He paused again, a half-smile on his face.
‘Germania was very different, of course, with thick green forests and wide rivers, and quite unlike our home, but we came to relish the hunting in those happy days, when we were allowed to roam more or less as we wished in search of wild pigs and deer for the pot. It came to an end, of course, it was only ever an interlude in our path to this place. How could such a perfect existence last, when there is always a war somewhere on the edge of the empire that needs to be fed with men’s lives? And so we moved north again, passed along the frontier from one fortress to another until we found ourselves on the shores of the German sea and ordered to take ship for the province of Britannia as reinforcements. Which is the reason why we came to be sitting in the barracks of a port called ‘Arab Town’ when the centurion here came looking for infantry soldiers, since when our very lives have been turned upside down. We are to become infantry, or to die in the attempt as seems more likely to me…’
Arminius nodded his thanks for the tale, quite unabashed at the Hamian’s fatalistic view of his men’s future.
‘You are more fortunate than you know, Chosen Man Qadir, in that you have already avoided one long and brutal war. The peoples that lived north of the River Danubius, my people the Quadi among them, were strong and proud of their prowess with the sword and axe, strong enough to have put our Roman masters on their back foot for more than a year when the war began. We crossed the river in strength ten summers past, and defeated the Roman army that stood between us and their settlements in the shadow of the Alpes mountains. The Romans sent another army to put down our revolt once we had their main fortress besieged, but we defeated them in their turn, and took the fortress once the relief force was beaten. For a time we believed that we were invincible, but we had little enough time to enjoy the feeling, for the following year a mighty army drawn from legions across the whole of Europa forced us to retreat back into our own lands, and imposed a truce upon us that gave them time to gather yet more strength, in readiness to cross the river in their turn. Soon enough the Romans brought the war to our lands, hunting the tribes down one by one and taking bloody retribution for their earlier losses.’
He paused, taking a drink from his water skin.
‘When they broke their truce and attacked into our tribal lands, claiming that we were giving aid to our neighbours the Marcomanni in their fight for survival, we knew that we would have to fight them to the death, either theirs or ours, and that no quarter would be asked or given by either side.
‘And so it was, on a blindingly hot day at the height of the summer, that we lured the Twelfth legion, the Thunderbolt as they termed themselves, on to perfect ground, and sprang a trap that bottled them up in a rocky defile. We had them helpless, trapped under the full heat of the sun and without water. Oh yes, you smile now, thinking the lack of water a trivial thing, but they were desperate for it even before the sun was at its full height, and they had been marching most of the morning without reaching the stream around which we had based our trap. We charged into their line three times, and with each attack we killed and wounded more of their soldiers, and sapped the strength of those men left on their feet. After the third charge our leaders shouted that victory was inevitable, and that we would wait for the Romans to surrender once they succumbed to their thirst. Our warriors paraded up and down their line within a dozen paces, drinking water carried from the stream, pouring it over their heads to rub in their lack of anything to drink.
‘As we waited for them to surrender, however, something strange started to happen in the sky over our heads. Clouds gathered, boiling up into huge thunderheads and darkening from white to a sullen grey in what seemed only a few minutes. Rather than release the rain that their appearance promised, they continued to grow and darken, turning an unnatural colour, blue-green, like a huge bruise on the heavens. It seemed as if the sun had fallen below the horizon, and so much light was blocked out that we could barely see the Romans as they stood and waited for our next attack. Then, without those warning rumbles a storm usually gives out, a mighty thunderbolt speared down from the clouds to shatter a tree not fifty paces from our line, instantly sending it up in a pillar of flame. The roar of thunder that accompanied it was instant, without any pause at all, and it battered at our ears so powerfully that some men were deafened by the noise. My own hearing was certainly affected, as if my head were wrapped in heavy wool.’
He paused, smiling wryly at Marcus.
‘Now I am not, you must understand, a man given to what you Romans call ‘superstition’, but even I, I will admit, was taken aback by this sudden sign from the skies. My comrades were for the most part terrified out of their wits, and the Romans could not have failed to see our previously solid line disintegrate into chaos, even if they still lacked the energy to attack us. Moments later, though, while our warriors were still quailing at the flaming tree so close to our shields, and what it might mean, a rainstorm smashed down from the clouds gathered overhead. The rain lashed down so hard that it stung our skin, and the downpour was so fierce that trickles of water became busy streams in minutes.
‘Of course, where we saw a dark omen the Romans, whose shields bore the thunderbolt their legion’s name boasted, saw quite the opposite. Once they had collected enough of the falling rain to slake their thirsts they came at us like ghosts out of the storm, their faces painted with mud like the barbarians they called us. We saw their shields, every one emblazoned with the lightning bolt, loom out of the storm’s murk and that was enough for most of us.’ He shook his head sadly, his eyes misting over with the memory. ‘We were broken men before ever the fight started. They put us to the sword, showing no mercy until we broke and ran for the hills. I ran with the rest, of course, not to do so would have meant dying without ever getting a chance to fight back, such was the panic around me, but when I got the chance I hid myself and waited for the Romans to pass. I meant to attack them without warning, and die with some pride, unlike my comrades, who were falling to their swords and spears without even turning to fight.
‘It was a lost hope, of course. The second I leapt from cover I had half a dozen soldiers in my face, and I went down to a bash on the head from a man I never saw. That would have been it, except a young tribune stopped them from killing me, and claimed me as a slave. A tribune, as you may have guessed, by the name of Scaurus. He gave me a strange choice but a clever one, either to serve him as a bodyguard, and earn my freedom by saving his life and thus repaying my debt to him, or go back to my people in shame, my life forfeit, and forbidden to fight again for fear of the retribution of his god. He told me that when he realised that the legion’s men were trapped, with many soldiers and even officers terrified for their lives, and knowing that they would all die without some divine intervention, he offered a prayer to Mithras. He told me that he offered to bring another man to his service for every remaining year of his life if the god would show his hand and provide some chance for the Romans to regain their natural ascendancy over us. It seemed to him that the words were barely out of his mouth when the clouds started to gather… I chose to serve him, of course, and so joining his service to Mithras was only right.’ Marcus nodded his understanding.
‘And in return you’re training him to fight the way that you do?’
The German gave him a strange look, then nodded.
‘Yes. And he’s a quick student… And you, Centurion, will you share your story with us?’
Marcus looked across the clearing at Dubnus, asleep in his cloak on the grass.
‘I cannot tell you much, or you will both be in as great a danger as my friend there. I will tell you that I hope for little more than you have both achieved, to find some measure of peace after the events that have conspired to bring me here. I crave the ability to turn my mind to the future, rather than brooding on the past and dreaming of revenge.’
Qadir nodded his head, looking squarely into his centurion’s eyes.
‘That is a wise desir
e, Centurion Corvus. The lust for revenge can take over a man’s life, and come to master him until it drives him to the exclusion of all other cares, but I can counsel you from my own experience that it bears little fruit other than bitterness and destruction. When I took a man’s life as recompense for my personal loss, I found little in the act to compensate me for the price I was to pay for that moment of bloodlust.’
Once the sky above them was darkening to purple Marcus roused his men, many of whom had taken the chance to get some sleep before the long night before them, and set them to making their silent approach to the wall’s defenders. After a few minutes’ progress across the open hillside he realised with a start that he could hear almost nothing from the troops behind him. Intrigued, he peeled away from the line of march and squatted in the grass, watching and listening as the soldiers moved slowly past him. After a moment’s contemplation of his men he realised with an even greater surprise that the men making the more audible noise as they progressed up the hill were not the Hamians, but the 5th Century men who were supposed to be their teachers in the art of night patrolling. He got back to his feet when the column’s rear passed him, dropping in alongside Qadir and speaking quietly in his ear.
‘Your men seem to have the measure of this, Chosen.’
The other man smiled at him through the evening’s gloom.
‘No need to be quite so surprised, Centurion. I told you that we are hunters by training, and that we spent much time hunting in the forests of Germania. These men all know what it means for their stealth to be the difference between eating and going hungry. And now I suggest that you make a little noise and return to your place at the head of the column. These men won’t stop advancing until you tell them to.’
By the time the sun had set, and the moon had risen to take its place over the empty countryside, the main barbarian strength was already south of the rampart. The warband had crossed the frontier undetected through an abandoned mile fort between The Rock and White Strength, flowing unhindered out into the open ground behind the wall. Scouts led the warband to within a mile of White Strength, with Calgus and his bodyguard following close behind. Apparently undetected, the barbarians deployed quietly into and through the silent pine forest that ran to within two hundred paces of the fort’s southern gate, silently closing the noose on the 800-man garrison without betraying their presence so close to their enemy’s main line of defence. Calgus squatted down on his haunches at the forest’s edge and the main tribal leaders gathered around him, their differences forgotten in the wake of his speech that morning.
Once the morning’s gathering had broken up, and the leaders had gone to prepare their men for the march, Calgus’s adviser Aed had given him a curious sideways glance.
‘So my lord, do you really believe that if we destroy one legion the Romans will inevitably lose their grip on this entire province?’
Calgus had laughed softly, keeping his voice low enough to prevent his bodyguard from overhearing.
‘Those fools needed something to fight for, so I gave it to them. The theory’s sound enough, though. If we could destroy a legion, or hit them both hard enough to send them running south licking their wounds, then we’d give their governor a choice to make that he can’t get right, no matter whether he chooses to retreat to the south or hold the line of their wall. And to make that happen I need warriors with fire in their hearts, not just a collection of men yearning for home.’
Now he watched the Roman fort with a careful eye, seeing the torch flames fluttering in the breeze blowing across its high stone walls.
‘Eight hundred men just there for the taking. I’d say ten thousand of us ought to be able to knock one little fort over without very much trouble. What matters most is how we use the garrison once they’re defeated.’ He turned to the tribal leaders clustered around him, looking for one man in particular. ‘Martos, your uncle and I have disagreed as to the right way to finish this war, but you and I have the chance to put our people in such a position of strength that no Roman general will have the ability to defeat us. Will you put the Votadini tribe’s warriors alongside our own in this battle?’
The Votadini prince nodded decisively.
‘I will, Calgus. My people will fight the Romans to the limit of our abilities. Tell me what you need from me…’
Calgus clapped him on the shoulder.
‘I need your men to help smash our way into the fort, of course, but I also have in mind a means of getting the Romans to come after us with a rage upon them that will lead them blindly into the trap I am building for them. It will be dirty work, but if you can make the picture I have in my mind become a reality then nothing will restrain them from their need for revenge, or the consequences of such blind fury. The honour of provoking these usurpers to make their greatest mistake will be yours…’
The first indication Marcus had that his men were not the only force abroad in the darkened forest was the suddenness with which the Hamian walking alongside him froze into immobility, putting a hand across his centurion’s chest and hissing a soft warning. The men behind them went to ground without needing to be told, and for a second he was left marvelling at their discipline, until the man alongside him ruined his feeling of well-being in an instant with a quiet whisper in his ear.
‘Other men in forest. Not Roman. Hear speaking.’
Dubnus appeared at his other shoulder, sufficiently alert not to speak. The Hamian reached across and nudged him, pointing out into the darkness and then waggling two fingers in front of him to indicate moving men, miming a man talking by opening and closing his fingers close to his mouth. Dubnus whispered a quiet question.
‘How many?’
The Hamian pulled a face to show he was guessing, then pointed back up the column before raising ten fingers, closing his hands and then opening them again. Marcus and Dubnus exchanged glances, the latter whispering again with an edge of incredulity.
‘Thousands of them?’
Marcus nodded, putting a cupped hand to his ear to indicate that they should listen. The sounds were quiet, muted to the edge of inaudibility by the forest’s foliage, but they were unmistakable. An army was crossing the forest in front of them, the sounds of snapping twigs and guttural voices reaching them through the trees. The two friends exchanged glances again, and then Marcus turned back to the Hamian alongside them, bending to whisper in his ear.
‘Fetch Qadir. Quick and quiet.’
The man nodded and was gone, ghosting away back down the column without a sound. Dubnus leaned close and spoke quietly in his ear.
‘They must be moving to attack White Strength.’
Qadir appeared beside them a moment later, his face still imperturbable in the moon’s faint illumination. Marcus beckoned his head close before whispering to him.
‘Your men seem to have the edge when it comes to silent movement in the dark. Do any of them have what it takes to kill in the dark? Do we have any thieves, or murderers? I need a few men that won’t be afraid to put a knife in a barbarian’s back, and won’t waste any time staring at the corpse. Well?’
Qadir pondered for a moment, and then whispered an order to the man next to him, who vanished off into the darkness.
‘I have sent him to find two men who are of the background you desire. They have reformed, saved by the discipline demanded by their bows, that and the worship of their goddess, and both have renounced their former crimes. As have I.’
Marcus grinned wolfishly, his teeth a pale white in the shadows.
‘Then let’s hope I can persuade the three of you to revive your former selves for a short while. Dubnus, you’d best gather a few of your best men. And you…’
He turned and spoke to Arminius, who was waiting in silence three paces behind him.
‘You’d better come too. We’re going hunting.’
Only minutes later, just as the guard mounted at all corners of White Strength was changing, the sentries posted to watch out over the wall to the north reporte
d lights on the horizon in increasing numbers. The cohort’s prefect ran to the watchtower and took the stairs two at a time, the unit’s first spear close at his heels. They pushed aside the gaggle of soldiers watching the distant, flickering dots of light, and took stock of what little they could make out in the darkness.
‘Shit.’ The prefect turned to his senior centurion. ‘It’s a warband all right, there’s nothing of ours that large that would be running around by torchlight in the dark, moon or no moon. The decision is ours; we either abandon the fort and head for Noisy Valley or stay here behind our walls and make a fight of it.’
The centurion, a leathery twenty-five-year veteran, with less than a month to his discharge under normal circumstances, spat expressively over the tower’s parapet.
‘I say we stand and fight. I’ve already supervised the reconstruction of this bloody fort once this year, and I’ll be damned if I want to have to do it all over again. Besides, that lot might just be a diversion to persuade us to run for it. For all we know there’s thousands more of the bastards already south of the wall, and waiting for us between here and the legions at the Valley.’
The prefect grimaced at the thought of his command caught on an open hillside in the dark by a warband of barbarian warriors raving for their heads.
‘I agree. You get the cohort stood to, and I’ll write a dispatch for the governor. With a bit of luck we can keep the buggers tied up for long enough to let him manoeuvre two legions into position for the kill. You never know, this could be the action that finishes the war.’
The Tungrian hunting party went forward in total silence, and again Marcus was struck by the way that Qadir and his Hamians seemed to ghost through the darkness with an almost total lack of sound. Within a dozen careful paces they had taken the lead, padding softly through the darkened forest ahead of the Tungrians with delicate care for twigs or branches underfoot, their footfalls muffled by the carpet of pine needles. Somewhere off to their right an owl screeched, and the party froze into immobility for a long moment before starting off down the gentle slope again. After a few minutes’ more careful progress the leading man raised his hand to halt them, and Marcus eased forward to crouch next to him.
Arrows of Fury e-2 Page 17
