Masters of Rome (11 page)

Then a massive communal grunt of exertion rose from the left as the first cohort made contact and the brutal, mechanical sword work of the Roman war machine began to the accompaniment of the shrieks of eviscerated men. A similar sound followed from the right, but much amplified, as the rest of the legion slammed into the tribesmen who had so suddenly appeared out of the night.

Now the killing began in earnest.

Vespasian parried a wild cut from a long slashing-sword, its inferior quality iron buckling in the spark-strewn impact; kicking his right leg forward, he slammed his hobnailed sole into the wielder's face, crushing the nose and punching the warrior back into the men behind, knocking them off balance. Taking advantage of the momentary lack of adversaries, he pulled his horse back and signalled for the second-rank trooper to take his place. Looking around he saw that the Hamians and Gauls behind
them were now close enough to relieve them. Just to his right he glimpsed Sergius, one of the two tribunes whom he had brought with him, dragged screaming from his horse. Now was the time to withdraw his cavalry before too many more succumbed in what was, essentially, an infantry fight. They had served their purpose; the young man had not died in vain.

‘Disengage!' he called to the
liticen
.

The shrill call of the lituus rose above the surrounding clamour; Vespasian urged his horse back towards the Hamians as the surviving troopers pulled away from the surging Britons, if they could. The warriors began to follow the retreating cavalry, mercilessly cutting down those still trapped in their midst, as they saw once again the gap open in the Roman line.

But the prefect of the Hamian archers knew what was required of him as he saw Vespasian galloping towards him yelling and pointing at the obvious danger. He immediately halted his command thirty paces from the gap; as the retreating troopers swerved left and right out of the Hamians' line of sight the eastern archers let fly a volley of shocking, close-range intensity. The front two ranks shot directly at the Britons racing through the rend in the Roman formation, drilling their shafts deep into the lead warriors, twisting them to the ground, long hair wrapping around agonised faces, whilst the rear two ranks aimed high; the second low-trajectory volley from the front ranks hit as their arrows poured down from above to bring the surge to an abrupt halt as if it had slammed into an unseen wall. A third and fourth volley, each with fewer than five heartbeats between them, beat the Britons back as if the wall itself was shunting forward, leaving only the dead behind it. Suffering grievous losses both from the head-on barrage and the metal-tipped hail pelting from the sky the warriors turned to flee, leaving the ground carpeted with their dead.

But their retreat exposed a new threat, a threat that made the blood run cold in all who beheld it. A dozen druids were revealed as the last of the warriors escaped to the safety of their shield-wall; they stood motionless, chanting, unheard above the ringing resonance of battle. But it was not their presence that
chilled the heart, nor was it the fact that despite the continued volleys of the Hamians not one fletched missile touched the softly glowing figures; it was another presence, a presence unseen but not unfelt, a presence that surrounded them, protected them and exuded an air of malevolence that caused despair to well up within all who suffered it.

Vespasian gasped as if the air was in short supply as he gazed upon what he could not comprehend. Verica's words telling him of the druids while sailing back from the Isle of Vectis almost two years previously came back to him:

‘
When my people came to this island – the bards deem it to be about twenty-five generations ago – the people we supplanted worshipped different gods; they had built great henges in their honour, ancient beyond reckoning. The druids dedicated these places to our gods but still the presence and power of some of the island's gods persisted and they demanded worship. The druids took on that responsibility and uncovered their dark secrets and rituals; they keep the knowledge to themselves and they're welcome to it; but what I know of it fills me with dread
.'

Was this then that power that the old King had spoken of? That ‘
cold power that cannot be used for good
'?

For a few moments there was an audible lull in the fighting as the malice emanating from the eerie company pierced the consciousness of both Roman and Briton. The Hamians' archery tailed off; the druids began to move forward.

Vespasian roused himself from the dread-induced paralysis. If the power that the druids wielded was allowed to carry all before them then the line would be split asunder and the II Augusta would soon cease to exist. He kicked his reluctant horse onward, heading directly for the luminous group of priests as they slowly moved forward protected by an invisible aura; behind them the Britons had started to advance again.

Suppressing the horror welling up inside him, Vespasian screamed incoherently, brandishing his sword as he closed on the druids; such was their concentration on their incantation that they took no notice of the oncoming threat. He urged on his increasingly unwilling mount, ready to swipe the head from the
lead druid's shoulders, but when he pulled his arm back for the killing blow he felt himself suddenly rise as if he had been hauled out of the saddle by an unseen hand from above. His horse reared, screeching; it toppled backwards as if violently shoved and Vespasian flew from its back. He landed with spine-jarring force amongst the dead; the air was pushed from his lungs and his eyes lost focus. As his vision cleared he saw the druids coming on in the glow of their own luminescence and the flicker of the conflagration now raging in the hill-fort: old and young, dark-haired or grey, all wore a symbol of the sun around their necks and had an image of the crescent moon hanging from their belts. All chanted in unison and all stared at him with cold satisfaction as he lay catching his breath on the ground, and Vespasian knew, with profound certainty, that they had come for him; they had drawn him towards them in a reckless charge.

Vespasian felt a chill grasp at his feet as the druids approached and the malevolent atmosphere enshrouding them began to slip over him; he stared in terror, unable to move, although he instinctively knew that not to do so would mean yielding to the power that was gradually creeping up his body. He screamed ‘No!' repeatedly, deafening himself, and yet no sound came from his lips. He could see nothing else but the hunger of the druids for him alone; he could hear no sound from the battle that he knew was still raging. The chill had become so intense that his teeth were now chattering and his heartbeat, which should have pounded with fear, decreased. A flash crossed his vision from the right and he felt a jolt in the power, now slithering up his thighs, freezing his bones to the marrow. His muscles spasmed in shock and his chattering teeth clenched in sudden pain; his head jerked back and his jaw relaxed. The chill abruptly disappeared. He could hear again, he realised, and the sound was the cries of men dying in torment, men dying very close by; and mingled with their cries was a word, shouted repeatedly: ‘Taranis!'

Pulling his arm from over his eyes he saw, as if Time's chariot had slowed, a sword rising through the air, flashing reflected firelight, trailing dark gobbets of blood, as it left a head spinning in
its wake above the robed body to which it had once belonged, standing as rigid as a statue. Mesmerised, he followed the sword's arc as it carved through the air to slice into the cheek of another druid, exploding his teeth from his mouth as his jaw slumped open to hang by a few gory sinews that vibrated with the inarticulate, bestial roar that issued from the gaping throat. Cogidubnus kicked the stricken man aside and slammed his weapon, point first, into the chest of the next druid; the rest turned and ran. Vespasian came back to his full senses; he grasped his sword lying next to him and jumped to his feet as the Britannic King despatched the rearmost druid with a savage, double-handed cut across the small of his back, severing the spine and slicing the kidneys in two.

Vespasian looked past the fleeing druids; the Britons were wavering, unwilling to advance into the gap now that the spell their priests had woven was broken; to either side the fighting had resumed with renewed intensity, the cold malice now replaced by hot blood-lust. ‘Cogidubnus! With me!' Vespasian grabbed his horse's reins, leapt into the saddle and urged the beast away over the carpet of dead, out of the line of the Hamians' aim as they, as if coming out of a trance, prepared to release another volley.

The King chased after him as the shafts began to fly, picking off the remaining druids and felling many of the warriors who had moved closer.

‘Thank you, my friend,' Vespasian croaked, once they were clear. ‘I'll wait till later for an explanation.'

Cogidubnus grimaced. ‘It will be hard for a Roman to understand.'

‘Try me.' Vespasian pointed to the Britannic auxiliaries formed up behind the second cohort, along with the Gallic cavalry with Marcius at their head; behind them the last three cohorts of the II Augusta had deployed in a second line as a reserve. ‘But in the meantime have your men ready, I'll need them soon.' With a nod, Vespasian kicked his horse and drove it towards the Hamians who were keeping up a relentless barrage of missiles at the shield-wall across the gap. But Vespasian knew
that arrows would not hold the Britons back forever; arrows would eventually run out.

‘Open your ranks to let the Gauls through,' he called to the Hamian prefect as he sped past, ‘and then get your men onto the fort's palisade.' He just caught the man's hurried salute as he pushed on towards the Gallic infantry, directly behind. A series of cornua rumbles told him that his order had been promptly obeyed as he came to a skidding halt next to the cohort's command post.

Identifying the prefect as the same man who had let Caratacus through the line just two days previously, he resolved to forgive him if he played his part well. ‘Prefect Galeo, take your men through the Hamians and link up with the first and second cohorts.'

‘Yes, sir! Do you want—'

‘Don't talk about it, do it!'

The prefect swallowed and crashed a salute. He bellowed the order to advance and the eight hundred Gauls moved forward at the double. Within a few moments they were filtering through the Hamians' formation; the archers ceased their volleys as they passed and then turned towards the fort once they were clear.

As the Gauls reached the open ground they broke into a charge, preventing the Britons from encroaching too far forward now that the arrows had stopped flying. Roaring the battle cry of their forefathers they threw themselves at the Britons' shield-wall with a mighty clash of iron.

The gap had been plugged but as Vespasian looked along the Roman line he saw that, in the centre, it had started to buckle and the reserve cohorts were retreating.

Once again digging his heels into the bruised flanks of his mount, Vespasian forced the tiring beast into action; speeding past the depleted legionary cavalry now rallying next to their Gallic comrades he caught sight of his prefect of the camp. ‘Maximus! With me!'

The veteran spun his horse and accelerated it after his commander.

Within a hundred pounding heartbeats, Vespasian reached the first reserve legionary cohort as the bulge in the line deepened
and the clamour from the Britannic host intensified. ‘What the fuck are you doing marching away?' he roared at the primus pilus. ‘Get your cohort in to support the centre with its weight.'

‘But you just sent a legionary cavalry messenger with orders for us to fall back, sir.'

‘Fall back? With the line threatening to break? I gave no such order; now, get forward before we're all dead.'

The centurion saluted and bellowed the order to turn and advance. Vespasian rode on up the reserve line of a further retreating two cohorts, halting them. ‘You stay here with these cohorts, Maximus. We're holding a defensive position. Hold the line at all costs, understand?'

Maximus nodded and grinned. ‘How long do you expect us to hold?'

Vespasian offered a quick prayer to Mars to guide him in the art of war as he turned his horse. ‘Until I hear from Valens and can contrive a counter-attack that will break the Britons' will.'

CHAPTER IIII

V
ESPASIAN BROUGHT HIS
mount to a violent halt next to Cogidubnus, who was waiting with the young tribunes, Marcius and Vibius; behind them stood the Britannic auxiliaries with the Gallic cavalry and the now rallied remnants of the legionary cavalry, fewer than eighty troopers in total. Blassius arrived moments later.

‘I left the other Gallic auxiliaries with Valens and the second cohort as you ordered, sir,' the tribune reported, shouting against the din of combat along the third of a mile front. ‘The Batavians were just arriving with him as I left. He said that there was no one in the fort.'

‘I know there was no one in the fort,' Vespasian replied, trying to keep his voice level but failing. ‘What about a flank attack? Were the Britons trying to force a way around behind the fort?'

‘No, sir, not by the time I left. Valens had begun to move around the hill; he reckoned that, provided he doesn't encounter opposition, it would take a quarter of an hour before he would be in position for a flank attack.'

Vespasian ran a hand through his hair, his face taut. ‘Yes, that's what I thought.' He glanced up the Roman line; the reinforced centre had pushed back but the Britons' assault showed no signs of abating. ‘We need to break them before they wear us down. Are your men ready to be blooded, Cogidubnus?'

The King held his look. ‘They will prove their loyalty to Rome and reap their revenge on Caratacus for his years of subjugation of the Atrebates and the Regni.'

‘I'm sure they will. Have some men collect the ladders left up by the gate and then take your lads down into the outermost
ditch. I'll meet you there; we can use it to work our way behind the Britons' line.'