missiles soaring off towards the dust-choked line of the massing enemy. They gave way to a kind of awed silence as the ballista bolts struck home. The Macht spearmen watched as the Honai were battered by that relentless aerial assault. They saw shields tossed high in the air, men cartwheeling, impaled on the heavy bolts like frogs on a skewer.
Beside Rictus, Fornyx gave a low whistle. ‘That is no way for brave men to die,’ he said.
‘They can die any way they like — there are more than enough left over for us all,’ Rictus rasped.
‘What are those troops? They’re just reforming like nothing has happened.’
‘Those are the Honai,’ Rictus said. ‘The Bodyguard. They’re the best he’s got.’
Fornyx smiled. ‘Just as well Corvus has us facing them, then.’
There were three thousand Dogsheads in battle-line opposite the Great King, and they were the centre of Corvus’s line as the Honai were the centre of the enemy’s. Rictus had fought the Honai at Kunaksa. It had been one of the hardest fights of his life, and he had been young then.
But I know more now.
‘Something’s stirring,’ Fornyx said, and there was a rustle of talk through the ranks. Men eased their shields off their shoulders so that their arms took the full weight of the bronze-faced oak. They moved their spears from side to side to loosen the sauroters in the hard ground. A few files across from Rictus someone was pissing where he stood, and the acrid reek of it carried down the ranks, along with the inevitable catcalls and jeers.
‘How does that bastard have enough water in him to piss it out?’ Fornyx asked. ‘I’m dry as an old crone’s cunny. I don’t even have spit.’
The dust flagged up the enemy movement, drawing all their eyes. It was almost imperceptible at first, until the formations began to loosen up and draw apart.
‘He’s coming on willingly enough,’ Rictus said. ‘Corvus was right about that, at least. I’ll bet half his men are still on the road behind, or running up into position.’
‘Fuck,’ Fornyx said with feeling. ‘I’d be running if I had Parmenios’s pins raining down on me.’
‘Ready arms!’ Rictus cried, and up and down the line the centurions took up the cry. The Dogsheads closed up, each man’s shield protecting the spear-arm of the fellow to his left. The phalanx clenched itself like a fist.
‘Stand fast and wait for my word!’ Rictus shouted. ‘File-closers, take the count!’
Starting out on the left, the men began to count down their numbers starting from the front man in the file. The numbers were called out like some repetitive ancient ritual, and it almost seemed like one to Rictus, who had heard it so many times on so many far-flung battlefields.
‘Arrows!’ Someone shouted. ‘’Ware arrows!’
‘Shields up!’ Fornyx bellowed.
They came down in a black rain, Kufr broadheads lancing out of the sky. The Dogsheads lifted the heavy shields and leaned into them, like men sheltering from a storm. The arrow-cloud smote the bronze with an unholy metallic racket, like hammers in a tinsmith’s shop. But even over that noise, Rictus could still hear the distinctive meaty slap as some of them found flesh.
Men were going down, cursing and groaning. It felt as though someone was poking the face of Rictus’s shield with a stick. An arrow came down close enough to his toes to throw dust upon them. Another passed through the transverse horsehair of his helm-crest. He shared a look with Fornyx. The younger man was grinning into his black beard. An arrow skittered off the wing of his armour and bounced away into the faces of the men behind.
‘I thought it looked like rain,’ Fornyx said, and down the line the comment spread, and men managed to laugh at it as their comrades fell about them.
The volleys passed. To the front, the dust had hidden everything again, but out of that dust came the sullen roar of the enemy advance.
‘Wounded to the rear!’ Rictus cried. ‘Close up — close up, lads. We’re about to earn our pay!’
They burst out of the dust thirty paces ahead, a boiling mass of wild-eyed men bearing crescent shields and short spears, no order to their ranks, but stark momentum in their sheer numbers.
‘Spears!’ the order went up, and the aichmes were levelled at the oncoming tide. The phalanx tightened over the bodies of its own dead and wounded. Rictus ducked his face behind the rim of his shield, gritted his teeth, and dug his right heel into the hard ground.
‘See you in hell, brother,’ Fornyx said, teeth bared and set like those of a dog.
‘See you in hell,’ Rictus repeated.
And then the enemy wave slammed into them.
‘The Dogsheads are engaged,’ Parmenios said to Corvus, wiping his hand across his gleaming bald scalp. ‘He moved some of his levies across the front of the Honai, but the move disorganised them some. They should not prove to be a problem for Rictus.’
‘He’s saving his best,’ Ardashir said, and patted the neck of his restless horse.
‘But he is throwing everything else in as fast as he can,’ Corvus said. ‘Good. That is as it should be. Parmenios, you’re sure he had his heavy horse out on our right?’
‘I’m sure. There’s a dried up river-bed out on our left — he doesn’t want his cavalry to break their necks in it. All but a tithe of his horse is facing the Companions. But Corvus — ’
‘Speak up. It’s quite a noise they’re making down there.’
‘He has a hundred thousand men coming up the roads from the east. Once they’re in position, they’ll swamp us.’
‘One thing at a time. Repoint your machines, Parmenios. I want you to start bombarding his cavalry. It doesn’t have to be a heavy fire — just enough to stir them up.’
‘At once.’ Parmenios wheeled his mule, kicking it savagely, and trotted away to the rear, where hundreds of his engineers were working upon the great ballistae. They had piled rocks under the front timbers of the machines to elevate their fire, and a steady train of fast-moving carts were galloping up from the baggage train with fresh missiles to feed them.
A courier cantered up, his face a mask of dust. He had to spit and wipe his mouth before he could speak.
‘My king, Marshal Teresian sent me to say he is heavily engaged out on the left. He is holding, but the enemy is trying to outflank him.’
‘Go to Druze. Tell him to peel off a mora to help Teresian. What’s your name?’
‘Deiros, my king.’
‘Deiros, you must tell Marshal Teresian to hold the line of the riverbed. He cannot retreat from that position. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, my king.’
‘My name is Corvus, lad. Now get going.’
The youngster sped off, eyes alight as though he had been somehow honoured. Ardashir chuckled.
‘You call them lad, now?’
‘I feel old enough to be their father, some of them.’
‘When do you want me to move?’
Corvus grinned, and instantly years fell off him. ‘When I join you, Ardashir. You think I’d let the Companions go into battle without me?’
Ardashir gathered his reins. ‘Brother, remember one thing; if you go down, we all go down.’
‘Where is your faith, Ardashir? If old Rictus can fight in the front rank, then so can I.’
‘You knew?’
‘I always know.’
For pasangs across the plateau of Gaugamesh there now extended a brute mass of struggling men. The slender line of the Macht had received a succession of hammer-blows as the imperial forces came up, formation after formation, and launched themselves at it. Had they coordinated their attacks, then Corvus’s line would have broken, chopped apart by sheer numbers. But the levies of the empire pitched into the battle as soon as they came off the line of march, and one by one their attacks were blunted by the stubborn professionalism of the Macht spearmen.
