‘Front ranks, with your spears, ready!’
A cheer resounded along the line’s length, as the fresh replacement soldiers readied themselves for what they knew was coming.
‘Rear ranks, with all your strength, push!’
The Roman line ground forward, the remorseless pressure of their shields pinning the warriors facing them against the mass of men trapped helplessly behind them, lifting some of the Sarmatae off their feet and rendering them all but powerless as the sheer crush prevented them from wielding their swords. The fresh Tungrian front rankers went to work with their spears again, stabbing repeatedly at the men three and four ranks back in the warband, plunging their iron blades deep into throats and chests before ripping them free to strike again. Marcus looked to Sigilis, who was watching the slaughter with a sick expression, and waved a hand at the battle’s bloody mayhem.
‘This is war, Tribune! Not the fighting you come to expect from the histories, but the simple bloody slaughter that leads to one side drunk with bloodletting and the other either dead or enslaved!’
The young centurion fell silent as he spotted something in the crush of men, a flash of gold that was gone in a second, then seen again as the barbarian ranks opened for a moment. Looking closer he realised that a blood-red banner decorated with a white sword waved above the spot. He strode back towards the fight, ripping his spatha free from the turf and calling a command over his shoulder.
‘Arminius, Lugos, with me!’
Muscling his way into the line with the barbarians close behind, he bellowed an order to the men about him over the battle’s furious din.
‘Tungrians! On me! Form! Spearhead!’
Grabbing the soldier in front of him by the shoulder, he bent close to shout in the man’s ear, loud enough for the men around him to hear.
‘Their king is a dozen paces in front of you, and he’s wearing enough gold to earn your tent party a fine reward. When I give the command we’re going to cut our way through to him and either kill or capture him. Are you ready?’
The soldier nodded, setting his feet ready to attack, while his mates shuffled in closer around him. Marcus glanced around to see the men to either side looking to him for the command, while Arminius and Lugos pressed close in behind the spearhead’s point.
‘Tungrians, advance!’
The formation lurched forward, spears flicking out to fell the men to either side. Exhausted Sarmatae warriors flinched away from the advance and turned away in a fruitless attempt to escape into the crush of men behind them, falling to wounds in their backs and necks as the Tungrians mercilessly ground forward. Within a dozen paces they had the Sarmatae noble who Marcus had sighted through the battle’s shifting tide in plain view, the warriors who had stood between them left dead and dying by the spearhead’s remorseless advance. A pair of giants wielding long swords pushed through the retreating tide of their fellows with contemptuous ease, stepping into the space between the Romans and their leader to assault the Tungrians with desperate ferocity.
The soldier at the point of the spear died quickly, beheaded by the sweep of a long blade, and his decapitated corpse fell forward at his killer’s feet while the warrior bellowed his defiance at the Tungrians. His partner raised his own sword high before swinging it down onto the man beside Marcus, cleaving open his helmet and sending him reeling away with an uncomprehending grunt and his eyes rolling upwards until only the whites could be seen. Before the young centurion could react Lugos shouldered past him, swinging his war hammer up and over his head with a guttural bellow of challenge. The rough iron beak’s crushing impact smashed the first man’s iron cap deep into his shattered skull, felling him like a slaughtered ox while Arminius’s sword blocked the other bodyguard’s swift attempt to take revenge. Parrying the blade’s thrust to one side the German stamped forward and punched the bodyguard in his throat with a half-knuckled fist, the crackle of cartilage loud enough for Marcus to hear over the battle’s din. With a look of fury the king himself stepped out of the press of his warriors and raised his sword to fight. In his strong bearded face Marcus saw nothing more than the desire to kill, and he crouched slightly into the two-handed fighting pose as time seemed to slow around him. As the king strode forward to fight blade to blade, beneath the banner that still flew close behind him, he screamed his defiance at the men facing him.
‘Boraz!’
The Roman met his opponent’s attack head-on, countering the shout with his own battle cry.
‘Mithras!’
Their blades met in a shriek of metal on metal, but before the king had time to raise his sword again Marcus took another step forward, swinging the gladius in his left hand in a viciously swift arc to stab its point through the Sarmatae leader’s armour and into his side. Boraz crumpled, his eyes staring up at Marcus as he sagged to his knees with a face contorted by the crippling pain. Kicking the wounded man aside the Roman slashed at the bannerman behind him, dropping the blood-red flag into the battlefield’s churned and gore-soaked mud along with the hand that still gripped at its wooden shaft.
Faced with their king’s defeat, his bodyguard smashed and the Tungrian attack driving deep into their line, while the unknown force assailing them from the forest savaged from the rear, the Sarmatae were trembling on the edge of defeat. Raising his swords to renew the fight with Lugos and Arminius to either side, Marcus grinned cruelly as the warband broke like a flock of sheep attacked by a pack of wolves, men twisting this way and that in their efforts to run from the remorseless enemies to front and rear, the fight going out of them in the space of half a dozen heart beats. Straining like hunting dogs on their leashes, the Tungrians looked to their officers for the last command that would be required to bring the fight to a conclusion. At the line’s rear Scaurus nodded, putting his head back to bellow the words every man was waiting to hear.
‘Sound the pursuit!’
The soldiers were sprinting forward even before the first notes of the trumpet call sounded, every man intent on capturing any of the tribesmen not too badly wounded to work as a slave. Sigilis watched in amazement as the tidy Roman line disintegrated into a frenzy of running men, tent parties working together to wrestle individual tribesmen to the ground and disarm them, before leaving a man with his sword at each captive’s throat and setting out to repeat the feat. Scaurus watched the scene with dark amusement, raising an eyebrow to his junior colleague as Marcus walked out of the chaos holding the king’s banner at his side, while Arminius and Lugos were carrying the stricken Sarmatae leader between them, the big Briton raising a justly feared fist to any soldier entertaining designs on the king’s gold accoutrements. Arminius held a finely made helmet and a golden crown in one hand, having discovered the latter on the body of one of the bodyguards who had been carrying it while his king’s head was encumbered with his helmet.
‘Well done, Centurion! It seems that our last-minute reinforcement and your customary loss of reason on the battlefield have turned the day.’ He turned to Sigilis, pointing at the battle’s aftermath. ‘As you can see, colleague, the financial incentives for taking prisoners alive and in fit condition for labour make defeat in a battle like this all too final, wouldn’t you agree? If we’d lost then they would have been butchering our wounded and leading the living away down that hill and into slavery, never to be seen again. But as it happens, praise to our Lord Mithras, our unknown rescuer arrived at the very last moment and pulled our grapes out of the press in good style. Which means that we are the victors, despite the skill with which this poor man fooled us as to his intentions.’
He smiled down at the stricken Sarmatae king, bending to pat the man’s shoulder.
‘My compliments on your strategy, sir, you very nearly had us at your mercy.’
The wounded man was perhaps forty years of age and clearly in the prime of his life, arrayed in armour and clothing that stood out from the rough horseshoe-scale armour worn by his comrades. The helmet that Arminius had pulled from his head was fashion
ed from silver inlaid with gold, and his armour was made with finely wrought iron scales, each of them polished to a shine. An ornately decorated scabbard hung from his belt, its engraving matching the designs that adorned the beautifully crafted sword carried by Lugos, and similar craftsmanship had been lavished on the greaves still protecting his calves. The tribune tapped at the heavy gold bracelets adorning his prisoner’s wrists with a sardonic smile.
‘Well done, gentlemen, I’m pleased you’ve managed to keep all of his finery intact and resisted my soldiers’ predictable desire to strip him bare. I expect we’ll need it all to convince his people that their war with Rome really is over.’
The king spat a wad of bloody phlegm onto the ground at his feet, his words grating out from between teeth gritted against the agony of his wound.
‘This victory is only temporary, Roman. My son still commands enough horsemen to wipe your presence from this valley as if you had never existed.’
Scaurus smiled back at him beatifically.
‘Quite so, I’ve already seen them riding up and down the length of our rather fine wall with no clue as to how they are to get over or around it. And since this seems to have been the only place you deemed worthy of attacking, I shall improve the defences here and make it utterly impassable, once we’ve finished burning your dead.’ He turned to his bodyguard, drawing the German away out of earshot. ‘Arminius, please be good enough to find a bandage carrier and get the king’s wound bound, then take him down to the hospital as quickly as you can. Ask the doctor to work her magic upon him, and tell her that his survival may well be the key to our achieving a negotiated peace with these people.’
He turned back to the waiting officers.
‘And now, colleagues, let us go and offer our thanks to the officer commanding these men who seem to have stepped in with such commendable timing, whoever he is. Will you come with us, Centurion Corvus, and provide us with the additional security of your swords?’
Marcus raised his spatha once more and walked across the corpse-strewn battlefield several paces ahead of the tribunes, his eyes roaming the human carnage for any sign of movement. A wounded warrior groaned loudly to his left as he passed, holding out an imploring hand for succour while the other barely held his guts in place. The young centurion reached out and pulled the hand aside, scanning the severed ropes of the wounded warrior’s intestines for a moment before whipping out his sword and cutting the Sarmatae’s throat. Wiping the weapon’s blade he stood, shaking his head and ignoring Sigilis’s horrified gaze, to resume his slow, cautious pace across the field of battle.
‘A kindness . . .’
Scaurus’s words must have had the desired effect on his younger colleague, for a long moment of silence followed before Sigilis spoke.
‘The smell is just . . . I mean it’s indescribable . . .’
Marcus could hear the bitter humour in Scaurus’s response.
‘Revolting? Without doubt. Beyond description? Hardly. That’s the same simple fragrance that has wafted over every battlefield I’ve ever trodden. All you have to do is liberally slop the fresh blood of a thousand men across the grass, then open their bellies to let the contents release their aroma into the air. Evocative, isn’t it? But believe me, this smell of freshly spilled blood and faeces is nothing compared to the rare delicacy that results from leaving that same mixture open to the air for a day or two, and adding some decomposition to the mixture. And a week-old battlefield where the winner had no time to clean up after himself, or perhaps just no inclination, now there’s the thing. You can smell the rotting bodies from five miles distant, if you have the misfortune to be downwind of them, and by the time you’ve passed the spot it’s a hard man indeed who hasn’t thrown up the contents of his stomach, either due to the smell or simply because so many of his comrades are vomiting around him. And that’s why we’ll set a pyre and burn every corpse here, both ours and theirs, once we’ve stripped away their armour. Here we are . . .’
The party stopped walking ten paces from the line of men who had intervened in the fight from the forest behind them, looking intently at their well-ordered line and obvious discipline as they collected up their dead and led the wounded out for treatment. To Marcus’s eye they seemed to bear the hallmarks of regular soldiers, their armour, helmets and shields all conforming to a single pattern, clearly the output of a single armoury, and yet as he examined their ranks he frowned at other aspects of their appearance. Each man seemed to have been allowed free choice of weaponry, and a profusion of swords, spears, axes, hammers and even clubs had resulted, while many of them wore their hair long and were heavily bearded. As he watched, a massively built man wearing the bronze chest plate and crested helmet of a Roman senior officer stepped out of the mass of his men and raised a hand in greeting. And then, to Marcus’s utter amazement Arminius took one look at him and went down on one knee, his head bowed in obeisance. Scaurus raised an eyebrow at the sight and muttered under his breath as he stood and waited for the man to approach.
‘Mithras above . . .’
The big man saluted, greeting the tribunes in Latin only barely edged with a German accent.
‘Greetings Tribune, I have the honour to be Prefect Gerwulf, commanding officer of the Allied Cohort of the Quadi tribe.’
Scaurus stared at the other man in open curiosity for a moment before returning the salute.
‘Apologies Prefect, I was trying to work out just where it was I knew you from, although my man Arminius’s somewhat uncharacteristic behaviour was more than enough of a clue. You’re the Quadi prince who was captured early in the German Wars, unless I’m mistaken?’
Marcus slid a stealthy hand to the hilt of his spatha, fearing that the big man might take offence, but to his relief the prefect’s only response was a nod of recognition, his lips pursed and his head nodding in acknowledgement of the accuracy of Scaurus’s memory.
‘I’m impressed, Tribune. Not many men recall that sort of small detail. I was taken hostage in the aftermath of a battle at the very start of the war between Rome and my father’s people . . .’ He gestured to the kneeling man at Scaurus’s side. ‘If I might?’
The Tribune nodded, and Gerwulf reached out to take Arminius’s hand.
‘Stand brother. The days when any Quadi warrior was expected to bend the knee to me are long gone. These days I’m more accustomed to the salutes of my men.’
Arminius stood, his face bright red.
‘Forgive me Lord . . . Prefect . . . I had not thought to see your face again. We were much the same age when the war started, and . . .’
‘And war seemed a wondrous thing, eh? We soon learned otherwise, of course, but we both ended up on the right side I see.’ He nodded to the big German, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘And we can swap tales of how that came to pass sometime soon, but not now. Now I must make my report to the tribune here.’
Scaurus snorted, a smile cracking his face as he stepped forward to clasp Gerwulf by the arm.
‘Your bloody report can wait for a better time, man! For now it’s more than enough that you appeared in our enemy’s rear when you did, for if you’d been very much later you would have been able to do no more than watch these barbarous gentlemen as they rampaged through the valley below us. As it is, your timing couldn’t have been any better, for which reason you have the gratitude of an entire cohort of men who would otherwise either be dead or contemplating slavery. And now, once my Tungrians are done with taking slaves, we have a valley to defend, so I suggest that we get to work on improving these defences and gathering the dead for burning, before the carrion birds start their grisly work.’
‘You’re sure you still want to do this? You could back out now and not a man among us could have any complaint. Not even that idiot Belletor could complain if you had second thoughts.’
His friend’s voice was perilously loud, and Marcus shook his head, shooting a warning glance at the group of senior officers gathered barely out of earshot.
&nb
sp; ‘Keep your voice down, Julius, or “that idiot Belletor” will be taking far too close an interest in you. And now that I’ve put my hand up for the job I think I’ll see it through. It’ll be a novel experience to see inside a Sarmatae tribe’s encampment. Here, take these for me.’ He put down the Sarmatae king’s helmet and unbuckled his sword belt, handing the weapons to his friend. ‘And if for any reason . . .’
The first spear grinned at him in the early morning gloom.
‘I know. You want Dubnus and me to have your swords.’
Marcus smiled darkly at his friend, feeling the tension ease from his taut neck muscles as he picked up the ornately decorated helm.
‘Not unless the pair of you want to suffer the wrath of a woman rather too skilled with the surgical blade for comfort.’
Julius nodded slowly back at him, his grin softening to something gentler.
‘You’ll be fine. Just remember—’
‘To show no weakness? How could I forget? You’ve been knocking that particular nail home ever since Gerwulf opened his mouth on the subject of our captive this morning.’
Tribune Belletor had initially been adamant on the subject of their prisoner’s fate, when he’d been informed of the Sarmatae leader’s capture at the previous evening’s command conference. He was still brimming with excitement at the close-fought victory at the Saddle, and doubtless already mentally composing his triumphant report to the governor.
‘We must execute him! I’ll have him beheaded up on the wall while his tribesmen watch and shiver with terror! That’ll send them away quickly enough!’
The reactions around the command conference table had varied from the incredulous to the politely amused, although Belletor had been too far lost in his righteous anger to notice the stares of the gathered officers and civilians. Scaurus had wisely chosen to hold his own counsel and see who would be the first to risk their commander’s ire by daring to disagree. To Marcus’s surprise, watching from where he stood behind his tribune in the role of his aide, it was Procurator Maximus who had been the first to speak, his voice shaded with doubt.
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