Baraz nodded to one of his signalmen, and the man raised a black banner with a skewed cross on it. Behind the group of riders, men crouched over great hide drums began to beat a long rolling tattoo. Ahead, the blocks of Persian spear, axe, and swordsmen began to advance up the hill at a walk. Within instants of starting their advance, the clear avenues between the formations disappeared as the men at the edges of the infantry battalions spilled out into the open space to avoid hitting -the men in front of them. Baraz grunted. Just like foot soldiers-no discipline!

A dispatch rider rode up, his helmet askew. “Lord Baraz!” The rider was one of Khadames’ youngsters. “Lord Khadames requests that he be allowed to charge the enemy wing-his casualties are mounting from arrow fire.”

Baraz laughed grimly and shook his head. “No, lad, tell Khadames that if he so much as budges, I’ll have him beheaded and his whole family sold as slaves in the great market at Ctesiphon. He holds for my order, and no other!”

The youngster put spur to his horse and pelted off back to the right. Baraz smiled, noticing the queasy looks on the courtiers around him.

“Worry not, friends!” he called out in his battlefield voice, so that all could hear. “Soon we’ll see action aplenty! Are your swords loose? Are your bows strung and taut?” Then he laughed, for fear was beginning to creep into their eyes. The Luristani grinned and fingered their weapons.

The Persian infantry was only fifty yards from the Romans and the center of the field was about to become a charnel house. Baraz gestured to his drum men, and they beat out a long rolling tattoo. The banners flourished in the air. Two hundred yards ahead of his position, Lord Rha-zates began screaming orders at his infantry commanders and the Persian advance halted, raggedly on the left, skewing the line slightly, but it halted. The front rank of men went down to a kneeling position, their spears thrust for ward horizontally and their large shields grounded. The second and third ranks crowded up, and a forest of longer spears and pikes sprang into being along the front.

Baraz sat astride his white horse, drumming his fingers on th amp;- high saddle horn. Dispatch riders crowded around him, relaying information to his lieutenants. He ordered the skirmishers, now that they had fallen back through the lanes between his blocks of infantry, to gather and swing to the left end of his line, where a regiment of swordsmen and unarmored spearmen were screening the Great Prince Shahin and his household cavalry from the advance of the Nabatean infantry. Dust rose in a great cloud in the center of the field where the spearmen and swordsmen were now at close quarters. The Boar summoned one of the dispatch riders.

“Lad, find the Lord Rhazates in that cauldron in front of us and tell him to hold his own, neither to advance nor retreat. Just retain the attention of the enemy.”

The sky growled like thunder, and Baraz jerked around, staring up into the bright blue sky. There was nothing there, but now an uneasy feeling prickled at his back and he turned his horse, staring across the “shallow stream at the covered black wagon sitting by the side of the road. A troop of Uze horse was sitting around it on the ground, seemingly oblivious. To Baraz’s eye, it seemed that the air around the wagon shimmered with an unhealthy color.

On the Palmyrene left wing, where Mohammad and his horse archers had been dashing toward the Persians, firing a black cloud of arrows and then swerving away in fine style, the Palmyrene knights had ridden up at last and had dispersed into a line nine ranks deep. Mohammad rose up in his stirrups and waved the green banner that ibn’Adi favored in a slashing circle. His horsemen, seeing the signal, broke away to the left and right from their latest sortie, clearing a lane for the Palmyrenes to charge down. Mo hammad galloped past the front of the Persian line, the last of the Tanukh to abandon the attack, seeing the dead and dying Persians transfixed by black-fletched shafts-many still on their horses, milling about in the closely packed formation.

Still the Persians held their ranks and did not charge. Mohammad shook his head at their bravery and discipline- no Arab contingent would have been able to stand the slaughter. He galloped back up the low hill, his bannermen following close behind.

“Regroup! Regroup!” Mohammad shouted, his voice carrying across the field. The Tanukh, scattered across the northern end of the plain, began riding back to him, gathering around the green and white banner of ibn’Adi. And still the Persians refused to move from their ranks. Al’Quraysh wheeled his horse, now that his subcomman-ders had the horsemen in hand, and trotted up to the line of Palmyrene knights, who had not budged from their positions once they had broken out into a wedge.

“Lord Zabda,” Mohammad called across the ranks of armored horsemen. “The Persians are still stunned by our arrows, you must attack immediately! Their backs are to the stream, you can drive their horses into the soft ground.”

Zabda turned his horse and trotted through the ranks of his men. He was clad in a, long chain-mail shirt under a breastplate of metal strips tied together with leather lacings. A heavy helmet, cone-shaped like the Persian spangenhelm, covered his head, save for a narrow slit for his eyes. A pennon fluttered from the sharp tip of the cone. The shoulders, chest, and head of his horse were covered in thick leather barding with iron scales woven into it. The general pulled up next to Mohammed’s winded horse and put a gloved hand on the Southerner’s shoulder.

“We are outnumbered by two to one, Quraysh! I’ll not send my men to their deaths for nothing. Look, the Queen has dispatched the reserve to support us.” He pointed back toward the main Palmyrene positions. Mohammad looked over the man’s shoulder. Sure enough, the mercenary cavalry was trotting at an easy pace across the field to join them. The center of the battle had devolved into a massive cloud of dust, momentarily broken by bands of men with swords and spears rushing to and fro. Mohammad could not see Zenobia’s banners.

‘They’ll be here too late for the initial charge,“ he snapped at the older man. ”My Tanukh will charge with you, our numbers will be greater then!“

Zabda laughed, a hollow sound coming from within the metal helmet. “Your desert bandits? There’s no way they can stand against the Iron Hats! No, we will wait for reinforcements.”

Mohammad cursed luridly and spurred his horse away. As he rode back down the hill, he shouted at his banner-men. “Flag the commanders! Regroup and prepare to Charge the Persian lines!”

Zabda called out from behind him, but Mohammad did not hear him.

Baraz finally discarded the ornamental hat and tore the silk tabard and cloak off of his shoulders. The rich green material fluttered to the ground and was quickly churned to nothing by the hooves of the horses. The Roman infantry charge had slammed the Persians back to their original positions, and now the melee was beginning to bow the Persian infantry line in the center. The Persian formations had dissolved into a confused mass of men, but the Boar could see that the Romans were holding their line and grinding forward, their short blades flickering in the air. Baraz and his Luristani guards cantered to the west, the general trying to see what was happening on the right wing. The Palmy-renes seemed to have gathered their heavy horse in preparation for a charge-but they had not done so yet. He looked back to the left, seeing that the Roman infantry was fully committed to the center.

“Dispatch rider!” One of the youngsters swerved to join him. “To Khadames on the right, now he must attack! Flags! Signal an advance on the right.”

The general rode up to a band of archers sitting on the ground, well behind the clangor of the melee. Their captain leapt to his feet, seeing the banner of the Great Prince fluttering behind Baraz. “Captain, take your men to the left. The Nabateans have engaged our wing. Support the infantry and Shahin’s household cavalry there. Go!”