‘You’re not going to die,’ I said automatically.
‘Come on. We’ve got to get back behind the other century and re-form,’ Varo pressed me, and I realized that the army was giving ground so that the mounds of dead would become an obstacle for the enemy’s next charge.
I looked down at Gums. His hands were pressed to where a bulge of intestine erupted from his stomach.
‘I don’t want to die,’ he repeated weakly.
‘Shut up and hold your guts in,’ Varo growled. Then, putting one hand under the shoulder of his armour, and holding our shields in the other, we dragged the boy to safety. He cried out in pain, and I saw the men of the fresh century swallow their nerves as we passed through their ranks. Finally we were clear, and at the rear of the battle lines.
‘I want my mother,’ Gums pleaded.
He got Brutus instead. The old sweat looked at me with near pity before turning his attention to the boy I knew to be dying. ‘Steady now, lad. It’s just a flesh wound. You’ll be fine.’
‘Second of the Second!’ Priscus began to call. ‘Form up on me! Form up! Form up! Quickly!’
I did not look again at the devastation that was Gums’s face. I could not stand the pleading in his one eye. I knew that he would see the truth on my face – that he would never see his mother again. That he would die on this blood-soaked field.
I looked at Brutus. A nod between us was all that we had, needed or wanted.
I ran to join Priscus.
I ran to await death.
I heard, rather than saw, the enemy’s second assault. My view of it was restricted to the backs of the century that stood to our front. I watched their legs shake as they awaited the charge. I watched them loose javelins as well as their bowels. I watched their ranks spasm as a deafening crash of shield on shield rang across the valley.
I smelt it too. Open guts, open arses and the metallic stink of blood.
I looked to my left and right. Suddenly, I realized I had been in a daze since my own clash with the enemy. Where the fuck were my section? I knew that Gums was dying, maybe already dead. What of the others? I arched and craned. For the first time I saw Octavius. He was looking at the sky, as though he were wishing himself anywhere but this field.
‘Three Section, report!’ I shouted. ‘Form on the left of me!’
I called again. I waited.
It was Priscus who came to me.
We grabbed the back of each other’s helmets, and rested the steel of our brows against one another.
‘Varo told me you lived,’ he sighed.
‘I need to find my section.’
For a moment there was silence between us. Ahead, there were screams of pain. Screams of challenge. The drum and thud of shield on shield. The ringing, torturous chime of metal on metal.
‘Your section’s gone, Corvus.’
I didn’t know what to say. We broke our embrace.
‘I need you to take the century if I go down,’ Priscus told me.
I said nothing.
‘Corvus,’ Priscus spoke sharply. ‘Now’s not the time to think of the dead. I need you to take the century if I go down. Understood?’
‘I understand,’ I said.
But in that moment, as men bled and died by the dozen not a javelin’s throw from me, I realized that I understood nothing at all.
I never had.
20
I thought that battle would bring me calm. Bring me a release.
All of my section were gone.
All seven of them.
I barely knew them apart from their names. I didn’t think that mattered. I was just there to lead them. Protect them.
In that I had failed.
I spat blood. Why did I think it would be any different in the legions? I was destined to fail those who relied on me. I let my chin drop to my mailed chest. Movement at ground level caught my eyes.
The wounded.
They crawled through the rank and file of the century in front of us, mouths disfigured through pain, clamped tight against agony. They were bloodied, gashed, butchered. I felt my throat tighten and stomach rise as I saw one tortured wretch dragging a length of coiled, ropey guts behind him like a boatman at the pier.
My section… were their ends so hideous?
I didn’t see the blow that sent me sideways. I staggered into another soldier, my head suddenly ringing as though it were inside a town’s bell. The rim of my helmet was down over my eyes. I pushed it up, and expected to see the enemy on top of our ranks.
Instead I saw Varo.
‘You looked like you needed it,’ he grunted.
I checked the punch I was about to throw at him. He was right.
‘What can you see?’ I asked. Varo’s height gave him an advantage. From the grimace on his face, I took that it was nothing good
‘We’re losing.’
‘We are?’
‘Line’s bending.’
How was he so fucking calm?
I looked at the sky. The carrion birds had come, drawn by the scent of open stomachs, their circling silhouettes hideous in the sunlight that was soon to fade. How long had we been fighting?
‘Long enough,’ Varo grunted as I asked him. Faced with death, I had never seen my friend so stoic. ‘Get ready,’ he told me then. He had seen something down the line. Confirmation of it came moments later.
‘Prepare to withdraw!’ echoed down the ranks.
Withdraw?
I looked down at the wounded. I saw one veteran whose knee was a mash of bone and flesh. He would not be able to keep up with the withdrawal. ‘Help me with him,’ I said to Varo, but I felt his iron grip on my arm before I had even taken a step forwards.
His eyes were still ahead on the battlefield. ‘Don’t,’ was all that he said.
‘Varo…’
‘Don’t look down, Corvus. Keep your eyes looking over the century ahead of us. Don’t look down.’
‘Varo, we…’ We what? We could carry all of our wounded in our arms? We could sprout wings and fly them from here?
What could we do?
I didn’t know, and so I made a mistake. Despite Varo’s words, I did look down. I looked down and all around, and I saw dozens of wounded. Men of my legion. Our brothers. Not all of them were dying. Some had wounds that were survivable. They could live.
If only they could walk.
‘We need to form casualty parties,’ I tried.
Varo shook his head. He was still looking to the front of the battle, where the enemy churned and smashed against our line like storm against seawall.
‘We can’t spare the men,’ he told me when I said it again, and with bile in my throat, I knew that he was right. A withdrawal was the most dangerous manoeuvre an army on the field could attempt. With no way to watch your footing, men could slip or stumble, breaking the unified front of shields, into which the enemy would rush like a plague. And they would be coming. They would be following. There was no doubt of that, now. I could smell it in the air the same as every other man. I could feel it. Feel our ranks buckling as though we stood atop an earthquake. Centurions and their optios beat and harangued their men to keep tight, keep in line, but the gaps were coming. The formation of polished, professional soldiers was gone, and in their place stood blood-painted animals who just wanted to live long enough to see another sunrise.
And for that to happen, the wounded would have to be left behind.
‘Second Cohort!’ came the voice, repeated by two dozen other leaders. ‘Second Cohort, at the half-step, withdraw!’
Terror, then. I should have listened to Varo. I should have kept my eyes up as we began the slow shuffle of shields. Instead I looked at the veteran with the ruined knee. He knew what was happening. I expected him to call out. To beg for mercy. To plead for help.