Gods and Legions

by Michael Curtis Ford

  Severus' archers continued their deadly rain of missiles into the midst of the dense cloud, guessing the location of the enemy line by the pennants stabbing up through the swirling dust. The Roman infantry in the center advanced against the furious barbarians, relentless as the tide, slowly driving them back by sheer brute strength and discipline. The cavalry on our right, however, deprived of Severus' steady hand and unexpectedly seeing one of their captains slump on his horse after being pierced through the neck by an arrow, suddenly lost heart, and began falling back in disarray. The barbarian cavalry opposite them wasted no time. Quickly organizing a charge ordered by Chonodomarius, they swept into the ranks of our horse troops, their terrifying war cry piercing through the groans of the wounded trampled underfoot. Our cavalry turned in terror and began galloping back to the foot of the hill, threatening to trample the infantry in the center, who were blocking their path, or, even worse, to leave them unprotected as the Alemanni cavalry ran them down with their heavy German chargers. Our right wing was about to be routed.

  Seeing the panicked condition of his cavalry, Julian wasted no time. He seized the standard carried by his personal escort, a purple dragon on a golden field which had been fixed to the top of a long lance. Followed by his own guards, he put spur to his horse and raced straight through his center column, intercepting the cavalry just as they were beginning to burst through in panic from the front.

  His standard was immediately recognized as it fluttered streaming in the air like the cast skin of a snake, and the Roman tribune of the squadron leading the retreat pulled up short, his face pale and lips trembling. He stared at us with a pleading look, and when I glanced at Julian I saw his face purple with fury, the expression in his eyes for a moment that of an animal beyond reason. The shouts and clashing of battle surrounded us, and he stood in the midst of his advancing infantry, whose front lines were already forming to stand their ground against the attacking German horse pounding down upon them, their faces blackened by the hot dust that had settled on sweat-drenched skin. For a long moment he stared, furious, at the line of Roman cavalry stopped short before him. And then the light of reason gradually came back into his eyes.

  'Where are we off to, Romans?' he bellowed, in uncustomary harshness. The tribune's mouth worked soundlessly. 'Before you retreat any further you'll have to run me down, and I defy you to do it! Turn around and look, damn you! Your comrades on foot are doing the duty of a cavalry, stopping the barbarian horse with their own shields and spears, sacrificing their own bodies beneath the enemy hooves to protect their Caesar — and to protect you! If you wish even a share of their glory… Hah… If you don't want to be hanged as traitors, you will turn back now and prove you are Romans and not old women on donkeys. And you will follow me!'

  The Roman cavalry looked at one another in confusion and shame, but with the barbarians' furious troops fast approaching them from behind, still they hesitated. Julian watched them for a moment, his face reddening again in anger, until he could abide it no longer.

  'Soldiers,' he roared, 'when you are asked by your grandsons where you abandoned your Caesar, tell them it was at Strasbourg!'

  And unbelievably, Julian, the young man who but two years earlier had been a quiet philosophy student in Athens, speared his dragon banner into the ground and spurred his horse forward into the fighting, slashing in fury with his curved cavalry scimitar, until his escort was able to surround him in protection and draw him away to relative safety, as he sputtered in anger at the performance of his cavalry.

  Having been held to a stalemate on both his right and left wings, Chonodomarius now directed all his attention toward the infantry in the center. The carnage was horrific, with gaps in the smothering cloud of dust revealing mounds of bodies heaped like cordwood in the center of the field, writhing like a nest of snakes as the arms and legs of those fallen but not quite dead twitched and groped helplessly for relief from the weight of those who had fallen on top. The layer of bodies, however, was behind the front line of the Romans — our troops were steadily advancing over the killing line, leaving a trail of death in their wake.

  Momentum stalled, however, as Chonodomarius moved all his resources to the center to concentrate a wedge point of his forces and drive a breakthrough, dividing our thin line into two halves. The Roman legionaries' interlocked shields were wavering, individual gaps opening up here and there, widening to the space of two and three shields as men dropped moaning to their knees, not from injury but from sheer exhaustion. They were unable any longer to press against the fury and enormous physiques of the opponent, with no more troops behind them to step into the fray and fill the gaps. Still, barbarian troops continued to pour into the center, summoned furiously from the stalemated flanks by the frantically bellowing Chonodomarius, and slowly the line began falling back toward us, back over the bodies of the maimed, as another layer of Roman bodies began forming under the feet of the barbarians.

  And then Julian pounced.

  For the entire length of the battle, his Gallic auxiliaries, the Cornuti and the Bracchiati, had held in restless formation just beyond the crest of the hill behind us, out of sight of the barbarian leaders. Now, at his signal, the three thousand fresh auxiliaries behind us exploded in a terrifying imitation of the Germans' own battle cry. The sound, as it reached us, began as a low murmur in the distance that quickly increased to a mad bellow as the troops sprinted over the crest and down the hill, polished armor flashing and faces ablaze, until their cry's rolling wave smothered all other noise of battle, like breakers dashing upon a cliff. The barbarian lines visibly wavered as the sound washed over them, and the spent Romans before them straightened and cheered with the approach of reinforcements.

  The auxiliaries hit the exhausted barbarians like a troop of war elephants, with a crash like a thousand chariots colliding. Screams from speared and dying horses rose to the sky, followed by the weaker and more plaintive moans of injured men, all still overwhelmed by the shattering battle cry of the Gallic auxiliaries. The barbarians stood their ground bravely for a few moments, for a quarter of an hour — but for them, the battle was lost. They were built like Titans, those Germans, with arms like ships' masts and legs like tree trunks. Their weapons were enormous, and their valor unmatched. But now their massive arms were numb with fatigue, their knees trembled and spots floated before their eyes — oh, I know the signs of exhaustion, I have studied them well and observed Julian steel himself against them every day in the agonies of his training — and the onslaught of fresh troops, light of arms and fast of step, was too much to bear. Worn-out and broken, barely able to even lift their battle-axes, the barbarians collapsed in despair on the spot or turned weakly and stumbled away in flight, pursued by the fresh troops, who plucked up the Germans' weapons where they had dropped them, replacing their own shivered javelins and bent swords, and plunged them into the barbarians' necks as they ran them down.

  It was a rout, a total collapse. Forty thousand men or more suddenly emerged from the far side of the enormous cloud of dust and began running and staggering toward the banks of the river, some of them pursuers, most of them fleeing in panic. As the leaders reached the water, a few splashed in, those few who could swim, and waded frantically out thigh-deep before clumsily paddling into the current, burdened by their armor and heavy boots. The remainder stopped short at the water's edge, wading out to knee depth, no further, howling in rage at being caught between the dark river and all the unknown creatures it contained within — and the Roman auxiliaries storming behind them, arms laden with the blood-encrusted swords and battle-axes the barbarians themselves had dropped in their rush to flee the field.

  The Alemanni in the rear pushed and strained against those who had stopped at the water's edge, an unwitting phalanx rushing not at the enemy but away from it, forcing the lead warriors ever deeper into the black waters. Those most desperate to avoid being shoved into the current turned and began fighting their own countrymen to make their way back to the dry la
nd, using any weapons they still held, daggers and helmets, even fists and teeth, but to no avail. The Romans slowed slightly in their approach to the river as the crowds of panic-stricken barbarians ahead of them compacted, by their very mass preventing the attackers from advancing more quickly — yet though the main body of Romans had not yet reached the water, a dark red stain began spreading out from the growing numbers of men forced into the stream. Men fought wildly with one another to escape the slashing Romans behind them, and the terrifying current in front.

  Julian raced across the battlefield, which was now quiet and devoid of life but for the weak moans of the dying, and the cries for water from a thousand parched and dying throats, men suffering terribly in the still-oppressive heat and settling cloud of dust. Here and there exhausted Roman soldiers knelt on one knee, chin on chest, shoulders and back heaving, concentrating all their energy on the mere act of gathering their breath, striving to muster sufficient strength to stand. Some, I saw, were sobbing, in the emotional exhaustion and release of victory, or in mourning for a dead comrade. One, in the same half-kneeling position, was calmly tying a scrap of sandal thong around his right wrist using his left hand and teeth, to stanch the flow of blood spurting from his severed limb. I longed to leap off my horse and run to assist him, for within minutes of bleeding at that pace he would be dead. My duty, however, lay in staying at Julian's side, and against every instinct I continued my gallop, sword extended and at the ready. As I passed, the injured man glanced up at me briefly, and in his eyes I saw a calm acceptance of his fate, whatever it might be, his entire life riding on his ability to tie a simple knot with his teeth and the stiffening fingers of his left hand. He nodded at me, casually and almost imperceptibly, as one does to a passing acquaintance in the street, a gesture as if to comfort me for the torment I felt, and unaccountably I felt reassured, almost justified in my decision, as I hurried on.

  Julian raced as near as he was able to the rear of his auxiliaries before being himself blocked by the mass of men at his front, the Romans with their shields up, pushing on their comrades before them. The effect was like hitting a stone wall, impossible to pass through; easier would it have been to surmount it and walk to the river on top of the heaving heads and shoulders. He wheeled his horse in frustration, turning this way and that, churning up a gory spray and pocking the slurry of sand and blood, searching for a gap through which he could charge. Finally he gave up, reining in his animal and bellowing at the top of his lungs:

  'Romans, hold! Don't advance into the water! Hold! Hold!'

  His officers picked up the cry and soon fifty voices in the rear were shouting 'Hold! hold!' in unison, and then a trumpeter too caught up with us in the chaos and blew the signal to halt. Slowly, imperceptibly at first and then becoming increasingly visible, a gap opened between the Roman front line and the rear of the fleeing barbarians, a gap precisely matching the water's edge at the bank, as the message wended its way through the lines and the soldiers themselves realized the foolhardiness of pursuing a desperate enemy into deep water, burdened by armor and weapons. Better to let the broad, flowing river do the Romans' work for them.

  This it did. The barbarians, even those unable to swim, chose between the certain bloody fate facing them behind, and the cool, liquid death beckoning them in the fore, and the outcome was preordained. Throwing themselves into the corpse-choked stream, they thrashed in the water, tearing off their armor and loosening the heavy sandals that dragged them beneath the current a mere twenty feet from where the blood-spattered Romans stood staring and taunting. A few Alemanni who had kept their wooden shields were able to use them as floats, but they were quickly submerged as five or ten other frantic men grasped them and sought to pull themselves on as well, all of them sinking to the pummeling of fists as they fought for possession. The water deepened to a blackish crimson, staining the feet of the Romans a streaked red, and bits of flesh and armor leather floated on the surface where they had been cut away from their barbarian owners by the slashing of the troops on the land or their own comrades in the water.

  After surveying the slaughter for a time, Julian turned away, complete victory in his hands. Dismounting and leading his horse, he threaded his way back through the lines, through his exultant troops and jubilant captains, making his way to the crest of the low hill from where the Roman auxiliaries had made their victorious charge. There he found a low, flat rock, and sitting down he faced not east, toward the site of his victory at the river, where for a hundred yards out into the middle and for a mile downstream could be seen the bodies of barbarian soldiers, floating immobile or paddling weakly as they made their way across to the far side of the Rhine; but rather toward the west, where rosy Apollo dipped his weary horses into the Iberian Sea, toward the last rays of the sun setting in a gloriously purple and orange sky. Narrow shafts of ebbing light shot through the faint and dispersing dust cloud that had risen from the tortured land, bringing on the coolness of the night. With his shoulders slumping in exhaustion, he buried his face in his hands.

  II

  The medical and burial squads that night reported two hundred forty-three Roman soldiers and four officers killed in the battle, including the brave tribune Bainobaudes. The Roman dead, however, were difficult to find on the field, lost as they were amongst the beaten and torn bodies of the six thousand barbarian dead, nameless and unidentifiable, covering vast tracts of land as thickly as a heaving, oozing carpet. No estimate could be made of the numbers drowned in the aftermath of the rout, but undoubtedly thousands were carried off by the river.

  With every report and update from the scouts and burial parties, however, Julian, sleepless as usual even after the exertions of a day such as this, had only one question: What of the Beast? Where is the Beast? No one could answer.

  Several hours after dark, one of the burial parties raced up to the general staff to announce that as they had approached a heap of cadavers, a man had leaped up from beneath a body where he had been lying and raced into a nearby copse, adjacent to the river. This in itself was not an unusual occurrence, since it is a favorite tactic of deserters and cowards on every battlefield to feign death until the heat of battle has passed by. This man, however, had caught the Romans' eyes for his sheer bulk, which, even accounting for the deceptiveness of the torchlight and shadows, was enormous. The fact that his face was bound in a dirty rag, as if to prevent recognition, was also suspicious. Julian, his eyes flashing, raced to his horse, calling as he ran for his personal guard and his Acolytes.

  Thundering to the grove with some two hundred armed men, they dismounted and spaced themselves evenly into a line several hundred yards long, and then at a command, cautiously entered the thick undergrowth.

  We had not taken more than a half dozen steps into the dark woods when there was a sudden shout from nearby, and suddenly thirty or forty men burst from the trees in front of us and raced through our line, knocking over and trampling our men, who were so startled at the sudden onslaught in the dark that they did not even have time to raise their weapons. Screaming their battle cry, the barbarians raced to the horses we had just left behind us, untended but for a few unarmed battle squires, who leaped away like a terrified troop of monkeys. The blood-darkened giants bore down like demons, Chonodomarius foremost among them, and leaping upon our horses they spurred them up the steep slope away from the celebrating Roman camp, into the darkness and emptiness of the woods beyond.

  Julian and his men raced back to the remaining horses and took pursuit, determined not to lose the trail. The gods of the barbarians, however, false as they are, had turned their backs on the Alemanni. Before the Beast had raced a half mile, his horse, frightened by the strange rider and unaccustomed to the heavier load, slipped in some loose gravel and threw him heavily to the ground. He lay flat on his back, grimacing in pain, as Julian and the others thundered up, dismounted, and aimed the points of their lances at his neck. To their credit, the Beast's companions, though likely to have been able to escape on
their own, also pulled their horses up short, and cautiously walked them back to our group, surrendering without protest.

  The Beast himself, whose arrogance and daring had struck fear into the hearts of Roman commanders for a decade, laboriously stood up, wincing from pain after his hard fall to the stony ground. Straightening his shoulders he looked quickly around him and identified Julian, who stood only as high as the naked barbarian's bearlike chest. Three Roman guards moved forward to bind the huge German, but Julian signaled them back with his eyes and they reluctantly retreated. Chonodomarius took a step toward the Caesar, Roman lance points pressing upon him from all sides, and as he approached, Julian stood stone-still, his head tilted slightly to the side in observation, almost in curiosity, as if seeing for the first time a new creature brought forth from the wilds of Africa. The Beast moved slowly forward, expressionless, though his eyes darted warily from side to side behind the filth-caked hair obscuring his face. He stopped directly in front of Julian, dropped deliberately forward onto his knees, rested his forehead on the ground, and without a word slowly reached out with one hand to grasp the blade of Julian's sword and guide the tip to the back of his neck. The other barbarians in the group immediately did the same, dropping to the ground at the feet of the nearest Roman and signing with similar gestures to be executed.

  We were dumbfounded, and for a moment we all froze, unsure precisely what to do. Had they attacked us, we would have killed them immediately. Had they fled we would have hunted them down like the dogs they were. This, however, was unanswerable.