The Winter Sword: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 3)

by Alaric Longward

  I decided to grab him and hold him hostage, a scenario that would likely end badly. Then a horse was approaching, it was clear. It neighed outside, and a man was guiding it with clicks of his tongue. ‘What in the name of Achilles now?’ the immunes breathed and turned to go. ‘Watch the bastard,’ he breathed and stormed out. The horse stopped before the tent. Its shadow could be seen, and the Legionnaires stood around it. They seemed excited.

  ‘Get that woman down from the horse!’ the freckle-faced immunes screamed. ‘There is no riding in the camp. It’s forbidden!’

  ‘Sir, she is no soldier!’ said a guard.

  ‘I don’t care if it is the harlot of Mars, she will get down, now!’ The guards in the tent hesitated, tempted to see the woman and shuffled back to try to glimpse what was going on outside.

  ‘It’s a woman all right,’ said one of the guards to the other as he carefully opened up the tent flap to gawk at the sight. I nearly shouted with joy as I glimpsed Cassia with a large bag, sitting on a dark horse. Agetan was leading the beast.

  ‘Get down!’ yelled another man. ‘You bring ill fortune on the day of the battle! Come!’ a burly legionnaire was reaching for her waist.

  She looked drawn, in pain but determined as she let the man lift her down.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the immunes leading the guards, looking down at her imperiously. ‘A pregnant woman riding around with an idiot. What is that?’

  ‘I was looking for the centurion Magnus of the fifth cohort of I Gallica. Am I lost? He bought these honey cakes, and I need a payment for them,’ Cassia complained about a nervous tremble in her voice, as if she was being cheated.

  Men laughed as the immunes gestured around him. One was gesturing around him. ‘Girl, they are all out to have a small fight. He has no use of your honey nor the cakes.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said, pretending to be a fool. ‘What am I to do with them?’

  The immunes chortled. ‘Why, he asked me to take them for safe keeping. You will be paid later, yes, later.’

  ‘Truly?’ she was batting her eyes alluringly as she hesitated. The men nudged each other, the guards coming from behind the tent to hover by their comrades.

  ‘Truly!’ the immunes said happily and took the sack, opened it, and put his hand inside.

  Agetan and Cassia charged at the tent and pushed my two guards further inside. Agetan’s foolish grin turned to savagery as he punched one of the guards so hard I saw chips of teeth fly several feet in the air. I grasped the other one and pulled him down, spun on top of him and crushed my elbow on his face. We kept at it as Cassia pulled the tent closed, her face pale. Agetan turned to rope down the guards, and I grasped Cassia to me. ‘What in Frigg’s smile are you doing?’

  Outside, screams.

  She giggled. ‘A hornet’s nest. You see, there is a tree they left standing when they built this camp. They think the bees and hornets are messengers from the gods, and so they are holy. Well, Agetan fetched the nest, and now the gods are upset, I think.’ I nodded, pale for the pain I heard being inflicted outside. The men screamed on. The leader had plunged his hand directly inside the nest, and his piteous yell was such that it was likely heard out on the battlefield. The savage drone of the winged, enraged beasts was audible as the hornets surged out of the sack. The homeless, terrifyingly mad creatures plunged their swords at the hapless legionnaires, crawling on their arms, legs, and neck, even under their armor. This we saw as their shadows ran back and forth outside our tent, spilling helmets and weapons and even armor in the mud. They ran around, screamed, rolled in the dust, cursed like haunted spirits, and finally cried for mercy as more and more of the cloud descended on them with a vengeance. A man dodged inside the tent and ran to Agetan’s fist, falling back out. A hornet stung me, and I cursed at the pain as Agetan struggled with the tent cover.

  The men ran away.

  I dodged to the side and glanced outside from under the tent. The legionnaires were running through tents as if they were on a racetrack, pulling up tent pegs. Only the leader was left behind, shuddering on the ground with the painful stings. His face was like a hilly mountainside, his hand and arm featureless as he shivered. ‘Wait!’ I said as Cassia went forward. ‘Plenty of the bastards around still.’

  ‘The hornets?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, the hornets,’ I laughed. ‘Ymir’s frozen blood that was splendid! Thank you, both. How are you?’

  Cassia shrugged. ‘The baby is fine.’

  ‘How are you?’ I repeated.

  ‘I’m dizzy, terribly nauseous, but I will live. Thank you, love,’ she said tenderly.

  ‘Thank you for saving my life,’ I said affectionally. Agetan grunted, rolling his eyes and nodded outside.

  ‘We have to speak later,’ Cassia breathed. ‘Brimwulf said you found out something and left us to deal with you. He had some mission you gave him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, grateful to the archer.

  Cassia smiled and stroked my cheek. ‘So, I guess this is the summer all your oaths will be held.’ She looked sad and played with my hair. ‘I survived my pain by being stupidly brave. Go and survive yours.’

  I held her tight and nodded. ‘This is the last time, Cassia. Last time I put myself in front of you.’

  ‘I believe you, perhaps,’ she told me playfully. ‘Agetan will guard me.’

  ‘He had better,’ I growled and dodged outside.

  Cassia came out as well and leaned down on the mutilated immunes. ‘Fennel. I’ll need fennel. I’ll treat him. Sometimes men die from such stings; even a few are enough. I hope he does not die.’

  I smiled at her. ‘He is a thieving jackass. But at least he did not murder me. Save him if you can. Where are the others?’

  ‘Is it true?’ she asked, and I knew what she was asking.

  ‘Fulcher is likely dead,’ I told her.

  She nodded, tears gathering in her eyes. ‘Agetan told me. Find the man who did it. We will mourn our friend.’ She nodded in the direction of the battle to be. ‘Brimwulf said they gathered all the Batavi for the battle. A Roman praefectus commands them in a Thracian ala,’ she said, having Agetan pull the immunes aside. Some hornets were still stuck in his flesh, and she frowned as she tried to clear them off. I ran around the tents until I found the weapons. I wrapped the Winter Blade on my side and stuck Nightbright to my belt. I grabbed my helmet and pulled it on. Then I took a legionary shield from the tent and went out to see Agetan slapping at some stubborn hornets.

  I waved at her and nodded at Agetan. ‘Until we meet again.’

  ‘Until then,’ Cassia agreed and did not look up at me, but glanced at the Winter Sword.

  ‘You won’t see it again,’ I promised her and ran away to the maze of tents.

  CHAPTER 33

  ‘There are horses held at the gate. There are many medicus and chirurgii, and they have men ready to pick up the wounded and bring them here,’ a slave told me by a tent, after I had accosted him for the location of some beasts. ‘Juppiter, we love and adore, that is the passphrase,’ he added, and I thanked him as I ran to the main gate, where the guards challenged me.

  ‘Juppiter!’

  ‘I fucking love and adore!’ I yelled at them as they stared at me incredulously. I brazenly grabbed a horse, a fine white beast and pulled it past the men at the gate.

  ‘Slept late, lad?’ one of them asked. I saw there was at least a cohort guarding the walls though the tent city was quiet.

  ‘They forgot to wake me up,’ I told them and their grins faded as I vaulted on the horse just outside the gate. A centurion appeared, hoisting a vine stick and stopped to stare at me in utter confusion. ‘Hold! That’s mine!’

  ‘I’ll but loan it, sir!’ I yelled at him and whipped it so hard the centurion winced. ‘If it dies, you’ll have to walk!’ I laughed, and the horse took off.

  ‘Stay! It’s not yours, I said! Thief!’ they yelled after me, but I was whipping the horse for the west.

  I rode along a muddy tr
ack crossing the valley. Ahead in the mists, cornu, and buccina rang harshly, and I knew Drusus had commanded the attack to begin. I could see the ridge and flashes of color along it as the Germani tribesmen stood their ground. I heard a distant barritus yell as thousands of determined men screamed harshly from behind their shields at their hated enemy. Soon, I begun to see flashes in the morning mist and knew I would soon see the heaving mass of metal clad killers in the triple axis formations, the deadly cohorts set up in three lines of bulky columns, getting ready to march up, slit the throats of the Cherusci thwarting them.

  I passed pickets, screaming the passphrase. I crossed a destroyed wheatfield where fat dogs slunk away from me, having sniffed at a dead horse. Medici and suppliers were riding towards me and soon around me, I saw men whipping mules full of pila and water gourds for the battle. The Roman army was in action.

  Then I saw the army.

  I reigned in my horse, and it was neighing and fighting my commands as I tried to make sense of the scene.

  Down before the ridge an army was making war.

  A dozen evil looking ballistae and catapults were firing, the squat constructions jumping with each shot of stone and spear. Two legions spread around them, metal helmets gleaming like a stream in sunlight as the evil missiles jumped into the air and reached cumbersomely for the enemy ranks. Perhaps seven to eight thousand legionnaires stood in lethal ranks under their Aquila and cohort and century standards. On the flanks were the cavalry. There were hundreds of Noricum riders to the right, and Thracian cavalry to the left, and there would be my friends, as well.

  In the middle was Drusus’s consular standard, very near the catapults, and I saw his lictors standing around his purple cloak and the red ones of the many tribunes. He was seated on a white horse like mine and seemed to be staring up the hill. Behind him, he had a reserve, and that mass of men made me cringe. There were Vangiones infantry with Alpine ones standing behind him in serried ranks, spear points flashing. They were several thousand strong. My throat tightened.

  Above them on the hillside stood the Germani, who were watching as slingers and archers sprang forth from the legions to make their life miserable. There were many of the enemies, perhaps as many as there were of the Romans. Their wondrous standards waved in the morning air, boasting skulls, banners of beasts, moons and stars, bones and skins. They were tall and proud and there to stand together against the enemy. Their barritus yell echoed bloodthirstily as it drifted across the land. It would be a brutal pushing match, and thousands of men would die. Beyond the enemy, the women encouraged the men, ready to lob rocks at the Romans and to care for the wounded.

  They would not be able to run far, for I learned later Drusus had sent half his cavalry, all of the Gauls and the Legion cavalry to circle around Armin’s troops.

  They did not mean to run. They were there to fight. To win. If Drusus fell, I thought, they might. Just might.

  I gazed at the army of Segestes on the hill. I prayed Brimwulf would be able to keep Armin alive and asked Donor the Avenger to grant Armin luck in whatever he had planned for Segestes. I turned in the saddle and gazed to the south. There, Roman exploratores were riding lazily, and I was sure that was where Father would spring to try to slay Drusus in a savage sally. Drusus knew where Maroboodus was, no doubt, and he would deploy the auxilia there to stop him.

  Except Hunfried would obey Father and let him through. Why? To be rewarded like Father was? Was his family held at sword point? I wondered. It mattered not.

  As if summoned, I saw movement in the southern woods. There was cavalry out there, flitting under the thinning boughs, and the exploratores rode for the army, their horns blaring. I saw Drusus move his hands languidly. His standard dipped, buccina blared forlornly, and the Vangione and Alpine standards waved. The savage Alpine tribes cheered hoarsely and with Hunfried’s Vangione army streamed to the southern flank. The king himself led his men on a run and began forming a thick line of shields and spears, three to four lines deep. The Thracian cavalry formed at the junction of the legions and the Vangiones, ready to stop the Marcomanni from savaging the legions in the flank.

  The flags waved and horns blared again, and the legions began to march forward, apparently unconcerned about Maroboodus, the ballistae and catapults ceasing their bombardment. The elevation was such that they had done very little damage anyway, and their power lay in terror. A dozen ripped and mangled corpses, limbs missing were scattered in the Cherusci and the Chatti ranks. The legions kept marching like metallic insects. They splashed into the stream below the ridge, and the water turned to mud. The Germani roared and their champions danced in front of the lines, coaxing their enemy on, but many of the men in the Legion were glancing to their left as a milling mass of Marcomanni came in sight.

  That sight stopped me.

  They were my people.

  Had been, that is before Father had disgraced me. Before I had listened to his lies. There they were, their hair knots elaborate and fine as the Suebi liked them, their backs straight and the armor Father had looted from Castra Luppia adorned many a proud chest. They were not unruly like the average Germani army, but rode in strict ranks, flitting skillfully down the hill to sight. With them came Sibratus and his Quadi. The Quadi and Marcomanni were outmanned by three to one as the Vangiones, Thracian cavalry, and Alpine infantry thrummed their spear on shield, yelling insults.

  I roused myself from the scrutiny as arrows and stones began to rain up the hill for the Cherusci. The enemy mocked the Roman auxilia, laughing in derision as the shots and arrows found shields and flesh and soon, some javelins rained down on the archers. Many fell, for few rivaled Germani in javelin throwing. The legions faltered for a moment as they began to climb for the not so distant line of the enemy.

  I cursed Maroboodus and Segestes, and I spurred my horse for Drusus, who was readying the Noricum cavalry on his right to move behind where the Vangiones had stood.

  I passed men carrying the wounded, mules bringing gear forward and nearly missed a man who was riding for the fort. He had detached himself from the army of the Vangiones, and he was riding hard. I saw he was dressed in auxilia gear, with bright chainmail and simple helmet. He evidently saw me coming, for he reined his horse so hard it nearly fell, and its forelegs struck air. The man pulled out a long spatha as his horse trotted for me.

  I aimed for Drusus, but the man was angling his horse to cut me off.

  He got closer and closer until I saw it was Cornix.

  He resolutely guided his horse between the army and me. I stopped and turned to face him. ‘Leaving the battle, Cornix?’

  He snorted and pulled his spatha. ‘The muscle is in place. There is no need to risk the brains. You are too late boy. Very much too late,’ he told me, testing his grip on his sword by swinging it in a lazy circle.

  ‘Fulcher,’ I said and pulled the Winter Sword.

  He laughed, tiredly. ‘It has been a long few years traveling in Germania, Hraban. I am bored with your smelly halls and tedious, irascible nature. I’m tired of even Antius. Now, your high friend will finally die in a war as he should have died years past, and we will go home. It will end today. And you will not stop it. I should have put you down long ago. As I did put down your Fulcher. Paellus had us watch you and your friends. That bit with Oril was surprising as Lothar did not admit to having said anything, but I never lose sight of the most important part of the mission. And that was keeping the Consul in the dark.’

  ‘Segestes left Drusus anyway,’ I sneered.

  ‘He is a coward. But this will be enough.’ Cornix grinned. ‘The Vangiones is enough though Segestes could have made this much easier.’

  ‘Fulcher, I asked you,’ I spat at him.

  He smiled. He lifted the hem of his sagum, and there was a pouch with the scroll and Wolf’s Bane on his belt. ‘He is gone boy. Just get over him.’

  A huge barritus yell could be heard around us as Cherusci troops cheered their allies, and I saw many hundred javelins start
to drop onto the two resolutely climbing legions. Cornix glanced towards the huge, thunderous sound of Germani nations reveling in the war and coming death. ‘Noisy lot.’

  ‘Brave lot,’ I said, my sword on my side as the legions hunkered down under their shields, enduring the steel tipped rain of death. ‘Well. Since it will end now, will you not tell me who is to be blamed for all of this shit?’

  ‘Will I?’ he snorted.

  ‘Just speak, you murdering fuck,’ I spat at him, guiding my horse around him, but he moved his to mirror my movement.

  ‘It is a woman in Rome,’ he sneered.

  ‘I know it is,’ I laughed. ‘Drusus knows.’

  ‘He knows.’ Cornix smiled. ‘But you don’t. Perhaps it’s the daughter of the princeps? The only child of Augustus? Julia? Gens Julia, gens Claudia, one of the highest women in the land?’

  ‘Perhaps?’ I smiled. ‘You are not sure.’

  ‘I know who hired us.’ He grinned. ‘Why not the daughter of the mighty man, out to make sure her sons inherit the land? That the dream of yon Drusus there, the restoration of weak Republic after Augustus dies will not come to haunt her and her loved ones?’

  ‘And my father serves her?’ I stated, trying to find room to dart past him, our horses making their way slowly to the standard of Drusus.

  ‘He guarded her,’ he nodded. ‘He bedded her. And his son? Not all the children of late Agrippa and Julia are of Roman origin. When the baby was presented to Agrippa, the fool picked up this one like he had the others, thinking for awhile it was his indeed.’

  ‘You are saying my father’s son; the precious son is in line to inherit Augustus?’ I sneered. ‘Lies.’

  ‘I said perhaps,’ he snorted. ‘And your Drusus there? He hates Julia. For Tiberius, who had to marry the cunt. For many things. And so, perhaps it was Julia who is outwardly a silly, simpering thing but also very, very astute, and wealthy?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I hissed.

  Up on the hill, a horn blew. The Germani launched all their remaining javelins downhill, a veritable rain of steel and wood and it rained down on the legions who again braced themselves. A curious sound of sharp raps filled the air and so many glinting; bright legionnaires went down. Rocks began to come down, for all armies employ rocks as the javelins and arrows run out. Then the Roman war machine closed ranks, forgot about the dead, ignored the rocks, and the moans of the wounded and went on. The Suebi on the left waited, thrumming their shields with their spears while sitting on their horses.