Dust and the smell of vomit filled my lungs. Thunder vibrated beneath my feet and always above me hissed the never-ending stream of arrows and darts. My throat ached with a thirst I could barely recall ever having suffered before. Around me, the men of the Second stood similarly afflicted. We were twenty men wide and eight men deep, hunkered down behind the wall of the acanthus flowers, all now stained and mottled with blood. Before us lay a testament to our tenacity and resolve – that mangled heap of horse and rider which now rose like a briar of the dead. We had stood the initial assault and it had foundered like a broken wave upon our iron – and now we stood aching and parched behind the shields, our line firm, our standards high. Before us, the desert of the Harra unrolled with its grisly contents: weeping men in cracked armour, wild-eyed horses wrapped up in blood and gashes, torn standards doused with gore and now unrecognisable. The remnants of those proud Saraceni cataphracts tumbled backwards baffled and angry at our resolve and we stood silent and firm in the face of that confusion. That wave fell backwards in a wreath of dust and kicking hooves – and in its stead arose another wave moving swiftly forwards on our left flank straight into the serried ranks of Barko’s lads in the Third Maniple.
I remember standing on the far left of the Maniple, Suetonius behind me with the draco high and behind him the vexillarius. Over my right shoulder lay the bulk of the legionaries under my immediate command – but to my left opened up a space barely a dozen steps wide. It was a narrow corridor; an empty channel that would accommodate no more than one or two desperate warriors foolish enough to run that gauntlet. And on the other side stood the first of the lads under Barko – again some one hundred and sixty legionaries in a solid block twenty men wide and eight men deep. Far over on its left flank, I knew Barko stood with his own standards, his narrow, wrinkled face, grinning even as these Saraceni foot fell upon them all. For one insane moment, his eyes caught mine with a sardonic light – and then all the front rank of his lads fell into a crimson wash as chaos covered everything.
These Saraceni warriors, all grasping long spears and shoving forwards the high wide wicker shields of the desert peoples, charged forwards onto that right flank even as their cataphracts disengaged and fell back all pell-mell and a-tumbling over their dead and dying. I had a glimpse of savage desert faces with narrow hawk-eyes and oily beards – and then the taut Latin of the biarchii in the front ranks rose up bidding the lads to remain firm and hold to the standards. War-cries and the clash of spear and sword drowned out any sense then and the dust of the Black Desert seemed to rise up deliberately to swallow them all up.
I remember standing then among my own lads as if in a well of silence but of course it was not silent. I remember looking around as if gazing in a dream at the peace about me but of course this was no dream but a nightmare. Finally, I remember smiling in peace as I stood observing all this as if from a great distance but of course it was barely a dozen tiny steps to my left.
And I remember hearing a legionary near me shout out that we were going to let the Third be slaughtered while we stood by and did nothing?
Were we? Yes, for we were Romans. One thing alone allowed us that name and that was discipline. That great lost goddess who walked in the shadow of every soldier and unit of Rome –
disciplina, the hoary old crone who scolded us and mocked us and brought harsh blows down upon our backs if we faltered or wavered under the standards. She was a cruel goddess – of that there was no denying – but at least one could say that she did not discriminate. She either looked you in the eye or she spat upon you and caused shame to rise in your gullet. Her eye missed nothing and her finger, when it pointed you out, burned into you like a molten dart. She was old, yes, and mottled like a hag. Her kiss was cold and her embrace held no balm, only recognition. She was the oldest of the goddesses and it was said that only one offering would appease her in war and battle – and that was a single flower plucked from those first fields and meadows of Rome. Such a little flower and of a bloom that only ever reeked of blood. Was it any wonder we adorned our shields with that flower plucked by Octavian Augustus so many centuries ago?
So yes we would stand. Discipline demanded no less.
But that smell of vomit haunted me even as blood and confusion and death fell not a dozen steps to my left. I turned and ordered the biarchus in charge of those eight men near me – one of whom had shouted out that provocation – to report to me after the battle and the tone in my voice made his face pale into a white mask. Above us, filed the thin slivers of darts and arrows flicking one way and then another but all seemed to either fall short or too far behind us. It was as if we stood in a little pocket of space – a hallowed ground untouched by all the fighting around us. It was an illusion of course and a dangerous one. These Saraceni under this Kalb we merely probing us and attempting to find a weak chink in the armour of our lines – and this little reserve of peace we now stood in was as much a trick and a tactic as the blood and screams not a dozen paces to my left. It was a trick I was not going to fall into – despite the frustrations of the legionaries about me.
Time seemed to hang then. We stood alone and motionless apart for the little twitches of sword hand on hilt, the stretching of the helmeted head to one side and then the other, the shaking of the booted foot. We stood as if spectators and at our side our companions in the Macedonica tumbled inevitably down into death. The Saraceni foot swarmed then on all sides and even bled into that little corridor such was their bravura. Behind me, I heard men curse in deep frustration but those curses were always followed now by the sharp retort of the biarchii following my lead.
And all the while vomit rose up in me even as it fell on me in a great stench.
I glanced back once far behind me into the glittering ranks of those armoured riders about the Dux Cassianus. The heat shimmered between us and gave everything a low glassy touch but I swear I saw him lounging back upon his horse as if laughing at some lewd joke uttered by one if his guards. Only as I turned to forget that sight did I see my Tribune Angelus on foot among his officers to the rear and he alone of them all seemed to find my gaze and bring that dark cold Syrian look upon me. There was no relief in that look as I knew there would not be. Discipline allowed no favourites.
It was then as I turned back into that stench which lay before us on the field of battle that I saw a ragged soldier scramble down among us, his dirty
tunica all besmirched with grime and blood. This rough man fell in among us cursing like whore and then tumbled over the slaughtered carcass of a Saraceni horse to reach us in the front ranks. For a moment, he crouched underneath that mass of rent flesh and then sighted his arcuballistae to fire it cunningly into the Saraceni warriors massing around the Third. I saw a plumed warrior jerk backwards, his thick black beard arcing up as if in surprise like a latch on a door, and then disappear into the wall of fighting. This
numeri grinned at that and began to reload his wooden weapon. Impatient, I reached out and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck to drag him into the protection of the shields.
He winked at me and then slotted a thin dart along the narrow runnel. ‘Greetings, dominus,’ he said, ‘Me and the lads were wondering if we might do you a favour.’
‘Favour? What in Hades are you talking about?’ I snapped back at him. The
numeri on my right had drifted back in open order when the cataphracts had all fallen on us and were now hovering loosely behind us in-between the Second Maniple and the refused Maniple under the Sebastianus. A few of them were dashing forwards to pepper the Saraceni riders now massing below us to shield the retreating cataphracts.
‘Well,’ he spat out, ‘the line must hold, eh? And you fancy legion lads can’t move right?’ There was an insolence to his attitude and for a moment I had an urge to ram the pommel of my spatha into his stomach – but something held me back.
‘The Dux has ordered us to hold the line,
tiro,’ I replied in a harsh voice, belittling his status. ‘We cannot advance the line forwards unless specifically ordered to.’
‘That’s right, dominus.’ He looked carefully around him and then leaned in as if to confide a secret. ‘But we are nothing but
numeri, right, dominus? We skirmish before line, right? All we ever do is dance about like drunken boys after a holy day, eh? We thought it might be to the Ducenarius’ liking if we danced now, eh? Right out there in that empty ground amid all that lovely horse-flesh for cover –'
‘-And shoot those wooden arcuballistae of yours into the flanks of those Saraceni?’ I finished for him.
‘If it please the dominus, yes. We wouldn’t be moving the line forwards now would we, eh? Not if you all stand here in your fancy armour and hold that bloody line, eh?’ He winked then and grinned such a rat grin that I almost wanted to hug him.
I glanced out across that field of death and desert and realised in a heartbeat that it was a murderous ground. We stood unbowed in it because we were clad in armour and hunkered down behind our oval shields – the ragged
numeri would not have that advantage. I turned back to him – but he was already nodding back as if diving my thoughts.
‘Don’t worry, dominus. We dance well and Aemilianus has taught us that dancing fools who cavort well may strike where veteran soldiers cannot, eh?’
‘Well,
tiro,’ I grinned back into his rat face, ‘what are you waiting for? Show us your moves!’
He laughed in an insane way then and vanished as quickly as he arrived, ducking in and under the bodies around him. Barko didn’t know it yet but we were both obeying orders
and breaking them and, as I looked about me into the fierce faces of the legionaries of the Second, I knew they all approved. I prayed to all the gods then that Angelus would see the sense of it.
‘Hold the line!’ I shouted out – and all along that line my men twirled the oval shields in approval and the petals spun as if the sun itself opened up to them.
Re: IB SAI AAR - The Nowhere Legion
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waiting, with curiosity and apprehension.
SBH You are a unvaluable resurce as well a great writer, proud to be your friend!!!!
(Do you see? You already have two readers, the greatest Italian writer of the XIX c., Alessandro Manzoni, referring to his public said: 'My four readers!', you are halfway!!!)
