Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

It was Cnaeus. The young soldier staggered to his feet, and began to search for his helm.

‘Leave it!’ Chickenhead roared, pushing the youngster back towards the century.

The troops on either side of the track were hastily overlapping their shields as lead shot bounced from the protection like angry hail.

We collected our own shields and filed into ranks two deep. I found myself at the front, crouching, my shield covering from the floor. Behind me, Rufus held his shield aloft, raising the height of our barricade. In such a formation, the shot could do little damage to us, but I remembered the legate’s words from the orders group, and how the Germans had used the defensive posture of the legionaries in their favour.

‘Watch for spearmen!’ I shouted, the confidence in my voice causing the call to be picked up and passed along by others. Sure enough, the Germans adopted the tactic.

‘Enemy left! Spearmen!’ a section commander called.

‘Javelins!’ Pavo ordered, and behind me the shield wall lowered so that men could hurl the weapons into the onrushing enemy, a half-dozen screams echoing in reward, some of them ongoing from strikes that had not proved immediately fatal.

‘Get the shields back up!’ a voice shouted, for the Germans’ slingshots had pelted the lines as soon as the defences had been lowered.

A legionary stepped back from the rear ranks, clutching his face and groaning in agony. I was close enough to see Pavo pull away the hands to inspect the wound.

‘Shut up! You’re fine! Hold the line!’ he told the man, whose eye was mashed to jelly.

The two-high wall of shields was intact once more and, not wanting to waste their shot, the slingers in the undergrowth held their aim. A weary lull settled over the skirmish.

This was Pavo’s moment. He had to seize the initiative from the enemy. He had to clear us from the killing ground. Right or wrong, he had to make a decision.

‘What the fuck is he playing at?’ Stumps hissed when no orders were forthcoming. ‘We can’t just sit here.’

But that is exactly what we did. Occasionally, a German light spear would come sailing over the shields, but the enemy were weary of our tight formation, and held back. Crouching and cold, my legs began to cramp. With something of a happy revelation, I realized that I needed to piss. I relished the warmth that spread through what was already a filthy loincloth. Soaking wet as I was, and surrounded by enemies, what difference would pissing myself make?

‘I don’t like this,’ said Chickenhead, working his gums. ‘They’ve probably sent runners to get their friends. No one’s coming for us.’

Stumps poked me. ‘This is where your mate, the prince, is supposed to ride up the track and save us.’

‘Maybe we’ll see him soon,’ I answered. ‘In the afterlife.’

It took the soldier a moment to decide if I was joking, unused as he was to hearing humour pass my lips, no matter how dark. ‘You’re a strange one, you.’

I took the lull as an opportunity to look at Pavo. He stood in the formation’s centre, his eyes on the three dead men that had fallen foul of the enemy’s traps.

‘He’s shitting himself,’ Moonface sneered, seeing the same.

‘No,’ I told him, certain it was not fear that was paralysing the centurion. ‘He doesn’t want to leave them behind. He knows what will happen to them.’

A German light spear eventually interrupted Pavo’s silent debate with the dead, the weapon arcing over the line to graze the thigh of a soldier in the opposite rank, the man’s flesh opening in a wound soon washed bright by the rain.

‘We leave the dead,’ Pavo ordered, his words hard now that his mind was made up. ‘Take their weapons. Leave nothing for the goat-fuckers. We’re going back to the camp.’

Those were his orders, but their execution would have been difficult enough with only the weather and the glutinous mud of the track to contend with, let alone the enemy that now dogged us as we began the slow march. For the most part, the Germans stuck to the forest’s cover, picking at us from a distance with sling and light spear, but occasionally a cloaked warrior – doubtless keen to make a reputation for himself – would charge our shields with his heavy ash spear. Locked in formation as we were, we were unable to reply in kind.

‘Bastard!’ Titus spat when a German’s spear found a soft spot between shields, the iron head slicing across his thick forearm. ‘That’s fucking it!’ he growled, and issued his own, private orders to the section.

The next time a German charged, Rufus and Moonface dropped their shields unexpectedly so the spear passed harmlessly through open air. Titus snatched at the shaft, yanking it forward, the German’s momentum carrying his shocked face straight into a thrust of the brute’s short sword.

‘Shields back up – fuck!’ Rufus exclaimed, struck in the shoulder as the lead rain began once again.

‘You OK?’ Titus asked.

‘I think so. Arm’s dead, though. Can’t raise my shield.’

‘Just stay behind me.’

Rufus wasn’t the only man hurt; a steady chorus of yelps and shouts came from the century as lead shot found its mark, or a spear slipped between shields.

Suddenly, the retreat came to a shuddering halt.

‘Trees on the track!’ The call came from the head of the formation.

The enemy had bided its time, dropping obstructions behind us. They’d toyed with us on the path, but now they’d get what they really wanted.

‘Break track!’ Pavo ordered without hesitation. ‘Find a way around!’ He pushed his way into the leading rank so that he could look for the course himself. No doubt he did his best, but the undulating ground, waterlogged gullies and thick vegetation soon did to our formation what the German warriors could not.

It began to come apart.

The gaps were small, at first: a dropped shield as a soldier slipped; exposed shins as they crested a mound. Inevitably, however, the gaps widened, men so focused on making headway that the integrity of the whole suffered. Cries of pain echoed from the ranks. I stepped over our first dead of the retreat, the man unmarked but for a small divot in his forehead.

‘Maybe he’s just stunned?’ young Cnaeus pleaded, unable to take his eyes from the body.

‘Leave him,’ Titus growled. ‘Keep that fucking shield up!’

As our retreat began to show the first signs of desperation, nature decided to heap on further misery. The downpour increased, the wind howling in huge gusts that shook the tree trunks. We forged on into the storm – and our enemies closed about us.

We saw them in numbers for the first time, now. They sensed our weakness, but held back in the shadows, trailing us as a hunter would track a wounded boar. They knew that we were still dangerous, and none of them was eager to die. The fact that they were so patient in their stalking worried me.

‘There’s more of them ahead,’ Chickenhead prophesied, but the veteran was wrong; there were more of them everywhere, and as the evermore numerous host appeared out of the trees, they pushed closer.

Cnaeus began to shake, almost uncontrollably. ‘It’s just the cold. It’s just the cold,’ he repeated, desperate to convince himself.

Spearmen began to rush forward in knots. They did not throw their weapons, but used them to jab and stab at the space around our shields.

‘They’re not throwing them,’ Chickenhead noted, as if it were of importance.

‘So fucking what?’ Moonface snapped, angry that a spear had slipped by his guard and into his mail. The armour had stopped the blow, but he was still panting from the impact.

‘So they’ve got a limited supply,’ Chickenhead explained. ‘They’re not happy with just seeing us off and going home.’