Ranks of Bronze э-1

by David Weber

Gaius Vibulenus had to remember that the actions he took affected hundreds, thousands, of other men; even after he was thinking again as a fearful individual and not the tribune-more than tribune-who had given the orders. "Either," he said in a voice that steadied after the first syllables, "we'll have some help over here soonest, or we march back to the ship and discuss matters at leisure."

  Or you watch me burned to charcoal and a puddle of bronze, his fear added silently.

  The tribune looked toward the enemy whom he had ignored through the minutes since they ceased to be the primary threat. The Romans' actions and lack thereof appeared to have confused the hostile chieftains as well. The signallers had drifted to a halt, midway across the gap that had separated the two armies. All but one of the bull-roarers were silent, the wielders leaning on their staves, panting with the exertion they had undergone. Individually, the figures seemed to be tall and gangling, with skins whose color approached bright orange.

  And gods! there were hordes of them.

  "Maybe," Vibulenus said to himself aloud, "he can shift a cohort from the right to give us some depth. Six ranks isn't enough, not on this flank."

  "They want us to come out," said the pilus prior with a nod toward the hesitating foe. "They aren't used to this."

  "That was what happened the first time," said the tribune, voicing a train of thought wholly inappropriate at the present time. "The, you know, the first battle we fought for this guild? Those big fellas with the carts, they expected to fight a civilized little battle. Then the loser'd withdraw behind the screen of light troops and everybody'd go home."

  "I'm not looking forward to this neither," said the centurion; and when Vibulenus processed the words, he too understood why he had been babbling about the distant past. He had survived that past.

  There was a stir around the command group. Eight or ten-ten, half the contingent-of the Commander's bodyguards suddenly rode toward the left flank at a shambling trot. They sat their mounts ably enough with no squirming or slipping in their saddles, but because of their size and featureless armor they looked more like howdahs than riders.

  They carried their maces upright, waving ten feet above the saddles like papyrus stalks when wind sweeps up the Nile.

  All the warmth and strength drained out of the tribune's body. His clammy fingers touched the hilt of his sword, wondering whether to defend himself with the weapon or fall on it… and whether the guild would revivify him for punishment if he tried to forestall them by suicide.

  Clodius Afer had remained standing when he ordered his troops to kneel. Now, looking over their heads toward the armored riders, he said in a raspy, carrying voice, "Boys, it may be there'll be a little trouble in a moment. If we put our spears up the belly of those overgrown dogs from below, then we can take care of the prettyboys ridin' 'em in our own good time."

  "I don't want-" Vibulenus started to say before it struck him that he couldn't keep these men from trying to defend him-and that he didn't want to call them off anyway. They'd been together for a long tme, he and the legion. Maybe this wouldn't be the worst way for it to end.

  The toad-faced guards rode past the flank of the cohort. Instead of reining their beasts across the face of the kneeling unit to arrest the tribune as he expected, they fanned out to extend the line of the legion by over three hundred feet. As the nearest of the riders halted his mount, facing and snarling at the enemy, he turned stiffly in the saddle. His mace head dipped in the direction of Vibulenus, then rose again in what could only be a salute.

  "Get them on their feet again," said the tribune in a rush of triumph and relief that elevated him beyond human concerns. "We've got a battle to fight."

  "Cohort!" shouted Clodius Afer. "Fall-in!"

  Hidden by the scrunch of gravel under hobnails, the pilus prior muttered, "And just what're they doing, you think-sir?"

  "They're the unit guarding our left flank," Vibulenus said, watching armored men rise from the stony soil like the crop Jason sowed with dragon's teeth. Shifting their grip on javelins, adjusting shields and raising reflections on the bronze bosses and edge reinforcements from the light of the greenish sun.

  There was nothing in particular in the eyes that met the tribune's as he scanned the ranks: neither hope nor resignation, not curiosity or fear. They were experts who knew what the present job entailed, and knew that they could handle it.

  "Not exactly a regiment of cavalry," grumbled Clodius in a husky whisper. "Ten of 'em. How's that going to help?"

  "He gave us half of what he had," the tribune remarked with a detached shrug. "We'll call that a win. Anyway, they'll keep the natives off our backs-they look so mean."

  The bull-roarers were beginning to spin again across the field.

  "Mean? We'll give 'em mean," said the pilus prior as he strode away, checking the dress of his lines again.

  The bodyguards must be bitter, the tribune thought, ordered to take a place in the line where they might see real action. Maybe it'd be good for them.

  At least it might get a few of the bastards killed.

  The command group's trumpeter blew his long preliminary call again. Bronze ranks of legionaries, their plumes and javelin points trembling, interrupted Vibulenus' view of the figure in the blue suit who was probably watching the Tenth Cohort in nervous anticipation.

  The Commander had turned out to be willing to learn from people who knew more than he did about the situation. That put him a notch up on Crassus and more than one other Roman consul.

  "Signallers!" Vibulenus called as he strode across the front of the cohort toward its right, where he would find a place between the files of the Tenth and Ninth Cohorts. "Sound the attack!"

  It was not his place to give that order. But, as when Vibulenus had the cohort kneel and take itself out of the battle, it was the fastest possible way to send the Commander a message he would understand.

  The part of Vibulenus' mind that considered practical things expected two or three of the signallers to be able to hear his command-and perhaps none of those to obey him. Instead, all the horns and trumpets of the Tenth and Ninth Cohorts blew the concentus. His voice carried- and it carried authority to every legionary that heard it.

  By Hercules, they were men and were soldiers; and so was Gaius Vibulenus.

  "Cohort-" roared Clodius Afer, picking up the tribune's intent.

  "Century-" from multiple throats.

  First the horn and trumpet from the command group, then the signallers throughout the legion joined the concentus.

  "Forward-march!"

  The legion crashed off toward another enemy at two steps a second, while four thousand right arms readied javelins. The left flank was a half stride ahead of the remaining cohorts; and that wasn't a bad feeling either.

  Vibulenus settled his shield so that the point of his left shoulder took some of the weight. He drew his sword, the same fine Spanish blade his father had bought him so long ago. Its bone hilt and the calluses of his right hand had shaped to one another over the years, and the blade-though frequently sharpened-was poised and balanced to slash a life out.

  As it had done hundreds of times already.

  The enemy began to chant in high-pitched voices, so many of them that it sounded like a chorus of frogs in a swamp swollen by springtime rains. The sparkling crunch of gravel beneath hobnails was the only noise the legion made in reply, but to the ears of a trained soldiers the sound of that disciplined advance was more terrible than any amount of barbarian yammer.

  The tribune's grin and the edges of his sword flashed toward the enemy.

  The equipment the guild supplied was solid enough, helmets forged without weak spots and shields whose laminations did not split if they were dropped. But there was no craftsmanship in that produce, no soul, as there was in the Spanish sword.

  Sometimes it seemed that the guild did not realize even that its soldiers had souls.

  The natives came on with mass but no discipline, the way surf bubbles across a strand.
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  "Heads up!" warned a front-rank centurion as a score of light javelins snapped from the hostile lines in high arcs. They must have been using spear throwers, because no flesh-and-blood arm could have cast a missile so far unaided.

  "Company comin', boys," said Clodius Afer. "Don't lose your dress." The coolness of his voice and the unconcern for anything but his cohort's orderliness were more calming than any blustering encouragement could have been.

  Vibulenus felt a sudden urge to empty his bladder. That too was calming, because the feeling had become a normal part of his life.

  Being on the edge of battle was almost as normal as eating, now.

  One of the darts howled down, short of the tribune but so close that he swung his shield instinctively to cover it. The missile was no more than three feet long, a shaft of something like rattan with a small iron point that shattered on the ground. He kicked the shaft as he stepped past it with the disgust that he would have felt for a snake in his pathway.

  "More on the way!"

  The warriors had surged around their fellows with bull-roarers. The sound continued, but Vibulenus doubted whether the signallers could long continue to spin their noisemakers above the heads of the armed warriors. Their shields were painted in geometric patterns, each unique. Some of the leaders gnawed on their shield rims as they shambled toward the legion.

  It was about time to give them something else to chew on.

  Vibulenus ran two steps ahead of the front of the legion with his sword raised. Waves of flame and melt water undulated through the nerves in his skin, breaking in turbulence at the hidden scars which the Medic could not remove.

  The signallers would call for the first volley of javelins, but not all the legionaries would hear the bronze tones over the crunch of their own advance. If that initial flight were to be launched simultaneously for greatest effect, then there had to be a visual signal as well.

  Gaius Vibulenus had just volunteered himself as visual signal, because he wasn't willing to order any of his men to take the risk instead. His men.

  The tall officer twisted his head and shoulders backward as he jogged toward the enemy. The shadow of his horsehair plume waved across the boots of the soldiers raising their left legs a little higher than usual to balance the javelins cocked back in their right hands to throw.

  The whole left side of Vibulenus' body crawled with fear of the enemy he could no longer see.

  "Hit 'em, boys!" he shouted as the horns blared and the sword in his hand swung down in an arc turned green by the light of the virid sun.

  A dart flew over the tribune and thudded into the shield of a file-closer, just as the front two ranks broke into a run and hurled their javelins at the enemy a hundred feet away. The shadows of three more native missiles merged with the tribune's shadow; he staggered with shock and pain.

  One of the darts struck near the boss of his shield, penetrating the three plies of wood but only bulging the felt backing. A second came down in so high an arc that it missed the shield and glanced from his shoulder where the attachments of his body armor formed a double thickness of bronze. The iron gouged a bright streak into the polished cuirass but did only cosmetic harm.

  The third missile hit Vibulenus in the helmet at the same point he had been struck, ages before, by a spearman in a misty valley. The dart had been hurled as hard and flat as possible for a native arm aided by the additional leverage of a spear thrower.

  There was a flash of ringing deadness in the tribune's skull, and his body started to go slack.

  "Rome!" shouted Clodius Afer as his left arm, shield and all, encircled the tribune who was his friend and comrade.

  The native ranks exploded with the death of hundreds of their leading warriors.

  "Sir?" said the pilus prior as legionaries rushed past them, lifting their heavy javelins from behind their shields. "You're all right?"

  "I'm all right…" Vibulenus mumbled, an echo rather than an answer, but use of his lips and tongue gave him volitional control over the muscles of his body as well. He straightened and finally realized that the centurion had been holding the entire weight of his armored body until then.

  The multi-throated chanting from the nearest portion of the enemy lines changed to screams as heavy javelins and the lighter missiles from the center ranks of the legion hammered the natives like wheat in a hail storm.

  Vibulenus felt his head, using the back of his right hand because he had not lost his grip on his sword. His helmet was gone, but the bone beneath was solid and he could feel the pressure of his probing with both hand and head.

  "I'm fine," he said, slurring the words. "Let's get 'em."

  Blood from the pressure cut on his scalp dripped on his sword as he lowered his hand.

  "Rome!" Clodius repeated with a nod and a feral smile as he headed for his proper place at the front with long, swift strides.

  The tribune followed, though every time his right heel met the ground his vision dimmed with pain. He tried to force his eyes more widely open, as if the muscles of the lids could somehow press back the waves of pain.

  The native shields were long and narrow, so the first good look Vibulenus had at the enemy he was fighting came when he strode past a native body with wide-flung limbs, pinned to the shingle by a javelin through the base of the throat. The corpse was thin with almost the angular slimness of a praying mantis. The orange cast of its skin was accented on the face and arms by rouge. The only clothing worn by the goggle-eyed corpse was a string of animal teeth that might have been intended as some sort of rudimentary body armor.

  The shield beside the native's body would not have been protection even if he had interposed it between him and the Roman javelin. It was leather-covered wicker, barely sufficient to stop light darts like the one which still hung unnoticed from the tribune's own shield. This was going to be as easy as any battle could be.

  Which was not to say that it was going to be easy.

  The advance paused as the two front ranks of legionaries locked shields, compressing the enemy with sword points. A soldier in front of Vibulenus grunted and took a half-step backward. The tribune leaned against the legionary's shoulders and pushed, giving the man the thrust he needed to counter the weight of natives literally trying to crawl over the Roman's shield.

  The legionary used his impetus to stab over the upper curve of his plywood oval. Resistance collapsed, squealing, and Gaius Vibulenus stepped into the gap opened by the advance of the soldier he had aided.

  A dozen Roman javelins wobbled overhead, hurled by the rear ranks when the armored backs in front of them had stopped moving. One of the missiles cleared the friendly lines by less than it should have, thudding into the native that Vibulenus was even then preparing to stab. That was a stupid blunder, inexcusable in veterans of their experience. After the battle he'd parade all the rear ranks with gravel-filled packs until they dropped unless some individual came forward to take his punishment.

  The tribune's scalp, bare and bloody, tingled with emotion at a cellular level. Had the javelin wiggled a handbreadth lower in the air, its point would have split Vibulenus' skull like a pickaxed melon, ending his duties and his life beyond help of the Medic or the gods… if there were gods.

  Hercules, shield a soldier from harm.

  The natives were packed too tightly to use their weapons properly. A warrior stabbed overhand at the tribune's face with an all-iron spear very different from the darts which had fallen on the legion's advance. Instead of a shaft, this stabbing weapon was forged in one piece with two double-edged blades joined back to back by a rod no longer than a sword hilt.

  The warrior's face was painted in quadrants-red, green, blue and a yellow turned fiery by the tone of the skin beneath it. Vibulenus ducked and raised his shield in the same motion. Wood split and the spearpoint reached an inch through the felt backing: the natives might be skinny, but they were not frail.

  Instead of trying to slash around the edge of his opponent's buckler, painted in the
same pattern as his face, the tribune stabbed directly at the center where the four colors met. Spanish steel slid through leather and the wicker frame with little more delay than it had made of the paint. Even dazed by the blow to his head, Vibulenus' eye had correctly gauged the flimsiness of the equipment beside the sprawled corpse.

  The warrior screeched as the sword grated through the bones of his hand. He would have jumped backward, but the press of his fellows was too great.

  Vibulenus put all his weight behind the swordhilt. His point met ribs and drove on into the chest cavity. His opponent cleared his own weapon with a hysterical jerk and flailed behind him with it. The victims he slashed down fell too late to provide him with any space but that he died on.

  Shouting, the tribune leaped into the gap, joined on the carpet of squirming bodies by a legionary who had retained a javelin for thrusting.

  His head did not hurt. The memories-Pompilius Rufus… Helvius in coruscating death… a centurion with no name, no legs, and no hope but the false one of Gaius Vibulenus-they were still present, but flows of molten glass insulated the tribune from that greater pain also.

  There should have been a place other than battle where he could be free of pain, fear, and all-consuming hatred for his fate-as well as for the guild which was that fate. Vibulenus had found no other release its equal, though.

  When he drank, it turned memories into nightmares until he awakened drenched with his own sweat and vomit. The fellowship of Clodius and Niger, friends as no one would have been his friend under circumstances his birth made normal, were constant reminders of other men who had died around him, beside him, even for him… and for no human purpose.

  A soldier shouldn't talk of love and should never think of it… but for all that, Vibulenus found something not far from peace occasionally in Quartilla's arms. But there were memories in that, too, and knowledge of what she was as surely as he was a Roman and a soldier. The only purity he found in life was in slaughter. He knew the feeling did not come from a healthy mind; but it was no less real for that.

  For now-Vibulenus chopped overarm at a warrior who had interposed his own stabbing spear. Steel bit deeply into thin iron, but the native expertly spun his weapon like a whirled baton to bring forward an undamaged blade. The tribune punched forward his shield, knocking the enemy shield aside, then swung low. His sword cut its own depth in the warrior's shield rim and stopped only because, nearer its tip, the blade had crunched into the native's femur.