Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

‘You’re better off on foot in a forest,’ Chickenhead countered. ‘Smaller target. Too easy to get picked off from a distance with a horse.’

‘I see you’re a bundle of joy this morning.’

‘Shut it, now,’ Titus ordered.

The forest was twenty paces away.

As we entered the trees, I half expected to be greeted by a chorus of screams and war cries. Instead, the barrage of sound decreased, and the foliage gave some small shelter from the wind and rain.

I hadn’t been the only one expecting trouble to welcome us, and its absence caused more unease amongst the century than an attack would have done; helmeted heads bobbed and twitched as men scanned their surroundings. Ahead, Pavo forged on, and it wasn’t long until we found an obstruction across the track – a tangle of branches brought down by the wind. It was easily negotiable for men on foot, but the already struggling baggage train would need it cleared.

‘Work party up,’ Pavo ordered. The command was passed along the ranks in a hushed whisper, men daring to hope that they could remain in the forest undetected. Eight soldiers – armed with axes, saws and entrenching tools – made their way up to the obstacle, while the other legionaries of the century turned out to the flanks, crouching behind their shields with javelins ready.

I looked over the iron rim of my protection, trying to methodically scan the woodland ahead of me. The rain made identifying details impossible, and with the dawn a carpet of mist was beginning to rise from the forest floor. There could have been a war band a stone’s throw away, and we would have been none the wiser.

The sound of chopping axes and biting saws mixed with the rain, and I turned from my shield to glance at the men dragging the deadfall from the track.

Deadfall .

‘Don’t!’ I screamed.

Too late.

Unleashed by the movement of its counterweight, and as if it had been hurled by a god, a thick log came swinging from the canopy.

Some of the work party saw it coming and threw themselves flat into the mud. Some were fortunate to be outside its arc, and watched it glide through the air with wide eyes.

Others were not so lucky.

Two men – either slowed by fatigue, or shock – remained in the deadfall’s path, the log swatting them into the air as if they were dolls; the bodies landed with wet thumps only feet away from me.

I don’t know what I thought I could do for the stricken soldiers, but instinct compelled me to my feet. I came to the first, who was clearly dead, his chest caved in beneath the armour, blood running freely from his ears, mouth and nose. I looked at the second, and saw Pavo standing over him. The centurion’s face was wiped blank by surprise. Before I could move to help, I felt an animal grip on my shoulder.

‘Back to your place,’ Titus growled, pushing me towards the section.

‘Maybe I can help him,’ I pleaded, desperate for that to be the truth.

‘His head’s split like a fucking egg. He’s done.’

Titus shoved me down into the crouching ranks. Feet away, and despite the damage, the soldier clung to life for a few minutes more. A few minutes where knuckles went white about javelins, the soldiers certain that the enemy was about to close its trap.

I heard wet footsteps in the mud behind me. Pavo.

‘You knew,’ he stated simply. ‘You shouted, before it fell.’

There was a question there. There were a hundred questions, but Pavo wasn’t looking for answers – he was looking to survive.

‘I want you at the front,’ he told me. ‘Titus, get your boys to gather the tools. Julius’s section have to carry their dead. You’ll replace them as work party.’

The centurion didn’t wait for an answer, moving away to stare at the shattered bodies of his soldiers.

‘Do you see what you’ve fucking done?’ Titus hissed at me, eyes burning with anger. ‘He’s always looking for a way to see me off, and you just handed him one!’

‘I—’

His arm struck out like a viper, thick fingers gripping my throat. I didn’t fight back, and felt the dirty fingernails dig into my windpipe. I felt it closing, being crushed, the sight around my eyes growing black, sound coming to me as if I were underwater. I wondered if this was how it felt to die, and for one blissful moment I almost wished that he would kill me, and end the nightmare that had been my journey. My life.

But then, through darkening tunnels, I saw the limp bodies of the dead as they were hefted from the dirt by their grieving comrades, blood and fluids leaking from them like rain, and I knew that if I could have accepted death, then I would have met it an age ago, far from here.

‘Get. Your. Fucking. Hands. Off. Me,’ I managed, my thoughts growing darker than my vision.

I could see from his face that my bile surprised him, and as Titus released my windpipe, I sucked in a deep lungful of wet air.

‘You’d better get us through this,’ he threatened, regaining himself.

‘I will,’ I pledged aloud.

And then, silently, I made a promise to myself.

I promised that I would save Titus’s life, and I promised that, once I had saved it, I would take it. I promised this because, as his fingers had crushed my throat, I had remembered who I was.

And that man was a killer.

The century pushed along the forest track and, with Pavo, I was in the van. The path, barely wider than three men, twisted and turned its way by the most ancient trees and flooded gullies, some of which had overrun, the cold water shin-deep about the metal of our protective greaves.

As I steered the men through this quagmire, I tried to concentrate solely on my survival, but the anger at being placed in this exposed position fought to be heard. The big bastard Titus had threatened that I must keep his section alive. Pavo had ordered the same for his century. I had no intention of disappointing either, but I was one set of eyes, and the forest was a blank canvas for the expert German trappers. How could they ask the impossible of me? I was a soldier, not a fucking god.

Despite my distraction, I was able to uncover the enemy’s next surprise, though I had the rain to thank for the discovery. The weight of the heavy downpour had cleared away some of the foliage used to disguise the trap: a deep pit lined with sharpened stakes. I used my javelin to remove the rest of the camouflage as Pavo peered down at what would be a hideous and ignoble death.

‘Is that shit?’ he asked me, referring to the dark matter smeared on to the stakes.

‘Carries an infection into the wound, if you somehow got out,’ I told him, recalling the results of such injuries. The weeping pus. The tormented screams.

I didn’t wait to be told. I pressed on.

The going was slow. I could tell Pavo chafed at the pace, but he had seen the stakes, and I noted how he was careful to remain in my footsteps. The centurion was a quick learner.

Several times we encountered debris across the track. At these potential ambush sites I slid on to my belly, worming my way about the obstruction and searching for the pegs, rope or thick vine that would indicate something sinister. Once I’d given the all-clear, Titus and the section would move up, hacking and dragging the debris clear of the track. Each time, the big man would growl menacingly in my ear, ‘You had better be right.’

I was, but I couldn’t see everything. It was only a matter of time before the enemy, and the forest that served as their unwitting ally, would get the better of us.

That moment announced itself with a crash, closely followed by a high-pitched scream that sounded like a wailing infant’s.

I dropped instantly to a crouch, checked my front for danger, and then chanced to look behind me. A young soldier, not out of his teens, had fallen into a chest-deep pit at the track’s edge. His screams cut through the downpour like sheet lightning.