There was a storm brewing, and men were looking up to the sky, where thunder rocked the land.
Armin looked at me with spite and touched his blade. “You lived.”
“I lived, Armin,” I told him. “I was run over by a legion and lived.”
He smiled sarcastically. “You lost half your dogs.”
“Your dogs, king,” I said. “They are your men, and the dead fought for you.”
“Aye,” he said unhappily. “You, too, gave the oath? You know which.”
“I have given you an oath,” I told him. “And that oath will hold.”
He smiled with some mockery and rubbed his tired eyes. “The enemy was surprised.”
“It was an open battle,” I told him. “And you hold the field. You won.”
“Rome will claim it was their victory, and still, we did,” he said with some relief. “Now we must crush them.”
I looked at the scouts returning and conveying messages. “What is being done?”
He nodded to the southwest. “As I said, they must take the Pontes Longi. The marshes must be crossed to gain the dry ground. There is some in the middle, and periodically, but they have no way through the woods and paths of the north and west. They cannot get to the Frisii. Tubantes are there to dissuade them from even trying. They have their fleet in the end of Amisia, and they will sail and row some of the legions away north to the sea. We cannot stop them. Some, half, must march back through the long ways.”
“Can they?” I asked.
“They are solidly built,” he said. “They are well built, like Rome builds things, and offer a fast way to escape. However, we know the swamps and can get men before them. We can stop half of them.”
I smiled. “Men.”
“You.” He wanted me dead. He would, from then on. I had punished Thusnelda, as she had tried to betray me, and given Armin his nation, but Donor had made him my enemy.
“Which part has Germanicus with them?” I asked.
He smiled thinly. “The part that leaves through the Pontes Longi. He didn’t like the sea, they say. That’s the part we must take. I shall have the Bructeri and Helm stop them. You help them. It will be a bloody terrible place. It will be a bone-yard of a battle. They will be desperate. They will be hungry for escape, Hraban. Go there and fight. He fears you more than he fears us. We will come together, and you shall stop him. I shall keep your men. Your Gochan is hurt, and I need cavalry. Go with Helm.”
“They are my men; didn’t you say that?” I said.
“No use in the swamp,” he told me. “I’ll send all the Usipetes, Tencteri, and other horsemen to make sure the enemy leaves with their galleys. In here? We must fight with all we can. Show yourself to him, our foe, friend, and frighten him. Take Adalwulf with you. We must hurry.”
I saw Helm, and he was watching me intensely before he turned.
***
The Pontes Longi ran through the swamps, indeed.
They were meant to support a marching Roman army, heavily armored columns of men, and armed with siege machines. Such an army would march with caravans of mules, slaves, and non-combatants. The road was made of sturdy bits of planks, the road staked down over overlapping logs sunk deep, below which were more supporting planks, and the slippery, in places, wholly sunken road was now taking Germanicus, with I Germanica, and V Alaudae, and Auxilia, to safety. Xanten was fifty Roman miles away, and the legions were approaching a several miles wide, relatively sturdy bit of land in the middle of the Pontes Longi.
The Bructeri needed no such land to travel.
We had waded through the shallow parts of the swamp, the parts known only to Germani.
While a Roman army could outpace a Germani one in normal conditions, due to the discipline they have been hammered into each Roman spine by the centurions who had been in wars and terrible places before, we could easily outpace them in the swamps and woods. No women accompanied us, no mules. We carried what food we had, and we were ready for them.
Behind us, over the island in the swamp we were to hold, men were dismantling the sunken road, making it even more unpassable.
I watched Adalwulf, who looked pale. I lifted my eyebrow at him. “How did you lose it?”
He shook his shoulders. “I had it.”
“I asked, how did you lose it?” I repeated, as we stood ankle deep in a morass, and water was falling on our heads, making everyone miserably dirty and wet to the bone. There were Helm and Adalwulf’s men, amounting to some four thousand warriors. All had extra javelins, and men were pushing sharp stakes to the watery mud-hill that overlooked the end of the long bridge the Romans were approaching.
Out there, we could hear Roman trumpets. We heard the commands of the enemy centurions, the men driving the legionnaires forward.
They had not expected to be stopped.
They had to be stopped there. It was our last chance that year. Perhaps ever.
It was the third year of war, and while Germanicus had caused unspeakable destruction to the Chatti, and killed thousands of his enemies, he still lacked all the eagles. He still lacked Armin’s head.
He was out there. He feared the sea, and he wanted to go home to his wife, and this was the place to do it.
There had been no riders, no auxilia, nothing. They were neglectful in their duties, and we would punish them for it. It would be a bloody day for all, but perhaps, this day would determine the war’s end.
Finally.
Take his head. First, find out where Ulrich is. Then, treat with Tiberius for Thusnelda, have him kill Segestes and Segimundus and live in peace.
It could be done.
Kill two legions and auxilia cohorts. All had been spent in battle and bled.
That is all.
Thrice the number of the enemy, thousands of Germani were converging to do just that.
“I tripped on a corpse,” Adalwulf said. “And then they pulled me off, for the enemy was there. I grasped for it, but some wounded bastard hugged it. Centurion.”
I smiled. “And it is not enough that you held it?”
“No.”
I nodded and smiled at him, and then I walked along the Bructeri line, and Adalwulf was following me. Helm was swathed in his cloak, and his Bructeri, long suffering for Roman atrocities, were the force to stop them. They knew what could be done, and how it would avenge all their past sufferings.
They were grim, wet, bloody, and ready, most young men, for the old ones were dead.
I stopped next to him, and he gave me a quick look. I spoke. “Armin asked you to kill me.”
He said nothing.
“Is it not breaking his oaths to ask the Thiuda of the Bructeri for something like this?” I said.
He looked at me. “If he is right, and you influenced the events that led to Thusnelda’s capture, then no oath he gave to you means anything. No, he didn’t ask me to kill you.”
I stared to the march. “I suppose he is now speaking to many people about his thoughts?”
He nodded. “You may leave. Ride away to wherever you sent your son.”
“I will, one day,” I said. “If you order my death, Helm, know I survived a legion.”
He grinned and shook his head. “I am no murderer, Hraban, but I obey Armin. If we survive this, think deep on what you shall do the rest of the year. Chatti might not save you from his wrath. Now, let us hope they hurry up. I want to get some rest after they fail.”
We waited until afternoon.
Then, there were the blasts of the trumpets. They blared in alarm, and I knew Armin’s men had been sighted, marching behind the enemy on the causeways and slipping around them on paths hidden by the murky swamp where we might surprise them.
We waited and then saw cavalry cantering up, remains of some Treveri auxilia unit.
Our men howled. They made the barritus yell, holding their shields before their mouths and howled like wolves, and the sound echoed like the screams of the damned over the swamp.
The enemy faces be
trayed horror and worry, their eyes were wide with terror, their horses were wild-eyed with surprise, and there, in that terrible place, they saw the dryer land under our feet and knew they were around halfway out of the traps and near Alisio, and ultimately, Xanten.
Supplies waited.
Their wives, lovers, and children. There, peace and winter, and long hours of safety beckoned.
The year had not gone as anticipated.
They had surprised Armin, and Armin had surprised them, and the chaotic retreat would not be easy to masquerade as a victory.
A decurion, a long mustached fellow, pointed his spear at us and spoke to a man I couldn’t see.
Was it Germanicus escaping?
They kicked their horses. Many splashed too deep to the swamp, and their riders fell.
It was not Germanicus.
A great majority of the enemy, under the prefect I had seen before, now far less proud, charged forward.
Arrows began striking them as our skirmishing youths and local hunters began their bloody work. Horses fell, whinnying wildly. Men grasped at shafts in their bodies, and then, when they pushed to range, javelins tore to their mass, and many enemy horses crashed down together and fell over each other.
Not one of them reached the stakes before us. Not one tried to, after the third volley of javelins.
The prefect, holding on to his horse’s neck, was howling orders, and then an arrow struck his head, and he was thrown to the marsh.
“Kill them all,” Helm snarled. “All of them. Put them below and send them to Ran.”
The enemy, having lost hundreds, turned on the wooden ways and rode away, looking over their shoulders at the force that was denying them all hope of safety.
Helm smiled, and I nodded at Adalwulf. He grunted and went to his men, and I followed him to fight with them. We were on the middle of the shieldwall.
I looked back at Helm.
He smiled and shrugged.
Bastard.
We were there, crouching, and hoping for quick and easy battle, when we began seeing standards. Coming out of the fog, the V Alaudae was leading the enemy. There, the Aquila gleamed, and fifty standards around it announced the proud warrior’s arrival. The Gaul scouts came first, appearing out of the fog, leading Roman infantry and centurions, and we all saw how they pointed swords towards us.
Helm nodded. “Get ready!”
His men again lifted their shields before their mouths, all wet and paint running on the hide, and began howling. They howled like wolves, long, seemingly unending, ferocious wails that echoed across the moors, making us seem like ten thousand.
The centurions saw us, cursed, and rushed back.
Soon, not moments after, we heard a familiar tone, as a trumpet announced an attack. We heard cohorts running. The shields were flashing, and men were cursing, and the enemy pushed from the fog to our sight, their helmets bronze and iron, their centurion’s feathers wet and some with drenched horse-hair running along the metal.
“Forward!” yelled a burly man, a primus pilus, the first centurion of the legion, stepping to the side.
The first cohort, greatly reduced by the battle before, came roaring forward.
They surged to the horse corpses and swarmed over them.
Helm rose.
Men wordlessly began throwing javelins at the mass of the enemy. They landed in flesh, in shields, in chain and ring mail, toppling a hundred Romans on their back and faces. More and more landed on the foe, and then, far too soon, we were out of such weapons.
The Romans, eyes wild, clawed their way over the corpses, brave to the bone, brave as the gods themselves, they came at us up a muddy hillside.
They came in column and the ranks spread out as they gained the wet, more solid ground and bashed their way forward, through the stakes, a few impaling themselves as they failed to see them, and then Helm roared his orders. “Push them back! Shields out, spear and club, ax and sword!”
The Bructeri obeyed. The best men of their tribes, they rushed forward to meet the enemy in a milling battle.
We went with them, in the middle.
We rushed downhill, the enemy up, and what followed was death to Rome. Adalwulf and I advanced, hacking down on Romans straggling in mud and water below. We toppled them over, we jumped on them, hacking down, stabbing with spears and the nimble framea. We were sawing our blades on their throats, necks and faces, and we pushed with the Bructeri. The enemy fell back to the watery ways below, losing several centurions. There, they were crushed between us and the men pushing up the bridge
I saw Germanicus, sitting on a horse, far in the fog.
He stared at me with horrified look on his face, and I spat his way.
His leading legate, Caecina, was howling at the men, and trumpeters were going mad, men obeying as best they could.
They fed men to our weapons.
For an hour, we killed and held the Romans until our spears were spent, and swords and axes nicked and dull. Their men began lobbing pila over the shoulders of the first rankers, and we took those weapons and lobbed them back, often when they were cracked and broken. There were men tossing stones, and the massive blockage held the foe in place still.
In that place, I was attacked.
The enemy had thrown our columns and shieldwall into chaos. They were pushing, clawing and battering us. They were between our troops, pulling shields away and falling.
In a ferocious battle where there were romans behind us, I was nearly cut off.
I was stepping back, and back to our groups, when a club struck my back, and I fell headlong into Roman century. I staggered up amid the bewildered legionnaires, each shoving each other, and then I was dodging and dancing in mud and looked behind.
I saw Horse-Arse and Grip, the latter with sword and shield, and the former with a sword looking at me.
Helm had promised to look away. Not to kill me.
I fought for my life. Gladii were stabbing at me from all over. My shield was rent and torn, and I bled as the sword tore to my leg. I lifted the Red Wolf, and swung it at the closest man, and left him howling, face split. I stabbed at another man, and then they pushed me on my back. Pila was reaching for my face and splashed next to my throat. I kicked and slashed around and sawed my blade in a thigh.
Three romans fell back, holding arrow shafts that had pierced them.
A Germani appeared to fight over me, and another pulled me back.
I roared, and got to my feet, shoving them away. “Where are you, you mud-fucking bastards! Come here!” I howled and turned. I saw my two enemies standing before me.
Grip came at me with the sword. “Die already!” he hissed. “You just have to die.” He stabbed fast and my shield fell apart. Horse-Arse was swinging a club at me, and I parried, and we were dancing before bewildered romans and our men.
Horse-arse roared as he tried to push me back, and then pila landed around us. One took Horse-Arse in the chest, and Grip was staring at the man in horror.
I let go of my shield and reached out to his hair. His sword swung at my helmet, and I laughed at him with mockery and pushed him to the legionnaires. He fell amid them, screaming as they stabbed at him and didn’t get up.
Men charged to cover me, and I watched the two corpses.
Armin? Armin asked them? Or did they do it on their own?
Then, I had no more time to ponder it. To the right of us, a group of a hundred desperate legionnaires hacked down a chief, Helm’s relative. They pulled him from the shieldwall and sawed his neck with a gladius. There, they push past the first ranks, to the middle of our wall, fighting to gain ground, and turned to the sides, losing many to the long spears of the Bructeri, but men were pushing through them and overlapping our center and far right. That far right was suddenly overrun by dozens of legionnaires.
Adalwulf pulled me, and I cursed and left the ranks. We took ten men with us, as our back rankers pushed to fill the hole we left behind.
We ran to the right and came
to see a centurion with a signifier holding a proud standard, a bronze hand of an elite, heroic century in the middle of the torn Bructeri ranks.
A hundred or more of the enemy were trying to get through the rallying Bructeri, but that man would reverse Roman fortunes. His men were cheering him wildly. He stood over two dead, half-naked champions and had killed both.
I snarled and leaped forward with Adalwulf, and we crashed into a bloodied line of legionnaires and the centurion, as well as a young tribune who had just pushed his horse past our dying lines. That man was howling and snarling and dismounted nimbly like an old cavalryman, and I went for him. I slipped past two legionnaires, pushed over the centurion to Adalwulf’s blade, and bashed my blade down on the young tribune. He dodged and slashed his blade back so fast, it struck my helmet, drawing sparks.
I dodged under his blade and pushed the sword through his side, through his armor, and we fell down together. I got up, saw a legate approaching with more men, Caecina himself, his gray eyebrows bloodied, and we threw ourselves there to stop them. The Bructeri were shifting, moving, Helm was screaming, and I didn’t hear them. Adalwulf was next to me, his blade sawing on flesh and throats in the press, unable to hack at the foe, and we were both roaring, our men brave around us, swimming in a sea of enemy armor. We pushed and held our shields before us, and for one hour more, we held Rome back.
Then, Helm, with half his men gone, blew the horn, and the Bructeri fled.
It was evening, it was very late, and we turned and left our dead and wounded, and ran back across miles of wet, firmer ground.
Helm had mangled his hand, and his cousin was carrying him.
We rushed forward, and then, when the ground ended, we crashed to the watery swamp and waded across to the last part of the Pontes Longi, so long ago perfected by Ahenobarbus, to where men had not torn it apart yet.
There, Helm snarled at his men to turn.
It was dark, and torches were being carried forth from the hilly land. Trumpets were still blaring in the swamps, and men were howling orders. Again, Gaul cavalry, what remained, approached us, and their faces betrayed the death of hope, the loss of reason, the knowledge there would be another battle.
The Summer Sword Page 32
