by James Mace
“Shit,” Artorius swore under his breath as he turned back and surveyed the terrain on the flank. From his vantage, this was the worst place he could have halted his century. He shook his head and turned to Rufio.
“Hold here.” The Signifier raised up the Signum, and then planted it in the ground, signaling the rest of the Century to hold in place. Artorius quickly made his way back up the line, past the faces of his puzzled legionaries.
Just past the rocky knoll, the rest of the cohort was forming up into battle formation, shields interlocking. They were stretched out in a long, thin line. At best they were only able to form up four ranks deep. He quickly made his way over to Centurion Vitruvius, who was directing the placement of the cohort.
“Still no sign of the enemy yet?” the cohort commander asked.
Artorius shook his head.
“None, which surprises the hell out of me. We know they are here, I just cannot understand why they haven’t attacked us yet.” He then motioned for Vitruvius to follow him. “With the way the cohort is set I’m in a shitty position.”
Artorius then guided Vitruvius back to the end of the line. The Second Century had formed a partial square of three sides, providing security in case the Frisians chose this moment to attack.
“Oh, this isn’t good,” Vitruvius spoke, his eyes scanning the terrain rapidly. The Fourth Century’s line ended right at the rocks, and the sloping ground with its steep grade and lack of proper footing would be impossible for the Second to effectively fight off of. The Centurions then quickly walked past where Rufio had planted the Signum. Vitruvius then looked back up the slope and grimaced as he made his decision.
“Alright, I’m placing you there,” he said as he pointed to the end of the short spur that jutted downward from the rocks. “This area here is our extreme right flank, and you will hold and protect it. Your Century will form up at a right angle and secure our flank.”
“You have got to be fucking me,” Artorius said in a low voice. “Look how wide this gap is! We’ll be in two ranks at most. I cannot effectively hold this position!”
“Look,” Vitruvius spoke, his patience waning, “the rest of the Cohort is already stretched as it is, and we will be taking the brunt of their attack. I don’t have troops to spare. You’re going to have to make do with what you have. Gods willing they won’t even know you’re here.” He saw the doubt in his young Centurion’s eyes, and he knew Artorius’ fears were well-founded. “I will see what I can do about getting some troops over here to reinforce you, but with the bridge cut it’s a right fucking mess back there.” With that he turned and ran back towards where the rest of the Cohort was forming up.
“Gather the men around,” Artorius said to Praxus as he watched his friend and mentor scramble up the incline. Once the Century was gathered in a semicircle, Artorius turned to speak with them. Theirs was a precarious position, for he knew the Frisians would find the weak point in the line and hit it with everything they had. To hold the flank would result in a blood bath. As Artorius gazed into the faces of his men, he wondered how many would survive the day.
“Men,” he started, “if you will look to our left you will see that the rest of the Cohort is forming up on what is the only defendable terrain on this side of the river. Here we will anchor the flank. We will form up in two ranks, extending all the way back to the river.” He heard a few audible gasps and low words of discouragement.
“Artorius, the Frisians are not stupid,” Praxus replied. “They will see this as the weakest point before they even engage the main body. We cannot hold this!”
“If we don’t, they will roll right up behind the rest of the Cohort and take them in the flank and rear,” Artorius replied, his voice calm. “The entire Legion will collapse as a result. That is what we can’t allow to happen. We face a disciplined and determined enemy. They will hit us with everything they have, but we must hold them long enough for the rest of the army to cross.
“If we are to die today, it will be so that our brothers may live! For every one of us who falls, five…no, ten of them may yet survive! What greater honor is there than that we sacrificed ourselves so our brothers may live? As long as one of us draws breath, the line will hold. Today we earn our name…Valeria!”
“Valeria!” echoed the rest of the Century as all raised their weapons in the air.
Artorius saluted his men with his gladius, then turned and bounded down the rocky slope to the river. He would be the last man on the entire line, with only the rushing current to protect his back. As his soldiers scrambled into position, he gazed through the lifting fog and dense trees. He could not see the Frisians yet, but he could hear them in the distance. The fog masked just how close they were. Artorius found himself breathing deeply as his body sought to overcome the twisting in his guts that had gripped him just moments before. He would not be part of the formation, instead keeping himself out front at all times. He knew that his was by far the most dangerous position to be in, which he knew was the purpose of a Centurion. Praxus would cover the rest of the line.
“Artorius!” he heard Vitruvius shout behind him. He turned to see his Cohort Commander rushing up with a small group of auxiliaries. “I brought you something. It’s not much, only about thirty men; auxiliaries who had managed to cross the torrential river as the damned flaming bridge collapsed. I’ve placed a group of archers on top of the rocks as well. There are only six of them, but it was the best I could get. There’s a Cornicen on his way as well. Since visual signaling will be impossible in this fog, we’ll have to rely on his horn to alert us if you get overrun.”
“Understood,” Artorius replied before turning to the auxiliaries. Some were soaking wet and looked disheveled, having barely escaped from drowning.
“The bridge was taken out from under us, and our whole unit ended up scattered,” the Decurion leading the auxiliaries remarked. “This is all I was able to rally. Just tell us where you need us; we will fight.”
“Very good,” Artorius replied as Vitruvius made his way back up the line, where he would fight in the very center of the Cohort. “You men will make up our third rank; however, you will not be part of the passage-of-lines. Instead, I want you to use your spears to reach over the top of our ranks and into the faces of the Frisians. I want you to build up an earthen step behind my second rank to give you height. At my command you will stab over the top with your spears and into the enemies’ faces.”
“Right you are, sir,” the Decurion acknowledged as he then relayed the order to his men. A young auxiliary had placed himself behind Artorius’ left shoulder. He turned to look at the man and did a double-take in surprise.
“Sir?” the auxiliary asked, his face showing his puzzlement.
Artorius just shook his head and turned back to the front. The lad’s face looked so familiar to him, in fact, he closely resembled…but it could not be. He suddenly remembered a vision he had seen years ago, after the Triumph of Germanicus. Artorius turned away, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes as he raised his face to the heavens.
“Brother, be here with me,” he said in a low voice. “Give me your courage and strength.” As he lowered his head and opened his eyes, he exhaled audibly. He gave a dark smile as the Frisian formations broke through the fog. His anxiety left him, and his pulse raced with anticipation.
Massed numbers of Frisians were shifting towards the right. Had they noticed the Romans’ weak point? Artorius could feel the uneasy movement in his own ranks. His men had noticed it as well.
“Here they come, sir!” the archery section leader shouted from atop the knoll.
His men took aim at the loudest sounds, and at the command, fired a volley into the fog. The legionaries below could not see where the arrows landed, nor could they tell if they struck anything, for the sound of the Frisian war cries was already in their ears.
“Javelins, ready!” Artorius shouted. As his men hefted their javelins up to their shoulders, ready to launch a wave of death into their
enemy, he gave a subsequent order, “both ranks will throw simultaneously!” He took a deep breath, his gladius drawn and resting easy against his leg. In his peripheral vision he could see the archers increasing their rate of fire. The Frisians had to be close for them to be expending arrows as fast as they were.
Towards the left end of the line, Gaius stood with his first javelin resting easy on his shoulder. He swallowed hard and was trying not to start hyperventilating. For him, as well as his friends, this was their first real action. They had not seen any of the fighting during the battle around the Flevum fortress and had been anxious to face the enemy head on. It had pained Gaius that he had been in the army for over a year and was only now finally getting his chance to fight his first action. Now that they were, he was suddenly nervous.
“Mars, don’t let me fail now,” he whispered. “Give me the strength to fight hard!”
The Frisians had burned the bridges behind them and completely cut them off before attacking. That had stolen the initiative away from the Romans, and the realization of this sat very poorly with the young legionary. He swallowed hard as he remembered Legionary Carbo’s disturbing words. He quietly prayed to the plethora of deities his mother kept statues of that he not be allowed to die until he had at least unleashed his javelin.
“I don’t want to die here,” one of his friends whispered. There was fear in the lad’s voice. “This place is cold and dark. It’s not a fitting place for a Roman to meet his end!”
“Then we had best kill them before they kill us,” Gaius replied, his voice surprisingly calm. “And if we are meant to die here, then let’s just get it over with and make a good show while we’re at it!”
His confident words brought a grin to his friend’s face and some murmurs of assent from his companions on the line.
A warrior next to Tabbo screamed in pain as an arrow pierced his shoulder. The Frisian war chief jolted in surprise at how close it had come to striking him. Through the fog, he could just make out a rocky knoll to their front where he caught sight of several silhouettes. No doubt these were the archers who were firing on him and his men. Another warrior to his front took two arrows directly in the chest, falling face first into the mud without as much as a sound. In spite of this, Tabbo was ecstatic to see the rocks, for it meant he was where he needed to be. He knew that just to the left of the rocks was a path that went behind them, and behind the Roman army. The main Frisian army was heavily engaged with the legionary cohorts in the center. All Tabbo had to do was get around the rocks, and he would smash them all from behind. He knew that if the Romans were smart they would have troops placed here. It mattered not, for he had well over a thousand warriors with him; more than enough to rout whatever pathetic resistance they would meet.
“Sound the advance!” he ordered the three horn blowers next to him.
All raised their war horns, their ominous notes spelling doom for Rome. Tabbo gave a vicious grin even as two more warriors in his vicinity fell to the sporadic arrows. The drone of the horns was followed by a slowly rising battle cry. At its pitch the horde charged.
“Fuck me,” Artorius heard Rufio say in a low voice.
The Signifier had planted their standard behind the formation, seeing as how visual signals would be useless in the pending engagement. The Centurion would not be taking part in any line changes; therefore Rufio had taken it upon himself to help protect him.
“Those horns come straight from the bowels of hell,” Sergeant Ostorius said, drumming his fingers nervously on the grip of his javelin, which rested on his shoulder. He was standing just to the left of Artorius, and the Centurion sneered when he heard the man’s remark.
“Then it’s time we sent them back to where they came from,” he replied with a growl. He could hear the Frisians clearly and could just make out their force. The fog was so dense that they were almost in his face before Artorius saw them. “First and second ranks, throw!”
As his warriors stormed into the narrow gap between the rocks and the river, Tabbo saw an entire wave of his men fall, blood and gore spraying everywhere as a storm of javelins ripped into their bodies. Screams of pain mingled with the roar of battle cries and the sounds of hundreds of men rushing forward. A second wave came in a higher arc, striking down those behind the first group that had been savaged before even catching sight of the Romans. The enemy archers were now on their right and firing into their flank. It mattered not. There were so few of them that they were little more than a nuisance. Besides, Tabbo reckoned they would blow through the Roman lines and be past the threat soon enough. He waved his warriors forward with his hand axe and started making his way to the left of their line. He knew the Romans always placed their senior leaders on their own right and he longed to slay one of the legendary Centurions.
“Gladius draw!”
“Rah!” Two waves of javelins and the Second Century was down to using their gladii. Artorius and the men in the first rank set in their fighting stances, bracing for the initial impact of the coming storm. Those in the second rank braced their shields against their brothers to their front, each man pushing off against the auxilia step with his back foot.
As in almost every battle they had taken part in, the enemy’s momentum stalled slightly as those at the front of the charge came to grips with the sight of the legionary shield wall. It was not that the Frisians were cowards. No, it was simply a matter of instinct born into all men; the desire to survive. It took inhuman amounts of courage to overcome these instincts and throw one’s body into the mass of Roman shields and flashing swords.
That pause, which was so insignificant it was hardly noticeable, was all the Romans needed to withstand the initial shock. Frisian warriors crashed with abandon into their formation, and the chaotic frenzy ensued. As the legionaries in the first rank held their ground, braced by their comrades, they started to strike back, discipline and training taking over. Hand axes, short swords, and stabbing spears pounded the shield wall as legionaries struck back with blows from their shields and quick stabs with the gladii. The Frisians were experts at close combat, and therefore well matched against their adversaries. For a time, it seemed like neither side was gaining the advantage.
The Romans’ armor offered excellent protection against blows that did penetrate the shield wall. Conversely, the Frisians were mostly devoid of any protective armor aside from the occasional crude helmet or leather cuirass, and the strikes of legionary weapons soon started to cut down some of the warriors. A handful of bodies were already piling up in front of the line.
Artorius was frustrated that he was mostly on the defensive and was constantly tilting his shield up and slamming it into his foes to keep them off balance. Even when he did manage to stab with his gladius it was usually deflected away. In the first few minutes only one of his blows managed to draw blood, and even that was only a minor gash to the side of a Frisian. There were at least three warriors attacking him directly, and his focus on staying alive almost kept him from remembering his responsibilities to the rest of the Century.
“Set for passage-of-lines!” he shouted as he ducked low to avoid the swing of a large two-handed club wielded by an enormous warrior, which continued its swing into the face of one of his countrymen. The command was echoed down the line as he lunged forward from the crouch and stabbed the man in the stomach. A satisfied grin was fixed to his face as the once imposing enemy fell to the bloody ground, screaming in horrifying pain.
“Auxilia…now!” was his next command. With a shout, their allied troops rose up on their step and stabbed with their spears over the heads of the legionaries to their front. This caught the Frisians completely by surprise, and a number took spear thrusts to their faces and necks. As the enemy reeled, the Centurion gave his quick command of execution.
“Valeria!”
“Valeria!” the men of the second rank echoed as they charged forward to replace the front line, the short gap created by the auxilia spears giving them the momentum needed to smash
into the Frisian horde.
Gaius felt as if his very soul had come unleashed. He had been in the second rank during the first part of the battle, feeling the numbing blows against his shield as the soldier to his front fought for his life. He had completely forgotten about the auxiliaries behind him and was taken aback when he felt one of them bumping up against his shoulder as he stabbed over the top with his spear. Gaius could not help but feel euphoric when he saw the spear catch a Frisian directly in the eye and saw the spurt of blood come shooting out.
Upon the Centurion’s command, he lunged past the legionary to his front and would have flown straight out of formation had the enemy warriors to his front not stopped him. He was surprised when the blow of his shield knocked a warrior onto his ass. However, before he could follow up with a stab to the man’s vitals, another warrior immediately took his place and proceeded to smash Gaius’ shield with a quick succession of blows from his hand axe. When it seemed like the man was tiring and the young legionary could strike back with his gladius, another warrior took his place and continued the assault. The Frisians were using the Romans’ own tactics against them! The only difference was that the legionaries would replace entire lines with fresh troops; the Frisians were doing it as individuals.
Tabbo continued to spur his warriors forward, though he himself was anxious to get in on the fighting. He was surprised his army had lost its momentum. He forced his way to the far left of his force and had to wade out into the raging current of the river in order to see what was happening. As he clung to a hanging branch, he was shocked when he saw that the Roman lines still held. He caught sight of the crest on top of the helm of the Centurion commanding this miniscule opposition. Tabbo growled at the realization that in the narrow gap, his forces were bunched up and his numbers meant nothing. The legions had withstood the initial shock of his charge, now there would be much hard fighting in order to break them. He cursed himself and realized he should have known better.