Himuili barked a laugh. ‘Well, it’s your lucky day. We’ve been keeping back the surviving beasts for today, for the battle that we knew would come – keeping them out of the sight of hungry scumbags like you, Kassu. You can guess how many men have gone to their graves because we kept a horse alive instead, but that’s something we will have to sort out in the afterlife.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Shut up. Look along the line.’ He pointed.

Kassu looked north. On the Hatti army’s left flank he made out cavalry units: men and horses, some mounted, some leading their horses.

‘So what do you see?’

‘Our own cavalry.’ The men were each equipped with lance and sword, and a small round shield. ‘And light archers. Mongols?’

‘Good, yes.’

‘Others equipped with Frankish bows.’ These were gadgets of wood and iron; you turned handles to wind a thick cord back across a frame. They were awkward to handle but the bolts they delivered could pierce thick armour. ‘What about the Almughavars?’

‘On the right wing.’

Kassu turned to see. These riders of the steppe were lancers; they carried four or five iron-tipped javelins that they would hurl one by one, and then they would drive forward at an infantry unit with a long spear. Once they closed they would snap the spear to use it as a shorter thrusting weapon.

‘All these lads of the steppe have worked out their own way of fighting,’ Himuili murmured. ‘Godless wretches who drink their horses’ blood by day and hump them by night, but formidable fighters if you use them right. If we get one good charge out of them I’ll be happy. Well, it might be enough, for the Carthaginians are probably in a worse state than we are.’

He turned his horse’s head to the east, towards Carthage, and led Kassu a little further away from the line. The plain before Carthage was turning yellow-brown, like the desert, from all the sandstorms, but you could still see the hummocks and ridges that had once marked out farms and orchards, and the ruins of broken-down buildings stuck out of the dirt like broken limbs. And beyond all that, on the horizon, Kassu could see the walls of the city itself, a line of dirty white, studded with towers.

Himuili grunted. ‘A formidable sight.’

‘Yes, sir. But even from here you can see how the walls have been blackened by our fires. Anyhow, Carthage itself isn’t the prize. Carthage is just an obstacle on the road to Egypt, and all its lovely grain.’

Himuili grinned, leaned over and slapped his back. ‘Good response. You should talk to Palla about putting some of this stuff in his sermons to the troops, which for me are a bit heavy on the suffering and submission of Jesus. Ah, but you and Palla have history, don’t you? Well, forget I mentioned him.’