On land, the chariots had come forward and were now racing up and down the beach, daring the Roman invaders to land. Each vehicle was drawn by a pair of horses, harnessed with sturdy leathers to a lightweight chariot that was little more than a wood-and-wicker wheeled fighting platform. Each chariot was driven by a half-naked warrior, his body painted with whorls and designs, his wild hair whipping about in the wind as he rode the traces, reins clutched tightly in each hand. The sheer skill and dexterity of these men as they leapt about between the horses while controlling the chariot would put to shame any professional at the circus in Rome. But despite the phenomenal sight of such activity, Fronto’s eyes were drawn to the figures on the chariots themselves. Each vehicle carried but one man alongside the driver and each man was clearly a leader or a powerful warrior. They were all fully clothed, mostly armoured with mail shirts or bronze plated chest-pieces, and helmeted in the most elaborate way, with plumes atop many. Some warriors carried a shield visibly similar to those held by the legionaries — if a little smaller — painted with bright designs and sometimes the images of wild animals. Most carried a long, gleaming sword, held aloft in a triumphant fashion, and all gripped spears in their off-or-shield hand.
There were enough of them to fill the beach and endanger each other as they passed and turned, churning up the sand and throwing sheets of it into the air to the whoops of the crowd of warriors and cavalry behind them.
More and more detail became visible as the ships of the Roman fleet closed on the sand.
Fronto gritted his teeth and watched.
The legate’s first indication that there was a problem was when he received a dazing blow to the forehead from the heavy timber hull at the ship’s bow. Shaking his head in confusion, he untangled his legs and hauled himself back to his feet to a background of calls of alarm and the crash of dozens of mailed men in chaos.
The ship had come to a dead halt, the sudden loss of momentum catapulting those at the rail into the solid timbers and sweeping almost every other man on board from his feet. Hauling himself up and ignoring all the shouts and hollers around him, Fronto peered over the rail. Concentrating hard, occasionally, though the foam and the distortions of the waves, he could see pebbles.
“We’ve run aground!” he shouted, immediately aware of how obvious the statement was. The triremes around them were still ghosting forward, but the Celtic ships, with their deep hulls were all falling foul of the gentle submerged slope, slamming to a sudden halt and throwing the centuries of men to the deck in a tangle.
Whoops of delight and derision rose from the beach. A few enterprising archers among the Briton tribesmen rushed forward and released a shot over the heads of the charioteers. While none of the missiles actually reached the ships, odd ones hissed into the water close enough to cause alarm.
With the swift reactions one would expect from the experienced commanders of the Roman vessels, the triremes slowed their advance toward land and began back-oaring to the same distance as the beached Celtic vessels. Galronus frowned at the manoeuver and looked across at Fronto next to him.
“Why are they pulling back?”
“Two thirds of the fleet are these big bastards that won’t get to the beach. If Caesar lands he’ll only have a third of his troops with him. It’d be suicide.”
Galronus shook his head in disbelief. “A landing thwarted by four feet of water? Someone’s going to lose their balls for misjudging the slope of the beach.”
“I don’t think so” Fronto shook his head. “It will have been Brutus and the trireme’s captain, but Caesar will have made the decision. The big question is: what do we do next?”
Almost as if to answer his question calls began to issue from the trireme, from the general’s personal cornicen, calls that were relayed by other musicians until the sequence of notes rang out across the fleet.
“That sounds like the advance!” Galronus blinked. “But not quite.”
“That” Fronto said flatly “is the order for the Seventh to advance.”
“But the Seventh are mostly in the same position as your Tenth.”
“Yes.”
The legate was suddenly aware of the presence of his primus pilus by his elbow. “Is the general losing his wits, sir?”
“No. He’s ordering the Seventh to attack the beach.”
“But there’s four or five feet of water down there if not more. And why not us? The Tenth are more damn use than the Seventh any day.”
“But the Seventh are dispensable as far as he’s concerned. He won’t risk losing the Tenth, but the Seventh are full of the former Pompeians, dissidents and anyone who rings a warning bell. That’s why they were chosen for this campaign. The Seventh are here to take the shit thrown at us and the Tenth are here to mop it all up and support the general.”
Galronus lowered his voice and leaned closer to Fronto. “You realise this is the perfect trigger to kick off a row between Cicero and Caesar?”
“If Cicero’s nearby, yes. But look at the circumstances. The wrong call here could cost us hundreds of lives; thousands even. Hardly worth the risk, I’d say.”
“Oh crap.” Though the shout came from one of the soldiers back across the deck, and was immediately followed by the crack of an officer’s stick across him for speaking out of turn, the call drew Fronto’s eyes inexorably back to the beach and the waiting Celtic horde.
The archers among the force were moving between the chariots and towards the edge of the water, nocking arrows as they ran.
“If they start to fire and we’re still beached, we’re in real trouble.”
“Where are the Seventh then?” asked Galronus, his eyes playing across the many vessels drawn up opposite the beach. “I can’t see anyone advancing.”
“They’re not” said Carbo. “It looks like their officers and men are refusing the order to advance.”
“Someone’s got to do something” Galronus frowned. “If we just sit here the archers will start killing people any minute.”
A series of notes issued from a ship two vessels to their left and, glancing across, Fronto could see a trireme flying the vexillum of the Seventh legion. Cicero’s ship.
“That’s the rally call. What the hell is he up to?”
Rushing across the deck, Fronto leaned over the port rail. He could only just see Cicero’s trireme over the bulk of the Gallic ship between them. Certainly the likelihood of anyone hearing him was negligible.
“Cicero! You have to advance! Screw the general’s call; the Tenth will go with you!”
There was no acknowledgement of the call for a long moment and then suddenly a figure appeared at the rail of the ship between them. The transverse crest of his helmet marked him as a centurion.
“Legate Fronto?”
A cold stone sank into the pit of Fronto’s stomach as he recognised the voice of Furius.
“What?”
“Half the damn officers are encouraging their men to refuse the order!”
Fronto shook his head in disbelief. This was what came of an ‘all the bad eggs in one basket’ policy. “What about you?” he called, narrowing his eyes. There was something urgent and angry about the centurion’s manner.
“I’m not prepared to stay here and get shot at.”
“Good. All together, then?”
“Our eagle won’t go. He’s cowering on the command ship. Bad luck to charge without the eagle. You know that!”
Fronto looked around his own vessel urgently. Julius Pictor, the eagle-bearer of the Tenth crouched by the rail, keeping his head down as he watched the approaching archers.
“Sound the advance! Pictor… I want you first in the water. Make sure that eagle’s held high so that everyone can see it.”
The aquilifer turned and stared at him wide-eyed. Though he said nothing, his head began to shake almost involuntarily. Fronto glared at him. “In the water, Pictor. You’re one of the Tenth, not a street urchin!”
“Oh for the love of Mars!” snapped Pe
trosidius, the first century’s standard bearer, stepping away from his unit. Reaching down, he grasped Pictor by the crossed-and-tied paws of the wolf skin that covered his helmet and hauled him to his feet, and indeed almost off the ground. The eagle lurched in the man’s hand and nearly went overboard.
“Consider yourself demoted, piss-britches!” Petrosidius growled, ripping the shining silver eagle staff from the cowering man’s hand and thrusting his own bulky standard into the open grasp. “Follow on and try not to soil yourself.”
The standard bearer turned to Fronto and raised his brows in question. Fronto nodded.
“Tenth legion: on me!”
Without another word, Petrosidius placed a hand on the rail and vaulted over the side with the strength and agility of a man half his age, plummeting into the waves beside the ship.
With an audible moan of dismay, the men of the Tenth rushed over to the rail, where there was no sign of Petrosidius but the churning water where he had entered. There was a horrible pause and then suddenly, with an explosion of foam, the head and shoulders of the big standard bearer rose from the sea, followed by the silver eagle that glittered and shone.
“Come on in, ladies. The water’s fine.”
Grinning, the wolf pelt over his helmet plastered down to the metal, Petrosidius began to move laboriously toward the beach with the difficulty of a man in chest-deep water. There was a splash nearby and Fronto glanced up to see centurion Furius rise from the sea’s surface, yelling encouragement to his men.
The dam broke.
With a roar, the men of the Tenth and the Seventh began to hurl themselves from the ships into the chest-deep water, many throwing their shields ahead and trying to jump on to them. Fronto turned to Galronus and grinned.
“I’m guessing the cavalry won’t be taking part!”
The Remi officer laughed. “I think not. The general will be irritated that you took the Tenth in, you know that?”
“Not as irritated as he’d be if we all stayed here and died on deck. ‘Scuse me. I’ve a battle to fight.” With a wicked grin, Fronto grasped the rail and threw himself over.
Chapter 14
(South east coast of Britannia)
Fronto’s world was an explosion of baffling sensory input as he burst through the water’s surface and heaved in a deep breath. His ears had filled with water and, though he was aware of the din going on around him, it was all buried beneath a sloshing sound that made him feel dangerously unbalanced. His eyes stung with the brine and all he could see were occasional flashes of red or silver ahead of him as he continually blinked, trying to bring his sight back into line.
Slowly his eyes adjusted and he was aware of dozens and dozens of men around him, only their heads and shoulders above the waves, heaving towards the beach, their swords and shields held aloft as high as possible to prevent too much drag.
There was a wet pop and one of his ears suddenly cleared, shocking him with the sheer scale of the noise that suddenly assailed his eardrum.
“What are you doing?” called a voice. Fronto looked around in confusion to see Carbo addressing a legionary who was turning slowly in confusion.
“Looking for my standard, sir!”
“Don’t be bloody stupid. Just get to the beach and form up with anyone you can find, even if they’re not from the Tenth!”
As the man turned and struggled back towards the beach, Carbo took the time to give him a clout on the back of his helmet for his idiocy.
A mass of helmeted shapes were ploughing toward the beach. Fronto frowned as his brain told him he should be remembering something — something urgent.
“Shit!” he dropped into the water again as the arrow hissed past him and disappeared with a splash. But as he rose from the surface once more, he realised that the arrow had been a single pot-luck shot and not part of an organised attack.
“Why aren’t the archers shooting us?”
“Hello sir” Carbo said, grinning as he turned.
“I said: why aren’t they shooting us anymore?”
In response, the centurion cupped his hand to his ear dramatically. Fronto frowned, but after a moment, he heard the twang of the ballista on board Caesar’s trireme. Ahead, there were screams on the beach.
“Ah… got you.”
Another dramatic ear cup at the other side, and Fronto smiled as he heard the thud of the catapult on Cicero’s trireme release its heavy stone burden. A second later, on the beach, one of the chariots suddenly spun upwards, the terrified horses still attached as the stone smashed the vehicle into the air, the warrior aboard dead before he fell back to the sand, crushed and broken.
“This can’t hold. Let’s get to the beach before they decide to do something clever.”
Carbo turned away and made for the sand, the water level now just above his waist.
On the beach, something was already happening, though. The chariots had drawn up in two lines to the rear at both ends of the long beach while the cavalry, so very reminiscent of the Gallic horsemen of Caesar’s, drew up facing the sea.
“Looks like we’re about to have company.”
Even above the sloshing of the waves, the shouts of men and the din of ship-borne artillery, Fronto could hear the drumming thunder as the cavalry started to move, then picked up the pace, charging toward the invading force.
Another random pot-shot arrow appeared from nowhere and glanced off Fronto’s crest-holder with a clang, disappearing into the water in a cloud of severed red horse-hair.
Heaving a sigh of relief, the legate concentrated once more on what was happening across the open expanse of beaching waves. A wall of horseflesh, hair, skin and bronze approached as the massed ranks of the tribal riders raced across the sand and into the shallows. The barbarians, aware now of the dangers of the artillery, had kept the noble and easily-targeted chariots out of ballista reach, as well as the archers and the bulk of their warriors. But the cavalry had the speed to reach the Roman forces in the water with the minimal risk of being taken out by artillery. Moreover, their advantage in the water was clear, and the Roman artillery would cease fire at close quarters for fear of hitting their own people.
Fronto watched with growing dismay as the native cavalry ploughed into the water, splitting into groups and making for any legionary or small number of them who had become separated and looked like easy pickings. Even as he struggled towards the nearest such group, the ballista on Caesar’s ship fired one last time, smashing into one of the horses and throwing both it and its rider back into the shallow surf; it then fell silent.
Two legionaries and an optio were swiftly surrounded by half a dozen horsemen, their long swords rising and falling as they battered at the three men, jostling to maintain a position where they could reach. The Romans had moved back to back and their shields were raised to take the blows but their strength was ebbing fast with the sheer effort of fighting in waist deep water.
Snarling imprecations, Fronto laboured towards them, his sword slipping from its sheath beneath the water. The three men would not last long surrounded by cavalrymen with the advantage of both height and numbers.
The silent, oppressive void of the submarine world closed over him again as he slipped on a rock, his bad knee giving way and plunging him down into the salty, choking sea. Desperation grasped him and he let go of the shield he’d been gripping to free him a little from the weight and bulk. Despite the salty discomfort, his eyes remained open and he looked up to see his discarded shield bob to the surface, creating an oblong shadow above him.
A memory of muttered conversations with an angry Varus over too many drinks to be truly healthy flashed into his head as he looked up from his submarine world, and his face split into a hard smile.
He knew how to turn the tables.
Bursting from the surface with the renewed vigour that comes with certainty of purpose, Fronto began to push and fight his way through the water toward the fracas. One of the legionaries had already taken a sword blow from the
horsemen and his shield was being split into kindling with the repeated hammering as he desperately clung onto life, failing to find an opportunity to use his gladius.
Closing on them, Fronto grinned, aware that they hadn’t seen him. At a distance of perhaps ten feet, he took a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface, scrambling along in a half-crawl, half-swim in just over three feet of water.
A shadow fell across his strange, ethereal world just as he saw the injured legionary succumb to another blow and drop beneath the waves, clouds of dirty brown indicating the horrible extent of his wounds as the blood bloomed out of his chest and tainted the water.
There was plenty more of that to come.
Crouching, Fronto used the combination of his bunched muscles and the hard pebbled seabed to launch himself through the surface and straight into the horse’s underbelly. Germanic tactics. It was horrible — a dirty way to fight a war — but needs must when Caesar drives…
His gladius plunged into the horse’s gut and ripped this way and that. Urgently, Fronto ducked to one side to avoid the writhing of the agonised animal.
The beast screamed and tried to leap, the Celtic rider suddenly bucking from the saddle and being thrown into the water. It would have been nice to finish the bastard off, but that could come later. With gritted teeth, Fronto plunged beneath the surface, through the glowing slick of horse’s blood and sought out the next equine shadow that blotted out the sun.
Quickly, efficiently, and with a rising distaste, Fronto located another of the Celtic riders and, aware that the swinging swords and danger of battle was taking place just above the surface, concluded he was better off remaining hidden. Closing his eyes and sending a mental apology to the poor beast, Fronto lifted his hand to just below the water’s surface and drove his gladius into the horse’s upper leg, feeling it grate off the central bone as it pushed through and out the other side.
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