The Wald
Page 8
“Then we will kill them, lord,” said the prefect simply, wondering when this impromptu war council would end.
“Yes, I suppose we will. But, I cannot risk having one of the emperor’s legions cut off in its entirety. They have no proper roads in this forsaken land. We travel on paths better suited to feral animals than a man’s army. This is not how we do battle.” And it wasn’t. Manilius tired of the detailed conversation, preferring to organize his men to do his superior’s bidding rather than help his leaders make decisions. The prefect had his own decisions to make. He stood silently waiting for young Drusus to reach his point, wondering why the general bothered him when he had many of his personal augurs along on the campaign to divine the proper future course. The cocksure augur called Cornelius was always good for an answer when one was needed.
Manilius had served many commanders over the years. He had been a prefect longer than this general had shaved his whiskers. Manilius thought that he would serve for another year or two and then take the generous land and pension Augustus offered to his officers. Perhaps he would find himself a fat Gaul and make babies. The gods knew they were good at making babies. He knew when it was time to shut his mouth. Manilius did not care to do anything to ruin his retirement plans with a careless remark to a commander who may one day become the emperor of all of Rome. The rumor was that Drusus, though younger than Tiberius, was the favored of the two by Augustus.
Then Drusus made his decision. His headache seemed to clear at that moment. It was amazing what certainty could do to improve a man’s disposition. The general felt buoyant. He rose. “Pack the camp before daybreak. We move back to the river. Our task was to prevent an uprising and we’ve done so – and more. Set the first cohort as our rear guard. I want experienced men covering our backs from these hill creatures.”
Manilius would have preferred to move forward and crush his enemy, but the general had spoken. “Yes, lord. The first cohort is undermanned, however. It was they who left four centuries on the west side of the river for the ambush. I propose the tenth cohort.”
This surprised his commander. “The tenth? There is not anyone worthy from the second to the ninth?”
Manilius wanted to tread carefully. “All of the men of the emperor’s legions are fine soldiers, legate. But the tenth cohort contains two centurions with much promise. I’d like them tested and proven. This will be a fine opportunity to do so. You met one of these centurions, I believe.”
Drusus drew a blank, so Manilius helped. “Septimus, lord. The goat herder you met at the river.”
The commander’s eyes lit up as he snapped the fingers of his right hand. “Yes, the seventh son, now I remember. Sheep, Manilius. It was sheep. He seems a fine soldier and will hold the line in fitting form. Approved. The tenth cohort shall remain our rear guard. I want them to have flexibility to strike out if necessary, but I don’t want them left behind. Tell them to remain in contact with the rest of us as we move toward the river.”
“Yes, lord.” The prefect bowed and left the tent, hoping that the German’s counterattacked and eliminated or at least humbled Septimus and his friend so the task would not fall to Manilius. He was tired of young, cocky men. As he strode to carry out his general’s orders, he thought that perhaps he would consider hastening his retirement.
. . .
Septimus had not slept for two nights, and it looked like another would come and go without rest. A rider had just pounded along his formation calling to the centurions that the main body of the legion was crossing the Rhenus on boats. They’d be done by morning, but until then they would be at their most vulnerable. The rider expressed the gratitude of Drusus, further calling to the men to continue their task of a fighting withdrawal. The navy would shuttle them across in the morning.
Damn the army, thought Septimus. It was hard to not view his current march as anything but the mark of a sound defeat – a defeat set upon him and his dying men by their masters, not by the opposing force. He was neither stupid nor foolish though, knowing the importance of supply logistics to his bride. The young centurion understood and even approved of the decision Drusus had made, but it did not make watching his men fall to the quickly moving enemy any more palatable.
For two nights and two days the Germans had harried his cohort. Sometimes a number of the small detachment of scouts that had been left with the rear guard would disappear, never to return. It was a hazard of those men’s job that they accepted, but for the retreating cohort to so rapidly lose its eyes and ears to the wald was disconcerting to the officers and men. The scouts who yet survived were proving wholly ineffective at describing what the remnant of the legion faced.
Small bands of Sugambrians would turn up at the side of the small path Septimus and his men used. The attackers would all be mounted on horses with no saddles. Only some of them sat on a blanket. Most of the time they would keep a safe distance from the Roman army, preferring to launch missiles into the tightly packed ranks. Other times, however, the tribesmen would gallop directly into the nearest line of marching soldiers. Some of the legionaries would be trampled under the horses’ hooves; others might be hacked down with a sword stolen from a dead Roman further back on the trail.
Then as soon as the centurion organized his men into a defendable position, the attackers were gone, flowing back into their precious wilderness. Each time this occurred, the entire cohort was stopped and prepared for a full battle that never came. The repetition and slow bloodletting was exhausting to the men and their leaders. They felt helpless. They felt they did not act so much as a rear guard as serve as fresh targets for the frolicking natives.
. . .
What excellent fortune. The Roman dogs had chosen to withdraw, so Berengar and his small band of horsemen had had their way with the rear guard of the legion for two days. It was dusk of what would likely be the last night of raids – his successful raids on what was supposedly the most powerful army in the world. By tomorrow the soldiers would be too close to reinforcements to mount any more of their lightning attacks.
What a lesson for Berengar to learn. The boy had seen his people defeated and retreating, only to rise and strike repeated blows to their enemy. The boy saw how important supply and organization were to the Romans. He saw that their mighty force could be badly bloodied with the lightning tactics better suited to his own people. Maybe the boy would remember these lessons after his father died and fire took Adalbern’s spirit into the clouds and his bones were burnt to dust on a pyre in one of the wald’s many glens.
Each time they had struck the marching army, Adalbern had chosen to allow a myriad of village chiefs to run at more or less their own discretion. Such a tactic removed the necessity of command and made for smaller, rather than larger, mistakes should one man make a poor decision. For the coming attack, however, Adalbern gathered up all two hundred of his horsemen into a wide, sweeping valley between the fleeing cohort and the river. It had only taken fifteen brave men to attack the rear guard earlier that day and delay the cohort long enough for Berengar’s main cavalry force – it was his army again – to get into place.
This would be the last attack and it would be bold, demonstrating to the Roman commander that the tribes would not follow the way of the Gaul. They would not become domesticated pets of the emperor. Berengar could already hear the slow approach of the legion as it made its way around the last ridge into that valley.
The waiting riders sat atop horses that could sense their owners’ welling anticipation of the coming attack. The beasts shook their great heads, ears erect, aware of the approaching menace, and pawed at the ground with unshod hooves. They were all simple hunting or farm animals mere days ago, but each had learned by the fire of battle to obey the tugs at their reins by their masters while ignoring the terrific screams of death around their shoulders.
The moon, which had trailed the sun most of the day, was covered by a patch of grey-black clouds that had drifted in from the west long ago. The weak light of dusk was s
hort-lived and the black of night seemed to settle in quickly. Even so, Adalbern had his horsemen, sitting twenty abreast and ten deep, nestled against the forest’s edge to hide within its dark shadows.
Berengar sat on a strong horse directly behind him. The child looked like he was going to be sick ahead of each and every run they took at the fleeing enemy, but he went nonetheless. He was strong-willed like his mother. Sometimes the boy thought a little too highly of his abilities in the way only a child who has not experienced the results of his own folly can. But he was a good boy, liked, and more importantly respected, by the men. The source of their respect for Berengar no longer came by way of the seed from whom he sprang, but came instead from the boy’s actions in the field.
Adalbern wanted to send a message to the Roman commander. The nobleman hoped to kill as many of the Roman flowers as he could as quickly as he could. Maybe, Adalbern knowingly fooled himself, the legions could become satisfied with all of their conquests west of the Rhenus and south of the Danuvius, leaving Adalbern alone. The man’s plan was barbaric and simple. He would drive his mass of horsemen into the trailing gaggle of Roman soldiers, crushing and slicing as many as he could. This valley allowed for a sweeping return of his men so that they could ride a second pass over the next batch of soldiers they hadn’t cut down. Adalbern didn’t think they would be afforded such an opportunity since the cohort had formed up for battle rapidly each and every time they attacked, but he was hopeful.
The lead elements of the retreat were now past Adalbern’s anxious men. The marching soldiers could not hear the occasional snort from the Sugambrian mounts because of the racket made by their own feet and animals. Adalbern had personally killed another Roman scout earlier in the evening so he was confident the cohort marched blindly, hoping only for one night of peace. He would not allow it.
Adalbern kissed the air sweetly while nudging his horse’s belly with his boots. The animal took two quick steps forward before his men noticed that the attack was on and tensed their own legs around what would shortly become two thousand pounds of an intelligent projectile. In four horse lengths, the beasts, all two hundred, were up to full speed and the exhausted Romans were just becoming aware of another attack.
Even over the noise of his cavalry, Adalbern heard shouts of command from all along the Roman line. The dark echoing valley would disorient them, he knew, so that they would have to set themselves in squares to prepare for the usually fleeting attacks from all sides. As Adalbern drew closer he could see the familiar form settling into place. The half-cylinder-shaped shields of the Romans locked orderly one next to the other to face their unseen attackers. The silhouettes of spears showed above and in front of the wall of wood and leather shields.
Adalbern knew that some of his men and horses would be killed running against the sharp wall. He may even be among the dead when they were counted. But he would not have the invaders in his wald without sending them a message. It was the same wald where his father’s father led his village. It would be the same wald where his son’s son led his people. If Adalbern’s death could protect the forest from these interlopers, he would go with honor.
Directly in front of him one of the Roman army’s beloved centurions stood out from his men. He would surely be dead in less than three heartbeats, if not by Adalbern, then by one of his men. The man seemed surprisingly calm in the face of death, standing with his plumed helmet jutting above his shield, watching the horsemen approach. The man was brave, thought Adalbern – brave but dead.
All at once the soon-to-be dead man shouted a command and before he had even finished saying it, the men behind him split into three parallel lines in the direction of Adalbern’s advance. Adalbern instantly found himself thundering between two tightly packed lines of men. He heard some of his men hit the leading Romans in the lines, but the brutal force of his charge was allowed to sluice through the army like water between the rocks.
Adalbern, who had kept his sword sheathed so that he could hold tightly to the reins, swore violently, “By Teiwaz!” as he found himself pounding out the other side of the Romans into the dark valley beyond. He looked over his shoulder at the receding mass and saw that some of his men had been successful at crushing a few of the soldiers, but they now found themselves cut down with pierced torsos.
When the nobleman was out of projectile range he pulled hard on the reins to beat to a stop. All around him men did likewise until they sat in panting expectation for orders from their elected war leader. Behind them, several men still clashed with the Romans – by choice or stuck fast when their horses were cut down – so that clattering and shouting rang into the night.
“Count your men,” clipped Adalbern. Within seconds the elders told him they had lost fifteen. If all those weren’t yet dead, they would be in moments.
“We did nothing but ride in one of the parades the Romans like so much! Damn!” snorted Gundahar who had found his way to the front with Adalbern. The leader looked at the ugly face with reeking anger so that the faithful man knew to say no more of the obvious.
“We killed how many of them? Ten? Twenty?” asked Adalbern.
Another nobleman who had ridden further back in the horde answered, “No, Adalbern. If we killed five I would be surprised. Their formation was perfect.”
The battle on the path faded so that the only sounds were the rolling Latin words of the officers setting their men back into position. They would form their shield wall again, deliberate and straight. They would wait for sometime before they were sure no other attack came and then renew their march toward the river.
. . .
“They linger!” Marcus shouted over to Septimus. The two most junior centurions had found themselves at the back of the marching cohort for each and every battle. They and their centuries had weathered the brunt of every Sugambrian storm.
“Yes, I hear them at the edge of their forest,” said Septimus in return as he slapped a legionary into line. Others of his men lie dead or dying in the center of his square.
The most senior centurion of the cohort rode his horse to the rear of the column. “What do they plot?” the man shouted to Septimus.
“To attack us again, I suppose,” answered Septimus. “It’s their last chance before the river and our reinforcements. They’ll want more blood than what they just spilled.”
“But they haven’t attacked us twice in a row yet – not as we drove them east, and not as we ran west,” said the senior man.
“No, sir. But they’re led by a bear of a man. I’ve seen him many times now. I don’t know what he says to them, but he inspires them into a lather. I hear his voice over there now shouting in his tongue. He wants us gone from these forests forever. I think his boy wants us gone even more than the father.” The senior centurion looked down at Septimus with surprise showing on his face. Septimus added, “At least, that’s what I’d want if I were either of them.”
The horseman nodded. “Then we’ll wait in formation for them to attack us again. Hopefully they do so that we may cut more of them down. I’d like us to be the ones teaching the lessons.”
The senior man turned to trot back to the front of the line to command his century when Septimus called to him. “Sir, my men want nothing more than to kill these creatures and march to the barracks for warm baths, warm meals, and warm whores.” His men laughed behind him. “Allow my century to strike out a skirmishing line to either draw them into battle sooner than they wish or at least drive them away so that we may return to our march.”
The man considered the proposal. “How many horsemen would you say they have? You’ve been closer to the action with each attack.”
Septimus guessed, “One hundred fifty?” A Sugambrian who was cut from his horse on the first pass groaned at his feet. Septimus put him out of his misery by driving a spear into his neck. “Less now.”
“Let’s end this,” answered the senior commander. “I, too, would like to get to the whores of Oppidum Ubiorum before the rest of the l
egion spends all their wages on them first. You there,” he ordered pointing to Marcus. “Take your century with that of Septimus. Strike southeast, make a skirmish line and send javelins into the loitering fools. Perhaps we can drive them onto the rest of the waiting cohort. And go no more than one hundred yards away from the column. I don’t want to lose all of you.”
“You heard him. Let’s move,” directed Septimus.
In moments Septimus had led the men at a fast jog out into the meadow, the troops fanning out without another word of command into a skirmish line. The two centuries had practiced this maneuver many times so each man knew the spacing necessary for hurling javelins. They waited only for the men from Marcus’ unit to settle and then for the order from their leaders to launch.
The shouting from the German tribesman became elevated as the legionaries moved into place, with many voices heard arguing, each trying to shout down the next. Good, thought Septimus, they would bicker and die all the same. All was ready.
“Now!” cried Septimus. As one arm of the Roman Empire, the remnants of the two centuries threw their missiles into the darkness. Screams followed and then more shouting in the arresting Sugambrian tongue.
Slaves were passing out more javelins to the Romans for another round, when a lone child’s voice rose above the din of the rest. Marcus could not understand what was said, but he knew the voice. He knew the boy spoke with authority. Instantly, out of the night came the shout of riders goading on their mounts. A second charge came into sight like a host of gods materializing from the dark nothingness.
The Germans were led this time by the spear-thin boy who held out a sword pointing the way. As they approached, Septimus gave the order to fire whatever javelins had been passed out and to prepare to receive the charge. The javelins skipped from the men’s hands. One in particular found the forehead of the horse of the great beast of a man who rode next to the boy. The horse crumpled, but its momentum carried it and the rider into a terrible forward roll. Still the Germans came.