Dragon Call (The Throne of the Dragon Queen Book 2)

by Clare Smith

  The only weakness he could see in the enemy formation was the way they dressed which, apart from the metal pot which covered their head, was totally inadequate. Their spears were too light to be of any use for hunting, and their swords had no reach, which is why they stood behind their curved shields and didn’t fight like men should. With the exception of their officers, who wore heavy cloaks and mail, they all wore the same tunics, leather skirts and sandals which even his sisters, if they were still alive, would have disdained.

  Some of his brethren had called them bum boys who would run at the sight of a real man, but he didn’t think that was so. His father had told him that they came from a great city in the south called Rome where the sun always shone and where men wore dresses and thought that trousers were unhealthy. He wondered if the army which faced him across the valley would think that now as they stood bare legged in the snow.

  When news had come that there were three legions forming up against them, the war chief had laughed and said that they outnumbered the enemy three to one and would sweep them away with the first charge. He wasn’t so sure. He’d fought these men before and knew that the enemy didn’t fight like they did. They didn’t charge across the ground screaming their hatred, but stood their ground behind their tall shields and used their short swords to stab without ever being cut themselves.

  Then when the enemy was weakened they moved forward as one trampling their attackers beneath their feet until the victory was theirs. There were those who called them cowards because they wouldn’t come out and fight man to man, but he knew they weren’t. He’d been in other battles and had seen too many men die on Roman blades to question their bravery.

  His father didn’t think they were cowards either, and had advised the war chief to attack the legions when they were on the march and were vulnerable. The leaders had listened to him but had been wary of the cavalry which could change the outcome of a battle in the open. They had decided to stay with the traditional mass charge which would smash the shield wall and where a man could rely on the strength of his arm and demonstrate his courage.

  He was worried by the cavalry too. The scouts had said there were three cohorts of mounted auxiliaries, and he’d been out with the scouts and had seen the number of horses that meant. They weren’t there now but as far as his father was concerned that could mean only one thing; they had set out in the dark and were coming up behind them.

  When his father had said this to the war chief he’d been laughed away. There were trees behind them and no Roman would ride through that barrier. That might have been true if the riders came from Rome, but these were auxiliaries and many would be native to Gaul. There was no way that a few trees were going to stop them.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the growing volume of noise and he looked around to see that the men of his war band had joined in with the rhythmic pounding of sword upon shield. Hastily he lifted his own shield and joined in relieved that no one had noticed his hesitation and had taken it as a sign of fear. Now all the war bands had taken up the rhythm and the shouted insults were a deafening, constant roll of noise. Men stamped their feet building up the tension, hounds bayed and howled and the berserkers ran forward displaying themselves and their courage.

  Across the valley floor the Roman army came to battle order and a line of flame leapt up in front of the waiting soldiers casting flickering lights across their embossed shields. It was something he hadn’t seen before but it didn’t matter, the war bands were screaming their defiance and then they were away. Ten thousand warriors intent on crushing their hated enemy and sweeping them away for once and all.

  *

  Sometime during the battle he must have fallen, as he was lying on the ground with his face pressed into the forest floor. In the distance he could hear men shouting and calling to each other, but there was no screaming any more so he guessed that the battle was over. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and the wound in his arm throbbing in time with it so he knew he was still alive unless, of course, he was in hell.

  That was a distinct possibility as all around him he could smell burning flesh, smouldering trees and the stink of men who had died violently. Then it all came back to him and he closed his eyes against the horror. They had charged forward with Therumadax’s war band at the front and the berserkers at the sides. He’d been in the third line with his father and brothers in front of him when the arrows had hit them.

  They had expected arrows as the scouts had told them that the Romans had Syrian archers with them, but they weren’t expecting such numbers. There had been a whistling noise like hail amongst the trees and the sky had turned dark and then death had fallen amongst them. The shelter of the trees slowed the arrows and of course every man had their shield, but still the arrows took a heavy toll.

  If it had just been arrows the war bands would have hit the Roman shield wall with full force, but it wasn’t. What came next was far worse. The Romans had ballista which shot metal tipped spears the thickness of his forearm at such a speed there was no possibility of getting out of the way. He saw one plough through the axe men and skewer four together like fishes on a stick and next to him his brother’s head had been torn from his body by one. After that he’d kept his eyes to the front, but the screams told him that more of the huge darts had found their mark.

  After that came the fire arrows. At first he thought the archers had lost their aim, but then realised they weren’t aiming at the warriors racing towards them but at the forest behind where half the war bands were still on the move. He could hear the screams behind him as the slender trees exploded into flame and men were burnt alive as they ran. Fortunately he was free of the forest by then and close enough to the Roman line to see the shield wall part to let the rear rank of legionaries through. They took one step forward and with a grunt of effort threw their thin spears in unison.

  The deadly pilum hit the war band in a line and the front rank collapsed. He saw his father go down with a spear through his chest and his brother leap over the body without breaking stride. To his right a berserker pulled a pilum from his shoulder and continued running screaming his defiance, and to his left, a warrior fell pinned to his shield by the three spears which had passed through it. Now the war hounds were released and the legionaries only had time for one more throw before stepping back behind the safety of the shield wall.

  By the time the war band had reached the Roman line, half their number had gone and not one Roman had died. Despite that the impact of their charge was enough to knock the shield wall back two paces, and at the centre of the line where the axe men were, the line bent inwards but didn’t break. Now came the really deadly work as the war band tried to break through the wall and get into the men behind whilst the Romans stabbed out with their short swords from behind their shields.

  It was bloody work trying to pull down the Roman’s shields and all along the line warriors fell pierced or hacked down by the Roman gladius. Their enemy fell too but every time a man fell there was instantly another one in his place, locking his shield in the wall and stabbing out. Then the Romans took their first pace forward and the warriors who had fallen were crushed underfoot. He’d made it to the front line of the war band after the enemy had taken their third pace forward and already knew that the situation was hopeless.

  Their entire strategy had been based on the power of their initial charge breaking through the centre of the Roman line, but that had failed. Now that power had been spent they were being pushed back down the hill. Therumadax, or whoever was now leading the war band, must have realised that too as he’d only made three blows against a Roman shield when the horns blew the withdrawal. Along the line warriors stepped back although there were some who had to be pulled away and started their slow retreat down the hill but facing the enemy.

  There was always the chance that the shield wall would break in their enemy’s eagerness to come after them and then they could charge forward and take them by surprise. This one stayed in
place, so half way down the hill the horns sounded again and the war band turned and ran for the protection of the trees, him along with them. He was certain that the plan would be to regroup and strike at the wall again, but then they had found out where the auxiliaries had gone.

  Those fire arrows had done their job well. Not only had they killed hundreds of warriors but they had burnt the lower branches from the trees and cleared large swathes of undergrowth. It was that which let the auxiliaries through the forest. The warriors were still running when the first charge cut through them. He’d seen a cavalry charge before and the devastation it could cause on open ground. This charge was broken up by the trees and was a lot less effective, but it was still enough to bring the war band to a halt and smash it into the ground.

  The fighting had been as fierce as anything which had gone before, but with the advantage of height the auxiliaries were always going to win. He’d stayed with his only surviving brother and a dozen other warriors which was all that was left of his father’s war band. At first they had stood their ground, fighting back to back in a circle and had managed to fight off two pairs of horsemen with losing just two of their number. Then his brother had died from a spear thrust to his groin leaving no one to hold them together, so they had run.

  It seemed to him that he’d been running for hours before they cornered him in an area where the fire had barely reached and the trees were packed thickly together. He wasn’t alone as one of the big axe men had joined him, but even so they were no match for the six mounted Romans. Looking back on it he guessed they were after the axe man rather than him, as the man had worn a gold torc around his throat and they must have wanted that as a prize.

  The riders had charged and he remembered one of them cutting down with his sword and his horse knocking him to the ground. After that everything was blank. Clearly the rider’s blow had just cut him instead of killing him and the horse must have knocked him out, which was why he was lying on the ground and still alive. They could have also thought that he was dead, which wasn’t surprising as the huge axe man had fallen on top of him and there was blood everywhere.

  Some of the blood had to be his own but he guessed most of it had come from the corpse which covered him. Carefully he crawled out from beneath it and then stared at it in horror. Where the man’s head should have been there was just a mangled stump, as if someone had hacked haphazardly at his neck. He looked around for the man’s head but that, along with the torc, were missing, presumably both taken as trophies of war.

  The sound of men calling to each other in a language he didn’t understand brought him staggering to his feet and he tore his eyes away from the headless corpse. For a moment he wasn’t certain what was going on, but then he heard a shout of triumph and a scream. That was cut short and followed by laughter, so he guessed that the Romans were looking for those who had survived the battle.

  Then he ran. He didn’t know where he was going, only that if he could get deep enough into the trees then they wouldn’t be able to find him. With luck he could hide in the undergrowth and stay hidden there until the enemy had moved on. It was a good tactic, and under any other circumstances it would have worked well enough, but the commander of the Roman forces had fought in too many battles to allow his enemy to escape and reform.

  The moment the battle was over and his victory was assured, he’d set up a cordon in the forest and was now driving his prey into the trap he’d set just as a hunter does when he’s after boar. His Emperor had promised him a triumph in Rome if he could end this war within the year, and he had no intention of letting any of the clan warriors escape and reform to deny him that honour. Apart from that, captives could be sold as slaves or into the arena and he needed the coin if his ambitions were ever to be realised.

  Banniff ran through the trees jumping over briars and brambles and ducking under low branches with his heart pounding and his breath coming in short, painful gasps. Having had eight brothers to shield him he’d never had to run from anything in his life, but now he knew how deer felt when he hunted them in his native woodlands. At least the deer he chased hadn’t already fought a battle and lost an armful of blood. They had a chance to escape whilst he was beginning to think he had no chance at all.

  Now he could hear men calling to each other from his right as well as behind him, so he changed direction, only the woods were getting thinner and he realised he’d been driven in a wide arc back to where the battle had taken place. He tried to change direction but stumbled over some briars that were hidden beneath the dead leaves, falling onto his shoulder and crying out with the pain as he rolled onto his wounded arm. The gash in his arm was bleeding again and he felt dizzy from the loss of blood, but he picked himself up and stumbled onwards. The next time he fell it took him longer to get up and on the third time all he could do was stagger to his knees. That was when the Roman tent party found him.

  The only time he’d seen a Roman up close was when they were trying to kill each other, so he was surprised how ordinary they looked. In fact they looked very much like he did; dirty, weather worn and blood stained. The only difference was they had weapons and he didn’t. At that moment all eight swords were pointing down at him so he decided to stay where he was.

  “Don’t look much does ‘e?” The youngest of the group said. It had been his first battle and he’d pissed himself.

  “’E might not look much but they’re crafty buggers, these Gauls. Given ‘alf a chance ‘ell stick yer an’ send yer soul to ‘Ades,” responded the tent party’s best man.

  “What yer goin’ to do wiv ‘im then?”

  “I says we ‘ave a bit of fun wiv ‘im an’ cut ‘im up real slow. It’ll be payback for the lads who died out there today.”

  “An’ I say we get those stinking trousers off ‘im and start wiv ‘is balls.”

  Banniff had no idea what his captors were saying, except he knew it wasn’t anything good, especially when they all grinned at each other in anticipation of something to come. He tried to stand and run but they were onto him in a moment. Two of them grabbed his arms and held him down whilst the others grabbed his legs and pulled off his trousers. He tried to kick them but they were too strong for him. They pulled his legs apart and held him by the ankles whilst one of them pulled a knife.

  Now he knew what they were going to do to him and he screamed. One of them hit him, making him dizzy whilst the one with the knife crouched between his legs and said something which he didn’t understand but made the others laugh. He closed his eyes and waited for the cold blade to cut him.

  “Oy! You! What are you doing there?”

  The man with the knife stood whilst the others just looked up as the thickset man with a vine stick tucked under his arm came into view. “We ain’t doin’ nowt, Centurion, just ‘avin’ a bit of fun that’s all.”

  The centurion stepped up next to the prisoner and stared down at him. “You know the orders, any of them who are fit enough to make the journey to Rome are to be taken back to camp and this one looks fit enough to me.”

  “Well ‘e is now but ‘e won’t be when we ‘ave ‘is balls from ‘im.”

  The Centurion glared at him. “My orders are to make certain that the Commander has an impressive number of slaves behind him when he makes his triumphal entry into Rome, and this one is going to be amongst them. Now get him up, dressed and bound and back into camp. Oh, and if he arrives with another mark on him then you’ll be cleaning out latrines for the next five years.”

  Banniff didn’t know what the man with the stick had said, but whatever it was it had saved his life. For that he was grateful, although his gratitude only lasted as long as it took him to be taken back to the Roman camp and realise what his life was going to be like from now on.

  *

  Banniff had never seen anything like it. He’d been to a town before, one of the many trading posts along the Rhenus which had a market place and a couple of inns. They were made of wood and handmade bricks, whilst this was made o
f stone and marble. His local town had a dozen or so buildings and a palisade of wooden spikes to keep out the clan who lived to the south, but here the wall was built of stone blocks that were taller than three men and wide enough to drive a hay cart along the top.

  Inside the walls were more buildings than he had numbers to count. They were huge and imposing and he couldn’t imagine what they were for. Even more amazing were the number of people that milled about. They were everywhere, lining the roads, standing on the steps of the buildings and hanging off every column and pillar shouting and screaming and throwing flowers at the feet of the returning commander and the victorious army. There were more people there than in the entire war host, which probably explained why his people and his land was now a part of Rome.

  From where he stood he could see everything; the crowds of people, the magnificent buildings, the returning heroes and even the Emperor. Compared to Therumadax he was small and insignificant, but the people bowed down to him as if he were a god. It didn’t make sense to him, but there again at the moment nothing did. That could have been because he didn’t understand everything the people were saying, although he was doing his best to use the few words of Roman he’d learnt from one of his father’s slaves. On the other hand it could have been that this was so far beyond his experience that he had no way to explain anything around him.

  At the head of the procession the Commander of the conquering armies had climbed the marble steps, embraced the small man in purple and was now making his way back. That would mean they would shortly be on the move again, which had to be better than standing barefoot in the blazing sun with nothing but a loin cloth to protect his fair skin. In Gaul the sun shone in the summer and on the best days he could swim in the Rhenus without freezing, but it was nothing like this. It was so hot that the sun had burnt his back and blistered his shoulders until his skin looked like badly cooked meat.