‘Listen to them bleat, boys!’ Paulus snarled to his men. The need for stealth was gone, now. ‘Shall we say good morning?’
At his words, five hundred men raised a vicious cheer, and beat their shields with their fists and javelins. It was an ugly, barbaric sound. A symphony of savagery.
I saw the officer turn his head. He was looking at a ridge that made itself evident as a black smudge still cast in the shadow of a larger mountain. Suddenly, a dozen fire arrows arced up from it, and into the grey sky.
It was the signal to begin death’s dance.
‘Tenth Cohort! Prepare to advance!’
A cheer. A promise. Of pain. Of victory.
‘Advance!’
I stepped off with them, my legs suddenly heavy from nerves. I held Gallus in my left hand, and pulled my sword free with my right, cursing as the man behind me caught something on the back of my helmet and pushed it forwards almost into my eyes. Instead of hill fort I saw bear-snout, but the man must have recognized his error, for I felt it being pulled roughly back into place.
I twisted to face him. I don’t know if I planned to thank him or curse him.
It didn’t matter.
In that moment, I felt and heard the hot air scream beside my face, followed immediately by the slap of wet meat.
The soldier behind me went down with an arrow in his face.
It was the first of dozens launched from the walls. Lightning fast, black against a grey sky. Hunters, looking to fell an eagle.
I tried to stamp on my fear.
‘At the half-pace, raise shields!’ Centurion Paulus ordered – he had already caught one arrow in his own.
Hide and steel clashed and thumped as his men reacted to the command. Where there had been open slope and stone in front of my face, now I was a prisoner in a cell – a welcome one. I heard the padded smack of arrows as they hit our tight formation. I heard screams from somewhere in the ranks as others found their mark.
But they did not stop the advance – not even close – and the Tenth Cohort inched its way up the slope. I counted the paces in my mind. Counted down the distance to the wall. There were the slaps of arrow against steel. There were a few shouts of pain. But largely we went on unmolested, cocooned in our shields, our own fangs yet to show themselves.
I counted another ten paces. By my tally, we were over halfway to the wall.
That was when I heard the shout: ‘Break ranks! Break ranks!’ A command thick with panic.
I looked at the centurion beside me. Beneath the shields, his face was confused, and angry.
‘Hold your ranks!’ he hollered. ‘Hold your bastard ranks!’
But somehow we felt discipline falter. A ripple through the formation as men pushed and pulled their way into other ranks and files.
I heard the cause a second later. There was a terrible shout of horror. A rumbling crash. Hideous screams.
‘I need to see!’ the centurion shouted to no one but himself, pushing free of the securing shields.
Instinctively, I did the same. I swallowed at what I saw.
Two boulders half the height of a man rolled with terrible speed and intention towards our ranks. I looked up at the wall ahead, and saw the enemy cutting ropes – there were more of the terrible weapons tethered at the top of the slope.
‘Gods…’ I heard Paulus utter. ‘Hold the line!’ he shouted at his men. ‘Brace!’
But you can’t brace against a boulder that’s had two hundred yards to build up pace, and I watched open-mouthed with horror as two crashed into our ranks like Hannibal’s elephants, sending sword and shield and soldier into the air, a bloody red smear carved through our ranks.
‘Close up!’ The harsh voices of centurions and optios. ‘Fill the ranks, you lazy twats! Come on, what’s wrong with you? Scared of a bit of blood?’
I gritted my teeth. We pushed on. Another boulder hit, then another. With each impact, Paulus’s face grew darker with anger, but his men held their discipline, and stepped over and through the tattered remains of their friends. Behind us, we left screaming those whose feet and legs had been pulped by the assailing stones.
A hundred yards to go. The arrows continued to rain and hammer shields, but it was the boulders that held true terror.
‘They only have two left,’ the centurion growled, watching them cut the ropes. Desperate to be at the people who were killing his men.
I scanned the wall. He was right.
Two left.
Both in the centre of their lines.
Both aimed at the centre of ours.
I saw the enemy swing their axes, then scamper.
The boulders were loose.
The soldier on my left: ‘They’re coming straight for us.’ I looked at him. He was grey. Even his skin seemed to shake.
‘Hold the line,’ Paulus snarled.
‘Hold the line!’ the strongest soldiers echoed.
I watched the balls of stone as they picked up speed and came towards us like chariots at the games. They were closing fast. Less than five seconds before I lived, or died.
It didn’t look good.
‘Hold the line! Hold the line!’ Paulus’s face had changed. He looked resigned to his fate.
He knew that he was going to die.
I looked at the tumbling weapon, and realized the same. I was about to meet stone with skin. Boulder with bone. I would be pulp. A smear on a mountainside. My flesh would be matted with the fur of my bearskin. My guts would be smashed into the wood and metal of the eagle.
I had a half-second to smile at that irony. Death was at hand. I wasn’t surprised that I almost welcomed it.
I watched the rolling rock. Prepared for its embrace.
And then I saw it hit a half-buried stone in the slope. It skipped. It was the smallest of actions, the most minimal of manoeuvres, but it was enough.
A second later, the boulder ploughed into our ranks. I shielded my eyes as the blood of Grey-face beside me went spurting out of his body like he was a trod-on wineskin.
I remembered then what brave Varo had told me on my first battlefield.
Don’t look down.
This time I listened.
Beside me the ranks closed. I heard a struggle: ‘Move, you prick! I’m fighting next to the eagle!’
‘I’ve served longer than you, you bastard! I’m fighting next to the eagle!’
I wished Brutus could have heard the words. The need for honour will always walk alongside death and misery.
‘Tenth Legion!’ Centurion Paulus called. ‘Form bridging formation!’
We were at the wall.
49
Arrows hammered against the shields held above our heads: a rain of terror. Now we were at the foot of the wall, those loosed by the strongest bowmen had the power to puncture shield, and screams echoed beneath our faltering sanctuary. Then, like the drumming of an angry child, came a wild rhythm of beaten steel and wood as stones began to fall on our heads like Titan’s hail.
‘Front rank, kneel!’ Centurion Paulus commanded, and the front line of his men put their knees into the stone, the shields above their heads pulled tight to rest on their backs and shoulders.
‘Next rank up!’ And the soldiers behind them followed on, building a floor of ramped shield that others could climb. Within moments, through the cement of flesh and shield, Paulus had begun to build a bridge that would crest the enemy defences.
Spear, arrow, rock. They killed, maimed, crushed. They drew blood, but not panic. The Roman war machine had arrived on the enemy’s doorstep, and the Empire’s killers had the scent of blood in their nostrils.
‘Carry the wall!’ Paulus screamed, moving himself on to the ramp of his men. ‘Carry the wall!’ he repeated.