‘Get up.’
Marcus climbed to his feet, wiping a fresh coating of mud from his face.
‘I’m Corvus, centurion of the Eighth Century, First Cohort. Those men across the river…’
The soldier turned away.
‘Centurion Appius!’
His officer came forward to the riverbank, took one look at Marcus and shouted for his chosen man. He turned back to the Roman with a wry smile.
‘Well now, look at you, Centurion Two Knives. There’s me looking all over for you, and then just when I’m least expecting it the gods drop you out of the sky, or so it seems. We’ll have to…’
Marcus interrupted him with a dismissive shake of his head.
‘No time. We can discuss whatever it is you want from me later, but for now my century is across the river, waiting to cross!’
Appius nodded.
‘We’ll talk later, then. Chosen!’
Appius’s second-in-command got the Hamians moving across the tree trunks, while the two centurions considered the threat to the cohorts’ defences. Marcus pointed into the mist towards the outcrop, hidden in the rolling mist.
‘They sent a runner back to the warband. We killed the rest of them, but he was gone too quickly. As long as it takes to get back to the ford and back again, then we’ll be knee deep in barbarians. Speaking of which, there are friendly locals on the other side too, so you’d better pass the word for your men to hold on to their spears until they hear the command to throw…’
Antenoch dropped from the tree’s curved surface, saluting both officers.
‘Centurion Corvus, there are warriors climbing down the rocks, we can hear them.’
Marcus turned to the other centurion.
‘We’ve got five minutes, no more, and there’ll be hundreds of them fighting us for this piece of riverbank. My archers can hold them off for a time, but we need to destroy these trees.’
Appius’s men took guard around the tree’s impromptu bridge while the Hamians, the last men of the 8th Century still crossing, took their positions up and downstream, readying their bows to shoot. The first of the Votadini came across the bridge at something close to a run, the urgency of the situation telling in the speed with which the warriors crossed, one or two coming perilously close to falling into the Red. Martos, the last man across, walked across the impromptu bridge at a more dignified pace, pointing back across the river.
‘They’re close, I could hear them shouting to each other. They’ll be trying to cross in less than a minute, and nothing short of burning these trees out will keep them at bay, if that were even possible.’
Appius snapped his fingers, turning to Marcus with a new light in his eyes.
‘Fire! That’s it! I know a man that keeps a ready supply. Keep them busy, eh, Two Knives? You’re in charge here until I get back!’
Marcus caught his arm as he turned to go.
‘Take our Votadini allies with you, there’s no way they can stay here.’ He turned to Martos, offering the Votadini warrior his hand. ‘Thank you for staying back to lead us to safety, we would have been found and slaughtered without your guidance. Follow this officer and he will lead you to the main body. You’ll be better off there, safe from the risk that some idiot will take you for a Venico…’
Martos nodded, taking the offered hand before beckoning his men to follow him, then ran north along the riverbank behind Appius, heading for the ford.
Marcus called Qadir to his side.
‘Right, Chosen, I suggest that you get your men ready to start shooting. There are no friendlies left to cross the bridge. Aimed shots only and no volleys, we need to make every arrow count.’
The shouts of the approaching Venicones were audible over the river’s babble now. Their excitement turned to anger as they encountered the bodies of their comrades. In the mist wreathing the Red’s far bank they milled around for a moment and then, goaded by their leaders, started their assault. Leaping on to the fallen tree with swords and spears ready to fight, they advanced along its length, hideously vulnerable targets for the waiting bows. The Hamian archers picked them off with lethal precision, dropping the warriors into the river’s fast-moving water with their blood spraying from two or three arrow wounds apiece.
As the skirmish played out before him, Marcus was looking not to the barbarians his men were killing by the numbers, but to those on the bank behind them, their number swelling by the minute as more of the warband struggled down the outcrop and ran to join their comrades. Still calculating the odds, he staggered back as an arrow punched into the mail armour covering his chest, the missile dropping to the damp grass with its energy dissipated against the stout iron rings. Another arrow flicked off Morban’s helmet, and the standard-bearer ducked for cover behind the Hamian line with an unaccustomed agility.
‘Archers! Target the far bank with volleys.’
He smiled grimly as the Hamians loosed a volley of arrows across the river which resulted in a chorus of groans and screams from the warriors milling about on the far bank, recognising the tactics being employed by whoever was in command on the far side. In an instant, whether deliberately or not, the game had been changed. Forced to fire en masse in order to kill or suppress the barbarian archers, the Hamians would run through their remaining arrows in minutes, rather than the much longer time possible if they were required only to pick off single targets.
While the first volley tore into the mass of barbarians lining the far bank, sending most of them to earth, the second and third found far fewer targets as a result.
‘Cease volleys! Aimed shots only!’
And probably a tenth of their stock of arrows were expended in less than half a minute. An astute leader on the far bank might reckon it worth the loss to throw his men back on to their feet to make the Romans run through their arrows, and remove the threat to their crossing at the cost of a few hundred lives. Without the threat of the archers, and with their bowmen to keep the defenders’ heads down, whoever was leading the men on the far bank would be able to mass twenty or thirty men on the trees’ broad trunks, ready to rush into their midst with hundreds more at their back. A few well-picked men with their feet on the western bank might occupy the defenders for long enough for their fellow warriors to reinforce them and secure the tiny bridgehead, allowing the trickle to become a flood. The warriors were on their feet again quickly enough once the iron rain no longer fell among them, barbarian arrows once more flicking through the ranks of the Hamian and Tungrian defenders.
‘Volleys!’
Another three volleys were loosed to good effect, another tenth of their arrows gone. The situation was descending into a straight trade-off, bodies for arrows, and with sick certainty Marcus watched as the warriors rose again, some with more than one arrow wound.
‘Qadir!’
The chosen man hurried across to him, keeping low as barbarian arrows resumed their irregular but potentially lethal hail.
‘How many arrows do we have left?’
The big man grimaced.
‘Perhaps fifteen per man.’
They had enough arrows for five more rounds of their deadly game, perhaps seven or eight if he restricted them to two shots each time. Ten minutes’ worth, and no more.
‘Aimed shots only. No more volleys. Tell your men I want no wasted arrows.’ He turned to the other century’s chosen man and watch officer, shaking his head in apology. ‘Sorry, gentlemen, your boys will have to take their chances with the barbarian archers. If I keep firing volleys to make them keep their heads down I’ll be out of arrows in less time than it’ll take for reinforcements to arrive.’
An ugly thought occurred to him.
‘Could either of you throw a spear across the river?’
The men looked at each other, then at the river, calculating the distance. The chosen man nodded slowly, his eyes still calculating the throw.
‘Not sure that I could, but I’ve got plenty of big strong boys that would make it easily…’
Marcus motioned to Qadir, signalling a withdrawal.
