into leather and wood, sliced past.
'Ignore them — they are nothing,' Ballista roared.
'Girls' spindles,' a legionary shouted. 'Come here, darlings, and I will give you a good fucking.'
Soldiers laughed. Calgacus grinned sourly. Something Ballista had once said floated at the edges of his thoughts. Is this what it was to be a man? True male grace under pressure?
Calgacus leant back, looked at the shore. The transports were nearly there. He squinted round his shield at the enemy. The archers were withdrawing. The Sassanid knights, the dreaded clibanarii, were ready. The pitifully thin line with Ballista would somehow have to survive one charge.
A thunder of drums. The heavy cavalry walked forward. A dark phalanx, impossible to see how deep.
Hercules' hairy arse, this was not going to be pleasant.
When the Persians' individual armour — mail, plate, gaudy surcoats, steel visors — could be made out, at about five hundred paces, they moved to a trot. The banners above their heads — lilac, red, yellow — were bright in the sun.
Trumpets rang out from the clibanarii. They began to canter. Now the banners jerked this way and that. The horses seemed to rock back and forth as they exerted themselves under the weight of man and metal.
They came on. Calgacus looked at the sea. The Roman reinforcements were splashing ashore. Too late for the initial shock. But enough of that. 'Eyes front, hold the line,' he found himself shouting.
Horribly quickly, the Persians came on. The noise was like a wave crashing on a shingle beach, louder and louder.
'Stand for your brothers. Hold the line.' Legionaries called encouragement to themselves and their contubernales. Many prayed to their favoured deities: 'Let me live, great god, and I will give…'
Calgacus drew his sword, thrust it out beyond his shield. He dug his heels in the ground. The very air seemed to be shaking.
Gratius, next to Calgacus, was trembling. Out of the corner of his eye, Calgacus saw the urine run on Gratius's legs. It happened. And not just to cowards. The man was still in place.
The Sassanids came on — a wall of steel, inhuman, filling the world with their coming. Wicked spear points gleamed.
One hundred paces, seventy, fifty — dear gods, let this be over — thirty — they will scatter us like chaff. Calgacus ground his teeth.
About the distance a boy could throw a stone, the first horses refused the immobile wall of shields, digging in their feet, swerving, colliding. Men fought to stay in the saddle, sliding up their horses' necks. Losing their grip, some riders crashed, tumbling to the ground, lost under the hooves.
Ten paces from the Roman line, a confusion of stationary horses. Milling, backing, heads tossing, stamping, they bumped and bored into each other.
'Charge!' Ballista was running forward. He was yelling something. It sounded like, 'Nasu! Nasu!'
Ballista's long sword arced. It smashed into a horse's rear leg just above the hock. Tendons severed, the animal collapsed backwards, throwing its rider. Two quick steps and, almost casually, Ballista finished the man on the ground. The northerner's blade swung again, this time slicing off a horse's muzzle. Blood sprayed. Maddened by pain, the animal leapt forward. It crashed into another. Both went down in a tangle of limbs.
A Sassanid thrust at Ballista. Sidestepping, Ballista punched the tip of his weapon through the beast's armour and deep into its chest. It stood for a moment, pink froth at its nostrils, chest heaving, suffocating. It too went down, its rider tumbling in front of Calgacus. Chop — immediately the Persian's helmet cracked under Calgacus's blade.
Ballista was gone, into the mass of the enemy. Neither Calgacus or Maximus could keep up with him. Fucking fool, thought Calgacus. Never get in the midst of panicking horses. You will get trodden, knocked down, crushed, trampled.
Calgacus saw Ballista duck clean under a horse. As he came up the other side, large coils of pinky-grey intestines slithered from the animal's sliced belly. It tried to run, slipped on its own guts, went down.
Some god had to be holding his hands over Ballista. Calgacus watched him move with the grace of a dancer, untouched through the thundering chaos, sword flashing, quick as a snake. Men and horses were screaming. There was blood everywhere.
Calgacus took a blow on his shield, ducked, pushed forward. Over the hellish din, he could hear Ballista: 'Nasu! Nasu!'
Some of the Sassanids were fighting; more were sawing on their reins, trying to turn, get free from the chaos.
'Nasu! Nasu!' — oddly it seemed that some of the Persians were taking up Ballista's chant. 'Nasu! Nasu!' — they fought to get away from the huge, grim figure in the horned helmet.
Behind the tumult, pushing against the tide of retreating easterners, and astride the most splendid horse, a tall figure in purple and white, a high golden crown on his head. The King of Kings gesticulated. His mouth was open, shouting, but the words vanished into the uproar. Calgacus could see, near Shapur, the aged figure of the captive Roman emperor Valerian.
Ballista had been standing, hands down, a still centre in the eye of the storm. Now he recognized Shapur. He hurled his shield away and leapt forward, howling.
Shapur saw Ballista coming. The King of Kings drew his sword, kicked his mount forward.
A big Sassanid warrior put himself in front of the king. He swung at Ballista. The northerner ducked. The blade glanced off Ballista's helmet.
Shapur's nobles swarmed around their monarch. They grabbed his reins, turning his horse's head. The beloved of Mazda roared orders. For once they were disobeyed. The nobles closed ranks, their gorgeous silks surrounding the king.
Try as he might, Calgacus could not get to Ballista. Horses, men, friend and foe got in the way. Maximus also was caught up in the melee.
Ballista's sword sang — desperate to be past the big Persian warrior and at Shapur. In a berserk fury, Ballista hacked his sword deep into the back of the neck of the Persian's horse. The steel edge cut through the armour, severing the ligament. As the horse went down, the warrior jumped free. He landed on his feet.
The great war standard of the house of Sasan was moving away. Shapur was being forcibly led to safety. Valerian was being dragged after him.
The big Persian warrior cut at Ballista's left thigh. The northerner caught the blow on his blade, pirouetted like a dancer and sank his own sword into the man's left shoulder. The warrior staggered. Dropping his sword, his right hand automatically went to the wound. He swayed in agony. He did not fall.
Overhead, Ballista brought his weapon down on to the man's other shoulder. Metal buckled, and gave. The man sank to his knees. In a flurry of blows, Ballista finished him.
'Nasu! Nasu!' Ballista cried at the fluttering Drafsh-i-Kavyan, the battle standard of the Sassanids, and the retreating Persian king. They were gone too far. Like an animal savaging its prey, Ballista chopped again and again at the corpse at his feet.
Calgacus reached him. Ballista continued his gory work of mutilation. The Persian's head was nearly severed, his reddish hair spread in the dirt.
'Stop, boy,' Calgacus said.
Ballista continued the butchery, dismembered the body.
'Leave him. It is over.'
Ballista stopped. He looked down at the dead Persian.
'Garshasp the Lion,' Ballista said, and drove the tip of his blade into the man's chest. He left it there, quivering.
Blood ran in every crevice of Ballista's armour, clotted in the links of his mail coat. It dripped from his dented helmet, his unshaven face.
Ballista was in a place where Calgacus could not follow.
'Nasu! Nasu!' Ballista screamed at the sky.
Calgacus remembered: Nasu was the Persian daemon of death.
'And this,' Rutilus said to Ballista, 'is the pavilion of the King of Kings.'
