Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

‘Where the fuck are you going?’ I hissed at Titus as the big man led the mule away from the army’s survivors in the open ground and deeper into the forest.

‘Home,’ he said simply.

‘Titus,’ I tried. ‘Those are our mates out there. They’re still alive. Didn’t you see them?’

‘I saw them.’ He pushed a branch out of the way of his face.

‘Then where the fuck are you going?’ I demanded again.

‘Home.’

It was too much.

I raised my blade. Its edge was thick with congealed blood that smeared across the coarse hair of the big man’s throat.

‘Kill me, or get out of my way,’ he ordered, and I had never seen the brute so calm. So at peace. What reason could possibly compel him to walk away from his comrades’ side with such serenity?

‘I’ve got a son,’ Titus answered the question in my eyes. ‘He served with the fleet, and three years ago, his ship was lost at sea.’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘That’s why you rejoined the eagles,’ I managed eventually.

Titus nodded. Having lost his boy, he had gone back to the closest thing he had to a family. A family he was now abandoning.

In pleading tones, I told him as much.

‘My boy’s alive,’ Titus answered me, and almost smiled. ‘Just before we left Minden, I got word. My boy is alive, Felix. He’s in trouble, but he’s alive.’

I thought back to those days when we had marched out of camp, Titus withdrawn into himself, sullen and despondent. I had assumed it was due to the prospect of the upcoming campaign, but it was the scars of the past that had troubled him.

‘Titus,’ I began, ‘you have a son, but those are our brothers out there. We can’t leave them to die.’

‘You and me? What can we do?’ he whispered, his eyes flickering across the forest. ‘We’re two bastard-soldiers, Felix. Arminius has almost wiped out three fucking legions. If it was Stumps and Moon standing here now, and you and me out there in the open with our balls in our hands, I’d tell them to run as fast as they fucking could.’

I couldn’t argue with his logic. I would do the same.

And yet.

‘We can’t just leave them to die.’

Titus ran a gnarled hand over the cracked skin of his face. His chest rising like a mountain in earthquake, the man sighed. ‘We all died when we came into this forest, Felix, but for you and me, this is our chance for a new life. Out of all the people in this army, you should be the one to understand that.’

I made no reply, and so those were the last words that Titus spoke to me. I wanted to talk, but no words would come, so I simply watched as he led the mule and the legion’s pay chests into the forest, until his thick shoulders were swallowed by the green.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. From an army of thousands, and a handful of comrades, I was once again alone.

But I did not have to end my life that way, I realized. I had a choice.

I turned my back on Titus, and sought out death.

Moving through the trees, I collected a spear from a German corpse. The man’s lips had twisted in death, giving him a bemused expression. Even the dead seemed to chide me for the decision I was making.

Finding the Roman survivors was a simple enough task. The battle was still in a lull, but the screams of wounded men, and the taunts of those who were still thirsty for blood and glory, guided me through the trees like a ship following a lighthouse.

Wanting to be nimble on my feet, and knowing how drained my body was, I discarded my battered helmet and slipped the chain-mail shirt over my head, gasping at the pain – my shoulders had been rubbed raw beneath the summer tunic.

Finally unburdened, but with my muscles screaming at even such a simple effort, I began to stalk my way at a crouch to the forest’s edge. Aside from the dead, I seemed to be alone within the trees. The foe had his eyes on a bigger prize than the lone stragglers of the army.

The army . I looked at it now, all that was left of it. A thousand bloodied men who had already gone through everything that nature and the enemy could throw at them. Somehow, they still stood, though I did not deceive myself that any of these brave warriors thought that they could come through this ordeal alive. Like myself, they had committed themselves to death here, beneath the blue German skies.

Not so the warriors of the tribes. Under Arminius, the Germans had won a great victory. It was a victory that would spread ripples of fear throughout the Empire, and yet their glory had been secured at a terrible cost, and the open ground was littered with German dead. With my own eyes I had seen hundreds fall in the forest. To break apart the final Roman stand would likely take hundreds more German lives, and a man is far less likely to throw himself against sword and shield when he knows that the spoils of victory are so close at hand. That was why the Roman soldiers were left swaying on their feet, their enemy watching them, poised, yet nervous.

And so it was for Arminius to ride forward towards the men he had once called allies, comrades and brothers.

It made my skin itch and crawl to see him, but I realized instantly that it was not because of his treason. It was because, in every movement, and every ounce of his poise, Arminius showed nothing but grace and dignity. Despite the horrors, despite the bloodshed, this man was totally assured that his cause was just.

Could I argue that it wasn’t?

‘Soldiers of Rome!’ he called in a voice that commanded attention from every man, no matter how battle-shocked. ‘It is time for you to end your suffering.’

‘Fuck off, cunt!’ came shooting back from the Roman ranks; the call was picked up by a dozen voices, though most men remained like stone, too drained to offer challenge.

‘Your leaders abandoned you, soldiers!’ Arminius countered, undeterred. ‘They fell on their own swords, instead of standing by your side. Why should you fight for weak men like that? Why should you die? You have done all that honour could demand, and a thousandfold more. Like Hector’s, your defeat will be remembered in history for its glory. There is no shame in it! None! It is time to end this bloodshed.’

I did not expect any further taunts from the ranks, nor were there. The Roman survivors were being offered the slightest chance of life, and every man was weighing that in his mind, playing out the most hopeful of scenarios.

The Roman leader stepped forward from the ranks.

Prefect Caeonius. He lived. This man had ultimate authority, and would determine the course of the Roman army, and so I found my fate once again in the hands of the two warriors who had discovered me as a bloody apparition in the sacred grove.

With his thick shoulders drawn back, Caeonius walked out from between the shields. Even from a distance, I could see that his armour was bent and bloodied. Here was a true leader, one who had been in the thick of the action. The most salted veteran in the legions, who loved and valued the soldiers beneath his command. He would not fritter away their lives needlessly.

‘What are your terms?’ he called.

I had expected that Caeonius would have made some comment about Arminius’s treachery, but he was so long in the tooth that he had seen Roman allies – even Roman senators – cast aside their allegiance for vainglory.

Arminius had proved himself to be a great commander. Now he recognized Caeonius as an equal, and climbed from his saddle so that both men stood on the bloodied turf.

Arminius’s words were simple, the tone neutral yet unyielding as they carried across the field. ‘Your soldiers will surrender, Caeonius, and be taken into slavery.’

Slavery . The word struck like an arrow. Depending on the conditions, it was as much of a death sentence as defying Arminius and his tribesmen on this battlefield. Backbreaking labour in mines and fields – what terms were those?