‘Yes, Father.’
‘Do the same for those of our men who are badly injured,’ Malchus added.
Hanno blinked.
Malchus’ face softened for a moment. ‘They’ll die in far worse ways otherwise. Of cold, a wolf bite, or exposure. A swift end from a comrade is better than that, surely?’
Sighing, Hanno nodded. ‘What about you?’
‘Those who are lightly wounded might survive if we can carry them from the field. It will be dark within the hour, though. I must act fast.’ He gave Hanno a shove. ‘Go on. Look for Sapho and Bostar as well.’
Did his father mean alive or dead? Hanno wondered nervously as he walked away.
His men responded with enthusiasm to the idea of killing more Romans. Unsurprisingly, they reacted less well to doing the same to their comrades. Few objected, however, when Hanno explained the alternatives to them. Who wanted to die the lingering death that awaited when night fell?
In a long line, they began advancing across the battlefield. Beneath the struggle of so many men, the ground had been churned into a sludge of reddened mud that stuck to Hanno’s sandals. Only the tiniest areas of snow remained untouched, startling patches of brilliant white amid the scarlet and brown coating everything else. Hanno was stunned by the scale of the horror. This was but a tiny part of the battlefield, yet it contained thousands of dead, injured and dying soldiers.
Pitifully small figures now, they lay alone, heaped over one another and in irregular piles, Gauls entwined with hastati, Libyans beneath principes, their enmity forgotten in the cold embrace of death. While some still clutched their weapons, others had discarded them to clutch at their wounds before they died. Spears dotted the bodies of many Romans, while countless pila were buried in the Carthaginian corpses. So many severed limbs were lying around that Hanno was soon sick. Wiping his mouth, he forced himself to continue searching. Again and again he saw Sapho and Bostar’s faces among the slack-jawed dead, only to find that he was wrong. Inevitably, Hanno felt his hopes of finding his brothers alive wither and die.
It was especially hard to look at the soldiers who had lost their extremities. The lucky ones were already dead, but the rest were screaming for their mothers while what blood was left in them spurted and dribbled out on to the semi-frozen earth. It was a mercy to kill them. Yet for every gruesome sight that Hanno beheld, there was another one to exceed it. It was the suffering of those of his own side that tore at his heart the most. He had to force himself to examine these unfortunates. It was his job to judge the severity of their injuries and make a snap decision if they should live or die.
It was usually the latter.
Gritting his teeth, Hanno killed men who were shuddering their way into oblivion, holding their intestines, the rank smell of their own shit filling their nostrils. Those who lay moaning and coughing up the pink froth that signified a lung wound also had to be slain. More fortunate were the men who wailed and thrashed about, clutching at the arm that had been sliced open to the bone, or the leg that had been hamstrung. Their reaction to Hanno and his soldiers, the lone uninjured figures among them, was uniform. It did not matter whether they were Libyan, Gaulish or Roman. They reached out with bloodied hands, beseeching him for help. Muttering reassurances to the Carthaginian troops, Hanno offered the enemy wounded nothing but silence and a flashing blade. It was far worse than the savagery of close-quarters combat, and soon Hanno was utterly sick of it. All he wanted to do was find his brothers’ bodies and return to the camp.
When first the familiar voice of Sapho, and then Bostar, called out his name, Hanno didn’t react. As their shouts grew more urgent, he was thunderstruck. There they were, not fifty paces away, in the midst of Mago’s men. It was a miracle, Hanno thought dazedly. It had to be, for all four of them to survive this industrial-scale butchery.
‘Hanno? Is that you?’ Sapho demanded, unable to keep the disbelief — and joy — from his voice.
Hanno blinked away his tears. ‘It is.’
‘Father?’ Bostar’s tone was strangled.
‘He’s unhurt,’ Hanno yelled back, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. In the event, he did both. So did Bostar. An instant later, even Sapho had tears in his eyes as the three came together in a fierce embrace. Each stank of sweat, blood, mud and other smells too foul to imagine, but none of them cared.
Their arguments had been forgotten for the moment.
The only thing that mattered was that they were still alive.
At last, grinning like fools, the brothers pulled apart. Not quite believing their own eyes, they held on to one another’s arms or shoulders for a long time afterwards. Inevitably, though, their gaze was drawn to the devastation all around. Instead of the din of battle, their ears rang with the sound of screams. The voices of the countless injured and maimed, men who were desperate to be found before darkness fell and a certain fate claimed them for ever.
‘We won,’ said Hanno in a wondering tone. ‘The legionaries might have escaped, but the rest of them broke and ran.’
‘Or died where they stood,’ Sapho snarled, his customary hardness already creeping back. ‘After what they’ve done to us, the whoresons had it coming!’
Bostar winced as Sapho gestured at the piles of dead, but he nodded in agreement. ‘Don’t think that the war has been won,’ he warned. ‘This is just the start.’
Hanno thought of Quintus and his dogged determination. ‘I know,’ he replied heavily.
‘Rome must pay even more for all the wrongs it has done to Carthage,’ intoned Bostar, raising his reddened right fist.
‘In blood,’ Sapho added. He reached up to clasp Bostar’s hand with his own.
Both looked expectantly at Hanno.
An image of Aurelia, smiling, popped into Hanno’s head, filling him with confusion. It took but an instant, however, before he savagely buried the picture in the recesses of his mind. What was he thinking? Aurelia was one of the enemy. Like her brother and father. Hanno could not truly bring himself to wish any of the three ill, but nor could they be friends. How could that ever be possible after what had gone on here today? On the spot, Hanno decided never to think of them again. It was the only way he could deal with it.
‘In blood,’ he growled, lifting his hand to enclose those of his brothers.
They exchanged a fierce, wolfish smile.
That is what we are, thought Hanno proudly. Carthaginian wolves come to harry and tear at the fat Roman sheep in their fields. Let the farmers of Italy tremble in their beds, for we shall leave no corner of their land untouched.
Quintus’ abiding memory of their ride to Placentia was the extreme cold. The wind continued to blow from the north, powerful gusts that threatened to dislodge an unwary rider from his seat. While it didn’t succeed in doing that, the chill air penetrated every layer of Quintus’ clothing. Initially, he had been kept warm by the effort and thrill of the chase, and latterly by the fear that kept his heart hammering off his ribs. Now, his sweat-soaked clothes felt as if they were about to freeze solid. Everyone was in the same position, of course, so he gritted his chattering teeth and rode on. After what they’d all been through, silence was best.
Lost in their own private worlds of misery, the twenty cavalrymen brought together by Fabricius simply followed where they were led. Hunched over their horses’ backs, helmetless and with their sodden cloaks pulled tightly around them, they were a pathetic sight. It was as if each one knew that Hannibal’s army had prevailed. Yet in reality, they didn’t, thought Quintus. The battle had still been raging when they’d fled. It was hard to see how, though, with their flanks exposed, Longus’ legions could have seized victory.
Quintus felt like a coward, but his fear had abated enough for him to consider fighting again. He’d ridden to the front of their little column a number of times, intent on remonstrating with his father.
Fabricius had been in no mood for conversation. ‘Shut your mouth,’ he snarled when Quintus had suggested turning back. ‘What do you know of tactics?’ A short while later, Quintus tried again. On this occasion, Fabricius let him have it. ‘Once cavalry break, it’s unheard of for them to rally and return to the fight. You were there! You saw the way they ran, the way I struggled to get this many men to follow me away from the battle. Do you think that in this weather, with night coming, they would turn and face the Gauls and Iberians again?’ He glared at Quintus, who shook his head. ‘In that case, what would you have us both do? Commit suicide by charging at the enemy alone? Where’s the damn point in that? And don’t give me the “death with honour” line. There’s no honour in dying like a fool!’
