Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) (29 page)

Shielding his eyes from the glare of the morning sun, Rufinius rode with General Saikan in front of 500 loosely assembled mounted Xiongnu archers. Behind the archers, arranged three lines deep, stood the Tenth Cohort – all of them ramshackle enough to give the desired impression of a large, disorganized troop of bandits. Behind the Tenth Cohort, and hidden from view by a gentle crest, were the rest of the cohorts, and far behind them was the baggage train, secured by the Reserve Cohort.

On the horizon opposite, the army that Saikan said was not an army looked like a solid worm that weaved among the pools of distant false water. As Rufinius watched, the worm began to separate into segments and then into lines of camels, horses, men and wagons that stretched beyond the rim of the world.

“What is it?” inquired Rufinius.

“The wealth of the Han Empire,” Saikan replied. “Wealth that, with luck, will soon belong to the Empire of Xiongnu.”

The general glanced at Rufinius but the tribune was preoccupied. “The caravan comes to the oasis,” he said.

The general nodded. “Water is scarce.”

Rufinius strained to assess the numbers of armed men accompanying the commerce that seemed to grow moment by moment. From another quadrant of the desert, a small squadron of horses galloped toward them.

“Your men?” asked Rufinius.

“Yes. In your language, they are speculatores,” Saikan explained. “In mine, we call them ‘turshuuluud’.”

The squadron of scouts raced toward Saikan’s black banners, waving gently in the morning sunshine. The horses, snorting and stamping, came to a stop in a shroud of roiling dust. Rufinius, who by now understood much of the Xiongnu language, even if he could not speak it well, listened for their report.

“General,” said the leader of the party, “it is a caravan of over one thousand wagons, a very rich prize.”

“And their escort?” inquired Saikan.

“It is hard to be certain with all the dust, but we estimate two thousand infantry, a thousand nunánrén, a thousand cavalry, and a thousand bowmen both mounted and on foot. I can confirm that they are soldiers of Emperor Xuan’s. Unfortunately we were seen by them.”

“It’s of no consequence,” Saikan told the turshuuluud commander. Turning to Rufinius, he said, “Though they don’t know it, our forces are evenly matched.”

“Nunánrén?” Rufinius asked, the word unfamiliar to him.

“The nu is a weapon that fires arrows from the hip and is wildly inaccurate,” Saikan replied, as if something distasteful was in his mouth. “A nunánrén is a soldier who operates such a weapon. The nu is favored by the Han because it takes no skill to master. A weapon for peasant conscripts.”

Rufinius observed that two of the turshuuluud horses were riderless. “You lost men.”

“Killed by nunánrén,” the leader said and spat on the ground. “We were ambushed, Lord. They came at us from out of a dry riverbed.”

Down on the plain the Han troops began to deploy, forming black blocks of defenders across the front of the wagon lines, trailing off as far as the eye could see.

“They maneuver to fight,” observed Saikan.

Rufinius grinned. “Then the day is shaping up well, General.”

“I want the caravan captured intact. Can it be done with minimal losses?”

“To them or to us?”

“I would be most pleased if there were no prisoners to feed and water.”

Rufinius tightened the straps of his cuirass. “My men are ready.”

Saikan looked back at the caravan. “This will be a great prize for my Chanyu. There is to be no looting or burning.”

Rufinius nodded. If the legionaries broke through the Han easily, it would be difficult to stop them tearing into the caravan. It was mesmerizing – the sight of the approaching foreign army drawing itself into formations. It was clear that these Han soldiers were well ordered. Indeed, they seemed to behave not unlike a legion. That implied leadership, and organization, as well as an understanding of military tactics. Was it true? Was there another empire just like Rome’s, but bigger? Was the world so large that it could accommodate empires of such immensity and yet neither be aware of the other’s existence? Were there even more empires as yet unknown?

Something on the horizon caught the tribune’s attention. Hovering high above the enemy’s lines in several places was a strange sight. “General Saikan. Those birds flying above their cohorts …”

“Birds? No, what you see are kites, made by men. They are devices kept aloft on the breeze and used by the Han to signal maneuvers.”

Rufinius found the cleverness fascinating. Having always been stationed at the rear of a century, which was itself just a small part of a greater whole, he had never been given a tactical overview of a coming battle. Yet, to his own surprise, he found himself weighing options and plans as a tribune must. And what he thought of most of all were the lessons learned from the disastrous battle against the Parthians near Carrhae, fought on similar terrain.

“General, is the approaching force here to wage war?” Rufinius asked.

“Their numbers are too small. They accompany the valuable cargo, to safeguard it at all costs.”

“Are they regular soldiers, auxiliaries, or conscripts?”

“They are unlikely to be regular troops. Conscripts, probably raised for the purpose you see before you: to ward off bandits.”

“Do the Han fight in the desert often?”

“No. I am surprised to see such numbers here. Perhaps they are losing too many caravans to us and our occasional friends, the Sogdians.”

The ground sloped gently down from the Roman position toward the Han, whose lines were several miles away. At the legion’s back was the oasis with plentiful water for the men. Rufinius noted Saikan’s banners, which had begun to flap, the wind increasing. It was now blowing away from his men and toward the approaching Han.

“The battle is yours, Tribune,” said General Saikan. “You know my objectives.”

Rufinius left the general’s side and rode across the line of horse archers, judging distances to the forces of the Han, and other battle factors. Occupying the higher ground, the advantage was all his. He could see the extent of the enemy formations, but the enemy could only see the Xiongnu horse archers and the men of the Tenth. Though the apparent obstacle thus presented to the Han was – compared to its own numbers – a trifling one, it was still serious enough to make them prepare for battle. And, of course, the Han were completely unaware of the other Roman cohorts waiting over the rise.

Rufinius breathed deep. Fate had chosen a field of battle that favored his men. And the breeze at his back had stiffened even more …

The tribune galloped back to his staff, which had been joined by Saikan. He jumped down from his horse and used the blade of his pugio to scratch a plan in the dirt.

“Appias, brief the engineers. I want as much dust as they can raise across the front of the Xiongnu horsemen, here.” Rufinius quickly etched the legion’s positions in the sand and those of the approaching Han army. Then he drew a line between the two. “This will also be our main line of advance,” he said drawing an arrow. “Appias, I want that dust now.”

“Primor,” Appias replied, then leaped onto his horse and spurred it to a gallop.

On his battle plan, Rufinius filled in the positions of the waiting cohorts the Han knew nothing about. He then looked up at the faces of Saikan, Petronius, Magnus, and the junior tribunes. “The Han can see a small force they think they can roll right over. Let’s not disappoint them.”

*

A short while later – with the forward units of Han army still more than a mile away – around a hundred horses dragged mats across the desert sand so that a pall of impenetrable dust obscured their view of the Roman lines.

Rufinius’s orders conveyed by Cornicen Magnus had been carried out and the legion’s cohorts had deployed accordingly. The Tenth Cohort was in the center, arrayed in three lines, supported by the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth a hundred paces behind and invisible to the Han. The legion’s left flank was secured by the Fifth and Sixth, while over on the right flank, the double-sized First was bolstered by the Second, Third and Fourth Cohorts, along with Saikan’s horse archers.

With everything as it should be, Rufinius calmly completed the order. “Execute!”

Magnus trumpeted the command. The mats being dragged by the horses were immediately cut loose and the animals were brought galloping to the rear through the gaps between the cohorts. The Tenth – and only the Tenth – advanced into the murk, the legionaries holding their pila high over their shoulders, ready to hurl.

Soon the screams of battle could be heard in the clear air behind the dust cloud. The Han units had advanced faster than Saikan assured him they would. Rufinius dispatched mounted messengers to the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Cohorts with their confirmation to advance.

The lines of these cohorts marched forward to be swallowed by the dust. Not long after, the men of the Tenth fell back behind the dust cloud after being initially smashed by the Han, and were relieved by the fresh, significant numbers sent into the fight.

Rufinius whipped his mount to action and headed for these tired legionaries of the Tenth. His sudden dash took his staff by surprise and they did their best to catch up with him.

Stopping alongside two legionaries caked in dust, sweat, and blood, Rufinius asked, “Men, what news from the lines?”

The two men snapped to attention and the bolder among them replied, “Tribune, the enemy concentrates its strength in the center, bringing everything to bear, believing they can break through.”

Rufinius was pleased. It was as he’d hoped. “Are the cohorts holding?”

“So far, primor. The Seventh, Eighth and Ninth will surprise them.”

Rufinius saluted them and the men returned it. The Tenth’s own signifer trumpeted for the legionaries to reform their lines, which the men raced to obey, their bloodlust high. And within moments the rested troops marched once more into the fray to take over the fight, while exhausted elements of the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Cohorts began to fall back.

The dust cloud had only thickened with the two armies fighting toe to toe.

Rufinius beckoned Magnus to him. “Cornicen, sound ‘general advance at the walk.’”

“Primor, general advance at the walk.”

The notes rang out above the eerie noises of men fighting and dying, the battle itself hidden inside the pall. Other cornicens picked up the order and conveyed it across the lines of the remaining cohorts, strung out across several miles. If the men already engaged in the fighting heard these orders above the din of battle, the tribune reasoned, it would only embolden them to press on.

“Execute,” said Rufinius when he could see standards nearby raised high.

On hearing the signal, the cohorts advanced. As they marched forward in perfect step, Rufinius watched them with his teeth grinding and his own right hand flexing, longing to feel the weight of a gladius. The entire legion was committed and the outcome was now whatever it would be. Further up on the rise, the tribune could see General Saikan and his officers and guards watching the plain below, but there was nothing to see, save for boiling dust being raised ever higher and the fresh forces being brought to bear.

Though he knew it was unwise, Rufinius could not help himself. He drew his gladius from its scabbard, wheeled his mount around and charged headlong into the dust toward the cries of men.

Open-mouthed and unable to stop him, Appias, Dentianus, Libo, and Carbo watched the tribune dive into the boiling cloud, a battle cry on his lips.

“Merda!” Carbo spat, and then turned his horse and raced after him.

*

Dazed, Appias ran and stumbled over a pile of corpses, his own battle cry caught somewhere in his dust-clogged throat. Libo helped him up and, drawing his gladius, yelled at Appias to do the same.

Dark figures loomed ahead in the murk, their mouths wide open, their shouts drowning out their fear of slaughter. And then the clash of metal on metal rang all around them, the swords of thousands of men whirling in a frenzy of steel, blood, and death.

Rufinius was nowhere to be seen.

Enemy soldiers were suddenly in the camp prefect’s face. The foreigner charging him was cut down by a legionary before Appias could raise his gladius, the Han’s sword arm lopped off at the shoulder. Another enemy soldier was killed by a pilum that pierced him through his open mouth, while yet another enemy soldier close by had the blade of a gladius buried in his throat. And all around the ground and the air was red with blood shooting, streaming, and pulsing from chopped limbs and bodies and opened necks.

Pushing against the enemy with a scutum, Appias advanced into the melee with another legionary who was hacking, stabbing and beating at the enemy with a blind fury.

“Appias! Appias!” It was Dentianus, shouting at him, slapping him across the face. “Where’s Rufinius!”

Appias shook his head, dazed. A man in black tunic with black hair and black eyes and a mouth open with rage raced at him with his sword tip forward, coming for him. Appias parried the thrust easily with the gladius, as he had been schooled, and the man simply ran onto the camp prefect’s blade and collapsed quietly to his knees, surprise on his face. Appias, now arisen from his trance, the battle loud in his ears, wiped the sweat and blood from his face, put his foot on the man’s chest and pulled the sword, sucking, clear of him.

Around him men were cleaving at each other, legionaries with unfamiliar faces chopping into the enemy like men beating back flames, the gore flicking from their sword blades as they hacked and stabbed, stepping over bodies and parts of bodies and stabbing some more, the insides of men and the gallons of blood a ghastly red blanket spread thick and sticky across the ground.

Appias stepped into a line of advancing legionaries, filling a gap where a man had fallen, and thrust forward his sword again and again and felt the blade pierce flesh and break bone and ring violently in his hand when clashed against metal.

Forward they walked over the fallen enemy, the strength in their own arms never wavering. And then the enemy seemed to turn as one and run, the soldiers dropping their swords with not the stomach to even look back over their shoulders at the Romans pursuing them with fierce intent.