Douglas Jackson - Sword of Rome

‘Spears.’ The fear in his voice shamed him, even though he knew it was shared by every man in the formation. ‘Prepare to receive cavalry.’

The square stuttered to a clumsy halt and the front rank of each of the four sides crouched behind the big curved scuta , while those behind locked their shields in place to protect the heads of the front line and form a solid wall almost seven feet high. But it was a fragile wall, close to breaking just at the sight of the charging horses. Men who had suffered more than any man should endure wept and cursed and prayed and Valerius knew he would have lost them but for the massive presence of Juva, snarling at his former shipmates with the eagle of Twenty-first Rapax still held in his great fist. A pitiful few pila poked through between the big shields, held by men who’d had the foresight to scavenge enemy javelins from the battlefield. Being static left the formation more vulnerable to an infantry attack, but the square would have been impossible to defend on the move against cavalry. No ordinary commander would throw his horsemen at a well-formed square, for to do so was to endure certain defeat and heavy casualties. But Valerius understood that the man he faced was no ordinary commander, but one driven mad by a visceral need for vengeance. A man prepared to sacrifice everything in his lust for the blood of his brother’s killer. Even as the thought formed, he saw Claudius Victor drop back from the front rank of the charge, and the first squadron converge into four ranks of eight in front of him. The thunder of hooves seemed to shake the earth and reverberated in the very air around him. A horse will not charge home against formed-up infantry; that was the philosophy that had dictated tactics from Marius down to Otho and Vitellius. Yet the men who rode these horses were goaded by Claudius Victor’s screams of encouragement, promises of advancement and threats of painful death. They were so close Valerius could see the individual features beneath the iron helms. Savage, bearded faces, lips drawn back and mouths gaping as they screamed to cow the enemy and disguise their own fear. Faces that had no intention of avoiding the inevitable collision.

Behind the shield wall, Valerius ran along the line of spearmen calling out his orders. In a normal fight, the pila would form an impenetrable palisade of glittering spear points, but there were not enough of them and these horses were not stopping.

‘On my command.’ He swayed as he fought the exhaustion that fogged his brain and tried desperately to gauge the distance between the horses and the square. Too early and the javelins would be wasted. Too late and even if they did strike home the dead and wounded horses would smash the square into so much human wreckage. ‘The front rank only. Only aim for the front rank.’

Fifty paces.

He licked his lips and tasted blood. Somewhere in the front rank of the square a man was whimpering.

‘You know your orders.’

‘For fuck’s sake, let us throw.’

Forty paces.

One heartbeat.

Two heartbeats.

‘ Now! ’

The upper layer of shields dropped for a split second and a ragged volley of javelins sailed towards the charging cavalry. Valerius had positioned himself to witness the effect of the throw. Pray Jupiter he’d got it right . Eight horses all in line, some already shying away from the impact and the others catching their fear. The grey on the left of the Batavian line took a pilum in the neck and swerved sharply, pitching its rider howling from the saddle. Three others, on the right, went down like sacrificial bulls under a pole-axe and the rider of the new right flank horse sprouted four feet of ash from his screaming mouth and was catapulted backwards to be trampled by the second line. Of the remaining horses two were mortally wounded, but their riders continued to urge them on. A third fought in vain to turn away, trapped between its dying stable mates.

Valerius was moving even before the riderless mount swerved across the front of the line and collided with the charge. He screamed at Juva to get the eagles to safety, but his words were drowned in a splintering crash and the shrieks of crushed men as a mountain of horseflesh scythed into the wall of shields. The second line of cavalry, followed by the third, swerved to avoid the mayhem, knowing there were easier victims to come, but Claudius Victor leapt through the carnage with a squadron at his heels and charged into the centre of the already disintegrating square.

‘He’s mine!’ The screamed order was directed at a Batavian trooper who had lined up the square’s one-handed commander with his long spear. The cavalryman swerved away. In the same moment, Valerius heard the shout and turned to find his nemesis bearing down on him. Victor crouched low in the saddle with a smile on his pale features and the leaf-shaped iron blade aimed at his enemy’s lower belly. For once Valerius couldn’t depend on Serpentius to be his strong right hand; the Spaniard was elsewhere, fighting his own deadly battle. He had nowhere to run; his only defence was his sword and his speed. He feinted left, but the spear point went with him. Victor held the shaft close to his steed’s flank, to give his enemy no chance of getting inside the point. Another second and the spear would tear through the iron mail and gut him. The Batavian expected Valerius to break and run in that final heartbeat. Instead the one-armed Roman danced to his right, bringing the sword up in a scything, unwieldy slash that bit into the cavalry horse’s throat. A cloud of scarlet and the animal screamed as it felt the bite of iron and Valerius threw himself to the side as it surged past, already going down on its knees. In the corner of his eye he registered Victor tumbling from the saddle and the snap as the long spear broke, but there was no time to be pleased with himself. For now the exhausted legionaries of Twenty-first Rapax had found new strength and were tearing at the shattered formation like a pack of wolves on a dying deer calf. Suddenly, Victor was no longer Valerius’s greatest threat as he tripped on a body, lost his grip on the gladius and found himself sprawling among the feet of a knot of men hacking at two gladiators who had tried to surrender. Unarmed and wriggling backwards through someone’s entrails, Valerius flinched away as one of the legionaries stepped into position with his sword poised for the killing blow.

‘Mine!’ The guttural Germanic roar was punctuated by a butcher’s block slap that registered the moment Victor’s long cavalry spatha took the man’s head off at his shoulders. As the torso collapsed, Valerius’s worst nightmare loomed over him. ‘The remaining hand, I think. We will start with the hand.’

Victor raised the sword high as Valerius lay helpless. The Roman looked into his killer’s eyes and saw a madness there that told him the hand was only the least of it. He groped frantically for his lost gladius . Instead, his fingers connected with something obscenely soft, with the slimy texture of a fresh-caught eel. He threw the still-warm guts of the anonymous gladiator into Victor’s face and the Batavian reeled back, but recovered when he realized what had struck him. A savage smile wreathed his face as he made the decision to end the games. All around them was chaos and slaughter, the screams of the dying and the victory cries of their killers. From nowhere, a bay horse, out of control with its Pannonian rider dead in the saddle, galloped blind-eyed with panic towards them and Valerius rolled away from the flashing hooves. He heard Victor curse even as he found his escape blocked by the bulk of the auxiliary commander’s dead mount. A kaleidoscope of images: blue sky, blood-soaked earth, a dead man’s staring eyes, a glint of bright metal. The sword flashed down and he twisted desperately to one side, some voice screaming a message at him that his mind struggled to decipher. The sharp slap of metal slicing into muscle, but surprisingly he felt no pain and he realized Victor’s blow must have struck the dead horse. Without conscious thought, his hand wrapped around the shaft of the broken spear embedded in the ground to his left. His arm whipped round and he felt the moment the point tore through cloth into the sucking embrace of flesh, the crunch of iron scraping on bone and then the breakthrough into the softness beyond. An agonized shriek that combined pain, torment and frustration filled his ears and he looked up as Claudius Victor’s shuddering body collapsed on top of him.