“Where?” Fronto said, holding his gaze.
“About three miles west. It’s on main paths. I can take you.”
“Are the men still… it wasn’t a massacre?”
“No sir. When we left they was in a circle, holdin’ ‘em back. But they won’t last long, sir. They’re outnumbered.”
Fronto glanced across at Caesar, who nodded.
“Then get ready for a run. You can take me and two cohorts back there, fast as we can.”
The man saluted wearily and the legate turned to his general.
“Can you-?” Fronto began, but Caesar was already ‘shoo’ing him. “Go, Marcus. I’ll bring the other cohorts as soon as we can get them armed up.” He turned to one of his cavalrymen. “Have this wounded soldier taken to a medic, and put out the call for the first, the second and the seventh to tenth cohorts to down tools, retrieve their kit and form up. The third and fourth can remain to garrison the camp under Brutus and Volusenus.”
Turning, the general was about to offer a word of encouragement to Fronto, but the Tenth’s legate was already moving across the grass bellowing commands to the assembling men, pausing only to collect an unattended shield from the ground where its owner had left it and would rue his action later when his centurion found him unequipped.
The general watched him go and shook his head. While an ambush of the foraging troops was never a good thing, at least it had finally brought the opposition out into the open and provided a timely interruption from Fronto’s probing and uncomfortable questions.
* * * * *
Fronto blinked away tears of pain and willed the gap in the trees that opened out into the clearing and signalled the end of their journey nearer. He was, he knew, still fitter than most men his age, and many of the soldiers – carrying much the same load and a great deal younger – were struggling at least as much as he. The rushing of the blood pounding in his ears and the hot rasp of the heaving breaths racing in and out of his lungs were not the main issue though, for all their discomfort. Three times in three miles he had been forced to drop out of the run and rub his knee, turning his leg and re-tying the supportive wrap he’d used on the advice of Florus the capsarius. Each time he’d had to put in that much extra effort to regain his place in the force that charged to the relief of the Seventh.
He tried to guess how many wounds he’d taken in one form or another throughout his life of service, but could only take a stab at two-to-three dozen. And of everything that had happened, it seemed only fitting of Fortuna’s strange sense of humour that the one thing that could trouble him in battle was the result of an unfortunate and purely random twisted knee. Florus had told him that if he rested it properly for a few weeks it would strengthen, which had simply led to an argument in semantics over the meaning of the word ‘rest’.
The sounds of desperate fighting issuing from the clearing were welcome, for all the horror they indicated. At least they stated clearly that the Seventh were still there and hadn’t been wiped out.
Panting with the effort, the legate pushed out to the front, putting on an extra turn of speed, the energy for which he seemed to pull in out of the very desperation in the air. A moment later, he was running alongside Carbo, who had proved time and again that his strength and fitness really did belie his less than svelte shape. The centurion was more pink faced than usual, but ran with a steady, enduring gait, the breaths coming out measured and rhythmically.
The forest path was clearly used by local farmers with their carts and oxen, wide enough to admit a wagon with plenty of room to spare on either side. It was enough to permit a column of legionaries eight-men wide without the danger of entanglements, and the two cohorts of the Tenth ran in perfect formation, in the manner drilled into them over the years by first Priscus and then Carbo.
Ahead, the path opened into the huge clearing and though Fronto could see little for certain, he had the impression of wide, golden fields of grain trampled by screaming men. His view was somewhat impeded by the chariots and the cavalry. It appeared – at least from this angle – as though the Britons had blocked the exits from the clearing with their cavalry and empty chariots while the bulk of their force, on foot, including the chiefs and nobles from the vehicles, had charged the Roman circle, trying to batter them into submission.
“Chariots” Fronto barked out between heaving breaths.
“We’ll take them down first” Carbo acknowledged, apparently – and irritatingly – not even short of breath.
“And… cavalry.”
“We’ll try, but they’ll be too fast and manoeuvrable for us, I fear. So long as we can cut a path through to the main force we’ll be fine.”
“Surprise?”
“Unlikely. Even over the noise, these hairies at the back will hear us coming. The Tenth are a fearsome force, but we’re hardly subtle.”
Fronto smiled at the wide grin on the centurion’s ruddy face. He knew for a fact that Carbo actively encouraged the making of noise and the use of war cries in the Tenth to put the fear of Hades into whoever they faced. As often as not it worked.
“I just wish we had time to deploy and surround them. We could wipe them out” Carbo sighed.
“Carbo… there are several… thousand of them. There’s less… than a thousand of us! Surround them?”
“You know what I mean, sir. I hate to think of them escaping again.”
Another couple of spots of rain pattered off the rim of Fronto’s helmet, reminding him that yet another rainstorm was imminent, the clouds darkening by the minute. Reaching up, he fondled the bow-legged fishwife amulet at his neck and hoped it wasn’t insulting to Fortuna, praying that the full extent of the rain held off for another hour or so. A battle in the pouring rain was high up on Fronto’s list of hateful things. Letting go of the figurine, he dropped his hand to his side and drew his gladius, steadying his grip on the heavy shield he’d borrowed.
A strange, guttural cry went up ahead and the few Briton horsemen they could see at the clearing’s entrance wheeled their mounts. The cohorts had been seen and suddenly all hell broke loose among the enemy.
“Ready, lads!” Carbo bellowed. “First five centuries punch straight through and make for the back of the infantry. Next four split off to either side and take care of the cavalry and chariots. Centurions mark your position and prepare your signals.”
Back along the running column, the officers identified their century’s number and prepared to either push forwards or file off to the side. Beyond the first nine, the other centurions would appraise the situation as they reached the clearing and deploy as required.
The horsemen were now wheeling away from them again, riding off into the clearing, bellowing warnings. Clearly Carbo was right: the cavalry could easily remain out of reach unless they chose to commit – an unlikely option. The chariots were even now turning to move away from the arriving legionaries, trundling along the forest’s edge, their athletic drivers leaping about on the traces and yoke and manoeuvring the horses.
Fronto had heard enough Celtic shouting in the past four years to begin to separate the meanings by tone alone. The shouts now going up all across the clearing were not the ordered calls of warning or redeployment, but the panicked calls of men wrong-footed and in fear of their lives. Clearly they had not expected reinforcements. The legate grinned – fear was almost as powerful a weapon as the gladius.
“Give ‘em a shout, Carbo.”
The centurion nodded. “For Rome!” he bellowed. Behind him, the cry was echoed at the top of almost a thousand voices, protracted so that it was still ringing out when he shouted “For Caesar!” beginning a second cry that was instantly taken up. By the time of the third cry – a standard call for the legion – the men were pre-empting him. “For the Tenth!”
The shouts, as intended, devolved quickly to a general din and tumult of bellowing, shouting legionaries, the noise of which was enough to almost drown out the sounds of fighting in the clearing.
One of the chariots had been
unlucky enough that, as it turned, a wheel had caught on something among the stubble, and the vehicle had almost overturned. The driver was manoeuvring desperately, trying to free the wheel, when he and his chariot were completely engulfed in a river of crimson and steel.
Despite being in prime position at the front of the cohort, Fronto forewent the opportunity to negotiate the vehicle and attack the driver, recognising the very real chance that his knee would give and he would plunge embarrassingly to the ground beneath the chariot. Instead, he contented himself with a quick glance at the Briton’s unpleasant demise as one of the legionaries swarming round the vehicle lifted his shield and drove the bronze edging into the man’s chest without even stopping. As the soldier ran on, heedless, the chariot driver disappeared with a squeal below the running feet of the cohort, where he failed even to bring a weapon to bear before he was trampled to death by hundreds of hobnailed boots, smashing his face and chest and snapping his limbs.
Fronto afforded himself a quick glance around as the century raced on toward the mass of the enemy pressing on the defensive circle of Roman steel. In the manner so reminiscent of Celts everywhere their army was fighting as a thousand individuals rather than a homogenous whole. Gods help the world if these bloodthirsty lunatics ever managed to achieve discipline under a capable tactician. It would be like the sack of Rome by Brennus all over again.
Fortunately, these Britons were no tacticians.
The cavalry were already fleeing the scene, racing away down other paths into the forest. The chariots rushed away around the edge, keeping out of the reach of the pursuing cohorts while remaining close enough to be available for their masters when required.
Even the infantry, where they were involved in deep and desperate combat with the men of the Seventh, were now starting to break away at the rear and race for the safety of the trees.
The disposition of spent bodies told the story eloquently enough for Fronto. Hardly anywhere around the enormous clearing’s periphery could a native figure be seen, while in places the glassy-eyed corpses of legionaries lay so close as to be touching. The Britons had come out of the forest with a hail of spears and arrows, routing the Romans and driving them back to the centre of the clearing where they were trapped and formed a circle that had been steadily diminishing for almost an hour.
“They’re getting away” a legionary shouted angrily, watching a sizeable chunk of the native force peel away and race for the woodland.
“Forget them!” Carbo cried. “Concentrate on saving the Seventh!”
With the exception of the four centuries securing the clearing’s edge and driving the chariots before them, the entire force of the two cohorts bore down on the main army at the centre, paying no heed to the fleeing Britons, intent on breaking the throng pinning the Seventh down.
The yards passed in a blur of discomfort, the sharp stubble of the field scratching Fronto’s shins and calves as he ran, keeping pace with the men of the first century, hoping he didn’t fall or collapse with shortness of breath.
And suddenly the old familiar battle calm fell over him. Despite the lack of a disciplined Roman shield wall – the Tenth discarding conventional tactics in favour of speed and terror-inducing fury – it was familiar and simple. As always the worries of the world – of the rightness of their campaign, of the intrigues within the army and the nobles, of his own ageing and deteriorating stamina, even of Lucilia back in that nest of vipers that was Rome – they all went away, pushed down and sealed into a casket as the immediacy of battle took over.
A warrior who had turned to flee with a couple of his friends found himself staring into the advancing visage of an aging Roman demon with fiery eyes. Desperately he raised his axe, haft sideways. Fronto feinted with his gladius, causing the man to sweep the axe handle to the side to stop a blow that would never come. As he was overbalanced and leaning to his left, Fronto slammed into him with the large, curved shield, smashing his arm and several ribs and driving the startled barbarian back into the press of his compatriots.
Beside Fronto, a legionary helpfully put six inches of sword into the falling Briton’s armpit before moving on to another of the fleeing men. Fronto had lost sight of Carbo, but could hear his reassuring voice denouncing the man he faced as a cross-breed of a number of unlikely animals.
The native force was now breaking up all across the rapidly widening front of legionaries, groups of men some twenty or thirty strong taking to their heels and racing for the treeline. A man who had likely arrived on a chariot suddenly pushed his way through the throng, spotting Fronto and recognising the crest and cuirass as indicative of a commander. He bellowed something that sounded as though it was probably a challenge. The warrior wore a mail shirt that looked as though it might have been of Gallic manufacture, a decorative helmet with a stylised rearing boar on the crown, a shield, oval in shape, and a sword that was probably the pride of a whole family.
The only good thing that could be said about his personal appearance, however, was that his straggly and bulky moustache at least hid half his grotesque pig-like features, though the hare-lip even marred that.
Fronto grinned at him.
“Come on then, pretty boy.”
The man swung the sword with surprising speed, though little cunning, over his shoulder and down. Fronto neatly sidestepped, almost falling into the press of men in the attempt. The warrior made a strange surprised sound as his heavy long sword cleaved only empty air and dug deep into the body of an already fallen warrior below. Fronto shook his head in mock dismay as he stepped forward and jabbed the man in the throat with his gladius.
Too easy; just too easy.
A spray of crimson erupted from the shocked noble’s neck, spraying Fronto in the face and forcing him to look away for a moment. The warrior released his grip on the jammed sword and clutched at his throat, temporarily stemming the spray so that the blood merely ran in torrents between his fingers.
“Sweet Venus you are an ugly bugger aren’t you?” Fronto grinned as he knocked the dying noble aside with his shield.
“That you, legate Fronto?”
Looking up in surprise, Fronto could just see Fabius over the heads of half a dozen natives, his helmet gone and blood streaming down his head, giving him the look of a red-painted man.
“Got yourself in a bit of trouble, I see!”
“Nothing we can’t handle, of course, but thanks for the timely assistance.”
Fronto laughed.
“Looks like they’ve broken.”
Indeed, even as Fronto cut another man down, the press between the two speakers was thinning out. The attacking force at the far side of the circle had taken the opportunity to flee the field before the Roman cohorts could get to them, freeing up much of the Seventh to reform and start pushing back. Already, the number of barbarians still committed in the clearing had fallen from perhaps three thousand to four or five hundred, those now being trapped between the men of the two legions. No longer even attempting to fight, the Britons were pushing bodily through the attacking Romans, heedless of wounds, in an attempt to escape the field and melt into the woodland.
“They’re running” a legionary bellowed. “Come on!”
“Leave them!” Fronto shouted at him, simultaneous with Carbo’s cry of “Let them go!”
The field was theirs.
The remaining five hundred or so men of the Seventh were safe, and the Roman force lacked the manpower and horses to chase down the fleeing Britons. Besides, no sensible commander would ever commit to pursuing them in unfamiliar territory that the Britons would know as well as their own hand.
“Come on” Fronto sighed, leaning down to rub his knee as he watched a few of the fleeing men fall to careful parting strikes. “Let’s get this grain back to the camp and settle in. It’s about to piss down.”
ROME
Quintus Lucilius Balbus strode across the Via Nova and began to ascend the slope towards the Palatine and the ancient piers of the ruined Porta M
ugonia, a look of cold, calm and collected determination written into his features. In defiance of Rome’s most ancient laws and his own personal codes, the polished, decorative-hilted gladius that had graced his uniform for years as legate of the Eighth legion was gripped so tightly in his right hand that his knuckles were white and the veins stood out purple like a map of unknown rivers.
An elderly man with a broad stripe on his expensive and high quality toga paused in the street off to one side; his brow furrowed, his nostrils flaring and eyes flashing with righteous indignation as he realised that the similarly togate muscular man was wielding a naked military blade in the hallowed ancient city centre.
“How dare you!”
Balbus barely acknowledge the man, turning his head slightly and delivering a withering glare of pure malice that had the elderly man stepping back down the street nervously.
Three men hurried along behind the former officer, each of them wearing their own toga, and each bearing a well-kept military blade. Two nephews and a cousin of Balbus’ who resided in the city and owed him a favour had brushed aside any need for persuasion to the task once Balbus had explained what he was about.
After all, Clodius had the reputation of a poisonous snake among all good citizens of breeding, and Gaius Lucilius Brocchus, former tribune in the Eighth, had already encountered the man’s venom in business circles. To discover that they also held a noble Roman lady of a good house against her will and had kidnapped their dear Lucilia – despite her daring escape – was too much for the three young men to countenance and they had been reaching for their blades before Balbus had even tried to persuade them to join him.
The crowd that invariably filled the Via Nova surged back in to occupy the street in the wake of the small armed party for whom they had made way. Armed gangs were far from unusual in the city these days, but they were almost always base thugs with concealed knives or cudgels. To see four noblemen in fine togas with naked military blades was a new and worrying sight in broad daylight in the urban centre.
Marius' Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles Page 40