soldier already guarding the still-terrified family to watch the woman as well. Outside, the fighting had already all but ended with two of the 9th’s men down, one not moving, and half a dozen native men in rough woollens sprawled in the light of Dubnus’s torch. Two remaining enemy were falling back under the advance of a dozen of Marcus’s men, through whose line Dubnus charged in a blaze of light, tossing the torch at one of them even as he ran another through with his sword. Leaving the sword buried in the dying man’s guts, he ripped the axe from his belt and hurled it into the distracted tribesman’s throat, a froth of blood sheeting out from the wound as the man dropped to his knees, then pitched headlong to the ground. Marcus grabbed the nearest man that wasn’t vomiting, demanding to know where the barbarians, clearly too well equipped to be farm peasants, had come from.
The soldier, still wide eyed from sudden combat, pointed vaguely out into the darkness. His voice shook with fear, rising as if a shriek was waiting to explode from his body.
‘Came from out there. Might be more!’
Marcus took the man by the throat, pinching his windpipe hard to get his attention and putting his face in close.
‘Steady! There aren’t any more of them or they’d be all over us by now. Dubnus, get these men ready to probe forward!’
He looked at the wounded soldier, seeing a great dark stain blacken the man’s right legging above the knee, a bloody spear lying near him. The man lay back against the cold earth, his eyes closing as if to sleep.
‘Bandage carrier!’
A calm voice spoke behind him, assured in its tone.
‘I’ll treat him. You concentrate on doing your job.’
He turned to find the woman at his arm, her eyes locked on the fallen soldier.
‘You…?’
‘He’s going to die, Centurion; the wound has pierced the great artery. Let me comfort his last few moments.’
He turned away in wonder, pushing a pair of soldiers towards her and telling them to watch over her, and get her a cloak, then stalked off to find Dubnus.
‘Chosen, are these men ready to scout forward?’
‘Yes, sir, I…’
‘Good, then go and organise the searching of the farm and get the rest of the century ready to move out. We’ll be back inside ten minutes.’
Dubnus stared at him hard in the gloom, then turned away to his task. Marcus looked his men over. Most of three tent parties, twenty-five men, all looking jumpy enough to run if a small boy with a wooden sword came out of the darkness.
‘Right, we’re going forward to look for signs of where those barbarians came from. We’re going to move in a line, and I want you to look for anything that might give us a clue as to what a party of warriors was doing hanging around a latrine like this.’
That got a laugh at least.
‘Form a line, two-foot spacing, and follow me. Oh, and by the way…’
They stared at him, a mixture of curiosity and dread distorting their faces.
‘… you won that one, yes? Be proud of yourselves, you’re all warriors now.’
He ignored the fact that half of them had probably stood watching in amazement when the fighting started. That was for those that had actually fought to take advantage of later. What he needed now was for them to take courage and, for the most part, they did, some of them actually standing taller under the praise.
He led them forward, using his drawn sword to feel ahead into the darkness, a tinge of purple in the east betraying the approach of sunrise, only an hour away. Not a good time to delay, in the face of an enemy of unknown strength and disposition. Fifty paces brought them to a fence, which Marcus vaulted with a bravado he was far from feeling, grateful to hear the grunts and thuds of his men crossing the obstruction even as he hissed at them for silence. Ten paces past the barrier he heard a tiny sound, a scraping rustle against the ground that made him duck into his shield and advance the sword, wrist cocked arena-style, ready to strike. A heavy breath puffed against his cheek, making him jump backwards in shock, a muted bellow of greeting bringing his heart into his throat.
The soldiers started to laugh, one of them walking forward to get a better look.
‘Cattle, sir. Lots of them!’
Marcus sheathed his sword in disgust, taking a closer look. The animals jostled around them, hoping for food. The ox that had startled him crowded in closest, nudging at his hands with its massive snout, like an overgrown mastiff, and his heart lightened as he realised that the biggest threat was being trampled if the animal thought there might be fodder somewhere behind him. Beasts like these became used to being pampered, hand fed with the best food that could be found for them, anything to make them fatter and glossier for the day when the army’s purchasing officer came to call. Children tended to get the job of looking after them, and, as children do, ended up domesticating them into pets. He sighed at the thought, and how his men, many of them the children of the local farms on both sides of the Wall, might react to what he already knew was his only course of action.
‘Very well, farm boy, they seem to like you well enough. Take a rough count and let me know how many there are. You, get me some light. You, get the chosen and bring him here, quickly!’
Dubnus arrived just as the count was completed, roughly fifty fully grown animals standing silently in the dark field. Dubnus stroked his beard.
‘I left two tent parties guarding the farm. Those enemy troops must have been guarding these, heard our noise and ran into our men. There’s flour in the farm, enough for thousands of loaves, and big hearths built into the walls, firewood too, and pine pitch and staves for making torches, lots of jars. Fifty oxen are enough to feed ten thousand men. This is a supply dump, waiting for a warband the size of a legion…’
He stared sadly at the cattle, their breath steaming in the torchlight. Marcus nodded agreement. But where was the enemy – within marching distance and hungry for supplies before they went at the Wall, or was this just a contingency, an option prepared for an eventuality that might not come to pass? They looked at each other, sharing a moment of understanding.
‘How many jars of pitch?’
‘Enough.’
‘Very well, let’s get it over with.’
The chosen nodded, then shook his head ruefully.
‘War makes for unhappy tasks…’
He swung to face the waiting troops
‘Odd-numbered tent parties, fetch firewood from the barn. Three loads each, bring them here to me. Even numbers, to me.’
The slaughter was grimly efficient, farm-raised soldiers reluctantly leading the oxen out of the enclosure one at a time, to be greeted by a party of the stronger men, who gently penned each beast in their ranks, using gentle hands and words to soothe the animals. Dubnus and two of the older soldiers, one of them a butcher’s apprentice in his youth, all of them bloody spectres after the first few animals, calmed each animal further with soft words, then dispatched each one with a swift twisting thrust of their long knives beneath the massive jaws. The soldiers dragged each fresh corpse away with ropes taken from the farm, building a pyre of their bodies with the firewood piled around them. Soon they too were liberally streaked with the animals’ blood, as it worked deep into scalps and fingernails.
The man who had first gone forward into the herd, gently touching and caressing the oxen as he counted them, turned away and wept at the spectacle. To Marcus’s astonishment, not only did his colleagues keep a respectful distance until his eyes were dry again, but Dubnus wrapped a bloody arm around his bony shoulders and spoke a few private words of comfort. After a while, tired of the smell of the animals’ blood, Marcus went back down to the farm buildings while the cull was completed, finding the Roman woman sitting quietly, the dead soldier’s head cradled in her lap while the men set to watch over her squatted on either side. She looked up at Marcus, her dirty face streaked with dried tears.
‘He regained consciousness for a few moments. He called on Brigantia to take his spirit…’
She sniffed quietly.
‘Thank you for staying with him.’
She stood, gently placing the dead man’s head on his shield.
