark and squat. Hunched in their saddles it is impossible to discern where the man ends and the horse begins. Instead they seem a new creature, half man and half horse. They come like a single wave, extending from horizon to horizon. For speed, power, and sheer ferocity, their charge is like nothing in his experience. It is as though the earth has split open and spewed forth a broth of demons on horseback. The twisting, churning mass is upon them so quickly that the Romans can do little more than brace for the impact.

The eerie echo of their war cries and the hammering of their horses’ hooves on the earth grow to a crescendo then ebb as they forge past, ignoring the Romans like a wave flowing past boulders on a beach. Their sole object is the retreating Parthians, whose reluctant withdrawal has transformed into a disorderly rout. As the last of the Parthian horses disappear to the south, the ferocious charge ends abruptly, and as one man the invaders turn to where Malorix and his tiny band are huddled like so many wounded sheep, for the slaughter.

 

* * * * *

 

Balera’s breathe is heavy as he pulls a Parthian arrow from his saddle. "If we are dead," he says to Malorix, "why am I in pain? And if we live, what underworld creatures are these?"

Malorix has no response. Vaguely he registers a trickle of blood running down his back where an arrow has split Silo’s armour below the shoulder. The arrow-shaft protruding from his left thigh elicits little interest, he being reduced to spectator as his blood migrates like spider veins through cloth of his breeches and down his leg.

Looking up at last, he sees horsemen in every direction. Five hundred? A thousand, more like. "If Lucian wants the bastards counted," he says groggily, "he can count them himself."

Their helmets are trimmed with leather, furs and animal horn. Many keep their cheek protectors open revealing faces that seem like images of monsters conjured up round a campfire by old men to frighten children. They are dark-skinned, and their eyes … They seem to Malorix not to have eyes as much as small holes in their faces where eyes should be. Their noses are very flat, cheeks covered in paint, deep scars, gashes. Soundlessly, they gather in an ever-tighter circle around the remaining Romans.

A pair of standards can be seen winding sedately through the horde. The standard bearers halt before the Romans. Another horseman appears. He is larger and heavier than the others, his dress more ornate. His helmet is round, a composite of iron strips ascending to a point, upon which sits the glowering figure of a golden dragon. His armour is mail, covered with lamellar plates, rising just above his chest towards a wide band that holds his neck captive in an iron basket. The arm guards and greaves are likewise gilded. His horse is unarmoured, but its leather harness is adorned with a rich panoply of precious stones of red and green set in golden plaques. A chain of skulls hangs from the pommel of his saddle, and to the back of it, trains of human scalps decorate a jewelled quiver bristling with arrows.

The face of this man is chipped from volcanic stone. Its surface featureless, broken only by the whites of eyes set into slanted sockets which create an impression of extreme malice. A thin strip of hair snakes along his upper lip and connects to hair on his chin too thin to be called a beard. His cheeks are marked by deep vertical scars.

The warrior regards Malorix with an expression akin to exultation. To the extent that he can still focus, Malorix returns his gaze. The only sound apparent to him now is the occasional snort or stamp of a horse and the gusting moan of the wind. They remain thus for what seems like hours, as the torpor that follows the rage of battle grows on Malorix. When the newcomer finally speaks, Malorix imagines he can make out words, although not their meaning.

Alanis appears out of this dream, accompanied by Szoran and Beogar. The creature in the dragon helmet speaks again. A kind of singsong, and like everything else about the new arrivals, it is strange and otherworldly. To his surprise, however, Alanis inaugurates similar noises. The exchange is brief. She rides to where Malorix sits slumped in his saddle.

"How is it with you, Sarmatian?"

"As you see," he says blankly. "What are these?"

"Huns."

Huns. The word, like the Huns, is strange. "We trade with them, but they are terrible warriors. The Alans fear nothing except the Huns. They should not be here. Their lands lie many weeks of riding to the east."

"You speak their tongue."

"A little."

The dragon helmet urges his horse closer. Malorix comes vaguely alert, not only because Alanis is shaking him by the shoulder but because of the terrible odour that seems to emanate from every part of the Hun.

"This one is Apsikal, the Hun chieftain," Alanis says. "He claims to know you." Apsikal kicks his horse forward again, so close that the upper part of his leg rests against Athroula’s flank. The smell is overwhelming. The Hun reaches tentatively toward Malorix and touches the broken crest of his helmet. When he speaks the sound is harsh, and deadly serious. He reaches out and places his hand gently on Malorix’ forearm.

"He says you have plagued him for many months now," Alanis translates.

"I?"

"He says he has ridden a thousand miles. You have come to him many times in his dreams. He has come to this place as you have bidden." She waits as the Hun leader speaks again. "He says …" She breaks off in apparent confused. "I do not understand. He says he is glad that your arm has been returned to you."

Malorix is barely conscious. He wants to sleep, and this mad Hun won’t stop talking. What does he want, prattling on and on in this strange language?

"Malorix." A voice. "Malorix!" Alanis again. "What does he want? What should I say to him?"

Malorix feels as though he is sliding from the saddle. "Want? How do I know what he wants?"

She grabs him roughly and pulls him upright in the saddle. "Stay with us, Malorix. What does he mean? What about your arm?"

Malorix considers the question through demi-conscious fog and smiles. "Silo ... he thinks …" He struggles for breath and tries again. "My armour, from the centurion in the grave. Alanis, tell him, tell him … Thank him for coming as I have bidden. Tell him I will haunt his dreams no longer."

Alanis looks blankly, then repeats his words for the Hun Chieftain.

Apsikal listens carefully as Alanis delivers a hesitant string of words. A long pause ensues as he seems to consider what he has heard. He speaks again in his guttural singsong and with satisfied grunt turns his horse away. As the Hun leader withdraws, flanked by his standard bearers, the Hunnish horde gives way before him. When he reaches open ground, as if by a secret signal the entire multitude launches into a gallop behind him. The Huns promptly disappear from view, enveloped into a cloud that recedes toward the eastern horizon, leaving the Romans and Alans in sole possession of the bloody field.

 

* * * * *

 

Standing on a rocky outcrop to the south of the battlefield Duris unleashes a final arrow at the retreating Parthians. It falls harmlessly behind the rearmost rider, the only rider among them that Duris recognizes. The one who had led a small squad of Parthian troops at Stravin, troops that had tried, and failed, to track him down.

Hunched in the protection of nearby boulders Polydius clutches the reins of their horses. Below them in the sand a horse groans and utters low whinnies. It struggles vainly to stand, its forelegs useless, abdomen pierced by Parthian missiles. Beyond it, Gelanor lies on his back, eyes skyward, a bloody shaft protruding from a neck now beyond sensation.

Duris rests his gaze on the lone figure as it pursues the Parthian squadron southward. He watches the shape grow ever smaller in the distance, then takes note of the way Cocconas breaks away alone and recedes from sight, heading resolutely westward.