“Falco,” he says with no attempt to lower his voice, “you tell our deified Commander to get somebody on our left flank if he expects the Tenth to advance. There’s too many natives—they’ll hit us from three sides at once.”
“You afraid to die?” the galloper sneers. He tugs at the reins.
Vibulenus holds them. A gust of wind whips at his cloak. “Afraid to get my skull split?” he asks. “I don’t know. Are you, Falco?” Falco glances at where the tribune’s right hand rests. He says nothing. “Tell him we’ll fight for him,” Vibulenus goes on. “We won’t let him throw us away. We’ve gone that route once.” He looses the reins and watches the galloper scatter gravel on his way back.
The replacement gear is solid enough, shields that do not split when dropped and helmets forged without thin spots. But there is no craftsmanship in them. They are heavy, lifeless. Vibulenus still carries a bone-hilted sword from Toledo that required frequent sharpening but was tempered and balanced—poised to slash a life out, as it has a hundred times already. His hand continues to caress the palm-smoothed bone, and it calms him somewhat.
“Thanks, sir.”
The thin-featured tribune glances back at his men. Several of the nearer ranks give him a spontaneous salute. Calvus is the one who spoke. He is blank-faced now, a statue of mahogany and strap-bronze. His stocky form radiates pride in his leader. Leader—no one in the group around the standards can lead a line soldier, though they may give commands that will be obeyed. Vibulenus grins and slaps Calvus’s burly shoulder. “Maybe this is the last one and we’ll be going home,” he says.
Movement throws a haze over the enemy camp. At this distance it is impossible to distinguish forms, but metal flashes in the virid sunlight. The shadow of bodies spreads slowly to right and left of the breastworks as the natives order themselves. There are thousands of them, many thousands.
“Hey-yip!” Twenty riders of the general’s bodyguard pass behind the cohort at an earthshaking trot. They rein up on the left flank, shrouding the exposed depth of the infantry. Pennons hang from the lances socketed behind their right thighs, gay yellows and greens to keep the lance heads from being driven too deep to be jerked out. The riders’ faces are sullen under their mesh face guards. Vibulenus knows how angry they must be at being shifted under pressure—under his pressure—and he grins again. The bodyguards are insulted at being required to fight instead of remaining nobly aloof from the battle. The experience may do them some good.
At least it may get a few of the snotty bastards killed.
“Not exactly a regiment of cavalry,” Calvus grumbles.
“He gave us half of what was available,” Vibulenus replies with a shrug. “They’ll do to keep the natives off our back. Likely nobody’ll come near, they look so mean.”
The centurion taps his thigh with his knobby swagger stick. “Mean? We’ll give ’em mean.”
All the horns in the command group sound together, a cacophonous bray. The jokes and scufflings freeze, and only the south wind whispers. Vibulenus takes a last look down his ranks—each of them fifty men abreast and no more sway to it than a tight-stretched cord would leave. Five feet from shield boss to shield boss, room to swing a sword. Five feet from nose guard to the nose guards of the next rank, men ready to step forward individually to replace the fallen or by ranks to lock shields with the front line in an impenetrable wall of bronze. The legion is a restive dragon, and its teeth glitter in its spears; one vertical behind each legionary’s shield, one slanted from each right hand to stab or throw.
The horns blare again, the eagle standard slants forward, and Vibulenus’s throat joins three thousand others in a death-rich bellow as the legion steps off on its left foot. The centurions are counting cadence and the ranks blast it back to them in the crash-jingle of boots and gear.
Striding quickly between the legionaries, Vibulenus checks the dress of his cohort. He should have a horse, but there are no horses in the legion now. The command group rides rough equivalents which are . . . very rough. Vibulenus is not sure he could accept one if his parsimonious employers offered it.