‘You know what I think, centurion?’ Diogenes said. Castus turned, hushing. The former teacher had moved up the column to walk behind him.
‘What?’
‘I think this land had been abandoned for many years. Perhaps generations. The Bructeri have withdrawn from the river completely and let it run wild. Their scouts and warbands know the trails through it, but nobody lives here. As a defence, I suppose. A defence against us.’
‘And you’re going to tell me this is… what? The tragedy of Germania?’
‘Oh, no, there’s plenty more land to the north and east,’ Diogenes said, not at all perturbed. ‘Germania is practically infinite!’
‘How pleased I am to hear that,’ Castus said.
‘Centurion!’ Erudianus hissed. He had stopped again, crouching low. ‘More men coming!’
Ahead of them the trees thinned out, leaving an area of open ground, high grass and bushes indistinct in the dappled moonlight. Castus shuffled forward on his knees, his shield slung on his back, until he could shelter behind a knot of saplings and squint into the darkness. He heard the voices almost as soon as he stopped moving – they were coming quickly. A lot of men too, several score of them, moving through the trees to the left and approaching his position. He snapped his fingers behind him, gesturing urgently for Diogenes to bring some support. The noise of his own soldiers moving up through the undergrowth was achingly loud.
Now he could make out the voices: the approaching men were calling to each other, hushed but distinct. Not in Latin either. The moon glinted on a speartip, on the oval of a shield.
‘Form around me,’ Castus hissed over his shoulder. He slung the shield from his back and readied it. The approaching men were moving into the open now, forging through the long grass. If he remained still they might not notice him… but they would surely hear the soldiers behind him shuffling through the bushes.
His breath was tight; his chest ached. He stood up, shield raised.
‘Jupiter!’ he shouted, the sound of his voice seeming to boom in the silent dark.
The figures in the grass froze, stunned for a moment. Then some of them swung their shields towards him, other hefted spears. Voices called back, Germanic.
Well, he told himself, this is what we came here for.
‘After me – charge!’
He lunged up out of the trees, shield up and sword levelled. Behind him he heard the eruption of branches and bushes as his men piled after him. Three running strides and the first of the figures loomed up ahead; he crashed against the man, shield to shield, and knocked him down. Screams from his left, bellows of rage.
‘Preserver of Rome!’ somebody was shouting in a Germanic accent. Castus swung around, blood beating fast. The man he had toppled had vanished into the shadows, and all around him was flickering confused motion, figures running and crying out. He paused suddenly.
‘Hold back!’ he shouted. He could see the men ahead of him more clearly now. Twin feather plumes on their helmets. Mouths open, shouting back the watchword.
‘Identify yourselves!’
‘Numerus Mattiacorum,’ someone called back.
Castus raised his sword high, calling out in his parade-ground voice. ‘Hold back! Weapons down! They’re on our side!’
Germanic auxilia, he realised. His blood slowed as he saw the two sides pause and step away from each other, his own men backing warily towards the trees. On the far side of the clearing somebody screamed, blades thudded against shields.
‘Juno’s tits, didn’t I tell you to stop! They’re…’
But something was wrong. There were other figures weaving through the shadowed grass, not auxilia. The fighting was real now, and men were dying. Arrows flicked and hissed in the air.
‘Shields up! To the right!’
Now the auxilia too had seen the attackers – they turned with Castus’s men, calling out their own war cries. The enemy was streaming all around them in the darkness, seeming to materialise out of the surrounding woods. Castus saw one dashing closer – he took a long step, swung low with his sword, and felt the blade bite.
Behind him he heard the clatter of shield rims as his men formed their fighting line. Keeping his own shield up, he backed towards them. Keep together, he told himself. Got to keep them together…
A man fell behind him, tangling his legs, and Castus almost tripped. Two dark shapes reared up from the grass, spears feinting and darting. Castus parried the first spearhead, the ring of iron loud in the dark. The second he caught on his shield. A step closer, a shove, and he was between the attackers. He thrust left, under his shield rim, and felt the blade drive home. The man screamed and fell back, but the second man had whirled his spear and stabbed again. Castus heaved his body back and felt the speartip slash the air across his chest. A wheeling overarm cut brought his blade down across the attacker’s shoulder – a crack of bone and flesh, and the man went down.
All around him, fighting in darkness, wild cries, spears jabbing and cutting. There were men on the ground, some dead and others thrashing wounded in the grass. Castus glanced behind him and saw his own shield wall waver and break apart. An arrow struck his helmet and clattered away. The grass crackled and rushed with the noise of running men. Somewhere a dog was barking madly.
For a moment, panic took him. In the darkness he could barely distinguish friend from foe. His own men were dying, and his senses reeled with the realisation of disaster. Where had the enemy come from? They must have been tracking the other group, the auxilia, and struck when they saw the confused confrontation. It did not matter now.
‘Sol Invictus!’ he cried out, planting his feet firmly. A man ran at him and he cut him down with a single slashing blow. He sensed movement behind him and spun around, but his shield caught in the grass – a bare-chested figure raised his arm for a killing blow. Castus released his grip on the shield, tried to swing his sword around to block the strike – too slow, too slow. A whirr in the air and a chop, and a Roman javelin spitted the man through the torso from shoulder to ribs.
‘Jupiter! Jupiter!’ The cries came from the far side of the clearing, and for a few moments Castus could make no sense of them. The dog was still barking. Then he heard his own men yelling the watchword back, and saw the tide of the confused fighting shift. Roman voices now, and a line of advancing shields.
‘Aurelius Castus, that you?’
Valens came striding through the grass, the dog still capering around him with bared teeth. Behind him, his men had herded the enemy forward into the clearing; between the legionaries and the Mattiaci auxilia, the barbarians were trapped.
Castus threw his arm around his friend. ‘Thought I’d lost you back in the river!’
‘Not me – I float like a cork. Nice to see you made a start without us, though.’
Castus shoved Valens away, laughing with relief.
Side by side they moved across the clearing, shields up and swords ready. Others fell into line beside them: Modestus grinning savagely from the darkness; Diogenes with a dark smear of blood on his face. Within a few heartbeats most of the fighting was done, but the butchery continued. The ground was black and wet underfoot, the grass choked with fallen bodies. By the time Castus and Valens reached the far trees the last of their attackers had either died or fled.
It seemed only moments since he had crouched in the bushes with Erudianus, but when Castus glanced up he saw the eastern sky lightening over the treetops. Birds screeched and cried out of the pre-dawn shadows.
‘The riverbank’s about fifty paces that way,’ Valens said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. Now it was lighter Castus could make out the mud and blood on his face. ‘We should be able to make out the boat bridge on the other side. Trouble is, we’ve lost our hornblower. Where’s yours?’