“It seems,” said the man of the Han through his interpreter, “that even some gods can be overpowered. What shall you do with these?”
“They go to our temples, especially the one at Merv,” said The Surena. “To commemorate my victory.”
Behind him, several warriors on embassy from the King Orodes flickered glances at one another. Powerful The Surena was; had he become so powerful that the king would have to risk removing him or losing his own crown? Quintus knew he would never have time to learn.
The Han officer rose. “Metal gods for which men die,” he mused, putting out a well-kept hand to touch the nearest Eagle—Quintus’s own.
“My tu hu must see this. It will be for my commander to decide, but this foolish one should think that the Son of Heaven in Ch’ang-an must see these Eagles, and that the exalted one’s learned men should unravel the mystery of the power that makes men die for them.”
He raised the Eagle as if it had been a standard of his own. SPQR, half covered by blood, shone in the firelight. Crassus stared at it as a drowning man stares at the faintest beam of light taunting him at a horizon of air and water that he is fated never to reach, struggle as he may.
“I take this,” the officer of Han announced. “As part of An’Hsi’s tribute to the Son of Heaven.”
He bowed as courteously as if he had done no more than accept a cup of wine among his brothers, then strode from the tent, taking the Eagle with him.
Two men strode forward to gather up the remaining standards.
“No….” whispered Crassus, echoing Quintus’s longing. “By all the gods of hell, no!”
They were Crassus’s son, Quintus’s friends, Rufus’s very lifeblood; and should they be borne in triumph to a barbarian shrine, witness of Rome’s failure to protect them? They were Rome herself. Surely, great Romulus himself would turn his face away from the army that lost them.
Vargontius and Cassius had their hands on the proconsul’s shoulders, but he shook them off with the strength of a much younger man whom despair has made strong.
“Give me back my. Eagles!” he howled and hurled himself forward.
He crashed against a warrior and the table, one arm flung out to capture as many of the precious signa as he could, the other snatching a dagger from the nearest Parthian’s belt. He could have struck in that moment when everyone stood shocked into stillness, avenged his son and his army and his Eagles with one stroke, deep in The Surena’s throat.
Instead, he whirled, the dagger out as if to defend the Eagles he held before him as shield and as standards. The torchlight gleamed off them, splintering the light so that the tent walls seemed patterned by a forest of shadows, oak, and pine, and piercing it, the standards of Rome.
The old proconsul’s eyes were alight, but not with battle madness.
“Romans! he screamed. “Comites, to me! Finish what we should have ended! Roma!”
His staff officers leapt, calculating as great cats: Help the proconsul or take their chances on escape?
“Out!” cried Vargontius. “Someone bring them word!” His hand shoved Cassius from the tent, which seem to shrink inward, holding still the iron reek of blood and metal and sweat. Screams came from outside the tent as merchants fled from riot, and Romans and Parthians sought each other’s throats.
Pain thrust Quintus forward, his hand falling past his side to the blade of the nearest guard. How slowly the man moved. Seizing the sword was like taking a pine branch from a girl-child.
“Roma!” shouted Crassus as if he had not tried, all his life, to turn Rome into sesterces and hoard them all. Quintus fought forward, struggling to reach the proconsul’s side. Crassus had stolen his land, but he had called on Rome. Well, he should have what he could of it. This was a better death than Quintus had expected. It was even honorable. He could meet his grandfather’s eyes on the other side of the Styx, assuming someone spared him the coin for passage.
“Someone get the torches!” The heavy braziers toppled, and flames licked up blood and dirt before they, like so many within the tent, died.
Crassus might be sane in his wish to die, but now Pan piped within the tent, and madness struck. Quintus slashed down with his stolen sword. As if in a dream, he saw the man before him spew blood and fall upon another. There must have been screams and groans but the pounding in his temples, harsher than the Parthians’ drums, drowned out all other sounds as Romans and Parthians and Yueh-chih contended in what light the tent let in now that the torches had died. It was a mad dance, a fever in the blood, Quintus thought. He might as well be a woman, carrying a cone-tipped wand and screaming paeans to Bacchus and Bromius.
He caught a glimpse of Lucilius, his fair hair smeared with blood, his eyes bright as if Fortuna drank to him and his dice. He had despised them all, but they were Romans.
“Crassus!” Quintus screamed, trying to hack through to the old man. Weakened by age and defeat, the commander would not be able to defend himself and his Eagles for long. One more man—the tribune used the fine steel of the Parthian’s sword as if it were a gladius to stab him in the throat. And then he reeled before the proconsul, gasping. His heart rose as Crassus’s eyes brightened at the sight of him.
“Behind you! Down!” the old man gasped at the same time that fire burned his chest—the bronze statue again? Quintus doubled over, then curved around, almost on his knees. He brought his blade up and around, spitting the man who had thought to slay him from behind.
Quintus turned, and the thanks died on his lips. He lunged but, even as his sword thrust home, the Parthian’s blade fell on Crassus’s hand as it clutched the Eagles, severing it at the wrist. It fell on Quintus’s head in a macabre parody of the blessings his grandfather had once given him.
His shout of horror and Crassus’s scream rang out. He hurled himself forward to defend the man who had become—against all reason—his proconsul and general. The old man sagged, the Eagles dropping from his arm in a clatter of heavy bronze. He started to fall—too slowly. A Parthian’s blade took him at the nape of the neck, and his head fell first.
“No!” screamed Quintus. He fought as he did not know he could, until a space cleared between him and his dead and the Parthians. Sobbing for breath, he paused, his sword as steady as if it did not feel made of lead. The Parthians circled him. It was just a matter of time till they cut him down. Just a matter of time.
But he would sell himself as dearly as he could. How many could he take with him? And where should he start? He eyed the warriors speculatively, and he could see that they knew it. Came a commotion and movement underfoot. He lashed out, but his blade hit the edge of the table and rebounded. He recovered his guard and struck again….
To his horror, one of his enemies parried not with a sword but with the Eagle he had snatched up.
If Quintus died for it, he could not strike that Eagle: as well as strike down his grandfather or Rome herself. They had struck down Crassus. He feinted, then attacked viciously. The Parthian dodged and laughed. Again, he tried; and again.
They were laughing at him, teasing him as wanton boys tease a chained beast. With a scream, he threw himself forward, determined to take as many of his enemies with him as he could…
…and what felt like a bar of red-hot iron smashed across his neck. The roaring of the battlefield died away to the murmur of a river on a hazy day, and then into silence.
4
Quintus was bund. He would have been terrified, but fear had been pounded out of him by the Parthian wardrums and bells proclaiming victory. Nearer and nearer they seemed to come. A few paces more, and they would trample him.
And then he would join his comrades in death. He lowered his head like a beast before the altar of sacrifice. It was fated: Let it happen.
Death might be worth it, if only the dryness in his throat went away. They had fought for hours outside Carrhae in the hot sun, with the stinks of blood and dead men and horses, and the flies buzzing as loud as drums and bells.
“Damned if we’re leaving him behind. I’m not losing one more.” The voice was harsh. Your voice got that way when they kept you out fighting in the sun and wouldn’t let you rest or drink.