Hostage to Fortuna

by R. W. Peake

  “Get back in the fight,” I growled, uselessly, but I believe the fact that I was pointing the spatha in his face got my message across.

  This was all the time I spent, and now Tincommius was a dozen paces ahead of me, forcing me to break into an all-out run to catch up, counting on him being forced to slow a bit as he skirted the roaring fire, where a dozen townsmen were frantically dipping leather buckets into one of the barrels in a desperate attempt to contain the blaze. I caught up with him just as he was skirting the burning houses, and even essentially pressed up against the wall, the heat was so intense that afterward I discovered all of the hair of my right arm had been singed off. In the dark, when one is trying to look beyond a source of light, especially of the size of this fire, it is practically impossible to determine what is taking place on the other side. I bring this up because this was why both Tincommius and I plunged headlong into the kind of fight it would have been better to approach more judiciously to pick a spot where we could be of use. Although I had closed the gap, Tincommius was still a couple of paces ahead of me, so he had to confront a Brigantes spearman who had seen him coming first. Even for an experienced warrior, it is next to impossible to respond appropriately when forced to go from a run at full speed to standing and fighting, and Tincommius did not even try. Aside from twisting his torso to get past the spear thrust from his opponent, he did not slow down, slamming into the Brigantes’ shield with all of his weight and sending the man reeling backwards.

  My initial intention was to help Tincommius, but not only did he not need it, my arrival had alerted the comrades of this Brigantes warrior, one of them charging directly at me with a bellow, his spear held at shoulder height, signaling his intention of an overhand thrust. In the eyeblink of time I had, I saw that this was a beardless youth, brave but inexperienced. Because of the distance between us, he had moved his shield out from in front of him to pick up speed, clearly intending to bring it back just before he launched his thrust, which is always when a warrior is at his most vulnerable. It is a good maneuver, and it can be very effective because his enemy is forced to choose between trying to dodge the spearpoint plunging at him or brace himself for the impact of a broad wooden shield smashing into him. Unarmored and unencumbered with a shield as I was, the wise thing for me to do was to use my superior maneuverability to dodge to one side or the other in an attempt to outflank him as his momentum carried him past me. However, as my mother Giulia has pointed out more than once, nobody has ever uttered my name and “wisdom” in the same breath, unless it is to comment on my lack of it, which I suppose is why I took a step forward instead of to either side. What I do know was that I was counting on my size and strength, if only because I have done so all of my life going back to boyhood, and in this moment, there were two practical effects. The first was that my stepping forward threw off the timing of this Brigantes youth—I doubt he was more than seventeen—and most importantly, it brought him within range of my spatha in the fraction of an eyeblink before he was going to move his shield in front of him. It ruined his aim so that his spear punched into the empty space where I had been, although I did have to lean slightly to the right to avoid it, which led to the second effect, the two of us colliding bodily together as he essentially killed himself by running onto the point of my spatha. I had thrown my left hand out so that my palm hit his chest when there was still about a half-arm’s length between us, and while I had braced myself by moving one foot backward and bent my knees, I still slid back a half-step. I did not keep him from running all the way up to the hilt of my spatha out of any sense of mercy but so that I could essentially steer his body away from me as I withdrew the blade. As far as the fact that I did not perform the standard movement of twisting or ripping the blade across his body—as I recall, he was only wearing boiled leather with iron rings sewn to it—I suppose was because his eyes never left mine as I killed him, wearing an expression that I have seen more times than I can easily count. It is a look that every victorious fighting man has seen at some point, one of disbelief more than pain, the sudden shock that comes with the realization by your foe that he is drawing his last breaths, and more than anything, the lingering question; why did you do this to me? In that moment, I barely noticed; indeed, I was already preparing for the next Brigantes to attack even as my blade slid from his body and he collapsed at my feet. It is only later that images like this boy’s face return to me, usually in the night after a fight. The fact that there were two men, side by side who were approaching me ensured that the youth was nowhere in my mind, not only because there were two men, but they were not rushing up to me, which I assumed was because they had just seen me dispatch one of their comrades.

  These men were older, and since my back was to the fire, they were fully illuminated, and I saw the milky white eye and partially missing nose of the warrior to my left, but it was the man next to him I paid attention to because, for the first time to this point, he was not only wearing mail armor, he was wielding a gladius, marking him as a high-ranking man of the Brigantes tribe. This seemed to be confirmed when he snapped something, and his comrade immediately began shuffling to my left, separating himself and placing me in more danger. Their slower approach did give me an opportunity to perform a quick scan of this part of the town at the southeastern corner of Petuar, and I was dismayed to see that not only had the Brigantes effected a breach, enough of them had poured through to push Ivomagus and some of the men back out of sight around the corner of the last building at the southeastern corner. Besides Tincommius and me, I counted about a dozen Parisii who were the only thing keeping the Brigantes still on the eastern street from rushing north towards the river to fall on the flank of the men defending the eastern gate.

  When the first warrior moved, it was not the man to my left as I had anticipated, my assumption being that this nobleman would want the glory of killing the large barbarian who was so arrogant he was not even wearing any armor, by having his lower-ranking comrade launch a diversion first, but it was the nobleman who began. Fortunately, however, his attack was essentially the same as that of every barbarian of every tribe I had encountered when using their version of the gladius: a high, overhead attack where the attacker brings their blade down in an attempt to split their foe down the middle. For a man in the ranks of the Legions, this is one of the simplest attacks to counter by simply raising the shield so that it is parallel with the blade in order to spread the force evenly. For a Centurion, it is more difficult, but for a Centurion whose only protection is his tunic, and using a weapon that he has not handled in some time? If I was forced to wager on the outcome, I would not have bet on the Centurion. This time, I did exactly what I should have done with my first opponent, except that I threw myself to my right, which put my spatha out of range, but if I had gone in the opposite direction, I was certain I would have taken a spear through the side from the warrior to my left. My foe did react quickly, and he managed to stop his downward stroke before it struck the ground, while keeping his shield up in position, pulled in tightly against his body, but I had no intention of attacking yet.

  When I dodged to the right, I simply kept going, essentially circling the nobleman in an attempt to throw him off balance as he was forced to pivot. I could not make even a half revolution because it would place me with my back to the thin line of Parisii struggling with those Brigantes who had not pushed Ivomagus down the southern street, and if one of them fell during my fight, I was likely to get a spear through the back. The nobleman spun about on one foot, taking advantage of both the length of his blade and the fact that he had managed to arrest its downward movement at about waist level, changing the direction of his attack with an impressive speed. I leaned back at the waist just enough, though I felt a tug around my waist as his blade swept past me, giving me less than an eyeblink of an advantage, because there was an instant where his own blade was between his shield and me. My response was to violate the rule about keeping at least one foot planted on the ground at all times,
but it was for a good reason, and I suppose that it might have looked like I was leaping across a ditch, so that my left foot hit the ground at least two paces from where I had been standing. Most importantly, it placed my torso about even with the nobleman’s gladius hand so that, even if he had responded in time with a backhand slash, no part of his blade would have touched me. I did not only use my legs, because as I made this jump, I brought my spatha up and across my body, which is not a position that is taught in the Legions, then reversed the movement and brought it down and back with all of my strength, aiming for the junction of his neck and shoulder, just above the chain mail. I was trying to decapitate him, and I will insist with my last breath that, if I had had a better quality blade, his head would have gone tumbling into the air; instead, it almost got me killed when it struck the bones of his neck and became lodged there, so that when he fell back away, his blood spurting straight up into the air before falling back in a warm, sticky shower on my face, his body weight pulled me somewhat off balance, causing me to stumble slightly.

  Perhaps the only positive thing was that I was facing in the right direction to see the spear-wielding warrior, his mustachioed face twisted in a savage grin of hateful triumph as he drew his spear back, the point aimed directly at my face. He was well within reach, and despite the fact I saw it coming, there was no way I could have dodged this time because of the awkward position I was in. Oh, perhaps I could have twisted my body so the wound would not be immediately mortal, but it would have been damaging enough to make it an easy task to finish me off. There was not even time to begin a prayer to Dis, yet when the thrust did come, it not only missed, it was done with so little power that the spear blade glanced off my shoulder, only tearing my tunic. It is probably no surprise I only had eyes for that spear, so it took an eyeblink for my mind to register there had been a change, and another one to determine what it meant, beginning when I noticed that the Brigantes, whose eyes had been locked on me, suddenly seemed interested in something else, his head dropping down, a puzzled expression on his face. Following his gaze, I was too late to actually see the spearpoint protruding from just below his breastbone, just the aftermath as blood poured out of the wound. He dropped to his knees, giving me my first look at Tincommius, who had brought the spear back to the ready position by the time the man toppled over. I wasted no time in wrenching the spatha from the neck of the nobleman, although I had to put one foot on his corpse to do it, but I suspect that the span of time from when my spatha struck to this moment was no more than two or three normal heartbeats. Just as Tincommius had done with me, I used the spatha to indicate the blood dripping from his spear.

  “Brigantes blood. Good!” I said with a grin.

  “Brigantes blood.” This time, he used the Latin word for it, nodding. “Good.”

  We took the moment to get a better idea of the overall situation, and it was immediately apparent that we were in serious trouble. We could see that the Brigantes still along the eastern street had been put there as a delaying force only, while the largest group of the enemy had managed to push Ivomagus and his group of defenders back down the northernmost street running parallel to the river, but without being able to get near the corner, it was impossible to tell how far they had retreated. This was bad, but it got worse when, from behind us at the eastern gate where I had started, there was a sudden uproar, over and above the noise of the fighting, and if I have to describe it, it was the same bellow of triumph that I had just heard from my recently dead foe, but multiplied by what sounded like a few hundred voices.

  “Pluto’s cock! They’re trying to cut off our ways to escape!”

  Tincommius said something at the exact time, and while I never had the opportunity to ask him through Ivomagus or Bronwen, I am certain that he was saying the same thing. And, to his eternal credit, he was the one who reacted first. Rather than say anything, he grabbed my sleeve as he began moving quickly, but back in the direction of the eastern gate, which brought me to a stop.

  “Are you mad?” I gasped, then pointed to where, even obscured by the light of the fire, we could clearly see a swarm of movement in a much larger number than the forty-odd men who had been left at the gate. “We can’t go that direction, Tincommius!”

  He shook his head and shouted something at me…but resumed heading in that direction, and I was certain that he was about to launch himself into a suicidal charge in some mad quest to attain glory among his people. As unpalatable as it was, I also knew I could not afford to be on my own, so with a bitter curse, I headed after him. Just before he reached the nearest of the buildings that were burning, he stopped, turned to see if I was following, then beckoned to me, just before he vanished by seemingly walking into a wall. Of course, he did not; only when I got to the spot did I notice the space between the pair of buildings, something that had escaped my attention before this. However, while it was a space, it was only by exhaling as I turned sideways that I could manage to squeeze myself into it, instantly fighting a sense of panic. So far, it is still the most acutely uncomfortable moment of my life, and even as it was happening, I recalled reading in the Prefect’s account that he had a similar fear of being enclosed like this.

  Consequently, I sidestepped as quickly as I could, unable to draw a full breath, and what little air I could draw in was so foul because, as my feet confirmed, the townspeople who lived in these buildings dumped their cac here. It was close to absolute darkness, but I could hear Tincommius panting a few feet ahead of me, then it became a bit lighter when he emerged out onto the next street that ran parallel to the eastern wall. My head was swimming by the time I reached the end of the gap, and I had to pause a moment take enough air in to clear it. Tincommius had stayed next to the wall, and I joined him to stare north, but we quickly determined that the movement we were seeing had to be Brigantes because they were moving from our left to right, meaning that they were hurrying to join the fight, which was obviously a block deeper in the town. Tincommius dashed across the muddy street to the opposite side, then moved a building south; when I reached the spot, there was another gap that allowed us to move to the next street perpendicular to the river that, while it was narrow enough that I had to turn sideways, it was only partially. When we got to this next street, we immediately knew we had reached the spot where the fighting was still going on because of the noise, and even as I stepped out into the open, there was a shrill cry of agony, although it was impossible to know whether it came from a Parisii or a Brigantes. Tincommius still led the way, but I was happy to see that he was a bit more judicious, not dashing headlong down the street to join the fight, though he did move at a rapid pace that was not quite a trot. I followed him after I paused to turn and look south towards the river, trying to determine if the Brigantes who had forced the eastern gate were this deep into the town, but I could see no movement of any kind. It was as I was turning back around when another shout sounded above the clashing metal, and while as usual I did not understand the words, I recognized the voice as belonging to Ivomagus. And the quality of his cry made me break into a run.

  Being ahead of me, Tincommius was the first to rush up to where Ivomagus had somehow gotten himself isolated and was now with his back pressed up to the last hut on the righthand side of this street, surrounded by several Brigantes. The warrior nearest us understandably reacted first to Tincommius’ approach, and without any hesitation, he launched himself in a rushing attack at the Parisii. Probably because he was concerned with the more immediate threat of Tincommius, the Brigantes had not even glanced in my direction, a couple paces closer to the righthand side of the street and about four paces behind Tincommius. The Parisii easily blocked the spear thrust, catching the point with his shield, but despite my intention of coming to Tincommius’ aid as he had come to mine just moments earlier, Ivomagus gave another shout. While I did not see the blow, I saw the result as the king’s brother dropped to his knees, and while he was still trying to keep his shield up, the gladius-wielding warrior attacking h
im brought his blade down in a bashing blow. There was no technique; this Brigantes, sensing the kill was near, was relying on brute strength and fury to batter down Ivomagus’ shield, raining blow after blow, intent on one thing and one thing only. This was why he was the easiest kill to that moment, my blade punching right under his right armpit, causing him to vomit blood and turn his head to stare at me in shocked surprise as I used my foot to kick him off my blade.

  Ivomagus was trying to get to his feet, except that he was knocked down again, but by me as I snarled, “Stay on your fucking knees and give me your shield!”

  He did sink back to his knees, but I cannot actually say whether he handed me his shield or I took it from him. What mattered was that it was just in time for me to thrust it across my body to block the spear thrust that originated from the warrior to Ivomagus’ far right, which was clearly aimed at the king’s brother. It was a powerful thrust, and our situation was not helped by the fact that this was a flat round shield, because most of what little practice I have had with a shield is with the curved rectangular Legion shield. In fact, even in this moment, I recalled that the last time I had even attempted to use a flat shield was at the Angrivarian Wall, and I had discarded it almost as quickly as I had picked it up. Not this time, however, and while the spearpoint of the first attacker bit deeply into the wood, he withdrew it cleanly to prepare for another attempt, but I was already moving the shield back across my body because of the movement at the corner of my vision that gave me just enough warning there was another attack coming from a different direction. Even as I tried to piece it together later, I could not determine how I knew to drop my shield lower than would normally be considered wise, nor do I know if the Brigantes spearman was deliberately trying to hamstring me, but I certainly was happy about the outcome as, for a second time, I caught the thrust with my shield. If anything, this thrust had even more power behind it, and I glimpsed the point of the spear protruding from the back. Consequently, I did not hesitate, twisting my wrist, discovering one of the advantages of a round shield because of its balance. By doing so, I bound the spearpoint in a manner that I suppose was similar to how my spatha got stuck in the bones of the Brigantes nobleman’s neck. Naturally, when he could not recover the spear cleanly, he gave it a yank, but this time, I had seen Tincommius coming, and this warrior paid for his stubbornness in trying to retrieve his weapon with his life. And then, there were only four Brigantes left, and with our arrival, the odds had shifted dramatically, which they clearly recognized because, without any hesitation, they backed away, moving up the street towards the northern street as we stood there watching. Once they were a safe distance away, I yanked the spear out of the shield then handed it to Ivomagus, who had climbed to his feet, but he refused to meet my gaze, nor would he look at Tincommius.