Conn Iggulden - The Field Of Swords

For the tribe, it was as if the legion had appeared out of nothing, and yet they were not without courage. As soon as the initial shock had faded, they saw the small army that clung to the slopes and almost as one they roared defiance, filling the valley.

“There must be half a million of them. I swear by Mars, there must,” Brutus whispered.

He saw the fighting phalanxes swarm to the front, bristling with spears as they began to accelerate over the ground between the armies. Their front ranks carried wide shields to batter the enemy, but the formations would never survive the broken ridges of the hill. They raced across the shifting scree like wolves, and Brutus shook his head in amazement at the numbers coming toward him.

“Archers-range!” Brutus cried, watching as four arrows flew high and marked the outermost limit of their shots. He had only three hundred from the Ariminum legions and didn’t know how skilled they were.

Against unprotected men, their fire could be devastating, but he doubted they would be more than an irritation to the Helvetii under their shields.

“Ready spears!” he bellowed.

The Tenth gathered their four, checking the points one last time. They would not aim them, but launch the heavy iron-headed weapons high into the air, so that they would be dropping almost vertically at the moment of impact. It called for skill, but it was their trade and they were experts.

“Range!” Brutus shouted.

He watched as Ciro tied a red cloth around the butt of one of his spears and heaved it into flight with a grunt. None of them could match the big man’s distance, and as the spear slammed quivering into the turf,

Brutus had his outermost point marked, fifty paces short of the arrows farther down the rocky slope. When the Helvetii charge crossed those lines, they would be running through a hail of missiles. As they pushed past Ciro’s spear, forty thousand more would be launched in less than ten heartbeats.

The Helvetii howled as they began to pound up the slope, and a dawn breeze skimmed the hillside, blowing dust off the plains.

“Archers!” Brutus called and, ten ranks back, the lines of bowmen fired with smooth skill until their quivers were empty. Brutus watched the flight of arrows as they fell into the yelling men below, still out of range of the more deadly spears. Many of the shafts were deflected as the tribesmen raised their shields and ran on, leaving only a few bodies behind them. First blood had been taken. Brutus hoped Julius was ready.

Julius was in the saddle when he heard the tribe roar. He jerked his horse round viciously, looking for the scout who had brought him the news.

“Where is the man who told me the enemy were on the hill?” he shouted, his stomach suddenly dropping away in a hollow feeling.

The call went round and the man came trotting up on his horse. He was very young and pink around the cheeks in the morning cold. Julius glared at him in terrible suspicion.

“The enemy you reported. Tell me what you saw,” Julius said.

The young scout stammered nervously under the stare of his general. “There were thousands up on the hill, sir. In the dark, I could not be sure of numbers, but there were many of them, sir. An ambush.”

Julius closed his eyes for a moment.

“Arrest that man and hold him for punishment. Those were our legions, you stupid bastard.”

Julius wheeled his horse, thinking furiously. They had not traveled more than a few miles from the plain. It might not be too late. He untied his helmet from the saddle horn and pulled it roughly over his face, turning the metal features to face the gathered men.

“The Tenth and Third Gallica are without support. We will march at our fastest pace to attack the Helvetii. Straight in, gentlemen. Straight in, now.”

Brutus waited as the Helvetii streamed past the ranging spear until it could not be seen. If he gave the order too early, the Third behind him could throw short. Too late and the crushing damage of seeing an attack destroyed would be wasted as the front ranks were passed over. “Spears!” Brutus cried at his best volume, launching his own into the air.

Ten thousand arms jerked forward and then they were reaching for the second at their feet. Before the first wave landed, Brutus knew the Tenth would have two more in the air. The Third were slower, but only by a little, inspired by the example of the veterans and the nervous fear of the attack.

He had judged it perfectly and the different ranks of the Tenth and Third sent spears in a carpet of whistling iron onto the enemy. Not just the front rank, but most of the first ten went from running warriors to broken corpses in moments. Hundreds died from the first wave, and the men who survived could see the black launch of the second coming at them, even as they urged each other on.

There was no way to avoid the death from the air. The spears moved in flight to fall in groups or widely apart. One man could be struck with a cluster of them, or a whole charging line destroyed bar one, miraculously untouched. Though the Helvetii ducked under their shields, the heavy iron heads punched through wood and bone into the soft ground beneath. Brutus saw many tribesmen struggle to free their shields, sometimes pinned to others through the overlapping edges. Many of them still lived, but could not rise as their blood poured from them.

Brutus watched as the attack stuttered to a stop. The third strike did less destruction and they pulled back from the last, running wildly from the men on the hill. The Tenth cheered as the Gauls turned, and Brutus looked east for Julius. If he sent in his legions at that moment, they could very well panic the Helvetii into a rout. There was no sign of him.

The Helvetii re-formed at the edge of the range and began to advance once more over the bodies of their finest.

“These men have never fought a legion of Rome!” Brutus called to the men around him.

Some of them smiled, but their eyes were on the advancing hordes that made the broken bodies vanish as they climbed the hill again. A few of the legion spears were tugged from corpses and thrown up at the Tenth, but against the rise of the land, they fell short.

“Ready swords!” Brutus ordered, and for the first time both legions drew their blades and held them high for the sun to catch. Brutus looked around him and raised his head proudly. Let them climb, he thought.

As they began to pant and blow, the phalanx formations broke apart as the Helvetii neared the Roman lines. The Tenth waited patiently for them, each man standing amongst friends he had known for years.

There was no fear in the Roman lines. They stood in perfect formation with the cornicens ready to rotate the front ranks as they tired. They carried swords of hard iron and all along the faces of his men Brutus could see eager anticipation. Some of the legionaries even beckoned to the warriors, urging them on. In a flash of insight, Brutus saw them as the Helvetii did, a wall of men and shields without gaps.

The first of the Helvetii met the Tenth and were cut down with efficient ferocity. The hard Roman blades chopped into them all along the line, cutting arms and heads free in single blows. The long spears of the Helvetii could not pierce the Roman shields, and Brutus exulted at the toll.

He stood in the third rank of the right and raised his head from the fascination of the carnage to view the position. There was a mass of men struggling to support their comrades and even more were streaming around the hill to flank them. He felt fresh sweat break out on his skin as he looked for Julius once again.

The sun was in his eyes at that angle, but he squinted against the glare to the tree line.

“Come on, come on, ” he said aloud.