Douglas Jackson - Claudius

‘So that is their intent?’ Narcissus said calmly. ‘Take your elephant and your family to the far side of the column. You will be safe there.’

Safe?

Only now did Rufus notice the figures around them shrugging off their thick cloaks, revealing the pot helmets with their neck-protectors and cheek-pieces, the faded red tunics, and the gleaming plate armour — the lorica segmentata — of the legionary heavy infantry that clinked rhythmically as they marched. They were already in their sections and they moved purposefully through the auxiliaries to form a double line, perhaps two hundred paces in length, precisely where the British attack would strike. The first Britons were still fifty yards away when, at a shouted order, the legionaries hefted their brightly painted rectangular shields shoulder high and locked them in an impenetrable defensive wall. A second order and the razor-edged short swords they carried on their right hips sang free from their scabbards in a single practised movement.

Another enemy might have hesitated; might have seen their defeat in that wall of painted shields. But not this enemy. From his position on Bersheba’s shoulders Rufus saw them, not now as an amorphous mass, but as individuals, mouths gaping and eyes bulging with pent-up hate. They fought naked from the waist upwards, though it was difficult to tell because their bodies were so densely covered in intricate blue-veined tattoos they appeared clothed. Each man was magnificently muscled and carried a seven-foot throwing spear or a heavy, straight sword. Many had limed their long hair into jagged spikes that made them appear even taller than they were. Their feet were bare, the better to find purchase on the slippery grass. Every one was a warrior, bred for battle.

The attack had no tactical formation, but it seethed with bloodthirsty intent. The fastest and strongest gradually emerged from the pack to take the lead. They were the champions, the battering rams who would smash great gaps in the enemy line and allow the long swords the space to carve left and right, cutting bone and sinew and enlarging the break still further. But the men facing them behind the big shields were warriors too. Each soldier of the Second Augusta was a battle-hardened veteran of the German frontier wars. He had eaten and passed wind, served and suffered, laughed and cried with the comrades to his left and right for longer than he cared to remember. They were his family and he trusted them, quite literally, with his life. For if their sword arms should fail them after an hour of hard fighting, or the curve-edged shields that protected them give way before a charging enemy, they were all dead. So he trusted them. And they trusted him. They had confidence, because they were the best-equipped army in the world and they knew it.

‘The Second won’t use their throwing spears,’ Narcissus predicted. ‘They want them in tight, buckle to buckle, where they will become entangled.’ For the first time Rufus noticed that the front rank of legionaries had embedded the heavy metal-pointed spears they carried into the dry ground at the rear of the line, while the second rank held the heavy spears shoulder high in two hands ready to stab at any exposed throat or chest which showed itself.

Closer now, so Rufus could actually hear the muted thunder of a thousand charging feet slamming into the turf above the panicked gabble of voices around him. With twenty paces between the opposing forces one man broke clear of the other attackers, not a giant, but with long legs that flew across the grass.

‘Hold. Hold. Hold.’ The shout of a centurion was repeated along the line by the double-pay men.

The warrior with the long legs screamed a mindless, high-pitched message filled with venom and launched himself from ten paces, feet first, at the painted insignia of a legionary shield. It was a suicidal one-man bid to crack open the Roman line that appeared as if it must succeed. But the Romans were ready.

‘Now… brace!’ The centurion roared his command. Three hundred forearms tensed in the leather shield-straps, three hundred fists tightened on the hand grip behind the heavy bronze boss and three hundred shoulders pushed forward against the bare wood of the shield’s rear surface. The attacker struck the centre of the line with the force of a charging bullock, but the shock of his flying leap was absorbed not only by the man whose shield he had targeted, but by those on his right and left who had, at the last instant, edged their own shields behind his. The Briton was smashed backwards to sprawl dazed in front of the shield wall and in the same second fifty of his fellow tribesmen hit the legionary line in an avalanche of bodies with all the power of hate behind it. When they met, the very air shook with the impact. The Roman shield wall buckled and contorted, but, incredibly, it held, and the frustrated warriors leapt to their feet and began pounding the hated insignia with their swords. But a long sword needs room to be swung and before they could make more than two or three swingeing cuts the main British force was crushing them forward against the Roman line. Trapped between the two pressures, they could only jab ineffectually at the helmeted heads showing behind the shields. Now it was time for the scorpion sting of the gladius. The legionaries’ short swords with their needle-sharp triangular points had been designed for just this close work. Rufus heard the shrieks of surprise and pain as the first Britons died, their exposed bellies pierced as the defenders stabbed between their big shields at the nearest foe and wrenched the blades free in the classic gutting stroke. From between each pair of legionaries, the spears of the second rank darted and jabbed at neck, face and shoulder, ripping at eyes and throats. The first blood of the afternoon stained the crushed blooms of the blue and yellow flowers and ran down to nourish the fertile earth of the meadow.

The noise of the battle was an assault on Rufus’s ears. A cacophony of grunts and screams; howls of mortal agony and roars of frustration; the mighty, reverberating clang of the British warriors’ long iron swords against the hardened wood of Roman shields: the damp, butcher’s-block thud of a sword edge hacking into muscle and bone.

He attempted to move Bersheba away from the fighting through the ranks of panicking baggage slaves with their mules and oxen, but even the elephant’s enormous bulk could only make slow progress. As they went, he felt her twitch beneath him and he struggled to hold her as she danced and shuffled, threatening to crush the terrified men around her. Now another sound registered itself on Rufus’s senses, a whizzing, quicksilver buzz like the high-speed passage of some giant insect. Suddenly he understood why she was so animated. He looked beyond the melee of warriors struggling to overcome the Roman line in what had become a great shoving match. A dozen men stood clear of the ruck and he saw one of them swing his arm four or five times in a circular motion before unleashing some missile towards them. This time he heard the smack as a round stone an inch across hit Bersheba on the rump, making her dance sideways. Slingers; of course the British would have slingers. They were at the limit of their range and the stones were as little threat to Bersheba as fleabites, but annoying just the same. Another missile whirred as it passed close above his head and Rufus realized with a thrill of fear that, although the elephant was safe from the attack, her rider was not. If any one of the stones which were bouncing so harmlessly from Bersheba’s leathery skin hit his head it would smash his skull like an eggshell.

He was manoeuvring his way down her flank to a less exposed position when he noticed the spearman. The bright-blue boar tattooed upon his chest made him stand out even in that jostling crowd of warriors. He was tall, with the broad shoulders of a wrestler, and the arm that was thrown back was as thick as one of Rufus’s thighs. His massive fist was wrapped round the shaft of a seven-foot ash spear. As Rufus watched, the arm whipped forward. It was an incredible cast, and he could barely believe the speed with which the spear crossed the hundred paces that separated them. Surely it must fall short? Please be short. But he realized with horror that its arc was bringing it directly towards him. To Bersheba. Its aim would bring it plunging into her ribs close to the top of her right foreleg. If it had enough force behind it, it could penetrate her lungs.