The IX (6 page)

A grinning, wide-eyed fiend materialized out of the haze. Running forward, his blood-painted face and bare upper torso only served to make his visage more terrifying. Ghostly trails of vapor clung to his body, making him appear wraithlike in the moonlight. Marcus recognized the black and blue plaid of an Iceni.

Realizing he’d been spotted, the berserker warrior’s face split into a mask of hatred. Raising his bone club and long knife high, the maniac shrieked and launched himself at the centurion.

Digging his heels into Starblaze’s flanks, Marcus spurred his horse forward and yanked hard on the reins. Trained for battle, Starblaze reared as commanded, and lashed out. The sickening
crunch
of crushed bone followed, and the clansman dropped like a stone. Wheeling about, Marcus looked toward Flavius’s company once more. They had momentarily faltered as a huge knot of rebels impeded their progress. However, the pause was only temporary, the sheer advantage of weight and ferocity allowing Flavius and his men to move slowly forward again. Within the space of a few heartbeats, everyone who had stood between them and their avenue of escape was dead.

More mounted archers raced to add their strength to the charge. A break began to form, revealing a clear path through the sea of milling fighters.

We must seize this chance.

Marcus espied a signifier close by, safely protected within a shielded squad of men. Stomping and slashing his way across to him, he barked, “You there! Sound the advance . . .” Pointing toward the gnarled oak trees at the crossing, he confirmed, “. . . that way. Proceed by descending cohorts. Signal the Tenth. They are to begin at double time. Once they have passed this position, the rest of you are to march in extending box formation. Hold until then. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And don’t worry, once we’ve secured the ravine, I’ll make sure you get cavalry support.”

As the soldier issued instructions by horn, Marcus shouted across to the two closest groups of defenders, about forty men in all. “Extend a square around the signifier. Form turtle if you have to defend against arrows. This is our secondary rally point. Work slowly back toward the crossing so the rest can catch up.”

Once the officers had confirmed his instructions, Marcus sought out the general. He was surprised to discover Quintus had become separated from the main column by a mass of baying clansmen, each as desperate as the others to tear him apart. It only took Marcus a moment to realize why.
The eagle!

The rebel tribes knew the significance of an eagle. To the legion, it stood for everything. Their honor, their reputation, their very reason for existence. Capturing it would be a great prize for the savages, even if they couldn’t defeat the army itself.

Not today
, Marcus swore.

Both the general and the standard were protected by the entire first cohort. Despite their strength, they were dwarfed by an overwhelming press of plaid-wearing berserkers. All manner of tartans, in blue, green, red, and black swarmed the shield wall, revealing the appalling number of tribes involved. So hard-pressed were his comrades that no one in the main party had realized an avenue of escape had opened up behind them.

Spurring Starblaze forward, Marcus flanked the fighting. Drawing half a dozen riders to his side, he increased his pace and peeled in toward the square. Falling on the mob from behind, they cut an easy path through the unsuspecting attackers until they were within earshot of the general.

“Quintus. General! Fall back. Fall back, see?”

Drusus saw them first. Circling about, the colonel looked in the direction indicated by Marcus and started in surprise when he beheld the road that had been cut through the throng. He immediately turned to confer with the general.

A trumpet blast sounded. As one, the first cohort adjusted position to fall-in on the eagle and its officers. Once in place, they maneuvered again, adopting an open formation that allowed them to run while maintaining tactical readiness. The clansmen quickly recognized what was happening. Halting their attack, several warriors raised strange-looking horns to their lips.

Ah-ooooooooo. Ah-ooooooooo.

The battle paused for a heartbeat, then resumed in earnest.

What now?
Marcus dropped in alongside Quintus, Drusus, and Aemilus Nerva, the Ninth’s aquilifer, and shouted, “Keep your eyes peeled. Flavius has secured the crossing. The rest of the legion is moving up to regroup. If we make a stand there, we can at least consolidate our position before deciding what to do next.”

“Agreed,” Quintus replied. “Thank the gods they chose to hit us here. The choke point will slow them down a little, and allow us to build some form of fortified defense. It’ll give us a chance to catch our breath too, if nothing else.” He shifted his balance in the saddle, and looked about in the confusing gloom. “Who knows? This damnable fog may even work in our favor. How much thicker can it get?”

Marcus could appreciate what the general was alluding to. In the heat of fighting, their eyes had adjusted to the conditions about them. The darkness. The murk. The coagulating haze that now clung to them like spider’s silk. It wasn’t until they all took a moment to step back that they appreciated just how bad visibility had become. And how vulnerable it made them feel.

Ah-ooooooooooooooooooooh.

A longer blast sent icicles trickling down Marcus’s spine.

“What the hell was that?” Drusus muttered.

“Better pick up the pace, Sirs,” Marcus hissed. “Get yourselves and the eagle to safety. Use the cavalry we have here to assist you. I’ll bring the rest of the cohort in myself.”

The horses started nickering. An odd rumbling sensation made the ground tremble. Marcus didn’t know if these events were connected in some way or not, but the rotating miasma about them had thickened again.

The general glanced at his second, then at his aquilifer. Inclining his head, he acceded. “Very well. We’ll move the command post to a point between the stunted oaks we saw earlier and make our stand there.” Raising his voice, he commanded, “The Triari will fall back with the first cohort. All other mounted officers are with me. Protect Aemilus and the standard. Let’s go.”

As they turned to leave, Quintus glanced back over his shoulder. “Marcus, please make sure you bring the men home.”

“I will, Sir. Nothing will stop me, I prom–”

An arrow lifted the general out of his saddle. Spinning through the air, Quintus hit the ground hard before flopping over onto his back. As he came to rest, already dead, the astonished group could see a clumsily fashioned shaft protruding from his eye socket, waggling as if it were mocking their impotence.

“Move!”Marcus roared.

The mounted party leapt forward and disappeared into the fog.

Marcus cast about, incensed that his commanding officer had been slaughtered in such a cowardly way. The reverberations were louder now, more intense. Flickering sparks of light, like miniature streaks of lightning had begun to flare along the vapor trails. The wind had picked up too, and was starting to bite with a vengeance. Marcus found the experience strangely mesmerizing. Fighting off the urge to stare, he caught sight of the eagle bearer’s brother, Sextus Nerva, among the men.

An idea came to him.

“Sextus. Take the general’s horse and get Quintus back behind our new forward line.” Waving several other legionnaires over, he commanded, “Help him lift the body over the saddle. Quickly.”

The ground visibly shook, small stones dancing along the floor in defiance of gravity. Perplexed, it took Marcus a moment to realize another sound had intruded, lifting above the ethereal resonance surrounding them.
Is that keening I hear?
An alien rider flashed past. Uttering a strange, high pitched wail as he rode, the plaid apparition vanished in a blaze of sparks and metal. Men fell to the ground, bleeding or dying.

“Riders!” someone shouted.

Where did they come from?

The stiffening breeze opened a path through the enveloping fog. Marcus’s blood ran cold. By the light of the full moon, he could see the hillside and mountains on either side of the river. Thousands of horsemen, all Iceni, now ringed their position. Some were already descending toward the units who had made it to the erroneous safety of the defile. Those squadrons of enemy cavalry already on this side of the glen were charging to intercept the command party.

This isn’t a spur of the moment attack. Look how many of them there are. And when did they start mounting their warriors?
He snorted at the irony of his question.
As if knowing the answer will help us now.

Marcus held his breath as a number of the colonel’s riders peeled off to engage the attacking vanguard. Despite the sound of battle about him, the clash of steel rang out as the two sides met. Several riders from both sides were unhorsed, and the melee quickly dissolved into a confused free-for-all. It was soon over. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, Marcus noted that most of his compatriots regained their saddles. But not all. Nearly a half dozen of his brave comrades now lay dead upon the floor, their remains already being desecrated by the berserkers. He watched, horrified, as a mob of barbarians lowered their heads to their victims. They remained there, ignoring the conflict around them, tearing and slavering at the flesh until forced to relinquish their feast by sheer weight of opposing numbers.

They
are
cannibals then? That changes things
. “Quicken the pace,” he screamed. “We’re almost within range of our archers, so we’ll have support soon. Keep going. Show no mercy. If you go down injured, you’re dead. Don’t let them take you. Use your teeth, stab with fingers, gouge with nails. Make them bleed.”

It was a rousing speech, but Marcus needn’t have bothered. This was the first cohort. The cream of the legion. Before the night was over, the Iceni would fear them.

The minutes dragged by; time devolved into one, long, grueling marathon of butchery. Every blow was met by a counter strike. Each attack by a riposte. Shouting and cursing, chopping and hacking, they fought on and on. Sweat bled into their eyes, exhaustion robbed them of the strength to simply lift their arms to wipe it away. In the end, it was often the first to make a mistake that died, their cries snatched away on the wings of the gale.

Just when it felt like they would be overwhelmed by fatigue, it was over. One moment they were surrounded by a howling, baying mob of painted maniacs, and the next? A chorus of melodic yodels rang out about them, and the savages turned and ran. Within seconds, the night had claimed them. All that remained were the dead and the dying, and the shimmering vapors that cloaked the ravine and lower mountainside in a languid death shroud.

Marcus couldn’t believe how sore he was. Groaning, he massaged his neck in an attempt to soothe away the pain. His arms were covered in a patchwork of cuts and grazes where weapons had gotten a little too close on too many occasions. Resting his hands on his thighs, he winced with pain.
Ah!
I’d forgotten about that.

At one point during the battle, he’d been pulled from his mount by some kind of fishhook-style device the savages had employed to unhorse their opponents. Starblaze herself had come to his rescue. Crushing the tartan-clad killer beneath her hooves, she stomped their assailant unconscious until Marcus ended it with a knife to the heart.

The wound’s still open and raw.
I’ve got to get Cornelius to take a look at it. Those filthy bastards poison their weapons. It’ll fester if I don’t get it treated.

Swaying, Marcus almost toppled from his saddle as a gust of wind caused Starblaze to shy. He nearly went down again when someone punched him in the arm and offered him a cup of water. “Thirsty, Colonel?” Drusus shouted above the gale.

Turning to face him, Marcus could see his friend’s countenance had become a wilderness of grime and ugly bruises. One of his teeth was missing, giving him a lopsided grin. Stifling a snigger, Marcus was nevertheless confused. “What did you say?”

“I asked you if you were thirsty . . .
Colonel
. You’re my acting second now. You’ll find me a great deal more approachable than our former commander.” He glanced about him as the tail end of the legion limped in. “Not that it will do us much good now with half an army left, and an indefensible position to hold.”

“Why? How bad is it?”

Drusus ran bloodied fingers through his hair, exposing a nasty cut on his scalp. “From reports so far, most of the first three cohorts, and some of the fourth, are intact. Fortunately, our most experienced soldiers were at the head of the column, and were able to take advantage of this position. We have Flavius to thank for that. His equitata gained the high ground without much in the way of opposition. He also saved half a cohort of sagittaria and used them to great effect, keeping the approaches clear . . .” His voice trailed off.

“But?” Marcus knew the worst was to come.

“We’ve heard nothing from the trailing cohorts.”

“Nothing? But the lip of the valley is only half a mile from here. The eighth cohort was already over it before the fighting started. I was with the fifth myself as the battle got underway. It was their aquilifer who sounded the advance to arms. How could so many . . . just . . . ?” He gazed out into the all-enveloping fog. It moved about them like a living entity, swirling and sparkling sedately in defiance of the windstorm now hammering down on them. Every time he moved Marcus noted how the tendrils of vapor would follow, as if attracted in some arcane way to his essence. His skin seemed to be shining too, in imitation of the mist itself.

The temperature abruptly dropped and the wind died to almost nothing. Marcus was appalled. “What
is
this stuff? It seems to be concentrated about this location as if, as if . . .”

“It’s what’s keeping us alive, Marcus,” Drusus countered. “You can’t have failed to see we are surrounded. The Iceni knew we were coming, and waited for us with a superior force. Cavalry too, if you can believe it. If they hadn’t already been lurking in the mountains on this side of the river, I’d have said we had a fighting chance. Once we constructed a few fortifications, dug a few ditches, their cavalry wouldn’t have mattered. But there’s no time now. They’re not here to take prisoners . . .” he waved his fingers in the air, “. . . only this
stuff
is keeping them back. I for one am very glad it’s here, for I fear without it we’d already be dead.”