I pulled my bow from its case, then strung an arrow in the bowstring and dug my knees into Remus’ flanks. He snorted and raced forward. Ahead I saw a guard, his shield on the ground resting against his leg, staring at us. He was only a couple of hundred feet away. He peered, realised that the wall of horseflesh galloping towards him was not a dream or phantoms, then shouted and grabbed the handle of his shield, just as my arrow hit him in the chest, the rhomboid head piercing his mail shirt and sending him spinning backwards. I rode past him, screaming a war cry as Remus thundered onto the sand.
Each company worked as a team, either riding over men who were still lying on the ground or sweeping around others who had managed to wake themselves and were attempting to form into some sort of unit. The beach itself was approximately three hundred yards wide, and those Roman legionaries who were sleeping the furthest from the water suffered the most. They slept in eight-man tent groups, grouped into centuries — even in slumber the Romans retained their formation — and our first line rode through and over them. Those who hadn’t been trampled, speared or shot were then assaulted in quick succession by our second line, who hacked at bleary eyed individuals with their swords. As I rode Remus to the water’s edge and then wheeled him right, the beach was suddenly engulfed in noise: screams, shouts, curses and whoops. Cavalry horns blasted as company commanders isolated groups of Romans and began reducing them with arrow fire, while Roman trumpets sounded assembly.
All along the beach the battle assumed a predictable pattern, as horse companies sort to isolate and then destroy Roman units. The Roman Army’s strength was its discipline and belief in its formations, the century, cohort and legion. But today, while the sky turned from orange to yellow as the sun rose in the east, that very same strength began to work against the Romans as legionaries rallied into their centuries. However, instead of other centuries and cohorts being to their right and left, groups of fast-moving horsemen were between them, searching for weak points and unleashing a hail of arrow against them. Century after century was shot to pieces in this way. Other centuries, to their credit, managed to form an all-round defence, the front ranks kneeling and forming a shield wall, and the second and third ranks also kneeling and hauling their shields above their heads to form a sloping roof against which our arrows could not penetrate. Occasionally a legionary would lose his nerve, or goaded beyond his limit, would break formation and charge out to attack a horseman, only to be felled by an arrow before he had run ten paces. As so it went on, a myriad of isolated battles all along the beach. Some centuries withdrew to the water and then attempted to wade to the safety of the ships, but my archers merely followed them, keeping out of javelin range, and then shot at them when their cohesion fell to pieces in the water as the Romans tried to reach the boats. Soon the sea was dyed red with the blood of dead Romans.
Now flame arrows were arching into the sky and landing on the anchored ships, whose crews had awoke to discover what was happening on the beach. Captains screamed at their crews to cut anchor ropes and man their oars. But it takes time to move a ship, and in those precious few minutes a torrent of flame arrows was launched against those boats nearest to the shore. We had not come to burn boats, but soon a dozen or more were aflame before the rest had managed to row beyond the range of our bows.
Gallia, her Amazons tight around her, ripped off her helmet when faced by the locked shields of over a hundred legionaries. She tossed her blonde hair back and laughed at them.
‘Soldiers of Rome, are you afraid of a woman, where is your courage?’
Behind her the Amazons, fastened cheekguards hiding their sex, closed in upon the Romans. The front rank of the later, taunted beyond endurance by this woman on a horse in front of them, shouted and charged forward, javelins poised to be thrown. Gallia did nothing as the hiss of arrows flashed past her and struck the legionaries. Then another volley was loosed and yet more Romans fell, and then Gallia dug her knees into Epona and screamed a blood-curdling cry and the Amazons charged into the disorganised and demoralised Romans, riding straight into their midst and destroying any semblance of formation that had existed. I saw Praxima hacking left and right with her sword, Gallia shooting a hapless Roman in the back at a range of about ten feet and the others turning mail-clad soldiers into a mound of offal. It was terrible, exhilarating and glorious at the same time. I gave the order to sound retreat, the horns blasting their shrill sound. I rode over to Gallia, her women reforming around her.
‘Put your helmet back on, we are withdrawing.’
There was fire in her eyes and adrenalin was clearly pumping through her veins.
‘Why? We should stay and kill more Romans.’
Around me horsemen were turning their mounts around and heading off the beach, as more and more horns were sounding withdrawal.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Get your women off the beach. The Romans are recovering and to stay any longer would be to invite death.’
And so it would, for at the far end of the beach, in the direction of Brundisium, a solid wall of red Roman shields was approaching, their right flank anchored on the water’s edge and their left flank protected by slingers. The later were finding their range and were bringing down horses and riders with their deadly lead pellets. If any cavalry tried to charge them they sought sanctuary behind Roman shields, and then emerged again to unleash another deadly accurate volley of pellets.
Nergal rode up with two companies who stayed on the outer edge of the beach as a covering force. I stayed with them. I watched Gallia and her women trot past me in sullen silence, no doubt aggrieved that I had interrupted their glory. Looking at the beach from right to left, I saw the fresh cohort approaching at a steady pace, while before them lay their dead and wounded comrades, most lying in groups where they had been surprised while sleeping. A few ragged clusters of still-living legionaries stood all along the sand, many bare headed and wounded by arrows or sword and lance thrusts. In the water I counted fifteen ships alight, many blazing fiercely as the flames had taken hold of dry timbers and sails. At the water’s edge was a grim flotsam of Roman dead, men who had tried to escape us by wading into the water, but who had only presented their backs to our arrows as they tried to reach the ships lying offshore. We had not destroyed the Romans, but we had given them a bloody nose and would hopefully slow down their preparations to march south to join Crassus. Nergal told me that a preliminary count had revealed that we had lost only two hundred and fifty men and their horses. Before I rode away I looked one last time at the beach. There must have been ten times that number of Romans lying dead upon the sand. It had been a triumphant morning, but in the south disaster had befallen the slave army.
Chapter 17
The ride to the rendezvous point was uneventful, and after a brief muster, roll call and rest, we moved southwest from Caelia to skirt Tarentum and then head south to the empty husk of Metapontum. The men’s spirits were high, and they told and retold each other their stories of the battle on the beach until all vestiges of the truth and rationality had departed.