It was then I saw that my shield was split, just below the boss protecting my hand. Protruding from the crack was the vicious blade of a Saescsen war ax, stuck fast in the wood. With his first blow my enemy had disarmed himself and sealed his fate. I tried to pull out the ax, but could not dislodge it.
Before I could find a way to loosen the ax, another barbarian was on me. This one, bigger than the last, leapt over the body of his comrade, swinging a great wooden hammer around his head. I stood firm as he rushed in, the hammer a dark blur above him. As he aimed his first blow, I pulled back half a step. The hammer glanced off the top of my shield and flew wide. I saw his arm swing out and away. In that instant I threw my shield before me and thrust blindly straight ahead with the sword. The blade met a yielding resistance.
The barbarian screamed and crashed to his knees. I peered warily around the edge of the shield to see him writhing on the ground with a wide gash in his naked thigh. He clutched at the wound with one hand while trying to fend me off with the other. My next thrust found the base of his neck. The blade went in, and he stiffened, hissing like a broken bellows as his breath rushed out through the gash in his throat.
“Succat! Here!”
Quintus darted past, calling me on as he ran. I turned and followed. The legion was moving back toward the river, beginning the feint that would spring the trap. Soldiers were retreating through the trees, pursued by enemy warriors roaring in triumph. How soon would those same voices be raised in shrieks of fury at the cunning of the Roman commanders?
We reached the banks of the river. The sight of water sent the barbarians into a murderous frenzy. They threw themselves at the solid line of cohorts, trying to batter down the stout shield wall with spears and hand axes. General Septimus drew the legions tight, shoulder to shoulder, and dug in. The auxiliaries on the flanks drew in close, too, lest we become separated from the main force.
I saw a shaft of sunlight striking through the leaf canopy above to illuminate the golden boar on its high pole. There is where General Septimus would be, biding his time until the surprise counterattack commenced.
But where were the other legions?
“They should have come by now,” I suggested to Quintus, wiping my hands on my tunic. The enemy attack had moved away from us for a moment as the barbarians concentrated their efforts on the legion.
“They will be here,” he said. With a swift upward motion, he slammed the hilt of his sword against the handle of the ax stuck in my shield boss—once, then again. The ax came loose on the third try, and he pulled it free. “There,” he said, handing the weapon to me, “a keepsake of the battle. Now, get your sword up and look sharp.”
It was a fearsome yet strangely fine-looking thing—curved and deadly, sharp as a razor, the sides chased with an intricate knotwork pattern. I tucked the ax into my belt, and we settled down to wait, watching wave after wave of enemy warriors beat against the Roman shield wall, break apart, lapse, re-form, and surge again. For the first time I began to appreciate the ebb and flow of battle. What before seemed to me irrational, incoherent chaos became the rhythmic surge and swirl of opposing energies, both dynamic, both defined and constrained by their own natures.
It occurred to me that anyone who realized this and could read the emerging patterns might move through the commotion at will, perhaps even master it. No doubt General Septimus possessed this ability, as any good commander would—probably Quintus as well and, for all I knew, most seasoned soldiers of the line. Perhaps it was only myself who, until now, had been ignorant of this commonplace revelation.
But as I watched the valiant legion meet wave after wave of attacking barbarians, I marveled at the obvious predictability of the apparently random action. It seemed to me that I could read the current as a sailor might read the drift of the sea tide.
“They should have been here by now,” I said again.
Quintus agreed this time. “You may be right.” He scanned the dark forest to the north, behind the attacking enemy, for a sign of the tardy legions. There was nothing. “Not good,” he concluded ominously. “Not good at all.”
A short time later a runner came from the commander. “Quintus!” he called. “Is there someone called Quintus among you?”
“Here!” answered the veteran. “Over here!”
“A message from General Septimus,” said the soldier as he joined us. “Which one of you is called Quintus?”
“I am Quintus. What does the general want?”
“A scouting party is required to go alert the Gemina.”
“We’ll go,” volunteered Quintus. “What is the message?”
“The general says to tell Commander Paulus that the trap is baited and ready, and if he does not strike quickly, the vermin may escape.”
“I’ll tell him.”
The messenger darted off again, and Quintus called his numerus together. “General Septimus has chosen us for scouting duty. Who’s coming with me?”
Since no one cared to be left behind, we all volunteered to accompany him.
“If that’s your pleasure,” said Quintus with evident satisfaction, “follow me—and stay low.”
Off we went, twenty men in two long files, darting through the trees, working our way north in the direction of the barbarian encampment. I expected to be challenged at any moment, but our progress was both swift and unhindered. We reached the enemy camp and circled around it, giving it a wide berth and continuing north, deeper into the forest, whereupon Quintus stopped.
“See something?” asked Varro, stumbling up behind him.
“Listen!” Quintus hissed, breathing hard from his run.
We trained our ears to the trail ahead and heard the clatter of weapons. “It is just the battle,” said Varro.
Quintus shook his head. “Not the battle,” corrected the veteran. “Another battle.” He turned his face toward the sound. “Our comrades are under attack. This way.”
The sound of the clash grew with our every step until we reached the rising bank of a dry stream; in the deep-shadowed woods beyond, we could see the glint of weapons and the confused rush of motion. The air shivered with the shouts of men fighting for their lives. “That’ll be the Gemina,” muttered Quintus.
“Your message may have to wait,” observed Pallio.
“What now?” wondered one of the men with us.
“We go back and tell Septimus.”
“What of Legio Fidelis?” I asked. “Could we reach them, do you think?”
Quintus shook his head and turned to begin hurrying back the way we had come.
“Staying here alone?” wondered Varro as he passed.
I quickly fell in behind him, and we swiftly returned to the riverbank, where the battle still raged. “Stay here and guard our backs,” said Quintus. “Varro, Pallio, and you two”—he pointed to the men—“come with me.”
We resumed our positions and watched Quintus and his little band snake around behind the fighting and come up to where General Septimus was dug in, waiting to be rescued. Whatever passed between them was brief, for no sooner had they reached the legion than Quintus and the others were hurrying back.
“What did he say?” asked one of the men.
“The general says we are to cut through this sea of shrieking Saecseni and join up with the no-luck Gemina,” said Quintus. “We move out at the trumpet. And then its keep up or be left behind. Any questions?”
“They’ll come in on our tail,” warned one of the men, “and cut off our retreat.”
“True,” Quintus agreed. “But if we stay here, we’ll all be pissing in the Styx before sundown.” He spat on the ground. “All the same, Janus, you do what you want. Me—I’m going with the general.”
We had time but to tighten our shoelaces when the trumpet sounded. The legion advanced, and we ran to join them, falling in close behind the last ranks so that we would not become separated in the fray.
The legion gained ground with slow, methodical efficiency—a line of reapers
cutting a swath through a ripe and ready field. The barbarians closed in behind us, as we knew they would, and harried the rearmost ranks.
It is difficult to fight and walk backward at the same time, as I discovered. Fortunately, I did not have to perform this feat too often, nor for too long, before we reached the enemy camp. There were women and children residing in the camp, and this caused General Septimus to halt the advance.
“Why are we stopping?” someone asked. “Let us push through.”
“Patience,” replied Quintus. “Let the mothers and their brats get free.”
“It’d be short work,” insisted another. “Give the filthy shriekers something to think about besides.”
“It’s beneath us,” sneered Quintus, “and serves no useful purpose—except to make the bastards more angry than they are already. And that’s angry enough for me.”
“I thought the idea was to kill as many as possible,” muttered a glowering man with a bloody sweat-soaked rag about his neck.
“Then you best leave the thinking to someone better accustomed to the chore,” Quintus told him.
The women and children fled the encampment in a flurry of screams, and the legion resumed its slow forward march, torching the camp with brands pulled from the cooking fires as we went. The men complained about the sad lack of plunder to be found in the wreckage, and we moved on.
We soon came to the banks of the dry stream beyond which Legio Gemina was encircled by a barbarian force equal to the one that was now mostly behind us. It took a few moments for the Gemina to realize they had been joined by the Valeria Victrix, but when they did, a tremendous shout of relief and welcome went up.
Septimus wasted not a moment; he plunged into the thick of the battle, forcing a way through the Goth ranks to unite the two legions. The Gemina, though much battered and weakened by the ferocity of the assault, still possessed our best chance of turning the barbarian attack. The joining of the two legions renewed all our hopes for a swift and successful conclusion to the fighting.
“Stay where I can find you,” Quintus told us, hastening away.
“Where you going?” one of the men called after him.
“To give the general the benefit of my superior wisdom,” came the reply as the veteran disappeared into the tight-packed mass of soldiers.
It could be argued that our position had not vastly improved. Quite possibly it was now far worse. At least with the river at our backs, the barbarians could not surround us completely; now they did. Also, any gain in troop strength we might have made by uniting the two legions was more than offset by the increase in barbarian numbers as the two attacking enemy forces united as well.
So it seemed to me, but I was inexperienced and did not reckon on General Septimus’ flinty determination to cut through any adversary he happened to meet, no matter the size of the force arrayed against him.
We stood behind our shields, waiting to be thrown into the fight, watching the battle swell and flow around us. Presently Quintus returned. “Neither Banna nor Moguntiacum’s shown so much as a pimple,” he reported grimly. “Gemina was ambushed here and failed to get the message to Fidelis.”
“They’ll know by now anyway,” suggested Varro. “They’ll be mounting a rescue.”
“Unless they’ve been ambushed as well.” Quintus shook his head grimly. “We’re on our own.”
“And I say they’ll come,” someone insisted. “You’ll see.”
“If they were coming,” shouted Quintus, suddenly angry, “they’d have been here by now!”
“Not coming?” wondered a soldier from the rear of the group that was pressed close about the veteran. “Is that what you say?”
“I say nothing,” Quintus growled. “Now, get your swords up, girls, and look smart.”
Thus the day passed; the barbarians continued to hurl themselves against the Roman shield wall, availing little and wasting much. The combined legions took every opportunity to move west in the direction of the missing Pia Fidelis and in this way maintained a steady pressure on the attacking Gothi. Each time the assault waned, General Septimus ordered the cohorts to move out, and the enemy—desperate to keep the legions surrounded and immobile—leapt once more to a futile attack.
We fought in turn, rotating from the center to the front ranks and then withdrawing once more to the protected center; this allowed us to rest and maintain our strength through the long day. As dusk drew in upon the forest, the battleground was heaped with barbarian dead, whereas the legions had lost only a few dozen.
As light began to fade, so, too, did the enemy appetite for a swift victory. The waves of assault slowed, and as twilight began stealing through the trees, the onslaught gradually ceased.
This is what the commander had been anticipating. As soon as the last wave withdrew, word began circulating through the troops. “We move as soon as it is dark,” they said. “Wait for the signal.”
Water, oat rusks, and dried meat were shared out of the legionaries’ pack provisions and canteens. Then we rested behind our shields and waited for darkness. The forest grew quiet—save for the distant commotion raised by the barbarians as they set about rebuilding their camp. As twilight gathered in the forest, filling the spaces between the trees and spilling shadows across the open ground, we watched and waited. When at last the gloom became impenetrable, we moved out—as quickly and as stealthily as possible for upwards of six thousand heavily armed men.
We met no resistance. With darkness the barbarian resolve seemed to have dissipated. No doubt, seeing that all efforts to force a breach in the Roman shield wall had come to naught, they had decided to withdraw and regroup for the next day. Content to consign us to the forest and the night, they went back to their camps to rest and renew their strength for tomorrow’s assault.
Once free of enemy resistance, we moved quickly, falling easily into long files of soldiers, marching in silent lockstep along the night-dark trails. We marched through the night, expecting at any moment to come upon the missing legion.
This we did, but not until dawn had begun to lighten the sky in the east. And by then we required no explanation why Legio Pia Fidelis had never arrived.
FORTY-TWO
I STOOD FLAT-FOOTED in the pale light of a threatening sky and stared at the shattered remains of Legio Pia Fidelis. Dead men strew the ground—wherever I looked, whichever way I turned…corpses and more corpses, bodies like so many broken statues, toppled and smashed. They had been ambushed on the trail and slaughtered as they ran.
Many had been stripped naked, their bodies mutilated: weapons and armor taken, heads and hands removed. I wondered at this, but as we moved on, we passed a tall pine tree along the trail, and I discovered the reason: Nailed to the trunk was the severed head of a Roman soldier.
Further along the trail more heads appeared—at first just here and there among the trees. And then, as we came closer to the center of the battle, every trunk of every tree was adorned with the bloody head of a legionary spiked through the skull.
Sometimes the hands were there, too, bloodstained and pierced through the palms or simply stuffed in the mouth; more often it was just the head—eyes wide, mouth agape. They were everywhere. Scores…hundreds…an entire legion, massacred, decapitated, and nailed up for display.
We came to a clearing in the wood where, it appeared, the legion had been surprised. Here the fighting had been most fierce, and the dead were most numerous. Yet if there had been any barbarians killed, we did not see any evidence of them. Their bodies had been removed, so all that remained were Roman dead.
Horses of the ala had been killed in the fighting, too, but far fewer than I would have imagined; I counted only twenty-three. The rest, no doubt, had been taken for use by the enemy.
Any equipment deemed of little use had been piled in heaps and put to the torch. Corpses had been thrown onto these pyres as well, left to burn as they would. The heaps still smoldered, sending pale tendrils of smoke drifting through the surrounding forest
and filling the dark air with a rancid taste.
We passed through the clearing, pressing on. Thunder grumbled in the distance. Quintus, a few paces behind me, cursed. A few more paces and he growled, “They should be properly buried.”
“Stop if you want to,” suggested someone farther back. “You’ll join them if you do,” added another.
“There was a time…,” snarled Quintus with barely controlled rage.
The words were still in his mouth when I heard a sizzling in the air. It seemed to pass over and behind me, followed by a curious sucking sound. I half turned to look behind me and saw Quintus standing in the trail, his jaws still working, a black-feathered arrow through his throat.
“Ambush!” cried a nearby centurion.
I hurried back to catch Quintus as he fell. Blood gushed from the wound as I lowered him to the ground. All around me men scrambled for cover as the air whizzed and whistled with arrows. I put my shield over both of us and squatted beside him on the trail.
He looked at me, his eyes imploring me to do something for him. I took hold of the arrow, broke off the end and, with an effort, pulled it through. This made the blood run more freely. Quintus mouthed a word I read as “Thanks.”
“Leave him!” shouted Pallio, running past.
Arrows fizzed through the air, striking the ground around me. I hunkered down beneath the shield and hoped for the best. Quintus gurgled and gasped, struggling for air.
“Succat! Get up!”
I was plucked from the path and bundled into the brush beside the trail as more arrows streaked down through the trees and thudded to earth.
I looked to my savior. It was Varro. “Filthy vermin,” he snarled. “Hiding in the trees.”
“Quintus is hurt,” I said, pointing back to where he lay on the trail.
“Quintus is dead,” Varro answered, scanning the treetops. “Or soon will be.”
“He’s our friend.”
“Let him go. He would do the same.” Varro peered cautiously around the edge of his shield. “Where are they?”
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