by George Green
A hand grabbed Serpicus’ belt and pulled him back up. The Roman’s blood was all over his chest.
‘You all right?’
Half of Brutus’ face was a mask of wet blood from a cut on his scalp, but his eyes were full of light above a wide smile. Serpicus nodded, still without breath.
‘Thanks,’ he gasped.
Brutus grinned even wider. ‘Thanks yourself.’
There was a momentary respite around them. They looked warily about. The ground below the walkway was heaped with bodies. Decius ran past again, bending down to collect arrows and javelins. His clothes were torn and he was covered in mud but appeared unhurt. Many attackers had been shot off the walkway by the archers who had dropped down onto the ground. Blood pooled around the bodies, Roman and Treveri both flowing into puddles mixed with rainwater. There were many more dead Romans than Treveri, but that was only partly good news. There had been a lot more Romans to start with.
‘We might even survive this,’ said Brutus and laughed. Galba appeared beside them, covered in blood, and he laughed too, without knowing at what.
Then, suddenly and with finality, they knew that Brutus was wrong and that they had lost the fight.
Beneath the screams and crashes of combat had been a steady pounding, a deep and relentless pulse that they had been too preoccupied to pay attention to. Now they heard it gain in volume, accompanied by a splintering crash. The men under the testudo had paid a heavy price, but the battering ram had finally done its work. Serpicus looked along the walkway. The defenders immediately above the gate were moving sideways, and the men and women on the ground behind the gate were moving forward to defend it. The gate was about to fall.
There was another crash and the end of the battering ram came through a panel of the gate like the nose of a shark before swinging back out again. A few more blows and the gate would be useless. Everyone knew that once the gate was gone the battle was lost.
There was no point in contesting the battlements if the gate was open. Brutus and Serpicus jumped down and ran, slipping and tumbling in the mud, to meet the imminent invasion. Every time the ram swung into the now-wrecked gate the Romans at the front of the testudo had to move their shields out of the way to let it through, and when they did the Treveri archers were ready and shot into the gap. One arrow took down a man at the very front and he fell into the ram itself. Another soldier quickly hauled the body off and took the dead man’s place, and the ram swung again. A whole section of the gate splintered and hung uselessly sideways.
‘Here they come,’ said Brutus, and Serpicus felt the big man’s shoulder touch his own.
‘Get close to the gate,’ yelled Drenthe from above them. Her guards were fighting in pairs either side of her, allowing her time to look around and assess the situation. Bodies were piled up in front of them, but the Romans kept coming forward. Drenthe pointed downwards with her sword. ‘Don’t let them get in and spread out.’
Even if the gate itself was destroyed, the gateway was still the place to meet the Romans. If the Treveri stood back then the attackers would come through and fight them in a wide front. Either way the defenders would probably die but the latter would be more certain and sooner. They pressed up against the wrecked gate and hacked with axes and swords at anything that came through it.
The rain was now coming down in a freezing torrent, carried by a cold east wind. The women fought beside the defenders, letting the village burn.
Brutus used a broken stave to beat at an arm that came through the gate. There was a howl of agony and the arm jerked back again. ‘Just as well there are all these Romans here to give us some exercise,’ he shouted to Serpicus, the breath rasping in his throat. ‘It’d be bloody cold if we were just standing around in the rain.’
There was a loud rending sound as the last gate support tore free of the wall and crashed inwards. The defenders jumped back to avoid the falling timber and the Romans seized their chance. In a moment they were through the gap and inside the village.
Serpicus saw Calryx surrounded by legionaries. He parried several blows and knocked a legionary backwards, then two men struck at him at once. He threw himself forward onto their attack, striking with his sword at the head of one and swinging his shield at another. Both men went down, but Calryx staggered and fell onto them. Others flung themselves forward and he disappeared beneath them.
The Treveri were now split into small groups, fighting desperately, and the Romans poured through the gate in a rush and swarmed between them. In moments the ground became a mix of blood, earth and water that splashed up their thighs while the rain poured down their faces and blinded them.
Brutus leant against Serpicus’ shoulder. ‘Watch out for the big one!’ he yelled.
Serpicus had already seen him. A muscular legionary with the face of a boy came running straight at him, screaming as loud as he could, exactly as his drill-sergeant would have told him to. His sergeant would not have approved of the headlong charge or the sword held high above the head, and the legionary was about to find out why. Serpicus swayed sideways without moving his feet to avoid the downward blow and brought his sword in an uppercut aimed at the man’s groin. The impact jarred Serpicus’ arm into numbness as the sword hit the edge of the man’s armour, plunged deep into flesh and hit bone. The Roman howled and spun away from him, twisting Serpicus’ sword from his nerveless fingers. Serpicus hesitated and then let the sword go and picked up a spear from the ground. Another soldier swiped at him like an angry slave chasing a wasp. Serpicus ducked and came up jabbing with the spear-point at the man’s face. He pulled back and Brutus slashed sideways at his throat. The man spun away with a scream, blood fountaining as he fell to the ground. A group of four legionaries jumped forward to take his place. One of them slipped as his leading foot landed and in trying to save himself he knocked the man next to him off balance and pulled him down. Serpicus thrust the spear as hard as he could into the back of the Roman on top and without waiting to see the result ran to the corpse of the first man he had killed. He pulled his sword free and raised it, just in time to block the blow of the legionary who had slipped. He had pushed the dead body of his comrade away, jumped up and attacked Serpicus almost in one movement and the fury of the assault pushed him back. Over his shoulder Serpicus could see Brutus hard pressed, and Galba on the ground near Brutus with a Roman on top of him and a knife at his throat. As he looked, Decius appeared and threw himself onto the man attacking Galba.
Everywhere they were outnumbered. They were finished. It only remained to decide the manner of it.
Serpicus blocked the first and second blows and stabbed forward at the legionary. The Roman blocked him easily and swept his still-numb arm aside, knocking him off balance and onto one knee. He was wide open. The Roman pulled his arm back to deliver the killing thrust. Serpicus was a pig tethered for the slaughter.
The Roman sank to his knees, and then fell slowly face forward into the carmined mud with his arm in the same position. An arrow protruded from between his shoulder-blades.
The man’s death left a space for a moment, and through it Serpicus saw Galba, still on the ground but now on top of his opponent. Galba had torn the legionary’s helmet off and was using it as a club, battering at the man’s head. Decius was nowhere to be seen. Brutus had badly wounded one of his Romans and was pressing the other back. Serpicus jumped up to join him and another arrow hissed through the rain to land at his feet. Serpicus looked up and saw Drenthe on the walkway with a bow in her hand. She was indicating frantically to him but for a moment he couldn’t see what she wanted him to do. She pointed over the wall. Serpicus looked through the gate out over the plain in front of the village but it was too dark to see what was happening. Then an enormous clap of thunder broke overhead, followed by three shafts of lightning in fast succession which lit up the entire area.
The thin neck of land where the river turned back onto itself to coil around the village was completely covered in dark rushing water.
/> The Roman picket fires, which had been placed exactly at that spot, were gone. Most of the main Roman camp behind the pickets was still just above the water line, but it was on low ground. It had been raining all day, so the water could only be still rising. Soldiers at the rear of the Roman attack were hearing the shouts of the camp attendants and were breaking ranks, running back to save what was left of their stores. The men in front of them heard their shouts and knew that their comrades were no longer watching their backs as they fought. The Roman attack faltered. If the attack failed, there was no escape except across the freezing rushing water, in the dark, exhausted and in full armour. The choice was stark.
The Treveri tactics were obvious and simple. Serpicus sprinted to where Brutus and Galba were standing back to back and holding off several legionaries. Without breaking stride he cut the nearest man down from behind.
‘Follow me!’ he shouted. He ran past Brutus and charged straight at the man standing between him and the gate. The Roman’s eyes opened wide in surprise as suddenly the three Germans ignored everyone else and homed in on him. He instinctively moved sideways. They sprinted past him, splashing and yelling through the mud towards the gate. Other defenders saw their lead and ran to join them. A blood-spattered Roman officer charged at Brutus with a roar of anger. Brutus dropped a shoulder and drove his full weight into the man’s midriff, then kept running, lifting the officer clear off the ground and sending him sprawling to one side, right into the path of Drenthe’s guard who were running to help the fight at the gate. One slashed, at his throat, another at his chest. Blood sprayed upward as the Roman jerked convulsively and lay still.
The Germans stood back to back in a line across the entrance to the village, fighting to keep the Romans outside from entering while making sure that those trapped inside didn’t escape.
Serpicus ducked as a sword split the air above his head, spun sideways and thrust upward at the legionary in front of him. The blow missed and left him off balance. The Roman swung a mailed fist at Serpicus’ jaw, knocking him to one side as an explosion of pain spread up from his burned face. A lithe figure dropped off the battlements to land beside the legionary and caved the Roman’s head in before he realized what had happened. He toppled sideways into the mud. Drenthe’s guard appeared and formed around her without a word being spoken.
‘Thanks,’ croaked Serpicus, trying to ignore the pain.
‘The camp is being washed away,’ Drenthe shouted. ‘They will have to retreat.’ She looked at Brutus and Galba, then Serpicus. ‘You should save yourselves while there is time.’
Another sheet of lightning lit up the Roman camp. The water seemed to have risen even in the short time since Serpicus last saw it. The river was picking up the tents at the near edge of the camp and carrying them away on its swollen back. Men who tried to wade through it to recover their belongings were knocked over by the branches swept along by the current just under the surface of the water. Once a man was down, the fast-moving river rolled him over and battered him with loose equipment and debris. It would not be long before the Romans had no avenues of retreat left. Shouts of dismay were coming from the attackers’ ranks.
A broken dagger of light flashed to the earth from the black sky and Serpicus saw Marcus, son to Blaesus and cousin of Sejanus, outlined by the light like a bas-relief on a wall. The General was on horseback, riding just behind the front rank of soldiers. His sword was in his hand and he was pointing forward with it like a statue. Then a legionary ran forward and stood in front of him, gesturing frantically back at the camp. Marcus pulled his horse sideways and looked back for a long moment. He glanced forward again to the faltering attack on the village walls, then back once more at the disappearing camp. Thunder rolled like huge stones on a wooden floor above him, adding to the roar of the battle. His frightened horse reared up and turned in a tight circle. Marcus came to a decision. He shouted to the trumpeters standing nearby and then turned his horse and pushed it into a canter back to the camp. In moments he was lost in the gloom.
‘They’re retreating!’ said Brutus, breathing hard after knocking a man to the ground with the broken end of a spear.
It was true. The mournful note of the trumpets could be heard over the noise of the battle. Officers were shouting orders at the legionaries. The front ranks of Romans were slowly disengaging while the rear was already trotting back through the mud towards the camp.
A German with a throat wound that coated the front of his body with blood ran past Serpicus screaming, ‘After them! Don’t let them escape!’ Drenthe reached out and grabbed his arm. He turned, his eyes wild, and lifted his arm to strike at her. Then he saw who it was and stopped, though his head still moved from side to side frantically as if angry bees were attacking him.
‘They aren’t running away, they’re pulling back,’ she said. She swung him around in front of her and pointed over his shoulder. ‘Look. They are still in ranks, in good order. The reason we are still alive is because of the village walls. If we chase the Romans we will be a disorganized rabble. We will be caught out in the open and they will form up again and cut us to pieces.’
The warrior hesitated, and then his shoulders slumped. Drenthe turned him around and looked into his face. She slapped him gently across the cheek, smiled and pushed him back towards the village.
The only Romans still left inside the walls were either dead or wounded. The Treveri gathered in front of the gate and hurled insults as the remaining legionaries ran back towards their camp. A few of the Treveri had forgotten or ignored Drenthe’s orders and could be seen chasing after the Romans. It was plain that some of the remaining warriors who had maintained discipline were watching them enviously. They weren’t content with what they felt was an unnatural tactic, but they kept their promise.
* * *
Many of the buildings had been damaged by the fire-arrows, so the wounded were laid out in the Hall. While the villagers worked frantically to rebuild the gate, Drenthe quickly went around the wounded, pressing a hand here, whispering a word there, and then gathered her remaining officers around her near the doorway. Every one of them was covered in mud and streaked with blood, their own and that of others. The dead and the wounded were reported and counted. Balant was nursing a deep cut in his left shoulder. The muscle was severed and the arm hung uselessly at his side. He couldn’t lift his hand, let alone a shield. Bocalas cursed steadily as the boy handed him herb-smeared cloths to press against it. He had stopped the worst of the bleeding but he could do nothing about the useless arm except tie it up so that it did not get in the way. Drenthe was almost unharmed, but all of her guard were wounded. One of them had been struck on the head and was almost unconscious. The others carried a dozen cuts each, none of them serious in themselves, but they had lost much blood and needed rest, medicine and food. The champion Calryx was dead, lying at the centre of a circle of dead Romans, and many of the village’s best men were dead or were so badly hurt that they lay on the ground, no longer able to fight. Brutus found his drinking friend Max run through with a spear and unable to talk, so he stayed with him until he died. The Hall was full of heavy breathing and soft grunts of pain as wounds were roughly bound.
Serpicus leant against the wall and waited for his breathing to return to normal. He was battered and exhausted, but compared to most of the men he was fighting fit. Galba had a nasty cut on his thigh and another on his forearm, and was holding one of Bocalas’ poultices to each one. Brutus had a deep laceration across his forehead to add to the arrow wound on his arm. One of Drenthe’s guards was sewing it up with soldier’s stitches, a thread run loosely through the two edges of the cut from one end to the other and then back again. It was quick to do, and when both ends were pulled tight it closed the cut. It was fast and effective, but it left an ugly scar. Decius watched anxiously until Bocalas called him over.
Serpicus smiled at the expression on Brutus’ face as the woman fixed his scalp. Not only was he not complaining at the pain, he was looking
at her as a dog looks at the man who removes a painful thorn from his paw. Serpicus had heard the sort of things that Brutus usually said to the men who had attended his wounds in the past. His silence was in marked contrast.
Drenthe stood in the centre of the Hall and raised her voice. There was a silence.
‘Everyone knows the situation,’ she said. ‘We have just a short respite while the Romans try and stop their camp from floating down to the Rhine.’ Several men laughed harshly. ‘We have hurt them badly, but they are not defeated. We are still trapped. They outnumber us and they have the advantage. Many of us are wounded.’ She put a hand on Balant’s shoulder as Bocalas finished binding his other arm tightly to his chest. ‘If anyone has any magic potions or secret plans, this would be a very good time to produce them.’
‘An invisibility spell would help,’ said one of the wounded men. Everyone laughed. Drenthe stooped to help bandage the arm of one of her guard.
‘Actually, I do have an idea,’ said a quiet voice, dry like the wind moving across the cold forest floor.
For a moment no one realized who had spoken. Then Drenthe turned and looked at Bocalas.
‘No hurry at all,’ she said, ‘but let’s hear it.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
The warriors laughed at Bocalas’ suggestion. Drenthe enquired softly if they had any better ideas, or any ideas at all. There was a slightly sheepish silence. She snapped orders. Bocalas took six men and left. The boy went with them, the hawk on his arm as always. Drenthe sent others to bring everyone left alive except the sentries into the Hall. It took a while. Most of the men and many of the women were carrying wounds which they hadn’t considered serious enough to need treatment, but which slowed them down.