‘Here they come again,’ croaked Urceus.
A chorus of curses from their comrades. More than one started to pray. Incredibly, after all the sweat that they’d each shed, one hastatus began to have a quick piss.
‘Where’s Corax?’ asked a voice. No one answered, and an unhappy air settled over the group.
Quintus scowled, hefted his battered scutum, tried to ignore the trembling in his sword arm. ‘Have you seen him?’ he hissed at Urceus.
‘Not for a while. He’ll be back.’
‘He’d fucking better,’ Severus responded.
Someone’s got to take command, thought Quintus grimly. Fast. ‘Close order!’ he shouted. ‘Anyone with a javelin, prepare to loose on my command.’ He was relieved that no one questioned him. They did as he said, glad no doubt to be given orders.
The Gauls no longer ran at the hastati. They just walked. Some shouted war cries, but most remained quiet. Their throats had to be as dry as the Romans’ were. Even the men with the carnyxes had given up. The clamour of battle rang from all around them, but in their odd oasis, there was little noise. It was worse facing the tribesmen when they were quiet, Quintus decided. They always attacked while screaming at the top of their lungs; in contrast, the silence was even more ominous.
‘How far away are they?’ he muttered to Urceus.
‘Fifty paces or so.’
Quintus agreed. He began to count in his head. At thirty paces, he glanced to either side. Following Corax’s orders, they had continually picked up discarded pila, but as the day had gone on, fewer and fewer were reusable. Fewer than a dozen men had javelins, he saw, but it was still worth a volley. Every Gaul who lost his shield was an enemy who was more easily killed. ‘Steady now! Let the whoresons come! Do not loose yet.’
He was shocked when the Gauls suddenly began to run. That was when he noticed the band of soldiers in the middle of their formation. These were no tribesmen. Every man among them sported a mail shirt and a black cloak; all were carrying scuta and swords. A few others were wearing muscled cuirasses and Hellenistic helmets. Could they be Carthaginian officers? Sweat sluiced down Quintus’ back when he saw that one man had a purple tunic. The patch of similar-coloured fabric over one eye confirmed his suspicions. He couldn’t help himself. ‘It’s fucking Hannibal!’
‘What’s he doing here?’ Urceus snarled, but the fear was palpable in his voice.
A wail of dismay left Severus’ throat.
‘We’re all going to die!’ cried someone who sounded just like Macerio.
‘Shut your mouths!’ cried Quintus, but it was too late. Fear raged through the ranks – he could practically see it, ravening, tearing away the last of the men’s courage. ‘Take aim. LOOSE!’ he roared.
Most of the javelins went up, but the volley was ragged. The rest of the hastati with pila stood transfixed with fear. The Carthaginian charge drew nearer. The Roman lines wavered. Steadied again. ‘Throw the damn things, or drop them,’ bellowed Quintus. ‘Draw swords!’ He didn’t even see if the javelins got thrown. The enemy were too close.
Eager to impress their general, the Gauls fought like men possessed. They swarmed in, hacking savage overhead blows at the heads of the hastati, wrenching at their scuta and stabbing them in the neck. Throwing themselves, uncaring, into any gaps that appeared, the warriors broke apart the maniple’s shrunken ranks within a matter of moments. Quintus and Urceus fought like twins joined at the hip, holding their own, but Severus soon went down beneath the blade of one of the black-cloaked enemy soldiers, clearly one of Hannibal’s bodyguard. The hastatus to Severus’ left lost his sword arm and then his head. Two scarlet fountains from his wounds pumped blood everywhere as he fell on top of Severus’ body. The few men who were left beyond that were surrounded a heartbeat later. With their left flank exposed, Quintus and Urceus fell back, still fighting. The men to their rear saw what was happening and gave way too.
The general was only half a dozen steps from them by this stage, but he could as well have been on the moon. There were three burly bodyguards between them, men who looked fresh, eager and very dangerous. It was bizarre being so close to the individual who was responsible for the tumult of the previous twenty months and more, and being helpless to do a thing about it. Fascinated, Quintus’ gaze kept flicking back to him. Despite the rumours, Hannibal was not a giant or a monster. He was a brown-skinned, one-eyed, bearded man of medium height. Unremarkable. By all the gods, he must be charismatic, Quintus thought.
And then, like an autumn wind that carries leaves off the ground and into the ether, the fighting swirled them apart. Quintus and Urceus were driven back twenty more steps. They sensed rather than saw the hastati behind them turn to run, and cursed them for cowards. There were perhaps forty-five of them bunched up together, still facing the enemy, who had halted to draw breath little more than ten paces away. To his credit, Macerio was still with them. Hannibal was moving among his men, talking and gesturing towards the hastati. ‘So this is how it ends,’ said Quintus, letting out a long breath.
‘I suppose we should be grateful that we’re going to die fighting Hannibal himself,’ replied Urceus sourly.
Quintus managed a chuckle, but there was no humour in it. ‘Who knows? If Fortuna is kind to us, we might even manage to kill him before the end.’
‘A man can dream,’ retorted Urceus. He eyed Quintus sidelong. ‘It’s been good knowing you, Crespo.’
There was a lump in Quintus’ throat. I’m not called Crespo, he wanted to say, but all that came out was, ‘You too, my friend.’
The Gauls and black-cloaked soldiers began to clatter their weapons off their shields. ‘HANN-I-BAL!’ they shouted. ‘HANN-I-BAL!’
A frisson of fear rippled through the hastati. Quintus knew in his gut that after everything they had been through, this was too much. ‘Steady, boys,’ he cried, fighting his own creeping dread. ‘STEADY!’
‘What in Hades is going on here?’ Miraculously, Corax’s voice was by Quintus’ ear. He could have wept with gladness.
‘It’s Hannibal, sir. He’s here, with some of his bodyguards. The Gauls, they . . . Our lads are so tired, sir. They can’t . . .’
Corax’s eyes bored into his and saw the utter exhaustion. He scanned the enemy lines opposite, spat a curse at Hannibal, assessed the situation for what it was. ‘Shit. If we stay here, we’re all fucked. Pull back.’
Quintus blinked. ‘Sir?’
‘You heard me, hastatus.’ Corax’s voice cracked like a whip. ‘Pull back, boys. Keep your formation. Walk back slowly, a step at a time. Do it!’
The hastati didn’t need any encouragement. With fearful eyes on the enemy, they shuffled back five, ten, fifteen paces. They had to walk over their own wounded to do so, which was heart-rending, and sickening. Bloody hands reached up to them. Pleading voices filled their ears. ‘Don’t leave me here, please! Please . . .’ ‘Mother. I want Mother. Mother!’ ‘It hurts. It hurts so bad. Please make it stop.’ Quintus saw more than one man thrust down quickly with his gladius. He did the same himself, but was unable to meet the terror-filled eyes of the hastatus whose life he ended. When they had retreated for perhaps two score paces, Corax had them halt.
‘They’re not going to come after us,’ said Quintus, eyeing the enemy and daring to hope.
‘No. Hannibal has gone, look. He’s got to keep moving among his men, keep them fired up so that they continue to press home their assault.’ It was the first time that Quintus had ever heard weariness in Corax’s voice. Panic flared in his belly, but it was replaced by relief when he glanced around. There was still a determined set to his centurion’s jaw.
‘You did well back there.’
‘Sir?’
‘I was on my way back, but too far away to do anything when I saw that the enemy were about to attack. Our lines were wavering until you took control. Well done.’
Quintus’ face, red from physical exertion and the sun, turned an even deeper colour. ‘Thank you, sir.’
A tight nod. ‘I went to talk to Servilius, to see if we could make a counter-attack, but I found him dying. His lines have collapsed entirely. I was lucky to get away.’ Corax’s voice was flat and hard.
Quintus made himself ask. ‘The battle’s lost, isn’t it, sir?’
A silence, which spoke volumes.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Corax at length. ‘Hannibal is a genius to do what he’s done here today. Damn his eyes! Only the gods know how many men will lie here by nightfall.’
Quintus glanced at Urceus and saw the same hopelessness in his face that he felt in his heart. Escape from the Gauls meant little when they were still surrounded. ‘What shall we do, sir?’
‘Avoid fighting the enemy for the moment. Rally a few more men together. Then we’re to search out a weak spot in the enemy’s formation and smash a fucking great hole in it. We’ll head for the river, and our camp. If that can’t be held, we’ll retreat to the north.’
The task that Corax had just set them sounded harder than scaling the highest peak in the Alps in midwinter, but Quintus found himself agreeing. He heard Urceus doing the same. As Corax told the other hastati of his plan, no one argued, least of all Macerio. Quintus wasn’t surprised. The centurion had won their trust a long time before, not least at Lake Trasimene, when he had led them through the Libyan phalanxes, but also in the subsequent trials and tribulations. It wasn’t as if they had many other options anyway, other than waiting to be killed by the Carthaginians. From the dazed expressions on the faces of the legionaries around their position, that was what would happen to many, but in Quintus’ mind, that was no choice at all. I might be tired, he thought. I might be beaten. But I’m not a fucking sheep who just stands and waits for its throat to be cut.
Hanno’s hunch that his men might grow too weary to kill proved accurate. By the time the sky had turned every possible shade of pink and red, presaging a stunning sunset, most of his Libyans were like drunk men. They staggered as he ordered them to advance, and were barely capable of lifting their shields and swords, let alone killing yet more Romans. During one of their most recent assaults, Hanno had lost a few soldiers when some desperate legionaries had seen their exhaustion and turned on them. It was pointless losing valuable men like that, and he was forced to withdraw more than half of his phalanx from the fighting. That move left a gaping hole in his section of the line, and after that, it was inevitable that legionaries began to escape. They broke away in ones and twos, in small groups and sometimes in large. Weaponless, shieldless, cowed and broken, they skulked off into the darkening air like whipped curs. The Libyans watched them go, unable to prevent them. When the largest number yet began to retreat, Hanno spat on the ground with frustration. He considered chasing them, but knew that it would be too much for his exhausted men. Besides, easier targets – the legionaries who had not run – yet remained close by.
Even those now presented a problem. The light was leaching fast from the sky. The birds of prey that had hung over the battlefield all day had gone. Even the wind had calmed, allowing the swirling dust to settle somewhat. Before long, it would be too dark to do anything other than withdraw from the field. The sounds of combat had diminished. The predominant sound was the screams of the injured and dying. Hanno had never felt more tired: he too was only capable of fighting for a short time before having to rest. Yet despite all this, the battle madness still controlled him. They could manage one or two more assaults on the nearest legionaries, he told himself. They could kill more of them. Pera might be among their number.
Hanno prowled along his soldiers’ lines, exhorting them to another mighty effort. They groaned, they grumbled; he heard a few muttered curses. But they got to their feet again, formed a ragged line. There were perhaps seventy of them; the rest were sprawled, uncaring, on the blood-sodden ground to their rear. Hanno noted, as if for the first time, that every single man’s right arm was red to the elbow with a mixture of fresh and clotted blood. Their shields looked as if they had been dipped in a vat of scarlet dye. Their faces and helmets were spattered with flecks of red; so too were their feet and sandals. They were literally covered in blood from head to toe. Scarlet demons. Creatures of the underworld. I must look the same, Hanno thought, feeling a trace of revulsion. It was no wonder that the Romans wailed when they approached.
‘Will this be the last attack, sir?’ Mutt’s voice was low.
Hanno gave him an irritated look. ‘I hadn’t planned on it, no.’
‘I don’t think many of the lads can take much more, sir. Look at them.’
Unwillingly, Hanno studied his soldiers again. He was shocked to see that some of them were using their scuta to prop themselves up. More than one had laid his head on a forearm resting on the iron shield rim. Could that man be snoring? he wondered. His gaze wandered to the nearest Romans, a huddled mass of perhaps a hundred legionaries under the command of a wounded centurion. ‘I’m not just letting that lot escape,’ he said stubbornly. ‘No way.’
‘One last attack, sir. Any more than that and you’ll start killing our own.’
Hanno didn’t want to admit it, but Mutt was right. Even he, his second-in-command, who could march all day without breaking a sweat, looked spent. If that was the case, even Hannibal would not think worse of him for calling a halt at this stage. ‘Very well. But I want that centurion dead before we pull back. They’ll break once he’s down.’
‘Yes, sir. I think we can manage that much.’ Mutt’s teeth flashed white amid the red that coated his face. ‘After that, I think it’ll be safe to venture that we’ve won, eh?’
‘I’d say so, Mutt. Even the fucking Romans will have to admit defeat after this. Their army has almost been wiped out.’
‘Hearing that out loud feels damn good, sir.’
‘It does.’ For the first time, Hanno allowed himself to savour the feeling of triumph. All that was required to make the day an unmitigated success was that his father and brothers – even Sapho – had survived. It was unlikely that he’d find them this night, but he could search for them in the morning. Gods willing, they could all celebrate Hannibal’s victory together then.
‘Ready, sir?’ asked Mutt.
‘Yes.’ Hanno watched as Mutt rallied the Libyans, getting them to form up in close order. ‘One last bout before we’re done, boys,’ he croaked. ‘A gold piece to the man who hands me that centurion’s helmet.’
His soldiers’ throats were parched, but they growled their appreciation at him. One even found the energy to start beating his sword off his shield again. The rhythm was infectious. Several men joined in, and Hanno laughed as the Roman line, such as it was, visibly backed up a step. He could see the centurion, who was at the front, roaring abuse at soldiers who must have been pulling away from the rear of their formation. ‘They’re wavering! One good strike and they’ll break! You hear me?’
Incredibly, there was a cracked cheer. ‘HANN-I-BAL!’ yelled Mutt.
‘HANN-I-BAL!’ shouted a number of men.
The Romans retreated again.
‘Again,’ Hanno hissed.
Mutt repeated his cry. ‘HANN-I-BAL!’
This time, not even the centurion could hold the legionaries. They turned and fled.
Howling like wolves, Hanno and his soldiers chased them into the night.
Corax had taken one look at the soldiers in the main camp and made his men turn on their heels. There had been a few protests. It was nearly dark. After a short but brutal assault, they had escaped the ring of Carthaginians who even now were butchering their comrades. After that, they had forded the Aufidius and straggled back to their encampment through the darkening air. ‘We’ve done enough, sir,’ said one man. ‘We’re dead on our feet, sir,’ added another. ‘The guggas won’t come after us tonight, sir,’ Urceus chipped in. Quintus, who was swaying to and fro with exhaustion, was about to agree. He was stunned into silence by Corax’s response.
‘Stay here if you wish, you maggots, but don’t be surprised when the gugg
a cavalry arrives in the morning. Don’t think they won’t! Hannibal will want to secure the entire area. If we keep going now, we can be miles away by dawn, beyond the enemy’s reach. You can rest then. Sleep in the knowledge that you won’t wake with an enemy spear through your guts.’
The centurion had gathered some food and then set off without even looking to see who followed. Quintus and Urceus had exchanged a resigned glance and then set off after him. Corax’s words had the ring of truth to them. What was a couple of hours’ marching compared to death? All but six men had joined them, giving them a total of just over thirty hastati. To Quintus’ frustration, Macerio was not one of those who stayed behind. The blond-haired man had come through the battle unscathed, and it seemed nothing could rid them of his company.
Despite Macerio’s presence, the moonlit walk might have been pleasant: the visibility was good, and the temperature was now balmy. Yet, terrified that they would be pursued, the majority of the party started at every night sound, every rustle of wind through the trees, saw Carthaginian soldiers behind each bush. Everyone was bone-weary. Sunburned. Famished – the brief moments granted them by Corax had allowed them only to find a few mouthfuls of food. Most of all, the legionaries were in complete shock at what had befallen them and their army. The impossible had happened. Hannibal and his soldiers had defeated – more likely massacred – eight legions, their cavalry and their attendant socii. Almost the entire military force of the Republic had been wiped from the face of the earth in one day, and by a host that was significantly smaller in size.