rider along the stretch of road that ran past the fort’s southern walls.
They were spotted almost immediately, guttural warning cries alerting the archers closest to the big horse’s path, who swung to fire the next volley of fire arrows not into the burning fort, but at the unknown rider flying past them faster than most of them had ever seen a horse move. Most of the arrows flew too high, archers accustomed to shooting over the fort’s wall failing to adjust their aim sufficiently, but one flaming shaft streaked in low, shooting across the horse’s nose with barely a hand’s span to spare, and the big animal baulked for a moment. Fighting the momentarily terrified beast for control, Felix jabbed his spurs into its flanks with savage intent, firing the animal across the firelit ground in a foam-mouthed charge, both horse and rider intent on nothing more than escaping the rain of fire arrows. One missile hissed unseen past the decurion’s head and another rebounded from his helmet, the incendiary weapons now replaced by the evilly barbed iron-headed hunting arrows that the archers intended showering on to the defenceless garrison once their stock of fire arrows was exhausted. The horse lurched in mid- stride as a dart buried itself deep in its shoulder, lunging sideways away from the source of the pain until the decurion pulled it back straight. Despite the arrow’s impact the beast charged on, if anything made faster by the wound’s pain. A final flurry of arrows whipped past the fleeing horseman, and the last of them found its mark, punching up into his unprotected armpit as he leaned forward over the horse’s neck, and nearly unseating him with the impact. Almost insensible with the enervating shock, Felix slumped across the galloping horse’s neck and hung on to its mane with the last of his strength, as the pair were swallowed up by the surrounding darkness.
The big horse slowed, feeling its rider’s weight across its heavy neck, and turned its head to look at the decurion through the delicately decorated armour that covered its long nose and eyes. The officer rallied his strength, his entire right side numb with the pain of the arrow’s protrusion up under his arm and only his good arm’s grip on the reins keeping him from slipping from the saddle. A figure loomed out of the darkness and the wounded horse reared its head in surprise, only to find its movement restrained by a strong grip on its bridle. Cornelius Felix reached left handed for the hilt of his sword, but found his hand restrained by a strong grip that the pain of his wound left him powerless to resist. He slumped on to the horse’s neck, hanging on for dear life as the animal reluctantly followed its unknown captors into the forest’s moonless gloom.
In the burning fortress the Frisian cohort had retreated from their walls, those men not already felled by barbarian arrows and spears fighting their way back into the fort’s centre to mount a desperate last defence against attackers now railing at their shields from all sides. For every warrior that fell to their spears another two implacable enemies came through the gates, and when the barbarians had gained first a foothold on, and then control of, the fort’s south wall, and began to shower the troops with spears from above, the first spear had had no choice but to order a retreat. Fighting his way back through the tight streets with his men, he had been one of the first to fall to his knees with an arrow buried in his calf, decapitated an instant later by the barbarians pressing hard against the retreating troops.
Bereft of their leader, the auxiliaries had fought on under the prefect’s command, the senior officer donning a soldier’s helmet and shield to take his place in the line, but now they were being steadily ground down by the ceaseless attacks coming from all sides as they consolidated into an increasingly beleaguered defensive square at the fort’s heart, in front of the burning headquarters.
‘Barely two hundred of us still standing now.’
A panting centurion, the last officer still fighting other than the prefect himself, gave his superior a weary look and nodded agreement. The prefect grimaced from the pain of flesh wounds in his right thigh and arm, baring his teeth in a snarl of frustration.
‘We fight on. There’s still a chance that the legions at Noisy Valley have got wind of this. If they moved out an hour ago they could be here in minutes…’ The centurion’s face was blank with battle shock, his eyes alone betraying the combination of hope and disbelief that flickered in his otherwise reeling mind. ‘So we fight on. My turn in the line, I think, you take a moment to get your breath back. If I go down then it’ll be up to you to rally these men, and to hold on as long as you can.’
The centurion nodded, raising his sword in salute as the prefect, his teeth bared in a snarl of defiance, stepped into the square’s thinning line one last time, parrying a barbarian spear-thrust with his borrowed shield before gutting the weapon’s owner with a blow that would have made the dead first spear nod with quiet admiration. The cohort’s remnant fought on in silent exhaustion, their meagre perimeter shrinking by the minute as the barbarians crowded in, eager to kill before the fight ended. The officer parried another attack, shouting above the barbarians’ clamour to his men.
‘One last song, lads, show these bastards we’re not done yet! “The General’s Wife”!’
He led the song off, smiling grimly as the soldiers responded to the familiar words of the first verse, their voices momentarily drowning out the guttural cries of the tribesmen baying for their blood. The cohort’s remnant fought on with desperate purpose, hemmed in by the press of their enemies as the barbarians remorselessly tightened their grip on the remaining defenders. The centurion straightened his helmet and stepped into the line alongside his prefect, filling his lungs to belt out the song’s last verse.
‘Our hero like a gentleman inclined his head once more,
And wondering who was booked in next he headed for the door,
On leaving the house to his surprise he found an impatient queue,
His chosen man, watch officer and his clerical writer too!’
The two men shared a moment of unspoken understanding, the fact of their vastly different origins rendered meaningless by desperate circumstance. The prefect tipped his head to the centurion, lifting his shield a fraction as the barbarians massed just beyond sword-reach and readied themselves for their final assault. A voice rang out above the warband’s baying clamour, and the tribesmen fell silent. From behind the barbarian line the voice called again, this time speaking perfect Latin, to the prefect’s astonishment.
‘Soldiers of Rome, I am Calgus, Lord of the Northern Tribes. I have taken your messengers, burned out your fort, and reduced your strength to a shadow of its former pride with only a small portion of my army. Your position is hopeless, and in a few minutes you will all be dead, or dying in ways that will make you beg for death. If you surrender now, you can spare yourself such indignity. You have fought well against impossible odds, but there will be no rescue for you. No word of this dirty little battle will have reached your legions yet, they still lie asleep behind their walls at Noisy Valley, and you truly are alone in the dark. Surrender to me, soldiers, and renounce your service of the empire and I guarantee you will not die here…’
Prefect and centurion shared another glance, the senior officer raising a questioning eyebrow, his grim amusement obvious. There was no way that the surrender of a Roman of the equestrian class, so obviously advertised by his purple-edged tunic, would be greeted with anything other than protracted torture from which his eventual death would be a welcome relief. The centurion spat on the blood-slickened cobbles, then called back to the unseen speaker.
‘You bastards just want some prisoners to make sport with. We’ll not die now, I’ll give you that, but you’ll drag us away to the hills for a more leisurely game than you’ll get here. If I’m going to die then it’ll be with a sword in my hand, and with as many of you dead as I can manage before you put me down, not with my dick sawed off and my eyes pulled out in some forest clearing. Now fight or fuck off, before the legions turn up and bend you over for a good shagging, you blue-nosed turd punchers!’
The prefect nodded his respect, looking around at his men and raising his voice to be heard in turn.
‘Well said, Centurion. Let’s show this barbarian scum how Roman soldiers fight to the bitter end.’
Calgus spoke again, his voice light with amusement.
‘Very well. If death is what you desire, I shall grant your wish.’
His voice hardened as he barked out an order in his native language, the waiting warriors pressing forward to swing their swords down on to the tightly packed soldiers, while others thrust their spears into the gaps opened as the defenders lifted their shields to fend off the fierce sword-blows.
Calgus stood in the ruins of the shattered fort, pulling his cloak over his face against the reek of smoking timbers. His bodyguard had spread out round him, stabbing down into the fallen auxiliary troops whose corpses still littered the narrow streets of White Strength to ensure that none of the fallen soldiers was faking death. The combined stench of burnt wood, blood and faeces was overpowering even through the cloak’s rough material, the bodies of the defeated Romans littering the ground in increasingly tight circles centred on the piled corpses of their last stand. The Votadini warriors he had put at the front of the assault were busy taking heads and searching for booty, but Martos spotted Calgus and called his men to attend their leader. They stood and gathered around him,
