They rammed their bodies in unison against the solid oak.
It held.
‘Shit! Sitalces, Ziles,’ Sabinus yelled above the din, ‘where’re those crowbars? Fast as you like, lads, there’ll be another artillery volley pretty soon, those crews were quick.’
Sitalces and Ziles ran straight up to the door and quickly jammed their bars between it and the frame. But not quickly enough; another series of crashing impacts caused them all to duck involuntarily as the second artillery volley smashed in. Two onager stones hit the keep wall a few feet above the door, shattering on impact in a myriad of sparks. Large fragments of stone ricocheted down over them, striking their crouched backs and the ground around like sharp, heavy rain, leaving them bruised but uninjured.
Sitalces was the first to recover; he hurled his huge body on to the end of a crowbar; with a splintering crack the door came loose but not open. Ziles rejammed his bar into the widened gap, Sitalces swept his rhomphaia from the sheath on his back, nodded at him and they forced their combined weight on to the two crowbars. This time the door flew back and the huge Thracian went tumbling through, his momentum sending him crashing to the ground. Ziles leapt in after him and jerked immediately back through the air, as if punched by a Titan, with a half-dozen arrows in his chest. Before the dead Thracian had even hit the ground Vespasian hurled himself through the opening, darting to the left as a mighty roar came from within. He arrived in time to see Sitalces, in the torchlight, leaping through the air, sweeping his rhomphaia two-handed from above his right shoulder, towards a line of six Getae who were struggling, under the pressure, to reload quickly. A flaming flash of iron arced into them, severing two heads and half an arm in a welter of blood and speed. As the huge Thracian crashed into the right of the Getic line Vespasian flung himself, bellowing, towards the left-hand Geta, who had dropped his bow and was drawing a long-bladed knife; an arrow from the door felled the man next to him. The knife coursed through the air at chest height towards Vespasian, who had the presence of mind to duck as he noticed the deft flick of his opponent’s hand. It skimmed over his head, which, an instant later, pounded into the solar plexus of the man, thumping the air from his lungs and him to the ground with Vespasian on top of him. With an animal howl Vespasian heaved himself to his knees, raised his axe and swiped it down repeatedly on to the choking Geta’s face, cracking it open in an eruption of bone, blood and teeth, then mashing it to a pulp with his frenzied attack. A strong grip caught his wrist and he swivelled round to see Magnus straining to hold his arm back.
‘I think you’ll find he’s dead now, sir,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘In fact they all are.’
Vespasian blinked a few times and began to relax; the whole room came into focus for the first time since he had charged. The six Getae lay dead, in various states of dismemberment, and Sitalces, Bryzos and Drenis were busy trying to wedge the battered door shut whilst Artebudz and Sabinus were covering the narrow, stone staircase leading to the next floor. He started to breathe deeply to bring himself back from the primeval part of his nature to which, he was now realising, his fear of death had taken him.
‘You’ve got to watch that, sir,’ Magnus said in a hushed voice, pulling him to his feet. ‘They only die once and you can easily get killed yourself as you’re trying to kill them a second, third or, in your case, a sixth time.’
‘Thank you, Magnus, I’ll try to remember that,’ Vespasian replied, slightly more curtly than he intended. ‘Sorry, I was shit scared,’ he added by way of an apology. He noticed a bloodstained rhomphaia in his friend’s hand.
Magnus caught his look. ‘I borrowed it from Ziles, he won’t be needing it no more. It’s a lovely weapon, much nicer to fight with than against, especially if it’s wielded by the likes of Sitalces, if you take my meaning?’
Vespasian certainly did.
Another crashing volley of artillery projectiles battering the keep’s wall brought him back to the matter in hand. He joined Sabinus at the bottom of the steps.
‘Any noise from up there?’ he whispered, just audible above the shrieks and shouts of the Getae on the walls.
‘Nothing,’ his brother replied.
Sitalces rushed over from the door. ‘That’s the best that we can do, but it won’t last long.’
‘Best get going, then,’ Sabinus said, taking one of the brightly burning torches from the wall. ‘Bring the other torches; we’ll leave it dark down here. Artebudz, with me.’ He began to swiftly climb the stairs with Artebudz, bow drawn, next to him. The noise from outside remained at a steady level and easily masked their light footsteps.
Vespasian grabbed a torch and, with Magnus at his side, followed. His heart was beating fast; he was still afraid but his fear of death had been overshadowed by another, stronger, more positive emotion: the will and desire to survive. He felt much calmer now and also grateful to his brother for taking the lead when his own actions, as he was well aware, had been found wanting.
A creak of a wooden floorboard told Vespasian that his brother had reached the first floor. Sabinus and Artebuduz moved cautiously ahead; Vespasian followed. They were in a storeroom that extended the full length and breadth of the keep. It was windowless as it was still below the height of the fortress’ walls. In the middle of the room was a sturdy-looking wooden staircase leading up to the next level. Dotted around in the gloom were piles of grain sacks, stacks of amphorae and water barrels. Hanging on the walls were what Vespasian first took to be dead bodies but on closer inspection turned out to be deer and sheep carcasses.
‘Looks like we’ve found the Getae’s dinner,’ Sabinus observed. ‘Quick, lads, pile a load of those sacks around the stair-case and see what’s in those amphorae. Let’s hope it’s oil, fire will be our friend.’
It was the work of moments. As they finished by pouring the contents of the amphorae, which had indeed proved to be oil, over the pile of sacks, the level of noise from outside suddenly changed; the shouting grew louder and mixed in with it now was the unmistakable clash of weapons.
‘That’s our boys on the wall, we’ve really got to hurry,’ Sabinus said, giving his torch to Drenis and grabbing an unopened amphora. ‘Take an amphora if you can, lads, we may need fire upstairs. Drenis, wait until we’re all on the next floor and then set light to the sacks.’ He dashed up the stairs with Vespasian pursuing, hot on his heels.
They burst on to the second floor; again it was a single large room, but with a staircase at the far end, and with windows that looked out only over the river, not the courtyard. Piles of bedding scattered around the floor indicated that it had been used as a dormitory for those of the Getae important enough not to sleep outside. Sabinus and Vespasian ran towards the next staircase; four arrows smacked into the floorboards just before them, bringing them to a sudden, almost overbalancing, halt. They pulled back immediately as Magnus, carrying two amphorae, and the rest of their comrades cleared the second staircase.
‘There’s a reception committee on the next floor. Artebudz, Sitalces and Bryzos: pump some arrows up those stairs,’ Sabinus ordered. ‘Vespasian, we’ll follow.’
As Artebudz, Sitalces and Bryzos slowly moved forward, shooting alternately so there was always an arrow fizzing up the stairs, Sabinus followed with his amphora of oil and Vespasian with his torch. Drenis came crashing up the stairs behind, the smell of burning travelling in his wake.
Ten feet from the stairs, Sabinus sprang forward and hurled his amphora up them; it disappeared with a crash on to the next floor. Vespasian paused as a few more arrows were pumped up the stairs, then he ran forward and hurled his torch after them. The intense heat of the torch caused the oil to ignite almost instantaneously; the fire soon engulfed the third-floor landing and drips of burning oil flowed, like flaming tears, down between the gaps in the stairs.
‘Artebudz, Bryzos, bows first; Magnus, Sitalces and Drenis after us,’ Sabinus shouted, drawing his axe; they all nodded. Sabinus turned to Vespasian and grinned. ‘This is more fun than arse-licking back in Rome but it’s going to hurt, little brother. Go!’
Artebudz and Bryzos hurtled up the stairs and disappeared into the inferno, with Vespasian and Sabinus speeding after them as gushes of liquid splattered down on to the burning oil, evaporating immediately into a thick, foul-smelling steam. This, along with the flames, blinded Vespasian for a few steps but his vision returned as he emerged through the fire and on to the landing at the far end of a long corridor running back along the width of the keep to another set of stairs. It was punctuated with four, evenly spaced doors on either side. He spun round to his left, Sabinus to his right, both taking care not to slip on the burning oil, as an arrow bisected them and slammed into the wall beyond. Feeling grateful to his trousers for protecting his legs from burns, Vespasian looked up to see, by the light of the flames, Bryzos and Artebudz both releasing arrows at two Getae, one about to shoot, one reloading, halfway down the corridor; two more lay dead at his feet, slop-buckets at their sides. Both arrows punched into the shooting man, hurling him to the ground as his shot thwacked harmlessly into the wooden ceiling. Vespasian and Sabinus charged forward as the second Geta fired; Artebudz recoiled on to his back with an arrow in
