Ranks of Bronze

Courage can overcome agony, but it has too diamond-like a focus to deal with amorphous discomfort.

Vibulenus squinted, not because of the sun-which was too high now to interfere-but so that he could direct his attention where he wanted it. His vision kept flashing nervously from the battle scene as a whole to the centurions supporting him: Niger stolid, despite the cut in his face, but Clodius Afer visibly worried about the tribune's mental and physical state.

"No, it's all right," Vibulenus muttered. "It had to be done that way."

When he had spoken the words, which were not a lie if understood in more than a strictly military sense, his mind reasserted the control it needed and cooled his body to a support which did not intrude.

The ten cavalrymen on the legion's left had held. The relief of seeing the armored riders hulking in place like so many fortresses, their visors raised to display the horror of their features, jellied the tribune's knees for an instant so that he sagged again into the grip of the two non-coms.

It did not seem that the natives had made any attempt to attack the armored riders. The fear of monsters mounted on other slavering monsters would have worn off in time, but the crushing advance of the Roman infantry had left no time. The bodyguards were walking their beasts forward to keep pace with the legion. The warriors before them were begi

The central mass of the copper-ski

Rising to his full height, craning his neck-he should have had a horse, but he would not have accepted one of the carnivores available even had it been offered- Vibulenus sca

Success had disordered the Roman lines somewhat; but because neither pursuit nor severe irregularities of terrain were involved, the rearmost pair of ranks had retained cohesion. Even more coolly reserved was the command group, its members visible more from the height of their mounts than because of the tribune's low vantage point. Falco; the Commander; and the ten remaining guards jutted up above the eagle standard, while the trumpeter and hornblower were hidden by the waving crests of the legionary infantry.

The Commander had retained the guards whom he had not sent to the left flank. What in the names of Jove and Hades was going on at the legion's right?

"Prepare to disengage the Tenth Cohort," said Gaius Vibulenus with such startling clarity that he could be heard by everyone within spear's length of him despite the sounds of battle. "We will reverse to the right flank while developing any hostile threats to the legion's rear."

"Threat?" said Niger, stepping up on his toes to see what had led to the unexpected order.

The cackling triumph of thousands of natives sweeping toward the command group from the right flank was more answer than the tribune had time to give.

"Get the trumpeters and standard bearers, Niger." said Clodius Afer in instant decision. "I'll see what I can do to the front and send some non-coms back."

Men promoted for courage were going to drift forward in battle, even if they would be of greater military benefit keeping control of ranks as yet uncommitted. Usually that stiffening of the front line came at very little cost. In the present circumstances, where the cohort had to execute a complex manuever from the rear, lack of centurions and file-closers in the disengaged ranks wouldn't make matters any easier.

"About face!" Vibulenus shouted as he stepped off the hillock, stumbling on one of the tumbled native bodies because his foot had not lifted as high as he intended.

Niger slapped the tribune's shoulder in friendly benediction as the two childhood friends went off on separate errands of slaughter. The non-com's round-faced boyishness contrasted with the taller officer's youthfully-delicate features; and both visages contrasted even more with the hard-souled men who lived beneath the skin.

"Form your cursed ranks, you chaff-brained loafers!" Vibulenus shouted as he continued his staggering path back through the cohort. The pilus prior had not bothered to assign the tribune a task because there was no need to do so: Vibulenus was going to lead them from the cohort's new front, "About face, the fun's behind us now, boys!"

The tribune sheathed his sword to free a hand, stripping off blood on the sheath's tight lip because he did not have time to wipe the blade first. It was a bad way to treat a faithful weapon, but there wasn't any slack just now for human beings either. He physically rotated the nearest legionaries as he passed them, men who were nervous about turning their back on enemies but were unwilling to cold-bloodedly ignore an order so baldly put.

A few of their fellows followed the example and shouted orders. Then, as Vibulenus stepped through the sixth rank, two of the cohort's trumpets began blowing the four-note recall signal.

One of the rear-rank soldiers was a Capuan named Hymenaeus. His extraction was such that when he turned and saw what was happening, it was in Greek that he blurted, "Zeus bugger me fer a heifer, here they come!"

He started to walk out, hunching to loosen his mail.

Vibulenus blocked the soldier with his shield. "Wait for it, curse ye! We're going to do this as I say."

Because to meet the new threat piecemeal would mean disaster for the cohort, and for the legion whose only hope was the cohort.

The command group was no longer a study in disinterested aloofness. The Commander's bodyguard had reined its mounts to face the right flank. One or two of the guards had enough skill to bring up their beasts lurchingly onto their hind legs so that their forepaws could ramp in the air.

That had been enough to keep the natives back on the left flank… but the enemy that the Commander's own party faced was quite different from warriors in the chill dawn, trying to decide whether or not to attack monsters out of nightmare. The warriors who had boiled around the legion's right flank unhindered had both momentum and quick victories-legionaries cut down before they changed front-to enspirit them.

A carnivore sprang forward, goaded by its rider or the presence of blatant enemies. It caught a native and tossed him in the air, his chest and shoulder crushed and a blunt wedge cut from the wicker shield to match the pattern of the beast's jaws.

The natives gave back. Their front, twenty or thirty warriors across as they encircled the right of the legion, spread like water flowing against a brick on a smooth table. They flanked the short line of guards as they had flanked the legion itself… and then they attacked the mounted creatures from three sides with sudden wild abandon.

"On the command, Tenth Cohort will pivot on the left file!" Vibulenus instructed as he ran the length of the cohort's new front. Actually, only the previous sixth rank had faced about uniformly, though more and more of the men closer to the old front were obeying the trumpets. Non-coms grabbed by Clodius Afer rushed through lines of common soldiers, snarling and cajoling in an attempt to rebuild a formation disordered by contact with the enemy.

"Prepare to pivot," the tribune ordered in a voice barely audible for his wheezing. He had just run three hundred feet, the cohort's frontage, to reach the file that formed the open right flank of the unit's new alignment. Already exhausted by battle and emotion, he was scarcely able to breathe, much less speak.

The men nearest to him were the ones who must start the pivot and march a five-hundred foot arc while the cohort's left file merely turned on its left boot. They could hear him; and anyway, they would follow.