Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5) (48 page)

In the night Brutus had found sleep for a few brief moments before a unit of extraordinarii reached him with news that Cassius had taken his own life. His first response had been anger at the old man’s loss of faith, in their cause and in him. It was not over. They had
not
lost.

In the cool darkness, he’d drunk water and chewed on a piece of dried meat, while the cavalry officer watched him in the dim light of an oil lamp. Finally, Brutus made his decision.

‘Send your men out to every legion under Cassius. My orders are to form up on the plain below.’

The man went running for his horse, disappearing into the night as he passed on the order and his men scattered.

Brutus stood at the bottom of the ridge. He knew he could not command two separate armies of that size, not without Cassius. Orders took too long on different fronts, arriving after the situation had changed and causing chaos. His only choice was to bring them together into one host, or see them cut apart separately.

Under the stars, vast forces marched past each other on the ridge and around the marshes. They moved in deliberate silence, not knowing whether they passed friends or foes in the dark and with no particular desire to find out. It was true Brutus left Mark Antony in control of Philippi, but he thought the man would gain no benefit from the walled town. Mark Antony and Octavian had come to Greece to attack, not to remain behind defences. With Cassius already dead, Brutus knew they would want to complete the victory and take revenge for their losses the day before. He smiled grimly at the thought. Let them come. He had waited his whole life.

As the sun rose, his legions drew up on the great plain at the foot of Philippi. Brutus spoke to each of the legates, one by one or in groups as they came to him. He was ready to fight again, legion against legion, pitting his ability to lead against the talents of Mark Antony and Caesar.

When there was light enough to see, Brutus rode along his ranks, judging the numbers left to him. His army had lost thousands, but they had taken the main camp of Mark Antony and Caesar and driven their legions back with many more dead. Bodies still littered the great ridge, glittering like dead wasps in the dawn.

In Philippi, Mark Antony had seen the vast array on the plain and begun to march his legions down. Brutus could see them coming, accepting the challenge. Mark Antony had always been arrogant, he recalled. He doubted the man had much choice, even so. His legates would pressure him even if he tried to hold back.

Brutus had seen the vast, deserted camp on the plain. Everything valuable had already been taken, though Brutus was sorry none of his men had reported the death of Caesar. It would have been somehow fitting if Octavian and Cassius had both fallen on the same day, leaving the two old lions of Rome to fight it out. Brutus could still hardly believe he was in sole command, but the thought did not displease him. He was at the head of a Roman army. There was no Gnaeus Pompey, no Julius Caesar there to gainsay his orders. This battle would be his alone. Brutus exulted in the rightness of it. For this, he had killed Caesar in Pompey’s theatre. He was out of the shadow of others at last.

He looked up as a great cheer went up from Octavian’s legions, less than a mile from his ranks. He could see a distant figure riding up and down the lines there. Brutus gripped his sword hilt tightly, understanding it had to be Octavian, that the young man had survived to fight again. He told himself it didn’t matter to him. Seeing the pretender fall would only add to the sweetness of the day to come. It was a strange thought to know he had only two enemies left in the world and they would both face him that day across the plain of Philippi. Mark Antony would be confident, he thought. His men had done well, though Cassius had denied them the chance to capture him. Brutus gave silent thanks for the old man’s courage. At least the day would not begin with the spectacle of a public execution.

Octavian had yet to prove himself. His legions had run the day before and they would be seething with that humiliation, determined to restore their honour. Brutus smiled coldly at the thought. His men fought for liberty. It would do just as well.

Octavian was sweating, his body wet with it, though he had ridden barely a mile up and down the lines. He knew he had to let the men see him, to remind them they fought for Caesar, but he felt as if only his armour held him up, his body as weak as a child’s.

He saw a messenger galloping across his ranks with dash, a young man delighting in his own speed. When the rider reined in, he was panting and flushed.

‘Discens Artorius reporting, Consul.’

‘
Tell
me Mark Antony hasn’t found something else to delay him,’ Octavian replied.

The extraordinarii rider blinked and shook his head. ‘No, sir. He sent me to let you know Senator Cassius is dead. They found his body last night, up in the town.’

Octavian looked over his shoulder at the legions opposing him. There was no sign of Cassius’ banners in the cluster around the command position. He wiped sweat from his eyes.

‘Thank you. That is … most welcome.’

Those around him had overheard the rider and the news spread quickly. A ripple of thin cheering followed, though in the main the men were indifferent. They hardly knew Cassius beyond his name. Yet Brutus still lived and his legions were the ones who had forced the rout the day before. His legions were the ones they wanted to break. Octavian could see the determination in every face as he looked down the ranks. They surely knew the fighting would be hard, but they were more than ready for it to begin.

The two Roman armies faced each other over a mile while the remaining legions came down from Philippi. As Mark Antony was coming in from the east, Octavian had to give him the right wing. He knew the man would expect it and he could hardly make him march through his ranks to take position on the left. Octavian sat and sipped from a canteen, feeling the breeze dry the sweat on his face. Mark Antony seemed to be taking his time, as if he sensed the armies would stand all day until he arrived.

While he waited, Octavian half expected a sudden attack from the legions under Brutus. His men were certainly tense, waiting for it, but it seemed Brutus preferred not to leave a flank open to fresh legions coming off the ridge halfway through the battle.

The morning wore on, the sun moving slowly up to noon. Octavian tossed the empty canteen back to Agrippa and accepted another as the right wing formed piece by piece and the military powers of Rome faced each other on a foreign field. It would be brutal when it began, Octavian realised. No matter what the outcome, Rome would lose much of her strength for years to come. A generation would be cut down on the plains of Philippi.

On both sides, the extraordinarii gathered on the furthest point of the wings. Their peacetime roles as message-carriers and scouts were only to keep them occupied when they were not fighting. Octavian watched as the cloaked cavalrymen drew long swords and shields for their true purpose, their horses milling and snorting as the animals felt the growing excitement in their riders. He looked to his right, where Mark Antony had taken position at last in the third rank. The town and ridge were empty of men. They were ready.

Octavian trotted his mount back to his own position behind the first and second fighting lines. The sun crept over the noon point as both sides prepared, emptying bladders where they stood and sipping at waterskins or canteens they would try to ration through the day’s heat. Against so many, a battle could not be over quickly and they had to prepare to fight all day. In the end, it would come down to stamina and will.

Octavian checked his lines of command to his legates one last time, asking for confirmation that they were ready. Seven of them still lived, with Silva’s body somewhere among the carrion meat from the previous day. He did not know the man who had replaced him, but he knew the others. He knew their strengths and weaknesses; the ones who were rash and the ones who were cautious. Brutus would have no such personal knowledge of the legions he commanded, especially not those he had gained from Cassius. It was an edge and Octavian intended to use it.

The responses came back quickly and Octavian made what plans he could beyond the first clash. The left wing was his to command.

The men were looking to him, waiting for the order. Agrippa and Maecenas were there at his side, steady and solemn. They had saved his life when he was senseless with fever. It seemed another lifetime somehow and he felt the cares and trials of months fall away as he sat his horse and stared across the plain. His body was weak, but it was just a tool. He was still strong where it mattered.

Octavian took a deep breath and a mile away the legions of Brutus began to move. He raised and dropped his hand and his own ranks began to march, the release of tension palpable as they strode towards the enemy. On his right, Mark Antony gave the same order. Out on the wings of both armies, extraordinarii dug in their heels, holding back their mounts as they eased forward, forming slight horns past the marching legionaries. Cornicens blew long notes across the lines, sounding the advance.

The two armies walked over dry ground, raising great clouds behind the front ranks as the gap between them shrank down to a thread that was suddenly made black with thousands of spears in the air. Arrows came from the Parthian horsemen, cutting holes in the extraordinarii. The thread wavered as both sides soaked up dead and wounded men, stepping over and around them and breaking into a run. They crashed into each other with a noise like thunder on the plain.

Brutus felt a deadly calm settle on him, a coldness at the centre of his chest as the armies came together. He was not a young man to be carried away on a tide of excitement and fear, and he gave orders with cool detachment. He frowned slightly to himself as he saw how long it took for them to be carried out, but he had not given complete freedom to his legates. This was
his
battle, though he began to learn how hard it is to command the best part of ninety thousand in the field. It was a larger army than Pompey had ever commanded, or Sulla, or Marius, or Caesar.

He saw his Parthian archers do well on the right wing, surging forward almost a mile away from his position in the centre. He sent a command across the marching lines for them to go wide and empty their quivers into the enemy extraordinarii from a safe distance before closing with swords. It was the right order, but by the time it reached them, they had already pulled back and the moment was lost.

At first, his legions pushed against both wings of the enemy and he felt a glittering pleasure as his men cut their way through thousands of Mark Antony’s men. The shade of Cassius would be watching and he wanted the old man to see.

It didn’t last long. Where his lines grew weak, the enemy legions advanced before he could shore them up with reinforcements. When his men won a temporary advantage and cut into the forces with Octavian, they found fast-moving legions thickening the ranks against them and brief chances vanished like frost in the sun. Having two commanders halved the time it took for them to control their chains of command and though the difference was subtle, it began to tell more and more as the afternoon crept past in blood and pain.

Brutus felt it happening. He could see the battlefield in his head as if from above, a trick of perspective he had learned from his tutors years before. When he saw the unwieldy lines of command were hampering his legions, he grew afraid. He sent fresh orders to cast his legates loose from overall control for a time, in the hope that they would respond faster on their own. It made no difference. One of Cassius’ Syrian legates staged a wild attack, forming an immense wedge formation that cut past Octavian’s front rank. Ten thousand men shifted right in saw orders against them, bolstering the lines and slaughtering the Syrian legionaries on two sides. None of his legates had moved fast enough to support the attack and the numbers of dead were terrible. The wedge fell apart inside Octavian’s ranks, engulfed in a flood.

Brutus sent an order to rotate his own front line. For the length of a legion, two panting ranks moved back in tight formation with shields up, allowing fresh men to the fore. Beyond that distance, the front two ranks fought on, the order getting lost somewhere on the way. It was infuriating, but Brutus had to roar for extraordinarii messengers and send them out to the legates a second time.

He took full command once more and the entire front line eased back and then forward as unblooded soldiers came through with harsh voices bellowing. They pushed on for a few brief moments, hacking down men who were panting and growing weary. Then the orders were mirrored and they faced fresh men in turn, all along the clashing front.

Brutus found he had to move his horse back a step as the men in front of him were driven in on themselves. He cursed, shouting encouragement. He saw his Parthian archers had been cut to pieces, caught by swordsmen while they still held bows. His entire right wing was in danger of being flanked as Octavian’s legions began to spill around it.