the only lives lost this day. I have read about assaults on defended positions like this, and I fear your friends will pay a steep price to take that ground.’
Marcus nodded into the darkness, his face grim as he searched the invisible horizon for any sign of the coming dawn.
‘We’d best not miss the mark, then.’
In the space of two minutes a subtle difference in the sky above the fort’s earth wall became clear to the waiting soldiers, the beginnings of a gentle change of hue in the night sky to the east. Within another five minutes the first real hint of dawn tinged the slowly retreating darkness with a faint pink hue. Marcus stared intently up the slope, sensing Qadir doing the same at his shoulder without having to look round.
‘There.’
He followed the other man’s pointing arm, seeing a silhouette against the faint glow.
‘And another.’
The shape of a shaggy-haired warrior moved across the dawn’s faint glow as he crossed the earth wall’s surface to speak with the first man spotted. They stood facing the south, ignoring their guard duty to focus on the likely point of attack. Qadir murmured quietly into Marcus’s ear.
‘We are still deep in darkness down here, so they see nothing and neglect their given task. They speak of the fight to come at their front gate, and perhaps their desire to be part of that, rather than this less than noble duty. Either that or they wonder if they might still slip away into the dawn unnoticed…’
Marcus nodded again.
‘Can your men take them down with this much light?’
Even in the gloom he saw the white of his chosen man’s teeth bared in a fierce smile.
‘We can, but we need better light for the next task. Besides, I expected more than these two. A short while longer would be wise, I think?’
Marcus whispered agreement, and the two men waited while the glow of the eastern horizon slowly brightened. He was on the verge of ordering the attack when another silhouette climbed up the fort’s slope, seeming to rise up out of the earth in front of them, and joined the other two men, now clearly outlined against a pink dawn sky.
‘He must have been at the foot of the slope, perhaps praying silently to his gods?’
Marcus snorted mirthlessly.
‘Emptying his bowels, more likely. It’s time. Another five minutes and they’ll have enough light to see us. Antenoch, stay here to guide the Ninth Century to us once the excitement starts. I don’t want to risk them missing their way in the dark and leaving us without any means of fighting back if the barbarians get past our arrows.’
Qadir nodded, muttering a quiet command to the dozen archers he had picked out for this critical first task. Still indistinct to Marcus’s eyes, their capes merging with the fort’s deep shadow, they nocked arrows to their bows and took up the first slack. Marcus nodded to his chosen man.
‘Now.’
Pulling back their bowstrings until the weapons made tiny creaking sounds under the strain, the archers made the last adjustments to their points of aim, waiting for Qadir’s command. The chosen man paused for a long breath to allow them to settle, then hissed a terse command. The barbarian sentries staggered under the impact of a dozen arrows, all three slumping to the ground as the humming note of the bowstrings died away, hopefully unheard from within the fort. Marcus drew his cavalry sword and bounded forward up the slope, reaching the top in thirty seconds of scrambling climb, then dropped on to his chest and hugged the earth wall’s parapet alongside the fallen barbarians. One of the men was quietly choking on his own blood in the dawn’s silence, his bubbling breaths silenced by a swift stroke of the blade across his throat.
From the wall’s vantage point the enemy camp was laid out beneath him, their fires still burning across the area enclosed by the circular rampart. In the dawn’s pale light, with the sun still below the forested horizon, the mass of the enemy gathered 250 paces away on the slope of the hill fort’s southern wall was an indistinct seething wall of shaggy warriors baying for blood. Only the warband’s front rank was standing on the earth wall’s parapet, presumably to protect the remainder of the warband against the possibility that the legion artillery’s bolt throwers might yet make an unwelcome appearance. The remainder were gathered in the southern rampart’s protection for the time being. Marcus could clearly hear the shouts of their leaders, building their men up for the bloodletting to come and obviously determined to make the invaders pay dearly for every foot gained. Scanning the wall to the east and south, he quickly spotted the expected groups of sentries still watching the ground to their front, clearly still unaware of the threat to their rear. Crawling back to the edge of the rampart, he beckoned Qadir and his selected archers to join him, muttering into the big man’s ear.
‘I need you to take down the other two groups of sentries…’
He pointed out the fresh targets to Qadir, who swiftly detailed a target to each of his men.
‘… but two arrows each may not be enough for a silent kill. I suggest you bring up the rest of the century, and have them ready to start shooting the second the sentries are down.’
Qadir nodded, and waved the rest of the century forward to just below the rampart’s lip. Grim faced, they nocked arrows and held their bows pointing downwards, ready to lift, draw and shoot. Marcus looked at Qadir one last time.
‘Ready?’
The chosen man nodded.
‘Shoot.’
Qadir jerked a hand forward to unleash his picked marksmen’s arrows. The sentries fell under the Hamians’ volley, one man clearly attempting to call out a warning despite his wounds, but the clamour of both the waiting cohorts and the warband’s imprecations drowned out his efforts long enough for another arrow to slam into his back and drop him face down on to the wall’s dried mud. As the sentries fell the remainder of the 8th’s men scrambled up the last few paces of climb, quickly forming two lines with their bows held ready to shoot, every one of them now staring at Qadir in readiness for his order. Without waiting for permission, Qadir spread his arms to indicate that the whole century was to shoot, then pivoted to point at the mass of warriors unwittingly waiting under the threat of their bows.
The Hamians’ first volley of arrows arced down on to the unsuspecting barbarians out of the dark western sky. Dozens of men fell, some dead before they hit the ground but most of them screaming out their sudden agony as the barbed iron slammed deep into their heads, necks and chests. Even as the first victims reeled under the shock of impact another volley punched down into their ranks, taking a fresh toll of their strength as the archers’ still uncomprehending victims fell with blood frothing from their horrific wounds. Marcus grinned wolfishly, pointing at the enemy warriors with his cavalry sword.
‘Keep them shooting! Pour it on!’
Qadir nodded without taking his eyes off the target as he nocked another arrow and sent it into the warband’s screaming mass, shouting to his men to rain arrows on to the still-defenceless barbarians. Marcus’s eyes sought and found the 8th’s trumpeter.
‘Sound the advance. Blow, man, blow!’
As the sweet notes of the call to advance sounded above the warband’s howls, he drew his short gladius and held it alongside the longer cavalry weapon, testing the weight and balance of the blades in readiness for what he knew must come soon enough. Already the warband’s rear ranks were struggling to regain some semblance of order, those men with shields sheltering behind them as best they could while fighting their way through the human wreckage of the 8th’s stricken victims. A lone warrior broke away from the pack and sprinted towards the archers with his shield held close to his body, followed over the next few seconds by several more, the men’s swords glinting in the dawn’s pale light as they charged across the gap between the Hamians and their targets in a growing tide of fury. Marcus turned back to find Qadir still pulling arrows from his quiver and loosing them into the warband with impressive speed.
‘Keep shooting! I’ll deal with anyone that gets through!’
The chosen man nodded grimly, lowering his bow a fraction to shoot an arrow into the legs of the closest barbarian before shouting a command over his shoulder.
‘Front rank, target the runners. Rear rank, keep shooting!’
As Marcus watched, his swords raised in their familiar stance with the blade points level, the front rank took aim at their attackers and loosed a volley of arrows that dropped half of them with head and leg injuries. A warrior
