“If we’re going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere for however long,” the centurion said, “then you may as well learn to call me Froggie. And I’m not sorry we’re with you, Slats, if we’ve got to be out here at all.”
Pollio’s trumpet called again, ordering Postumius and his boys into the back of beyond. Three centuries from each cohort, half the strength of the legion, had been sent off these past two days on individual escort missions.
“Exactly!” said Slats. He spoke through his mouth—not every race serving the Commanders did—but he had three jaw plates, not two, and he looked more like a lamprey talking than he did anything Froggie wanted to watch. “If we have to be here. What do you think of the expedition, Centurion Froggie?”
Froggie thought it was the worst idea he’d heard since Crassus marched into Parthia with no guides and no clue, but he wasn’t going to say that to anydamnbody. Aloud he said, “I would’ve thought that maybe waiting till this place was officially pacified so you guys could move in your burning weapons and so forth . . . that that might be a good idea.”
The First Squad with Glabrio in front was entering the forest. It niggled Froggie that he wasn’t up with them, though he knew how sharp Glabrio’s eyes were. The file-closer had served as the unofficial unit scout ever since Froggie got to know him.
“Exactly!” Slats repeated. “It is extremely dangerous to treat the planet as pacified when it is not pacified. What if the Anroklaatschi—”
The barbs; Froggie never bothered to learn what barbs called themself. Most times you couldn’t pronounce it anyway.
“—attack the Harbor in force as they attacked when we landed? They could sweep right over the few troops remaining, could they not?”
Froggie thought about the question. The barbs came riding to battle on chariots. One fellow with only a kinked sword drove while two warriors with long spears and full armor stood in the back. The driver held the “horses” behind the lines while his betters stomped forward in no better order than a flock of sheep wearing brass.
The barbs had gotten a real surprise when—instead of spending half the afternoon shouting challenges—the legion had advanced on the double, launched javelins, and then waded in for the real butcher’s work with swords. That surprise couldn’t be repeated, but so long as whoever was in command of the understrength legion kept his head . . .
“Some folks’ swordarms are going to be real tired by the time it’s over,” Froggie said judiciously, “but I guess they’d come through all right.”
The smooth-barked trees in this place were tall, some of them up to two hundred feet. The branches came off in rows slanting up the trunks to end in sprays of tassels like willow whips instead of proper leaves.
Froggie hadn’t seen real trees since he’d marched into Mesopotamia. He’d seen a date palm there and wondered what he was doing in a place so strange. He’d been right to worry.
Slats and the Commander called this place a planet, just like the Commanders did every place they took the legion to. The only thing “planet” meant to Froggie was the stars that he used to watch move slowly across the sky while he tended sheep before he enlisted. Hercules! but he wished he was back in the Sabine Hills now.
“Well, all right, the Harbor may hold,” Slats said peevishly, “but what about you and I, Centurion Froggie? What chance do we have if the Anroklaatschi attack?”
“Well, Slats . . .” Froggie said. “That depends on a lot of things. I’d just as soon it didn’t happen, but me and the boys’ll see what can be done if it does.”
Froggie and the palanquin reached the shade of the forest. This wasn’t a proper road but it was a lot more than an animal track. Two and generally three men could march abreast, though their outside knees and elbows brushed low growth which looked like starbursts from a peglike stem.
Tassels closed all but slivers of the sky overhead, and the trunks cut off sight of the Harbor. Froggie knew the Commander had ways to see through trees or even solid rock, but he still relaxed a little to have the feeling of privacy.