The Parthian Read Free

father’s symbol of the white horse’s head, fluttered as the royal party made its way to brow of the hill, from where they would watch the charge. Bozan reached over and grasped my shoulder. ‘Remember everything that you have been taught. Focus on the task at hand, and remember that you are not alone.’
    He fastened his helmet’s cheek guards together to make his face disappear behind two large steel plates, then tuned and gave a signal to his captains. Horns sounded and the entire formation moved as one. Each man had a white plume on his helmet and rode a white horse, though only the beasts’ legs were visible as each one was protected, like Sura, by scale armour.
    We were formed in two lines, each of two hundred and fifty men, with a hundred yards separating each line. We started out at a walking pace to ascend the hill’s gentle slope, my heart pounding so hard that I thought it would burst out of my chest. The sounds of battle grew louder as we topped the brow of the hill, and I gasped as I saw the scene below. The legion, still in its hollow-square formation, was being assaulted on all four sides by swarms of horse archers, but the main effort was being made against the two corners at each end of the side we would be assaulting. Although it was high in the sky, we would be riding with the sun in our faces, which alarmed me greatly.
    ‘Why do ride against the sun and not with it at our backs?’ I shouted to Bozan.
    ‘Have faith in your father,’ was all the reply I received.
    I could see Parthian foot soldiers running to get into line at the foot of our hill, to our right and left, each one carrying a shield with what appeared to be a silver facing. For what purpose I knew not.
    The two hundred camels that had brought fresh arrows were now proving their worth. Each horse archer could fire around ten arrows a minute, which meant his thirty-arrow quiver would be exhausted after three minutes, but now dozens of servants were ferrying bundles of arrows from the camels to where companies of horse archers were reforming after expending their arrows.
    We moved forward down the hill at a trot, about half a mile from the Romans. I had done this so many times before that I nudged Sura forward without thinking, my eyes fixed on the wall of enemy shields before me. They suddenly looked very large. My lance was still over my right shoulder as we moved into a gentle gallop. On our flanks light horsemen thundered towards the Romans, each one carrying an earthen pot holding naphtha on the end of a length of rope, a lighted rag secured in each pot. Each one approached the Romans, swinging his earthen pot over his head and then releasing it to smash into the wall of shields. As soon it hit each pot shattered, spilling its black liquid content, which immediately ignited. Naphtha not only burns fiercely, it sticks to what it’s spilled on. Individual Romans, their shields, arms or helmets aflame, tried frantically to put out the fire, breaking their unbroken shield wall. Some clutched burning flesh and writhed in pain, others tried to flee to the rear.
    At around four hundred paces we broke into a gallop and levelled our lances, holding the long shafts with both hands on our right sides. At the same time our foot soldiers slanted their shields towards the Roman line, the burnished surfaces reflecting sunlight into the enemy’s faces, blinding them as we closed the gap. In front of us stood a ragged line of legionaries. I screamed my war cry as Sura raced forward, the air filled with the shrieks of frightened horses and men gripped with bloodlust. When we hit the Romans, the sound was like a loud crack of thunder as our first line drove into the disorientated enemy. Time seemed to slow as I aimed my lance at the centre of a Roman shield. The momentum of horse and rider was enough to drive the iron-tipped lanced through the shield, into the legionary and then out through his back to spear another man standing behind him. The