Ballista watched a moment longer. The Olbians were resisting with a ferocity born of desperation. A ladder was levered away from the battlements. Those on it fell, limbs flailing like insects.
‘Time to go.’
The three slipped and slid down. Diocles had the men ready. Several were fumbling with armour and clothing to take a last-moment piss. Ballista felt he could do with one himself, but there was no time. He knew the urge would pass. It was just nerves.
Ballista led them along the terrace for forty or so paces. He held up his hand, halted them, and then turned up towards the fighting.
They came up between two long, derelict buildings. The walls still stood to a few feet, and gave them an element of cover. Ballista paused, waiting for those behind to close up. Eighty-two men were very few to try to change the course of a battle, to break a force of perhaps three thousand. It all hinged on surprise and momentum. Above all, it depended on panic, and that was in the lap of the gods.
No time for a speech. If some historian from the imperium or scop from the far north recorded this battle, they would supply suitably stirring words: ‘freedom’, ‘home and family’, ‘courage’. Ballista grinned. A Gothic bard would use other words: ‘ferocity’, ‘bestial savagery’, ‘low cunning’ and ‘deceit’. Ballista unslung his shield. Adjusted his helmet, after the shield strap had caught on the rags masking its crest. Pulling the scarf tight up over his nose, he checked he was flanked by Maximus and Tarchon, that Diocles and the bucinator were at his back. Time to go. Do not think, just act. He drew his sword, flourished it above his head in the most martial way he could manage, and set off.
They emerged from the ruins, and there — a long javelin cast to their right — was the extreme right of the Gothic hansa. Lumbering figures in the haze of dust and smoke, hard up against the wall. A dark horde, flashes where helmet, shield-boss or blade struck the light. The Tervingi had their backs to the new threat.
Ballista ran at them, taking care where he placed his boots. The ground was humped, uneven, yellow-grey stones poking up through the grass. Not the moment to stumble or fall. His left leg still ached. A shout from somewhere near. More yells. The Goth ahead still unaware. Fifteen paces, ten.
Overhand from the right, Ballista brought his sword down. The Goth was unarmoured. The sharp, heavy steel cleaved his shoulder. Ballista pushed him away with his shield. The next was turning, mouth open. Ballista thrust the sword into his stomach, up into his chest, twisted and shoved him aside. The noise was deafening: screams, shouts; Tarchon was keening some savage, incomprehensible song.
Taken by surprise, assailed in front and rear, the courage of the Tervingi right wing ran away like water through a broken dam. In front, the unyielding wall and the rain of missiles; behind, grim-faced men wielding terrible steel. The Goths fled to the east, scrambling and fighting each other to get away from their imminent doom.
‘After them! Drive them like sheep!’ Ballista’s shouts were muffled by the scarf. It did not matter. A Goth stood, rooted; arms wide in supplication. Ballista cut him down.
The fleeing Goths crashed into those to their left. Pushing, shoving, some using their swords; they sowed chaos among those still unaware of the new attack. Panic infected the next group of Tervingi. They, too, turned from the unseen, unreckoned danger, and ran.
Ballista chased them along the wall, as Achilles had chased Hector; swift-footed, remorseless, exulting. Along the battlements, the Olbians chanted: ‘Let us be men. Let us be men.’
Ahead, a saffron war standard rose above the confusion, just short of the town gate. At its foot was a knot of Gothic warriors. They were not moving. The broken men sheered away from them, like so many waves from a cliff.
‘Hold!’ Ballista had to tear the scarf from his mouth to have a chance of being heard. ‘Hold! With me!’
Ballista checked who was still with him. Maximus was on his right shoulder; some Olbians beyond. Diocles and Romans were to his left. Jostling behind came Olbians and Romans together, Heliodorus the mutineer among them. Tarchon and the bucinator had vanished.
As if swept by the hand of a deity, an empty space had opened between Ballista and the Goths below the standard. Off to the left, the routed fled away through the wasteland that had been the antique city. Braids and cloaks swinging, many were throwing down their armaments, the better to run. But just beyond the saffron standard a dense throng of warriors continued slowly to shuffle and jam into Olbia through the shattered gate. Above and beyond that there were still ladders against the wall, and men still fought to gain the battlements. A few hundred men had been trampled or scattered like chaff, but the battle hung in the balance. If the Goths below the saffron standard held, the day was lost.
Ballista eyed these new opponents. Fifty or so tall men, clad in mail, gold rings on their arms. This was the hearth-troop of a war chief; a comitatus sworn to their reiks. Ballista could see the reiks in the third rank: a big man, gilded helmet and white fur cloak around his broad shoulders. If he fell, his comitatus had taken an oath not to leave the field alive.
Time was on the side of warriors beneath the saffron standard.
‘Are you ready for war?’ Ballista would have to take the fight to them.
‘Ready!’ The response at his back was thin. He had no idea how many were left. No time to make a tally.
‘Are you ready for war?’
Fifteen paces to cross.
‘Ready!’
Fifteen paces to a solid wall of hard linden boards, fifteen paces to sharp spear, axe and sword.
‘Are you ready for war?’
The third ritual Roman response came and died away.
Do not think, just act. Allfather, Father of Battle, protect me.
‘Now!’ Ballista set off.
Bright patterned leather, glittering steel, hard eyes between helmet brow and shield rim; Ballista rushed at them.
A squall of arrows from the right tore down into the comitatus. Ballista saw at least two warriors fall. A flash of hope, dead in an instant. The rear ranks raised their shields; the comitatus did not flinch.
Just a few paces. Always go in hard. Ballista, shoulder in the belly of his shield, crashed into the man facing him. The collision cracked Ballista to a standstill. The Goth staggered back a pace or two, until brought up short by a warrior in the next rank. The man behind Ballista thumped into his back, driving him forward. Again he was shield to shield with the enemy.
The Goth tried to stab down over the locked shields. Ballista twisted and drove behind his shield. The blade skidded off and behind his mailed shoulder. Underarm, he tried to stab under the shields at the legs. The steel met no resistance.
A shield crunched into Ballista’s back. At the same moment the Goth was pushed from behind. The pressure mounted as more men joined the maul. Trapped, squashed, unable to use their weapons, they were eye to eye. The Goth’s beard and hot breath were in Ballista’s face.
A sword jabbed over the Goth towards Ballista’s head. He tucked his chin down. The edge of the blade clanged off the side of his helmet. His ears were ringing, a scrap of helmet covering was hanging over his eyes.
The pressure increased. The clatter and grunting as more and more strong men hurled in their weight; pushing, heaving. Half-twisted, Ballista bent his knees, dug in his right heel. He shoved with all his strength. No movement; no going forward, no going back. Trapped, near blinded, helpless; the pressure getting worse. Someone sobbing in his ear. Hard to breathe, very hard to breathe. Allfather, do not let me die here. Pain in his chest. Too crushed to breathe. His vision greying at the edges. Bursting stars of light.