“Get back here before one of their archers decides to stick you!”
With a smile, Galronus nodded and, turning, jogged back to the ranks of his new, uniformed, steel-armoured brothers.
Fronto took the opportunity to step out of the line and look along the assembled forces with a sense of immense satisfaction. Despite the debacle that had been the landing, the beachhead had been successfully established and the Britons had been forced to withdraw far enough to allow room to form up properly.
It didn’t do to look back into the surf, as he’d quickly discovered. The swirling red tint from the blood had quickly diffused and disappeared with fresh waves, but the shapes of men and horses still stood proud of the water — ugly mounds that were an equally ugly testament to the brutality of the assault. The men didn’t bother him so much, but the horses…
He’d half expected the Britons to keep retreating in view of the army now forming up opposite them but, to the credit of their courage, they had merely rearranged their forces, the remaining cavalry formed up at the rear, archers nowhere to be seen, infantry in a huge mass at the centre and the leaders in their chariots off to both sides.
If Fronto craned his neck, Cicero could just be seen newly-arrived and bustling around at the rear of the formed-up Seventh. That man would get the benefit of Fronto’s personal and celebrated selection of curses later, when the entire army wasn’t listening, though there was also the coming confrontation with Caesar that would likely be much the same, only in the other direction. Although the general could have no proof that it was Fronto who had defied him and ordered the advance and disembarkation, he would suspect, and he knew for a fact that Fronto had been one of the first over the side with two centuries of the Tenth in further contradiction of orders.
Caesar’s bile was hardly new though, and he knew how to weather that storm easily enough.
In response to a demand, a shield was being passed through the ranks to the front, where the legionary behind Fronto respectfully handed it over. With satisfaction of the reassuring weight, Fronto hefted the grip, the callouses of his hand fitting harmoniously to the shape of the wood and leather. Cicero, Caesar and the other staff could stand at the back and wave their arms; he would stay here, in the front line. It was common knowledge in the army that a senior officer was as much use in the heat of combat as a knitted shield, and it was the centurionate that commanded the battle. Not so in the Tenth, and Fronto soured to think of what his men would think of him if he stood at the rear picking his nails with his knife like Cicero.
“Ready!”
Carbo’s voice cut through the general murmur and din of the assembled centuries and was repeated by the other fifty nine centurions of the Tenth and soon after by the officers of the Seventh. Across the front line, shields clacked against one another and the men planted their front feet, ready for the advance. The rattling, clanging and conversation died away to an expectant silence that was broken a moment later by the ‘musical’ instruments of the Britons, howling and wailing like a cat with its tail trapped in a door. With an exultant roar, the native army charged.
“I don’t believe it.” Carbo muttered. On the other side of the legate, Galronus grinned behind his borrowed infantry shield. “Believe it. It’s the way they fight. To attack with the blood up is noble. To sit tight and wait for an advancing enemy is cowardly in their eyes.”
“They must know they’ll never punch through this line” Fronto said quietly.
“But they will try it anyway. They would rather die hopelessly and nobly than live in the knowledge that they had not tried.”
“You mean they won’t run at all?”
“Oh they’ll run, when they’re broken. But they’ll not retreat by design.”
“Then we’d better break them.”
Carbo laughed lightly and raised his sword. “Brace!”
Along the line, the men of the Tenth hunched behind their shields, changing their stance so that, rather than preparing to march, they had all their weight ready to push forward into the wood and leather. The entire line of shields dropped slightly to cover exposed shins and heads were pulled down to leave only the eyes exposed between the metal helmet brow and the edge of the shield.
A Roman shieldwall could withstand most attacks.
Fronto was surprised as his eyes flicked across the ranks of the enemy to see that not only were the foot warriors of the native army charging forward en-masse with no formation or organisation, but the chariots at the periphery had swept forward only long enough to drop their noble passengers close enough to join the attack.
He had a mind to enquire of Galronus as to this strange tactic, but now was not the time. He counted off his heartbeats.
One… Two… Three…
Four more and the lines would meet.
Four…
“Mark your men.”
Three…
Shame we didn’t have pila, Fronto thought, imagining all the stacks of the weighted javelins that were stored on board the ships and would have to be brought out later.
Two…
A man directly opposite Fronto with a strange bronze plate strapped over his bare chest, designs inked on his arms, his hair spiked and coated with white mud, and what he probably laughingly called his teeth bared, snarled something at Fronto.
One…
“I think he likes you” laughed Galronus to his left, as all hell broke loose.
The power and voracity of the native charge took Fronto by surprise, and all along the shield wall there were curses and shouts in Latin as the legionaries of the Tenth and Seventh fought to maintain their position, their feet driving into the scattering pebbles, teeth grinding as they heaved with all their strength into the shields on their arms.
Here and there the line buckled a little, but it held.
“One” yelled Carbo, and the legion’s front line leaned back fractionally to gain a tiny fragment of room, only to smash forward with their shields half a heartbeat later. All along the line of combat, bronze shield bosses smashed into the poorly-armoured Britons, smashing bones, shattering teeth, pulverising noses and generally wrecking the momentum of their attack.
“Two” called the primus pilus, and the shields were all angled slightly, opening up gaps half a foot wide all along the front, safe in the knowledge that the shield-barge had knocked the enemy back enough to make it extremely unlikely that any of them would take advantage of the gap. Every legionary’s blade jabbed out of the line, plunging into the enemy, twisting and then withdrawing. The shields clacked back together with a monstrous din.
The majority of the front men in the Celtic army collapsed to the ground screaming and bleeding, leaving a momentary space before the next set of Britons could move in over their comrades and reach their enemy.
“Three!” barked Carbo, and the legion took two uniform steps forward over the bodies of the fallen. As the front line settled back into position and made sure their shields were locked, the second rank of men stamped down with their hobnailed boots and smashed their bronze-edged shield rims into the bodies of the wounded and dying Britons, preventing them from causing any damage within the formation.
Now, the atmosphere across the army of Britons had changed from exultant, angry excitement to desperate, uncertain urging. The men back in the press pushed their comrades forward, dying to reach their enemy, pushing between their fellows where they could. Here and there a richly-armoured noble managed to elbow his way to the front. Before Carbo could repeat the process, several legionaries along the line succumbed to the brutal attacks of the warriors, their swords or axes coming down at just the right angle to miss shields and plunge into faces beneath helmet brows or smash into mailed shoulders. Even as those legionaries collapsed, screaming, from the line, the men in the second rank stepped forward to take their place, locking their shields smoothly. Of the fallen wounded there was no time or opportunity to help. They would just have to hope they weren’t trampled to death by their fellow legionaries in the press.