‘Strange he has not fled further east.’

  I shrugged. ‘I do not concern myself with the thoughts of a rapist and murderer.’

  The sun peaked out from behind a huge white cloud and bathed the army in sunlight, its rays reflecting off thousands of helmets and javelin points. It also glinted off something to my left and I looked over to see a small group of riders on the hill anchoring the enemy’s right wing. For a second alarm swept through me as I considered they might be the vanguard of an enemy formation. But as I continued to study the group no others joined them and I relaxed. No enemy had bettered the Durans and Exiles and I did not expect the Persians to put up much of a fight.

  I saw arrows arch into the sky and then drop on the legions, a huge amount of missiles shot by the enemy’s foot soldiers. As they had done a thousand times in training every century huddled down into a static testudo, the front rank kneeling and presenting their shields to the enemy to form a wall, the rear ranks hoisting their shields above their heads to form a roof. The arrows slammed into the shields, a few hit flesh and more slammed into the earth. The enemy shot a second volley and a third showering the legions with bronze points but did little damage save adding to the weight of individual’s shield. After a fourth volley I heard a succession of whistle blasts and the legions began to shuffle forward, still in testudo formation but advancing towards the enemy line.

  We followed in their wake, walking our horses forward, Sporaces on the right doing the same and the lords in a great disorganised mass reciprocating on the left. I noticed the figures on the hill had departed but thought nothing of it.

  The legions quickened the pace and moments after the sound of trumpets rent the air. Excitement infused me.

  ‘The enemy is on the run.’

  I turned to Kewab.

  ‘Sporaces will have heard the signal and will know what to do but Kalet and his nobles will not. Ride over and request he lead his lords through the gap.’

  I dug my knees into Tegha as Gallia ordered the Amazons forward. I followed as Kewab galloped away to the lords. There was a tingle in the air coming with the anticipation of victory; riders tightened the grip on their reins as their mounts became excitable, knowing something was about to happen; centurions growled at their men to maintain their discipline as they tasted triumph in their mouths.

  ‘With me,’ I called to Gallia and her women as thousands of Dura’s lords thundered forward, a wild, disorganised charge of men who viewed war as a large-scale hunt.

  We followed them, skirting the left flank of the Exiles who had now passed the barren hill on their left to enter the broad Plain of Marvdasht. Ahead I caught sight of the enemy foot soldiers in yellow tunics and blue leggings, falling back in haste towards the sanctuary of Estakhr, some twelve miles to the west. I smiled grimly; they would not make it. They had abandoned their position and now would be surrounded and cut down by swarms of horse archers.

  ‘Pacorus!’

  I heard the alarm in Gallia’s voice and looked to where she was pointing, towards the hills to north, from where a horde of horsemen was approaching. I was a helpless spectator as the horrid spectacle was played out in front of my eyes. The lords, fixated on running down and slaughtering the enemy’s foot soldiers, were struck by the arrows of the horse archers attacking their left flank. They were the remnants of the horse archers escorting Alexander to Phraaspa: three thousand men wearing helmets, yellow shirts and red leggings. They had made a poor showing in the north but were effective enough now as they shot volley after volley into the lords. Who were immediately thrown into chaos. Some rallied their men to charge the enemy but the vast majority instinctively wheeled right to escape the deadly rain falling among them. Straight into the Exiles.

  ‘Stay here,’ I ordered Gallia.

  I turned Tegha and shouted at him to move. There was only one thing to do before the whole army was discomfited and that was to bring the cataphracts forward. They had followed the legions and were still riding forward when I brought Tegha to a halt next to Azad.

  ‘The lords have been struck in the flank by enemy horse archers,’ I told him. ‘Take your men forward and disperse the enemy riders.’

  He saluted, barked an order to his signaller and led his men forward. The cataphracts, previously in two lines, formed into a wedge with Azad at their head as they cantered forward, heading for the left flank of the army where my lords and their men were either being cut down by arrows or were careering through the Exiles. It had the makings of a disaster but I was hopeful Azad’s men would rectify the situation.

  As I rode back to Gallia where she and the Amazons had ridden forward to the left edge of the second line of the Exile cohorts to take pot shots at the enemy horsemen, something caught my eye. I saw more figures on the hill, this time behind us, and then a flag being waved frantically by one of the group. I heard a deep rumble and then beheld a heartening sight as a thousand cataphracts hurtled past, the tip of the wedge heading for the enemy horse archers. I drew Tegha up beside Gallia, who had now ceased shooting as Azad’s men thundered past on the left.

  ‘It is chaos, Pacorus, absolute chaos.’

  I heard the despair in her voice and leaned over to clutch her arm.

  ‘Have no fear, Azad will tip the scales back in our favour.’

  He did. But the enemy horse archers were already withdrawing back towards the hills to the north and the cataphracts merely changed into an empty space. Azad wheeled them left to give pursuit but the lightly armed horse archers galloped furiously away and he let them go, returning to guard the army’s left flank in case the opposition’s foot soldiers launched an assault. But they had gone, also withdrawing to the hills while the lords had been rudely handled and the legions, battered by their own horsemen, had halted to weather the storm of the fleeing lords and their men.

  While the cataphracts formed a screen on the left flank of the army Azad returned to report, as did Sporaces who had surprising news.

  ‘We were attacked by enemy horsemen armed with javelins and wearing scale armour on their torsos. They led us a merry dance before we chased them away.’

  ‘Where did they flee to?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘South, majesty, though far fewer than when they had first showed their faces.’

  It was the only piece of good news that day. A fuming Chrestus tramped over with a century acting as an escort. We sat in silence as he relayed the tale of woe.

  ‘The Exiles have suffered a hundred dead and the same number wounded, most of them when Kalet’s men rode into them. The Durans suffered ten dead and fifty wounded to enemy arrows. Where are the enemy horsemen?’

  ‘Pulled back to those hills,’ said Sporaces, pointing to the north, ‘while the foot soldiers made good their escape.’

  ‘We will march to Estakhr and make camp in front of the city tonight,’ I told them. ‘Someone go and find Kalet and bring him to me. Kewab, ride back to camp and instruct Marcus to bring forward the siege engines.’

  The march re-commenced; the wounded being left behind to be picked up by the non-combatants remaining in camp with the squires. Alcaeus fussed around his medical orderlies to organise their treatment and I left a thousand horse archers to screen them and the casualties in case the enemy returned. But with the other horse archers forming a cordon around the army and the cataphracts forming a reserve, the enemy was deterred from showing his face. Kalet was spitting blood when he appeared at the head of a score of his colleagues, all of them eager to kill and burn anything in their path.

  ‘Give me the order, lord,’ he said, ‘and I will hunt those bastards down.’

  ‘It is precisely what they want,’ I told him. ‘No, we will make camp and let the enemy come to us. How many men did you lose?’

  ‘Too many,’ he replied.

  ‘But we will pay them back ten times over,’ boasted Firas beside him.

  I smiled politely but the truth was we had received a bloody nose at the hands of the soldiers of Persis, which was hard to bear considering who led them.

  ‘I did not see Alexander,’ said Gallia, articulating my thoughts. ‘No great yellow banner bearing a Simurgel anywhere to be seen.’

  ‘Nor his palace guard,’ said Kewab, who had become my chief of operations and the man I was listening to and trusting more and more. ‘It would suggest they and he are elsewhere.’

  ‘Where?’ demanded Gallia.

  Kewab nodded his head at the town we were approaching.

  ‘In Estakhr.’

  He was right because when we reached the town a huge yellow banner flying from the gatehouse greeted us and the walls were lined with soldiers wearing bronze helmets and holding spears with leaf-shaped blades. There were also archers among them, a few arrows landing harmlessly in front of us as we surveyed the walls of the town. The small River Pulwar coiled around the north and western sides of the town like a snake but was a mere ten paces wide, double that width in places, but shallow and easily fordable. I sent Talib to reconnoitre the land to the east and north while Marcus walked forward to the river’s edge and made calculations in his mind.

  I joined him, the soldiers on the ramparts immobile as they stared at us. Behind us the army began to dig the ditch and rampart constituting the perimeter of our camp for the night.

  ‘Estakhr was designed according to the Greek style,’ Marcus told me. ‘Notwithstanding the circular towers along the perimeter wall the interior resembles a grid with homes and business arranged in square blocks, much like Dura, in fact.’

  ‘Where is the stronghold?’

  ‘In the centre, unlike at Dura,’ he informed me, ‘where the Citadel is perched on top of a high escarpment in the north of the city.’

  ‘You will use the ram against the gates?’ I asked.

  He looked at me as though I was simple-minded.

  ‘I think not, majesty. The enemy will have piled earth and stones against the rear of the gates to strengthen them. Besides, the walls are made of stones.’

  I was none the wiser. He sighed and shook his head.

  ‘It is well known, or ought to be, a ram making repeated blows against a stone wall will shatter or dislodge individual stones within the wall, leading to its eventual collapse.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I see.’

  ‘You will be pleased to know rams are much less effective against mud-brick walls.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘You are expecting a Roman attack against Dura, Marcus?’

  ‘No, majesty, I just thought you would like to know, so as to reassure you.’

  ‘I am reassured.’

  He rubbed his hands together. ‘We will begin in the morning.’

  But the next day the enemy struck us. It was mid-morning and Marcus and his team of engineers and technicians were assembling the battering ram and the two siege towers to provide cover for the ram when it was moved to the walls of Estakhr. Archers and scorpions would shoot at any defenders on the walls to prevent them dropping stones on to the ram’s roof, or even using ropes to pull the ram itself up. But the appearance of the enemy put paid to their efforts.

  The Durans and Exiles had been deployed on all four sides of the town in a show of strength, reinforced by companies of horse archers in the vague hope their mere presence would induce Alexander to surrender, or at least seek terms. But it resulted in the army’s strength being diluted around Estakhr when the enemy struck.

  The vanguard was hundreds of horse archers, galloping headlong at the gap between our camp and the town, followed by at least a thousand spearmen on foot. Shooting volley after volley at anything in front of them, the horse archers immediately surrounded a cohort of Durans huddling down into testudo formation. I was standing with Marcus and his chief assistant when I heard the whistle and trumpet blasts and saw the enemy horsemen looming into view ahead. More whistle blasts came from behind and I saw another cohort of Durans rushing forward to protect us. The tribune-come-deputy bellowed orders for his men to deploy around the half-assembled battering ram and us. A squire, my lone escort, was holding Tegha’s reins and sitting on his own horse, staring at the enemy horse archers lapping around the isolated cohort.

  ‘Get off that horse,’ I shouted.

  He jumped with alarm but did as he was told, grabbing his bow from its case and clutching his quiver. I retrieved my own bow and quiver and nocked an arrow. The deputy came over as his men adopted a square formation around us. He saluted.

  ‘When word reaches camp of the enemy’s appearance Lord Azad will lead out the cataphracts to disperse them,’ I reassured him.

  ‘You should seek cover under our shields, majesty.’ He looked at Marcus. ‘You too, sir, and your men.’

  But the enemy horse archers did not bother with us, circling the cohort ahead and diverting some of their number to assault the western entrance to our camp. And in doing so they prevented reinforcements leaving by that exit. Meanwhile, the enemy foot soldiers threw themselves at the legionaries defending Marcus, his engineers and his battering ram.

  ‘Clever, very clever,’ I said to myself.

  ‘Majesty?’

  The squire looked alarmed, licking his lips, his eyes darting left and right wildly. He needed steadying.

  ‘With me,’ I told him, vaulting towards the frame for the roof of the battering ram, which had yet to be fitted with its iron plates, clay covering and hides to defend the beam.

  I jumped on the frame and climbed to the last horizontal beam before the top. The squire followed, clambering up and nearly dropping his quiver. Then he was beside me. We had an excellent view of the action: the horse archers circling the cohort ahead, more skirmishing near the entrance to the camp and spearmen fighting the cohort defending us and the ram.

  ‘Shoot!’ I screamed at the squire, nearly causing him to topple backwards. ‘Remember your training.’

  It took four years to turn a squire into a cataphract and each of those years was filled with days of unending drill, archery and weapons training, as well as menial chores, the bane of a soldier’s life. I said no more to him as I plucked an arrow from my quiver, nocked it and shot it at the mass of spearmen pressing against the sides of the square of legionaries. The enemy wore no body armour but did carry wicker shields covered with yellow-painted leather. The rear ranks were pressing those shields into the backs of those in front, pushing them forward on to the points of my men’s short swords. I shot the arrow and saw it hit a man in the face. I strung another and another, each one striking flesh and bone. I continued to shoot, the squire doing the same, every one of our missiles hitting a man, but we were two and they were many. Where was Azad?

  ‘Majesty, majesty.’

  I shot my last arrow and held out my hand, thinking he was offering replacements. When I felt nothing I turned and glared at him but he was not looking at me; instead pointing to the right, towards the city gates. Marcus had been wrong about the defenders. They had not piled earth and rocks behind the gates because they had swung open and from Estakhr marched a phalanx of soldiers.

  ‘Shit.’

  It was Alexander’s palace guard, a magnificent body of men in bronze helmets, leather cuirasses and round shields faced with burnished bronze embellished with a bird-god symbol. And they were marching with spears levelled straight at us. I looked behind me and saw at least two cohorts marching towards us, both in column formation to smash through the enemy spearmen encircling us. But they would not make it in time. There was only one thing to do.

  I climbed down the frame, ran over to the commander and grabbed his arm.

  ‘Give the order to fall back.’

  He looked at me in confusion.

  ‘Now!’

  Moments later he had relayed the command to his centurions who blew their whistles and the north side of our makeshift square began to give ground. At the same time the legionaries on the opposite side began walking forward, stabbing over and under their shields as they did so to forge a path to link up with our relief. Then Marcus was beside me, holding Tegha’s reins, whom I patted and said a few soft words to. My quartermaster general was gesticulating at his precious ram about to be abandoned.

  ‘My ram, majesty, we must take it with us.’

  ‘No, Marcus. We can save ourselves but we cannot save it and us.’

  He was distraught as he and his engineers watched helplessly as Alexander’s palace guard swarmed all over it as we shuffled away. In fact they did not bother to engage us but were more intent on destroying the ram, which was soon set alight, black smoke ascending into the sky. That had been their intention all along. Clever, very clever.

  The spearmen, rather than trying to impede our withdrawal, speedily disengaged and linked up with palace guard, at least five hundred of the latter forming a line in front of us, backed up by the spearmen.

  ‘We must go back and retrieve the ram, majesty,’ Marcus implored me.

  But the ram was gone, up in flames. I pointed at the smoke.

  ‘It is too late, my friend.’

  Centurions were reorganising their men into centuries ready to recommence the assault. The ground between them and the palace guard was littered with dead spearmen, a few legionaries interspersed among them.

  ‘The ram, the ram,’ wailed Marcus, ‘we must get back the ram.’

  I mounted Tegha and rode him around the flanks of the centuries and brought him to halt in front of the legionaries, the men cheering and banging gladius hilts on the front of their shields when they saw me. I raised my hand in recognition. Ahead, in front of the palace guard, was a man on a black horse, a handsome stallion, who appeared to be studying me. I heard the trumpets signalling the arrival of the relief cohorts and saw the man turn and issue a command I could not hear. The palace guard immediately turned left and began to march back to the town gates, at the same time the spearmen that had suffered at the hands of the legionaries about-facing and running back north.

  The man on the horse, bareheaded, his hair and beard black as night, studied me for a few seconds more before following his men. Fresh trumpet blasts came from the left and I saw, at long last, files of cataphracts charging from camp, straight at the horse archers who also began to withdraw, shooting arrows at Azad’s men. But the cataphracts, instead of pursuing the now retreating enemy, headed straight for me, forming a screen in front of the three cohorts now arrayed ready to attack. Azad rode over to me and saluted.