‘With me!’ Ferox shouted, raising his gladius. His horse stretched into a canter.
Legionaries, faces pale and mouths open, were fleeing past them. ‘Rally on the veterans!’ Ferox yelled, without much hope that they would obey. Crassus was alone above the crowd, for the other trooper vanished.
‘Save the legate!’ Ferox yelled, driving his horse forward. The fugitives were splitting to run around the oncoming horsemen, and only a few came straight on, too terrified to reason. One barged into the shoulder of Ferox’s horse and was knocked down. He could see Crassus, four enemy warriors around him. Arviragus was thirty paces away, trying to reach the commander, but his own men and the fleeing Romans were in the way.
Ferox saw a warrior raising his spear. He edged the mare to the left, pushed the shaft of the weapon aside, and was past him before there was time to cut down. Ahead of him, Crassus sliced deep into a warrior’s skull, but his blade stuck in the dead man. A spear point drove into the side of his horse, and the animal screamed, collapsing. Crassus pushed against its neck, flinging himself off, landing on one of his attackers. Both men fell, but the legate no longer had a sword. Another warrior tried to get past the thrashing hoofs of the wounded horse to stab the aristocrat in the back.
‘You!’ Arviragus had seen the centurion.
Ferox ignored him. He was alongside Crassus, and cut down, slashing into a warrior’s neck. Blood spurted high as the man dropped his own sword and made a futile attempt to staunch the wound with his hands. Ferox sawed on his reins, making the mare rear. Its front hoofs knocked one man back and made the rest wary. He slashed to the other side, striking a shield with a dull thump. Then the turma arrived, spearing warriors, scattering them, driving into the crowd.
Crassus head butted the warrior he was grappling with, leaving his forehead bloody. Ferox had not expected an aristocrat to fight in such a way and could not help grinning.
‘Come, my lord! Behind me.’ He switched his sword to the left hand and held out his right. Crassus was swaying, stunned. ‘Move!’ Ferox screamed, and that prompted anger and then realisation. The legate took his hand and jumped up behind him.
‘Retire!’ Ferox shouted the order as loud as he could. A space had cleared around the turma. Two horses were down, a trooper dead and the other jumping up behind a comrade just as the legate was doing.
‘Fight me!’ Arviragus still struggled to force his way through the mass of his own men. ‘Ferox, fight me now!’
The troopers were falling back, ranks long vanished, but keeping together. Ferox was tempted to pass Crassus to another rider and meet the challenge.
‘Give me your sword,’ the legate said. ‘I’ll kill him.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, sir,’ he whispered back, and then raised his voice to shout. ‘The queen sends you her greetings! She is well, prince, and will soon lead her people!’ Ferox slapped his horse’s rump with the flat of his sword. ‘Come on, girl!’ She bucked, flinging the legate up until he came down hard against her spine, then she turned and cantered away after the turma. A javelin whizzed as it passed over Ferox’s head. Crassus had his arms around the centurion to stay on, the motion of the running horse bouncing him up and down with every step, while the rear horns of the saddle jabbed into him.
The few knots of legionaries to resist had been cut down and the survivors were still running. On the left, the auxiliary infantry gave way more slowly, the Brigantes keeping at a wary distance, until some of the mounted guards came in behind them. Someone kept the men in hand, and the auxiliaries formed into a circle, not quite as neat as the defensive orb of the drill book, but good enough. Javelins showered down on them. The entire right of the Roman force had collapsed.
Fortunately most of the Brigantes either chased the fugitives or surrounded the circle of auxiliaries. Only a few hundred, mostly from the royal cohort, were forming to advance against the veterans, and the prince was doing his best to marshal them into ranks. Ferox realised that the optio had not obeyed his order. The old soldiers were in a dense cuneus, a block ten broad and seven deep. At the order they marched forward, forcing the retreating turma to split and go on either side. The optio nodded affably to Ferox.
Arviragus was still mounted among all the men on foot. The front rank was ready, oval shields with dark blue fields almost touching, spears raised to thrust over them.
‘Come on, boys! Let them hear you!’ The Brigantes yelled defiance. The veterans ignored them, marching forward in silence apart from the bump of shields and rattle of armour and belts. Some of the Britons threw javelins. One fell short, another stuck fast in a scutum and the rest bounced off the big curving shields.
‘Pila!’ The optio had a voice as harsh as a raven’s.
‘Charge!’ Arviragus screamed, and the Brigantes joined in the shout as they rushed forward.
‘Front rank!’ the optio cawed. With a ripple ten pila were thrown, spinning through the air. One of the guardsmen was hit in the face, the small, pyramid-shaped head of the missile smashing into the bridge of his nose. Another caught the man beside him in the neck. Two more punched through shields, and slid on breaking rings on mail shirts to reach flesh.
‘Second rank!’ Ten more pila followed, devastating the ranks immediately in front of the cuneus. Arviragus’ horse fell, and he was pitched off to fall among his men. A dozen others were wounded or dead, the charge halted in its tracks and the men clustering together.
‘Third rank!’ This time the pila struck a huddle of shields, their owners packing tight and trying to shrink to make themselves as small as possible. One of the heavy javelins pierced two overlapping oval shields, pinning them together.
Ferox reined in to watch, and felt the legate’s weight slip away. ‘They’re my men,’ he said, striding away to join the cuneus.
‘Charge!’ As soon as each man had thrown his pilum, he had grasped the handle of his gladius. Pushing forward and down, the short blades slid easily from their scabbards, ready in hand as the order came to attack. The veterans broke into a run and raised a shout that drowned out all the other noise on the battlefield. Ahead of them, the huddle of shields split apart as the Brigantes ran. Not a man stayed to meet the Romans sword to sword.
‘That’s how it’s done,’ Ferox said, half to himself. He looked among the bodies and could see no sign of Arviragus, although his horse lay dead. For the moment the Britons were running in this part of the field.
‘Halt.’ The veterans stopped. ‘Retire!’ The detachment from Legio XX about faced and marched smartly back the way they had come. Crassus fell in beside the optio on the right at the end of the front rank. ‘Well done, boys. Now we shall go back a little way and then face them again. That’s if they dare.’ The veterans marched steadily on. They had done this before.
Ferox saw the Brigantes reforming two hundred paces away. There were more of them this time, although he could not see the prince. He looked behind and saw a trail of dead legionaries. Some of the horsemen had found easy pickings among the fugitives, but the ones he saw were scattered as they chased the rest. There was no sign of any group under control and likely to turn back to face the legate and his little band. Sixty auxiliaries came to join them, the only formed remnants of the whole right.