Centurion (14 page)

The orderly paused a moment before replying, ‘Gaius Primus, sir.’

Cato squatted down beside the man and hesitated a moment before he patted his unwounded shoulder. The soldier started and his head jerked off the ground as he stared wide-eyed at Cato.

Cato forced a smile on to his lips. ‘Don’t worry, Primus. You’ll be taken care of. I swear it.’

The auxiliary flinched from his superior’s touch at the words. A wave of cold fury hit Cato as he cursed his thoughtlessness. That could have been better worded. He tried to inject a reassuring tone into his voice as he continued. ‘You will be looked after.’

‘You . . .’ Primus muttered, and then winced as a wave of agony swept through him, causing him to clench his teeth as he fought to resist it. His hand suddenly grasped Cato’s wrist and his fingers closed round the flesh painfully. As the auxiliary endured the agony Cato tried to pull himself free, but couldn’t without an unseemly use of force in front of the medical orderly. He gently started to prise the fingers off, marvelling at the power in the wounded man’s grip.

There was a sudden whirr and something landed in the sand close to Cato with a sharp thud. He glanced round and saw the shaft of an arrow sprouting up from the ground no more than a sword’s length from his boot.

The orderly recoiled in fear as Cato instantly realised the danger they were all in. There was no time for Primus any more as Cato ripped his hand free and stood up.

‘Incoming arrows! Take cover!’

The air was suddenly filled with a sound like leaves rustling in a high wind as the men scrambled to take cover beneath their shields. Cato snatched his up and swiftly raised it over his head as he shouted the order again. All around him the thin dark shafts sprouted up like stalks of wheat, some punching into the shields with splintering cracks. A sharp cry told of one auxiliary who had failed to act in time. Cato glanced round and saw that the wounded men and the medical orderlies were helpless under the barrage of missiles. Even as he watched, two of the injured were hit. One was struck in the forehead and the barbed head punched through his skull into his brain, silencing his moans at once. Cato beckoned to the nearest men.

‘You! Shelter our wounded! Move yourselves!’

The men reluctantly crept towards the line of wounded and dead and covered themselves and an injured comrade with their shields as best they could. Once he saw that the orderlies and their charges were protected Cato returned to the rest of his men.They were already formed up when the order was given and had responded quickly, kneeling down and sheltering behind their shields.

‘Centurion Parmenion!’

‘Sir?’ the adjutant’s voice called back from nearby.

‘On me!’

A dark shape scurried across the sand towards him.

‘Parmenion.Take over. I’m going to find Macro.We need to pull the men in. Make a smaller target.You take over here.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cato crept down the lines of his men until he came to the first of Macro’s legionaries and then edged along behind them towards the standard.The earlier volleys of arrows had become a steady shower, rattling like hail as the horse-archers nocked, aimed and loosed shafts at different speeds. Over the shields and helmet of the legionaries Cato could just make out the flitting shapes of the enemy as they rode along the face of the Roman square, shooting their arrows. It occurred to Cato that they might just as easily stand their ground, or even dismount, to aim at the two cohorts. They must be fighting the only way they knew how, he reasoned. But they were safe enough while they remained out of javelin range. As soon as they realised that, the Romans would be in trouble, and when dawn broke in a few hours’ time the horse-archers would have an easy target.

When he reached Macro, squatting by the standard, Cato saluted.

‘Hot work!’ Macro grinned ruefully. ‘Seems like it’s their turn to stick the boot in.’

‘Yes, sir. We have to do something about it, before they realise just how much of an advantage they have.’

‘Do something?’ Macro pursed his lips for a moment. ‘Very well. We’ll double the ranks up.’

‘Yes, sir. That would be best,’ Cato concurred and nodded towards the carts. ‘And we might use some sling shot to discourage them.’

‘Yes.Yes, good idea. I’ll get some of my lads on to it.’

‘How long do you think they’ll keep peppering us with arrows?’ asked Cato as one glanced off his shield with a sharp thud.

‘Till they run out, I imagine.’

‘That’s helpful.’

‘If you will ask a stupid question.’ Macro shook his head mockingly. ‘Anyway, you know the score. The archers are trying to soften us up. As long as we keep formation we’ll survive. If we don’t, then they’ll ride over us and cut us to pieces.’

‘Shall I give the signal for our cavalry to move in, sir?’

‘Not yet. Not until there’s enough light for us to see who is who. I don’t want any of our lads taking on their own side by mistake.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Cato nodded. ‘Right, I’d better get back to my men.’

As soon as he returned to his cohort Cato passed on the orders, and once the centuries had formed four lines of men they slowly drew back into a tight shield wall around the carts and the injured, whose number gradually swelled as the night drew on. Macro issued the slings to one section in each of his centuries, and the legionaries, having no clear sight of the horse-archers, whirled the leather thongs and released the shot in a shallow arc over the heads of their comrades in the general direction of the enemy. In the dark it was impossible to tell where the lead shot fell, or whether any of the horsemen were hit, but Cato hoped that it might at least help to keep them at a distance and unsettle their aim. The barrage of barbed missiles slackened as the enemy decided to conserve what was left of their arrows, and both sides exchanged occasional shots while the night crawled towards the coming dawn.

As the pallid pearl hue thickened along the eastern horizon Cato’s keen eyes peered over the rim of his shield as he scanned the surrounding desert. The horse-archers were easily visible now, and as the light grew he was able to pick out ever more detail in the scattered screen of riders surrounding the two cohorts. Now Cato could see that their clothes and accoutrements were subtly different from those of the Parthians he had fought the year before. They were Palmyran troops, then.

There was a sick tremor of anxiety in his stomach as he wondered if these men might be loyalists, sent by the king to seek help from the Romans. If that was the case, Cato’s thoughts raced on, then there had been a tragic mistake in the confusion of the night’s encounter. The man he had wounded would be merely one of many who had been needlessly injured or killed.The dread thought passed almost as quickly as it had arisen. There was little chance of the Roman infantry’s being mistaken for anything else and the horsemen had made no attempt to call off their attack. They were clearly hostile: followers of the traitor Artaxes and his Parthian allies.

As pale light spilled across the desert, the horsemen began to shoot more arrows, aiming high so that the shafts rose gracefully up, hung for an instant, and then plunged down at a steep angle on to the Romans.Although the auxiliaries and legionaries were well sheltered by their shields, the cart mules were not, and as Cato watched they were struck down, one after another, with pitiful shrill brays of shock and pain as the arrow heads whacked through their hides and punched deep into the flesh beneath. However, the enemy did not have things all their own way, Cato noted, as he saw one of the horse-archers suddenly thrown back in his saddle, his bow dropping from his fingers as a lead shot struck his head, killing him instantly.The body toppled from the saddle on to the ground in a small explosion of dust, and those Romans who saw it gave a lusty cheer.

‘A fine shot!’ Macro bellowed from the other end of the square. ‘A denarius for that man, and any others you knock down!’

The offer of a reward had its effect as the slingers released their shots even more swiftly and the horsemen immediately shied away to a much greater range where their fire could not be so accurate. Cato noticed that the enemy’s barrage slackened until there were clear intervals between each handful of arrows. Finally, as the sun rose over the horizon and cast long shadows across the desert, the enemy archers ceased their shooting altogether and retired a short distance to dismount and rest their horses as they took a quick meal from their saddlebags.

‘Seems we have something of a stand-off,’ Parmenion muttered.’They can’t crack us and we can’t get at them. Not until our cavalry is ordered forward.’

‘Yes, it’s about time for that.’ Cato turned towards Macro and waved an arm to attract his friend’s attention. As soon as Macro saw him, he gave Cato the thumbs-up. Cato pointed to the two bucinators standing just behind the Second Illyrian’s standard and Macro nodded deliberately as he grasped Cato’s intention. Cato turned towards his bucinators, but before he could give the order Parmenion grasped his arm.

‘Sir! They’re moving.’

Cato swung round and saw that the enemy riders had thrown down their rations and were hurriedly scrambling back into their saddles and snatching the bows from their cases.

‘Looks like they’re going to charge us after all.’

‘Let ‘em try it,’ Centurion Parmenion growled. ‘They’ll not break into the square. Not in a fair fight.’

Cato smiled briefly. Parmenion clearly belonged to that element of the Roman military that held the view that archers were cowards. For his part Cato saw them as merely another means of waging war. Archers had their limitations as well as their advantages. Unfortunately, the present circumstances favoured their advantages.

‘Close up!’ Cato shouted. ‘Front rank! Present javelins! Prepare to receive cavalry!’

Around him the auxiliaries and legionaries braced themselves with grim expressions as they stared at the enemy, still hurriedly mounting up and forming into loose bodies of men amid swirls of dust. As the riders gathered together, behind their serpent standards, Cato frowned.

‘What the hell?’

Parmenion squinted over the ranks of the auxiliaries standing silently in front of the two officers. ‘They’re facing the other way. Why?’

Cato shook his head. This was strange. They were forming up quickly, as if to charge, but away from the two Roman cohorts. What was happening? Just then, the faint, strident blasts of a horn sounded in the mid-distance, from beyond the enemy horsemen.

‘Reinforcements?’ Parmenion wondered hopefully. ‘Ours or theirs?’

‘Not ours. We’re the only body of Roman soldiers for a hundred miles around.’

More horns sounded, and then there was a reply from the men who had been attacking the two cohorts a moment earlier – a clear sharp note of defiance. And then they charged away from the Romans in a cloud of dust kicked up by the thundering hooves of their mounts. The Roman troops gazed after them in amazement. Macro hurried across the square to Cato.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

‘No idea, sir. Only that there’s more horsemen out there. Might be more hostiles and those men have gone to join them, or, if we’re lucky, someone’s come to help us. Either way, we should call in our cavalry.’

‘You’re right. Do it now.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Cato turned to give the order to the bucinators carrying the large curved brass horns. They took a breath, puffed their cheeks and a moment later the signal blasted out. They repeated it twice before lowering their instruments and then all eyes turned back towards the receding wave of enemy horsemen. Thanks to the red-hued cloud of dust they had kicked up it was hard to pick out any detail and only once in a while could the dim figures be seen amid the sandy haze. But the sound of horns, and the faint clash of weapons and shouted war cries that carried back to Roman ears, told their own story.

‘Who the hell is attacking them?’ asked Macro.’I thought we were the only Romans out here?’

‘Perhaps Longinus has sent a cavalry column out after us,’ Centurion Parmenion suggested hopefully.

‘Maybe,’ said Cato. ‘But I doubt it.’

‘Then who is it, sir?’

‘We’ll know soon enough.’

As the three officers and their men continued to watch in silence, the distant fight raged on. Occasionally a figure would flee from the fight and burst free of the obscuring dust cloud to race off over the desert. Here and there a riderless horse emerged and trotted aimlessly away. At length the sounds of battle died away and then there was quiet, as the sun rose low in the sky and its blood-red beams streamed over the landscape.

Parmenion turned and called out,’Here come our boys!’

The Second Illyrian’s four cavalry squadrons were galloping towards the two cohorts, armour glinting in the early morning light. Cato spared them a brief glance and then turned back. He took a sharp breath.

‘Look!’

Macro and Parmenion faced round as they followed the direction of Cato’s outstretched finger.

A rider had emerged from the slowly settling cloud of dust. He was dressed in black and the first rays of the rising sun played off the silver ornaments of his harness and coned helmet. Reining his horse in, he stopped to examine the Roman soldiers before him, still formed into a square.Then more figures resolved into sharp outlines behind him as other mounted men appeared. Still more rode out of the dust until at last Cato calculated that the man must have at least a hundred followers. They rode forward and stopped behind their leader and stared at the Romans.

‘Great,’ Macro muttered. ‘Now what? Hostiles?’

Cato scratched his chin. ‘Out here? More than likely. However, they’ve seen off those horse-archers. Let’s hope that my enemy’s enemy really is my friend.’

A moment later their leader raised his arm and gestured to his men to follow him as he rode steadily towards the two Roman cohorts.

Macro cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, in Greek, across the intervening ground. ‘That’s close enough! Stop right there!’

The leader of the approaching horsemen raised a hand to halt his followers and then continued to walk his horse defiantly towards the line of Roman shields. For a moment Macro wondered if the man did not understand Greek. It was unlikely, he reasoned, since Greek was commonly spoken across the east, even here where the native tongue was Aramaic. Close by Macro, one of the legionaries armed with a sling began to swing it round in an arc and let the whirring disc of leather thong and weighted pouch rise up over his head.