Fortress of Spears

by Anthony Riches

  Licinius nodded in response to his colleague’s comment.

  ‘Just a little longer. Let them get properly mired before we show our hand.’

  The barbarians stormed over the camp’s outer wall and charged through the cohort’s tents towards the real defence at its rear, a wall fully four feet tall and defended by a thicket of sharpened stakes set to rip the throat out of an unwary attacker.

  ‘There you go. What a delightful sound …’

  Higher notes were piercing the berserk roar of the Venicone onslaught, screams of agony rising as the warriors charging across the empty camp found the other defences readied to greet them. Scaurus’s grimace when the older man had first outlined his plan for the battle had brought a smile to Licinius’s face, and blank incomprehension to Laenas’s.

  ‘Lilies? That’s a bit classical, colleague.’

  Licinius had smiled grimly, holding the fire-blackened stake up for his brother officers to examine more closely.

  ‘You like the idea, then?’

  Scaurus had nodded, taking the sharp sliver of wood and testing the point on the ball of his thumb before handing it to Laenas.

  ‘Very much so. If it was good enough for the Divine Julius in his conquest of the Gauls, it’s more than good enough for us to use on these animals.’

  Judging that the volume of agonised screaming had risen to the level they were waiting for, he raised an eyebrow at Licinius, who nodded his agreement, raising his voice for the centurions waiting behind them to hear.

  ‘Very well, gentlemen, let’s go and show these tattooed bastards what it means to push Rome too hard.’

  All three men climbed to their feet, and behind them the wood that overlooked the decoy camp came alive with the shouting of centurions and the rattle of equipment, as three cohorts stirred from their long wait and came to battle.

  Still standing on the false camp’s front wall, Drust watched in dismay as his warriors blundered into the trap waiting for them, As they charged through the sea of tents, intent on bringing the defenders to battle, dozens of men lurched and fell within a few seconds, their screams merging with the war cries of their uninjured comrades in a cacophony of rage, pain and terror. The warriors following them turned to the left and right, seeking a way round the sudden chaos of fallen bodies twisting in the agony of their wounds, and blundered into more of the hidden traps, each hastily dug pit containing several stakes arranged to point in different directions like the petals of a flower.

  ‘Lilies. Nobody could ever accuse the bastards of failing to learn from their mistakes.’

  Drust turned to find Calgus standing alongside him atop the low turf wall. The Selgovae leader shook his head slowly, watching as Drust’s warriors gingerly felt their way across the field of traps laid out in front of the rear wall’s entire length. Even advancing with caution, their progress suddenly reduced to a slow walk, the occasional man still found his foot vanishing into the apparently solid ground and impaled on the fire-hardened wooden stakes concealed in their well-camouflaged pits. Both men watched as the first warriors reached the defended rear wall, snaking around the long stakes protruding from the earth wall’s defence to attack the men waiting for them behind their shields. Calgus shook his head slowly.

  ‘I’ve seen this before this year. They’ll hide behind that wall and slaughter your men with their spears as they try to climb it. You’ve been fooled, Drust, they’ll hold us off all morning …’

  ‘So we’ll kill them all by the afternoon. They’re still stuck there behind that wall, and all I have to do is send a force around to their rear and we’ll have them bottled up like rats in a barrel.’ Drust turned to look at Calgus, who was staring at the defenders with an uncertain look in his eye. ‘What?’

  The Selgovae king’s frown deepened.

  ‘There’s something wrong here. The Tungrians have oval shields …’ Drust turned to look again with fresh focus.

  ‘You’re right, they’re round. Like … those fucking horsemen!’

  He spun and looked back up the slope, his jaw dropping at the sight of armed and armoured men pouring from the trees to their rear. Turning back, he pointed at the member of his bodyguard who carried the signal horn used to gain the warband’s attention in battle.

  ‘Blow!’

  As the horn’s echoes rang across the field, and the Venicones paused in their struggles to reach the camp’s defended rear wall, Drust raised his hammer high over his head, then pivoted to point the weapon’s heavy iron head up the slope at the trap closing around the warband.

  ‘Warriors, there is our enemy! Attack!’

  The detachment’s first centuries broke from the trees at a dead run, their centurions bellowing encouragement as hundreds of men hurled themselves from their hiding places and sprinted for the line that Licinius had indicated to Scaurus and Laenas the previous afternoon. The three men had walked across the long shallow slope as the late afternoon’s shadows slowly lengthened, discussing the course that they expected the next morning’s fight to take.

  ‘Assuming that Drust displays his usual bull-headed behaviour, and attacks quickly rather than standing back to consider what might be wrong with this scene …’ Licinius paused and waved a hand at the soldiers labouring to construct the marching camp that he hoped would lure the Venicones into their trap. ‘… then there will come a moment when he knows he’s been fooled. And at that moment he will turn his men round and they’ll come charging back up here like the hounds of Hades, and if they get here …’ He pointed at the ground they were standing on. ‘… before we can get a decent line established to stop them then they’ll overrun us in no time.’

  Scaurus had looked back at the trees behind them, then turned to stare down the slope, gauging the distance with a practised eye. He shook his head unhappily.

  ‘Hiding three cohorts in that wood is all very well, but the men will be packed in like spectators at the circus games. It’ll take longer to get them out and into line than we’ll have. We might be better just meeting them on open ground …’

  Laenas put a hand on his arm.

  ‘What if …’

  The two tribunes turned to look at him, Scaurus raising an inquisitorial eyebrow and Licinius frowning slightly. His voice when he spoke was impatient with the younger man’s interruption and Scaurus saw his subordinate flinch almost imperceptibly at the tone.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking …’

  Licinius put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes with frustration.

  ‘Tribune Laenas, we are …’

  ‘Colleague?’

  The older man looked at Scaurus in slight surprise, taken aback at the studiedly neutral tone of his brother officer’s voice.

  ‘Rutilius Scaurus?’

  ‘If our colleague has an idea, then I’d like to hear it.’

  He’d raised an eyebrow at the younger man, opening his hands in encouragement, and Laenas had stolen a nervous glance at Licinius before speaking again, his voice riven with uncertainty.

  ‘I was just thinking that if our problem is the time we’ll have to get our soldiers out of the trees and into line, then we’ll have to find a way to slow the Venicones down as they come back up this way. A way they won’t notice on their way down the slope.’

  Both men had stared at him curiously, their interest piqued. As he kept talking, his voice strengthening as the idea took shape, Licinius’s sceptical expression had transformed into a slow smile by the time he turned to call to the nearest officer.

  ‘Decurion!’

  Silus had hurried across to the trio, saluting briskly.

  ‘Tribune?’

  ‘I need you to take a party of twenty men back to the Dinpaladyr. There’s something the Votadini will have plenty of that we need, and as much of it as you can find.’

  The Venicones massed at the decoy fort’s wall turned at their king’s command and surged back up the slope, yelling out their fury and frustration. A clear trumpet
note rang out across the battlefield, and, as if by some arcane magic, the horde of charging tribesmen were suddenly reduced to a chaos of struggling bodies, hundreds of them sprawling over previously unseen obstacles while the men behind them were felled in their turn by the chaotic sprawl of bodies. In seconds the onrushing warband’s attack was reduced to a crawl, those men still on their feet having to pick their way around those still recovering their balance. Hacking furiously at the ropes which had tripped them, raised from the thumb’s-width trenches in which they had been run across the hillside the previous day, each one snapped up and tied fast by men hidden in the woods to either side, the Venicones were quickly able to remove the unexpected impediment, but as Drust looked over his men’s heads at the scurrying Roman troops he shook his head and spat on the ground with disgust.

  The cohorts had formed a rough line by the time their enemies had resumed their progress up the slope, Tungrians and legionaries intermingled by the speed of their rush from the trees and kept that way by a decision made by the three tribunes the previous afternoon. Licinius had watched the 6th Legion’s men going about their preparations for the following day’s battle and turned to the other two senior officers with a questioning look for Laenas.

  ‘Tribune, have your men actually seen any fighting this year? I believe your cohort was shipped in from Germania after the disaster at Lost Eagle, and you were too late into the battle to destroy the rebellion to see any proper fighting.’

  Laenas had slowly nodded his reluctant agreement.

  ‘In that case they are an unknown quantity, whereas our Tungrian cohorts have fought in two battles this year already. We know that they will cope when the barbarians’ first attack breaks on their shields, but we cannot know how your men will react. I suggest that we deliberately mix some of your legionaries in with the Tungrians, and let them work out their ranking when they get to the line of defence. That way the experienced men will help the new boys cope with what they’re about to experience. The rest of you can form our reserve. After all, no good commander ever put everything in the shop window, did he?’

  Marcus’s 9th Century were among the first men to the point where Licinius had decreed the defensive line would be held, in the company of the first men of the legion cohort out of the trees. Scarface pushed himself into his accustomed place in the front rank, hefting his spear and looking to either side at the legionaries beside him, grinning at their expressions as they watched the barbarians regain their momentum to charge up the slope at them.

  ‘Nice shields, ladies. Best get ready to use them, the tattoo boys will be here in a moment. Get your spears ready to throw!’

  ‘Thank you, soldier, I’ll be the one that decides what we’re to do if that’s all right with you?’

  Marcus, standing to the line’s rear with his gladius drawn, kept his rebuke level enough and his eyes fixed on the oncoming Venicones. Julius’s 5th Century had taken their place in the line next to his men, as equally mingled with the legion cohort’s men as were his own, and the big centurion was stalking along the line of his men and barking his last instructions over the din of the approaching barbarians.

  ‘There’s no river to stop them this time, only your shields and your desire not to end up with your head on the point of a blue-nose spear.’ Marcus winced with the involuntary memory of his first glimpse of Rufius’s head held aloft at the battle of Forest Camp as his brother officer raised his voice to bark an order at his men. ‘Both ranks, spears ready!’

  All along the straggling Roman line the soldiers that had reached their places gripped their spears more tightly, readying themselves for the next command as the Tungrian and legion centurions waited for the right moment. Julius, gauging that the Venicones were as close as he wanted them without starting the fight, bellowed an order that rang across the battlefield.

  ‘Front rank, spears … throw!’

  Legionaries and auxiliaries alike ran forward the few short paces needed to give them the momentum to throw their weapons, hurling their spears and javelins into the onrushing Venicones and dropping to one knee in order to provide the rear rank with a clear throw.

  ‘Second rank, throw!’

  The rear-rankers threw their spears in flatter arcs, their targets fewer than a dozen paces distant, the auxiliaries’ broad-bladed spears and the legionaries’ arrow-headed javelins dropping hundreds of the enemy warriors to the slope’s turf in screaming, writhing agony. The soldiers quickly reformed their line and braced for the barbarian charge’s impact as the stricken warriors were shrugged aside or trampled underfoot by the warband’s charging mass. Scarface grimaced at the sight of a dying warrior, a spear spitted clean through him, being propelled forward on faltering legs by the mass of men behind him, and set himself a little lower behind his shield as he waited for the warband’s impact. Muttering as much to himself as to the men around him, he raised his gladius until the sword’s point was held level with his shield’s brass boss, ready to strike.

  ‘Steady, boys, steady. We get this wrong and we’re all fucked …’

  The Venicone charge broke on the defenders’ shields with an impact that rocked the Roman line back half a dozen paces, the warband’s wild-eyed warriors hammering at the wall of shields that confronted them with a rabid intensity, a wild desperation born of their realisation that they were trapped inside their enemy’s line. The Romans gave ground grudgingly, forced back one pace at a time by the barbarian onslaught and fighting back from behind their shields with well-timed sword thrusts. Aiming for the barbarians’ vulnerable thighs, guts and throats, their stabbing thrusts ripped open the warriors’ unprotected skin in hot sprays of blood, killing or disabling several of the enemy for every legionary or soldier who fell to a barbarian weapon.

  The soldier Scarface, his tunic already wet with blood running down his neck from a shallow spear wound to his chin from the initial barbarian attack, pushed his shield forward as the spearman stepped forward and struck at him again, watching as the weapon’s long blade punched through the board’s layered wood and stuck firm. Wrenching the shield back to pull the weapon from its wielder’s hands and drag the barbarian forward an involuntary pace, he stepped forward to meet the momentarily unbalanced warrior with a snarl of triumph. Stabbing his gladius deep into the other man’s thigh, he twisted the blade savagely to open the blood vessel running beneath the ruined flesh, wrenching it free and punching the stricken spearman back into the mass of men behind him with his shield’s heavy boss.

  Behind the battling soldiers, centurions spaced down the length of the line watched hawk eyed for casualties, bawling at the men of the rear rank to pull any casualty who failed to stagger clear of the fight out of the line by his arms and throw him clear, quickly pushing a replacement in. Where the majority fought back in silence, save for their grunts of exertion, a few of the Romans, those close to being unhinged by the horror unfolding around them and those for whom these few precious minutes of combat were the potent elixir of their lives, screamed in desperation and wide-eyed defiance at the barbarian warriors railing at their shields as they fought.

  Drust climbed the slope behind his men with a speed born of his sense of urgency, Calgus close behind him as he pushed through the warband to reach the Roman line with his bodyguard gathered close about him. Looking between the heads of his warriors he saw the Roman line holding firm, the determined soldiers fighting hard to hold off his men’s attack, and the evidence before him told its own story. Many more warriors than soldiers lay dead and wounded in the trampled mud between the two lines, and the sour stink of their blood and the contents of their guts was already strong enough to make his gorge rise. Stepping back a few paces, he looked grimly around the men of his bodyguard, nodding slowly at them as the knowledge of what would be required to escape from the Roman trap became clear on their faces. He spoke over the battle’s din, looking each man in the eye in turn as he told them what he needed.

  ‘Warriors of my household, you above all other men o
f the tribe are as brothers to me, after all these years together. And now, my brothers, I must ask a difficult thing of you. Unless we break this Roman line, and quickly, our own dead will form a wall over which we must climb to make our escape, making such a thing nigh on impossible. We few must do what another five hundred champions might struggle to achieve, hamstrung by their very numbers. We must throw ourselves into the Romans without regard for our lives, and kill enough men in one place to allow our warriors to exploit the gap we carve in their line, and break it asunder. When their line breaks I will lead the warband through the gap and fall on them from the rear. Victory will be ours, but to break their line will need a mighty sacrifice, my brothers. I will lead you in this, but you must be willing to attack the Romans with desperate speed and raging fury if we are to make this happen. Can you do that for me, my brothers, knowing that many of you will be drinking with your ancestors tonight?’

  He looked around his men again, seeing the resolution harden in their faces as they met his gaze, some nodding their assent while others simply stared back with the expressions of men who knew full well that their time had come. Brushing away tears of pride, he opened his arms and beckoned them into a huddle of bodies, smelling the tang of their sweat as he spoke the words he knew would unleash their full fury on their enemy.

  ‘Brothers you have been to me, but no longer will I call you so. From now you are not brothers to me, but sons! Those of you that fall will be venerated as my children, those of you that live respected as members of my family. We shall be remembered far beyond our lifetimes, my sons, for what we are about to do, for we go to bite out our enemy’s throat, and tear his body to pieces. With me, my sons!’