Caesar Triumphant

by Peake, R. W.

  "What about the 12th, Primus Pilus? What do you want them to do?"

  Pullus thought for a moment.

  "Have them stay on this side of the forum, but move a street closer," he commanded, and with that, the Optio dashed off to carry out his orders.

  Titus Pullus didn't know it yet, but he had just made one of the most important decisions of not just this day, but of his entire life.

  Gnaeus Tetarfenus, the Pilus Prior of the Eighth Cohort of Caesar's 10th Legion, had been standing with Titus Nasica, his Pilus Posterior, speculating on what they were both sure would be the command to move up. Tetarfenus had been sending men across the forum to check on the fighting on the rampart, so he knew the situation was growing desperate, and when he saw the duty Optio returning, he was sure he knew what the orders would be. In fact, when they were the exact opposite of what he was expecting, Tetarfenus made the Optio repeat himself twice more before, with a shake of his head, he called the Centurions of the reserve.

  "The Primus Pilus has ordered us to move in the direction of the Porta Praetoria," he announced, to the obvious surprise of the assembled officers. Still, surprised or not, they didn't hesitate when they moved back to their respective Centuries, where their men were crouched and waiting. As they shuffled themselves into position, the duty Optio hurried over to the reserve of the 12th, and they in turn began their own process of moving closer to the action. With his duty discharged, the Optio proceeded to his post, where his men were standing on the rampart. As he drew closer, the Optio saw that his men's eyes weren't facing outward, but back into the camp, towards the forum.

  While understandable, this was a clear breach of regulations, and the moment he was close enough to them, the Optio roared, "You there! Prixus! You bastard! Don't think I don't see where you're looking! By the gods, I'll stripe you good!"

  Before the Optio’s words were out of his mouth, Prixus, along with his comrades, spun guiltily around, knowing that they were well caught. When they did, Prixus saw something out of the corner of his eye to the southeast, back along the ridge road. It was just a flash of sun on metal, but it was enough to catch his attention. However, when he looked more closely, the only thing he saw was the dust hanging above the ridge road, right before it dipped out of sight into a fold of ground. His initial reaction was to relax slightly, thinking that the dust he was seeing was still from the courier who was now safely inside the camp. But while Prixus would never be accused of being smart, he was experienced, another of the Romans who had managed to survive this ten year campaign, and it was that experience that told him that any dust the arrived courier had raised would have been settled by that point. So he stared, hard, at the spot where the road came back into view, knowing that it would be only a matter of heartbeats, before any rider on that road would reappear. The idea that it could have been a man on foot didn't even occur to Prixus, and his attention was now so fixed on that spot that he was barely aware that the Optio had climbed the slope up onto the rampart.

  "Oh, now you're going to pretend you're doing what you should have been doing all along," the Optio snapped caustically. "But it's not going to save you a flogging."

  It was only when Prixus gave no reaction to the idea of a flogging that the Optio realized it was no act, and instantly his irritation dissolved as his attention centered on the Legionary. Prixus was a scoundrel, one of those men who could magically disappear whenever there was a work detail, or conjure his way onto a sick list. But he was a hard-bitten, veteran Legionary, and one of the best fighters in the Century—his very survival a testament to that fact—so the Optio moved immediately to his side, following his man's gaze.

  "What is it?" he asked quietly. "What did you see?"

  Instead of answering immediately, Prixus, as he had been trained, used one of his javelins to point to the now-settling plume of dust.

  "See there, Optio? I didn't see a rider or anything, but....."

  "That dust couldn't be from the courier who's already here," the Optio finished, understanding the same thing as Prixus did.

  For a moment they continued staring, before the Optio asked, "When did you first see whatever it was?"

  "Long enough that whoever it was would be in sight by now," Prixus replied, then added, "If they were mounted, that is."

  That was when something else happened, something that—while both the Optio and Prixus saw or more accurately sensed it—neither could have described it with any level of accuracy. Again, it was more the sum total of their years of experience that told them something was happening that was, at the least, noteworthy. Perhaps it was a vagary of the breeze, which in this part of the world blew from the northeast at this time of year, but for whatever reason carried a shrill cry from the south. Or maybe it was just the fleeting glimpse of an arrow that sailed through the air and in its arc crested just above the brow of the rise that was blocking their view. Whatever it was, the Optio frowned for a moment, then made a decision.

  "Stay here, and keep your eyes on that spot," he snapped, giving quick orders for the rest of Prixus' section to do the same. With that, he went bounding down the rampart, heading back towards Tetarfenus.

  Pullus had by this time returned his attention and his sword back to the fighting. Even as he did so, he could see with a sinking heart that the Wa were winning. It wasn't quickly, and it was at great cost, but with more than 5 men for every Legionary, they could afford to be profligate. By this point, the front rank of the Cohorts was standing just barely on the edge of the rampart, forcing the men behind them to stand lower on the ramp, making it difficult to brace their comrades. Moving back up to the front, Pullus bent down to pick up a shield, pulling it from the lifeless fingers of one of his men, a Pandyan, whose throat had a gaping hole from a single thrust into the base. His eyes stared wide at the sky, his face bearing that look of surprise Pullus had seen so many times before, and the detached part of Pullus' mind recognized the man as Shrinar, the Legionary that Balbus had caught trying to sneak the Wa beauty out of the pillaged town. Well, Pullus thought, he doesn't have to worry about Caesar stealing any more of his women!

  Hefting the shield, Pullus waded back into the fighting, welcoming the freeing of his mind as it settled into the simple needs and demands of combat. For a moment he could forget the worries of command, losing himself in the most elemental of questions: can I best my enemy? Hesitating for just a moment, he spotted one of his men of the front rank take a staggering step back from the thrust of a Wa sword. Before the man could recover, Pullus stepped in, lashing out with his shield and, coming from an oblique angle as he was, struck the Wa's left shoulder. Now it was the Wa's turn to stagger, but like all of his comrades, he recovered quickly, making a low underhanded thrust across his body that Pullus, his shield still high from his blow to the Wa's shoulder, was barely able to block.

  As off-balance as the Wa was, the thrust was still able to punch through Pullus' shield just above the protective metal strip at the bottom. The force of the blow pushed the bottom of Pullus' shield towards him, while tilting the top out, a position that normally would have left Pullus exposed. But turning what would normally be a threat into an opportunity was something Titus Pullus did very well, and he did so now, whipping the tilted edge of the shield straight out and catching the Wa a glancing blow just above the ear. Unfortunately for the Wa, a glancing blow by a man as strong as Titus Pullus was the same as taking the strongest shot from any other man, and the Wa dropped like a stone. Without any hesitation, Pullus stepped over the body, while keeping his shield up and ready, remembering to give a savage thrust down into the throat of the unconscious man.

  His slight advance, while putting him just ahead of the front rank of his Legionaries, also took him closer to the rampart. Now there was only a lone Wa between him and the protection that the rampart would give to his unprotected side, it was to this man that Pullus turned his attention. Fortunately for Pullus—or at least so he thought at first—the Wa was armed with one of the teardrop sha
ped spears, the butt end hovering out over the rampart and into space. However, while this normally would mean whoever was wielding it would be restricted, this Wa quickly disabused Pullus of that notion. With an overhand grip, the Wa—who Pullus was sure was barely out of his teens, although he had learned it was almost impossible to accurately tell the age of any Wa who wasn't either a child or incredibly old—suddenly whipped the butt end of the spear at Pullus with a seeming flick of the wrist. Although the blow was blocked by his shield, there was so much force behind it that the shield slammed back into his upper shoulder and took him back a step.

  Eying his opponent with a new respect, Pullus began moving the tip of his sword in a geometric pattern, trusting his instinct that this Wa was, indeed, relatively inexperienced. As he had hoped, the Wa's eyes began following the moving sword tip despite himself, giving Pullus the opportunity he had been seeking with his shield. With enviable quickness, Pullus punched out with his shield by simply extending his left arm straight out from the shoulder. The metal boss of the Roman shield was a deadly weapon in its own right, and with any other foe, the blow Pullus launched would have been devastating. But his Wa opponent, like so many of the others he had faced, had reflexes that no cat would have spurned, and they served him well now. The boss should have hit him in the right shoulder with enough force that it would have crushed whatever bone it came in contact with, but because of a combination of leaning backward and sweeping upward with his spear to absorb some of the force, the blow didn't cause nearly the damage it should have. But it was enough to snap the solid shaft of the spear like a twig, leaving it in two pieces.

  Even this blow didn't seem to have the effect Pullus expected, as the Wa simply shifted his grip on each piece of the broken weapon, before making another thrust with the business end of the spear, but Pullus blocked it, too. As the Primus Pilus did so, however, the Wa swung the other piece of the spear like a club, and because Pullus had moved his shield across his body, it was out of position to block the oncoming blow. If the club end of the spear struck Pullus where the Wa had aimed, the blow would have been strong enough to stun Pullus, at the very least; but like so many of his enemies, the Wa wasn't used to fighting a man of the giant Roman's stature. Instead, the shaft struck Pullus a solid blow on the meaty part of his upper arm, and it was only because of the heavy muscles there that it didn't break the Roman's bone. It would leave another massive bruise, but that would come later. Somehow, Pullus managed to keep a hold of his shield despite the pain, but he instantly knew that his ability to use it offensively was gone for at least the next several moments.

  Consequently, he made a feint with the shield by shrugging his shoulder and twisting his upper body, and as feints went, it was one of his weakest. Fortunately for Pullus, it was enough: reacting again with unbelievable speed, the Wa shifted his weight slightly to his left, at the same time leaning his upper body backward. This dropped his left hand, holding the blade of the spear, just a matter of a few inches, but that was sufficient for Pullus. The Roman delivered a high overhand thrust, stomping forward with his right foot as he did so, thereby extending the reach of his sword and putting the power of his weight behind it. Aiming at the Wa's throat, even as quick as the Wa was, his arm was just a little too low to sweep it upward quickly enough to deflect the blade from punching through his throat. Pullus felt the grate of the bone grabbing the blade as it sliced through it, forcing him to twist the blade to make sure it didn't get stuck. Over the years he had seen too many men who, in the excitement of battle, had forgotten this elementary move that all tirones were taught early in training, leaving them yanking the blade, desperate and defenseless in the face of a comrade of the man they had just killed. Freeing the blade and watching the Wa collapse in a heap at his feet, Pullus was able to move a pace closer to the rampart. Now that his right side was protected, he could concentrate on trying to stem the tide of barbarians, but even as he did, he could see that it was a hopeless task.

  Several paces away, the Second Century of the First Cohort was in much the same straits as the First of the First, and Balbus, like Pullus was doing everything within his power to stop the advancing Wa. He wasn't as skilled as Pullus, but he was close, and while he lacked Scribonius' intellectual ability, he more than made up for it with guile and a ferocity that outmatched perhaps even that of his Primus Pilus. Now he was standing next to the last man on the right of the leading rank, the one engaged with the Wa, and Balbus' Century was in even more trouble than the First. Whether by accident or design—he would never know— the Wa had placed an average of two ladders along the length of rampart that a Century covered, whereas the Second Century had three ladders along its front. And there was a steady stream of smaller, wiry men clambering up, shouting in a guttural way that none of his men could make any sense of, whatsoever.

  Although the Romans were cutting down most of the Wa who came leaping over the palisade stakes, inevitably the Romans suffered casualties as well, and in the moment that it took for a Legionary to replace the fallen man, the victorious Wa would press a step forward, standing over the body of the man he had just vanquished. Consequently, it was a grudging, hard-fought struggle, inch by inch and foot by foot, but it was one the Romans were losing. While the leading edge of the First Century was still at the very edge of the level portion of the rampart, the men of the Second Century had already been pushed even farther back. The leading edge of the Second was halfway down the dirt ramp, and strewn in front of them were the dozens of bodies of friend and foe alike that provided testament that the men of Balbus' Century weren't giving ground without making the Wa pay. It was just a case of grim mathematics, Balbus knew; he was rapidly running out of men, no matter how many Wa they took with them.

  By this time in the fight, the Primus Pilus Posterior estimated that he had fewer than half the men he had started with, a Century that had been almost 30 men short of full strength already. Even accounting for Caesar's practice—ironically enough started with the 10th Legion all those years ago when he was Praetor in Hispania—of hundred man centuries, the fighting had whittled the senior Cohorts down, so that when Balbus managed to make a quick head count, there were only 34 men of his Century still left fighting. That knowledge filled Balbus with a despair unlike any he had ever faced in his entire life, let alone his career, even when his woman had died in childbirth. He was watching the destruction of what he loved more than anything else: his Century, his boys. For no matter that some of them were at least as old as he, to Balbus they would always be his boys, and his heart filled with a desperate, angry love.

  "No," he snarled. "Not today. Not this fucking day!"

  With a feral growl issuing from his throat, Quintus Balbus literally threw himself into a small clump of Wa who were just behind their engaged comrades, looking very much like they were gathering themselves to go charging into the Roman lines.

  Sextus Scribonius was hurting, both within and without. He had taken a sword thrust all the way through his left forearm fairly early on in the fighting, and it was only through the intervention of the gods that it hadn't severed an artery. Nevertheless, it was extraordinarily painful, and he had only taken the time to wrap his neckerchief around the wound and then, gritting his teeth against the agony, had one of his men tie the ends as tightly as the Legionary's strength allowed. Now it was a dull, aching throb that was manageable, but the consequence was that he had lost all feeling in his hand and was unable to hold a vitus, let alone a heavy shield. Even so, it was the internal ache that was causing Scribonius the most trouble, and, like Balbus, he found it hard to concentrate. For just like his second-closest companion, Scribonius was watching not just his own Century, but the entire Second Cohort being destroyed, slowly but inexorably.

  In terms of outright casualties, his Century was a bit better off than that of Balbus: Scribonius' last head count had yielded 42 men, but in just the bare moments since then, he had seen at least 2 more men fall, although one had crawled quickly to the rear on h
ands and knees. Perhaps he would be back, Scribonius thought, but the lanky Pilus Prior wasn't counting on it. As for the rest of the Cohort, Scribonius was continually being updated by runners coming from all along the Second Cohort's front, and he had been forced to have his own reserve of three Centuries enter into the rotation some time before. Since he could no longer carry a shield, he was being a bit more circumspect than Balbus, darting in to add the strength of his sword only when it was absolutely necessary or a Wa was turned away from him by one of his men. Even so, his blade was red almost to the hilt, but again, like, Balbus, he knew it wasn't going to be enough.

  Nevertheless, Scribonius resisted the temptation of looking to the rear to see if the reserve Cohorts were standing ready to assist, knowing that the sight of their Pilus Prior looking for succor would in all likelihood trigger a panic. Instead, Scribonius willed himself to continue looking to the front, which was a good thing, because in another one of those fluke moments, two Legionaries who were standing side by side were struck down at almost exactly the same instant. Suddenly, there was a gaping hole in the front rank, and because of the way the bodies collapsed, they formed a barrier preventing their reliefs from stepping into their spots. Seeing this, understanding what it meant, and what had to be done occurred to Scribonius in the time it takes to blink an eye; of all the Centurions, not just in the 10th, but in the entire army, Sextus Scribonius was by far the smartest man in the ranks. In fact, it could be argued that he was second only to Caesar in the prodigiousness of his brain, but this was something Scribonius exhibited to only a very, very few people. But while it was his brain that told him what needed to be done, the impetus to do it, to leap into the void from the side of the formation where he was standing, came from the same wellspring that had sent Balbus charging headlong into a numerically superior enemy. For, like Balbus, like Pullus and like almost every other Centurion, Scribonius truly loved his men, so there was no hesitation, when, roaring his own challenge, he used his long legs to cross the distance, squeezing himself through the ranks, then ending his progress by hopping over the bodies of the two men to go crashing into the first of the Wa who had stepped into the gap.