Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate (44 page)

Now, with the huge oval formation, leaving would involve detaching a few cohorts at a time in smaller defensive units, forming essentially giant testudos and heading at a good, solid pace back east for the safety of the camp. The further they got from this valley, the safer they would be. Oh, they would have to fight the enemy that were blocking their rear on the way, but then at least they would be doing something other than cowering behind shields and hoping not to be hit with anything.

It irked him almost to breaking point that even now, when his men's lives depended upon the command decisions, Cotta would not attempt to move until he had discussed it with Sabinus, who seemed to be doing his best to get everyone killed.

Well the pair of them had best sort it out quickly, before the entire Roman force went to Hades hand-in-hand.

Chapter Fourteen

The first Balventius knew of Sabinus' presence was when the men he was busy yelling orders at snapped to attention and ignored him entirely, their gaze rising over his left shoulder. Dreading the ensuing moments and knowing what the men were reacting to, the veteran centurion turned, coming to a salute before he even faced the officer.

Sabinus sat astride his horse amid the legionaries like a well-dressed haughty rock in a muddy puddle. The common soldiers would see only a senior officer who demanded respect by his very presence. Balventius - used to the company of such commanders - saw the tell-tale signs of a man on the edge. Despite his apparent demeanour, Sabinus' eyes were wild and staring: the look of a man watching his world falling apart and knowing that he is directly responsible.

"Centurion: We need to break out of this valley!"

Balventius felt his irritation smooth over somewhere deep down inside. Despite his panicked and uncontrolled beginnings, the commander had finally grasped the vital need of falling back.

"Definitely, sir. We'll form an arc with a testudo roof and provide rear-guard. We can keep them off you while the Fourteenth…"

"I think you misunderstand me, Centurion. I need you to take a cohort and break out to the front, driving a tunnel between those spearmen so that we can continue west towards Cicero."

Balventius blinked.

"Sir?"

"Do you have a hearing problem, centurion? Break me out forwards!"

Balventius gripped and ungripped his free left hand repeatedly as he stared at the commander, his voice coming out as a low, angry growl.

"Sir: that would be foolish at best; suicidal at worst. The land in front of us is covered with pits, caltrops, thrashing horses and corpses. We'll have to clamber over and around everything, all under missile attack from both sides, while the enemy poke us with spears." He looked up and around the valley. "And those infantry are ready to pour down on us the moment we move."

"Are you refusing an order, centurion?"

Balventius felt his fingernails bite into the palm of his hand. Once in his career had he deliberately disobeyed an order - the arrest of Paetus three years ago - and that had been under extremely unusual circumstances. For a centurion to actively refuse to carry out an order in the heat of battle was unheard of and unforgivable. If he refused he could face any punishment - and looking at Sabinus' expression, crucifixion seemed likely.

"Of course not, sir. I was simply pointing out…"

"Let me repeat myself just once, centurion. Take a cohort and forge me a path west."

"Yes sir" Balventius replied through grinding teeth.

As Sabinus turned his horse with difficulty among the press of men and rode off back towards the knot of signifers and musicians, Balventius eyed the situation. There was no way he could see that any attempted break out west would succeed. Back to the east there was no stretch of pits and caltrops, just enemy infantry who could be fought through. There was a good chance that - with heavy losses admittedly - a breakout back east towards the camp would be a success.

With a deep breath, he called to the nearest pilus prior - the centurion commanding a cohort.

"Lucanius? Get your lads ready for a push."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. I want them tight and well-shielded. We form a wide wedge and stay as close to formation as possible, driving ahead down the valley, opening a path for everyone else."

Lucanius stared at his primus pilus, but the expression on Balventius' face said it all, and he gave a professional nod.

Balventius watched for a few heartbeats as the centurion gave out his instructions. The other centurions and optios and signifers listened in disbelief, occasionally ducking and diving, one optio too slow and taking an arrow in the neck as he opened his mouth to object. The man disappeared into the press with a gurgle and a spray of crimson.

"Form!"

Balventius stepped forward, falling in towards the rear of the formation, where the optio who had just crossed to Elysium would have been standing, goading the men on with his stick. The soldiers cast fearful glances at him, more terrified of doing something wrong in the close proximity of their primus pilus than of facing the forces arrayed before them.

The moment the last shield thudded into place, a single thump lost among a cacophony of sounds, Lucanius blew his whistle and the other centurions and optios in the formation began to bellow the commands. Balventius remained silent, preferring to watch his officers at work rather than take his place in the command structure. He was here not to command but rather because no senior centurion should send his men into a situation he himself was not willing to face.

The force began to move and Balventius was immediately impressed with Lucanius' level of control. The cohort formed a rough wedge but with a flattened tip. Their primary concern was not to punch through the spear men at this point, but to make sure enough men got past the wreckage of the cavalry and the pits and caltrops to reform into a wedge at the far side.
Then
they would punch through the infantry.

Gods willing
.

Through reliance on his lesser officers playing their part perfectly, Lucanius did not begin to move at the standard pace as was customary, but fell straight into the full pace that came just before a charge. Despite the move from stationary to startling speed in an instant, the formation held tight, every officer shouting and directing the men under his command.

The blunted wedge moved into the field of death, the remaining cohorts of the Eighth closing up the huge oval in the valley behind them and contracting the edge to create a good, solid shieldwall.

Despite the best efforts of Lucanius and his men, the formation began to break up as they reached the anti-cavalry defences. The necessity of skirting pits both empty and occupied, of clambering over the bodies of horses and men, combined with occasional soldiers falling away as their foot was impaled by the iron spike of a caltrop that had eluded his careful gaze all took their toll. It was remarkable really that Lucanius managed to keep
any
semblance of formation, and Balventius found himself moving forward through the chaos, passing the struggling legionaries.

Every pace forwards brought him and the insane charge closer to the far edge of the defences and the waiting spearmen, who had reformed to block the valley beyond, having driven off the cavalry. Sadly, the breakup of the wedge formation had destroyed the tight testudo roof around the periphery and now the missiles of the Eburones on the hillsides were having a devastating effect. No matter what direction Balventius turned his head, he saw a man vanish, an arrow plunging deep into the soft flesh between the chin and the neckline of a mail shirt, rupturing organs and entering until only the flights protruded, a slingshot smashing so hard into the side of a helmet that the man was literally spun around before he fell, his brain damaged by the deep crease in the helmet punching through his temple, a spear striking so hard with the fall from above that despite being unable to penetrate a mail shirt, it threw the man from his feet and deep into one of the horse-trenches.

Men were dying so fast Balventius could hardly count them falling.

In a vain attempt to distract his attention from the grisly numbers, Balventius' gaze rose to the hillsides only to bring him fresh hopelessness. The Eburones' infantry at the western end of the valley sides were now pouring down to come to the aid of the spearmen and prevent the cohort from achieving anything.

Perhaps he could have bent the rules and sent the cohort up the slope instead of along the flat? But that plan would have brought its own difficulties and would likely have been no easier. None of it made any real sense.

His gaze fell ahead again, trying to locate Lucanius so that he could apprise his centurion of the fresh threat, but he could see the pilus prior already glancing back and forth at the two incoming forces. Half a moment later came the command for a charge. Such a headlong run in this mangled wreckage of bodies and deadly traps was little more than suicide, but it was also their only hope to take on the spearmen before the rest of the Eburones managed to descend the hill and reinforce them.

The shrill blowing of whistles and accompanying shouts echoed the order and a moment later the already fragmented wedge descended into chaos, all hope of a shielded formation gone, every man running for his life to reach the waiting spearmen.

With the determination of the professional soldier Balventius locked his attention on the waiting enemy, refusing to allow himself the luxury of worrying about those men falling to traps and missiles as they ran, concentrating on hurdling bodies and dips, avoiding the evil spiked caltrops and reaching those spearmen, his mind running through the standard manoeuvres of infantry close-combat and everything he knew of Gallic tactics.

And then, suddenly - his attention so riveted - he was out in the open. It took him so much by surprise that he almost ran straight into the enemy. He had moved so fast in his singularity of purpose that he was now among the leading men of what had been the wedge, Lucanius only a few paces away to his right. The white-haired professional centurion leading the attack began bellowing more orders and the men arriving between the last few pits began to fall into position.

A swathe of grass perhaps thirty paces long was all that separated the spearmen from the arriving Roman cohort. Missiles were falling with considerably less regularity and accuracy here, so much further along from the archers' positions and too close to their own forces to risk too many wild shots.

The rest of the tribe, descending the slope, were almost here already and Balventius weighed everything up as the new, sharp, Roman wedge began to form in preparation for a punch through that bristling hedge of iron and bronze points.

There was a very good chance that they would break through the spearmen only to find the rest of the tribe on foot gathering beyond.

But there
was
a possibility now. Against all the odds - and despite his shock at Sabinus issuing the order in the first place - it seemed that the wedge had actually survived the worst stretch and might be strong enough to drive a gap through the enemy. They could
do it
. They had lost probably near half the cohort already to the traps and the missiles in that crazed run, but half a cohort could still do it.

Lucanius seemed to be having the same thoughts. The wedge was still forming as he gave the order to advance. Speed was now of the essence. The other men would have to run and catch up to fall in.

"The Fourteenth 'as seen!" A legionary close to Balventius shouted. "Sir! They're comin' in support!"

Balventius strained to hear over the din and became quickly aware of commands being blasted out on cornu and buccina back at the main force. It made sense. There was a chance now, but the rest of the army would have to leap on it. They should already be moving forward to take advantage of his cohort's sacrifice.

He blinked and shook his head in disbelief at what he was hearing.

"Either you need your ears cleaning out or to relearn your orders, soldier. That's the damn recall!"

Lucanius had heard and was staring at him in shock.

"Sir?"

"Yes I heard it too. What are they thinking?"

"What do we do?"

Balventius turned to look at the enemy. The cohort, advancing as they had been, were now a mere ten paces from the points of those spears. Retreating into that killing zone again would be a disaster. It was also orders. They could continue on their attack - by all rights that was exactly what they
should
do - but with no support coming, they would have nowhere to go. Tired and unfamiliar with the territory, they would be dead within the hour.

"We fall back!"

"Sir?"

"I said we fall back as ordered!"

The cohort stumbled to a halt without the order needing to be given, every man disbelieving what he heard.

"Rally on the left!" bellowed Balventius. "We're going up the slope a little and running around the defences. Their main infantry have come down to join the spearmen, so it's the quickest and easiest route."

"We'll be at the mercy of their missiles!" Lucanius shouted.

"Just follow my orders."

The Eburones, shouting in triumphant glee at the sudden halt of the Romans, began to surge forward in the attack, the spearmen hungry for blood, newly-arriving warriors from the hillside filtering in amongst them.

Balventius chewed the inside of his cheek. Speed was important, but so was protection. A testudo, then.

"Every man of the Eighth! Rally to me and form testudo. Centurions, optios and veterans to the rear, facing the enemy."

It would be costly on the best men in the cohort, but it was the only real option if they wanted to escape with their lives. The testudo would face back east and skirt the edge of the cavalry defences, running for the army at full pace. Hopefully they would be able to maintain the shields as they ran. It was extremely difficult at speed - which was why Balbus and he had invented the 'box' - but without speed they would fall to the infantry and without a testudo's shield-roof they would fall to the missile troops.