‘What happen you?’
Arminius pulled a dismissive face and raised the woman’s head, spitting into its distorted features.
‘One of the bitches was cutting me to ribbons with her knives, so I threw my sword at her and faked a run and trip to get my hands on my own hunting knife. When she jumped on me she managed to stick one of her blades in here –’ he gestured at a bloody rent in his tunic’s shoulder with his swordhand’s thumb ‘– but she missed the fact that I had my own knife ready for her. So now she’s a headless corpse, and I can still hold a shield.’
He waggled the fingers of his left hand with a grimace, and Lugos nodded, picking up one of the women’s discarded shields and handing it to him. Marcus spoke quietly over his shoulder as his pace slowed with their proximity to the gateway.
‘Give me the head.’
He reached down to pick up another shield discarded by one of the hunters slain by Arabus’s arrows, gesturing to them to stay out of sight as he climbed wearily up the stone steps that led to the fighting platform above the gateway. The hunter’s heavily scarred leader stood thirty paces from the fort with a pair of archers waiting on either side, and Marcus called out from behind the shield, his voice ringing out across the short gap.
‘You have failed! You sent children to fight with men, and we tore them apart like wolves. Run now, while you still can!’
He tossed the severed head down to land at the warrior’s feet, and the older man regarded it sourly for a moment before raising his hideously scarred face to the Roman.
‘Run, thief? I think no! My lord Brem depend on me to hunt you, take back eagle and revenge murder of his son! And my Vixen hurt you bad, that I very sure! We follow four tracks here, two scattered with blood. You blood. How many of you still can fight, I wonder? And no escape from fort, Roman, only one gateway, no way escape without rope. You got rope?’
He paused, shaking his head at the Roman.
‘No, you got no rope. You tired from night in swamp and morning fighting dog and Vixen. No rescue for you, Roman. Men who march north from you wall all dead in fire we see to west. And you look to south, Roman, you tell me what you see, heh?’
He pointed to the forest behind Marcus, visible now that the day’s passage had burned off the mist that had shrouded the trees, and as the centurion turned to follow his hand he realised that a murk was hanging over the distant hills, a thick column of smoke rising from the forest to feed its bulk. Turning to his right he peered over the trees that surrounded the derelict fort on three sides, starting at the sight of several thinner plumes of smoke across the southern horizon. The disfigured hunter spoke again, a note of triumphant glee in his voice.
‘Forts that guard wall on fire, thief! You army run, leave Venicone people as masters here! No rescue for you, thief, you friend kill by fire in forest and you army run away to south.’ He held out a hand. ‘Throw down what you steal and I let you go. You run quick, perhaps you live. Or I keep you trap here, until Brem come and kill you all. He kill you all slow, thief, take many days, make you bleed for kill his son!’ Marcus stared down at him from behind the shield, his gaze playing bleakly across the smouldering wall fort and the ground between them and the Venicones before him as the scarred man called out again, pressing his apparent advantage home in a triumphant tone. ‘You surrender me, Roman, I give chance to run!’
The young centurion leaned forward over the wall, his harsh voice cutting across the Venicone’s threats.
‘You were right, Venicone, there is a better view to be had from these walls. And yes, I do see smoke to the south, the destruction of our forts which tells me that the legions have indeed been ordered to abandon them, but that is not all that I see. Your own doom approaches from the south, carried on swift hoofs that I would imagine you might hear if you could only shut your mouth for long enough to listen.’
The hunter spun to stare towards the burning pyre of Lazy Hill, his head cocked to one side, and after a moment the distant drumbeats of horses on the move reached them. From Marcus’s elevated viewpoint he could see a score of horsemen cantering along the forest’s edge towards him, and as he watched them a single long horn note rang out across the landscape as the cavalrymen spotted fresh prey. He leaned over the wall and shouted down at the dithering Venicones, pointing to the north.
‘Run, Venicone, run now before my brothers ride you down and spit you like the animals you are!’
While the hunters were still staring at the oncoming riders, Arminius and Lugos stormed out of the fort’s empty gateway bellowing their challenges from behind shields taken from the dead Vixens, and at the sight of their blood-soaked clothing and weapons the remaining Vixens turned and ran in panic, away from the forest in which they might have taken shelter and into the paths of the oncoming cavalrymen. The scarred warrior stared up at Marcus for a moment before drawing his sword and turning to face the oncoming riders, but if he hoped to take any of them with him into eternity his ambition was short lived. While the rest of his men rode down the fleeing women and speared them swiftly and mercilessly to death, Silus leaned out of his saddle and hacked the heavy blade of his spatha across the hunter’s back, felling him to lie lifeless on the wet ground before cantering up to the fort and sheathing his blade at the sight of Marcus atop the gate, shaking his head at the sight of the two barbarians’ exhausted bravado.
‘Fuck me, and I thought we’d had a rough time of it! You three look like men who’ve been to the gates of Hades and back! Where’s the rest of your party?’
Arminius sheathed his sword with slow, weary movements, looking up at the decurion through eyes slitted with exhaustion.
‘Hacked to pieces for the most part, although the big man here did drown one of them to stop him from putting a curse on us.’
Silus cocked his head at Marcus who had climbed down from the wall and walked out to join them.
‘They’re all dead? Only you three made it out?’
Arminius shook his head with a mirthless laugh.
‘Arabus still lives, but he’s not quite the man he was. A small part of him will always remain here …’
Silus looked down at him quizzically, but his enquiry as to the German’s meaning was cut off by Marcus’s urgent question.
‘What about the cohort?’
The decurion shook his head.
‘No idea. We were forced to head west by the fire that Julius started when they were ambushed—’
‘We started the fire? Whose idea was that?’
‘Ours, as it happens, and if they’ve survived it’s probably been the saving of them. We made to ride around the Frying Pan’s southern rim only to find ourselves overtaking two thousand angry-looking barbarians who’re heading the same way with the evident aim of cutting off any survivors that might have made it through the forest.’
Marcus looked at him with fresh respect.
‘You rode back up here, even though there’s no way to escape if the Venicones block the road south of the wall?’
Silus shrugged.
‘I was struck with an irrational urge to hear that song your mules like to sing about us just one time more before I die.’
Arminius looked up at him, shaking his head in disgust.
‘Irrational. That’s one word for it, I suppose.’
‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’
Tribune Scaurus turned the eagle over, examining the dents and scrapes that it had suffered over the two hundred years of its life. He was standing with Julius at the head of the Tungrian column, although this was little more than a thousand-pace-long row of soldiers lying on both sides of the rough track that bordered the forest this far north of the wall, most of them taking the opportunity to sleep after their exertions of the previous few hours.
‘The damage you mean?’
Julius nodded, pointing at a long scratch on the underside of the bird’s left wing, revealed by the careful removal of the dried blood that had coated the standard’s surface.
<
br /> ‘Surely there’s no need for something that important to look like something a scrap merchant would turn his nose up at?’
Scaurus shook his head briskly, looking down at the eagle in his hands.
‘You’re missing the point, First Spear. Of course it would be easy enough to polish out that scratch, but this is not only a symbol of imperial power, but of that power’s longevity. We’ve ruled the lands around the Mediterranean Sea for hundreds of years, and subjugated the greatest powers the world has ever seen. Greece, Egypt, Carthage, the Gauls, the Persians, they’ve all been ground into the dust under our boots no matter the losses we’ve taken in the process, and the Sixth Legion’s eagle has been witness to over two hundred years of that history. That bird was first blessed by Caesar’s nephew Octavian, the man we now call the divine Augustus, and it was present at the battle of Actium that sealed his victory over the usurper Marc Anthony. It looked down on Galba when he was declared emperor in the Sixth’s camp in defiance of Nero, much good that did him mind you. It screamed its silent defiance at the Batavians when they revolted on the Rhenus and had to be put down in a welter of blood, and it marched to war in the conquest of Dacia under Trajan. If that battered and scratched bird could talk, First Spear, it would have tales to tell that would leave us both wide-eyed at the glory it has seen and horrified at the shame it has suffered since its capture.’
He looked up at Julius.
‘Our duty is to ensure that it remains out of barbarian hands, either by fighting our way through to safety or by hiding it beyond any risk of its being discovered if that proves impossible. Which sounds like the more likely eventuality to me, given the decurion’s report.’
Silus had ridden in with what remained of the raiding party half an hour before, just as the cohort was straggling exhaustedly out of the forest’s eastern side, and if their hearts had been momentarily lifted at the safe return of their battered but triumphant companions, the news he’d brought from the south had dashed their hopes in an instant. Julius nodded darkly, spitting on the ground at his feet.
‘The wall garrisons will have been away down the road to the south without ever giving us a second thought, and a line of burning forts will have made that painfully clear to the ink monkeys. We’re lucky that Silus managed to get around them to provide us with a warning.’
Scaurus set the eagle down on the ground beside him and turned back to his first spear.
‘Agreed. So what now, do you think? Do we run, and probably do little more than put off the inevitable, or make a stand and end up as a hill of corpses?’
Julius shook his head.
‘Run? Where can we run? There’s a war band to the south, a burned-out forest to the west, an impassable swamp to the east and if we run north the Venicones will hunt us down soon enough, given that we’re out of supplies and pretty well exhausted. We’d not even make it to The Fang ahead of them, and believe me, I gave that idea some very serious consideration. We’ll just have to stand and fight, although with the numbers they’ve got it’ll be a damned short …’ He frowned at a figure of a centurion advancing up the column towards them with a determined stride. ‘Cocidius spare me, that’s all I need.’
Scaurus turned to see what he was looking at, a wry smile creasing his tired face.
‘There’s something in that man’s stride that reminds me of the officer he replaced in command of the Tenth Century. Doubtless it won’t be long before he takes to calling us all “little brother” and growing his beard … if we live that long.’
Julius waited with his hands on his hips until Dubnus reached them, nodding at his officer’s salute.
‘You’ve heard the news, and now you’ve come to offer your boys as a sacrifice to delay the Venicones while the rest of us make a run for it, right?’
His brother officer shook his head, refusing to take the bait.
‘Running’s no use, we need to fight. But not here.’
The tribune raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.
‘If not here, Centurion, then where exactly would you suggest we can make a stand with any chance of success?’
The big man pointed a finger at the forest.
‘Back in there, sir.’
Julius shook his head.
‘We’re better off out here. At least here we can form a line of sorts, whereas in there they’ll mob us from all sides and drag us down like a wolf pack falling on a stag.’
He went to turn away, but found Dubnus’s hand on his arm.
‘You’re wrong, Julius. You’re forgetting that you’ve got a century of very pissed off axe men, or most of one at any rate, and they’re all looking for a way to get some revenge on the Venicones.’
‘And?’
‘And I know how we can turn that into a fighting chance to face the bastards down.’
The first spear turned back to him, looking closely at his officer’s face.
‘You seriously think that we can hold off that many angry headcases without a formed line?’
Dubnus grinned back at him.
‘Give me an hour and I’ll give you a line in the middle of the forest that’ll hold the bastards off for a lot longer than anything we can do out here.’
Julius nodded slowly, turning back to his tribune.
‘You were right, sir, he is turning into Titus before our bloody eyes. Very well, Centurion, whatever it is you have in mind you’d better get on with it. We’ll be lucky to get an hour for you to work whatever trick it is that you’ve got in mind.’
9
Calgus stared up at the burning fort, which the leader of Brem’s suddenly more respectful bodyguard had informed him had been named the Latin equivalent of ‘Lazy Hill’ by the Romans, with a mixture of pride and renewed hope. The pride came from the fact that his prediction had been accurate as to the invaders’ longer-term ability to stick it out at the very edge of their empire, the hope from allowing himself the faintest glimmer of belief that he might still come out of this whole thing with his dream of evicting the Romans from the province intact. He would advise Brem afresh, he mused, advise him to join forces with the tribes to the north of his land, extending to them the promise of enormous wealth if only they added their muscle to that of the newly ascendant Venicones, the tribe that had sent the Romans running and re-conquered their tribal lands south of the wall without even having to fight. The Caledonii, now there was a people with a thirst for revenge if ever he had seen one, still smarting from their defeat by the Roman Agricola a century and more before, and ready to flood south in huge numbers if the right lever were applied to them. A lever like a Roman legion’s captured and defiled eagle might just be enough to tempt them to take the field in overwhelming strength and punch through the southern wall as his own people had done two years before, raising the Brigantes people who lived in captivity behind it in revolt once more. With the entire north aflame the Romans would retreat back to their legion fortresses, unless of course his forces – for by then the rebel army would surely be his once more – managed to isolate and overrun them one at a time and lay the huge riches of the undefended south open to his depredations …
Something struck his arm, harder than he would have liked, and the one-time Lord of the Northern Tribes flinched involuntarily, dragging his thoughts back to the present. The king’s champion had reined his horse in alongside the mare that Calgus had been given, and pointed wordlessly at the king, who, staring at him through eyes that seemed to burn with anger, gestured to a man standing by his horse, the same hard-faced scout who had managed to ambush the Tungrian horsemen the evening before.
‘The time for gazing at a burning Roman fort and dreaming of glory is at an end, adviser, and the time to fight is upon us! My son is dead! My scouts found Scar and his Vixens to the north of here, all of them dead save my master of the hunt who was lying helpless with his spine broken. Before they granted him a clean and merciful death he told them that The Fang has been raided by the Romans, the eagle stolen and my son found dea
d at the hill’s foot! My son!’
Calgus felt his spirits sink, closing his eyes and slumping back into the mare’s saddle.
‘They have the eagle?’
Brem snorted furiously.
‘Not for long! I’ll run those bastards down and put them to the spear! Any that survive will be pegged out for the wolves with their bellies opened! My warriors are seething with anger, mad with the urge to revenge themselves on the men that burned their brothers in the forest, and I’ll send them north like a pack of dogs with the smell of blood in their nostrils!’
Calgus fought to stop himself cringing at the mention of the ambush he had suggested setting along the track that ran through the western end of the hills’ bowl. Men were still straggling in from the forest’s edge, but painfully few of them, and for every warrior who appeared out of the trees ready to fight, another two staggered up to their brothers with such serious burns that many of them appeared unlikely to survive, much less take any active part in any fighting. Few men had escaped the inferno without losing hair and beards, and those warriors who seemed fit to fight stood together in twos and threes, their hollow eyes silent witness to the shock they had suffered when, as it seemed from their stories, the encircled Romans had set fire to the forest and bludgeoned their way out of the trap that had been laid for them, effectively destroying several of the tribe’s clans in the process. He forced himself to focus on what the king was saying, a tiny part of his mind still musing on the potential for his dream of leading a coalition of tribes to liberate the province, with himself at its head and Brem’s part no more than a line in the great songs that would be sung for Calgus the Red, liberator of the Britons, for generations to come. The king clenched his fist, roaring a challenge at the men gathered around him.
‘We must find these men and destroy them before they can escape into the forest and we lose our chance to revenge ourselves upon them!’
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