Read Legionary for Free Online

punched to the ground under the hail.
    Gallus crouched, teeth gritted, as volley after volley of missiles hammered down upon them like iron hail. He glanced along his side and then back to the other side. To his right, a young legionary gripped his shield by the rim, and it wavered on every arrow strike, his knuckles slipping. Gallus reached over to grapple the shield handle in example, but recoiled in disgust when an arrow zipped in through the gap above the offending shield and crunched through the holder’s eye. Another man down. Then another, and another. The mini
testudo
contracted further and further as Roman bodies toppled with every bombardment. Gallus growled at the impotence of their situation. These men had entrusted their lives to him, but they were being picked off like mosquitoes. First century or not, they were not combat ready, unable to maintain a solid testudo, even. Every avenue of attack he could think of would mean dropping their shield wall for a moment at least. That meant certain annihilation. Yet to stay put meant they had only moments left in any case.
    ‘Sir! They’re moving,’ Felix croaked, now crouched back to back with his centurion. Gallus risked a glance out of the shield wall as the rain of arrows slowed, and spotted the darting movement behind the tree line. Was this the build up to a charge?
    A crack of thunder rippled across the sky and with it came a torrent of rain and a fork of lightning. No advance came. Again, Gallus stole a glance above his shield. The tree line was empty.
    ‘Felix, what’s happening over on your side?’
    The optio gasped. ‘They’re retreating, sir; they’re running northward!’
    Gallus cocked an eyebrow. ‘Running away? What the…’
    His words tailed off and he touched a hand to the earth. He felt a tremor, growing in intensity. His eyes widened as he saw the foliage ripple up ahead. Something was coming for them, and it was coming for them quickly.
    ‘Cavalry charge — right on top of us. Form a line three deep…’ then he hissed, so only Felix could hear, ‘…or we’re dead!’
    Ignoring the cramp in their tired limbs, his men sprang from the crouched testudo shell, and pulled round to face south, spears dug into the mud like a threadbare porcupine. The freezing rain clawed at their faces as they beheld the dark mass hurtling towards them.
    Gallus’ eyes narrowed as he tried to take in the charge; a hundred or more stocky riders with long dark wispy jet-black locks billowing behind rounded caps and clad in skins; what looked like composite bows and javelins looped on their backs, with long cutting swords and daggers hanging from their belts. As they thundered closer, Gallus’ features wrinkled at their faces; flattened, broad, and yellow. Their cheeks appeared to be symmetrically ripped with a triple line of angry scar tissue and their eyes were almond-like and unblinking. The riders on the wing of the charge had lengths of rope looped into lassos on their belts.
    ‘Hold steady!’ Gallus roared over the rumble of hooves.
    As Gallus filled his lungs at the last, his mind flitted with visions of Olivia on their wedding night; Olivia carrying their child. Then, the shadowy form of mother and child on the pyre.
I’m coming to be with you
. He leaned forward, feeling his men bracing along with him, when suddenly, like a storm dropping, the onrushing cavalry broke into two halves. They washed past the stunned legionary group, and on at the same breakneck pace to the north.
    Gallus expelled the breath in his lungs, his mind reeled. ‘What the…’ he glanced at Felix. ‘They’re after the archers!’
    His line slumped in utter relief. Some men belly-laughed in shock, others vomited in the mud. Felix looked down the track as the rain became sheet-like.
    ‘Who…what are we dealing with here, sir?’
    Gallus gazed down the track with Felix in bewilderment as a crash of lightning illuminated their faces.
    ‘The lion’s jaws, Felix. The