“Seems that’s the only place I ever meet you!”
Fronto laughed a hollow laugh and turned back as a man howled in front of him, falling back with a spear impaling his chest, snapped off near the solar plexus. “My turn!” he shouted and shuffled forwards, limping over the fallen, groaning man with difficulty. He barely got his shield into position before the next blow carved a small sliver off the curved corner of it.
“Bollocks, that was close!”
The legionary next to him grinned and thrust his sword into a man whose hands had risen for an overhead chop with a heavy axe. Even as the man fell away and Fronto stabbed at the nearest open flesh, his eyes strayed up and over the press of men.
“Mars be praised.” The field was largely empty of enemy warriors, more than two thirds of the Germanic attack now lying in heaps around the field or piled up like cordwood before the shieldwall.
“Nearly done ‘em, sir!” the legionary grinned.
“Why haven’t they broken? We must not have frightened them enough.”
“They know we can’t hold forever, sir. They’ll still win in the end.”
The legate turned a vicious smile on his men. “Not today.”
Withdrawing his sword and closing the shield gap again, he rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath.
“Soldiers of Rome: advance!”
Despite the gasps of surprise around him, Fronto smashed forwards with his shield and then turned it slightly, lancing a speedy blow that cut through a man’s neck cord. The warrior fell away, shrieking in pain, his head lolling obscenely to one side, and Fronto took a step forward and then another, almost collapsing as his bad knee negotiated the slope.
Next to him, the other legionaries had reacted with professional discipline, despite the unexpectedness of the command, smashing the nearest enemies out of the way with their shields and stepping forward, reforming the line. Suddenly, Decius was there, pushing his way into the line, half a dozen men along.
“You’re not winning this one without me, Fronto!”
And the auxiliaries were there too, no longer plugging gaps, but forcing their way into the line, expanding it and extending it, following the lead of the legionaries on either side of them, learning the new tactics of legion fighting in the melting pot of battle itself. The men of the Tenth and Fourteenth reacted momentarily with the traditional distaste of legion men regarding the ‘inferior’ auxilia, but these men had proved themselves once and were doing it again, and within moments, the legionaries were giving their new compatriots enough space to work and yelling encouragement.
The barbarians, until a moment ago throwing themselves against an ever-diminishing line of defenders, suddenly quailed in the face of the unexpectedly violent and enthusiastic advance. Across the field, shouts of consternation were raised in the guttural Germanic tongue and, through the periodic flashes of vision Fronto caught every time the shields parted for a sword blow, it was clear that the rear ranks of the remaining barbarians were now turning on their heels and plummeting into the forest in an effort to escape the scene.
The sudden change in the fortunes of the enemy caused a moan of dismay to ripple across their massed ranks and, as they began to pull back en masse, a cheer went up among the men of the Tenth, the Fourteenth and the Cretan auxiliaries, accompanied by a fresh push of energy.
The Roman line surged forward, each step accompanied by the smash of the shield boss, no longer a teeth-gritting, muscle-rippling heave against a wall of sweating flesh, the pressure easing as the enemy ranks thinned.
A legionary a few men down from Fronto roared and stepped out of the line, desperate to deliver a killing blow to the man with whom he’d been struggling and who had now pulled away and opened a gap between them.
Before Fronto could shout a warning or an order to return to the line, the man fell foul of three of the enemy who paused in their flight to dispatch the careless Roman. The legionary went down under the blows of two axes and a sword, hacking chunks from his upper body. The line surged a little faster again as the legionary’s compatriots made an attempt to reach his killers without making the same suicidal mistake themselves. The barbarians, though, were now intent on self-preservation, the attack having fallen apart around them, and were already out of reach and accelerating.
“What are your orders, legate?” Decius bellowed along the line as the Roman force moved across the soaking, body-strewn grass at a steady pace, the barbarians fleeing ahead of them.
Fronto peered off through the rain, which looked as though it might be finally lightening. “Hold ranks until we reach the woods. Then we’re going to split: I’m going to take half the men a few hundred yards inside the treeline just to be sure they’re not thinking of forming up for another performance. You’ll take the rest and return to the camp. Get the ropes going again and get the men resupplied and some more support brought across.”
Decius grinned as he stepped over the twisted body of a wiry barbarian, pinned to the wet, sludgy grass with the sharp blade of an entrenching tool where his head should have been.
Fronto took a deep breath and very carefully negotiated every grotesque obstacle with his swollen knee screaming at him. It was almost over. He couldn’t believe they’d done it with the few men and supplies they had, but Decius was almost certainly right: the barbarians wouldn’t be back. Everything that had happened on this side of the river had been the work of one tribe, while the rest seemed happy to sit back in their own lands and watch. The horrible defeat that had just been inflicted upon them by a tremendously inferior force would ensure that no further danger came Caesar’s way.
The shields had stopped opening and closing to allow strikes now. Not a single living barbarian faced the wall of steel, iron, bronze and flesh moving inexorably across the turf. Indeed, the last few of the enemy were even now being lost to sight among the boles of the trees, going to ground in an attempt to evade death or capture.
Decius’ voice rang out along the line. “Every second man withdraw to the defences!” Stepping back himself, he saluted Fronto as he took twenty three men back to the fortlet, leaving the remaining twenty four with the legate.
Without needing a command, those men closed ranks as they moved and, within moments they had reached the edge of the forest. There was no longer any sign of the stragglers, but Fronto knew from horrible experience how dangerous it was to assume all was clear. There would likely be a few barbarians, willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of revenge, who would be hidden in the undergrowth in the hope of taking a number of heads with them when they went to meet their dung-ridden Gods.
“Be wary now, lads. Stay within sight of one another and move carefully. Watch every bush and every tree for movement. Be aware of your surroundings and every noise. We move in for five minutes only and then turn and withdraw. No chasing any juicy Germanic women, no matter how naked they might be!”
A few laughs rippled out down the line as the soldiers moved into the woods, spreading out and forming a wide cordon to clear any hidden ambushes. Fronto realised very quickly that he was lagging, his knee was a serious impediment in the troublesome terrain of the forest, and he was grateful when Atenos and one of the other legionaries noticed. The centurion nodded at him and closed the gap, allowing the legate to fall back and leave the line.
Fronto watched as his men very ably and professionally stalked deeper into the woods, and stumbled over to a fallen tree trunk, onto which he sagged with great relief, examining his swollen knee and worrying about whether it should be turning the shade of mauve that it appeared to be.
He sighed with happiness and never noticed the heavy, shiny object descending before it smashed him over the head, obliterating all consciousness and driving him into darkness.