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between the lords and their men in the centre and Vagises’ horse archers on the wings. The latter now moved to position themselves directly opposite the Roman horsemen on the flanks of the legion and a phalanx of Emesian spearmen that were moving forward at a steady pace. I turned in the saddle and waved Spandarat forward.
    I pointed at the enemy troops approaching. ‘Spandarat, we must halt those troops opposite. Therefore if you and the other lords would assault them I would be eternally grateful.’
    He rubbed his hands together and grinned. ‘Lovely.’
    He withdrew to where his fellow noblemen waited on their horses and imparted my wishes to them. Moments later they were galloping to take up position in front of their men and then led them forward.
    Within minutes twenty thousand horse archers were unleashed against the ranks of the enemy. They charged in twenty great columns, each one grouped behind their lord and began shooting their arrows at a range of seven hundred paces from their foes. The missiles arched high into the sky and then fell onto the heads of the Romans and their Emesian allies, the latter in their great phalanx were not able to lock their shields above their heads like the men of the Tiber. The slingers and archers interspersed among the Romans suffered the most casualties, being struck by dozens of arrows that suddenly fell among them.
    My lords may not have led the most disciplined or well-equipped soldiers in the world but they knew how to conduct themselves in battle. They knew that if they moved at speed and kept out of range of the enemy they would improve their effectiveness and reduce their own casualties. And so at a distance of four hundred paces from the front ranks of the enemy their men wheeled their horses right and right again to ride back to their starting position, twisting in the saddle to shoot a parting arrow at the opposition over the hindquarters of their horses as they did so.
    While the enemy’s centre was being subjected to this arrow storm Vagises’ horse archers on either wing held their positions, while behind where I watched the drama beside Gallia, Haytham and his warriors reformed and strained to be unleashed once more. To our front the lords’ men were shooting around five arrows a minute, meaning their would empty their quivers in six minutes, but in that short space of time they managed to halt the advance of the enemy. As the lords led their men to the rear to replenish their quivers from the camel train a dust-covered Spandarat rode up to me with a big grin on his face.
    ‘Soon as we’ve stocked up on arrows we’ll go back and finish them off.’
    I peered past him at the wall of locked Roman shields.
    ‘You have halted them, well done,’ I said. ‘But for the moment we wait to see what the enemy will do.’
    His grin disappeared.
    ‘Time to finish them off, otherwise they will crawl back to Emesa.’
    ‘That is for Haytham to decide,’ I reminded him.
    The attack by Dura’s lords had taken the enemy by surprise. Believing that Haytham’s warriors were assaulting them, they had once more prepared to fend them off with slingers and archers. Instead they had been subjected to a missile storm that had felled many of their own missile troops, who carried no shields and wore no body armour. Their own bows had a shorter range than our own recurve models and though their slings could shoot as far, our initial volley had been such a surprise that they had failed to shoot any missiles in return.
    Malik and Haytham now rode forward to join out little group as silence descended over the battlefield and the choking dust that had hung over it mercifully began to slowly dissipate.
    ‘They have been halted, lord king,’ I said to Haytham.
    ‘But they still stand on my land,’ he growled.
    I knew he would launch another general attack that would achieve little apart from reaping another harvest of Agraci dead, but it was not my place to tell him what to do in