The Noise of War

by Vincent B Davis II

  “Are you writing a letter to inform them of your death? The battle hasn’t yet been fought,” I said, attempting to jest. But I knew all too well that this warranted some merit. There was a high probability that we would perish, and sending a touch of love from the grave was the most gracious thing a man could do.

  “So, we ride for the trees, then?” he asked, standing from his chair. He folded the letter delicately and sealed it with hot wax that had been heating over a candle.

  “Yes, Legate. Our orders are to leave presently,” I replied.

  He adjusted the ring on his finger and then pressed it hard into the cooling wax, leaving his seal defined upon it.

  “Alright, then,” he said, his voice soft and thoughtful. “Let’s go. It’s as good a day to die as any.”

  Soldiers say such things at times, rather morbidly, but always with the hope that their claims will be proven false. There was no such sarcasm or wit in Marcellus’s words. He had faced death for so long in captivity that perhaps he was simply unafraid of what the enemy could do to him now. His voice carried none of the false bravado and reckless daring that generally accompanies such statements—he genuinely meant it. Today was as good a day as any, and I was inclined to agree with him.

  27

  Scroll XXVII

  One day before the kalends of April 652 ab urbe condita

  We set out with a few hours of darkness remaining. Lucius was very displeased. Not because of the danger involved with such a rouse, or because sleep was stolen from him, but because he had been hoping to rise early the next morning to find a fitting sacrifice for the battle. Once again, he was not able to do so, and he seemed more frightened by an angry god than by the Teutones we rode to ambush.

  “You know we’ll all be butchered to the last man if they spot us,” one of the horsemen whispered as the gates closed behind us.

  “Well, if Fortuna favors us, they won’t. If they do, perhaps it will give Marius enough time to take advantage of the distraction,” I replied.

  “How very noble of us,” the horsemen replied sarcastically.

  “Get your spacing,” I directed the cavalry behind me, “and make sure to keep your horses quiet.”

  With one hand, I held the reins tight. With the other, I stroked Sura behind the ear. From time to time, I leaned over and placed my cheek against her mane and whispered, “It’s alright, girl. We’ll be alright.” She couldn’t hear it, but I hoped she could feel it. She brayed a few times but seemed calm enough, so perhaps my soothing worked.

  We made the journey last as long as it could. The slower we moved, the less likely we were to be detected, but we also dreaded the hours of waiting once we arrived.

  “Direct your horses,” I said when we reached the tree line. “Hold them firm. Be careful what you allow them to step on.”

  Each of us stole a glance over our shoulders to see if there was movement in the distant Teutone camp. There didn’t seem to be, as the camp continued to rest on in peaceful slumber.

  We wheeled about and stationed ourselves facing where the battle would take place the following morning. It was empty, and so peaceful now. The pale moonlight shimmered on the dew-covered grass, which swayed with a gentle spring wind. The lilies of the field sent a calming aroma wafting to us. The stream passing through the Teutone camp could be heard bubbling up and trickling over smooth stones. A bystander would have had no way of foreseeing the horror that would soon take place here.

  We awaited first light in anxious silence. Some of the men tried to talk among themselves, but I had to tell them to keep the volume down more than a few times, so eventually they gave up. The rest of us either prayed to the gods or our ancestors, or imagined what death might feel like: the Elysian fields, the celebration of a warrior entering peace at last, seeing loved ones once more.

  It was a great relief to all of us when the sun appeared, and we heard our forces begin to stir in the camp on the distant hilltop.

  “Not much longer now,” Marcellus said from my right. I assumed at first that he meant the battle, but something in his eyes told me otherwise.

  Soon afterward, the Teutones began to wake in the valley. They wasted no time in preparing themselves. They didn’t bother with bathing or eating but immediately donned their armor and brandished their swords. We had given no verbal indication that today would be the day, but both sides seemed to sense it.

  Marius’s forces began to pour out of the gates to the bugle’s cadence. It took nearly an hour for them all to exit the fort and form into battle assembly. By this time, the Teutones had arrayed themselves in whatever way suited them best. There didn’t seem to be much tact behind how they amassed, but their sheer boundless numbers were enough to make it appear stronger than the solid formation of Roman soldiers.

  The Romans, once formed, marched forward a few paces to the crest of the hill, standing directly over their barbarian enemy in the foothills.

  I looked to Lucius to see what he was thinking, but his eyes were closed and his lips were moving with rhythmic prayer, not seeming to notice that the battle was among us.

  “Here it is, men,” Marcellus said over his shoulder, “all of your training, all of your fighting, all of the sacrifices you’ve made since the day you dawned the colors… It all comes down to this moment. The fate of the Republic is in our hands now.”

  I struggled to swallow.

  The Teutones began to chant, hoisting their spears, axes, and swords into the air. They stomped their feet and gnashed their teeth. If they had been angry the last time we met them in battle, it did not rival the fury they now displayed, since thirty thousand of their allies were now reduced to ash and decay.

  The barbarians began their ascent up the hill. My stomach dropped and my head felt light. I adjusted the straps to my helm, ensuring that it wouldn’t come loose during the battle. I needed everything to work out in my favor if I were to make it out alive.

  To my surprise, whistles blew, and the Roman’s advanced. So far, Marius had been reluctant to make any sort of move. We’d stood firm and waited for the enemy to reach us, with the exception of our attack on the Ambrones at the river, but here Marius led his troops farther down the hill.

  This enraged the Teutones even further. They thought they had frightened us into utter submission. They thought they had won the posturing battle. Seeing Marius’s forces aligned in full array and marching to greet them caused such a bloodlust in the Teutones’ war cries that I have yet to forget it. We had the high ground, but the Reds couldn’t back away from the fight now. When the order was given, the Teutones broke into a full sprint up the hill, determined to punish us for our arrogance.

  Marcellus lifted his hand and prepared to give us the signal for our advance.

  “Hold.” I quickly reached out and grabbed his wrist. He turned to me with a peculiar look in his eye, and to my surprise, he deferred to my judgement.

  The two armies crashed into one another. A sound like an angry storm carried through the valley and echoed in the forest. Thunder, the crack of lightning, heavy rainfall on rocks—it was the violent push of the Teutones against our line, spear jabbing at shield and sword piercing flesh.

  Marcellus’s eyes were still fixed on me, growing slightly as the cries of the butchered began to echo out. The centurions shouted orders, the bugles blew, and the Teutone drums carried on, shaking everything and echoing in our helms.

  “Tribune,” Marcellus said, only a touch of haste in his voice, “what are we waiting for?”

  “Hold,” I said again. Lucius had now finished his prayer, and looked to me with a nod of the head.

  The Teutone line was now fully engaged, pivoting and shifting like flood water around a powerful tree. The Roman line remained fixed.

  “Now,” I said to Marcellus. He lifted his hand and dropped it with a shout.

  “Charge!” The words carried out over the treetops. We burst out into the orange sunlight of early morning, whipping the reins as hard as we could.
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br />   Marcellus took the front, charging at full speed, his gladius hoisted high and pointing at the Teutones we were careening toward.

  The Teutones hacked and slashed at the shield wall of our front ranks, so engaged and enraged that they didn’t notice us at first. One by one, the blue eyes of the right most flank looked up at us, widening with terror.

  “Charge!” I echoed the call, bouncing atop Sura. The Teutones turned and hoisted their round shields to protect themselves. Marcellus and those at the front crashed into them with the thunder of an angry god. Sura reached their line and suddenly bucked with fear, jumping over the front ranks and crashing down on top of several trembling enemies.

  The infantry drove forward now, taking advantage of the momentary panic we created.

  Sura reared wildly, kicking and twisting against assailants on all sides. I clutched my legs around her with all the force I could muster to stabilize myself, stabbing down at the stumbling Teutones on either side.

  “Bring them down! Kill them all!” Marcellus shouted, his voice carrying above the tumult.

  A bearded Teutone with a fur cape approached my flank, a heavy axe hoisted above his head. He let out a lion’s roar, giving me just enough time to spin and slice down at him. The tip of my gladius found its mark, carving through tendon and sinew from his collarbone to the opposite pectoral.

  Blood sprayed up and covered my face and sweat-drenched arms. The axe dropped from his hands as he stumbled back and fell to a knee. I turned to meet a young Teutone boy who lunged at me with a spear, his teeth gritted and smeared with the blood of the fallen around him. I bashed the spear tip away with my sword, exposing the man’s midsection. Without thinking, I thrust my sword like an extension of my body, the blade digging in between his ribs. Blood bubbled from his lips as his legs buckled beneath him.

  I turned to find the bearded man returning to his feet. His legs seemed to wobble like rotten wood beneath him, but he was determined to kill me. The axe now buried under the bodies of his allies, he lunged with nothing but his hands. I brought my sword down to pierce his neck, but with the powerful grip of a snake around its prey, he halted the attack and reached with the other hand to pull me from my steed.

  I collided with the earth, the air driving out of my body with violent force.

  I tried to steady myself as an engaging Teutone tripped over my shoulder and landed atop me. As I tried to shimmy out from under him, the bearded warrior towered over me, axe now in hand. Blood poured from the wound I had inflicted, over his breastplate and down the side of his leg.

  In a panic, I patted the earth around me, searching for my fallen sword. The warrior put his boot on my throat and hoisted his axe above his head, for a moment blotting out the morning sun. He snarled, revealing teeth soaked in blood as if he had taken a bite of raw meat.

  My fingers grasped something. It wasn’t the steel of a gladius but the wood of a spear—presumably owned by the boy I’d just killed. As the axe began careening down for my head, I brought the spear up in a last stroke of desperation, the tip of the spear sinking into the warrior’s armpit. He stumbled, a waterfall of blood pouring from his mouth onto my lorica. The axe dropped from his hands, dinging my helmet but nothing more. As the man slowly stumbled back to the earth, I stood and drove the spear deeper and deeper.

  When those hate-filled eyes rolled back and his tongue puffed out, I turned to find that the rest of the cavalry had advanced on. They were some distance ahead, hacking and slashing at the panicking Teutones, Marcellus still leading the charge with shouted orders.

  I looked left and right but could find Sura nowhere. Beside my feet, I found the gladius that had followed me into so many battles. I wasted no time in grabbing it, along with the discarded shield of some dead Teutone or another, and advanced toward the cavalry. The Teutones around me, too distracted with their own dying or routing, did not notice. Panic was spreading like a disease. Some of them tried to rally their forces with renewed war chants, but the Romans continued to drive forward, silent and impassive, with the exception of Marcellus and the four thousand horsemen.

  My heartbeat quickened, suddenly arrhythmic and uncontrollable. Perhaps it was the fall, or the men I had just killed, but all I could think of was Sura. If I was forced to look into those wide, wet eyes as they blinked their last, I knew it would be the end of me. I tried to increase my pace.

  An enemy caught sight of me. He approached with a mallet the size of a tree trunk hoisted over his head. I remember it as a massive stone fastened to a log, but my mind was already in a fog by this point. He swung viciously. Still too far away to strike me, the wind alone that it propelled nearly sent me to my backside.

  I met his eyes as I tightened my grip around the round shield and brought the top of it to the tip of my nose.

  “Agh!” he shouted as the mallet swung again to meet me. I hoisted my shield at the last moment to deflect it. The wooden shield splintered around my arm, but the Teutone recoiled from the deflection. Without thinking, I raised my gladius and brought it down quickly, severing his arm in one swift motion. His cry was bloodcurdling. I still believe that he might have proceeded to kill me if he had another weapon available to him. Without waiting for such an event, I lunged toward him, my bloody blade struggling through his golden breastplate and then gliding through his flesh as if it were nothing but a butcher’s cut.

  As I dislodged the blade, I brought what fragment of my shield remained into his neck, toppling him to the earth, where he was quickly covered with the bodies of other falling barbarians.

  I blinked to keep myself alert and shifted to keep the sun from my eye.

  “Sura!” I shouted, or perhaps I only imagined it. So many men collided with the earth at my feet, friend and foe alike, and there wasn’t a moment for reflection. The only thing I considered was my innocent stead. She had not asked for war. If the Teutones knew her sweet heart, even they would not dare strike a blow.

  The bugles suddenly sounded with a different pitch. My mind was warped, too dazed to realize what it meant. The Teutones were faltering and tripping over each other to escape while the Roman lines advances at double speed. The forward line pushed me with them, but I continued to stumble over the bodies of the fallen toward the advancing cavalry.

  My foot caught on the corpse of a rotund Teutone, and I sprung forward to the ground. My head whipped against the mud, and for a moment, the light of my eye dimmed. I don’t believe it was long before I shook the haze away, but when I did, there was a man on the ground staring back at me. His eyes were wide but emotionless. Atop his lower body lay his faithful stead, which seemingly had fallen simultaneously.

  The mouth of the man was open, as if he were to say something or give me an order, but lifeblood had trickled from the corners of his lips and was already beginning to dry.

  Only after staring at the man for some time, as if his death were some beautiful, grotesque work of art, did I realize that it was Legate Marcus Marcellus. I swear I could still hear his cries of “charge” as I gazed into his dead eyes.

  When I peered up at the advancing cavalry, the sun burning a spot in my retina, I identified Sura treading along with the rest, just as dutifully as if I were still atop her.

  Life surged through my limbs as I bounced to my feet and sprinted toward her.

  “Halt, halt!” the centurion’s orders were given. The bloodlust of the Teutones seemed to be infectious, as the order was not heeded until it grew in both volume and in number.

  I heard Lucius’s voice among the tumult, finally ordering our cavalry to tighten their reins and maintain their position.

  I didn’t consider myself the object of the orders, and continued at the fastest speed I could manage, eye set on my beautiful girl, who continued to buck and whinny with the rest of the cavalry.

  When I reached her, I fell on bruised knees and clutched her legs.

  “It’s alright, girl. I found you. I’m here.” I unbuckled my helm and let it slip from my sweat-drench
ed head. “It’s over now,” I said to her as much as to myself.

  She turned and nuzzled her wet nose against my forehead.

  “Up, Tribune. The fight isn’t over,” I heard a voice say. I would have been embarrassed if it was anyone but my friend Lucius.

  I pulled myself back into the saddle and then nodded for Lucius to lead the way.

  He directed us to continue to the far flank of the Roman line. Only when we were there was the order given to continue our advance.

  Even with my one eye, I could spot the Teutones scrambling in their camp for a last-moment escape. Some of them were successful in doing so, as I could see bodies fading into the morning mist in the hills in the distance. Most didn’t have the time and resigned themselves to the fate we Romans had in store for them.

  A group nearly the size of our entire army was already beginning to march out, absent swords or shield, but with white cloths hoisted high on makeshift banners.

  Once we reached the bottom of the hill, not a hundred yards from where the Teutone camp had so recently been, Marius and his detachment rode out before the army. If anyone else had been speaking, the rest of the cavalry and I wouldn’t have been able to hear him, but Marius’s voice had a habit of carrying.

  “Men, we’ve achieved a great victory today. Rome is rendered much safer now than she was last night. Now, we are going to advance on their camp. Anything you find is yours. The city does not need any spoils. You do. Everything these barbarians have either once belonged to you or your fallen comrades. You may now take it back.”

  The ranks of the men roared with approval. Their energy was still surging. I said nothing, but lowered my head to Sura’s mane.

  “One last thing, lads,” Marius said, hoisting up a finger, “do not touch the bodies of the fallen Teutones. We shall not give them burial as we do by custom.” The general grew silent for a moment, as did the ranks, who watched him with utter confusion. “They wanted land, and now they have it.”