Some were already facing his way, their attention drawn by the cornu calls, but most were intent on the fort. Moments later, two cohorts appeared from the treeline off to the side, marching up the bald slope to a crest that rose above the entire scene.
Nasica hoped he was right. Was sure he was. Knewhe was.
Now, they were past the trees and hurtling towards the barbarians, who were starting to respond to this unforeseen threat. The men beside and behind him were pounding across the turf. It was a loose wedge. It had to be for the men to run so fast. But it would tighten automatically any moment now. The cornicen’s calls had stopped, meaning that the man had fallen in with the wedge and was charging along with everyone else.
Nasica was not quite at the front, but behind and left of the lead centurion — the one who’d been concerned about the carts. As aquilifer he had only a small round shield, which was strapped to his arm rather than held to allow him the free hands for the eagle. As such, he could reasonably be assumed to be a weak point in the wedge. Except he was anything but. Keeping the eagle clutched tight in his right hand, he prepared for the sudden crushing pressure.
It came soon enough.
The front of the wedge hit the disorganised army of Germanic warriors while many of them were still unaware of the danger. A few had turned and fought hard, swinging swords and axes, lancing out with spears and swords. A few of them, displaying what seemed to Nasica unusually good sense, dived back out of the way, pushing into the throng of their own warriors so as not to be in front of the wedge.
The Germans were knocked aside, battered out of the way and even trampled under hob-nailed feet as the wedge drove deep into the mass with the momentum of running, furious, desperate men.
Nasica’s world became a flashing kaleidoscope of scenes, his vision restricted by his helmet and the press of men: a sword swinging. A German’s face exploding in carnage, teeth flying up into the air, shattered by a bronze shield boss. The centurion at the front jerking to the side as he stabbed a man and a counter strike took his arm off just below the elbow, his sword skittering away into the press, and yet the man pushing on with the single-mindedness of a centurion in battle. A barbarian looming. A man falling by the wayside, his leg maimed, as the waiting mob fell on him, hacking him to pieces.
But they were still moving well and gaining ground. Having only slowed to a heavy jog, they had covered half the ground to the gate.
‘Come on!’ he bellowed.
Suddenly hands were clawing at his small round shield, pulling him out of the formation. One of his assailants was afforded a heavy blow by the legionary behind, but the other clung on, snarling at him. Unable to do much else, Nasica let the heavy weight of the eagle pull the top of the staff in his hand to the right, bringing up the butt end to the left, where the shield-struggle was going on.
The two legionaries to his right shouted complaints at almost being brained with the legion’s eagle, but he had it at the right angle for a moment and jabbed with the iron spike used to drive the staff into the ground when needed. The point of the staff smashed into the barbarian’s face, imploding flesh and bone, and wrapping round the haft. The grip on the shield fell away instantly, and Nasica yanked the weapon free as the ruined German fell back into the mass, righting his shield arm again, all while moving forward with the same momentum. With no little difficulty and a few curses from the legionaries to his right, he pushed the eagle proudly aloft once more.
The walls were so close now… so tantalisingly close. And yet the advance had slowed to a heavy tread at last, the Germans pushing back as best they could. Nasica wondered how many men they’d lost during the push. It didn’t bear thinking about, but they’d have lost a lot more any other way.
A barbarian swung at him, lashing out with a blade, and he ducked, the tip swiping the crest holder from the helm of the man behind. And then that warrior was also lost in the chaos. Heartbeats passed with flashing gory blades, screams, the constant, pushing tread of the wedge and the occasional Latin curses of a man falling by the wayside.
And suddenly the world was clear and open. The one-armed centurion leading the wedge almost fell flat on his face as the press against him disappeared, his arm stump leaving a trail of blood behind him. Ahead — a blessed sight across the causeway — the decumana gate of the camp was opening, legionaries swarming around it and cheering them on.
Grinning like a lunatic, Nasica and the one-armed centurion led the reinforcements through and into the fort, the aquilifer coming to a halt next to the centurion, and saluting the optio commanding the gate, almost concussing himself with his small shield.
‘Damnedest thing I’ve seen in a while, sir,’ the optio grinned as three cohorts of men threw themselves with relief into the fort’s interior.
Nasica sighed. ‘Sadly it’s not all of us.’ Frowning, the optio followed Nasica and the wounded centurion as they climbed the bank to the rampart walk. As the Germans surged forward once again in the wake of the cohorts, the gate guards hurriedly pushed the timber leaves closed and dropped the heavy locking bar into place, piling the sacks and crates next to them.
The three men reached the wall top and crossed to the parapet, where Nasica peered out, surveying the landscape until he spotted the high, bald hill top and the mass of men gathered on it in a shield wall. As he frowned into the eye-watering, pre-dawn murk, a capsarius appeared from somewhere and began to work on the centurion, staunching the blood flow and examining the stump to see whether it could be sealed and patch-clipped or would require a more simple yet brutal cauterisation.
The duty optio followed Nasica’s gaze and blinked as he saw a huge mass of Germans surging up the hill towards the small Roman defensive formation.
‘Who’s the poor bugger, sir?’
Nasica sighed and slumped a little. ‘That is the Primus Pilus being bloody-minded, short-sighted, and suicidal. Idiot.’
‘He’ll not last long up there.’
‘No.’ Nasica straightened. ‘But at least now we have in excess of eight cohorts we stand a chance of surviving the night, eh?’
* * * * *
Cicero stood, tired, his hands flat on the table before him, duty lists and sick lists and supply lists. Everything was lists! The senior officers of the legion, along with the Aquilifer of the Fourteenth, who apparently was being hero-worshipped by the men in the wake of his recent action, stood around the headquarters office sagging slightly.
‘I need suggestions about the supplies, gentlemen. What are we going to do about food?’
‘We’ve got sacks of bucellatum still on one of the carts. Found them during the night while looking for the scorpion bolts.’
The officers shared a look of distaste at the thought of the hard-tack biscuits used by legions on the march. They were emergency rations, no more. But they would do to keep the men alive for a while. About as nourishing as a horse turd, but filling in the short term.
‘Well if that’s what we have, then that’s what they can eat.’
‘Wish we could eat like the damn Germans, sir,’ grumbled a centurion, earning himself a hard look. They had all stood at the walls at some point during the darkness and the first rays of the morning light and watched the barbarians outside the camp feasting on the goods they had taken from both the sutlers’ stalls and the abandoned legionary forage carts.
Worse still had been watching them parade a grisly line of Roman heads on spear tops as they bounced around the camp. It had taken, as predicted, less than quarter of an hour for the barbarians to overcome the small force. Surrender at the end had gained them nothing, as the bargaining officers and men were beheaded and added to the Roman dead.