Centurion

Macro's voice carried down the line from Cato's right. 'Heads up! Enemy infantry to the front!'

Cato strained his eyes but could see nothing clearly through the dust as yet. A fluke waft of air must have provided Macro with a better view. Cato drew a breath.

'Second Illyrian! Close ranks! Form battle line on me!'

The long line quickly contracted as the men shuffled together and alternate sections dropped back and to the side to form up in centuries four lines deep. Then they turned and doubled up towards Cato and the cohort's standard. Looking to his right Cato saw that Macro was doing the same with his legionaries and a gap opened between the two units.When both cohorts were still Cato heard the faint shuffling rumble of the approaching enemy and realised it must be Artaxes and his rebels, making an attempt to break out of the trap. The sounds came from Cato's right as the enemy column made for Macro's legionaries. Then he saw them emerge from the dust, picking their way through the bodies of the Parthians carpeting the desert floor. Artaxes had placed some of his regular soldiers at the head of the column and their armour gleamed in the muted sunlight. They stopped as soon as they saw the belt of caltrops and an officer immediately shouted orders to the nearest men, who bent down and began to clear a path. It would be the work of a few moments to clear a gap wide enough for the column to pass through and then Macro's four hundred would have to hold off thousands.

Cato looked at the dust haze in front of his men and made an instant decision.

'Parmenion!'

'Sir?'

'Send word to the other auxiliary cohorts to hold the line.'

As Parmenion summoned an orderly, Cato turned to the nearest section of auxiliaries. 'You! With me!'

He ran forward to the caltrops and began to pick them up and fling them to one side. 'Clear a path! Hurry!'

The men followed his lead, working systematically through the belt, until they had created a gap ten paces across. Cato snatched up a Parthian quiver and laid the arrows out in two lines to mark the cha

'Second Illyrian! Form column and follow me!'

As the cohort marched through the gap and over the bodies on the far side, Cato looked towards Macro as the enemy surged through the gap they had made a hundred paces further along. With a thud of shields and scraping clatter of blades the two sides crashed together. Cato ran through the cha

'Right face!'

He called to the nearest optio. 'Pass the word. When I give the order to charge I want the loudest war cry I've ever heard. We're going to teach them, and Macro's precious legionaries, a lesson they'll never forget!'

As the message went down the line Cato and the standard-bearer took up position at the head of the third century, in the centre of the formation. He waited until the last repeat of his orders died away. Ahead, to the right, he heard the bitter struggle between Macro's men and the rebels. Cato drew his sword, took a deep breath and called out, 'Second Illyrian… advance!'

The line tramped forward, unevenly picking its way across the Parthian dead and wounded. Cato knew that they must arrive as a single mass and bellowed to the officers to keep dressing the ranks as they moved forward.Then, Cato's eyes detected the forms of men through the dust, and a few paces further on he saw the flank of the rebel column. The regular soldiers were at the front of the column and the rest was made up of levies, little more than an armed rabble, whose eyes widened in terror as the auxiliaries emerged from the haze.

There was no time for parade ground protocol and Cato roared the order. 'Charge!'

His shout was drowned out by the rest of his men as they hurled themselves on the flank of the rebel column. The rebels did not have a chance to brace themselves for the impact. Some turned quickly towards the new threat, legs braced, shields out and swords raised. Others turned away and fled, hurling down their weapons as they ran for their lives. Most simply froze, staring at the auxiliaries bearing down on them as they roared out their battle cries. An instant later the Second Illyrian crashed into the rebels' flank. Cato's wild, meaningless roar was cut off as he gritted his teeth, raised his shield and braced himself for the impact as he threw himself into the press of rebel bodies in front of him. He struck the nearest man with the full weight of his armoured body and the breath was driven from the rebel in an explosive gasp. Cato paused an instant to balance himself, and then stepped forward, thrusting his sword to the right, into the side of a man about to slash down with his falcata at the auxiliary beside Cato. Instead he collapsed as his sword dropped from his fingers. Cato tugged his blade free and swept it round at the man he had crashed into with his shield. The blade glanced off the edge of the rebel's buckler and thudded into his padded skullcap. He staggered away from Cato and vomited down his ragged tunic before he collapsed.

'Second Illyrian! Second Illyrian!' the auxiliaries shouted over and over again as they laid into the enemy in a frenzied and ferocious assault of slamming shields and slashing swords. Cato punched his shield forward, stepped in behind it, and punched again, striking home with a solid thud.This time he swung his shield aside and threw his sword forward. There was an instant when Cato saw the look of wide-eyed terror in a man twice his age, before the point crunched through his eye socket into his skull and Cato felt a warm spray of blood spatter his face as he snatched the sword back.

'Keep going, Second Illyrian!' Cato bellowed. 'Forward!'

The melee was spreading out as more and more of the rebels fell back and ran. Cato, crouching and poised on the balls of his feet, glanced round quickly. His men had already fought their way right through the enemy column and were turning on the pockets of rebels who still stood their ground.To his right, near the head of the column, Cato saw a serpent standard in the middle of a ring of men in scale armour and purple robes.The personal bodyguard of Prince Artaxes, Cato decided. He pointed his bloodied blade towards the standard and called out, as loudly as he could, 'Second Illyrian! Make for the enemy standard!'

He caught the eye of one of the optios and pointed towards the ring of bodyguards. With a nod, the man turned and bellowed the order, and it was swiftly passed along the line. At once, there was a perceptible movement towards the standard as the auxiliaries made for Artaxes and his bodyguards. Now Cato could see a man positioned a short distance from the standard, urging his men on. As Cato cut his way through he recognised the features of the man and nodded grimly to himself.

'Artaxes…'

The auxiliaries closed in round the prince and his bodyguard and Cato could see beyond them to where the legionaries of Macro's cohort had made a path through the caltrops and were hacking their way into the head of the column. The rebels were finished, Cato realised. All that remained for Artaxes was the choice between fleeing, or fighting to the end.The Palmyran prince must have become aware of the situation at almost the same moment, for he drew a deep breath and shouted an order to his men, and they closed ranks with overlapping shields and raised their spears overhead, ready to thrust at any Romans who came within reach of the long iron heads of their spears. Cato glanced behind him and saw that the rest of his cohort were completing the destruction of the rebel column. The desert was littered with bodies and splashes of blood and the men still fighting had to be wary of their footing as they mercilessly cut down the rebels who were still mad or brave enough to continue the fight.