Courage can overcome agony, but it has too diamond-like a focus to deal with amorphous discomfort.
Vibulenus squinted, not because of the sun — which was too high now to interfere — but so that he could direct his attention where he wanted it. His vision kept flashing nervously from the battle scene as a whole to the centurions supporting him: Niger stolid, despite the cut in his face, but Clodius Afer visibly worried about the tribune’s mental and physical state.
“No, it’s all right,” Vibulenus muttered. “It had to be done that way.”
When he had spoken the words, which were not a lie if understood in more than a strictly military sense, his mind reasserted the control it needed and cooled his body to a support which did not intrude.
The ten cavalrymen on the legion’s left had held. The relief of seeing the armored riders hulking in place like so many fortresses, their visors raised to display the horror of their features, jellied the tribune’s knees for an instant so that he sagged again into the grip of the two non-coms.
It did not seem that the natives had made any attempt to attack the armored riders. The fear of monsters mounted on other slavering monsters would have worn off in time, but the crushing advance of the Roman infantry had left no time. The bodyguards were walking their beasts forward to keep pace with the legion. The warriors before them were beginning to stream away from the battle, able to do so safely because they were not anchored by contact with a foe who would slaughter them from behind.
The central mass of the copper-skinned enemy, as far as Vibulenus could see, was struggling in panic. Roman shields pressed back the warriors so fiercely that those who knew how assured was their doom if they stayed were, nonetheless, unable to flee.
Rising to his full height, craning his neck — he should have had a horse, but he would not have accepted one of the carnivores available even had it been offered — Vibulenus scanned the undulating ranks of the legion.
Success had disordered the Roman lines somewhat; but because neither pursuit nor severe irregularities of terrain were involved, the rearmost pair of ranks had retained cohesion. Even more coolly reserved was the command group, its members visible more from the height of their mounts than because of the tribune’s low vantage point. Falco; the Commander; and the ten remaining guards jutted up above the eagle standard, while the trumpeter and hornblower were hidden by the waving crests of the legionary infantry.
The Commander had retained the guards whom he had not sent to the left flank. What in the names of Jove and Hades was going on at the legion’s right?
“Prepare to disengage the Tenth Cohort,” said Gaius Vibulenus with such startling clarity that he could be heard by everyone within spear’s length of him despite the sounds of battle. “We will reverse to the right flank while developing any hostile threats to the legion’s rear.”
“Threat?” said Niger, stepping up on his toes to see what had led to the unexpected order.
The cackling triumph of thousands of natives sweeping toward the command group from the right flank was more answer than the tribune had time to give.
“Get the trumpeters and standard bearers, Niger,” said Clodius Afer in instant decision. “I’ll see what I can do to the front and send some non-coms back.”
Men promoted for courage were going to drift forward in battle, even if they would be of greater military benefit keeping control of ranks as yet uncommitted. Usually that stiffening of the front line came at very little cost. In the present circumstances, where the cohort had to execute a complex maneuver from the rear, lack of centurions and file-closers in the disengaged ranks wouldn’t make matters any easier.
“About face!” Vibulenus shouted as he stepped off the hillock, stumbling on one of the tumbled native bodies because his foot had not lifted as high as he intended.
Niger slapped the tribune’s shoulder in friendly benediction as the two childhood friends went off on separate errands of slaughter. The non-com’s round-faced boyishness contrasted with the taller officer’s youthfully-delicate features; and both visages contrasted even more with the hard-souled men who lived beneath the skin.