Wounds of Honour: Empire I

by Anthony Riches

  The Tungrian centurions looked to Frontinius at the line’s centre, waiting for his signal as the barbarian horde surged up the gentle incline. Waiting with one arm raised, he watched the shaggy warriors storm towards his men, thirty yards, twenty-five, the usual range of the initial spear-throw, twenty, until at fifteen yards from the shield wall they hit the strip of greasy mud that his troops had painstakingly stamped into bubbling ruin. The leading wave of attackers slowed, fighting to stay on their feet as they bunched to avoid the giant wooden obstacles’ sharpened points. Crowded from behind and perilously close to falling headlong into the mud, more than a few suddenly shouted their pain as the scattered metal caltrops, half hidden in the mud, pierced their feet. The tribesmen’s attention was suddenly focused more downward than forward.

  Scarface raised his spear, shouting encouragement to his comrades, easing the weapon back and forth in readiness to throw, as he searched for a target among the mass of tribesmen struggling towards the Tungrian line.

  Frontinius whipped his hand downward in the pre-agreed signal. A volley of spears arced flatly into the struggling tribesmen, finding targets unprotected in their struggle to stay upright. The front ranks shivered with the impact, men screaming as flying steel spitted them through limb and trunk, their flailing bodies adding to the chaos as the barbarian charge faltered.

  The veteran soldier found his mark, a big man carrying a six-foot-long sword momentarily distracted by the greasy footing, and stepped forward to throw his spear, arm outstretched as he followed the weapon’s flight through to his point of aim. The barbarian jerked as the spear’s cruel steel head punched into his belly, blood jetting from the wound as he sank to his knees. Drawing his sword with a smile of satisfaction, Scarface backed up the slope until he felt hands grab his belt to steady him, lifting his shield into line with those to his right and left.

  Along the line the centurions bawled new commands, their men drawing their swords and crouching deeper behind their shields as the barbarian wave regained some of its momentum, shrugging aside the dead and dying to struggle towards the silent Tungrian line. Seeing their momentary difficulty, Frontinius made a snap decision, lifting his sword and pointing at the barbarians with its blade, bawling the order that unleashed his men down the slope.

  With a shrill of whistles from their officers the cohort lunged the few remaining paces down the hill into their enemy, smashing into the struggling barbarian line with their heavy shields and bowling the enemy front line back into the warriors behind, then stepped in with their swords.

  Scarface heard the whistle, kicked back to disengage the soldier held fast to his belt and bounded down the slope alongside his comrades with a blood-curdling howl, punching his shield’s metal boss into the face of a warrior with his sword raised to strike, then stabbing his sword’s point into the man’s guts and kicking him off the blade in one fluid motion. He shouted to his mates as he raised his shield into position.

  ‘Line! Reform the line!’

  The cohort’s front rank snapped their shields back into place, presenting the barbarians with an unbroken wall to frustrate their attacks. The soldiers repeatedly punched the metal bosses of their shields into the faces of the oncoming men, upsetting their precarious balance, then stabbed their short swords into their chosen targets, aiming for the body points that centuries of experience had taught would kill a man in seconds. Blood flew across the gap between the two lines in hot sprays as men fell back from the point of combat, weapons falling from their hands as they sought to halt the flow or hold intestines into torn bellies, or simply explored agonising wounds with shocked bewilderment as life ebbed from their bodies. The ground beneath their feet, doused with a mixture of blood, urine and faeces, became steadily more treacherous. The Tungrian rear rank’s role became one of keeping the men in front on their feet, and not exposed to an enemy blow on the ground. Punching and thrusting at the seething throng that railed desperately at their shield wall, parrying enemy sword and axe strokes and striving in turn to murder their deliverers, the Tungrians fought as men who understood that their only survival lay in slaughter, cold blooded and clinically efficient.

  In the 9th’s front rank Scarface crouched behind his shield, his left arm shuddering with the shock of sword-blows against its scarred wooden face, watching the barbarians intently through the gap between his helmet and the shield’s top edge, looking for any chance to strike. The long-haired warrior facing him, hemmed in by the men around him, raised his sword to chop the blade downward in the only attack open to him, and presented a fleeting opportunity that the experienced soldier took without hesitation. Stepping forward one pace, he thrust his sword between the other man’s ribs and dropped him, doubled over with the sudden awful pain, into the blood-spattered mud.

  A tribesman already fallen with a spear through his thigh gathered his strength to strike at the Roman’s extended leg, but the wily soldier simply slammed the sharpened metal edge of his shield down across the man’s sword arm, slicing down to the bone before stepping quickly back into his place in the shield wall. The man next to him slipped on the mud, going down on to one knee and opening himself up to the blows of his attackers. Without conscious thought, Scarface shifted his shield to protect his mate for the critical seconds required for him to regain his footing, ignoring his own peril. The man to his right killed a tribesman shaping to attack the momentarily unprotected veteran, ripping open his throat with a swift stab of his gladius. Within seconds their wall of shields was complete again, steady against the barbarians railing at its unyielding face.

  To Marcus, standing behind the double line of his men with a tent party of soldiers ready to thrust into holes hacked in the line, it looked like a hopelessly unequal battle. As the seconds passed he realised that most of the dying was being done on the other side of their shields. Relatively few of his own men had gone down, despite the thick throng of enemy pressing up the slope.

  ‘Stand fast, Ninth century, parry and thrust!’

  Dubnus’s familiar booming voice gave him heart, and he shouted his own encouragement above the screams and shouts of the battle. A gap opened in the line in front of him, a pair of men felled by the same massive axe blow, and he instinctively pushed the replacements aside and stepped into the breach before any of the enemy could surge through. The tribesman wielding the axe stamped down at his victim, attempting to wrench the blade from deep in his victim’s chest, then gaped as Marcus’s powerful chopping blow hacked away his right arm, a heavy boot striking him under the chin. The maimed man fell back into the wall of frenzied blue-painted faces that confronted Marcus and was lost to view, replaced by another, who, seeing Marcus’s rank, leapt forward in attack, only to be spitted by the cavalry sword’s length. Twisting the blade in a savage half-circle inside the barbarian’s scrabbling hands to loosen it within the body cavity, he punched forward with his shield at the dying man’s chest, ripping the sword free in a shower of gore that painted both the shield and his chest dark red.

  To his left a man from the neighbouring century suddenly leapt forward into the mass of the enemy, thrusting about him in a blood frenzy, killing one then another barbarian, then sank blood-soaked into the throng of the enemy, screaming as a dozen battle-crazed warriors bludgeoned him to death. The century’s chosen man pushed a man into the gap, bellowing at his men to keep their heads and hold the line.

  To their front, Marcus reckoned, as he parried and stabbed at the enemy in front of him with his men, the onslaught was easing, as the tiring tribesmen found it harder to stay on their feet with so many of their own dead and wounded underfoot. One of the less seriously wounded attempted to cut at his ankles from the ground, provoking a hacking stroke that neatly removed his arm at the elbow. The man rolled back under his comrades’ feet, tumbling two of them on top of him with his agonised writhing.

  The mass of tribesmen in front of Marcus parted without warning, allowing a tall and heavily armoured man to step out into the gap between the two l
ines. His black helmet and chest armour were intricately decorated with silver inlays and already coated with dried blood, his thighs and calves protected by iron greaves. He eyed the young centurion with cold appraisal for a moment, then with a sudden lunge sprang to attack the officer. Three savage hacking blows from his heavy sword smashed into Marcus’s shield, their power numbing his left arm and putting him on the defensive. The big warrior paused in his attack, laughing down into Marcus’s face, his voice a grating boom over the noise of the battle.

  ‘I’ve already taken the head of a legatus today, so I won’t bother with yours, I’ll leave it to the crows. Are you ready to die, little Roman?’

  Marcus held his ground, ignoring the taunts, and readied himself for the next onslaught. The big man sprang forward again, but this time Marcus met his sword not with his shield but blade to blade, turning the blow aside and stepping close in to slam his shield’s iron frame down on the warrior’s unarmoured foot, feeling bones crack under the impact. As the warrior fought to control the pain he attacked again, stabbing downward with his sword and spearing the blade through the man’s shattered foot and into the soft ground below before twisting it savagely and ripping the sword free. Then, while the huge warrior staggered where he stood, paralysed by the crippling pain, Marcus raised his shield to the horizontal and chopped its harsh metal edge into his attacker’s undefended throat with all his strength. With a stifled gurgle the tribal champion fell back from the shield wall, fighting for breath that was never going to reach his lungs through a ruptured windpipe. The barbarian line shivered and inched backwards away from the cheering Tungrians as their hero fell to the ground, his face darkening as he twisted in his death throes.

  Along the line the gap between the two forces widened a little, as the tribesmen paused to regain their wind in dismay at the failure of their initial assault. The Tungrians straightened their line, one eye for the man next to them, one on the enemy. Horns blew to the warband’s rear, ordering the tribesmen to pull back and reform, and they backed reluctantly down the hill, still shouting defiance at the Roman troops. No command was given to follow their retreat.

  On the slope before the panting Tungrians lay hundreds of enemy warriors, some dead, some dying, all spattered with blood, some moaning pitifully with the pain of their wounds, others screaming intermittently in their agony and distress. The men of the 9th stared bleakly down at the scene, some, those few among them familiar with the sights and sounds of a full battle, with numb indifference, most simply wide-eyed at the horror of the scene. One or two made ineffectual efforts to wipe away the gore that had blasted across armour and flesh with each sword stroke, but most restricted themselves to wiping the blood from their eyes and mouths, knowing that there would be more to replace whatever they removed from their bodies and equipment soon enough. Julius sought out Marcus, pulling him from the front rank with a rebuke softened by the young officer’s wide-eyed look of astonishment.

  ‘That’s a good place to get killed. Stay behind the line next time, and put your soldiers into the fight. We’ve got a short time before they come back. It would be a good opportunity for the century to drink some water. I’ll check for casualties ...’

  He looked down at the two men killed by the axeman, one without head and right arm, the other cloven a foot down into his chest.

  ‘Best you remove these two. They’re already with Cocidius ...’

  Marcus pointed down at the wounded tribesmen to their front, almost within touching distance.

  ‘What about them?’

  The reply was dismissive.

  ‘They’re dead, they just haven’t realised it yet. Leave them there; they’ll slow down the next attack.’

  The young officer nodded jerkily, calling for the water bottles to be passed along the line, and commanding the closest men to carry the ruined corpses of their dead into the forest at their rear.

  In the Tungrian front rank Scarface leaned on his shield, grateful for the chance to get his breath back and take a mouthful of water to swill away the coppery taste of blood.

  ‘That was good enough. We must have done twenty or so of the bastards and lost, what, two of ours? Who came forward to replace them?’

  The promoted rear-rankers raised their hands sheepishly.

  ‘You two, eh? Welcome to the front rank, boys, this is where the corn gets earned the hard way. Keep your heads for a few minutes more and you’ll have a place here for the rest of your time.’

  He laughed at their comical expressions as both men realised that their lives as soldiers had just changed for ever.

  ‘Oh yes, all that piss-taking the front rank always gives the girls at the back? That’ll be you giving rather than taking from now on. Welcome to my army.’

  The 9th drank gratefully, the more composed soldiers discussing the fight almost conversationally, leaning tiredly on their shields like pottery workers taking a break from the kilns. Some, the more experienced and perceptive, knowing the danger of the less experienced men losing themselves to the battle rage when the fight renewed itself, worked on the men next to them, coaxing them back to reality with words of home and family. Morban found Marcus checking the edge of his sword with a careful eye, and offered him a drink from his bottle.

  ‘Nicely fought, Centurion, you took that big bastard’s arm off like lopping a sapling, and the way you did the boy in black armour with your shield was nothing short of poetic. The lads’re already talking about the way you jumped into the line and got stuck in!’

  Marcus nodded, sheathing his sword and holding on to the hilt to hide the shaking of his hand.

  ‘Thank you. I hope your son escaped injury?’

  ‘Indeed, I think so, the little I could see of him from here.’

  A shout from the line of troops grabbed his attention, pointing arms guiding his stare to the edge of the valley a mile or so to their right, past the small forest’s edge. There, silhouetted against the skyline, a mass of horsemen was moving into position, perfectly placed to sweep down the slope and into the barbarian flank. Their long lances were held vertically, the points making a winking glitter of razor-sharp steel in the mid-morning sunlight.

  ‘Get the blue-faced bum-fuckers!’

  ‘Give them the eight-foot enema!’

  A chorus of shouts implored the riders, identified as the Petriana and Augustan cavalry wings by their twisting white banners, two thousand men strong, to attack the mass of men below, but their inaction once their deployment was complete was just as Equitius had expected. An unsupported charge against so many warriors could end only in a glorious failure. All the same, anything that gave Calgus one more thing to worry about, and heartened his own men, had to be good. Even as he watched a force of some five thousand men detached themselves from the barbarian mass on the plain below, wheeling at speed to form a rough defensive line of archers and spears, ready to absorb any charge.

  He walked on, to the point where his command ended and Caelius’s started, hailing his brother officer. The other man strode down the line of barbarian corpses, keeping one eye on the ground against the risk of being surprised by a wounded man feigning death.

  ‘Hail, Two Knives, freshly blooded, from the rumour passed down our line, and from the blood painted across your mail. I hope you offered that prayer for me?’

  Marcus smiled wryly.

  ‘I was a little busy at the time. I’ll be sure to mention you next time I can get to an altar.’

  ‘Good enough. What do you think they’ll do now?’

  Both men stared downslope at the milling horde, order gradually returning to their mass.

  ‘If I were leading them? Keep the cavalry safely at arm’s length, put some archers and slingers out front, harass us with darts and stones to keep our heads down, and pull the rest away before two full legions take them dry from behind ...’

  Equitius was weighing the same question.

  ‘We came down here as bait, to keep the warband in place until the main force can be
moved up. I don’t believe we’ve been here long enough to have achieved that aim, do you?’

  Frontinius shook his head with pursed lips.

  ‘Another hour at least, I’d say. I presume you’d like to attract their attention some more, rather than letting them slip away into the hills?’

  ‘Yes. They can break into family bands and worm their way into the folds in the land. We might only take a tenth of them if that happens ...’

  The First Spear called a man to him, muttered instructions in his ear, and then turned back to the conversation.

  ‘I have a way to hold them here, but it won’t be pleasant. Especially since they’ll come back up that slope like wild animals.’

  The prefect nodded slowly.

  ‘As long as Calgus doesn’t pull his men away to safety, the price will be justified. Do whatever you have to.’

  The First Spear nodded impassively and turned away, walking down the cohort’s line at the high-tide mark of barbarian dead, inspecting the troops as if on peacetime parade, giving an encouraging word here and there. The man he’d sent to help him search for a particular corpse had succeeded, running down the line of shields with a freshly removed head dripping blood on his leggings.

  The First Spear took it from him, examining the slack face with an intensity that was almost feral. The owner’s hair was long and greasy, the seams of his face dark with the grime of long days on the march. His eyes stared glassily back, their animation long departed along with the man that had formerly watched the world through their windows.

  ‘How do you know he was a chieftain?’

  The other man held out his hand, showing his superior an impressively heavy torc stained dark red with blood, the gold wrapped in a serpentine arc that had previously been around the dead man’s neck. Frontinius took the heavy piece of jewellery, weighing it in his hand and remembering the one like it that Dubnus’s father had always worn, even after his dethronement.