I had been a fool.
Gods have made it so, that men only know the depth of their stupidity after all is risked, or lost.
By early afternoon, the rain was pouring down even harder, limiting visibility.
Adalwulf rubbed his face, nodded at me, and I knew we had almost run out of time.
We were fast approaching a forest valley, and thickly wooded hillsides rose on both sides. The cavalry, streams of them, miserable under their cloaks were riding to the sides, and the clank of metal and curses of men, the weeping of more than few children, and the noise of the pack animals was constant. The covered shields of the legionnaires, thick leather slung over their shoulders over their cloaks somewhat helped guard them from the rain, but nothing could make the march a pleasant one. The few centuries marching amongst the civilians were from the seventh cohort of the XIX, and some took cover in the wagons
The length of the marching columns kept stretching. More wagons were being abandoned.
By late afternoon, Segimundus still had not returned. I couldn’t understand it. Varus wasn’t far.
Bagi, as if reading my mind, was chuckling. “I forgot to mention something. Varus rarely meets anyone in the afternoon. He likes to sit and contemplate, and he has a wagon where he does this. In short, he sleeps.”
I cursed Varus in my head, and Thusnelda was riding on, giving me warning glances. She knew a storm when she saw it. And yet, I had to wait.
Slowly, bitterly, I calmed down.
Wyrd. It was wyrd, and we couldn’t help it. We would have to wait for the war to start.
And then, it did. We marched through thickets of oak, through the slightly marshy ground of a forest’s valley, and the war began, almost gently. It was not a blare of a horn, nor a charge of cavalry that began it. It seemed like nothing, just another voice in a huge mass of people trekking in the hardest route imaginable.
Somewhere, someone was screaming.
It could have been a centurion yelling at a sluggish legionnaire. It could have been an old man roaring at a thieving auxilia soldier, or even a miserable slave in his cage, or someone who had twisted his ankle.
But it was not. A man had died, somewhere in the woods, not far.
Cassia turned to look at the direction of the scream.
Bagi and Baldo also turned in their saddles. I gazed that way and saw something happening deep inside the woods. A man was riding among the trees, another horse was following the rider, whinnying wildly, and then I saw the horse had no rider.
Few noticed.
The wind was picking up and the thrumming rain was blocking most sounds, and the misery of trying to keep upright and dodging the low-hanging branches was enough to keep everyone concentrated on anything else but the trouble of the others. This changed, when the empty horse turned towards us, and was soon riding wildly along the marching people, and some Gaul cavalry rode after it, while some went searching for the fallen man.
And then, there was a horn blowing.
I had heard a similar, shrill horn in Hard Hill, long ago, on the day Armin led the Matticati against our people. Then, later, I heard it in the lands of the Bructeri, on a bloody hillside when Drusus had been ambushed. And even later, in the battle where Armin had been captured, and Drusus had died, that same sound had echoed, bringing dread to the Roman legionnaires.
It was Armin’s horn, and though his original one had been taken, this one also had a thin, demanding, and oddly otherworldly note.
It rang once, but for a long while.
Heads were turning in confusion.
Adalwulf and I jumped out of the saddles. “Shit,” he said.
“Shit,” I agreed. “Stay alive.”
Out of the woods, the rain and darkness, rushed a horde of men. They seemed to grow from the mud, the ferns, and spring from the trees themselves, and one might have disbelieved one’s eyes, had not their roar been a rude shock to the senses. That roar rattled men and women, made them miss their step, and stare at death coming for them. The flashing Germani shields were round, large and usually gorgeously decorated, now the paint was running with the rain, making them look like terrifying, bloody symbols given to them by gods of vengeance. A thicket of hugely long spears was bobbing above them, some twice the length of a man. Smaller javelins could be seen in eager hands, and great chiefs rushed under their banners of gold or silver disks, claws and painted pelts and fangs, in columns full of killers. There were a thousand, perhaps more. There were dozens of younger men carrying slings, and they were silently coming from the shadows on the sides of the charging foe.
Somewhere far ahead, I could hear the chaos of similar attacks. Behind, sounds of battle announced more Germani, who came to give Rome death. Their pride restored, honor retaken, the insults repaid; these were the cause.
For many, the loot played a part.
The hoard of weapons and dozens of slaves and riches stolen from the vanquished, was a dream of any true warrior.
The legionnaires amongst the train of baggage, before and behind us, began to turn. Their centurions, and at least one thin-stripe tribune were gawking at the sudden onslaught and almost as one, the veteran soldiers dropped their furcas to the mud, struggling with the helmets hanging on their chests and soon all were fighting with the covers over their shields. Most all were cursing as their pila were strapped with the furca. Struggling amongst the trees, trying to build lines in the marshy, mossy wood-infested den of misery, was an exercise of utter chaos.
The civilians were mostly stunned and stared in utter disbelief. Some few smart ones were running and trying to hide. The wagons stopped as the drivers jumped off. The one driving Cassia, hesitated.
Bagi and Baldo were looking at the enemy aghast. “Marsi?” hissed Baldo.
“Should we find shelter with Varus?” Bagi asked, reaching for Thusnelda’s horse’s bridle.
Adalwulf and I pulled our swords as the heaving mass of Germani stopped twenty feet from the chaotic mass of Romans. They lifted javelins, hundreds of them, while the first ranks with huge, long spears kneeled, their eyes gleaming, their sweaty faces glistening. The younger men, many painted and naked, were whirling slings.
I rushed forward, and stabbed at Bagi’s leg.
He hissed, jerked his horse too hard and fell, and Adalwulf loped over him and met Baldo’s sword, which came down with roaring anger. I heard mules, horses, men, and even women screaming in fright and terror.
And pain, as the javelins had been tossed. More would follow.
Baldo kicked his horse’s flanks and, moving fast, slapped his blade at Adalwulf who parried but fell on his back. Baldo turned to me and came roaring just as I tried to get to Bagi. His sword was stabbing down and I whirled. The blade struck my shield with such savage strength, aided by his horse, that I too fell on my back. He guided his horse around, his wild eyes enraged. I got to my knees, and stabbed at the horse that was passing. The animal didn’t seem to notice but the enemy spatha came down and struck my shield again and split it. He kicked me as he passed but I growled my way up, discarded the remains of my shield, and spat as his sword clanged on my helmet. My ears rang with the strike but I stabbed up blindly. Woden helped me as Heartbreaker went through his side. He howled, then laughed, and lifted the sword yet again. Bagi was trying to get up, limping and looking for his sword.
Thusnelda’s horse appeared and she grabbed Baldo’s arm.
They struggled and Baldo jerked her grip off, pushed her off the saddle and turned to hack at me again. I stabbed up, and the blade sunk into his thigh. He roared and the blade came down.
A rain of javelins fell amongst us. A sling shot struck Baldo’s horse.
Blood flew, a piece of horse skull flapped on the horse’s neck, showing a mess of white and red, and Baldo fell with the horse. My sword, deep in his thigh, almost cut off the whole limb. I fell with him, rolled over him, and sawed the blade back and forth on his throat, and he whimpered his life away.
I pushed up, panting, ready to
fight.
I saw Bagi was dead as Adalwulf was pulling his sword from the man’s chest. He tossed an iron key to me, and I grasped it.
Thusnelda, her nose bleeding, was hauling a shield for me while cursing.
“Hey, you!” I heard someone calling in Latin, standing next to us. It was an optio, and he was staring at the bodies with confusion, and though there were men and women howling in the mud across the ranks, enduring a hail of javelins tossed by the Germani beasts, this one was pointing a sword at us. “Stay right here! Do you hear?” he demanded. “We shall need an explanation.”
I shook my head, Adalwulf roared and jumped forward. “Here’s one!” He struck at the confused legionnaire with such ferocity, the man fell like a log, his face cleaved in half, his helmet as well. There was a notch in Adalwulf’s sword.
I watched the legionnaires, not too far away, sheltering themselves from the javelins and trying to hide civilians as well. The optio, who should have been dead, screamed in terrible pain.
“Help!”
Adalwulf kicked him, and I rushed to the wagon, cursed the driver who sat there like a terrified statue, and fought with the lock.
Heads turned.
All the eyes turned to regard Adalwulf, standing above the fallen legionnaire, sword bloodied. Glistening Roman faces, nervous to the bone with the approaching mass of terrible enemies that seemed to be running out of javelins, turned to each other, whispering.
“Shit,” Adalwulf said. “Hurry!”
I hurried. I pulled the lock open, tore the door out, and crushed Cassia in a hug, and felt her joy. Just like that, amidst terrible enemies on all sides, we forgave each other.
A javelin rattled on the cage, one took down the driver, and a dozen or more tore into the Roman line, dropping two men on their knees.
The centurion of the century that guarded the people snarled and pulled men from the haphazard wall of men, and pointed a sword at me. “Can’t have them behind us. Pull the pigs down to the mud. The rest, stay here. Quick, follow me!” Several men broke from the shieldwall and ran at us, dodging wagons. One was the burly centurion.
I pushed Cassia behind me, and gave the woods a brief glance.
No Germani were to the south. I pulled Thusnelda and Cassia behind me. “Run, fast now! Adalwulf, come! Wait! We must fight for them.”
“Hraban—” Cassia called, but at that point, the Germani ranks stepped forward and a final volley of javelins was thrown.
Some struck the legionnaires that were rushing for us.
Two men fell on their faces. In the century ranks beyond them, several men died or fell, a few who were trying to free their pila from the heaps of furca. A wildly hooting band of mounted Gauls struck the massed Germani columns, but nothing could stop them as a huge, blue cloth on a cross pole, decorated with flowers, dipped.
The Germani rushed in.
They leaped over boulders and mossy mud as, spear first, they stabbed into the Roman mass; throwing it into confusion, and in places, just simply overpowering the century. Amid wagons, and mules, staunch, brave groups of legionnaires closed with their Marsi enemy, but they were all doomed.
The centurion who had led men for us was looking back at the milling mass of hacking and stabbing men, weeping civilians, dying horses, mules, and then turned his eyes at us.
He wanted us dead.
And perhaps, he wanted no part in the butchery behind.
Roman cornua were playing across the woods now, reinforcements would arrive, but before that, hundreds would die.
They ran for us, swords glinting. There were six.
Then there were five.
A sling shot struck a man in the neck, and he fell in a heap.
I watched Thusnelda running and saw her stopping to stare back at me, holding on to Cassia. I had no more time to look that way, as the first Romans arrived. Adalwulf slammed his shield to mine, as we squared off against them. Rage, shields, and swords were coming for us. I braced myself, and took a man’s shield with mine. Instinctively, we both pushed each other’s shields up, and stabbed under. His blade went past my knee, mine sunk to his thigh. He roared, I pushed him away, and cursed, as Cassia and Thusnelda came back, and Cassia was stabbing at a man with a spear over my shoulder. Adalwulf was being harried by the centurion and a legionnaire, and his longer blade whizzed in the air as he danced back and forth, his chain mailed torso taking painful stabs which he roared away. I pushed my sword at a legionnaire, forcing him and his friend back, and then darted for Adalwulf and slashed Heartbreaker through the centurion’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged, and he fell on his face, thrashing in the mud. Adalwulf cursed and slashed his blade on another shocked man’s helmet, and his sword broke, but the legionnaire died. I slipped as the two remaining men came at us. A mule saved us, as it rushed past in panic, the handler, as terrified, after it, and the two had to stop for a moment to get past it. I squared off against them, as Adalwulf grasped a gladius. One enemy looked behind at the milling mass of death behind him, discarded his shield, grasped mine, and pulled it, the other one stabbed at my sword arm, and then he died, as Cassia darted forward, and speared the man in the side. The last one let go of the shield, turned to run, and Adalwulf darted forward and his blade took the Roman in the thigh. Whimpering, blood spurting, he crawled for a shaded bush to die in the rain and mud.
We looked around, and backed off, slowly.
A massive butchery was taking place, not far away.
Horns were playing crazily in the woods now, drowning out the rain. They echoed across the hills and the fields, and the forest was alive with sounds of desperate silvery Roman horns, and brazen Germani ones.
“They have their tails up, the Marsi,” Adalwulf said softly, as we backed off.
The Germani were stabbing amidst the mostly butchered centuries of Romans, and fleeing civilians. They were bloodied to their necks, many wounded, many dead, and a hundred or more were slaughtering Roman slaves, freedmen, women, and even animals. Civilians were being hacked to death in the bushes, but a great mass of Germani was turning about amid the wagons, guided by their warlord, trying to figure out where the danger would come from. The Marsi, decimated in the past years, were avenging themselves, as the now timid Gaul cavalry rode away in panic, and the remaining clumps of confused legionnaires were killed, one by one.
The Marsi stopped in the middle of the slaughtered civilians and legionnaires, and began chanting, as their mass formed a wall of spears, facing east. Many of those who were killing the civilians, turned and rushed back to join their comrades.
“More Romans coming,” Adalwulf whispered, as he gauged the Roman movements. “From the east.”
I saw them. A mass of hundreds, red, and silver, and muddy brown was marching forward under the cohort and century standards of the XIX. It was the rest of the seventh cohort. The centurions and their men flitted past trees, stumbling on roots, but these men had pila readied. The great Marsi chief laughed under his blue banner, his men cheered like fiends, and they ran forward. The Romans formed a ragged line, and pila flashed in the air. A dozen Germani fell, then more, and then the Romans charged back, many to fall on the gigantic spears that the Germani mastered so well. A savage, bitter battle took place amid the dead, the wagons, and the trees, as the Romans came at their foe.
“Let’s go,” I panted and pulled Thusnelda and Cassia with me as we rushed back from the ferocious battle. We dodged hiding civilians, shivering mules, and even terrified legionnaires, and ran to the southern woods. We saw some scattering Gaul cavalry, and prayed as some sling shots and arrows flew past. We ran, stumbling in the misty forest, splashed over a small stream, and then leaned on a tree, looking around, begging to Woden for deliverance.
I turned back north.
I saw how the Germani attacked their enemy ferociously. The woods made the fight equal. What would have been efficient butchery of less trained, and less heavily armed tribesmen, was anything but. Axes flashed as the Germani took advantage of the
woods that split Roman lines. Cudgel and seax, sword and rock pulled down Romans when they didn’t see the enemy. Huge spears were stabbing at the Roman ranks where they were thick, pushing chain mailed Romans onto their backs. Fleet Germani were pulling Gauls and traitorous Ubii from their saddles. Lighter troops threw javelins at the Romans from the woods, taking down dozens. The Germani fought like men possessed amid the trees. The legions, a terrible force of death in any other field, their triple acies always ready to shift men to any sudden need on the battlefield, found enemy behind and amongst them in a heartbeat, and the Marsi gave no mercy.
On the Roman faces I could see fear. Fear for themselves.
Fear for their families and lovers.
Armin’s plan was working. Armin wanted to kill the children and wives of the fighters, and make them weep in the rain, despairing over the fates of those they would never find again amid the dark, rainy Hades.
“They will run?” Adalwulf asked, full of wonder. “Is it possible?”
He was right. The Germani were in control of the middle of the battlefield. They had resolutely fed men there, and suddenly, a few centuries seemed to disappear amid the Marsi. A tribune was howling orders under a cohort standard, not far from the Germani, and the Marsi, chanting, struck at a line of Romans between them and the man. A tall Marsi chief howled as he was stabbed down on a mossy boulder. The Marsi pulled, howled, and cursed their way over the line, and one of them threw an ax at the tribune. The man fell with the ax in his shoulder, gasping his young life away on his horse, his helmet rolling in the mud. The Germani scattered the last of the cavalry auxilia on the sides. The legion cavalry joined in, but immediately, ten Roman riders were pulled from the saddle, hacked to pieces and clubbed to death by a group of naked Germani, wearing only wolf-skins over their heads. A fresh wave of bearded, armored, even some naked men with wild faces, jumped and rushed at the shivering, thin flanks of the Romans.
For a moment, the Romans were pushed back.
The Bane of Gods: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 5) Page 47