Gladius Winter

by J Glenn Bauer

  More light spears flew at Caros and the surrounding warriors, but they were so insubstantial that he barely paid them any heed. He knew that they must be striking men down behind and to either side of him, but there was nothing to be done but shake off any thought of them and concentrate on the growing threat beyond.

  He felt a spear shaft brush his shoulder and thought for a terrible moment he was struck. It was the spear of the warrior behind him, its heavy blade jutting over his shoulder, pointing to the Romans.

  “Spear up!” He growled. The last thing he wanted was for the warrior to twist it and open his throat because he had stumbled. Once he was fixed in place against the Roman shields, there would be plenty of time for the spearman to dart it past his cheek and impale the enemy.

  He slid his eyes to the left where the Sedetani had fanned out over the hillside and were slightly ahead of the ranked masses of warriors on the valley floor. The furthest were targeting the Romans spearmen on the hillside and as he watched, an enemy spearman jerked and pitched onto his face among the rock and scrub bush.

  The spearmen were falling back as the armies closed, throwing their spears as fast as they could. Some, braver or more foolhardy, looked set to hold out till the last moments before hurling their spears pointblank into the advancing Barca forces. A short man or perhaps a tall youth, drew his arm back preparing to throw when his head snapped to the left, sending a fine spray of vermillion arcing through the dust haze. His body crumpled lifeless to the dirt. Just another obstacle to cross. A nearby spearman cried out and dropped his spear to run to the fallen body. He was just paces in front of the advancing Roman legionaries. Caros saw a Roman in a plumed helmet snarl at the grieving man and point at the dropped spears. The spearman lifted his hands in supplication and in the next instant jerked rigid as the Roman legionary stabbed down through his neck and into his chest.

  “They are killing one another!” Maleric shouted gleefully. “That will help, eh?”

  The rest of the spearmen were absorbed into the lines of advancing legionaries. Now forty paces away. Now thirty. There was no warning, but for the briefest curtain of ascending black shade above the Romans.

  “Shields up!” Caros roared for all he was worth.

  At that distance, the pilum the Romans used, struck in just three heartbeats. Now the screams did rise above the rumbling footfalls, percussive drum beats and snarling trumpet calls of the enemy.

  “Bastards! Come on and eat my sword!” Naoes Long Knife’s voice rose clearly.

  Caros noticed a Bastetani warrior in the front rank struggling to keep his shield up.

  “Lift your shield! You want a hole through your chest?”

  “There is a bloody spear stuck in it!” The warrior grunted in exasperation. Caros saw the Roman pilum lodged in the hide and splintered wood, the shaft digging into the ground every step the man took forward. He did not notice the next flight of spears until Maleric shouted the alarm. The warrior, still struggling to raise his shield was bowled over into the men behind him by a spear strike. Warriors tripped and fell over their wounded and dead. If the Roman spears did not lodge in flesh or shield, they bent on impact with the rocky ground. There, they continued to wreak havoc, twisting ankles and opening flesh as they were stepped on.

  Grimacing and sweating, Caros braced his shield and flexed his shoulders.

  “For the Bastetani! Bastetani!” He bellowed, his war spear thrust high.

  Behind and to either side came the answering war cry of his proud, stubborn people.

  Paces from the Romans now, a new sound rose through the rumble of the converging lines. The chinking of chain mail being washed with grit to clean away iron rot. It rose to a continuous sharp cracking and then a great cheer burst from the Bastetani and Turdetani. The Roman wall to their front was rippling. Shields began to drop. Here a Roman legionary screamed and staggered. The man beside him cursed and then his face changed, a great crater appearing above his cheek guard. He fell back, his shade already gone.

  The chaos was not widespread, but concentrated in the ranks of those Romans closest to the Sedetani on the hill above them. The angry buzz of sling stones and crack of armor and shield stopping the missiles, grew to a torrent.

  The Romans skillfully lifted their shields to cover their heads and the heads of their companions. Those on the flanks and in the front line held their shields further from their bodies to deflect more of the killing shots.

  It was to little effect, as still their lines shuddered as men’s eyes rolled up into their skulls while others spun in their tracks and more simply fell away from sight behind their shields.

  Hercle had spoken with honesty. His people had sharp eyes and their aim was true as they unleashed their lead shot and rounded rocks. Here a legionary’s muscled leg shattered below the knee. There a man’s elbow dissolved into a spray of blood and bone. In a swathe, four legionaries twisted and fell together, to kick out their life under the winter sun of Iberia.

  “Shields tight! Spears ready!” As the Romans were scythed down, the Barca lines came on and now, paces from the ragged lines of the Romans, Caros prepared to deliver the killing blow.

  Chapter 23

  In its den, the beast stirred, lips stretching to reveal white fangs and crimson tongue. A rolling growl emanated from deep in its chest as it rose to its haunches, quivering with stifled hunger. Lifting a questing snout, the wolf mined the usually lifeless winter breeze and found folded into it rich seams of copper and iron scent. With a savage snarl, it sprang forward and began to race through the hills, slaver whipping across chest and flank.

  “Close! Keep close!” Caros yelled. He heard Maleric roaring, Neugen was venting his war cry and even Naoes Long Knife could be heard bellowing across the tide of helms and spear blades.

  The Romans were shrilling like gulls as they tried to form a wall of shields to present to the Iberians. Caros saw eyes stretched round and nostrils gape. Wet cheeks on boys’ faces.

  To the right, the Turdetani whooped and swept forward. Falcatas flashing and spears thrusting. Their charge crashed into the Romans who could only present part of a wall of shields. The rumbling crash echoed across the valley and rolled through the ranks of warriors.

  Caros singled out a Roman, selecting him for his gray whiskers and sun-scorched face. The Roman watched him with one eye while shouting orders at his fellows, caning legionaries into place. This was a leading warrior or centurion, as Caros heard them called by the Romans.

  “Bastetani!” He braced and drove into the Roman. A hundred similar crunching impacts up and down the shield ranks, filled the air over the battle.

  Caros felt the Roman give. Just one grudging pace as an iron-studded sandal slipped on flat rock. The legionary found purchase, anchoring himself fast so Caros felt he was pressing against the very walls of Sagunt.

  At once, the Roman had his gladius whisper between his shield and the next, lancing at Caros’ groin.

  “Spears!” Caros bellowed, while belting the gladius away and driving his blade after it. To no avail though, as that sliver of a gap had closed and opened elsewhere to allow another gladius to dart at him, forcing him to jerk his head from its deadly bite.

  A spearhead as long as his forearm, thrust over his shoulder and clattered against the raised rim of the Roman shield. He heard the Roman curse as the crest of his helm was parted and the spear clanged off the clasp holding the crimson horsehair in place.

  “Watch their spears lads!” The centurion called his warning even as more Bastetani spears join in the action. Curses from Romans at near misses. Sobs as skin parted and outright screams as faces were flayed or eyes taken.

  “Stab the fuckers!” The Roman screamed. “They are barbarian oath breakers what eat their own kin!”

  Caros felt a surge of bitter hate blind him at the insult. It nearly cost him his liver as a gladius yet again struck like the fangs of a snake. In and out. The blade had found only his cloak, but the Roman hand knew now where to put tha
t sharpened metal tongue. Caros hacked across the front of his body, the blow cramped by his own shield and shield arm held before him. Still, he struck flesh and parted the bones of the Roman’s forearm. The gladius tumbled lifeless to the dirt followed by two fingers and part of the legionary’s hand.

  Caros laughed and shouted to the centurion in Latin. “More Roman flesh not even our dogs will touch! Two less fingers to stick up your fellows’ buttholes.” The centurion hunched grim faced, eyes darkened with hate. The Roman at his side had gone pale, droplets of sweat stood proud on his trembling lips.

  “Ho! It was your hand I took?” Caros shouted at the injured Roman. He smiled over his shield at the Centurion, dodged another silver thrust at his hip. “Fancy that, your right hand man just gave the enemy a hand?” Within that heartbeat, Caros dropped his shoulder and rammed the Roman shield from on low, thrusting his blade beneath his shield in the same moment and finding the man’s left leg. He did not need much space to swing the blade and in a matter of two heavy-handed blows, he took the centurion’s foot at the ankle.

  “Taste my blade you pox riddled piss swiller!” Caros heaved his shield to the left now, opening space between the two injured Romans who stood upright only due the press of bodies.

  He swung the falcata, taking the centurion in the neck above his cuirass of chain. He next backhanded the blade, lashing it into the skull behind the second Roman’s right ear.

  “Bastetani! Spears forward!” Shoving aside the two dying men, he smashed the gladius from the hand of a Roman in the second rank.

  Legionaries howled in fury and pushed at him, but spears came from his back, taking a Roman in the mouth, shattering teeth and opening a hideous rent across the man’s face. Another gladius fell as Caros scythed away a man’s hand. The Roman to his front, was screaming, spittle frothing from his mouth, his eyes gone blank in terror.

  Caros leapt, hacking far beyond the rim of the man’s shield, cutting through helm and skull to open the terrified Roman’s head and silence the hideous screaming.

  He caught the eyes of a legionary in the third rank and saw the man’s hard discipline waver at the sight of such a fate. Aware of a warmth on his face, Caros grinned wide and licked his lips. The Roman gagged and lifted his shield closer to his chin. The spear wielder behind Caros, darted forward and drove his bull-killing blade through the legionary’s sandal, snapping and rendering the bones in the man’s foot, all but severing the front half from the heel.

  The Roman screamed in agony, his fellows bellowed in fear and for the first time in many heartbeats, Caros had space before him.

  Roman dead carpeted the ground. Many others clawed at grievous wounds, innards spilling from rents that opened them from chin to flaccid cock.

  The Bastetani began wading forward with expressions of morbid horror and a wish to finish the killing as quickly as they could.

  “Bastetani! Hold!” Caros called them back and ordered those around him to keep their kin close.

  The Roman lines had fallen back ten paces. A resounding crack sounded and a blood spattered survivor gasped and toppled over. The buzz of the Sedetani slingshot rose again as the Romans disengaged and in doing so made of themselves targets.

  Caros grunted in satisfaction as the Romans dropped back another ten paces and still kept retreating.

  “Caros!” He spun toward the call. Neugen tripped towards him through the massed Bastetani, sliding on the slick blood-borne mud. “The Romans are driving back the Ilerget on the north.”

  He growled in frustration as he tried to peer over the mass of warriors. Only a heaving line of dun and crimson was visible.

  “The Libyans?”

  Neugen shook his head. “It was a rider that passed on the news. He was gone before we could ask.”

  “It is to be expected. Beaugissa?”

  “Well.” He gestured over his shoulder. “I left her drinking deeply.”

  “Good, take horses, Neugen. You and Beaugissa and find Agelet and his fifty. Learn what you can, and send back messengers here to me.”

  Neugen wiped at his bloodied cheek, winced and then nodded at Caros.

  “Neugen, the Libyans. While they stand, we stand. If they crack, we must know. The very moment.”

  Neugen’s jaw worked silently for a heartbeat before he jerked and nodded. “I understand. Without the Libyans we are just offal waiting on the carrion eaters.”

  Trumpet calls rose wailing and bleating from over the Roman lines.

  Maleric called a warning. “They are sending warriors onto the hill. Legionaries.”

  “Go, Neugen.” Caros clapped his friend’s shoulder and sent him to find news.

  The Sedetani had held the hill, uncontested since they had seen off the Roman spearmen. The slingshot they had rained down on the enemy’s right flank had proved lethal. The evidence littered the battlefield.

  “Hercle will have to fend for himself.” Caros called to Maleric. He just hoped the Sedetani would be able to hold that ground.

  “Bastetani!” he roared. Around him, men had fallen on the Roman dead and were cutting away rings and pendants. Others were taking up swords, for many the first they had ever owned. One warrior, a youth with blood running freely from a sliced forearm, slapped a Roman helm on his head and capered around with a wide grin while his kin hooted and slapped their thighs. The transverse crest of horsehair on the helm was bright in the winter sun.

  “Get that off your head!” Maleric shouted. “You want a Sedetani slinger to put a shot between your eyes?”

  Caros grinned as the youth tore the helm off and hurled it at the Romans who had formed a line thirty paces away. They growled as one, cursing him and preparing their vengeance. They would be advancing in moments.

  Caros called the Bastetani to order. Getting their graybeards and champions to slap them into a wall of shields once again.

  Dubgetious came through the lines, the crease between his eyes belying the smile that he directed at the warriors around him.

  “Caros! The Sedetani have been our shield.” He pointed. “Without their slings we will be hard pressed.”

  “True, but short of sending men we dare not spare to hold that hill, I cannot think what else we might do.”

  Dubgetious growled and spat on his gore encrusted blade, wiping it down with what looked like part of a Roman tunic. “Let me take fifty men to hold the Romans away from the slingers. That will be all I need.”

  “No. We need every man here.” The Roman dead lay thick, but Caros was not blind to the men of the Bastetani and Turdetani that lay as thickly.

  Movement from the Roman lines caused Caros to flinch, expecting another flight of their ugly and awkward spears to be loosed. Instead, the Romans began to move forward, no longer under the lethal rain of stone shot. The Sedetani were engaged now with the Roman legionaries on the hillside. Sending stones into the shields and armor of the Romans that sought to dislodge them.

  “If the Romans take that hillside Caros, we will be trapped here.” Maleric’s words were like a bucket of cold water on his thoughts.

  He looked at Dubgetious. “Take your fifty. Hold the Romans then.”

  Dubgetious laughed. “I plan to take their heads and hoist them onto their fellows down here.” With that he was off, calling his best to him. Taking warriors that were needed here. Now.

  The Romans advanced on the reformed Bastetani and Turdetani shields, their eyes fixed and jaws set.

  Caros gritted his teeth and steadied the warriors about him, holding them back. “Hold! Stand your ground Bastetani!”

  Warriors howled and beat their shields. The Romans closed the ground to reach the scattered and plundered corpses of their companions.

  Caros watched closely. “Ready! Ready!” The Bastetani roared.

  The Roman lines wavered and gaps appeared as they slipped in pools of blood or tripped over their own twisted spears.

  “Bastetani! Now!” Ten paces from him, the Romans were still trying to hold their shields
up and keep their footing on the mass of fallen warriors.

  Caros led his Bastetani at a run. Maleric was right beside him as they hit the Romans. In the same heartbeat, screams were torn from warriors and legionaries alike. Romans spun and floundered. Bastetani fell gutted and struck through.

  Caros feinted at the face of the Roman in his path. The Roman’s shield rose and he dipped his head. Caros kicked the shield above the brass boss in its center, driving the rim into the man’s already skewed nose, shattering it. The Roman lifted his head, blood foaming from his nostrils and Caros opened his throat directly under his chin.

  Maleric drove his longer sword with his greater reach into a Roman’s eye, then heaved the man aside.

  The Roman lines broke into islands of hard fighting men amongst the swarm of Bastetani. Beyond these were rank after rank of Romans. Motionless and awaiting the order to advance.

  Caros stood panting, blood dripping from his blade and pooling at his feet. There was no end to the Romans. Behind him, his warriors thrust their spears into the isolated islands of Rome’s legionaries. Men screamed in defiance. A Roman ran past Caros, dodged a snarling warrior and slipped. Caros lifted his blade and the man rolled aside, throwing a severed hand at him, crying in fear or frustration. He kicked the Roman in the head, rattling the man’s teeth and then hacked once, separating his head from his still scrabbling body. Without thought, he lifted the head by the strap of the helm. It was heavier than he had expected. He was forced to run ten paces before he could bowl the dripping trophy at the Romans not yet committed to battle. They watched the head bounce bloody and roll in a half-circle just paces from their toes. Bodies rigid, their eyes lifted slowly from the grotesque lump to pierce Caros.

  Hoofbeats drummed unheard behind him. Filled with his own blood hunger and wish to cut down every one of the hundreds of men staring at him, he roared at them, his bloody falcata raised high.