reassured, almost justified in my decision, as I hurried on.
Julian raced as near as he was able to the rear of his auxiliaries before being himself blocked by the mass of men at his front, the Romans with their shields up, pushing on their comrades before them. The effect was like hitting a stone wall, impossible to pass through; easier would it have been to surmount it and walk to the river on top of the heaving heads and shoulders. He wheeled his horse in frustration, turning this way and that, churning up a gory spray and pocking the slurry of sand and blood, searching for a gap through which he could charge. Finally he gave up, reining in his animal and bellowing at the top of his lungs:
'Romans, hold! Don't advance into the water! Hold! Hold!'
His officers picked up the cry and soon fifty voices in the rear were shouting 'Hold! hold!' in unison, and then a trumpeter too caught up with us in the chaos and blew the signal to halt. Slowly, imperceptibly at first and then becoming increasingly visible, a gap opened between the Roman front line and the rear of the fleeing barbarians, a gap precisely matching the water's edge at the bank, as the message wended its way through the lines and the soldiers themselves realized the foolhardiness of pursuing a desperate enemy into deep water, burdened by armor and weapons. Better to let the broad, flowing river do the Romans' work for them.
This it did. The barbarians, even those unable to swim, chose between the certain bloody fate facing them behind, and the cool, liquid death beckoning them in the fore, and the outcome was preordained. Throwing themselves into the corpse-choked stream, they thrashed in the water, tearing off their armor and loosening the heavy sandals that dragged them beneath the current a mere twenty feet from where the blood-spattered Romans stood staring and taunting. A few Alemanni who had kept their wooden shields were able to use them as floats, but they were quickly submerged as five or ten other frantic men grasped them and sought to pull themselves on as well, all of them sinking to the pummeling of fists as they fought for possession. The water deepened to a blackish crimson, staining the feet of the Romans a streaked red, and bits of flesh and armor leather floated on the surface where they had been cut away from their barbarian owners by the slashing of the troops on the land or their own comrades in the water.
After surveying the slaughter for a time, Julian turned away, complete victory in his hands. Dismounting and leading his horse, he threaded his way back through the lines, through his exultant troops and jubilant captains, making his way to the crest of the low hill from where the Roman auxiliaries had made their victorious charge. There he found a low, flat rock, and sitting down he faced not east, toward the site of his victory at the river, where for a hundred yards out into the middle and for a mile downstream could be seen the bodies of barbarian soldiers, floating immobile or paddling weakly as they made their way across to the far side of the Rhine; but rather toward the west, where rosy Apollo dipped his weary horses into the Iberian Sea, toward the last rays of the sun setting in a gloriously purple and orange sky. Narrow shafts of ebbing light shot through the faint and dispersing dust cloud that had risen from the tortured land, bringing on the coolness of the night. With his shoulders slumping in exhaustion, he buried his face in his hands.
II
The medical and burial squads that night reported two hundred forty-three Roman soldiers and four officers killed in the battle, including the brave tribune Bainobaudes. The Roman dead, however, were difficult to find on the field, lost as they were amongst the beaten and torn bodies of the six thousand barbarian dead, nameless and unidentifiable, covering vast tracts of land as thickly as a heaving, oozing carpet. No estimate could be made of the numbers drowned in the aftermath of the rout, but undoubtedly thousands were carried off by the river.
With every report and update from the scouts and burial parties, however, Julian, sleepless as usual even after the exertions of a day such as this, had only one question: What of the Beast? Where is the Beast? No one could answer.
Several hours after dark, one of the burial parties raced up to the general staff to announce that as they had approached a heap of cadavers, a man had leaped up from beneath a body where he had been lying and raced into a nearby copse, adjacent to the river. This in itself was not an unusual occurrence, since it is a favorite tactic of deserters and cowards on every battlefield to feign death until the heat of battle has passed by. This man, however, had caught the Romans' eyes for his sheer bulk, which, even accounting for the deceptiveness of the torchlight and shadows, was enormous. The fact that his face was bound in a dirty rag, as if to prevent recognition, was also suspicious. Julian, his eyes flashing, raced to his horse, calling as he ran for his personal guard and his Acolytes.
Thundering to the grove with some two hundred armed men, they dismounted and spaced themselves evenly into a line several hundred yards long, and then at a command, cautiously entered the thick undergrowth.
We had not taken more than a half dozen steps into the dark woods when there was a sudden shout from nearby, and suddenly thirty or forty men burst from the trees in front of us and raced through our line, knocking over and trampling our men, who were so startled at the sudden onslaught in the dark that they did not even have time to raise their weapons. Screaming their battle cry, the barbarians raced to the horses we had just left behind us, untended but for a few unarmed battle squires, who leaped away like a terrified troop of monkeys. The blood- darkened giants bore down like demons, Chonodomarius foremost among them, and leaping upon our horses they spurred them up the steep slope away from the celebrating Roman camp, into the darkness and emptiness of the woods beyond.
Julian and his men raced back to the remaining horses and took pursuit, determined not to lose the trail. The gods of the barbarians, however, false as they are, had turned their backs on the Alemanni. Before the Beast had raced a half mile, his horse, frightened by the strange rider and unaccustomed to the heavier load, slipped in some loose gravel and threw him heavily to the ground. He lay flat on his back, grimacing in pain, as Julian and the others thundered up, dismounted, and aimed the points of their lances at his neck. To their credit, the Beast's companions, though likely to have been able to escape on their own, also pulled their horses up short, and cautiously walked them back to our group, surrendering without protest.
The Beast himself, whose arrogance and daring had struck fear into the hearts of Roman commanders for a decade, laboriously stood up, wincing from pain after his hard fall to the stony ground. Straightening his shoulders he looked quickly around him and identified Julian, who stood only as high as the naked barbarian's bearlike chest. Three Roman guards moved forward to bind the huge German, but Julian signaled them back with his eyes and they reluctantly retreated. Chonodomarius took a step toward the Caesar, Roman lance points pressing upon him from all sides, and as he approached, Julian stood stone-still, his head tilted slightly to the side in observation, almost in curiosity, as if seeing for the first time a new creature brought forth from the wilds of Africa. The Beast moved slowly forward, expressionless, though his eyes darted warily from side to side behind the filth-caked hair obscuring his face. He stopped directly in front of Julian, dropped deliberately forward onto his knees, rested his forehead on the ground, and without a word slowly reached out with one hand to grasp the blade of Julian's sword and guide the tip to the back of his neck. The other barbarians in the group immediately did the same, dropping to the ground at the feet of the nearest Roman and signing with similar gestures to be executed.
We were dumbfounded, and for a moment we all froze, unsure precisely what to do. Had they attacked us, we would have killed them immediately. Had they fled we would have hunted them down like the dogs they were. This, however, was unanswerable.
Julian alone was prepared. With the barbarian lying prostrate on the ground before him, he carefully spread his feet and placed both hands on the sword hilt. With the tip of the blade, he prodded the neck of his son's killer, deftly parting in two the mass of matted and encrusted hair, exposing the white flesh of the nape. All eyes, barbarian and Roman, were fixed on Julian's sword, all lips fell silent. He set the tip into the groove of the neck, just at the base of the skull, and paused.
'Caesar,' I whispered, from close at hand. He remained unmoving, his eyes locked on the sword tip. 'Caesar,' I rasped hoarsely, slightly louder, and I could see the tendons in Julian's forearm quivering. 'Do not have this blood on your hands, Caesar. Send him away — send him to the Emperor. As a credit to you, and a burden to Constantius. The Beast's fate is sealed in either case.'
Julian looked up at the silent men around him, then focused on me. His eyes had a strange light — as of intense feeling or turmoil, but uncontrolled, with a gleam of perhaps something like madness. 'This man is a scourge,' he said throatily, adjusting his fingers and tightening his grip on the handle. 'With one thrust I avenge
