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.
‘Many men, close. We stay here, listen, watch. Any closer, we be prisoner.’
Marcus nodded, signalling to the other men to hold fast. To their front the sounds of the warband were ever more apparent as the barbarian raiders gathered their strength to attack. Dubnus leaned in close to whisper in the man’s ear.
‘They’re waiting for something.’
Seconds later a horse’s scream of agony rang through the woods, answered almost immediately by a roar of triumph from the tribesmen. Dubnus nudged Marcus, putting his head close to his friend’s ear.
‘Dispatch riders, most likely. The warband were waiting to capture the message for help. Those poor bastards are in for it now.’
Marcus nodded in response to his friend’s bald statement.
’Stay here, I’m going forward for a look.’
Without allowing any time for argument he wormed forward on his stomach, crawling fifty paces or so until he reached a fallen tree. Where the tree’s roots had been ripped from the soil by its fall, a wide plug of dry earth still clinging to their tangles, a dark hole had been formed between the trunk and the bowl-like depression left in the ground. He slithered silently into the gap, covering his head with his cloak and looking out at the ground on the other side of the fallen tree. The clearing before him was almost empty, with a knot of warriors dragging three struggling men across the needle-strewn forest floor. As he watched them the barbarians, a dozen strong, manhandled the trussed Romans to their feet and quickly lashed them to trees before cutting away their clothes to leave them naked and shivering in the cool night air. With a sick certainty Marcus watched as one of their captors unsheathed a knife, its polished blade a pale bar of moonlight in his hand, and stepped up to one of the captives. He thrust the blade deep into the captive’s thigh without any warning, wringing a reluctant snarl of pain from the helpless man before pulling the bloodied knife free and dragging its blade across the man’s eyes. If the man’s first cry had been born of physical distress, torn reluctantly from him by the sudden unexpected pain, the scream that echoed through the forest as he was blinded was a howl of agonised despair.
With the dispatch riders away towards the south-west, the soldiers manning the fort’s ramparts waited anxiously. The first spear watched impassively as the torches drew closer, counting under his breath. He stared ruminatively at the flickering lights, muttering to himself.
‘Two hundred or so. Hardly seems enough for a full-sized warband. Say there’s one torch for every ten of the bastards, that’s more like
…’
A shout from the fort’s southern wall spun him round, staring out into the darkness. In the deep shadow of the woods to the fort’s south, where the faint moonlight was unable to provide any illumination, a spark of light was bobbing along the line of trees. Every few seconds a new light would kindle in its wake, until the wood was alive with light. The first spear hurried down the tower’s steps into the fort’s bustle, calling the officers to him. They gathered to find him grim faced, one hand reflexively gripping the hilt of his gladius.
‘We’ve been fooled. There’s a warband in the woods to the south and it looks like they’re getting ready to storm the gates…’
He issued a crisp stream of orders, sending a century to man the fort’s south-facing wall, splitting another to guard those parts of the east and west walls to the south of the point where the fort’s defences met the wall’s line, and took the calculated risk of leaving only one more to man the fort’s northern side. The prefect stood alongside him as, gathering the other three centuries to the southern gate’s double arch, he arrayed the nervous soldiers on all three sides of the fort’s most vulnerable point. The veteran officer shook his head ruefully.
‘It’s quite simple really, Prefect, they showed us the torches to the north to flush us out. The man leading that collection of savages out there knew that one of two things had to happen once we saw what looked like movement in strength to the north – either the full cohort retreating to the south, or our messengers heading for Noisy Valley. Either would be an acceptable result for the man commanding that warband, since all he ever had to do to bottle us up in this trap was kill our only means of getting a message through to the heavy boys. With our messengers almost certainly taken there’s no way for the legions to know he’s got our nuts between the bricks, and without the legions there’ll be no escape for us. He’s got the rest of the night to chop a way in through one of the gates, most likely this one, since the other three are all on the other side of the wall…’ He pointed to the twin south gates, their thick timbers reinforced with three heavy oak bracing bars apiece. ‘It looks tough enough now, but they’ll be hacking down a tree out there right now and getting it ready to swing at those doors. No gate can take that sort of treatment for long.’
The prefect frowned, weighing up their options.
‘If their main strength is to the south surely we could still run to the east on the northern side of the wall. Standing orders specifically instruct all fort commanders not to waste lives defending fixed positions.’
The senior centurion rubbed a hand across his tired face, blinking away his fatigue.
‘In the darkness, and with two or three thousand of them waiting out there to the north? I’d say we’re better off taking our chances here, Prefect…’ He turned to the men gathered around the gate, raising his voice to make sure they all heard him. Men leaned out over the rampart’s internal wall, keen to hear the man who ran their small world speak.
‘Well now, my brothers, here’s the thing. Those blue-faced bastards have pulled a nice little trick, got men to the south of us as well as the north. They’re between us and Noisy Valley, so they’re probably already carving up the messengers we sent that way. If you listen carefully you’ll hear them screaming, most likely – it’s what they always do with captives, partly to get the piss running down our legs and partly because, well, that’s just what they do.’
He paused for a moment, looking around at the soldiers’ serious faces in the flickering torchlight.
‘This only ends one of two ways, gentlemen. Either we hold them off for long enough that the legions at Noisy Valley can get here and save our arses, or those barbarian bum-fuckers will manage to bludgeon their way in here, which is more than likely, and then try to overwhelm us in nasty, dirty street fighting. They have the advantage of numbers; we have discipline and superior equipment and training on our side. You all know the drills, all you have to do is follow them and we have a decent chance of getting out of the other side of this night with our heads still on our shoulders.’
He pointed up at the walls.
‘Soldiers on the rampart, you’ll have men with ladders looking to swarm up on to the walls. Your first priority is to push the ladders clear, and dump the bastards into the ditch, but watch out, they’ll have archers behind them shooting at anything that moves. Any man that gets his feet on to the fighting surface is your number-one target, and you take him down with spear, sword or your teeth and nails if that’s all you’ve got left.’
He took a breath, casting a jaundiced eye over the men standing around him, many of them looming over his stocky frame.
‘Soldiers in the streets, once I’ve finished this little speech you’ll form a wall of men, from one side of the street to the other, and on all three sides of the gate. This is going to be street fighting, my lads, so no throwing your spears this time, I want ten blue-nose dead for every spear, not just one. Front rankers, tonight we fight in the old-fashioned style, spears held underarm and thrust up into bellies and throats from behind your shields. None of that overarm nonsense, you’ll just open yourself up to a sword in your armpit. Rear rankers, if you can reach, you can go in overarm, but be careful not to stick it through your mate’s ear. It may not endear you to him…’
The soldiers smiled wanly at the tired old joke, appreciating his effort under the circumstances.
‘If you lose your spear, air your iron and take it to them in the usual way, short thrusts, throat, thighs or guts, it doesn’t matter which, open your man up and step back to let him bleed to death. Nothing fancy, and no heroics. Rear rankers! If the man in front of you goes down, his place is yours, so don’t wait to be asked. Jump in there and fight like you’ve got a pair, because if the line breaks you’ll be the first one looking down the shaft of a barbarian
