Fortress of Spears

by Anthony Riches

  Fortress of Spears

  Empire: Volume Three

  ANTHONY RICHES

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © Anthony Riches 2011

  The right of Anthony Riches to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN: 978 1 848 94858 7

  Hardback 978 0 340 92036 7

  Trade paperback 978 0 340 92037 4

  Collectors’ Edition 978 1 444 72679 4

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For John, Katie and Nick

  CONTENTS

  Fortress of Spears

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In the generation of any book there are always pivotal individuals, people without whose input the work involved would be made harder, less pleasant, even downright difficult. Fortress of Spears, although it’s been enjoyable (and somewhat different, having been written in the main in a walk-in closet in South Carolina), has been no exception to that rule.

  Inevitably the biggest accolade must go to my wife Helen for putting up with all that tedious stuff that I expect many writers put their families through – the ‘it’s not good enough’ worries, the staring into space thinking about cars and cameras rather than writing, the ‘I just had an idea for the book’ as you crawl into bed at 2.30 in the morning, still fizzing with creativity and unmistakably wide awake, and finally the unutterable smugness of that completed-manuscript moment. All that would be bad enough, but it’s even worse when the writer in question has to compress all that angst into one week a month at home.

  For their patience in never once asking where the hell the manuscript was, Robin Wade (agent) and Carolyn Caughey (editor) deserve major credit. Perhaps I can crank out The Leopard Sword on a timelier basis. Francine Toon stood in for Carolyn with aplomb whenever Carolyn was absent, and managed my various whinges without batting an eyelid. And while I have only a hazy idea of what they actually do in support of the books, I know that Hodder’s sales and marketing teams have to be doing a great job given the results they’ve achieved over the last two years. Ladies and gentlemen, whatever it is you’re doing, thanks very much and please don’t stop!

  At this point I must also make a point of thanking Ian Paten, most excellent of copy editors, for his invaluable work in not only making sense of my inconsistencies, but helping me to avoid more than one embarrassing mistake.

  As usual, I’ve exposed the script to a small and trusted group of friends in search of critical feedback, and so to Robin Carter, Paul Browne, David Mooney, John Prigent and Russell Whitfield, thank you, gentlemen, for your comments and typo spotting. I also exposed my concern about a lack of story development to my friend and business partner Graham Lockhart a few months back, only to receive the following advice in his broad Glesga accent: ‘Just do what you always do. Invent some more characters and let them sort the story out for you!’ Sound advice. I did, and they did, and so the lesson was relearned. Thanks, Jockzilla!

  Writing Fortress also provided another textbook example of how the ancient-warfare community always pitches in to help when asked. Members of the highly rated Roman Army Talk website www.romanarmytalk.com never failed to come up with answers to the most arcane of questions and provided a first-rate source of information (and sometimes entertainment!). Kevan White’s excellent website www.roman-britain.org continued to be a compendious source on all things to do with the frontier area in which this story is set. And while I wasn’t able to take up John Conyard’s generous offer to try out the Roman style of riding owing to a protracted family illness that chewed up all my spare time for six months, meeting John and the Comitatus guys at Maryport was a great moment for me. John’s fund of information contributed at least one little snippet of Fortress that I think he’ll recognise.

  Finally, on the ‘learning more about being a Roman soldier’ front, the year was also remarkable for the charity walk along Hadrian’s Wall in full armour (and I do mean ‘full’ armour), sixty pounds of the stuff with all the weapons and shield. Adrian Wink at Armamentaria kitted me out in the full kit, David Mooney tried to get me fit before the event – and succeeded in getting me soaked to the skin and hugely blistered on more than one occasion – and Julian Dear walked the whole way behind me, variously encouraging, browbeating and taking the mickey out of me as appropriate. Carolyn drove a very long way to be there at the end of the walk, which was nice, and Robin, rufty-tufty type that he is, dragged me along the route in true infanteering style. Chaps, I couldn’t have done it without you, and not only would I have missed the chance to experience just what the average Roman soldier was put through on a daily basis, but Help for Heroes would have lost a nice chunk of cash. Well done to all. I’ll certainly never write another passage about Tungrians on the march without reflecting on just how hard it was to drag all that iron around. Speaking of HfH, it’s not too late to donate. The wall-walk page is still open and you can find it via my website www.anthonyriches.com. As I write, the armed forces have been hacked by the Treasury once again, doubtless putting an even smaller number of men and women under even more pressure, which makes this the best place to start charitable giving for me. And off the soapbox …

  Lastly, to everyone else that’s helped me this time round but not been mentioned, to use that old cliché, it’s not you, it’s me. Those people that work alongside me will tell you how poor my memory can be, so if I’ve forgotten you then here’s a blanket apology. Where the history is right it’s because I’ve had some great help, and where it’s not it’s all my own work.

  Thank you.

  Prologue

  Rome, August, AD 182

  The first of the young senator’s bodyguards died slowly, choking to death on the cobbles with his sword only half drawn from its scabbard. He stared up at his killer with bulging eyes while the assassin turned away from him and drew his gladius, facing the younger of the two men with a grim smile. He had stepped out of a side alley in a street whose sudden quiet should have been enough of a warning to an experienced man, punching a half-fist into the veteran soldier’s throat before the bodyguard had the time to realise that he was under attack. The senator and his remaining protector fell back a few paces, both men staring in amazement at their companion as he writhed and kicked in the throes of his death spasm.

  Another man stepped from the alley’s shadows in the killer’s wake, and leaned against the wall of a shop in the late afternoon’s warmth, his face set in an expression of boredom. Where the bodyguard’s
murderer was heavyset, with arms that rippled with hard muscle, the man that accompanied him was tall and thin. His voice, when he spoke, was agreeable, and almost soothing in the softness of its tone.

  ‘Greeting, Tiberius Sulpicius Quirinius. Forgive me, but I can’t help thinking that you’ve made something of a blunder in your choice of protection today. Hiring retired soldiers is all very well, but they do tend to know more about throwing spears at barbarians than the dangers of the streets, as your man here is so noisily demonstrating. And the savings to be had from hiring a boy to do a man’s work are so often outweighed by the resulting costs. Wouldn’t you agree, Senator Quirinius, given that you chose to chance a district as rough as the Subura with only these two innocents for protection?’

  The prostrate bodyguard shuddered in one last desperate effort to breathe through his ruptured throat, and then sagged back to lie still on the stones. Quirinius drew himself up, staring at the taller of the two men with an air of confidence that he was a long way from feeling.

  ‘What in Hades do you think you’re doing? Who are you, to challenge an unarmed senator of Rome in the open street?’

  The thin man smiled widely, spreading his hands in greeting.

  ‘Who am I, Senator? I’m Tiberius Varius Excingus, and I’m one of the Emperor’s corn officers. This is my colleague, Quintus Sestius Rapax. He’s a praetorian officer, believe it or not, but he’s never lost the taste for killing even after his richly deserved promotion to centurion. As to what we’re doing? Well, you might be a senator, but you’re clearly still wet behind the ears, or you might have been a little more careful in the last few hours.’

  The praetorian’s eyes were alive with calculation as he stepped in to face the remaining bodyguard. He nodded to the boy, barely fifteen from the look of it, then pointed back with his sword at the uniformed men who were guarding the far end of the street from prying eyes, his voice harsh from years of bellowing orders across parade grounds.

  ‘You’re staying to fight, then, eh, boy? You can still save yourself, if you run now. My men will let you leave, if you drop the sword and walk away.’ He waited, watching the conflicting emotions play out on the boy’s face. ‘No?’ The bodyguard shook his head, wide eyed and clearly terrified, but either unwilling or simply unable to turn and run, and the praetorian laughed softly. ‘Just as well. They’d probably have killed you, if only for fun – or just because you’ve seen my face. And you, Senator, will you not be joining the fight? You’ve got no weapon, I suppose. Only a fool would have walked into a trap like this without a blade of some nature, but I suppose it’s a little too late for you to reflect on that …’

  He stamped forward, smashing aside the boy’s raised sword with his own and putting a bunched fist into his face, hard enough to break his nose, then thrust the blade up into his defenceless victim’s chest before he could recover from the blow, dumping him on his back in a fast-spreading puddle of blood. The senator looked about him, seeking a means of escape, but the shops that lined the street were closed, and the killer’s walk towards him was more saunter than stalk. The taller of the two men spoke again, strolling across the street’s cobbles until he was close enough for the senator to see the thin scar that lined the left side of his face.

  ‘The bad news, Senator, is that you’re not the only person you’ve doomed with your loose talk, and I’m afraid that the damage can’t be limited to these two poor individuals. I’m told you have a young wife and an infant son, and so, regrettably, our next call will have to be on the pair of them. You have sisters too, I believe? Believe me, Senator, when the throne decides to remove a threat it does so in a particularly thorough way, to ensure that nobody stays alive who might later seek their revenge.’

  Quirinius spread his hands, his voice wavering in desperation.

  ‘Couldn’t I …’

  ‘Pay us off? You don’t have enough money, Senator. Call on our better nature? I’m really not sure whether I’ve got one, but I can assure you that my colleague Rapax here most certainly does not. He enjoys these little diversions far too much to have any underlying decency. No, Senator, the time to be having second thoughts about all this was before you walked into Praetorian Prefect Perennis’s office and told him your story regarding the death of his son, and exactly who it was that killed him. You blurted out that the fugitive Marcus Valerius Aquila was the murderer, and is hiding with an auxiliary cohort of Tungrians in northern Britannia under the name of Marcus Tribulus Corvus far too easily, I’m afraid.’

  Rapax stepped closer to the young noble, smiling easily into the other man’s eyes, then looked down at the stream of urine puddling around his feet. He shook his head, his voice a hoarse growl tinged with the barest hint of irritation. ‘Take a moment to compose yourself, boy. A man should go to meet his gods with dignity.’

  The senator stared helplessly back at the assassin’s stone-hard face, his knees shivering with the imminence of his death. The praetorian raised his sword and expertly stabbed the point into the conjunction of shoulder and neck, watching dispassionately as Quirinius slumped slowly to the cobbles. The life faded from his eyes, blood gushing down his toga and staining the white linen crimson as it poured from the artery Rapax had opened. Excingus shook his head sadly.

  ‘It’s amazing how many people one man can condemn to death with just a few loose words. I hope you’ve plenty of energy left in you, colleague, for I fear we have a long evening ahead of us.’

  1

  Britannia, September, AD 182

  The barbarian scouts shivered in the cold pre-dawn air, staring out into the forest’s black emptiness and waiting for the dawn that would release them from their task of watching the silent trees for any sign of a Roman attack. The youngest of them yawned loudly, stretching his arms out in front of him to dispel the stiffness that was afflicting all three of them before whispering to the small group’s leader.

  ‘There’s nothing out there, nothing for miles. The Romans are camped out on the plain behind a wall of earth, not crawling round the forest like wild pigs. It’s time we were back inside the camp …’

  The oldest of the three nodded almost unseen in the darkness, keen to be warming his feet and hands at the fire rather than crouching in the shadow of a fallen tree and waiting in the cold for nothing to happen. He shook his head stubbornly, raising a finger in admonishment to both men.

  ‘We’ve been trusted to watch this side of the camp, to sound the warning if we hear as much as a badger stirring the leaves, and that’s what we’ll do, until the sun’s over the horizon and eyes are stronger than ears. If either of you don’t like that, you can fuck off back into the camp and discuss it with …’

  He started at a sudden sound, thinking for a moment that someone was wielding an axe at the palisade a hundred paces to their rear before he realised that the younger of the two men facing him had been punched sideways to the ground with something protruding from his ear. The stink of blood was suddenly heavy in the air. The older warrior slumped away from the log a split second later with an agonised, bubbling grunt. His eyes rolled upwards as the arrow buried deep in his chest took his life. Their leader ripped the hunting horn from his belt, grabbing a deep breath and putting it to his lips, only to shudder with the bone-crunching impact of an arrow into his own ribs. The horn fell from his nerveless fingers to the fallen leaves with a soft thud, and he stared stupidly for a moment at the short length of its feathered wooden shaft jutting from his chest, feeling his blood spraying from the terrible wound chopped deep into his body by its iron-tipped head. His vision narrowing, he sank slowly to his knees, caught for a moment between life and death as a noiseless figure ghosted across the forest floor towards him.

  Without any sound that the dying barbarian could make out, the shadowy figure was abruptly beside him, a tall, lean man dressed in a grey cloak and with a Roman gladius gleaming palely in his right hand, his face painted with stripes of dark mud beneath a cross-crested helmet to match the forest’s dappled m
oonlit floor. He grabbed at the tottering warrior’s hair to steady him and lifted his sword to strike, angling the blade for the killing thrust. He looked into the dying man’s eyes for a moment, then ran the gladius’s razor-sharp blade through the helpless tribesman’s throat and eased him down to lie glassy eyed in the leaves. Putting a hand inside the tunic beneath his mail armour, he touched a pendant hanging around his neck and muttered a quiet prayer.

  ‘Unconquered almighty Mithras grant you safe passage to your god.’

  He dropped into the fallen tree’s shelter, staring intently at the palisade for any sign that the scouts’ deaths had not gone unnoticed by the warband camped behind its protective wall. His brown eyes were pools of darkness in the night as he stared fiercely into the gloom, his fingers white with their grip on the sword’s hilt. After a long moment of complete silence, other than for the rustle of leaves in the night’s gentle breeze, he turned and whistled softly. A dozen men rose from the cover of the undergrowth fifty paces from the camp’s palisade and crossed the space between the forest edge and the fallen tree with swift caution, weaving noiselessly around the stumps of trees felled to build the camp’s wall. They dropped into the fallen tree’s cover and were instantly still, each one of them aware that any unexpected sound might waken the barbarians sleeping beyond the palisade. Half of the small group were, at first glance, declared enemies of the other half dozen, their shaggy hair and long swords in stark contrast to the soldiers’ close-cropped heads and short infantry blades. After a moment one of the barbarians bent close to the cloaked swordsman, speaking softly into his ear.