Altar of Blood: Empire IX (30 page)

‘Go and practise your spear work over there, and if anything happens get down and stay down until it’s all over.’

Scaurus scowled up at Marcus and Varus, craning his neck to see past the priestess bent over him.

‘I was stupid enough to stop a Bructeri dagger wielded with enough strength to put the blade through my mail, that’s what happened! And you don’t have to ask Varus, you cheeky young whelp, Valerius Aquila! I may have incurred a nasty little puncture but I can still talk for myself!’

‘You will lie back and allow me to work!’

The woman’s tone brooked no argument, and he subsided back onto the ground while she arranged a pad of linen over the wound, tying it in place with a longer strip of the same material.

‘There. Now rest awhile and gather your strength. There is a long way to ride, and difficult ground to cross, before you will be safe.’

Marcus looked at Varus questioningly, and the younger man led him away out of earshot of the woman before speaking again.

‘It seems that we won’t be—’

Dubnus strode up to them, cutting across the discussion and pointing at the pair of archers they had left watching the path on the far side of the clearing.

‘There are more of them coming! Horsemen!’

Having signalled the Bructeri approach, the two archers standing guard on the clearing’s far side were shooting as fast as they could, their arrows flicking away into the forest. As the sound of the oncoming horses’ hoofs grew louder they started looking back between shots, clearly attempting to gauge the right moment to make a run for the safety of the detachment’s line, such as it was. Loosing one last arrow apiece they turned and ran, one of them darting away to his right into the undergrowth while the other pelted directly towards the safety of his fellows. Bursting from the narrow path’s confines into the open ground, the Bructeri riders fanned out to either side, and were immediately engaged by the eight archers waiting on the clearing’s far edge. While the sleet of arrows took a rapid toll of those riders who guided their horses to right and left, a pair of men took it into their heads to ride down the fleeing archer and were protected to some degree by the man they were pursuing, his fellow bowmen unable to shoot at the mounted tribesmen for fear of hitting their comrade.

His vision fixed on the running archer, the leading horseman came on at the gallop, triumphantly spearing him ten paces short of the Tungrian line, the stricken soldier’s back arching as the long blade punched through his body. A pair of arrows sprouted from his mount’s chest, and, stricken, it half-cantered and half-staggered towards the Tungrians until one of Dubnus’s axemen stepped forward and swung his curved blade in a flickering arc to sever one of its front legs, sending the beast crashing to the ground with an awful scream of agony. The rider, pitched over the beast’s head by its headlong plunge, was thrown violently into a tree’s thick trunk and flopped lifelessly to the ground to stare vacantly at the sky above. His companion, realising the danger into which he had driven his mount, had started to wrestle his beast around when a broad-headed arrow loosed at close range plunged deep into its chest and stopped its heart in an instant, dropping the horse in the length of a single stride and sending him spinning away from its death throes. Rolling to his feet he looked about himself wildly, spotted a gap in the encircling Romans with only the boy Lupus to beat and ran for it, stabbing out with his spear at the boy only to find his thrust competently parried and the youth’s framea pointed squarely at his chest, Lupus himself rooted to the spot as the warrior bore down on him. Committed to his headlong charge the German almost fell onto the blade, gasping as it slid between his ribs and took his life in a single heartbeat, snapping the spear shaft as he collapsed lifelessly onto it and fell at the momentarily paralysed boy’s feet. An axe rose and fell, putting a merciful end to the maimed horse’s piteous attempts to regain its footing, and suddenly the clearing was silent again except for the sound of the handful of horsemen who had escaped death making a hasty retreat back down the track, the wheezes and piteous whinnies of their wounded mounts slowly dying away.

Scaurus got to his feet with Arminius’s assistance, white-faced from the loss of so much blood, his wound heavily padded with moss held in place by a strip of cloth that Gerhild had wrapped around his body. He gestured for the German to help him back into his tunic and armour, looking about him at the corpses of Bructeri warriors and their horses scattered across the clearing.

‘And with that, gentlemen, I think it’s time we were on our way, don’t you? I expect the next attack will be somewhat better thought through.’ He pointed to the boy, still staring down at his dead German with an open mouth. ‘Fetch the child, Arminius, he’ll stand there all day if you don’t pull him away.’

He gathered the officers around him, wincing while his mail was pulled over his head and dragged down into place, Gerhild’s hand on the padding over his wound preventing it from being pulled free by the armour’s weight.

‘Thank you, Madam. Centurion Varus, we’ll do this just as we discussed it.’

The younger man saluted and took the woman by her arm, drawing her away from the group while Scaurus turned back to the men of the detachment.

‘Now then, gentlemen, I think we all know what we have to do, but for those of you who live for the idea of burying an axe in a barbarian’s head …’ he stared at Dubnus for a moment before continuing, ‘this will be a tactical retreat to the river with our bows and axes combined, one axeman to accompany each archer for their protection while they use their bows to keep the Bructeri at arm’s length. Centurion Qadir, ensure that your men shepherd their remaining arrows carefully, and only shoot when they have clear targets. You must not let them get carried away and leave the detachment without any means of keeping the enemy’s heads down.’

Qadir nodded his understanding.

‘And you, Dubnus, your axemen are to fight going backwards, and only to step onto the front foot if necessary to preserve a tactical advantage. When not engaged hand to hand, I want them to concentrate on using their shields to protect both themselves
and
the archer with whom they’re paired.’

Dubnus nodded curtly.

‘Yes, Tribune. They’ll defend their brother soldiers to the last man.’

Scaurus smiled wanly.

‘I know they will. Very well then gentlemen, get your men moving. We’re still a long way from the river.’

‘What happened?’

The oldest of the three riders who had survived the ill-fated attack on the Romans shook his head, his face grey with shock and exhaustion. Amalric had found them at the side of the forest track, staring down at one of their number who was clearly close to death, his breathing shallow and eyes glassy, a pair of arrows protruding from his chest, and had halted the Bructeri main force’s column to question them.

‘It was a slaughter. Their archers shot us to ribbons.’ He pointed down at the dying man. ‘He was hit before we even saw them.’

‘How many are they?’

The man looked up at him, shaking his head again as he tried to gather his wits.

‘Twenty? Perhaps thirty?’

The Bructeri noble turned in his saddle to face the king.

‘Thirty men at most, and we have eighty spearmen
and
half as many riders! We should pursue these Romans until we catch up with them, then dismount and overrun them. Thirty men will never stand against this many warriors!’

Amalric nodded his consent, and the noble raised a hand to order the advance. He led the column to the south at a slow trot, eyes scanning the forest to either side of the track, until the clearing where the Romans had offered his horsemen battle came into view, with its grisly scattering of dead men and horses. Gernot shouted a peremptory command over his shoulder, knowing that some of his warriors would have recognised brothers and cousins among the fallen.

‘Leave them! We hunt Romans!’

They trotted on for another two miles before a flash of sunlight on iron alerted Gernot to the presence of armoured men ahead of them, the backs of the fleeing enemy giving him fresh purpose.

‘There, my King! There is your enemy! We must attack them on foot through the forest, the leading horses will never survive an attack down the path and the rest of us will be trapped behind the first beasts to fall.’ He turned back to the men behind him. ‘Dismount!’

The oldest and youngest among them led the horses away while the remaining warriors pressed in around their king, looking to him for leadership. A rider galloped up from behind them, jumping from his saddle and hurrying to Amalric, whispering urgently in the king’s ear. Amalric nodded at the messenger’s words, staring grim-faced around the tribesmen’s tight circle.

‘They have my seer! Gerhild has fallen into their filthy grasping hands! And I swear my revenge to Wodanaz!’ He drew his sword and raised the point at the sky. ‘My brothers! Men of my household! Men of my city! These Romans have stolen our pride away this day, through lies and deceit! We must bring them to bay, and then we must show them how the Bructeri deal with those who set foot on our soil without our leave to do so! If you have no choice then they are to die, but every one of them we take alive is worth a gold coin to the man who captures him, and five for an officer! I will take these captives to the Roman fort by the river, and I will put them to death, within clear sight of the soldiers who guard the bridge! Their screams will be heard in Rome itself!’

Gernot nodded, pointing at the distant Tungrians with his sword.

‘Run, brothers! Now we take this war to the men who started it!’

‘Here they come!’

Still a mile from the river, the detachment turned to fight in the way that Scaurus had prescribed once combat was inevitable, the bowmen laying out their arrows for rapid shooting while one of Dubnus’s men took his place beside each of them with their shields raised against enemy archery. Dozens of Bructeri warriors were advancing towards them through the trees, clearly already well aware of the Hamians’ threat as they moved from tree to tree and kept their bodies low, hoping to use the cover of the forest’s ferns and bushes to disguise their advance.

‘Wait!’

Qadir’s shouted command was obeyed with absolute discipline by his men, despite the increasing number of arrows flying past them, still mostly above head height as the few Bructeri archers loosed swift shots before diving back into cover. A handful of the younger tribesmen were loosing sling stones at them from the flanks of the war band’s advance, the improvised bullets hissing past them unseen and occasionally smacking into a man’s shield with a loud click. The pioneers pulled their Hamian comrades into cover as the volume of harassing arrows and sling stones increased with the Bructeri warriors’ confidence, more than one of them flinching despite their collective vow to show no fear, as arrows punched into the layered wood of their shields and were prevented from penetrating only by the layers of leather and silk that overlaid the wood, a trick that had saved more than one life in the battles of their eastern campaign. The enemy warriors were closing in, no longer distant figures flitting between the trees but individuals, the fear and determination on their faces visible as they shouted encouragement to each other, collectively readying themselves to storm the detachment’s line while behind them someone was shouting commands and driving them forward. With a sudden spur of collective determination they lurched forward, eschewing the protection of the trees for a straightforward charge towards the hated Romans, those men with shields leading the assault. Qadir swept his arm forward.

‘Loose!’

The Tungrians unleashed their arrows, shooting quickly into the mass of men running at them, three volleys in the space of five heartbeats, their deadly missiles hammering through the illusory protection of the leading warriors’ shields to pierce the bodies behind them. Loosing again, and again, they reaped a savage harvest of the poorly protected Germans, and with every man that fell the remaining warriors crouched a little closer to the ground, their headlong charge becoming little more than a shuffling, zigzagging trot from the cover of one tree to another. Qadir and Dubnus exchanged glances, both men nodding to affirm the plan that they had agreed minutes before. The Hamian shouted the command for which his men had been waiting.

‘Archers … Cease!’

Dubnus’s men clenched their hands on the grips of their shields and the handles of their axes, knowing that their turn to bleed the enemy was at hand. Their centurion bellowed the command they were waiting for, slipping their collars to send them at the wavering Bructeri.

‘Tenth Century! Advance!’

He strode out at their head with his face set implacably, a warrior chieftain come for vengeance at the head of men whose devotion to him was absolute, striding purposefully at the enemy with their shields and axes raised. Dubnus was the first into the fight, stamping forward to attack a pair of warriors who threw themselves at the armoured giant with suicidal bravery. Turning the spear thrust at him from the left with his shield and following through with a punch of the iron boss that sent the warrior staggering backwards, he sidestepped the other man’s stabbing attack before spinning to deliver a vicious chopping axe blow that hammered into the Bructeri’s chest, kicking the dying warrior off the blade in a spray of blood and turning on the first man with a snarl of triumph, looping the axe high to smash the spike on the reverse of its heavy iron blade down into his head. On either side his men waded into the enemy with equal fury, their shields and armour protecting them from the enemy’s spears while every swing of their axes did grievous damage to the men who were still attempting to resist their advance. One of the pioneers staggered from the fight with a spear wound to his thigh, and while he was reeling, a quick-witted archer lurking behind the Bructeri line put an arrow into his throat, but the roar of triumph from the warrior who’d managed to stab beneath the hem of his mail was short-lived, as the Tungrian fighting next to the dying man stepped forward and swung his axe in a flat arc, slicing off the top six inches of the German’s head and leaving his corpse to crumple limply to the ground. As those warriors who chose to fight rather than back away from the rampaging pioneers grew fewer, Dubnus realised that the Bructeri were collectively retreating before the Tungrian onslaught, no longer seeking to fight the armoured monsters whose axes were likely to be the ruin of any man who confronted them, and were instead consolidating their scattered force into a hedge of spears.