Author's note: Once again, thank you all so much for your reviews.
Episode V : "The night attack"When there were no more soldiers standing, the Prince turned to Markug who in the meantime had successfully overcome all those who had attacked him.
"What is the meaning of this? Has the world gone insane?" he shouted furiously, as if Markug was the one responsible.
"I am as shocked as you are. If the mercenaries we have hired rebelled against us it would have made more sense, but our own soldiers? When have we ever mistreated them?"
Markug had a slightly trembling voice when he spoke more in his defense, and the Prince regretted having shouted at him, knowing that Markug would never betray him. And yet, in this period of his life he found it difficult to trust even his most reliable subjects.
To apologize to Markug he didn't make use of words as he once did, but he just turned around and considered it enough apology simply not bringing up the subject again.
On the ground, the Prince noticed a soldier that he had rendered unconscious, and not killed, during the fight, who was now starting to wake up. He strode towards him, grabbed hold of his uniform, raised him up and slammed him against the support pillar in the middle of the tent.
"Who planned this? Give me a name!" the Prince demanded furiously as he grabbed the man by the neck and smashed his head against the pillar.
Although obviously in pain, the man grinned at him evilly and managed to say a few words while gasping for air.
"The …… one who …… will end your …… miserable existence."
Becoming more furious at the man's insolence, the Prince punched him hard in the face, making him fall to the ground. Once he was down he drew out the sword he carried on his back and was about to strike him with it when he was stopped by Markug.
"Don't kill him yet."
The Prince looked at him inquiring, once again as if he suspected Markug to be involved in the rebellion of the Persian soldiers. But the general spoke again allowing his commander no time to make false assumptions.
"Take a look at his wrist."
For a few seconds the Prince still looked at him suspiciously, but as Markug also approached the man, he directed his attention to what he was showing him.
"It's only a scar," the Prince replied as he saw the simple, reddish, winding line on the man's wrist, that Markug had accidentally noticed and was now showing to the Prince.
"Yes, but it is the scar of a wound made on purpose, as a sign of recognition. This man is no ordinary soldier, and he is definitely not a Persian. According to this mark, he belongs to a special unit of highly skilled assassins …… of the Syrian army."
"Syrians. Damn those people," the Prince cursed through gritted teeth. Then, he turned to the man lying on the ground. "Not much of a skilled assassin, are you?" he muttered before he drew his sword through the assassin's body just as the latter opened his eyes and watched with horror how the sword pierced through his body and blood spilled out.
"Maybe we could have got some information from him," Markug suggested.
"There are others."
Markug looked behind him and saw the men he and the Prince had fought earlier. Some of them were dead, others just unconscious. He approached them and examined their right wrists.
"They all bear the same mark. So this was their plan, to make us kill our own soldiers. Excellent strategy. If only I had fought of it," Markug spoke with regret and sorrow.
"What do we do now, if we cannot tell our soldiers and our enemies apart?" the Prince asked.
"I suggest we first find the men we know better, the high-ranked officers. We should gather as many of our men as possible before we find a way to deal with the intruders."
"Then we shall meet back here in half an hour," the Prince concluded and they both exited the tent, going in opposite directions.
Half an hour later …The Prince and Markug had managed to gather about two dozen officers, a couple of soldiers and about twenty of the mercenaries working for the Persian army. Now they were all in Markug's tent, awaiting orders from their leader, after they had all been informed about the situation.
"I think I know how we can chase away the Syrians without having to kill any of our soldiers," the Prince informed the men. "We use their own strategy against them. On the two opposite hilltops on either side of our encampment there are about a dozen Syrian soldiers waiting to light a fire as a sign of retreat in case something should go wrong. We will divide in two groups and take hold of these strategic points. Once we are there, we will light the fire while some of you will ride through the camp announcing the retreat. Since all soldiers are wearing the same uniforms and it is also nigh time, the Syrians will obey the order, believing it is from one of their own. When the Syrians will be half way between our camp and the two hills, soldiers standing both on the hilltops and around the camp will fire arrows with flaming tips at them. If we are fortunate enough, we will kill them all and perhaps this will teach them once and for all that the Persian Empire cannot be defeated."
The men all cheered at the Prince's final statement and after that they began making the arrangements for their counterattack. When every details was set in place, the Prince and Markug each took fifteen soldiers and rode in the direction of the hilltops, after they had managed to leave unseen the encampment, where the battle was still on. Fortunately the gods were on their side that night and everything went according to plan. Both Markug and the Prince, together with their own group of men, surrounded the Syrian soldiers on both hilltops, eliminated them easily enough and set fire to the two large pyres that had been prepared beforehand. When the Syrians infiltrated within the Persian army saw the two fires and soldiers riding in every direction desperately announcing the retreat, they thought that something serious must be going on and immediately abandoned whatever they were doing and ran for their lives. Just as the Prince had hoped, they split into two groups and began ascending the two hills. When they had covered almost half of the distance, a shower of flaming arrows descended upon them from the hilltops. The ones who hadn't been hit instinctively turned the other way around only to be faced with the same situation, as the Persian soldiers from the encampment had been advised to do the same. The Syrians who had been fortunate enough to not lose their lives in the incendiary massacre soon met their doom when the Persians from the hilltops and from the encampment rushed at them, trapping them in the middle. A real army of Syrian soldiers had invaded the Persian camp that night and only a few men had lived to tell the tale –the ones who chose to run a way in a cowardly manner when things became too much for them to handle.
It was dawn when things had calmed down in the Persian encampment. Heavy clouds of smoke were rising on both hills from the fires that had settled down, the earth had turned red from all the blood, mutilated corpses were lying everywhere and the Persian soldiers were still bewildered from everything that had happened. The Prince left Markug to resettle order within the army and hurried to his tent as soon as he remembered that the Syrians had also come with the intention of murdering him and he had left the priestess all alone in his tent, where the assassins would be bound to search first. When he arrived, he saw the two guards lying dead before the entrance. Inside, the carpets that covered the floor where soaked in blood and more corpses were lying around. He bend down over one of the dead soldiers and examined his right wrist; the now familiar Syrian mark could clearly be seen. But there was something odd about this soldier: he was dead and yet there was no sign of any injury. The Prince turned him around, for the soldier was lying on his stomach and saw that a small knife had been impaled with great precision into his neck; and not any kind of knife, but a dinning one. This made him think again at the priestess and he quickly stood up and made his way to the small bedchamber where he had left her. Despite everything that had happened she didn't seem to have been affected in the least. He found her outstretched on the bed, playing with the fringes of a curtain above her head and looking quite absent-minded.
"Are you all right?" he asked concerned that perhaps the state she was in had been provoked by a trauma she might have endured.
"No, I am bored to death," she answered without interrupting her activity or even bothering to look at him.
"People were killed just behind these curtains," he informed her, astonished by her indifference. "You mean to tell me you don't know anything about this?"
"I only told you that I was bored."
"What happened here? Answer me!" he shouted and grabbed her chin, turning her head so that she was looking him in the eyes.
"How should I know? I slept most of the time, since there was nothing better for me to do."
"You slept?" he asked distrustfully, with faint irony. "What about the dinning knife impaled in the neck of one of the dead men?"
"Perhaps whoever killed him ran out of weapons."
"And you didn't see the one who came in here to take the knife, because I see no knife on the table?"
"Like I said, I was sleeping."
"Then why is your dress so dirty?" the Prince demanded when he noticed that the white fabric of her garment had brownish stains and sprinkles of blood around the part that covered her ankles.
"I went and looked around and since the floor was so dirty …… "
"Did you have anything to do with these men getting killed?"
"You think I killed them?" she laughed. "But I am just a poor, defenseless girl."
"Didn't you say your goddess taught you to defend yourself?"
"Oh, so you believe me now?"
"No."