Clash of Eagles (10 page)

“Tribune. Attend me.”

Corbulo turned on him. “
You
told the men the redskins are cowards! They cower in defeat. Look at Fuscus!”

“The Powhatani, yes. Even the Iroqua. Perhaps not these Cahokiani.” Marcellinus strode forward and clamped his hand onto Corbulo’s arm. “I gave you an order, Tribune. Obey me.”

Corbulo’s hand dropped to the hilt of his gladius. “Not today, I think.”

Their eyes met. Looking deep into Corbulo’s soul, Marcellinus saw many things: fear, resentment, and above all Corbulo’s desperate and enduring need to redeem himself.

It was the same wild look he had seen in Corbulo’s eye during the ambush in Appalachia. Corbulo was suffering from that same panic now. His nerve was cracking.

Corbulo broke eye contact but dropped his voice. “I know you, Gaius. You’re looking for an excuse to avoid slaughter. But it’s too late. The men will revolt and kill us both if we don’t attack
now.
”

“The men will do as I order. They respect prudence.”

“Prudence?” said Corbulo, reverting to a voice loud enough to carry to the nearest troops. “Prudence says we wipe out the savages, take their corn and their gold and their women, and, yes, grind the bones of the men to pave the temple to Jupiter Imperator that we’ll build on that sand castle of theirs. As
you
said yourself just the other night. Did you lose your stomach for the fight, Gaius Marcellinus? Forget so soon how
these savages mutilated your Norse catamite? Or have you made deals by night and now favor the red men?”

“What?” Marcellinus shook his head, overwhelmed at this knot of bizarre accusations. But Corbulo’s gladius was now unsheathed, and
that
was something Marcellinus could understand.

Legionaries might take advantage of the chaos on the battlefield to rough up an unpopular centurion. It happened often enough. But for a tribune to challenge a legate’s authority a few hundred yards from the enemy’s gate was unthinkable.

“I’m relieving you of your command,” Marcellinus said.

Corbulo grinned. “I think not.”

Suddenly, all around Marcellinus was movement; Gnaeus Fabius seized a pilum and stepped up to stand with Corbulo, and flanking the two mutineers came four swarthy auxiliaries, mercenaries from east of the Danube, Magyars, perhaps, or Bulgars. Too late, Marcellinus saw that this little scene was not as impromptu as it had first appeared. He dropped back several paces to open up space around him, his adrenaline surging.

The pilum of Fabius was the first danger, with its reach so much longer than a sword’s. The javelin was capable of ending a fight in a single well-aimed throw but could be cumbersome as a hand-to-hand weapon. A better fighter than Fabius might have charged in and pinned Marcellinus to ready him for the dispatch, but apparently Fabius’s magistracy had not primed him for such martial boldness; instead he launched the pilum at Marcellinus from fifteen feet away. The Praetor took a single step to the right as it flew by, and remained on balance.

Hands free, no shield within reach, Marcellinus unsheathed his gladius with his right hand and his pugio with his left and stood fast as the six men charged him.

With a strange howl that was neither a berserker yell nor a cry of abandon, Aelfric hurled himself into the fray at his commander’s side. So nimble was his charge that if the Briton had been a party to the treachery, Marcellinus would have been on his knees with a blade through his kidney before he could have parried.

Marcellinus cut down the first two mercenaries with swift slices to the gut. They were hardly the first young hotheads to fatally misjudge his speed. The paid help from Roma’s provinces were generally not skilled gladiatorial fighters; on the battlefield they relied on ferocity rather than virtuosity, and Marcellinus had been training daily in swordplay since he’d been a child.

Once they saw the fight was not as simple as they’d hoped the third and fourth auxiliaries backed away rapidly and stepped apart to encircle him.

Meanwhile, Aelfric’s gladius clashed with Corbulo’s; the two men slashed and parried, swung and ducked, and Aelfric staggered back. Faced with the choice between two opponents, Marcellinus chose the third, darting between the two Magyars to lunge at Domitius Corbulo’s flank. Corbulo spun to face him, startled, and Marcellinus drove the pugio up under his breastplate and deep into his ribs, leaning back to slice his gladius across his former tribune’s gut. As Corbulo reeled like a drunkard, swinging his blade wildly, Marcellinus dropped to one knee, allowing Aelfric to leap over his sword arm and slam bodily into the nearest of the mercenaries, bowling him over.

The unexpected trade in opponents made short work of the insurrection. Corbulo screamed like a banshee as his entrails tumbled out into the dirt, a cry that turned into a guttural bubbling as Marcellinus tugged his dagger free and severed the man’s windpipe.

The mutineer fell to the ground with an audible thump.

Beside him Aelfric had handily slain the third mercenary. The fourth raised his sword over them with a yell and was almost casually decapitated by Pollius Scapax, arriving better late than not at all.

Left alone in his mutiny in a matter of seconds, Gnaeus Fabius stood stupidly before them, his gladius pointing at the ground. He looked around for reinforcements, but the men near him stood mute. Praetor Gaius Marcellinus calmly cleaned his two blades on Corbulo’s tunic at his feet while holding his Second Tribune’s gaze.

Pollius Scapax strode the ten paces that separated them. Fabius raised his sword but didn’t have the courage to swing it at the centurion.
Gently, almost kindly, Scapax reached forward and seized the tribune’s gladius at the hilt, turned it toward Fabius’s belly, and kicked his knees from behind. As Gnaeus Fabius fell onto his own sword, Scapax ripped off the man’s cape and plumed helmet and threw them aside, demoting him from the rank of tribune and the ranks of the living in the same moment.

Marcellinus sheathed his pugio. The closest legionaries swiveled their heads almost comically back and forth between Marcellinus, Scapax, and the assembled swath of the Cahokiani nation behind them. Marcellinus realized that two entire armies had come to a halt, waiting for the leadership battle to be decided.

Aelfric had stood by him, after all. But Marcellinus was not surprised that no one else had come to his aid. To most of the men Marcellinus and Corbulo were of a common stripe: patricians, Roma’s natural masters, representatives of the ruling class. Their lot would be much the same whichever man wore the Praetor’s crest. Unless they were paid or coerced, they had naught to gain and all to lose by picking a side.

Scapax approached, his gladius still unsheathed but reversed so that the point pushed up against his breast. “I was not close by when I might have served you, Praetor,” he said gruffly. “And so I offer you my life. But I’d rather expend it killing some barbarians for you than follow Fabius to hell right away if you’ll give me leave.”

“Of course,” Marcellinus said calmly. “Think nothing of it. I relished the chance to clean house.”

His First Centurion’s relief was palpable. “My thanks.”

“In addition, I find myself short of field lieutenants. I will take the Second and Third. Assume the tribuneship of the First if you please.”

Scapax’s eyes glinted. “Very good, sir.”

He saluted, and Marcellinus returned the salute. His new officer marched to his command.

Likewise, Aelfric turned to hurry back to the Fifth.

“Tribune?” said Marcellinus. “My thanks.”

Aelfric looked back, and their eyes met.

“And my apologies. I was perhaps … harsh.”

The Briton grinned. “Not at all, sir.”

“We’ll drink wine tonight.”

“As my Praetor requests.” Aelfric bowed and set off toward his cohorts at a trot.

Considering that there were thousands of men present, the stillness of the afternoon was impressive. If not for the tension in the air, Marcellinus could have closed his eyes and thought himself alone in the sunshine. As it was, he felt his army extending out from him in all directions like a drawn bow, arrow nocked and at the ready, bowstring tight, arm muscles aquiver.

The Praetor slowed his breathing and studied the battlefield. His Legion was deployed uniformly, presenting an even front a thousand yards long. The Cahokiani horde was by no means so well distributed; the northern end of their line was thicker, holding thousands more than the southern end that stood between him and the Master Mound. Would they deliberately expend more troops defending their population center than their sacred hill? Was it just an accident of formation? Or was the nearer end of their line guarded by something he couldn’t see?

Not the wings, certainly. Though impressive, their Master Mound did not approximate to a mountain. Pilots who leaped from its top barely had time to loop back around before they were on the ground again.

A hidden pit? All the soil that went into the mounds had to come from somewhere. Had the Cahokiani concealed their borrow pits in the hope of enticing their enemies to charge headlong into them?

Perhaps. But in that case all Marcellinus had to do to minimize his losses was have the Legion walk rather than run. And Marcellinus still didn’t like the looks of the mounds and houses that stood between his army and the palisade; he wasn’t about to rush pell-mell into them in any case.

He turned his attention to the enemy line. At last Marcellinus could see the Cahokiani clearly. In their garb they were a mixed bunch, some
wearing only breechcloths and swirling tattoos, others decked out in what might be tunics with wooden mats hanging down over their chests and stomachs as the simplest armor. Here and there men wore a woven sash, a kilt bearing geometric patterns, moccasins of deerskin, or a collar of what might have been rabbit. Hanging from many ears he saw pendulous adornments of antler and bone.

The Cahokiani had no flags, standards, or symbols and little organization. Nowhere was this more apparent than in their array of weaponry: wooden bows probably crafted of hickory, spears of wood much shorter and lighter than the Roman pila, and clubs and axes, too, but also a variety of tools hurriedly pressed into service: hafted hoes, mattocks. Some of the men clutched nothing more deadly than a rock or a knife.

He faced a mass of nobles and commoners, farmers and traders, warriors and weavers all mixed together, and a style of fighting the Romans had outgrown a millennium and a half earlier. The Romans were heavily outnumbered, but they had metal blades and armor and intense discipline on their side. Marcellinus’s sympathies lay with his foes.

Yet he still felt an instinctive unease at these people with their almost intimate stares, waiting as calmly as if they went toe-to-toe with a Roman army once a week. In the mountains, people not so different from these had assaulted them from above. What was about to happen here?

Isleifur Bjarnason’s voice echoed in his head. “They have more … You haven’t seen anything yet …”

Corbulo had been quite right; now that Marcellinus had seen the Great City for himself, he would have given anything to avoid this battle. But such a thing was impossible.

They already knew the Hesperians did not understand the civilized conduct of war. Their sneak attacks, their use of poison arrows, the torture and murder of his scout, and their use of the flying machines all provided adequate testimony to that. Marcellinus could easily ride out between the armies under a flag of truce to try to parley only to perish in a hail of arrows for his pains. No leader or chieftain was evident in the
massed line of Cahokiani that faced him. He saw no one to negotiate with even if he’d still had a word slave at his disposal.

Besides, they had literally passed the point of no return. The Legion needed the city’s food. And for that Marcellinus needed to conquer the city.

It was a testament to the steadiness of his centurions that none of his cohorts had yet erupted into a charge. Marcellinus could not halt this battle any more than he could hold back the tide.

Very well, then.

Praetor Gaius Publius Marcellinus raised his gladius high and gave the signals to his aquilifer and signiferi while shouting: “Advance in steps, covering! Burn all buildings; secure high ground! Arrows in rotation once in range; maintain formation till melee. Forward the Legion, for Roma, the Imperator, and the Fighting 33rd!”

Marcellinus dropped his arm. His sword rent the air. Trumpets sounded. With a roar the Legion surged forward, but tightly, masterfully, and in control.

Across the plaza the amassed braves raised their bows, their axes, their hoes. Marcellinus was sure they roared just as loudly as his own men, but thankfully he could not hear them.

The Legion had methodically advanced a quarter of the distance separating them from the Cahokiani when the nearest houses burst into flame. Marcellinus had given the order to fire them in passing so that the enemy could not use them as cover, but these ignitions were not Roman doing. The thatched houses went up in a series of giant
whumphs,
burning with an intense red-white flare. What had the savages put in them to make them blaze so fiercely?

Yet no real explosion came, no scattering of burning debris. Not a single Roman was harmed by the incendiaries. Nor were they accompanied by an ambush: no Hesperians tumbled out from behind a mound or inside a hut. The Legion marched forward steadily, its front line replenishing itself, inexorably closing the distance to the foe that waited on the other side of the Cahokiani plaza.

The locals adopted no formation except the simple line, and still Marcellinus saw no leaders, no orders given. They seemed content to watch the Romans closing in.

Up the Roman line to the north, Marcellinus saw the front ranks of the Fourth drop to one knee. Auxiliaries less encumbered by shields and armor and with fewer huts and mounds to navigate around, the Fourth had advanced more swiftly than the other cohorts and was now within arrow range.

His attention was pulled back by cries of surprise from the men close by him. He followed their gaze and pointing fingers, and his eyes widened.