He called for Qadir. The chosen man mulled the idea for a moment, and then he too nodded.
‘Yes, we can do this. But not wearing armour.’
He held up a hand to silence the first spear’s reaction.
‘Please believe me, First Spear Frontinius, we can only perform this task if all conditions are right. We must be in position at exactly the right moment, when the rising sun lights up the men on the earth wall. We must reach that position completely undetected, or we will lose the element of surprise. And to do this we must not be burdened with your heavy mail shirts, helmets and shields. It would be impossible for us to make a silent approach carrying all that weight, and your plan, Prefect, depends on our being as silent as a fox hunting across the desert at night.’
Frontinius pulled a sceptical face.
‘And if the barbarians discover you? What will you do against hundreds of them without your equipment?’
The tall chosen man returned his stare without blinking for several seconds.
‘First Spear, in the Eighth Century you have one hundred and sixty of the best archers in the world at your command. Every one of us is capable of putting three arrows into a man-sized target at one hundred paces in less time than it would take a man to run the distance. It would be a brave warrior that could run into that.’
The prefect looked at Marcus questioningly.
‘Do you agree?’
‘Yes, sir. I suggest we wear our cloaks to cover up our tunics, but otherwise it should work well enough… if we can deal with their flank sentries undetected.’
Scaurus took a deep breath.
‘In that case, First Spear, I suggest we go and speak to my fellow prefects. Although whether Gracilus Furius will appreciate our pulling his balls out of the fire is debatable.’
As it happened, both Furius and the Cugerni prefect agreed with the plan readily enough, while Tribune Antonius picked a piece of lint from the broad senatorial stripe that decorated the right shoulder of his tunic and smiled in quiet amusement at the contrast between this quiet acceptance and the man’s bluster of an hour before. He dismissed the officers to their preparations with a last quiet word of encouragement.
‘Well, gentlemen, you’d better go and warn your centurions that tomorrow starts early and will end in victory. I’m looking forward to seeing the cohorts that won us the battle of the Lost Eagle in action again.’
Appius waited until well after dark before leaving his tent, with both cohorts bedded down for the night and the sentries’ attention turned mainly outside the marching fort’s earth wall. Dressed in his dark leggings and tunic, and keeping to the shadows, he made swift and silent progress through the camp and into the 1st Cohort’s lines, slipping from the shadow of one tent to the next with a careful eye open for the patrolling soldiers, all the time keeping the other closed to protect it from the torches providing patchy illumination for the rows of tents. Within minutes he had found the tents housing the Hamians, slinking noiselessly up their line until he reached the spot where he estimated the centurion’s tent would be positioned. Worming his way round the tent, he lifted the front flap fractionally, peeking into the darkened interior with the previously closed eye wide open. A single body was lying rolled up in a blanket, a centurion’s helmet laid alongside the bed with a vine stick next to it. He slipped quietly inside the tent and across the grass floor to the neatly folded pile of clothes that awaited the young officer’s wakening, ignoring the wooden chest at Marcus’s feet for fear of a noisy hinge waking the sleeping man.
Running his hands across the garments, he encountered a hard object, the prick of a pin to his finger telling him that it was the cloak pin he had picked up from the floor of the Arab Town officers’ mess. He pulled the metal disc from its hiding place beneath the man’s cloak and grinned to himself in triumph, slipping it into his pocket and moving silently back to the tent’s entrance. Opening the flap a fraction, he froze into immobility as a patrolling sentry padded past, the man’s attention clearly elsewhere since the slight movement went unnoticed. When the soldier was twenty paces farther down the line of tents the intruder slipped out of the small opening, leaving the sleeping centurion none the wiser as to his presence.
The cohorts mustered for their short march to the hill fort an hour before first light, hundreds of torches blazing out into the darkness. Marcus walked with Qadir as the chosen man checked his men’s equipment in the flickering light, watching as the Hamian and his watch officer took each man’s bow in turn and tested its draw.
‘It is customary,’ the big man had told him. ‘They expect us to examine every man’s bow before we use them in battle. If I were to ignore the ritual they would fear some form of bad luck befalling them. Besides, better for a man’s bowstring to part here than in the heat of battle.’
Dubnus walked down to the 8th’s place at the rear of the Tungrians’ column, smiling grimly at the sight of Marcus in his cloak, the heavy wool held closed with a borrowed bronze pin. He glanced at Antenoch, noting the clerk’s sombre demeanour.
‘What’s wrong with him? Don’t tell me he’s getting nervy before a fight for the first time in his life?’
His friend frowned in the flickering torchlight.
‘No, nothing like that. My cloak pin’s gone missing and he’s blaming himself. I’ve told him it’s my fault, it probably fell off last night, so it’ll either be trampled into the mud or safely tucked away in some lucky soldier’s pack.’
His friend grimaced his sympathy.
‘Everyone in the cohort knows it’s yours, so if it’s found it’ll come back. And besides, you’re better off with that bronze pin this particular morning. It’s just a shame you’ve no armour underneath the cloak.’
Marcus returned the smile with a raised eyebrow and lifted the heavy wool to reveal his mail shirt.
‘We haven’t all given up on the virtues of a good strong defence. Once the blue-noses realise what’s happening they’ll come across that fort like a pack of dogs after raw meat, and someone’s going to have to deal with the men that dodge our arrows.’
His former chosen man nodded solemnly.
‘We’ll be with you as quickly as possible.’
Marcus tapped the hilts of his swords.
‘And until then I’ll be getting some practice with these. Just don’t take too long.’
He shook hands with Morban, detailed by the first spear to remain behind and look after Lupus, much to his disgust. Frontinius had ignored his protests, waving him away dismissively.
‘It’s not as if a standard’s going to make much difference in this instance, and you should have made sure he was being cared for. Grin and bear it, Standard-bearer, because it isn’t going to change.’
The auxiliary cohorts led the column out of their temporary camp in a blaze of torchlight, making their way across the intervening ground between the marching camp and the hill fort at a brisk pace. The 8th Century, dressed in their dark cloaks and without armour or shields, slipped in quietly behind the last of the three auxiliary cohorts, keeping back far enough to be sure that the torchlight would not betray their presence to any lurking scouts. Marcus and Qadir watched from the darkness behind their comrades as the cohorts paraded for the assault before the hill fort’s southern rampart, the centurions marshalling their men with bellowed orders.
‘Is it always this way? They’re making enough noise to summon the dead from their resting places.’
Marcus shook his head despite the darkness.
‘No, they’re making a special effort to get noticed. Once the warband have taken the bait we can get moving.’
They waited for a long moment before Qadir tugged at his centurion’s sleeve, pointing as vague figures appeared on the wall in the pale golden light of the cohorts’ torches.
‘There. On the wall! There must be hundreds of them.’
Marcus strained his eyes, watching as men appeared along the length of the fort’s southern rampart.
‘Yes, and there will be many more hidden behind the wall. A target for every arrow we have and more besides. Follow me!’
Marcus led the 8th away into the deeper darkness, scouting away to the west around the fort’s curving earth wall, moving slowly to ensure that the century stayed together as they crossed the rough ground. When he judged the distance they had moved away from the main force was sufficient he stopped the advance with a soft command to Qadir, and the Hamians settled down to wait for the dawn. In the distance they could clearly hear the sounds of men being prepared for a fight, shouts of command and the occasional blare of a trumpeter’s horn, all the while answered by the harsh cries of the barbarians waiting for them. Qadir spoke quietly into his ear.
‘There must be thousands of the savages, to judge from their noise. If this goes badly then ours will not be
