Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

Malchus was no coward, and for him to issue orders for killing with such economy, I knew that he feared the futility of this mission as much as I did. We were a tiny force attempting to assault an army of thousands. They were alert, and would fall on our attack like a landslide. Every inch of my experience told me that this was an act of stupidity, and lethal. It told Malchus the same. Maybe even dim-witted Micon could see it.

But what did it matter? We were soldiers, and the command had been given. We would not be the first to charge forward with doubt about our orders in our minds. We would not be the last.

‘Let’s go,’ I heard whispered from the darkness, then the wraith-like figures uncoiled from the forest floor.

‘Stay together,’ I urged my own men, hoping that I had suppressed the fear in my voice.

Within a moment I reached the bramble bushes at the forest’s edge, the barbs snagging and tugging at my tunic, ripping at my skin. I pushed through, hearing other men curse beneath their breath as the vines gripped their shins like attention-starved children.

‘Get through,’ I urged, my voice higher now that the adrenaline was coming. ‘Get through,’ I said again, clearing the last of the bushes and stepping out beyond the trees’ reach.

The German camp was clear ahead of me now, braziers throwing warm light against the canvas of dozens of tents. Glancing left and right, I saw the black figures of ghosts racing across the open ground, their footfalls padded, breaths rapid.

I looked over my shoulder. Enough of my section’s silhouettes had made it through the natural barricade. We were falling behind the others. It was time.

I ran. Like every other idiot in the raiding party, I pushed away my reservations and rational thought, and instead sprinted headlong at an enemy encampment where I knew that death awaited me.

Why did I do this?

For Rome, the city I had never seen? For the Emperor, a man who had wrested power and kept it through violence and civil war? For glory? What was that? Something celebrated by people who had never experienced the cost of buying it.

No. None of that. I sprinted towards the enemy and death because, if I did not reach it first, then one of my men might, and if they died I would be racked with shame, guilt and sorrow. I charged at the enemy because my comrades did. They charged at the enemy because I did. If one of us had pulled out, then perhaps we all would have done, but the army relies on pride and the bonds of brotherhood to drive soldiers into the jaws of death, and so we ran willingly towards our fate.

We were almost at the tents when the first cries of alarm rang out. There was no need for Brando and Folcher to translate the words, and I knew that the enemy would now be rousing and rallying to meet our attack with their own counter. Our lives were now measured in seconds. We had entered death’s domain, and to climb out we would need to kill.

‘Into the tents!’ I ordered my men, all need for stealth gone now as we finally crossed the open ground. I ran with Folcher and Brando to the closest canvas, Folcher stepping forward to pull back the flap so that we could charge inside and butcher the occupants. Instead, in a split second of spurting blood and a gargled cry of pain, Folcher stumbled back from the tent’s opening with a spear-point in his throat.

‘Folcher!’ Brando cried, reaching for his friend, all thoughts of attack forgotten as Folcher crashed on to his back.

Three Germans burst from their tent in the same moment. Half-dressed and unarmoured, the seconds of warning had been enough for them to pick up weapons and shields. Now, the trio of bearded warriors came at me as a howling pack.

If I had an advantage, it was that my muscles were already loose and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. An inch marks the divide between life and death in battle, and I was able to step out of the arc of a swinging blade, lunging to my right and driving my javelin into a thigh. The man went down but he took my weapon with him, and so I was still pulling my short sword free of its sheath when the other two came at me, roaring threats and murder.

Brando fell on to their exposed backs like a violent landslide. He held no weapon, instead grabbing fistfuls of hair as he bit at the men’s faces and plunged a thumb into a German eye. That warrior cried in agony as Brando pushed it in deeper and deeper, and the Batavian’s teeth sank into the flesh of a cheek. Brando’s rage had consumed him, and it was almost a look of relief that passed over the second German’s face as I drove my freed blade into his heart, and saved him the savage fate that had befallen his partner. By the time that Brando backed away, the dead German at his feet was as mauled as a bear’s victim in the arena.

I moved past my comrade, desperate to seek out the rest of the section. Free of my own immediate life-or-death struggle, I now became aware of the shouts and screams that were ringing out around us, and, above it all, a whistle.

‘We have to go!’ I told Brando, grabbing him.

Despite the gore on his face, the man’s eyes were sharp and focused. ‘Help me with Folcher,’ he told me.

I followed him to the dark shape of his friend. Instinctively, I knew that he had passed.

‘Help me get him on my back,’ Brando urged me.

‘He’s dead, Brando.’

‘I know that he’s dead,’ the man told me with the calm that precedes a warrior’s grief. ‘But I’m not leaving him here. Help me.’

I did, pushing the body of our friend on to the Batavian’s wide shoulders. My hands came away warm, and wet.

‘Get to the rally point,’ I told him. ‘I need to find the others. Go.’

Brando broke off at a run, adrenaline compensating for the burden of his comrade’s body. The whine of the whistle still pierced the night, but it was moving now, towards the trees. The clash of blades had dropped, but the screams were growing. So too the German commands and challenges. Had the raid become a rout?

There was no way for me to tell: I was between the tents, and my world was confined to the few yards around me.

‘Seven Section!’ I shouted. ‘Seven Section!’

No voice returned my call. No figures appeared around me.

‘Seven Section!’ I tried again. This time, there was movement to my right.

Germans.

A pair of swordsmen. One carried a torch in his left hand, and by the glow of those flames I saw the excitement etched into their hungry faces. With a sudden sickening realization, I realized why.

My hands were empty.

They charged at me, eager to butcher such idiot prey. On instinct I turned, and ran.

I’m not sure which body tripped me, but I tasted blood and dirt as my face drove into the floor like a spade. The golden light and shadow cast by the torch told me that a blade was on its way into my back, and so I rolled sideways. It bought me a moment to push away, but the torchbearer saw my eyes on an escape, and broke from his partner so that they faced me from both sides.

I looked quickly from one man to the other, needing to know which would be the first to attack. Both were young, and grinning. Both were eager for the kill.

They came at me in the same moment. Trapped in the alleyway between tents, I was left with no other option. With all my strength, I threw myself against the tent’s canvas, and prayed that the tent pegs had not been driven so deeply into the wet soil that the lines would take my weight.

They didn’t, and the canvas buckled beneath me, rope snapping free of the dirt as the tent’s side collapsed. Already I was moving, needing to free myself before they recovered from the unexpected. I escaped a swipe of a blade by inches, coming off the canvas like a sprinter at the games. The Germans were on my heels, but my arms were empty, and I used them to power my steps, charging between the tents, knowing that if there were any Germans in my way I would have no other option but to try and run by them. I was under no illusion that such a tactic would leave me gutted from a sword’s swing, but what choice did I have?