Marcus called a break for his men to take some shade in the lee of a rocky outcrop. After posting sentries on the track, he joined me and shook his head. ‘We can’t clear every copse,’ he’d decided. ‘I hate not being thorough, brother, but the cohort could be waiting on us. Look down there.’ He pointed – the ravine was beginning to twist through the mountain towards the west, an ugly scar. ‘We’ll make that turn, see what we have in front and then—’
My friend’s words cut off and his eyes went wide as an arrow pierced the air between us, slashing by with angry hiss. ‘Get down!’ Marcus shouted, pushing me. ‘Cover! Cover!’ he yelled at his men. A second arrow found its target before they could obey. Somebody screamed in pain. ‘Shields!’ Marcus barked. ‘Shields!’
His men scrambled to follow the order. They were mostly young, this century of my friend’s. Very few out of their twenties. Their eyes were wild and searching.
Thwack. A third arrow dug into a shield. Crack. A fourth hit a rock.
There was no fifth.
Marcus was looking at the trees. ‘They’re in there,’ he told me through gritted teeth.
I put my hand on my friend’s shoulder, and shook my head. ‘They’re gone,’ I said. I don’t know how I knew that. I just knew, and so I stood up. Maybe I just wanted to be wrong.
No arrows came at me.
Marcus stood quickly beside me, and in that moment I was hit by remorse. I had endangered my friend, I realized. How could a centurion – even an acting one – take cover while another man stood exposed?
I felt terrible, but if Marcus was angry with me, he showed no sign. ‘Cowards.’ My brother swore, staring at the hiding place of the enemy with such heat that I thought the trees might burst into flame; then he called, ‘Section commanders! Report!’
One casualty – an arrow in the shoulder. No way to send him back to the rear. Not from here. ‘Bring in the sentries,’ Marcus ordered.
Those men came gratefully back to their comrades. No one wanted to face an attack alone.
‘Sir,’ a section commander called to Marcus, nerves tickling at his eyes, ‘we’re one short.’
‘Where the fuck is he?’ Marcus demanded. ‘This is not the time to be sneaking off for a quiet place to shit.’
‘I’ll find him sir.’ And the sentry’s section commander took his other men to look.
They came back empty-handed.
I looked at Marcus, and saw the realization settle in my friend’s stomach. It was a hard thing to watch, as though part of the soul I had known as a child was cut away and discarded as offal. When Marcus uttered his next words, I knew that he had hardened as a man. ‘We can’t spend any more time looking for him. Prepare to move out. Double sentries day and night from this point.’
Thinking of the missing man, something grabbed at my guts. I had thought that we were professional killers. Now, I realized, we were like the baker, or butcher. While each worked with food, neither could do the other’s job. War amongst the slopes and rocks was a different occupation than the one that we’d been trained for.
Up here in the mountains, we were the amateurs.
We came across the missing sentry later that day.
We found his head first. Then his feet. They’d been placed on the track, lonely but for the flies.
‘They took his sandals,’ Marcus noted.
We pushed along the track. Body parts of what had been a soldier decorated the route. Goading. Taunting. After the feet came the lower legs, then the upper. His cock and balls lay on a hot slab of rock. His naked torso was propped invitingly on an outcrop.
‘No,’ Marcus told his men when they begged permission to retrieve the pieces of their comrade – he could smell a trap.
Inside the ravine, our bodies began to cook along with our tempers. The heat was fierce. The outside of my body was soaked, while the inside of my mouth as dry as a desert. I wanted to complain, but I would not shame Marcus in front of his men.
Yet I already carried shame that day. I would admit it to none but myself, but the toil of heat and armour caused me more distress than the gruesome adornment of the trail – I had not known the man. Never even looked him in the eyes. What I saw of him was in pieces, and though I pitied the soldier, I pitied myself more – I was miserable, angry and had no one to fight.
Twice more the arrows came. Both times we saw nothing but the shafts in our shields, and a dead soldier on his back.
‘Carry him.’ Marcus ordered – he would not hand the enemy more ornaments.
A stretcher was formed from a blanket and javelins. Our progress had already been slow; now we were moving like thick lava. I felt men looking at me. I wanted to punch them. When I thought that I wouldn’t be overheard, I told this to Marcus.
On any other day, he would have laughed. ‘You’re the hero of the Eighth, Corvus. They’re watching to see how you behave. They’re looking to take their lead from you.’
It was late into the afternoon when our luck finally turned. The arm of the missing soldier had bled into the dirt, and in that blood, a rebel had trodden. ‘They went up there, sir,’ our lead man said. There wasn’t much of a trail, but it was enough. They were ahead of us.
Marcus looked across the ravine – its side was cloaked in trees. I knew what he was thinking, but the day was growing short, and our progress had been shorter. ‘Keep following the trail,’ he told the lead man, and we began to work our way upwards into the mountain, towards the higher ground, the path ahead of us a winding goat trail that led between grey, ominous rocks.
I didn’t like it. Neither did Marcus. ‘Shields up at the front.’
We were prepared. This ground ahead of us was perfect for an ambush, and our eyes burned into those rocks as we sought out the first sign of our enemy. We were ready. If the rebels were to our front, then we would take their arrows on shield, and storm their positions with sword.
They knew that.
That’s why they hit us in the rear.
Screams overlapped. ‘Enemy rear!’ Panic in every note. ‘Enemy – shit! I’m hit!’
‘All-round defence!’ Marcus shouted as he took off running down the trail and towards the point of the attack. I followed as men turned their shields outwards, overlapping where they could, crouching behind their individual bastions to avoid sniping arrows.
I saw quickly that the two rear men of the column were down. They had been placed further back to warn of such attacks. In their deaths, they had done so. That was a soldier’s sacrifice.
‘Sir,’ a handsome soldier pointed out to Marcus, ‘he’s not dead! He’s still alive, sir! I can get him!’
Marcus didn’t have chance to tell the man to stand fast – he was already on his feet and moving. The enemy let him reach his dying comrade before putting a shaft into his lower back.
The scream shook the mountains.
The brave soldier fell across the body of the man he had tried to save, struck down by a hidden killer amongst the rocks.
‘You fucking cowards!’ someone cried with desperate fury.
‘Sir, he’s still alive!’ said another – the same words as the man who now writhed with an arrow in his kidneys. I realized then the enemy’s game. They wanted to suck the men out of formation. Out from the cover of our shields.
Marcus saw it too. Dozens of nervous eyes were looking to my brother for his leadership.
He was not found wanting. ‘Hold! Hold. No man moves unless I order it. We’ll form testudo and move as one to get them. Century, form testudo!’
Shield banged against shield as the infantrymen established the famed formation. Now there was protection to all flanks, and above.