As it had done hundreds of times already.
The enemy began to chant in high-pitched voices, so many of them that it sounded like a chorus of frogs in a swamp swollen by springtime rains. The sparkling crunch of gravel beneath hobnails was the only noise the legion made in reply, but to the ears of a trained soldiers the sound of that disciplined advance was more terrible than any amount of barbarian yammer.
The tribune’s grin and the edges of his sword flashed toward the enemy.
The equipment the guild supplied was solid enough, helmets forged without weak spots and shields whose laminations did not split if they were dropped. But there was no craftsmanship in that produce, no soul, as there was in the Spanish sword.
Sometimes it seemed that the guild did not realize even that its soldiers had souls.
The natives came on with mass but no discipline, the way surf bubbles across a strand.
“Heads up!” warned a front-rank centurion as a score of light javelins snapped from the hostile lines in high arcs. They must have been using spear throwers, because no flesh-and-blood arm could have cast a missile so far unaided.
“Company comin’, boys,” said Clodius Afer. “Don’t lose your dress.” The coolness of his voice and the unconcern for anything but his cohort’s orderliness were more calming than any blustering encouragement could have been.
Vibulenus felt a sudden urge to empty his bladder. That too was calming, because the feeling had become a normal part of his life.
Being on the edge of battle was almost as normal as eating, now.
One of the darts howled down, short of the tribune but so close that he swung his shield instinctively to cover it. The missile was no more than three feet long, a shaft of something like rattan with a small iron point that shattered on the ground. He kicked the shaft as he stepped past it with the disgust that he would have felt for a snake in his pathway.
“More on the way!”
The warriors had surged around their fellows with bull-roarers. The sound continued, but Vibulenus doubted whether the signallers could long continue to spin their noisemakers above the heads of the armed warriors. Their shields were painted in geometric patterns, each unique. Some of the leaders gnawed on their shield rims as they shambled toward the legion.
It was about time to give them something else to chew on.
Vibulenus ran two steps ahead of the front of the legion with his sword raised. Waves of flame and melt water undulated through the nerves in his skin, breaking in turbulence at the hidden scars which the Medic could not remove.
The signallers would call for the first volley of javelins, but not all the legionaries would hear the bronze tones over the crunch of their own advance. If that initial flight were to be launched simultaneously for greatest effect, then there had to be a visual signal as well.
Gaius Vibulenus had just volunteered himself as visual signal, because he wasn’t willing to order any of his men to take the risk instead. His men.
The tall officer twisted his head and shoulders backward as he jogged toward the enemy. The shadow of his horsehair plume waved across the boots of the soldiers raising their left legs a little higher than usual to balance the javelins cocked back in their right hands to throw.
The whole left side of Vibulenus’ body crawled with fear of the enemy he could no longer see.
“Hit ’em, boys!” he shouted as the horns blared and the sword in his hand swung down in an arc turned green by the light of the virid sun.
A dart flew over the tribune and thudded into the shield of a file-closer, just as the front two ranks broke into a run and hurled their javelins at the enemy a hundred feet away. The shadows of three more native missiles merged with the tribune’s shadow; he staggered with shock and pain.
One of the darts struck near the boss of his shield, penetrating the three plies of wood but only bulging the felt backing. A second came down in so high an arc that it missed the shield and glanced from his shoulder where the attachments of his body armor formed a double thickness of bronze. The iron gouged a bright streak into the polished cuirass but did only cosmetic harm.