Fortress of Spears

by Anthony Riches

  The huddle broke as the king stepped forward to face the Romans, swinging his hammer in an overhead stroke to bring it sweeping down on the head of a legionary, the heavy iron head smashing the Roman to the ground with his helmet staved in, and while the men to either side goggled at their comrade’s inert body he swung the hammer low, breaking the ankles of one man and upending another with a vicious hook and pull that used the last of the weapon’s momentum. As the line’s rear-rankers stepped in to take their places, peering from behind their shields at the fallen soldiers, his bodyguard surged forward with snarls of defiance, taking their iron to the men to either side of the breach in order to stop any attempt to reinforce the endangered section of the line. Their reckless attacks broke on the obdurate Roman defence in sprays of their own blood, but their sacrifice, as Drust had predicted, gave him a precious moment of time in which the soldiers to either side of the terrified rear-rankers were preoccupied with their own defence, and could give no thought to reinforcing the point of his attack. Turning back to face his warriors, Drust raised his hammer high and bellowed the only command his men would require.

  ‘Forward, my brothers! Forward to victory!’

  Turning back to the Romans, he sprang forward and swung the hammer up and then straight down, punching the pointed end of the weapon’s head down into a soldier’s helmet, breaking through the iron shell and felling its wearer instantly, blood flowing from the fallen man’s ears as he pitched full length atop the turf. The warband surged forward with a roar of triumph, pouncing on the weakened section of the Roman line in a welter of blood and iron, killing half a dozen soldiers and smashing its way through what was left of the defence in an unstoppable stream of men. First Spear Neuto ran from his place behind his cohort’s line towards the break in the defence, shouting a request to his colleague Frontinius as he drew his sword and plunged into the fight.

  ‘Quickly, send me your rear-rankers!’

  Julius and Marcus, the nearest of the 1st Tungrian Cohort’s officers to the break in their sister unit’s line, had already reacted exactly as Neuto had requested, ordering their rear-rank men to leave the fight and follow them towards the slowly but inexorably expanding hole in the Roman defences. They ran head on into the Venicones who had fought their way past the soldiers struggling to contain the breakthrough, dozens of wild-eyed warriors spilling out into the open space behind the line, whose next act, unless they were contained, would be to fall on the rear of the men still struggling to hold back the barbarian wave.

  Marcus drew his spatha and pointed it at the warriors, urging his men forward alongside those led by Julius, their few dozen soldiers advancing into the teeth of the barbarian attack, and momentarily shoring up the right-hand side of the line’s breach. Facing fresh opposition where they had thought to find nobody to oppose them, some of the barbarians turned to fight while others pushed up the slope towards the legion cohort waiting under the forest’s edge, seeking to outflank the newcomers. Reinforced by the increasing numbers of men running to re-establish the line’s integrity, even as more warriors pushed and fought their way through the slowly widening gap, forcing the defenders back pace by anguished pace, the 2nd Cohort stood their ground and fought back, despite their precarious position. Stubborn determination, and the knowledge that to break under the pressure being applied to them could result only in their deaths, fuelled their desperate resistance, but the two centurions shared a knowing glance, both realising that the defence was hanging by a thread that must snap at any moment with the Venicones’ simple but irresistible weight of numbers. Marcus looked in puzzlement up the slope to the reinforcements standing in front of the forest before turning to shout a question to Julius above the cacophony of battle.

  ‘What are they waiting for!?’

  11

  Tribune Laenas stood in front of the detachment’s reserve, five centuries of his legionaries waiting one hundred paces to the rear of the Roman line, and watched with growing unease as Drust’s hammer rose and fell above the defenders’ heads. He had been every bit as unhappy as Scaurus had predicted would be the case when he was detailed to stand ready with the reserve centuries, one hundred paces behind the main line of defence.

  ‘Tribune Scaurus, I must …’

  Scaurus’s response had been terse, his patience stretched thin by the young aristocrat’s pressing desire to put his cohort in the coming battle’s front line.

  ‘Follow your orders, Tribune? That would be wise!’

  The young Roman had recoiled at the harsh tone in his superior’s voice, seeing something unexpected in Scaurus’s face as the older man had turned to face him in the previous evening’s gloom.

  ‘I only …’

  Scaurus had shaken his head uncompromisingly, putting a finger firmly on his subordinate’s breastplate.

  ‘No! I understand, Laenas, but you’re just going to have to do as I tell you. This is going to be a world away from anything you or your men have ever experienced before. I need battle-hardened soldiers in the line when the Venicones realise that they’re the rats in this particular trap, because they’re going to fight like wild animals to escape. My auxiliaries have faced down barbarians exactly like these more than once this summer, which means that they know they can beat Drust’s men given the right circumstances. If some of your legionaries can get into the line alongside them then so much the better for all concerned, but my men need officers that they can trust standing behind them. Your first spear is going to be of questionable value in a fight from what little I’ve seen of him, and you’ve never experienced this scale of bloodletting at close quarters, for all your unquestionable willingness to fight …’

  He’d smiled tightly at the younger man, shaking his head slightly, and when he spoke again his tone had been gentler.

  ‘I’d be content to stand as our reserve, if I were you, Tribune Laenas, and let your first experience of this vicious way of fighting be an easier introduction than my Tungrians had at Lost Eagle. And while you’re standing there, you should pray to all of your gods that there’s no need for your men to unsheathe their swords. Because if there is, then the barbarians will have broken through, and you and your five centuries will be all that stands between my command and bloody disaster. And in such circumstances, colleague, your chance for death or glory will be upon you quicker than you can appreciate.’

  With a sudden, sick lurch of his guts, Laenas realised that the line was breaking before his eyes. As he watched, the tiny breach in the detachment’s defences began to widen as the inexorable force being exerted by the mass of barbarians pressing upon it forced apart the soldiers fighting to hold them back, and despite the reinforcements running from the line’s rear on both sides of the breach. Realising that he had only seconds in which to react, the young tribune ripped his sword from its scabbard and turned to Canutius.

  ‘Come on, then, First Spear, it seems that we’re needed after all …’

  His subordinate was staring across the narrow space between the reserve centuries and the milling barbarians, his eyes pinned wide and his face red with fear. Laenas stared at him for a moment, both horrified at the man’s apparent loss of control in the face of battle and uncertain of how he should react. As the moment of decision hung in the balance, a shout rang across the battlefield, Scaurus’s voice cutting through the fight’s rising din.

  ‘Tribune Laenas! Your time for glory is here!’

  He nodded decisively and turned away from Canutius with a slight smile, suddenly calm in the realisation that there was only one possible course of action. Raising the weapon above his head, he summoned the strength to steady his wavering voice.

  ‘First Cohort! Ready spears!’

  The legionaries pulled their javelins from the damp earth into which they had been pushed butt spike first moments before, and hefted their shields from their resting places in a dry rustle of wood and iron. Laenas turned back to the barbarians forcing their way through the rupture in the Romans’ line, their num
bers already doubled in those scant seconds, and fixed his gaze on the redhaired giant who had smashed his way through the detachment’s line with such brutal ease. For the first time in months, it seemed, he felt his heart lift with the moment’s simplicity, felt liberated from the need to worry about the slow bleeding away of his reputation at the hands of his subordinate. Fighting back a sudden wild urge to laugh aloud in the first spear’s terrified face, he pointed his sword down the slope at the Venicones.

  ‘First Cohort! Follow me!’

  Stepping off down the slope without looking behind him to see whether his men were following, he locked eyes with the Venicone king, watching the man with an almost detached interest as the warlord lifted his massive war hammer and strode forward to meet the reinforcements, his bellowed challenge lost in the fight’s tumult. The two men stalked closer to each other with their eyes locked together, neither willing to look away in the last seconds before they met. Above the roar of the fight Laenas thought he heard his name being called again, but ignored the distraction as the barbarian warrior broke into a run, covering the last few paces between them in seconds with his hammer swinging high.

  The weapon slashed down in a humming diagonal attack, its spike intended to crack the tribune’s breastplate and smash his ribs, but he sidestepped and ducked beneath the blow, slashing at his opponent with the his sword’s blade and drawing a bloody line across the man’s thigh. Drust staggered and snarled, reversing the hammer and thrusting the heavy iron counterweight at the base of its handle into the Roman’s face, sending him reeling backwards. While Laenas was off balance, blood spurting from his shattered nose, a tribesman leapt forward and rammed his sword deep into the tribune’s armpit before dying on the shaft of a thrown javelin as the 1st Cohort’s centuries hurled their weapons in a devastating low-slung volley that withered the ranks of the attacking Venicones.

  With a roar of anger the legionaries drew their swords and charged at the stunned barbarians, stabbing viciously at their enemy in their fury at seeing their officer fall. Drust and what remained of his bodyguard fought in a tight knot, briefly holding the legionaries at bay in a circle around them until Maon, standing back to back with his master, was spitted by a javelin thrust, staggering forward on to his enemy’s blades with blood frothing on his lips, falling under a hail of hacking blows. Another legionary stepped in and drove his spear through the Venicone king’s back, heaving and twisting on the weapon’s wooden shaft to force its barbed iron head deeper into the stricken barbarian’s body. Drust’s spine arched with the cold iron’s first agonising thrust into his kidneys, and he stared down in disbelief as the spear’s head ripped through his stomach wall. Dropping to his knees in agony, he allowed the hammer’s handle to slip from his grasp as he reached down to grasp the javelin’s iron head with both hands, his teeth bared in a silent scream of pain. Scaurus ran the few paces from his place at the rear of the Tungrian line, a dozen of the 10th Century’s axemen around him hacking a path into the remaining barbarians before them. He pointed his sword at the breach in the line, hurling an order at the legionaries over the fight’s hubbub.

  ‘Sixth Legion, advance! Close this gap!’

  At the shouted command the cohort’s front rank marched onwards down the slope, their implacable attack scattering the remaining barbarians to either side in panicked attempts to escape before the line was re-established. Behind the marching centuries another soldier raised his gladius and chopped down at the fallen king’s exposed neck, the blow sufficiently strong only to half-sever Drust’s head from his body but enough to put him face down and unmoving in the grass. The sword rose and fell again, and its bearer lifted Drust’s severed head by its mane of red hair with a bellow of triumph while the owner of the javelin buried in his corpse’s back tore its barbed-iron head free from the headless body. The king’s gold torc fell from his severed neck into the hillside’s long grass, and the spearman bent to retrieve it, goggling at the fortune in gold in his hands.

  ‘I’ll take that! And the torc!’

  The legionaries turned to find First Spear Canutius striding towards them, his panic of barely a moment before wiped away by his men’s success.

  ‘Those both belong to the Emperor. I’ll make sure they reach the governor, rather than have you thieving bastards …’

  The legionary who had decapitated the Venicone king looked about him quickly, getting a quick nod from his mate, who had raised his spear as if to examine its bloody blade with a critical eye. He allowed the dead king’s head to dangle at his side and replied to the officer’s challenge with a curled lip, fixing Canutius with a disparaging glance.

  ‘Not this time, Centurion. You’re too shy when the fight’s on for my liking.’

  Canutius raised his vine stick, his face hard with fury, only to stagger as the legionary behind him lunged forward, ramming the javelin’s vicious point through his armour and deep into his body. The man holding Drust’s head bent close as the officer stiffened, jerking spasmodically as the spear’s barbed-iron head tore into his heart.

  ‘That’s what you’ve been terrified of all this time, pushing us forward to keep your skin intact. Not so bad now, is it?’

  He nodded to the spearman, who deftly withdrew his weapon’s pointed head through the hole it had punched in Canutius’s armour, and lowered the dying officer to the ground alongside the spot where Laenas lay, his open eyes staring blankly at the clouds above them.

  ‘That’s vengeance for you, I’d say, young Tribune. You fought well enough for a lad when you finally got the chance …’

  He reached out to close Laenas’s eyes and then, spotting a minute movement of the fallen officer’s chest, bent closer to examine the fallen tribune with a critical eye.

  ‘Young gentleman’s not dead, not yet anyway. Bandage carrier!’

  While the battle raged on fifty paces down the hill’s slope, Scaurus and Licinius hurried to the rear of the attacking legionaries surrounded by their escort of Tungrian axemen, heading for the spot where they had seen Tribune Laenas go down under Drust’s attack and finding a huddled knot of men gathered around the bodies of several men. Licinius scattered them with a barked command, pushing one man out of his path.

  ‘Stand aside!’

  The legionaries cleared a path through to the stricken Laenas, and Scaurus, noting the body of Canutius alongside that of the young tribune, hung back behind his colleague with his eyes roaming across the scene. The bandage carrier shook his head unhappily, looking up at Licinius with a look of certainty.

  ‘Nothing I can do for him, Tribune, the wound’s too deep inside. He should be dead already, by rights.’

  Scaurus found what he’d been looking for, a pair of legionaries sidling towards the edge of the group with neutral expressions on their faces.

  ‘You two! Stop where you are! The rest of you, get back in line and fight. This battle has a while to run yet!’

  The two soldiers snapped to attention, eyeing the hard-faced tribune as he stalked towards them. Licinius put a toe under Canutius’s shoulder, turning the dead man’s body over.

  ‘He was speared in the back, from the look of it.’

  Scaurus reached out and took the spear from the taller man, examining its point with a critical eye.

  ‘There’s blood on this weapon, legionary.’

  The soldier shook his head dourly.

  ‘Barbarian blood, sir. I did for their king.’

  The tribune shook his head in turn, then handed the weapon back and turned away, bending to kneel alongside the dying tribune.

  ‘Well now, Popillius Laenas, you’ll be in the company of your ancestors soon enough. Hold your head up high when they greet you, for you’ve won this fight for us. See?’ He lifted the Venicone king’s head for the dying man to see. This was their king. Without him to lead them they’ll give it up soon enough, and you’re the man that took the fight to him and sealed his fate. I’ll make sure your family know you died with a soldier’s honour …’ He
bent closer to the prostrate tribune, speaking quietly into his ear. ‘But now I need you to tell me one more thing, brother. You see, your first spear lies dead alongside you, murdered by one of your own men in all likelihood. It’s common enough when an officer is hated by his soldiers, of course, but we can’t allow it to stand unpunished. So tell me, Tribune, did you see it happen?’

  Laenas moved his head with painful slowness to stare at the two soldiers standing behind the kneeling tribune, a faint smile ghosting across his face, and his lips moved in speech so quiet that Scaurus had to put his ear to the dying man’s mouth to hear them.

  ‘Saw … nothing …’

  Scaurus stared into his eyes for a moment, watching as the life left them. He patted the dead man’s shoulder and then rose, turning back to the waiting legionaries with a flat stare.

  ‘Today, legionaries, is your lucky day, or so it seems. Rejoin your century.’

  Glancing at each other with scarcely concealed relief, the two men turned back to the fight, freezing into immobility at the sound of the harsh metallic scrape of Scaurus’s sword leaving its scabbard.

  ‘Of course, I could still have the pair of you lashed to death, or simply execute you both myself, here and now. So I suggest you surrender that pretty gold neckpiece before I decide which of the two would be preferable.’

  The spearman turned back white faced, pulling the massive gold collar from inside his armour and putting it into the tribune’s hand. Dismissing the men with a flick of his hand, Scaurus turned back to his colleague, who stared back at him with raised eyebrows.

  ‘If Laenas was willing to condone their murder of Canutius then who am I to deny him that last pleasure, given the number of times the man was the cause of his humiliation?’

  Licinius nodded, taking the torc from his colleague’s outstretched hand and looking over his shoulder at the battle still raging on the slope below them.