“A thousand of them,” he whispered to himself. His men had shields now, many of them stolen from the Greeks they had killed night after night. Even so, each successful flight would bring down a few, even as they linked the shields and sheltered under them.
“Sound the advance-quickly!” he snapped at the cornicen, who raised an old battered horn and blew the double note. The two cohorts stepped forward as one, thumping the Greek earth together. Julius glanced right and left and grinned savagely as he saw the veterans dress the line as they moved, almost without noticing it. No one lagged behind. The old men had hungered for the sort of attack they understood almost as much as Julius, and now their impatience could finally be released.
At first they closed slowly. Julius waited for the archers to fire and almost froze as thousands of long black splinters hummed into the air at him. The aim was good, but the veterans had faced archers all around the Roman lands. They moved without haste, crouching low and pulling in limbs, each man's shield touching his brother's beside him. It formed an impenetrable wall and the arrows thumped uselessly into the laminated wood and brass.
For a moment, there was silence, then the veterans rose as one, shouting wildly. The shields were bristling with spent shafts, but they hadn't lost a man. They moved forward twenty quick paces and then the air hummed again and they ducked down under the shields. Somewhere, a Roman cried out in pain, but they moved on three more times, losing only a few pale bodies on the field behind them.
They were close enough to charge. Julius gave the order and the triple note sounded along the line. The Wolves broke into a fast run and suddenly they were only a few hundred feet from the archers and the black cloud was passing over them.
The Greek archers held their position too long, desperate to kill the ones who had hurt them so badly. Their front rank tried to turn away from the charging Romans, but there was no order to it and the Wolves roared into their confusion, turning it into terror as they fought to get away.
Julius exulted as the Roman line went through them, cutting their way into the squares with bloody skill. The ranks of Greeks dissolved into screaming chaos after only seconds. Julius ordered Ventulus to press them and Gaditicus moved his men out slightly to the left to widen the angle of the rout.
The panic spread like a gale through the Greek ranks. With their own men yelling in terror and sprinting away from the front line and the air filled with the screams of the dying, they began to edge away from the line of Wolves, peeling off from their units and throwing their weapons away as their officers shouted helplessly at them.
More and more began to run and then suddenly there were enough of them fleeing for even the bravest to turn and join the rushing throng.
The Wolves attacked in a frenzy, the veterans cutting through the enemy with all the skill and experience of a hundred battles and the younger men with raw energy and the coursing joy that made their hands shiver and their eyes wild as they cut the Greeks down, red-limbed and terrible in their killing.
The enemy streamed away in all directions. Twice, officers tried to rally them and Julius was forced to support Accipiter to break the largest gathering of men. The knot of frightened soldiers held for less than a minute and then broke again.
The camp became a carnage of trampled bodies and broken equipment, and the veterans began to tire, arms aching after hundreds of blows.
Julius ordered the saw formation for Ventulus, where the middle rank moved right and left against the others to block gaps and support the weakest places. His cohort swept through the camp and they seemed to have been killing all day.
Gaditicus had advanced farther and it was his men who came on Mithridates and his sons, surrounded by nearly a thousand men. They seemed to act as an anchor on the deserters who ran around them, slowing their headlong flight and pulling them back to join the last stand. Julius ordered the wedge to break the line, and his men shrugged off their tiredness one last time. Julius took the second row himself, behind Cornix on point. They had to break the last stand quickly. These men had not run and they stood under the eyes of their king, fresh and waiting.
Ventulus formed the wedge as if they had fought together all their lives. The shields came up to protect the edges of the arrowhead, and they crashed into the Greek lines, sending them reeling back into each other. Only the man at the head was unprotected, and Cornix fell in the first flurry of strikes. He rose lathered in blood and holding his stomach in with one hand while the other struck and struck until he fell again, this time not to rise. Julius took the point position, the giant Ciro moving to his side.
Julius could see Mithridates moving through his own men toward the Romans, his expression manic. As Julius felt rather than saw the forward thrust begin to falter, he could have cheered as the king shoved his own men aside to reach them. He knew the Greek king should have hung back and the Romans would not have reached him. Instead, Mithridates was roaring orders and those closest stepped back to allow him the kill.
He was a huge man, wrapped in a heavy purple cloak. He made no attempt at defense, but brought his sword down from above his head with terrible force. Julius ducked away and his answering blow was blocked with a clang that numbed his arm. The man was strong and fast. More Greeks fell all around them as the veterans roared once more and moved on, pushing the guards back and cutting them down with scores of blows. Mithridates seemed unaware as the line pressed past him, and he bellowed as he brought his sword round again in a vicious sweep at Julius's chest, sending the young man staggering back, his armor dented in a line. Both men were blowing air raggedly with exertion and anger. Julius thought one of his ribs had cracked, but now Mithridates was deep behind the front rank and Julius knew he had only to call and the king would be cut down from all sides.
With their king alone and embattled, the guards were struggling desperately to reach him. The veterans tired and fell against them, their strength faltering. Mithridates seemed to sense it.
“To me, my sons!” he shouted. “Come to me!” And their efforts doubled into a frenzy.
Julius leaned back around the outside of a blow and then cut in fast, tearing his jagged blade through the shoulder. Mithridates stumbled as Ciro stabbed him in his powerful chest, shouldering into him with an explosion of strength. The king's blood poured out and he dropped his sword from limp fingers. His eyes met Julius's for a moment, then he slipped down into the press of mud and bodies. Julius raised a red sword in triumph and Accipiter hit the Greek flank, breaking them utterly and sending them running with the last of their brothers.
They had no oil to burn the bodies, so Julius ordered great pits to be dug at the rear of the camp. It took a week to make them deep enough to hold Mithridates' dead. Julius had forbidden celebration with so many of the broken army still alive. The irony of having to set up an armed perimeter of the very camp he had attacked for so long did not escape him, but he knew that with the charismatic king dead, there was little chance of the survivors gathering for another attack. He hoped the nerve had been cut out of them, but though Mithridates' sons had been killed at the end, Gaditicus thought more than four thousand others had escaped, and Julius wanted to get away from the valley as soon as the last of his wounded had recovered or died.
Less than five hundred of the Wolves had survived the attack on the camp, most of their number lost in the last battle around the Greek king. Julius had them buried separately and no one complained about the work. They gave them a full funeral that lasted most of a day, and the funeral torches gave off a stinking black smoke that seemed fitting for their sacrifice.