Cheers. Chants. Spears on shields, and a bass rumble of war.
‘We did not look for this conflict! We did not look for conquest! But when Rome told us to die for her own glory, what choice did we have but to come here? What choice did we have but to fight?’
‘None!’ his men were shouting. ‘None!’
‘All we ask is for the right to govern ourselves, and live in our own peace! A worthy life for worthy men, would you not agree?’
‘Yes!’
‘We are men, not slaves! We are warriors, not sheep! If Rome wants our blood, then they can come and take it!’
A ferocious roar rattled through the ranks.
‘They can come and take it!’ the king shouted again, pulling hard on his horse’s reins so that its powerful hooves pounded the field.
‘This is our home!’ he raged. ‘This is our land! Our ancestors watch us! Our families depend on us! Will you fail them?’
‘No!’
‘Will you protect them?’
‘Yes!’
‘How?’
Men drew blades. Men banged shields. Men promised every kind of death to the Romans on the field, and the emperor that had sent them.
‘Kill!’ the king roared. ‘Kill for your fathers that they enslaved! Kill for your wives that they will rape! Kill for your children that they will sell as beasts! Kill! Kill! KILL!’
My hands were shaking. Ahren was stamping and snorting. We were ready. Gods, we were ready.
‘Kill!’ I was screaming. ‘Kill! Kill!’
Our blood was up. Our courage too.
And then it happened.
Chapter 41
The king’s impassioned words worked too well. He had meant to inspire his men to stand against the inevitable assault of the legion. Instead, the fire that Pinnes had set in his men’s hearts had led them to begin their own advance.
I’d never seen anything like it. At first, individuals ran forwards out of the ranks. Such a thing would never happen in the legions, but these men were newly raised to fight for Rome. They did not have the ingrained discipline of decades, but what they did have was the martial soul of born warriors. They were hard men of the mountains. They were the sons of Pannonia.
‘Come on!’ I could hear them shouting. ‘Come on! Let’s kill the bastards!’
I looked to Vuk. His dark eyes were narrow.
‘Vuk, we need to hold them here! We have to be tight when the Romans hit us!’
‘There’s no stopping it now,’ he said calmly, and he was right.
The army was streaming forwards. Ranks were coming apart. Instead of holding to receive the enemy, a mass of men was moving towards them.
And Pinnes was at the head of it.
Vuk drew his blade. ‘Protect the king!’
His men drew theirs. ‘Protect the king!’
The royal bodyguard rode forwards, detaching themselves from the rest of the cavalry. Somehow, their commander had been able to keep his men from advancing with the infantry.
I followed Vuk and his hundred men, but my blade remained sheathed. The truth was that I did not know what I would do when I reached the Roman lines. I’d thought that they would come to us, and that by the time that they did my hands would be filled with the blood of wounded men. I had thought that I would use my shield to protect the king, but now?
Now we were advancing.
I knew there was no hope for the fifty thousand light infantry of Pannonia against twenty-five thousand heavy infantry of Rome and their auxiliaries but the die was cast – Pinnes had turned his army into an angry wave that would crash against a legion’s shores.
‘Kill the bastards!’ men were shouting. ‘Kill them all!’
I looked into the faces of these rebels. I did not see fear. I saw the rage of those who knew that Rome would make slaves of them and their families. I saw the zeal of a soldier fighting on the soil of his homeland.
When we closed on King Pinnes I saw that he was a different man. Where there had been humour and intrigue there was now the mask of the warrior. It was a grim thing. His face was flushed with blood and righteous anger. His eyes were wide, and his lip was curled into a sneer. He was a fearsome sight, and he led an army of others possessed with such lust for battle.
For a moment I considered dropping from Ahren’s back and sending him towards the rear. In this press of bodies I would not be able to charge him forwards, but I decided I must retain him so that I could be high enough to protect the king.
Looking ahead over the helmeted heads of men I saw the Roman line growing closer, closer. They were drawn up in thick ranks of flame red shields, their totems proud against the sky, and I expected this sight of Rome’s blade to cool the hearts of the men who marched against her. I expected the advance to falter.
Instead it gained speed. It gained courage. I had thought that winter would drain these rebels of strength, and perhaps it had, but what that trial had taken from their bodies it had more than given back to their minds.
Here was the enemy who had caused every cold night, every hungry child! Here was the enemy behind it all!
‘Kill the bastards!’
‘Kill them all!’
The first wave of Roman javelins was a sight to behold. They seemed to hang in the air like vultures before falling into our ranks. All around me there was the wet slap of iron puncturing flesh. Men were screaming. Dying.
Advancing.
‘For Pannonia! For King Pinnes!’
My limbs were shaking with nervous excitement. I was close to the king. Vuk was closer. He wrenched a javelin from his shield. Already he had saved the king’s life. If Pinnes had fear of what was to come, he showed no sign.
‘Charge!’ he roared. ‘For Pannonia! For your families! Charge!’
And they did. Sixty thousand dead men running. I charged with them. I barely noticed the second wave of javelins when they were in the sky. Not until one rushed through the air beside my head, and I heard a scream behind me.
I couldn’t see the faces of the Romans. They were crouched behind their shields. Gods, but their ranks were so deep. They were so many. Unwavering.
Against this wall the men of Pannonia threw themselves with disregard for everything but the need to kill. Martial discipline met furious bravery as the men of the mountains discarded their blades and shields to pull down the Romans’ own defences. In doing so they gave up their lives, but it was so unexpected a tactic that the frenzied men succeeded in wrenching shields from Roman hands, and opened holes in Roman ranks. I was caught up in it all, a witness to the carnage as rebels threw themselves into blades with no other hope than to sell their lives dearly.
And this they did.
Over the din of sword on shield I heard the hurried orders of Roman centurions. I saw the holes in their ranks that they were trying to fill. And I saw that they were too slow – too stunned – to do so.
Instead, rebels rushed through into those breaches. The king was among them. ‘With me!’ he called. ‘With me!’
His horse lurched forwards through the press of bodies. The beast pushed like a blade into a wound, the king’s steed trampling a Roman caught beneath its hooves. ‘With me!’ he shouted, swinging his blade into the face of another Roman soldier.
‘Protect the king! Protect the king!’
They were my own words. My own actions.
I forced Ahren into the mess. The field was slick with blood and carpeted with the dying, but I could feel it: the Roman line was buckling.
All around me rebels fought with the strength and will of men who had nothing to lose. It was a terrible thing to behold. The Romans had taken the field expecting that they would advance and swat us aside. Instead, the Pannonians had fallen on them like a swarm, disregarding blades and selling their lives to pull away shields. All along the line it had happened. I did not doubt that over a thousand men had died in the first minutes, but their sacrifice had bought the rebel army a chance. We were no longer against the Roman ranks
– we were inside them.
I saw a legionary reach for me and kicked him hard in the face. Another made to stab at the king and I dropped my shield across his arm, feeling the bone snap.
I had not drawn my sword.
Pinnes was swinging his own with abandon. Blood and gore flew in the air. His shield had been lost to the fight. The king’s mind had been lost to the battle.
I saw a javelin arc towards him.
And then, in an instant, everything changed.
Chapter 42
I pressed Ahren forwards and took the javelin on my shield, dropping both when I could not pull the shaft free.
Pinnes was oblivious that I had saved his life. His eyes were on the rear of the Roman ranks.
‘Look!’ he shouted, pointing with his gore-covered sword. ‘Look!’
But I didn’t need to look. I could feel it. Cavalry. Thousands of them, crashing into the rear of the Roman army and causing chaos.
Ours? How? How did they get behind Severus? How did they get by the Romans’ own cavalry screen?
And then I saw it.
‘That’s their own cavalry! Their own cavalry!’ And they had been routed! By who, and how, I did not know, but they were crashing through the rear of the legions! Crashing through the reserves! Crashing through the Roman leadership!
‘Cavalry to our rear!’ I heard Romans shouting. ‘Fall back! There’s cavalry to our rear!’
The battlefield reeked of confusion, blood and open guts. The stink of panic spread like a disease. There is nothing more likely to invoke a soldier to terror than an enemy at his front, and cavalry at his back.
‘They are breaking!’ I yelled. ‘They are breaking!’
And they were. Some of the Roman ranks stepped back with discipline, but many others routed beneath the weight of fear. We were moving forwards! We were gaining ground!
‘They’re running!’ I shouted, seeing men stream back towards the palisades of their marching camps.
Gods, this was it! This was our chance! They were running! They were in disarray! Their own cavalry had routed them better than we could have ever hoped to do. If we could stop them from reaching their camps, and rallying behind the ramparts, then we could destroy them. We could win.
We could end the war.
‘Corvus! Corvus!’ The king. His face was blood splattered. There was a wound on his arm. ‘Corvus, ride to our cavalry! Tell them to get behind the legions! We can’t let them into the camps!’
I did not hesitate.
I pushed Ahren back, wading him through men desperate to get at the breaking Romans. The falling gods.
I knew that the message I carried meant the death of others, but I had no hesitation in delivering it.
We could end the war.
I broke clear of the rear ranks, if the scrum of men could be called that, and rode hard for the right of the line. I expected our cavalry to be already engaged. I expected they were the ones that set the Roman auxiliaries to flight. When I ran Ahren up onto a berm I saw that I was half right: the Pannonian cavalry had seen the same opportunity that the king had, and were already pressing the Roman rear. In that fight they were not alone, and the cause of the Roman cavalry rout became clear.
Bato had joined the battle.
* * *
Bato’s Dalmatians swarmed from the east. He had put himself between the legions and the garrison of Sirmium, but it had allowed him to approach out of the sun, and no doubt caused the enemy cavalry to rout into their own legions.
We had them. We really had them. If Bato could occupy the lightly defended marching camps, the Romans would have no place to fall back to. We could force their surrender.
It only took a few heartbeats for me to see that it was not to be.
‘No!’
My heart sank as I saw Bato’s men streaming by the camps, and leaving those inside to gather and regroup. The Dalmatians had something else in their sights. Something glorious.
Roman eagles.
Five of them stood proudly on the battlefield, and I knew without doubt that Bato wanted them. That he wanted to make up for his defeat at Salona, and his defeat at the battle of the night and day. Bato didn’t just want to beat Rome. He didn’t just want to end the war.
He wanted pride.
He wanted honour.
He wanted glory.
Ahren twisted beneath me, his nostrils full of blood and war. I was caught. I did not know where to ride. The auxiliary units had been put to flight and were fleeing into the camps, but the legion line was steadying as men rallied around the eagles.
My heart wrenched to see it. I knew what was happening there. Legionary dying for legion. Brother dying for brother.
For a moment I saw an eagle fall, but rise again. The battlefield was bloody murder. A wall of sound.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think. I looked for momentum. I looked for movement.
I saw none.
The legions had steadied into squares. Dalmatians crashed against them from one direction, Pannonians from another, but the shock had been lost. The legions had held beneath the eagles. Now, with ranks intact, they began a slow and steady movement towards their camps, where the reserves were rallying the cavalry and light infantry that fled inside. The Roman army was on its knees, but now I saw her pushing herself back onto her feet. The element of surprise had been lost. Our opportunity had gone. The battle was about to descend into a slugging match, and in that there could only be one victor.
‘No…’
The end was clear, the winner chosen, and so I dug my heels into Ahren’s flank, and rode to die alongside a king.
* * *
I waded Ahren into the ranks and pushed him forwards. I could not make out the king, but I could see the mounted men of his bodyguard. I felt Ahren trample on the dead and dying, friend and foe. There was no time to spare a thought for them. I had to reach Pinnes. I had to tell him what I’d seen. I had to tell him that we needed to withdraw. With Bato here, we had enough men to break away and deter Roman pursuit. The army could be saved to fight on.
Through the screams I went. My comrade Varo had taught me to not look down in battle, and I did not, but there was no escaping the screams. In Latin and the local tongue they called for their mothers, and begged the gods to make it stop, but neither mothers nor gods came to their aid. The best the badly wounded could hope for was that they would die beneath a horse’s hooves, or with the merciful stroke of a blade.
Where was the glory now?
King Pinnes was fighting for it. I saw him. He and his bodyguard were embroiled in brutal combat around an eagle.
‘Vuk!’ I screamed. ‘Vuk!’
It was no use. All had been lost to battle madness, and for as long as they remained so, they wouldn’t notice that two rebel soldiers were falling for every one Roman that they killed. It wouldn’t be long until the balance in numbers shifted, and then the reorganised Roman cavalry would fall on the rebel flank, and it would be the rebels that routed and died.
Pinnes needed to know, but the second of breaking contact is the most dangerous. How could I tell him without putting his life at risk?
A second later, that decision was taken from me.
‘No!’
* * *
Perhaps the man who saved the rebellion was a Roman legionary: the soldier who felled the king’s horse. Someone had cut the legs from beneath the beast and it toppled Pinnes to the ground like a statue.
‘Protect the king!’ Vuk was shouting, his voice as battered as the army.
With others of the bodyguard I dismounted my own horse. The Pannonians raised their shields to cover Pinnes. I held Ahren’s reins in my hand, and though shaken, Pinnes reached for them, thinking that I meant for him to remount.
Instead I moved the reins out of his grasp. ‘Bato has arrived on the field!’
I saw the hope in his eyes, and quickly extinguished it. ‘The legions have rallied, lord! They won’t be broken now! You have
to sound the retreat! You have to save the army!’
All around us was the clash of steel, shield, flesh and bone. Pinnes shook his head. ‘We must win this fight…’
I gripped the king by his shoulder. ‘The fight is lost! It’s lost! But you can still save the army! Fight on, and the rebellion dies here! Withdraw or the rebellion dies today!’
He saw something in my face that got through to him.
‘Corvus…’ The king was desperate for victory. ‘Is there really no hope?’
‘You can still win the war, lord King, but you cannot win this fight!’
He accepted my words. Behind his eyes, a spirit was broken.
King Pinnes got to his feet. I offered him Ahren’s reins, but he shook his head. ‘I am walking out with my men. If they fall, so will I.’
And then he said it.
‘Fall back! Fall back!’
The battle was lost.
Chapter 43
It is no easy thing to break away in battle. First there is the difficulty of passing the order to men engaged in slaughter, and an enemy is often not disposed to allow you to step away from their blades. It was testament to the savagery of the combat, and the losses that they had sustained, that the legions did not pursue us as the king’s order spread throughout the ranks, and we pulled back from the killing.
The king sent dispatch riders to tell Bato to do the same, but we continued to hear the sounds of clashes coming from the other side of the Roman squares that were slowly making their way closer to their marching camps, where the auxiliaries were rallying.
Pinnes looked my way, and for a moment I believed he was considering sending me. ‘I need a horse!’ he shouted instead.
One of his bodyguards slid from the saddle. The king climbed up in his place. ‘Keep moving back along the river,’ he ordered a panting infantry commander. ‘Use the river to anchor your flank, then hold at the original assembly point. I’ll get the Dalmatians.’
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