The Dog and the Wolf (57 page)

A block of men stood separately on the far right at the bottom of the hill. They were those Gratillonius deemed his best, Drusus and whatever other of Maximus’s veterans were able to campaign, the Ysan marines, the much larger number of younger fighters trained by these, and a band of Frankish laeti from Redonum who had gotten wind of the enterprise and, astoundingly, showed up to join. Well, if they could lay old grudges aside in the face of a common danger, Gratillonius could too. He didn’t have to like them.

Hidden in the woods on the left were the foresters Rufinus had shaped into a force. (God, how he missed Rufinus, and Maeloch, and Amreth, and more and more gone down before him into the dark!) Also hidden, by the bulk of the hill, were the supplies, wagons, animals, traces of encampment. He hadn’t left a guard there. He didn’t expect the barbarians would flank him and take possession. If they did, small difference. The army had pretty well used up its rations, and could not keep the field more than a few days past this. At that, the trek home would be a hungry one.

Gratillonius and those who met with him in Vorgium had given themselves a month prior to rendezvous. He reckoned it would take any invaders longer than that to reach Armorica. They’d have a lot of miles to cross, pillaging as they went, maybe once in a while overrunning some pathetic attempt at resistance while bypassing any real strongpoints—whose garrisons wouldn’t dare try taking them in the rear. Since the time available to his troops would be short, they shouldn’t start off until the earliest date at which it was reasonable to look for an incursion. Besides, a month gave opportunity to accumulate additional stuff, get together a small baggage train, recruit a few physicians and such.

Of course, it also gave opportunity for Glabrio to learn
what was going on and take measures. You had to keep things as quiet as possible, and nevertheless rumors were bound to reach Turonum. Inquiries went off to him. He stalled them. It helped that governor and Duke had other worries to occupy them. In Britannia the legions had cast down the Marcus they raised, killed him, and proclaimed one Gratianus Emperor. Ill-omened name, that….

Then the hour came when Gratillonius sent forth his summons, and after that it was too late for anybody to stop anything.

Horns lowed, shouts ripped, faint across distance but growing. On the crest of the opposite hill, men appeared. A kind of sigh went through the Armoricans. Here came the battle.

The die is cast, Caesar said. Gratillonius knew that for him it had been cast earlier—but when? At the departure from Redonum, an open and irreparable breach of Imperial law; at the meeting in Vorgium, when the decision was made; at the moment in Confluentes when he resolved to call that meeting; or earlier, out on the Gobaean Promontory, or far back when he reigned in Ys, or when he marched off at the behest of Maximus, or—No matter. He had these Germani to deal with, and later those Romans.

He’d hoped more than he’d feared that there would be no action after all. The men grumbled at tramping about in winter between comfortless bivouacs, but they’d have returned home alive. Bacca might thereupon have agreed, and gotten Glabrio and the Duke to agree, that this episode was best smoothed over, that it could actually prove useful toward convincing the Armoricans of their folly. There would be no way to overlook an armed engagement, not small and off at the end of the peninsula, but major and in the heart of Lugdunensis Tertia.

Well, Gratillonius thought, I’ve been spared the worst horror, that we went back and
then
the barbarians arrived.

His skirmishers were running down to the bottomland. They’d taken bad losses, he saw, and now fled helter-skelter; but they’d done their job.

“Shall I go?” cried Salomon. His mount sensed his impatience and whinnied. That made Favonius curvet.

“No, I told you I want you here with me where you can
see what’s happening,” Gratillonius snapped. “You may learn something. You owe that to the men you’ll lead.”

“Sir.” The tone, half mutinous, became a gasp and a shout: “There they are!”

The Germani poured over the crest. They weren’t dashing, but went along at a steady, mile-eating wolf-lope which would in the end have overtaken their quarry. When those in front saw what awaited them across the dell, they checked for an instant, and the surge flowed back through them as it does through a breaker striking a reef. Horns winded, yells lifted, spears tossed in the air like stalks in a storm. Yet they must have known that those men who harassed them came from some larger company; and however that might be, their hearts were always battle-ready.

“If they stop and hold their hill, we’re in trouble,” Gratillonius told Salomon. “A charge is about the hardest thing in war even for seasoned troops. But I don’t expect—Ah, no, they’re moving again.”

In a spindrift of roars and howls, the wave rolled on. They were mostly big, fair men with long mustaches and braided hair. Many wore coats of mail, many more at least had iron helmets. Some in the van had been on shaggy little horses—the riders’ feet nearly touched the ground-but sprang off and let their mounts go or turned them over to boys who’d run alongside. Only the Goths among Germani were cavalrymen.

“Pay attention,” Gratillonius instructed. “That advance isn’t as pell-mell as it looks. They train from childhood. Notice the standards,” as varied as the Armorican. “See how they’re spaced. See how the whole is shaping into a kind of wedge as it proceeds. The usual Germanic formation. They can’t coordinate themselves any better than that, though.” Not that he had much personal experience with this race; but he had learned from men such as Drusus, who did.

Salomon leaned forward in the saddle as if straining toward the dark mass. “How many are they?” he wondered. “Countless. I feel the ground shake under them.”

“A common bit of imagination. As for their number, m-m, I make it about two thousand, possibly a bit more.
We have the advantage there. It may or may not outweigh armor and practice. Don’t underestimate their leadership. That petty king—I suppose that’s what he is—had to have a certain amount of shrewdness as well as boldness, and a firm hold on his followers, to get this far.”

An ambitious fellow, no doubt, who struck off to scoop up the easy cream ahead of the rest. Somewhere he’d call halt, establish a base, stake out as large a territory as he thought he could hold against the Romans and the later-arriving Germani. Likeliest he did not intend to settle down there. It was for the widest and most thorough spoliation, the utter ruining of the land round about, before he moved on.

Behind his warriors would be stolen animals—horses and mules, no cumbersome wagons—laden with plunder and maybe with food. The food would be particularly welcome, supposing the Armoricans won.

“Take your shield, Salomon. Up across your face; look over the top. They’re getting into arrow range.”

A command rapped. With a monstrous whistle, Gratillonius’s archers loosed their volley. And their next, and their next. On higher ground slings whipped and spat.

Attacking, the barbarians could but slightly reply in kind. Some missiles flew from the sides of their wedge. Gratillonius saw a couple of his men drop. Neither was killed, both were taken off, their comrades stood firm. Good; the first river had been waded. The others that must be crossed would be in furious spate. But quite a few Germani fell, and were trampled under onrushing feet.

“Hold steady,” Gratillonius ordered Salomon. “Control your mount. Stay calm. Watch close, and
think
about it.”

He signalled. That evoked more commands. Pikemen lowered their weapons.

The enemy struck.

Thunder and earthquake erupted. The Germanic host turned into a roil of creatures that snarled, yelped, struggled to get at the defenders, got there, smote, died, sank under those behind. Four deep, the Armorican line held firm. When one of its front rankers went down, the man at his back took his place. Swords, axes, knives, spears, clubs hewed, sliced, thrust, hammered. Shield thumped against
shield, weight strained against weight. A man stared into the eyes of a stranger and strove to kill him. It was as though a mist of blood and sweat blurred the hillside.

If the enemy broke through, that was the end. Make him commit himself beyond retreat; yet watch for the time when your own line began to waver and buckle. It would. These were not lifetime fighters, they were simply men defending their hearths. Gauge the right moment—

Gratillonius turned to a lad on a pony. “Go tell them to come out of the woods,” he said. The boy sketched a salute and trotted off, wide of the combat.

Gratillonius bit back terror and said calmly to Salomon, no louder than needful to carry through the hell’s clatter and clamor below: “All right, son, be on your way. But do not attack till you hear the trumpet. Understand? When you hear the trumpet.” He clapped the young shoulder. “God be with you.’

“And you, Gradlon.” There was no solemnity in Salomon’s response. Eagerness flamed. He spurred his horse and cantered off to the right and downhill. Beside him rode his standard bearer, carrying on a pole the insigne Rovinda and Verania had made for him: upon blue silk, a golden A, for Aquilo and Apuleius and a new beginning.

Salomon’s cloak fluttered red from his mail. On his helmet tossed a white plume. The shield in his left hand was blue, a gold Cross upon it. Like Favonius and the few other horses meant for combat, his bore chamfron and pectoral of leather. A youthful God he might have been, Apollo’s lyre singing him onward. But, oh, Christ, how easily made into a twisted, gaping, discolored corpse!

The danger had to be. He would have it so himself. His need was to learn warfere, leadership, and to gain a name that kindled fire in men. It was the need of his people.

The Armorican line had gone ragged, in places seemingly melted together with the foe, in places only a single man deep. Reserves came down from the rear, but those were the untrained, the unstrong, doomed if they were in action very long, unless they panicked and thereby dissolved their whole army.

Salomon joined the veterans in the plowland on the right. Their square had sent assaults reeling back. At the
feet of those soldiers dead men sprawled and the snow thawed red, smoky from blood-heat. They had resisted the temptation to pursue and held fast as ordered. The barbarians gave up on them for the time being and pressed wholly forward, except for a contingent that glowered watchful some yards distant. The newcome riders and banner now gleamed above their heads.

Out of the woods sped the foresters, old Bacaudae, their elder sons, hunters, trappers, loggers, charcoal burners, solitaries. At their front, brightly armored, trotted Cadoc. They formed a wedge of their own and pierced the Germanic one in flank and rear. Men mingled, a whirlpool of slaughter that chewed its way inward.

“Sound the charge,” Gratillonius told his trumpeter. The brazen call slashed through voices, thuds, clash, dunting of horns. Salomon and his standard bearer led the soldiers against the barbarian left. Briefly, faintly, there came to Gratillonius their shout, “Salaun, Salaun!” It was the Gallic softening of their new leader’s name.

War receded from the hill, not at once but in waves, eddies, retreats, rallies, retreats, vast hollow roars, like ebb tide in the bay of Ys. Man by man the Germani grew aware of the onslaughts and went confusedly to meet them. The Armorican infantry stood, or flung themselves to the ground, behind windrows of killed and wounded. They gasped for air. That sound was lost in the noises from the hurt.

Gratillonius clucked to Favonius. To and fro he rode along the line. “Good lads,” he called in their language, “brave lads, it’s grandly you’ve done. A last great push, now, and we’ll take them, we’ll have them and reap them. In Christ’s name, by Lug and Epona and Cernunnos and Hercules, we go!”

And finally, when he had them marshalled and a direction chosen, he went to the van with his fellow riders. His standard bearer lifted his banner. It was Verania’s work, black on gold with a red border. At first he had wanted an eagle, Rome’s bird, but they decided that was impolitic and he bore a wolf, the She-Wolf who nurtured the founder of the City.

He drew sword, raised it, brought it down, and touched
spurs to sides, most gently. Favonius trotted, cantered, drummed in gallop. The other horsemen came on his right and left. A few had made modern lances and taught themselves the use, but most wielded blades. It would take long for Armorica to breed cataphracts. These were a handful, mere captains and symbols and terrifying sight; but at their backs the men of Armorica paced down to battle.

They struck.

After that everything was chaos, riot, no more plans, no more formations, man against man, a blow taken, a blow given, then somebody else there, slash, guard, stab, keep your saddle or lose it, keep your feet or die. Gratillonius stayed mounted. Favonius did not go runaway like some, but he went mad, screaming, lashing with hoofs, slashing with teeth, havoc made flesh. Gratillonius kept him well clear of friends. Foes were plentiful enough.

And then they weren’t. They were slain or crippled or broken apart. Survivors dashed singly over the field in chase of their lives. A few formed into desperate little knots. The Armoriean archers and slingers collected missiles off the bloodied snow and butchered them at leisure. Armoriean foot and horse bayed in pursuit of the fleeing, caught them, chopped them down, glared round and went after the next nearest. The corpses were many before the hunters quit, exhausted,, and turned back.

From a rough count, Gratillonius estimated later that perhaps a hundred Germani won free. Scattered as they were amidst a revengeful populace, most would surely die. Knives, wood axes, pruning hooks, sickles, flails, cudgels, flung stones were peasant weapons, and town garrisons would sally forth in search of any stragglers reported. A very few would bring to the horde the tale of what they had met in the West.

3

Twilight deepened fast. The world had fallen quiet. Germanic wounded had been silenced and left with the already slain for the crows. Armoriean wounded had been
cared for as well as might be and rested, slept, or sank into stupors from which they would not awaken. Words mumbled and flames crackled across spaces where the torn, drenched soil was freezing hard. Some brotherbands had collected firewood; others, less lucky or more weary, had merely settled down together. Now and then an abandoned dog howled on a farmstead. It sounded much like a wolf.