The legate concentrated for a moment, cocking his head and lifting the cheek-piece of his helmet. His fears were confirmed by the distant shouts and buccina calls: this was no small localised attack. The Menapii and their allies had waited just out of sight in the woods until their Roman pursuers had become complacent enough to drop their defensive line and go about the work of constructing the camp.
The surprise had paid off. Roman bodies littered the edge of the wood just within sight of Fronto, around the area the Tenth and Fourteenth worked. This could have been a disaster, but for the fact that the men were disciplined, trained, and prepared for just this sort of circumstance. This very tactic had almost obliterated the Twelfth last year and these days no work party went about their business without their weapons and armour close to hand.
The enemy rushed on, warriors approaching the rapidly-forming shield wall and slowing to a more cautious pace. Elsewhere the situation was different, the Celts swarming over small pockets of Romans fleeing the trees. Here, though, the centurions were forming a solid defence quickly and efficiently.
As the enemy came on, running through the bracken and high grass, their fur-clad or naked torsos rippling, their muscular arms hefting axes, swords and spears, a man sprang onto a large rock, directly opposite them. His bushy beard and flaxen braids were peppered and tangled with bones and feathers, his arms wrapped in gold bangles, a grey, stained robe hanging limp in the warm, damp air. He bellowed something unintelligible and raised a staff, surmounted by a huge bird’s skull, waving it in encouragement.
“Druid” said Atenos flatly.
“That’s a bloody druid?” Fronto stared. “I thought they were all quiet and grim. That bugger looks like a cannibal madman!”
Atenos crouched for a moment and stood once more as the druid spat out curses and yelled something in a shrill voice, pointing at the officers with his bird-staff.
“Same to you” yelled Atenos and cast the large stone he had collected from the ground with a tremendous force and a surprising accuracy. The boulder caught the druid full in the face with a very unpleasant noise, hurling him from the rock and back into the unseen undergrowth behind. The staff arced up through the air and disappeared into the grass.
Carbo grinned at his subordinate.
“You do a lot for Gallo-Roman relations, you know.”
“He was pissing me off.”
Fronto smiled as the two men continued to banter while the enemy finally reached the line and threw themselves at the shield wall. A sword was thrust toward them and Carbo casually turned it aside before flicking his blade back and driving it forward into the man’s bared chest.
Beside him, Atenos leaned back as a swung axe whistled past his nose before the big man leaned forward again, putting all his not-inconsiderable weight behind his shield and punching the bronzed boss into the man’s face, shattering bones.
The two men continued to hack, parry, stab and duck, occasionally sparing a moment to fire a snappy and sarcastic comment at each other. Fronto smiled as he backed out of the line, unnoticed by the two centurions. The legionaries shuffled to fill the gap.
Stretching, he tightened his grip on the gladius. Scanning left and right, he watched the fighting carefully.
To the right, sections of the Eighth legion had managed to create a solid shield wall, just like Carbo’s, and were bringing up the rest of their men to plug the gap where the worst of the fighting was going on and join up with the Tenth. The situation was very much under control there.
To the left, however, a group of soldiers from the Tenth and the Fourteenth were forming a small core defence, but were clearly beleaguered and outnumbered.
Fronto glanced over his shoulder to see a soldier, clutching an arm that ran with a river of crimson, jogging back toward the future site of the camp to find a capsarius.
“You!”
The soldier turned and tried to salute, but his arm was unresponsive.
“Sir?”
“Sorry, lad. Go see the doctor, but find the reserves of the Tenth and the Eighth back there and tell them to stop digging and get down here.”
The soldier nodded, his teeth clenched against the pain, and ran on.
Fronto turned and took a deep breath. Carbo and Atenos and their growing force were beginning slowly to advance, pushing the desperately fighting Celts back toward the trees.
The combined units of the Tenth and Fourteenth were formed into some sort of mess of a war-band, rather than a solid shield wall. Hefting the sword and feeling a faint twang in his arm, the occasional reminder as to how close he’d come to losing it last year, he turned and ran off down the gentle slope toward the mess.
“Who’s in command here?”
The group, resembling a Belgic war band more than a Roman force, was fighting off enemies en masse and, miraculously, given the lack of defensive formation, seemed to be holding their own.
There was no answer but the constant grunting and crashing and battering noises as the legate stood at the relatively peaceful rear side of the group.
“I said: who’s in command here?”
“You are” a voice bellowed from the centre.
“Good. You’re about to be flanked. On my command, draw back three steps, keeping your shields to the enemy, and form a solid line.”
There was no response but the ongoing sounds of battle.
“Now!” he bellowed, and was gratified to hear a lessening of noise from the front as the soldiers disengaged.
“Now form second, third and fourth ranks.”
Pushing his way in among the men, he heaved his way through the bodies until he was only a few men from the front line, once more under severe pressure by the enemy warriors. Reaching out, he tapped a man on the shoulder.
“You’re the corner. Everyone to the right of you, swing back and form a side wall of shields.” Another man got a tap. “You’re the other corner. That’s it. Now form into a square and seal off the rear with another shield wall.”
He watched as best he could from amid the centre of the mass, wishing he had Atenos’ height advantage. The man must have the clearest view of what was going on around him in a fight. It appeared that the shapeless mob of men had, without having to bare its underbelly to the enemy, managed to reform into a good, defensive square.
He grinned as he hefted his sword again and shifted his grip on his shield.
Better still, he was involved in it, with no irritating underlings that knew him to force him back to dull safety. He leaned closer to the men in the second and first line in front of him.
“Are you lads going to be all good and deferential to a senior officer and make room for me? I’ve got an itch I need to scratch.”
Fronto gave a crazed grin as he lunged forward past the rim of his shield, plunging his sword into the mass of attacking barbarians and connecting with something soft and unseen. A squawk from somewhere among the pile of hairy, bellowing men announced his success. He withdrew the blade and shifted the shield slightly just in time to deflect the point of a spear, thrust from one of the warriors behind the front row.
It wasn’t that he had come to enjoy the killing, or at least he hoped not. It was a mix of two things: partially it was the sheer simplicity of an ‘us against them’ situation that took all the thought, complication and grey areas out of life and presented him with a very straightforward path and goal. But then there was also the incredibly cathartic release of pent up stress and anger.
The past months had brought so much pressure to bear on Fronto that he was almost weighed down to ground level. He hadn’t realised just how tense he’d been until these poor bastards had run out of the woods and directly into his path.
The situation in Rome was becoming worse all the time, with his family living in terror and having to be escorted to the market to buy food for fear that they might be attacked by the thugs of Clodius. Priscus was there, looking after them, but that was Fronto’s job, not his.