Legionary

by Hector Miller

  Pumilio slapped Ursa on the back and he choked on the wine. “I will just stand on Bellus’s ego. That’ll be more than enough.”

  The banter continued till late that evening. It was a way to steady the nerves and to build a feeling of brotherhood, which was essential to survival.

  Animals can sense the approach of a storm even when the skies are still clear and the sun is shining. In pretty much the same way a legion can sense the approach of a battle.

  It starts with the officers who are more focused and to the point. Soon it filters down the ranks until even the pack mules are edgy.

  That is how it was the following morning. We were marching out of camp. The legion bristled with nervous energy.

  Although the rankers were not privy to the plans of the commanding officers, I knew more or less what was transpiring based on my scouting of the area.

  The IV Flavia would block the advance of the Goths once the retreating cavalry had passed through their ranks. My legion, the IV Italica, would be the stopper in the amphora to keep the enemy horsemen cooped up in the valley by blocking their retreat as soon as they have been lured into the trap.

  The valley was narrower on the eastern side and fewer soldiers were needed to block it. Great was our disappointment when the third and fourth cohort were given their orders.

  Hostilius explained that we would be the reserve, in case the barbarian infantry somehow get it together and attack the rear of the legion.

  The whole legion needed to stay concealed until the trap was sprung. We hid on a lightly forested hill close to the entrance of the narrow valley.

  We heard our cavalry thunder past in the adjacent valley. They were made up of the surviving legionary cavalry of three hundred and a mixed group of auxiliaries of about seven hundred.

  It seemed like an eternity until we heard the cavalry return, followed by an almighty thundering of hooves that made the snow fall from the branches. Shortly afterwards we were given the order to advance. The legion deployed with haste across the valley entrance, leaving the third and fourth cohort on the slight slope overlooking the valley.

  Only two groupings of warriors ever impressed me to a level that it became akin to art. The first is the arrow storm of the Huns. Ahead of their time, rehearsed to perfection. Death in motion.

  The second is the Roman legions. Disciplined, skilled and devout of mercy. Deadly fighters encased in iron, grinding down opponents. Never giving up.

  One of the few weaknesses of the legions is their vulnerability against mounted archers. This is only true when the lay of the land favours cavalry. The situation unfolding before us favoured the Romans.

  From far off we could hear the sounds of battle and see the clouds of arrows rising and falling. The only evidence of the legion was the buccina issuing orders for the cohorts to advance, which was a good sign.

  Soon the first Scythians appeared on our side of the valley. They reigned in when they realised that their retreat was blocked. Once enough of the enemy had amassed, they rode at the Roman line, releasing thousands of arrows.

  The legion was well prepared and received the arrows with their shields locked tightly. The rear ranks of the legion formed the testudo by raising their shields above their heads, presenting a roof of shields to the descending arrows.

  Most of the arrows ended up embedded in the shields, but some found the inevitable gaps between shields. Dead or wounded Romans were efficiently dragged or assisted to the back of the line where medical orderlies waited.

  The Scythians were good at their craft, but their bows lacked the brutal power of the Hunnic weapon. The Hunnic counter rotating circle gives rise to the storm of arrows, designed to breach a wall of shields. No army of this world can stand against it. But these were not the barbaric Huns. The Yazyges were softened by centuries of exposure to civilisation, their nomadic culture eroded by agriculture. And they died.

  When the milling horsemen came close to the Romans, some legionaries left the line and grabbed the reins of the horses, allowing their comrades to pull the barbarians from their saddles. The fight turned into a melee on foot, which favoured the heavily armoured Roman infantry.

  As the legions battled with the horsemen, Hostilius noticed the approach of the Gothic infantry. They were marching to the aid of the Scythians.

  The Goths outnumbered the reserve by at least three to one. At its narrowest point, the valley was three hundred and fifty paces wide. Hostilius deployed the men with both flanks protected by the rocky rises of the valley sides.

  We were three ranks deep. The Goths were approaching us at a slow jog, chanting some Germanic war song. They were huge, fierce-looking men with long blonde hair protruding from beneath their helmets. Probably half wore mail and most were armed with spears. Some carried long shafted war axes and the nobles among them brandished Germanic longswords. Most protected themselves with round wooden shields.

  At forty paces out, we threw the first volley of pilums. Most struck shield but some found flesh. It did little to halt the advancing barbarian horde. The second volley hit the Goths almost horizontally at a distance of ten paces. More went down, some discarded shields rendered useless by bent pilum, but still the horde advanced.

  Hostilius was standing behind our line, to be able to command.

  “Here they come, ladies. Brace!”

  The IV Italica was a veteran legion who had fought the Germans numerous times and lived to tell the tale. I had never fought this way, but Nik had trained me to fight in the way of the legionary for years and years. I was not, but I felt like a veteran of many battles.

  As they impacted our shields, we retreated two steps, executed in perfect unison. The front rank of Goths felt their support slip away and they staggered forward, into our gladi, thrust at head height.

  As most of their front rank disappeared under our feet, the shield wall took one powerful step forward, went down on one knee and thrust upward into the groins and stomachs of the enemy.

  I saw a veteran Goth with bare arms, criss-crossed with scars, step over the body of the man who fell to my blade. His spear came at my mouth with the speed of a striking viper. I moved my head marginally to the left and the blade scored a line on the cheek guard of my helmet. He overreached and I pushed his shaft upwards by lifting my shield. I stepped forward and skewered his right foot with my blade. As he withdrew, I stepped in and my blade entered his mouth. Meanwhile, on my left, a giant of a man had hooked his war axe over the rim of Pumilio’s shield and was trying to dislodge it from his grip. My blade struck his unprotected neck like lightning, severing the jugular. Pumilio stepped in next to me as I dispatched Ursa’s opponent by hammering the hilt of my blade into his temple. Ursa stepped forward and suddenly the once thick line of the Goths was bending. My blood was up and I used the skills I had acquired over the years to dispatch one opponent after another. Parrying, stepping in close, lightning fast strikes. My next opponent’s eyes were darting left and right and I smelled the fear in him, readying myself as I stepped forward for an easy kill. Before I could, the Goth threw down his spear and ran. For a moment in time, even less than a heartbeat, the next man behind looked at me, an apparition soaked in blood and gore, mumbled something and followed suit.

  The next moment they were all running. I just stood there. Felix said: “Now look what you did Umbra. You scared them.”

  Ursa added: “I stopped counting when you had killed twenty. Some of them pointed at you before they ran and said ‘Teiwaz’. I wonder what it means.”

  Hostilius said from behind me: “He was too busy killing the Goths to listen to their chatter. Unlike the rest of you ladies.”

  Hostilius slapped me on the back. I grinned and retreated to the line.

  I decided not to comment, but I knew the meaning of the word.

  Teiwaz is the name the Goths give to their god of war.

  Chapter 11 – Aftermath

  One in four of the Yazyges warriors were killed. Three or four thousand abandoned the
ir horses and fled the battlefield as soon as they realized all was lost. The emperor accepted the surrender of nearly two thousand of the horsemen and arranged for them to be sold into slavery. War was a profitable business.

  The most valuable commodity captured was the herd of five thousand Scythian horses. These horses were sought after on the markets throughout the Empire and quality specimens would fetch at least two thousand denarii each with some as high as ten thousand.

  The legionaries would receive a portion of the profit from the sale of the slaves and horses. Though my priorities were different to the norm, I also participated in the looting. I found a magnificent Scythian bow, far superior to the one I had looted weeks earlier. To the frustration of Hostilius and the pack mule, I ended up with five quivers of the best arrows I could find.

  There were hundreds of dead horses. That evening we feasted. We still had half an amphora of Hostilius’s wine left. The rest of my contubernium excused me from normal duties like baking bread and roasting meat. Felix said: “You killed more of those bastards than the rest of us put together. Killing is hard work, son.”

  The emperor was pleased with our performance and all the rankers were issued with double rations of wine. If not for that, Ursa would have caused our cups to run dry.

  Bellus tore into the meat, the juices running freely down his chin. “The Goths ran quickly. That was the last we will see of them for years, if not centuries. They are broken. Same goes for the Yazyges.”

  Felix listened and said: “Don’t be too hasty Bellus. Umbra knows the Goths from way back. What do you think, Umbra? Will they return, or have they run?”

  I drank deeply from my cup and said: “Felix is correct, I have a history with the Goths. They are different from the other barbarian tribes. For one, they are as numerous as the stars in the sky. They outnumber the Marcomanni and the fierce Quadi by thousands. But the one thing that makes them most dangerous is their cunning. They are using their allies to test us, to learn. The small infantry force that attacked us was only to show their commitment to the cause. Where were the rest of their infantry? Let me tell you. The best of them returned to their lair, sending just a token force to their death. So yes, they will be back, and next time there will be more and they will fight differently, they will fight better. They will abide their time, wait patiently and strike swiftly when they sense weakness of any kind. Our only hope is that the Huns will annihilate them before they breach our defences.”

  “Who are the Huns?” Ursa asked.

  “The Huns are a people that live beyond the land of the Scythians. Half men, half demons. They make the Yazyges look like children playing at war.”

  Felix stirred the coals and turned the meat. “Well, at least we don’t have to fight these people. Umbra, if you feel this way about these Huns, I hope that they never covet the riches of Rome.”

  Pumilio added: “No use worrying about barbarians who live so far away that no one except Umbra has even heard of them. I say we focus on drinking as much wine and eating as much meat as we are able to. That is what makes sense to me.”

  Silentus nodded in agreement and swallowed down another piece of meat with the cheap legionary issue wine.

  That night I hardly slept. All was well, I had been accepted by my contubernium and I even had a nickname. I had survived the battle and had met the emperor. I attributed the difficulty sleeping to the excitement of the previous day.

  We filled the ditches in the morning and by the second watch of the day we were marching for the Danube. Even if you wake up refreshed, marching soon cures it. If you wake up tired, like I had that day, you feel like dying after three hours on the march.

  Bellus said: “What’s the matter Umbra, got nobody to kill today?”

  I just scowled, like my friend Bradakos had taught me.

  In later years I became more in tune. I realised that a restless night or a strange feeling should never be shrugged off. One should accept these as premonitions and treat it as such. The gods speak to us every day, but not in words. They talk to us from within ourselves and woe to the man who ignores it.

  I first noticed it because I was marching next to the pack mule. I had been taught by the horse people of the steppes to pick up the signs from the animals. Horses, and mules, will hear and smell danger long before a man will.

  In any event, I saw the tell-tale signs as the mule’s ears pricked up. I ignored it. Maybe it was the tiredness, maybe it was the tension leaving the body after the battle. The reason is of no consequence.

  We were marching through an area covered with dense shrubs. The attack was swift and brutal.

  Allow me to digress. I have always harboured a deep seated animosity towards the Goths. I tend to sell them short, unlike the Huns, Scythians and Romans. The people of the steppes are expert horse archers. The Roman infantry is without match. To be fair to them, the Goths are born with a spear in their hands. It is hard to imagine, but they cast a spear with the same level of power and accuracy as a Hun shoots his bow.

  They stormed out of the undergrowth and cast their spears with incredible force. I was preoccupied with my own thoughts and as I heard the noise, I looked up and saw a spear imbed itself in Bellus’s neck. Blood spurted all over my face. I was disorientated for a moment, dropped my pack and stumbled to the ground.

  Next to me I heard a shout of pain and Felix dropped to the ground with a spear in the thigh.

  But I had not trained for thousands of hours to die at the hands of Goths. I rolled as I hit the ground and came half erect into a crouch, assessing the situation.

  The mule was still next to me and I grabbed my newly looted bow and two quivers. From the corner of my eye I saw two Goths with spears bearing down on me. I dropped the quivers, drew my gladius with my left hand and did what comes naturally. When they lay at my feet, bleeding away their life blood onto the frozen soil, I strung the bow, grabbed five arrows from the quiver with my draw hand and released my first arrow in the same motion. The Goth crumbled at my feet, falling next to the injured Felix.

  I was regaining my composure and as I looked up, I saw Hostilius going down onto one knee, losing the fight against three huge Goths. They died nearly instantaneously. My looted bow was a masterpiece. Not a Hunnic bow, but still incredibly powerful. I was shooting at extreme close range. Twenty paces, maybe thirty. An arrow shot from a composite bow at twenty paces hits with the force equivalent to a war hammer. I had to use the broad head hunting arrows as I had no time to modify them.

  The first arrow split the skull of the Goth, the second penetrating the rib cage of the attacker. The third arrow passed right through the neck of a foe, nearly decapitating him.

  All around me Goths were attacking the century with devastating effect, but I was only warming up. My eyes found two Goths running at Ursa with their spears held horizontally. They died.

  I turned to my left and one by one released sixty arrows in double the number of heartbeats. My last arrow was still airborne when I dropped the bow and drew my gladius. I lost count of the bodies. I was in no mood for mercy after what happened to Bellus and Felix.

  When the Goths withdrew into the undergrowth, forty three of them lay dead or dying, arrows protruding from the heads, necks and torsos.

  An eerie silence descended and was broken by Ursa banging his sword on his shield, chanting rhythmically: “Umbra, Umbra, Umbra.”

  Within seconds the whole century followed suit, I even noticed Hostilius joining in. He was shaking his head, eyeballing the three dead Goths surrounding him.

  The Goths were gone. They executed a surprise attack, killed legionaries and set free many of the prisoners and the horses. It was never meant to be a pitched battle. Every century lost men. The two legions lost nearly five hundred soldiers during the attack. Another eighty were seriously wounded.

  Once the attack had ended, we immediately turned our attention to the wounded. Each contubernium taking care of their own. The Gothic spear had passed through Felix’s thigh w
ithout severing a major artery or hitting bone. I returned to the pack mule and retrieved my small medical kit that my friend Cai had forced me to take with. I told Ursa to hold Felix down and showed Silentus where to grip the spear. With a powerful blow I severed the spear shaft at the entry point into the leg. Felix’s body shuddered due to the pain. Even the giant Ursa struggled to hold him down.

  They braced again and I extracted the shaft from the wound, which started to bleed freely. I cleaned the wound with vinegar and applied the honey and the herb paste in the way that Cai had taught me. I cut a piece of clean cloth from my spare tunic and bound the wound expertly.

  Pumilio stared at me wide eyed and said: “I suppose that if you mete out wounds that regularly, it’s good to know how to fix ‘em.”

  Felix was placed on a wagon and Hostilius accompanied him to ensure that he would receive the best treatment.

  Incidentally, I later heard that the ambush and the losses were never communicated to the senate in Rome. The only official record of the campaign was a crushing defeat inflicted on the Scythians by the soldier emperor. Maximinus Thrax may have been a barbarian by birth, but he was learning the ways of Rome.

  We crossed the Danube late that afternoon and arrived back at the temporary camp garrisoned by the Legio II Adiutrix.

  Our overwhelming victory against the Yazyges were clouded by the heavy losses we sustained during the ambush. There was a sombre atmosphere in the camp.

  Since we were on Roman soil and the hostilities had ceased, each contubernium was allowed to deal with its own deceased comrades.

  We found a quiet spot close to the river and built a funeral pyre for Bellus.

  We laid him on his shield and watched as the flames consumed his body.

  Silentus collected his ashes in a clay vase to deliver back to his family in Rome.

  Bellus’s shade was in Elysium because he had received a proper burial, but for him to live forever we had to honour his memory.