They waited, each side trying to gather its strength. One of the Huns in the line threw back his head and, face to the sky, he held his sword to the heavens and began to sing, a strange gutteral cry, rising and falling. He was calling upon the primal spirits of the earth and sky to accept him. The others took up the death cry in unison and the Huns prepared to die.
To Casca's ear, the combined voices of the Huns were not unlike the howling wail of wolves. The final note of the death song faded. Small fires flared up, then died under the stamping hooves of the horses. Smoke bit at their eyes, causing tears to run freely from the eyes of the Persians as well as from those of their foe. They waited, both sides crying, the moment tense while each watched the other. Then, at an unspoken command, the Huns broke and charged. The wild creatures of thesteppes whipped their flagging beasts into a ragged gallop. The Persians waited until only a hundred feet separated them, then raised their bows and fired. The arrows, streaking single shafts of death, glided through the air to find their targets. The Huns went down under the rain of wooden shafts and the Persians dropped their bows and drew swords to close in upon the survivors.
Casca raced the short distance with his men; blood pounding in his temples, face red from exertion, hands sweaty, the cords standing out in his neck, he struck again and again, the longer Persian blade reaching out to lay open the bellies or throats of all he could reach. One black, gap-toothed mouth after another disappeared in a mask of blood. The Huns gave no real resistance. They had in song conceded the fight before they'd charged. This was only their way of showing courage before death. And it came at the merciless hands of the Persian Cavalry. None were spared. Even the wounded horses of the Huns were put to the sword to lie kicking beside their bestial masters, who now in death seemed ridiculously harmless. They were merely dark, broken, bleeding clumps, spotting the ground in their filthy furs and leather trousers. Dark pools of their life source marked the spot where each lay, waiting for the birds and hungry jackals.
The Persians were now starting to take heads- trophies to take back with them-but Casca put a stop to it. He did not relish riding three hundred miles with the smell of rotting meat in his nostrils each step of the way. With some reluctance, his men obeyed and tossed the heads they'd collectedback to the ground to lie mute on the stones of the plain's floor, eyes open, watching their killers.
Casca and his riders moved away from the killing ground, away from the smoke and mess of the grass fire to a spot by the river where they could rest and water themselves and their animals. Each of them took turns soaking their bodies in the waters of the Oxus, but only a couple of them ventured out farther than a few feet from the shore. The Persians were plainsmen or from the hill tribes and few knew the art of swimming.
Casca stripped to his loincloth and let the rushing waters rinse the smell of smoke and the stench of blood from his body. The sight of his scars and the knotted twisted muscles that rippled and turned with his every movement gave him new respect in the eyes of his warriors. Casca knew he was being watched and wondered if they would have liked to earn his muscles and scars the way he had, from years on the rowing benches of galleys. He had always been a relatively stout man, but the endless months of keeping time to thehorator's beat had given him a strength in his wrists and back that only one who'd served likewise could have. He'd met stronger men than himself in his lifetime but they'd been few.
The water felt good. It eased the ache in his butt from days in the hard saddle. The inside of his thighs were rubbed sore. He knew the aching would pass soon and for now it was sheer luxury to just get off the damned mobile torture rack for awhile.
He gave the order to set up camp and for cooking fires to be lit. The horses were to be taken careof and put on a line where they could be fed and watched. Details were sent out to gather wood and to cut some of the high grass for use as fodder for the mounts.
Following this was the cleaning of all weapons and the cleaning of blood from their clothes. Good soldiers were sharp soldiers.
Here they would spend the night before the long journey back to Nev-Shapur. Rest had been well earned by these Persian warriors.
Casca slept fitfully, remembering the five thousand condemned men.
SEVEN
They rose from their beds before dawn and made ready to ride. The miles dropped rapidly behind them this time; there were no interruptions to their journey. The warriors, it seemed, were in good spirits. Even the wounded made little complaint about their injuries.
After two days march, Casca decided to leave the wounded behind with a strong escort and move on ahead with only a few guards. They'd make even better time that way.
He and his guards ran into the survey party of Imhept the Egyptian. They were returning from surveying the flow of rivers to the north. With pleasure, Casca joined his own party with that of Imhept. He'd always been impressed with the quiet strength of the mild-mannered scholar.
The two men, a warrior and a scholar, passed the hours with ease. They had much to talk about. From Imhept, Casca learned many things about the ancient Egyptians. He learned of their gods and their religious beliefs, and of their ways of life. He was amazed at how many centuries the Egyptians had ruled as a power. It made the few centuries of Roman rule seem pitifully short and from the looks of things, he couldn't see much possibility of Rome even coming close to the thousands of years that Imhept had told him of the dynasties of Egypt.
They were only a day's ride from Nev-Shapur when he called a halt for them to rest and clean themselves up a bit before going on. Also, it would give him a little more time with his newfound friend. Casca was really fond of the bald little man and he hoped that their individual duties would not keep them apart too often.
He was enjoying the brief respite from the trail as he and Imhept walked through the streets of a village close to their campsite. To both their delights, the annual festival was taking place there. Casca had wondered about the number of tents and yurts that were scattered around the outskirts of the village, but had thought at the time that it might just be a time for trading or census that had brought so many tribesmen in from the desert and mountains.
That was part of it, too, but the real reason was the holding of the annualBuzkash during the festival. He had never seen one before, but he was aware that the wild tribesmen of the north were heavily addicted to the sport. The villagers, being lowlanders, didn't participate in the game and Casca didn't blame them. It looked damned rough, and dangerous as well, to a man's health.
From what he had seen so far, he figured that the idea was basically this: two sides mounted up and faced each other around the carcass of a decapitated calf on the ground. Then they would proceed to have a free-for-all. One side would grab the carcass and try to race around the field to a markedspot and set it down before the competition could take it away from them. It sounded simple enough until you realized that either side could use anything other than knives and swords to get the damned thing away from your team. This included ramming one another with their horses, hitting with fists, and lashing the others with short riding crops.
It was not unusual for two or three men from each team to be killed, or at least crippled, in each event. Each event was settled through a process of elimination as to who was the victor. The prizes varied each time. A horse this time, a slave girl the next. The nomads all had one thing in common: they were proud, fierce men who took offense easily and normally spent most of their time either robbing or killing one another, but during the festival of theBuzkash, there would be no fighting among themselves, except on the field. In their faces he saw traces of the Mongol mingled with the fair hair and blue eyes of the Kushanites, who claimed they were the descendents of the armies of Alexander.
In the open-air market place, the vendors cried out for the noble lords to see and buy their goods. Everything was for sale, even their women. Casca was tempted but rejected the women, mostly because he didn't wish to offend the sensibilities of his companion.
They had made their own camp and Casca regretted that they had no baths. But he would at least wipe the worst of the trail dust from him and have his uniform taken to the stream where it would be stone-pounded and washed by a couple of the village women. It wouldn't help much, but it would perhaps remove a little of the sour smell ofoverheated horse and stale blood from it.
While this was being accomplished, he lay around in the shade in his loincloth, enjoying an evening breeze that helped to cool his body and diminish some of the aches of battle and days in the saddle. He regretted that he
