Wounds of Honour e-1

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Brothers, there isn’t time for any inspirational stuff or exhortations to heroism. Put simply, we’ve been sent to fight and likely to die in order to buy time for the other legions to jump those blue-nosed bastards from behind and put it to them the old-fashioned way. Your men are going to realise that soon enough, when they see thousands of men coming up the hill for their heads. They will look to you for an example. Give them one. Show them a grim face, but not despair. Lead your centuries with aggression, but keep them disciplined. If we do this right we can still pull a victory out of this disaster, but that depends solely on us. We are now the most important ten men on this battlefield — so let’s live up to that burden in the next hour.’

  He paused, looking at each man to take a gauge of their resolve. Good enough.

  ‘Orders. The cohort will come down this path in number order with the Fifth at the rear and the Ninth in their place in the centre, the prefect will make sure of that. Take your centuries down the slope to the line I point out to you and set up for defence, two men deep and no more, three-foot spacing per man. We’re lucky that the wood curves down on both sides to meet our flanks, so we can anchor the line off the trees. Get the ground in front of you dirty as quickly as possible, and get your caltrops out straight after that. Speaking of trees… Bear?’

  The big man stepped forward.

  ‘Your axemen will be last down the path. Take them to left and right and make me an abatis as fast as you can, three rows of fallen trees deep all the way from each end of the line back round to the path, but leave the path clear of obstruction. When the obstacles are in place, widen the path enough to let four men down it abreast. In the unlikely event of our being reinforced I’d like the way in behind us wide enough for a cohort to move down it at speed. Everyone clear? And remember, brothers, win or lose, this day will be sung about long after the rain washes our blood away. Let’s make it a story worth telling.’

  The Tungrians exploded out of the wood on to the open ground, the centuries hurrying down to the line pointed out by Frontinius as they cleared the trees. The First Spear barked at his centurions to speed up their deployment as he pointed each century to its place, aware that the tribesmen, pausing in their assault on the shrinking remnant of the Sixth Legion to watch the new development, could turn and charge towards them at any second. The wood behind the cohort echoed with the growing racket of eighty axes working furiously on the tree-felling that would defend their flanks and rear. Each tree was under attack by two of the 10th Century’s men, as they laboured with expert blows to drop it neatly into position with its branches facing outwards, presenting an impassable obstacle. Once the line was established, each end anchored in the trees to either side as the wood curved around their defence, he gave a small sigh of relief and shouted his next command.

  ‘Get that slope dirtied up!’

  The cohort’s long line marched a dozen paces down the gentle slope, then stopped, the troops fishing under their groin protectors to urinate on to the grass. Selected men ran to the small stream that ran through their new position and filled their helmets with water, carrying the load carefully back to their places in the line before emptying the liquid on to the ground. On command they stamped and twisted with their hobnailed boots, digging at the wet ground beneath their feet, ignoring the spray of acidic-smelling mud that spattered their lower legs and retreating gradually back towards their former positions to leave a five-yard strip of ground in front of their line an oozing mess. Frontinius ignored the drama taking place below them as the 6th Legion’s surviving troops huddled into three ever dwindling groups. With the ground to their front made treacherously slippery, he called for the last element of their defence.

  ‘Obstacles and tribuli!’

  The centuries mustered the heavy five-foot-long staves each man had carried from the camp, each one sharpened to a fire-hardened point at both ends, and lashed them into giant obstacles, each formed of three stakes tied together with rope. Bags full of the small iron tribuli were strewn around the obstacles, presenting sharp points to the feet of the unwary attacker. Julius, standing with his 5th Century behind the main line of defence, both escort to the cohort’s standard and tactical reserve, turned to speak to his chosen man.

  ‘You can keep an eye on this lot. I’m going down to the front to get a better view and have a chat with my young Roman friend. I see no reason why he should get all the fun.’

  He strode down the slope, clapping an arm around Marcus’s shoulders and pointing out across the warband’s presently scattered force. Lowering his head to the younger man’s ear, he spoke quietly, a gentle smile on his face.

  ‘Well, Centurion, there they are. Twenty thousand angry blue-faced men who will very shortly come up this buttock of a hill to take our heads. Are you ready to die with your men?’

  Marcus nodded grimly.

  ‘Ready enough. But before they take my head, I’ll send a good number to meet Cocidius before me.’

  Julius laughed, slapping him delightedly on the back.

  ‘And you don’t mind if I stay for the fun? I can’t stand being stuck back guarding that bloody statue while you get all the glory. And I might be of some use when the shit starts flying…’

  Marcus nodded, but raised a finger in mock admonishment.

  ‘As long as you contain your contribution to swordplay, and the occasional piece of advice, it’s a deal. If you want to command the scout century, make sure you come second in the competition next year.’ A horn sounded far out across the battlefield, and the milling tribesmen hacking at the remnants of the 6th Legion’s cohorts pulled back in temporary truce. Silence gradually fell across the field, the panting Britons taking an opportunity to get their breath, tend to their wounded and remove their dead and dying from the bloodied grass. Trapped behind the unmoving wall of tribesmen, the remaining legionaries did what they could for their own wounded, little enough in the circumstances.

  Sollemnis squinted up the hill over the heads of the barbarians surrounding what was left of his command, making out the auxiliary cohort arrayed in defence across its slope. He tapped his First Spear on the shoulder, pointing at the Tungrians.

  ‘What… what do you think they’re about up there?’

  The other man grimaced as he drew breath, the broken shaft of an arrow protruding through his armour from his abdomen, the price of taking his turn in the cohort’s rapidly contracting perimeter.

  ‘You’ve got me. Looks like a suicide mission. We’ll be welcoming them to Hades soon enough.’

  Sollemnis laughed grimly, hefting his sword.

  ‘No doubt about that. These bastards are just having a breather, they’ll be back for our heads once they’ve got their wind back.’

  He glanced about him.

  ‘I need to hide this sword, hope that it stays concealed from the blue-noses. Those are Tungrians up there, I can see their banner. My son’s up there with them, and if he lives I want it found and passed to him.’

  The other man nodded blankly, too shocked to wonder at the legate’s revelation.

  Sollemnis took up a dead soldier’s gladius, testing its balance.

  ‘This should serve well enough. So many dead men…’

  The First Spear coughed painfully and pointed to their dead standard-bearer. An arrow had ripped into the man’s windpipe a few moments before, dropping him to his knees as he choked out his life. The eagle standard still stood proud above his corpse, gripped in lifeless fingers.

  ‘You’d best stick your sword under Harus’s body… Yes, that ought to do it. They’ll take the eagle, but likely leave his head if you strip away his bearskin. Unlike you and me. We’ll go to our graves in separate pieces…’

  Sollemnis smiled again, with genuine amusement this time.

  ‘It seems we’re to be collector’s items, then?’

  ‘Roman officers’ heads. No mud hut should be without one.’

  A horn rang out with a sudden bray that jerked their attention back to
the warband surrounding them. The warriors charged into their pathetic remnant with a revived purpose, their swords rising and falling in flashing arcs as they butchered the exhausted survivors of the 6th Legion’s cohorts. Seeing the man in front of him go down under a powerful sword-blow that cleaved his right arm at the shoulder, Sollemnis stepped into the fight alongside the few men of his bodyguard still standing with a snarl of frustration, striking fast and hard at the man responsible and tasting brief satisfaction as the man’s blood sprayed across his cuirass. The feeling was short lived, his appearance marking him out as a senior officer to the men facing him. He landed one more blow, putting his gladius deep into the chest of another warrior before the man’s comrade thrust a spear deep into his unprotected thigh.

  The First Spear, already felled by a sword thrust into his spine, and numbly inert as the barbarians fought to strip him of his fine armour while his life ebbed away into the puddle of blood soaking the ground around him, watched the scene with the unique detachment of a dying man. Sollemnis went down on one knee, helpless to defend himself as the warriors around him gathered for the kill. A sword skidded off his cuirass and sliced into the meat of his right arm, and a vicious blow from a club cracked the elbow joint and left his borrowed sword dangling useless at his side.

  ‘He’s mine!’

  A loud voice sounded over their clamour, a magnificently armoured giant of a man stepping out of the attackers’ midst and calling a halt to their attacks with a simple bellowed command. He batted aside a despairing sword-thrust from the last of the legatus’s bodyguard with his huge round shield, contemptuously smashing the exhausted man to the ground with another punch of the shield’s heavy boss and stabbing down into the space between his helmet’s cheek-pieces. The other warriors backed away, clearly too scared of the man to deny him the moment of triumph. His helmet and armour were coal black, inlaid with intricate silver patterns befitting his obvious status as a tribal champion, heavy iron greaves protecting his thighs and calves to make him almost invulnerable as long as he could carry the weight. Only his booted feet lacked protection.

  Sollemnis teetered on the brink of falling on to his face, only willpower keeping him on his knees as he looked up into the swordsman’s face.

  ‘Go on, then… get it over with, y’bastard.’

  His voice was no more than a croak, the words bringing a smile to the big warrior’s face. He hefted his sword in flashing arcs, luxuriating in the pleasure of letting the legatus see what was coming for a long moment before swinging the blade to sever Sollemnis’s head from his shoulders. A warrior retrieved the grisly trophy and carried it back to the legatus’s killer as the Roman’s headless torso toppled slowly sideways to the bloody grass.

  As the First Spear’s consciousness slipped from his faltering grasp he saw the big man lift the legion’s eagle standard from the standard-bearer’s lifeless fingers. Stamping down on the standard to separate the spread-winged symbol of imperial power from its pole, he tossed the broken shaft away, took the foot-high statue by one wing and stalked away from the legatus’s headless corpse, back into the warband’s seething mass of men. As the cohort stood helplessly and watched the final destruction of their beleaguered colleagues in the valley below them, a keen-eyed Tungrian called out a sighting, pointing at the valley’s far slope. There, made tiny by the distance, moved a party of three war chariots, accompanied by some fifty native cavalry cantering steadily across the battlefield. A great dragon banner flew proudly in the wind of their passage, its forked tail whipping eagerly from side to side. The prefect stared out at the oncoming horsemen, raising his eyebrows in question.

  ‘The infamous Calgus, coming for a look?’

  Frontinius snorted.

  ‘Probably wondering what’s going on. I doubt Perennis actually told him that he intended to send us to our doom here, and we’re on rising ground and in good order. Eight hundred spears could make a medium-sized mess of his warband before they roll over us, and slow up his next move. If he’s the strategist I believe him to be, he’ll be worried, keen to take his prizes and get his men away before Second and Twentieth Legions come over the horizon baying for blood. I’d suggest that we might look a little more confident, just to reinforce that nagging doubt. Perhaps we could make some noise?’

  Equitius smiled.

  ‘Hail, Calgus, those about to die salute you?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Very well. Trumpeter, sound “Prepare for defence”.’

  The notes sang out sweetly, hanging for a moment over the hill, piercing the continual hammering of axes. After the shortest of pauses Frontinius heard his centurions shouting their commands, then the soft rattle of spears being readied. Frontinius strode forward in front of the cohort, as was his right, drawing his sword and raising it above his head, polished steel shining in the mid-morning sun, then turned back to face the ranks of grim-faced soldiers. He swung the weapon down to waist height, rapping the blade’s flat on to his shield’s scarred surface, repeating the blow to establish a slow but steady rhythm that was easy for the soldiers to follow, as they rapped their spears against the metal bosses of their shields. The noise built quickly, until the pulses of sound echoed distantly back from the slopes about them, a basic, intimidating noise that put heart back into the more timid troops, and swelled the anger of the rest as they stood and waited for the chariots and horsemen to draw close. The dragon banner snaked across the valley floor, drooping limply back on to its standard as the horsemen came to a halt two hundred paces from the Tungrian line.

  After a moment a rider came forward, cantering within shouting distance and then stopping to stare across the lines of hard-faced, lean-framed soldiers before calling out his message over their noise.

  ‘The Lord Calgus suggests negotiation. Man to man, no others to attend. Safety is guaranteed.’

  He wheeled his horse, riding back to the knot of barbarian cavalry without a backwards glance. Frontinius glanced over at the Prefect, seeing the Roman’s jawline tighten as his lips pursed to a white line.

  ‘Well, Prefect, shall we go and meet the man that tarred and torched the inhabitants of Fort Habitus and Roaring River?’

  The prefect stared at the distant dragon banner, fitfully prancing in the gusts above his enemy’s bodyguard, for a long moment before responding, putting a hand on his First Spear’s shoulder.

  ‘The invitation was for one. I’ll go. You’ll stay here, and lead the cohort if this should be some sort of device to distract us, or to capture a senior officer.’

  ‘And if it is…?’

  ‘I’ll probably be joining my father rather sooner than I’ve previously thought would be the case. As might “the Lord” Calgus.’

  He walked on down the slope, watching his step on the treacherous strip of glutinous mud and stepping carefully to avoid the tribuli’s eager spikes, and came to a stop halfway between his own troops and those of his enemy. A figure had stepped from their ranks as he had, and paced towards the field towards him, carrying a bundle wrapped in a bloodied blanket, until they were close enough for spoken conversation, although beyond sword-thrust.

  They stared at each other for a moment, the prefect eying the other man’s bundle with unhappy certainty as to its contents until the Briton chose to break the silence, his Latin unaccented.

  ‘Well then, Prefect, I am Calgus, lord of the northern tribes. I broke the Wall, I despoiled your forts from Three Mountains all the way south to Noisy Valley and I,’ pointing a thumb back over his shoulder, ‘caught your legatus in a trap of my careful making, with his legion. And now I have something to show you.’

  He allowed the bundle to fall open, its contents dropping to the grass at his feet. The highly polished bronze eagle from the 6th Legion’s standard gleamed prettily in the morning sun, its defiant spread-winged pose incongruous under the circumstances, while the helmeted head rolled slowly across the grass and came to a stop on its side, Sollemnis’s dead stare facing out towards the
waiting Tungrians. Equitius sank to his haunches, staring intently into his friend’s lifeless eyes. Calgus put his hands on his hips and waited for a response, while the prefect took a long moment before rising silently to his feet. The Roman nodded, still staring down at his friend’s severed head, his face stony, then lifted his gaze to stare back at the waiting Briton.

  ‘This man was my friend, for more years than I care to recall. We drank together, chased women together in our younger days, and we fought Rome’s enemies together too. Men like you. We tasted the barbarity of combat with men like you, and we rose above it. We kept our humanity, but we always won those battles by doing whatever we had to. So if you’re hoping to unman me with this display you’re going to be disappointed. It’s nothing less than I expected, and nothing less than I would have done in your place. But it changes nothing.’

  He took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders.

  ‘So, Calgus, let’s get this over with. I am Prefect Septimus Equitius of the 1st Tungrian Cohort. I found your cattle in front of the Hill and burned them to deny your men their flesh and prevent your attack on my fortress. I lured your cavalry from the cover of the forest for the Petriana to destroy, and I,’ and he in turn pointed back over his own shoulder, ‘am going to keep your warband here for long enough that the rest of our army will fall on them and utterly destroy them.’

  ‘Tungrians? Tungria lies over the water, Prefect, closer to Gaul than to Britain. Those men are Brigantes, my people, not yours.’

  ‘I think you’ll find otherwise if you’re unwise enough to send warriors up that slope to meet them. Local born they may be, but their training and discipline are Roman. I think you know what that means.’

  They shared a quiet smile, a spark of communication across the wind-whipped ground. The prefect pulled his cloak tighter about him, seeking to keep out the wind’s questing fingers.