Fronto angled his run and jumped a fallen branch, almost falling as he landed favouring his bad knee, and falling in alongside the huge Gaul with a slightly more pronounced limp.
“What?”
“The bridge” Atenos pointed off to the side. Fronto squinted and could just make out between the blur of passing tree trunks, through the mist of torrential rain, the dark grey mass of Caesar’s bridge arcing out of the distant mist, rising as it strode towards them. For the first time, seeing it from this side and angle, he realised just what an impressive piece of engineering it was.
Fronto nodded. “Pass the word.”
As Atenos turned and yelled for his men to pull closer together and watch for pickets, Fronto moved left and bellowed the order to Cantorix and the others. Menenius, pale and apparently as shaken by what he himself had done as by what had been done to them, moved along behind, his hand gripping the hilt of his gladius as though it might leap from the scabbard and start slicing people.
Fronto faced forward again, just in time to see movement ahead. A grey shape like the ghost of a warrior disappeared behind a tree, just as another humanoid bulk loomed in the mist and then faded again. Ahead, a cry went up in a deep, guttural tongue, quickly taken up by other voices.
“Take ‘em fast, lads. Fast as you can, then rally at the riverbank!”
Ignoring the bulbous raindrops bursting against his face, Fronto hefted his gladius and ran, leaping over fallen wood and ducking the worst of the branches, ignoring the fire burning in his knee and the constant danger of folding up into the undergrowth. His heart pounded as something passed close to his ear with a ‘zzzzzip’ noise and thudded into a tree.
The air was suddenly alive with arrows, whipping through the woodland, many thudding into trees or being pushed off course by fronds and leaves, but too many for comfort sheathing themselves in the men of the legions.
A soldier was suddenly at Fronto’s left, sword in hand, teeth bared as the rain battered him. Fronto turned to give him an encouraging grin but was too late as an arrow took the man, dead centre in the neck, punching through his adam’s apple and hurling him backwards to fall gurgling among the undergrowth. A moment later another man joined the legate, and he spotted Cantorix just beyond the new arrival, ahead of his men and bellowing a battle cry in a Gallic tongue that Fronto was surprised he was starting to understand a little.
The depths of the forest became slowly, imperceptibly lighter, though the running legionaries were too busy to notice. Fronto’s battle-honed wits began to tell him that something was wrong as the mist brightened and it took him only a moment to realise that the arrows had ceased. Not a single missile whipped through the shade.
“Halt!” he bellowed urgently, too late for some.
The front runners, those eager for the kill and for revenge on these damned Germanic warriors who had ambushed them and killed good friends, suddenly found they had run or leapt clear of the edge of the forest in their enthusiasm.
A few yards behind, Fronto and Cantorix came to a halt, most of the legionaries joining them, watching with held breath as the scene unfolded.
Almost a score of men had burst from the forest’s edge, yelling their blood lust to the sky, to the waiting ears of Mars, Minerva, Jupiter and Fortuna, and suddenly found themselves on springy turf, enveloped in a mist formed by wind-swirled rain. Slowing to a confused halt, they exchanged worried glances, the impetus of their attack suddenly swept away, swords ready for an enemy that wasn’t there.
Somewhere behind them they became aware of their centurions and officers calling them back, but even as they recognised the orders, the mist parted like billowing curtains in front of them to reveal a wall of humanity, three men deep and stretching from side to side, the ends lost in the grey.
And they all had bows, the strings drawn back to their ears the arrows nocked and ready.
“Shit!” yelled Artorius, excused duty legionary of the third cohort, second century of the Fourteenth legion, and closed his eyes.
Fronto watched with leaden expectation as the arrows of three dozen archers punched into the chests of the exposed legionaries, every man felled like a tree, falling to their knees and then faces, or thrown back onto the grass, staring up into the grey, searching for the Gods that had deserted them.
The men of the legions remaining in the forest instinctively began to move back between the trees, further away from the threat.
“How far do you reckon that open ground is?” Fronto called across to Cantorix.
“About thirty yards, I reckon, sir.”
“So it’d take an exceptional archer to get off more than one shot while we crossed it?”
Cantorix grinned. “Exceptional, sir. And they’ll be using sinew bowstrings. The rain’ll be playing havoc with ‘em, sir. Half of ‘em will be useless already and the rest’ll only manage a couple more arrows before they’re ruined.”
“On me!” Fronto bellowed, stepping deeper into the forest and hoping that the cover of the woodland would protect them; also that the enemy’s grasp of Latin was small or non-existent. He watched the two hundred or so men of his force converging on his position and held his breath, hoping that the enemy were nocked and waiting for another charge. If they started firing randomly into the woods again they would likely reduce the force considerably and very quickly. Fortunately no arrows came as Fronto looked around at his men.
“We can’t spread out to take them. The river hems us in to the right and who knows what’s left, but we do know there’s a force of warriors from the ambush out there somewhere and we don’t want to blunder into them. So we’re stuck. We have to take them head on and they’re prepared. So here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going in as a wedge.”
Menenius, standing next to Fronto, turned his head and flashed an incredulous look at him.
“We go in as fast as we’ve ever run in our lives” Fronto went on. “Every archer out there will get one shot. After that, they’re screwed, because we’ll be amongst them, and we all know that a gladius beats a bow in close combat. Once we’ve punched into the line, we peel off. Cantorix and Atenos and their centuries will head right towards the river and carve up every archer they find. The rest of you, with me, will turn left and make sure we get every last mother’s son among them. Only when every archer is eating turf do we stop and re-form. Got it?”
The tribune reached out gingerly and tapped Fronto on the shoulder, drawing close.
“Are you mad, sir?”
“Quite possibly. It has been suggested before. But if you can think of a better way, enlighten me.”
“We go back to the boats, cross to the west bank and come back in force, armed properly.”
Fronto shook his head wearily. “The chances of us getting back without another ambush are tiny. They know we’re here now, and we’re at our objective. We set up a bridgehead and hold it for a few hours — a day at most — and the bridge will come to us.”
“Fronto? That’s madness!”
“So…” the legate turned back to the men, “quite a few of us will die in the next few minutes, but… well, that’s what we signed on for, wasn’t it? Those of you who will be in the rear centre of the wedge, I want you to remove your mail shirt and pass it to a friend. In two minutes I want half of you unarmoured in the centre and the rest of you wearing two mail shirts — preferably the really muscly buggers, as you’ll have to run fast wearing two lots of armour. It’ll be like wearing a cart.”
He grinned. “You,” he pointed at a man “give me your shirt.”
“What?” barked Cantorix. “Can’t do that, sir.”
“You damn well can. It’s an order. I’m the front of the wedge.”
Atenos was suddenly next to his fellow centurion. “He’s right, sir. The head of the wedge is a prestigious position, sir. A guaranteed commendation and worth a phalera and a fortnight’s leave at least. We can’t let you deprive a man of that, sir!”