Glory of Rome: (Gaius Valerius Verrens 8)

by Douglas Jackson

  They passed through the Nervians without mishap and Valerius led his escort left until they reached the little huddle of men he had stationed between the first and second ranks. ‘Nearly time, aquila,’ he said to the hulking figure of Honoratus, who stood at the centre of his guards holding the raised staff. A leather hood covered the legion’s spiritual symbol. ‘I think we can do without that now.’

  Honoratus undid the ties and removed the bag to reveal a dull gleam in the darkness. Valerius looked to the east. Yes, it was certainly getting, if not lighter, at least a little less dark. A drop of moisture fell from the brim of his helmet on to his nose. Rain? He touched his cloak and realized it was covered in minute droplets of water. Not rain, but the blanket of mist that occurred close to rivers on mornings like these in the north. He gave it a moment’s thought. Why not? He called Felix to him. ‘Pass the word to the primus pilus and senior centurions that the legion will advance one hundred and fifty paces. I want it done in complete silence.’

  ‘Sir,’ Felix saluted and disappeared back into the gloom.

  Another glance at the eastern horizon where a line of jagged peaks was just visible against the dull, pre-dawn glow.

  Not long now.

  XLII

  King Owain Lawhir watched the roseate light of dawn strengthen beyond the eastern mountains and felt for a moment as if he possessed an almost mystical power. Perhaps the arch-druid was correct and a new age beckoned, an age when men no longer need fear losing everything – possessions, liberty and life – to Roman greed and lust for power. He had not wanted this fight, but the gods had chosen him and it had been inevitable since that day among the great stones on Mona. Gwlym would be there now making his crazed plans for the great demonstration that would seal the power of Andraste and strike terror into the invaders. Owain had asked himself why, if the druid was so certain of the victory he had promised the warriors of the Ordovices, and the rebellion that would spread like a wildfire across the land, he would have diverted so many men to defend the island. The truth, of course, was that Gwlym was not confident. Yet Owain’s own faith had grown with every new batch of warriors who had made their way to join him, warriors from every tribe in the south, he guessed: the disaffected and the dispossessed, the angry – and the fearful. Not for their lives, which they cherished but would be fulfilled if they died in battle against the invader, but of what the Romans would take from them next.

  The moment he heard Agricola had split his forces he sensed a great opportunity. He led the greatest Celtic army since the time of Boudicca. If he could meet either part of the Roman force on his own ground and his own terms he could destroy it before turning on the second. When he’d been certain of the route the weaker portion would take he had rushed his warriors to meet it, with only the supplies a man could carry. Now they were footsore and hungry, but strengthened by the knowledge they would bathe in Roman blood before the sun set.

  As if at his command the winter sun appeared over the horizon and lit the valley ahead. Owain felt a sudden stab of doubt when he saw the low carpet of mist that spread from wall to wall, hiding everything beneath. What if the Romans had escaped during the night? No. He knew the mettle of his opponent. He had watched the attack on the Roman baggage train from a mountain spur and seen the clinical efficiency with which the soldiers had slaughtered his young men. He’d advised against the assault, but sometimes young men had to make their own mistakes, and pay the price.

  The man who planned that slaughter would not run. But would he take the bait? Owain had deliberately left his centre weak to invite an attack. The warriors who surrounded his banner in the middle of the saddlebacked ridge were less than a third of those he led. Twenty thousand others lay unseen behind the crest of the mountains on either flank. They would wait until the Roman advance reached a certain marked point and then fall on the vulnerable flanks. He’d spoken to old men who had fought with Caratacus and they assured him that the Roman legions always attacked in line. The mist began to shred in the warmth of the sun and his heart beat a little faster. He gripped his sword hilt and slid the blade in and out of the scabbard, an old habit he’d tried, without success, to break. He could see the walls of the fort now and the mist was thinning with every passing second.

  His heart stopped.

  ‘Teutates save us,’ he heard someone whisper, and it took a moment before he understood that the words had emerged from his own lips. Out of the mist, much closer than his mind could comprehend, appeared rank after rank of heavily armoured soldiers, standing silent and motionless in a display more daunting than if they’d rushed shrieking at the Celtic line. So close they were almost at the mark he’d placed to trigger the ambush. Panic threatened to consume him, but gradually he regained control of his racing mind. This was what he’d wanted. They were in the formation and numbers he expected. It was only the shock of their proximity that had made him anxious. They had fallen into his trap. He looked for the cavalry, whose mobility was the only threat to his success now. There they were on the flanks where they were meant to be. Stationary, but ready to react to any threat. Had he not prepared for their presence, he might have been worried, but his men had spent the night digging concealed pits the Romans called lilia in an almost unbroken bed between the cavalry positions and the vulnerable eastern edge of his flanking forces. Within moments of their charge the ground would be littered with fallen cavalrymen and injured horses.

  A horn blew with startling clarity.

  They were coming.

  The mist vanished like a curtain being swept aside and Valerius was greeted with the sight of a hillside carpeted with thousands of bare-chested, tattooed warriors. A moment of shocked silence followed before a great roar rose up from the mass of Celtic spearmen, gaining in volume until it seemed to fill the entire valley.

  ‘Sound the advance.’

  Barely two hundred paces separated the three painfully thin lines of legionaries from the enemy. Valerius felt a moment of doubt as he considered his vulnerable flanks, naked without the usual protection of their auxiliary cavalry squadrons. The mules Didius Gallus and his comrades had positioned through the night stood where they were tethered with their confused and nervous handlers on their backs. From a distance they looked like cavalry formations, but they were as much use as a herd of cattle.

  The Ordovice warriors continued their cacophony of sound, but they contented themselves with waving their spears and making occasional feint attacks, rushing forward, then retiring when the Romans failed to react. Valerius’s greatest fear was that Owain would order an attack when he saw the true weakness of the forces against him, but the Celts remained in position. Should he have settled for cohort squares? When he looked at the numbers facing him and their proximity it seemed a more sensible position. Should he halt the attack short of the Ordovices to give his men more time to change formation? Or would that encourage the assault Owain seemed reluctant to make? And all the time his eyes flicked to the heights to right and left where he knew an even greater host waited to fall on the Roman flanks like a mountain avalanche.

  The legionaries advanced at that disciplined, remorseless, steady pace that had given Rome control of the world from the bleak mountains of Brigantia to the deserts of Judaea. Valerius followed between the first and second lines, with his aquilifer at his side, holding the eagle raised for all to see, its beak gaping and the gilded wings flashing in the sunlight. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch the glittering symbol that was the heart and soul of the unit, experiencing a moment of superstitious dread that in a few hours it would lie in the grass with the blood of its legate tarnishing its golden feathers. The steadiness of the men around him stilled his fears. Rome paid them and fed them, but they did not fight for Rome. They fought for pride, pride and their tentmates. This was the Ninth legion. His legion. They would prevail.

  Fifty paces. A hundred. With every pace the cacophony from the enemy grew, until the very air seemed to shudder at the sound. Slowly the mass of men
transformed into individual snarling faces, the strange patterns and animal shapes of their tattoos clearly visible. Lank hair falling to their shoulders or dyed yellow and spiked into a crown of thorns. Young men, for the most part, with a scattering of elders identifiable by their silver hair or balding crowns. A few carried oval-shaped shields, but most were unprotected. Some meant to fight entirely naked, whirling and dancing and screaming their defiance at the Romans. The majority were armed with spears, but some held only axes or rusty farm implements. Valerius knew that only their chiefs and champions could afford the treasured and beautifully crafted Celtic swords worth more than the value of a heavy golden neck ring.

  Closer and closer. Should he …?

  A sharp cry from one of the escort – Shabolz? – and he knew the Ordovices had made the decision for him.

  ‘Sound form square,’ Valerius ordered the signaller. A series of shrill, urgent blasts from the trumpeter was followed by the primus pilus’s roared command.

  Valerius looked up to the northern heights and his heart quailed at the great wave of bodies flooding over the crest and plunging down the slope. He knew the same scene would be mirrored to the south. Thousands upon thousands of warriors charging to smash into the Roman flanks.

  But those flanks were changing with every passing second. Valerius sat motionless in the saddle barely daring to breathe as the formation shifted. If a single man panicked or a century didn’t know its business they would all die. A ripple ran through the two cohorts in the front line as men performed the intricate, choreographed movements their officers had drummed into them the previous night. Their position in the line had been dictated by this moment. The men of two centuries in each cohort held firm, while those beside them took a step back and held, or stepped back again so they formed three lines. With a rattle of wood on wood the front rank closed up to form a solid wall of shields. The movement complete, the right hand cohort began to pivot back, the outer files forced to run to keep their positions while those at the hinge merely shuffled. In the same instant the left hand cohort of the second rank was trotting into position to form the left wall of the square. Meanwhile, the two auxiliary cohorts formed up in close order and marched into the arms created by their legionary comrades, the one to disappear as its members divided to create an inner fourth line of defence, the other to take its place beside Valerius and his escort, where it would provide a flexible reserve to meet any breakthrough.

  If Owain had attacked with the men on the ridge while the manoeuvre was taking place the Romans might have been annihilated. Instead, the Ordovices stayed frozen in position, the nearest warriors fewer than seventy paces from their hated enemy. They had their orders to remain in position and their chiefs and clan elders had been snarling at them every time they threatened to move. First Owain had looked for a threat as the front line’s shape transformed, then he’d puzzled as to its purpose. By the time the Fifth cohort trotted forward to fit into place as the rear wall of the formation it was too late.

  The great twin walls of Ordovice warriors reached the valley bottom and swarmed over the wiry turf towards the Roman square and simultaneously the force surrounding Owain launched itself forward with a great roar.

  ‘Spears,’ Valerius called. His order was echoed by the Ninth’s centurions and two and a half thousand fists closed on the wooden shafts of weighted pila and brought them to shoulder height. ‘You will throw by ranks. Wait for the command of your centurions.’

  A hundred and sixty men on each flank of the square had direct contact with the enemy and the width of their shields dictated that the sides measured something like a hundred and eighty paces. Behind them three more ranks pressed close enough for the man in front to feel the heat of the soldier behind’s body. The area they encompassed was so compact Valerius had a sense of being within touching distance of everything around him. There would only be time for each rank to make a single cast. The distance had to be right. Normally Valerius would have preferred every legionary and auxiliary to launch his weapon simultaneously. But the force on the ridge led by Owain was already much closer than the warriors on the flanks, and there was no point in the rear rank launching their pila until they had targets. So he would leave it to his officers. The most experienced centurion in each wall would give the command to throw.

  By now the enemy was converging on three sides, but the imminent danger came from the west where they were closest and King Owain’s champions led the charge. Valerius heard the clear voice of Julius Ulpius Canalius reminding his men to throw in ranks. ‘Throw,’ he called. An audible grunt as one hundred and sixty weighted pila flew from the hands of men expert in their use in a flat trajectory that took the body of charging warriors at chest height. ‘Throw.’ Shrieks of agony and the sickening thud of metal tearing into human flesh and sinew blended with the second order to launch. Another flight of javelins arced out from the second row and sailed into the packed ranks of men jostling to get at the hated Romans. ‘Throw.’ A new voice from the south flank. Screams and howls from a different direction, and now a new sound joined the symphony of battle, a prolonged rippling crash as the charging men launched themselves at the wooden shields defending the Roman square.

  This was the time of crisis and Valerius concentrated on the north face where the Ordovices struck with enough force for men as far back as the fourth rank to recoil from the impact. As soon as they had launched their spears the legionaries in the front rank brought their curved rectangular scuta up to shoulder height, so only their eyes were visible between shield edge and helmet rim. Those in the second rank used their scuta to shelter the heads of those in the first. Both were able to use their remaining seven foot javelins to lunge forward at their enemies’ eyes, chests and throats. The Ordovice warriors who faced them carried longer spears designed specifically for thrusting, but no spear could pierce three layers of seasoned oak or the iron of a legionary helmet. For the men of the Second cohort of the Ninth every thrust counted and the tattooed men reeled away, blinded, or with blood spurting from a torn throat or pierced chest, collapsing to their knees as the life drained from them. Every man who fell acted as a bulwark against those behind. Some of the Ordovice champions became so enraged they used their own dead and injured as a platform to throw themselves on to the second and even third rows of the defence, there to be impaled by the nearest spear. The line bent and buckled, but Valerius could see the Celts didn’t have the strength to break through. Slingshot pellets of lead and stone cracked into the raised shields and Valerius heard the whirr of several passing close by his head, accompanied by the occasional arrow. The Celts didn’t have units of archers, but enough of them could use hunting bows to be a nuisance. He would inevitably lose men as time passed – already a slow stream of casualties were limping into the centre to be treated by the medici – but the defence was designed so they could be replaced from the rear ranks without breaking the integrity of the square. What worried him was the strength of the pila they used. The javelins were lethally effective as throwing weapons, especially against an enemy who didn’t wear armour, but for close work they had a major flaw. The iron shaft connecting the pyramid point to the wooden spear was made of softer metal. When thrown, the point would pierce an enemy shield or body but then the weight of the spear would bend the iron, ensuring it couldn’t be instantly returned. Used as a stabbing weapon against the naked warriors the shafts would last longer, but from experience he knew they would eventually give. He’d tried to mitigate that weakness by ordering the third and fourth ranks to alternate unused javelins with those in front. The pattern of fighting was replicated on the east and south faces. In the south the Ordovices had been forced to race almost a mile from their concealed positions and their momentum was spent by the time they reached the Roman shields. To the east there had been no great collision as the great hosts to north and south flowed round to envelop the Roman formation.

  Valerius’s greatest concern was the north flank, where the Ordovice avalanche had
struck with enough force to knock the square out of shape and where most of the injuries were being inflicted. Whole sections of the reserve cohort of auxiliaries were being called forward to replace wounded and dying legionaries and Valerius guessed that the combined impact of so many warriors had torn gaps in the first two lines. He’d seen it happen before. Some of his men would have been ripped from the safety of their positions in the line and thrown to the attackers as lambs are thrown to wolves, and with much the same result. A soldier’s instinct made him want to rush to the endangered flank and advise the centurions, even to join in the defence. But a legate’s duty was to stay in the saddle surveying his command with what he hoped was a look of stern confidence on his scarred features. As much a symbol of his legion’s invincibility as the eagle guarded by the men at his side.

  A cry of dismay drew his attention, followed instantly by a chilling bay of triumph. The angles of the square where the different units met were its weakest points. This, combined with the pressure being applied on the defenders of the northern flank, had forced an opening in the north-east corner and already Celtic warriors were streaming inside to attack the rear defenders.

  ‘Shabolz,’ Valerius called, but the Pannonian and three of his messmates were already urging their horses towards the gap, hacking at the Ordovice intruders as they rode. A century of their fellow Pannonians from the reserve followed and as Shabolz and his troopers used their horses to plug the opening they hacked the infiltrators into bloody scraps. Valerius saw one horse fall, the rider vanishing into a seething pool of enemy warriors, but the swift intervention had prevented disaster.