Harry Turtledove - Give Me Back My Legions!

Off to Eggius’ left—deeper in the swamp—whooping Germans slaughtered a small knot of Romans who’d managed to put up a bit of a fight before they died. That was about as much as the legionaries could manage.

It wasn’t just the terrain. This battle was lost, and catastrophically lost, the instant the barbarians’ first spears flew. Three legions were getting massacred not least because they couldn’t believe what was happening to them. Too many men were too dumbfounded even to try to fight back. And their fall only made their fellows’ predicament worse, which dumbfounded them, which led to.…

It led to Lucius Eggius calf-deep in clinging ooze. It was liable to lead to three legions wiped out almost to the last man. It was liable to lead to three legionary eagles being lost. Eggius’ jaw dropped. Even after everything that had happened and was happening, that thought only now crossed his mind for the first time. Legionaries guarded the eagles with their lives.

They would rather die than let an enemy seize the sacred symbols of their trade.

They were dying, all right, whether they wanted to or not. And once they finished dying, Arminius would have the prizes he must have craved all along.

Even thinking of Arminius made Lucius Eggius spit in the mud in disgust. Thinking of Arminius also made him think of Publius Quinctilius Varus. He spat again, harder this time. “As soon as the vulture gets done with Prometheus’ liver, it can start gnawing on Varus’,” Eggius growled.

He’d tried to warn the governor of Germany—now there was a title that had just turned into a monstrous joke!—about Arminius. So had gods only knew how manv other Roman officers. Varus didn’t want to listen. His rank meant he didn’t have to.

So he didn’t. And now he was paying for not listening. And so was everybody else.

Eggius limped toward some trees. If he could hide among them till the fighting stopped and the Germans went away, maybe he’d be able to sneak back toward the Rhine later and…

He laughed. In spite of everything, the idea was funny. He didn’t think he could make it to the trees. If he did, he didn’t think he’d be able to hide for long. And even if he concealed himself, he didn’t think he’d ever see the Rhine again.

A guttural shout. A tall blond man pointing at him. Four more barbarians coming along the edge of the track toward him. Two of them carried spears, one a captured Roman gladius, and one a gladius and a spear. One of them had a cut on his left arm. The other three seemed un-wounded.

They would, Eggius thought as he turned and tried to find the best footing he could. Sure as Hades’ house, he wasn’t going to reach those trees. But at least he could—he hoped he could—make the Germans kill him. You didn’t want them to take you alive. Their gods were thirsty for blood, and captives fed them.

“Surrender!” one of the barbarians yelled in Latin. Eggius shook his head.

“You don’t surrender, you die,” the German warned, shaking his spear.

“Now tell me something I didn’t know,” Eggius answered. The barbarian only scratched his head. That must have been more Latin, or harder Latin, than he could deal with. But he didn’t have to deal with it. He had the brute simplicity of sharp iron on his side.

He flung the spear at Eggius. The Roman ducked. The spear grazed his left shoulder as it flew past. The German jumped up and down, shouting something hot and guttural. Plenty of spears lay on the ground, though. He picked up another one and jumped into the muck, heading purposefully after Eggius. Two more savages followed him. They grinned and laughed in anticipation.

Grimly, Eggius set himself and waited. He couldn’t outrun them, not with his leg wound. He had to make the best fight he could. In other words, he was about to die.

He didn’t want to. But soldiering had long since shown him you had to do all kinds of things you didn’t want to. One certainty: once he did this, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.

That lead German thrust at him. Eggius twisted to one side and stepped forward—he still had one quick stride in him, anyhow. His gladius pierced the barbarian’s belly. The man looked absurdly surprised as he crumpled. Eggius twisted his wrist to make sure the stroke cut guts and killed.

Even before he could clear the sword, the other two Germans speared him. He’d known they would. Nothing to be done about it. He screamed—no dignity when you died, none at all. He fell on top of the barbarian he’d taken with him. After a while—not nearly soon enough—the pain faded and the torch of his life went out.

The baggage train! For many of Arminius’ Germans, the chance to loot three legions’ worth of booty was the only reason they’d joined his force. So many things here, all in one place! Traders from inside the Empire would have charged more for them than any ordinary man could hope to pay. But now anyone with a spear could take away as much as he could carry. Ordinary men could get their hands on things chieftains would envy.

By the time Arminius got to the baggage train, a lot of ordinary men were drunk. One of the things the Romans carried with them was their wine supply. In a close-run fight, that might have meant disaster. As things were, it only served to make them fiercer and, at the same time, more foolish.

Laughing like a loon, a shaggy-haired warrior capered in a transparent silk tunic some high-ranking Roman must have bought in Mindenum and been bringing back to Vetera for his ladylove. The change must have been easy for him, because he’d worn nothing underneath his stout wool cloak. He’d had nothing else to wear. He shook his hips at Arminius. “Aren’t I gorgeous?” he bawled.

“Don’t tear that cloth,” Arminius told him—the big man seemed about to burst from the tunic in several different places. “Have you got any idea how much it’s worth?”

“Why should it be worth anything? It’s hardly here at all.” The warrior put a hand under the fabric to show what he meant. “You can see right through it.”

Patiently, as if to an idiot child, Arminius said, “That’s why. Imagine it on a woman. Imagine it on your woman.”

“Ohhh,” the other German said in a low voice. Because the silk was so transparent, Arminius could see exactly what he thought of that. He liked the idea. Arminius had thought he might. No doubt much more carefully than the fellow had put on the tunic, he took it off again.

Several dozen Romans from the rear of their column—the part that hadn’t been so irretrievably shattered—counterattacked then. They had it all their own way for a moment, because the plundering Germans weren’t expecting anything like that. The legionaries fought with the desperation of men who had nothing to lose. They had to know they wouldn’t get away. They were just trying to sell their lives as dearly as they could, and doing a good job of it.

In their caligae, Arminius would have done the same thing. As it was, he pushed his own men into the fight, and went into it himself. He didn’t want to be seen—he couldn’t afford to be seen—hanging back. He thrust with his spear and then, after some Roman’s sword stroke shattered the shaft, he slashed with his sword. Red drops flew from the blade every time he swung it.

One of the legionaries recognized him. “You traitor dog!” the man shouted. “If I can drag you down to Pluto’s house in the underworld, I will!”

His gladius flicked out, quick and deadly as a striking viper, but Arminius wasn’t there to take the stroke. Quick and deadly himself, he danced away, then returned to the fight. His sword thudded off the legionary’s shield. The man was good; if he hadn’t been good, he would have died a while ago, on this field or on some earlier one.