The Wolf's gold

3

Julius was busy describing the many and varied faults of the day’s gate sentries to them in the most graphic and violent terms possible when the message from Annia reached him. He had already left the two tent parties in question in no doubt whatsoever that another such failure in their duties would result in significant loss of pay, not to mention a certain flogging.

‘And no, the fact that the boy came back safe doesn’t make it any fucking better, because he shouldn’t ever have been able to fucking well leave unnoticed, and nor should the other lad have got into the fucking camp in the first fucking place!’ He took the message tablet that was being held out to him by a visibly wilting soldier from his own First Century, and scanned the contents before turning back to the waiting man with a wave of dismissal. ‘Tell the lady I’ll be there shortly. And fetch enough of the evening meal for six people. If it’s not at the doctor’s tent when I get there you can join this lot on punishment duty and get your spade dirty cleaning out the latrines.’

The soldier swivelled on his heel and ran, having been on the butt end of his first spear’s evil temper more than once, while Julius turned his attention to the nearest of the current gate sentries, his sharp eyes quickly finding a pair of men clearly struggling to restrain their mirth at their comrades’ predicament. Raising his voice to a parade-ground roar, he bellowed at them loudly enough for half the camp to hear.

‘And I don’t know what you two are laughing at, because according to that message the other lad got back into the camp with our boy just now, and once again not one of you stupid bastards noticed! I want the entire guard paraded in front of my tent when you come off duty, no exceptions!’

He was delighted to discover that by happy coincidence the night guard’s duty centurion was Otho, the most foul tempered of his officers, who had long since been christened ‘Knuckles’ by soldiers and centurions alike for his pugilistic tendencies. In a short and vigorous discussion he suggested that the veteran officer might do well to sharpen up the camp’s guards, using both tone and language he judged were sufficiently terse to result in a rich crop of black eyes and fat lips. Still shaking his head in angry disbelief at his men’s failure to detect two children sneaking around the camp in broad daylight, he stamped off to the doctor’s tent where, the tablet written by Annia had informed him, he was invited to dine as long as he provided the evening meal. Poised to walk through the tent’s doorway, he was met by the lady in question who put her hand on his chest and pushed him firmly away from the opening. Her look was enough to make him hold his tongue long enough for his woman to put her face close to his, her features set in the expression that he’d come to understand signified that she meant business. Her whispered warning was delivered in what he’d taken to describing as her ‘command voice’, when he was sure that she wasn’t listening.

‘I knew you were coming this way because I could hear you beasting anyone that crossed your path! We’ve a guest, Julius, and if you barge in shouting the odds about the “fucking sentries” in your usual manner he’ll be out and away before you’ve stopped to draw breath. I’m not sure exactly what happened to the boy, but what little I do know is that some soldiers tore his life apart, as a result of which he’s terrified of a uniform — any uniform — especially one filled by a self-important centurion with the temper of a prize bull who’s been shut away from the cows for too long.’

Julius watched in disgust over her shoulder as the soldier tasked with fetching the party’s dinner took grateful advantage of his first spear’s unplanned delay by hurrying into the tent with a large pot, presumably filled with whatever the man had been able to beg, borrow and in all likelihood steal from his fellow soldiers. He opened his mouth to protest, only to find a hard finger pressed against it. ‘So if you want to be warming your feet in anything better than your cloak tonight, then you’ll put a smile on that big ugly face and follow me into the tent as if the lad’s presence is the best thing that’s happened to you all day. Won’t you?’

Opening his mouth to agree with alacrity, given that he’d learned from grim experience not to take the lady’s favours for granted, he found himself not only silenced but utterly amazed by her parting comment as she turned back to the tent.

‘And besides, it’s about time we found out just how good a father you’re going to make, isn’t it?’

‘Whatever it was she told him, he went as white as a legionary’s arse, according to the soldier he sent to run for his dinner. And when the evening guard reported for a kicking as ordered, rather than ripping them all a new one he just sent them away with no more than a warning not to let it happen again. My mate in the Seventh Century said that the poor bastard looked as if he’d been smacked with an axe handle. And now look at him. .’

Morban and Arminius turned as one man to look at Julius as the first spear strode down the line of the Fifth Century’s tents, his expression that of a man with a deep preoccupation. The standard bearer raised a knowing eyebrow at his companion.

‘I’ve closed the book on whether she’s with child or not, and I’m offering two to three on a boy, evens on a girl. Let’s see if we can get some confirmation, eh?’

He snapped off an improbably precise salute, which Julius ignored other than casting a brief sardonic glance at the standard bearer.

‘Good morning, First Spear, sir!’ Julius’s lack of reaction to his artificially breezy greeting only provoked Morban to continue his salutation. ‘It’s a beautiful clear day, sir, perhaps we’ll get that wall. .’

He fell silent as the first spear stopped in his tracks, turned his head to stare expressionlessly at him, then rotated his body and stepped forward to put his nose only inches from Morban’s face. When he spoke his voice was a low growl.

‘Good morning, Standard Bearer. Yes, it is indeed a good day for building a wall, and yes, we will indeed be completing the initial construction today. As to any questions you may have for me, I’d suggest that this is one of those times when discretion would most definitely be the better part of bravery. Whisper your gossip and lay your odds all you like, but don’t be expecting me to provide you with any encouragement. Now get on fucking parade.’

Julius turned away from the standard bearer, who pursed his lips in silent comment but otherwise sensibly kept his mouth firmly closed. The first spear turned back to Arminius.

‘Centurion Corvus?’

The German pointed down the line of tents to where the medical wagon stood beside Felicia’s hospital tent.

‘Is with his wife, saying his farewells.’

Julius found his colleague sitting on a wooden chest with his baby son cradled in his lap while Felicia fussed around him.

‘Are you ready?’

Marcus nodded, standing and handing Appius to his wife, kissing her gently before turning to follow the first spear from the tent. They walked down to the section of the camp where the cohort’s cavalry detachment had taken up residence, finding five horsemen standing by their mounts, ready to ride, with Marcus’s captured mare in their midst. Julius nodded in return to their leader’s salute and to the tracker Arabus who seemed to have been drafted into the party.

‘Morning, Silus. Have you worked out how you’re going to carry out the tribune’s orders?’

The grizzled decurion pointed to a rough map sketched in the earth before them.

‘According to the miners there’s only one road down which an invader would be likely to make his approach to the mine. The same track we marched up runs on past the end of this valley and away to the north, eventually joining up with another valley, which contains a stream that the locals call the Gold River, aptly enough, which in turn feeds the Marisus, deep in hostile territory. If you were aiming to lead a warband out of the plains and bring them here, then I doubt you could do very much better than to lead them up the banks of the Marisus, turn up the Gold and follow it all the way up its valley. That many men will need a lot of water, and the stream will also provide reliable navigation. I plan to ride down the Gold’s banks, with the centurion’s scout here to look for any tracks they might have left, and if we find nothing of note then I’ll set up a watch post on the valley side and wait to see what turns up. When it’s evident that they’ve arrived we’ll ride back and warn you. Just make sure you leave us a way back inside the wall, eh?’

Julius nodded grimly.

‘You’d best be careful not to outstay your welcome once the barbarians make their appearance. I’d rather find out they’ve arrived some other way than watching your heads bobbing about on spears.’

Silus turned away, jumping into his mount’s saddle.

‘Don’t worry about us, we’ll give the unwashed hordes the appropriate measure of respect. You’ll have plenty to keep you busy, I expect, what with finishing off the defences and choosing a name for the impending arrival?’

Julius nodded without any change in his expression.

‘Indeed. I was discussing that very subject with the baby’s mother-to-be last night, and the two of us were pretty much agreed to call the baby after you. .’ He waited for a moment, allowing the idea to sink in and then, before Silus could muster any reply, shook his head sadly. ‘Until Annia pointed out that any child called “Nosey Arsehole” was going to be at a disadvantage in life.’

Silus threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

‘Harsh but fair, First Spear, harsh but fair. Come along then, Centurion Two Knives, let’s get you mounted and be on our way. I want to be tucked up in our hiding place before the sun gets too high. And since the subject of our first spear’s impending arrival is clearly forbidden, we’ll work out what to call that greedy little mare of yours instead.’

The assembled centurions of the two Tungrian cohorts snapped to attention as Julius stalked into the morning officers’ meeting. Some of them stared fixedly at the hills behind him, not daring to meet his eyes, while others, men that had known him longer and in one or two cases had previously outranked him, met his stare with hard, impassive eyes.

‘Gentlemen, the rumour’s all over the camp so let’s lay it to rest. Yes, I am going to be a father. At some point in the future when we’re all staggering drunk in celebration of beating off the barbarians and toasting those of us that don’t survive the experience, you’re all welcome to take the piss as much as you like, as long as you don’t mind having your many and varied shortcomings exposed in return. For now though’ — he looked around at his officers, taking stock of their grim, bearded faces — ‘I couldn’t give a shit about any of that. We have one objective today, to get that wall built high enough and strong enough to resist a determined attack by thousands of gold-crazed barbarians. The tribune is away making sure that the legion centuries on the slopes to either side of the wall will have their defences in place, but we all know that if they’re going to come at us it has to be straight up the valley. Yes, they’ll send patrols round the flanks but they’ll get no joy there. It will all come down to a straight fight to get over the wall, and as far as I’m concerned, we have to have it ready to defend by the time darkness falls tonight.’

He looked around at his officers with a hard stare.

‘So it’s time to stop the soft treatment. We need those miners working like animals today, not taking this as an opportunity to get some sunshine on their backs, so here’s a direct instruction for all of you. The first man you see slacking off, soldier or miner, you take your vine stick to him and you make it clear to all of them that the next one will be getting a tickle from this. .’ He held up the whip, allowing its braided leather straps to hang free. ‘And if you have to, then you send the next man you have to pull up to me. I’ll be setting up a whipping post by the main gate so that anyone who gets to ride it does so in full view of the rest. Now get to it, and don’t let me down.’

The scouting detachment rode down the road beyond the rapidly growing wall at a swift trot, each man keeping watch in a different direction as a defence against the potential for roaming Sarmatae scouts to surprise them from the dense forest around them. At the Ravenstone valley’s end they turned north, rejoining the path up the road that the cohorts had left to reach the mine complex. Two hours’ riding saw them over the ridge at this valley’s far end and taking their lunch in the shelter of a sparse copse of straggling trees, whose trunks and branches had been twisted and bent to the east over long years of exposure to the wind. Silus sat chewing his bread with his coarse wool cloak wrapped tightly about his body, looking down the valley’s length with professional interest.

‘Not so different from the mountains to the north of the Wall in Britannia, is it? We could almost be hunting down Calgus and his bluenoses, rather than riding out for a game of cat and mouse with these Sarmatae. Now, as to this horse of yours. .’

Marcus leant back and rubbed the mare’s neck affectionately, provoking an immediate nudge in his back from the animal’s snout.

‘It seems to me that the giving of names can bring bad luck, if poor old Bonehead is any indication. It might be better to leave her as she is, safely anonymous.’

The decurion snorted derisively.

‘That’s all very well for you, when you’ll only be getting onto her every now and then, but we’ll have to feed and exercise her every day. What am I supposed to do, tell my men “go and feed the mare”? I can just imagine the confusion. No, if you won’t name her then we will. What do you think lads?’

One of the riders spoke up from behind them.

‘She tried to bite me this morning, the crafty bitch. What about Nipper?’

Silus nodded.

‘Nipper. I like the sound of that. There you go, Centurion, problem solved. We’ll just. .’ He turned back to the view down the valley, his eyes narrowing. ‘Nobody move.’

Holding himself stock-still, Marcus swivelled his head slowly to look at whatever it was that had caught the decurion’s attention. A mile or so down the valley’s length, at the point where the river far below them swung in a tight horseshoe to the north, a party of horsemen had come into view. Silus grimaced at the sight, shaking his head.

‘At least fifty of them. There’s no way we can fight them, and if we try to run there’s a good chance they’ll chase us down before we can get clear. I reckon the best we can do is keep our heads down and let them pass us by. Get down behind the trees, slowly and smoothly, and keep your mouths shut. With a bit of luck they’ll stick to the river and give us a nice wide berth.’

The soldiers watched as the enemy scouts made their way down the valley floor at a careful pace, the riders looking about them suspiciously.

‘They’re ready for trouble, almost as if they know we’re hereabouts.’

Silus nodded at Marcus’s whispered comment.

‘They know we’ve taken occupation of the valley alright. You can be sure that the scouts whose tracks the centurion here found yesterday will have made a careful count of our numbers as we marched in, and they’ll have noted that we had hardly any cavalry. That’s why this lot have been sent forward in enough strength to deal with any riders that we might have out looking for them. It was as well that we were snuggled down here behind these trees.’

‘And once they’re past us?’

‘The decurion smiled tightly at Marcus’s question.

‘Once they’re past us, Centurion, that’s when the fun starts.’

The Tungrian scouts sat in silence as the enemy party rode slowly down the valley, watching from the scanty shelter of the copse as the Sarmatae picked over the valley floor, clearly looking for any signs of Roman cavalry activity. Silus shook his head in professional exasperation, staring down at the riders in their apparently listless examination of the ground to either side of the river.

‘Whoever’s in command down there must have a head that’s all skull. I’d have spaced them across the valley and swept every last inch, not just ridden up the riverbank.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose we should be grateful, but I hate to see a job done badly.’

They waited until the enemy scouts had ridden out of sight around the shoulder of the hill on which the Tungrians were perched, and Silus got slowly to his feet.

‘We can expect the main body to come down the river behind them soon enough, so it’s time to be on our way just in case they double back and put us between the hammer and the anvil. You three, you’re to ride south over the hill and through the forest until you find a clear path back to the Ravenstone. Warn Julius he’s got the rest of today to get that wall raised at the very best. If you spot the Sarmatae again then you go to ground and wait for them to piss off unless they’ve seen you, in which case you ride like madmen for the mine and the best of luck to you. The rest of us are going to find somewhere a bit less exposed to watch from.’

The three men mounted up and rode down into the valley at a fast trot, Silus anxiously craning his neck to look to the east for the riders who had already passed them, but his men forded the shallow river and ascended the far side without any sign of the advance party.

‘This ought to do nicely.’

They led the horses deeper into the forest that crowned the hill, leaving Arabus to guard them while Marcus and Silus watched the valley from the cover of the trees. After an hour or so the first riders of the Sarmatae vanguard trotted past their hiding place, some of them close enough for Marcus to see their faces. Silus watched them with a professional scrutiny, muttering quietly in the Roman’s ear.

‘At least this lot are doing their jobs properly, although I’d have been tempted to comb these woods as well as the valley’s slopes. And by the gods, there’s some stunning horseflesh out there. Watch what they do when they reach the end of the valley.’

As the two men watched from their shelter the riders turned south toward the Ravenstone, some two thousand strong beneath blood-red banners decorated with white swords which danced prettily on the breeze. Silus nodded to himself.

‘If we ever doubted that they would be heading for the mine, there’s the proof. At that pace they’ll reach the wall well before darkness. Let’s hope that Julius has managed to build it too tall for a horseman to jump, because that many pigstickers would make a nasty mess of the defenders if they were to get behind it.’

‘A blood-red flag decorated with a white sword? That will be Boraz, he goes to war under just such a flag.’ Cattanius looked around the officers gathered on the wall with a faint smile. ‘And I think that we can be grateful that our intelligence was correct. As you can see, Boraz is very much the junior partner in terms of the size of his warband.’

While the tribunes and their first spears stood and watched the barbarian outriders move cautiously up the valley, their men were still labouring around them, the soldiers catching turfs and laying them along the top of the rampart to form the five-foot-high parapet, behind which the defending troops would be protected from enemy spears and arrows. Julius looked out at the oncoming mass of horsemen with a long stare of appraisal.

‘If that’s the size of their advance guard then I’d say it’s of little matter to me which of your two kings has come to play. Either way we’re all dead men, if this wall fails to stop them getting among us.’ He looked about him with a grim smile. ‘Mind you, their arrival seems to have put a little more urgency into the construction.’ Where the mine workers had previously been working hard enough to avoid the ever present threat of a flogging for anyone caught slacking, their efforts had redoubled at the sight of the barbarian cavalry making their way up the valley. ‘Let’s not tell them that the wall’s already high enough to deter that lot, eh? I quite like them putting the extra effort in.’

The officers watched as the Sarmatae vanguard rode cautiously up the valley, until they were no more than fifty paces beyond the best distance that an archer atop the wall’s fighting platform could hope to coax from his bow. A single rider came on, the tail of a scarlet banner trailing over his shoulder. Reining his horse in a few paces from the wall’s foot, he sat in silence for a moment and looked up and down the rampart with an amused smile before calling out to them.

‘How very Roman.’ His voice carried to the officers easily enough in the afternoon’s calm, the confident tones of nobility obvious to the listening Julius. ‘You hide behind your walls without any regard for the cowardice you display. Far better to meet an enemy on the field of battle, sword to sword, than to disgrace yourselves like this. .’ He waved an expressive hand at the wall, shaking his head in apparent sadness. ‘When you go to meet your ancestors they will ask you whether you died like men, and all you will be able to say is that you built a tall, strong wall and then hid behind it with your knees knocking together.’

Scaurus looked down at him dispassionately.

‘Possibly, but I won’t be talking with my grandfather any time soon, whereas you my friend have already booked a place at the table with yours tonight, unless you get to whatever point it was you came to make and then shift your arrogant barbarian backside out of the range of my bowmen.’

The horseman nodded up at Scaurus.

‘As you wish. I am Galatas, son of King Asander Boraz and commander of his horsemen. My father has sent me before him in order to offer you a most generous gift. You will be permitted to depart this place with your lives, and with your weapons and armour, if you will quit your defences tomorrow at dawn. My father is willing to allow you this magnificent gift of mercy if you will swear to withdraw from this part of your province, and promise never to return.’

Scaurus looked down at the horseman for a moment before speaking, shaking his head gently from side to side.

‘A generous offer indeed, and I must ask you to thank your noble father for his magnanimity. I am forced, however, to refuse this“ gift of mercy”. It seems to me that while we would be leaving this place with our lives and our equipment intact, our honour and dignity would be left here shredded beyond any repair. I’m sure that your father, man of honour that he undoubtedly is, will understand my reluctance to accede to his request.’

Galatas smiled darkly back up at the Roman.

‘This is both as I expected and hoped. It is a mark of pride for our people that no man can truly consider himself a warrior until he has taken the head of one enemy soldier, and has the dead man’s helmet to bear witness to his conquest. Your crested helmet will look fine on the wall of my great hall when I succeed my father. Perhaps I will cut off your ears before I kill you, to nail up alongside it?’

Scaurus pulled the highly polished helmet from his head, deliberately tilting it to send bright reflections flickering at the Sarmatae noble.

‘This old thing? This helmet has been in my family since long before your great-grandfather was pissing in his napkin, and not one of the seven generations that have worn it have ever brought shame upon it. By all means come and find me, Galatas son of Asander, and I will spare a moment to demonstrate to you why it is unwise to promise to do a thing so patently beyond your capabilities. Now be off with you. If you are still within bowshot after a count of thirty, I will have these archers turn you into a pin cushion.’

They watched as the Sarmatae prince rode away.

‘So, now that they’re here and likely to set up camp just over there, I suppose we really ought to get a couple of centuries of the Thracians up here to keep an eye on them. It’s all very well threatening a man with bowmen, but it’s probably a little empty as a gesture unless there are actually bows in the wall. First Spear, I suggest that it would be sensible to send a runner to their prefect and ask him to send some men down here with plenty of spare arrows. I’d better go and wake up my esteemed colleague to the fact that the war seems to have come and found us.’

Marcus and Silus watched in silence as the main body of the Sarmatae host marched down the valley past their hiding place, waiting until the barbarian infantry and the body of horsemen at their rear had all passed before risking even the most cautious of discussion.

‘Perhaps four thousand foot soldiers, and another four thousand or so horse to add to the two thousand that passed us earlier.Cattle too, perhaps two hundred oxen, and did you see the slaves they were driving along in the middle of all that infantry?’

Marcus nodded, his face dark with anger.

‘Yes. And I also noticed that a good number of them looked Roman. And they were not all men.’

Silus shrugged.

‘There will always be some fools who put the pursuit of profit over common sense. Doubtless when the last emperor declared the Sarmatae pacified there were a fair few idiots who made tracks across the border in search of trading profits. Mind you, why a man would be stupid enough take his woman and children into that sort of risk is beyond me.’

Marcus looked down the valley at the barbarian host’s rear.

‘We’ll have our work cut out if that many men come at us together.’

Silus smiled knowingly.

‘But they won’t, will they? You found the tracks of scouts around the Saddle on the Ravenstone’s northern side, so it’s a fair bet that he’ll send a party of men up there to make a flank attack behind the wall. Not too many, mind you, or we’ll know there’s something going on just from the lack of numbers in front of the defences, but if a couple of thousand foot soldiers were to come down that north slope behind us it’d be about over. They’ll come at us from two directions at once, I reckon, and depend on us having to split our strength to cope with both attacks. Come on. .’

He led the Roman back into the trees, and they remounted their horses and rode cautiously after the Sarmatae, allowing Arabus to lead and interpret the tracks left by the enemy host.

‘These men are travelling heavily laden.’ The scout pointed to the bootprints left in the soft ground by the passing foot soldiers, comparing them with one of his own deliberately laid alongside. ‘The print is deeper than mine. And see. .’ — he bent and picked an ear of corn from the mud — ‘they are carrying sacks of grain. It seems that they have come prepared to besiege the valley, if an outright victory is not gained at once.’

They followed the tracks as they turned south towards the Ravenstone valley, and after a mile or so Arabus stopped, pointing to the ground before them.

‘The warband has split. Most of the men, and all of the horses, carried on down this way towards the entrance to the Ravenstone valley. But here’ — he pointed to their left, up a narrow defile almost hidden by trees — ‘a large party of warriors on foot has turned off the main route. They are marching for the Saddle, I expect. It will take them hours to reach it since the path into the hills will be difficult, but they will have scouted it well enough to be sure of reaching it before darkness falls. Either tonight or tomorrow at dawn they will attempt an attack on the valley by that route.’

Marcus nodded, staring up into the hills.

‘And they may well succeed, unless we can bring this news to the tribune.’

‘Whether this Boraz is a junior partner in this war or not, it seems that our defences are ready just in time to confront the barbarians with something a little more difficult than what they may have been expecting. Our scouts estimate six thousand horsemen and perhaps three or four thousand foot soldiers from their dependent peoples.’ Tribune Belletor looked at the assembled officers for a moment before continuing. ‘We expect them to make a serious attempt at getting over or around our wall soon after dawn, so I want every available man either on the wall or behind it, and ready to fight from first light. Yes, Tribune Sigilis?’

The youngest of the senior officers stepped forward, pointing at the map with one finger to indicate the long ridge that ran along the valley’s northern side.

‘Sir, it seems from Centurion Corvus’s scouting report as if the enemy plan to attempt a flanking attack from the north.’

Marcus and his companions had made their way into the valley over the Saddle just before dark, having used game paths scouted out by Arabus to lead their horses around the Sarmatae warriors they had tracked up the side valley. Picking their way carefully through the traps laid out across the flat ground earlier that day by the Tungrian pioneers, they had descended wearily into the valley as darkness fell. Their arrival had resulted in a combination of relief that they were safe and consternation at their news, and Sigilis had swiftly agreed to go through with Scaurus’s suggestion that he attempt to influence Belletor into defending their Ravenstone’s obvious weak point. He indicated a spot on the map of the valley, putting a finger on the Saddle’s location.

‘I must admit that I had anticipated such a move, given the centurion’s report of the open ground up there, and so I suggested to our colleague Rutilius Scaurus that he might get his pioneers to give the ground up there a bit of attention, in anticipation of a fight for that particular piece of high ground. .’

Scaurus stepped forward with his face carefully composed.

‘Which I was happy to do, given the wisdom I saw reflected in the suggestion. Although as we all know, to a determined enemy an undefended obstacle is no obstacle at all. It might be wise to detach a part of our strength to watch this potential point of attack — perhaps five centuries from my First Cohort and three centuries of the Thracian archers? Indeed further to that, colleague, I think that the command of such a critical part of the valley’s defence is a job for a senior officer, and so I suggest that Tribune Sigilis might be given an independent command in this instance? Perhaps Centurion Corvus here might act as his second in command, and assist him in the control of unfamiliar soldiers?’

Sigilis looked to Belletor in question, and after a moment the tribune nodded graciously to Scaurus, who saluted gravely before turning to the younger man.

‘Thank you, colleague. Tribune Sigilis, I hereby detach half of the First Tungrian Cohort to your command, with Centurion Corvus to assist you. Use them wisely, Tribune, I’d like them back in good condition when you’re done with them. You are to organise the movement of the required forces this evening, and put your men in place before nightfall. I’d expect the attack to come at first light, but we’ve no way to know this Boraz’s intended schedule, so let’s not run the risk of the show starting before your men are in place. On your way, gentlemen. Now, as to the rest of the defence, if I might make a suggestion. .’

Marcus and Sigilis slipped out of the briefing through ranks of centurions, intent on Scaurus’s instructions as to how the battle would be fought the next day. Outside the command building the young tribune held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, shaking his head at the quizzical look he received in return.

‘We both know why Gaius Rutilius Scaurus put you under me for this task, Centurion, so let’s not be under any illusions. You know because you’re experienced enough to know how these things need to be done, and I know because he took me to one side and told me so, slowly and clearly and without any room for doubt. You’re the experienced soldier and I’m a neophyte, and if anyone’s going to get hundreds of soldiers up on that hillside and ready to fight it’s going to be you, not me. So just to be really clear, I’m intending to watch and learn, and most of all not to get in your way over the next few hours.’

Marcus nodded.

‘In that case, Tribune, I suggest we both go and fetch our thickest cloaks and an extra pair of socks, because it’s going to be bitterly cold up there once the sun’s gone down. And be sure to bring your most important piece of equipment.’

Sigilis nodded earnestly.

‘I will. And that would be?’

‘Your spoon, Tribune.’

Scaurus returned to his quarters to find Theodora waiting for him outside the tent, her face reflecting the anxiety she was clearly feeling. He bowed formally, raising an eyebrow in question.

‘I trust you’re well, madam? You’ll have to excuse my rather fleeting attention, but I have rather a lot on my mind at this point in time.’

She smiled warmly at him, stepping close in a wave of perfume and taking his hands in hers, staring up into his eyes.

‘Do forgive me, Tribune, I have no desire to waste your time. I just wanted to tell you that we’re all very grateful that you’re here to defend us from the barbarians. I believe their attack is expected in a matter of hours?’

The tribune put a ressuring hand on her arm.

‘It seems that nothing escapes your vigilance, Theodora. But you can rest assured that we’ve completed the valley’s defences to my satisfaction. Nobody’s going to get inside this facility without a good deal more strength than I believe this man Boraz can muster.’

‘But I saw men climbing the northern side of the valley?’

‘A precaution, nothing more.’ He bowed again. ‘And now I must beg for your forgiveness. If you’ll excuse me?’

She released his hands, trailing her fingertips across his palms.

‘On the contrary, Tribune, you must forgive me for keeping you from your duty. I wish you the best of luck.’

He smiled wistfully at her back as she swept away down the line of tents, then ducked inside his own with a call to his bodyguard.

‘Arminius? Where is that blasted-’ Realising that the big German’s blanket was missing from its usual resting place at the bottom of his bed where the bodyguard routinely slept, he nodded his head in belated realisation of where he was likely to be. ‘I hope you dressed warmly, old friend. .’

‘Don’t be put off by Arminius’s forbidding exterior; he’s the most amenable of men once you get to know him properly.’ Marcus popped a chunk of pork into his mouth, blowing steam out into the night air as he gingerly chewed at the hot mouthful. ‘I was lucky enough to be in the right place to save him from harm a year or so ago, and he still won’t allow me anywhere near unfriendly men without looming over my shoulder like a particularly unaccommodating doorman.’

Sigilis laughed through his own mouthful, and earned a raised eyebrow from the German.

‘Don’t worry, I’m very much used to intimidating barbarians. My father has half a dozen house slaves who were taken during the German Wars. He used them to accompany the female members of the family out in the city, depending on their fearsome looks to keep the ladies safe from robbers and charlatans. Mind you,’ — he looked over at Arminius with a calculating glance — ‘there’s none of them quite the match of your friend here. What do you feed him on?’

‘Tribunes.’

Marcus shook his head at the German’s retort.

‘Rutilius Scaurus has been trying to cure him of the habit of answering back to his superiors for as long as he’s owned the man, but to no avail. And since he won’t let me go anywhere the slightest bit risky without the pleasure of his company, I’ve found it best to tolerate his occasional flashes of wit, rather than rising to them. Though why he still feels the need to stay so close when Lugos here is getting on for twice his size is a bit of a puzzle.’

The massively built Briton grinned at Arminius across the fire, earning a snort of derision in return.

‘When that monstrosity can best me with a sword — with a sword mind you, Lugos, not that bloody great hammer — then you’re all his. Until then I’ll do what I’m sworn to, and hope that young Lupus will make a good enough swordsman to replace me at your side before my master is ordered to a different command.’ He gave Sigilis a dirty look. ‘Or to put it another way, until your friend Belletor decides he’s had enough of being made to look like a fool.’

Marcus and Sigilis exchanged glances. The well-known fact of the young tribune being the obvious choice to succeed Scaurus in the event of his provoking Belletor one time too many had been hanging over their conversation all evening. Sigilis sighed and put down his bowl, looking about him at the cooking fires that studded the hill’s northern slope, then leaned forward and looked first Arminius and then Marcus in the eyes.

‘I wouldn’t do it, you know.’ The German’s return stare was hard with disbelief, the Roman’s carefully neutral, and the younger man shook his head in irritation, showing a spark of maturity beyond his years. ‘Don’t patronise me, Centurion! Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’ He pointed at Arminius, his lip curling. ‘See, the truth of it is there in his eyes. I told Domitius Belletor that if he were to try getting rid of our colleague Scaurus I wouldn’t be prepared to take on his cohorts. For one thing I lack the experience, and for another. . well it just wouldn’t sit well with me.’

Marcus raised his eyebrows.

‘And your career? Surely refusing such an opportunity would be an ignominious start to the sequence of offices?’

Sigilis laughed loudly enough to turn heads at the nearest cooking fires.

‘The sequence of offices can be buggered, Centurion. Unlike my father I have no appetite for politics, that’s the whole reason I insisted on being posted to the frontier rather than allowing him to manipulate his contacts and slide me into some carefully purchased position in the empire’s heart. If he’d been doing the choosing I would have ended up in a role that was all kudos and no real responsibility. Besides, it seems that even Roman politics isn’t all that safe a calling at the moment.’

He held Marcus’s stare for a long moment before looking away, with the disquieting air of a man who knew more than he was saying, then took another mouthful of stew. While he was chewing the gristly meat a figure appeared out of the gloom and took a seat next to Marcus, gratefully taking the bowl of food waiting for him and speaking in a softer tone than the young tribune had expected.

‘I have checked all of the scouts. None of them has seen or heard anything to indicate that the enemy is attempting a night approach.’

Marcus put down his empty bowl, swallowing the last of his stew before addressing Sigilis.

‘Tribune, this is my friend Centurion Qadir. He is from Hama in the east, and his men are expert hunters. If they say that we are under no threat then I think we can be assured that the Sarmatae will not attack tonight.’

Arminius stretched, lying down on the grass and making himself comfortable.

‘They will come with the dawn, most likely. Wake me when the sky in the east turns from black to grey.’

The Roman stood up, putting a hand on Qadir’s shoulder to prevent him following suit.

‘You’ve done enough tonight, my friend. Get some sleep, and I’ll wake you in plenty of time to be ready for the fun and games. It’s time for me to do the rounds of the men and make sure that my brother officers understand tomorrow’s plan.’

Sigilis jumped to his feet.

‘I’ll come with you, Centurion.’

They walked away from the fire, Marcus putting out a hand and pulling the tribune’s sleeve.

‘Walk further to the right, Tribune, unless you want to end up with your foot full of holes and faeces. Titus’s men have the endearing habit of emptying their bowels into the stake pits they dig.’

Sigilis was silent for a moment, looking up to contemplate the blaze of stars above them before he spoke again.

‘Centurion, my father told me something a long time ago that I’ve never forgotten, back before the last emperor’s death. He said that all that was necessary for evil to flourish was for the decent men in the empire to be cowed into taking no action when injustices are perpetrated. And then two years ago he repeated that statement in connection with the death of a well-respected senator, a man known for putting his family’s long tradition of service to Rome ahead of his own interests. He told me that this man, whilst held in high regard by his peers and at the height of his powers, had nevertheless been murdered on false charges of treason whose main objective seemed to be the seizure of his considerable fortune. Understandably, given his closeness to this senator, a man with whom he shared much of his political attitudes, he took particular pleasure in the fact that the man’s son had apparently been spirited away to an unknown part of the empire and seemed to have escaped this perversion of justice. It was the talk of the Forum for a while, until it became clear that the son was not going to be found any time soon.’ He looked long and hard at Marcus in the firelight. ‘And now here I stand before an obvious Roman whose background is shrouded in mystery but who seems to me very much alike to that murdered man’s son.’

Marcus shrugged, long prepared for the moment when he might be recognised.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time a man’s been mistaken for another, Tribune, and it’s not as if you’ve much of a physical description to go on. We should turn uphill a little, I suspect we’ll find Otho just about to beat the snot out of one of his-’

Sigilis shook his head, putting a hand on Marcus’s arm as he made to turn away.

‘Hear me out, Centurion. Before I joined the legion my father made a point of making sure that I understood the nature of service to the empire by arranging for me to make a series of visits to military units stationed close to the city. I sailed on a warship out of Misenum, I watched as the Third Augusta paraded in the dust at Lambaesis in Africa, and most interestingly of all, I spent a day at the Praetorian Fortress on the Viminal Hill. I remember the view of the city from the vantage point of the fortress’s walls, I remember the spotless turnout of the soldiers, but most of all, Centurion, I remember the young officer who was given the duty of showing me around the fortress. You were younger then, unscarred by either iron or your fate, but you were very much the man standing before me now. You recognised me the instant you set eyes on me back in Fortress Bonna, of course, I could see it in your eyes even if I didn’t realise what it was that was bothering me about you for a while.’ Marcus stopped walking and turned to the other man with a rebuttal ready, only to see Sigilis shaking his head, his eyes hard in the fire’s red light. ‘Don’t waste your breath denying it, Valerius Aquila, I won’t betray you. There’s been too much murder in Rome of late without adding another name to the list.’

Marcus nodded, his face set in stonelike immobility.

‘So why tell me all this now?’

‘That’s simple. Tomorrow, if your expectation is well founded, we will face thousands of barbarian warriors across this narrow strip of ground, and for me this coming battle is a thing of mystery. It may well find me lacking. It may even kill me. If I fail to speak my mind to you now I may never have the chance to do so again. In which case you will continue to live in ignorance of information that might well be of inestimable value to you if indeed you are, as I believe you to be, Marcus Valerius Aquila.’

Marcus looked up at the stars for a moment before speaking.

‘In truth, I have almost ceased to consider myself by that name. I am Marcus Tribulus Corvus, centurion, husband and father, and nothing more than that. My former life is a grey memory of something I once had, but which is burned and gone for ever. I’ll admit that there are times when I dream of revenge, and I am haunted in my sleep by the ghosts of my family. .’ He shook his head wearily. ‘And yet I also wonder why I should give any more thought to something I cannot change, inflicted upon my family by men whose names I will never know and whose damage can never be reversed? How can one man hope to take on the throne and hope to find anything other than death both for himself and his loved ones?’

Sigilis nodded, his voice taking on a note of urgency.

‘And in your place I expect that I would feel the same uncertainties. But before I left Rome I was party to several discussions between my father and like-minded men of influence, men with the money required to buy the best investigator to be found in the city. He came to our house just once, sliding in through the servants’ entrance with one hand on the handle of his knife, a grey man who seemed happiest merging into the shadows. He told us what he had discovered of your father’s murder, details which, if I were you, would fill me with both despair and hope, and fuel my desire for revenge. And if I die tomorrow with these facts unshared, then your chance to hear what he had to say will be gone for ever.’

Marcus shook his head, looking away into the darkness.

‘I cannot listen to this now.’ He waved an arm at the fires burning along the hill’s slope. ‘You call me Centurion, and in all truth this is my family now. Every one of these men is my responsibility, and if I allow thoughts of murder and revenge to cloud my thinking I will lose my concentration at the time when I need it the most. I appreciate your wanting to help me, but it must wait until a time when I can afford the distraction. And now, Tribune, I suggest we find my brother officer Otho, and find out how many black eyes he’s handed out to his men today.’

The Tungrians and their Thracian archers took up their positions across the slope in the dawn’s grey light, centurions pacing out their sections of the defensive line and adjusting their men’s places until the infantrymen’s frontage was a single unbroken line of soldiery. Fifty paces behind the line the defence was anchored at either end, as the ground rose to meet the mountains on each side, by impenetrable barriers formed of trees expertly felled by the pioneers of the cohort’s Tenth Century to present their branches to any attacker. Martos and his two hundred or so warriors lurked behind the barriers on either side of the Tungrian line, the Votadini prince having insisted on leading his men up the slope behind the soldiers the previous evening, ignoring the nervous looks cast at them by the Thracian archers. Martos had shared a swift breakfast with the officers before rejoining his men, exchanging crude banter with Arminius while Sigilis had listened with a face white with tension. He’d clasped arms with Marcus, raising a scarred clenched fist, and grinning savagely at the thought of impending battle.

‘When your men are getting tired, you just shout for the Votadini. We’ll show you the meaning of war.’ He leaned closer to the Roman, muttering in his ear. ‘And watch out for the boy there, a pale face before battle is the sign of a fighter, as well you know. He’ll be in the line and trying to carve up the enemy before you know it, if you let him.’

Marcus gathered his brother officers on the slope behind the line, sipping at a beaker of water and watching as their soldiers stood in line waiting for the Sarmatae to make their appearance. The Tungrians were for the most part talking with each other as matter-of-factly as men discussing their favourite gladiator or chariot racer, although he could see a few small huddles of men as veteran front rankers prepared their comrades for the terror of what was to come with hard words and rallying cries.

‘It occurs to me that we’ve been here before, brothers, or somewhere very much like it.’ The other four centurions nodded sagely, their minds going back to a similar hillside on which the cohort had fought for its life the previous year. ‘Only this time we’ve had long enough with this ground to make any army that comes at us up that slope deeply regret the idea. I saw the Sarmatae force that’s pitted against us up here this morning while I was scouting yesterday, and I’d say there were barely fifteen hundred of them. And that, brothers, is clearly not enough men to assault experienced heavy infantry in a position like this, especially given the fact that I expect our archers to neutralise theirs.’

He looked around at his comrades, the pugnacious Otho, Caelius with his usual deceptive look of innocence, Qadir’s customary imperturbability and Titus’s glowering scowl, and felt his spirits rise at the sight.

‘No tribal warband of that size can threaten us, brothers, not while we retain our discipline. So we’ll stay safe behind our defences and let them come to us, as we discussed last night. And at the right moment. .’

‘We go for the knock out, eh young ’un?’

The Roman grinned at his colleague.

‘Very apt, Otho. Yes, at the right moment we’ll go forward and land the killer punch. Wait for my signal, and when I give it back me up with everything you have left to throw at them.’

A horn blared from down the slope, swiftly followed by another, and the officers turned to see their Hamian scouts breaking from the treeline three hundred paces distant and running up the hill toward the safety of the waiting soldiers. As the Tungrians watched, the first enemy warriors came out of the trees behind them, some putting arrows to their bows. Qadir, seeing the danger to his men, raised his voice to bellow a command.

‘Dodge!’

The fleeing scouts angled their runs from side to side, changing direction every few strides to put the barbarian archers off their aim, running hard to get beyond the Sarmatae bowmen’s maximum range, but one unfortunate was hit squarely between the shoulders and dropped to his knees, writhing in agony from the arrowhead’s deep intrusion. Half a dozen barbarians ran forward with their swords and knives drawn, clearly eager to take their first trophy. Qadir looked grimly at Marcus and then strode across to his century, taking a bow and a handful of arrows from one of his men and nocking the first missile to the weapon’s bowstring as he pushed his way through the Tungrian line.

‘Surely the distance is too great for any accuracy?’

Otho snorted through his battered nose, shaking his head at Sigilis with no regard for the younger man’s rank.

‘Just you watch and learn, young sir.’

Sigilis raised his eyebrows and turned back to the scene just in time to see Qadir’s first arrow hit his stricken comrade squarely in the chest, dropping him to the ground to lie unmoving.

‘That’s astound-’

Otho snorted again.

‘He ain’t done yet.’

While the Sarmatae warriors who had been advancing on the wounded scout were still digesting the stricken Hamian’s merciful death, a second arrow punched into the closest man’s body and toppled him into the long grass. Another warrior staggered to his knees with a fletched shaft protruding from his side as he turned to run, and Qadir shot the last of his arrows at the rearmost man as the rest of them sprinted back down the hill, missing by a hand’s breadth as his target dodged to one side. He turned with a look of disgust at the miss and walked back up the hill, handing the bow back to its owner as he passed.

‘That will keep their archers from getting too pushy until they’ve got some numbers gathered.’

Marcus nodded at the blunt statement, turning back to the other centurions.

‘Return to your centuries, brothers.’

He strode out in front of his men, ignoring the Sarmatae warriors mustering at the edge of the forest three hundred paces down the slope, stalking along the Tungrian line with his eyes fixed on the soldiers of the five centuries under his command. Some of them returned the stare with faces set hard against the coming violence, others looked straight through him as they retreated into private places to protect themselves from the coming horror. Stopping before them he drew his spatha, holding the long patterned blade above his head until he had their attention and shouting his challenge across the hillside.

‘Tungrians, we have marched a thousand miles to stand here and face these barbarians. And you, the men that our tribune has entrusted with the defence of this edge of the valley, you have been selected for the hardest task of all. Our brothers make their stand from the top of a wall too high to climb, or behind a wall of wooden stakes too dense for any horse to penetrate, but we will defeat this enemy in the way in which we have become accustomed. We will stare them in the face close enough to reach out and take their lives with our iron. .’ Realising that most of the front rank were watching the enemy behind him, he turned to look down the slope, seeing with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that the enemy host forming before them was already far stronger than he had expected, with men still pouring out of the trees to their rear. He faced his men in silence until the soldiers turned their attention back to him. ‘Yes, there are many more of them than there are of us, but we have laboured to prepare this ground before us, and we have the support of three hundred archers. Be sure of this, my brothers, we will win this fight, as we have won so many times before, by standing together and fighting for one another. Ready yourselves to meet this enemy, and know that you are more than a match for whatever they have to throw at you!’

He ducked through the line, pulling a man from the second rank and taking him out of earshot of his fellow soldiers.

‘Give me your spear and shield. Now, run to Tribune Scaurus. Tell him we face three thousand enemy warriors up here and need urgent reinforcement. Go!’

The soldier took to his heels, vanishing over the ridge with more than a few of his comrades casting envious glances at the spot where he had disappeared from view.

‘How do you do that? How do you manage to sound so confident when the odds are so clearly against us?’ Marcus turned to find Tribune Sigilis at his shoulder, and paused long enough before answering that the younger man felt compelled to fill the silence. ‘Forgive me for asking, it’s just. .’

‘I understand, Tribune. You find yourself on the verge of entering a world of which you have no experience. You wonder just how you will react when the killing begins.’ Sigilis nodded, and Marcus shrugged with a mirthless smile. ‘I stood in your boots less than two years ago.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘An old centurion who came out of retirement to help save me from the empire’s assassins once told me that some leaders of men are born, screaming out their need to command their fellows even as their mothers push them from the womb, but that others among us are less driven, and are made into leaders by either choice or circumstance, forged in battle to reveal whatever strength lies within them. And in that forging, he told me, we learn things that we might rather never have known. We gain scars and lose friends, and by the time we’re hardened enough to cope with what’s waiting for us down that hill we’re not the men we were at the beginning. In facing our fears and forcing them to surrender to the need to survive, we become so hardened as to lose some part of what made us the men we were. He was right, of course, although I couldn’t ever see myself changing at the time.’

‘You’ve lost friends?’

Marcus nodded at the question, staring down the slope at the approaching Sarmatae with unseeing eyes.

‘Yes, but there was one man in particular, the retired centurion I mentioned. His name was Rufius, may Mithras honour him. I very nearly followed him across the river, such was my rage at his death. Battle touches us all in different ways, Tribune, and it finds our weaknesses as surely as it unveils our abilities. My weakness is a tendency to unmanageable fury once I am sufficiently provoked, a clear, cold anger that will sharpen my abilities but destroy all sense of what is either wise or even decent. I have it in me to become a mad man, Tribune, with no purpose other than to spill the blood of my enemies until I am too exhausted to lift my sword. If for any reason I am sufficiently roused to step into the enemy line in what is to come, you should under no circumstances follow me. I did it once, driven mad by the death of my closest friend, and was fortunate enough to escape that act of gross stupidity with my life. I doubt that sort of luck is granted to a man twice in one lifetime.’

The tribune nodded, his face still white at the prospect of the battle.

‘I understand.’

Marcus turned back to face the tribesmen. The Sarmatae force had now fully emerged from the forest, and were forming up in readiness for their attack.

‘We seem to have underestimated their leader’s intentions. He fooled us by sending a smaller party of men up the valley that leads to this hillside than we see before us now, but he must have reinforced it last night once our scouts were all pulled back.’ He exchanged glances with Sigilis. ‘And if he’s chosen to make this his main point of attack, then I doubt that four hundred infantrymen and three centuries of archers are going to hold him off for long, even if we do have Martos and his Votadini straining at their collars to get into the fight. But given that we have little choice in the matter, I suppose we might as well make a decent job of it. .’ He blew his whistle to get his officers’ attention, raising his vine stick and pointing it at the oncoming mass of tribesmen. ‘Tungrians, prepare to form the shield wall!’

The Tungrian front rank went down on one knee, angling their shields so that they could just barely see over the iron rims as the second rank stepped up close behind their comrades. He nodded to Sigilis, tipping his head to the archers waiting in a line behind the Tungrians, and the younger man shouted a command in a voice tense with the pressure on him.

‘Archers, make ready!’

The Thracians hurried forward into the line’s shadow, each of them pulling an arrow from his quiver and nocking it to his weapon’s string. Marcus watched the oncoming enemy with his breath unconsciously held, calculating the distance between the two lines. At one hundred and fifty paces the Sarmatae stopped, and their archers stepped out in front of the line of shields some five hundred or so strong. They went about stringing arrows to their bows with the deliberate care of men at archery practice rather than preparing to go about the grim task of battlefield murder, seemingly confident that the Romans had no means of replying.

‘Rear rank, shields!’

The rear rankers lifted their shields into place, overlapping them with those of their kneeling comrades to form a wall of wood fully eight feet tall. Peering between two of his men, Marcus watched as the Sarmatae archers drew their arrows back, clearly awaiting the word of command.

‘Here it comes. .’

He ducked into the cover of the line, pulling Sigilis by the arm to make sure the tribune was sheltered from the coming attack. At a shouted command the enemy bowmen loosed their arrows, and the Tungrians listened in silence as the missiles whistled across the gap between the two lines. With a sound like hail on a wooden roof the storm of arrows broke along the Tungrian line, hundreds of iron and bone arrowheads hammering into the raised shields, some protruding through cracks in the wood while the occasional missile found a gap in the defence, flicking between raised shields and past the men behind them. One of the Thracians staggered out of his place behind the infantrymen with an arrow protruding from his thigh, falling to the ground as the poison painted onto its barbed bone head took the life out of his twitching legs. Marcus raised his voice to bellow along the line at the Thracians.

‘Wait! Let them spend their arrows on our shields!’

Parting two shields to risk a swift glimpse of the enemy, Marcus saw that the Sarmatae warriors were making no attempt to advance, waiting instead while their bowmen peppered the Roman line with arrows. Judging that the enemy archers were starting to slow the rate at which they were loosing their missiles, he raised his voice to bellow a command along the length of the line.

‘Archers. .’ Along the length of the line the Tungrians eased their shields fractionally sideways, each man allowing the archer standing next to him a thin gap through which to sight his bow on the enemy. ‘Loose!’

The unshielded enemy bowmen were easy meat for the Thracians, and dozens of them fell with the first volley of arrows, some falling to lie motionless while others staggered away from the clumps of arrows they had shoved point first into the ground by their feet. Another volley whipped out from between the Tungrians’ shields, reaping a further harvest from the wavering bowmen, and at a sharp word of command that rang out across the slope they turned and ran, more of them falling even as they fled for the cover of their fellow warriors’ shields.

‘Archers, cease! Rear rank, rest!’

The Thracians stopped shooting, nodding to each other at the ease of their quick initial victory over the tribesmen, while the Tungrian rear-rank soldiers lowered their shields and rubbed at their aching arms, waiting for the Sarmatae leader’s next move. After a moment’s pause the mass of enemy warriors began hammering their spears rhythmically against their shields, working themselves up to attack up the hill’s rippling, boulder-strewn slope.

‘The man in charge down there must still fancy his chances even without his archers. .’

Marcus turned to look at the tribune, but to his relief found no sign in the younger man’s face that he was in terror of what was to come.

‘And so would I, if I were him, given their numbers. But then what we lack in strength we’ve made up for in the fact that Titus and his pioneers had a day with this ground yesterday. Let’s just hope that our men have it in them to stop running when their centurions tell them to stand and fight.’

He raised his voice to be heard over the Sarmatae warriors’ din, bellowing the command that his men were waiting for.

‘Tungrians, prepare to retreat! Archers, retreat!’

The centurions standing behind their soldiers watched in dark amusement as the Thracians obeyed their orders, turning away from the line and heading away up the slope at a fast jog. Spotting the movement the Sarmatae roared in delight, individual warriors stepping out in front of their line to wave their spears at the Romans, screaming threats and curses in crude Latin as they capered in front of their comrades, swinging their swords in extravagant arcs and bellowing their imminent victory at the sky above. The hammering of weapons on shields quickened in pace, and with a piercing shout of command the warband’s leader sent them forward at the Roman line. Before the shout had died away Marcus was roaring out his own orders.

‘Tungrians, retreat!’

The soldiers turned away from the oncoming enemy, running away up the slope at a pace which matched that of the archers moments before, their centurions swiftly outpacing them as they ran full pelt in front of their men. Howling in delight, the tribesmen lost any cohesion they still possessed, the faster men sprinting out of the oncoming mass in their determination to get at the retiring Romans. Fifty paces up the slope from where the retreat had begun the centurions stopped and turned to face their men, pointing their vine sticks at the ground in command, and as the retreating Tungrians reached them the soldiers stopped running and performed a swift about-face, quickly resetting their line and hefting their spears ready for combat. Both ends of the defence were now anchored against the fallen trees felled by the pioneers the previous day, presenting an unbroken defensive face to the oncoming tribesmen.

Undeterred by the apparent rallying of their enemies, the tribesmen came on at the gallop, still screaming their hatred and triumph as the first of them blundered into the mantraps that waited for them beneath thin carpets of turf laid with meticulous care just the day before.The ground collapsed beneath their feet to drop them into knee-deep pits sown with fire-hardened wooden stakes smeared with excrement. Marcus and Sigilis watched grimly as the Sarmatae advance foundered, each fallen warrior tripping two or three of his comrades in their uncontrolled rush. Marcus waited for a moment more as the tribesmen pushed forward, ignoring the pockets of chaos caused by the traps laid out for them, until he judged that enough of them had passed the marker laid out for the purpose.

‘Pull!’

The Votadini waiting at either end of the line dragged hard on their ends of a rope laid across the line’s entire frontage and looped around trees to provide an anchorage, snapping the fist thick line out of the narrow trench in which it had been concealed. Dozens of Sarmatae warriors were sent sprawling by the unexpected obstacle, and the mass of men behind them swiftly descended into chaos as they fought to get around or over their fallen comrades, giving them little chance to rise.

‘Archers! Loose!’

The Thracians had reformed at the head of the slope, ready to use their height advantage to send arrows skimming over the Tungrian’s helmets and plunging into the disordered mass of barbarian warriors. At Marcus’s command they loosed a volley at the warband’s sprawling target, and while the archers poured their missiles onto the milling mass of unordered warriors, the Roman turned his attention back to the men who had managed to struggle through the field of mantraps so carefully laid out for them.

‘Tungrians! Ready spears!’

Several hundred men had made their way through the obstacles, some simply climbing over the bodies of their less fortunate comrades, and were gathering themselves to storm up the slope at the Romans, but their earlier reckless charge had left them tired and Marcus knew that the time had come to take the offensive.

‘Front rank. . throw!’

The Tungrian line took two quick steps forward to build momentum, then slung their spears with all the power they had, sending their iron-tipped javelins arcing into the mass of enemy warriors. A chorus of screams rent the air as the heavy missiles ripped into the barbarians, killing and wounding enemy warriors and painting their comrades with sprays of their blood.

‘Rear rank. . throw!’

The remaining soldiers slung their spears over the heads of the kneeling front rankers, shivering the advancing line of Sarmatae again with a second barrage of sharp-edged iron, then closed up to their comrades, ready to fight.

‘Swords!’

With a rustle of blades on scabbard throats the soldiers drew their swords, setting themselves to receive the enemy assault with feet planted and shields raised. Hundreds of the barbarians lay dead and wounded on the ground before them, but the mass of the enemy was still far stronger in numbers than the perilously thin line of defenders. Roaring their rage at the Romans the Sarmatae stormed past and over their dying comrades, hurling themselves onto the defenders’ shields with howls intended to chill their blood as they battered and tore at the Tungrian line.

‘What do we do now?’

Marcus looked down at his spatha’s patterned blade for a moment before answering Sigilis’s question, pulling the eagle-pommelled gladius from its place on his other hip as he spoke.

‘Now, Tribune, we stand and wait to see if our plan succeeds. The archers will keep shooting into the enemy rear until they’ve run through their arrows, and my men know very well that they must either stand fast or die here.’

‘Should we perhaps pray to Mars for victory?’

Marcus nodded, raising the spatha to show Sigilis the finely carved intaglio of Mithras stabbing the sacred bull, which he had paid a priest to attach to the sword’s pommel with fine gold wire during the cohorts’ long journey down the river Danubius. The engraved oval of amethyst was a dull purple in the early morning light.

‘If it will help you, Tribune, then yes, indeed you should pray to your god. As you can see, I give my faith to Mithras to strengthen my sword arm, but divine help from any of the gods you care to mention would be very welcome about now.’

He turned away, waving his sword at the reserve century under Centurion Caelius, who were waiting at the slope’s crest behind the Thracians. Caelius waved back, shouting the order for his men to march around the archers and make their way down the slope. The Sarmatae numbers were already starting to tell, pushing the Tungrians back up the slope towards the archers. The Tungrians were still butchering the barbarian warriors whenever the soldiers could bring their swords to bear, but were nevertheless slowly but surely losing the fight as the Sarmatae inexorably drove them off their ground by sheer crush of numbers. The air was filled with the hum of arrows as the Thracians launched volleys of arrows over the top of the soldiers’ helmets and into the enemy’s tightly packed throng, but the missiles seemed to be no more than an irritant to the enraged tribesmen. Caelius’s century dived into the battle, adding their weight to the centre of the Tungrian line, but their additional muscle seemed to have almost no impact on the struggle. Marcus shook his head at the sight of the reinforcements’ booted feet churning the soft ground as they too were pushed back by the crush of the enemy, realising that his command was all but doomed.

‘They don’t even have to kill us. All they have to do is push us back another hundred paces and it’s all over. Once we don’t have the slope to help hold them back they’ll force us over the crest without any trouble at all, and then they’ll break the line and hunt us down individually.’

Marcus looked back, hoping for any sign that his message to Tribune Scaurus had born fruit, but he knew the runner would barely have reached the valley floor. Sigilis stepped forward with a clenched fist.

‘Surely we can’t just let this scum push us off the field? What can we do? There must be something. .’

Marcus looked levelly at the young tribune and shook his head slowly, but it was Arminius who spoke first, his face hard.

‘What can we do? Nothing, except fight and die like men when the time comes. Are you ready to fight and die, Lugos?’

The huge Briton standing beside him grunted, hefting his hammer and staring at the warriors raving against the Tungrian shields.

‘Lugos ready. I send many warriors before me.’

A shout from the archers on the ridgeline one hundred paces behind them caught Marcus’s attention, and he craned his neck to peer over his men’s shields at whatever it was their centurion was indicating with his pointing hand. Realising what it was that the Thracian officer was trying to tell him, his shoulders slumped momentarily as the enormity of their predicament became clear.

‘Holy Mithras above, there are more of them!’

More men were emerging from the trees behind the first wave, at least a thousand well-armed men in full armour and wearing metal skullcaps in the Sarmatae fashion, some wielding bows, other armed with axes and long spears. Marcus shook his head grimly at Sigilis again, raising his swords ready to fight.

‘Well if ever there was a time for that prayer, Tribune, this is it.’