The Tungrians followed him up the hill as fast as they were able to climb the steep slope in their heavy armour, hearing the sounds of battle swelling above them as they approached the crest. Scaurus stopped just short of the top, panting for breath and pointing to the ground before him.
‘Form up and prepare to fight!’
He led the soldiers up the slope’s last fifty paces in a double line of battle with his heart pounding, knowing that they might well be marching into a fight that was already lost, but found himself gaping in amazement as the scene unfolded before his eyes. The Tungrians were holding their ground by the slightest of margins given the strength arrayed against them, and for a moment the tribune’s eyes narrowed in disbelief until he realised what it was that his first glance across the scene had missed. While the Sarmatae closest to them continued their assault on the Roman line, the men to their rear were themselves under attack by a mass of warriors whose rearmost men were still emerging from the forest, throwing themselves into the attack in a manner quite different from the ordered advance in line that would have typified a Roman assault. Snapping out of his momentary amazement, he pointed down at the beleaguered Tungrian line and shouted a command that his centurions swiftly echoed with their own shouts.
‘Reinforce the line!’
His men hurried forward, calling encouragement to their comrades as they joined the embattled line and pushed past the exhausted front rankers, pulling men out of the fight and stepping swiftly in to confront the bloodied tribesmen with fresh determination. Along the Sarmatae line the barbarians recoiled in shock as the unblooded Tungrians tore into them with furious purpose, spears stabbing out over their shields to reap a fresh harvest from the exhausted men facing them. Marcus walked stiff-legged with fatigue away from the line with both of his swords bloodied and his armour sprayed black with the gore of the men he had killed, Arminius and Lugos at his shoulders. He pushed the patterned spatha into the soft turf and saluted his tribune wearily.
‘That was well timed, sir; we were all about ready to drop.’
Scaurus looked past him.
‘Where’s Sigilis?’
The young centurion hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘In there. He insisted on taking his turn in the front rank.’
Scaurus nodded meaningfully at Arminius, and the big German stepped into the crush, pulling the junior tribune out of the fray by the neck of his bronze chest plate. Breathing heavily, Sigilis dropped the shield he had taken from a wounded man and leaned on his sword, looking up at Scaurus from beneath the brow of his helmet as the older man nodded his head and smiled.
‘Well met, Tribune Sigilis, and indeed well done for showing these men how a Roman gentleman takes his share of the fighting, but I think you can be indulged with a moment’s rest, eh?’
Sigilis nodded blankly, looking down at his sword arm as if only just noticing the blood that painted it dark red all the way to his elbow. His knees started to buckle as his legs shook with delayed reaction to the shock of the fight, but Arminius shot out a muscular arm and held him upright with a hand wrapped around his bicep. Scaurus turned back to Marcus.
‘That was a closer run than you’d have liked, I expect, Centurion?’
Marcus nodded, his eyes still fixed on the newcomers who were forming the other half of the trap that was closing with slow but irresistible power about the embattled Sarmatae.
‘Without them we would have been broken before you reached us. Who are they?’
Scaurus shook his head soberly.
‘I have absolutely no idea, Centurion, but whoever they may be, they’ve probably saved this entire valley. And now, if you’ll permit me, I think it’s time we finished this fight and took some heads to mount over our battlements.’
Marcus nodded, and the two men stepped back up to the rear of the Tungrian line, now three men deep and holding its own with relative ease. Scaurus raised his voice to the parade-ground roar that always came as a surprise when heard for the first time, given the urbanity with which he usually spoke.
‘Tungrians, we have them by the balls! Now we finish them!’
An arrow flew past the tribune’s head close enough for both men to hear the breathy whistle of its passing, but neither of them flinched as the rear rank’s eyes turned to them.
‘Front ranks, with your spears, ready!’
A cheer resounded along the line’s length, as the fresh replacement soldiers readied themselves for what they knew was coming.
‘Rear ranks, with all your strength, push!’
The Roman line ground forward, the remorseless pressure of their shields pinning the warriors facing them against the mass of men trapped helplessly behind them, lifting some of the Sarmatae off their feet and rendering them all but powerless as the sheer crush prevented them from wielding their swords. The fresh Tungrian front rankers went to work with their spears again, stabbing repeatedly at the men three and four ranks back in the warband, plunging their iron blades deep into throats and chests before ripping them free to strike again. Marcus looked to Sigilis, who was watching the slaughter with a sick expression, and waved a hand at the battle’s bloody mayhem.
‘This is war, Tribune! Not the fighting you come to expect from the histories, but the simple bloody slaughter that leads to one side drunk with bloodletting and the other either dead or enslaved!’
The young centurion fell silent as he spotted something in the crush of men, a flash of gold that was gone in a second, then seen again as the barbarian ranks opened for a moment. Looking closer he realised that a blood-red banner decorated with a white sword waved above the spot. He strode back towards the fight, ripping his spatha free from the turf and calling a command over his shoulder.
‘Arminius, Lugos, with me!’
Muscling his way into the line with the barbarians close behind, he bellowed an order to the men about him over the battle’s furious din.
‘Tungrians! On me! Form! Spearhead!’
Grabbing the soldier in front of him by the shoulder, he bent close to shout in the man’s ear, loud enough for the men around him to hear.
‘Their king is a dozen paces in front of you, and he’s wearing enough gold to earn your tent party a fine reward. When I give the command we’re going to cut our way through to him and either kill or capture him. Are you ready?’
The soldier nodded, setting his feet ready to attack, while his mates shuffled in closer around him. Marcus glanced around to see the men to either side looking to him for the command, while Arminius and Lugos pressed close in behind the spearhead’s point.
‘Tungrians, advance!’
The formation lurched forward, spears flicking out to fell the men to either side. Exhausted Sarmatae warriors flinched away from the advance and turned away in a fruitless attempt to escape into the crush of men behind them, falling to wounds in their backs and necks as the Tungrians mercilessly ground forward. Within a dozen paces they had the Sarmatae noble who Marcus had sighted through the battle’s shifting tide in plain view, the warriors who had stood between them left dead and dying by the spearhead’s remorseless advance. A pair of giants wielding long swords pushed through the retreating tide of their fellows with contemptuous ease, stepping into the space between the Romans and their leader to assault the Tungrians with desperate ferocity.
The soldier at the point of the spear died quickly, beheaded by the sweep of a long blade, and his decapitated corpse fell forward at his killer’s feet while the warrior bellowed his defiance at the Tungrians. His partner raised his own sword high before swinging it down onto the man beside Marcus, cleaving open his helmet and sending him reeling away with an uncomprehending grunt and his eyes rolling upwards until only the whites could be seen. Before the young centurion could react Lugos shouldered past him, swinging his war hammer up and over his head with a guttural bellow of challenge. The rough iron beak’s crushing impact smashed the first man’s iron cap deep into his shattered skull, felling him like a slaughtered ox while Arminius’s sword blocked the other bodyguard’s swift attempt to take revenge. Parrying the blade’s thrust to one side the German stamped forward and punched the bodyguard in his throat with a half-knuckled fist, the crackle of cartilage loud enough for Marcus to hear over the battle’s din. With a look of fury the king himself stepped out of the press of his warriors and raised his sword to fight. In his strong bearded face Marcus saw nothing more than the desire to kill, and he crouched slightly into the two-handed fighting pose as time seemed to slow around him. As the king strode forward to fight blade to blade, beneath the banner that still flew close behind him, he screamed his defiance at the men facing him.