Ranks of Bronze

The tribune's grin and the edges of his sword flashed toward the enemy.

The equipment the guild supplied was solid enough, helmets forged without weak spots and shields whose laminations did not split if they were dropped. But there was no craftsmanship in that produce, no soul, as there was in the Spanish sword.

Sometimes it seemed that the guild did not realize even that its soldiers had souls.

The natives came on with mass but no discipline, the way surf bubbles across a strand.

"Heads up!" warned a front-rank centurion as a score of light javelins snapped from the hostile lines in high arcs. They must have been using spear throwers, because no flesh-and-blood arm could have cast a missile so far unaided.

"Company comin', boys," said Clodius Afer. "Don't lose your dress." The coolness of his voice and the unconcern for anything but his cohort's orderliness were more calming than any blustering encouragement could have been.

Vibulenus felt a sudden urge to empty his bladder. That too was calming, because the feeling had become a normal part of his life.

Being on the edge of battle was almost as normal as eating, now.

One of the darts howled down, short of the tribune but so close that he swung his shield instinctively to cover it. The missile was no more than three feet long, a shaft of something like rattan with a small iron point that shattered on the ground. He kicked the shaft as he stepped past it with the disgust that he would have felt for a snake in his pathway.

"More on the way!"

The warriors had surged around their fellows with bull-roarers. The sound continued, but Vibulenus doubted whether the signallers could long continue to spin their noisemakers above the heads of the armed warriors. Their shields were painted in geometric patterns, each unique. Some of the leaders gnawed on their shield rims as they shambled toward the legion.

It was about time to give them something else to chew on.

Vibulenus ran two steps ahead of the front of the legion with his sword raised. Waves of flame and melt water undulated through the nerves in his skin, breaking in turbulence at the hidden scars which the Medic could not remove.

The signallers would call for the first volley of javelins, but not all the legionaries would hear the bronze tones over the crunch of their own advance. If that initial flight were to be launched simultaneously for greatest effect, then there had to be a visual signal as well.

Gaius Vibulenus had just volunteered himself as visual signal, because he wasn't willing to order any of his men to take the risk instead. His men.

The tall officer twisted his head and shoulders backward as he jogged toward the enemy. The shadow of his horsehair plume waved across the boots of the soldiers raising their left legs a little higher than usual to balance the javelins cocked back in their right hands to throw.

The whole left side of Vibulenus' body crawled with fear of the enemy he could no longer see.

"Hit 'em, boys!" he shouted as the horns blared and the sword in his hand swung down in an arc turned green by the light of the virid sun.

A dart flew over the tribune and thudded into the shield of a file-closer, just as the front two ranks broke into a run and hurled their javelins at the enemy a hundred feet away. The shadows of three more native missiles merged with the tribune's shadow; he staggered with shock and pain.

One of the darts struck near the boss of his shield, penetrating the three plies of wood but only bulging the felt backing. A second came down in so high an arc that it missed the shield and glanced from his shoulder where the attachments of his body armor formed a double thickness of bronze. The iron gouged a bright streak into the polished cuirass but did only cosmetic harm.

The third missile hit Vibulenus in the helmet at the same point he had been struck, ages before, by a spearman in a misty valley. The dart had been hurled as hard and flat as possible for a native arm aided by the additional leverage of a spear thrower.

There was a flash of ringing deadness in the tribune's skull, and his body started to go slack.

"Rome!" shouted Clodius Afer as his left arm, shield and all, encircled the tribune who was his friend and comrade.

The native ranks exploded with the death of hundreds of their leading warriors.

"Sir?" said the pilus prior as legionaries rushed past them, lifting their heavy javelins from behind their shields. "You're all right?"

"I'm all right…" Vibulenus mumbled, an echo rather than an answer, but use of his lips and tongue gave him volitional control over the muscles of his body as well. He straightened and finally realized that the centurion had been holding the entire weight of his armored body until then.

The multi-throated chanting from the nearest portion of the enemy lines changed to screams as heavy javelins and the lighter missiles from the center ranks of the legion hammered the natives like wheat in a hail storm.

Vibulenus felt his head, using the back of his right hand because he had not lost his grip on his sword. His helmet was gone, but the bone beneath was solid and he could feel the pressure of his probing with both hand and head.

"I'm fine," he said, slurring the words. "Let's get 'em."

Blood from the pressure cut on his scalp dripped on his sword as he lowered his hand.

"Rome!" Clodius repeated with a nod and a feral smile as he headed for his proper place at the front with long, swift strides.

The tribune followed, though every time his right heel met the ground his vision dimmed with pain. He tried to force his eyes more widely open, as if the muscles of the lids could somehow press back the waves of pain.

The native shields were long and narrow, so the first good look Vibulenus had at the enemy he was fighting came when he strode past a native body with wide-flung limbs, pi

The shield beside the native's body would not have been protection even if he had interposed it between him and the Roman javelin. It was leather-covered wicker, barely sufficient to stop light darts like the one which still hung u

Which was not to say that it was going to be easy.

The advance paused as the two front ranks of legionaries locked shields, compressing the enemy with sword points. A soldier in front of Vibulenus grunted and took a half-step backward. The tribune leaned against the legionary's shoulders and pushed, giving the man the thrust he needed to counter the weight of natives literally trying to crawl over the Roman's shield.

The legionary used his impetus to stab over the upper curve of his plywood oval. Resistance collapsed, squealing, and Gaius Vibulenus stepped into the gap opened by the advance of the soldier he had aided.

A dozen Roman javelins wobbled overhead, hurled by the rear ranks when the armored backs in front of them had stopped moving. One of the missiles cleared the friendly lines by less than it should have, thudding into the native that Vibulenus was even then preparing to stab. That was a stupid blunder, inexcusable in veterans of their experience. After the battle he'd parade all the rear ranks with gravel-filled packs until they dropped unless some individual came forward to take his punishment.

The tribune's scalp, bare and bloody, tingled with emotion at a cellular level. Had the javelin wiggled a handbreadth lower in the air, its point would have split Vibulenus' skull like a pickaxed melon, ending his duties and his life beyond help of the Medic or the gods… if there were gods.