Seventy-five paces. ‘Ready.’ Three and a half thousand fists closed on the shafts of the heavy, weighted javelins they carried.
Sixty paces. ‘Throw.’ Three and a half thousand arms pulled back and launched their pila towards the enemy. The moment the javelins flew, the legionaries drew swords with a metallic hiss that sent a shiver through every man.
Forty paces was the ideal killing range of the pilum, the heavy spear that consisted of a length of ash tipped by a shaft of iron the length of a man’s arm and a pyramidal point designed to pierce shield and armour. But the primus pilus, the senior centurion and tactical commander of the first wave, had judged his distance perfectly. By the time the javelins fell in three great hissing arcs, the front ranks of the opposing lines had just entering the killing ground. The heavy spears punched into shield, or armour, or flesh. If point met shield at the optimum angle, the spear would rip through layers of ash as if they were silk. With good fortune the owner would survive with a dent in his armour, but for the rest of the battle his shield would be hampered by the heavy javelin. Plate armour might stop a direct hit by a pilum if the impact was not perfect, but its wearer’s charge would be stalled and the shock was capable of cracking ribs and breaking bone. Any man foolish enough to look up as the spears fell would end up with a shaft of iron through his skull.
The converging attacks faltered like boxers staggered by a simultaneous opening punch, but the legionaries on each side recovered swiftly to launch the final rush with a spine-chilling howl that echoed their fear and their rage and their pride. With a splintering crash that rippled like distant thunder, the two shield lines met. Swords hammered at oak shields and individual pairs of warriors tested their strength, heaving, twisting and pushing. Screams and curses and pleas to a dozen different gods filled the air.
Watching with his reserves fifty paces to the rear, Valerius tried to still his own thundering heart as he spoke quietly to his men. He knew that the initial casualties in these encounters would be relatively low. Armoured men, fighting from behind the big curved shields, do not present many targets. The only thing an enemy would see was the gleaming sword point that probed to find his weakness, a bobbing helmet and perhaps a glimpse of a pair of eyes that mirrored his; eyes that contained a potent mix of savagery and terror. Those were his targets: the eyes, the throat and possibly a carelessly presented armpit where a point might find its way to the heart.
But casualties there were, because suddenly men were crawling back through the ranks with blood hanging in skeins from gaping mouths, or reeling clear with scarlet spurts from a severed jugular clouding the air. A young legionary staggered from the line with one hand clapped over his eye and blood running through his fingers. A veteran centurion, transferred in from Moesia to give the First a backbone of experience, checked the sobbing man and inspected the wound, a diagonal cut that had split the eyeball like an over-ripe grape.
‘An honourable wound, son, taken in the front.’ Should he send the boy back to the wounded? He sniffed the air, as if he could scent the course of the battle, and made his decision. ‘Still, a man can fight with one eye. You can stand and you’ve kept hold of your sword. Get back there and let the medicus patch you up, and when you’ve had a bit of a rest join the reserves.’
The boy shambled off and the veteran nodded to Valerius. ‘A good lad, keeping hold of his sword with a wound like that. They’re all good lads, tribune; they’ll do.’
‘Close up. Fill the gaps.’
Similar small dramas were being played out all along the line, but the line held and in places it even forced the men of the elite Twenty-first Rapax back a few paces. The marine legionaries fought with a terrible ferocity fostered by the memory of their humiliation by Galba and hatred of an enemy whose aim was to oust the man who had given them their precious eagle. But it was the big former oarsmen from the Classis galleys who were making the difference. Their opponents couldn’t match their enormous strength and it was where the oar-hardened sailors were concentrated that the Rapax line bulged.
Like the gladiator he’d once been, Serpentius sensed weakness and smelled an opportunity. ‘With your permission, tribune.’ Without waiting for Valerius’s answer he ran forward, dodging spears and skipping over dead bodies, to the centre of the third rank where a reserve century of gladiators awaited their opportunity. An animated conversation followed with the centurion of the unit and Valerius used the interval to check the progress of the five cohorts of Praetorian Guard on the roadway. His heart stuttered as he realized they were being forced to fight for their very existence against the might of the veteran First Italica. Whatever was happening in the trees beyond was hidden. He had an ominous feeling, but Serpentius returned before he could give it further thought.