Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby
***
An army's discipline is always more severely judged in the retreat than in the advance, but Servius' men retreated in good order, their phalanxes as dense and their lines as straight as when they had stood beneath the citadel of Veii. A musician at the back of each phalanx played his strident reedpipes, the rhythm stressed by blurting high notes to keep the men's pace even on the long march. It looked almost like a parade, apart from the dust and the absence of spectators, and a certain lack of good humour; no one liked to retreat, no one understood why they were retreating, and a few of the men had started to wonder whether Servius had lost the luck that had always been his.
They didn't see it, of course; they were facing in the wrong direction. They didn't hear it; it was too far away. From his wood, Tarquin saw the Veientes pouring down the road that led down from the acropolis, down to the plain, fanning out when they reached the bottom; chariots and horses travelling easily enough, and picking up speed as they came out on to the flat, like a wave as it comes to the gently shelving sand of a beach.
"Shit," Strephon said. This was the end of the Roman army; the end of Rome. There was still time for the Romans to turn and face the attack; but the longer they left it, the less their chances of surviving. Veii would flatten them. Was that what Tarquin had intended?
Tarquin had seen it too. And he was smiling. He was laughing.
Tarquin must have seen Strephon's look; incredulity, disgust, shock that he hadn't realised earlier what the plan was. "Just you wait," he said; and then added, languidly, as if it wasn't an order, "We might as well mount up."
They drew their horses up just at the edge of the woods, where the branches would hide them from view, but they could gallop out to the rescue of their countrymen; but as Strephon readied himself to charge, Tarquin leant over, and put a hand on his halter.
"Not yet," he said.
Not yet, Strephon thought. Wait till it's clear the army will be destroyed; and then charge, too late, and come to terms with Veii, and blame Servius. Whether Servius lives or dies, he'll be broken. By all the consenting gods, Tarquin was a smart bastard; but he, Strephon, wasn't going to stay in Rome after this. He'd be off to the cities of the south, to Syracuse or to Greece, to find better friends and more honesty.
The Veientes were picking up pace, and the Romans still hadn't seen them. And then, suddenly, everything changed. The first two Veiian chariots flew up in the air. One charioteer was hurled out of his chariot on to the ground, from which he never rose, but the other's fate was worse; he'd wrapped the reins round his waist, and his paired horses, escaping the broken shaft of the chariot, pulled him out of it, and along the ground behind them, his body turning over and over till the reins unwound at last, and he lay limp and still.
Then three or four of the horses staggered and fell. Those behind ran into them, and others reared and swerved to avoid them, and meanwhile more chariots and horses were still streaming out from the road, and found their way blocked and no way to turn against the tide of traffic.
Tarquin was laughing crazily, throwing his head up so that the braids of his hair swung and whipped back.
"Now," he yelled, "now we ride. And thank the hidden gods the sappers did their work."