‘We’re dead, all of us, unless we do something,’ Sura said, nodding to the bloodstained shoreline beyond the elephants where the Roman resistance was fading, fast.
‘If we take one step towards those things, they’ll spot us,’ Pavo hissed, pointing to Tamur and the cluster of pushtigban around him, then to the Persian archers perched in the howdah cabins atop the elephants’ backs. All had their backs turned, looking down upon the battle, but every so often one of the pushtigban would look over their shoulder, as if sensing something was wrong.
‘Then we find a distraction. How’s about those poor bastards?’ he pointed to the paighan, sitting or kneeling to the right of the war elephants, their shackled ankles raw and bloodied, their heads bowed. ‘If they’re given a chance of freedom, do you think they’d take it?’
Pavo looked to the haggard peasant-soldiers. There were some two thousand men there, chained and weary. Men drawn from their farms and families to fight to the death or act as human blockades against Persia’s enemies. He thought of poor Khaled, forced to fight like this. He glanced at the elephants once more, then heard the tortured scream as a legionary on the shore was ripped asunder by a pair of clibanarii lances. ‘Aye, but we must be swift.’
They flitted round behind the elephants and Tamur, ducking to stay concealed behind the grassy dunes until they came to the rear of the paighan mass. ‘We break the chains of the nearest, then we arm them,’ Pavo said, nodding to the nearby wagons loaded with spears. Two Median spearmen stood guard before these, backs turned on Pavo and Sura, both of them utterly transfixed on the battle. Sura nodded. They set down their shields and helms, carrying just their spathas and protected only by their scale vests. The pair stole round to the rear of the wagon, then crept around an edge each. Pavo lined up to grapple the Median nearest to him. He felt his heart thunder as if trying to give him away. At the last, he stepped on a piece of dry reed, which cracked. The Median swung round, but before he could bring his spear to bear, Pavo unleashed a fierce right hook. The man’s jaw cracked and Pavo had to stifle a cry as his knuckles did likewise. The Median crumpled. Alerted by the muted sound of scuffling, the second Median spun to gawp at Pavo in alarm, only for Sura to emerge behind him and smack the flat of his spatha over the man’s head. His eyes rolled and he too was grounded. Pavo and Sura grappled a handful of spears each, then crouched and flitted across the open ground to the rearmost paighan ranks.
The nearest of them turned and saw the pair approaching. A jabbering broke out and more heads turned. Pavo’s flesh crept as he saw Tamur and the pushtigban turn away from the battle to the disturbance. ‘Down!’ he hissed, pulling Sura to the sand.
‘Shut your mouths, dogs, or we will march you into the water to drown,’ a Median spearman near the front of the paighan mass shouted. In an instant, they fell silent. Pavo saw Tamur scowl at the chained men for a moment longer, then look back to the battle.
Nearest Pavo was a flat-nosed paighan wearing an off-white robe and a dark-brown felt cap. He gawped down at the prone Pavo. ‘Roman?’ he said in jagged Greek.
‘Aye, but not your enemy,’ Pavo replied in broken Parsi. ‘We come to free you.’ He held up his spatha and motioned towards the chains that bound him to the next malnourished wretch. The pair and those nearby looked to one another, doubtful.
‘And arm you,’ Sura added, lifting the pile of spears in his grasp.
At this, the flat-nosed man’s weary features bent into a smile. He held up his chains. Pavo lined up his spatha and hacked down. A thick iron clink accompanied it. Pavo ducked down and held his breath, waiting to see if the guards up front had heard. Nothing. Sura hacked at the chain on the other side of the man. Again, nothing. But the flat-nosed man, suddenly realising he was free, threw his arms in the air and made to cry out in joy. Pavo shot up a hand and clamped it over the man’s mouth.
‘Not a sound,’ he pressed a finger to his lips, ‘or we all die.’
The flat-nosed man nodded, then turned a disapproving look on his comrades, wagging a finger at them as if they were to blame. One by one, Pavo and Sura freed the paighan, handing them spears until thirty or more were crouched, ready to act.
‘Free the others,’ Pavo said, handing spears to those furthest forward. ‘Now, does anyone here know how to ride those beasts?’ he nodded towards the war elephants.
The flat-nosed man held his hands out wide with a grin, and a handful of others shuffled a little closer, nodding.
‘Come with us,’ Pavo beckoned them. They stole away from the rear of the paighan and back into the grassy dip in the dunes behind the elephants. Pavo eyed the nearest beast at the rear of the herd. An enormous bull. Its tusks were bronze-coated and serrated on the outside. A plate iron mask was fastened to its face. An iron scale apron, vast enough to cover a house, shrouded its body, masking many of the battle scars this animal had been subjected to. A mahout sat astride its neck holding a spiked cane ready, waiting on the order from Tamur to drive the creature into the battle. The crenelated howdah cabin on its back was packed with four archers, one at each edge, bows nocked and eager to enter the fray. A knotted rope dangled from one side of the cabin, the end swinging near the ground.