would usually serve the one season and then return to climb the cursus honorum in Rome. But then Tetricus was, like Fronto, a born soldier and a genius engineer — a fact that had led to Fronto promoting him to the position of senior tribune this spring in the absence of Caesar’s unfortunate nephew. Crito, next to him, had now served two seasons, declining the chance to return home last year. They were two good men to have with you in a fight.
Carbo was bellowing encouraging phrases, each more graphic and belligerent than the last, firing his men’s blood. Atenos, one of the senior centurions and the Tenth’s chief training officer, had his teeth bared like some wild animal moving in for the kill.
Pride.
That was what Fronto always felt going into battle with the Tenth. He personally disliked riding into combat while his men marched, but Carbo’s constant badgering about how an officer should act in front of his men had finally begun to take its toll. Besides, Fronto reminded himself as the legions surged across the last few yards to the rampart, he wasn’t getting any younger. Priscus took every opportunity to remind him that he was now the oldest serving officer after Caesar himself.
Suddenly the time for thought was past.
The legions reached the camp of the Ubii, the Usipetes and the Tencteri like a swarm of glinting steel locusts, flowing over the feeble defensive embankment with barely a drop in the pace. Fronto hauled on Bucephalus’ reins and kicked, launching the beast into the air and clearing the rampart with the two tribunes at his back.
The ranks of armoured men poured through the camp, all pretence of formation and order thrown to the wind as they tore along open grass between the multi-hued tents, hacking down fleeing barbarians. Some men pushed their way into the tents as they passed, many finding the occupants still struggling to pull on boots or draw weapons.
It was slaughter, pure and simple.
Fronto and his tribunes pushed on toward the centre, occasionally swiping out with their swords and maiming or dispatching a warrior — some of whom struggled to face them while others ran, having clearly abandoned all hope of defending the camp.
Minutes of battle passed in bloody carnage before Fronto found himself somewhere deep in the heart of the Germanic camp, spying the enemy’s baggage that stood in disordered piles among carts and grazing beasts. Legionaries surged through the camp to his left and right, some bearing the standards of the Tenth, some of the Eighth or Fourteenth, with other legions close behind them.
The first the legate realised of the trouble he was in was when Bucephalus reared in pain, a neat red line sliced across his shoulder. Fronto, never the most capable horseman, struggled for only a moment before losing his grip on the reins. The four-horned saddle held him tight for a moment, bruising his hips and smashing the breath from him as he jerked this way and that.
Bucephalus was rearing and bucking, smashing out with his powerful hooves at the three men making a concerted effort to put spears into the Roman officer before them. Another spear point jabbed into Bucephalus’ neck — far from a killing blow; more an accidental strike — and the great black horse bucked once more, finally sending Fronto flying from the beast’s back as one of the wood and leather saddle horns gave under the pressure and broke.
The world blurred blue, green, red and silver in a nauseating and repetitive sequence as Fronto hit the ground hard and managed to curl into a roll at the last minute, his sword thrust out to one side to prevent accidental wounding.
His head spun as he finally came to rest on his back, the breath knocked from him and a headache that felt like a four-day hangover already slamming at the inside of his skull. Blinking repeatedly to try and clear the painful, dizzying semi-blindness, Fronto just caught sight of the large shadowy shape of Bucephalus hurtling back through the alarmed crowds of legionaries. Even in the depth of battle and the fug of confusion he found time to be grateful to Fortuna that the steed, gifted to him three years ago by Longinus, had fled the scene more or less intact.
Suddenly a shadow was above him, lunging down with a spear. Desperately, he rolled to his left as the spear slammed into the turf where he had just been. In a panic he brought his sword round to try and deal with the man but, even as he did, a pilum punched through the man’s chest, hurling him back out of sight, flailing and screaming.
Then legionaries were swarming past and across him, swords out, shield bosses punching into unprotected faces. A familiar huge and muscular figure in a harness of medal discs appeared above him, a grin splitting that wide face beneath the bulky blond moustaches. Atenos reached down with his free hand and grasped Fronto’s wrist, hauling him up from the floor with as little effort as a man lifting a child’s wooden doll.
“Trouble, sir?”
Fronto reached up and gingerly touched the back of his head, concerned that he might find a sizeable hole there leaking brains, but found only an intact skull with a little blood matting the hair.
“Screw Carbo. Next time I do this, I do it on foot. That bloody horse is more dangerous than a thousand barbarians.”
Atenos grinned at him again and patted him on the back with enough force to make him stagger a little.
“We’ve got them on the run anyway, sir. Looks like they’re mounting a bit more of a defence in the other half of the camp, though.”
“Everything running smoothly?” Fronto asked quietly as he moved his arm in circles, wincing at the muscles pulled during his fall.
“Mostly. Haven’t seen the other tribunes since the three of you passed us just inside the defences, though.”
Fronto peered into the chaos around him. Shouts, crashes and the clang of steel on iron rang out from the northeastern end of the camp. The legionaries now swarming through this area bore the standards of the Ninth and Seventh. Of mounted tribunes there was no sign.
“You’d best get back to your century, Atenos. I’m going to try and find Tetricus and Crito. They were with me a couple of minutes ago, so they can’t be far.”
Atenos shook his head. “My men are already in the thick of it with the rest. My optio can keep them in line, and you’re in no state to go staggering through an enemy camp alone.”
As if to prove his point, the towering Gaul let go of Fronto’s shoulder that he’d been clasping for the last few moments and Fronto lurched to the side and almost fell. With a wide smile, Atenos grasped him again and held him steady until the legate nodded.
“Come on.”
The baggage area of the enemy camp had seen some of the fiercer combat through the slaughter and, though the barbarians were being constantly pushed back and were offering little in the way of resistance, the bodies here had mounted up to create piles three deep in places.
The site of the Tribunes’ last position was not hard to spot.
Tetricus’ white mare lay amid the bodies, a broken spear shaft protruding from her neck. Crito’s bay steed lay still only a few yards further on. Try as he might, with a lump rising in his throat, Fronto couldn’t see a sign of an officer’s armour or uniform among the bodies, and they should be easy enough to spot, given the scarcity of Roman corpses among the dead.
“Over here” Atenos shouted, beckoning to Fronto. His heart pounding, Fronto stepped through the gore and scattered bodies to where the large Gallic centurion stood pointing down into the murk.
Amid the churned turf and mud, slick with blood, lay a body face down and splayed out. Fronto reached down gingerly to the figure in the crimson tunic and the burnished cuirass and gently hauled on him, turning him over.
Crito.
A powerful blow from an axe had punched through the bronze armour and deep into the chest, leaving a long, jagged rent in the metal through which mangled insides oozed in recent death. The officer’s head lolled at an uncomfortable angle, his neck likely broken as he fell.
Fronto felt a surge of relief that the body was Crito and not that of Tetricus, and berated himself silently for such an unworthy thought.
“Fronto?”
His head snapped round at the mention of his name and it took the legate a long moment to spot the source of the sound.
