Gaugamela
His voice was the ear-battering bellow of a horn, scratched deep and dark with age, but blood-bright with impetus: "Move forward!"
The battle is beginning.
Across the barren, flat field, the elephants echo his challenge, strange dark ghosts in the disturbing quiet before a major battle. Only a moment before it had been a deadly quiet, broken only by the clink of shuffling men, the occasional snort and whine of horse down the line. I don't know how long we stood in the quiet, choking on the dust as the sun baked us from above. But now that's over; we're moving forward. So are the Persians.
I can hear, to my distant right, the first howl and crash of armored man against man, the shriek of horses, the clatter of weapons on arms and bodies against each other. But it's muffled, far away.
Suddenly, a different voice calls out from behind me: "Charge!" Parmenion himself, screaming to my commander. "Stop them, charge!" A battalion of Persian cavalry has broken away and is making their own charge toward us, trying to outflank us, to get behind and slaughter us as we have done to others before.
But they underestimate us. Our lines stretch thin to catch the thick wall of charging cavalry, but I spur my horse on, confident with youth and past experience both. The Persians thunder towards us, and even in the dust they twinkle; a polished bit in a horse's mouth, an ornate hem a the edge of their armor, a sheath that shines with gold. On shorter horses, with less men, we must look weaker; but the Persian line curves like a wave going in, while ours is as straight as the spear I hurl into the guts of a young man in front of me.
We crash together like water on the rocks, the sound of it deafening me for a moment. Men are screaming, wounded or furious, and a fallen soldier cuts at my horse with his blade. But I've still a spear; I push it down into him and wrench it away before the men before me have a chance to cut at my face. I strike at their ridiculous helmets, invincible, spurred by cheering far on the right.
A man to my left goes down, and another replaces him. We fight like this for what feels like ages. I don't know how much time passed, perhaps a few hours. Finally the superiority of Persian numbers starts to wear on us. I'm covered in blood, spear long broken, hacking as best I can at these fresh troops who emerge from the dust time and time again. I begin to wonder: perhaps I'm already dead, and will face this stream of dark men forever in eternity. But the dull ache of my wounded leg makes me think I perhaps still live, so I fight on. Finally, behind me, I hear the wing commander again, yelling to his son.
"Go to Alexander, and tell him to send reinforcements. We cannot last like this for much longer!"
A man who's fought beside me for the last hour goes down, instantly white in the face, after a terrible gash to his leg. I avenge him with a quick stab to the Persian's throat, but my heart is failing. Where is Alexander, our savior? Has he left us to die?
----
Forgive me my classics dorkiness; I live and breathe Alexander the Great lately. I'm aching to join in the NaNoWriMo insanity, but I can't, not this year. So here's a snippet from the battle of Gaugamela, a battle that I will probably write three hundred more times before I die. <3 For the insane, this is from a Thracian cavalry unit under Parmenion on the Macedonian left.
The battle is beginning.
Across the barren, flat field, the elephants echo his challenge, strange dark ghosts in the disturbing quiet before a major battle. Only a moment before it had been a deadly quiet, broken only by the clink of shuffling men, the occasional snort and whine of horse down the line. I don't know how long we stood in the quiet, choking on the dust as the sun baked us from above. But now that's over; we're moving forward. So are the Persians.
I can hear, to my distant right, the first howl and crash of armored man against man, the shriek of horses, the clatter of weapons on arms and bodies against each other. But it's muffled, far away.
Suddenly, a different voice calls out from behind me: "Charge!" Parmenion himself, screaming to my commander. "Stop them, charge!" A battalion of Persian cavalry has broken away and is making their own charge toward us, trying to outflank us, to get behind and slaughter us as we have done to others before.
But they underestimate us. Our lines stretch thin to catch the thick wall of charging cavalry, but I spur my horse on, confident with youth and past experience both. The Persians thunder towards us, and even in the dust they twinkle; a polished bit in a horse's mouth, an ornate hem a the edge of their armor, a sheath that shines with gold. On shorter horses, with less men, we must look weaker; but the Persian line curves like a wave going in, while ours is as straight as the spear I hurl into the guts of a young man in front of me.
We crash together like water on the rocks, the sound of it deafening me for a moment. Men are screaming, wounded or furious, and a fallen soldier cuts at my horse with his blade. But I've still a spear; I push it down into him and wrench it away before the men before me have a chance to cut at my face. I strike at their ridiculous helmets, invincible, spurred by cheering far on the right.
A man to my left goes down, and another replaces him. We fight like this for what feels like ages. I don't know how much time passed, perhaps a few hours. Finally the superiority of Persian numbers starts to wear on us. I'm covered in blood, spear long broken, hacking as best I can at these fresh troops who emerge from the dust time and time again. I begin to wonder: perhaps I'm already dead, and will face this stream of dark men forever in eternity. But the dull ache of my wounded leg makes me think I perhaps still live, so I fight on. Finally, behind me, I hear the wing commander again, yelling to his son.
"Go to Alexander, and tell him to send reinforcements. We cannot last like this for much longer!"
A man who's fought beside me for the last hour goes down, instantly white in the face, after a terrible gash to his leg. I avenge him with a quick stab to the Persian's throat, but my heart is failing. Where is Alexander, our savior? Has he left us to die?
----
Forgive me my classics dorkiness; I live and breathe Alexander the Great lately. I'm aching to join in the NaNoWriMo insanity, but I can't, not this year. So here's a snippet from the battle of Gaugamela, a battle that I will probably write three hundred more times before I die. <3 For the insane, this is from a Thracian cavalry unit under Parmenion on the Macedonian left.