122 A.D.: Fight

(Part 3 of 3.

What the ...? I just wrote a piece of historical fiction in three parts. I know the prose is funky and has lots of "transvestite hermaphrodite" semicolons, this is also an exercise in style. It's for you guys to decide if it's effective or not.

If you don't get what's happening, go read or reread the first two parts: "Flesh" and "Fuck". As always, excuses for the length.)

The day of battle. The day of reckoning for some. The morning's weather is promising for what lies ahead: the sky is covered in grey clouds so there will be no blinding sun, the air is clear, it is a bit cold, perhaps — but hacking arms, pumping legs, splashing blood will take care of that soon enough. The breathing of all the men erupt into small blooms of smoke which twist and rise and merge into a single aura of mist around the marching army.

Then, it snows. Heavy, loaded flakes that fall audibly to the ground. On the metallic armor and helmets of the soldiers the snow sticks and creates a downy film. Against the capes and hair and skin the flakes shatter into glistening constellations — droplets of water. The snow brings with it the enemy; heard, first, not seen; guttural cries that shatter the dense forest air. They are meant to impress, these cries, meant to make your hand unsteady and your heartbeat rush in your breast — and they do, for most men at least.

Antonine is in a front position and enters the fight quickly when it erupts. Except the fight does not erupt, really — it is the enemy that erupts: out from the woods they come running and screaming in large numbers; ax-wielding, short, sturdy men with long hair streaming behind their gnarled faces and pale, crazed eyes. The fighting breaks and crashes, slowly, and gains momentum as more and more men start hacking and blocking and shooting. A great crescendo of noise: the beat of metal on metal and metal on wood and feet trampling in the mud and blood and cries of pain and fury and physical effort splintering bone and wood and hearts beating so loud you don't hear the din of battle anymore just your own pumping body.

By now, Antonine has lost his spear; the shaft broken in two by an ax blow, the point dipped and lost forever in some corpse. He fights back with his glaive now. You would think it's easy to kill men with this sharp blade, except it isn't. They just won't die. Everything is in your way: the flailing arms, the armor, the hair and skin and muscles and sinews and bones just won't get out of the way and let you kill. So you slice, and hack, and thrust, and push with all your strength, and finally too much blood comes spurting out and you know you've cut something vital. Your enemy topples over, leaving you panting and exhausted. Then another barbarian runs up to replace his fallen friend; do it all again.

Scabius, of higher rank, commands a small section on the left wing. As the din of battle grows louder, he stands and waits, watching for a signal from the back. A calvary unit breaks away from the enemy force and rushes towards his side of the battlefield, he blows his whistle. Up come the spears and standards and shields. Sharp shouts, and soon the enemy is crushed against the wall of Roman soldiers; cavalrymen are thrown off their mounts and speared to death on the ground.

The battle is quick and decisive — for a battle, that is. Corpses collect and are trampled on in mud, men tread on them and trip, they fall to the ground and are trampled in turn. Scabius has made his way — fighting, killing — to the center of the melee. He feels empowered, unbeatable, like a god — until a mountain of a barbarian appears before him, two heads taller than he is. The barbarian is dressed in leather armor, a bristling, blood-darkened mane covers half his face and shoots out from under his heavy helmet, the shaft of his ax is as tall as a man, the blade as long an arm. He bellows savagely, raises his ax up above his head, and swings it down.

***

Antonine is exhausted, now. The battle has cut through the day. For a while he retreated back to the center of the Roman force and rested, but now he is back in forward position, in the spaced melee of man-to-man combat. The barbarians have grown tired and desperate; theirs steps are uneasy, and they scream in anguish when they send their blows. They throw themselves at you with brute force, but no cunning, no bravery, only the faint hope that they will hurt you. They may as well set themselves on fire and hurl themselves at us, Antonine thinks. When one barbarian falls, now, no friend-in-arms replaces him. When a legionnaire falls, three fresh soldiers replace him.

As Antonine plunges his blade deep in the chest of a foe he's knocked over, he feels something break in the tide of the battle. There is a mass of confusion in the air, but less noise. A flash of long hair flies past him, and then another. The enemy is retreating. As he looks about, assessing the number of those running away, trying to hear the orders being issued (are they to run after them and pick at them from the back, or let them go and count the dead?) Antonine sees an enormous Barbarian who does not retreat. He stands there, in the middle of running men and trampled corpses, absolutely still. Antonine walks toward this silent, immobile giant from the side. He understands, now, as he sees with surprise his opponent from the previous night, Scabius, holding a spear plunged to the shaft in the giant's abdomen. The giant falls to his knees, filthy blood spurting from his mouth, and and then crashes sidways into the mud — a pile of dirty hair and slashed, worn leather.

Scabius appears to be wounded as he holds his arm as soon as the giant has fallen. He has vanquished his enemy but has not come out unscathed. Antonine sees this, and despite himself he runs toward Scabius — the opportunity is too good to miss. Antonine approaches Scabius from the side. When he is close enough, Scabius sees him from the corner of his vision but has not recognized him. He turns around to face Antonine, who meets him with his glaive, which he sends deftly slashing across Scabius' neck. A great gash immediately splits open and a thick stream of vivid blood comes pouring out. The windpipe and carotid have been severed, the last thing that Scabius sees before black death comes swirling before his eyes is Antonine looking down at him with a satisfied smirk. No compassion, no pity, no remorse. The deed has been done more coldly than even he, Scabius, could have done it.

Antonine spits at the corpse of Scabius, which he has kicked onto its back, and misses. His spit catches the wind and lands into the wet mud beside Scabius' face instead. Antonine goes on as if he had not missed; perhaps he doesn't even see he's missed. "That's what you get for insulting my mother."