ground.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so pleased to see your face, sir!’
His superior officer smiled grimly, motioning for them to step aside as another century stamped up the fallen palisade’s wooden ramp and hurried off into the fight. Marcus’s friend and brother officer Rufius winked at him as he pointed up the slope with his vine stick, shouting the command for the 6th Century to form line in a bellow made hoarse by the twenty-five years of legion service he had completed before joining the Tungrians. First Spear Frontinius’s chin jutted between the cheek pieces of his helmet as he stared out into the barbarian camp, watching as the sea of barbarian tents took fire from the flame pots being hurled over the palisade by the legions’ artillery, the blaze’s flickering light illuminating the enemy warriors as they crowded forward to join battle with their attackers.
‘A job well done, Centurion Corvus! Now we finish these blue-faced bastards once and for good. Your boys will be along in a moment. Take them to the left, push up the hill and link up with the left flank of the century that went up in front of you. In the meanwhile our axemen will make this gap in the fence big enough that even the Sixth Legion’s road menders will feel safe to join us. Ah, here’s your century now…’
He pointed back into the empty space between forest and palisade, and Marcus followed his outstretched arm to find his 9th Century marching into view, their one-eyed watch officer striding alongside them with Qadir’s brass-knobbed chosen man’s pole in his hand while Morban, Marcus’s veteran standard-bearer, was at their head. Marcus saluted the first spear, then trotted out to meet his men, returning the watch officer’s salute and barking his orders to the men around him as Qadir retrieved his pole and dropped back to his usual place at the century’s rear.
‘Well done, Cyclops! To your places, gentlemen, we’re turning left and advancing up the inner wall until we make contact with the century to our right, then we take our place to their left and keep advancing alongside them!’
He trotted over to the head of the century, returning the standard-bearer’s salute and shouting over the crash of hobnails and the jingle of equipment as they mounted the fallen palisade’s wooden ramp.
‘Morban, take them left! Up the hill!’
The standard-bearer shot him a quick nod, then bellowed over his shoulder at the lanky trumpeter marching behind him.
‘Blow!’
The trumpet’s harsh note snapped the century’s heads up, and Morban canted the standard to the left. Marcus stepped out in front of the marching century, turning to face the troops and raising his gladius high and pointing to their left.
‘Follow me! ’
He jumped down from the wooden ramp, watching the marching soldiers as Morban led them over the one- foot drop and up the slope to their left. Satisfied that they had made the turn successfully, he turned, gulped a lungful of air and ran hard up the slope, past the leading ranks of the century’s column and on up the hill. He ignored the fact that Cyclops had broken ranks to run alongside him as he searched through the billowing smoke for the century that had preceded them, knowing that nothing he could say would reduce the man’s protective instincts towards his officer. Toiling through the reek drifting slowly across the chaotic battlefield, he suddenly ran into clear air and stopped, aghast at the scene unfolding in front of him. The century that had advanced up the hill only moments before him was being overrun by hundreds of barbarian warriors, the soldiers fighting a desperate but doomed defensive action as their enraged enemy hammered against their faltering shield wall, one man after another going down into the trampled mud to be finished off with swords and spears by the rampaging horde. As he watched, the other century’s centurion, anonymous in the drifting smoke, stepped into the front line with a bellow of defiance and started fighting for his century’s survival. Without his even being aware of it, a growl of anger rippled in his throat as he watched his brother officer fighting for his life, and he put a hand on the hilt of his spatha.
‘No!’
Marcus turned, to find his watch officer’s one good eye fierce with determination.
‘No use in your throwing yourself away. Take the lads in there and pull those poor bastards out of the fire, those that’s left.’
He nodded slowly, turning away from the scene of his comrades’ massacre. When he spoke, his voice was harsh with fresh purpose.
‘Get back to your men, Cyclops.’
He ran back down the slope through the smoke, his mind working quickly, almost falling over Morban in the murk.
‘Twenty paces more and then put them into line to the right, facing up the hill. No horns!’
The standard-bearer nodded at him and stamped away up the hill, while Marcus pulled a soldier out of the marching ranks and barked a command in the man’s ear.
‘Run back down the hill to the first spear. Tell him there’s a century being torn to pieces up here and we need urgent reinforcement now! Go!’
He pushed the soldier hard, sending him away down the slope, then turned back to the marching column. Morban, barely visible through the smoke, had the standard held horizontally over his head with its metal hand pointing to his right.
‘Scarface! Make sure they make the turn!’
The veteran soldier snapped a salute and ran to march at Morban’s shoulder, ready to stand firm once the standard-bearer made the right-angled turn to put the 9th in line facing the enemy, rather than risk encountering them in the vulnerable column of march. The line abruptly turned right, the soldiers following their standard without much of a clue as to what was happening. And just as well, Marcus mused, given what they would be facing in less than a minute. He stepped in alongside his deputy, pointing past the marching soldiers and up the smoke-wreathed slope.
‘Qadir, there are hundreds of barbarians less than a hundred paces that way, and they’ve already torn up one century. When we march out of this damned smoke they’ll throw themselves on to us like dogs on raw meat, so give me your pole and get your bow ready, you and your mates. Anyone that looks like they might be important, anyone with a lot of gold or that’s shouting the odds a bit too loudly, put them down.’
The big Hamian handed over his six-foot brass-knobbed pole, unslinging the bow from across his shoulders and barking a command in Aramaic to the dozen or so other Hamians marching in the 9th Century’s ranks. Marcus shot a glance back down the century’s line, waiting a few seconds to allow the last of the marching soldiers to make the turn, then drew breath to bellow his orders.
‘Ninth Century, halt!’
The column stamped to a halt, troops coughing and spluttering as they breathed in the thickening smoke from the rapidly spreading fires.
‘To the left… face! Form lines of battle!’
He waited while the soldiers straightened their lines, the front-rankers raising their shields and hefting their spears, the rear-rankers crowding close to the men in front of them, ready to grip their belts and hold them steady once the fighting started.
‘Ninth Century…’
Marcus’s voice rang out over the short double line, the din of battle from their right muffled by the smoke and the distant roar of blazing canvas.
‘When we march forward, we will soon come upon the remains of one of our sister centuries. They were surprised in the line of march, and never stood any chance of resisting the barbarians. You, however, are ready to fight, armed and armoured, drilled and trained to perfection. Any one of you is worth a dozen of those blue-nosed bastards. So we will go forward, we will find the men that killed our brothers and we will kill as many of them as possible before our reinforcement arrives. At the walk, advance!’
The century started forward as one man, and while Marcus had Qadir’s pole ready to push between the shoulders of any man hanging back, he quickly realised that he wasn’t going to need it. Ten, twenty paces they advanced, without any sign of an end to the dirty grey smoke what was making eyes water and lungs strain for breath, and then, in the blink of an eye, they were back out in the crisp dawn air with the scene of the other century’s massacre laid out before them.
