Legionary(123)

Gallus frowned, then squinted up to the cabin on the lead creature’s back. Two figures stood there. They held Roman spathas. A desert-dry grin stretched across his features and his sword arm tingled with a new lease of life.





The panicked squeal of the drummer faded as the war elephants thundered onwards, the drumbeat striking up again moments later.

Pavo leant from the edge of the cabin, willing the lead creature not to draw up short. Ahead of it lay the majority of the Savaran. This close to victory, the Persian ranks were in disorder, thousands of them dismounted and fighting as infantry. But when the lead elephant trumpeted with all its might, many Persian heads turned, eyes bulging, mouths agape. At once, they broke out in a roar of panic. They scrambled to get clear, but weighed down with iron plate and ring armour, they were cumbersome and slow. Suddenly, the cabin juddered as if the elephant was charging over rocky ground, but the crunch of iron, bone and the screaming of men below told a different story. The other three elephants fanned out either side, ploughing a similar gory furrow through the Savaran ranks. Then the flat-nosed paighan guiding the lead elephant uttered some jagged command, patting at the side of the creature’s head. Without hesitation, the elephant scooped down with its tusks, tearing the serrated bronze tips through a throng of clibanarii, tossing pockets of them into the air. Their armour crumpled from the strike. Limbs were shattered, flesh torn asunder and brains gouged from skulls. The other three beasts followed suit soon after, swiping scores of men aside with every swish of their tusks. In moments, the tight pack of flashing swords and spears around the Roman pocket had disintegrated, men fleeing in every direction. Of the clibanarii and pushtigban who waded out to sea to escape the elephants’ wrath, many stumbled, falling into the water. Despite being prone in just a few feet of water, these men found the weight of their armour anchored them to the seabed and many drowned, their faces only inches under the surface.

As the great creatures wreaked havoc through the Savaran masses, the flat-nosed paighan guiding the lead beast cried out in unintelligible Parsi. He punched the air, his air of serenity gone at last as he no doubt unleashed his anger over years of marching in chains.

Pavo felt an ember of hope in his heart.

‘They’re still alive,’ Sura grasped his shoulder, pointing down to the shallows.

Pavo followed his friend’s outstretched finger over the edge of the cabin. Down on the crimson shoreline, while the Savaran scattered, a ragged band of legionaries stood there. Barely a century of them, still poised and ready for the Savaran to return. Gallus, Zosimus and Quadratus still stood. He looked this way and that. Perhaps there could be a way out. Perhaps they could survive after all.

Then his eyes snagged on the activity a mile or so up the beach, where the vast Persian fleet was disembarking. Tens of thousands of fresh riders and spearmen fanned out, blades piercing the skyline like an iron grin.





Saddled on his white stallion on the grassy dunes, Tamur’s head pounded with the goings-on, a handful of neatly oiled locks falling free of his ponytail to whip across his face. He shot a gaze over his shoulder. There, the paighan masses fought in vain against eight of his dozen war elephants. That battle was as good as won. Then he looked right, northwards and up the beach: the fleet had landed just as he had expected. That meant the invasion of Roman Syria would go ahead as planned. There was something about those vessels that made him uneasy though, the number of bodies spilling from the decks was more than he expected, far more than just the crew of the galleys.

Is that . . . no, surely not?

He raked his fingers across his scalp, pulling more hair free of the knot, then pinched the top of his nose and blinked away the doubts. No, he asserted, the real source of consternation was dead ahead; the four rogue elephants ploughing through the melee. With victory and a Roman eagle in the palm of his hand, these confounded creatures had split from the herd, turned and run amok through his tightly-packed Savaran. Thousands of his best horsemen were dead from this encounter already, and the elephants looked set to kill hundreds more. This would be costly, he realised, seeing his precious cataphractii and clibanarii tossed up in the air like toys by the sweeping tusks. He would have to hire many more mercenaries than he had planned to cover these losses. But the image of the rich trading cities of Syria crept into his mind.

Mercenaries will be queuing up to serve in my armies. And when my ranks are swollen, I will turn them upon Shapur himself. All Persia will be mine. The House of Aspaphet will take its rightful place once more!

‘Have our archers take javelins to those creatures,’ he spat to the nearest of his bodyguards, waving a hand towards the four rogue elephants. ‘They have done enough damage already. When they have been slain, set them about finishing the dregs of Roman resistance. I have wasted enough riders on them today.’