RETRIBUTION

by Anthony Riches

  ‘These goat fuckers usually fight in family groups, collected together by village and town under whatever passes for royalty, so when we show them the head of a man we just killed we’re probably scaring the shit out of two or three others, or better yet making them insane with grief.’

  Antonius nodded his understanding as the tribesmen threw themselves at the Roman line with fresh anger, eyes wide with rage and lips flecked with spittle from their incensed howls for vengeance, but where the Germans were incandescent with fury, the men facing them, having long been trained as to what to expect, declined to offer them any outlet for that anger other than the faces of their shields, taking their chances to thrust their sword blades into faces and bodies as the opportunities were gifted to them. Pugno walked up to the rear of the cohort in front of them and studied the flailing enemy warriors for a moment before turning back to Antonius with a satisfied nod, raising his voice to be heard over the battle’s roaring din.

  ‘They could hold those fuckers all day. But it’s not those fuckers that are worrying me.’

  Antonius stepped up alongside him, looking out over the battlefield. All along the Roman line auxiliaries and war bands were fighting for superiority, and at no point was there any sign that the defenders were overmatched, while the ground behind the Germans was empty of any other presence except for the few captured bolt throwers that had not already been damaged beyond repair by the legions’ massed artillery.

  ‘Where’s their reserve?’

  Pugno nodded agreement.

  ‘Yes. And more to the point, where are their cohorts? They stick out like a dog’s dick in all that iron they wear, and I don’t see them anywhere near. And if they’re not here, then where are they?’

  ‘Tell me why we’ve dumped our armour again?’

  Lataz looked askance at his brother, who was looking down at the river’s cold water with an expression of disgust. The closest Roman troops were a hundred paces from the riverbank and seemingly intent on resisting the furious attack that was breaking on their shields in a wave of blood-flecked barbarian madness, although the Batavi soldier’s practiced eye could see that the officers at the line’s furthermost end were watching them intently, as the purpose of their movement out onto the dam became apparent.

  ‘You know why we’ve dumped our armour. You could no more swim in your mail then you could persuade any woman to get into your bed without the promise of coin.’

  Frijaz shook his head angrily, staring back down the makeshift dam’s length to where Hramn stood talking to the Bructeri chieftain who had led his men to the river’s edge in the wake of the Batavi warriors, pointing at the riverbank facing the waiting warriors who were jostling for position to be first into the water. The tribesmen were lightly equipped, with small shields, spears and hunting knives for the most part, although here and there men sported captured Roman weapons as badges of previous victories.

  ‘They’ve paired us off with the maddest set of bastards in the army. That lot have been awake all night getting hammered and singing songs about their priestess, and now they look about as good as the last piece of dried horseshit I had to peel off my hobnails.’

  Lataz shook his head.

  ‘I keep thinking “I must tell Sigu about that”, only a moment later I remember that Sigu gave his life in yet another meaningless battle, and I’ve got that feeling now. I was going to warn him not to get in their way once we’re over there …’ he nodded at the riverbank fifty paces from their place on the dam, ‘because once they’re over there they’ll do what the Germans always do when there’s the chance of a fight.’

  ‘What, charge in like the madmen they are and get themselves butchered one at a time?’

  ‘Yes, that.’

  Lanzo spoke up, the urgency in his voice compelling what was left of his tent party to listen.

  ‘This is a suicide mission, that’s clear enough. So don’t get caught up in whatever it is that Kiv’s cooked up with their chief because I’ll bet you silver for shit that all he wants from them is a distraction, a wave of mad painted fuckers coming out of the water like demons from the Underworld and tearing into their right flank with all the screaming and shouting that lot usually do. They’ll scare the life out of whoever’s over on this end of their line, but they’ll get slaughtered all the same once the Romans get themselves sorted out, unless the other tribes manage to break them in the chaos. So we let them charge off into the battle, we get formed and we go forward together, right? I want all four of you alive when this is over with.’

  Egilhard put a hand on his shoulder, half-turning the leading man and speaking urgently in his ear.

  ‘I thought you told me not to listen to Al—’

  His friend shook his head, his face dark with anger.

  ‘I didn’t get it from the centurion. I got it from a friend.’ He looked at Lataz and Frijaz. ‘You two remember Heru, right?’

  The older brother nodded.

  ‘Of course. He was a good man, until an Iceni archer put an arrow in his chest and stopped half his wind. He’d have been here with us if we’d allowed him to.’

  ‘His sons were even better, because he trained them to fight, and he trained me too. Kniba took a spear in the back at Gelduba and was never seen again, but Sparr is still alive, and serving with the Guard. He’s one of the prince’s bodyguards, which means that he hears everything Kiv discusses with our new prefect.’ He leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘I saw him in the camp last night, and when he laid eyes on me he looked like a man with something to hide. So of course I asked him straight out what was the matter, one old friend to another. When he told me I wished I hadn’t asked. There are some things a man’s better not knowing.’

  ‘He told you what?’

  Lanzo looked up from his contemplation of the ground at his feet.

  ‘He told me that he was part of Kiv’s escort after the meeting that made the decision to attack the Roman camp at Augusta Trevorum, which meant that he couldn’t help overhearing them talking about it. Apparently Kiv hadn’t wanted to attack, he’d been all for waiting for the tribes to come south but he agreed to send us in because he had to look strong. And Hramn persuaded him to send us in to open the gates in the hope that the centurion would stop a spear and solve his problem for him.’

  Lataz leaned in close, his whisper so vehement that spittle flew from his lips.

  ‘My son died to make Kivilaz look strong and allow that young fucker to settle a score?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll …’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  Egilhard caught his father by the arm and held him for long enough that Frijaz could take the other, muttering in his brother’s ear.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t. If there’s revenge to be taken I’ll be there with you, and this isn’t the time! But the time will come! Right?’

  Before Lataz could reply, a sudden burst of noise caught their attention. The Germans had started chanting, their priests leading them through the ritual with extravagant gestures and blood-curding yells, every tribesman following their lead as they mimed the violence intended for their lifelong enemies with thrusts of their spears, and echoed their song of death and blood as they bellowed the names of their heroes at the sky. The chief priest called for silence, then shouted a single word at his men.

  ‘Veleda!’

  The response was instant, a roar of approval and commitment underlaid by the rattling of shields and spears being banged together.

  ‘Veleda!’

  The war band’s noise redoubled, individual warriors screaming the priestess’s name so loudly that their eyes bulged with the effort.

  ‘And if they didn’t know we were already coming …’

  ‘VELEDA!’

  The priest nodded to his chieftain, who turned to Hramn and indicated that his men were ready, and in turn the Batavi prefect looked at Alcaeus, pointing at the river with an unmistakable purpose. The wolf-priest saluted, then turned to the water an
d shouted an order over his shoulder with the calm certainty that his men would follow him to the gates of the underworld if he ordered them to do so.

  ‘Cohorts! Follow me!’

  The tent party watched as the wolf-priest stepped off the dam and started swimming, crabbing sideways with the buoyant wood of his shield and spear in one hand, stroking steadily with the other while his legs kicked in time.

  ‘You have to admire the man.’

  Frijaz nodded at his brother’s softly spoken opinion.

  ‘Admire him? We might just have to die for him. Come on.’

  They stepped off the hard-packed mud into the water and started swimming, gasping at the cold. Glancing back as he swam, Lataz grinned at the sight of the Bructeri warriors being herded into the water by their priests, those men whose courage failed them despite their wild collective chanting being tossed unceremoniously into the river to sink or swim, and then fended away from the dam at spearpoint.

  ‘Fuck me … they’ve got … a different … way of … getting their boys … to go forward!’

  Frijaz glanced back at the splashing chaos of the tribesmen behind them.

  ‘They’ve got … the wrong … idea. It’s not … the river … that’ll kill them!’

  The leading Batavi swimmers were staggering to their feet and dragging themselves out of the river’s cloying mud, Alcaeus raising his sword in a signal for the cohorts to reform around him in the scant cover of the straggling foliage that lined the bank, and the tent party splashed out of the water and up the thin strip of shore with clods of mud sticking to their boot soles.

  ‘Once there are enough us to mount a decent attack, I’ll …’

  The centurion fell silent, staring in amazement as the first of the Germans waded ashore, waited a moment for the worst of the river’s water to pour from his sodden clothing and then raised his spear, bellowed an incoherent war cry and ran up the bank, making straight for the embattled Romans without any apparent concern for his chances against them on his own. His fellow warriors were emerging from the water in ones and twos, their numbers still scant compared to the hundreds of Batavi coming ashore, but they were no more circumspect than he had been, charging forward into the battle without waiting for their comrades. The auxiliaries were starting to respond to the new threat, bending their line around to meet the stream of barbarians seemingly intent on dying on their shields, and Lataz spat in disgust.

  ‘What the fuck do they think they’re doing?’

  Lanzo shook his head in bemusement at the veteran soldier.

  ‘I told you. Either this was never a serious attack or Kiv miscalculated when he chose those fools. Either way we get screwed.’

  Alcaeus stood and saluted as Hramn strode up the riverbank with water streaming from his sodden tunic and his sword drawn.

  ‘Prefect.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here? Get into the enemy!’

  The prefect was clearly furious, pointing with his blade towards the embattled enemy line, and Alcaeus was suddenly calm.

  ‘I’m waiting for the rest of the cohorts to get ashore, Prefect, at which point we’ll go forward as a formed line and kill as many Romans as we can before they overwhelm us.’

  ‘Get these cowards into action, Priest, or I’ll …’

  He was interrupted by the noisy chanting of a party of Bructeri warriors bulling their way through the Batavi ranks, their teeth bared with battle rage, and in the comparative silence that fell after they had passed, his eyes narrowed as he realised that the dozens of men surrounding him were staring at him with cold, hard-eyed anger, their silent glares unnerving where open dissent would have been easier to deal with. Alcaeus stepped closer, lowering his voice until it was barely more than a whisper.

  ‘If I were you, Prefect, I’d think very carefully before using that word again.’

  Hramn stared at him for a moment, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword, then nodded slowly.

  ‘Very well. Get your … men … moving and we’ll forget this happened.’

  He pushed his way through the soldiers surrounding him, ignoring their open hostility, and walked back to the water’s side where the Bructeri chieftains were gathering with their household warriors ready to join the growing attack that was now pressing the Romans back.

  ‘You might forget but we won’t!’

  The prefect stiffened at the shouted threat but kept his back to the glowering Batavians, and Alcaeus raised his voice to bellow an admonishment.

  ‘The next man to speak will get his entire century flogged! Get yourselves into a line and ready to attack!’

  Lanzo shook his head in disgust and turned back to his men.

  ‘You heard the centurion! Get yourselves …’ He stopped, looking around himself at the tent party’s remnants. ‘Where’s Ugly?’

  His men looked around in confusion and Frijaz shook his head in bemusement.

  ‘He was here, next to me. And now he’s not. He must have gone with the Germans when they came past. Either he’s gone blood crazy like them or …’

  The leading man raised a hand.

  ‘Don’t even say it. If that bastard Hramn gets any reason to come down on Alcaeus he’ll have the wolf off his helmet and the skin off his back, so forget Levonhard. If we ever see him again we can deal with what made him run, but the odds are that he’ll be dead inside an hour.’

  The veteran grinned bleakly.

  ‘Same goes for you and me. So let’s go and fight, eh?’

  ‘Your auxiliaries seem to be holding well enough, Sextilius Felix.’

  Cerialis’s legatus nodded his agreement as he rejoined the group of senior officers watching the battle from the saddles of their horses.

  ‘Indeed, Legatus Augusti, although I doubt they have the beating of these barbarians in them after so long fighting to hold the line. The secret to these matters, as I learned serving under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo in Armenia, lies in choosing the optimum moment for our fellow officers to send their legions into the battle. You’ll understand that better than most, having taken part in the campaign against the rebels in Britannia.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ The senior officer nodded, his face a mask of self-control at the reminder of the disaster that had befallen him outside Camulodunum and resulted in his spending most of the rebellion trapped in an auxiliary fort. ‘We must choose carefully when to move from back to front foot and send our meat grinders forward against their tired warriors. What of the right flank?’

  They turned to look down to where their line ended at the Rhenus’s edge, the concentration of enemy warriors thickened by the presence of a good number of men wearing Roman helmets driving into the auxiliaries struggling to keep the flank intact.

  ‘It’s holding, although the enemy seem to have launched some sort of attack across the river with the hope of turning the line and rolling us up. My right flank cohorts are holding them, and I’ve committed my tactical reserve to stiffen their resistance and lengthen the line as a counter.’

  All along the line of Felix’s auxiliary cohorts the tribal assault had burned out its first fury and settled down to a lower intensity struggle, individual war bands surging forward to test the men facing them as their chieftains and priests saw fit, hurling scores and hundreds of warriors against single centuries in concentrations of effort and sheer pushing power that the opposing centurions were swift to match with reinforcements from either side of the embattled soldiers. A dozen individual struggles for supremacy were raging along the Roman defences, the line surging backwards and forwards as attacker and defender gained momentary superiority before being pushed back to their starting point by weight of numbers, leaving the inevitable scattering of dead and dying men from both sides sprawled in the thick, foul-smelling mud that their pounding boots had churned, a slurry of blood, urine and faeces, wounded men of both armies crawling or staggering for the safety of their own lines when the combatants drew apart, soldier and tribesmen alike panting from their exertions and
eying their wounded comrades with the dispassion of men who knew that their own survival was no more than a temporary state of affairs.

  Cerialis nodded, his face creased in thought.

  ‘I deem it too soon to commit the legions. When we move from defence to attack I want the enemy to be sufficiently tired that our foot soldiers can run them down and finish this matter for good. But perhaps our right could benefit from a little stiffening. These Batavians are the most fearsome of enemies, and perhaps a man with experience of their way of fighting would be the best choice to lead a local counter-attack. Centurion Aquillius.’

  The big man saluted from the saddle of a horse that had been procured to enable him to remain at his general’s side.

  ‘Legatus Augusti.’

  ‘You are temporarily relieved of your duty to protect me from the interruptions of unfriendly men, and directed to ride to the right flank and ensure that the men there are sufficiently well ordered to hold despite this attempt to surprise us from across the river.’

  The centurion saluted and turned his beast to trot down the rear of the line, fixing his attention on the seething mass of tribesmen and Batavi warriors railing at the line that had been extending to curl around the right flank. A pair of prefects in bronze armour were studying the fight from the safety of their horses while centurions and their officers roamed the rear of the line bellowing orders, pushing men into their positions and striking out with the flats of their swords if any soldier showed signs of backing away. Saluting the surprised prefects, he dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to a lightly wounded man standing behind the formation waiting to have his cut treated, but as he turned to speak with the cohort commanders a man shouted at him from close by.