The Romans waited, quiet under the eagles, their cuirasses and greaves, oblong shields and round helmets blinding bright in the sun. Among them waved officers' plumes and an occasional blue cloak, but they seemed as much less colorful than the barbarians as they seemed smaller—a dark short race with cropped hair and shaven chins, holding their ranks stiff as death. Even their horsemen stood rigid.
Eodan strained his eyes through the dust that was around him like a fog, kicked up by hoofs and feet. He could scarcely see his own folk; now and then he caught the iron gleam of chains by which the Cimbri had linked their front-line men together, to stand fast or die. He thought, with a moment's unease, that it aided the Romans, not to be able to see how great were the numbers they must face.... Then a war-horn screamed, and he blew his own in answer and smote spurs into his horse.
Hoofs drummed beneath him. He heard the wild, lowing du-du-du of the holy lur horns; closer now, the Romans tubas brayed brass and the Roman pipes skirled. He heard even the rattle of his own metal and the squeak of leather. But then it was all drowned in the Cimbrian shouts.
"Hau-hau-hau-hau-hoo!" shrieked Eodan into his horse's blowing mane. "Hau, hau! Hee-ee-yi!" So did we shout at Noreia, when Rome first learned who we are; so did we cry on the Alps, when we romped naked in the snow and slid down glaciers on our shields; so did we howl as we ripped up a forest to dam the Adige, break the Roman bridge and wring the eagle's neck! Hee-hoo!
It was a blink of time, and it was forever, before he saw the enemy cavalry before him. A shape sprang out of whirling gray dust, a shadow, a face. Eodan saw that the man's chin was scarred. He reached into his belt, whipped out one of his darts, and hurled it. He saw it glance off the Roman cuirass. He veered his horse to the right and shook his lance as he went by.
Around him it was all thudding and yelling. He only glimpsed the Roman charge, fragments through the dust, a helmet or a sword, once the eye of a horse. He leaned low in the saddle and reached for his second dart. The Cimbrian riders were moving slantwise across the advancing Roman front, and only those on the left actually met that charge. Eodan edged toward the fighting.
A mounted man loomed up, sudden as a thunderclap. Eodan threw the dart. It struck the Roman's horse in a nostril, and blood squirted out. The horse screamed and lunged. Eodan knew a moment of reproach; he had not meant to hurt the poor beast! Then he was upon the enemy. The fellow was too busy with his frantic mount to raise shield. Eodan drove his lance two-handed into the man's throat. He toppled from his seat, and the shaft was almost wrenched from Eodan's hands. With a single harsh movement, he freed it, nearly falling himself.
Another shape came out of the racketing dust. Eodan was able to see this one more clearly. He could have counted the iron bands of the cuirass or the iron-studded leather strips falling down the thighs above the kilt. He braced his lance in his hands and waited. The Roman came in at a trot. His shaft struck out. Eodan parried it, wood smote dully on wood. The horses snorted and circled while their riders probed. The Roman's steel hit Eodan's shield, where it hung on the Cimbrian's arm, and stuck there for a tiny moment. Eodan grabbed the lance with his left hand and shoved his own weapon forward, clumsily, with his right arm. The Roman's shield blocked him. Eodan whipped his shaft down like a club, and it hit the Roman's knee. The man yelped and dropped his shield. Eodan's iron went through his jaws. The Roman fell backward, dragging the lance with him, strangling in blood. His horse bucked, brought down a chance hoof and cracked the wood across.
Panting, Eodan drew his sword and looked about. He could dimly see that men were skirmishing through dust and heat—the Bull help us, but it was hot!—and that the battle was moving toward the Cimbrian right. Sweat runneled from him, stung his eyes and drenched his padded undergarment. He should have been crowing his victory. Two men slain for certain; it was not often you knew what a blow of yours had done. But he felt too choked in the dust.
He rode after the fight in search of an enemy. Boierik's plan had worked, to draw the Roman horse away while the Cimbrian foot struck their center. He could hear the screeches and hammering as men battled on the ground; he could not see it.