The decision was born of pride, I realized. No matter the odds, no matter the situation, a Roman commander would act with dignity. To consort with rebels would be as unwelcome an outcome as the sacking of Italian towns.
Pride was Rome, and Rome was pride.
I shifted. The four horsemen had reached the swollen ranks of rebels that awaited their commands.
Within a moment, they got them.
The roar of the twenty thousand voices crashed through the valley like a ship run on to rocks, deafening and terrifying. It was like nothing I had ever experienced, and I did not know whether to feel awe, or dread. I suppose that, in the end, I felt both.
Not once did Justus ever turn to look at the enemy as they screamed and hollered. Not once did he break from the task of cleaning his nails. Then, when the enemy had finally cheered themselves hoarse and fallen silent, our centurion chanced to look up at the faces of his men.
‘Did somebody fart?’
Laughter ripped through our century like a chariot. All of the tension the enemy had driven into us was expelled through that most natural answer to fear – laughter.
‘Don’t look behind you, boss,’ one of the veterans in the front rank quipped, ‘but I reckon those whores we short-changed have gone and fetched their brothers.’
We laughed some more, and men stamped their feet in anxious agitation, loosening muscles for what was soon to come.
Justus looked over his shoulder, then back to his men.
‘Oh yeah.’ He grinned wolfishly. ‘Here they come.’
The enemy stepped forth with another roar of challenge, but that step was short, and their pace was slow.
They’re scared, I realized, flexing my fingers against shield and javelin. They’re fucking scared.
They came on at a child’s pace, pushed no doubt by the ranks behind them. I reminded myself in that moment that these men had been conscripted into service only weeks before. They had never seen combat. They had hardly seen training. Priscus was right. There was only one set of professional killers on this battlefield, and it was us.
‘Time to make widows and orphans, lads!’ Justus shouted as he moved to take his place in the front rank. It was all the speech that he gave, and all that was needed. We knew that to run was to die. They had cavalry, and we had none worth speaking of. If we stood we had a chance. A chance, and not a good one.
But fuck it. Nobody lives forever, and this was what I had wanted since I ran to the legions: a javelin in my hand, a sword on my hip, and an enemy to kill.
I spat.
They charged.
Ten seconds from contact.
‘Javelins!’ Justus roared, and with every other man I repeated the order, and arched back to throw.
‘Loose!’
I put all of my strength into the throw, and lost sight of my shaft as it merged in the sky with more than a thousand others, a steel-tipped storm of death that now slammed into the charging enemy like a raging wave against a harbour, tearing men down to die trampled beneath the charging mass that came behind them. Screams began to puncture the challenging roar, but still they came.
Seven seconds.
I judged that there was time for one more wave of javelins. I pulled my second from its place in the ground as Justus gave the order.
‘Javelins! Loose!’
Another wave of killing, this time close enough for me to register the quickest of details in the rushing madness: men dropping to their knees with javelins in their guts; others struggling to pull the shafts free from their oval shields.
Three seconds.
‘Draw swords!’
Mine scraped from its scabbard as I pulled my shield close to me like a lover. Above its rim, I saw a wall of death approaching – wild eyes, open mouths, terror. I don’t know if Justus gave any further orders. I could hear nothing but the roar of the coming stampede.
One second.
As they rushed the last yards towards me, I realized I was screaming as loudly as they were.
Shit. So I was scared.
Contact.
The shock of the impact sent a spike of pain through my entire body, and almost knocked me from my feet. Only the shield of the soldier behind me kept me upright, and then I was pushing forwards against the resistance, ramming my sword back and forth. Into what I did not know, but I felt something hot and slippery on my hands, I felt breath on my face, spit in my eyes, and heard screams in my ears.
Then, in that moment, I got what I had wanted since the day my previous life had ended.
I ceased to think.
When a soldier tells you every intimate detail of combat in a battle of this size, he is lying. The crush of army against army is no work of art, but a mess of paint spilled in the dirt. It is screaming. It is cursing. It is crying. It is burning muscles, choked breath and sweat. It is blood, it is shit and it is murder. It is every sense heightened, bludgeoned and broken. Time is meaningless. There is no space, only a vision of wide eyes, spurting blood and gaping wounds. Only when the two forces pull apart do you realize that you’re still alive. Only then do you realize what has been done. What you have inflicted.
What you have suffered.
How long it took for us to reach that moment I could not tell you. One moment there was an enemy in my face, and my sword was heavy with the weight of a falling body. The next, I was looking at the retreating backs of an army.
I fell to my knees, and puked.
19
A hand gripped me by the shoulder. ‘Are you injured?’
Varo.
‘I… I don’t know,’ I confessed.
Varo was. I thought I saw the white of bone on his forearm.
‘The others?’ I asked as Varo pulled me gruffly to my feet, and looked me over for wounds.
‘Octavius and Priscus are all right,’ he told me. ‘Brutus too.’
For the first time, I began to take in the carnage around me. It was if hands were being removed from my eyes. A thick line of bodies ran like a tidemark of seaweed and debris on a beach. I almost stumbled as I recognized the damage wrought on my own century.
‘We’ve lost over twenty,’ Varo confirmed. ‘You and a couple of others are about all that’s left of the front rank.’
‘Justus?’ I forced myself to ask.
Varo pointed with his bloodied sword. The centurion lay on his back, throat torn open, his arms cut to ribbons. Our optio lay dead a few yards away from him, doubtless having rushed forwards to assume command.
‘Priscus has the century,’ my friend informed me, slapping me across the head to regain my attention. ‘Come on, we’re falling back. They’re feeding other centuries up for the next attack.’
The next attack? Hadn’t we beaten them?
I looked across the field, then. The enemy still clung to the valley like a curse. They had pulled out of javelin range, and as men dragged or carried their wounded and screaming from the field, others paced in front of their ranks, doubtless demanding courage and metal from their comrades.
‘Help me with him.’ Varo spoke sharply, seeing one of our own move in what I had assumed was a tangle of the dead.
Gums. A soldier from my section. Something had cut across his face. One eye looked at me in wild panic. The other dangled broken on his cheek.
‘Section commander,’ he pleaded, ‘please, I don’t want to die.’