Wounds of Honour: Empire I (39 page)

The legion’s eagle standard-bearer stood close, his own sword drawn, clearly determined to sell his own life in defence of the emperor’s eagle. An arrow clattered off his helmet, another hitting the standard’s eagle with a hollow
thwock
, making the man duck reflexively, his eyebrows raised at his legatus in mute comment. Sollemnis nodded grimly, then turned to stare up at the ridge-line where the alarm signal had sounded. A few figures stood silhouetted on the crest, apparently watching the battle below. The standard-bearer, a man of seniority in the legion and well known to the legatus, pushed his way to Sollemnis’s side, disdaining the stream of arrows directed at the eagle.

‘Why don’t they attack, sir? There’s another nine cohorts up there, and in good order.’

The legatus shook his head in puzzlement, hearing the screams of his command’s dismemberment from all around.

‘I don’t know, but how Tigidius Perennis and his Asturians scouted this ground as safe for the approach is …’

A sudden insight gripped his guts hard, testing his sphincter with a sudden push that he barely managed to control. Perennis. Of course. The other warband had clearly never stayed in place as he’d been briefed, the brazen lie tempting him into a move whose audacity would clearly be judged as suicidal with the luxury of hindsight. He drew his sword and picked up a dead man’s shield, tugging down his ornate helmet to be sure the back of his neck was protected.

‘Very well, gentlemen, if we’re going to die today, let’s make sure we give these blue-faced bastards a decent fight to sing about. Wounds of honour, Sixth Legion.
Wounds of honour!’

Watching the slaughter below, Equitius shook his head with fascinated horror.

‘There must be something we can do.’

Frontinius replied in tones dulled by resignation to the facts.

‘Yes, we can parade on the crest and in all likelihood the men down there will look up, laugh at us and get on with butchering the Sixth. Or we can advance down the slope into the battle and be dead inside ten minutes. You’re looking at a doomed legion, Prefect, something few men have seen and even fewer have lived to describe. The Sixth’s standard will be carried away into the northern mountains and become an object of wonder for the tribes, most likely with your friend Sollemnis’s head to accompany it. He made the decision to attack across that valley; he changed our role at the critical moment; now he’s paying for those mistakes the hard way …’

Equitius nodded unhappily.

‘I just don’t see how he could have got it so wrong. The man was a senior tribune in the war against the Marcomani, took command of a legion with a battlefield promotion when his legatus dropped dead in the middle of an action, and fought them brilliantly to rout twice his own strength of barbarians. It isn’t a mistake he ended up running Northern Command … so how the bloody hell do we end up with
this
?’

The 6th’s remaining three cohorts were creeping together, now under attack by thousands of barbarians and seeking to combine their strengths. A horn sounded, and the attackers drew back from combat, leaving the field clear for their archers to pour arrows into the compressed masses of legionaries. After a dozen volleys from the archers the horn sounded twice more, and the Britons charged in again, swords and axes glinting brightly in the morning sun as they went about their destructive work. Even at that distance the smell of blood and faeces was now reaching the watching soldiers, as the scale of the slaughter mounted. Equitius heard the sound of approaching hoofs, and turned to see Perennis and his escort approaching again. The tribune reined his horse in and took in the view from the valley’s edge for a moment before speaking.

‘Well, well. It would seem that our legatus has got himself into a bit of a pickle.’

Equitius stared up at him with narrowed eyes, seeing the sardonic smile playing about his face.

‘Shouldn’t you be worrying about bringing up the reinforcements, Tribune?’

The other man sat back in his saddle, sharing an amused glance with the decurion.

‘It might have made a difference when the barbarians first attacked, a few thousand armed men piling down into the battle from up here, but not now, thank you, Prefect Equitius. Those six cohorts are all but finished, and I don’t think that tossing another nine after them would be a particularly positive step, do you? At least this way I still have most of a legion’s strength to command until the reinforcements arrive from Gaul.’

‘You? A junior tribune? An equestrian in command of a legion?’

‘Oh yes, didn’t I mention my imperial warrant?’

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a scroll, tossing it down to Equitius. The prefect read it, taking in the imperial seal and the wide range of power it bestowed upon Perennis.

‘I particularly like the sentence that says I should take command of the Sixth Legion should Legatus Sollemnis be found incapable of his task. I’d say he’ll reach a state of incapability some time quite soon, so while I may not be of senatorial class, I will be exercising the power granted to me by the Emperor …’

Frontinius leaned over to Marcus, muttering quietly into his ear.

‘Get yourself back over to the cohort. Be ready to bring your century over here in a hurry.’

‘… And so, from this moment I’m assuming command. I’ll incorporate the auxiliary cohorts into my legion to bolster our strength, but not
your
cohort, Prefect. You and your people have a special place in my plans. Stay where you are, Marcus Valerius Aquila, no trying to creep away when you think nobody’s looking!’

Marcus stopped, turning slowly to look up at Perennis.

‘Yes, I’ve known that you took refuge with these half-savages and their disloyal prefect for a while now. Your supply officer was very forthcoming one night in the camp at Cauldron Pool, when the decurion here applied the tip of a dagger to his throat. Did you really think that you could hide with these bumpkins for ever? All that you’ve done is bring your own disaster down on this entire cohort. Just as Legatus Sollemnis has paid the ultimate price for his treacherous attempt to hide you, so will this collection of semi-barbarian traitors!’

Dubnus put a hand behind his back, and muttered the word ‘axe’ quietly over his shoulder to Cyclops. The weapon slid from its place in the small of his back, the handle slapping unnoticed on to his palm, its comfortingly familiar wood rubbed smooth by years of handling. Perennis nodded to the stone-faced decurion, who jumped down from his horse and drew his sword. The other cavalrymen watched intently, arrows nocked to their bows, ignoring the single tent party of men standing in a huddle to their left. Perennis leant out of his saddle, pointing towards the wood that Marcus and his men had recently scouted.

‘And now, gentlemen, your orders. The First Tungrians will establish a defensive position on the slope below that wood, and prevent the barbarians from breaking out of the valley by that route for as long as possible. There is to be no retreat from the position, which must be held at all costs and to the last man. You, First Spear, will command the cohort, since I am now declaring a sentence of death on your prefect for his treachery in harbouring an enemy of the emperor and the state. I could be more thorough in my punishment, but the rest of you will obviously be dead soon enough.’

Equitius scowled up at Perennis, full realisation of the true nature of the last hour’s events striking him.

‘You’ve just thrown six legion cohorts into a barbarian trap to get rid of one man that was in your way? And now you’ll casually toss away eight hundred more spears because one innocent victim of Rome’s descent into despotism takes shelter among them?’

Perennis smiled broadly.

‘Your friend Sollemnis is reaping the crop he’s sown, and so will you all, soon enough. The rest is detail. We’ll go on the defensive for a while, Rome will send in a legion or two from Gaul, the Sixth will be reinforced back to full strength, and all will be as it should be. Besides,
you’ve
got more pressing matters to worry about. Decurion, execute the prefect.’

Frontinius half drew his sword, stopping as half a dozen drawn bows swung in his direction. Equitius put his hands on his hips, and straightened his back in readiness. The decurion took a step forward, raising his long cavalry sword for the executioner’s blow before his eyes widened with shock as Dubnus’s throwing axe smashed into his back. The heavy axe blade’s weight punched through his armour, chopping through his spine and into the organs clustered behind it. A gout of blood spilled from his open mouth in a scarlet flood as he sank forward on to his knees, his hands helplessly seeking the source of the sudden rush of enervating pain. Before any of the cavalrymen could react, Dubnus was among them, his sword flashing as he struck at one and then another. Marcus and Frontinius drew their swords and charged in alongside him.

One of the horsemen loosed an arrow at Frontinius, the missile’s iron head flicking off his helmet just as Marcus hacked at the man’s leg with a fierce downward cut, his sword severing the limb just above the knee and chopping into the horse’s ribs with the force of the blow. The animal reared up, tossing the crippled cavalryman from his horned saddle, then kicked out hard with its back legs in protest at the pain, catapulting another Asturian from his mount with his chest caved in.

Marcus was knocked to one side as Cyclops jumped in front of him, raising his shield to block an arrow from a horseman the young centurion had failed to notice in the melee. At less than twenty paces’ range the missile punched through his shield’s layered wood and leather, the iron head transfixing his shield arm and drawing an agonised grimace from the one-eyed soldier. Pivoting on his left leg with a swelling bellow of rage, Cyclops slung his spear with deadly accuracy into the horseman’s chest as he reached back for another arrow. The throw’s huge power punched through a weak point in the cavalryman’s mail shirt, scattering a handful of broken rings from the point of impact and thrusting the spear’s steel point deep into the horseman’s lungs. Eyes rolling upwards, he fell backwards over the side of his horse and vanished under the hoofs of the horses surrounding him. Cyclops pointed to his one good eye, shouting over the fight’s swelling volume.

‘Less stabbing and more looking, young sir.’

He drew his sword, nodding to Marcus before charging into the whirling melee in search of another target for his wrath. Perennis kicked his horse’s sides hard, galloping out of the knot of infantrymen which was growing bigger and nastier by the second as the rest of the tent party took on the Asturians with their spears. He was thirty paces distant when Dubnus’s arrow slammed through the back of his neck an inch above the top of his cuirass’s protection, and stayed in the saddle for another five seconds before collapsing stiffly over its hindquarters to land in a heap on the turf. The few remaining Asturians bolted, thrashing their horses to escape as the fastest of the 9th Century’s men arrived on the scene seeking targets for their unblooded spears. Marcus was the first man to reach Perennis, coming up short when he saw the arrowhead protruding from the tribune’s throat, and the man’s desperate attempts to breathe. Frontinius ran up a moment later, took one look and turned away with a grim smile.

‘He’s got two minutes, five at the best. Say hello to the ferryman for us, Perennis, you’ll be across the river a while before we get there.’

Equitius walked up to them, a haunted look on his face. Frontinius slapped him on the arm.

‘Cheer up, Prefect, it isn’t every day that you’re condemned to death and then reprieved inside a minute.’

‘Not such a reprieve, First Spear. I …’

His head lifted as he spotted a movement in the middle distance, horsemen moving through the waving grass, a long white banner twisting proudly in the breeze. He smiled wanly at the sight.

‘I see Licinius retains his impeccable sense of timing …’

A single decurius of the Petriana rode up to them, Prefect Licinius dismounting before his horse had stopped moving. Grim faced, he stared down at the fighting below for a moment before turning back to speak, taking in the scene in front of him as he did.

‘Gentlemen, I …’

The sight of the slowly choking Perennis left him speechless for a moment.

‘Who shot him?’

Frontinius shook his head imperceptibly at his prefect before speaking.

‘We did, sir, or rather one of my men who’s a finer shot than I’ll ever be did, and at my command. Tribune Perennis had just admitted to an act of stupidity and treason whose result you can see down there, and was attempting to murder Prefect Equitius.’

Licinius looked around him carefully, fully digesting the scene.

‘Which would explain the dead Asturians scattered around? Not to mention the fact that several of your own men seem to have arrow wounds?’

‘Sir.’

‘You can imagine how
that’s
going to look if it’s reported back to Rome. Where is the legatus, by the way?’

Equitius stepped forward, pointing down the slope.

‘He’s down there, Licinius. That young bastard suborned the Asturians, or at least enough of them to be able to carry out his plan. He must have passed a message to Calgus in some way while he was supposed to be shadowing the warband. They let the Sixth get into the open and then rushed them while the legion was still in column. He’s got some sort of warrant straight from the imperial palace, empowers him to take command of the Sixth if necessary, so the bastard wanted to make sure Sollemnis wouldn’t survive.’

Licinius leaned in close and half whispered his next question, glancing significantly at the unsuspecting Marcus, who was busy with his wounded.

‘
Does he know yet?
’

Equitius shook his head.

‘
No. Nor should he, under the circumstances.
’

‘Agreed. What a fucking mess. So apart from the fact that half a legion is being taken apart under our gaze, what’s the local situation?’

Equitius pointed in the direction that Perennis had taken his command.