Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  The younger man saluted and took the woman by her arm, drawing her away from the group while Scaurus turned back to the men of the detachment.

  ‘Now then, gentlemen, I think we all know what we have to do, but for those of you who live for the idea of burying an axe in a barbarian’s head …’ he stared at Dubnus for a moment before continuing, ‘this will be a tactical retreat to the river with our bows and axes combined, one axeman to accompany each archer for their protection while they use their bows to keep the Bructeri at arm’s length. Centurion Qadir, ensure that your men shepherd their remaining arrows carefully, and only shoot when they have clear targets. You must not let them get carried away and leave the detachment without any means of keeping the enemy’s heads down.’

  Qadir nodded his understanding.

  ‘And you, Dubnus, your axemen are to fight going backwards, and only to step onto the front foot if necessary to preserve a tactical advantage. When not engaged hand to hand, I want them to concentrate on using their shields to protect both themselves and the archer with whom they’re paired.’

  Dubnus nodded curtly.

  ‘Yes, Tribune. They’ll defend their brother soldiers to the last man.’

  Scaurus smiled wanly.

  ‘I know they will. Very well then gentlemen, get your men moving. We’re still a long way from the river.’

  ‘What happened?’

  The oldest of the three riders who had survived the ill-fated attack on the Romans shook his head, his face grey with shock and exhaustion. Amalric had found them at the side of the forest track, staring down at one of their number who was clearly close to death, his breathing shallow and eyes glassy, a pair of arrows protruding from his chest, and had halted the Bructeri main force’s column to question them.

  ‘It was a slaughter. Their archers shot us to ribbons.’ He pointed down at the dying man. ‘He was hit before we even saw them.’

  ‘How many are they?’

  The man looked up at him, shaking his head again as he tried to gather his wits.

  ‘Twenty? Perhaps thirty?’

  The Bructeri noble turned in his saddle to face the king.

  ‘Thirty men at most, and we have eighty spearmen and half as many riders! We should pursue these Romans until we catch up with them, then dismount and overrun them. Thirty men will never stand against this many warriors!’

  Amalric nodded his consent, and the noble raised a hand to order the advance. He led the column to the south at a slow trot, eyes scanning the forest to either side of the track, until the clearing where the Romans had offered his horsemen battle came into view, with its grisly scattering of dead men and horses. Gernot shouted a peremptory command over his shoulder, knowing that some of his warriors would have recognised brothers and cousins among the fallen.

  ‘Leave them! We hunt Romans!’

  They trotted on for another two miles before a flash of sunlight on iron alerted Gernot to the presence of armoured men ahead of them, the backs of the fleeing enemy giving him fresh purpose.

  ‘There, my King! There is your enemy! We must attack them on foot through the forest, the leading horses will never survive an attack down the path and the rest of us will be trapped behind the first beasts to fall.’ He turned back to the men behind him. ‘Dismount!’

  The oldest and youngest among them led the horses away while the remaining warriors pressed in around their king, looking to him for leadership. A rider galloped up from behind them, jumping from his saddle and hurrying to Amalric, whispering urgently in the king’s ear. Amalric nodded at the messenger’s words, staring grim-faced around the tribesmen’s tight circle.

  ‘They have my seer! Gerhild has fallen into their filthy grasping hands! And I swear my revenge to Wodanaz!’ He drew his sword and raised the point at the sky. ‘My brothers! Men of my household! Men of my city! These Romans have stolen our pride away this day, through lies and deceit! We must bring them to bay, and then we must show them how the Bructeri deal with those who set foot on our soil without our leave to do so! If you have no choice then they are to die, but every one of them we take alive is worth a gold coin to the man who captures him, and five for an officer! I will take these captives to the Roman fort by the river, and I will put them to death, within clear sight of the soldiers who guard the bridge! Their screams will be heard in Rome itself!’

  Gernot nodded, pointing at the distant Tungrians with his sword.

  ‘Run, brothers! Now we take this war to the men who started it!’

  ‘Here they come!’

  Still a mile from the river, the detachment turned to fight in the way that Scaurus had prescribed once combat was inevitable, the bowmen laying out their arrows for rapid shooting while one of Dubnus’s men took his place beside each of them with their shields raised against enemy archery. Dozens of Bructeri warriors were advancing towards them through the trees, clearly already well aware of the Hamians’ threat as they moved from tree to tree and kept their bodies low, hoping to use the cover of the forest’s ferns and bushes to disguise their advance.

  ‘Wait!’

  Qadir’s shouted command was obeyed with absolute discipline by his men, despite the increasing number of arrows flying past them, still mostly above head height as the few Bructeri archers loosed swift shots before diving back into cover. A handful of the younger tribesmen were loosing sling stones at them from the flanks of the war band’s advance, the improvised bullets hissing past them unseen and occasionally smacking into a man’s shield with a loud click. The pioneers pulled their Hamian comrades into cover as the volume of harassing arrows and sling stones increased with the Bructeri warriors’ confidence, more than one of them flinching despite their collective vow to show no fear, as arrows punched into the layered wood of their shields and were prevented from penetrating only by the layers of leather and silk that overlaid the wood, a trick that had saved more than one life in the battles of their eastern campaign. The enemy warriors were closing in, no longer distant figures flitting between the trees but individuals, the fear and determination on their faces visible as they shouted encouragement to each other, collectively readying themselves to storm the detachment’s line while behind them someone was shouting commands and driving them forward. With a sudden spur of collective determination they lurched forward, eschewing the protection of the trees for a straightforward charge towards the hated Romans, those men with shields leading the assault. Qadir swept his arm forward.

  ‘Loose!’

  The Tungrians unleashed their arrows, shooting quickly into the mass of men running at them, three volleys in the space of five heartbeats, their deadly missiles hammering through the illusory protection of the leading warriors’ shields to pierce the bodies behind them. Loosing again, and again, they reaped a savage harvest of the poorly protected Germans, and with every man that fell the remaining warriors crouched a little closer to the ground, their headlong charge becoming little more than a shuffling, zigzagging trot from the cover of one tree to another. Qadir and Dubnus exchanged glances, both men nodding to affirm the plan that they had agreed minutes before. The Hamian shouted the command for which his men had been waiting.

  ‘Archers … Cease!’

  Dubnus’s men clenched their hands on the grips of their shields and the handles of their axes, knowing that their turn to bleed the enemy was at hand. Their centurion bellowed the command they were waiting for, slipping their collars to send them at the wavering Bructeri.

  ‘Tenth Century! Advance!’

  He strode out at their head with his face set implacably, a warrior chieftain come for vengeance at the head of men whose devotion to him was absolute, striding purposefully at the enemy with their shields and axes raised. Dubnus was the first into the fight, stamping forward to attack a pair of warriors who threw themselves at the armoured giant with suicidal bravery. Turning the spear thrust at him from the left with his shield and following through with a punch of the iron boss that sent the warrior staggering backwards, he
sidestepped the other man’s stabbing attack before spinning to deliver a vicious chopping axe blow that hammered into the Bructeri’s chest, kicking the dying warrior off the blade in a spray of blood and turning on the first man with a snarl of triumph, looping the axe high to smash the spike on the reverse of its heavy iron blade down into his head. On either side his men waded into the enemy with equal fury, their shields and armour protecting them from the enemy’s spears while every swing of their axes did grievous damage to the men who were still attempting to resist their advance. One of the pioneers staggered from the fight with a spear wound to his thigh, and while he was reeling, a quick-witted archer lurking behind the Bructeri line put an arrow into his throat, but the roar of triumph from the warrior who’d managed to stab beneath the hem of his mail was short-lived, as the Tungrian fighting next to the dying man stepped forward and swung his axe in a flat arc, slicing off the top six inches of the German’s head and leaving his corpse to crumple limply to the ground. As those warriors who chose to fight rather than back away from the rampaging pioneers grew fewer, Dubnus realised that the Bructeri were collectively retreating before the Tungrian onslaught, no longer seeking to fight the armoured monsters whose axes were likely to be the ruin of any man who confronted them, and were instead consolidating their scattered force into a hedge of spears.

  ‘Tenth Century! Disengage!’

  As one man they stepped back, retreating from the baying Germans without turning their backs, raising their shields against the threat of Bructeri arrows and sling stones as they pulled away from the line of spearmen. A scattering of dead and dying warriors marked the limit of their brief advance, their bodies wrecked by the axes’ awful blows, the spectacle they presented so terrifying that the enemy warriors standing and watching the Tungrians walk backwards out of the fight were unwilling to advance past the ruined bodies of their comrades in search of revenge for them. When his men were twenty paces from the enemy line Dubnus turned and flicked two pointing fingers towards the riverbank, still half a mile distant.

  ‘Tenth Century, at the run!’

  Jogging past the archers he nodded to Qadir, who was already shouting the command for his archers to resume shooting. As the Bructeri regained their will to go forward, shamed by the imprecations of their leaders and heartened by the Tungrians’ retreat, those men who were the first to step forward became the targets of a fresh volley of shafts, precisely aimed shots that dropped several more men writhing and kicking at the pain of the iron arrowheads lodged deep in their bodies, and sent the remainder into cover once more. Seeing the enemy momentarily cowed, the Hamian centurion made a swift decision.

  ‘One more arrow! Pick your targets!’

  The Hamians nocked one last time, selecting their marks with care to send shots into the mass of men attempting to shelter from their cold rain of iron behind their shields, then looked to their centurion for his next command.

  ‘Disengage!’

  Waiting while his men hurried after Dubnus’s retreating axemen, he settled into the cover of the tree next to him, knowing that he needed to give them a few moments of grace to prevent the Bructeri bowmen targeting their retreating backs. Nocking an arrow he pulled it back until the flight feathers were level with his ear, waiting motionlessly with the bow pulled taut for a target to reveal itself. After a moment an archer stepped out from behind the tree he’d been using for cover, putting an arrow to his own bow and raising the weapon to loft the missile at the retreating Hamians’ backs. Qadir waited for an instant, holding his breath to steady his body, until the Bructeri bowman had his bow bent almost to its fullest extent, then killed the man with a clinical shot and reached back to his quiver for another arrow. He waited for a long moment for another target to present itself, but the remaining Bructeri seemed intent on keeping their skins intact, and the Hamian smiled wryly as he stood, backing cautiously away from the tree with the arrow still nocked in case of a sudden change of heart by any of the Germans. When he had paced backwards a dozen times he removed the arrow from his bow’s string, sliding it back into the quiver on his right hip, then turned to lope away in pursuit of his men.

  With a dull clang, a sling stone struck the back of his helmet with enough power to dent the iron bowl, sending him sprawling unconscious to the sun dappled forest floor.

  ‘I have an idea, my King! Give me thirty men and I will break this resistance for you!’

  The Bructeri had followed up on the retreating Romans eagerly enough until the retreating soldiers had formed a rough defensive line. Having turned to face the tribesmen they crouched behind their shields in small knots of men, clearly waiting for the tribesmen to advance upon them in another charge that could only end the same way as the last, in the face of their enemy’s viciously effective archery and brutal axe-work. In the distance behind them Amalric had twice caught a flash of blue among the forest’s more sober shades, fleeting glimpses of Gerhild’s distinctive cloak as her captors hurried her away towards the river.

  ‘What do you plan, Uncle?’

  He threw an arm out to indicate the Roman left flank.

  ‘There is a weakness in their position, too much ground cover on our right for their archers to see us coming. You keep their attention and I will overrun them from the right. When they turn to face me you will have your moment of glory! Then you must charge!’

  Amalric nodded, and Gernot pointed to two of his senior warriors.

  ‘Bring your men! We go to claim the victory!’

  He bounded away to the west in a long, looping run that took his small force out of sight of the Romans, and as he threw his head back to suck in the cold morning air, he wondered briefly if anyone on the other side had seen their departure, and whether they would make the connection between the unexpected departure of so many men from the Bructeri line and the lack of clear ground for shooting on the Roman left. Concentrating on the uneven ground before him, wary of turning an ankle in a rabbit hole and losing the fight before it was properly joined, he dismissed the concern without a second thought. If Wodanaz willed it, his would be a mighty victory, a song to be shouted at roof beams studded with new heads, and the weapons and armour of the men he was about to tear apart with his audacious strategy.

  ‘Have you seen Qadir?’

  Angar shook his head, staring out at the Bructeri war band less than two hundred paces distant, drumming their spear shafts against shield rims in a rhythmic pattern that was slowly increasing in tempo. Dubnus cursed and looked about him, shaking his head at his comrade’s disappearance. Angar pointed at the waiting Germans, hefting his blood-slathered axe, ready to fight again.

  ‘Never mind Qadir, his boys will cope without him. Concentrate on dealing with this lot, there must still be nearly a hundred of them.’

  The big centurion nodded, scanning the battlefield with the seasoned eye of an old campaigner, his eye coming to rest on the far left of the small field of battle.

  ‘I don’t like that left flank, and I could swear there are less of them than there were last time I looked, so perhaps they’ve spotted it too. Take two men and reinforce it, I’ll manage this.’

  Angar nodded and called to two of his remaining eight men, hurrying along the detachment’s short line to find a pair of archers nervously staring at a wall of foliage less than a hundred paces from them. With a sudden roar the Bructeri’s main line was lurching forward, the tribe’s warriors reflexively starting forward after a single man whose will to stand and wait in the face of the Romans’ rhythmic drumming had suddenly and decisively snapped, sending them forward at their enemy in an involuntary, screaming charge. As the chosen man watched the Hamians unleashed the full power of their long years of practice on the oncoming warriors, each men calmly and systematically nocking, drawing and loosing a shaft once every two heartbeats, their arrows hammering into the Germans’ shields and finding the gaps between them while Dubnus readied his remaining axemen.

  ‘They won’t even reach us, look, they’ve already lost
a dozen men.’

  Angar turned to speak to the retired legionary Lucius, standing alongside his son and watching the Bructeri suffer as they came on, but a faint movement in the bushes to their left caught his attention for an instant.

  ‘What the …?’

  ‘We must attack!’

  Gernot nodded grimly at the warrior’s outburst, peering through the bushes behind which his small party was regaining its breath from their swift run. The main attack was already faltering, slowing under the Romans’ unceasing barrage of arrows. Every step forward took them closer to the Roman line, increasing the force with which the missiles’ wicked iron heads slammed through their raised shields to maim the flesh behind the layered wood, or pierced unprotected legs and arms, and a disquietingly large number of men lay silent or screaming in the wake of the advance.

  ‘Some idiot … decided to go … too soon … and those fools … followed him!’ The Bructeri chieftain sucked in one last breath. ‘Our time is here! Follow me!’

  He burst through the bushes, praying to Wodanaz that his men were following, raised his sword and charged, too badly out of breath to shout a war cry.

  ‘To the left! Shoot to the left!’

  The two archers in front of Angar took a moment to realise their deadly predicament, then swivelled and loosed their next arrows into the twenty or so men running at them in ominous silence, nocking and loosing again, but the pioneer officer could already see that the tribesmen would overrun them before they had time to shoot more than one more shaft apiece.

  ‘Ready!’

  His men stepped alongside him, both tensing their bodies to fight, and the civilians made ready alongside them, the retired soldier exchanging a knowing glance with him while his giant of a son flexed his muscles and roared a deafening challenge at the Bructeri. Each of the archers managed one more arrow apiece, then were beaten down by the oncoming Germans before they could nock again, both men dying with spears through them as the Bructeri took their savage revenge for the punishing damage the Hamians’ bows had done to their brothers. The axemen charged into the melee, separating themselves widely enough that they could swing their axes with complete abandon in the manner demanded by the odds against them, arcs of blood flying as their brutal weapons hacked a path into the enemy. One of them went down with a spear blade in his foot, and Angar flung his axe in a wide arc into a hastily raised shield to smash down the man wielding the spear, knowing that he would be unable to reach his man before he died under the blades of the warriors gathered over him, only to goggle as Magan waded into the fight. Ignoring a stabbing attack that opened a wound in his side, he grasped two warriors by their heads, smashing them together and dropping them senseless to the forest floor. Another spear stabbed into his back, but, turning as if nothing had happened, he took the man who had inflicted it by his throat and squeezed, his knuckles white as the flailing warrior’s larynx collapsed under the pressure.