The next day dawned brightly, and Calgus mustered the tribal leaders once the morning meal had been taken. The command had gone out for every man to be ready to march, with his war gear and a day’s food, and there was a palpable tension in the air as the gathered chieftains watched him stalk into their midst, his bodyguards looking about them with poorly disguised anxiety at the hostile faces around them. Calgus turned to survey the scene, taking the measure of the men gathered at his command. The tribal leaders stood impassively for the most part, many of them with sour looks that told him they would rather be elsewhere; only the men of his own Selgovae tribe had raised a cheer when he entered their circle. The other tribes, he judged, had at last realised that a war fought in what appeared primarily to be his people’s best interests would not necessarily be good for them.
‘Brothers…’ Calgus paused, waiting for any reaction from the gathered mass of warriors, but none came. ‘… you have delivered a hammer-blow to the men that seek to invade our land, subjugate our people and strip us of both our wealth and our dignity! We have already defeated one legion in battle, and forced the Romans to scrape up every spare soldier in the northern half of their empire in order to put their boot back on this province’s throat. I know that some of you are saying that we have done little more than pull the tail of a dangerous beast, provoking it to strike back at us with all of its power… and in truth you are both right and wrong. Do the Romans still have three full legions in Britannia? Yes! Does the bulk of that strength lurk, waiting to strike out and crush us, and within two days’ march of this encampment? Of course it does!’ He had their attention now; he knew it even without staring round at the faces surrounding him.
‘Ask yourselves, however, what would happen if we managed to repeat that trick, and crush another of their legions in the same way. What then, when there are no more replacement soldiers to be had?’ He allowed the silence to build, looking around him with a broad grin, watching realisation starting to dawn on the men around him. ‘Three legions, my brothers, that’s all they have. There will be no further reinforcement from over the sea. If we break one more legion they will be unable to replace it, not now that every available man in the northern empire is already in this province. The Roman governor will be faced with a stark choice, to defend their wall with only two legions, and one of those needed in the south to keep the western tribes under control, or to retreat south by a hundred miles, and form a new line of defence based on the fortresses of Yew Grove and Fortress Deva. An indefensible line, with a mountain range running straight through the middle and the whole of the Brigantes tribe south of their wall suddenly liberated to join the rebellion and to double our strength in fighting men. The governor will try to hold on, to wait for eventual reinforcement rather than face the disgrace of abandoning a wall built by an emperor and making their defence of Britannia impossible. And he will be doomed to fail.’
Now was the critical moment in his oration, his chance to grab the men around him by the balls.
‘My brothers, if we can just take down one of the legions facing us there will be no more reinforcement for their northern frontier, and their general will be forced to make the terrible choice I have described to you. And this whole country will fall to us like an apple whose time on the tree has come to its end. We will be free to take back the wealth they have stolen from us, free to travel wherever we wish without needing their permission. Free to live the way we choose, without their legions forever forcing us to live by their rules.’ He waited for a moment, turning to look around his audience. Every man’s eyes were locked on to him, and in each face he saw nothing like the apathy of five minutes before. Nearly.
‘So, how do we destroy another legion? First, my brothers, we are going to anger the Romans, by taking our war to them in a way that they will neither predict nor be able to tolerate. Tonight will be a fat moon by which we will be able to make our way to their wall, and cross it undetected. Nightfall today will see us in position to strike at a border fort, to mount a swift and terrible attack that will destroy both fort and garrison, and by tomorrow evening we will have returned here in triumph. Of course, their cavalry will outpace the legions in the search for us as we retreat back here, they will find our trail and follow it here, bringing the legions in their wake, but that is exactly what we want them to do. When they think they have us trapped, that will be the moment for our greater trap to be sprung.’
‘And this greater trap, Calgus. Just what would that consist of?’
The question came from Brennus. Of course.
‘Powerful allies, King Brennus. Powerful enough to smash a legion with the shock of their attack, if that legion is stretched to besiege us here as I expect.’
Later, with his plan of attack reluctantly approved by the gathered tribal nobles, Calgus sought out Martos, King Brennus’s nephew. Ignoring the hostile looks he was getting from the men around the young noble, he strode up to the man, stepping close to speak in quiet and measured tones.
‘Prince Martos, I would like to speak with you in private for a moment, if you’ll hear me?’
Martos, checking the edge of his sword with his thumb, nodded dourly.
‘I will speak with you if that is your wish, Calgus. I may not agree with your methods, but I believe that we both want the same thing from these next few days.’
Indeed we do, mused Calgus inwardly as he extended an arm, inviting the Votadini prince to walk with him, but only one of us is going to live to enjoy it.
The sky clouded over in the early afternoon, and a thin drizzle contrived to insinuate itself into any and every place it could possibly reach. The Tungrians spent the day making sure that they were ready for another lengthy spell in the field, sharpening weapons and checking their equipment for any fault that might let them down on the march. The 8th Century spent the morning on the exercise field practising with swords and shields, every man paired with a veteran soldier from the cohort’s other centuries and drilled time and time again in the simple disciplines of attack and defence.
Marcus walked among his allocated forty men with Qadir, gauging which of them might just be capable of standing in a battle line’s front rank by watching the faces of the soldiers set to teach them their murderous trade.
‘That one, training with the one-eyed soldier. Front rank.’
The imperturbable chosen man made a mark on his writing tablet and followed Marcus down the line. When they compared notes with Julius, Dubnus and Rufius, their combined findings made uncomfortable material for discussion with First Spear Frontinius when Marcus met up with him to discuss the morning session’s results.
‘I’ve got about a dozen men that I can put in the front rank with a clear conscience, and another thirty or so with a fighting chance of surviving their first fight. After that it’s a lottery, the rest of them are just so much padding…’
Frontinius nodded gravely.
‘Work them harder. You’ve got a day, perhaps two.’
Soon after midday another cohort arrived at the fort, and was directed to establish their camp alongside the Tungrians. Once the soldiers realised the identity of the newcomers they quickly entered into the usual spirit of the two cohorts’ encounters, exchanges of abuse quickly giving way to exchanges of news and gossip. Scaurus and Frontinius waited for the appropriate period of time, then made their way into the 2nd Tungrian cohort’s camp and presented themselves at the command tent. Escorted inside, they found First Spear Neuto and Prefect Furius bent over an equipment list, working out what to raid the fort’s stores for. Furius turned, and, recognising Scaurus with a heartbeat’s pause that was imperceptible unless the watcher was looking for it, he took the offered hand and shook it vigorously.
‘Rutilius Scaurus! I hear you’ve got the First Tungrians, and here I am with the Second Cohort! Just like old times with the good old Twelfth, eh? Here, meet my first spear, Neuto. Neuto, this is my old comrade Rutilius Scaurus, from my days in Germania with the Twelfth Legion. Scaurus and I were both thin-stripe tribunes with the legion when we were sent to root out the German tribes, both of us not much better than callow youths with no real idea of soldiering, and yet here we both are with independent commands to play with.’
The first spear gave Scaurus and Frontinius a look that spoke volumes for his relationship with his prefect, offering his hand to Scaurus before clasping Frontinius’s and slapping him on the shoulder with his other hand. The two men were clearly glad to see each other, and at Neuto’s suggestion they headed off to the fort’s officers’ mess to share information, and work out whether either could help the other with supplies or equipment. Outside the tent Neuto gave Frontinius a look that told him even more about Prefect Furius, his voice kept low but with a distinct edge of anger.
‘I’m glad to see you, old comrade, although I wish it were under happier circumstances. Let’s get a beaker of something warm inside us and I’ll share my news with you… not all of it good.’
With the first spears’ departure the two prefects stared at each other in a long moment of silence. Furius spoke first, his eyes suddenly hard as he faced his former comrade.
‘Well, Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, it’s been a long time since Moesia. What have you been up to for the last ten years?’
Scaurus shrugged.
‘I stayed with the Twelfth for three years after you left to return to Rome, until we’d finished off the Quadi in fact. A year after that I was back to Moesia for the war with their neighbours the Marcomani, this time with the Fifth Macedonica, and now I’ve been sent here to help put down another barbarian uprising. I’ve spent the occasional few months in Rome to remind me why we fight, but mostly I’ve been in the field.’
‘A warrior’s life, then. Still dedicated to Mithras, eh? And yet here we both are, both of us with an equal status after all those years, despite my little slip at Thunderbolt Gorge. Don’t you find that galling, eh, Scaurus? You toil away on the borders of the empire for a decade while I enjoy the comforts of home, then in six months I go from enforced retirement to command of a thousand-strong infantry cohort. Doesn’t that rankle just a little?’
Scaurus shrugged, without any visible sign of concern.
‘Not really. We come from different worlds, you and I, our families couldn’t be much more different if we’d tried. I do what I do, and you… well, you do whatever it is that you do. Still fond of the odd crucifixion, are you?’
Furius nodded slowly.
‘I’m still a firm believer in keeping discipline nice and taut, if that’s what you’re asking. While we were out over the wall I managed to find and punish the man that killed this cohort’s previous prefect. I had him…’
‘Whipped to death, from the rumours flying round the camp.’
Furius’s voice took on a note of self-justification.
‘He went on the cross as well.’
Scaurus shook his head gently.
‘You crucified a dead man?’
Furius bristled, his temperature clearly rising.
‘It served as an example.’
Scaurus kept a straight face, seeing the signs he had long ago learned to recognise in the other man’s reddening features.
‘I’m sure it did.’
Frontinius took a cautious sip at his broth, pursing his lips at the taste and putting the steaming beaker down as he passed judgement on his new prefect for Neuto’s benefit.
‘So at first I thought he was just another weak-chinned amateur like most of the idiots we get as prefects, but all in all I’d say he’s probably going to be good enough, given his experience. Not that he’s been very forthcoming about exactly what he’s done in the last ten years, but he seems to have seen enough action to have knocked the corners off him, even if he won’t talk about it. What about yours?’
The two first spears had found a quiet corner in the officers’ mess and were sitting over their broth, waiting for it to cool slightly. The hot soup’s steam rose into the room’s chilly air as the steward laboured to get the fire properly lit. Frontinius had quickly recognised that his old friend needed to share his recent experiences with someone that he could trust. Having asked the question, he kept his mouth firmly shut in the hope of encouraging the 2nd Cohort’s senior centurion to tell his story. Neuto grimaced, shaking his head as he spoke.
‘At first I thought Furius might be a decent replacement for Prefect Bassus. He’s not short of money, that’s clear. He’s got a jar full of naphtha that he uses to light his brazier, just a small splash and the wood goes up like a grain store with the first spark from the flint, and that must have cost him a small fortune. He seemed to know what he was talking about too, he told a good story about his time in Moesia fighting some tribe or other, and he was brisk and businesslike in just about everything he did. “Here,” I thought, “is a man that I might be able to do business with. Perhaps not quite such a find as your last prefect — now there was an officer — but decent enough, nevertheless.”’ He sipped at his broth. ‘It took me about three days to get over that sadly mistaken first impression. First of all, he paraded the cohort at Red River and told them what a shower of bastards they were for killing Bassus, and how he was going to make them pay for it. Three months’ pay forfeit for the entire cohort, reduced to one month if he got his man before dark the same day.’
Frontinius grimaced in turn.
‘But he got his man, right? There’s simply no way a full cohort is going to stand for losing that much money to protect one man. I’d say his tactics were spot on.’
Neuto shrugged, unwilling to cede the point his friend was making.
‘Yes, he got his man, but…’
‘Then you can’t really argue too hard against his methods, can you? After all, whoever it was did kill a prefect, let’s not forget that. Anybody I know?’
Neuto shook his head dismissively.
‘No. Just some idiot soldier, a typical wooden-skulled headcase who acted on impulse and stuck his iron through Prefect Bassus’s back simply because he didn’t like the man. To make it worse, he was the older brother of one of my centurions. Something I was supposed not to know, and of course something I actually knew from about an hour after the younger brother joined up. Our new prefect had him crucified…’
Frontinius blew on his broth and took a mouthful.
‘We heard. The cavalry lads were full of it when they pulled in last night. A little severe, for all that he killed an officer. I hear the man died on the whipping post?’
Neuto nodded, a small smile touching his lips.
‘Yes. Prefect Furius made the mistake of ordering him to receive fifty lashes.’
‘Fifty?’
‘Exactly. He’d probably have died even if my officers hadn’t contrived to open the poor bastard’s throat with the scourge, after I’d had a few quiet words in the right ears, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Then the idiot had him nailed up anyway.’
Frontinius grimaced again.
‘I still couldn’t argue that he’s unfit for command. So what if he’s a little free with the hammer and nails, the man had it coming to him, right?’
Neuto sat back, looking at his friend.
‘I can live with the carpentry fixation, just about, but he’s just not very good. We were sent out to look for the blue-noses, a roving commission for a new prefect and the perfect chance for him to get used to his new command, right? I advised him to use the cavalry to screen our movements and seek out any signs of the warband…’
‘And?’
Neuto’s face wrinkled with disgust.
‘He didn’t allow them out of sight for the entire time we were out there. The man was in perpetual fear of bumping into a fight, and he said he wanted all his spears close to hand in case of a pitched battle. I tried to get across to him that four hundred horsemen weren’t going to put any sizeable hole in a decent warband, and we’d be better finding them without being found ourselves, and then steering well clear, but he wasn’t having any of it. No, we just blundered round the hills without a bloody clue, and for all I know the only thing that stopped the blue-nosed bastards from hacking us to bits was either simple dumb luck in that we missed them or else they were too busy laughing at us. And he’s hardly walked a mile since he arrived, rides a horse alongside the cohort on the march like he’s a legion tribune!’
He drained the beaker and slapped it down on the table with a calculating glance at Frontinius.
‘I’ll tell you what else, he’s absolutely fixated with some fugitive that’s evaded the imperial strangler. He’s always on about it, how he’ll pay a big reward to the man that finds him, how much prestige he’ll get if he’s the man to bring the fellow to justice. I ask you, how likely is it that some runaway aristo is going to be hiding up here with us, in the middle of twenty thousand Roman troops, eh?’ He looked across the table at Frontinius, his eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘Not even you could be that stupid, and you did some monumentally daft things when we were young recruits, as I recall… eh, Sextus?’
Frontinius’s face froze into immobility.
‘How long have you known?’
Neuto shook his head disbelievingly.
‘Jupiter’s tits, I prayed I was wrong! That bright young lad with the two swords?’
‘The same. He’s the one that found the supplies waiting for Calgus’s western attack and burned them out back in the spring. Remember that? If not for him we’d have had ten thousand of the bastards at our backs as well as the warband to our front. The boy’s good, Neuto, and I can’t just abandon him now that he’s made a place with the cohort. How did you work it out?’
His friend shook his head, taking another sip of his broth.
‘I didn’t. My least favourite centurion seems to have worked it out after meeting your man at Arab Town. These things have a habit of finding their way back to a man who keeps his ear to the ground, as well you know. Does your prefect…? No, on second thoughts I’m better not knowing. Cocidius’s sword and fucking spear, Sextus, how long do you think you can keep this quiet, now that we’re tucked up close with half the bloody army? The next thing you’ll know is Furius will be calling for the carpenters again, except this time it’ll be you tied up ready for the scourge.’
Frontinius frowned.
‘I’ve got an idea to get him out of the fort tonight, and tomorrow.’
‘That’s fine for today and tomorrow, but we’re going to be in the field for weeks. Mark my words, Furius is offering a bag of gold to the man that unearths him; and rumour has it that one of my centurions is on the scent. Knowing the man in question, he’ll be all over your cohort trying to get some proof. And if that bastard Furius gets a sniff of your boy he’ll be dog meat inside a day. As will you.’
He sat back, shaking his head at his old friend. Frontinius nodded grimly.
‘And that’s my problem, and not one for you to get dragged into. Although I’d appreciate any warning you can give me, I guess it’s for the best that we never had this conversation.’
Neuto nodded grimly.
‘Agreed. Now, let’s talk about the reinforcement century Prefect Furius seems to have procured out of the Arab Town docks for me.’
‘No fucking way! Those men are mine and I’m keeping them.’
If the mood in Furius’s tent had darkened with the departure of the first spears, it had turned distinctly ugly once Scaurus had raised the subject of the stolen century. He held a level gaze on Furius, watching his eyes intently.
‘You knew very well that those troops were earmarked for my cohort, didn’t you, Gracilus Furius? We’re still significantly under strength, and yet you bribed them out from under our noses without a second thought. And now you tell me that you’re going to hold on to them no matter what…’
Furius leaned back in his chair, a faint sneer playing across his face.
‘That’s right, and there’s not much you can do to get them back. I’ve got a requisition document signed off by the replacements officer, all nicely legal, and the century in question is already distributed into my cohort. So, unless you’ve got some shiny new sponsor that I don’t know about, you haven’t even got the clout to take this up the ladder. You do know how I got this command, even after Thunderbolt Gorge and the best part of ten years of enjoying the pleasures of home, don’t you? It was simple. I just asked my father to get me back into uniform. If you thought he was well connected ten years ago, well, you should see him now. He may be a wrinkled old bastard, but he’s got more money than he knows what to do with. If he’d wanted to become a senator he only had to ask, he’s got ten times the money required for the favour, and he knows where to spend it. That bread-nibbling beanpole Ulpius Marcellus is a friend of the family, and I can tell you what his reaction will be if you take the problem to him — he’ll just laugh in your face. Senior officers like their commanders to show some initiative, or hadn’t you heard? They find this sort of squabble amusing to watch but irritating to deal with, so you’ve got as much chance of getting that century back as you have of being promoted to legatus, you pipsqueak. Apart from that, you also got two centuries in the place of one. I’d say everyone should be happy.’
He smiled tightly, but the smile turned to a thin-lipped glare as Scaurus stared at him for a moment longer before speaking again, his direct gaze making the other man uneasy. This wasn’t the sort of behaviour Furius remembered from their last spell as colleagues.
‘If you’re determined to do this, then so be it. Just don’t be surprised if you end up regretting it. I believe you’ve regretted one or two things you’ve done recently, if the words I’ve heard are true.’
‘Regret it, why am I going to…?’
Scaurus got to his feet, ignoring the other man’s spluttering.
‘Thank you, Gracilus Furius, for your hospitality, and for the conversation.’
He turned to go. Furius caught his arm, his sense of superiority picked to threads by something for which he had no real concept.
‘A moment, Rutilius Scaurus. I asked you a question, and you haven’t answered me yet. Your sponsor? Who is your sponsor these days?’
Scaurus turned back, easily taking the other man’s hand from his sleeve.
‘You’re right, I didn’t answer you, did I?’
He turned away and walked out into the drizzle, leaving Furius with a bemused, almost worried look as he watched his colleague walk away into the cold autumn afternoon. He stared about him until his gaze alighted on one of the soldiers standing guard.
‘You, take a message to Centurion Appius. Tell him to report to me immediately.’
First Spear Frontinius hurried back to the cohort once his discussion with Neuto was done, and spent a few minutes talking urgently to Scaurus before going to look for the 8th Century. He found them marching wearily back on to the exercise field in readiness for another long session with their swords, and called Marcus and Dubnus to him with an urgent wave.
‘A change of plan, Centurion Corvus, we need to get you out of camp. One of the Second Cohort centurions you met at Arab Town last week seems to have worked out who ‘Centurion Corvus’ really is, and I don’t want you around when he comes looking for proof. The prefect of the Second Cohort is looking for you, and it won’t take very much more deduction on his part to put us all in deeper water than we can swim in. Get your men some bread to eat and then take them out for some night familiarisation. You can take the Fifth Century with you, they’re good at night work, and the prefect has asked me to send his man Arminius out with you as well. Apparently he grew up in the German forests, so he should be a handy man to have along for the night. This way we can show our Hamian brothers what it’s like to patrol in the open countryside after dark, and as a side benefit I expect you’ll be able to work out who among them is suitable to send out on listening patrols in future. Just get them out of the main gate as quickly as possible without making it look like you’re in a hurry.’
The two centurions led their men north from the fort without fanfare, with the archers dressed in their heavy woollen cloaks to provide as much anonymity as possible, striking out from the north road into open country as soon as they were out of sight of the walls. They conferred for a moment, and then Dubnus went forward with a pair of tent parties to scout the ground in front of their line of march. The 5th Century men took turns to trot forward and then go to ground, searching their surroundings intently for any sign of the enemy. The remainder of the two centuries marched forward at a gentle pace behind the scouts, and Marcus was pleased to see that the Hamians were coping with the terrain well enough, even if many of them were still clearly footsore. The prefect’s bodyguard strode forward in silence, always staying within a few feet of him, and Marcus quickly realised that his presence was more to do with his protection than any benefit the German might gain from the exercise.
Less than ten minutes after their departure Centurion Appius strolled into the 1st Cohort’s lines. Promptly challenged by the guard sentries, and having asked to speak to one of the centurions he had met in Arab Town the previous week, he found himself staring into the barrel chest of an officer he had not previously met. Titus stared down at him with an unreadable expression for a moment before speaking, his voice a growling rumble.
‘You’re looking for one of my brother officers?’
Appius nodded, suddenly conscious of the fact that, even less than fifty paces from his own men, he was very much on another cohort’s turf.
‘I met some of your mates last week on the coast… I just thought I’d come and say hello to them again…’
He stopped speaking, aware that the giant standing in front of him was looking decidedly uninterested.
‘They’re out on detached duty. Come back another time. Bring a century of Tungrian infantry with you if you’re hoping for any sort of welcome.’
The big man turned away, leaving Appius standing alone in front of two unfriendly-looking sentries. He turned away, inwardly cursing his luck. Furius had made it very clear that he expected quick results from him, given his certainty as to the young Roman centurion’s real identity.
The Hamians and their escorts made steady progress across the open land to the fort’s north-east, skirting round isolated copses and crossing the open farmland in a long column under a cloudless sky, their cloaks long since removed in the warm afternoon air. As the sun dipped towards the horizon the centurions called a halt, bringing their 250 men together in the cover of a large copse of oak trees. Marcus gathered them all in close so as to be heard without having to shout.
‘We’ll be staying out overnight, so you can eat half your bread now if you want to, but keep the other half for the morning. What we’re going to do now is advance across the ground in front of us as quietly as possible, taking as much time as we need to make sure we do it silently. We’re going to try to get within a hundred paces or so of one of the wall forts without being detected. As an incentive for you all, if we do manage to get in and out without being noticed you’ll all get an afternoon’s free time when we get back into camp, and I would imagine that those of you with bows would be welcome to join the Hamian cohort at shooting practice to find out if you still know how to use them. Eat your bread and take a rest, we’ll be on the move again once the sun’s below the horizon.’
The soldiers waited patiently, some of the men passing the time with quiet games of Odd or Even, while others simply talked softly among themselves. The older and more experienced soldiers rolled themselves up in their cloaks and slept, Dubnus among their number once he knew that Marcus had no intention of resting.
Arminius lounged on the grass underneath a massive gnarled oak close to Marcus and Qadir, and listened in silence to their conversation until a lengthy pause developed. Both men turned to him in surprise as the previously taciturn German addressed the Hamian chosen man.
‘You seem very much out of place here, Chosen Man, you and your men. Might I ask how you came to this province?’
Qadir shrugged in the early evening’s half-light.
‘There is very little to tell you, but I will share what there is. We were recruited from our home in the city of Hamath, which means ‘fortress’ in my native tongue, by the occupying troops of the Third Gallica legion. For some of us it was a choice between desperate hardship or imperial service; for others it was a simple desire to see the world beyond our limited experience…’
The German nodded knowingly.
‘And for you?’
The big Hamian stared at him for a moment before answering.
‘I committed a crime that would have seen me dead within a day, had I waited for what passes for justice in Hamath to catch up with me. I knew that once I was sworn to service I would be beyond the reach of my pursuers.’
He stared at the ground for a half-minute before continuing, both Marcus and Arminius respecting his reverie.
‘Anyway, I am sure you both know that my people have a certain ability with the bow, and for as long as we have been subject to other nations we have provided their armies with archers. Many of us were already blessed with more than acceptable skill with the weapon, but our Roman instructors drilled us in one task and one task only; to hit a man-sized target at a distance of one hundred paces time after time. We would shoot hundreds of arrows a day, and do so day after day, until we could all put an arrow into a man at a distance of one hundred paces, no matter whether it was the first or the one hundred and first shot of the day. We developed the strength in our shoulders, punishing our muscles until they were strong enough to bend our bows hundreds of times a day, and our backs and bellies became hard, with ridges of muscles where soft flesh had been before. Finally, when we were deemed ready to serve the empire, we were marched north through a succession of countries, destined to serve on the frontier in Germania in a war with a vicious barbarian enemy, or so we were told. But by the time we arrived on the northern frontier the fighting with your people was already at an end, and we were put into service in hunting game to supplement the standard rations, rather than killing other men.’
He paused again, a half-smile on his face.
‘Germania was very different, of course, with thick green forests and wide rivers, and quite unlike our home, but we came to relish the hunting in those happy days, when we were allowed to roam more or less as we wished in search of wild pigs and deer for the pot. It came to an end, of course, it was only ever an interlude in our path to this place. How could such a perfect existence last, when there is always a war somewhere on the edge of the empire that needs to be fed with men’s lives? And so we moved north again, passed along the frontier from one fortress to another until we found ourselves on the shores of the German sea and ordered to take ship for the province of Britannia as reinforcements. Which is the reason why we came to be sitting in the barracks of a port called ‘Arab Town’ when the centurion here came looking for infantry soldiers, since when our very lives have been turned upside down. We are to become infantry, or to die in the attempt as seems more likely to me…’
Arminius nodded his thanks for the tale, quite unabashed at the Hamian’s fatalistic view of his men’s future.
‘You are more fortunate than you know, Chosen Man Qadir, in that you have already avoided one long and brutal war. The peoples that lived north of the River Danubius, my people the Quadi among them, were strong and proud of their prowess with the sword and axe, strong enough to have put our Roman masters on their back foot for more than a year when the war began. We crossed the river in strength ten summers past, and defeated the Roman army that stood between us and their settlements in the shadow of the Alpes mountains. The Romans sent another army to put down our revolt once we had their main fortress besieged, but we defeated them in their turn, and took the fortress once the relief force was beaten. For a time we believed that we were invincible, but we had little enough time to enjoy the feeling, for the following year a mighty army drawn from legions across the whole of Europa forced us to retreat back into our own lands, and imposed a truce upon us that gave them time to gather yet more strength, in readiness to cross the river in their turn. Soon enough the Romans brought the war to our lands, hunting the tribes down one by one and taking bloody retribution for their earlier losses.’
He paused, taking a drink from his water skin.
‘When they broke their truce and attacked into our tribal lands, claiming that we were giving aid to our neighbours the Marcomanni in their fight for survival, we knew that we would have to fight them to the death, either theirs or ours, and that no quarter would be asked or given by either side.
‘And so it was, on a blindingly hot day at the height of the summer, that we lured the Twelfth legion, the Thunderbolt as they termed themselves, on to perfect ground, and sprang a trap that bottled them up in a rocky defile. We had them helpless, trapped under the full heat of the sun and without water. Oh yes, you smile now, thinking the lack of water a trivial thing, but they were desperate for it even before the sun was at its full height, and they had been marching most of the morning without reaching the stream around which we had based our trap. We charged into their line three times, and with each attack we killed and wounded more of their soldiers, and sapped the strength of those men left on their feet. After the third charge our leaders shouted that victory was inevitable, and that we would wait for the Romans to surrender once they succumbed to their thirst. Our warriors paraded up and down their line within a dozen paces, drinking water carried from the stream, pouring it over their heads to rub in their lack of anything to drink.
‘As we waited for them to surrender, however, something strange started to happen in the sky over our heads. Clouds gathered, boiling up into huge thunderheads and darkening from white to a sullen grey in what seemed only a few minutes. Rather than release the rain that their appearance promised, they continued to grow and darken, turning an unnatural colour, blue-green, like a huge bruise on the heavens. It seemed as if the sun had fallen below the horizon, and so much light was blocked out that we could barely see the Romans as they stood and waited for our next attack. Then, without those warning rumbles a storm usually gives out, a mighty thunderbolt speared down from the clouds to shatter a tree not fifty paces from our line, instantly sending it up in a pillar of flame. The roar of thunder that accompanied it was instant, without any pause at all, and it battered at our ears so powerfully that some men were deafened by the noise. My own hearing was certainly affected, as if my head were wrapped in heavy wool.’
He paused, smiling wryly at Marcus.
‘Now I am not, you must understand, a man given to what you Romans call ‘superstition’, but even I, I will admit, was taken aback by this sudden sign from the skies. My comrades were for the most part terrified out of their wits, and the Romans could not have failed to see our previously solid line disintegrate into chaos, even if they still lacked the energy to attack us. Moments later, though, while our warriors were still quailing at the flaming tree so close to our shields, and what it might mean, a rainstorm smashed down from the clouds gathered overhead. The rain lashed down so hard that it stung our skin, and the downpour was so fierce that trickles of water became busy streams in minutes.
‘Of course, where we saw a dark omen the Romans, whose shields bore the thunderbolt their legion’s name boasted, saw quite the opposite. Once they had collected enough of the falling rain to slake their thirsts they came at us like ghosts out of the storm, their faces painted with mud like the barbarians they called us. We saw their shields, every one emblazoned with the lightning bolt, loom out of the storm’s murk and that was enough for most of us.’ He shook his head sadly, his eyes misting over with the memory. ‘We were broken men before ever the fight started. They put us to the sword, showing no mercy until we broke and ran for the hills. I ran with the rest, of course, not to do so would have meant dying without ever getting a chance to fight back, such was the panic around me, but when I got the chance I hid myself and waited for the Romans to pass. I meant to attack them without warning, and die with some pride, unlike my comrades, who were falling to their swords and spears without even turning to fight.
‘It was a lost hope, of course. The second I leapt from cover I had half a dozen soldiers in my face, and I went down to a bash on the head from a man I never saw. That would have been it, except a young tribune stopped them from killing me, and claimed me as a slave. A tribune, as you may have guessed, by the name of Scaurus. He gave me a strange choice but a clever one, either to serve him as a bodyguard, and earn my freedom by saving his life and thus repaying my debt to him, or go back to my people in shame, my life forfeit, and forbidden to fight again for fear of the retribution of his god. He told me that when he realised that the legion’s men were trapped, with many soldiers and even officers terrified for their lives, and knowing that they would all die without some divine intervention, he offered a prayer to Mithras. He told me that he offered to bring another man to his service for every remaining year of his life if the god would show his hand and provide some chance for the Romans to regain their natural ascendancy over us. It seemed to him that the words were barely out of his mouth when the clouds started to gather… I chose to serve him, of course, and so joining his service to Mithras was only right.’ Marcus nodded his understanding.
‘And in return you’re training him to fight the way that you do?’
The German gave him a strange look, then nodded.
‘Yes. And he’s a quick student… And you, Centurion, will you share your story with us?’
Marcus looked across the clearing at Dubnus, asleep in his cloak on the grass.
‘I cannot tell you much, or you will both be in as great a danger as my friend there. I will tell you that I hope for little more than you have both achieved, to find some measure of peace after the events that have conspired to bring me here. I crave the ability to turn my mind to the future, rather than brooding on the past and dreaming of revenge.’
Qadir nodded his head, looking squarely into his centurion’s eyes.
‘That is a wise desire, Centurion Corvus. The lust for revenge can take over a man’s life, and come to master him until it drives him to the exclusion of all other cares, but I can counsel you from my own experience that it bears little fruit other than bitterness and destruction. When I took a man’s life as recompense for my personal loss, I found little in the act to compensate me for the price I was to pay for that moment of bloodlust.’
Once the sky above them was darkening to purple Marcus roused his men, many of whom had taken the chance to get some sleep before the long night before them, and set them to making their silent approach to the wall’s defenders. After a few minutes’ progress across the open hillside he realised with a start that he could hear almost nothing from the troops behind him. Intrigued, he peeled away from the line of march and squatted in the grass, watching and listening as the soldiers moved slowly past him. After a moment’s contemplation of his men he realised with an even greater surprise that the men making the more audible noise as they progressed up the hill were not the Hamians, but the 5th Century men who were supposed to be their teachers in the art of night patrolling. He got back to his feet when the column’s rear passed him, dropping in alongside Qadir and speaking quietly in his ear.
‘Your men seem to have the measure of this, Chosen.’
The other man smiled at him through the evening’s gloom.
‘No need to be quite so surprised, Centurion. I told you that we are hunters by training, and that we spent much time hunting in the forests of Germania. These men all know what it means for their stealth to be the difference between eating and going hungry. And now I suggest that you make a little noise and return to your place at the head of the column. These men won’t stop advancing until you tell them to.’
By the time the sun had set, and the moon had risen to take its place over the empty countryside, the main barbarian strength was already south of the rampart. The warband had crossed the frontier undetected through an abandoned mile fort between The Rock and White Strength, flowing unhindered out into the open ground behind the wall. Scouts led the warband to within a mile of White Strength, with Calgus and his bodyguard following close behind. Apparently undetected, the barbarians deployed quietly into and through the silent pine forest that ran to within two hundred paces of the fort’s southern gate, silently closing the noose on the 800-man garrison without betraying their presence so close to their enemy’s main line of defence. Calgus squatted down on his haunches at the forest’s edge and the main tribal leaders gathered around him, their differences forgotten in the wake of his speech that morning.
Once the morning’s gathering had broken up, and the leaders had gone to prepare their men for the march, Calgus’s adviser Aed had given him a curious sideways glance.
‘So my lord, do you really believe that if we destroy one legion the Romans will inevitably lose their grip on this entire province?’
Calgus had laughed softly, keeping his voice low enough to prevent his bodyguard from overhearing.
‘Those fools needed something to fight for, so I gave it to them. The theory’s sound enough, though. If we could destroy a legion, or hit them both hard enough to send them running south licking their wounds, then we’d give their governor a choice to make that he can’t get right, no matter whether he chooses to retreat to the south or hold the line of their wall. And to make that happen I need warriors with fire in their hearts, not just a collection of men yearning for home.’
Now he watched the Roman fort with a careful eye, seeing the torch flames fluttering in the breeze blowing across its high stone walls.
‘Eight hundred men just there for the taking. I’d say ten thousand of us ought to be able to knock one little fort over without very much trouble. What matters most is how we use the garrison once they’re defeated.’ He turned to the tribal leaders clustered around him, looking for one man in particular. ‘Martos, your uncle and I have disagreed as to the right way to finish this war, but you and I have the chance to put our people in such a position of strength that no Roman general will have the ability to defeat us. Will you put the Votadini tribe’s warriors alongside our own in this battle?’
The Votadini prince nodded decisively.
‘I will, Calgus. My people will fight the Romans to the limit of our abilities. Tell me what you need from me…’
Calgus clapped him on the shoulder.
‘I need your men to help smash our way into the fort, of course, but I also have in mind a means of getting the Romans to come after us with a rage upon them that will lead them blindly into the trap I am building for them. It will be dirty work, but if you can make the picture I have in my mind become a reality then nothing will restrain them from their need for revenge, or the consequences of such blind fury. The honour of provoking these usurpers to make their greatest mistake will be yours…’
The first indication Marcus had that his men were not the only force abroad in the darkened forest was the suddenness with which the Hamian walking alongside him froze into immobility, putting a hand across his centurion’s chest and hissing a soft warning. The men behind them went to ground without needing to be told, and for a second he was left marvelling at their discipline, until the man alongside him ruined his feeling of well-being in an instant with a quiet whisper in his ear.
‘Other men in forest. Not Roman. Hear speaking.’
Dubnus appeared at his other shoulder, sufficiently alert not to speak. The Hamian reached across and nudged him, pointing out into the darkness and then waggling two fingers in front of him to indicate moving men, miming a man talking by opening and closing his fingers close to his mouth. Dubnus whispered a quiet question.
‘How many?’
The Hamian pulled a face to show he was guessing, then pointed back up the column before raising ten fingers, closing his hands and then opening them again. Marcus and Dubnus exchanged glances, the latter whispering again with an edge of incredulity.
‘Thousands of them?’
Marcus nodded, putting a cupped hand to his ear to indicate that they should listen. The sounds were quiet, muted to the edge of inaudibility by the forest’s foliage, but they were unmistakable. An army was crossing the forest in front of them, the sounds of snapping twigs and guttural voices reaching them through the trees. The two friends exchanged glances again, and then Marcus turned back to the Hamian alongside them, bending to whisper in his ear.
‘Fetch Qadir. Quick and quiet.’
The man nodded and was gone, ghosting away back down the column without a sound. Dubnus leaned close and spoke quietly in his ear.
‘They must be moving to attack White Strength.’
Qadir appeared beside them a moment later, his face still imperturbable in the moon’s faint illumination. Marcus beckoned his head close before whispering to him.
‘Your men seem to have the edge when it comes to silent movement in the dark. Do any of them have what it takes to kill in the dark? Do we have any thieves, or murderers? I need a few men that won’t be afraid to put a knife in a barbarian’s back, and won’t waste any time staring at the corpse. Well?’
Qadir pondered for a moment, and then whispered an order to the man next to him, who vanished off into the darkness.
‘I have sent him to find two men who are of the background you desire. They have reformed, saved by the discipline demanded by their bows, that and the worship of their goddess, and both have renounced their former crimes. As have I.’
Marcus grinned wolfishly, his teeth a pale white in the shadows.
‘Then let’s hope I can persuade the three of you to revive your former selves for a short while. Dubnus, you’d best gather a few of your best men. And you…’
He turned and spoke to Arminius, who was waiting in silence three paces behind him.
‘You’d better come too. We’re going hunting.’
Only minutes later, just as the guard mounted at all corners of White Strength was changing, the sentries posted to watch out over the wall to the north reported lights on the horizon in increasing numbers. The cohort’s prefect ran to the watchtower and took the stairs two at a time, the unit’s first spear close at his heels. They pushed aside the gaggle of soldiers watching the distant, flickering dots of light, and took stock of what little they could make out in the darkness.
‘Shit.’ The prefect turned to his senior centurion. ‘It’s a warband all right, there’s nothing of ours that large that would be running around by torchlight in the dark, moon or no moon. The decision is ours; we either abandon the fort and head for Noisy Valley or stay here behind our walls and make a fight of it.’
The centurion, a leathery twenty-five-year veteran, with less than a month to his discharge under normal circumstances, spat expressively over the tower’s parapet.
‘I say we stand and fight. I’ve already supervised the reconstruction of this bloody fort once this year, and I’ll be damned if I want to have to do it all over again. Besides, that lot might just be a diversion to persuade us to run for it. For all we know there’s thousands more of the bastards already south of the wall, and waiting for us between here and the legions at the Valley.’
The prefect grimaced at the thought of his command caught on an open hillside in the dark by a warband of barbarian warriors raving for their heads.
‘I agree. You get the cohort stood to, and I’ll write a dispatch for the governor. With a bit of luck we can keep the buggers tied up for long enough to let him manoeuvre two legions into position for the kill. You never know, this could be the action that finishes the war.’
The Tungrian hunting party went forward in total silence, and again Marcus was struck by the way that Qadir and his Hamians seemed to ghost through the darkness with an almost total lack of sound. Within a dozen careful paces they had taken the lead, padding softly through the darkened forest ahead of the Tungrians with delicate care for twigs or branches underfoot, their footfalls muffled by the carpet of pine needles. Somewhere off to their right an owl screeched, and the party froze into immobility for a long moment before starting off down the gentle slope again. After a few minutes’ more careful progress the leading man raised his hand to halt them, and Marcus eased forward to crouch next to him.
‘Many men, close. We stay here, listen, watch. Any closer, we be prisoner.’
Marcus nodded, signalling to the other men to hold fast. To their front the sounds of the warband were ever more apparent as the barbarian raiders gathered their strength to attack. Dubnus leaned in close to whisper in the man’s ear.
‘They’re waiting for something.’
Seconds later a horse’s scream of agony rang through the woods, answered almost immediately by a roar of triumph from the tribesmen. Dubnus nudged Marcus, putting his head close to his friend’s ear.
‘Dispatch riders, most likely. The warband were waiting to capture the message for help. Those poor bastards are in for it now.’
Marcus nodded in response to his friend’s bald statement.
’Stay here, I’m going forward for a look.’
Without allowing any time for argument he wormed forward on his stomach, crawling fifty paces or so until he reached a fallen tree. Where the tree’s roots had been ripped from the soil by its fall, a wide plug of dry earth still clinging to their tangles, a dark hole had been formed between the trunk and the bowl-like depression left in the ground. He slithered silently into the gap, covering his head with his cloak and looking out at the ground on the other side of the fallen tree. The clearing before him was almost empty, with a knot of warriors dragging three struggling men across the needle-strewn forest floor. As he watched them the barbarians, a dozen strong, manhandled the trussed Romans to their feet and quickly lashed them to trees before cutting away their clothes to leave them naked and shivering in the cool night air. With a sick certainty Marcus watched as one of their captors unsheathed a knife, its polished blade a pale bar of moonlight in his hand, and stepped up to one of the captives. He thrust the blade deep into the captive’s thigh without any warning, wringing a reluctant snarl of pain from the helpless man before pulling the bloodied knife free and dragging its blade across the man’s eyes. If the man’s first cry had been born of physical distress, torn reluctantly from him by the sudden unexpected pain, the scream that echoed through the forest as he was blinded was a howl of agonised despair.
With the dispatch riders away towards the south-west, the soldiers manning the fort’s ramparts waited anxiously. The first spear watched impassively as the torches drew closer, counting under his breath. He stared ruminatively at the flickering lights, muttering to himself.
‘Two hundred or so. Hardly seems enough for a full-sized warband. Say there’s one torch for every ten of the bastards, that’s more like …’
A shout from the fort’s southern wall spun him round, staring out into the darkness. In the deep shadow of the woods to the fort’s south, where the faint moonlight was unable to provide any illumination, a spark of light was bobbing along the line of trees. Every few seconds a new light would kindle in its wake, until the wood was alive with light. The first spear hurried down the tower’s steps into the fort’s bustle, calling the officers to him. They gathered to find him grim faced, one hand reflexively gripping the hilt of his gladius.
‘We’ve been fooled. There’s a warband in the woods to the south and it looks like they’re getting ready to storm the gates…’
He issued a crisp stream of orders, sending a century to man the fort’s south-facing wall, splitting another to guard those parts of the east and west walls to the south of the point where the fort’s defences met the wall’s line, and took the calculated risk of leaving only one more to man the fort’s northern side. The prefect stood alongside him as, gathering the other three centuries to the southern gate’s double arch, he arrayed the nervous soldiers on all three sides of the fort’s most vulnerable point. The veteran officer shook his head ruefully.
‘It’s quite simple really, Prefect, they showed us the torches to the north to flush us out. The man leading that collection of savages out there knew that one of two things had to happen once we saw what looked like movement in strength to the north — either the full cohort retreating to the south, or our messengers heading for Noisy Valley. Either would be an acceptable result for the man commanding that warband, since all he ever had to do to bottle us up in this trap was kill our only means of getting a message through to the heavy boys. With our messengers almost certainly taken there’s no way for the legions to know he’s got our nuts between the bricks, and without the legions there’ll be no escape for us. He’s got the rest of the night to chop a way in through one of the gates, most likely this one, since the other three are all on the other side of the wall…’ He pointed to the twin south gates, their thick timbers reinforced with three heavy oak bracing bars apiece. ‘It looks tough enough now, but they’ll be hacking down a tree out there right now and getting it ready to swing at those doors. No gate can take that sort of treatment for long.’
The prefect frowned, weighing up their options.
‘If their main strength is to the south surely we could still run to the east on the northern side of the wall. Standing orders specifically instruct all fort commanders not to waste lives defending fixed positions.’
The senior centurion rubbed a hand across his tired face, blinking away his fatigue.
‘In the darkness, and with two or three thousand of them waiting out there to the north? I’d say we’re better off taking our chances here, Prefect…’ He turned to the men gathered around the gate, raising his voice to make sure they all heard him. Men leaned out over the rampart’s internal wall, keen to hear the man who ran their small world speak.
‘Well now, my brothers, here’s the thing. Those blue-faced bastards have pulled a nice little trick, got men to the south of us as well as the north. They’re between us and Noisy Valley, so they’re probably already carving up the messengers we sent that way. If you listen carefully you’ll hear them screaming, most likely — it’s what they always do with captives, partly to get the piss running down our legs and partly because, well, that’s just what they do.’
He paused for a moment, looking around at the soldiers’ serious faces in the flickering torchlight.
‘This only ends one of two ways, gentlemen. Either we hold them off for long enough that the legions at Noisy Valley can get here and save our arses, or those barbarian bum-fuckers will manage to bludgeon their way in here, which is more than likely, and then try to overwhelm us in nasty, dirty street fighting. They have the advantage of numbers; we have discipline and superior equipment and training on our side. You all know the drills, all you have to do is follow them and we have a decent chance of getting out of the other side of this night with our heads still on our shoulders.’
He pointed up at the walls.
‘Soldiers on the rampart, you’ll have men with ladders looking to swarm up on to the walls. Your first priority is to push the ladders clear, and dump the bastards into the ditch, but watch out, they’ll have archers behind them shooting at anything that moves. Any man that gets his feet on to the fighting surface is your number-one target, and you take him down with spear, sword or your teeth and nails if that’s all you’ve got left.’
He took a breath, casting a jaundiced eye over the men standing around him, many of them looming over his stocky frame.
‘Soldiers in the streets, once I’ve finished this little speech you’ll form a wall of men, from one side of the street to the other, and on all three sides of the gate. This is going to be street fighting, my lads, so no throwing your spears this time, I want ten blue-nose dead for every spear, not just one. Front rankers, tonight we fight in the old-fashioned style, spears held underarm and thrust up into bellies and throats from behind your shields. None of that overarm nonsense, you’ll just open yourself up to a sword in your armpit. Rear rankers, if you can reach, you can go in overarm, but be careful not to stick it through your mate’s ear. It may not endear you to him…’
The soldiers smiled wanly at the tired old joke, appreciating his effort under the circumstances.
‘If you lose your spear, air your iron and take it to them in the usual way, short thrusts, throat, thighs or guts, it doesn’t matter which, open your man up and step back to let him bleed to death. Nothing fancy, and no heroics. Rear rankers! If the man in front of you goes down, his place is yours, so don’t wait to be asked. Jump in there and fight like you’ve got a pair, because if the line breaks you’ll be the first one looking down the shaft of a barbarian spear that’s scraping your spine.’
He looked around him, taking the measure of his men. In the moment of silence he distinctly heard a distant wail of agony from the treeline. As he had grimly predicted, the barbarians were torturing the captured messengers, using their screams of pain to send a message back to the fort’s garrison.
‘One more thing! You lot look like you’ll run like frightened children the second that gate gets smashed in. It’s simple enough! If we fight well enough to hold them off until dawn then we get to live, or at least some of us will. If there’s anyone here that can’t take a joke, well, it’s a bit late to wish you hadn’t joined. So let’s give these blue-faced sheep-shaggers something to think about. You lot sing well enough when there’s nothing at stake, let’s see if you can belt it out when the blue-noses might have your heads off within the hour! Who’ll start us off…?’
A man on the wall above responded first, his voice ringing out clearly above the rattle of equipment from the street below.
‘The centurion took a message to the general’s villa where…’
The response from the cohort’s men was instantaneous. They roared into the song, lifting the hair on the first spear’s neck.
‘… he was greeted by the great man’s wife, in face and body fair,
Having given her the tablet he bowed and turned to leave,
But found the lady’s gentle hand had gripped him by the sleeve.’
‘Amazing…’ The senior centurion turned to find the prefect standing behind him. He leaned in close, shouting into his subordinate’s ear as the second verse began, ‘You’ve just told them that this is going to be the goat-fuck to end all goat-fucks, and they burst into song at the first opportunity. Perhaps we’ll get away with this after all?’
The veteran officer nodded, leaning over to shout his own response over the cohort’s enthusiasm.
‘Perhaps. The song gives them something familiar to hang on to. Let’s just pray they’re still singing that loudly in an hour. And let’s hope we can find the right god to ask for that small favour.’
Marcus hadn’t waited to witness any more of the barbarians’ torture of their prisoners, but headed back up the slope as fast as he could without making a noise that might betray him to the tribesmen. He looked around at the small group of soldiers, his face rigid with rage and his voice a furious whispered growl.
‘They’re torturing the message riders we heard them capture. There are twelve of the bastards, and eight of us. If they manage to warn their comrades that we’re here then we’ll probably all die to the last man, both centuries, but if we don’t do something then those three men are going to die after several hours of that agony. Who’s with me?’
Qadir drew his dagger from its sheath, holding it up to the moonlight.
‘I’ll come with you. We’ll all come.’
Dubnus nodded.
‘We’ve got three archers, so that’s two shots apiece and six men down before they know what’s happening and another six for the five of us. Seems fair enough.’
They crawled down the slope in silence, gritting their teeth to ignore the shouted pleas for mercy and screams of pain, as the barbarians were clearly warming to their role of making the message riders’ torture painfully obvious to the men defending the fort. When they reached the fallen tree, Marcus set Qadir and his three bowmen along its length and ordered them to keep their heads down until he gave the signal, then led the remaining 5th Century men away in a low crawl to the right. The scene was now lit by several torches set in the ground around the trees to which the prisoners were tied, and the Tungrians took special care as they crawled slowly around the clearing’s edge until they were between the scene of torture and the warband, then huddled for a last whispered briefing from Marcus.
‘When I give the order, the Hamians will put two arrows into the air apiece. If we wait for them to stop shooting we’ll likely be too late to avoid one or more of the survivors making a break into the forest, and if that happens we’ll have minutes before there are hundreds of men combing these woods for us. So I’ve got a better idea …’
The barbarians were gathered around the last of the three message riders to have retained his consciousness, however much he might have preferred to have slipped into the merciful oblivion that had claimed his colleagues. Their hands bloody from their torment of the other two men, they were competing to see which of them could wring the loudest scream from their helpless prisoner, and were watching one of their number as he probed inexpertly at the root of the man’s penis with his knife when a call from behind alerted them to the presence of newcomers.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
The tallest of them strode out from the group with a swagger, backing up his challenge with his obvious bulk, while his comrades turned to back him up and crowded in behind him. The newcomers, four men huddled into their cloaks for warmth, stopped just inside the clearing’s edge, the largest of them calling out a reply in their own language.
‘We are sent by Calgus to help you.’
The torturer’s leader stepped closer to them, waving them away dismissively.
‘We have no need of help. Go back to the fight, if you have the balls for it…’
He stopped in his tracks as a series of muffled thumps reached his ears, turning back to see one of his men down and another two staggering away. As he stared uncomprehendingly another three of the torturers jerked with the impact of the unseen arrows hammering into their unprotected bodies. The newcomers dropped their cloaks to reveal their armour and weapons, and sprang forward with their swords ready to fight, but the barbarian had already realised his peril and turned away from their threat, sprinting for the clearing’s far side and gathering his strength to hurdle the fallen tree that lay across his path, seeking escape into the night in search of help. A shadowy figure rose from the ground in front of him, sharp iron glittering in the moonlight, and the tribesman ripped his sword from its scabbard as he used the tree’s trunk as a springboard for his attack, leaping at the other man with the blade held ready to strike. His opponent snarled and bounded forward to meet his charge, swinging his sword in an arc of razor-sharp iron.
Marcus ran toward the prisoners with both swords drawn, butchering a tribesman who turned to face him with a brutal hack of his spatha which cleaved the man’s body from shoulder to breastbone before kicking him off the blade and turning in search of a fresh target for his rage. Another man ran for the forest behind the trees to which the prisoners were bound, but made barely a dozen paces before an enraged Scarface ran him down and sank his gladius between the fleeing tribesman’s shoulders, while Dubnus charged into a pair of hapless barbarians with the heavy axe that was his habitual night patrol weapon. Smashing the butt of the axe’s heavy wooden handle into the face of the nearest man and breaking his jaw with an audible crack, he dodged to the right to avoid a sword-blow from the other, cleaving his attacker’s arm clean off at the elbow with a swing of the heavy blade. Spinning through a full circle, he lopped off the stricken barbarian’s head and then swung the axe blade high before hacking it down into the reeling victim of his butt stroke, chopping his head almost in two and killing him instantly. He ripped the axe blade from the dead man’s head as the one-eyed soldier known to his mates as Cyclops dragged the last man’s body across the clearing and dropped it on to the ground next to them.
Marcus walked across to a writhing tribesman, the man’s hands fretting at the arrow buried in his back, and dispatched him with a swift stab of his gladius, then looked over the corpses of the dead tribesmen and frowned.
‘There were a dozen of them, I see only eleven dead men.’
Dubnus pointed at the fallen tree.
‘One of them ran that way. Go and see for yourself.’
The barbarian group’s leader was laying spread-eagled a dozen paces beyond the tree, while the three Hamians stood solemnly around him. Seeing their centurion approaching, they moved away to allow Marcus to view the body. The man’s corpse was almost headless, only his neck and lower jaw remaining attached. A gout of blood had exploded down his chest, glistening black in the moonlight, and the rest of his head lay in the pine needles half a dozen paces from the rest of him.
‘How did you…’
Qadir pointed silently to a dark figure standing in the shadows behind them.
Marcus nodded to Arminius and then turned back to the prisoners, still tied to their trees. Even the man that was still conscious was babbling meaningless gibberish at his rescuers, and the other two men were simply lolling against their ropes with no sign that they would regain consciousness any time soon. The barbarians had tortured them beyond their endurance, using their knives to ensure that the Romans would never be able to walk or use their hands again. The two unconscious men had endured the brutal ruin of their sexual organs, and all three had suffered dozens of knife cuts. The ground around the two unconscious men was sticky with their drying blood, and its coppery stench filled the air around them. Cyclops spat on the ground, shaking his head.
‘We’re too bloody late. They’d have been peeling the poor fuckers soon enough. All we’ve done is saved them from any more of these animals’ fun.’ He hefted his sword and stepped closer to the nearest of the three mutilated men. ‘Best I do this quickly, young sirs…’
Marcus shook his head and pushed the blade aside.
‘You’re right, there’s no way we can take them with us, but if there’s a need to finish them off I’ll not let another man do my job for me. Dubnus, take the men back to the century and I’ll join you once I’ve seen these men across the river.’
His friend nodded and gathered the Tungrians, disappearing quickly and quietly back up the slope and into the darkened ranks of trees. Marcus sheathed his spatha, hefting the gladius and putting the short blade’s point against the first man’s ribs, angling it ready for the mercy stroke. A thought struck him, and he turned away to search the barbarians’ bodies until he found a purse full of Roman coin on the big man that Arminius had beheaded. Taking three coins before discarding the purse, he moved quickly, pushing one of them into the unconscious man’s mouth before repositioning the gladius.
‘Go to your gods, my friend.’
He stabbed the sword through the message rider’s ribs, expertly putting it through the man’s failing heart and killing him instantly. A thin wash of blood trickled down the man’s chest, testament to the amount he had already lost under the barbarians’ knives, and he died with no more than an almost silent last exhalation of breath. Marcus moved to the second man, but found his skin cold and his eyes empty. He pushed a coin into the man’s mouth, then looked across at the last of them to find the captive’s eyes locked on the gladius in his hand.
‘Take me… with you.’
Marcus shook his head sadly, hefting the sword as he spoke.
‘The barbarians have left you a wreck, friend, severed your hamstrings and cut off your thumbs. Even if I could carry you to safety you’ll never walk or hold a sword again. Better to die here with some dignity.’
A tear trickled down the message rider’s cheek.
‘Make it qui…’
He grunted with pain as Marcus struck fast and without warning, slamming the gladius into his chest and twisting it to make sure of the kill. The dying man’s eyes stared into his own for a long moment, then rolled upwards as his spirit left him. Marcus stood in silence for a second before tucking the last of the three coins into the dead man’s mouth and wiping and sheathing his sword. A voice from the shadows at the edge of the clearing spun him round, hands reaching for his swords.
‘You are a good man, Centurion Corvus. Not many men would have taken the time to find coin and see these men safely across the river.’
Arminius stepped out of the gloom, his face sombre in the presence of the dead messengers.
‘An unhappy passing, but you gave it all the dignity that was to be had. And now…’
He gestured up through the trees to where the two centuries would be waiting for them. Marcus nodded, but turned back towards the doomed fort.
‘We should leave before we’re discovered, I know. But I have to see it…’
The German nodded.
‘Quietly, then. We go as far as the forest edge. Any closer and we may find ourselves in the same trouble as these poor bastards.’