The Thracians charged.
‘Shields up!’ bellowed Corbulo.
Vespasian felt the shield of the man behind him push over his head and connect at a right angle with the top of his own, leaving a small curved viewing slit. Inside the wooden box men’s breath became laboured as they fought back the rising panic induced by close confinement in stressful circumstances. The smell of sweat, fear and urine filled Vespasian’s nostrils as they flared, sucking in lungful after lungful of hot air. Time seemed to slow as, in his mind, he recounted the training moves that Sabinus had put him through against the practice post at home, so far away. Calm washed through him. He was ready to fight. He was not going to die. Whatever fate awaited him it was not a death at the hands of a pack of savages. He gripped hard on his pilum. The first javelin punched into his shield. The muscles in his left forearm bulged with the strain of holding the shield firm. All around him sharp cracks filled the air as javelin after javelin thumped down on the Roman line. Men grunted through gritted teeth with the strain of supporting their shields against the barrage. Here and there a scream. Then it was over.
‘Shields down!’
Vespasian quickly leant forward and broke off the four-foot-long projectile still embedded in his shield. He became aware of hissing shafts passing overhead; their archers had opened fire from the other bank.
‘Pila ready!’
He gripped his pilum at the top of the shaft just behind the lead ball, and extended his arm back, putting his weight on his right foot.
‘Release pila!’
Vespasian threw his right arm forward with all his strength, hurling the heavy weapon at the mass of bodies charging towards him. He had no time to look at his handiwork. He reached immediately for his gladius and swept it from its sheath. He felt the shield behind him press into his back. He braced for impact. The screams of the Thracian wounded filled the air. Men went down, tripping others behind them, who were in turn trampled in the stampede to reach the Roman line.
Crouching behind the shield wall he was aware of a blur of metal bearing down on him. He pushed his shield up and forward. The blade of a rhomphaia ricocheted off the rim and an instant later its wielder smashed into the boss, cracking ribs and punching the air from his lungs. Vespasian’s left arm jarred with the impact, but held. With most of his weight on his left leg he thrust his blade through the gap between his and Magnus’ shields. He felt it penetrate soft flesh. He rolled his wrist sharply right then left, shredding the bowels of his screaming opponent, then he withdrew the blade and stabbed again as another took his place.
Next to him Magnus was punching his sword back and forth, ducking under murderous swipes of hissing iron, yelling his defiance with every swear word at his command as the bodies piled up in front of him.
To the right and left the Thracians tried to get round the flanks of the centuries but were brought down in droves by the fifty archers on the north bank.
The line was holding.
‘Rear rank to the ropes!’ yelled Corbulo as he felt the pressure ease on the shield wall.
Vespasian felt the weight pushing against his back lessen as the rear man of his file made his bid for safety.
‘Now push, you sons of whores,’ Corbulo roared. ‘Push those bastards back to hell.’
With a monumental effort the legionaries shoved their shields forward and heaved the enemy back. They stepped over the first of the bodies in front of them, the second-rank men stabbing the fallen again. Many a soldier had lost his life to a wounded opponent plunging a knife up into his groin as he straddled him. As the Roman line moved forward the Thracians compacted, their rear ranks still pushing forward whilst their front ranks were pushed back. The result was chaos as the Roman blades stabbed into the tightly compressed unarmoured flesh. Some of the dead remained upright, their heads lolling bizarrely as they were pinioned between shield bosses and their comrades behind; others slipped to the ground exposing new targets for blood-covered legionary swords.
Afterwards Vespasian would remember little of the following short period of time; his mind had switched off and his instincts and body took control. He heard no distinct sounds, just a constant roaring that his brain soon blocked out as one more distraction. All he would recall was the exhilaration he felt at the mechanical thrusting, grinding and retrieving of his sword as the Roman line, which he was an intrinsic part of, pushed forward, destroying all before it. He killed again and again with ease; he killed so that he and his comrades could remain alive.
Suddenly a shock wave swept through the Thracian line from right to left. Another threat had slammed into it from the east.
‘Mauricius!’ Corbulo shouted. ‘The gods be praised.’
With the unlooked-for arrival of their Gallic auxiliaries the legionaries’ hearts soared. These young men who had woken up in the morning as unblooded rookies now had the confidence of a unit of hardened killers. They set about their work with renewed vigour, blades flashing, shields punching, slaying everything in their path, pushing their opponents slowly back up the hill, whilst their Gallic allies rolled up the left flank, slashing down on their enemies with their long cavalry swords.
From behind them a massive cheer erupted from the second cohort. They pointed to the sky. Above, the ominous flock of rooks that had so disconcerted them that morning was heading back east, pursued by the two eagles. For a moment everyone paused and looked up as the chasing birds swooped down on their prey, plucking two out of the air with their claws. They rose back up, shrieking as they went, and released their victims in a flurry of feathers on to the melee below.
The Thracians turned and fled. The cavalry started to pursue them.
‘Hold!’ Corbulo cried. ‘Let them run. Mauricius, cover our withdrawal. And don’t ever turn up late again!’ Corbulo smiled with relief at the cavalry prefect, who grinned in return and then started to marshal his eighty or so remaining troopers; they too had had a hard day of it.
Vespasian sucked in a deep breath and then bellowed a victory cheer with his comrades.
‘That was more of a fight than we used to get in the Urban Cohort,’ Magnus puffed at his side.
‘That was the sort of fight that I could get to enjoy,’ Vespasian replied. His round face was flushed with excitement and blood. ‘If that is how a newly trained cohort fights then we may well have the gods on our side.’
‘The gods be buggered, it was-’
Corbulo’s shouting cut Magnus off.
‘Second century’s to cross next. First century’s to form up to their front.’
The light was starting to fade as the men of the second century waded out into the river with Corbulo and their centurion and optio all bellowing at them to get a move on.
A grim-faced Faustus reported to Vespasian, who stood with Magnus looking up the hill. Beyond the heaps of bodies in the pale light the Thracians were still there and had again started their pre-charge ritual.
‘That’s all the wounded taken care of, sir, twelve in total plus seven dead outright.’