Eagles of the Damned

by David Black

  Determined to keep them alive, Rufus had chosen to lead his men through the most difficult terrain. The rebels would be moving fast and wouldn’t choose the arduous route he had used to get his men to the end of the Teutoburg.

  They had eaten nothing for two days and not one of them had slept a wink of sleep. Every bone ached and every muscle in their bodies was screaming for the chance to lie down, just for a few blissful minutes. They had reached the stage where there was no alternative. His men were utterly spent and completely finished. Rufus had to stop soon before they fell down and lost the will to continue.

  It was obvious to their centurion that not one amongst them had the energy to lift a sword, let alone defend themselves if they were attacked. If they were bumped now he thought grimly, they would all die. He knew he must find them a place to hide and allow them time to rest.

  Rufus was first to reach the top of the ridge. He fell to his knees and lent against the rough bark of an ancient oak. What he saw ahead momentarily cut through his exhaustion and for just the most fleeting of moments filled him with equal measures of relief and triumph. Instead of more endless green canopy, the panorama of a broad valley filled with low-lying scrub spread out before him. Turning to the nearest men behind him who had almost reached the top he whispered softly.

  ‘We’ve done it lads, we’re out. We’re reached the end of the forest.’

  * * * * *

  When the officers heard the news of Varus’s suicide, they were filled with foreboding and poorly concealed anger. Prefect Dalious had done what he could to offer his officers hope, but to little affect. After the terrible days of crossing the Teutoburg, which had seen the once proud army of the North reduced to less than five thousand exhausted, hungry and frightened men, morale was at rock bottom

  As two of the surviving veteran centurions rode back to their hastily reorganised fighting units, both men’s mood was black with despair.

  ‘The old bastard has left us in the lurch Dmitri. He’s taken the cowards’ way out. Where does that leave us now? I’ll tell you where. No bloody General to lead us and no bloody plan to get us out of this shit.’

  Grinding his jaw, Dmitri’s friend nodded in silence as he mumbled a curse on all the Roman nobility, and in particular the House of Varus.

  He was about to reply when from the tree line to their right, the silence was suddenly rent by the mournful baritone blasts of barbarian war horns.

  Dmitri and his companion frantically spurred their horses forward as in their thousands a howling seething carpet of warriors brandishing their weapons in the bright sunlight swept down from the trees only one hundred paces above them.

  * * * * *

  Rufus had taken the first watch. Sleepily he guessed he had been on guard for at least an hour. As he lay on sentry duty, the minutes ticked slowly by as the warmth of the sun burnt off the last traces of mist. Visibility was excellent; the air around him was now crystal clear.

  His little knot of men lay sound asleep, concealed in the middle of a dense thicket just behind him. He was struggling against his own desire to sleep; he dared not allow himself to succumb. There had been no sign of the enemy but Rufus was convinced they were close by.

  Suddenly he stiffened and his heart began to race. On the valley floor below, he spied movement among the scrub. He recognised the troops clad in red cloaks instantly. Relief flooded through him; it drove away his fatigue. Rufus exhaled deeply. They hadn’t overshot and missed the column after all. His joy was short lived. From his left, only a few hundred paces away great blasts of Germanic war horns suddenly shattered the peaceful silence which until that moment had filled the valley below. To his dismay, he saw many hundreds, perhaps thousands of barbarians running helter-skelter down the slope, whooping and waving their swords and spears as they dashed towards the Roman formations.

  With a great clash and roar, the human tidal wave of warriors broke on the nearest extended shield wall.

  In seconds, a pitched battle was waging fiercely on the valley floor. Rufus could hear the ringing clash of steel, and hear the agonised cries of men as they were wounded. Causalities quickly began to mount on both sides. A horseman galloped down the slope from the trees. He reined in hard and blew a series of short rapid blast on the horn he carried.

  Almost instantly the warriors stopped fighting, disengaged and withdrew back up the slope. Rufus was dismayed at the large numbers of fallen Romans who lay scattered on the ground at their comrades’ feet. A few were helped up, but most stayed where they were because they had taken a mortal wound during the savage hand to hand fighting.

  Almost as the last warrior disappeared back into the forest, groups of slingers and archers appeared from the tree line. They made their way down to within fifty paces of the mauled Roman formation, just out of range of any javelin which may be left. With impunity they began to lay down a deadly barrage of lead shot, stones and arrows. More legionaries’ fell, struck by their deadly missiles, unable to avoid them within the densely packed ranks of the diminished phalanx into which they were now crammed.

  Rufus cursed. He cursed the damned hit and run tactics of the enemy, and he cursed his own impotency. There was nothing he could do to help his comrades. All he could do was lay where he was and watch as the pitiless slaughter continued below.

  The Romans were down to two fighting formations manned by the survivors of all three Legions.

  Dalious had planned that one formation would offer mutual support to the other as they both moved slowly up the valley. The forward phalanx had taken the first attack, but now, after more blasts on the hidden war horns another great throng of warriors attacked the rear ranks of the second formation, while the first remained pinned down under the merciless bombardment of the slingers and archers.

  It was clear to Rufus what the enemy were doing. They were launching unrelenting attacks designed to grind down and bleed the formations of their manpower. The trail of bodies dressed in red which lay scattered on the ground behind the slow moving formations bore silent witness to the effectiveness of the enemy’s battle plan.

  * * * * *

  The pitiless attacks continued all through the morning. As one phalanx was attacked and bled the other was bombarded. After numerous short but savage attacks, the roles of the warriors were reversed and the formation which had just beaten off the last attack would come under accurate and deadly fire from the slingers. The formations had managed to move less than one quarter of a mile.

  Watching the battle from a nearby hill, Arminius committed warriors to the battle from fresh tribes who had finally joined the rebellion. Greatly encouraged by the thousands of dead Romans in the woods, they had at last joined the revolt, hungry to enrich their lives by grasping a share of booty.

  As the fighting continued and the bloody hours wore on, both greatly weakened Roman formations ground to a complete stop when news from his forward scouts reached Dalious. To his consternation and dismay the centurion in charge reported that the way ahead was blocked.

  ‘The barbarians have thrown up an earth rampart across the valley floor sir. They have built a low wicker wall on top of it. It’s held by hundreds of the enemy.’

  Having absorbed the dire news from within the lower phalanx, acting General Dalious conferred with his surviving staff officers. After the heavy losses sustained already, the casualty rate was becoming critical. Lacking artillery support, his appreciation was stark and brutally frank.

  ‘We must breach this barbarian wall and keep moving gentlemen, or we are finished.’

  No one argued the point. These were desperate times and even the most junior officer present knew it was the painful truth.

  To the background din of men fighting for their lives which raged all around the small huddle of officers, with the loud clang a stone hit a shield nearby. Dalious ducked involuntarily as he turned to the 17th’s 1st Centurion who commanded the upper phalanx. The centurion was the highest ranking field officer still alive, who Dalious had left t
o command it.

  ‘I want you to make a direct attack on the wall. I don’t care how you do it but you must force a breach somehow. I will bring the second phalanx up behind you to protect your rear while you make the assault... Casualties are immaterial. I don’t care how many men you lose, you simply must bludgeon your way through. Have you any questions?’

  The centurion shook his head. Everything he needed to know had been in his brief orders. It was clear that the survival of what little was left of three once mighty Legions rested squarely on his armoured shoulders. It was a heavy burden.

  From his vantage point, Rufus watched the attack go in.

  The phalanx marched to the base of the earth wall, and immediately came under attack from showers of rocks and spears hurled down on the legionaries’ heads by the defenders. Stepping over those already hit the front five ranks closest to the rampart quickly formed a tortoise to protect themselves from the constant rain of heavy missiles which smashed onto their upturned shields like blows from a giant’s hammer.

  Urged on by desperate shouts from their few surviving officers, legionaries struggled valiantly to fight their way up the earth ramp which fronted the wall and establish a foothold beside the tightly interwoven wicker wall which surmounted it.

  Try as they might, the flexible wall, which stood no higher than a man’s shoulders resisted their efforts to break it down. The barbarians behind the wall thrust a forest of long spears at the Romans and arrows hissed back and forth all along the wall as men fell back dead or gravely wounded onto the carpet of shields beneath them. Legionaries wielding pickaxes hacked furiously at the wall to breach it but there was too much give. Even the most determined rain of blows merely bent the wicker and the legionaries’ heavy tools rebounded without effect. Despite fighting hard, and probing all along the wall, no breach was forced.

  Seeing that his attack was wavering, the phalanx commander gathered some men from his reserve to him. Drawing his sword he ordered them to follow him towards the thickest of the fighting.

  Beneath a roof of raised shields which bore the emblems of all three Legions the 1st Centurion rallied his soldiers at the foot of the earth ramp.

  ‘We must cut through men. Without a breach we will all die!’

  He turned and nodded towards the legionaries who held their shields above him. He counted.

  ‘Three, two one...NOW!’

  The shields swung back, clearing the centurion’s way forward. Filling his lungs the centurion roared.

  ‘For Rome and the Empire...Charge!’

  Followed by a dozen men, the centurion scrambled his way up the ramp. At the top, there was just enough room to stand against the wicker palisade, but no more. The centurion frantically swung his blade slashing and hacking at the yelling warriors before him, as his men rushed up and joined him, standing and fighting shoulder to shoulder on either side. For precious moments it appeared that the centurion and his men’s sudden and ferocious attack was working. A small gap appeared in the defenders as tribesmen began to fall back, stabbed and slashed by the Roman’s swinging blades.

  Roaring at his men to keep fighting the centurion turned and called for pickaxes to be brought up, but he spent a heartbeat too long shouting down at his men behind their raised shields. Suddenly cut off in mid-sentence, the centurion felt a powerful blow in his back. He froze for a split second and gasped as his eyes bulged. Stabbed from behind, his glazed eyes closed. The last thing he saw was the bloodied head of a Mattaci spear sticking out of his chest. With a roar of victory the Mattaci tribesman pushed the impaled centurion off the rampart. Still skewered by the long spear, his limp body landed with a crash on the shields below, to the horror of the men holding them.

  It was too much, the last straw. Somewhere, someone in the front rank screamed in despair.

  ‘Fall back!’

  With minds fuddled with exhaustion and fear the attack broke apart. While a few isolated men still fought hopelessly on at the wall, the rest of the armoured phalanx broke and fell back in panic and disarray.

  Rufus watched helplessly and with growing dread as the attack failed. Without any means of escape, he could see that what was left of the three Legions was surrounded, outnumbered and absolutely trapped.

  It was the moment Arminius had been waiting for. He raised himself up in his saddle and ordered waiting reserves to launch a concerted attack from three sides of the phalanx which stood just a few hundred paces behind the fleeing remnants of those who had attacked the wall. At the same time, he ordered the defenders to charge down after the fleeing men, whose attack they had so easily blunted.

  Heavily outnumbered by the charging warriors, many of the exhausted legionaries were brutally cut down in the running skirmish that followed. Too tired to run anymore some, like Prefect Dalious and his staff rallied to each other and fought on in small groups until they were simply overwhelmed by the enemy’s vastly superior numbers. A few survivors had had enough. They dropped both sword and shield and invited a quick death from the enemy. The last Eagle was taken amid the savage chaotic fighting.

  The 17th’s Eagle had been brought forward to encourage the attack but now the few men of the 1st cohort who had survived so far were crushed by superior enemy numbers, while valiantly trying to protect it.

  The remaining phalanx was beginning to crumble. As warriors fell to the Roman swords, the dead were instantly replaced by fresh tribesmen who were focused solely on killing the legionary before them. The barbarians could easily afford the losses, but the Romans could not. The shield wall buckled somewhere in its middle under the unrelenting attack and a wedge of howling warriors cut into the men behind it, splitting the wavering phalanx in two.

  * * * * *

  Torn from the massacre unfolding before him, Rufus tensed as he heard sudden movement behind him. He grasped the handle of his sword. It was half drawn as he rolled over. Instantly, he relaxed. It was Severus, come to relieve him from sentry duty.

  Blinking away the sleep Severus rubbed his tired eyes and yawned, unaware of the tragedy and fate of his comrades below the ridge. In a voice barely audible Severus whispered.

  ‘Get some sleep sir. I’ll take the next watch... Is there any sign of the column yet?’

  Ashen faced Rufus remained strangely silent. Severus noticed there were tear streaks running down his centurion’s dirty face. Startled Severus enquired.

  ‘What’s the matter sir...what’s happened?’

  Rufus said nothing. He shook his head and silently jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  Confused, Severus crawled forward and cautiously raised his head above the parapet of the slope to see what was happening below.

  Rufus stayed where he was, he’d seen enough, he couldn’t look anymore. His whole life was being torn to shreds on the valley floor below.

  Just above him, he heard Severus gasp softly with revulsion and horror as he desperately tried to comprehend and absorb the full meaning of what had transpired amid the slaughter and carnage down in the valley. Unblinking, he stared mesmerised at the carpet of Roman bodies, unable to look away even as the last of the legionaries fell.

  A sudden and terrible roar of victory erupted from the throats of thousands of wild tribesmen. It echoed across the valley, as a lone horseman broke cover and rode slowly into their midst, waving his acceptance of their cheering adulation, and his victory over the Romans.

  His face white with shock, Severus slid back from the cover offered by the wooded tree line. Sliding down beside his centurion, still trembling in a faltering voice, he said softly.

  ‘They’re gone sir. They’re dead...all of them!’

  Pain and utter confusion showed in Severus’s face. How could this be?

  ‘What are we going to do now sir?’

  Rufus stared at the young man lying beside him as he considered the question carefully. Softly clearing his throat he replied.

  ‘Best stay here until dark lad. We’ll slip away, head west and somehow find our way ba
ck to the Rhine; it’s our only hope now. I have a duty to our dead to make a full report and tell what really happened.’

  Severus nodded sadly at the thought of the lost Legions. He had been their prisoner but it didn’t seem to matter anymore, they had been his family. There was a long silence between the two men then awkwardly, almost reluctantly Severus enquired.

  ‘What will happen to me when we get back sir?’

  Rufus shook his head and sighed.

  ‘They’re all dead Severus. As far as I’m concerned the charge against you died with them.’ He shrugged. ‘I know Crastus is dead so who else will know who or what you really are, or where you came from? The lads still asleep are all mates of yours; they won’t say anything.’

  Suddenly feeling older than his years Rufus wiped away the damp marks from his mud streaked face.

  ‘I owe you the debt of my life son, and I promised you I would never forget. On the shades of our dead comrades down in the valley, I swear I will never betray you...’

  -THE END-

  Epilogue:

  It is believed that like Crastus, captured Roman officers were separated, tortured and sacrificed not only as part of the Germanic tribes’ religious ceremonies, but also to celebrate their victory over the hated invaders.

  Emperor Augustus considered the three Legions had failed in their duty to Rome. He had them struck permanently from the army list as collective punishment.

  Rome’s Legions crossed the River Rhine and returned some six years later in a series of punitive raids, where one of the captured Eagles was recovered. A year later, in AD 15 under Germanicus, Rome launched a two pronged attack which devastated the area between the Ems and the River Lippe. Here, they forced the return of a second Eagle.