Howl of Blades

by J Glenn Bauer

  Throwing himself off the corpse that leaked blood, shit and vomit, Caros emptied his stomach painfully. As he did, Beaugissa gave her battle cry which was cut short by a heavy blow. With vomit coating his chin, he called her name, lurching unsteadily to his feet.

  Beaugissa held a shield before her with both hands, the knuckles of her fingers bloodied. A hideously scarred warrior stalked her, stepping between the bodies of Gauls and Romans.

  She tried to block a feinted thrust and had to duck smartly to avoid the man’s punch. Hissing, she bulled into the warrior, battering at his chest with the shield. He gave three paces before taking a stand and raising his sword.

  Caros shook with desperation as he yanked to free his falcata from under a dead Iberian. It was stuck fast. Releasing it, he spun and ran at the warrior who was on the verge of driving his sword down into Beaugissa’s neck. The man saw Caros running at him and narrowed his eyes. Taking a breath, he plunged the sword down.

  Caros cried out as did Neugen who had just cut down the last of Berenger’s warriors apart from the one facing Beaugissa. Maleric crawled towards her, spear still protruding from his thigh, his face gray with despair.

  Caros slipped on a bloody hand, fingerbones sliding and snapping underfoot. Crashing to his knees, his hand closed on a broken spear, the blade twisted like the back of an ancient graybeard. Without thought, he pulled his arm back and threw the foreshortened spear which whipped across the distance and veered off harmlessly into a scattering of bodies already stiffening.

  Dust rose from the ground like smoke, accompanied by a great thundering, as though all the horses ever foaled were bearing down on the battlefield. The warrior stumbled and his blade hissed harmlessly past Beaugissa who fell to her knees. Raising his blade once more, his eyes widened as the ground rolled under his feet, causing him to lurch wildly.

  Beaugissa steadied herself and the moment the ground ceased to move she leapt, smashing the shield rim into the warrior’s lower jaw, splitting flesh and rolling his eyes backwards. His sword dropped from his limp hand and he fell like an axed tree. From under her chiton, Beaugissa pulled a short-bladed knife with a hooked tip. While the warrior choked and spat blood and teeth, she dropped her knee into his chest and opened his throat from ear to ear.

  Caros rose from the ground where he had been thrown, shadows dancing before his eyes. Rappo alighted from his mount and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

  “The Romans are coming, Caros.”

  Lifting his head, he glared at the hated Roman lines advancing yet again. Sword points blazed in the summer sun and boots shook the ground. Growling, he pushed himself upright.

  “Beaugissa!”

  Her hand closed on his wrist and she was beside him, eyes staring from blood and bruises. Her helmet was missing and her hair hung free. Caros touched his forehead to hers and thanked the gods she still breathed.

  “His blade was set to pierce your neck when the very ground moved. The god of mountains himself protected you.”

  Beaugissa stared past Caros, her eyes hardening.

  “Was he the one who killed Artur? Berenger?” Ignoring the advancing legionaries, she wrestled a sword from the grip of a dead Gaul and hacked at Berenger’s neck until his head rolled free. Her shoulders rose and fell with deep gasps. Throwing aside the sword, she took up Berenger’s’ head and spat into his slack face.

  The Romans were twenty paces away and Caros stood between them and her, letting her scream her fury before dropping the severed head to the ground.

  Pounding hoofbeats tore at his attention and he lifted his eyes to the Insubres champions. At their head rode Ducarius, magnificent in burnished armour and astride a fiery steed.

  The Insubres warriors roared their war cries at the legionaries and Ducarius himself raised his spear high.

  “Flaminius! I see you, Flaminius! Today I will tear your heart from your chest, take your head and feed your face to my pigs.”

  The Insubres slid from their mounts and hurried to stand closest to their war leader and champion. A thousand men with vengeance in their hearts and blades in their hands.

  Maleric held the spear that had pierced him, having worked it free. Neugen helped him to his feet, both men bloody.

  “The Romans must pass here if they want to live. This will be a fight to the death.”

  Caros rolled his shoulder, gasping at the pain. He spat.

  “That is the truth and you cannot stand, neither of you. Go back and get…”

  Beaugissa nudged him to silence and spoke instead.

  “Find your sword, Bastetani. It is time to finish these Latins.” Neugen limped to his fallen blade and bent awkwardly to retrieve it.

  Maleric turned to her and Beaugissa laid a hand on his chest.

  “You fight well warrior of the Gauls. Be sure you walk out the other end of this battle.”

  Caros freed his sword, glad it was still whole. Warriors were filling the field, most blood-spattered and exhausted.

  “There will be meat on tonight’s fires. Ale too.” He winked at Maleric who tried to grin through broken lips. “We know how to kill Romans. Shall we show these mighty Insubres what true warriors can do?”

  Neugen sniggered, blowing blood from his nostrils with his one good hand.

  “Why not? None can match us for speed and grace.” He slapped Maleric’s wounded thigh and the Gaul swallowed hard. With eyes burning, he began to laugh and in turn, shook Neugen’s shoulder so blood dripped from his torn arm and he too laughed.

  Rappo alone carried no wounds and as the Insubres passed, he hopped onto his pony.

  “You have fought enough. These others can finish this battle.” His eyes were yellow and a pulse throbbed wildly at his jaw.

  “We will fight until the last Roman here falls.” Caros gestured his companions forward, leaving Rappo to witness their battle.

  The Insubres were massed before the last survivors of the Roman legion. The rest of Hannibal’s army pressed these legionaries from the north and west, driving them onto the ranks of Gauls and the shores of the lake. Here among the powerful warriors of the proud Insubres, Caros sensed their desire for vengeance as a storm about to break.

  He and Maleric tried to push their way through to the foremost ranks of Gauls, but there was no give in the Insubres. Youths with not a hair on their chin to graybeards with spotted scalps, all wanted to bathe their swords in Roman blood.

  Maleric was suffering, his face pale. He hooked a snapped spear shaft from the ground with the toe of his boot. Leaning on it, he stretched his bloodied leg and grimaced at the open-mouthed wound which still bled freely.

  Neugen scowled at the injury.

  “You will bleed out before we reach the front line.” He lifted his tunic and freed his member. A heartbeat later, he issued a stream of dark urine onto the ground. When done, he balled up the mud and applied it to the wound. Beaugissa cut the smallclothes from the loins of a dead man and wrapped it around the sticky compress.

  Beads of sweat stood out on Maleric’s forehead, but he nodded his thanks and took a tentative step.

  “That is better. The blood does not leak through.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “Thank you.”

  Neugen grunted and looked away.

  The Romans surprised Caros. They surprised the Insubres too and that surprise was costly.

  Beaugissa reached for Neugen’s left arm which dripped blood steadily and paused, her gaze on the sky above the Roman lines.

  “Shields!” She cried, lifting hers to cover Neugen’s chest and head. She was still lifting it when the first Roman spears plunged into the tightly packed Gauls. The effect was immediate. The Insubres roared in anger, drowning out the cries of those pierced through. Warhorns bleated over their heads and the Insubres began to close on the approaching lines of legionaries.

  Another rain of spears followed and Caros witnessed three of them fall among the family of brothers and sons that stood beside him. In the blink of an eye, two brothers
were felled and a son was left standing wide-eyed with a spear protruding obscenely from his waist. The surviving brother and four cousins wept and shrilled for their dead, tearing their clothes and wrenching loose handfuls of hair.

  A crash of shields rumbled back through the ranks and moments later the slow forward shuffle ended.

  “The time for words is done. Soon it will be only our blades speaking.” Caros breathed deeply, his muscles shook and his guts gurgled. He shut his eyes fiercely, gritting his teeth and working to turn fear into anger.

  The Romans drove through the Insubres, their stabbing blades clearing paths through the flesh that opposed them.

  “They are cutting them down like harvesters!”

  Hearing Rappo’s words, Caros spun clumsily on his heel.

  “Rappo! Why are you here?”

  Beaugissa hissed in distress.

  “Go back. Go find your horse.” Her voice quivered with anguish. “Please!”

  Rappo stood crushed between warriors broader and taller than he. He looked up at their broad shoulders and then grinned nervously at Caros and Beaugissa.

  “It is my fight too. Always I am far from you when we fight. Not this battle.” He lifted his sword and shield. “If you fight, then I fight with you.”

  The ranks of warriors pressed forward and Caros grabbed Rappo’s wrist and pulled him closer.

  “You stay here behind me and Beaugissa.”

  They pushed forward again, close enough now to hear iron hacking muscle.

  Caros gave Beaugissa a look of despair which she returned, tears bright in her eyes.

  The Insubres had died in droves, but they had fragmented the face of Roman shields. Now the legionaries came on in groups with as few as a score of men to blocks of a hundred or more.

  Neugen challenged a legionary who appeared where a heartbeat earlier a brave warrior had stood. Their shields thumped together and their boots clattered over the ground as they struggled.

  Caros smashed the rim of his shield into the head of a legionary that had sprung at a Gaul to bury his sword in the man’s guts. The Roman’s head split and he fell with a mewling scream. More legionaries were scything down Insubres away to Caros’ left; legionaries with shining cuirasses and crested helmets. Above them were the banners of the consul and his legion standards. Maleric had also seen them and was hacking a path towards them.

  A legionary lunged at Beaugissa on Caros’ right. He snarled, whipping his falcata through the man’s neck and lifting his head from his body.

  “Maleric!” Caros pushed aside two Insubres fighting over the purse of a Roman who blinked up at them from where he lay gutted. “Hold. We are coming.”

  Neugen stumbled towards the Gaul, fending off a passing legionary that held his sword clumsily between hands sliced and shattered by numerous strikes.

  Rappo ran past the Roman, opening his throat with a deft swipe of his honed blade. At Maleric’s side, he grinned back at Caros and Beaugissa.

  She screamed even as Caros opened his mouth to warn the Masulian.

  From among the Romans two muscular legionaries strode forward, sweeping aside Gauls taller than them with broad axes more suited for felling giant trees.

  Maleric threw his shield between the falling blade and Rappo’s neck. Wood splintered and blood whipped through the air in a fine haze.

  Caros leaped across dying men and trod on still chests as he ran forward. Rappo was down on his knees, blood drenched and head hanging low.

  Beaugissa screeched beside Caros and the pair flew at the legionary. He turned to watch them through cold, dark eyes while readying his axe for the next blow.

  Maleric had dropped his sword and was clutching his left arm at the elbow, his forearm a mangled strip of flesh and shattered bone. The Gaul looked up as the shadow of the axe fell over him and then turned his face to Caros and Beaugissa. His eyes widened and he shook his head. Then he was falling forward, a gout of blood obscuring his body.

  Caros ran as though through a tunnel with the legionary waiting at the end. His shield rose and his sword swept back. Paces from the Roman, he screamed his war cry and struck.

  He struck the legionary in the hip, his blade chopping through bone as through green wood. His blow drove the sword deep into the man’s gut, opening his bladder. With his shield, he beat the man’s face, snapping the leather strap of his helmet so it flew from his head. He dragged his falcata from the Roman who began to topple, but Caros was not done.

  Still bellowing his fury, Caros hacked the man’s limbs from his body with powerful blows.

  Arms caught his shoulders and he was thrown to the ground. Winded, he stared as a horse flew over him and then he felt Beaugissa across his chest. For long, paralyzing heartbeats, he thought her dead. Then she turned her head and looked into his eyes.

  “Rappo?”

  “Alive.”

  More horses plunged past them and they curled tight as hooves tore up the ground.

  Caros looked up the moment the horses passed and saw Ducarius bearing down on a mounted Roman. Legionaries were as nothing to the Insubres champion who cut them down with ease.

  A Roman knight, sword slick with blood, scattered legionaries and drove his mount at Ducarius’ horse. The Gaul laughed and turned his mount effortlessly so that he held his sword across the throat of the knight.

  “See how you will die Flaminius?”

  With practiced ease, he sliced the knight’s throat and then hacked through his neck, severing his spine so the helmeted head dropped to the ground.

  Flaminius showed nothing in his expression as he raised his blade to his lips. Slowly, he stretched his arm forward until the point of the sword was aligned with the Insubres champion. Raking his mount, he charged Ducarius.

  Caros was on his feet, dragging Rappo and Beaugissa upright beside him.

  Those Insubres warriors that had fought their way into the heart of the Roman column, stood rooted to the ground, eyes locked on the dual. The beaten legionaries watched wet-cheeked, swords abandoned at their feet.

  Ducarius and Flaminius rode at one another, passing close enough to batter their knees and raise dust from their mounts’ coats. The hiss and thump of a blade ending a life reached the encircled warriors and legionaries. Ducarius’ mount slowed and the champions sat unmoving, his back to the Roman consul. Flaminius rode on twenty paces before his hands dropped away from the reins and his horse veered from the watching Insubres. The change in direction caused the consul’s head to loll grotesquely on his neck, revealing the mortal wound.

  Ducarius spat on his sword blade, turned his mount and trotted it to the Roman who remained upright on his horse. Grabbing the human skull riveted to the consul’s helmet, Ducarius turned the consul’s head and swept his sword through bone and sinew to free it from his body.

  The Insubres raised their weapons and roared in victory. Caros turned and knelt beside Maleric.

  “Your people are free of his shade from this day on, my friend.”

  Maleric’s eyes remained staring, the light within long since grown cold.

  Epilogue

  Horns brayed from the lake shore to the slopes of the hills overlooking the killing fields. Like the death of a wildfire, the battle was burning out; in places Romans fought frantically to escape the roaming warriors. In others they threw down their swords and dropped to their knees, heads bowed.

  Caros and Beaugissa left Neugen with a stick-thin woman who spoke no language they knew, but who wore the trappings of a healer and had a sack full of unguents, bones and shriveled objects. As they leapt onto their mounts, she drew dirt from a pouch within her chiton and threw it onto the flames, causing them to leap and hiss as though possessed.

  Caros scowled down at the woman who caught a handful of acrid smoke in her stained, gnarled hands and released it over Neugen’s face. He jerked and his eyelids shook like city gates holding back a legion of blades.

  “Guard his body and shade, witch. I have killed creatures like you befo
re and will do so again if you steal his life.”

  Beaugissa, already urging her mount on, snapped at him over her shoulder.

  “Ride, Caros! We must find Rappo.”

  In response, he raked his heels down his mount’s flanks and whipped its reins. Breaking into a gallop, they sped south towards the lake and the last place they had seen Rappo. The place where Maleric had died to save him. In the moments after Maleric had fallen and the Insubres champion had killed the hated Roman, Rappo had taken to his heels.

  They passed a train of wagons, loaded with softly moaning warriors, men who were no longer whole and who would likely be set on pyres before a day had passed.

  Beaugissa slowed to stare down at the vacant faces, mutilated bodies and dripping wounds. After just heartbeats, she raised a hand to her lips and turned away, her stomach threatening.

  “Not there.” Her words were hoarse, strained. Her eyes dark and red-rimmed.

  “Closer to the shore. His people are still battling Romans there.”

  He led her towards the lake, the ululating streams of circling Masulians, and the flights of spears punching into legionaries who fought on. Setting his jaw, he checked his sword was loose in its scabbard. There was still danger here on this battlefield.

  They skirted a band of Insubres that had yoked together two score Roman legionaries, stripped naked and whipped. Their humiliation escalated as Caros and Beaugissa rode past, with warriors urinating streams of piss made dark with hate on their captives.

  Closing on the furious clashes ranging along the shore and even in the water, the pair encountered the Masulian wounded, men and horses. Graybeards and youths strained to hold down men thrashing with their guts unspooling. Many more limped on feet and legs mangled by hooves and swords. Eyes wide at the magnitude of suffering, they slowed their mounts to a walk.