He acted without conscious thought. His blade weaved fast. Sparks flew. But he could not keep them out for long. Blow by blow, step by step, he was driven back.
Ballista's right heel felt the wall behind him. Nowhere to go. Time nearly up. He was half aware of other easterners jostling behind his opponents. If there was an afterlife — Valhalla, whatever — he would soon be with his boys.
The Persians closed for the kill. One jabbed at his face, one his groin. Ballista chopped down at the lower blade. Instinctively, eyes shut, he jerked his head to one side. Splinters of limestone cut his cheek. There was a sharp pain in his left thigh.
The momentum of the Sassanids had driven them against Ballista. He could smell their sweat, the spicy food on their breath.
The one to his left gasped. His body twisted, fell back. Without thought, Ballista rammed the fingers of his left hand into the other's face, clawing at his eyes. The man swayed back, then reeled. Calgacus's ugly face appeared. The Caledonian drove his blade into the Persian's chest.
Pandemonium. The Sassanids were running back the way they had come. Ballista looked wildly around. There was Maximus. Allfather, Death-blinder, Deep Hood, they were alive. More figures were crowding into the gateway from outside.
Ballista caught his breath. The cut to his leg stung, but it looked superficial. All around, Romans were finishing off the Sassanids on the ground.
'Thank you,' Ballista said.
'Hercules' big hairy arse, I thought it was too late that time. I thought you were fucked.' Calgacus smiled a horrible smile.
'Me too.' Ballista laughed. He had to pull himself together. The job was not yet half done.
'You' — Ballista pointed at an optio — 'take the first thirty marines through the gate. Follow the Sassanids. Secure the gate to the citadel. If you can, work through and clear the peninsula.'
The optio shouted. The marines jostled and pushed. More were crowding in from outside.
Ballista stepped out from the gate to the more open space in the street. He had to take charge. This could easily degenerate into chaos.
'Everyone but the detailed marines, stay where you are.' Some of the confusion stilled.
'Officers, to me,' Ballista shouted. 'Where the fuck is Rutilus?'
'Here, Dominus.' The tall redhead calmly stepped out of the throng.
Ragonius Clarus had insisted Ballista have Rutilus as his second-in-command. It was the emperors' explicit wish. Ballista had not wanted him, but there was no denying he was a competent officer.
'Rutilus, you know the plan. Take the main body of marines straight down this road past the docks. Seize the gate at the far end. Draw your men up in line outside — two deep, open order.'
With a minimum of fuss, Rutilus got on with it. The marines, nearly three hundred and fifty of them, began to rattle past.
The trierarch elevated to Ballista's deputy for the next part of the plan appeared. What was his name? Ballista was about to ask Demetrius, then he remembered the boy had gone. He hoped he was all right.
'Trierarch, are your men ready?'
The trierarch shrugged. 'As ready as they will ever be.'
Ballista had armed around a thousand rowers with a mixture of captured Persian weapons and antique arms from the temples of Soli. The trierarch, like all his kind a long-service centurion, had little but contempt for his men's fighting abilities. Unfortunately enough, Ballista thought he was probably right. Still, if it all worked, they might not actually have to fight.
The last of the marines passed.
'Time to go,' said Ballista. With Maximus, Calgacus and the trierarch flanking him and Gratius carrying his personal white draco behind, Ballista set off.
At first they followed the retreating backs of the marines. Then Ballista led them into a sideroad to the left. Now he quickened the pace to a jog.
It was hard going. The street twisted, twice turning back on itself. Past the theatre it began to climb steeply. Ballista's wounded leg hurt. It was getting harder to get his breath.
About five hundred yards of this, and they reached the north-eastern gate out on to the main road to Soli. The whole way, they had not seen a single Persian.
Emerging from under the archway, Ballista realized the sun was up. Still low, it cast long shadows but illuminated the scene. The yellow-green slopes of the mountain rose to the left. The sparkling sea lay to the right. And between, about half a mile ahead, the battle.
Perfectly to plan, Castricius had arrayed his thousand infantry from the necropolis on the lower slopes to fill the four hundred or so yards down to the shore.
The Persians, their backs to Ballista, wheeled in front of Castricius's position. Arrows flew, but the rough going and the innumerable tombs badly hindered their evolutions.
Away to Ballista's right, Rutilus's marines were already mainly in line.
Ballista roared orders, waved and gesticulated. The ragtag mob of armed rowers started off to link with the marines.
The Persians had seen the threat to their rear. Officers, bright figures in silk flashing steel, rode here and there, regrouping the horsemen. They knew they were in a trap. It remained to be seen if they would realize how weak one side of the trap was.
Ballista looked at his men. Rutilus's marines, in reasonable order, filled about half the space. In the other half the rowers, although clumped up, were in some approximation of a line.
'Signal the advance. Slow walk. Keep together.'
The line shuffled forward. From the start, some of the rowers were hanging back. Their part of the line bowed.
Ahead, Sassanid banners waved, trumpets called. The Persians — there must still be nearly three thousand of them, formed into a deep phalanx.
Allfather, Grey Beard, Fulfiller of Desire. The Persians were facing Castricius's men. The deep boom of a Sassanid war drum sounded. The horsemen accelerated away from Ballista. They charged Castricius's line.
Through the fresh dust, Ballista could not see clearly what was happening. A roar like a thousand trees being felled at once echoed back from the mountain slopes.
Most of the Sassanids had come to a halt. But in one place they still moved forward. From the flanks, others began to funnel after them.
All the horsemen stopped. The gap that had opened in Castricius's line must have clogged with men and horses. It would not have taken much — maybe just one horse going down in the rough terrain.
Panic gripped the Sassanids. Like animals before a forest fire, individuals darted this way and that, seeking an unattainable safety. Some must have broken through. But for those left, there was no way out. What remained was not fighting but slaughter. Ballista sat with his back to the tomb. He was in the shade and facing the mountains, away from the killing field. The Sassanid custom of carrying much of their wealth on their person probably put an edge on the Romans despoiling the enemy corpses, but they would have done it anyway.
The battle won, Ballista had ordered Rutilus to keep a couple of hundred marines in hand to secure the town and Castricius to hold back about the same number of legionaries on the road. That the Sassanids who had escaped would rally and launch a surprise attack was highly unlikely. The liburnian galleys had tracked them up the coast. About three miles to the north-east, the Sassanids had turned off inland. But better safe than sorry.
Ballista shifted his position. The blank wall of well-dressed stone soared above him to a cloudless blue sky. A lot of money had gone into these tombs, which were built like affluent houses. The citizen of Sebaste who could afford one of them would have a townhouse and a residence in the country. Every time they rode from one to the other, they would pass this third house, the one in which they would spend eternity. Ballista wondered what they would feel. A warm glow of reassurance? Their social standing would transcend death. Did they fondly imagine they would gaze out from their final resting place and watch their sons ride past?
It was hard to say. Certainly Greeks and Romans, at least some of them, believed in ghosts. But their afterlife, except for a lucky few who made it to the Isles of the Blessed, consisted of flitting and shrieking like bats in the dark halls of Tartarus. Perhaps they would hope to return, their shades more substantial, when blood
