Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (116 page)

His wind was coming back and his calves and lower back had ceased to burn, so he considered the rest to have negated the larger part of the younger Valerian’s discreditable tactic. But even if Magnus had swiftly countered the other’s move, Bauto knew he wasn’t the only centurion who found it worrisome that the other side’s young general had been able to get a leg up on the old fox twice.

The horn sounded, and the Third’s signifer repeated it, blowing double-time before the last note had finished. They were on the move, quickly now, and as Bauto expected, they’d barely taken four steps before the enemy’s artillery loosed for the first time.

“Shields!” he shouted even though the front line was already a wall of black steel. Not that steel would do much to protect the men against the big wooden bolts fired by the scorpios or the huge rocks flung by the ballistae. “Move it, move it! Keep it moving!”

They were close enough that he could hear the creaking of wood and the snapping of the tormenta as the loyalist artillery fired over one hundred bolts into their lines. He winced as the unmistakable sound of the big wooden bolts slamming into metal, flesh, and bone was followed immediately by the screams of men in pain, but the screams were all to his right, and a quick glance along the line showed that none of his own men had been hit. Even so, their movement faltered.

So he joined his voice to the chorus of centurions urging their centuries on.

“Don’t stop! If you stop, you die! Forward! Faster, now, faster!”

Now the ballistae loosed, but again, the enemy was targeting the centuries to their right, mostly those in the center of the advancing legion. Aware that they were unscathed, the men of the Third didn’t slow this time, and they began to edge in front of the rest of the legionary line. Bauto was just about to rein them in when he saw the archers slipping forward between the enemy principes and begin forming a screen in front of them. He waited until the archers were bringing up their bows, then shouted a reminder to his men.

“Shields up! Keep moving! Shields up, damn you!”

He raised his own shield just in time, as he felt a sharp blow, heard a dull thud, and then saw the shattered remnants of the arrow shaft under his feet. He heard someone curse behind him, but he didn’t spare them a look, as he could see that their tight formation had largely defeated the missile attack.

The archers rained down five more volleys upon them as they continued to grimly march up the hill, until some unheard command was given, and the screen dissolved, the archers disappearing back into the enemy lines like water being drained from the bottom of a bowl. The Third gave out a ragged cheer, but it was short-lived as they saw the first row of the enemy infantry begin to raise their spears in preparation for the casting of the heavy pilum.

They were close enough to the enemy lines now that Bauto could easily read the numbers of the cohort and century painted onto their shields. To his surprise, they were the first of the second cohort, by tradition one of the weaker cohorts. Better yet, they were the green youths of Legio XVII, soldiers of the new legion whose battle experience was scanty and most likely limited to a few minor encounters with goblins.

The sight was an encouraging one, and he knew his hard-bitten veterans, most of whom bore scars from more than two dozen battles, would feel the same. But that didn’t mean the boys weren’t properly trained, and from their uphill position, they could throw their spears sooner and with more force than Bauto’s men could.

The opposing centurion, his bright armor and transverse crest easily spotted, shouted, and the front two lines stepped forward, brought up their arms, and hurled their pila in one massive volley.

Unlike the earlier attacks by the ballistarii and the archers, this one hammered directly into the Third, and the heavy spears drove through shields and armor alike. Of the ten men in the front of the line, four went down, and a fifth was left open and vulnerable as the pilum’s spearhead fouled his shield, forcing him to drop it.

“Second rank, move up! Fill in the gaps!” Bauto was beginning to sweat now with his exertions, and the battle was heating up too. He’d felt the wind as one pilum in the first volley had passed just over his left shoulder and another one in the second had struck the ground right at his feet, nearly impaling his right foot. But now it was time to give the enemy century a taste of their own medicine. “Pila ready, throw on my command!”

He didn’t carry a pilum himself, but he withdrew a verutum from its slot inside his concave shield and raised it high. He glanced across to see that the men had their pila up over their shoulders, then he shouted as he threw his little javelin at the enemy, knowing it was unlikely to do more than bounce off a legionary’s helmet or shield.

But the seventy-some pila that followed it were another matter entirely, and he could see the front ranks of the enemy century stagger and gaps opened up in the black-faceted face of the shield wall as wounded men fell back and others, their shields encumbered by as many as four pila in one case, were forced to cast them to the ground.

Now was the moment to charge. A scant distance now separated the two lines, and Bauto drew his sword. He had just raised it and turned to the left in order to tell the signifer to sound the charge when something struck him in the side, under his right arm. It didn’t hurt, but he grunted as the force of the impact caused him to twist and stumble. A heavy weight on his right side somehow interfered with his balance, and he fell to the cold, hard ground, still wet from the half-melted frost.

“Sir? Sir!”

He saw Phobus’s face leaning in toward his own and saw the man’s mouth moving, but he couldn’t seem to make sense of what the optio was saying. The charge, Bauto tried to tell his subordinate. Order the charge! You have to tell the men to charge now! But the optio didn’t seem to understand him. He had turned his face away from Bauto and was shouting something toward the men behind them.

Then something seemed to pull Phobus, and the Third, and the very battlefield itself away from Bauto, like a curtain being rapidly raised at the theater. Bauto struggled, reaching out, trying to grab his optio and make sure Phobus understood what the men needed to do. But Bauto couldn’t reach him, and as the sounds of battle, all the clashing of metal and the shouting of men, subsided into darkness, the centurion was still trying to comprehend why the optio hadn’t heard him

Paccius Vintius raised his fist in triumph when he saw the centurion abruptly whirl about and fall. It was glorious to see that Vintius had felled the man with his pilum. Indeed, it was still sticking out of his side as he lay on the ground.

“Did you see that?” he asked Orfitus, standing three paces to his left. “Did you see that? I got the centurion!”

“Sure you did,” Orfitus replied laconically. “Yeah, and I think I got bloody Magnus with mine. Better get your sword out, though. Here they come!”

It was an intimidating sight. The enemy legion looked considerably more dangerous now that they were only a few armslengths away than they had when they were struggling up the frost-slicked slope earlier in the morning.

For the first time since he’d kissed the eagle, Vintius wondered if he’d made the right decision in joining the legion. He hadn’t minded the training last summer. It had been hard and repetitive, but it had also been easier and more interesting than working in the fields had ever been. And the pay was good too, so good that he’d had to work on developing new vices just to spend it all. He’d also learned, much to his delight, that women liked soldiers, so much so that sometimes you didn’t even have to pay for it. That had never happened to him back on the farm.

On the other hand, on the farm, no one had ever come running toward him with a sword in his hand and a look of raw hatred on his scarred face.

The worst that had ever happened there was the time Pacuvio, the butcher’s son, had knocked him down for trying to talk Pacuvio’s sister into showing him her fica. It was the great regret of his life that he had never succeeded in laying eyes upon that wonder. Sometimes, when he lay with one of the camp whores, especially one with long black hair, he closed his eyes and pretended it was her.

Whang! The heavy clash of a sword against his shield brought him brutally back to the battlefield.

He was startled to see that the rebel legionary was practically an old man, with deep lines carved into his face by nothing worse than age. He wasn’t a feeble old man, though, as another crashing blow upon his shield half-deadened his arm.

Vintius was confused for a moment, wondering why the rebel wasn’t thrusting his sword as they’d all been trained, until he realized that the rebel wasn’t attempting to stab him, but was instead trying to beat his shield aside. He tried a thrust of his own, but it was too slow and cautious, and his opponent blocked it easily with his own sword before hammering Vintius’s shield again, half-knocking it aside.

Vintius stabbed at the man’s angry brown eyes and was rewarded with a flinch. It was a small victory, but it gave him confidence that he could survive this fight, that he could survive the battle.

Then the man ducked behind his shield and ran right at Vintius, smashing violently into him, shield to shield. The force of the blow sent Vintius reeling backward, where he was caught by the legionary waiting to take his place should he fall. His opponent couldn’t follow up his advantage, however, as a man in the third rank jabbed his pilum out and struck the rebel squarely on the shield, pushing him back and giving Vintius time to get his balance again.

Truly frightened now, Vintius shouted as he ran at his opponent and bashed at the other’s shield. He could see irritation in the man’s eyes and he stabbed at them, forcing the other to jerk his head sideways to avoid the jab. But the movement caused the man to shift his shield to the right, just enough to expose his left side.

Vintius saw the opening. With a third thrust he managed to stab the man’s hip just under the mail that covered his torso. It wasn’t a deep cut, but he could feel that it went to the bone, and he heard the main cry out in pain. When he pulled back his sword for another thrust, its tip was red with blood.

But before he could follow up the attack with another one, his opponent had fallen back within the ranks of the enemy lines and was replaced by another man, this one younger but equally hard-eyed and at least a head taller.

“Got lucky, did you, puppy?” his new opponent spat contemptuously at him, blocking his first thrust without even taking his eyes away from Vintius’s face. He was a big man, and his neck was thick and muscular like a bear’s. He blocked the second and third thrust just as easily, not even making an attempt to strike back. Then a fourth, followed by a fifth. “That’s it, puppy! Get it all out!”

Vintius was panting now, and despite the hours at the training block, his shoulders and forearms were starting to burn. Holding up his shield was an increasing struggle, and the point of his sword was now dropping toward the ground. Fear swelled inside him as his new opponent bared his teeth in a confident smile, as he realized that the man was about to move to the attack.

Where was the horn? Wasn’t it time for the first rotation yet? Desperate to buy himself time, he summoned what felt like his last reserves of strength and leaped at the big rebel, bringing his sword down in a powerful arc to smash the man’s shield aside.

Only it wasn’t there. Instead, pain exploded in his chest as the man’s sword punched through the meticulously polished scales of his armor, which protected him about as well as an insect’s carapace from a man’s iron-shod boot.

Vintius dropped his shield and tried to pull back, but the weight of his body held him suspended on the killing steel that ran through his body. He shrieked and tried to cry for help from Orfitus, but little more than blood came out of his mouth. Then, the ground was rushing up at him as the sword abruptly vanished from his chest, leaving only the terrible pain behind.

“Didn’t nobody ever tell you not to lead with your rear, puppy?” he heard an amused voice call from the sky. It sounded very far away.

He lay motionless on the ground, his lifesblood leaking into the sodden earth also watered by his tears. Why didn’t I stay on the farm? he wondered as the pain in his chest gradually faded. It wasn’t such a bad life, in the end. His last thought was the bitter regret that he’d never even dared to try kissing Pacuvio’s sister.