by Ben Kane
That raised a chuckle from some.
Tullus arrived then, as he so often did, out of nowhere. There was no sign of Degmar, his Marsi servant, but that didn’t surprise Piso. Like as not, he was off scouting somewhere. The horsehair crest of Tullus’ helmet had sagged down to either side, like an old man who combs his hair down the middle, and his cloak was soaked, same as everyone else’s, but his confident demeanour remained. ‘Men,’ he said by way of greeting.
‘Sir.’ Piso and the rest began to rise, but Tullus waved them back into their positions.
‘There’s no need to move. You look too comfortable.’ The legionaries managed a dutiful laugh, and he smiled. It didn’t last, though. Piso felt a tickle of unease as Tullus’ expression became grim. ‘You’re staying alert?’
‘Aye, sir.’ ‘Of course, sir.’ ‘You can rely on us, sir.’
A stern nod. ‘Good. Forget about Long Nose making the mistake with the bear. If you see anything unusual this afternoon, shout! I want the men at the front of the damn column to hear. There’ll be no reprimand if it’s a false alarm, I promise you. I’d rather know about something I don’t need to worry about than the other way round, if you get my drift.’
Piso wondered forever afterwards how Tullus could have timed his advice better.
Without warning, a shoal of spears flew out of the trees to their left, whipping into Piso’s vision as a blur of long, black streaks. A heartbeat later, a similar cloud was hurled from the right. Next came a succession of loud cracks, which was followed by a rain of slingstones, whizzing towards the Romans like so many angry bees. Caught unprepared, without their shields, legionaries were struck down in their dozens. Two of Piso’s contubernium slumped dead into the mud, without even the chance to cry out. A spear slammed into the tree behind him; another thumped into the ground by Afer’s feet. Behind Tullus, a legionary uttered a surprised ‘Ohhhh’ as his forehead was smashed by a stone; he dropped like a discarded child’s puppet. Piso and his comrades gaped, not believing what they were seeing.
Not far off, a mule brayed. It wasn’t the normal, complaining sound, but a deep, distressed cry. Another mule joined in, and then another, mixing with the screams and cries of men that filled the air around them.
Piso felt numb, nauseous, paralysed.
Tullus was on his feet, gesturing. ‘Up, you maggots, if you want to live! Grab your fucking shields!’
Guts churning with fear, expecting a spear between the shoulder blades, Piso scrambled towards his scutum. Uncaring that he had no time to take off the leather cover, he lifted it and faced to his left. Fresh fear coursed through him as another volley of spears hummed in from behind, from the trees on the other side. Fresh slingshots poured in as well, from the left, from the right, from above. Ten paces away, a legionary went down, roaring for his mother.
‘Pair up with another man,’ bawled Tullus, who was standing, shieldless, in the middle of the track. ‘Stand back to back – protect one another. Keep your heads down! MOVE!’
Piso shoved himself up against Afer, while Vitellius and Long Nose did the same alongside. Just doing that was respite of a kind, although they still weren’t wearing their helmets. Piso watched, amazed, as Tullus stalked up and down, ordering men to join them and form a line. He seemed oblivious to the spears raining down around him, and his calmness transferred in some measure at least to those he confronted. Little by little, man by man, the line began to take shape. As the storm of spears and stones eased, it became a solid file, perhaps thirty paired legionaries, facing both ways towards the once gloomy, now deadly forest.
Another scatter of spears flew out of the trees, wounding one soldier and killing an injured man.
There was a loud crack as a slinger released, and a last stone streaked into sight, thunking harmlessly into a tree.
No more followed.
‘Steady, brothers,’ cried Tullus. ‘It’s not over.’
The stunned legionaries glanced at their comrades, at the widespread carnage. Bodies were strewn everywhere: face down in the mud, staring blankly at the grey sky, propped against tree trunks, sprawled over each other. The spears that had silenced their banter forever protruded from their flesh at jaunty angles, like so many hedgehog spines. They stuck into the air from the mud and poked out from tree trunks: frameae, fearsome weapons that every Roman recognised. Their shafts varied in length from that of a man’s arm to one and a half times his height, and their short, sharp iron blades delivered a mortal wound with ease. Of the stones that had hammered down, there was less sign. Most had vanished into the mud, but occasional examples lay by the men they had slain, innocuous-looking shiny lumps of rock no bigger than hen’s eggs.
Tullus’ voice broke the silence, giving the legionaries something to do. ‘Ease forward, careful like. Pick up your helmets and any javelins that you can, then back to where you were.’
As Piso and his comrades started to obey, a fearful humming began. It rose from the mouths of hundreds of hidden warriors on either side, a deep buzzing sound that made the skin crawl.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM! On and on it went, until every hair on the back of Piso’s neck stood up. The terrifying sound ebbed and flowed, growing louder and louder each time, as the waves of a rising tide smash with growing intensity off a cliff. At length, it became a deep-throated roar, a swelling shout that even threatened to drown out the sounds of the injured legionaries and the mules.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM!
Piso grabbed his helmet, and a javelin, and shot back to where he’d been standing. His comrades were close behind him.
The noise continued unabated for what seemed like an eternity. Just when Piso thought it could get no worse, the singing warriors began to clatter their weapons off the iron rims and bosses of their shields. CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! The metallic banging melded with their war cry in terrifying unison.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
Piso felt an overwhelming need to shit, and he clenched his buttocks tight. Beside him, he heard a man vomit. The tang of fresh piss reached his nostrils a moment later. Wails of fear were rising from elsewhere, and the line of legionaries began to waver.
‘If we break, we’re fucked,’ hissed Afer. ‘Stay where you are.’
Grateful to be told what to do, Piso obeyed. The legionary three men along hadn’t heard, however, or was too scared to listen. He stepped out of line, naked terror contorting his face. ‘They’ll kill us all!’
Tullus was on him like a snake coming up out of a burrow on an unsuspecting mouse. Crack! His vitis struck the soldier in a flurry of blows – against his helmet, twice, on his chest, over his shoulders. For good measure, Tullus delivered a whack across the face that raised a massive red weal on the man’s cheek. ‘GET BACK, YOU FUCKING MAGGOT!’ he roared. ‘INTO LINE, BEFORE I GUT YOU MYSELF!’
Cowed, shame-faced, the legionary retreated. Tullus gave him a withering look before his eyes, stony cold, raked the rest of the soldiers. Few dared meet his gaze. As if the enemy wanted to listen to Tullus, the chanting and hammering of weapons died away. ‘That was their war cry, you useless shower of limp-pricks!’ yelled Tullus. ‘It’s called the barritus, in case you didn’t know. Yes, it’s bloodcurdling. Yes, it’s terrifying. Yes, you think you’re going to die when you hear it.’ Tullus stalked fast along the line, eyeballing them in turn. ‘SO FUCKING WHAT? YOU ARE SOLDIERS OF ROME! OF FUCKING ROME! WHAT DO YOU CARE FOR THE SCREECHING OF A HORDE OF STINKING BARBARIANS? EH? EH?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ shouted Afer.
Tullus bounded back to stand in front of Afer. ‘What’s that? I can’t hear you!’
‘NOTHING, SIR. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, SIR.’
A pitiless smile split Tullus’ face. ‘That’s right. We don’t give a SHIT about them and their fucking war cry, do we? DO WE?’
‘NO, SIR!’ Piso and the rest roared at him.
Tullus had a shield in one fist now, and a sword in the other. With fierce intensity, he began
to beat the blade off the iron rim. At the same time, he chanted, ‘ROMA! ROMA! ROMA!’
The legionaries copied him. A little further down the line, Piso heard Fenestela take up the cry, and encourage his men to do the same. Every time the sound was repeated, the soldiers’ fear leached away a little, to be replaced if not by courage, then by resolve. When Tullus was content that they had steadied, he ceased his hammering. Piso and his comrades did the same, muttering encouragements to each other, things like, ‘We’ll show the bastards what for.’ ‘Let them come!’ ‘Dirty savages!’
‘Ready, my brothers,’ said Tullus, from his new position in the centre of the line, facing to the right of the road. ‘They might still charge.’
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Nothing happened. There was no barrage of spears and stones. The Germans’ barritus was not sung again, nor were their shields battered with weapons. The legionaries began to share uncertain looks. If their attackers had not vanished, what in Hades were they doing?
Again Tullus stepped into the breach. ‘This is all part of the whoresons’ plan. They’ve gone, for now. Starting with you’ – and he pointed at the first legionary in the line – ‘every second man is to remain in position. Every other man is to break rank, and see to the injured. Move!’
Piso left the defensive formation with reluctance, but his attention was soon taken up by his injured comrades, many of whom were in urgent need of care. The luckier ones, with bruised ribs and limbs from slingshots, or flesh wounds from spears that had struck glancing blows, were able to look after themselves. Supervised by a prowling Tullus, and directed by a lone orderly who’d appeared, Piso and his comrades made the casualties as comfortable as was possible in the wet, dirty conditions. It was clear that some men would not make it, and Piso grew used to seeing the orderly giving them long pulls from his flask of poppy juice. His mind was quick to turn from the fate of the wounded to his own, and his comrades’. Their attackers, whoever they were, had gone, but they might well return. The army was yet at a standstill. Fresh fear licked at Piso’s spine. They were like a shoal of fish, left by the ebbing tide in a tiny rock pool: easy prey.
‘What are we going to do, sir?’ he asked the next time Tullus came striding by.
‘We’re waiting for orders,’ replied Tullus. A shadow flickered across his face. ‘We’ll be told to get moving, and find a place to camp. Making plans about what to do will be easier behind fortifications.’
Afer joined in. ‘Was it the Angrivarii who attacked us, sir?’
The darkness passed again over Tullus’ face, but Piso still had no idea what was going through his centurion’s mind. ‘That’s what many will say,’ said Tullus. He walked off. ‘Be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’
Piso eyed Afer. ‘What’s up with him?’
‘No bloody idea. What matters is that he’s here, eh?’
‘Aye,’ replied Piso with feeling. Rumours had reached them from down the column of heavy casualties among other units, of dead centurions, foundered wagons and widespread panic among the non-combatants. Whatever they had suffered here was mild by comparison, and it was attributable in the main to Tullus. ‘May the gods keep him safe.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Vitellius, raising his eyes to the grey, cloud-covered heavens.
If the gods heard their prayers, they were not interested. Heavy rain began to fall once more, pouring down on their upturned faces in torrents and increasing the already deep gloom. Lightning flashed deep within the clouds, once, twice, thrice. A few heartbeats later, there was an ominous rumble of thunder.
It was hard not to think that Jupiter was angry with them, thought Piso, seeing his own unspoken disquiet mirrored in his friends’ faces.
Piso had not thought his dislike of the forest could escalate, but in the sodden, bloody hours that followed, he grew to loathe it with every fibre of his being. It became the limits of the Romans’ world. Dense, green, dripping with moisture, it appeared to go on forever, mile upon mile of beeches, hornbeams, oaks and trees Piso didn’t even recognise. Tall ones, shorter ones, thick-trunked and thin-, gnarled, diseased, aged and saplings, they stood side by side, in disapproving legions of their own, sentinels at the entrance to another world. At times, it seemed to Piso that they were watching the sweating, tired legionaries. That was a most uncomfortable feeling, inviting thoughts of malign forest spirits, druids and blood sacrifice.
Rare breaks in the endless treeline included areas of bog and the damnable streams and rivers that had to be forded. The dangers posed by the former were played out in grisly detail when a mule that had broken away from its handler charged headlong into the middle of a patch, where it sank at once to its hocks. Braying with indignation, it struggled to get free, succeeding only in burying itself to its belly. Further frantic efforts saw it end up chest deep in the mud. Its plight attracted the attention of everyone within sight, but nobody moved to help it. Grateful that they were not the ones trapped, many soldiers hurled insults at the unfortunate beast. Piso considered throwing a javelin at it, to try and end its misery before it endured a slow death by drowning, but his aim wasn’t good enough, and if Tullus or Fenestela saw him ‘wasting’ a weapon, there’d be hell to pay. And as Afer reminded him, it was a damn mule, not a man.
The watercourses were less perilous than the bog, but there was still ample opportunity to trip and fall thanks to the moss-covered, slimy rocks lining their banks, and the difficulty in negotiating them carrying shield, javelins and unwieldy yoke. A legionary in the contubernium ahead of Piso and his comrades slipped and broke a leg, and others sprained ankles or bloodied their kneecaps. As the cursing soldiers reminded one another, they were fortunate not to be in charge of any vehicles. ‘The poor bastards with the artillery must be cursing Fortuna high and low. Imagine trying to heave a fucking wagon with a ballista on the back of it through this,’ said Vitellius during the crossing of the deepest stream yet.
Their relative ‘good luck’ did nothing for Piso’s flagging spirits. They had covered perhaps a mile in the previous hour.
Without warning, their attackers reappeared, like invisible wraiths. Once again, the first indication of trouble was when volleys of spears and sling bullets began landing among the legionaries. Curses mixed with cries of pain. Unperturbed, Tullus ordered an immediate volley of javelins to one side of the track, and then the other. Not every soldier had two pila remaining – many had been discarded or lost at the site of the previous ambush – and their ragged effort lacked its usual power, but the screams that rose when the missiles landed was proof that they had at last inflicted casualties on the enemy.
A ragged cheer went up, but Piso wasn’t alone in being relieved when Tullus ordered them to continue marching rather than standing their ground. ‘There’s no fucking point in waiting to be killed,’ he bellowed. ‘We keep moving. Somewhere, there’ll be a spot where we can build a camp.’
No one argued. Leaving the three dead soldiers where they had fallen, and hauling the handful of wounded along as best they could, the legionaries trudged on. The men on either side used their shields to protect those in the middle. Frameae and stones were still able to come in from above, but that was a danger that had to be borne. Their waterlogged scuta were so heavy that walking with them raised beyond head level was impossible for more than twenty paces.
It didn’t take the enemy long to exploit this weakness. Raising the barritus again, they threw their spears up in steep-angled arcs, which sent them scudding down into the midst of the bunched Romans, where they could not miss. Two such volleys had half a dozen legionaries down, dead or injured. Cursing, Tullus ordered the men in the centre to discard their yokes and raise their shields in defence. He kept them walking, but their progress on the narrow track slowed down to snail’s pace thanks to the weight of their scuta, and the number of casualties that they were supporting or carrying.
HUUUUMMMMMMMM! HUUUUMMMMMMMM!HUUUUMMMMMM
MM! A heartbeat’s pause, then: CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! It was repeated over and over.
Piso wished he could block his ears to the chilling sounds, wished he could confront the men who were killing them. At least then they could fight back. All he could see, however, were shadowy figures deep within the trees. Pursuing them would be suicide.
‘Keep moving, you stupid fucking bastards!’ shouted Tullus at the soldiers in front, who had halted again.
‘Our centurion’s been hit, sir,’ shouted a legionary in their midst.
‘Keep your shields up,’ Tullus ordered his men. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
Piso and his comrades watched in disbelief as Tullus walked, casual as a man taking a stroll through the forum, around the side of the unit before them. The instant that their attackers saw his horsehair-crested helmet, they began hurling spears and stones.
Piso couldn’t watch. He closed his eyes and prayed: Mars, protect him, please.
To his astonishment, Tullus sauntered back not long after. A few paces from his men’s shield wall, he even paused to make obscene gestures at the forest, and their hidden attackers. ‘Fuck you,’ he shouted in German. ‘And your pox-ridden mothers!’
His legionaries let out a loud cheer.
Angry cries rose from the trees, and a fresh shower of stones and spears were thrown. There was a loud clang as a sling bullet struck Tullus in the back, on his mail shirt. Piso heard the centurion let out a short grunt, but Tullus swaggered back into his position at the front of their formation. The legionaries closed ranks with him at once.
‘You all right, sir?’ asked Afer, his face creased with concern.
‘Aye,’ said Tullus, wincing now that he was out of sight of their enemies. ‘I’ll have a fine bruise, but that’s it.’ The soldiers in front began to move, and Tullus cried, ‘Ready, brothers? Forward, march!’
Despite the showers of enemy missiles and stones, and the unremitting downpour from the clouds above, they managed to make decent progress from that point on. Their march was made easier in no small part by the track, which began to run straight as a Roman road. There were no more large streams either, just shallow affairs that could be splashed through.
