RETRIBUTION

by Anthony Riches

  ‘I see. And what exactly are our fates?’

  The Batavi looked at him in frank appraisal.

  ‘You are a fortunate man, Legatus. Your colleague Vocula was murdered by one of your own, a man in the pay of the Gauls, but you have surrendered to the Batavi, and my people have more honour than to use another man to do our killing. You and Centurion Marius, a man known to us from the harpastum field, will be sent on a journey that may enlighten you when you reach its end, for you are to meet the priestess Veleda. I’m almost jealous of such an opportunity, although I realise the shame of such servitude. You may be assured that she is a civilised woman, and that you will be treated fairly while you perform whatever labours are demanded of you in her service.’

  ‘And me?’

  Alcaeus turned to look at Aquillius.

  ‘You, Centurion, have no such happy fate awaiting you. You have incurred the deep enmity of the tribes by your actions, and you will be called to account for those actions in a manner that will undoubtedly result in your death.’

  The big man shrugged.

  ‘As expected. Tell your Germans that they’d best make it quick, because I’ll be fighting them until the moment they stop my wind, and nothing will warm my departed spirit better than to take a few of them with me.’

  The wolf-priest smiled sadly.

  ‘You should have been born Batavi, Aquillius, your spirit burns too brightly to be happy in the company of these sad remnants. Call your men to attention, and I’ll administer the oath.’

  At the two senior centurions’ bellowed commands the tattered remnants of the two legions came to attention, standing still as Alcaeus strode out before them and raised his voice to be heard along the length of their weary formation.

  ‘You will repeat the oath of allegiance to the Gallic empire after me! And if you want to be fed today you’d best make sure I can hear you! Repeat after me …’

  He gave the legionaries a moment to compose themselves before starting the oath.

  ‘We swear before Jupiter, Best and Greatest, to serve in the army of the Gallic empire …’ He waited while the soldiers echoed his words, shaking his head in disappointment at the jumble of weak, confused responses. ‘We can stay here and do this for as long as it takes for me to be convinced that you’re sincere! So let’s try again! We swear before Jupiter, Best and Greatest, to serve the army of the Gallic empire!’

  The responses were louder, and more coherent, as the hapless legionaries realised that they had no choice but to do as they were bidden.

  ‘We swear to sacrifice our lives in the service of Julius Sabinus, emperor of the Gauls!’

  Stumbling over the unfamiliar name, the legions promised their fealty to yet another emperor with a dispirited ease that spoke volumes for the number of times they had already been asked to swear loyalty to a bewildering succession of emperors.

  ‘And we promise to fight all enemies of the Gallic empire with the righteous fury demanded of us, and to the death! And may Jupiter, Best and Greatest, cause us to die in shame and agony if we break this holy oath!’

  ‘They’ve just signed their own death warrants, more or less.’

  Lupercus nodded at Marius’s words.

  ‘Possibly so. If these Germans and Gauls lose the war against Rome then every man here will be at risk of execution. But then in the last year they’ve sworn allegiance to four men, first Galba, then Vitellius, after him Vespasianus, and now this man Sabinus, whoever he is. I do find myself wondering how much difference one more emperor can make to such a long list?’

  Alcaeus turned to the officers, gesturing to the road that led away to the west.

  ‘My orders are to take you and your men away from here, to a camp that has been prepared for you in the privacy of the forest, where you will be fed and given the time required for your strength to return. Order your legions to march, and my men will escort you and ensure that none of the tribesmen whose people you have slaughtered in defence of this fortress decide to take matters into their own hands.’

  Aquillius stared at him dourly.

  ‘And to prevent me from escaping?’

  The wolf-priest nodded solemnly.

  ‘I have a special guard for you.’ He gestured to a waiting tent party led by a chosen man, whose soldiers approached at his command and arrayed themselves around the officers. ‘These soldiers are among the best we have, led by a man whose prowess with a blade is beyond mine by the same margin by which mine is beyond that of a raw recruit. If you make any attempt to flee, or to fight your way out of the trap that holds you, he has orders to hamstring you like a mad dog, but to keep you intact for the revenge that is planned for you.’

  The exhausted legionaries trudged away from the parade ground and onto the road to the west, Batavi soldiers marching ahead of and behind them in cohort strength. Lupercus watched as the column headed down the track, turning to Alcaeus with a look of concern.

  ‘How far is this camp, Centurion? You can see how little stamina my men have.’

  Alcaeus shook his head.

  ‘I’ve not seen it, Legatus, so I can’t tell you exactly. My instructions were that we’ll be met on the road and guided to the right place.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  The Batavi turned to look at Aquillius, who was marching steadily and without any sign of distress despite the gauntness that hunger had etched into him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The Roman laughed softly.

  ‘You are a priest, Centurion. Your role is to support the established order of the world, calling on the gods in support of your pronouncements. And so you believe the things you are told, even when they lack logic. You believe that your prince Kivilaz will allow another two legions to be gifted to the Gauls, to join the two they already have, despite the fact that your own cohorts have been grievously weakened. A Gallic empire with four legions would surely represent some sort of threat to your people, would it not?’

  Alcaeus shrugged.

  ‘I’m a soldier first and a priest second. My role is to ensure that these men are ready to fight the tribe’s enemies, nothing more and nothing less. The workings of strategy are beyond me, and so I do not trouble myself with them.’

  ‘My officer is right though.’ Lupercus looked out across the open farmland on either side of the road. ‘Not that the problem is mine any longer, but I too am curious as to why the Batavi would be happy to concentrate so much power in the hands of a potential rival.’

  The wolf-priest shook his head.

  ‘Such matters are not for me, although I expect that all will become clear soon enough. One thing I can say about Kivilaz is that he very rarely makes any decision without knowing exactly what it is that he wants to happen as a result.’

  The column marched on for another two miles, following the road in its slow climb into the forest. Just as the malnourished legionaries were starting to flag to the point of breakdown, a familiar figure stepped out onto the cobbles, pointing down a rough track that had been hacked into the trees and undergrowth. Alcaeus called for the column to halt, walking forward and saluting his superior.

  ‘Prefect.’

  Hramn grinned at the sight of the exhausted Romans.

  ‘These are the legions of Rome? Woe to the defeated indeed.’ He gestured to the track. ‘Their camp has been cut out of the forest down there, so point them in the right direction and tell our men to stop here, there’s no need for them to accompany the prisoners.’

  The wolf-priest frowned.

  ‘But what’s to stop them escaping into the forest?’

  His superior laughed tersely.

  ‘Look at the state of them! Tell them there’s food a mile down that track and they’ll totter off down it without a second thought. And where could they run to? Back to their fortress? Into the woods? There’s not a man among them with the energy to try any such thing.’

  Alcaeus nodded, calling orders for his men to step back from the road, then pointing d
own the forest track with his vine stick.

  ‘There is food and shelter down that road! March!’

  The exhausted legionaries obeyed without thought, turning off the cobbled road and trudging away into the trees four abreast, weaving to avoid the stumps of trees that had been left protruding from the track’s surface as they followed the wolf-priest’s directions. As the last of them made the turn and headed away into the gloom, Hramn grinned savagely, and, turning to Alcaeus, gestured to their waiting men.

  ‘Get half of the cohort across the road in battle order, Priest, and warn them that they’ll be killing Romans soon enough. The other half can set up stop lines in the forest to either side, to catch those among the poor bastards who have the brains not to use the track. And have the prisoners moved back up the slope, away from the road, I wouldn’t want to lose any of them to a stray blade.’

  Alcaeus stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before he realised what it was that the prefect was telling him.

  ‘Surely not …’

  Hramn shrugged, untroubled by his subordinate’s evident disgust.

  ‘And what was it that you were expecting, exactly? That our allies would happily sit back and watch the men who’ve killed their kith and kin just walk away, free of any consequence? At least this way they’ll die quickly, with the chance to defend themselves, which is more than anyone showered with boiling water underneath their walls got. You’d better get your men in place quickly though, I doubt the Germans will be showing much patience today. While you carry out my orders, I’ll have the men guarding the officers ready their weapons. I’d imagine they’re not going to be very happy when they realise that they’ve been sold a dog in a bag rather than the pig they were promised.’

  Alcaeus nodded and walked away, barking orders to block the track’s end and picket the forest to either side, then stalking back to where Hramn stood waiting close to the Roman officers who were standing, clearly furious, under the raised spears of Egilhard’s tent party. The Batavi prefect grinned into Lupercus’s evident disgust, listening with his head tipped ostentatiously on one side.

  ‘Any moment now, I’d imagine. Picture it, Legatus. The first of your men is staggering into the clearing that our Germans cut out of the forest, hoping that there will be tents, and fires, and food, but all he’s going to find waiting for him are more tree stumps. And as more of your legionaries join him they’ll be looking about themselves in confusion, praying that there’s been some sort of mistake because the alternative is just too awful to even consider. Of course, some fool among the men waiting for them will give the game away too early, laughing out loud or just charging into them while they’re still trying to work it out, before the realisation hits them that they’re not going to be spared after all, but all the same—’

  A distant scream reached them, an unearthly wail from deep in the trees and then, after a moment’s pause, another. For a moment the silence descended again and then, as if the door to a room full of lunatics had been thrown open, a distant hubbub of anger and surprise rolled up the rough track.

  ‘And there it is. The harsh intrusion of reality.’ Hramn grinned again, nodding as the sounds of horror and confusion grew louder. Looking over the heads of the ranks of men set to close off the track, he pointed at the first signs of what was happening in the forest’s depths. ‘Look, there they are!’

  Legionaries were in sight, running as best they could under the twin burdens of their armour’s weight and their own exhaustion, lumbering back up the track’s incline with their swords drawn, heads turning in search of a way to escape but finding only the merciless stares of the Batavi soldiers waiting on either side of the path. With a shouted command, the centurion leading the ranks of men blocking the path ordered them to ready their spears, raising a line of shields to absorb the Romans’ frantic, straggling charge.

  ‘This will be a slaughter.’

  Hramn nodded in happy agreement with Alcaeus’s dull-voiced opinion.

  ‘It will be as Kiv agreed with the tribal kings, and as approved by Draco and the tribe’s elders. Two legions will be destroyed, and our allies will have enough revenge to satisfy the hardest of hearts.’

  Exhausted, terrified and desperate, the leading legionaries collided with the waiting wall of shields hard enough to push the soldiers behind them back a pace or two despite the enervating hunger that had eaten into their strength so badly. The Batavi held them at bay for a moment, waiting while more of the fleeing Romans blundered into their comrades’ backs, and then, at a single shouted order, began the grisly task of slaughtering their hapless enemies. Spears licked out, reaping a rich harvest of blood as throats and faces were opened by the viciously sharp blades, then the men wielding them stamped forward into the line of stricken legionaries, punching hard with their shields to throw their victims back into the men behind them. Stabbing down the evil spikes at their weapons’ opposite ends to finish men who had fallen but still remained alive, they punched forward again, leaning into their shields and pushing upwards to force the men facing them off their feet and into the confused and milling crowd behind them.

  ‘Again!’

  The spear blades flashed out again, and more blood sprayed across the raised shields as more legionaries died, their swords and daggers beating raggedly against the Batavi shields in a desperate attempt to fight back against the inexorable advance of the men who were taking their lives with apparent impunity from any counter. Once more the soldiers’ line stepped forward in one movement, more of the fallen dying under their butt spikes, another heaving push further destabilising the mass of men railing at their shields. Legionaries were still fleeing up the track behind their embattled comrades, but finding the way blocked by the mass of men bottled up by the Batavi shields, had begun to spill out to either side, to where more ranks of grim-faced soldiers were waiting for them. A faint chanting could now be heard, and Hramn nodded, putting an ostentatious hand to his ear.

  ‘Hear that? That’s the Germans, singing as they tear into your men and sending them to meet their gods!’

  Aquillius’s eyes narrowed but as his body tensed to spring forward and attack the Batavi prefect, he felt the prickle of a spear blade against the back of his neck, while another dimpled the skin of his thigh. The voice from behind him was cheerful but the Roman knew enough about men to recognise the deadly threat implicit in its tone.

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it, Centurion. I might be a bit slower than I used to be but my brother still has enough in him to put that spear clean through your leg. And even if you could take both of us, my boy would carve you to ribbons without breaking a sweat. They don’t call him Achilles for nothing.’

  The two senior centurions exchanged sideways glances, Aquillius realising that Marius was similarly under threat of death if he attempted either to run or to intervene in the murder that was being committed before them. Hramn grinned at him for a moment and then turned back to the slaughter, drawing his sword and calling back over his shoulder as he stepped off down the verge’s slope.

  ‘I see no reason not to join the fun. Watch them, Alcaeus, keep them safe for what’s to come.’

  He hurried away, climbing the opposite verge and disappearing into the trees, and the Romans turned their attention back to the slaughter playing out before them. The trapped legionaries were barely fighting back, their scant energy seemingly exhausted from the initial flight back up the track and the shock of being confronted by the waiting Batavi warriors, but were instead huddling behind their own shields, those men who had not already thrown away the weighty boards, more like penned sheep than soldiers, as the blood-slathered advance of the German tribesmen compressed their remaining number into a slowly shrinking amount of space. The watching centurions could see the Germans now, their swords and spears flickering palely in the forest’s green-tinged gloom as they pressed up the track into the embattled legionaries, a cacophony of grunts, shouts, agonised bellows and the screams of dying men punctuating their onsl
aught. Looking across the slopes to either side of the roughly hewn track, Marius could see more legionaries fleeing for the safety of the open forest, realising with a small glow of satisfaction that their sheer numbers were in some places overwhelming the lines of Batavi soldiers set to cut them down, individual men bursting through the porous cordon and streaming away into the gloom in ones and twos, but even as his heart lifted his hope was cast down again by Alcaeus’s softly spoken words.

  ‘They might have been better to stand and take the death stroke they were offered. At least my men have the discipline to finish a man cleanly, once he is down and can no longer fight. The men who run into the trees will find themselves alone, for the most part, or as good as alone, and hunted by tribesmen who are as happy in the forest as a goat on a mountainside.’

  The soldiers to either side of the track were moving, closing the net around the remaining legionaries, while the Germans pressed in from their rear, the survivors milling in the centre of the swords and spears that surrounded them like fish caught in a net, looking to all sides for an escape route but finding nothing in any direction except the sharp iron and hard faces of their enemies. As the centurions watched in sickened fascination, unable to tear themselves from the horrific sight of their legions being destroyed, the Germans pressed the trap tighter still, their blades darting in and out of the heaving mass of men, each stabbing thrust slaughtering another of the helplessly penned Romans.

  ‘You’ll die for this! All of you!’ Alcaeus turned to look at Aquillius, seeing the tension tightening every muscle and cord in the big man’s body as he spat out his murderous rage. ‘There won’t be anywhere you can hide from Rome’s revenge! There won’t be anywhere far enough from here where Rome won’t find you and tear you limb from limb! If not me, then men like me will see you beaten and crucified, all of you, your guts pulled out for the crows to feast on while you watch, your—’

  He went down on one knee with the force of Frijaz’s blow, a powerful punch to the back of his neck that would have felled most men, turning his head to stare up at the Batavi soldier with unfocused eyes.