Conspiracy of Eagles mm-4

by S. J. A. Turney

  As the centurion from the Fourteenth grabbed the shirt and pulled it over his large, muscular frame, covering his own mail that glistened red with the blood from his earlier wound, Fronto looked helplessly at Atenos.

  “This was my plan. I’m not going to let anyone else grab the shitty end of the stick.”

  “Tough, sir.” Atenos smiled. “Get that shirt off, sir, and get in the centre. If this works, you’ll need to be around to organise the defence until the bridge is finished.”

  Fronto opened his mouth to argue, but the look on the centurion’s face was adamant and he simply nodded and began to peel off the heavy, wet armour. Next to him, Menenius had already divested and passed his mail shirt to an enormous Gaul, who was having trouble struggling into it.

  A minute passed in tense expectation as the last of the armour was transferred and men fell into their assigned places, allowing for the fact that they would not be able to consolidate into the wedge properly until they left the woodland. Finally, the archers in the clearing seemed to have come to the end of their patience and occasional arrows whizzed into the woods, burying themselves in timber here and there. Fronto smiled grimly to himself. Every shot they took lessened the chances of that man being able to shoot during the charge.

  “Are we all ready?” Cantorix waved and gestured for everyone to settle into their final positions. “As soon as you pass the last tree, get as tight into formation as you’ve ever been. I want you all to be able to feel the breath of the man behind on your neck. Tight and fast, then break as soon as we’re there.”

  The men murmured their agreement. Fronto looked around from his position in the midst of the unarmoured centre, grumbling at his secure and unadventurous place. He couldn’t see Atenos or Menenius in the press, nor Cantorix, though he could hear the centurion at the head of the wedge.

  “Go!”

  And suddenly he was running, along with everyone else, his concentration now fully on the men around him and the forest floor, watching for treacherous branches or bumps that could foul him and ruin the formation, aware of the weakness of his knee with every painful click.

  A sudden image flashed into his mind of a legionary being beaten within an inch of death on the orders of centurion Fabius for tripping in manoeuvres and fouling his unit. He’d been so outraged by the man and now, as he ran, barely missing a tangled root with his left foot, he felt that perhaps…

  Angry, he pushed the thoughts away and concentrated on the run.

  Arrows were now coming thicker and faster. The sounds of them thudding into trees were fewer and farther between, while the sounds of them crunching into mail or the screams as they punched into flesh were all more common. Here and there an archer was casting aside his bow, the string now ruined, and drawing a sword.

  The stygian gloom of the woodland gave way to the pale, misty grey of the clearing and the men closed formation as only legionaries could, Fronto finding himself so tightly packed in the press that he could hardly move.

  A tense heartbeat, and there finally came the expected sound: the collective twang and rush, whirr and zip of countless arrows being released simultaneously. Another single heartbeat and the result manifested in the screams of dozens of men and the inevitable slowing of the wedge. Three more heartbeats and the front of the Roman unit seemed to meet the archers, the sounds ringing out eerily through the swirling mist.

  Fronto lurched, tripping on a body that had fallen in front of him and his eyes momentarily ran across it, almost certain it would be Cantorix, only to see a legionary he knew not, three arrows jutting from his face, chest and belly. He must have been one of the front men, though, to take three shots. Fronto found that he was praying subconsciously to Mars that Cantorix made it, despite the fact that such a notion was ridiculous.

  Two more heartbeats and the press opened up in front of him, men veering off as assigned, moving left and right along the line of archers. Somehow, strangely, Fronto found himself staggering to a halt with no enemy to fight.

  Turning this way and that, he peered into the barely-penetrable gloom, the rain hammering at him and plastering the tunic to his torso. It seemed that the archers had broken and routed as soon as they realised they couldn’t stop the Roman force. In the subdued fog of rain, he could hear the sounds of fighting off to the left and right, but here there was no one, apart from a few legionaries looking as lost as he; a few wounded, staggering with an arrow in the thigh or clutching one jutting from an arm.

  Turning, he looked back toward the barely visible treeline. Bodies littered the ground between here and there, the grisly graveyard disappearing into the mist. A lot of men had died there, but it appeared that they had completed the mission. The bridge site was safe for now.

  Rubbing the excess water from his hair, Fronto looked around for a centurion, optio or tribune, but saw none. He would have to pull them together and get down to the river. This was unlikely to be the last they would see of the barbarians before the engineers reached this bank.

  “On me!” he yelled. “Re-form!”

  Time to establish a bridgehead, somehow.

  Chapter 11

  (East bank of the Rhine)

  Fronto walked across the grass toward the approaching men, legionaries looming out of the mist like some sort of demon horde, grinning maniacally at having survived such an insane charge. Many of them, he noted, carried some trophy of their kills, the Gallic legionaries of the Fourteenth tending toward the more grisly. It was not something that Fronto particularly approved of in the aftermath of battle but it was hardly unknown, particularly among the Celtic peoples, and he could hardly chide them for such a petty thing after their brave sacrifices.

  “Any officers among you?”

  Two figures stepped out ahead of the men returning from the east, a centurion and, Fronto was pleased to note, the optio who had saved his life at the farmstead. Behind them, a cornicen and a signifer came striding forth, the standard bearer dragging a wounded leg.

  “Over here” called a voice from behind, and Fronto turned gratefully, to see the figure of Atenos appearing from the mist in the direction of the river.

  “Anyone seen Cantorix or Menenius?”

  No one spoke, and Fronto felt the leaden certainty in his gut that the centurion had not made it. The front man of a wedge never did. Rarely did the front third, in fact. Menenius, on the other hand, was in the press of safer men at the back. They would turn up soon enough, whatever had happened to them.

  “Right. I want pickets stationed all around the edge of the forest. The men with the best eyesight and hearing, and those who can whistle loud enough to be heard half a mile away. Atenos? I want you and this musician and standard bearer down by the water. Get the duty centurion’s attention on the far bank. When you can get him onto the bridge to speak, let me know and I’ll come talk to him.”

  Atenos nodded and, the two signallers falling in at his shoulders, jogged off to the river.

  “You” Fronto pointed to the centurion he didn’t know. “Set up the pickets.” The man saluted and began scouring the surviving legionaries for the best men, hooking them out with a beckoning finger.

  “And you” he gestured to the optio. “I want a work party to gather every last Roman body they can find, as well as the casualties, and bring them down to the river bank, and then I want a full headcount of who we have left. How many men, officers, signallers and so on.”

  The optio saluted and Fronto gave him a weary smile. “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Vitiris, sir. Chosen man of the…”

  “Centurion, I think” Fronto interrupted. “Just make sure you live long enough to requisition the crest from the quartermaster.”

  As the men moved off, assigned to either work parties or picket duty appropriately, Fronto limped wearily down toward the river bank, making for the call of the Roman cornu he could hear. Now that the rush of battle-induced adrenaline had worn off, the ache in his knee was becoming unbearable. Pausing and reaching
down, he ran his hands over the joint and was momentarily taken aback by just how swollen it was compared with the right knee.

  Grumbling and muttering about the effects of age, he limped across the grass, wincing occasionally.

  Here, the river bank rose above the flow with a drop of some four or five feet into the roiling, seething waters; a good height for the bridge to make landfall. As he approached the bank, he could see the figures of Atenos and the signallers on the turf.

  Once more brushing the excess water from his hair and shaking his head to clear as much as possible, Fronto limped over to them.

  “Any luck?”

  The big Gaul turned and smiled, pointing across the water. Fronto followed his gesturing finger and squinted into the sheeting rain, picking out the image of human shapes approaching on the bridge. The small party of half a dozen men reached the truncated bridge end and gathered there. Fronto half expected to see Caesar, but the general hadn’t come yet. These were the officers currently on duty at the bridge site. The legate stepped as close as he dared to the drop into the water and cleared his throat.

  “Centurion? Can you hear me?”

  The distance-and-rain-muffled voice of the officer called back “Just about. That legate Fronto?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank Juno. We were starting to worry.”

  Fronto, his voice hoarse from shouting into the rain, took a deep breath. “We’ve destroyed the archers and routed another force, but we’re still in danger and poorly equipped. Can you send over some equipment for us?”

  “Of course, sir. We’ll fire a rope over by arrow and set up a ferry from the bridge. What do you need?”

  “Everything. Have someone fetch our helmets, shields, pila and everything else. It’s all stockpiled ready. We could also do with a few archers if they feel up to hand-over-hand-ing it across a rope?”

  The centurion let out a laugh. “I’ll see what I can do sir. You sit tight while we get the ball rolling.”

  Fronto turned and breathed deeply.

  “Soon as it all arrives, can you get it distributed appropriately?”

  Atenos nodded. “Of course, sir.”

  “I’ll be sat on a rock somewhere hoping the bottom half of my leg’s not about to fall off.”

  Atenos grinned. “If he’s still alive, there was a capsarius in my century. I’ll look into it and if he’s here, I’ll send him to find you.”

  Fronto nodded and wobbled off across the grass in search of somewhere solid to sit down that wouldn’t churn with mud. Men were beginning to make their way into the clearing, carrying the bodies of the fallen and supporting those too wounded to walk on their own. It was somewhat disheartening to ponder on the numbers, but then the assault had apparently been anticipated, which had rendered their mission considerably more dangerous and costly than expected. Exactly how the enemy had known they were coming was still a mystery, but the more he thought on the ambush at the farmstead, the more he was convinced that someone had tipped them off. Presumably the Ubii.

  Fronto’s eyes widened as a familiar shape loomed out of the seething white rain-mist.

  Cantorix could hardly stand, and was being gently carried along by two legionaries. Fronto noted without surprise the stumps of arrow shafts jutting from his right shoulder, left hip, right arm, and both legs, apparently all broken off when he fell to the ground, driving them deeper in. He was deathly pale but grinning through a mouthful of blood.

  “Looks… looks like we got ‘em, legate Fronto.”

  Fronto tried to stand, but the strength had left his knee.

  “You look in a sorry state, Cantorix.”

  “Didn’t have time to shave, sir” the centurion grinned, spitting a wad of clotted blood to the turf.

  “Don’t you dare die on me now, centurion.” He said, smiling back, but only half-jokingly.

  “I have no intention of dying, sir. I’m owed a couple of weeks’ leave.”

  Fronto sighed and stood slowly and awkwardly, favouring his right leg, as the legionary ran across the sodden grass towards him, splashing up crowns of water with each heavy step.

  “What’s happening?”

  The legionary came to a stop and saluted. “The outer pickets to the east have spotted movement in the woods and confirmed a sizeable force, sir.”

  Fronto nodded and stretched wearily. “Tell them to fall back to the inner line at the woods’ edge. The inner pickets can come in now. As soon as they’re visible from the inner line, they’re to pull back too.”

  As the legionary ran off again, Fronto turned and peered into the incessant downpour, trying to spot Atenos. The towering Gaul was organising things near the water’s edge, gesturing to groups of men who were dashing around with piles of equipment or digging the trench.

  Hobbling over toward them, Fronto was impressed at how quickly things had progressed. The pickets had been in position for only two hours, but already two rope lines had been slung from the construction to ferry goods and support to the bridgehead. While the engineers and their work parties carried on the work at an impressive forced pace, Atenos had groups of legionaries preparing what resembled a tiny marching camp on this bank.

  The headcount had come in and, of the four hundred or so men who had crossed the Rhenus, Fronto’s command now numbered ninety-seven, including himself and the two remaining Ubii scouts, who remained under close scrutiny on the suspicion that it was they who had warned the enemy about the mission. One mystery that niggled was the continuing absence of tribune Menenius, last seen when forming up for the wedge assault.

  Of those ninety four officers and men, thirty two were posted to picket duties in four-man groups, the rest rushing around and carrying out Atenos’ commands. A ditch, currently three feet deep and three wide surrounded the site in a ‘U’ shape, seventy yards in length and almost completed was being excavated, while four men sharpened cut branches and planted them in the hollow, angled toward the enemy approach. The upcast, forming a three foot mound within the perimeter formed by the ditch, protected a scene of organised chaos within.

  The capsarius who, wounded himself, had set up a small field hospital and was working manically to treat those who stood a chance of survival, had been joined by a fellow medic from the camp who had shown the gumption to hand-over-hand it along one of the ropes, and the two men dealt with a constant supply of wounds. A peremptory and none-too-gentle prod of Fronto’s knee had elicited little sympathy from either medic. Cantorix lay wrapped in a blanket, pale grey and sweating, delirious with the compounds the capsarii had forced into him. When pressed on whether the centurion would make it, both men had looked doubtful and shrugged.

  Two men worked a pulley and bag on one rope, retrieving rations, weapons, entrenching equipment and, on the legate’s orders, a few jars of watered wine, and distributing them among the men as required. The other rope delivered a slow but growing supply of Cretan auxiliary archers, none of whom looked particularly enchanted with their method of arrival, but who were starting to take positions behind the low rampart, jamming their arrows point first into the ground for quick retrieval.

  Even as Fronto made for the newly-promoted centurion, he spotted a familiar, if bedraggled face, clambering down from the rope: Titus Decius Quadratus, the prefect of the auxiliary unit and a man who, despite the gulf between their commands, Fronto had held in high esteem ever since the defence of the Bibrax oppidum two years previously. Decius spotted Fronto lurching towards him as he nodded a greeting to Atenos and his face broke into a wide grin.

  “When I heard that the legate of the Tenth had holed up in enemy land and needed archers, I said to myself ‘just how long is Fronto going to hold out without me?’ When I answered the question, I came running.”

  “Decius, it’s damn good to see you. I hope your men are ready quickly. The enemy are on the move.”

  The auxiliary prefect scratched his stubbly chin and gestured back at the rope, where two figures were crossing at once, very slowly an
d carefully.

  “It’s a slow job. I’ve got maybe twenty or so men here now and more coming across but the rain’s making that rope treacherous. I’ve lost two men into the river already and only one made it to the bank. Hell, I nearly went in myself. The big thing is: my lads are really unhappy about taking their bows out in this weather. They’ve each got a spare string, but just the one.”

  Fronto sighed and sank to the rampart, rubbing his swollen knee.

  “They’ll just have to deal with it. If I could turn this rain off, believe me I would! And I’d have liked to get a palisade up but we just don’t have time. To be honest I’m surprised we’ve had this long without being assaulted. The staked ditch and mound will just have to do the job. At least we’ve got shields, pila and archers now. We’d have lasted about two minutes without all this.”

  “What have you done to your knee?”

  “Just a bad twist. The capsarius says to stay off it, as if that were a remote possibility. Here.” Unceremoniously, he thrust one of the wine jars he’d commandeered at the prefect. Decius took it without comment and swigged gratefully, brushing the rain from his forehead.

  “It’s been a noble effort, Decius, despite our horrible losses, and they’re working like madmen on the bridge, but I can’t see much hope of us holding off the entire Germanic people until they get to this bank. It’s going to be a day yet, even if they work through dark.”

  “I swear, Fronto, that if you get any more negative, you’ll change colour. It’s not about holding off an entire nation.”

  “No?”

  “No. It’s about dealing with the first attack so brutally that they daren’t try again.”

  Fronto perked up, his eyes narrowing. “You think we can hit them hard enough to make them withdraw?”

  “You and me? The defenders of Bibrax? Ha!”

  The legate stood, slowly and painfully, and grinned. “What have you in mind?”