by Angus Watson
The Roman cavalry passed, then the one legion advance guard. Atlas identified it as the tenth, Caesar’s favourite and most successful of his legions. The engineers and surveyors should have appeared after the advance but instead Caesar and his black-clad praetorian guard followed immediately, followed tightly by another legion. The engineers would have been busy that morning chopping a path through the Nervee hedges, but that was no reason for them to be out of place. The Romans walked silently, eyes everywhere, pilums ready.
“They seem very wary,” said Chamanca.
“If they have any idea what we’ve got planned, then there’s no way they would have taken this route. They’re in enemy territory and aware that ambush is a possibility, that’s all,” said Atlas. But he looked worried.
After the legion should have come that legion’s baggage wagons and pack animals – the marker for the Nervee attack – but instead the soldiers of another legion followed directly. It was easy to tell where one legion ended and another began, because each legion was proceeded by a standard-bearer, or signifer, holding aloft a golden standard in the shape of an eagle. They’d seen three now, plus Caesar’s. They should have seen only two before attacking.
“They’ve changed their marching order,” said Atlas. “No matter, the plan is still sound, but we must attack now.”
“We attack when we see the baggage of the first legion after Caesar. Not before. As agreed,” Bodnog replied.
“That was the plan, yes,” Atlas spoke carefully, “but they’ve changed their order. They’re already past the point where the baggage would normally be. We must attack now.”
“We attack when we see the baggage of the first legion after Caesar,” Bodnog repeated. He was not his usual ebullient self. A nasty notion prickled Chamanca’s mind. She sniffed magic.
“But we’re at exactly the point, in fact a little past,” Atlas tried again, “where the baggage of the first legion would normally come in standard marching order. Now they’ve changed that order. It doesn’t matter that the baggage isn’t there. The baggage is not the reason that we planned to attack at this point, it was only a marker. We should attack now because we can use our whole force against only two legions and Caesar’s guard. Wait much longer and there’ll be so many Romans in the valley that we’d be fools to attack.”
“We attack when we see the baggage of the first legion after Caesar,” repeated Bodnog.
“There is a glamour on him,” said Chamanca. Atlas nodded. The others looked confused. “The Romans have a powerful druid,” she explained, “he has used magic to take control of Bodnog’s mind. That is why he is being so strange.”
“Nobody is controlling my mind,” Bodnog snarled. “I’ve never seen more clearly. We will hold until we see the first baggage train, as planned. It is what I said we will do and it is what we will do. I am king.”
There were now two and half legions, some twelve thousand legionaries in the valley, plus Caesar’s guard and the cavalry.
“But Bodnog,” said Bodnog’s second in command, a handsome and competent fellow named Persux. “Atlas has a point. The baggage was only a marker. The point was to—”
“Do you challenge me, Persux?” Bodnog’s voice was low and threatening. He stood, as did Persux. Bodnog was half a head smaller than Persux, but a good deal heavier, built like a barrel with logs for arms and legs. He had no neck to speak of and a round, shaved head. “Because you know what needs to happen if you do.”
“I do not challenge you, Bodnog,” tears caught in Persux’s throat, “I’d never challenge you, you know that. But surely you can see that we must attack now?”
“I see nothing of the sort. Do not try me further, Persux.”
“Persux, you must take command,” said Atlas, “this is not Bodnog speaking, it is the vilest of the Romans.”
“Seize the Britons!” shouted Bodnog. “They are agents of Rome! They have planned all of this, all of this, to sink the Nervee!”
“There’s no need to seize us,” said Atlas calmly. “We lay down our weapons.” He put his axe on the ground. Carden placed his sword down gently. Both men looked at Chamanca. “Don’t we, Chamanca?” Atlas added.
“All right,” she said, dropping her ball-mace and her blade.
“Good,” said Atlas, “now, let us talk sensibly—”
“I told you to seize them!” spat Bodnog.
Persux and the other Nervee looked from Bodnog to the Britons. Here, thought Chamanca, was a nasty little situation. She looked at Atlas. He needed only to have given the sign and Bodnog would lose his throat. He splayed his fingers in a “calm” gesture. Meanwhile, the Romans continued to fill the valley.
On the hill above, Ragnall and the praetorians couldn’t see any Nervee in the trees, but, before they’d killed her, their captive had confirmed that they were there, in their thousands.
“Why haven’t they attacked yet?” asked a praetorian.
“’Cos all Gauls are cowardly cun … oh sorry, you’re a Gaul, aren’t you, Ragnall?” said another.
Ragnall didn’t answer. He’d watched them murder the Nervee, then torture Rufus’ killer for information. It had been unpleasant. The Romans must advance, he told himself, and, as Caesar had said correctly, the means justified the end. But he did not like killing. He thought that from now on he’d try to stick to an administrative role.
The idea of Felix controlling the mind of the Nervee king didn’t make him feel any easier, but it did seem to be working. The Nervee were losing the advantage. Already the advance guard, the tenth legion, were digging fortifications further along the valley, where it widened and flattened out a good deal. More and more Romans were flowing into the valley. The cavalry had turned and was patrolling the trees’ edge, perhaps looking for the Nervee who should have been hiding there.
It was not a bright move, Ragnall thought. The cavalry were offering a long, vulnerable flank to the Nervee in the trees. Either someone had made a mistake, or Caesar was surely too confident of Felix’s control.
Chamanca was as frustrated as she’d ever been. They should have been fighting by now. She’d been promised a fight, and based on that promise she hadn’t drunk anyone’s blood the entire time they’d been with the Nervee. She’d even been polite to all the goggle-eyed farmers who kept on coming up and talking to her as if she was a friend. Fenn, they pissed her off.
Another thing that really pissed her off was when people changed plans. Now, because plans had been changed, she was thirsty and they were still standing in the fucking woods, arguing.
There were four legions in the valley. The Roman cavalry had even doubled back and was riding between the Roman infantry on the road and the Nervee in the woods. The horsemen were so exposed to the hidden Nervee forces that it made Chamanca salivate, yet the impasse in the trees continued.
“I’m tired of arguing with you, Britons. Surrender your arms or die.”
“We have surrendered our arms. Look.” Atlas nodded at his axe, gleaming on the woodland loam.
Bodnog looked confused. Atlas took a step. Nervee swords came up.
Fuck this, thought Chamanca. She streaked forwards, scooped up her sword, looped under Bodnog’s broad arm and came up behind him with one hand on his throat. She’d planned to pin her sword point into his neck, but as soon as she touched him, all in a heartbeat, she felt a shock, then a bowel-loosening terror like she’d never known, then an aggressive calm. It was the same as she’d felt on the tower at Wesont and she realised that Felix’s magic had flowed from Bodnog into her, then away.
Bodnog sprang from her. For such a rotund fellow, he was nimble.
“What the fuck is happening!?” he bellowed.
He looked round at them all, then into the valley.
“Why haven’t we attacked?”
“You said not to…” started Persux.
“I said no such thing.” Bodnog raised his sword, ran for the edge of the trees and shouted: “Chaaaaarge!!!”
“Here they
come,” said Ragnall to nobody in particular. All along the edge of the trees, there was a ripple, then a gush of warriors running downhill. By the time the Nervee’s battle roar travelled up to their lofted position, the Gauls had smashed into the Roman cavalry.
The former Briton felt his mouth opening in wonder. The Roman cavalry disappeared under a wave of barbarians which hardly faltered as it surged over horses and men and rushed uphill towards the legions. At the west end of the valley, the tenth legion and the praetorians had dug in and looked secure, but the others strung out along the valley floor were exposed all along one flank and in all sorts of trouble.
The legionaries farthest into the valley ran to join the dug-in tenth. The rest turned and shifted quickly into ranks. Viewed from above, it looked ordered and rational, and showed the preternatural discipline of Roman troops. But their lines looked very thin compared to the masses of screaming Nervee storming towards them.
Chamanca leapt on to the back of the horse, pinned the rider’s arms, wrapped her legs over his and plunged her teeth into his neck. She gulped warm blood. Oh, it was good. It had been so long. He struggled, but she grew stronger as he grew weaker. She supped long and deep, then looked around. She and her meal were about the only people in the valley still on horseback, other than one large Roman, hacking his sword at – no, he was down. The Roman cavalry, destroyed the year before by the Germans, had been destroyed again.
All around her Nervee were sprinting towards the legionaries, roaring with battle joy. Others were almost there. Atlas reached the Roman line first. He dodged, slapped away thrusting spears with his axe head, then swung his heavy weapon back, around and down. It split a shield lengthways and sent its holder flying back in an arc of blood. The Kushite threshed the axe from side to side like a man clearing a path through reeds and created a gap in the shield wall. He charged through it. Carden and Bodnog followed.
Chamanca yelped with glee, leapt off the horse and ran up the hill with the Nervee, blade in one hand, ball-mace swinging in the other.
The Roman front line was in tatters when she got there, but the legionaries were a tougher prospect than the cavalry. They were retreating in good order, spaced regularly, so that each might wield his sword and shield unimpeded. She saw three in a row fighting beautifully in unison – shield blows to stagger their attackers, sword thrusts to disembowel them, step back, repeat. She’d take them first. She felt fire in her legs. Moments later the three in a row were dying and Chamanca was looking for another target. She saw Carden a good fifty paces into the Roman ranks, hewing down men with his broadsword like a Makka-possessed harvester. She ran to join him.
“Fuck me,” said a praetorian. Ragnall could not have put it better. The new cavalry was gone. Totally gone. Then the Nervee hit the Roman line. The Roman left, where Caesar and the tenth had had some time to prepare, held. The right, below them, crumpled, then crumbled as crowds of Nervee ran over them. More Gauls were pouring from the woods. From their eagle eye’s view, the exodus from the trees looked like a barrelful of ants being poured out on to the valley floor.
“Here, take this, I’ll get it off you later.” Carden handed the Roman eagle standard to a less effective looking Nervee warrior.
“Sure!” she said, already heading away, looking glad of an excuse to leave the front line.
The standard was Chamanca’s and Atlas’ as much as it was Carden’s. Capturing it had been far from easy, but it had been enjoyable. Piles of dead and dying legionaries and Gauls lay about them. A couple of legionaries came running out of nowhere, headed for the Gaulish woman with the standard, but Atlas darted in, bisected one with his axe and crushed the other’s nose with a punch.
“What next?” said Carden. There was fighting all around, but the immediate battlefield was calm.
“There are three fronts,” said Atlas. “The Romans have repulsed our right and are countering along the edge of the woods. They are beating the Nervee back. Behind us, more legions are coming into the valley, but it’s a narrow front and we’re holding nicely.” How did he know all this, Chamanca wondered? “Up ahead,” he continued, “are Caesar and his elite soldiers. There, the line is static. That is where we’re headed.”
“Everyone take a pole and prepare to heave,” said Ragnall.
“What?” said a praetorian.
“We’re going to send these trunks and boulders down the hillside. Now. Come on, everyone grab a pole.”
The praetorian lifted his sword and came at Ragnall: “There are Romans down there. We send these heavy fuckers down and we’ll kill our own. You’re a Gaul. By Jupiter’s balls, I don’t know why you’re in charge of us.”
“Look.” Ragnall nodded down the slope. “We might hit a couple of Romans, but we’ll hit a lot more Gauls and we’ll stem the flood of them that are heading for Caesar.”
The praetorian looked. The others watched him.
“Bollocks, Gaul,” he said, pointing down the hill. “There are too many legionaries. You can’t tell us what to do.” The praetorian lifted his sword. He was a great deal larger than Ragnall and his knuckles were hairy.
“Three points,” said Ragnall, hoping that his voice wasn’t shaking too much. “One, I can and I will tell you what to do. Caesar himself made me second in command and Rufus is dead. Disobey me and you disobey Caesar. Two, you … fool, you’re looking in the wrong place. The way the slope goes, our landslide will go there.” He pointed much closer to the opening of the valley than where the praetorian had been looking, hoping he was right. “We’ll hit Gauls, not Romans. Three, I’m not a fucking Gaul. I am British and we are a very different people. We smell better for a start, and we stand our ground. Do what I say, or I’ll have you crucified. Call me a Gaul again, and I’ll have you boiled alive in honey at Clodia Metelli’s next party.” Ragnall held the Roman’s eye.
The Roman faltered.
“All of you, get on those levers and push this shit downhill, now!” Ragnall shouted.
He was a little surprised and much relieved when they did as he commanded.
It was funny how battles went. Winning the standard, they’d been in the thick of things. Everywhere she’d turned there’d been someone else to kill. Now it was like the battle had seeped into the ground all around them, leaving dead Romans and exhausted Nervee looking about, wondering what to do next.
“You lot!” shouted Atlas at a gang of them. “Head back up the valley, and you lot … oh, fuck.”
Chamanca saw it at the same time as Atlas. They were both far too late. A burning landslide was roaring down the valley side, directly at them. She’d forgotten that the Nervee intended to block the valley. Seems they’d let it go a little late.
She turned to face it. The world slowed down for her. She pushed Atlas out of a flying rock’s path, but a moment later an apple-sized stone bounced and struck him square in the middle of his broad forehead. He tottered, stupefied. She dodged a flying stone, leapt and kicked him on the shoulder, sending him stumbling towards a ditch.
She looked about for Carden as she sidestepped a tumbling boulder the size of a hut, but couldn’t see him. The boulder landed, crushed two Gauls, and bounced on while the Iberian dived sideways to avoid a spinning, burning tree trunk which had already squashed several Nervee and set others ablaze. She landed on her feet, looking for the next projectile to dodge, but it was over.
And there she’d been, marvelling how quickly things had changed. Now they’d changed again and she was the only person standing for a hundred paces around.
“Carden!” she shouted.
“Over here!” A smouldering branch tipped up and Carden appeared. “Found a hole,” he explained. “Where’s Atlas?”
Atlas was out cold in the ditch where she’d kicked him, a trickle of blood leaking from a half-egg-sized bruise on his forehead. Carden pulled him out while Chamanca appraised the situation. The landslide had been devastating, but only for a relatively small section of the Nervee army. Behind them, it looked like the N
ervee were holding in the neck of the valley and there were still many, many more to come from the trees. Below them, the Roman counter-attack had been checked, and Nervee were advancing there as well. Up ahead, Bodnog and more Nervee were pressing Caesar’s position. The landslide had simply dented the Gaulish army. They were still very much in control of the battle.
“Wake up, Atlas!” Carden shook him.
Chamanca pushed him off, sat on Atlas and pulled open one of his eyelids. “He’s not waking up for a while. Come on, let’s get him out of here.”
“But the battle?” Carden looked up the valley, towards the thickest fighting.
“We have played our part. It looks like the Romans will be finished soon.”
“I don’t get it. You don’t want to see the battle out? There’s a lot of Roman blood that isn’t going to drink itself.”
“I know,” Chamanca sighed, “but if we leave him here unconscious, someone will probably come along and kill him to get his armour. We won’t make a difference to the end of the battle, so we take Atlas to safety.”
“OK!” said Carden, smiling. “I’ll put him on my shoulder. You take his axe.”
Chamanca led the way as they retraced their steps back to the trees. She had Atlas’ massive axe over one shoulder, her ball-mace in the other hand and her sword scabbarded. They were in a no-man’s-land scattered with dead and dying between two outward pressing fronts and it looked safe, but you could never be too careful in a battle. She told Carden to keep his distance from the bodies where possible – she’d seen plenty of people badly wounded and even killed by the final, spiteful sword flails of the dying.
As they neared the treeline, Atlas said, “Put me down.”
“Oh, hello,” said Carden, dropping the Kushite on to his feet. “Nice nap?”