The Batavians watched him in silence.
Vespasian looked over his shoulder; the warriors remained on the far bank. He called to Paetus: ‘We’ll hear what he has to say, prefect.’
‘Romans and Batavians in the pay of Rome,’ the Chatti leader shouted in surprisingly good Latin. ‘You outnumber us but we have the advantage of charging downhill. Perhaps you could kill us all but not before you’d lose so many of your number that the survivors wouldn’t stand a chance of getting back to the Empire alive.’ He took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his bald head with the stump of his right arm.
Vespasian had a jolt of recognition and turned to Sabinus but the man carried on before he could say anything.
‘I offer you this, Batavians: hand over your Roman officers and your weapons and we will escort you back to the Rhenus; you will then be free to go.’
Ansigar spat. ‘Surrender our swords to Chatti! And so few of them? Never!’
All along the Batavian line there was much spitting and growling in agreement.
Ansigar turned to Vespasian. ‘The Chatti fight mainly on foot, these aren’t cavalry, they’re just mounted infantry; they’re no match for us.’
Vespasian nodded. ‘Thank you, decurion. I think we’ve heard enough, prefect, let’s get this over with.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, sir.’ Paetus waved a hand dismissively at the Chatti leader. ‘Get back to your men, the parley is over.’
‘So be it.’ He replaced his helmet and rode quickly back to the wedge of cavalry. A rider met him and gave him a shield that he slipped on his maimed right arm and then drew his sword with his left.
‘Decurions, watch for my signal to release, then split,’ Paetus shouted. ‘Batavians, at a trot, advance!’
With a jingling of harnesses and a stamping of hooves the six turmae moved forward. From up the hill came a roar and the Chatti began to descend towards them.
‘Canter!’ Paetus yelled when the two forces were four hundred paces apart.
The effect was instantaneous and Vespasian found himself lagging behind as he failed to respond to the order with the alacrity of Paetus’ well-trained men.
With the hill in their favour, the Chatti were now hell-forleather, keeping roughly to their wedge shape, screaming their war cries through spittle-flecked beards whilst brandishing spears or javelins or swords over their heads.
‘Batavians, charge!’ Paetus screamed at two hundred paces and the troopers surged forward; a wall of horseflesh, shields and chain mail.
Vespasian felt the thrill of the charge as he let his horse extend itself into a full gallop; his mouth had dried and blood pumped fiercely around his body, heightening his senses, as the pounding of hundreds of hooves and the cries of man and beast filled his ears. Two ranks ahead of him, Paetus raised his sword over his head, his red horsehair plume streaming from his burnished iron helmet, as the gap narrowed inexorably with terrifying speed. The four front rank decurions followed their prefect’s lead and raised their weapons; their men pulled their right arms back, keeping a firm grip on their javelins. At fifty paces to impact Paetus’ sword flashed down, immediately followed by those of his subordinates. As the Chatti released their throwing weapons one hundred and twenty javelins hurtled into the air towards the oncoming wedge. The two sets of missiles flashed by each other in midair as, without a shouted command, Ansigar’s turma veered to the right at forty-five degrees taking the turma outside it with it, sweeping their swords from their scabbards as they went. Vespasian pulled his horse to follow; the two turmae to his left swerved away in the opposite direction splitting the formation down the middle.
The first of the missile-hail landed amongst the Batavians, felling two troopers in front of him in a screaming flurry of animal and human limbs; unbidden by him, Vespasian’s mount leapt the thrashing obstacle as the screeches of the wounded cut through the thunder of the charge. Landing with a spine-jarring jolt, Vespasian looked up; the one-handed man at the apex of the arrowhead was now level with him but had no one to face as he ploughed through the thirty-foot gap. Although now disorganised by felled horses within it, the momentum of the warriors behind him drove the wedge forward as Ansigar’s turma sped on at their angle directly at the rear third of the Chatti formation. In the time it took Vespasian to blink the dust from his eyes the two sides’ mounts shied as they closed, unwilling to charge home into fellow beasts; however, the momentum carried them on to a shattering impact of metal upon metal, beast upon screeching beast in a maelstrom of terror, battle-joy and blood-lust. The shock of impact, mirrored on the far side of the wedge, split it in two; as the back third was brought to a bone-breaking halt the rest flew through the gap. Vespasian chanced a quick look round, worried that they might turn and fall on the Batavians’ rear. His concern was groundless; the troopers in the rear two turmae had turned at ninety degrees from a column into two lines and had charged; Vespasian turned back to the melee before him as they simultaneously hit either flank of the wedge’s severed head.
The troopers in front of him lost cohesion as the two formations melded into a chaotic hand-to-hand struggle; iron clashed on iron, shields resounded to mighty blows, horses screeched, men screamed and gobbets of blood slopped through the air. A flashing blur of motion to his left caused Vespasian to raise his shield above his head; he blocked the downward swipe of a razor-sharp sword, jolting it to a halt, embedded in his shield boss. His left arm juddered at the impact but he forced it up as he twisted his torso round to bring his sword punching into the exposed, naked chest of his adversary. The man’s eyes, already wide with the thrill of carnage, bulged in agony and he shrieked a blood-misted cry as Vespasian twisted his blade, grinding ribs and forcing it further through the lung to jolt to a halt on the spinal column, pushing the dying man back. With a monumental effort and gripping his mount fiercely with his thighs, Vespasian ripped his sword clear, to avoid being dragged to the ground, as the dead man’s horse sank its bared teeth into the rump of his own; it reared up in pain, thrashing its forelegs. Vespasian lurched forward, pushing his head into the beast’s mane and wrapping his shield arm around its neck to steady himself. Behind him, Magnus thrust the point of his sword into the eye of his mount’s tormentor and on into its brain.
‘It ain’t fucking natural!’ Magnus bellowed as horse blood sprayed up his arm. His victim dropped its head, unbalancing Magnus, then all four legs buckled simultaneously; it collapsed, hauling Magnus with it.
Vespasian’s mount, released from the searing pain of ripping flesh, crashed back down, cracking a hoof on the mucusstreaming nose of a Chatti horse as it did so; Vespasian managed to cling onto its neck as it regained its balance. Out of the corner of his eye, to his right, he saw a mounted warrior had pushed Sabinus, next to him, back and was hammering blows down on his shield. He exploded up, flinging his right arm round to swipe the honed edge of his sword across the shoulder blades of his brother’s opponent. The man arched back as the blade tore sinew and split bone and Vespasian turned quickly back to his left, leaving Sabinus to fend for himself, just in time to see Magnus get to his feet, unarmed, in the path of a warrior forcing his spear, underarm, towards him. Vespasian punched his shield out, deflecting the thrust; Magnus reached forward grabbing the shaft and yanked it brutally, hauling the man out of his saddle.
‘Come down here, you hairy cunt!’ Magnus roared as the warrior toppled towards him. He ripped the spear free and slammed it down onto the back of the unhorsed man’s head as he hit the ground; he did not get up. Ziri jumped from his horse to stand at his master’s side, deflecting a slashing downward stroke with his shield from the left. Magnus spun the spear and jabbed forward into the chest of an oncoming horse as Vespasian flicked his concentration back ahead of him.