“And… cavalry.”
“We’ll try, but they’ll be too fast and manoeuvrable for us, I fear. So long as we can cut a path through to the main force we’ll be fine.”
“Surprise?”
“Unlikely. Even over the noise, these hairies at the back will hear us coming. The Tenth are a fearsome force, but we’re hardly subtle.”
Fronto smiled at the wide grin on the centurion’s ruddy face. He knew for a fact that Carbo actively encouraged the making of noise and the use of war cries in the Tenth to put the fear of Hades into whoever they faced. As often as not it worked.
“I just wish we had time to deploy and surround them. We could wipe them out” Carbo sighed.
“Carbo… there are several… thousand of them. There’s less… than a thousand of us!
“You know what I mean, sir. I hate to think of them escaping again.”
Another couple of spots of rain pattered off the rim of Fronto’s helmet, reminding him that yet another rainstorm was imminent, the clouds darkening by the minute. Reaching up, he fondled the bow-legged fishwife amulet at his neck and hoped it wasn’t insulting to Fortuna, praying that the full extent of the rain held off for another hour or so. A battle in the pouring rain was high up on Fronto’s list of hateful things. Letting go of the figurine, he dropped his hand to his side and drew his gladius, steadying his grip on the heavy shield he’d borrowed.
A strange, guttural cry went up ahead and the few Briton horsemen they could see at the clearing’s entrance wheeled their mounts. The cohorts had been seen and suddenly all hell broke loose among the enemy.
“Ready, lads!” Carbo bellowed. “First five centuries punch straight through and make for the back of the infantry. Next four split off to either side and take care of the cavalry and chariots. Centurions mark your position and prepare your signals.”
Back along the running column, the officers identified their century’s number and prepared to either push forwards or file off to the side. Beyond the first nine, the other centurions would appraise the situation as they reached the clearing and deploy as required.
The horsemen were now wheeling away from them again, riding off into the clearing, bellowing warnings. Clearly Carbo was right: the cavalry could easily remain out of reach unless they chose to commit — an unlikely option. The chariots were even now turning to move away from the arriving legionaries, trundling along the forest’s edge, their athletic drivers leaping about on the traces and yoke and manoeuvring the horses.
Fronto had heard enough Celtic shouting in the past four years to begin to separate the meanings by tone alone. The shouts now going up all across the clearing were not the ordered calls of warning or redeployment, but the panicked calls of men wrong-footed and in fear of their lives. Clearly they had not expected reinforcements. The legate grinned — fear was almost as powerful a weapon as the gladius.
“Give ‘em a shout, Carbo.”
The centurion nodded. “For Rome!” he bellowed. Behind him, the cry was echoed at the top of almost a thousand voices, protracted so that it was still ringing out when he shouted “For Caesar!” beginning a second cry that was instantly taken up. By the time of the third cry — a standard call for the legion — the men were pre- empting him. “For the Tenth!”
The shouts, as intended, devolved quickly to a general din and tumult of bellowing, shouting legionaries, the noise of which was enough to almost drown out the sounds of fighting in the clearing.
One of the chariots had been unlucky enough that, as it turned, a wheel had caught on something among the stubble, and the vehicle had almost overturned. The driver was manoeuvring desperately, trying to free the wheel, when he and his chariot were completely engulfed in a river of crimson and steel.
Despite being in prime position at the front of the cohort, Fronto forewent the opportunity to negotiate the vehicle and attack the driver, recognising the very real chance that his knee would give and he would plunge embarrassingly to the ground beneath the chariot. Instead, he contented himself with a quick glance at the Briton’s unpleasant demise as one of the legionaries swarming round the vehicle lifted his shield and drove the bronze edging into the man’s chest without even stopping. As the soldier ran on, heedless, the chariot driver disappeared with a squeal below the running feet of the cohort, where he failed even to bring a weapon to bear before he was trampled to death by hundreds of hobnailed boots, smashing his face and chest and snapping his limbs.
Fronto afforded himself a quick glance around as the century raced on toward the mass of the enemy pressing on the defensive circle of Roman steel. In the manner so reminiscent of Celts everywhere their army was fighting as a thousand individuals rather than a homogenous whole. Gods help the world if these bloodthirsty lunatics ever managed to achieve discipline under a capable tactician. It would be like the sack of Rome by Brennus all over again.
Fortunately, these Britons were no tacticians.
The cavalry were already fleeing the scene, racing away down other paths into the forest. The chariots rushed away around the edge, keeping out of the reach of the pursuing cohorts while remaining close enough to be available for their masters when required.
Even the infantry, where they were involved in deep and desperate combat with the men of the Seventh, were now starting to break away at the rear and race for the safety of the trees.
The disposition of spent bodies told the story eloquently enough for Fronto. Hardly anywhere around the enormous clearing’s periphery could a native figure be seen, while in places the glassy-eyed corpses of legionaries lay so close as to be touching. The Britons had come out of the forest with a hail of spears and arrows, routing the Romans and driving them back to the centre of the clearing where they were trapped and formed a circle that had been steadily diminishing for almost an hour.
“They’re getting away” a legionary shouted angrily, watching a sizeable chunk of the native force peel away and race for the woodland.
“Forget them!” Carbo cried. “Concentrate on saving the Seventh!”
With the exception of the four centuries securing the clearing’s edge and driving the chariots before them, the entire force of the two cohorts bore down on the main army at the centre, paying no heed to the fleeing Britons, intent on breaking the throng pinning the Seventh down.
The yards passed in a blur of discomfort, the sharp stubble of the field scratching Fronto’s shins and calves as he ran, keeping pace with the men of the first century, hoping he didn’t fall or collapse with shortness of breath.
And suddenly the old familiar battle calm fell over him. Despite the lack of a disciplined Roman shield wall — the Tenth discarding conventional tactics in favour of speed and terror-inducing fury — it was familiar and simple. As always the worries of the world — of the rightness of their campaign, of the intrigues within the army and the nobles, of his own ageing and deteriorating stamina, even of Lucilia back in that nest of vipers that was Rome — they all went away, pushed down and sealed into a casket as the immediacy of battle took over.
A warrior who had turned to flee with a couple of his friends found himself staring into the advancing visage of an aging Roman demon with fiery eyes. Desperately he raised his axe, haft sideways. Fronto feinted with his gladius, causing the man to sweep the axe handle to the side to stop a blow that would never come. As he was overbalanced and leaning to his left, Fronto slammed into him with the large, curved shield, smashing his arm and several ribs and driving the startled barbarian back into the press of his compatriots.
Beside Fronto, a legionary helpfully put six inches of sword into the falling Briton’s armpit before moving on to another of the fleeing men. Fronto had lost sight of Carbo, but could hear his reassuring voice denouncing the man he faced as a cross-breed of a number of unlikely animals.
The native force was now breaking up all across the rapidly widening front of legionaries, groups of men some twenty or thirty strong taking to their heels and racing for the treeline. A man who had likely arrived on a chariot suddenly pushed his way through the throng, spotting Fronto and recognising the crest and cuirass as indicative of a commander. He bellowed something that sounded as though it was probably a challenge. The warrior wore a mail shirt that looked as though it might have been of Gallic manufacture, a decorative helmet with a stylised rearing boar on the crown, a shield, oval in shape, and a sword that was probably the pride of a whole family.
The only good thing that could be said about his personal appearance, however, was that his straggly and bulky moustache at least hid half his grotesque pig-like features, though the hare-lip even marred
