Peter Darman - Parthian Vengeance

The Battle of Susa was over.

There was no pursuit, no triumphal gatherings or after-battle boasting and bravado. Both men and beasts were at the limits of their endurance, having expended their last reserves of energy. We forgot that we had won a great victory as all our attention was diverted to the welfare of our horses. Dehydrated, sweating in the heat and many encased in scale armour, they were in dire need of water and rest. Horse archers slid from saddles and collapsed onto the ground, totally exhausted, their horses stumbling and wandering round them in a similar state.

I slid off Remus’ back and called to Gallia. ‘Help me with his armour.’

I felt queasy and lethargic myself now that Alcaeus’ magic concoction was wearing off and found unbuckling the straps that held his armour in place difficult.

Gallia walked over and assisted me as I felt the last reserves of strength drain from my body. I could not focus my eyes and my breathing was laboured.

‘You rest,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

Praxima came over to assist her friend heave the heavy hide suit off Remus’ back and onto the ground. He was breathing heavily and matted in sweat. Around us the cataphracts were also stripping their horses of their armour before discarding their own hide suits.

I unfastened my leg and arm armour and then with difficulty pulled my scale armour suit over my head and dumped it on the ground. My arms felt like lead and I could barely stand. I glance over to Orodes and Gafarn who were in a similar state.

‘He needs walking to the river,’ I said to Gallia weakly.

She also looked drained, no doubt suffering similar effects.

‘I will take him, lord,’ said Praxima, ‘have no fear.’

‘Thank you Praxima.’

They were the last words I remember saying before passing out.

I awoke in a cot in the hospital section of the camp, the first thing I saw being the crystal clear blue sky above me in the gaps between the canvas roof and then my wife’s pure blue eyes gazing down at me.

‘You are awake, then?’

‘What time is it?’

‘Mid-afternoon,’ she said.

I was confused. ‘That cannot be. How did I get here in so short space of time.’ I tried to rise. ‘How is Remus? He was exhausted.’

She placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘The battle was yesterday, Pacorus, and you have been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours. And unlike you, Remus is fine.’

Alcaeus appeared beside her.

‘Ah, so Hypnos grew tired of your company and sent you back to us, did he?’

‘Who’s Hypnos?’

He feigned surprise. ‘The Greek god of sleep, of course. How are you feeling?’

‘Drained.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, Ma-huang can do that. Still, kept you awake during the battle. Drink plenty of water, not wine, eat regularly and get plenty of rest and you will be fine.’

I looked at Gallia. ‘How is it that you suffered no ill affects?’

‘I did,’ she replied, ‘but unlike you I had not gone without sleep for three nights.’

After drinking copious amounts of water and eating some fruit I was strong enough to walk back to my tent, though not before I had visited the stables to ensure that Remus had recovered. Awnings had been erected over the temporary stables to provide shade for the horses and as I entered his stall he walked over to me and nuzzled his nose in my chest. I stroked his neck.

‘Good to see you, old friend. I was worried about you.’

‘He’s fine now, though when he was brought in yesterday he was done in.’

I recognised the coarse voice of Strabo behind me.

‘No riding him for at least a week. He’s not as young as he was despite what you think.’

He leered at Gallia and bowed his head at her.

‘Majesty.’

She frowned back as he stood beside me.

‘We lost five hundred horses yesterday to fatigue; their hearts just gave way.’ There was great sadness in his voice.

I was astounded. ‘That many?’

‘That is just Dura. The other kings must have lost more, to say nothing of the hundreds of camels that have also been slaughtered. It is a right mess that will take a while to sort out.’

‘Do you think you will lose any more horses,’ asked Gallia with concern.

Strabo faced her and stared at her breasts. ‘If all the fighting’s done then only a few. Those that are down probably won’t get up. But another battle will kill hundreds more, perhaps thousands.’

‘There will not be another battle,’ I reassured him.

Domitus had been right: there had been only one more fight left in the army. It had been a close run thing but we had triumphed, but at a heavy cost. In my state of exhaustion Domitus had handed over control of the camp to Alcaeus and Marcus who set about their new responsibilities with gusto. The first thing the former did was to organise burial details to scour the battlefield to search for Duran dead. The morning roll call after the battle had revealed the names of individuals who were missing from the ranks, and once it had been established that they were not lying in hospital, parties were despatched to find their bodies. It was a grim business but in Dura’s army every man deserved to have a proper cremation if humanly possible. And so thousands of men picked through the dead to retrieve their fallen comrades, who were then consigned to huge pyres that sprang up on the plain.

I gave orders that the body of Narses was to be dumped in the Karkheh, though not before the head was hacked off, taken south to Susa and then stuck on the end of a spear in front of the city walls. When word reached Orodes he immediately countermanded my desire, sending an officer of his bodyguard to explain to me that Narses deserved a cremation according to his high rank and that his men would take the body and deal with it. I was too drained to argue.

The ditch on the eastern and northern sides of the camp was filled with dead hill men whose corpses were already starting to rot and stink, and so Alcaeus ordered that the earth from the ramparts behind these sections of the ditch be used to cover the thousands of corpses. Thousands more dead hill men lay scattered on the ground around the camp so these had to be collected and cremated.

Later that day, in the early evening, Orodes called an assembly of the kings to take stock of our situation. Alcaeus had suggested that we relocate the camp to the River Dez seven miles to the east and I had agreed. To be in such close proximity to huge numbers of dead men and animals was to invite pestilence. There was little point in winning a victory if our army was subsequently wiped out by plague.

‘It does not seem like a victory,’ remarked Orodes, black rings round his eyes and his face dirty and unshaven. He looked as though he had not slept for a week.

Gallia, Atrax, Surena, Viper and Gafarn also looked tired and drained, though Nergal and Praxima were both fresh faced. Orodes had also requested the presence of Marcus, Alcaeus and Domitus at the meeting.

‘The final victory, Orodes,’ I said.

Orodes smiled thinly at me and looked at Marcus. ‘And what is the cost of our victory?’

Marcus stood, cleared his throat and kept glancing at a parchment he held in his hand. ‘Well, sir, I have consulted with the other quartermasters and have arrived at the following totals. Of the foot soldiers, eight thousand Babylonians and a thousand legionaries were killed. Losses among the horsemen total fourteen hundred cataphracts and three hundred Babylonians killed and thirteen thousand horse archers slain.’

‘Thirteen thousand?’ exclaimed Surena with astonishment.

‘I am afraid so,’ remarked Marcus. ‘In addition, nearly four a half thousand squires were killed during the course of the battle. Finally, among the animals we have lost a combined total of eight thousand camels, ten thousand horses and four hundred mules.’