Anthony Riches - Wounds of Honour

‘Get that slope dirtied up!’

The cohort’s long line marched a dozen paces down the gentle slope, then stopped, the troops fishing under their groin protectors to urinate on to the grass. Selected men ran to the small stream that ran through their new position and filled their helmets with water, carrying the load carefully back to their places in the line before emptying the liquid on to the ground. On command they stamped and twisted with their hobnailed boots, digging at the wet ground beneath their feet, ignoring the spray of acidic-smelling mud that spattered their lower legs and retreating gradually back towards their former positions to leave a five-yard strip of ground in front of their line an oozing mess. Frontinius ignored the drama taking place below them as the 6th Legion’s surviving troops huddled into three ever dwindling groups. With the ground to their front made treacherously slippery, he called for the last element of their defence.

‘Obstacles and tribuli!’

The centuries mustered the heavy five-foot-long staves each man had carried from the camp, each one sharpened to a fire-hardened point at both ends, and lashed them into giant obstacles, each formed of three stakes tied together with rope. Bags full of the small iron tribuli were strewn around the obstacles, presenting sharp points to the feet of the unwary attacker. Julius, standing with his 5th Century behind the main line of defence, both escort to the cohort’s standard and tactical reserve, turned to speak to his chosen man.

‘You can keep an eye on this lot. I’m going down to the front to get a better view and have a chat with my young Roman friend. I see no reason why he should get all the fun.’

He strode down the slope, clapping an arm around Marcus’s shoulders and pointing out across the warband’s presently scattered force. Lowering his head to the younger man’s ear, he spoke quietly, a gentle smile on his face.

‘Well, Centurion, there they are. Twenty thousand angry blue-faced men who will very shortly come up this buttock of a hill to take our heads. Are you ready to die with your men?’

Marcus nodded grimly.

‘Ready enough. But before they take my head, I’ll send a good number to meet Cocidius before me.’

Julius laughed, slapping him delightedly on the back.

‘And you don’t mind if I stay for the fun? I can’t stand being stuck back guarding that bloody statue while you get all the glory. And I might be of some use when the shit starts flying…’

Marcus nodded, but raised a finger in mock admonishment.

‘As long as you contain your contribution to swordplay, and the occasional piece of advice, it’s a deal. If you want to command the scout century, make sure you come second in the competition next year.’ A horn sounded far out across the battlefield, and the milling tribesmen hacking at the remnants of the 6th Legion’s cohorts pulled back in temporary truce. Silence gradually fell across the field, the panting Britons taking an opportunity to get their breath, tend to their wounded and remove their dead and dying from the bloodied grass. Trapped behind the unmoving wall of tribesmen, the remaining legionaries did what they could for their own wounded, little enough in the circumstances.

Sollemnis squinted up the hill over the heads of the barbarians surrounding what was left of his command, making out the auxiliary cohort arrayed in defence across its slope. He tapped his First Spear on the shoulder, pointing at the Tungrians.

‘What… what do you think they’re about up there?’

The other man grimaced as he drew breath, the broken shaft of an arrow protruding through his armour from his abdomen, the price of taking his turn in the cohort’s rapidly contracting perimeter.

‘You’ve got me. Looks like a suicide mission. We’ll be welcoming them to Hades soon enough.’

Sollemnis laughed grimly, hefting his sword.

‘No doubt about that. These bastards are just having a breather, they’ll be back for our heads once they’ve got their wind back.’

He glanced about him.

‘I need to hide this sword, hope that it stays concealed from the blue-noses. Those are Tungrians up there, I can see their banner. My son’s up there with them, and if he lives I want it found and passed to him.’

The other man nodded blankly, too shocked to wonder at the legate’s revelation.

Sollemnis took up a dead soldier’s gladius, testing its balance.

‘This should serve well enough. So many dead men…’

The First Spear coughed painfully and pointed to their dead standard-bearer. An arrow had ripped into the man’s windpipe a few moments before, dropping him to his knees as he choked out his life. The eagle standard still stood proud above his corpse, gripped in lifeless fingers.

‘You’d best stick your sword under Harus’s body… Yes, that ought to do it. They’ll take the eagle, but likely leave his head if you strip away his bearskin. Unlike you and me. We’ll go to our graves in separate pieces…’

Sollemnis smiled again, with genuine amusement this time.

‘It seems we’re to be collector’s items, then?’

‘Roman officers’ heads. No mud hut should be without one.’

A horn rang out with a sudden bray that jerked their attention back to the warband surrounding them. The warriors charged into their pathetic remnant with a revived purpose, their swords rising and falling in flashing arcs as they butchered the exhausted survivors of the 6th Legion’s cohorts. Seeing the man in front of him go down under a powerful sword-blow that cleaved his right arm at the shoulder, Sollemnis stepped into the fight alongside the few men of his bodyguard still standing with a snarl of frustration, striking fast and hard at the man responsible and tasting brief satisfaction as the man’s blood sprayed across his cuirass. The feeling was short lived, his appearance marking him out as a senior officer to the men facing him. He landed one more blow, putting his gladius deep into the chest of another warrior before the man’s comrade thrust a spear deep into his unprotected thigh.

The First Spear, already felled by a sword thrust into his spine, and numbly inert as the barbarians fought to strip him of his fine armour while his life ebbed away into the puddle of blood soaking the ground around him, watched the scene with the unique detachment of a dying man. Sollemnis went down on one knee, helpless to defend himself as the warriors around him gathered for the kill. A sword skidded off his cuirass and sliced into the meat of his right arm, and a vicious blow from a club cracked the elbow joint and left his borrowed sword dangling useless at his side.

‘He’s mine!’

A loud voice sounded over their clamour, a magnificently armoured giant of a man stepping out of the attackers’ midst and calling a halt to their attacks with a simple bellowed command. He batted aside a despairing sword-thrust from the last of the legatus’s bodyguard with his huge round shield, contemptuously smashing the exhausted man to the ground with another punch of the shield’s heavy boss and stabbing down into the space between his helmet’s cheek-pieces. The other warriors backed away, clearly too scared of the man to deny him the moment of triumph. His helmet and armour were coal black, inlaid with intricate silver patterns befitting his obvious status as a tribal champion, heavy iron greaves protecting his thighs and calves to make him almost invulnerable as long as he could carry the weight. Only his booted feet lacked protection.

Sollemnis teetered on the brink of falling on to his face, only willpower keeping him on his knees as he looked up into the swordsman’s face.

‘Go on, then… get it over with, y’bastard.’

His voice was no more than a croak, the words bringing a smile to the big warrior’s face. He hefted his sword in flashing arcs, luxuriating in the pleasure of letting the legatus see what was coming for a long moment before swinging the blade to sever Sollemnis’s head from his shoulders. A warrior retrieved the grisly trophy and carried it back to the legatus’s killer as the Roman’s headless torso toppled slowly sideways to the bloody grass.