by Vox Day
Aulan knew he had little choice but to agree. The Valerian commander might be mad, but there was an element of shrewdness to him as well. By sending out only half his men, the Valerian had prevented them from simply riding around him and taking the castra. That probably meant the Valerian had been expecting to face a mobile enemy, which meant that he was anticipating the need to fight the Cynothii infantry as well as the legion. But how could he have known that the full legion was two full days behind them, rather than at their heels? No, he hadn’t known, he had merely guessed correctly, because today was the first day that mounted troops could have travelled the distance from here to Cynothicum.
“I’ll bet you the other half of that legion arrives the day after tomorrow, before midday,” he mused aloud.
“What’s that?” the Cynothi asked.
“By your leave, tribune?” the decurion indicated the blood flowing down his arm. It appeared the arrow must have penetrated the leather on his shoulder after all.
“Yes, yes, of course. Get that removed and cleaned up, by all means.” He returned the man’s salute and frowned as he turned to his colleague. “You were saying?”
“You said the legion would arrive tomorrow. They can’t possibly march that quickly!”
“Tomorrow? The legion?” Aulan was confused. Then he laughed. “No, not Buteo’s legion, I was talking about the other one: the Valerians. Their commander may be mad, but he isn’t stupid. He knew we could either arrive quickly or in numbers. One or the other, but not both. So he sent out only half his troops to stop us from stealing the castra out from under his nose. If he decides to make his stand in the field, and that must be his intention, he’ll stop us and arrange to bring the rest of his troops here before our combined forces show up. He’s clever enough, but he’s probably young. No experience. It’s one of Saturnius’s surviving tribunes. I’d bet my life on it.”
“So long as you’re not betting mine,” the Cynothi said sourly. “Or my men’s.”
“You should have thought of that before you decided to start killing Amorrans, my provincial friend.” Aulan slapped the smaller man on the shoulder. “You didn’t beat a real legion. You defeated a green, half-trained army of battle virgins that hardly merited the title. And even though you outnumbered them four-to-one, they still slaughtered half your men.”
“We still won. We’ll hold our own, Amorran, be certain of it.”
Hold your own? You’ll do more than that, Aulan thought. Falconius will dash you against the Valerians like water against a rock. But water costs nothing and enough of it will erode the hardest stone.
“I have no doubt. But today, I think discretion shall serve as the better part of valor, loathe though I am to admit it. We can’t attack them, we can’t take the fort, and I think it is safe to assume that the foolhardy young tribune there isn’t about to go running back to Amorr. Tell your men to turn around. We’ll ride back and rejoin Buteo. He won’t thank us for throwing half his cavalry away.”
“You don’t know who is commanding. Why do you say he is young?”
Aulan smiled, thinking of how a young Amorran tribune had eagerly led two legionary squadrons across a river in pursuit of a fleeing pack of orc raiders, only to find himself nearly surrounded by what appeared at the time to be every wolfrider on Selenoth.
That was nearly four years ago, but he’d never forgotten that dreadful moment when he’d learned the difference between being bold and being foolhardy. To this day, he still didn’t understand why the goblin commander hadn’t attacked and killed them all. Perhaps the little greenskin had simply enjoyed witnessing the discomfiture of their bigger, nastier kin. Regardless, it had left him with a healthy appreciation for goblins and an even healthier instinct for retreating when it seemed in order.
“Because I have a good deal of personal experience in how foolhardy young tribunes think. They all dream of making a name for themselves as the next Magnus or Victorinus. Anyone with more than a lick of common sense would already be marching double-time in the direction of Amorr. But he’s going to fight.”
“What’s that?” Vestremer held very still. “Hush! Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Aulan said, confused. But there was something happening off in the distance. It was muffled by the trees, whose leaves were red, yellow, and brown but still mostly attached to the trees. It was the sound of combat, he realized, but it was coming from the opposite direction than it had before.
“The rear is under attack,” the Cynothi said just as Aulan reached the the same conclusion.
“By whom?” Aulan asked. “The other half of that legion! They weren’t behind us, so how could they come through the forest so quickly?”
But Vestremer didn’t answer. He was already galloping alongside the column toward the rear.
Aulan booted his horse in the sides. Its longer legs helped him rapidly gain on the Cynothi as first knights, then provincials, milled around in confusion. Then the captain abruptly slowed, and Aulan was forced to rein in his mount and slew it sideways in order to avoid colliding with the smaller horse. What he saw astonished him.
Cavalry, Amorran knights, were slashing their way through the Cynothii that made up the rearguard, who were almost helpless to defend themselves on horseback. And there were a lot of them—it wasn’t just a few squadrons. His view was partially obscured by the trees and the mass of confused provincials, but it looked as if they were being attacked by an entire cavalry wing!
“I thought you said the cavalry was out in front of us!”
“I did! They are! The decurion said there was half a wing on their left. That’s seven squadrons. How they can have so many horse?”
The two commanders stared at each other, more astonished than angry or even afraid. Vestremer was the first to collect himself. “I have to get my men off their mounts and into line. They can’t fight like this. Now do something, Amorran, before the other half of that legion traps us in here and they butcher us like hogs.” He urged his horse toward the clashing, shouting, shrieking chaos of the fray, bellowing orders in the bastardized tongue spoken by the hairy little men.
Aulan turned his horse around and galloped along the side of the road, desperately casting about for a way out of what was beginning to look more like a wood-lined deathtrap than a road through the forest. How had the Valerian horse hit them from behind? Different notions suggested themselves, but with a determined effort he put the problem aside for the time being. How they got there didn’t matter now. What mattered was how to extricate his men, and if possible at least some of the Cynothii, from the jaws of the enemy legion.
When in doubt, move forward. It was a concept that ran counter to every man’s instinct to freeze and hide, but he’d learned the lesson the hard way when ambushed by orcs on the frontier. The Valerians to the fore might already be moving forward, so he had to escape the confines of the forest before they sealed him in. His riders couldn’t hope to fight them, but they could most certainly outrun the legionaries. The Valerian’s cavalry squadrons might try to engage them and slow them down, but Buteo was not the only one who could afford to spend Cynothii lives like water.
“Publius Terentius!” he shouted for the draconarius when he reached the front of the column. “Get ready to sound the advance. Decurions, you’ve got to keep your men moving at full speed. We’re going to ride past them and make for Curcomelis. If you get separated, we’ll meet there. Pass the word on to the others further back.”
He reached out and grabbed a red-haired knight, who was, predictably enough, named Rufus. “Ride back and tell the first Cynothii officer you can find at the front of their column that we’re riding past the Valerians to Curcomelis. Tell him his captain is engaged with the cavalry attacking us from behind, so he’s going to have leave a second rearguard behind once we clear the forest to slow their cavalry down to let the rest escape. He’s got to leave enough men back to handle sixty of them, but tell him to move fast or they’ll be trapped in here. Have them so
und a horn as soon as you’ve delivered the message.”
“Rearguard against sixty cavalry, then a horn. Yes, sir!” The knight saluted and rode back toward the end of the Amorran column, in search of an officer.
Aulan knew he had just doomed one hundred and fifty, or perhaps two hundred men, assuming that his orders were followed. And that was if they weren’t all trapped and slaughtered together. Whereas Vestremer and the first rearguard could reasonably hope that the Valerian knights with whom they were engaged would withdraw once the Cynothi defense organized and stiffened, thus leaving open the path to retreat, the second rearguard would also have to dismount if they were to hold back the rest of the Valerian cavalry. But on foot, they would not be able to escape the thousands of legionaries who would be following in the wake of their mounted wing. Those fortunate enough to remount in time to escape the slaughter on foot would rapidly be ridden down by the bigger, faster horses of the Amorrans.
He shrugged. It was a pity, and he regretted the need to issue such bloody orders, but sacrificing a few hundred Cynothii was simply the price he would have to pay to save his men. If giving the order meant his soul was damned, then so be it. Anyhow, every Cynothii slain today would probably save him, or some other Amorran commander, the trouble of having to kill them later if the flames of their futile rebellion did not eventually die down, in keeping with his father’s plans.
Behind him, a horn blew. He snapped his fingers to draw Publius Terentius’s attention, then pointed forward. The draconarius nodded, took a deep breath, and responded to the horn in kind, sending the deep, penetrating sound through the forest.
Aulan normally loved the sound of the advance, but tonight, in these circumstances, it sounded disturbingly like a dirge to him. He drew his sword in case the squadron reported by the decurion was still to be found on the edge of the woods, and he urged his horse forward, first permitting it to trot until it was well clear of his men, then kicking it up to a comfortable canter, then a gallop.
The ride to the forest’s edge did not take long at the speed they were riding. Once the open field came within sight, he saw what he’d suspected. The enemy infantry cohorts were advancing, and they were less than one hundred paces away as Aulan and the leading riders burst out of the woods within the clear view of them. Fortunately, the Valerian commander had withdrawn his own cavalry, and the infantry stood between the two mounted forces. Aulan looked quickly to the left and saw they would have just enough space to ride past the enemy infantry and back onto the road before the Valerian horse would be able to cut them off.
He pulled his horse off to the side and furiously waved his arms at his riders. “Ride, damn you, ride!” He their their instinct was to rein in their mounts when they saw the nearby mass of the approaching enemy. Horse after horse pounded past him, mostly blacks and browns, with the occasional grey flashing past his peripheral vision. But he was focused on the activity taking place behind the Valerian lines.
He rapidly discerned three concerns. First, the decurion leading the enemy knights had been a little slow to respond to their appearance, but once the man had realized that Aulan’s knights would be able to escape being cut off by the lumbering legionaries, he turned his riders around, then led them on a path behind the infantry in pursuit of the Severan horse.
The second concern, and the most pressing one, was the infantry, who were still marching inexorably toward his position. Soon, very soon, the enemy would be upon them, and, considering that there were hundreds of men at the fore of the enemy line, they wouldn’t even need their swords—they could simply trample him under the iron-nails of their sandals.
But he had no choice except to wait until the first Cynothii began to emerge if he hoped to augment his seven squadrons with them. He decided to count to thirty before following his men. If the Cynothii had ignored his order to move out quickly, there was nothing he could do about it now.
It was with an amount of genuine awe that he looked over the front lines of the Valerian cohorts. He had reviewed troops before, but he had never seen an Amorran legion deployed for battle and advancing into combat from the other side.
Their black armor and the helms with their face-obscuring cheekpads made the legionaries look like some sort of inhuman, insectoid demons, an effect that was powerfully enhanced by the beaked silver faces of the centurions. The long rectangular shields they bore were painted with the Valerian insignia in the center, with the number XVII above and the number of the cohort and century below. He was little surprised to see their commander had established cohort VI in the center, which would be the best and most promising of the young men. But this was the sort of situation that was perfectly suited to a green cohort in need of seasoning, he noted with reluctant approval.
His third concern obliterated several trees with a series of loud, splintering crashes as a large rock hurled by the Valerian onager smashed into the forest off to his right. He could see the crew had already adjusted their aim and loaded another massive stone into the sling. The Valerians were just beginning to winch back the arm when the steady stream of horses galloping past him slowed to a sporadic trickle, then stopped entirely. He glanced back into the gap between the trees and saw the first Cynothii approaching. Not quite as rapidly, given the shorter legs of their horses, but quickly enough.
“Dismount! Dismount!” he shouted at the first Cynothi he saw bearing a horn.
Fortunately, the provincials were as astounded as his knights had been at the proximity of the approaching legionaries. But the gap to the left between the woods and the right edge of the Valerian line had narrowed considerably, and the threat from the infantry was that much more imminent. The Cynothii reacted precisely as he hoped they would, springing from their horses and rapidly forming themselves into a line. They would be crushed by the heavier armor and greater number of the legionaries, of course, but even if he could save only a few hundred of the little bastards, they would likely prove useful in harrying the Valerians and keeping them penned in their castra until Buteo and the rest of the provincials arrived.
The rider with the horn was still blowing something that the rest of the provincials seemed to find meaningful, as their line had grown to nearly fifty strong. He heard a shout from the Valerian lines, and they suddenly stopped their approach, ready to hurl their pilums.
Dammit, he had left it too long, he realized even as the onager loosed a second time and the rock it threw evoked screams from the Cynothii as two riders that had just ridden up behind the newly forming line were smashed backward, along with their horses, as if swept from the ground by an invisible giant’s fist. They vanished, but their blood spattered the men on either side of them.
It was too late. He saw that now, he couldn’t possibly hope to ride past the long black line of Valerian legionaries, their faces mostly obscured by the cheekguards that dangled from the familiar helms. He’d been thinking like a cavalryman too long and he’d stupidly forgotten that he couldn’t simply ride past hundreds of men carrying pilum and trained to throw them accurately. He’d be lucky if he was transfixed with less than ten of the short throwing spears if he tried to follow his squadrons around the Valerian’s right flank.
But where squadrons and armies couldn’t quickly go, one man alone could make his way. As a centurion shouted a command, several hundred Valerians hurled a black cloud of pilum directly into the face of the assembling provincials. More than a few of the lightly armored men fell, pierced through.
Aulan himself was unscathed, though, as he had already urged his horse back into the forest and was working his way as fast as he dared just inside the forest, safely obscured from the view of the nearest Valerians, ducking his head as small branches whipped impotently across his helm and armored forearms.
Behind him, he could still hear the shouts of centurions and the crash of the onager as Vestremer and his infantry began to learn that it was one thing to fight Amorrans with the numbers on your side, and something else entirely when the advantage ra
n the other way. Despite his chagrin at losing five centuries worth of potentially useful provincials, he couldn’t help but feel a small burst of patriotic pride as behind him, he heard the sounds of his enemies killing his allies.
MARCUS
The legion’s new primus pilus glared at him impatiently. So too did the draconarius he’d commandeered from Julianus. Julianus himself would no doubt be growling at him now if he were not already occupied with chasing the Severan cavalry that had boldly ridden right across the face of their front lines. Even Trebonius was occasionally glancing over at him with a quizzical expression whenever he took a momentary break from counting the force of Cynothii infantry that was increasing before their eyes.
The enemy had nearly two centuries’ worth dismounted and assembled in two lines about thirty paces in front of Hosidos’s cohort. That cohort hadn’t seen any combat against the goblins, having been held in reserve that day, so Marcus thought the experience of being exposed to the threat of it might serve them well. So far, they were maintaining flawless discipline. Not a single legionary had so much as thrown a pilus beyond the initial two volleys, although the temptation to charge and break the enemy had to be almost overwhelming.
Marcus grinned at Didius, who was practically shaking with his eagerness to come to grips with their outnumbered enemy. He had promoted the primus pilus from Cohort VIII instead of simply permitting the second centurion from Cohort I to replace Honoratus, as was the practice in ordinary circumstances. But these were no ordinary circumstances, and, even with Honoratus and his known associates gone, Marcus could not be sure how far the rot of treason had penetrated the first two centuries. Didius might have significantly less experience then a number of the centurions in the first cohort, but unlike his more senior colleagues, Didius had only ever served in another Valerian legion.
