Ranks of Bronze

The second flight was already arching down.

The chariot overturned with a crash behind Vibulenus, throwing sod and bits of broken wheel against his calves. He lunged forward, away from the touch and toward the real threat, the ranks ru

The weight of javelins clinging to his shield dragged its edge against the ground and made him stumble. His toes hurt where they stubbed the shield rim, and the javelin hurled by a strong man scratched both his left arm and his chest as its point slammed several inches through the thick leather.

That did not make the body's consciousness afraid: he was a warrior, a champion who met the best each enemy offered and slew them, knowing that he would be slain in turn some day. But the near escape made him respectful of missiles that were more than the stone-weighted ox-goads his own thralls hurled.

"Lock shields!" the tribune's mind ordered through the warrior's lips. Normally, champions would duel before the weight of reinforcements to both sides made the engagement a general one of armies and shield walls. But this was not a normal battle…

Oxen bellowed in terror as three of them dragged the overturned chariot and the yoke-mate which was interested only in biting off the javelin that quivered in its haunch. The warrior who had stepped off with Vibulenus was still all right, though a javelin with a bent shaft dangled from his shield face also.

The pair who had jumped from the chariot a moment earlier had been off balance when the missiles struck. One was down his face, a javelin at belt height beneath him and three more fa

If they, even the four of them, had been able to lock shields and match their long spears against the swords of their immediate opponents, strength and armament would have taken them through the legion like a thorn in an ox's thick hide. Only for a time, no more than minutes-but they were champions, warriors who lived for the glory of dying on the heap of their slain. By robbing the hostile advance of its momentum and turning the ranks inward, Vibulenus' fellows and similar knots of warriors could disorganize the legion into a milling body of men.

Individually, each of the spearmen in the chariots being lashed toward the battle was more than a match for a legionary, despite the latter's armor. But the chance of fighting on those equal terms had been drowned in the rain of javelins, and in the personal code of the other warriors who did not have the mind of a Roman tribune to direct them.

All that could matter now was individual combat, death or survival. Gains Vibulenus Caper would be alive at the game's end; but the test was real, and the pain would be very real.

What came within range of Vibulenus' spear was no longer an army moving in lockstep but rather a handful of individuals with alien faces framed by helmets forged all of metal. The one squarely fronting Vibulenus raised his shield as he judged the angle of the spearhead and let his sword drift back to take a full-armed cut as he ran into range.

Vibulenus stabbed overhand at the center of the Roman shield, knowing that the boss was reinforced with bronze-and knowing also that his strength and stout spear were enough to smash through all resistance.

The Roman lurched backward, losing his sword and his footing as the iron spearhead broke both the bones of his left forearm. Others jumped aside, thrown off balance as they tried to close up their ranks. Like all participants in Recreation Room fantasies, the wounded man had been shouting in Latin. The screams with which he now assessed his severed arm were even more universal.

Vibulenus shrugged to settle his shield strap, remembering that the equipment was awkwardly heavier than it should be because of the javelins dangling from its face. If the pentration of the Roman missiles had shocked the warrior's mind, then he had taught the nearest Roman how effective a broad-bladed spear could be when thrust by a strong arm.

He jerked his point clear, splintering plywood from the vermilioned shield face, and felt all the way up his forearm the shock of Clodius Afer's chopping blow against the spearshaft.

Vibulenus hadn't recognized his first opponent, a soldier who had died too long in the past for his face to be a memory* But these features were those of the man on the couch beside him, disconcerting because the image Vibulenus fought did not yet wear the transverse red crest of a centurion.

And this time, the military tribune had far more combat experience than the veteran file-closer brought to the battle.

Vibulenus swung his spear sideways like a cudgel. The instinct of the warrior whose body he shared would have been to withdraw the weapon for another stabbing blow, but the tribune's mind knew that would be quick disaster. Clodius Afer, quicker and armed with a cut-and-thrust sword, would be inside the warriors shield and disemboweling him in a fingersnap.

But the file-closer did not expect a spear so heavy that, clubbed, it could slam aside a legionary shield and dent a bronze helmet in sending the wearer splay-limbed and unconscious.

Swords chopped at Vibulenus' left side, but the shield covered him there andfettow warriors were ru

The Roman's round shield was flung sideways, no protection at all, but Vibulenus knew the breastplate had been cast from bronze heavy enough to turn his spear at the slant with which it would receive the thrust. He stabbed instead for the face, white with terror. It was only as his point slid beneath the helmet's lower rim that he realized the eyes through which his broad blade was cutting were his own.

Vibulenus screamed. Even after he leaped from the couch in the Recreation Room, he could feel his hand tingle with the bones crunching in his own image's forehead.

Pompilius Niger wrapped his strong arms around the tribune's chest and shouted through the bleats of revulsion, "Sir! Sir! You're here again!"

Vibulenus let his body sag against his friend while he mastered the terror and fury of his mind. There were staring faces all around him, but the expression of their own emotions had blended into a general concern for the tribune.

For their leader.

"So that's what the bastards've thought of us all along," said Clodius Afer in a harsh, deadly whisper. Both he and Niger must have lifted their heads back into reality as soon as they understood the incident around which the Recreation Room had woven its current game. "Like dancing bears… or frogs!"

The disgust in his voice reminded Vibulenus of how much his friend hated smooth-ski

And it was the duty of Gaius Vibulenus Caper, military tribune by the whim of Crassus and leader of the men around him by the will of the gods, to keep that flaming anger from exploding in a suicidal fashion.

Calm again, so frigidly controlled that his mind did not notice the way his right hand-spear handwas quivering, Vibulenus used Pompilius Niger for a not-wholly-needful brace as he stepped up onto the couch on which he had recently lain. Rusticanus said something, but the tribune ignored the words. He already had enough information to deal with the immediate situation, and this was not the time for long-term pla