Sword of Rome (47 page)

A messenger arrived from the command group ordering the legion to advance, keeping station with the Praetorians on the raised roadway to their right.

‘Why should we advance if they’re already coming to us?’ Benignus
complained. ‘If we fight here, at least the Thirteenth will have a little time to clear some space to see the enemy.’

‘Titianus is frightened Valens and Caecina might decide to run away,’ Valerius ventured. ‘His brother ordered him to bring them to battle and he’s doing what he’s told.’

‘If he had any sense he’d be more scared of the enemy than he is of his brother,’ the legate snapped. ‘Very well, order the advance and make sure the lead centurions know to keep station with the standards of the Thirteenth. We will form line when the enemy is at six hundred paces.’

Valerius saluted and ran off with the other tribunes to pass on the orders and join his gladiators. When the trumpet sounded its command they shuffled forward, keeping station on the cohorts ahead and to their flanks, the centurions using their vine sticks to straighten the ranks. It was painfully slow because they could only move as fast as the men of the Thirteenth forcing their way through the trees and the vines, cursing as they fell into hidden ditches. A murmur ran through the leading cohorts and the centurions barked their commands for silence. Valerius strained his eyes and he saw the reason for the noise. On the far horizon, perhaps two miles distant, polished metal glinted in the bright spring sun and he imagined he could see a dark shadow spreading across the fields. An image came to him of blood spilling across a marble floor and he swallowed hard and thrust it from his mind. But he couldn’t prevent his heart from beating faster or stop the flame that lit deep in his belly and flared to fill his chest. Part of it was fear, because no man could march into battle without feeling fear. Its smell filled the air like the earthy scent from some noxious flower. What mattered was how a soldier used that fear. Every man had courage, but experience had taught Valerius that courage was not infinite and no man could predict when the supply would run out. He had seen scarred veterans who moments earlier had been boasting how many enemy would die on their swords collapse quivering with fright before a battle. The
phalerae
and awards for valour that weighed them down meant nothing then. All around him men hitched their armour into more comfortable positions, or checked their grip on sword and
shield. They had cursed the big, cumbersome shields on the march, but they didn’t curse them now, because in a few minutes those three layers of ash or oak could be the difference between life and death.

As he strode over the dark earth he shouted instructions. ‘I don’t want to hear a sound when you see the enemy. A Roman legionary does not waste his breath with threats and taunts. He does his talking with his sword.’ He allowed a hint of savagery to infuse his voice. ‘But when you charge I want to hear you scream like the beasts of Hades, because a good scream keeps a man’s courage up and turns his enemy’s blood to vinegar. Wait for my order before you throw your
pilum
, I know you’re not spearmen, so I’ll leave it until we’re close, but not so close that you don’t have time to draw your sword, or whatever exotic killing implement you arena scum prefer. Stay together and keep your discipline. That shield will protect you as long as you stay in line, but get isolated and you’ll be holding off one man and too busy to notice his mate until he starts carving your kidneys.’

He looked over his shoulder to where Juva marched beside his standard-bearer in front of the right-hand cohort of the third rank. The Nubian’s
pilum
looked small in his big fist and his face was a mask of menacing concentration. He felt Valerius’s eyes on him and turned and met the Roman’s waved salute with a broad grin. Beyond him, the tight-packed cohorts of the Praetorian Guard held to the line of the road, and far off on the right flank the standards of the Thirteenth rocked and stuttered as their bearers forced their way through the vegetation.

A centurion’s bark cut through the silence. ‘Stay in line, you bastards, you’ll get there soon enough.’ Valerius noticed that now the enemy was closer the gladiators strained against the enforced leisurely pace like dogs on a leash. And not just the gladiators. The marine legion marched with the pent-up energy of men determined to prove themselves worthy of the eagle they followed. By now, in the space between the leading cohorts, he could see the individual formations that made up the enemy legion and identify the colours that marked them as the Twenty-first Rapax. A shiver ran through him at the sight. They looked impressive. No, they looked invincible.

Yet this was one of the legions Spurinna had sent from Placentia
with their tail between their legs. The question was how it would react to that defeat. Valerius was again burdened by a sense of unease at facing Roman soldiers on Roman soil. Spurinna had told him Twenty-first Rapax had been raised and recruited in the Padus valley. Some of the men he faced behind the big shields would have been born here, perhaps even ploughed these very fields. He shrugged off a melancholy he could ill afford and felt an icy calm settle on him. Well, they would die here and their own earth would provide them with a permanent resting place. Perhaps he would die with them. After all, he was a soldier, and that’s what soldiers did. No matter how good you were, there was always the chance that someone was faster or better. As he had told Juva, a battle was very different from a siege and he had never fought Roman soldiers in battle before. He remembered a recurring dream that had haunted him in the years following his return from Britannia. He would be fighting for his life when his legs suddenly felt as if they were encased in mud and his sword weighed ten times more than normal. He’d feel Boudicca’s warriors chopping him to pieces and wake screaming. These legionaries he would fight today were the veterans of the Rhenus legions. They carried the same arms and equipment as the First Adiutrix, but they were battle-tested and had years more training. Perhaps among them was a man who was faster, or better, or had Fortuna on his side.

Well, Valerius Verrens had Serpentius on his side. He looked to his right and took comfort from the former gladiator’s presence. The Spaniard had found a set of auxiliary armour from somewhere, but he preferred not to fight in a helmet because he said it restricted his vision. The hatchet face read his thoughts and twisted into a smile. ‘Would you rather die in your bed?’

Valerius grinned back, but whatever he had been going to say was lost in the clamour of horns.

‘Form line!’

The leading ranks moved swiftly from four cohorts, including the elite First with its double strength contingent of eight hundred legionaries, into two solid shield walls manned by eleven hundred men apiece. Legionary training dictated that each man required three feet of space to fight in, roughly the width of a standard
scutum
. Against Boudicca’s champions or German tribesmen the combination of a stout shield, a
gladius
with a strong arm behind it and Roman discipline would all but guarantee victory. But the men of First Adiutrix were fighting Romans – Romans with the same stout shield and short, deadly sword, who were just as disciplined. When they met, it would be a question of who had the strength of will, the strength of arm, and who cracked first.

With less elegance, Valerius helped shepherd the gladiators into their place in a third shield line, formed by the three centre cohorts of the original formation. When men fell or were wounded, or when their sword arms tired, the third line would provide replacements for the first and second under the directions of their centurions. As he had agreed with Benignus, he kept four centuries back as a mobile reserve to reinforce any weak spots in the Othonian ranks, or capitalize on any weakness in the enemy’s. The three remaining rear cohorts would perform the same function, but on a larger scale, and their very
presence would be a constant threat to the opposition because of the danger they posed of a flanking movement.

On the far side of the field the men of Twenty-first Rapax went through similar motions, but in a series of much smoother movements. ‘Soon now,’ Serpentius muttered.

As he said the words, a clarion call rang out over the battlefield and told Valerius the Twenty-first’s legate had completed his dispositions and sounded the advance. The hair on his neck felt as if it was standing on end. A shiver ran through him, the last vestiges of a fear that would soon fuel the fury building inside. To his front, the extended ranks of the First Adiutrix seemed to shimmer as men checked their station and tightened the grip on their
pila
. ‘Now, Benignus,’ he whispered. ‘Now.’ The braying notes of the
cornicen
were echoed all along the line by brisk orders from the centurions.

The battle had begun.

Six hundred paces separated the two legions. Three hundred paces before the collision. Some men counted their steps as they marched; anything to keep their minds off what was to come. Others stared at their enemies, but saw only the faces of their bastard children or their sweethearts. A few ejected the day’s breakfast and claimed it was not fear but excitement. Many muttered prayers and wished there had been time for a sacrifice that would have given some indication of the day’s outcome. A surprising number relished the thought of the coming battle. The men of the First were proud of their legion. Proud of the fact their Emperor had called on them for help. It didn’t matter that another had treated them worse than dogs, or that it was a third who had given them their eagle to follow. What mattered was that they had an eagle. They were the Legio I Adiutrix and they would make the name of the First Adiutrix ring through the ages. It began today. Hadn’t Juva and the five centuries who’d returned victorious from Placentia taught these rebel scum a lesson? They had trained and marched and counter-marched, spent countless hours hammering at posts and each other with the heavy practice swords, dug roads and built bridges. They were the First and they were the best. Now they would do what they were trained to do. Fight.

They marched in silence, with the measured, implacable tread that had made the legions feared from one side of the world to the other. They marched for Rome.

And towards them marched five thousand men equally certain of victory.

At four hundred paces, the
scorpiones
and
onagri
began the killing, the five-foot arrows of the ‘Shield-splitters’ living up to their feared nickname and the big boulders crashing through shields to smash bones and crush skulls. ‘Close up! Fill the gaps!’ The cries of the centurions rang out along the line, as they would until the day was won or lost. Men moved forward from the second line of shields to the first, and from the third to the second. Valerius stepped over a twitching body with half a head and a single staring eye. To his right, where Benignus had taken up position, an ambitious young tribune on the legate’s staff cried out in agony as a
scorpio
bolt tore a gaping hole through his mount’s chest and carried on to pierce his thigh, pinning him in place as the beast fell and crushed his ambitions for ever. And still the missiles came.

‘Close up. Fill the gaps.’

Less than three hundred paces now, and the enemy was an unbroken line of brightly painted shields, the twin boar legend of the Twenty-first Rapax proclaiming their identity to the world. If the veteran centurions of the First hadn’t been so occupied, they could have scanned the enemy ranks for faces they knew beneath the distinctive transverse crested helmets of their counterparts. Men they had fought with in bar brawls and screwed alongside in brothels during twenty years of postings. But they concentrated on holding their men in check. They could feel the eagerness of the marine legionaries and hear the distinctive throaty snarls of dogs desperate to be unleashed. But not yet.

‘Steady. Hold the line.’

Valerius dropped back to Marcus, who marched beside his century’s
signifer
with the mobile reserve. ‘Remember, when the first three lines charge, these men’s instinct will to charge with them. But we must hold them fifty paces back and wait.’

‘They won’t like watching other men doing the fighting,’ the
lanista
warned him.

‘I don’t care what they like. They’re legionaries and they’ll obey orders. The first man who gets ahead of me will find my sword up his arse.’

‘Aye.’ The old gladiator grinned. ‘That should do it. I’ll let them know.’

A hundred and fifty paces. ‘First three ranks at the trot.’ Three and a half thousand men moved instantly from the walk to the steady-paced jog that could carry them for miles. Across the divide, the sight of the unit banners and standards wavering as their bearers increased pace confirmed that the Rapax’s legate had issued the same orders.

‘Hold your spacing, you bastards,’ Marcus growled.

Seventy-five paces. ‘Ready.’ Three and a half thousand fists closed on the shafts of the heavy, weighted javelins they carried.

Sixty paces. ‘Throw.’ Three and a half thousand arms pulled back and launched their
pila
towards the enemy. The moment the javelins flew, the legionaries drew swords with a metallic hiss that sent a shiver through every man.

Forty paces was the ideal killing range of the
pilum
, the heavy spear that consisted of a length of ash tipped by a shaft of iron the length of a man’s arm and a pyramidal point designed to pierce shield and armour. But the
primus pilus
, the senior centurion and tactical commander of the first wave, had judged his distance perfectly. By the time the javelins fell in three great hissing arcs, the front ranks of the opposing lines had just entering the killing ground. The heavy spears punched into shield, or armour, or flesh. If point met shield at the optimum angle, the spear would rip through layers of ash as if they were silk. With good fortune the owner would survive with a dent in his armour, but for the rest of the battle his shield would be hampered by the heavy javelin. Plate armour might stop a direct hit by a
pilum
if the impact was not perfect, but its wearer’s charge would be stalled and the shock was capable of cracking ribs and breaking bone. Any man foolish enough to look up as the spears fell would end up with a shaft of iron through his skull.