Since he hesitated, I jumped the stream. Immediately, a great shout went up from our lines, and men clattered their spears on their shields and roared.
He was obviously surprised. Nor did he have a spear, and I did. He backed and backed, and we began to circle.
I tried some old tricks to draw and attack, but I began to fear that I was dealing with a very experienced warrior. He would not be drawn. He wanted me to commit to my attack so that he could counter it, come inside and hit me with his sword.
I wasn’t sure his strategy was sound — I wasn’t sure that his long sword could even hurt me through my armour. He wore no armour — just a silver torque and trousers.
We circled again, and men shouted insults. They wanted us to get on with it. Easy to say, when you aren’t the one facing three feet of Keltoi steel.
And then, he crossed his feet — a foolish thing to do at any time — and dropped his shield just a bit. We were ten feet apart, and he thought I couldn’t hit him.
I stepped forward and threw my spear; he raised his shield and I was already drawing my sword, and my spear went in under his shield and into his thigh, and he grunted. I use heavy spears, and the blow went well in, and he couldn’t get it out.
He screamed and fell to his knees, and of course that hurt him more.
I carefully pinned his sword hand with my shield — dying men are dangerous — and cut his head off with my kopis.
It was a good stroke, and he was positioned for it, and Ares himself held my hand. I have cut men’s hands off before, but I don’t think, until that moment, that I had ever beheaded anything but rams in sacrifice. Blood fountained out of his neck, and his body twitched and fell forward, and his eyes blinked from the severed head — I swear it. It shook me.
Our whole phalanx set up a wild bellow of approval, like so many oxen.
I went and retrieved my spear. And then, well. Apparently my interest in war had not waned. I started walking towards the enemy.
‘Send me another hero,’ I shouted.
The enemy phalanx was not very tightly formed. As I have said, every man stands where he will, and their spacings are not ideal, and men who dislike each other leave gaps, as do strangers. All in all, they form at something more like our fusin or normal order, not the sunaspismos or close order that a phalanx more typically fights in. I walked forward slowly, and the men opposite me shuffled back.
Well.
A young man without a torque came out. He was probably someone’s bondsman, and although he was well muscled, he didn’t know much about using a spear.
I killed him.
A tall man with heavy moustaches came out. He had a magnificent torque and a shirt of scales, and a helmet with a pig on top. His shield was long and narrow, like two boards together, with a long central boss. He had a good spear, and he crouched like a boxer as he approached me.
He tried to shield-bash my aspis. He hadn’t fought a Greek before. The round face of my shield ate most of his energy, and the willow splits resisted the rest, and he backed away. I stabbed for his feet and got one. My spear came away bloody, and he roared in pain and leaped.
I wasn’t prepared. No one had ever leaped into the air in front of me before, and instead of gutting him in the air, I ended up slamming my spearhead into his helmet — better than nothing, but he came down on my shield and we went down in a tangle. I went over backwards, my legs trapped under me, and something snapped — very painfully — in my right foot as I went down. I was under him, but he was just barely moving, and I had time to get the knife out from under my arm and put it under his chin.
By Heracles, my foot hurt. When I looked down, my toes were swollen. I’d broken it.
What an inglorious wound.
The next man was already dismounting from his chariot. By Greek standards, the Keltoi have very little sense of honour. I’d put three of theirs down, and they just kept sending champions. This new one was somebody — his men cheered, and he had a long shirt of polished scales and a beautiful helmet with eagle’s wings — real ones — on either side of his head.
I got my aspis back on my arm and I sheathed my dagger, and my kopis, and got my spear back.
He stood by his chariot and shouted his lineage — descended, apparently, from the War God.
I was breathing like a horse after a race, and he was fresh.
He picked up his shield, hopped once and hurled his spear like Zeus’s thunderbolt.
The hop gave him away, however, and I deflected it with my aspis.
He reached up and his charioteer handed him another spear, and he threw it.
I began to get angry. And his second throw wasn’t any more decisive than the first.
And he reached for a third spear. The bucket in the chariot had six.
You can run on a broken foot. Really, you can.
I didn’t run at him. I ran at his horses. They wanted to shy, but the charioteer held them.
I killed one.
Heh.
Then I killed the other one.
Then I killed the charioteer. He was yelling at me as if I’d committed some sort of foul.
Kelts don’t kill charioteers, apparently.
Then I turned and started hunting the lordling.
His daimon had already left him. He tried to keep away from me. And he was yelling — demanding that I stop, that I had broken the laws of a duel.
At least, that’s what I think he said.
Eventually, when he was pressed almost back to his own foot soldiers, he stopped. We went shield to shield. I used mine with a push of the shoulder to roll his down, and I pricked him with my spear — I got him, but his scales saved him from the worst of it.
He stabbed at me, but I had turned him with my stronger shield and he stumbled away.
My spear licked out and struck his helmet.
He stumbled.
I struck his right foot with my spear.
He gasped, but his shield was still steady as I leaped forward, and our shields went crack as we struck at each other. My spear went into his throat, and his spear rang off my helmet.
I stumbled back. If I had not killed him, he would have had me then.
Now their line was backing away from me.
Seckla came across the stream at my back. He rightly assessed that I was hurt.
But he didn’t come alone. The rest of my men crossed with him — and Collam’s infantry. Although they owed me no loyalty, they apparently thought that this was a signal and then began to cross, and suddenly, our whole line was crossing the stream.
But the enemy were falling back.
Our cavalry didn’t move. They sat on their side of the stream and watched our infantry push the Biturges up their ridge.
They began to run.
The Senones leaped forward like hungry wolves, gave a bellow and it was over.
Well, except for the actual battle.
The infantry didn’t decide Keltoi battles. Cavalry decided Keltoi battles. The Biturges cavalry watched their infantry run, and they turned on us.
I couldn’t keep up with the runners. My foot hurt too much. So I was standing, breathing, leaning on my spear when the Biturges cavalry charged into the Senones infantry. It was an insanely stupid thing to do — they abandoned the streamside and charged our victorious infantry out of loyalty to their own infantry, I assume.
The way Collam tells it, he couldn’t believe his eyes for several long breaths of a man. It seemed to good to be true.
