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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Barbaricum of Germania Antehac Libra

August 15th, 167 CE

Just as he reined around, the TUNNGGG-WHACK! of a hundred and twenty of the catapults shooting within a second of each other sounded. They were firing over the heads of the auxiliaries, into the still-huge mass of the enemy.

CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK—

Even at eight hundred yards’ distance, a hundred and twenty-six of the exploding projectiles made a sound that was stunning; that was more than half a ton of gunpowder going off in the space of a few seconds. The enemy host staggered; probably more men died in that instant than had all the long hours from the beginning of the cannonade.

Instants later the survivors rammed screaming into the front line of the auxiliaries’ shields. More of the bombs arched over their heads, and arrows from five thousand bows in singing clouds. The Roman infantry rocked back a step, and another; every twenty seconds a new flight of bombs went by, and the arrows fell without cease. The explosives were landing well back in the huge mass of Germanii behind the front lines; it stretched more than far enough. And in this battle, unlike any they’d experienced before, being well back put you in more danger not less . . . and you couldn’t strike back.

Ah. There some of them go, Artorius thought grimly; a fringe from the rear of the enemy formation were simply running away. Sensible, though it’s probably panic and not Deep Thought. The very first might get away. Might.

Fronto nodded and pursed his lips, like a farmer looking out over a field of wheat ready for the blades. Marcus Aurelius had lowered his telescope, and was simply waiting impassively, eyes turned upward toward the blue of the sky. His breathing was very controlled, long and slow—a Stoic method of meditation.

“Now they’re dung for our pitchforks,” the general from Asia Minor said, hearty satisfaction in his voice. “Good work, Tribune, very good! It would have been ugly if we’d had to open the dance with a mass attack. Even if it worked as well as could be expected, we’d have lost . . . ten times the number of dead and wounded we’ll suffer today. That or more. And every one the new weapons killed is one less at sword’s point with our men.”

Artorius nodded wordlessly. Well, that’s some comfort, he thought.

The auxiliaries rocked back, and again, retreating to orders while the bombs flew and sleets of arrows dropped. The enemy hesitated, visibly wavering, even the front rank starting to look over their shoulders, and Fronto nodded and made a sign.

Horns and trumpets sounded. The archers trotted off in files between the legionary ranks. The carroballistae crews ceased fire, and clamped the trails of their weapons together while the limbers were harnessed. They went off behind the bowmen at a slow canter; then the auxiliary infantry followed. First the ones who were limping, or helping wounded along, or carrying the seriously injured on stretchers of cloaks and spear shafts, then the rest.

Their dead would be collected later for burial and ceremony; the enemy fallen would be left for the crows and foxes, and their wounded finished off if they looked too badly injured to be worth keeping to sell.

Many of the auxiliaries were grinning—their losses had been light for a pitched battle of this size, and they’d taken the edge off the enemy charge and halted them under a rain of death for long crucial minutes.

The enemy hesitated, panting, looking across a gap of thirty or forty yards at the fresh, untouched ranks of the legions and the flashing polished gold of the Eagles.

“Sound legions will advance in wedge by cohort!” Fronto called.

The signalers sounded it, and cornua and tubae sounded from legion, cohort, century.

Should have heard a shink-shank sound like a rifle bolt being cocked. It’s like machinery moving, Artorius thought, watching.

Even after seeing Roman troops in operation before, it was impressive. All along the long legionary front, the line turned into a set of blunt cohort-sized wedges in less than fifteen seconds, with the banner of the pilus prior—the senior centurion of each cohort and its de facto tactical commander—at the fore.

A human saw blade, he thought, caught between admiration and horror. And now it cuts. Or it’s the teeth of a very large carnivore, and now it bites, I suppose.

A single long shout roared out, after the long silence in the ranks:

“IUPPITER OMNIPOTENS! ROMA! ROMA!”

The line of wedges moved forward at the double-quick, armored men with their big, curved shields up and covering them from nose to shin, pila ready.

The barbarians tried to resume their charge, or a lot of them did; some others were standing their ground, and some were edging back. All of them had just run a mile under fire with a desperate fight at the end, and they were wrung out and panting with fear and anger and uttermost stress. Another set of calls from the trumpets, a growling brass scream.

The pila flew, each cohort’s first line in unison, all of them within a half minute. Even watching from nearly three hundred yards distant from the front line, the massed whistling was distinct; almost immediately followed by a long rippling, thudding clatter as the long lead-weighted javelins slammed home. Thousands of them, some in earth, some with their narrow punch-shaped pyramid heads punching through plank shields and mail armor. Far more into half-naked human bodies. The whole front of the barbarian host rippled and wavered and fell.

More weighted seven-foot javelins arched out, and more and more. The wedges moved ahead at a pounding trot with the fanwise crests of the centurions and the banners at the front. At the double-pace, shields up with each man the regulation three feet from his neighbor, the sharp points of the gladii flickering by each man’s side. You expected a thud when the masses struck, but instead there was a long scream from tens of thousands of throats, like some great beast calling—half rage, half pain and panic at naked death approaching.

Then the legionnaires were fighting as they endlessly drilled, at quarters too close for the long thrusting spears or chopping swords of the enemy to be used at their best. Smash with the scutum shield, often punching for the face with the metal boss, or slamming the iron-sheathed edge of the twenty-pound weight down on a foot or up under a chin, or a lunging at a knee. Or a sideways sweep to hook the smaller, lighter barbarian shields aside, or a shoulder-in buffeting to knock the other man back on his heels.

Then the gladii flickered out, economical upward stabs for the gut or crotch, less often a stooping, hocking strike at knee or ankle with the shield held up, now and then a thrust to the throat or face. This wasn’t like the one-on-one melees that Hollywood had loved to show; the Roman wedges put two on one as often as not, and the Roman soldiers acted in a unison that was like a monster with ten thousand barbed tentacles.

Ten minutes, and a rippling all along the long front of death as the first rank rotated backward and the fresh men of the second rank stepped forward while the men who’d fought first recovered their breath eight files back. A trickle of wounded going to the rear, but surprisingly few.

Smash-stab-chop, smash-stab-chop . . . 

And I’m watching why Rome ruled a third of the human race for centuries. They’re impressive at any aspect of campaigning, but this is what it’s all for.

“Dung to our pitchforks,” Fronto repeated. “They’ll break now, but not before every second or third of them die. Then the cavalry goes in and they can pursue for days.”

In the next twenty minutes, a third of the barbarian host, a third of the ones who’d made it over the killing ground so far, died or went down bleeding and screaming. The metallic copper-iron-seawater stink of blood was stunning, and the ground would be muddy with it at the line of contact.

The toothed line of the legions moved forward, the rear ranks finishing off the writhing enemy wounded as they passed if they looked at all dangerous, often with a casual stamp of a hobnailed sandal boot or downward stroke with a shield. More and more of the enemy were melting away, running or limping back the way they came, an increasing thick scatter of Germanii backs presented to their view. The rest were backing up faster and faster, and looking over their shoulders more and more.

The problem with not being able to face death any more is that running away leaves you with your back to it.

Which meant a case of damned if you do . . . 

Fronto shifted his telescope to his left hand and waved.

The brass scream sounded again: Cavalry, general pursuit!

 . . . and damned if you don’t.

A rumble in the earth as thousands upon thousands of iron-shod hooves pounded down, and the alae—regiments—swept forward in two horns to encircle and hold, their silk dragon banners hissing with the gathering speed until the horns met a half mile behind the line of contact.

The points of the lances dipped as they went, taking running men in the back . . . and behind them the saw of wedges advanced, smash-stab-chop-smash . . . 

Fronto looked over at the Emperor.

“Sir, this will be as great a victory as Roman arms have ever won in a single day! They’ll surrender within a month, as soon as we can find someone who can surrender the women, children and the ones who ran first. The Marcomanni and Quadi won’t have anyone left to fight with. And there were just enough fugitives that this tale will be carried and sow terror and beshat barbarian trousers all the way from here to the German Sea.”

Marcus Aurelius closed his eyes and sighed again, looking older than Artorius remembered him.

“Peace,” he said after a moment. “Won by bloody work, but peace.”


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Framed