As a dozen or so of my Cherusci heaved and manhandled the packed Praetorian tent to the front of the dais I stood, looking at it, making a show of scratching my head and rubbing my chin as if I was very deep in thought.
When finally the huge bundle was in position, I looked up at my audience; they quietened to hear me. ‘But how will I travel fast and light, my brothers, if I am weighed down with my share of the booty? Should I give it to others so that they take the burden whilst I rush to avenge my pride? But what about the pride of those others? No, my brothers; I shall not ask others to make such a sacrifice; I shall, instead, abandon my booty and leave it here and I shall ask the wounded, those who will not be able to keep up the pace that we shall surely need, to look after it until such time as I can return to reclaim it. Thus I shall stand a chance of catching Varus and his legions. Who will follow me and do likewise?’
None now could, in honour, fail to do as I had; the field was soon covered in discarded loot as the wounded of each tribe were brought out to look after their compatriots’ share.
Now we were ready; now the chase could begin.
*
Along the trampled trail I raced at the head of the Cherusci with my father and uncle at my heels; rain and low-hanging branches whipped into my face and my boots slipped in the churned mud but I still managed to keep up the pace. Behind me the six tribes followed, every man chastened by the way Varus had exploited their inner greed by his ruse and each determined in his desire to catch the Roman column and punish it for bringing such shame.
Never letting our speed slacken to less than a jog and sometimes breaking into a full run, we pursued our quarry and within three hours had started to come across the stragglers; some singularly and some in small groups. It did not matter for they died the same way: in a rush of iron as we sped past, not even bothering to slow our pace as we sliced the life out of them, their eyes staring in final terror at the flood of warriors tearing through the rain. More and more we met the closer we drew to the rearguard of the Nineteenth Legion and none escaped our wrath. Those that tried to flee found nowhere to go as our frontage, by this time, was so spread out that there was no way around us and their exhaustion precluded fleeing before us. Mercy they could not expect and they knew it so none pleaded for his life, relieved to have a swift death rather than be subjected to our fires; some made a stand and some just went down under our blades to be trampled beneath our ever moving feet.
On we went through semi-open hilly ground, a mixture of farmland and wood, given over to agriculture and coppicing, but on this day deserted in the wake of three legions. Soon the hills began to close up and the husbanded land became less frequent as the forest began, once again, to hold sway. Our pace lessened but I did not mind as I knew that what affected us adversely was even harder for thousands of close-order infantry marching in column.
And then, as the sun started to make its way down to the western horizon, we saw them; we saw the rear ranks of the Nineteenth Legion, which were, by my estimation, at least a mile and a half from the vanguard at the front of the reduced column. Such was our joy that we cheered and bellowed our praise to the gods of our Fatherland so that the legionaries heard us and cried out in fear, warning the ranks ahead of them that they had not escaped the terror that chased them. And so it was without the element of surprise that we plunged our blades into the rear cohort of the Nineteenth.
Along their left side we swarmed, hacking and stabbing with sword and spear; but despite our numbers and the intensity of our hatred, their superior discipline held them intact as they locked shields and, with blades flashing between the gaps, edged forward, the rear ranks stepping backwards as they fought us off. Up the column we went but found their defence solid; here and there a less-experienced legionary let down his guard and fell beneath a flurry of blows but always his comrade next to him would take his place, so that there forever seemed to be a wall of wood and leather that we could not get past.
By now the following tribes had caught up with us and began flowing to either side of the column, the Chauci and the Marsi to the right and the Bructeri joining us on the left. I ordered my Cherusci to disengage and we melted into the forest along with the Bructeri, to make our way, unseen, up the column in order that the fear of being surrounded by an invisible enemy would start to gnaw at the guts of every man under each of the three Eagles that were our prey; for total demoralisation now had to be the objective of the next few hours until dusk and then on through the night. It was to that end that I met with Engilram of the Bructeri as we drew level with the head of the column.
‘How far to the Kalk Riese?’ I asked the old king.
Engilram ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Assuming that they will stop for the night in a couple of hours, I think they should arrive soon after noon tomorrow.’
‘We shall keep pressing them; missile volleys to disrupt them followed by short raids as their defences are in disarray. And try to bring back some prisoners.’
And so it was, as Varus’ men slogged along the track, ankle-deep in mud, keeping eight abreast, their shields in hand ready to defend themselves, we swooped down on them from the cover of the rain-swathed forest to either side of the column; lightning raids, deadly and demoralising, ever picking a different target and ever leaving a trail of corpses so that the cohorts following behind would have to stare into the vacant eyes of the dead. When we could we grabbed screaming men from their formation and bundled them back up the hill. No respite did we give them and nor did the Chauci and the Marsi operating on the other side, so that the air was always filled with the screams of the maimed and the dying and every man in the column would expect it to be their turn for death soon, constantly looking with trepidation over their shoulders, peering into the shadows beneath the dripping canopy ever driven on by the Chatti and Sugambri at the column’s tail so that no rest was possible and there was no time to tend wounds. The best medicine a wounded man could hope for became the sword, for none wanted to fall into our hands alive, as they all knew of our fires and our skill at administering a lingering death and had seen how we had plucked prisoners from their ranks. And I had given orders that there should be no quick death for those taken alive and I hoped that many would be so taken, for I had plans for them that night; plans that Lucius would have approved of had he been in my place.
As dusk approached, the head of the column came to a rounded hill at a place that Engilram told me was called the Feldenfelt because of the stony nature of the ground; and it was here that the training of the legions was seen to full advantage. The auxiliary cavalry formed a protective screen, riding down any attempted attack aimed at disrupting the manoeuvring of the Seventeenth Legion as they split down the middle with four files heading left and four right around the hill so that before we had time to react the entire hill was surrounded by a cordon of legionaries four deep. Two legionaries stood guard for every two men digging and in less than an hour the hill was surrounded by a four-foot-deep ditch with waist-high breastwork. It was into this defensive position that the battered Eighteenth and the, by now, severely mauled Nineteenth Legion marched. Interspersed with them were what remained of their camp-followers, their numbers even more depleted than the legions as we had not differentiated between soldiers and civilians; all had to die and an unarmed woman or child is easier to kill than an armoured legionary.
And so Varus managed to bring his men to rest for the night on the day that he had very nearly managed to slip from my grasp. Although his losses were not nearly as dramatic as the previous couple of days, they had still been considerable and that evening fewer than nine thousand men made camp in the rain-sodden open, less than half the number that he had originally set out with.
‘And how did the men feel as they shared a cold and joyless meal that evening, Aius, on that stony ground?’ Thumelicatz asked, interrupting the aged slave.
‘Most of us had given up hope,’ Aius replied without any need for reflection. ‘We had prayed to all the
gods that the abandoning of the baggage would buy us the time to escape, but when the tribes caught back up with us we knew that they would never let us go. It was then that many of the senior officers, the legates and auxiliary prefects, began to question Varus’ strategy. There was a meeting at the top of the hill where we had placed our birds and before long the voices were loud enough for us to overhear.
‘“He will be there at the edge of the forest and together we will move on into the open country and crush the rebellion,” Varus shouted at the group of red-cloaked officers surrounding him.
‘“Stop fooling yourself, Varus!” Vala Numonius, the prefect of the Gallic auxiliary cavalry, thundered back. “He won’t be there because he’s already here.” He pointed out into the night. “He’s always been here; it’s him who has done this. Arminius has betrayed us and would see us all dead if we carry on going northwest in a column. Hour after hour he’ll wear us down, taking lives until there are none left to take. We need to get to the next piece of open ground and form for battle and see if the barbarians are willing to take us head-on or whether they’ll just slink back to their hovels.”
‘Varus replied: “They’ll do neither; they’ll skirt around us, sweep Arminius aside and join the rebellion and before we know it the whole of the north will be lost.”
‘“There is no rebellion! Not in the north, anyway. The rebellion is here and we are in the centre of it and if we don’t act we will be the victims of it. Arminius is false.”
‘“Arminius saved my life!” Varus said. “Why would he do that and then go on to betray me?”
‘“For that very reason: to betray you. Who better to lead you into a trap than the man you trust with your very life? Look at you: you’re blinded to his duplicity because of the debt you owe him and that’s what he’s played on all along; that’s what’s going to get us all killed and you must by now know it to be the case.”
‘This seemed to get through to Varus and he turned to stare out into the night with the look of a man who has just accepted what he always knew, deep down, to be the truth but had previously been unable to countenance. It was then he saw his folly and it was at that moment that the screaming started again out in the night but ever coming closer. Now we knew there would be no quarter and that we either found a place to turn and fight or we would die far from home. We had started to despair.’
‘And you, Tiburtius?’ Thumelicatz asked. ‘Had you begun to despair? Could you ever see yourself walking in the streets of Rome again?’
‘Rome?’ The former Eagle-bearer of the Nineteenth Legion looked into the mid-distance as if trying to picture the city he had not seen for more than half his life. ‘Rome? Yes, master, by then I think that the image of Rome had begun to fade in my mind. And as the screaming came nearer the fear grew within us all for we knew to expect horror. But we did not expect the scale of the horror. Out from the darkness surrounding our makeshift camp on the hill, scores of piercing screams came from every direction. Closer they came and the lads tensed and braced themselves for a night attack. Although it was not an attack in the conventional sense of the word it had the same effect on our morale as if it had been a successful breaching of our lines.
‘Then they appeared through the darkness, wraithlike shadows bearing burdens between them; screaming, writhing burdens that they heaved towards us before fleeing back into the night. Some of the lads – the few who had a pila left – hurled their weapons after them but I don’t think any damage was done other than to deplete our store of missiles. The shadows disappeared but the screaming did not stop. We ran forward and hauled the burdens up the hill, but it wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be for they were very difficult to get a grip of as they were slimed in gore and wriggled like landed eels, all the time shrieking shriller than a harpy; and it was no wonder that they did as they were but blood-splattered hulks, just torsos and heads, their extremities removed. Their arms and legs had been hacked off and the small stumps left had been daubed in pitch to stop the bleeding, as had the gash that marked the place where once their genitalia had hung. The screams were inarticulate as there was nothing left in their mouths with which to form words, and even if there had been they were unable to see to whom they should direct their anguish as their eye-sockets were a bloody ruin of mush.
‘A collective moan of despair rose over the camp almost drowning out the agony of the maimed. What could we do with our comrades left so broken and incomplete? Each scream, each waggle of a ghastly stump, each writhe of an agonised torso instilled fear and terror within us and we all knew that were we to be one of those blinded monstrosities on the ground we would be begging for an end; within moments the screaming had stopped as swords pierced the hulks and exploded their racing hearts. It was then that we directed our rage at the unseen foe in the night and bellowed our hatred, as impotent as it was deep, at the hidden fiends who could inflict such cruelty on our comrades. But no reply came from the dark and many of our men had tears of frustration trailing down their faces; in their exhaustion due to lack of sleep and continuous traipsing through mud, they were unable to control their emotions, and were unmanned, sinking to their knees and tearing at their hair.
‘Varus saw the state of the rump of his army and the effect the dismembering of the prisoners had had upon them and he must have then realised that it was all due to his being duped by Erminatz; the responsibility rested on his shoulders and his alone for he had been warned and he had ignored those warnings. He saw around him not three mighty legions and their auxiliaries but a collection of demoralised, terrified and drained men who happened to be wearing the uniform of Rome. He had led them and it was he who had brought them to this. With the promise of linking up with Erminatz taken from him, now that he had grasped the reality of the situation, he could see no attainable objective, no way forward or back; he could see nothing but death, for it was death besieging us on that stony hill, and he knew the fate that death had in store for him at the hands of his one-time friend, Erminatz, would be worse than the now-motionless hulks that littered the perimeter of the camp.’
CHAPTER XIII
‘THEIR ONLY OPTION now was to continue to run in the same direction, even though he knew that Erminatz wasn’t there, as that was the quickest way out of the forest,’ Thumelicatz mused as Aius went about the tent lighting lamps against the fading of the day. ‘What he didn’t know was that to leave the Teutoburg Wald he had to negotiate the Teutoburg Pass. Tiburtius, take it from dawn on the fourth day.’
Squinting in the light of the newly lit lamps the old slave took a few moments to find the right place.
‘They’re on the move,’ Siegimeri, my father, said as we and the kings of all the tribes peered from the forest; the first rays of the sun touched the leaden sky from beneath, slashing its undulations with deep red.
I remember it for in Cheruscian lore a red sky in the morning is a warning from the Thunderer of his intent to swing his hammer that day; the sight of it warmed my heart because with his aid I knew that we would sweep Rome from his lands in but a few hours.
I watched the bedraggled cohorts form up within their makeshift fortifications on the hill in the field of stone and then march northwest in a column that was now less than half as long as it had been four days earlier: no more than fifteen hundred paces, not even a Roman mile. ‘Keep all the tribes moving,’ I said to the kings around me, ‘so that the column doesn’t deviate from its path; as we near the Chalk Giant we shall move ahead of them and be waiting. There the ground will turn the same colour as the sky and that place will be forever sacred, scattered with the bones of the unburied foe.’ Even Adgandestrius muttered into his beard his approval of the sentiment as we disbanded and returned to our waiting men who had all slept and broken their fasts well.
We were ready for the final day.
And so was the Thunderer; before the sun had even reached a hand’s breadth above the horizon Donar’s hammer crashed and again split the heavens asunder and water cascaded d
own. But we sons of All Men were not weighed down by equipment that grows sodden; once a cloak and a pair of breeks are wet that is that. The Romans, however, had leather shield coverings and leather bags hanging from their marching yokes and they grew heavy with the rain of four days so that the exhausted troops bearing them suffered even more under the strain. The stragglers, and there were many, were being either slaughtered or rounded up for our fires by the time the last element of the column was just half a mile from the hill. Chains of them, roped about the neck, were led away for the celebrations that would follow our victory; and of victory I now had no doubt for it was obvious that, if they were going to head for open ground and then turn and fight us, they had to get through the Teutoburg Pass, and the pass, thanks to Engilram, was now closed.
As the morning drew on, the rain showed no signs of abating; the terrain became more jagged and the forest thicker so that the progress of the Roman column slowed to a crawl. Their pioneers, protected by auxiliary Gauls dismounted for the task, struggled to clear a passage for the column, felling trees and bridging rivers that were, by now, high and fast. But our men kept at them, pelting them with javelins and arrows, many of which got past the shields of the covering auxiliaries, so that their numbers dwindled and progress became even slower. With the main part of the column at a virtual standstill, the remaining legionaries of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth legions were able to bring their shields to bear far easier and their defence became more effective; nothing was more harmful to our cause than our intended victims gaining some hope.
‘Stop the attacks on the pioneers and the vanguard, Vulferam,’ I ordered as it became clear to me what was needed.
Vulferam looked at me, not understanding.
‘We have to let them speed up,’ I explained, ‘so that they are more disordered; we can’t pierce their defences when they’re stationary.’
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