Onslaught_The Centurions II, page 5
‘Two touches! Trainer!’
The scar-faced soldier’s second hurried forward, only to be waved away by the now openly furious soldier as he retrieved his sword and turned to face Egilhard.
‘You can fuck off! I can still fight, and I can still do this little cunt! All it needs is one tap on his helmet! Come on!’
He sprang forward, cutting furiously at the younger man in a wild-eyed attempt to put him on the back foot, punching with his shield in a manner calculated to push his opponent off balance and open him up for his sword, a continual rain of attacks with boss and sword, which Egilhard rode with relative ease as he backed away from the ceaseless attack. Beginning to tire, the scar-faced soldier stumbled slightly and the younger man took his opportunity, punching back with his shield while his opponent was momentarily off balance to open up his left side, then spinning away to the left, ducking a wild sword swing and cutting with his own weapon at the other man’s ankles. With a yell of agony his opponent fell heavily to the ground, throwing his weapons aside to clutch at his leg as he rode the pain of the dull iron blade’s impact.
‘Three touches! The winner is …’ The arbiter stepped forward and took Egilhard’s sword hand, raising hand and weapon into the air above their heads. ‘Egilhard of the Second Century! Champion of the First Cohort!’
The men of his century, silent until that moment in respect for the rules of the contest, erupted into cheers and whistles, his tent mates rushing forward to engulf the bemused champion and lift him onto their shoulders despite his protestations. Their leading man Grimmaz turned to face the men of the other century with clenched fists raised in celebration, the tendons of his neck standing out as he roared at them triumphantly.
‘Victory to Achilles!’
His comrades lowered Egilhard to the ground, and he turned to salute his defeated opponent who had waited patiently for the celebration to quieten. The two men saluted each other, the older soldier nodding with a wry smile now that his pain-born rage had burned out to be replaced with the dull ache of defeat, calling out the words that were expected of him.
‘I respect the tribe’s traditions! Enemies until the last touch, brothers again from that moment.’ He limped forward, the ankle still painful, holding out a hand. ‘You’re good, young ’un, and not just with the sword either. You can stand next to me in the line any time.’
The younger man bowed his head, the gesture drawing surprised stares from the men around them.
‘This is one thing, but battle is another matter. I saw you fight at Cremona, and standing alongside you would be an honour.’
His opponent’s dour face cracked in a slow smile.
‘You really are good, aren’t you? And not just with your father’s sword either. I predict big things for you, lad. Now go and get pissed with your mates, the way it’s supposed to be when you become champion.’
Watching from the edge of the ring, Banon, the Second Century’s chosen man, mused quietly to his centurion without taking his eyes off the young soldier as he was reclaimed by his ecstatic comrades and hoisted back onto their shoulders. Taut muscles moved under his tunic as he leaned against the rough wooden fence, watching the scene through hard blue eyes with his blond bearded chin resting on a scarred fist.
‘A good match. And there’s not another man in the cohort who could have offered him any more of a fight.’
Alcaeus, half a head taller than his subordinate, and with brown eyes, which, along with his black hair, tended to lead to good natured accusations of there being a Roman somewhere in his ancestry, nodded with an approving expression. Long experienced at gauging the temper and quality of his men after twenty years’ service that had lifted him to the ranks of both centurion, deputy to the cohorts’ prefect Scar, and wolf-priest, the most senior of the men who provided spiritual leadership to the tribe’s warriors, he watched with an expert eye as the young soldier laughed and joked with his tent mates, raising his hands self-deprecatingly and shaking his head when his comrades feigned adulation by bowing and fawning over him.
‘It doesn’t seem to be going to his head.’
Banon nodded.
‘Couldn’t blame him if it had. He’s done things on the battlefield I couldn’t begin to understand, never mind emulate. Remember that axeman he put down at the battle of Cremona?’
Alcaeus grinned at the memory of the wiry soldier, little more than a recruit on the day that two would-be emperors’ armies had met in a titanic clash of arms at the river Po, despite the fact that he had already killed for the tribe. In the course of the fighting he had stepped forward to face a giant of a marine with a viciously hooked boarding axe, seeming hopelessly over-matched against a rampaging monster of a man who had already torn a gap in their century’s line with the terrible speed and ferocity of his attack. As the men around him had involuntarily cowered away from the terrible weapon’s bloody rending blows, Egilhard had stepped in close, first raising his shield to expertly disarm the marine and then, with two swift and clinical spear blows, leaving him dying in the battlefield’s blood-foamed mud.
‘How could I have forgotten? And it’s not as if he looks the part either.’
Banon nodded.
‘Deceptive. That’s the word you’re looking for. So he’s got all the makings of a hero but he doesn’t ride the high horse, not ever. That’s partly your doing, of course.’
His centurion shrugged with a small smile.
‘His father gave him a good talking to before he left him, I believe, and warned him what happens to men who try too hard. All I did was take him aside, after the battle at the farm, when he’d killed his first—’
‘And his second.’
‘And his second. I told him what usually happens to heroes, how long they tend to last once the expectations on them become too much for any man to live up to without taking risks that the rest of us could never consider. I told him that Lataz and Frijaz were no fools for all their joking, and that Lataz’s son and Frijaz’s brother-son won’t be any sort of fool either. Seems like he was listening.’ Banon nodded silently. ‘He’ll have the chance to use those skills in anger again soon enough though. Another few weeks’ march will see us over the mountains and back in Italy, and then the fun will really begin. The latest messages from Rome to the young tribune they sent to fetch us back to rejoin the legions say that Vespasianus’s army is coming west from Judea and Syria, picking up the legions of the Danubius along the way. There’s a battle coming, Banon, another one like Cremona except with a real enemy rather than a young fool with less between his ears than that boy over there, so I don’t expect we’ll won’t get off so lightly next time, not if we take our rightful place in the line. A lot of us will go to meet Magusanus that day.’
The chosen man shrugged.
‘It’s what we do, Centurion. You know that better than anyone. You’ve had the dream again, I presume?’
‘The dream. Yes …’ He fell silent for a long moment, staring blankly at the horizon. ‘Yes, I dream of battle, of death and blood. And the dream always ends with that same image of young Achilles there. But yes, Banon, it’s what we do. So I should stop complaining and get on with it?’
His friend grinned.
‘With all due respect to your august place in the tribe as a wolf-priest … yes.’
Alcaeus shook his head with a wry laugh.
‘Very well, Chosen Man, since you insist. Get that miserable old bastard Hludovig off his arse and chase this lot back to their tents. Now that we’ve crowned Egilhard as master of all he surveys, just as long as he has a sword in his hands, we can get back to being ready to march first thing in the morning. Rest days are all very well, but they won’t get us over the mountains before the passes close for the winter. And Scar tells me he has no intention of trying to emulate Hannibal. We march south at first light.’
The Winter Camp, Mogontiacum, August AD 69
‘A good turnout, First Spear. You are as usual to be congratulated on both the appearance and the efficiency of your men.’
Centurion Antonius nodded briskly in acknowledgement of his superior’s compliment, careful to invest the gesture with sufficient respect without appearing overly obsequious. Shorter than most of his colleagues, he lacked the bulk that many of them used to command respect, as in consequence his nose had the appearance of having been broken and reset too many times to have retained its original lines, but if the men who served under him knew one thing with crystal clarity, it was that while affable enough under the right circumstances, he was by dint of his hard route to the top of his profession a dangerous man to cross.
‘Thank you, Legatus. It is our duty to ensure that the men we have been left with are as capable and ready for war as those who were selected to march south with the emperor.’
His superior had cut a frustrated figure since the bulk of his Twenty-Second Primigenia had marched south under the command of the Fourth Legion’s legatus, but had quickly channelled that frustration into a single-minded drive to ensure that his command was capable of meeting any threat to the massive fortress’s weakened garrison, and his men had responded well to their leader’s brisk no-nonsense approach to his responsibilities. With Antonius as his new first spear, promoted from the legion’s centurionate on the recommendation of his predecessor Secundus, who had himself marched south to war with six cohorts, they had settled into a routine of training and aggressive patrolling intended to demonstrate their readiness for action both to the local tribes and any doubters within their own ranks. Freed from the petty restrictions of peacetime soldiering by a legion commander interested only in results, Antonius had seized his opportunity to build a reputation as a no-nonsense seeker of military effectiveness, riding his centurions hard enough to ensure that he delivered what was expected of him and yet not so hard as to foster discontent.
Legatus Vocula held his stare for a moment, nodding sagely at his senior centurion’s words.
‘Indeed it is. These ten cohorts that remain carry a heavy responsibility, as do we. The Winter Camp is the nail that holds the entire German frontier together, First Spear, which is ironically the stated reason I was asked to accept the duty of remaining here to command what remains of these two legions, rather than being given the honour of leading the other ten cohorts south to fight for the throne. Although the fact that I’m something of a new boy to the ranks of the purple-striped and weak-chinned might also have been a factor.’
Antonius inclined his head slightly, knowing better than to comment on matters he had little chance of fully comprehending, and the legatus flashed him a hard grin. The son of an equestrian from the province of Hispania, and the first man in his family to ascend to the godlike heights of the senatorial class, he had consequently needed to be better than his fellows to enjoy the same degree of respect, a challenge to which he had risen with considerable success.
‘I know, you can hardly be expected to comment. But I’d wager good money that while you agree with me as to the importance of our responsibility, you still wish you’d gone south to challenge Otho?’
The senior centurion nodded, carefully controlling the urge to smile back at his superior.
‘Yes, Legatus. I do have my … reservations about remaining here while the rest of the army marches over the Alps in search of glory. They will return here in due course, whether they’ve won or lost, in possession of one massive advantage over the rest of us. They will have seen battle, Legatus, which will make them—’
‘Unbearably smug? I expect so!’ Unable to control his expression, Antonius smiled at his superior’s perfectly timed interjection as the legatus continued. ‘Yes, they’ll come back here with torques and phalerae and the self-satisfied air of men who’ve seen the face of the battle and lived, although whether they’ll have distinguished themselves in that fight will be entirely another matter. But they may not be the only men who’ll see battle this year. You might well greet them back into the camp with honours of your own to display, and won in more arduous circumstances than a single battle on a warm spring afternoon.’
‘You think we’ll see combat? But …’
‘How? Not in the civil war, that’s pretty much certain. The last that I heard, Vespasianus’s army was marching for Italy, collecting friendly forces along the way. The decisive encounter will probably happen somewhere on the plains of the Po valley, just like Cremona back in April. And who knows which way such an encounter might go? But that’s not what’s on my mind.’
‘You’re thinking of the revolt of the Batavians?’
Vocula nodded.
‘Yes. It’s easy to imagine that they’ll pose no more of a threat to us here than Vespasianus’s men, given the distance between us, but such a view might well be … near-sighted.’
‘They are almost two hundred and fifty hundred miles distant, Legatus. I fail to see how they’re likely to offer us battle from that far away.’
The legatus nodded his understanding, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone.
‘That, strictly between you and I, First Spear, is because you’re not privy to the intelligence that I see. The official story is that the Batavians have been pinned back in their tribal lands next to the sea, with two legions to keep them in their place. It’s being painted as a local rebellion, to be contained until our detachments return from the south and we have sufficient strength to deal with them with the appropriate vigour and make an example of what happens when subject nations choose to revolt.’
‘But that isn’t all there is to it, Legatus?’
Vocula shook his head.
‘No, Antonius, that’s far from all there is to it. For a start, there are the eight cohorts of their troops that were camped here until a few days ago, sent north to their homeland by Vitellius as a reward for their leading part at Cremona. Now they’ve been ordered south again, to rejoin the army that will face the challenger Vespasianus’s legions. Although whether they’ll do that as formed cohorts or simply as scattered battle replacements is another matter. I’d break them up if it were my decision, and remove the threat that they might mutiny. But more importantly than that are the things we’re not telling the troops about the rebellion to the north. We’re not telling them that it’s not just the Batavians who are up in arms. Half a dozen other tribes have risen with them, and the Germans across the river are flocking to their leader Civilis’s banner. There are probably twice as many of them as we have men in the Old Camp, and if they get it into their heads to destroy that fortress then we really will have problems.’
Antonius nodded slowly.
‘So you think we might see action?’
The legatus shrugged.
‘I couldn’t say, in all truth. But keep your men ready to march at an hour’s notice, boots shod, rations ready and iron sharper than a swindled whore’s tongue, eh? Because when the time comes, I don’t think we’re going to get all that much warning.’
Germania Inferior, August AD 69
‘You’re certain this is the place?’
Kivilaz answered his companion’s question without looking up from the lines he was drawing in the dust with the point of his dagger.
‘I’m certain. The officer who carried the legatus augusti’s message was very specific that the meeting would take place at dawn, at the fork in the road where the two roads from Batavodurum lead to the Old Camp or Tungrorum. So unless there are two such locations, this is where Hordeonius Flaccus wanted to speak with me.’
‘That, or have an assassin put a poisoned arrow into you.’
The prince laughed out loud.
‘You really were in Rome too long, weren’t you, Hramn? Perhaps we should start calling you by your Roman name again? Would you prefer to be Julius Victor among the men of the tribe?’
He raised a hand to deflect Hramn’s ire.
‘I’m joking with you, man! Every boy in our family has been gifted with a Roman name since Julius Caesar took a shine to us all those many years ago, and I can’t say that I find Victor all that bad a name for you to be carrying – if you can live up to it!’
His nephew shook his head with a sour expression.
‘I’ve sworn never to use that name again, not after what Galba did to our honour by sending my men of the German Bodyguard home. The fool. And if he fell victim to assassins, so can you!’
‘Galba was killed because that fool Otho managed to bribe two dozen praetorians to do the job for him. But assassins with poisoned arrows don’t do very good business out here on what the Romans call “the edge of the world”, because in these parts most men who want someone dead tend to pick up a sword and try to make it happen themselves.’
The younger man shook his head in amusement, scratching at his scalp through a thick mane of dirty blond hair, blue eyes flashing in evident disbelief.
‘With all that they’ve put you through, how can you still underestimate the Romans? Three years commanding the Bodyguard in Rome taught me everything I’ll ever need or want to know about those cunning, devious, murdering bastards. They’re all at it, from the emperor himself to the lowest beggar, all thumbing their blades and wondering who to kill next for their money, or their woman, or even just for sport. They put tens of thousands of men to death in their arenas every year, and that’s just the gladiators, expensive property that their owners can ill afford to lose. The gods only know how many poor innocents die for the entertainment of the scum that populate Rome, rich and poor alike.’
Kivilaz looked up from his doodling in the dirt at the roadside.
‘I asked the same question of my host, Petillius Cerialis, Vespasianus’s son-in-law, while I was enjoying the hospitality of his home, in the days after Galba found me innocent of the charge of treason that saw my brother executed. He told me, proudly, mind you, that the games consume fifty thousand lives a year: slaves and Jews who die on the sand for their entertainment. So no, Hramn, despite the fact that my time in the city was limited, I don’t underestimate their murderous ways. But neither am I willing to overestimate their capabilities. And besides, the land to either side of the road is crawling with your guardsmen, I presume?’
