Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

‘Varo told me you lived,’ he sighed.

‘I need to find my section.’

For a moment there was silence between us. Ahead, there were screams of pain. Screams of challenge. The drum and thud of shield on shield. The ringing, torturous chime of metal on metal.

‘Your section’s gone, Corvus.’

I didn’t know what to say. We broke our embrace.

‘I need you to take the century if I go down,’ Priscus told me.

I said nothing.

‘Corvus,’ Priscus spoke sharply. ‘Now’s not the time to think of the dead. I need you to take the century if I go down. Understood?’

‘I understand,’ I said.

But in that moment, as men bled and died by the dozen not a javelin’s throw from me, I realized that I understood nothing at all.

I never had.

I thought that battle would bring me calm. Bring me a release.

All of my section were gone .

All seven of them.

I barely knew them apart from their names. I didn’t think that mattered. I was just there to lead them. Protect them.

In that I had failed.

I spat blood. Why did I think it would be any different in the legions? I was destined to fail those who relied on me. I let my chin drop to my mailed chest. Movement at ground level caught my eyes.

The wounded.

They crawled through the rank and file of the century in front of us, mouths disfigured through pain, clamped tight against agony. They were bloodied, gashed, butchered. I felt my throat tighten and stomach rise as I saw one tortured wretch dragging a length of coiled, ropey guts behind him like a boatman at the pier.

My section… were their ends so hideous?

I didn’t see the blow that sent me sideways. I staggered into another soldier, my head suddenly ringing as though it were inside a town’s bell. The rim of my helmet was down over my eyes. I pushed it up, and expected to see the enemy on top of our ranks.

Instead I saw Varo.

‘You looked like you needed it,’ he grunted.

I checked the punch I was about to throw at him. He was right.

‘What can you see?’ I asked. Varo’s height gave him an advantage. From the grimace on his face, I took that it was nothing good

‘We’re losing.’

‘We are?’

‘Line’s bending.’

How was he so fucking calm?

I looked at the sky. The carrion birds had come, drawn by the scent of open stomachs, their circling silhouettes hideous in the sunlight that was soon to fade. How long had we been fighting?

‘Long enough,’ Varo grunted as I asked him. Faced with death, I had never seen my friend so stoic. ‘Get ready,’ he told me then. He had seen something down the line. Confirmation of it came moments later.

‘Prepare to withdraw!’ echoed down the ranks.

Withdraw?

I looked down at the wounded. I saw one veteran whose knee was a mash of bone and flesh. He would not be able to keep up with the withdrawal. ‘Help me with him,’ I said to Varo, but I felt his iron grip on my arm before I had even taken a step forwards.

His eyes were still ahead on the battlefield. ‘Don’t,’ was all that he said.

‘Varo…’

‘Don’t look down, Corvus. Keep your eyes looking over the century ahead of us. Don’t look down.’

‘Varo, we…’ We what? We could carry all of our wounded in our arms? We could sprout wings and fly them from here?

What could we do?

I didn’t know, and so I made a mistake. Despite Varo’s words, I did look down. I looked down and all around, and I saw dozens of wounded. Men of my legion. Our brothers. Not all of them were dying. Some had wounds that were survivable. They could live.

If only they could walk.

‘We need to form casualty parties,’ I tried.

Varo shook his head. He was still looking to the front of the battle, where the enemy churned and smashed against our line like storm against seawall.

‘We can’t spare the men,’ he told me when I said it again, and with bile in my throat, I knew that he was right. A withdrawal was the most dangerous manoeuvre an army on the field could attempt. With no way to watch your footing, men could slip or stumble, breaking the unified front of shields, into which the enemy would rush like a plague. And they would be coming. They would be following. There was no doubt of that, now. I could smell it in the air the same as every other man. I could feel it. Feel our ranks buckling as though we stood atop an earthquake. Centurions and their optios beat and harangued their men to keep tight, keep in line, but the gaps were coming. The formation of polished, professional soldiers was gone, and in their place stood blood-painted animals who just wanted to live long enough to see another sunrise.

And for that to happen, the wounded would have to be left behind.

‘Second Cohort!’ came the voice, repeated by two dozen other leaders. ‘Second Cohort, at the half-step, withdraw!’

Terror, then. I should have listened to Varo. I should have kept my eyes up as we began the slow shuffle of shields. Instead I looked at the veteran with the ruined knee. He knew what was happening. I expected him to call out. To beg for mercy. To plead for help.

Instead I saw him smile.

Not a happy smile. Not a painful one.

A soldier’s smile. It was the smile which said that bad things happen, and on this day, on this battlefield, they had happened to him. His voice was like gravel as I heard him shout: ‘Die hard, boys! Die fucking hard!’

He pushed himself up on to his backside, and laid a sword across his lap. That was the last I saw of him. Like dozens of others who could not find their feet, he would be left to die by his own hand, or by the enemy that pressed against our front line, giving us no inch as we tried to pull away.

I took another half-pace backwards, feeling my heel hit against something of metal and flesh. It groaned. This time I did as Varo told me. I did not look down. I stepped over the obstacle – a brother of my legion – and I hoped that I could be forgiven. That he would not curse me for following my orders before the desires of my gut and heart.

I chanced a look to my side. Varo. I had always known him as a physical bastion, but today his presence was a bulwark for my mind. With him on my flank I was anchored. Steady. I could do what needed to be done.

My foot hit another wounded man. I stepped over. A few more paces. I heard whimpering. I heard someone beg for a clean end. I kept my eyes up. I saw a pair of javelins come in from the mass of the enemy. Watched them pluck a soldier I had known for three years off his feet, dead before he hit the ground. I saw a lot of things like that as we stepped back, my dry tongue stuck to the top of my mouth as though it had been nailed there. The broiling sea of the enemy gave our front lines no rest, but after some time the going became easier for those of us towards the rear – there were no more wounded to step over. Either they had walked to the rear of our force, or they were dead.

Varo: ‘We’re turning.’

I followed his eyes to the top of the steep mountain ridge on our right.

Except it was no longer on our right. It was coming ahead of us.

‘We must be wheeling the legion,’ he said.

Were we? It’s not for the rank and file to know such things. Our battle is confined to hardly more than a few javelin lengths around us – less, in the front ranks – but the position of the ridge was an undeniable truth. We were turning, moving to almost a right angle from our original position, though further down the valley, beyond our initial contact. Why? Why would we give ground this way? Our lines held intact. If they did not, we would already be a broken rabble, chased down as we fled by the enemy cavalry. So why the manoeuvre? What the fuck was going on?