In seconds, Fabius was among them. He was conscious of passing through the line of spears and swerving to avoid the dying elephant, and then seeing Scipio stabbing and hacking ahead of him. He swept his sword down across the exposed ankles of the line of spearmen beside him, leaving them screaming and writhing on the ground for the legionaries who followed to finish off. Then he was close behind Scipio, thrusting and slashing, going for the neck and the pelvis, his arms and face drenched in blood, always keeping the standard raised. A huge Thracian came behind Scipio’s back and whipped out a dagger, but Fabius leapt forward and stabbed his sword up through the back of the man’s neck into his skull, causing his eyeballs to spring out and a jet of blood to arch from his mouth as he fell. All around him the din and smell was like nothing he had experienced before: men screaming and bellowing and retching, blood and vomit and gore spattering everywhere.
Then Fabius was conscious of another noise, of horns sounding — not Roman trumpets but Macedonian mountain horns. The fighting suddenly slackened, and the Macedonians around him seemed to melt away. The horns had sounded the retreat. Fabius staggered forward to Scipio, who was leaning over and panting hard, holding his hand against a bloody gash in his thigh. The combat had only lasted minutes, but it felt like hours. Around them the legionaries passed forward over the mound of bodies where the Macedonian line had been, slashing and thrusting to finish off the wounded, like a giant wave crashing over a reef and disappearing to shore. Scipio stood up and leaned on Fabius, and the two of them surveyed the carnage around them. As the dust settled, they could see the cavalry pouring around the flanks and pursuing the retreating Macedonians far ahead, a rolling cloud of death that pushed the enemy back into the plain and towards the sea.
Fabius remembered another thing the old centurion had told him. The tunnel that had been his world, the tunnel of death that seemed to have no end, would suddenly open up and there would be a rout, a massacre. There would seem no logic to it, but that was how it happened. This time, it had gone their way.
Aemilius Paullus came down the slope towards them, his helmet off, followed by his standard-bearers and staff officers. He made his way over the mangled bodies and stood in front of Fabius, who did his best to come to attention and hold his standard upright. The general put his hand on his shoulder and spoke. ‘Fabius Petronius Secundus, for never letting the standard of the legion drop and for staying at the head of your maniple, I commend you. And the primipilus said he saw you save the life of your tribune by killing one of the enemy while still holding the standard high. For that I award you the corona civica. You have made your mark in battle, Fabius. You will continue to be the personal bodyguard of my son, and one day you may earn promotion to centurion. I fought beside your father when I was a tribune and he was a centurion, and you have honoured his memory. You may go back to Rome proud.’
Fabius tried to control his emotions, but felt the tears streaming down his face. Aemilius Paullus turned to his son. ‘And as for the tribune, he has proven himself worthy to lead Roman legionaries into battle.’
Fabius knew there could be no greater reward for Scipio, who bowed his head and then looked up, his face drawn. ‘I congratulate you on your victory, Aemilius Paullus. You will be accorded the greatest triumph ever seen in Rome. You have honoured the shades of our ancestors, and of my adoptive grandfather Scipio Africanus. But I now have another task. I must prepare the funeral rites for Polybius. He was the bravest man I have known, a warrior who sacrificed himself to save Roman lives. We must find his body and send him to the afterlife like his heroes, like Ajax and Achilles and the fallen of Thermopylae.’
Aemilius Paullus cleared his throat. ‘Fine, if you can persuade him to leave aside the far more interesting business of interviewing Macedonian prisoners of war for the account he intends to write of this battle for his Histories.’
‘What? He’s alive?’
‘He carried on riding to the right flank of the phalanx, turned back to our lines, and charged again at the head of the cavalry, and then came back to collect his scrolls so that he could write an eyewitness account while it was still fresh in his mind. That is, before he had a sudden brainwave and galloped off by himself to find King Perseus, wherever he might be hiding, to get his take on the battle.’
‘But he couldn’t be bothered to stop and tell his friends that he was alive?’
‘He had far more important things to do.’
Scipio shook his head, then wiped his face with his hand. He suddenly looked terribly tired.
‘You need water,’ Fabius said. ‘And that wound needs to be tended.’
‘You too are wounded, on your cheek.’
Fabius reached up with surprise and felt congealed blood from his ear to his mouth. ‘I didn’t feel it. We should go to the river.’
‘It runs red with Macedonian blood,’ Aemilius Paullus said.
‘It’s everywhere.’ Scipio looked at the drying blood on his hands and forearms and on his sword. He squinted at his father. ‘Is this an end to it?’
Aemilius Paullus looked over the battlefield towards the sea, and then nodded. ‘The war with Macedonia is over. King Perseus and the Antigonid dynasty are finished. We have extinguished the last remnant of the empire of Alexander the Great.’
‘What does the future hold for us?’
‘For me, a triumph in Rome like no other in the past, then monuments inscribed with my name and the name of this battle of Pydna, and then retirement. This is my last war, and my last battle. But for you, for the others of your generation, for Polybius, for Fabius, for the other young tribunes, there is war ahead. The Achaean League in Greece to the south will need subduing. The Celtiberians in Spain were stirred up when Hannibal took them as allies, and will resist Rome. And, above all, Carthage remains — unfinished business even after two devastating wars. It will be a hard road ahead for you, with many challenges to overcome, with Rome herself sometimes seeming an obstacle to your ambitions. It was so for myself and for your adoptive grandfather, and will be ever thus as long as Rome fears her generals as much as she lauds their victories. If you are to succeed and stand as I am victorious on a field of battle, you must show the same strength of determination to remain true to your destiny as you have shown strength on the field of battle. And for you, the stakes are even higher. For those of your generation, for those of you who are young tribunes today, those whom we in Rome concerned for the future have nurtured and trained, your future will not be to stand on a battlefield as we are today at Pydna or as your grandfather did at Zama, to see the glory of triumph and then retirement. Your future will be to look away from Rome, to see from your battlefield a horizon that none of us has seen before, and to be tempted by it. The empire of Alexander the Great may be gone, but a new one beckons.’