Conn Iggulden - Emperor 02

by The Death of Kings

  “No need for that, Crix. There'll be time enough at the battle tomorrow. We can all shed each other's blood then, roaring and threatening as the mood takes us.”

  The wrestler subsided with a grunt and turned his back on the two Romans. He was almost close enough to touch, but something about the man's alert stance warned Brutus he was expecting it. Possibly he was hoping they would try.

  “Are you armed?” the first man said pleasantly, gesturing them closer. When they didn't move, he inched closer to Julius with the dagger held ready. Behind him, the shorter man had turned back and was glaring at the young men, daring them to try something.

  Julius allowed himself to be patted down and then stood aside as Brutus too was checked for hidden blades. The man was careful and his own shoulders looked powerful enough to give him an edge even without the dagger.

  “Good lads,” he said when he was sure they were helpless. “It's only because I am a dangerous old sod that I carried one myself. Will you be fighting tomorrow?”

  Julius nodded, unable to believe what was happening. His mind raced, but there was nothing to be done. When he realized that, he finally relaxed and laughed, making Brutus jump. The man with the dagger returned it, chuckling softly as he looked at the young Roman.

  “You might as well laugh, lad. This is a tight space for a bit of a struggle. Do what you came for; it won't make any difference. There won't be much stopping us tomorrow, no matter what you report back.”

  Watching the man for sudden movement, Julius sat down, his heart hammering at the thought of one quick push sending him over the edge. The situation was strange to say the least, but the man with the knife seemed to be enjoying it. Whoever he was, he seemed completely relaxed, removed from the struggle they would all face back on the ground.

  From the top of the granite spike, the rebel camp seemed incredibly close, almost as if a good leap would have them land in the center of it. Julius looked it over and wondered if they would be allowed to return before the watch centurion reported them missing.

  The man with the knife put it away in his tunic and sat next to Julius, following his gaze. “Biggest army I ever saw,” he said cheerfully, motioning toward the rebel camp. “Tomorrow will be hard on you, I should think.”

  Julius said nothing, unwilling to be drawn. Privately, he had the same impression. The enemy camp was almost too large to take in and looked as if it could swallow the eight legions without trouble.

  Brutus and the wrestler had remained standing, keeping a close eye on each other's movements. The man with the knife grinned at the pair of them.

  “Sit down, you two,” he said, gesturing with a flick of his head. Reluctantly, they edged together and sat close, as tense as wires.

  “You must have what, thirty, forty thousand men?” the wrestler asked Brutus.

  “Keep guessing,” Brutus replied curtly and the man began to rise, held down with the lightest touch from his companion.

  “What does it matter now? We'll send the Romans running, no matter how many they have.” He grinned at Julius, clearly hoping he would rise to the barb.

  Julius ignored him, busy memorizing the few details of the camp he could make out in the dim light. He noted the moon had sunk lower and stood slowly so as not to alarm his strange companions.

  “We should be going back now,” he said. The tension returned to him then, tightening his sore muscles.

  “Yes, I suppose we all should,” the man with the knife replied, rising smoothly to his feet. He was easily the tallest of all of them and moved with an efficiency of motion that marked a warrior. Brutus had it and perhaps it was that unconscious recognition that had raised the hackles of the one with a wrestler's build.

  “This has been . . . interesting. I hope you and I don't meet tomorrow,” Julius said.

  “I hope we meet,” Brutus added to the wrestler, who snorted in disdain.

  The man with the knife stretched his back and winced. Then he clapped Julius on the shoulder and smiled.

  “In the hands of the gods, lads. Now, I think my friend and I should climb down first, don't you? I don't really want you thinking better of our little soldier's truce when you have your swords again. Get right over where you climbed up and we'll be away in no time.”

  The two older men scrambled from sight with casual agility and were gone.

  Brutus let out an explosion of breath. “I thought we were dead.”

  “So did I. Do you think that was Spartacus?”

  “Possibly. When I tell the story, it certainly will be.” Brutus began to laugh simply to release the awful tension of the meeting.

  “We'd better move, or that guard will serve us up to Pompey on a platter,” Julius said, ignoring him. They climbed down quickly and bore the scrapes and bruises of the descent without a sound. Their sandals were where they had left them, but the two swords had been taken. Brutus looked for the weapons in the bushes, but came back empty-handed.

  “Bastards. There's just no honor anymore.”

  CHAPTER 38

  The legions broke camp and formed the battle line two hours before dawn. As soon as it was light enough to see, the cornicens sounded their wailing notes and the huge squares of legionaries moved forward, shrugging off the stiffness and cramp of the morning as they marched. There was no idle chatter in the ranks with the army of Spartacus filling the plain and seeming to stretch to the horizon. Even the crash of their sandals was muffled in the turf, and each man loosened his shoulders as he came closer and closer to the moment when the silence would rupture into chaos.

  All along the legion lines, the heavy onagers and catapults were heaved into position. At colossal range, stones, iron balls, and arrows the weight of three men could be sent smashing into the enemy. The men around them cheered as the heavy horse-hair springs were winched back into firing position.

  Julius marched with Brutus and Ciro at his side and Renius one step behind him. Although it would be suicide for any of Cato's recruits to try an attack, the three men around Julius were alert for the possibility. There was no place there for Cabera, who had remained behind in the camp with the rest of the followers, despite his complaints. Julius had been firm with him, but even if the old man had been willing to don armor and carry a gladius, he had never fought in formation before and would disrupt the routine of the Romans around him.

  Deep in the eighth rank behind the armored hastati, the four of them were surrounded by the best of the Primigenia, men whom Renius had trained and hardened to be ready for such a day. None of Cato's recruits were in striking range.

  Though many ached to charge, they matched the pace of the forward line, teeth bared unconsciously as they left everything of the world behind them. Every violent urge they had to restrain in the cities was welcome in that line, and some of the men choked back laughter as they remembered the strange freedom of it.

  The order to halt came and seconds later the air was split with the thunder of the war engines, great arms crashing into their rests as they sent their loads flying. The slaves could not avoid the hail of stone and iron and hundreds were smashed into rags of flesh. Slowly, the arms were winched back again and Pompey waited to give the signal, licking dry lips.

  At the third volley, the order came again to advance. One more would be fired over their heads before the lines would join.

  As the armies closed, the legionaries shrugged away the smooth skin of civilization, leaving only the discipline of the legion to hold their line against the rising desire to kill. Through the gaps in the ranks, they could catch glimpses of the enemy that waited for them, a dark wall of men who had come to test the strength of the last defenders of Rome. Some carried the gladius, but others wielded axes and scythes, or long swords stolen from the barracks of the legion at Mutina. Bloody smears on the soil marked the wide cuts of the onager stones, but they were quickly swallowed by the men behind them.

  Julius found himself panting with excitement and fear, responding to those around him as they be
came linked and pulses began to pound, filling them with strength and reckless energy. Someone shouted in excitement, close.

  “Steady, Primigenia!” Julius bellowed, feeling the urge to run forward himself. He saw Brutus too was filled with the strange joy where every moment before the first jolt of pain was longer than all he had lived before. It was a hundred years to cross the plain, and then sound pierced the calm as the front two ranks heaved their spears into the air with a grunting cough that merged into a roar of defiance. They began to run, even as the spears made the air black and the first of the slaves were cut down by them.

  The enemy howled enough to fill the world and raced at the legionaries. The first meeting was a crash that numbed the sounds that came after. The heavy Roman shields were smashed upright into the charging line and the impact punched hundreds of slaves from their feet. Then the swords were plunging into bodies and blood spattered blindingly, until the whole of the first rank were covered in it, their arms and faces wet as the swords cut limbs and life from the men they faced.

  With Brutus on Julius's right, Julius could work around his friend's shield, as Ciro stood in the protection of his own. Only the ingrained discipline held the ranks back from the front line, free to watch the carnage only feet from them. Stinging droplets of blood touched them as they saw the hastati storm forward through the slaves. Ciro smashed anything that stood against him with tireless strength. Julius and Brutus moved forward at the pace of the advance, sinking their swords into the bodies as they passed, making certain of the kills. By the time the rear ranks passed over the corpses, they would be little more than white bone and tattered flesh as every soldier blooded his sword on them.

  The hastati were the spine of the army, men with ten years of solid experience. There was no fear in them, but after a while, Julius began to feel a slight change in the pace as the advance faltered. Even the hastati tired against such a host, and many in the ranks moved forward to fill gaps, stepping over the writhing bodies of men they knew and counted as friends. Renius walked with them, his shield strapped to his body with heavy buckles. He killed with single strokes, taking blows on the shield to allow him the counterstrike, over and over. It buckled and cracked under the repeated impacts, but held.

  The cornicens blew a series of three notes over and over, and all along the vast line there was a shimmering as the maniples of Rome moved with a discipline unmatched in the world. The hastati brought their shields up to protect themselves and moved smoothly back through the ranks as the triarii moved forward. They were panting and tired but still filled with a savage pleasure, and they shouted encouragement to the twenty-year veterans who ran to make the new front line. These were the best in the line, and apart from Renius, Primigenia had only a handful, making up the numbers with Cato's fresh troops. The slaves threw themselves at the legions and Primigenia bore the worst toll of dead, the new recruits dying faster than the experienced men around them. Renius held the Primigenia line steady as they fought to move forward.

  The advance surged again through the bodies of the slain. The only way was over the dead as neither side wavered or stepped back from the bloody gash that was the front rank. The triarii were the best of the legionaries, men at their fullest strength. Their family and friends were the legions they served and they were soon splashed as redly as the hastati before them.

  Julius stood waiting in the fifth rank, with Primigenia straining to attack. Arms and swords shook in anticipation as they stood close enough to the cutting to have more and more of the blood droplets spatter over them like rain, running down their shining armor.

  Some armies broke on the hastati, others when the triarii were brought in to crush the will of the enemy. The bodies they walked over and speared so casually numbered in the hundreds, perhaps thousands along the line, but they had only begun to cut away the outer layers of the army of Spartacus, and soon every man knew they would have to take their place. Once they saw it was inevitable, the nerves settled even in the weakest as they waited to reach the first rank.

  “Primigenia—second spears!” Julius ordered, repeating the shout to his left and right. The ranks behind him launched without pause over the heads of their own men and the shafts landed unseen on the mass of the enemy. All along the line the action was repeated, and only distant screams told of the lives the points had taken.

  Julius craned onto his toes to see what was happening on the flanks. Against so many, the cavalry had to prevent encirclement. As the line of Spartacus's army bowed before the Romans, a memory flashed into Julius's head of a distant schoolroom and a lesson of Alexander's wars. Huge as it was, the Roman army could be swallowed and destroyed unless the flanks remained strong.

  Even as he started to look, he felt the change on his left. He saw the line buckle into Lepidus's legion and the enemy pour into the breach. It was too far away to see detail and as Julius paced forward with Brutus, he lost sight of it and swore.

  “Brutus, can you see Lepidus? They're breaking through over there. Can you see if they're holding?”

  Brutus stretched up on his toes to see. “The line is broken,” he said in horror. “Gods, I think they're turning!”

  Julius almost stumbled into the man behind him as his pace shortened. He looked at the line four ranks ahead. The triarii were crushing the slaves there and didn't look like tiring. His thoughts were desperate and fear rushed into him. If he moved Primigenia left to support as he had promised Pompey, he left the triarii vulnerable. If their line was thinned or cut down, the reinforcements they would expect would be missing and the slaves would have two breaches to pour into, cutting the Roman line into islands of men that would shrink and vanish as they were killed.

  As he hesitated, he saw the left flank was compacting as the breach widened and some of Lepidus's men turned away from the enemy, beginning to flee. It would spread like plague as those who ran fouled the ranks behind them and infected them with their cowardice. Julius made his choice.

  “Primigenia! Saw left into the flank!” As before, he repeated the order twice and the front ranks heard him though they could not turn. They would know there was no one behind to bolster them and would fight all the harder in the time they were vulnerable.

  Primigenia moved fast across the line of advance, a few stumbling into the soldiers who had not heard the order. It was a dangerous maneuver to try in the middle of a battle, but Julius knew he had to use his men to stiffen the legion of Lepidus before the whole left flank crumbled. He raced through the ranks with the others, leaping over corpses and continuing to shout orders to keep them in close and moving. At best he had seconds to prevent the rout.

  Brutus arrived first, deliberately knocking a fleeing legionary over with his shield. Julius and Ciro took his sides and together they made the core, with Primigenia forming a wall of grim soldiers around them that the retreating Romans would have to cross to get away. Renius had vanished in the press, separated from them by hundreds of waiting soldiers.

  “Level swords!” Julius roared, his face twisted into an animal mask of rage. “No soldier crosses this line alive! Show this Lepidus what we are!”

  The spread of panicking men skidded to a halt as the ranks of Primigenia ranged before them, blocking the retreat. The light of panic went out of their eyes as they took in the swords held ready to cut them down. There was no question they would be used. The men of Primigenia understood as well as Julius that they would all die if Lepidus's legion ran from the slave flank. They would be overwhelmed.

  In moments, something of order had returned to the disorganized rabble Lepidus's men had become. The centurions and optios used the flats of their swords and thick oak staffs to bully the soldiers back into formation. They were barely in time.

  The slave army had sensed the weakness and they screamed orders, pushing hundreds into the gap to widen it. Julius was caught between moving forward through the ranks and having Primigenia seal the breach or holding his position in case Lepidus's men broke again. He knew the
recovery was still weak, with the terrified soldiers barely controlling the fear of death that had broken them once. It would be easier the second time.

  “Julius?” Brutus asked him, waiting for the order.

  Julius glanced at his friend and saw his eagerness. There wasn't a choice after all. They had to take the front themselves and just pray Lepidus's men didn't leave them naked behind.

  “Primigenia! Forward to the line!” he shouted, and the seven hundred men under his command jogged forward with him, holding their formation perfectly.

  The last of Lepidus's men turned to run from the slaves and Primigenia cut them down before they could take the panic back with them. They did it with a vicious efficiency that should have warned the slaves who struggled to seize the advantage they had created.

  The shields of Primigenia smashed into the breach and the swords rose and fell as quickly as they could, with every man sacrificing care for speed. They crunched over the wounded, leaving them screaming and often alive, but Primigenia shoved forward at such a pace that they were in danger of leaving the whole front rank behind and being cut off. Renius matched them, bringing the line up with bellowed orders.

  Julius fought in a frenzy. His arm ached and one long wound had scored his skin in a red line from wrist almost to shoulder. A blade had skidded off him before he killed the owner. A powerful-looking slave wearing Roman armor leapt at him, but was knocked from his feet as Renius reached the position, stabbing the slave in the side through a gap in the plates.

  Julius killed the next man who faced him, but then three more stabbed at him. He was grateful for the thousands of hours of practice that made him move before he had begun to think. He stepped to the side of the outer man and shoved him into the others, giving up the kill for the need to entangle them. The man stumbled into the path of the second and Julius took his throat out from the side, then lunged over his falling body to sink his gladius into the heaving chest of the middle man. It wedged in the ribs and he almost cried out in frustration as his bloody grip slipped completely from the sword as he pulled on it, leaving him unarmed in an instant.