Wounds of Honour: Empire I

by Anthony Riches

  ‘Somebody was important.’

  He turned to stare down at the barbarian warband, quiet now, waiting for a command, and spoke again, without taking his eyes off the mass of warriors.

  ‘Go to the prefect. Warn him to be ready.’

  He stood silently on the slope for a moment, the head dangling almost forgotten from one hand, the torc in the other, until the men below him, alerted by those at the front, grew silent at the sight.

  Calgus came to his decision with his usual speed and insight. At his rear waited the bulk of his warband, rested and ready to move. To his right were the enemy cavalry, at least temporarily neutralised by the screen of infantry and archers he’d thrown out to cover that wing of the warband. Their spears stood out above them in a forest of wood and steel, a full cohort from their density. In front of him, arrayed on the bloodied slope, the Tungrians stood motionless at the high-tide mark of a thick carpet of dead and dying men, waiting for his next move. Between them, slowly regaining a sense of order, the depleted tribal bands were reforming under new leaders, preparing to storm the hill once more.

  ‘Pull them back.’

  Aed raised his eyebrows.

  ‘My lord, they are not yet successful. We ...’

  ‘I know. But there are two more legions marching in these hills. That prefect was far too relaxed for that cohort to be far from friendly spears. If they come upon us here, with the advantage of the slope, and with those fucking horsemen, we’ll be dead meat. No, we leave now, break into tribal bands and go back to the muster. Then we can ...’

  A shout rang out across the open space, some leather-lunged Roman officer shouting the odds. Except ... Calgus strained to hear the words, a fresh premonition of disaster stroking the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Frontinius lifted head and torc, the former dangling by its greasy hair, the latter glinting in the early afternoon sun. Inflating his barrel chest, he bellowed out across the mass of men below, silencing their growing noise.

  ‘Leave this place now, or we will kill you all! Warriors?! You have failed once, and you will fail again like the children that you are compared to real soldiers.’

  He paused for breath, and allowed the silence to drag on for a long moment.

  ‘We killed your leaders and threw you back down this insignificant hill with ease. You came seeking heads and left your own by the hundred! If you come back up again, we will do the same to you. See, the head of a defeated chieftain!’

  He swung the dead man’s head in a lazy arc by its hair, resisting the temptation to hurl its obscenity away from him and into the seething tribesmen, raising the heavy torc to glint in the sunshine and be recognised as a symbol of authority.

  ‘You were weak, and we punished you. Now run away, before we treat you all like this!’

  Feeling queasy, he put the head to his crotch and pushed his hips at it in an unmistakable gesture, then threw it high into the air above their heads. With an angry roar the tribesmen surged forward, charging up the hill in their mad fury. Frontinius ducked back into the line of soldiers, shouting for them to ready their spears.

  To the warband’s rear, Calgus closed his eyes for a moment as the realisation hit him.

  ‘My lord ...’

  ‘I know. I have no choice. I must kill the prisoners and send the entire warband up that hill. But not on their terms. Get me the tribal leaders.’

  The Tungrians loosed their second and last volley of spears, plunging the barbarian front rank into chaos once more, then huddled into their own shields with swords ready. The oncoming rush slowed to a walk across the slippery ground, to a crawl over the wall of their dead and wounded, until the tribesmen arrived, in ones and twos, in front of the Roman shield wall. With Frontinius disdaining a charge against such disorganised opposition, preferring to keep his men on firm ground, they waited for their enemy to stagger exhaustedly on to their shields, then began their slaughter with a professional ease. Even when more men had struggled through the obstacles in front of the cohort’s line, building the attacking force to a more respectable size, the anger that had burnt out of them was replaced by a wary respect, most of them holding off from the Roman swords, content to shout defiance at the Tungrians.

  Scarface’s tent party crouched ready to engage behind their shields, sensing that the fight had gone out of their opponents but unwilling to believe the battle could end so easily. A single man leapt from the barbarian line, a huge warrior swinging a six-foot-long blade around his head and bellowing abuse at the Tungrians. Stripped naked and possessed by a mighty rage, he swung his long sword over the top of the shield wall and opened the two new front-rankers’ throats with the blade’s end before whipping it back above his head to hack down into the Tungrian shields. Scarface’s neighbour, caught beneath the sword’s descending blade, raised his shield two-handed in self-defence. He staggered backwards as the savage blow chopped through the iron frame and sank the razor-sharp blade deep into his shield’s wooden layers. Both Scarface and the soldier on the far side of the attacker stepped in and stabbed their swords deeply into the naked warrior’s sides, Scarface backhanding his stabbing stroke into the man’s side and ripping the blade out through his stomach muscles to release a slippery rope of guts. Releasing the long sword’s hilt, the warrior staggered back from the shield wall with blood pouring down his legs from his dreadful wounds. The two men whose throats he had slashed died where they fell, bleeding out from their severed arteries in less then a minute. They were unceremoniously dragged away behind the line, two more rear rankers taking their places.

  The prefect and Frontinius had little concern for their front, however, their attention being fixed on the mass of men gathering at the slope’s foot.

  ‘He’ll put more men in to threaten our flanks to fix us, perhaps throw in some skirmishers to keep our heads down, then throw that mob up the middle and look to crush us under their numbers ...’

  The prefect nodded unhappily.

  As they watched, the warband’s bulk split into three groups. Two smaller groups split to left and right, and began climbing the slope with grim purpose, while a larger third body of men, perhaps ten thousand strong, started moving up to reinforce their attackers.

  ‘What would you advise?’

  Frontinius shook his head unhappily.

  ‘All we can do is reposition some of the weakened centuries from the centre to the flanks and hope they can hold off the fixing attacks, then strengthen the centre with our reserves.’

  ‘It isn’t much of an option.’

  ‘Prefect, it’s no option at all. Either way we’ll all be dead quite shortly unless Prefect Licinius manages to get some troops here within the next ten minutes.’

  The other man drew his sword, glaring down at the mass of men moving up the hill to either side of their embattled position.

  ‘Very well, take the Fourth and Seventh out of the centre and put the Fifth and Tenth in to replace them. I can’t see a reserve being much use when this comes to knife fighting. Good luck to you, First Spear. Let’s hope we meet again under more promising circumstances.’

  They clasped hands, then Frontinius strode down the slope, bellowing orders to his centurions and setting their last desperate plan in motion. The 5th and 10th Centuries streamed down the slope to reinforce the centre of the line.

  Marcus and Julius stood together behind the thin line of their men, watching as their attackers, beaten back once more by the cohort’s swords, gathered their strength. Rufius had strolled across to join them for a moment, his vine stick now tucked into his belt and his sword drawn and bloody. More and more men were clambering over the wall of dead and dying warriors, to swell the numbers facing them. To make matters worse smoke had begun to blow across their line, from trees set ablaze in the forest upwind to their right, making it harder by the moment to see their enemy. The barbarians were hammering on their shields, screaming abuse at the Tungrians, who, understanding the depth of their situation, were increasingly casting
nervous glances to their rear rather than to the front. Julius stared out at the clamouring horde dispassionately.

  ‘If they attack in that strength we’ll have to abandon the line and fight in pairs, back to back.’

  Marcus nodded, his mouth dry. As he squinted through the smoke, it appeared that to either side of the position the battle was yet to begin, the thousands of warriors in the flanking warbands apparently content to threaten the Tungrian flanks and hold the bulk of the cohort in position, rather than commit to an attack.

  ‘Why don’t they attack along our whole length? Surely they could push both flanks in and turn to roll us up with those numbers.’

  Rufius answered him without taking his eyes off the advancing barbarians.

  ‘Calgus wants to blood the men that haven’t fought yet, give them back their manhood after Uncle Sextus put them down so cruelly. The main attack will come through the middle, right here, and we’re the men that will have to stop it.’

  ‘An interesting life and a short one, eh, brothers?’

  They turned, finding Frontinius standing behind them.

  ‘I thought your men might be feeling a little exposed, so I’ve come to share in the fun and show them that we’re all in the same shitty boat. Julius, it’s time your century stopped sitting about and actually did some fighting, so I’ve brought them down to strengthen the line.’

  He pointed to their left, and Julius turned to see his men coming out of the smoke, his chosen man guiding them into the gap opening up as the 4th Century went to ground to let them through and into the line. Caelius, so far unscathed, pulled back with his soldiers, shot Frontinius a quick salute and then led the 4th off down the line, following the First Spear’s pointed direction. Julius smiled broadly at the sight of his men.

  ‘And about time. Excuse me, brothers. Right, ladies, get your shields up and your spears ready to throw. Let’s show these bluefaced bum-fuckers the entrance to Hades!’

  He trotted away to rejoin his men, shouting encouragement as he ran. To the right, beyond Rufius’s 6th, the big men of the 10th Century were replacing the battered 7th. Rufius nodded grimly.

  ‘That’s going to be a nasty shock for the blue-faces. A century of axes is a terrifying prospect when they start lopping off arms and cleaving heads. The Bear’s boys will be painted black from head to foot before this is over. Right, I’d best go and get my lads ready.’

  He headed off to his century, leaving Frontinius and Marcus alone behind the 9th. The First Spear watched the enemy massing to their front impassively from behind his borrowed shield, keeping his eyes on the enemy as he addressed Marcus for what would probably be the last time.

  ‘Well, Centurion, whether you be Tribulus Corvus or Valerius Aquila, I think you can take comfort in the fact that you’ve proved an exemplary officer these last few days. If I have to meet Cocidius in the next few minutes I’ll be honoured to do so in your company.’

  Marcus nodded.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  An arrow sailed past his head, as a sudden barrage of missiles made the soldiers hunch deeper behind their shields. The barbarian archers, using the wall of corpses for cover, began sending a continuous rain of missiles against the two centuries. Steel-tipped arrows hummed and whirred through the line, accurate shots punching into shields and clicking off helmets. Frontinius stood straight in the face of the barrage, raising his voice to continue his monologue.

  ‘They’ll keep this up for a moment or two; pick a few of us off with lucky shots, then charge in for the kill. When they do, you fight in pairs with your partner. If he’s dead, find another, or fight in a three. Watch each other’s backs, and don’t leave your partner. If your partner is wounded, concentrate on killing blue-faces, not looking after him, or you’ll be next ...’

  And he stopped, his eyes suddenly wide with the impact of an arrow between the greave that shielded his calf and the chain mail that ran down to mid-thigh. The missile had skewered his leg above the knee, toppling him unceremoniously on to the grass with a rivulet of blood seeping around the shaft. With a delighted roar the barbarians that had crossed the wall of bodies surged forward en masse, eager to take the one head that mattered to them above all.

  The line disintegrated into a whirling melee, Marcus and Dubnus going back to back over Frontinius as a tide of tribal warriors washed past them. Several men moved to encircle them, drawing a tightening circle of swords around the three men, gathering themselves for the kill. With an incoherent, berserk scream, Antenoch hit the men facing Marcus from behind, thrusting his sword through one’s back and stamping him off the blade before swinging fiercely at the other’s shield. Marcus and Dubnus went on to the offensive, killing two men and putting the other two to startled flight.

  Across the century’s frontage knots of men were fighting their own personal wars, still parrying barbarian swords and thrusting back with their short swords, but the fight was descending into a deadly mass brawl, and without the disciplined protection of the shield wall the soldiers were horribly outnumbered. Ten yards in front of Marcus two barbarians had a single soldier cornered, one hammering at his shield while the other outflanked him and sank his sword into the beleaguered man’s neck in the gap between helmet and mail. The soldier crumpled instantly, just as the sprinting centurion hit his attackers from behind, running one man through with his cavalry sword and leaving the weapon sheathed in his back, smashing the other to the ground with a shield swipe and drawing his gladius to finish the stunned warrior where he lay.

  As the struggle hung in the balance, and quite without fanfare, a wave of fresh troops charged down the slope into the battle, suddenly equalising the odds and chasing off the startled barbarians. Marcus and Dubnus stood panting over their wounded superior as the reinforcements finished off the enemy wounded around them with swift unconsidered efficiency. Following the bellowed commands of their officers, the new arrivals slotted into the line between the cohort’s decimated centuries, bolstering the defence to more than its original strength.

  The men of the 9th Century jeered as they recognised their new companions in adversity.

  ‘It’s the fucking Second Cohort. Well done, lads, you managed to find the battlefield at last, then?’

  A solidly built watch officer muscled his way into the front rank, his spear held ready to throw. He shot Scarface an indifferent glance, his attention riveted on the regrouping warband.

  ‘That’s better, all front-rankers together. Just about now one of those blue-faced boys would have been hacking your head off to take home to frighten his kids with when they wouldn’t go to their bed at night. But some idiot officer said we had a duty to pull your knackers out of the fire, what with you being our sister cohort.’

  He spat on the ground noisily.

  ‘Sisters being just about right. Anyway, here we are and here we stand. No reason why you lot should get all the fun. When does the next session start?’

  Where the line had been thinning to the point of desperate vulnerability there were now three unbroken lines of shields, the newcomers’ strength giving fresh heart to the desperately tired Tungrians. Those of the cohort’s survivors with the energy shouted the time-worn insults that had always been exchanged when the 1st and 2nd Tungrians met in the field. An officer walked out of the smoke that still drifted across the slope in pale grey curtains, his sword drawn, searching for the First Spear. Frontinius winced as Dubnus finished lashing a broken spear shaft to his wounded leg as a makeshift splint, raising a weary hand in salute as the other man stopped in front of where he lay.

  ‘Prefect Bassus. I can honestly say I’ve never been quite so pleased to see the Second Cohort ...’

  The prefect laughed, looking out over the rampart of bodies.

  ‘We heard your trumpet calls on the wind, so faint that some men swore it was only the wind, but the stand fast was clear enough for those with ears to hear it. The other prefects insisted on following their orders, but I never liked that greasy little shit
Perennis, and seeing this lot proves I was right. Beside, Tungrians never leave their brothers dangling.’

  Frontinius nodded, climbing to his feet with Marcus’s help.

  ‘I fear all you’ve achieved is to dangle alongside us, but I appreciate the company while we wait to die. And now, if you’ll excuse me?’

  The First Spear hobbled off up the slope to make his report to Equitius, using another broken spear to support his weight on the wounded leg. Bassus looked to Dubnus, raising a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘Excuse us for a moment, Chosen.’

  He waited for the big man to walk out of earshot before speaking to Marcus, his face suddenly dark with anger.

  ‘I received a message yesterday night, a tablet from my wife, respectfully asking me for a divorce. It seems that she has tired of my company and, I can only presume, wishes for that of another. While this is hardly the time for such a discussion, I will be expecting a frank conversation with you once we have these barbarians running.’

  He turned on his heel and walked away to attend to his command. Julius strolled back across the slope with a sidelong glance at the senior officer.

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Nothing I haven’t earned.’

  The other man smiled easily.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be troubling you after the battle. Not from what I’ve been hearing his troops say in the last couple of minutes.’

  Marcus stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Never mind. Everything in its time.’

  The two men took stock as corpses and the seriously wounded were carried away up the slope by the walking wounded, counting another twenty casualties between their two centuries as their line clung to its ground with what was, even with the reinforcement of another eight hundred men, a tenuous hold. Through a gap in the smoke Marcus saw the Petriana waiting still on their ridge-line, the sparse forest of their spears unreduced and unmoving. Julius followed his gaze, then spat on the bloodied grass.