The Leopard Sword

5

The party was back on the hunters’ track at first light. Marcus’s eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, which had refused to return after the night’s disturbance, despite the absence of any further sign of the nocturnal intruder that he resolutely maintained he had heard.

‘There was something else I heard, apart from the sound of breaking twigs, but I can’t say what it was. It didn’t sound like any noise a pig would make though.’

He pondered the fading memory as they made their cautious way along the track in the morning’s grey light, at length shaking his head and deciding to put the whole thing to the back of his mind. By the time the sun had reached its highest point they had covered another five miles by his reckoning, and he was starting to contemplate the stop for lunch when Arabus ducked into the cover of a gnarled elm, raising a hand to beckon them in but in such a manner that a silent approach was clearly required. Leaving a muttering Silus to hold the horses the centurions closed up on their guide in silence, squatting down in the cover of the tree and waiting for him to speak. Leaning forward to whisper, he pointed a finger at the path beyond the elm’s shelter.

‘I heard something. Not loud, but not natural. It might have been a man’s voice raised to shout, but it was so distant that I couldn’t be certain. We need to leave the path and scout forward.’

Julius nodded, and whispered his instructions in the same quiet tone.

‘Swords out, brothers. This ground’s so thick with trees that there’ll be no warning of any trouble. Marcus, go and tell Silus to get the animals into cover, and to wait for us here. Tell him the watchword is “Tungria” — and if he hears men approaching without using it he’s at liberty to make a break for it. If we get into trouble out there I’d rather the tribune knew something rather than nothing at all.’

Marcus briefed Silus, who promptly led the horses and mule off the track and away into the forest’s cover, unable to resist the temptation for a whispered parting shot at his comrade.

‘Never fear, Centurion, the first sound I hear without one of you lot bellowing the watchword and I’ll be on my toes without a second thought. Watch out for yourself, young Corvus, and try to avoid being attacked by any bad-tempered pigs, eh?’

The four men scouted forward in an extended line, keeping within sight of each other as they eased cautiously through the undergrowth. After a few minutes, and as the initial nervous energy prompted by the guide’s warning started to seep away from his muscles, Marcus found himself shivering with the day’s chill. He hunched deeper into his cloak as he slipped through the trees and bushes, the forest’s silence broken only by the gentle sigh of wind through leaves. He lost sight of Dubnus, the next man in line, as his friend moved silently down into a dip in the forest floor, and in the moment of distraction, as he glanced away from the thick undergrowth to his front, a pig burst from its cover in an explosion of movement and raced away across the soft ground. An instant later a man leapt through the bushes in pursuit, a spear raised in one hand held ready to throw.

Sergius reported back to the two tribunes after an hour’s swift investigation, his face sour with frustration.

‘The knife was stolen from the legionary named on its blade yesterday, while the man’s tent party were on fatigue detail. He reported it as missing early yesterday afternoon, and his centurion supports that claim. It’s fairly obvious that it was stolen for the purpose, as a precaution against its being lost, but that doesn’t provide us with any clue as to who it was that assaulted the lady last night. For what it’s worth, I’ve spread the word that there’s a reward on offer for information leading to the apprehension of these men, but I’m not holding my breath on a result. Nobody in the tent party in question is going to say a word, and they’re likely to have kept their plans to themselves.’

Scaurus paced across the room away from him, turning when he reached the wall, and his voice was hard-edged when he spoke.

‘To be expected, I suppose, and it leaves me without a means of identifying these soldiers, presumably as intended. I’ll not pursue justice against men that can’t be identified, but I will nurture my hunger for retribution for as long as it takes for them to make the mistake that will lead me to them.’

Prefect Caninus nodded firmly, picking up the knife from its place on the table’s scarred wooden surface and lifting it to stare hard at the blade’s glinting line of sharp iron.

‘I’m with you there, Tribune. One way or another we will have justice.’

The spearman stumbled to a halt and gaped in amazement at the uniformed Roman officer standing before him, his face distorting into the beginning of a scream as Marcus swept his sword round in a blurred arc that whipped the blade through his neck and sent his head spinning to the ground. The man’s body stood stock-still for a moment before slumping sideways to the forest floor, a jet of blood spurting from the corpse’s neck as it fell. From close by a man called out in the native tongue, and the Roman flattened himself against the nearest tree as the second hunter’s footsteps thudded softly towards him across the forest floor. As the man appeared to his right, his spear held loosely over his shoulder, Marcus kicked out with his right leg; he hooked the hunter’s feet from beneath him and pitched him onto his back, putting the sword’s point to his throat and looking down at his captive with a finger to his lips. The prostrate hunter swallowed, feeling the steel’s cold kiss against the skin of his neck, and froze into immobility while Arabus and the other centurions gathered around him.

‘ Kill him! ’

Julius put out an arm without even looking at Arabus, ignoring the threat of his long knife and taking a firm grip of his throat, hissing a warning from the side of his mouth.

‘Put the knife away before I’m forced to take it off you.’

The guide stared at him for a long moment, his knuckles white on the knife’s handle, before he realised that Dubnus had the point of his sword a fingernail’s width from his exposed armpit. The big centurion leaned in close, touching his knife to the soft skin with sufficient force to indent the vulnerable flesh.

‘Do as he says, or you’ll end up as a meal for those pigs you’re so fond of.’

Arabus slowly lowered the blade, sliding it back into the leather scabbard and stepping away from the terrified prisoner, but his face remained twisted in an expression of hatred and disgust.

‘He’s one of them.’

Julius grinned wolfishly.

‘You mean he’s a bandit?’

The guide nodded, not taking his eyes off the prisoner. His voice was cold, and as dead as his eyes.

‘He’s one of the men that took my woman and my son. Give him to me.’

The big Tungrian shook his head, shooting Arabus a warning glance.

‘No. Not yet, at least. I want to know what he’s doing here before anyone gets to play any revenge games with him. And I want to know one thing before we start.’ Stabbing his sword down into the soft earth he reached down and took a firm grip of the spearman’s sleeve, then he pulled out his dagger and opened up the coarse fabric with a single pass of the evilly sharp blade. He stared down at the man’s flesh, shaking his head slowly at what the knife’s pass had revealed. ‘And what do we have here, eh? Who’s a naughty boy?’

He tapped the skin of the man’s shoulder with the weapon’s point, indicating a tattoo crudely inked into the flesh; it was a unit identifier similar to that on his and Dubnus’s left arms. Dubnus leaned over and stared at the marking for a moment, a smile creeping across his face.

‘Well, now. Second Treveri, are you? Which means, for a start, that you speak Latin, so don’t bother playing dumb with us.’ The bandit stared back up at him with a mixture of fear and hatred, and Julius prodded the tattoo with his dagger again.

‘It also means that you know all too well the penalty for the murder of your prefect. I think we’d better take this one back with us to Tungrorum and allow military justice to take its brutal course, eh lads?’ He turned back to Arabus. ‘Your prefect told us that your family went missing, what, a year ago?’ The guide nodded reluctantly, his eyes still locked on the prisoner. ‘Well, these boys mutinied only last autumn, so you can forget about taking that knife to this one; he wasn’t part of whatever it was that happened to them. I still want to know where that camp is, so you and my colleague here — ’ he pointed to Dubnus — ‘can go forward to find it, while Marcus and I stay here and have a gentle chat with my new friend here.’

Dubnus put a brawny arm around the guide’s shoulder, turning him away from the prisoner.

‘We can’t be far from their camp now, so you and I should go forward and leave these two to watch the prisoner. Are you coming, or do you want to stay here and glare at him too?’

The guide shot a last venomous look at the captured bandit and walked away, speaking quietly into the forest’s silence.

‘Follow me. I know this ground as well as I knew my wife’s body, before they took her from me.’ He vanished into the trees, his passage no noisier than a gentle breeze.

Julius winked at Marcus and the two men watched their friend pad into the forest in Arabus’s wake, his axe held ready to fight. Then Julius leaned over the prisoner, who was still lying on his back.

‘Well, Second Treveri, now that we have some peace and quiet, and that vicious little man isn’t fingering his knife and staring at your throat, perhaps we can have a civilised conversation. Let me make this easy for you. Either you answer every question I ask you quickly, honestly and in a way that doesn’t make me think you’re trying to be clever with me, or I’ll be forced to start carving bits off you, starting with this.’ He gripped the man’s ear with a lightning-fast move, resting the dagger’s cold, minutely jagged edge against the point where ear and scalp joined. ‘In your own time…’

The bandit’s eyes rolled helplessly.

‘What do you want to know?’

Marcus squatted down in front of him, shaking his head in mock sadness.

‘What do we want to know? Isn’t that obvious, soldier? We want to know everything.’

Dubnus and Arabus moved noiselessly across the forest’s sun-dappled floor, the big centurion mouthing a silent curse as he wove a sinuous path around the shafts of light lancing down through the forest’s canopy high above them, staying in the shadows to avoid the blink of sunlight on metal. The guide appeared to have got over his anger at being denied the chance to take sharp iron to their prisoner, and led him on with a deft eye for cover, seemingly determined to ensure that their progress would remain undetected. The centurion smiled to himself, reflecting that Julius would have been noisier than both of them put together, but his expression changed abruptly as a hint of putrefaction reached his sensitive nose. He hissed to Arabus, flaring his nostrils to indicate the unexpected smell. The guide padded carefully across to his side, whispering in his ear.

‘We’re close to their camp, I think. They have a habit of using cages to scare off any hunter that stumbles across their hiding places. I’ve found them before, after the bandits have abandoned a camp.’

Dubnus shook his head uncomprehendingly, but the guide simply gestured him on, putting a finger to his lips and moving with exaggerated care, each footstep slow and delicate as they weaved through the undergrowth, and Arabus paused with increasing frequency to ensure that they were unobserved before moving across even the smallest of gaps in the foliage. At the top of a small rise Dubnus realised what he had meant a few minutes before when he had referred to ‘cages’, as a tall arrangement of stout branches, which had been formed into a cylindrical structure, resolved itself out of the surrounding vegetation. The horizontal bars were provided by thickly interweaved strips of bark which were placed to provide a clear view in and out of the cage as much as to anchor the branches together, and the whole thing was secured to the forest floor by deeply buried pegs, each one the width of a man’s thumb. Dubnus stared at the construction with an unhappy certainty as to its contents.

‘ Surely not? ’

Arabus turned back to him, nodding grimly at his expression of fascinated horror and whispering fiercely in his ear.

‘What else were you expecting? This man Obduro understands the power of terror on men such as these. And on us, for that matter. Come on.’

He led the Tungrian closer, and with every cautious pace the stench worsened, until by the time they were close enough to see into the cage’s shadows it was almost enough to choke Dubnus, despite his experience of battle, of terrible wounds and of bodies left to rot. A corpse lolled back against the bars, its sightless eyes staring at Dubnus’s revolted gaze. The exposed portions of the body were rippling with maggots, and it was only an act of willpower that kept him from throwing up onto the forest floor. Arabus watched as he mastered the urge, his whispered comment harsh with emotion.

‘This man’s fate is a warning, both to his own people and to outsiders. If we are caught approaching their camp we will certainly suffer in exactly the same way.’

He stared at Dubnus with a level gaze, as if waiting for the Tungrian to indicate a retreat, but the big man simply nodded, gesturing to the ground before them. Shrugging, the Gaul turned away from the cage and, bent almost double, led him forward again, his pace even more cautious than before. After fifty more paces he turned his head, putting a hand to his ear.

‘Do you hear that?’

Dubnus listened, concentrating and ignoring the rustling of leaves in the early afternoon’s breeze. The faint sound of men’s voices reached him, their words unintelligible but their tone easy enough to understand. He nodded to the guide, indicating that he should stay where he was squatting, then he flattened himself against the forest floor, worming slowly forward towards the voices, carefully picking up and moving aside anything that might betray his presence by making a noise. The sounds got louder as he crawled closer; a group of men were talking without fear of being overheard and individual words started to make sense. He stopped and listened, guessing that he was still twenty or thirty paces short of them, but the discussion remained impossible to follow and, taking a deep breath, he squirmed forward again, now moving so slowly that his approach was quite literally without noise. The wind rustling the leaves high above his head died away for a moment, and the voices were suddenly disconcertingly clear.

‘… and I’m fucking telling you that there’s no way they’ll ever catch us here. He’ll make sure of that; he’ll get them to come at us the long way round, and even if they did find the crossing we’d still be safe on the hill before they were even across the river and ready to fight. And there’s no bloody infantry cohort been raised that could kick us out of those defences, not without artillery, and that legion cohort doesn’t even have a single ballista. They’re clearly not to be trusted with the heavy stuff.’

Another man laughed.

‘You should know about trust and the army!’

Dubnus nodded to himself, having already guessed that the first speaker was another of the Treveri cohort’s deserters. The reply was calm enough, although Dubnus thought he could hear an edge in the man’s voice, and a hint of distaste for the comment.

‘Perhaps I should, if you put it that way. But he’ll make sure we get plenty of warning of any attempt to attack us, and there’s just no way they’re ever going to suspect that he’s…’

The wind picked up again, and, apart from a few isolated words, the rest of the sentence was lost in the rustle of leaves. After a moment the men’s audience laughed, and Dubnus realised that there had to be at least twenty of them, from the sound’s volume. He grimaced at his proximity to their camp and started to retreat slowly backwards, sliding away from the danger of discovery as quickly as he dared. Once he had gone fifty paces or so he got cautiously to his feet and retraced his steps to where Arabus still crouched. He tugged at the guide’s shoulder as he passed, pulling the other man along in his wake.

‘It’s time we weren’t here.’

He led the guide back to where the other two men were waiting with their thoroughly cowed prisoner. Julius looked up questioningly as the scouts slipped into the clearing.

‘Find them?’

Dubnus nodded grimly.

‘Yes. And it doesn’t make good telling. No time now though, we need to be…’ He put a hand to his belt. ‘Fuck. My bloody dagger’s fallen off my belt. The strap must have finally rotted away.’ He gave Julius and Marcus a significant glance. ‘I’ve been complaining long enough about the quality of that kit, and now of all times… I’ll go and find it, and you lot can head back to meet up with Silus. Wait for me in the same place as we camped last night, and I’ll join you there.’

He turned round without allowing any time for any of them to react, creeping back through the trees until he found the dagger where he’d quietly dropped it during their retreat from the bandit camp. Waiting for a moment to ensure that he was unobserved, he turned north, towards the river, and silently slipped away into the undergrowth.

That evening, with the torches already lit and the streets of Tungrorum emptied of its citizens, Marcus walked wearily up the road from the barracks clustered around the east gate and halted in front of the bandit hunters’ headquarters. The spear-armed man standing guard on the door showed no more curiosity at the presence of a uniformed centurion standing before him in the torchlight than he might have displayed with the arrival of a butcher’s delivery boy. He stood aside and saluted, pointing the way into the building.

‘Prefect’s inside, Centurion.’

Marcus nodded and walked past him into the entrance hall, glancing around at the statuary decorating the room, their shadows seeming to flutter and twitch with each flicker of the torches that lit the open space. An impressive bust of the emperor took pride of place on one side of the door that he presumed led into the building’s main room, while on the other side his eye was taken by a towering female figure mounted on a charging animal, a bow in one hand, the other reaching over her shoulder for an arrow from a painstakingly detailed quiver. Stepping closer, he marvelled at the skill of the man who had conjured the minute details of each arrow’s fletching and the delicate lines of the bow from the solid marble.

‘Good, isn’t it? You could almost wonder why he didn’t carve a bow string to match.’ The Roman turned to find Caninus standing in the open doorway to his office, a slight smile on his face. ‘Everyone that lays eyes on that statue does exactly the same thing. They all lean close enough to almost rub their noses on the arrows in the quiver, then look at the curves in the bow with just that expression you were wearing a moment ago. Whoever it was that sculpted this from bare rock must have been a true master. It was here when I arrived, and I keep it here to remind me of the forest’s terrible power to punish the unwary, even if I prefer the mysteries of Our Lord myself. And, I suppose, to serve as a constant warning of my enemy’s often stated and apparently implacable intention to see me die on an altar dedicated to her.’

Marcus looked back at the statue, realising for the first time that the huntress was mounted on a wild boar. He spoke with his eyes locked on the goddess’s face; it was a classic study of a female divinity that somehow managed to capture both the subject’s beauty and her ferocity in equal measure.

‘I’d taken her for a representation of Diana, but now I see the truth of it. She’s truly magnificent, Prefect, worthy of an imperial palace.’ He turned to face his host, making a formal bow and holding the position for a moment longer than necessary to indicate the nature of his business. ‘This visit is strictly a private matter, Prefect, but the gratitude I must express on behalf of myself and my wife is no less fervent for lacking an official sanction. I heard of your gallantry in rescuing Felicia from a miserable and degrading assault when I came through the gate this evening, and once I had assured myself that she is well I came straight here. I don’t have very long — there’s a centurions’ briefing shortly — but I couldn’t ignore my duty to offer you my thanks.’

Caninus made a slight bow in return.

‘Your thanks are hardly necessary, Centurion Corvus. Any decent man would have done the same. Will you take a cup of wine with me?’

Marcus smiled, nodding.

‘After a long day on the road your offer is more than welcome.’

The prefect turned back into his office and gestured to the Roman to follow him into the brightly lit room. He poured a generous measure of wine into a cup and handed it to his guest, then poured another for himself and raised it to meet Marcus’s.

‘To safe returns.’ They drank, and the prefect raised a hand to indicate the map of the area painted on the wall. ‘And now that you have experienced Arduenna at first hand you will understand better the respect in which we hold the forest, I suspect.’

Marcus smiled wryly.

‘Quite so. Your man Arabus was insistent on the subject.’

Caninus’s smile was equally sardonic.

‘I thought he might be. It was one of the reasons for sending him with you, if truth be told. He’s a believer, and I felt that you gentlemen needed to gain some understanding of the fanaticism that drives these people on. These aren’t just bandits like the men you’ve encountered so far; these are men sworn to a jealous and vicious religion, one that tolerates neither argument nor interference, and which is harsh even with its most devoted followers.’

Marcus took another sip, regarding Caninus over the rim of his cup.

‘And yet you choose to oppose them in the most public way possible, and despite their repeated threats?’

The other man shrugged.

‘What else can I do? If I walk away from here I must thereby accept defeat, and in doing so I will be diminished not only in the eyes of my peers but, worse, in my own estimation. I doubt that I could live easily with such a painful burden. But come now, we’ll not discuss even the hint of such a possibility. Your mission was a success, I take it?’ He raised a hand to forestall a reply. ‘No, I know it’s not your place to tell me any of the details, I simply ask if you felt the journey worthwhile. Did my man Arabus perform as required?’

Marcus smiled, raising his cup for another sip.

‘He did indeed. I also have reason to be grateful to him for not putting an arrow into me when I blundered into his path while he was hunting a boar.’

Caninus raised an eyebrow.

‘Indeed? You were lucky. He’s not the fastest man to loose an arrow, but once he’s committed the shaft it invariably hits what he’s aiming at. Perhaps Arduenna chose to smile on you for that moment.’

This time, Marcus noticed, there was no trace of amusement on his face.

The two tribunes walked out into the gathering of their centurions with the look of men whose fellow feeling, if it had ever existed in the first place, had long since evaporated. Scaurus paused in the doorway for a moment with a cup of wine held in one hand, listening to the babble of conversation.

‘It’s nice to get a decent cup of red for a change, and not that cat’s piss they’ve been serving since we…’

‘There were four of them, I heard, all gagging for a piece of uniformed dick…’

‘And he’s paid a hundred in gold for a bloody sword! You ask me, that young man’s got…’

The two first spears stepped forward, each of them barking an order for his officers to stand to attention. Scaurus waited for the echoes of their orders to die away before speaking.

‘At ease, gentlemen!’

Tribune Belletor stood by his side with a face barely the right side of disgruntled, and Julius leaned closer to Marcus, ignoring the first spear’s warning glance, to mutter in his ear.

‘Their tribune looks like he’s lost a gold aureus and found a copper quadrans. I heard that Scaurus very nearly pulled his iron on the man and was only…’

Scaurus spoke again, looking round the gathered officers with a determined expression.

‘Centurions, it’s good to have all of you gathered in one place. If we’re going to work together then we’ll need to break down some of the barriers that traditionally separate auxiliary troops from the legions. I believe that it is these barriers that lead to misunderstandings, and as a result to the kind of unacceptable behaviour that we saw the other night. Behaviour, I will remind you, that had our colleague Prefect Caninus not intervened, would have left an innocent, pregnant woman repeatedly violated, and our cohorts at each other’s throats.’

Scaurus paused, passing a slow gaze across the faces turned attentively towards him. He’d said much the same to Belletor a few minutes earlier, when expressing his disappointment that the legion cohort’s centurions had not yet managed to unearth the guilty men. Even Frontinius, who found himself cast in the unusual role of peacemaker alongside his colleague Sergius, had commented privately that he would have found the culprits in less than a day.

‘Honey and shit, that’s the way it works. Nice and nasty. Rewards for the men that turn the bastards in, and collective punishment for the whole bloody cohort until they come to their senses.’

Belletor stood alongside Scaurus in unhappy silence while his colleague explained to the centurions what it was he planned for their combined force. He pointed to the map of the area on the wall of the basilica’s main hall, a map which he had requested for the evening’s briefing with a studied mannerliness that had left Procurator Albanus with little option but to agree. The civilian administrator was standing off to one side, and clearly fighting to contain his irritation at seeing a host of army officers in the building where he usually conducted his business.

‘Centurions, we’re here to safeguard the supply of corn to the legion fortresses on the Rhenus. Without that supply their existence becomes precarious, which makes our task of the utmost importance. Exterminating the bandit threat in this part of the province is also going to be of benefit to the local inhabitants, of course, but first and foremost it is about preserving the empire’s north-western flank. As you can see from this map, our destruction of two of the opportunist bands that were troubling the roads to the city means that the most obvious remaining threat to the supply routes to the legions comes from here.’ He slapped his pointer onto the dark green mass of the Arduenna forest. ‘The forest is currently host to the largest of the bandit gangs, perhaps as many as five hundred of them, and they must now be our main focus. When we find and destroy their base of operations, kill as many as we can and scatter the rest, when we have their leader’s head on a spear point…’ He paused and looked around the gathered officers with a wry smile. ‘… with or without his famous mask, then we will have broken the back of this problem! And make no mistake, there’s nothing mystical about the man, or his followers. He’s just another thug, for all his fearsome reputation, and his gang are no more than that. I don’t know about you, but my experience in my younger days was that when you take down the leader of a gang its members tend to lose heart. When they see the strength we muster, they’ll pretty soon decide to put survival before profit, you can be sure of that! Intimidating civilians and suborning poorly led local auxiliaries is one thing, but facing up to two cohorts of battle-hardened infantry is quite another.’

He took a sip of wine before speaking again.

‘So, tomorrow morning we’ll muster at dawn and march west. A brisk morning’s march will take us to the junction with the road south to the city of the Treveri, and then we’ll turn south and cross the River Mosa. By the end of the day I expect us to be within spitting distance of the forest’s edge, and we’ll camp under full wartime conditions just in case they see us coming and try to take us by surprise. The day after that, we’ll start probing towards their camp, which, thanks to a scouting party from the First Tungrian Cohort, we now know is here, close to the river.’

He pointed to the map behind him, and Marcus flicked a glance around his colleagues to find Titus staring back at him with a knowing expression. His brother officer had walked up to Julius with a wry smile moments earlier, putting a massive hand on Marcus’s shoulder and muttering, ‘A one-toothed whore, eh? Smart work, brother.’ Scaurus continued, his face hawk-like in the torchlight.

‘It was always logical to assume that Obduro and his band are operating from somewhere on this edge of Arduenna. They need to get back into the forest’s cover as soon as they can once they’ve carried out a robbery, but now we actually know where to find it. There it is.’ He tapped the map. ‘Only a few hundred paces of the river and astride the main forest path that leads west until it reaches the road south to the Treveri capital. That ease of access cuts both ways, of course. It makes their lair easier for us to find, and less of a problem to attack than a hideaway in the deep forest. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they must have another camp further into the forest, and on higher ground, which they can fall back to if the first one is compromised. It’ll probably be built on a hill, almost certainly heavily fortified, and very likely with the ground around it littered with mantraps. It’s likely that once they realise we’re coming they’ll scatter in a dozen different directions and fall back into the deep forest. And once they’ve disbanded catching them will be like trying to bottle smoke. What we have to do is surround the camp with a nice thick ring of troops before they get the chance to run for it, and get them bottled up and ready to either surrender or die. Either of which will suit me very well. So this plan must remain confidential from anyone not in this room until the time comes to make it work on the ground. That is all, gentlemen. Go back to your centuries and make sure that your men are ready for battle when we march tomorrow. And now, let’s have a toast.’ He raised his cup. ‘Shared victory!’

The centurions echoed the sentiment and raised their own cups, every man in the room draining whatever remained of his wine. One of the legion centurions spoke in the silence that followed his words.

‘Ready for battle tomorrow, Tribune? I thought your aim was to engage the bandits the day after that?’

Scaurus nodded grimly, fixing a hard smile on the centurion.

‘Indeed it is. But our experience of warfare, no matter who the enemy is, is that they come to fight at the most inconvenient times. We may well find ourselves in battle tomorrow whether we like it or not.’

‘Typical fucking army. We sweat our bollocks off for a week building barracks to keep out the rain, with our tents falling to pieces, and then just as we finish the job, they decide that a few days’ campaign in the open is a good idea. Whichever genius came up with this idea needs his fucking head looking at. I reckon…’

Scarface snapped to attention as a tall figure leaned over his shoulder and a quiet but authoritative voice spoke softly in his ear.

‘And I reckon that you would be better advised keeping your opinion to yourself, soldier. For while it is the right of every man to complain as often and as long as he wishes, this rule only holds true for as long as he takes good care not to be overheard. If I were actually to hear such a complaint, it would be necessary for me to deliver the appropriate discipline to you.’ Scarface stood in flushed and rigid silence, his gaze locked on the line of new barracks before which the cohort was paraded. It was common knowledge that the Ninth Century’s chosen man was not the happiest of men that morning, given the biting cold that had taken a grip of Tungrorum overnight, and the veteran soldier was experienced enough in the ways of his superiors to know when the time had come to wind his neck in. ‘As it happens, soldier, and despite your much-vaunted mission to keep our centurion from harm, on this evidently rare occasion I happen to know a little bit more about the reason for our excursion into “the open” than it seems you do. Shall I enlighten you?’

He walked along the rear of the century’s line with his brass-knobbed pole resting on his broad, mailed shoulder until he came to its end, then retraced his steps along the unit’s front, speaking as he went.

‘It is Tribune Scaurus’s opinion that the time has come for us to deal with the bandits who hide in the Arduenna forest. And that is his decision, not the centurion’s, not mine and most certainly not yours. Very shortly now you will be inspected and briefed in more detail by Centurion Corvus, and then we will march to join the other cohorts outside the city walls. Given our orders to be ready for battle, soldier, you would be better questioning yourself as to whether your sword is sharp and your arm strong, since you may have need of both before the day is ended.’

‘Cheeky Hamian b-’

Scarface bit off the last word of his muttered imprecation as Qadir’s pole swung out from his shoulder with surprising speed, and he winced as the brass knob struck his helmet’s iron plate with a heavy clang. The pole was more usually employed to push a century’s rearmost men into action should they prove reluctant to advance, but Qadir was as handy with its secondary use, as a forceful instrument of his authority, as any other chosen man in the cohort. He paced down the row of men with his face set in a neutral expression, although the abashed Scarface, despite the fact that he was concentrating on the barrack in front of him with as much force as he could muster, knew only too well that the Hamian’s eyes would be burning with barely suppressed anger.

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, since you’re a senior man. The next time you challenge me to ignore a casual insult made within the range of my excellent hearing, you and I will be enjoying a swift but ugly discussion behind the barracks.’ Scarface redoubled his close attention to the wall in front of him and kept his mouth firmly shut. For all his own prowess in the dirty art of barrack-block squabbles, usually settled in the first few seconds with instinctive brutality, Qadir was known to be both fast with his fists and boots and, when sufficiently roused, utterly without scruple in using them to make his point to the rare recalcitrant that chose to ignore his deceptively gentle admonishment. That the veteran soldier would give the big Hamian a decent fight was without doubt, but that he would end up on the losing end of the matter was also fairly obvious. The chosen man gazed levelly at him for a moment before continuing. ‘Good. Order is restored. Since the soldier here feels the need for a better understanding of the plan for today’s activity, I will elucidate, which, for those among you whose education has primarily been centred on stabbing barbarians, means that I will explain.’

The Hamian stared out across the ranks of blank-faced soldiers, his face set hard.

‘In terms that you men will understand, we are marching to attack the bandits who hide in the big forest. They are currently living in a camp close to the far bank of the river, and we will be seeking to trap them there, and prevent them from escaping to their fortress deeper in the forest. If they escape into the forest it will be a bad thing, and much unhappiness will result. And unhappiness, as we all know, flows in only one direction. So I suggest that you all do what you’re told, when you’re told to do it! And one last thought, gentlemen. We’re going to be fighting a hardened enemy, on his own ground and after several months of doing little but guard duty. And if I add up all the money that your weapons and equipment have cost, and then throw in the small brass coin each of you is worth into the bargain, it’s clear that Tribune Scaurus will want to lose as few of you as possible. So keep your guards up and be ready to fight! And here, to spare us any further debate, is the centurion. Air your iron, soldiers, and let’s see what sort of job you’ve done in readying yourselves. Present your swords!’

The twin Tungrian cohorts marched out of the city’s south-west gate in a compact column, fourteen hundred hard-faced and battle-tested men whose equipment bore the scars of their previous battles like badges of honour. Whilst their shield’s brass edging and bosses shone in the chilly morning’s sunshine like gold, most of them were roughly scored by swords and axe blows, the laurel wreathes and crescent moons that decorated their linen-covered wooden surfaces sometimes almost completely erased by battle damage and the effects of the harsh frontier weather. Their iron helmets, whilst rust free, were frequently dented and scored by sharp iron, their brow guards deeply notched by enemy blades. In every century there were several men whose faces, while they were protected on either side by their cheek guards, were riven by crude scars that had left thick white lines through eyebrows and lips, or deep gouges in noses and cheek bones. The soldiers marched past the 1st Minervia’s Cohort with parade-ground precision, their hobnailed boots rapping on the road’s cobbles in perfect unison, and more than one flicked a contemptuous sideways glance at the raw legionaries waiting for them, their breath puffing out in silver plumes.

Behind the 1st Tungrian Cohort came the barbarian warriors of Martos’s Votadini, their long hair and thick, brightly coloured woollen clothing at odds with the soldiers’ uniform appearance. Some of the warriors were swathed in fur for warmth and all were carrying whichever weapon they favoured, swords, spears and axes as they saw fit. Where the 1st Cohort’s men had confined their expressions of disregard to the odd casual glance, these ragged, scarred fighters simply stared at the legionaries in open disgust. A few of the band were carrying war hammers, including the hulking Selgovae warrior Lugos, who loomed over even the tallest of them, his weapon’s heavy beak counterweighted by a massive half-moon blade with wicked points at either end with which to snag a fleeing enemy, its vicious edge rough-sharpened to inflict a grievous wound in combat.

Behind the Votadini, and in a position deliberately intended to demonstrate his utter trust in men who had been his enemies only months before, walked Tribune Scaurus, his only escort his German bodyguard, Arminius. Behind them came the 2nd Tungrian Cohort, every bit as crisply turned out and battle-scarred as their brothers in the 1st, and at their rear came the thirty horsemen of the detachment’s mounted unit. Each of the animals was led out by its rider, each man marching alongside his mount and keeping a tight hold on its bridle as a precaution against any skittishness from the beasts who clearly sensed that a chance for exercise was to hand. Once the 2nd Cohort’s last century had cleared the legion’s line, First Spear Frontinius stepped out in front of his men and bellowed an order down the line, pointing to his left.

‘Halt! Right turn! Forward march!’ The order was echoed instantly by each century’s centurion, and the men of both cohorts pivoted on the spot, marching the ten paces that put their formation alongside that of the legion cohort’s. ‘Halt! About turn! Stand at… ease!’

Frontinius looked down the road to the spot where Tribune Scaurus had stopped to wait in the wake of the marching centuries, then saluted smartly before marching to his place at the point where his two cohorts joined. Scaurus, Tribune Belletor at his side, looked up and down the line of silent soldiers before speaking.

‘Men of the First Minervia and the Tungrian Cohorts! This is the day when we move onto an offensive footing against the bandit leader Obduro! Today we march to a position close to their forest encampment, and the day after that we will attack. You must stay alert to anything unusual, for these are not ordinary opponents in any sense of the word. They may only be a few hundred strong, but they have local knowledge, and many of them have military skills. I expect that they will fight like animals to avoid capture and execution, and you may find that you must attack with equal ferocity to best them even though we ought to have superiority in numbers. That is all. First Spears?’

Frontinius walked forward again, exchanging nods with Sergius, who stepped out in front of the legionaries.

‘Forward… march!’ Their combined bellow of command set the three cohorts into movement, and as the long line of men reached the road they shouted another command. ‘Halt! Right… turn!’ Within seconds the three cohorts were lined up along the road, while Scaurus, who had stepped back off the road’s surface to avoid being caught in their mass movement, turned a sardonic grin on his colleague.

‘Ready to march for a while, eh Tribune?’

Belletor raised an eyebrow.

‘March? March, Rutilius Scaurus? Why would we be marching?’

His colleague smiled knowingly.

‘Some senior officers, Tribune, like to match their fitness against that of their men, to see if they can keep pace with the old sweats through a long marching day. And besides, it’s such a lovely day for a stroll.’

Belletor’s snort of disbelief dripped with his incredulity at the suggestion.

‘A lovely day for a stroll? I shall be riding my horse, and I’d suggest you do the same unless you want to be taken for one of those men that seek the favour of their soldiers by attempting to emulate them.’

Scaurus laughed and turned away.

‘And you, Tribune, might want to consider walking for a while, unless you want to be taken for one of those men whose feet aren’t hard enough to sustain the pace. I can assure you that there are worse things than being taken for an officer who respects his men well enough to share their hardships.’ He raised his voice to parade-ground volume. ‘Shall we be on our way, gentlemen? This Obduro isn’t going to wait around forever!’

Frontinius raised his vine stick above his head, stepping to one side of the long column to be seen by as many men as possible.

‘First Cohort! At the standard march… march!’

As the leading centuries strode out down the road Prefect Caninus turned to Scaurus, gesturing at his men who were waiting alongside their horses, and speaking in a quiet tone intended to keep their discussion private.

‘I wish you good hunting, Tribune. As agreed, I will take my men away down the road to the west again, to ensure that there’s no chance of a traitor in their ranks alerting the bandits to your approach.’

The tribune nodded.

‘Thank you, Prefect, I’ll certainly be happier knowing that we don’t have to worry about whoever it is Obduro might have planted on you. My own mounted detachment will go forward alongside you as far as the junction where the road to Augusta Treverorum branches off to the south, and will then report back to me that the road is clear of any sign of Obduro’s band. It will be good exercise for their horses, and a nice change for their riders from having nothing to do except brush their animals and shovel away their droppings.’

Caninus nodded his understanding, then turned away, shouting orders to his men. Scaurus raised his arm and signalled to Decurion Silus. The decurion saluted and signalled to his men, who promptly mounted and trotted their horses up the column, with Caninus and his detachment following them. Scaurus looked back at Belletor, gesturing to the road stretching away to the west.

‘Your last chance, Tribune. Will you accompany me for a while? Perhaps we might share a discussion about Rome. I’m sure you miss it as much as I do.’

The other man shook his head dismissively.

‘I’ll be riding, thank you. By all means come for a chat when you get tired of slumming it with your soldiers.’

Scaurus turned away with a wry shake of his head.

‘The company of my men is likely to entertain me for longer than you might imagine possible.’

Silus reined in his horse alongside the 9th Century’s marching men, grinning down at Marcus and raising an eyebrow in question.

‘The usual offer is open, Centurion. You could always scout forward with us this morning. I’m sure your chosen man is more than capable of looking after these soldiers.’

The young centurion shook his head.

‘Not today, I’m afraid, Silus. Much as I’d like nothing better than to ride along with you, my duty is here with my soldiers. And besides, to deprive whoever’s riding that monster Bonehead of his mount today would be to condemn him to a day rubbing his feet raw and listening to our full repertoire of songs about cavalrymen and your close relationships with the local wildlife.’

One of the younger soldiers marching beside him was unable to contain himself, and raised his voice above the rattle of hobnails.

‘And sheep, Centurion!’

The century’s watch officer, a one-eyed veteran universally called Cyclops whenever he wasn’t listening, promptly stepped out of the rank ahead of the miscreant and marched next to him with his face inches from his victim’s, bellowing admonishment and imprecation at the top of his voice, much to the young soldier’s dismay and Silus’s pleasure.

‘ Don’t you dare to interrupt the young gentleman when he’s talking to another officer, you nasty little man! I’ll have you shovelling shit on latrine duty for the next month!’ Marcus raised an eyebrow at the decurion, rolling his eyes at the vehemence of the tirade. The watch officer caught a glimpse of the expression from the corner of his eye, but misinterpreted the cause and redoubled his verbal assault on the visibly wilting soldier. ‘And now you’ve upset the officer, you worthless excuse for a soldier. He thinks you’re a prick, the decurion thinks you’re a prick, and I’m fucking certain you’re a prick, which makes you what? Eh?’

‘A… a prick?’

‘A prick, Watch Officer! Come with me!’ He dragged the soldier out of the ranks, putting a booted foot into his backside. ‘Run, you fucker! Let’s see how long you can keep up with the horses, shall we?’

‘Ah, the enjoyment of watching an experienced professional in action. I see man management is still a strong point with the infantry.’

Marcus shook his head in resigned amusement, waving Silus away.

‘You’d best be off to see what’s going on over the next hill. And I’d better rescue that soldier before Watch Officer Augustus puts his severed head on a spear to encourage the rest of my men. Enjoy your day’s scouting!’

The decurion shot him an ironic salute and moved away to rejoin his men, shouting a command and nudging his horse into a fast trot. As the scouts headed for the horizon Marcus turned his attention back to the hapless soldier, already fifty paces up the road with Cyclops in vigorous and noisy pursuit.

‘Hold this for a minute. I need to dig my cloak out and put the bloody thing on.’

Morban passed his standard to the trumpeter marching at his side and reached for the heavy woollen rectangle, thanking the foresight that had made him roll it up and wrap it around his belt. The younger man smirked down at him as he tugged it about his barrel-shaped body with a grunt of satisfaction.

‘Feeling the cold, are you?’

The standard bearer answered in a voice loud enough to be heard over the clash of hobnails, never taking his attention off the brooch’s stubborn pin.

‘Bloody thing won’t close. I knew I should have got this seen to while we were in barracks. The pin’s too short, and the bloody thing’s bent in the middle.’ He shot the trumpeter a vindictive glance, then turned his head and raised an eyebrow to the soldiers marching behind them. ‘A bit like your cucumber, from what I could see of that rather unpleasant act you were performing last night when I walked into the barrack without knocking and giving you time to hide it away. Now have you had enough, or do you want some more, tiny bent cock?’ Morban waited for a moment to be sure that the abashed trumpeter wasn’t going to scrape together enough wit to come back at him with any one of the retorts he would have mustered under the same accusation, then shook his head in genuine disgust. ‘Soldiers with less than ten years’ service should be seen and not heard, I’d say.’ The veteran marching behind him nodded his agreement, his voice a gravelly rasp as he rose to Morban’s game.

‘I knows. Give ’em a few months and they loves to play with the big lads, but they goes all quiet and runs away the second you gives ’em a proper smacking. Shouldn’t be allowed to join in with the fun and games until they’ve done their ten and learned to stand up for themselves. And to hold their beer…’

He winked at Morban, who gave the trumpeter a significant glance. The younger man started to protest, but swiftly closed his mouth again as Morban raised an eyebrow at him.

‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. Just make do with starting a conversation about something that can’t be turned against you.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as the weather. See, when we set out this morning the sun was all bright and shiny, and you were thinking about a lovely warm day for marching, but now the sky’s the same colour as…’

The trumpeter opened his mouth to suggest something that matched the western sky’s dull grey, but was beaten to it by the soldier behind him.

‘… as his face when he’d done puking all over his boots the other night?’

‘That’s it, just the same colour!’ Morban smirked at the younger man for a moment before taking pity on his expression of bemused fury. ‘Now, now, don’t you go getting all hot and bothered. Look, there’s trees on the horizon; that’s the forest we’re marching to conquer!’

‘So that’s this Arduenna the locals all worship, is it?’

Tribune Scaurus looked across the farmland that stretched out before them to the forested hills in the distance, their dark slopes blending with the overcast sky.

Frontinius was marching beside him with a slight limp, the legacy of a sharp-eyed barbarian archer’s arrow at the battle of Lost Eagle the previous year. He nodded without breaking step.

‘Yes, Tribune, that’s the Arduenna. If the maps are right we’re only a couple of miles from the forest edge, although that might as well be twenty given the river that runs between here and the hills. A hundred paces wide and more, and apparently deep enough to be unfordable, other than across the shallows at Mosa Ford. If Dubnus has it wrong then we’ll have to go all the way west to the river bridge on the road to the Treveri capital, then march back to the east along the river bank.’

He stopped talking, raising an eyebrow at the tribune, who was gently shaking his head.

‘We’ll just have to hope that your centurion’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, then, won’t we? Ah, here come the mounted scouts now. You can stop the column for a rest, First Spear; let’s see what your man Silus has to say for himself.’

The decurion rode up and dismounted, saluting smartly to the tribune and the two first spears, who had gathered to hear his report.

‘We went all the way to the bridge, Tribune, without any sign of movement. There’s a couple of carts a few miles down the road, but nothing to interest us. Prefect Caninus took his men away to the west, as agreed.’

Scaurus nodded to Frontinius, who returned his gaze with a questioning look.

‘As we discussed it, Tribune?’

Opening his mouth to confirm the order, Scaurus was silenced by a voice from behind him.

‘As you discussed what?’

Scaurus turned to find Belletor, still mounted on his horse, close behind him. He looked up at the bemused tribune with a tight smile and pointed in the direction of the river.

‘We’re leaving the road and marching south for the Mosa. Once we’re off the road we’ll deploy into formation for an approach march, and your men can bring up the rear.’

Belletor frowned down at him.

‘But I thought…’

‘… that we were heading for the road bridge over the Mosa another ten miles to the west? Indeed, you did, along with the entire population of Tungrorum, I’d imagine. But one of my centurions has discovered a little secret, a piece of tactical intelligence I personally rate as pure gold, so we’re going to try something else, something not even Caninus and his men know about.’ He turned away from the baffled tribune, gesturing to Frontinius. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Sextus.’

Frontinius limped away, shouting for his centurions and quickly gathering the officers around him in a tight group. First Spear Sergius tipped Belletor a quick salute and sidled across to join them, while soldiers on all sides stared at the gathering with undisguised curiosity. Scarface stared at the cluster of armoured men for a moment and then turned away, shaking his head and reaching for his shield and helmet.

‘Best get your gear on, lads. The last time I seen Uncle Sextus looking that serious was before the battle where the Sixth Legion lost their eagle, and I ended up fighting off the fucking bluenoses for the rest of the afternoon. Got a nasty gash down one arm and lost both my best mates, one dead before he hit the ground, the other one coughing up blood for half a day before his eyes closed. This’ll end up with us out in front, if my guess is right. And it looks set to fucking rain.’

In the heart of his gathered officers, Frontinius looked around the intent faces that surrounded him, nodding his recognition of their solemnity.

‘Yes, you’ve all guessed it; we’ve got a direct route to the enemy camp and we’re going straight in. Dubnus found what looks like a way across the river while he was out scouting with Centurions Julius and Corvus, so we’re marching south to the Mosa at speed. We’ll get deployed over the river as fast and as quietly as possible, and then go for an encirclement of the rebel camp before they even know they’re under attack, never mind who’s behind the spears. And if we put this lot in the bag then our job here really will be done, and we can enjoy some well-earned peace and quiet. Once we leave this rest halt we’ll deploy into approach march formation.’ He looked around the group again. ‘I’ll have the Ninth Century out in front in extended order looking for trouble all the way to the river, fast and light-footed. Try to keep it inconspicuous, Centurion Corvus. I don’t want them to know we’re coming until we’re across the river at the very earliest, and preferably not until we’ve got their camp surrounded by enough spears that they’ll just go straight to the bit where they throw down their iron without even considering a fight. Think you can manage that?’

Marcus nodded silently, already rehearsing the orders he would issue to his men. Frontinius recognised his preoccupation and moved the briefing on.

‘Good. Dubnus, you’ll be out in front with the Ninth. I need you to take us straight to the place in question without any risk of it turning into the scenic route, your chosen man can look after your men in your absence. Following up behind the scouts I want a three-century front, one solid wall of shields if the need arises, so keep the formation as tight as you like. Centurions Clodius, Caelius and Otho, your lads ought to find that well enough to their liking.’

Julius snorted his laughter into the intent silence.

‘The Badger, the Hedgehog and Knuckles all in a row. You really do mean business.’

Marcus winked at Caelius, watching as his brother officer rubbed self-consciously at the spiky, brush-like hair that had led to his nickname, smiling to himself at Julius’s praise. While Clodius and Otho were brutal, bombastic leaders, continually goading their men in competition for the unofficial title of the cohort’s most dangerous century, Caelius was a quieter man by comparison, until, that was, the enemy were within spear throw. Then, and only then, did he seem to swell beyond his usual size, and become a leader whose simple example could encourage bravery from his men where words might fail.

Frontinius nodded at Julius with a determined expression.

‘If by some chance we’re in action before we reach the river I want to be up and in their faces the instant they show themselves. So you three had better be ready for anything.’

Julius nodded knowingly.

‘And since the Ninth will all be dead or dying, you want these three to overrun them and rescue that pretty sword, eh First Spear?’

His superior smiled grimly.

‘Well, you won’t be in with any chance of recovering it, Julius, because you’ll be leading one of the wings. We’ll have three centuries on your side of the line, ready for an envelopment once the front three have got the enemy fixed, when and if we bump into them. The left wing will be commanded by you, Julius, and will consist of your Fifth Century with the Eighth and Second behind you, and the right will consist of the First and Tenth Centuries, led by Titus.’

The hulking commander of the Tenth Century spoke up, his voice a bass growl as he pointed a finger at Julius.

‘Be ready to bring your girls running if we take the brunt of an attack, eh little man? Two centuries might struggle to hold back five hundred mutineers, even if the two centuries involved are the best in the cohort.’

Julius, himself a hulking brute of a man even if he was a head shorter than his colleague, grinned at him wolfishly before turning back to his old friend Frontinius.

‘And you, First Spear, where will you be if I’ve got your boys alongside mine?’

‘Me? I’ll be accompanying Centurion Caelius, as close behind the Ninth as we can manage. Now, Second Cohort…’ Their sister unit’s centurions stepped forward, their faces every bit as grim as those of their colleagues. ‘We all know that the legion cohort isn’t experienced enough to stand alone against a determined attack — no insult intended, colleague.’ Sergius nodded graciously to show that none was taken. ‘So I’ll have your lads close up behind us to provide fast reinforcement.’

‘You’re sure you know where to find this crossing?’

Dubnus nodded grimly in response to Arminius’s question, his head thrown back to suck greedily at the cold air as they followed the 9th Century’s extended line at a pace closer to a jog than a march.

‘As sure as I can be, given that I only saw the place from the opposite bank, and that was with my head six inches from the ground. Like I told your lads that have run forward to scout the river bank, the only real landmark I could see was a bloody great tree on this side of the river, as I recall it, bent over almost double and with its branches trailing over the water. When we find that, we’ve found the crossing.’

Marcus and Qadir had already decided to add even more pace to their advance by sending forward the half-dozen fastest distance runners in the century. The men in question had dumped their shields and spears on their mates and hared forward in front of the Ninth’s already rapid progress across the open ground between the road and the river, briefed to look for the landmark that Dubnus had described to them. Looking back, Marcus could see the shields of the centuries following them, a good half mile behind.

‘It’s getting so cold that my bloody fingers are starting to go numb.’ Dubnus clenched his fists, trying to get more blood into them, and sniffed the air dubiously. ‘If it wasn’t already the middle of Aprilis I’d swear there was snow on the way.’

They looked unhappily at the heavy grey wall looming over them out of the western sky, and Marcus shook his head with a look of unease.

‘Whatever comes out of that cloud, it isn’t going to be warm.’

Arminius looked across at Marcus, who was staring up at the towering mass of dark grey cloud with a bemused expression.

‘This happened every now and then in my home village. We knew well enough to find shelter and not come out until the storm had passed. When the rain starts we won’t be able to see any further than the ends of our fingers.’

Dubnus shrugged.

‘Nobody made you come forward with us. You could have been safe back there with the tribunes if you hadn’t been so determined to keep us company.’

A brief smirk lifted one side of the German’s face, and he shook his head dismissively, waving a hand towards Marcus.

‘I’m not here for you, Dubnus, for all that you make a decent sparring partner on occasion. I’m here for him. I still owe the centurion here a life, and when the tribune sees fit to send us forward into the teeth of a spring storm to hunt army deserters I expect that my chance to repay that debt might be to hand.’

A sharp-eyed Hamian soldier striding along in front of Marcus pointed and shouted something in his own language to Qadir, who stared for a moment before calling to Marcus.

‘One of the runners is waving back to us. They see the tree!’

Taking the 9th Century within two hundred paces of the river bank, Marcus advanced down the ground’s gentle slope to the Mosa’s meandering stream, then waved the soldiers into the cover of the scattered bushes and long grass. He made his way forward with Dubnus and Arminius until they were crouched in the shelter of the bent tree, using its trunk to protect them from the wind’s biting chill. The scout who had spotted the landmark, one of the century’s Hamian archers, huddled alongside them wrapped in his cloak; he eyed the river’s hard, cold water with a disconsolate expression.

‘You’re sure it’s here?’

Dubnus nodded at Marcus’s question, unlacing his boots and unwinding the leg wrappings that swathed his calves, before rolling up his rough woollen leggings. Hanging the boots around his neck, he turned back to the Hamian.

‘Give me your spear.’ The scout handed him the weapon with a curious look which the centurion ignored, turning back to the river bank with eyes narrowed in concentration. ‘Watch this.’

He stepped cautiously forward into the open, using the scout’s spear to prod at the shallow water lapping along the river’s muddy bank, while soft mud oozed up through his toes. The spear sank into the water with each prod, and the soldier frowned without realising it, thinking of the polishing that would be required to return the weapon to a state that would satisfy Qadir’s notoriously strict views on his soldiers’ equipment. Then, without any apparent reason, the iron blade stopped dead with less than half of its length in the water. Dubnus turned back with a triumphant grin, then stepped forward into the river, his feet barely submerged under the cold water. The scout gaped, pointing at the water flowing around the centurion’s ankles with a look of amazement.

‘Look, Centurion! He’s… he’s walking on the water!’

Marcus shook his head with a smile.

‘No he isn’t. But there’s something there strong enough to support his weight.’

He waved the man back towards the waiting century.

‘Fetch the first spear. Tell him we’ve found the bridge and bring him here.’

By the time Frontinius limped up to join him, a cluster of centurions in tow, Dubnus was a hundred paces away across the river and lacing up his boots. The senior centurion stared across the river at his officer, shaking his head in disbelief and speaking quietly to Marcus.

‘I can hardly believe it, but Dubnus was right. There it is, a stone bridge beneath the water’s surface.’ He looked hard at the far bank, but there was no sign of any movement in the trees that lined the river, except for Dubnus. ‘Get your men across there and join him, Centurion Corvus, then set up a fifty-pace perimeter, and in Cocidius’s name keep it quiet. By all means scout forward, but I don’t want them waking up to our presence here with the cohort only part deployed or it could turn into a massacre of everyone that’s already reached the far side. Get moving.’ Marcus turned away, beckoning Qadir and Arminius to him, and Frontinius turned back to the 1st Cohort’s gathered centurions. ‘Right then, in the same formation as before, advance to the river at the march. When you get here the first three centuries are to follow the Ninth across, while the flank guards will stay in place on this bank to make sure we keep possession of this side of the crossing. If we feed Second Cohort through straight after that we’ll have fourteen hundred men on the far bank. First Spear Sergius?’

‘Colleague?’ Sergius stepped forward from the group of officers, and Frontinius took a moment to weigh him up, mindful of Scaurus’s concern with the man’s appetite for battle. The legion cohort’s first spear returned the gaze with a slight smile, his facial scar twisting with the expression. ‘Wondering how much fight we’ve got in us?’

Frontinius nodded, deciding to address the issue bluntly.

‘Yes, colleague, I am. If I send your men across the river and they get on the wrong end of a bandit counter-attack they could well break and scatter into the woods. And nobody’s going to thank me if I lose an entire cohort of legionaries, are they?’

‘Agreed. And yet they have to learn their trade somewhere. Why not let me set them in defence of the bridge on this side? In the unlikely event that you have to fall back from the bandit camp we’ll hold the crossing and stop you getting cut off. It’s nice simple duty for my lads but still a useful role, if you take a minute to think it through.’

He stared at Frontinius, and something in his expression swayed the Tungrian.

‘Done. I’ll make sure my tribune and yours play nicely with the idea. It’s about time we all started acting like adults.’

Sergius nodded and turned away, his helmet’s crest riffling with the wind’s intermittent but powerful gusts, and Frontinius turned back to his centurions.

‘Right, get on with it. I want the leading centuries across the river and setting up a perimeter, so get your boys moving!’

The 9th Century crossed the river, moving across the submerged bridge with exaggerated caution at first, groping forward with their bare feet ankle-deep in the Mosa’s cold, swift-flowing water. With every man that crossed successfully, however, their confidence grew visibly, and by the time the century was almost fully across the river the last men were moving with easy confidence, their feet gripping the roughened stone slabs that had been laid across piers of blocks piled onto the river’s bed to make the bridge’s submerged surface. Marcus and Dubnus huddled in the cover of a large bush, waiting as the soldiers crouched close to the ground and pulled their socks and boots back on, rewinding the heavy woollen leg wrappings around their damp ankles.

‘They must have built it in the middle of the summer last year, when the river was lower.’

Marcus nodded at Dubnus’s words absently, looking back across the Mosa and then turning to peer into the trees that reached almost to the water’s edge.

‘It’s simple enough when you think about it. Obduro’s found a shallow point in the river, still too deep to be a foot crossing like the one beside the bridge at Mosa Ford, but shallow enough for his purposes, and he’s used local stone to make the bridge. There’s no way anyone can sail up the Mosa this far, not with the shallows and the bridge blocking the way at Mosa Ford, so there was never much risk of anyone finding this crossing point. If you hadn’t overheard his men talking about it we’d never have been any the wiser. Uncle Sextus wants us to push the perimeter out, and allow some room for the rest of the cohort, and I need to know what might be waiting for us in the trees

He signalled to Qadir, and the Hamian made his made down the century’s line, bent almost double to avoid any chance of his being seen.

‘Centurion?’

‘Push the century forward, but slowly and quietly, and only for another hundred paces. I’m going to take Scarface and his tent party forward to do a little scouting.’

The Hamian saluted, looking up as the wind whistling through the trees above them gusted enough to drop a light shower of twigs across the waiting century.

‘Yes, Centurion. And if we come under attack?’

‘If you come under attack you blow your whistles and we’ll pull back to the rest of the cohort. I’ll not lose another century the way the Sixth got cut to pieces at the battle of the Barbarian Camp, and I haven’t got enough trained centurions to throw away two good officers and my best chosen man.’

They turned to find First Spear Frontinius lacing up his boots at the river’s edge, one eyebrow lifted in mock exasperation as he lifted a hand to wave Marcus and Dubnus away. ‘Well, don’t just stand there staring at me, get on with your scouting. And don’t worry, there’ll be three centuries in line behind you as soon as I can get them across, and two full cohorts queuing up behind them. I’ll keep an eye on the Ninth for you.’

Marcus and Qadir shared a quick glance, the Hamian bowing his head slightly to indicate his understanding of his orders. The Roman beckoned to Scarface, who was, as usual, lurking close to his officer.

‘Soldier, gather your tent party and follow me.’

The veteran looked to Qadir, whose brisk nod was part command and part warning, then turned and whispered hoarsely at his comrades.

‘Come on, lads.’

The soldiers picked up their shields and waited for Marcus to lead them off into the trees, taking position to either side of their officer in a tight formation. Dubnus and Arminius exchanged wry smiles at the men’s familiar protective behaviour towards ‘their young gentleman’, falling in behind the small group with their swords drawn. Groping forward quietly into the forest’s bulk, Marcus was struck by how quickly the light filtering down through the trees changed to a washed-out green. He squinted into the forest, frowning with the realisation that it was impossible to look into the wind-rippled foliage for any distance without everything seeming to blend into a blurred green wall that rendered even his sharp eyesight close to useless. As the men beside him paced slowly into the trees, the Tungrians taking their lead from the two experienced Hamian hunters among their number, he turned back to speak with Dubnus. His friend raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and Marcus leaned close to whisper in his ear.

‘How do you manage to see anything in this?’

Dubnus nodded, muttering his reply in a tone so soft that it was almost lost in the wind’s steadily increasing moan through the tree tops.

‘Don’t try to focus on any part of the forest, just look at the whole thing.’ Marcus frowned at the advice, and Arminius leaned in to speak with an amused look.

‘It takes a hunter years to perfect this, my friend, and here you are trying to master it in the space of a two-hundred-pace stroll. Trust your Hamians; they are masters at seeing the slightest movement in places like this.’

The Roman shrugged and turned back to his section of the line feeling none the wiser, sensing his friends’ gazes following him. The tent party edged forward pace by pace, heads lifting with increasing frequency to look up at the wind-lashed trees, until one of the men to his right sank into cover with a hand raised. As the soldiers to either side followed his example in a ripple of hissed warnings Marcus went forward quickly, a hand on the hilt of his spatha, and knelt alongside the Hamian.

‘What did you see?’

‘It is their camp, Centurion.’

Raising his head a fraction, the Roman looked over the bushes and found himself staring into an encampment constructed in a large circular clearing fully a hundred paces across. A curved row of crudely constructed wooden huts stretched around the clearing, and thin lines of smoke were rising from several recently extinguished fires. Frowning, he turned his head slowly in a futile attempt to find any trace of the bandits’ presence.

‘Nothing?’

Marcus turned his head slightly, keeping his eyes fixed on the clearing

‘Nothing. But they were here recently, or the fire wouldn’t be burning. I-’

He stopped in mid-sentence as a single fat snowflake danced past his face, watching as it fell onto the forest’s floor and disappeared in an instant, melting away as if it had never existed. Looking up, the two men watched as a curtain of snow descended from the treetops high above them, its sudden onslaught all the more shocking for the bitterness of the wave of freezing air that washed over them at the same moment. Scarface turned a bemused gaze upwards, shaking his head.

‘Here it fucking comes.’ He raised an eyebrow at Marcus, tugging his cloak tighter about him. ‘What now, Centurion?’

The Roman stared up into the descending snow, momentarily uncertain as to the right thing to do. He turned back to Dubnus, seeing his own uncertainty written across his friend’s face.

‘We could retreat to the bridge.’ He paused and shook his head, imagining the first spear’s reaction to a retreat in the face of a snow shower. ‘No, we’ll go forward, slowly and carefully, and for the time being we’ll ignore the snow. It may be no more than a temporary inconvenience.’

Scarface nodded with pursed lips and turned back to his men, waving them forward with another whispered command.

‘Come on now, lads, nice and easy. An’ keep your fucking eyes peeled!’

The young centurion stepped through the tent party’s line and was the first to break cover from the forest’s edge, the patterned spatha drawn and ready in his right hand, the weight and feel of its carved hilt comforting in his moment of uncertainty. The snow was falling more thickly than before, and the clearing’s far side was already almost invisible behind a barely opaque white curtain that seemed to descend with the weight and speed of rain. The ground beneath their feet was covered in a thin layer of crisp white flakes that yielded a hobnailed boot print when a man lifted his foot, and with a sinking feeling Marcus realised that the snowfall wasn’t likely to stop any time soon. Turning back he found Dubnus behind him, his head shaking and his face set against the snow being blown into it by the storm’s intermittent gusts. His friend had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind’s howl, but the look he gave Marcus was eloquent.

‘We’ll have to turn back. This isn’t a quick squall; it’s a full blizzard, a freezing storm!’

‘But the bandits…’

Dubnus shook his head, pointing at the clearing’s far side, now entirely lost to sight in the blizzard’s shifting white wall.

‘They’re gone. Either they had a warning or they might just have pulled out when the storm started getting close. Either way you need to pull your men back, Marcus; this is only going to get worse. We need to get back to the-’

Something moving behind the wall of snow in front of them caught his attention, and as he squinted into the white murk a flight of arrows hissed out of the barely visible trees. One of the soldiers fell to his knees with blood pouring from his throat, his hands scrabbling at the arrow that had transfixed his neck, then pitched full length in a dark, spreading pool. Sanga, the soldier closest to Marcus of all the tent party, had the presence of mind to step in close and hold his shield across both their bodies with just enough speed to defend him against the second volley, and the Roman watched as a pair of iron heads slammed into the layered board with enough force for their points to protrude through the wood by a finger’s thickness. The soldier looked round at him with a shocked expression, then dropped the shield and slowly went down on one knee with a grunt of pain, another arrow protruding from his leg just above the knee. Marcus’s eyes narrowed as he reckoned the odds.

‘Dubnus! Get them out of here!’

He grabbed Sanga’s arrow-studded shield from the ground where the soldier had dropped it and sprinted forward across the clearing, weaving from left to right with missiles flicking past him to either side, protected from the archers by the thick, shifting curtains of snow. Without warning a figure holding a bow appeared from the storm in front of him, revealed by a sudden gust that whipped away the snow’s white curtain, and without pausing in his rush Marcus hammered the shield’s battered brass boss into the bandit’s face, hearing the crackle of breaking bones over the storm’s demonic scream. Spinning away from the felled archer he saw a line of bowmen to his left, still unaware of his presence as they loosed another volley of arrows into the snow’s murk. Dropping the shield, knowing it would be more hindrance than help at such close quarters, he drew his gladius and ran at the bowmen through the trees. Raising the spatha in readiness to strike, he was upon the closest of them as the archer fumbled with numb fingers to nock another arrow, only realising he was under attack as the Roman tore his throat out with a thrust of the long blade.

The man beyond him dropped his bow, his attention caught by his comrade’s choking death throes, drawing a sword and reaching for the small shield at his feet as his attacker lunged in without breaking step. Marcus raised the spatha horizontally across his body to hack at the raised shield with a backhand blow, smashing it aside and ignoring the small blade’s ineffectual rasping slither across the surface of his mail, gambling that the weapon’s point would not snag one of the shirt’s rings and rip through its protection, then rammed his gladius up into the bandit’s chest to stop his heart. The dead man’s corpse sagged into his arms with a gasp of expelled breath, and Marcus held him there, ignoring the hot blood running down to splash across his boots, and staring over his victim’s shoulder as the archers arrayed behind the man loosed their arrows into their comrade in the hope of killing their attacker. Three times the dead man’s body shivered with the impact of their iron heads, and Marcus felt three hard taps against his armoured body as the points tore through the dead man’s body and spent their remaining power against his mail’s rings.

He shoved the corpse away from him to his left and sprang away to the right again, counting on a moment of indecision before the remaining archers realised which of them would be next. Ducking round a tree he ran past the first man, chopping a deep wound into his thigh with the gladius and leaving him staggering in howling agony, then he charged on to his next target, dodging one last, panicked bowshot and lowering his shoulder to charge the archer, punching the air out of him. Spinning away from the winded man he threw the gladius at the last of them, forcing him to duck away from the blade’s tumbling flicker of polished iron and giving Marcus time to sprint the last few paces and hack the longer blade across the man’s exposed neck. The patterned sword’s lethal edge slid through flesh and bone as if he were cutting smoke, and the archer’s head spun away to land on the snow-covered ground while his body slumped away like an unstringed puppet, blood pumping from the severed artery. Spinning back, Marcus put the blade’s point to the winded man’s throat, gesturing for him to drop the bow hanging uselessly from his right hand. The bandit obeyed without hesitation, compelled by his captor’s wild stare, and he eased away into the snow’s protection with his hands raised from the knife at his belt.

Marcus turned round and found his gladius, dropping it back into its scabbard.

‘ Marcus! ’

The shout sounded distant, muffled by the snow, and he realised with a sinking feeling that he had run too far and too quickly to be sure in which direction he should look to find his men. As he opened his mouth to call out a reply a handful of men stepped forward from out of the falling snow, each of them carrying a standard-issue auxiliary shield and hefting a long spear, the points all aimed squarely at him. As he stood, balanced on the balls of his feet and ready to attack, no matter what the odds, a voice spoke from behind him, and he spun round to see another figure materialise out of the swirling flakes of ice, with more spearmen standing at his sides. The snowflakes falling past the polished metal of his face mask were so thick that they made the shining metal appear as white as the blizzard itself, and as Marcus stared at the apparition before him the man behind the mask spoke.

‘Put up your sword, Centurion, and we’ll let you live. I need a messenger to carry my words back to Tungrorum, and you’ll suit my purpose just as long as you kill no more of my men. Or we could just spear you here and now, and leave you for the storm, an offering to appease Arduenna’s wrath at your invasion of her sacred ground.’ Marcus stared at him for a moment longer before holding his arms out, the sword dangling limply from his open hand. As the spearmen stepped forward to disarm him he heard his name called again, the sound even fainter than before although whether this was due to distance or the sheer volume of snow falling into the forest, he could not tell. ‘Wise, Centurion, very wise. You shall be my guest for the night, until the goddess’s anger abates, and this snow stops falling. Bring him.’

A pair of spears prodded him firmly in the back, their points jabbing at him through his mail’s thin rings, and Marcus knew that he was without choice or alternatives. He was a prisoner of Obduro.