I had danced this dance before. Cut, parry, thrust. Plunge the steel into flesh in the space in front of me, pull it free, and repeat. It was the work of a butcher. Bloody, panted labour.
‘Halt!’ Albus called over the madness, his voice cracking. ‘Halt!’ he shouted again.
I let my sword arm drop beside me.
The enemy had gone.
Like the men to my sides, I stood panting, muscles and lungs burning. There was no time to speak, only to draw ragged breaths into a body that yearned to live a few moments longer.
We waited for them. We waited for the enemy’s next push. We heard the shouted commands in the darkness, and waited for the black void before our stinging eyes to fill with snarls and spears.
Instead trumpets blared in the distance.
‘The double march.’ Livius spoke up from somewhere behind me, my first indication that he still lived.
‘But who’s calling it?’ Titus spoke, and my panted breath eased knowing that he was still with us.
The German shouts came again, closer now. Some were excited. Others angry.
‘Brando,’ Titus called along the line of shields. ‘What are they saying?’
For a moment, there was silence.
Then: ‘Brando’s dead,’ Stumps shouted against the rain.
The words were a gentle slap in my face, and nothing more. We were still in the killing ground. Fear and excitement were making my limbs tingle with nervous energy. The enemy would come again, and more men would die. Now was the time for survival. Like the crows, grief and guilt would come when the battle had broken.
Trumpets blared once more.
‘Century!’ Albus hollered against the winds, deciding that he would follow the trumpet’s order. ‘Form into column!’
‘Form into column,’ men answered automatically, and section commander and veteran went about pushing men into place, their actions hurried and nervous, knowing that we were weaker in this formation if the enemy chose to attack again.
‘Prepare to double!’ Albus called. ‘Double march!’
And so we began to run, my shield and gaze turned out to the left, certain that the German warriors would smell this weakness and close in for the kill.
But there was nothing.
‘The torches are coming closer!’ someone shouted, and I watched as the beads of light danced and weaved in the darkness.
‘They’re getting near,’ Stumps warned, and I could hear him choke back fear. ‘Does Albus think we can just run home?’
Perhaps the centurion did, for as the trumpet’s notes continued to wail ahead of us, we passed the first band of torchlit German warriors. Some of their bearded faces looked our way, hurling oaths and spit, but most of the tribesmen had their eyes fastened to the ground, uncaring of our retreat.
Because there was loot to be had.
The ground about us was scattered with the discarded possessions of the civilians, and on to this windfall the tribesmen fell. As I watched the thick carpet of torchlight in the distance, I realized now in which direction the enemy horde was moving.
‘They’re going to loot the fort!’ I shouted against the storm. ‘They’re going east!’
East – away from the river and its bridges. Away from Roman lands. The enemy blocking force had chosen loot over battle, and no man contested our hurried formation with anything more deadly than a cruel smile or a stream of curses.
The trumpet’s call was closer now, the sound of clashing blades and screams a memory carried away by the wind.
Instead, we heard the rumble of hoof beats.
‘Cavalry front!’ Albus called instantly. ‘Form square! Fucking move! Form square! Go! Go! Move!’
No man wasted a moment, and shield overlapped shield, men in the front ranks calling for javelins as they knelt in the mud, and we prepared to receive either an enemy’s charge, or our own deliverance.
‘Make or break,’ Stumps snorted.
The hoof beats came closer.
‘If I don’t make it back,’ Titus said into the darkness, ‘I buried my and Metella’s stash under the granary.’
Stumps snorted. ‘Now you fucking tell me.’
‘Brace yourselves,’ I urged my friends.
The horses were upon us.
69
Roman cavalry.
Dozens of them, their beasts’ nostrils snorting in the night. The smell of fear and panic made them skittish, and the cavalry officer’s steed shifted nervously beneath its rider as he shouted against the storm.
‘Keep going!’ he ordered. ‘Follow the road! We’ve cleared it, and the legion’s coming! Keep going and you’ll run right into them!’
‘How far?’ Albus called.
‘Eight miles, but they crossed an hour ago, coming at the double! I’ll send twenty of my blokes with you!’ the cavalryman shouted. ‘Just follow them and the road!’
The century was already forming into column before Albus could order it.
‘Double march!’ he bellowed.
And we ran to meet the legions.
We found them in less than an hour of scorched lungs and aching shoulders. Muscles pulled and burned, but no man complained – we were a final effort from sanctuary. A final push from home. The hobnails of our sandals had sounded like music as we had hit the paved road that ran west, its stony course leading us into the wide front ranks of the imposing First Legion, the faces of its soldiers etched with disappointment when they saw that it was Romans who arrived with the dawn, and not an enemy they had burst lungs to meet in battle.
Looking behind us, it seemed that they would be denied their moment of combat, for the lightening horizon was empty but for the galloping scouts of the Rhine legions.
‘They’ve all gone east!’ one called the news as he thundered by. ‘You’re clear, lads!’
‘Fuck me,’ Stumps murmured, wiping sweat and rain from his eyes. ‘We made it.’
Not all of us.
‘What happened to Brando?’ I asked as the inevitable grief crashed into my chest like a boulder.
‘I don’t know,’ Stumps replied, chin dropping to his chest. ‘One moment he was there, the next he was gone.’
‘The Batavian?’ a soldier asked, his name as unknown to me as Brando’s was to him. ‘He took a spear in the chest,’ he told us. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You get the one that did him in?’ Stumps asked after a moment.
The man nodded.
‘At least that’s something. Thank you.’
I looked at our surroundings. The light of day struggled to break free of the storm, as we had done ourselves. Wind and rain still scoured our skin, but I saw the thick ranks of the First Legion stretching as they took up position on a crest that straddled the road, their imposing cohorts a bulwark between us and the enemy. We were truly safe. Looking at our own ranks, I saw that Brando was one of only a few to fall.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ Titus said to me, seeing the same.
‘They went after your coins,’ Stumps grunted.
‘They won’t find them. But they’re welcome if they do. We made it from the forest to here. I’ll take that.’
Fatigue and orders kept us from further words. Having checked in with officers of the First, Albus marched us onwards, moving along the ranks to pass news to men with anxious faces awaiting tidings of comrades in the cohort.
‘All the centuries made it back,’ Albus said when it came our turn to hear the words. ‘First and Second caught it badly. The others not so bad.’