Shah Andragoras left the tent and rode to the front of the army. His retainers could not help but feel proud; there was no other monarch anywhere who carried such authority and presence. He was the ruler of Pars, an undefeated warlord feared by kings and lords of neighboring lands. A man in his prime.
Vahriz bowed deeply and gave a report, “85,000 cavalry and 138,000 infantry. All are ready for battle.”
“How many does the enemy have?”
The old eran motioned to Qaran, and the marzban in charge of reconnaissance answered reverently, “These are only estimates, Your Majesty, but I believe they have 25,000 to 30,000 cavalry and 80,000 to 90,000 infantry. That matches their strength when they arrived in the Kingdom of Maryam.”
“After so many battles, their numbers must have dwindled.”
“Or they may have grown, if reinforcements arrived from their homeland.”
“Hm.” The king nodded, though not without some reluctance. He had expected a more precise and useful report.
It was Qaran himself who had volunteered to lead the advance reconnaissance, and he had always performed his duties admirably. For that reason, he was given full authority this time as well. Normally, he was more cautious and methodical than even Dariun or Vahriz, yet today he showed a very assertive attitude toward the king.
“With this fog, we can’t see the enemy’s formation.”
“Fret not, Your Majesty. The enemy also cannot see our position. If conditions are even, our victory is certain,” Qaran declared with confidence, and the king nodded.
Vahriz, who stopped his horse about twenty gaz[1] away, cast a slightly concerned look in their direction, but their low conversation did not reach him.
“Enemy ahead!” a shout rose in the distance and spread in a chain reaction until it reached the main camp. A messenger knight galloped in and reported that an enemy vanguard had been spotted about eight amaj[2] away.
“That would be in the direction of Mount Bashur,” Qaran said. “That land is said to be protected by the spirit of Hero-King Kay Khosrow. There are no faults or depressions there. Even in this heavy fog, cavalry can ride straight through.”
Shah Andragoras looked pleased. A fierce warrior, he had always favored direct, aggressive tactics, as evidenced by his dismissal of Dariun’s caution entirely. A straightforward, all-out assault was exactly what he desired. If Dariun had been present, he would have suspected that Qaran was encouraging the king.
The wind shifted, and the fog moved with it. To Arslan, it felt like a good omen. If the wind cleared the fog, the entire vast plain of Atropatene would open before them. That should favor an army built around cavalry.
But the fog was heavy. It only stirred a little and refused to leave the field. At the edge of the main camp, Arslan caught sight of Dariun’s black-clad figure alone on horseback, without any attendants, lost in the white mist.
“O kings of Pars throughout the ages!” Shah Andragoras bellowed, his voice carrying through the veil of fog. “Spirits of Jamshid the Sage, Kay Khosrow the Hero, and all the other sovereigns, I beseech you to protect our army!
“Protect our army!” the knights of the main camp echoed him, and the cry rippled through the rest of the troops.
The king raised his powerful right arm and brought it down. A roar erupted, and the Parsian army began its charge.
Eighty thousand cavalry surged forward. The thunder of hooves shook the very earth.
The fog streamed past on both sides of the charging horsemen. Armor clinked and clattered. Raised swords and spears glistened with droplets of the clinging mist.
Whenever this cavalry force charged, enemy nations often fell into fear and despair before the battle even began, and they were cut down as easily as grass before the blades of Pars. Even the fog could not muffle the thunder of hooves; if anything, their unseen presence should deepen the terror.
The Parsian army saw victory beyond the mist. But that illusion shattered abruptly.
Riders at the front of the formation realized the ground beneath their horses had vanished. Cries of panic rose. They tried to pull their reins, but it was too late. They were thrown off the edge and fell.
The first rank was pushed by the second, the second by the third. Horses and men screamed in equal measure.
A massive chasm gaped before them. One of the largest in the Atropatene plain, it was over one farsang in length, thirty gaz wide, and five gaz deep. The elite cavalry of Pars tumbled in heaps into this natural moat, splashing mud. The wounded writhing from broken bones were crushed as new victims fell from above. Chaos engulfed the army. Those who barely managed to stand smelled a foul stench and realized the muddy liquid reaching their knees was oil. A wave of horror swept through them.
“Watch out! It’s oil! They’re planning to burn us alive!”
A wall of flame surged up into the air. Fire arrows. Oil that had been spread across the plain ignited all at once, and the Parsian army was swallowed by tongues of fire.
Hundreds of rings of flame formed in the fog, each one trapping several hundred cavalrymen. The force of more than 80,000 horsemen lost both freedom and unity as they were split apart. Through the thick veil of fog, the rings of fire also revealed their positions clearly to the Lusitanian army. It all happened in an instant.
“Steady! Steady!”
The soldiers of Pars desperately tried to calm their panicked horses as they reared in terror of the flames. Amid the neighing of horses, scrambling hooves, and riders’ shouts, a new sound joined in.
The sound of countless arrows raining down from the sky.
The commanders of the Parsian army bellowed orders to evade, but it was impossible to carry them out. Ahead of them, a massive wall of fire more than a farsang long blocked all advance. On the remaining three sides, endless rings of flame robbed them of all freedom of movement. From inside the burning encirclement came the screams of men and horses being burned alive.
The Lusitanian army had prepared hundreds of siege towers, each five times the height of a man, and from them they loosed arrows down into the fire rings below. Their enemies could not move. From above, it was almost laughably easy to hit their marks.
A one-sided slaughter unfolded. The fields were covered with the red-stained uniforms of Pars, soaked in fire and blood.
But eventually, some of the Parsian cavalry broke through the curtain of fire, smoke, and fog and appeared before the Lusitanian lines. Resigned to death, these riders used their masterful horsemanship to leap over the wall of fire. Those who failed tumbled into the flames and were transformed into living fireballs. Even those who succeeded were often badly burned. Many emerged as blazing torches of man and horse, staggering forward only to collapse as their strength gave out.
The once-invincible cavalry of Pars crumpled in heaps on the ground, like clay dolls struck by lightning. Tens of thousands of lives, tens of thousands of prides, and the history of an entire nation were being buried under arrows and white fog.
Arslan slapped out the small flames on his sleeves and cloak and coughed through the smoke. “Father!” he shouted. “Dariun! Vahriz!”
No answer came from anywhere.
The cavalry that broke through the ring of fire still charged forward, swords raised, cloaks burning. The Lusitanian cavalry moved to meet them.
The head-on clash produced a one-sided result. In both horsemanship and swordsmanship, the Lusitanian army was no match for Pars. The blades of the Parsians drank blood, and the Lusitanian soldiers were cut down. Corpses from both sides piled up over the field.
“What incredible strength. Had we faced them in open battle, we would never have stood a chance,” muttered General Montferrat inside the Lusitanian camp, protected by three layers of palisades and trenches. Beside him, General Baudouin nodded. A faint, cold look flickered across their faces as victory edged closer.
Before them, more and more Parsian cavalry fell into piles of corpses. Even after cutting down Lusitanian horsemen and breaking into the enemy lines, they could not pass the triple defenses. As they stopped there, they were showered with arrows loosed from the siege towers, and man and horse alike toppled over and breathed their last.
Just when it seemed the pile of corpses might reach the height of the palisades, the trumpets of the Lusitanian army blared high and wide. It was the signal for a full counterattack. The gates of the fortifications were thrown open, and the main, unscathed force of the Lusitanian army poured out onto the plain like a flood of steel.
“Where is Qaran?!” Shah Andragoras roared, his face twisted with fury and unease.
On the battlefield, he had always been full of confidence and courage, unchanged since the days when he served as Eran under the former king and conquered Badakhshan. Yet on this day, for the first time, his fortitude showed a crack. Never having tasted defeat, he found it all the more terrifying.
A chiliarch under Qaran flinched. He had been ordered to stay in the main camp to maintain close communication between the king and the marzban.
“W-We’ve been searching for him, but we haven’t seen him since a short while ago.”
“Find him and bring him here! Do not show yourself before me until you do!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Struck by the king’s fury, the chiliarch rushed off on his horse.
Watching him go, Andragoras let out a furious groan. It was Qaran who had reported that there were no faults ahead and pushed for a full frontal assault. And following his suggestion had led to this disaster.
“Has Qaran… betrayed us?”
Vahriz did not answer the king. Instead, he guided his horse to the edge of the camp. Dariun turned. A long spear lay across the front of his saddle, his grip betraying a faint irritation.
“You’re up, Dariun,” the eran said, placing a steady hand on his nephew’s arm. “I will stay here and protect His Majesty. You go and find Prince Arslan.”
“Where… is he?”
“He was at the head of the charge. I don’t like this. It may already be too late, but you must protect him. I will bear the king’s wrath.”
“Understood, Uncle. Let us meet again in Ecbatana.”
After a brief bow, Dariun tapped the neck of his black horse with his palm and turned it around. The old general watched intently as his nephew disappeared into the thick curtain of fog.
1. Historical Persian unit of length. One gaz is equivalent to approximately one meter. Also spelled guz. ↩
2. Parsian unit of distance. One amaj is approximately 250 meters. ↩