Conn Iggulden - The Field Of Swords

With the Rhine behind them, the Suebi had nowhere to run and Julius knew panic when he saw the front ranks of his beloved Tenth being smashed down by spears thrown at the gallop. The shields saved many and they rose in a daze, brought back to their position by their friends around them.

Still the legions forced themselves onward. The great ballistae and onagers were brought up and tore red ribbons in the enemy. The Tenth roared as Julius rejoined them, fighting all the harder under his watchful eye.

Julius saw the left and right flanks were holding. Brutus controlled the right, and the extraordinarii and Aedui cavalry had blunted the Suebi’s attacks with wild courage. He advanced the center and the Suebi were forced to fall back by the sheer ferocity of the legion formations.

Julius saw with pride that his officers knew their business, even without orders. When the foot soldiers of the Suebi rushed them, they widened their line to bring as many swords as possible into the attack.

When the cavalry charged, they clashed into squares and fought on. The ballistae and onagers launched again and again until they were too far behind to risk their missiles falling on the Roman troops.

Julius saw Ariovistus gather his bodyguard around him, a thousand of the very best of the Suebi. Each one stood a head taller than the Romans and was marked with the strange ridges that frightened the legionaries. They charged the Tenth in the center and Julius saw the square formed just too late to prevent the armored warriors from reaching them.

The center buckled and then, with a roar, the Tenth fought back like maniacs in a blood rage. Julius remembered how they had been created from the deaths of those who had faltered, and he smiled with a vicious pleasure. The Tenth were his and they would not be turned. They would never run.

He surged forward with the soldiers around him, calling out for the flanks to form horns to compress the enemy. Julius caught a glimpse of the dark horses of the Aedui coming from the left and isolating a block of the Suebi from the main force. The Tenth climbed over bodies to reach the enemy. The ground was red and shining as they built speed into a charge, and Ariovistus was forced to ride back from the front before the roaring Tenth and Third could reach him.

The whole of the Roman lines saw the king retreat and they responded, raising their heads. Julius exulted. The Rhine was less than a mile distant and he could see the shining water. He called his cornicens to him and ordered spears to be thrown, watching as the mass of missiles hampered any attempt by Ariovistus to re-form. A gap opened between the armies and Julius urged them all forward, calling to the men he knew. As he mentioned their names, they stood a little straighter and forgot their weariness under his gaze.

“Bring up the ballistae and scorpions!” he ordered, and his messengers weaved their way back to help the sweating teams over the rough ground.

Without an apparent signal, the entire mass of the Suebi formed another charge and thundered down toward the Roman lines. Spears plucked some of them from their saddles and killed mounts that fouled those behind. Julius knew it was their last charge and his men moved into tight squares before he could order it.

The long Roman shields were overlapped and the men behind braced themselves to take an impact, their swords ready. Not one part of the Roman lines fell back from the terrifying sight of the horses coming at them. When the Suebi faltered, the legions tore them apart.

The army of Ariovistus began to be compressed against the river. Without the extraordinarii and the Aedui, Julius knew they could have overwhelmed the Romans, but though they hammered the flanks again and again, the legions continued their advance, killing anything that faced them.

The banks of the Rhine seethed with men and horses as they risked their lives to cross against the current. The great river was almost a hundred yards wide and those without mounts to cling to were swept away and drowned. Julius could see tiny fishing boats crammed with desperate men and watched as one of them overturned, the dark bobbing heads of the Suebi disappearing under the water.

On the left flank, a thousand of the enemy threw down their arms and surrendered to the Ariminum legions they had failed to break. Julius pushed on with his Tenth until they were standing on the banks of the river, looking at the mass of drowning men that choked the water from his side right to the deepest center. Those of the Tenth who had been able to salvage or keep their spears threw them at the men in the water, and Julius saw many struck in that way, slipping beneath the surface with no more than a single cry.

On the far bank, Julius saw a boat make it into the shallows and watched as the figure of Ariovistus climbed out and collapsed onto his knees for a moment.

“Ciro!” Julius called, his voice echoing as the name went back into the ranks of the Tenth, producing the powerful figure of the legionary, still panting with the strain of the battle. Julius handed him a single spear and pointed to the figure on the far bank.

“Can you reach him?”

Ciro hefted the spear in his hand. The soldiers around him stood back to give him room as he stared across the wide river.

“Quickly, before he rises,” Julius snapped.

Ciro took five steps back and then ran forward, heaving the spear into the air. The men of the Tenth watched it in fascination as it rose high into the sun and then fell.

Ariovistus stood to face the Romans on the far bank and never saw it. The spear hammered him off his feet, puncturing his leather armor over the stomach. The king flailed limply as the survivors of his bodyguard dragged him into the trees.

After a moment of awed silence, the legions cheered themselves hoarse. Ciro raised a single arm to them in salute and grinned as Julius clapped him on the back.

“A hero’s throw, Ciro. By the gods, I have never seen a finer. Hercules himself could not have done better.” Julius roared his triumph with the others then and felt the exultation that comes from victory, when the blood seemed to rush like fire through the veins and tired muscles surged with fresh strength.

“My glorious Tenth!” Julius shouted to them. “My brothers! Is there anything you cannot achieve? You,

Belinus, I saw you strike down three of the warriors in the line. You, Regulus, you gathered in your century when poor Decidas fell. You will do him honor when you wear his plume.”

One by one, he called the names of the men who were with him, praising their courage. He had missed nothing of the day’s fighting, and they stood tall as his gaze swept the faces of his men. The other legions came closer to hear him and he could feel their pride and pleasure. He raised his voice to carry as far as it could.

“What can we not achieve, after this?” They cheered the words. “We are the sons of Rome and I tell you this land will be ours! Every man who has fought for me will have land and gold and slaves to work it for him. You will be the new nobilitas of Rome and drink wine good enough to make you weep. I swear it before you all, on my honor. I swear it as consul. I swear it as Rome in Gaul.”

Julius reached down into the churned mud of the riverbank, mixed with the blood of the Suebi. He pulled up a handful and held it up to the assembled men.

“You see this clay? This bloody clay I hold? I say it is yours. It belongs to my city as much as the chariot races or the markets. Take it up, hold it in your hands. Can you not feel it?”

He watched with wild pleasure as the legions copied his action, joking and laughing as they did so.

They grinned at him as they held up their pieces of the land, and Julius squeezed his fist closed, so that the clay dripped from between his fingers.