They waited expectantly.
‘I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly. Tell your commands that there will no mercy shown to any of the enemy attempting to surrender or escape. Any prisoners that are taken will be processed to my headquarters, and will be crucified this evening. Their legs will not be broken and they will be left to die slowly with no exceptions save one. If we take Calgus alive, he’ll be paraded through Rome before he feels the strangler’s cord tighten at his windpipe. That is all.’
Equitius saddled up and rode back down the long column of resting legionaries, most of them lying on their backs, recovering from their exertions of the previous hour, until he reached the 7th cohort and called for the senior centurions of the last four cohorts in the column. With the officers gathered around him he confirmed the orders from Sollemnis, and told them to get their men moving. The cohorts got ready to move without any of the shouting and chivvying usual in some legions, their air of quiet determination and competence reassuring Equitius that his temporary command would perform well enough when battle was joined.
The nine cohorts headed up the track past the remainder of the 6th, past Sollemnis, who watched them pass with a pensive expression, turning right at the fork on to another track. If their scout’s intelligence was correct, this road would take them along the edge of the shallow valley through which the 6th would advance to battle, round the barbarian left flank and into the position from which their attack could be launched. Equitius scanned the horizon until he saw the landmark he’d been told to look for, then reined his horse in alongside the senior centurion of the leading cohort.
‘Head for that wood on the horizon, and keep your eyes open for barbarian scouts. If we’re compromised I’d rather have some time to do something about it. I’m going back down the column for a chat with the auxiliaries. If you get to the wood before I’m back up here, break the march for a ten-minute rest.’
The other man nodded his understanding, and Equitius turned his horse to ride back down the column. He found the Tungrians sweating away in their place behind the last legionary cohort, and rode alongside Frontinius for a moment.
‘Is the cohort ready?’
His bald head beaded with moisture, Frontinius grimaced up at his superior.
‘As ready as we’ll ever be. Let’s just hope the scouts have got it right.’
Turning again, Equitius rode to the column’s rear, stopping to talk to his fellow prefects. Each of them was grimly determined, their men looking much the same as did his own, a combination of warlike posture and underlying nerves. In the distance to their rear he could see the main force column snaking away from its rest position, heading for the side of the nameless shallow valley. Back at the front of the column the wood was drawing closer, and when it was less than half a mile away he spurred his horse forward to investigate before his men arrived.
The trees were silent and empty, with no hint of an enemy presence, and Equitius climbed down from the horse to take in the scene in the valley below, creeping cautiously to avoid making his silhouette stand out above the steadily brightening skyline. The wood was positioned at the valley’s head, a small stream flowing down through it and across the almost flat expanse below. Two larger woods half filled the space, one to his right half a mile distant down the slight slope, the other half as much again to his left, and he stared intently at them for a long moment. If there were to be any threat to the 6th’s approach march, it would surely come from within the densely packed trees. Nothing moved. Indeed, the landscape was preternaturally still, without even birdsong, and a vague sense of unease permeated his thinking as he watched the shadows imperceptibly shortening under the rising sun’s gaze.
He turned back to look for the approaching column, and saw the leading troops less than four hundred paces distant. Remounted, he cantered the horse across to them and ordered the senior centurion to rest his men there rather than risk having them appear on the skyline and alerting any zealous barbarian foot scouts. As the first centuries fell out for their breather, a party of horsemen came into view, hurrying up the line of soldiers, pursued by the inevitable obscene catcalls. As the group approached, he realised that it was Perennis and his Asturian escort, headed by the glowering decurion. The legion tribune rode up and, without preamble or greeting, launched into his orders.
‘A message from the legatus. He’s received new intelligence and has therefore changed the plan. The Sixth Legion cohorts are detached from your command, as are the Second Tungrian, Raetian, Aquitani and Frisian cohorts. I am to lead these units to form a blocking position to the rear of the main force, while your cohort is to remain here and provide a watch on the woods to the right of the main line of march. You’re to keep the cohort well away from the valley’s edge, at least four hundred paces, and you personally are commanded to watch the valley from cover. Any enemy movement to the rear of these woods, which you will see before the main force, is to be alerted to the legatus by the triple sounding of a trumpet followed by the stand fast signal as previously agreed.’
Equitius stared at the man in disbelief. To change a battle plan halfway through the approach to contact was downright dangerous, and went against everything that both he and Sollemnis had been taught. Questions flooded his mind.
‘What new intelligence? What could have changed so dramatically as to invalidate the original plan?’
Perennis looked at him with irritation and urgency, pulling a tablet from the tunic beneath his armour.
‘Prefect Equitius, I am neither granted the time nor ordered to explain what’s going on. Time is of the essence now, and I must carry out my orders without delay. Read this, and you will see that my orders are lawful.’
He wheeled his horse away, calling to the 7th Cohort’s senior centurion.
‘Decimus, you old bastard, get your grunts ready to march right now. We’re heading to the west to get into position to guard the Sixth’s backside!’
The officer looked at Equitius and shrugged, entirely used to the legion way of doing business.
‘They’re legal orders, right, Prefect?’
Equitius scanned the tablet carefully. While the writing could have been anyone’s, the mark of Sollemnis’s seal was unmistakable.
‘Yes, First Spear, they are.’
‘In that case, sir, we’ll see you later. Seventh cohort, on your feet!’
The long column started moving again, the line of march swinging back to the west as it reached the place where Equitius was sitting unhappily on his horse. The Tungrians fell out of the column as they came up ten minutes later, the other auxiliary prefects stopping briefly to sympathise as they passed, and then the column was gone, marching out of sight behind a small hill.
Frontinius walked up to Equitius with a perplexed expression.
‘All I heard was that we were to stay here. What the fuck’s going on, Prefect?’
Equitius climbed down from his horse, passing the message tablet to his deputy.
‘You tell me. One moment we’re marching to take part in a pitched battle and massacre ten thousand blue-faced savages, the next I’m standing here with my phallus in my hand just in case something that those scouts assured Sollemnis couldn’t happen does happen. Something smells very wrong here. Anyway, you’d better brief your officers, pull the cohort back to four hundred yards from the crest. I’ll stay here to watch the valley.’
He walked unhappily away.
Frontinius took a good look around, taking in their new surroundings, and then called Marcus to him.
‘Right, Centurion, you can take a tent party and scout out that wood for me. I want to be sure there are no nasty little surprises waiting for us in there, and I want to know anything else that’s worth knowing about it. Keep below the skyline and don’t go anywhere near the edge of the trees, I don’t want anyone spotting you. Dismissed.’
Marcus gathered Dubnus and a tent party to him, leading them along the edge of the wood with deliberate care. Dubnus took the hunt
ing bow he’d found the previous day from its place on his back and nocked an arrow, the cruel barbed head glinting in the sunshine. Close to the narrow stream that flowed down into the trees they found a path, two men wide but showing no recent sign of passage by either boot or bare feet. Thorns and branches grew across it at intervals.
‘Hunter’s path…’ Dubnus mused. ‘… there must be a source of game near.’
Marcus took a look down through the archway of trees, down a path that ran arrow straight to the thumbnail-sized speck of daylight at the far end.
‘Chosen, you’re best at this sort of thing, scout forward for us. Cyclops, you come with me to provide the chosen man with support if he needs it. The rest of you squat down here and keep out of sight. If I call, get down this path as fast as you can and be ready to fight. Otherwise, don’t move!’
Dubnus slid into the trees, deep shadow still covering the wood’s floor out of the thin early light. The smell of pine needles filled the air, and insects buzzed lazily at the intrusion. He stepped softly down the path, sweeping the arrow’s head slowly from side to side as if using the point to sense for enemies. Fifty yards down the path the wood was utterly silent, the trees undisturbed by animal or breeze, the exit at the far end of the path a coin-sized arch of light. Something moved off to the right, almost imperceptibly, and the arrow tracked round to cover that arc, holding steady as Dubnus bent the bow back the last inches to its full tension, with only two fingers stopping its explosive release of energy. A hare bolted from cover, weaving across the needle-coated floor, twisted in mid-leap and fell to rest transfixed by three feet of hunting arrow. Marcus and Cyclops, following up ten yards behind, breathed out long sighs of released tension. Dubnus plucked out another arrow and nocked it to the string in one fluid motion.
Five paces from the path’s end he stopped, motioning the other men forward. Marcus squatted behind him, peering over his shoulder. Through the arch of trees he could see most of the valley, but was sure that they would be invisible inside the path’s dark tunnel. The long grass that grew across the valley waved in idle ripples in the gentle breeze, while the trees in the large woods to right and left waved their branches fitfully. Dubnus stared intently at the scene, something as yet unidentified nagging at his sense of what felt right. To their left a sudden movement caught the eye, men coming over the side of the valley and spilling out on to the slope, a column of men moving fast and with purpose.
‘The Sixth.’
Marcus nodded, watching their progress while Dubnus scanned the valley again, his gaze coming back to the woods that were piquing his suspicion without providing a basis for real concern. The legion ground across the valley at a fast pace, almost running now, centurions urging their men on with encouragement and imprecation, desperate to close the distance and get into line, knowing the vulnerability of a column in the face of a determined attack. The woods rippled their branches blamelessly in the breeze, catching his eye again, and as he stared at them the realisation hit him with a force that turned his legs to stone for a long second.
‘The trees.’
Marcus looked over his shoulder, seeing only massed greenery.
‘What?’
‘Look at the branches. They’re in the fucking branches!’
He leapt to his feet and sprinted back up the path, leaving a bemused Marcus looking for something his chosen man had spotted, but he could not work out what it was. Then Cyclops whistled low behind him.
‘The branches, Two Knives, they’re not moving together. The bloody barbarians are in the trees!’ ‘This is the point of decision, sir, these next two or three minutes.’
The 4th Cohort’s First Spear wiped a hand across his sweat-beaded forehead, his legs pounding away on the soft grass to keep up the legion’s pace. Sollemnis nodded gravely, recognising the truth in the panted words. A legion in column in close country was a notoriously vulnerable situation. Varus had proved it at the Battle of the German Forest by advancing three legions into a massive and well-prepared ambush by German tribesmen, red-haired giants not unlike the present enemy, and had paid with his own life and eighteen thousand other men’s besides. Deployed into line, the legion could quickly reorient to meet any threat, could employ its disciplined fighting power against an enemy and exchange lives at a rate of three dead barbarians to one lost legionary. In column, with heavy cover to either side, a clever enemy could attack the legion’s rear no matter which way the marching men turned to fight. As long as Perennis was right, and they could reach the line of attack undetected, all would be well…
He turned back to look down the marching column. The 6th Cohort had cleared the valley side. The head of the column was now level with the wood to their left, and was swinging to take full advantage of the cover of the one to their right.
‘Five minutes, I’d say, then we’ll be out of the cover of that wood and start deploying.’
He’d ordered that the column break out into two three-cohort-long lines four men deep, with the rearmost line ready to feed men into the grinder as barbarian axes and swords progressively ate into the front ranks.
‘Anyone from the front rank that survives the day will be awarded the assault medal. With ten thousand barbarians to hack through and a hill fort to storm, I’d say they’ll have earned it.’
His senior centurion nodded agreement. The defeated barbarians were likely to fall back into their fort, and even with the bolt throwers set up on the flanks a few hundred yards back, spitting their foot-long bolts into the hill fort to discourage the barbarian archers, it was going to be an unpleasant day for the men going face to face with the warband.
The column’s head was approaching the right-hand wood now, three minutes of vulnerability left, and then he’d take a victory that would stamp out this rebellion and put fear into the barbarians that would keep them quiet north of the Wall for another generation. Calgus, if he were taken alive, would be carried off in chains and paraded in front of the emperor before a staged execution. If not, his head would have to do. He knew of native scouts who understood the art of preserving a dead man’s head for years, and he would have Perennis take it to Commodus with the 6th’s Legion’s badge stamped on to the dead man’s forehead, cement his place in imperial favour and kill the rumours of disloyalty for good. He smiled to himself at the image. Perhaps he ought to have Perennis dealt with too…
From the ridge-line to the north of the advancing legion cohorts a trumpet note sounded, catching the attention of every man in the column, repeated itself, then sounded a third time, the note switching into the stand fast call and making his guts contract. It was the signal that he’d ordered Equitius to give if they were detected, or found an alerted enemy, but it was coming from the wrong place.
With a sudden rattling hammer of iron against armour plate hundreds of arrows ripped into the legion’s ranks, dropping dozens of unprepared legionaries in writhing agony or sudden death. The column dithered for a moment, another rain of arrows striking home, and this time Sollemnis saw what he’d missed in the surprise of the first volley — that they were being fired from above head height, negating the defensive protection of the legionaries’ shields. A legionary near him spun and fell, an arrow lodged deep in his throat, another jerking and then toppling stiffly backwards to the ground with a feathered shaft protruding between the cheek-pieces of his helmet. The hissing passage of an arrow past his left ear warned that he was the archers’ target.
‘They’re in the trees!’
At least one centurion had come to the same conclusion, and several centuries started to form testudos, shields held to side and overhead to frustrate the attacks, getting ready to charge into the trees and dig out the barbarian archers at close quarters. Then, as the situation started to stabilise after the first shock of attack, a thick wave of tribesmen bounded from the woods to either side of the stalled column with a berserk howl that lifted the hairs on the back of the legatus’s neck, pouring out of their cover in an apparently unending stre
am of rage to charge into the nearest cohorts. Swinging swords and axes with hate-fuelled ferocity, the barbarians smashed into the unformed line, in an instant exploding the legion’s carefully trained fighting tactic of shield wall and stabbing sword into thousands of individual duels. Sollemnis knew only too well that these were fights in which an infantryman armed with a short infantry-pattern sword was at a disadvantage faced with a weapon of twice the length.
He regained his wits, drew his sword and bellowed above the din.
‘Defensive circles! Form defensive circles! The flank force will take them in the rear if we can defend long enough!’
The 4th cohort’s senior centurion, his men suffering under the iron rain of barbarian arrows, but as yet not engaged, bellowed to his officers to follow the order, and Sollemnis walked into the protection of their shields with his bodyguard as the circle closed, looking across the battlefield to see two other cohorts fighting to achieve the same result under a press of barbarian attackers. The rest of the legion was already fighting in broken order, with little hope of regaining any meaningful formation before the battle’s end.
Inside the circle a dozen wounded legionaries were being seen to by the cohort’s medical officer, most with arrows protruding from their throats and faces. The medic looked closely at a stricken chosen man, took gauge of the wound’s severity, shook his head decisively and moved on to the next casualty. The dying man, with an arrow’s shaft sticking out of his neck, and blood jetting from the wound, put a shuddering hand to his sword’s hilt, half drew the weapon, then stopped moving as the life ran out of him. Sollemnis wrenched his eyes from the scene, striding to the First Spear. The veteran soldier was calmly scanning the battle around them with a professional eye, looking for an advantage despite their desperate situation.
Wounds of Honour e-1 Page 29
