The Khyber Pass.
09:19 (Central Asia Time)
Monday, June 3, 61 B.C.E.
The Khyber Pass, northwest of Purushapura (modern-day Peshawar)
Initially within Indo-Scythian territory
The caravan was negotiating a bend on the road following a valley flanked on both sides by steep mountains and hills when Nauca, who was trotting a good 400 meters ahead of the column of horses and camels, saw something that made her stop cold her horse, Tamat: dozens of vultures were flying circles over an area of the valley that was still out of her direct sight. To her, circling vultures meant one thing: dead carcasses, either animal or human. In this case, the large numbers of vultures in the air over a particular area meant lots of dead bodies. In view of the fact that the Kushans were at war with the Saka, that translated into a probable battlefield littered with dead soldiers. Reversing course, she galloped to rejoin Hiram, who was riding at the head of the caravan, and stopped next to his horse.
‘’I see vultures, lots of them, ahead of us. I am going to go forward to see what it is about. You better tell our associates to be ready to defend themselves, in case that I encounter trouble ahead.’’
Without waiting for Hiram’s reaction to her words, Nauca then reversed her horse again and started galloping eastward down the road, keeping her speed until she passed a last rocky slope that had been cutting her vision ahead. What she saw then made her slow down, then stop her horse before contemplating a most sinister sight: thousands of bodies, mostly of men but also of horses, lying in an often-thick carpet all over the valley floor. Hundreds of vultures were in the process of feasting on the corpses, while more vultures flew in circles above, waiting for their turn to eat.
‘’By Ahura Mazda! What a sad sight!’’
Pushing her horse forward at a trot, Nauca approached the nearest bodies in order to identify who they had been. They actually turned out to be a mix of Kushan and Saka soldiers, with a few dead horses intermixed with them. Trotting further forward, Nauca saw that the ratio of dead Saka to dead Kushans progressively got higher, a good sign that the Kushans, after breaking the Saka front lines, had then gained the upper edge in that battle. As she continued forward, it progressively became a field of mostly dead Saka warriors, many of them having been killed by arrows in their back.
‘’Those Saka held the line at first, then the Kushans broke through, with the battle ending in a mad retreat by the Saka, with the Kushans in hot pursuit. There must be over 3,000 dead men in this valley.’’
Seeing some movement a few meters away, she cautiously approached a Saka soldier lying on the ground and moaning softly.
‘’W…water, please! Water!’’
Not thinking twice about it, Nauca stepped down from her horse and, holding Tamat’s reins with one hand, approached the wounded soldier, who barely moved. Kneeling next to him, she gravely contemplated the man’s face as she took out her water flask and unplugged it. Gently raising his head with one hand, she then presented the flask to the man’s lips. The Saka had time to drink maybe two pulls of water before starting to convulse and then die. Gently putting the dead man’s head down, Nauca closed his eyelids and got back up while plugging back her water flask. She looked down with sadness at the dead man for a moment: that Saka could not have been much more than twenty years-old and had been in his physical prime before being pierced by a lance. Looking up and around, she slowly shook her head while surveying the thousands of dead.
‘’And they say that war is a glorious thing…’’
She now had to go back and tell Hiram about this, so she got back on her horse and galloped back to the caravan, again stopping next to Hiram.
‘’A large battle occurred ahead, maybe one day ago. The field is littered with thousands of dead Kushan and Saka soldiers, plus many horses. It is not a pretty sight, Hiram.’’
Hiram took a moment to absorb those words, his expression sober.
‘’Did you see any living soldier or man roaming that battlefield, Nauca?’’
‘’No! I found one wounded man asking for water but he then died as I gave him water. From the pattern of dead soldiers, I would say that the Kushans won that battle and are now pursuing the remnants of the Saka army which fought this battle.’’
‘’Then, as distasteful as this could sound to you, we should take the purses of these dead soldiers before local bandits do. Those dead men won’t need that money anymore anyway and it is better that we are the ones who will do this rather than some cutthroat bandits.’’
Nauca nodded slowly her head at that: while it definitely sounded awful, the sad truth was that it would be stupid to leave that money lying around this valley. If left on the dead, those gold, silver and copper coins could trigger disputes and fighting between future looters, ending up causing more deaths.
‘’I agree! I will post myself at the end of this valley, to watch for any returning troop of soldiers. Tell our people to work fast but also to not keep their loot in evidence. If we are caught looting those dead, then we may end up as dead as those unfortunate soldiers.’’
‘’A judicious counsel, Nauca. Don’t worry about your share of the loot: we will gather together and count everything tonight, then will split the loot evenly.’’
Satisfied by that, Nauca then galloped eastward again as Hiram started giving orders to his associate merchants and camel drivers.
With Talya, Amara and their cook staying with the camels and unmounted horses of the caravan, the Sogdian merchants spread out in a long extended line and started advancing slowly across the battlefield, taking the purses of the dead soldiers, along with the few personal jewels, like rings and pendants, they carried. That process quickly produced a large quantity of purses and jewels, despite the group having covered only a small portion of the battlefield yet. Some, like Igrid, Timur and Gorudos, also grabbed the better-quality weapons and pieces of armor they could find and which would help them improve their equipment. The merchants and guards ended up having to do frequent trips to their horses and camels, in order to empty their bulging haversacks into the packs carried by their animals, before continuing their sweep. After some three hours of this and with the camels’ packs now bulging with coins, jewels and top-quality armor and weapons, which by themselves were worth a fortune, Hiram decided to cut the looting short and to leave the valley before someone caught them in the act. They had anyway already gathered enough of a fortune to make them all rich men…and girls.
Hiram made his caravan cover another ten kilometers, time to leave that valley, then led his associates off the main road and down an old side trail that went towards a small forest of coniferous trees, where he stopped his horses and camels behind a curtain of trees which hid them from the road and was also close to a small mountain stream.
‘’ALRIGHT, LET’S ERECT OUR TENTS HERE AND BUILD A CAMP FOR THE NIGHT. HOWEVER, NO FIRES! WE DON’T WANT TO ATTRACT BANDITS TO US TONIGHT. WE WILL EAT COLD RATIONS.’’
With the camels and horses assembled in the middle of their camps and with ballots of merchandises forming a rudimentary low wall inside which tents were erected, the caravan was ready for the night as the Sun was still up. That allowed for a quick triage of their loot, with the gold, silver, copper and bronze coins separated by type of metal before being weighed with the help of the scales carried by the caravan. While every associate merchant, caravan guard and camel drivers ended up with equal portions of the coinage, little Amara got a half portion. That amounted to a rough value of 1,900 drachmas per portion, enough to buy a nice house or two top-quality horses. On her part, little Amara was left speechless when she got her 950 drachmas half-portion, which represented nearly fifteen months of salary for a skilled worker.
‘’But…what am I going to do with all that money? I can’t even lift that much money!’’
‘’Don’t worry about that, Amara.’’ said softly Nauca to the little girl. ‘’I will help you carry it and we will then exchange it for gems, which will be a lot easier for you to safely carry around.’’
That made Amara hug joyfully Nauca.
‘’Oh, Nauca, you are so nice to me. How could I ever repay you for everything you did for me?’’
‘’Easy: by living a free and happy life while being kind to others around you.’’
‘’I will do that, Nauca. I promise!’’
Hiram, who was nearby and listening discreetly to them, smiled to himself and mentally promised to dedicate a prayer tonight to Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian God of Good, in the name of Nauca. The Sarmatian girl may not have been a saint but her heart was certainly at the right place.
05:48 (Central Asia Time)
Tuesday, June 4, 61 B.C.E.
Valley of the Khyber Pass
Nauca, who was approaching the end of her guard shift, was about to go wake up Gorudos, her designated replacement, when her ears caught on a growing noise in the distance, coming from the East. Deciding to go see what it was, she walked quickly through the curtain of trees hiding the caravan’s camp from the main road and hid at the edge of the treeline. The noise grew gradually to that of a numerous troop of riders travelling westward on the main road. Nauca was finally able to see who those riders were and stiffened in alarm: they were the Kushan cavalrymen who had passed them in the mountain pass close to Alexandra Caucaso. However, that cavalry unit was now distinctly smaller and counted at most a bit less than a thousand horsemen, some of them visibly wounded. Nauca then understood what was happening. The Kushans, after their initial victory over the Sakas and their pursuit of their surviving enemies, must have then hit a fresh Saka force, getting mauled in the process. Now, the Kushans had apparently had enough and were retreating back into Kushan territory. The big question now was if the Sakas were pursuing them, in which case Hiram’s caravan certainly didn’t want to encounter that fresh Saka army on the road to Purushapura. Waiting until all the Kushans were out of sight, Nauca then ran back to the camp and went to wake up Hiram in his tent. It took a couple of shakes to wake the caravan master and make him look up at Nauca.
‘’What is it, Nauca?’’
‘’That Kushan army that passed us near Alexandra Caucaso: it just retreated back westward. They were much less in numbers and some of them were wounded. My guess is that they encountered a second group of Saka warriors and were repelled.’’
Now clearly alarmed, Hiram sat up on his sheepskin and rubbed his eyes in order to fully wake up.
‘’Are those Kushans gone now?’’
‘’Yes, they are! As for the Sakas, there is still no sign of them and I don’t know if they are pursuing the Kushans or if they simply held their positions east of here. What do you want us to do, Hiram?’’
The latter thought for a moment before answering her while getting up.
‘’I think that we should stay here, hidden out of sight, for another day or two. If we take to the road again right away, the Sakas could have hard questions about how we went through the Kushan lines with such apparent ease. What do you think, Nauca?’’
Nauca was flattered to see that Hiram was asking for her advice on such an important thing, as it clearly showed the confidence he had in her.
‘’I would also wait for a couple days and stay in hiding. If a Saka army is following those Kushans westward, then the best thing for us would be to continue our trip after the Sakas will have passed through this valley. That way, the road would be mostly clear of large groups of soldiers.’’
‘’Then we will stay here and keep a low profile until I will believe that it is safe to resume our trip towards Purushapura. I will go pass the word around to our people. You may now wake up Gorudos, so that you can catch some sleep.’’
Nauca simply nodded her head at that and left Hiram’s tent to go wake up Gorudos, hoping mentally that they could steer clear from those battling armies. Once again, war was proving to be the biggest obstacle to caravan trade.
After another two more days spent in hiding and with no signs of pursuing Saka soldiers, Hiram finally decided that the way was clear for his caravan to resume its trip eastward. His decision to leave was further proved correct when another caravan, that one traveling westward, passed on the main road as Hiram’s own caravan was about to start moving. Still, Hiram did not take chances and sent both Nauca and Gorudos to gallop ahead in order to check how safe their itinerary was and be able to give an advance warning of any potential problem lying along the road to Purushapura.