Stumps. Titus. Brando. Micon. H. Linza.
Six reasons I would parry that blade, and shove my own into the enemy’s chest.
Things had changed, I acknowledged. They’d changed in the forest, and now they’d changed in the fort. The hope of my future wavered between the dream of what could be in Britain, and the company that I was within.
Maybe we would make it, I dared to think.
Hour past hour. The storm held. So did the pace.
The civilians did not.
Panicked calls began to echo in the night. They were shrill with fear, shouted in Latin.
Titus spoke up, his voice like the rumble of thunder in the storm. ‘They must be losing the vanguard.’
‘They’ll be losing more than that if they don’t keep up,’ Stumps hissed. ‘How far you reckon we’ve covered, Felix?’
‘Eight miles? Nine?’
‘Fuck,’ Stumps swore, realizing what that meant.
We were on the wrong side of the enemy army, and the cries of the terrified civilians were cutting through the din of the storm, their harried voices like the bleat of frightened goats with the scent of wolf in their nostrils.
‘Fuck!’ Stumps cursed again, this time loudly, because now there were more voices in the darkness. Commanding voices, loud and angry.
‘That’s not Latin,’ Titus growled.
And then the wolf attacked.
67
Wind carried death’s symphony to our ears: the clash of blade on blade; the cry of orders; the screams of pain.
Stumps grimaced. ‘Vanguard’s getting it.’
The panicked cries in Latin were louder now. Moments later, we began to see the fleeting figures of fugitives streaming by our century, the lashing rain doing nothing to hide their terror.
‘They’re running back to the camp?’ Brando guessed.
‘They’ll die if they do,’ Titus grunted. No one pointed out that they could well die here – the sound of crashing shields spoke well enough to that.
‘You see that?’ Stumps shouted. ‘One of those civvies was running with half a villa in his arms!’
Peering into the darkness, I saw more figures escaping towards the false comfort of the fort. Many carried burdens, some even chests. With such loads, there was no way the untrained civilians could have kept pace with the vanguard of soldiers.
‘Fell behind and woke the goat-fuckers with their singing,’ Stumps sneered. ‘Fucking civvies. Should have left them in the fort. Linza excluded,’ he added quickly. ‘We’ll all get it, now.’
Was I worried for Linza? Of course I fucking was. I was worried for her, and for all of us. That’s why I looked to our flanks as we continued to push onwards. So far the noise of battle remained distant, but that would not hold for long, I was certain, and I braced myself for the rush of spear and shield I was certain was coming.
‘Form square!’ Albus called from ahead, his crest lost to me in the darkness.
‘Form square!’ section commanders repeated above the winds.
Hindered by the elements and a few figures of fleeing civilians, the century’s movements were sloppy, and Albus and his optio screamed oaths at anyone who threatened the tiny formation’s integrity. Our section found itself on the left flank, which meant that when we moved, we would be taking side steps to our right, our eyes always forward to the formation’s flank, and away from our direction of travel. It was a disorientating way to move, but gave us the all-round protection we needed.
‘Slow march!’ Albus ordered, finally satisfied, and the formation began to creep in the direction of the fighting ahead. After the forced pace of our march, the slow step was agony on minds now fuelled with fear.
We were the rearguard, and I knew what the slow march and square formation meant: Caedicius was using us as a lizard does its tail. We would occupy the attacker as the body made its escape.
‘Keep your shields up,’ Titus warned. ‘Be ready.’
‘Shields up,’ Livius echoed the veteran’s words. His voice had climbed an octave since battle had been joined ahead.
‘First time?’ Stumps asked, hearing the same.
‘I was on the raid,’ Livius offered.
‘So it’s your first time,’ Stumps told him, and I could imagine his playful grin. ‘You’ll be all right.’
As we crabbed towards the Rhine, still agonizingly distant, I took in the comrades by my side. Stumps was on my left shoulder, his face twisted into a mad man’s grin. I felt good that he was there, knowing that I could trust him with my blind side. He would die for me, I knew with no doubt, and I hoped that Micon to my right knew the same of me. His head was made of clay, but I was certain his heart understood that he was beloved of his comrades.
Titus’s bulk was a blur to the right of Micon, but beyond that I could make out nothing but vague shapes of shield and armour. Behind my back was the second file of the section, men I neither knew, nor, in all honesty, cared about more than any other soldier, or man. They were unknown to me, Livius the only one I knew by name. If we survived this battle, then likely I would know them as well as family. War created brothers with far greater speed than a mother’s womb.
Silence had fallen in the ranks. The sound of our steps, and of the bump of our weapons against shield, was lost to the wind and the cries it carried.
I stared on into the darkness.
There were orders being shouted in the black.
The sideswipe of my right foot hit something hard, and I glanced quickly down at the obstruction. It was dark, but it appeared to be a child’s toy: a whittled horse.
‘Watch your feet,’ I whispered.
A voice spoke. ‘Torches.’
The light of the flames moved across our vision like fireflies. They were distant enough to pose no immediate threat, and numerous enough to know that, when they did, it would be fatal.
‘What was that?’ a nervous voice asked.
Fear began to stalk our ranks as certainly as the enemy.
‘Are they all around us?’
‘Keep quiet.’
‘What was that over there?’
‘Did you see something?’
‘No. Did you?’
The voices fell. Wind drove the rain into my eyes. I tried to blink the drops from my vision to clear the murky blur.
And then I saw the grey vision for what it was – ambient light bouncing from the armour of chain mail, the iron boss of shield and the steel of sharpened blades.
With a vicious roar that humbled the storm’s savagery, the enemy attacked.
68
One moment there had been empty darkness, the next there was an ink spill of enemies across the night’s black canvas.
They were on us before even half an order could leave a mouth. There was no time to think, and instinct carried the tip of my javelin into a bearded blur, the shock of the blow ripping through my wrist as the German skull lost its battle with iron.
I pulled the weapon back, bringing the man’s face with it, and then I was driving it forwards again, feeling more than seeing, sensing the strike against wood, or flesh. Then either German body or hands wrenched the weapon free of my grip. The wooden shaft was only a moment clear before I was drawing my short sword and driving it into the waist of the enemy swordsman biting chunks from Micon’s shield, splinters from which were scratching against my face.
By my strike that tribesman went down, but another soon filled the void. I saw the light shine from Micon’s blade, and felt the hot blood against my hand as the German fell back towards me, the reek of his breath and his opened bowels now thick in my nostrils.
That was the final moment of the action that etched its way into my consciousness. Automatic movements took over my body, thousands of hours of drill and their refinement in battle now put on trial once again. One slip would be enough to be my last. One split second of struggling to pull a blade from ribs. One inch of a shield lowered as biceps burned and screamed as loud as the howling enemy.