‘Well, we’ve made it to sunset without seeing any sign of the enemy, so all things considered I’d call that a successful day, wouldn’t you?’
Julius didn’t answer his tribune for a moment, shading his eyes and staring out from the marching camp to the west, squinting into the sunset.
‘Let’s hope you’re not premature in that statement, Tribune. Unless my tired eyes are deceiving me there are riders coming—’
A sudden chorus of shouts from the sentries watching the western horizon interrupted him, and the camp erupted into the chaos of a stand-to, men grabbing at their spears and shields and running to line the camp’s earth walls in the standard response to the approach of unknown cavalry.
‘This late in the evening? It can only be Silus and his scouts.’ Scaurus shaded his eyes and followed Julius’s stare. ‘Yes, that’s Silus, I can see their dragon standard glinting red in the sunset. He’s got a pair of empty saddles too.’
Tribune and first spear walked swiftly to the camp’s western gate, greeting the incoming horsemen as the sun dipped to touch the horizon. Silus jumped down from his sweat-soaked mount and passed the reins to another rider, gesturing to the horses. One of the mounts was riderless, while another had a dead man’s body draped over its back and held in place by its saddle horns.
‘Make sure they’re properly wiped down, we don’t want them wet when night falls, and give them all an extra half-ration of feed, they’ve earned it.’ He dismissed his men with a wave, turning to salute his superiors with a dejected expression the like of which Julius had never thought to see on his face. ‘Evening sir … First Spear. Forgive me if I’m a little sweaty myself, but we’ve had something of a day of it.’
Scaurus turned away, waving a hand for the two men to follow him.
‘In that case, Decurion, I expect you’ll be needing a cup of wine.’
In the relative security of the command tent, the decurion sipped mechanically at his cup without any sign of tasting the drink, closing his eyes for a moment and rubbing a hand over his weather-beaten face.
‘We dragged the lures for fifteen miles or so, as you commanded Tribune, until we were well past the Frying Pan’s western rim, then dumped them and made our way along the range that forms the western side. I thought we’d had the perfect result until the archers hit us.’
Julius shot a glance at Scaurus as he spoke.
‘Archers?’
‘Yes. No more than half a dozen of them, and they were shooting from the hillside that overlooks the path around the northern edge of the range, but either they were the best shots in the tribe or they got luckier than they deserved. I lost two men, the one you saw and another who fell from his horse with an arrow in his back. Cocidius forgive me, I left him to lie there, and whether he was living or dead I have no clue. I knew that if I went back to recover him the archers would probably hit more of us, and I’d end up with more empty saddles …’
He sipped the wine again, and Julius spoke quickly, flashing a warning glance to Scaurus.
‘That’s the reality, Silus, the hard truth of commanding men out here with no one to fall back on. Do the right thing by your lads and suffer the guilt of a missing man, or do the right thing by him and lose more of them to no military purpose. How would you have felt if you’d ridden back with half your squadron shot out from under you?’ Silus nodded, his eyes starting to moisten. ‘And if you feel like crying, get it over here and now, and don’t go out there until you can look your men in the eye and tell them that you did the right thing, no matter how bad it feels. After all, you’ve got a reputation for being a hard arsed, smart mouthed, couldn’t give a shit arsehole to maintain, or had you forgotten?’
The decurion stared at him for a moment, then stuck his jaw out and drained the wine in a single gulp, putting the cup down on the tent’s map table with a soft click. He saluted and turned for the tent’s doorway, stopping to brace his shoulders before stepping through and back out into the scrutiny of the cohort’s men.
‘That was harsh, Julius, even if it did seem to put some life back into the man.’
The first spear turned to look at Scaurus with narrowed eyes.
‘I agree, Tribune. In truth it should be you and I agonising over a man left for dead, and quite possibly writhing under the ink monkeys’ knives even as we speak. But then you and I have long since hardened ourselves to those sorts of dilemmas, haven’t we? And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll be away to tell the sentries on the western wall just what I think of the fact that I spotted Silus and his men coming in before they did. After all, I do have a reputation as a tirelessly vindictive bastard whenever I find any sign of weakness in my cohort, don’t I?’
He stepped out of the tent, leaving the tribune staring after him. Scaurus refilled his wine and drained it, dropping the empty cup onto the table, watching as it rolled to the edge and fell to the grass floor. From outside the sound of his first spear’s enraged shouting reached his ears, and the Roman shook his head with pursed lips.
‘Hardened ourselves to those sorts of dilemmas? It feels more like we’ve both found our own ways of coping with the pain to me. And now for tomorrow’s dilemma …’
He unrolled the scantily detailed map of the area north of the wall and moved a lamp to illuminate it, leaning his clenched fists on the table and staring down at the lines on the thick paper with a calculating expression.
‘We have word from the scout party you sent to the north, my lord King!’
Brem stood up from the fire around which he and his bodyguards were warming themselves, turning to face the speaker. Alongside the member of his household who had spoken stood the leader of the half-dozen men he had begrudgingly sent over the northern hills’ rim at Calgus’s suggestion. The man’s heavily tattooed face was forbidding in the firelight, and Brem realised that he was one of the hunters who ordinarily accompanied his hunt master Scar, men with the ability to ghost through the forest without leaving any trace of their passage, and preternaturally skilled with the bow. Beneath the swirls of ink his face was hard, lined and seamed by a lifetime’s exposure to the elements, and his eyes were stone-like in the tattooed mask, flat windows on an untroubled spirit.
‘You have news of the Romans?’
To the king’s relief the scout bowed before speaking, saving him the problem of whether to punish a man who he guessed knew and cared little for such things as failing to show the proper respect. When he spoke the words came out in a low growl, almost inaudible over the fire’s roaring crackle.
‘Enemy horsemen, King Brem, riding along the northern side of the hills towards the east. We shot two of them from their horses.’
‘Did either of them live?’
Calgus was at Brem’s shoulder, his body alive with twitching impatience.
‘No. The enemy took one body, the other was dead where he fell. I have trophies …’
He gestured to a leather bag hanging at his side, but the king raised a hand to forestall any grisly display.
‘Good work. Make sure that your prizes are given to the priests when you return to The Fang, and they will be given pride of place in the eagle’s shrine. Now go, and eat your fill from the deer your brothers have brought down for us.’
The hunter nodded and stepped back from the fire, his face vanishing into the shadows and leaving Brem and Calgus looking at each other. The Selgovae kept his face neutral, knowing that this was not the time for any display of pleasure at being proved right in his guess as to the Tungrians’ dispositions.
‘It seems that you were right, Calgus. The enemy are at large between us and The Fang, and we are miles too far to the west as a consequence of following what seemed to be their trail today.’
Calgus bowed deeply.
‘A lucky guess, my lord King, and fortunate in that you humoured me sufficiently to send your best men to investigate my wild idea. I am grateful to have been of some little value to you.’
The king stared at him for a moment, unti
l he was convinced by his adviser’s apparent show of modesty.
‘Indeed. The question is how we should now react to this news? I am minded to run our men to the spot where the scouts intercepted these horsemen, and follow their trail to wherever it is that the Romans camped for the night. I’ll wager they won’t have gone far by the time we get there.’
Calgus thought hard for a moment, masking his horror at the plan’s high likelihood of failure with a calm expression of contemplation.
‘In truth, my lord King, while your first reaction is a valid response to this news, I wonder if we might run the risk of your warriors being wearier than would be ideal when we overtake the Romans. And let us not forget, they still have enough horsemen to scout the ground around them well enough that they will doubtless see us coming before we see them. I wouldn’t put it past these Tungrians to have a prepared position ready by the time we arrive, and I doubt we have the strength to attack them head on under such circumstances. It might be better to use your men’s strengths in a different manner?’
He held his breath, waiting for the king to dismiss his doubts, but the success of the scouting mission he had inspired was enough to stay Brem’s hand.
‘And how would you suggest I do that?’
The Selgovae lowered his body painfully to squat on the dry earth, waving his fingers at the ground.
‘I’ll show you – if I might borrow a knife to draw a picture here?’
Brem pulled a dagger from his belt and handed it to him, waving a hand to calm his bodyguards as they reflexively reached for the hilts of their swords.
‘Go on.’
The Selgovae drew a circle in the dirt with the knife’s point, then sketched in the line of the Dirty River to its north-east.
‘This is the ring of hills, here is The Fang, and we are here …’ He scratched a pair of crosses onto the hard surface, one alongside the river, the other almost directly opposite it beyond the circle to the west. ‘Our opponent is here, more or less …’ He drew another cross to the circle’s north. ‘On the face of it he has us at a disadvantage, since he is between us and the fortress. But I do not think he plans to attack us there, for he knows that he would be trapped on the wrong side of the river, and therefore facing certain destruction. No, I think he will make another sidestep, expecting us to come after him now that we know where he is, and there is only one way he can move without any risk.’
‘South?’
‘Yes, my lord King, south. I think he will climb over the hills and dive back into the forests that grow so thickly in their bowl. The only question is whether he will then turn east or west when he reaches the fork in the bowl’s centre.’
Brem looked down at him, his face ruddy in the firelight.
‘And what would you do, if you were this Roman?’
Calgus didn’t hesitate.
‘Whatever I thought you might expect the least, my lord King. I think I would turn … west, and go as fast as possible while you hopefully searched for me to the east. And this has one more advantage as a strategy.’ He waited until the king’s silence encouraged him to continue. ‘When we finally found his track heading away from The Fang we would be enraged at being sidestepped once more, and would chase him back to the west while whoever it is that he has sent after the eagle makes good their escape.’
He waited, tensed for the inevitable explosion at the mention of the eagle, but to his surprise Brem nodded his head slowly.
‘In truth this Roman’s behaviour starts to look less like the behaviour of a commander seeking an advantageous position from which to fight and more like that of a little dog which runs yapping around a bull, running the beast around the farmyard to confuse it. We must pin him down and smash him, before he has the chance to escape. So, how would you recommend that we achieve that, Calgus?’
The Selgovae pointed his borrowed knife at the picture he’d scratched into the dirt.
‘I have an idea, my lord King, a way that we might trap the Tungrians in the forest if my guess is correct, and yet still hunt them to their destruction if they turn in a different direction. But what of The Fang?’
Brem shook his head.
‘You should worry more about succeeding in giving me the heads of these Romans, and less about whatever games they might try to play in the swamps that guard my fortress. Scar and his Vixens will make short work of whatever poor fool they send across the river, you can be assured of that!’
The raiding party waited until the sun was below the horizon before stirring themselves in readiness for the climb to The Fang’s walls, chewing on the dried meat handed out by Arminius as Marcus briefed them.
‘Verus will lead us up the slope. He’s been here before, and he knows what to look for better than the rest of us. I will go next, followed by Arabus, then Drest and his men, then Lugos and Arminius. Any questions?’ The men looked back at him in silence in the day’s last light. ‘Very well. We leave as soon as it’s properly dark. Be ready.’
They left the copse’s cover once the stars were visible overhead, sliding down the shallow slope and into the long grass in silence. This far from the river the ground that sloped gently towards the hill’s steep face was dry, and the plain’s quiet was broken only by the susurration of the grass, as a gentle wind rustled the long stalks.
‘Do you hear anything?’
Arabus shook his head in response to Marcus’s whispered question.
‘Nothing at all. If there is anyone out there then they are lying still and waiting for their prey to come to them.’
Both men looked up at the fortress perched high on the hill’s summit hundreds of feet above them, seeing the pinpoint flickers of torches that lined its walls.
‘This is a dangerous place. You will surely need your god with you this night, Centurion, and I mine.’
The scout reached into his tunic and pulled out his pendant of the goddess Arduenna, riding to hunt on a wild boar, rubbing the figure between finger and thumb before dropping it into his clothing and turning back to the hill. They followed Verus down into the grass, moving slowly and cautiously across the short distance between the copse and the point where the plain’s flat expanse suddenly reared up to form the dizzyingly steep slope of the hill on which the Venicone fortress stood. The legionary had already started climbing the slope, his gaze fixed on the hill’s black outline high above them, and Marcus followed with Arabus’s soft footsteps barely audible behind him. After a climb of roughly one hundred steps Verus paused with his chest heaving, and Marcus stopped beside him feeling a similar burning in his chest as his lungs sucked in the night’s cold air, turning to look back across the plain to the flickering dots of light on the Roman wall in the far distance. The soldier pointed, his face distorted by the effort of forcing air into his lungs, whispering softly between gasped breaths.
‘Can you imagine … Centurion … the feelings … I experienced … as I struggled … down this … terrifying slope … in the darkness? How it felt to look out … and see the lights on our wall … so very far away … while above me the horns … of my pursuers … screamed at the night?’
Marcus nodded, realising that the other man’s grimace was the result of more than his exertions.
‘You must have been terrified.’
The soldier turned to him, and in the dim light of the stars the Roman realised that his teeth were bared in a snarl.
‘Terrified? Oh yes …’ He breathed in again, more slowly now as his body started to recover from his exertions, the muscles in his arms knotting as his body tensed at the question. ‘But more than that, I felt enraged … enraged, Centurion, incensed to be abandoned so lightly … and to have been used so cruelly by the Venicones. That rage was what gave me the strength to survive, to elude my pursuers and crawl from one stinking bog to the next.’
He turned away and resumed his climb, leaving Marcus staring at his back for a moment before he too started up the hill again. The line of men climbed steadily until they reached the
point where the slope’s near-vertical pitch abruptly started to level out, and Verus flattened himself to the ground, beckoning the Roman alongside him. Waving a hand at the men following him to hold their current positions, Marcus crawled up alongside the legionary and looked out across the hill’s summit. Fifty paces or so from the hill’s brow The Fang’s outer wall rose from the gently rounded hilltop, a ten-foot-high rampart of rough stone blocks that stretched across their field of vision and seemingly encircled most of the hilltop. Inside the wall’s perimeter rose another structure, only one third of the size of the outer defences but towering over them to a height that Marcus estimated at forty feet. Torches burned at intervals along the parapet, casting pools of insubstantial yellow light over the ground beneath the walls, and as Marcus watched, a single sentry paced along the chest-high breastwork, the torchlight glinting off the blade of his spear.
‘There. That is where I was imprisoned, and from where I made my escape.’ Verus pointed at a section of the wall to their left, on the fortress’s western side. ‘The fortress’s only gate is on that side of the hill, and so is their equivalent of what we would call the guardhouse. We need to go round to the right, and climb the wall on the eastern side. The legion’s eagle is kept in a shrine on the tower’s upper floor. They dragged me before it on several occasions, threatening to kill me in the presence of “my god” as an attempt to break my will before my ritual murder.’
He stared fixedly at the tower for a moment before speaking again, having apparently mastered his anger.
‘There are usually three sentries posted on the walls at night. I saw them when I was dragged from my cell for each session with the priest who was my main torturer, one to watch the eastern wall, one the north and a third to the south, the man we can see now. The western wall is watched from the gate. When I saw them, the sentries were always standing between the torches to try to preserve their ability to see in the darkness, but from my time standing guard on our walls I’d bet that they can’t see very well into the darkness. When he moves, so should we.’
The Eagle's Vengeance Page 17
