threw himself upon his sword rather than face the disgrace which they had invited upon themselves. The living found themselves places in the living wall and faced the Germans with dark hearts and a need to kill.
After the first assault, the Germans drew back. Casca took a good look at his enemies. They seemed as if they were from another world… big, hairy men with blond hair to their shoulders and fierce mustaches that reached below their chins. Many had flaming red hair and full beards. Their armor was of a motley variety, but limited by the owner's wealth and personal likes… oxhide shields… wolfskin headdresses… horned steel helmets… captured Roman shields from battles going back over two hundred years.
The great swords of the barbarians took two hands to swing and could cleave a man to his navel if hit. These and the axes were their favorite weapons. Casca had been told that the Suevii were masters of the axe, and he saw that it was true. Many of the warriors carried a half dozen or more throwing axes, and they also had the heavy battleaxe for close work. These did more damage than the swords when they faced the legion wall.
The Germans stood all in a mass waiting for the next attack to begin. They worked themselves into a killer- berserk rage, beating their shields in time, letting a tremendous growl begin low in their throats and then build into an ear-piercing shriek, a wild howl like that of enraged wolves. Several of the Germans could not stand the waiting and without any assistance from their comrades threw themselves upon the Roman wall. There the legionnaires almost absentmindedly dispatched them.
Then the attack began.
They came running low to the ground, resembling the beasts of the forests whose skins they wore. Wave after wave of arrows preceded them, and many ran into the flying shafts themselves in their eagerness to kill.
Casca stood. He saw that his shield mate beside him was grinning weakly. He himself felt a sudden desire to urinate. He wanted to run, but it required less courage to remain where he was than to break ranks and be dishonored by his comrades, and he realized then the truth of something his Uncle Tontine had once said, that many heroic acts were accomplished by fear…
The Suevii were upon them.
Battleaxes flashed in the morning sun. The barbarian devils' faces were red with the lust for blood. They crowded in upon each other in their haste to kill Romans. A legionnaire three men down from Casca was pulled from his position by one of the hooks used on the cavalry. With one flashing swipe his head was off and hoisted onto a spear head and thrown back into the square. But the soldier's spot was filled before he had even been pulled completely out of it by a second rank member. The wall was intact.
Casca struck and struck, parrying blows from spear, axe, and sword. His arm grew leaden. And yet the barbarians continued to throw themselves mindlessly upon the shield of the legion. But the square had shrunk. Over a thousand legionnaires lay dead, their bodies being mutiliated by the barbarians. Still the square held. Casca was wounded twice, once when a spear pierced clean through his shield and about two inches of steel entered his chest just below the right clavicle. His shield mate cut the head of the spear off with his gladius and pulled the spear head from Casca's shoulder in less time than the telling of it took. The other wound was from the glancing blow of a barbarian axe that sliced a clean opening along Casca's left rib cage. Metal armor was at a premium here; leather was only good for light work.
Then it stopped.
The Germans were pulling back, leaving a thick, stacked-up mass of bodies behind them. They had had enough. They were retreating toward the river.
Relief was evident in the face of the Roman commander. Q. Matinius Corolioni knew that his men could not have held out much longer. With a great sense of satisfaction he raised himself up into the saddle of one of the few surviving horses, waved his sword over his head, and cried out:
'Let loose the legion!'
Now the real slaughter began.
The legion ran for the Suevii, cutting them down. Many of the barbarians begged for their lives. But none were spared this day. The memory of the young men of the cavalry was still too fresh for the Romans to take prisoners. They killed Germans all the way back to the river.
Casca struck and struck until he thought his arm would drop off. Then he dropped his shield and switched to his left hand, cut and cut, slicing down every fur-garbed body and horned helmet head that came his way.
One, a beautiful boy of no more than sixteen, went on his knees and begged for his life with clasped hands. Casca felt nothing more than a sense of dullness as he grabbed the boy by his shoulder length blond hair and forced his head back, exposing a throat not unlike that of a maiden. He drove his short sword completely through the neck and out the back, the blade slicing between the spinal vertebrae. The boy's head almost fell off. Only a single strand of meat held it onto the body. The boy warrior lay on the earth, his body twitching in the uncontrollable response that comes from sudden and violent death.
And for just a moment time stood still for Casca. The thought ran through his brain: If I had lived out my life in Tuscany… If I had married and had a son… like this one…
But only for a moment. He raised the bloody sword and went after more Germans.
Then they were at the river, and Casca ran waist deep into the water to continue the slaughter until there were no more to slash and only the archers were continuing to make kills, sending their arrows into the backs and heads of the swimming and wading barbarians.
Casca backed up to the edge of the river and lay down face first to drink, unmindful that the water was turning red around him. That burning thirst, that only men in combat know, was not to be denied. A German's body floated by him, and the dead hand gently nudged his face, but he paid no mind. He drank the deep drink of exhaustion.
Fifteen thousand Suevii had crossed the river that morning. Less than three hundred returned to their home villages that night. Before the women even could begin in earnest their death wails and cries for vengeance, many of the widows were offering themselves to any of the surviving warriors that would have them so that they could have more babies who would grow into men and avenge the fallen warriors of the Suevii. Before the next several dawns another thousand barbarian soldiers were being carried in their mothers' bellies, growing for their turn at the Roman wall…
TEN
Casca awoke, his body wet with sweat. He was back in the cell at the stockade in Judea, but time was still confused for him. He remembered the three rats, but the dreams had come upon him as reality. There was the taste of fear in his mouth.
How much time had passed since the stroking had taken place? The tribune had said he would see him when it was over. Pulling himself across the floor, Casca looked out the cell door to where a ray of light was coming in from one of the apertures that provided what little air there was in this place of horrors. From the angle and intensity of the light it must be almost dusk. Then he had slept for hours.
He looked at his feet. The swelling remained, but, surprisingly, the pain was almost gone. Surprisingly? '… until we meet again… ' The words of the Jew haunted him. What has happened to me?
He got to his feet, found he could stand, and limped back to the bed of straw against the farther wall. But before he lay down he looked at the skin of his feet again. Though the light was now dim, it seemed that even the battered flesh was now healing. Impossible!.. Taking the index finger of his right hand, he dug his strong nail into the tender flesh of his left forearm, dug it in deeper until the blood flowed freely. The pain was as nothing compared to what he had been through. He dragged the nail halfway up the arm… and stopped. His mouth dropped open as he saw…saw in the part darkness… the bleeding cease before his eyes, the pain leave, and a scab form.
Casca cried out, 'No! No!' and he beat his head against the cell wall in terror and confusion.
The jailer, hearing the outcry, rushed to him. Seeing Casca apparently trying to beat his brains out, he called for help, and, with the assistance of two guards, was able to get Casca put into restraints that would keep him from doing any further harm to himself.
If the bastard died before Tigelanius judged him, there would be hell to pay.
Casca slept all that night, a troubled and uneasy sleep, a dark time that alternated between despair and mental agony.
