Onslaught: The Centurions II

Book 0: The Centurions

by Anthony Riches

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The author of the bestselling Empire sequence continues his new epic of the uprising of the Batavi in AD 88.

The Rhine frontier has exploded into all-out war. Summoned back to their homeland by their new leader Kivilaz, the Batavi cohorts, so recently proud soldiers of Rome, find their lands transformed. All Roman influences have vanished after a battle in which two legions were humbled by the rebels, then chased away to lick their wounds in their fortress, the Old Camp.

As the most experienced men in the Batavi army, the veteran soldiers are send south again alongside an army of warriors from the German tribes, tasked with spearheading the fight to destroy the Roman stronghold and remove the threat it poses to their homeland.
Swiftly besieged and without little hope of relief, the defeated 5th and 15th Legions grimly defend an undermanned fortress against both the Batavi and their enraged barbarian German allies, united under the banner of the priestess Veleda.
But a relief column under a driven Roman general is marching north with a burning need to restore Rome's pride - and the events that follow will determine the fate of both the Old Camp and Roman rule on the northern frontier.

(P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: September 21, 2017

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 432

Sample

As ever, I am indebted to the patience of my editor Carolyn and the smooth facilitation of her assistants, Abby and now Thorne, the indefatigable publicity efforts of Kerry and Rosie and the constant encouragement – only occasionally backed up with the use of force – of my wife Helen. My thanks to all of you who encouraged, cajoled and generally helped me to deliver a readable book.

Jona Lendering, owner of the fantastic Livius website (livius.org) very kindly agreed to cast an eye over the manuscript and point out any gross errors. His comments have proven immensely valuable in more than one respect (‘there were no trees there so your character can’t run off and hide in them’, for example), and I am hugely indebted. Thank you, Jona.

And thank you, the reader, for continuing to read these stories. Please keep reading. We’re only taking a temporary break from the Empire series, by the way, and once this story of the Batavian revolt as seen through the eyes of the men I’ve imagined fighting on both sides is done Marcus and his familia will return.

One last thing. There’s a gold aureus from the time of Vespasian – yes, a real Roman gold coin – to be won by one lucky reader in my Centurions competition. All you have to do is go to my website and enter the answers to three questions that you’ll find there, the answers to which are contained in Betrayal, Onslaught and Retribution as each book is published. There’s no restriction on when you enter each answer, multiple entries are allowed; but the last answer given will be taken as your definitive entry, and all answers will be invisible to everyone except myself and my trusted webmaster (who’s not allowed to enter). I’ll be offering separate raffle prizes shortly after this book is published for entries received for each question – details on the website. Don’t hold back: get your entries in early to win unique Centurions artwork and other goodies. Please do get puzzling, think cryptically, and the very best of luck – someone’s got to win it, so why not you?

AD43

In Britannia

Titus Flavius Vespasianus – legatus, imperial 2nd legion Augustan

Gaius Hosidius Geta – legatus, imperial 14th legion Gemina

Sextus – senior centurion, imperial 14th legion Gemina

Julius Civilis – centurion, allied Batavian cohorts

Draco – prefect and commander, allied Batavian cohorts

AD69

In Rome

Aulus Vitellius – emperor

Aulus Caecina Alienus – consul and army commander

Fabius Valens – consul and army commander

Alfenius Varus – praetorian prefect

In the Old Camp (modern day Vetera)

Marius – senior centurion, imperial 5th legion Alaudae

Munius Lupercus – legatus commanding imperial legions 5th Alaudae and 15th Primigenia

Marcus Hordeonius Flaccus – legatus augusti commanding all Roman forces in Germania

Claudius Labeo – prefect commanding the 1st cohort Batavian Horse

In the Winter Camp (modern day Mainz)

Dillius Vocula – legatus commanding imperial legion 22nd Primigenia

Antonius – senior centurion, imperial legion 22nd Primigenia

In Bonna (modern day Bonn)

Herrenius Gallus – legatus commanding imperial legion 1st Germanica

With the Batavian cohorts in Germania Superior

Scar – prefect, commanding the eight Batavian cohorts

Aelius Verus – tribune, sent to order the Batavian cohorts to return to Italy

Alcaeus – centurion, 2nd century of the 1st Batavian cohort

Banon – chosen man, 2nd century

Grimmaz – leading man

Egilhard (Achilles) – soldier

Andreios (The First One) – soldier

Andronicus (The Other One) – soldier

Adalwin (Beaky) – soldier

Levonhard (Ugly) – soldier

Lanzo (Dancer) – soldier

Wigbrand (Tiny) – soldier

On the Island (the Batavi homeland)

Aquillius – former senior centurion, imperial legion 8th Augusta, defeated commander of detached auxiliary forces

Kivilaz – (known as Julius Civilis by Rome) – prince of the Batavi, commander of the tribe’s revolt against Rome

Hramn – decurion, commander of the Batavi Guard (formerly the Emperor’s German Bodyguard)

Draco – former prefect of the Batavian cohorts, tribal elder

Brinno – king of the Cananefates tribe, allies of the Batavi

Lataz – retired veteran and father of Egilhard

Frijaz – retired veteran and brother of Lataz

‘It won’t be long before they attack us again, First Spear.’

Legatus Vespasianus’s voice was deliberately pitched low, and he glanced with fatherly sympathy at the two young tribunes sleeping fitfully under their cloaks in a corner of his legion’s improvised field headquarters.

‘What an introduction to battle, eh Julius? I’d hope to blood our men with something a little less horrific than a full day of barbarian savagery followed by a night of arrows and infiltrators. And once the sun’s up we can expect those blue-faced maniacs to come down that hill at us with fresh fire in their bellies. And while they lack any real quality when it comes to swordplay, I think we both know that overwhelming numbers have a quality all of their own.’

The Second Legion’s commander looked out into the darkness that surrounded his men, his body tensed against the weariness of having been on his feet for more than a day with only the briefest moments of snatched sleep. He shook his head in continued disbelief at the seemingly limitless number of tribal warriors that had been continuously thrown into battle against his legion’s tenuous bridgehead on the river Medui’s western bank throughout the previous day.

‘And we’re victims of our own hubris, it has to be said. How the gods must have laughed when I agreed that we should attempt to force a crossing of the river with just one legion! Come on, let’s do the rounds of the front line shall we, and give the men something to laugh at before it starts all over again? You can do some motivational shouting, and I’ll tell them that they’ve “all done very well” in that voice the emperor uses when he’s inspecting his praetorians. I’ll just have to find a marble to put in my mouth first …’

His first spear chuckled softly.

‘I’ve served under seven legion commanders, Legatus, and I have to say you’re a first. With the greatest of respect, of course.’

Vespasianus snorted his own cynical amusement.

‘If that’s your way of telling me that you’re not sure whether to laugh with me or at me, you’d probably better hurry up and make a decision on the matter, hadn’t you, Julius? Because we all might very well be cracking jokes in the Underworld before we know it.’

A messenger stepped into the circle of torchlight that illuminated the headquarters, the light concealed from the enemy by heavy leather tent skins erected on spears to form a protective semi-circle around the squatting men who were its occupants, saluting punctiliously and holding out a message tablet.

‘A dispatch from the senior medicus, Legatus.’

Vespasianus took it from his hand, snapping apart the wax seal that held the tablet closed, a reckoning of the casualties that had been evacuated from the tenuous bridgehead’s line of battle to the improvised medical station on the river’s eastern bank.

‘Now there’s one of the very few men in the legion who’ll have slept less than us since we crossed the river. Let’s see what he has to say …’ He turned the tablet to the torch’s flickering light, holding it out at arm’s length. ‘Bugger these eyes …’ He squinted again, shifting to position the tablet better to catch the light. ‘I suppose I ought to thank the gods that my manhood hasn’t gone the same way as my eyesight. The senior medicus informs me that we have five hundred and six men dead or likely to die, and another two hundred and thirty-three treatable wounded.’

The first spear shook his head in disgust.

‘In battle with any other people I’d have expected the numbers of dead and wounded to have been the other way around, but these madmen will throw their lives away to allow one of their mates to put a spear into one of ours. So we’ve lost the best part of two cohorts with nothing much to show for it apart from a few hundred paces of riverbank. And I thought these people were supposed to be ripe for conquering? Nothing better than underfed peasants, and no threat to Roman discipline and aggression?’

The legatus snorted derision.

‘Oh, they’re no threat alright, if you’re a wealthy senator with a fortune invested in invasion ships and several legions between you and the “underfed peasants” in question. They may be ignorant, stinking barbarians, fit only to die on our swords, but by Jupiter’s hairy balls they’re brave.’

His senior centurion sighed.

‘And even if every man in the legion has killed five of the bastards there are still another hundred thousand of them waiting for their turn. I’d say you learned gentlemen have bitten off more than you can get in your mouths.’

Vespasianus laughed without any trace of his usual good humour.

‘You can cross me off that list. I class as the hired help in this particular enterprise, just a humble servant of the emperor’s imperial ambition … that, and the senate’s collective purses.’ He shook his head in dark amusement. ‘I remember only too well the briefings to which you’re referring, all confidence and encouragement, and by the gods I’d like to have had those smooth-faced men for company when the Britons came storming down the hill at us as we waded out of the river. I thought for a moment we were about to get pushed straight back into the water. It’s a bloody good thing young Geta’s Batavians managed to deal with their chariots before we came across the ford, or we’d have had a face full of their best and nastiest swordsmen too, and that might have been all it would have taken to stop us dead, with most of the legion still on the other bank. Even without their intervention you can be sure I’ll be awarding every centurion who survives this horrible mess their torques and phalerae after the battle. If, that is, any of us actually manage to survive this horrible mess!’

‘Like all the best plans, gentlemen, my intentions for this morning’s actions are simple and direct.’

Legatus Hosidius Geta looked around his senior centurions, his usual pugnacity clearly combined with the frustration of having watched the men on the far side of the river struggle to make any headway against their tribal opponents for most of the previous day.

‘Without wanting to go over the events of yesterday at any great length, since we all saw what happened, we must nevertheless be honest with ourselves. We failed, gentlemen. And by we, for avoidance of doubt, I do not mean my colleague Vespasianus and the men of his Second Augustan. The gods know they fought like men possessed in the teeth of overwhelming enemy strength. No, we failed. We sat and watched while the Second fought their way into the very teeth of the barbarian counter-attack. We waited for Vespasianus to cut out a bridgehead into which our men could advance, while all the time it was evident to anyone with eyes to see that it simply wasn’t going to happen. The Second were never likely to prove strong enough to push these Britons far enough off their ground to allow for an orderly leap-frog advance by the rest of the army, not on their own. Every time we thought our brothers-in-arms were making some progress another wave of wild-eyed maniacs washed down that slope and pushed them back on their heels, which means that the bridgehead is barely big enough to give us the room we’ll need to cross the river and pass through them to take up the fight. And, may my ancestors forgive me, by the time it was clear to me what needed to be done it was deemed too late in the day for an alternative line of attack to be launched.’

He shot a swift glance at Vespasianus’s brother Sabinus, who was standing to one side as the army commander’s representative at the orders conference, knowing that his role was to ensure Geta stuck to the script that had been agreed in the army commander’s tent the previous evening.

‘And so last night Legatus Sabinus and I rode back to consult with Legatus Augusti Plautius, and presented our proposal for what needs to happen this morning, at first light, if our comrades of the Second Legion are not to be thrown back across the Medui in disarray. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that he agreed with us, and has given us permission to carry out an attack from first light. We’re going to cross the river and pass through the Second Legion, march straight up the hill through their bridgehead and attack the Britons with the advantage of being fresh into the fight. And if I know Titus Flavius Vespasianus as well as I think I do, he’ll know what to do when our men take over the fight …’

He paused theatrically, drawing a small smile from Sabinus who, while he tried to hide it from his comrades, was both charmed and slightly amused by the younger man’s fire-eating attitude to whatever life threw at him. Geta turned to gesture for him to speak, as they had agreed, and the older Flavian brother stepped out of the tent’s shadows.

‘My brother Titus will attack on either flank. He’ll muster his legionaries to make one last titanic effort and, combined with the fresh men of your legion, a legion with a peerless reputation for bravery in battle, the attack the Britons must intend to send down that hill this morning will be pinched off before it can be launched. Your time has come, gentlemen of the Fourteenth …’ He paused with equal theatricality to Geta and flashed the younger man a quick grin. ‘Or should I perhaps call you by the name you prefer – “The Fighting Fourteenth”? Whichever, now is your time to shine once more, and show these barbarians that we can wipe them from the map before we’ve even taken our breakfast!’

The centurions gathered around them laughed, most of them knowing just how keen Sabinus was to take a morning meal before doing anything else.

‘Will you be coming with us, Legatus?’

He grinned easily back at the speaker, a senior centurion commanding one of the legion cohorts, and if he lacked his brother’s effortless ability to communicate with the common soldier as an equal, he knew from their upbringing by the outspoken daughter of a retired camp prefect just how important it was to hit the right note with men like this hard-bitten officer.

‘Do you think I’d miss the opportunity to dine out on my small part in one of the greatest victories since Caesar got his men to dig a little bit of trench work at Alesia? Not to mention the chance to watch you fine gentlemen in action.’ He smiled wryly with just the right degree of self-deprecation, patting the hilt of his gladius. ‘Who knows, I might even get the chance to use this for a change, instead of spending all my time chasing legions round the countryside to make sure they’re in the right place.’

The jaundiced tone of his voice drew an amused laugh from the assembled centurions, who knew well enough that his service record was more than respectable. Geta nodded, clearly too preoccupied with the coming battle to join in their levity.

‘Very well. Sextus, this is your legion by rights, you should be the man to issue the orders that set this attack in train.’

He stepped aside, allowing the veteran first spear who had been waiting patiently behind him to step forward. Cohort commanders who until then had been attentive but relaxed were abruptly all business, hard eyed and stiff backed, as he started talking in the matter of fact way that demonstrated the lightness with which he wore his authority.

‘It’s been a few years since we put down the last tribe to challenge Rome, so some of your men will be new to all this, and most of them will be rusty, but all of them are going to perform to my satisfaction or some of you are going to be discussing their failings, and your own, with me, once this matter has been dealt with to my liking. And wine will most definitely not be served.’

He paused, looking around at them, and several big, hard-faced and combat-experienced men, whose first instinct would always be towards violence, looked down at their feet momentarily with the memory of short and meaningful discussions with him that they had no desire to repeat.

‘So make sure your centurions know their orders, and make sure they also know that I expect them to deliver the legatus’s plan to the last detail.’ He paused for a moment, but any theatricality that might have been implied by the moment was dispelled without trace by the hard, unmoving line of his mouth as he looked round at them. ‘Or at least have the good manners to die trying. Questions?’

After a moment’s silence he turned to look at the legion’s officers, gathered behind the broad-stripe tribune who was their leader, and second-in-command to Geta.

‘Tribunes.’

In the mouths of some men of his rank the word might have carried a faint edge of scorn, the dismissive hint of superiority felt by a man with half a lifetime of service for officers whose qualification for command was family wealth rather than experience or ability. The experience of working with his new legatus, a man of only twenty-four years and yet the most disturbingly competent legion commander he had ever served under, had somewhat softened his attitude. To a degree.

‘Tribune Abito. You will, of course, stay close to Legatus Geta and the eagle, in order to take command in the event that some enemy warrior gets lucky and sends him to have dinner with his ancestors?’

The legion’s only broad-stripe tribune nodded confidently. A man of the senatorial class like Geta, and therefore his second-in-command, his certainty of his own ability to step into the young legatus’s shoes was so self-evident that it was all the more experienced Sabinus could do not to shake his head in amusement.

‘Tribune Pulto?’

The oldest of the narrow-stripe men of the equestrian rank looked up, a square-jawed man of thirty with two auxiliary cohort commands under his belt and a self-declared career soldier.

‘I would be grateful if you, sir, were to accompany me with the first cohort. I should very much appreciate your advice and quite possibly your assistance when the fighting gets vigorous.’

Pulto nodded, ignoring the awed stares of his younger brethren. It was tacitly understood that in the event the senior centurion was killed or seriously wounded that he would assume tactical control of the legion, and none of the cohort commanders present would have considered disputing that plan.

‘And the rest of you young gentlemen will march with the second, third, fourth and fifth cohorts. May Mars himself stretch his hands over you and keep you safe when the time comes to fight. I look forward to hearing your stories of the battle over a cup of the legatus’s wine once the Britons have turned tail and fled.’

He waited a moment for any of them to ask a question, then turned to look at the last group of men in the room.

‘Prefect Draco.’ The Batavi commander raised his gaze to meet the first spear’s appraisal. ‘Are your men ready to fight again?’

Draco nodded tersely.

‘As ready as any other unit on this battlefield, Centurion. Do you have a place for us in the line?’

‘No.’ The legion officer shook his head briskly, and waited a moment as if challenging the other man to comment before continuing. ‘I want your men at the back of the approach column, and I want you to stay on the eastern bank of the river until I give the signal.’

Draco’s face remained as stubbornly imperturbable as before.

‘And when you give the signal?’

Sextus smiled thinly.

‘That, Prefect, will depend very much on what we manage to achieve in the teeth of a hundred thousand screaming barbarians, won’t it? But given that I’m potentially denying you the glory of another day spent biting out the throats of Rome’s enemies, your command can have the honour of taking the news of our impending arrival to Legatus Vespasianus. I presume you have a man to whom you can entrust that task?’

‘Hear that?’

The Second Legion’s first spear looked at Vespasianus for a moment, then turned to stare back across the river, no more than a dark line in the thick mist that had risen in the last hour before dawn.

‘It sounds like someone shouting the odds.’

The distant voice, albeit muffled by the thick curtain of moisture in the air, was just loud enough for the two men to hear, and the legatus shook his head in disagreement.

‘You’re almost right. Whoever that is isn’t angry though.’ He waited for a moment, cocking his head to listen. ‘That sound, First Spear, is you, with the legion on parade and not doing what you want them to quickly enough. They’re not sounding any trumpets, it would give the barbarians too much warning, but there’s something going on over there. You mind the shop for a short time while I go and see what’s being cooked up.’

He walked swiftly down to the river’s bank with the men of his bodyguard in close attendance and stepped into the water. He was barely calf deep as low tide approached, wading across to the narrow island that divided the stream in two for fifty paces of its course and then back into the cold flow, stepping out onto the eastern bank and grimacing at the muffled sounds of agony coming from the waterside grove in which his medical staff had set up the legion’s field hospital. The centurion commanding the crossing sentries, set to ensure that any legionary seeking to run from the fight on the far bank was apprehended and punished with summary execution, came out of the darkness and hailed him, snapping to attention halfway through the challenge as he realised who it was he was facing.

‘Legatus!’

Vespasianus returned the salute with the casual ease of long practice.

‘Relax, man, I heard the shouting of a bad-tempered centurion and thought I’d best come and see what all the fuss is about. Any ideas?’

‘None, sir. It sounds like a legion getting ready to move, but we’ve had no …’

The officer fell silent as he realised that his legatus was staring up at the sky over the shallow hills behind him, the older man’s musing a quiet murmur as he calculated the circumstances.

‘One legion mired in a sea of barbarians on the other side of a river that will shortly be at its lowest ebb for the next eight hours, and half an hour until dawn. And another legion on this side, intact and mad with frustration at not having been allowed into the fight yesterday. If I were a fire-breathing young legatus planning to intervene in this fight in force, then now would be the time.’

His eyes narrowed as the barely discernible figure of a man walked towards him out of the darkness, powerfully built and clad in the armour of an auxiliary officer, his helmet crowned with a centurion’s crest. Ignoring the men of Vespasianus’s bodyguard, he approached to within touching distance before saluting. His voice was hard and confident, pitched low to be heard only by the man to whom he was talking.

‘Greetings, Legatus. I am Kivilaz, centurion of the first Batavi cohort. It seems you have spared me the need to get my feet wet, as I am carrying a message for you from your fellow legatus, Hosidius Geta. He has requested me tell you that he is coming, now, with the full force of his legion and that of the tribes who fight in his service. He plans to immediately and directly assault the Britons facing you, and asks you to make ready for his arrival at dawn. You are requested to provide support on the flanks, once his advance has engaged the enemy.’

Vespasianus nodded.

‘He plans to take his legion straight up the middle, does he? That young man is nothing if not direct. And does his plan include your own people, Centurion?’ He smiled knowingly. ‘Or perhaps I should call you Prince?’

The German bowed his head in recognition of Vespasianus’s point regarding his status within the tribe.

‘Yes, I am a prince of my tribe, but centurion is an adequate title. No man of my family has ruled my people since the days of Augustus. And yes, the Batavi will march in the Fourteenth Legion’s column, although at the rear and not, as we would have wished, at its head.’

The Roman chuckled quietly.

‘You are typical of your tribe, Centurion. As if your exploits in the dawn yesterday weren’t enough, now you yearn for yet another chance to throw yourself at an enemy whose overwhelming numbers might yet be our undoing.’

Kivilaz nodded sombrely.

‘It is the nature of my people, Legatus, to seek to prove ourselves against our enemies. And now that we serve Rome, that need for victory has been provided with a larger selection of enemies to defeat. We knowingly exchanged a squalid life of cattle raids and the occasional opportunity to put one of our neighbours in their place for the chance to test our martial skills against those of Rome’s enemies. The name of the Batavi will come to be feared across this land the Britons currently call their own.’

Vespasianus inclined his own head in respect.

‘Those are noble words, and I fully expect that you and your people will live up to them, Centurion. But don’t mistake the position of the rear guard in my colleague Geta’s column for an attempt to deny your people the blood and glory you so badly desire. If I had close to a legion’s strength of your people at my command, I’d want the maximum flexibility as to their employment. I suspect that when your boots touch the far shore of the Medui there will be a pressing opportunity for you to demonstrate that martial prowess you’re so keen to visit upon the men facing us. Although by the time that moment comes you might well find the task for which you are needed less about glory and rather more about blood.’

He turned away from the Batavi officer with a parting comment called back over his shoulder as he stepped back into the river’s cold water.

‘Tell Hosidius Geta that the Second Legion will be delighted to make some room for him on the western bank of the river. We will be ready to cede our centre to his legion, and to fight alongside him like men who slept soundly in their beds rather than standing alert for an attack all night, after a day of death and horror. And tell him that there are more than enough of those blood-crazed animals for everyone.’

‘First cohort! Halt!’

The leading centuries of the Fourteenth Legion’s first cohort had climbed the shallow slope that led to the Second Legion’s front line in a column twenty men abreast, each double-sized century compressed into a frontage barely twenty paces wide, a thick ironclad snake of men climbing the slope from the river as the successive cohorts deployed to either side. Geta and his most senior officers had pondered their best approach to the coming battle in the small hours of the previous night, eventually coming to the conclusion that their centuries would be best arrayed eight men deep in order to avoid the need to re-order their march formation before joining battle, leaving their men nothing more complex than the switch from column to line, difficult enough in itself given the circumstances. Before dismissing them to their cohorts, the grizzled first spear had looked around the command tent at his senior centurions with the air of a man who knew that he was about to throw the dice on the gamble of a military lifetime.

‘This is it then. No more training, no more drill, no more polishing the blade. The next few hours will tell us whether we’ve built a legion that can stand comparison to the men who stood alongside Caesar. When we reach the back of the Second Legion’s line the first cohort’s first century will hold position, ready to attack, while even-numbered centuries will deploy to the right and odd numbers to the left. I’d imagine that should be within the grasp of even the dimmest of our centurions.’

The men gathered around him had smiled at the well-tested joke, intent on his words as he spelt out the way in which they would approach the battle that would define their legion’s reputation for decades to come.

‘We will extend from column to line at the double march, because that will be the moment of our greatest vulnerability. Pray to your gods that the Second can hold off the blue noses for long enough that we’re in battle line before the fighting starts, because if they manage to break into the bridgehead while we’re getting ready it could turn into a goat-fuck quicker than Quintus there can put a jug of the good stuff down his throat.’

The centurion in question had smirked at the compliment while his commander continued.

‘Get them into line and get them set to attack, quick as you can. If we get it right we’ll have a front six hundred paces wide, which is just about the size of the bridgehead the Second have managed to hang on to. When I blow my whistle we go. We go fast and we go hard, as hard as we can, because if we hesitate or falter those bastards have the high ground, and you can be sure that they’ll use it to push us back down the hill to where we started. We need momentum, we need to keep moving and not stop until we have those tribal sheep fuckers on the run. As for our own domesticated long-hairs …’ He had grinned at Draco, the friendly insult well worn and likely to be reciprocated soon enough, and the prefect had in turn kept his face admirably straight.

‘The Batavian cohorts will follow up, ready to reinforce or exploit as appropriate. Detach your horsemen, Pr