suddenly, decisively, splitting the century into two distinct halves separated by a two-foot gap. Unless it was closed at once the tribesmen would be in there, hacking furiously to either side and in all likelihood shattering the 8th’s already fragile confidence completely. Marcus dropped the wooden pole, drawing his spatha with a flourish and reaching for the hilt of his gladius in readiness to throw himself into the gap, but as he pulled the short sword from its scabbard and steeled himself to fight he was elbowed aside by a bulky figure.
‘Syria!’
Qadir had snatched up a shield and beaten him to it, leaving him standing impotently with both swords ready to fight, but without any means of getting at the Venicones hammering at the shield wall behind which he was trapped. Watching helplessly and aghast at his chosen man’s likely fate, he was amazed to see the previously placid Hamian bury his sword deep in the closest tribesman’s guts, then kick him off the blade while parrying an attack from his left with an almost dismissive flick of his borrowed shield. He swung the blade, already running red with blood, backhanded, hacking into another man’s neck and almost severing his victim’s head from its shoulders with the force of the blow. A spray of hot blood showered the front rankers around him, its coppery stink filling the air.
‘Deasura!’
The scream came not from the near-berserk Qadir, but from one of the archers standing close to him, and like the clap of thunder that presages the full fury of a gathering storm, it galvanised the Hamians to sudden, almost unbelievable action. In the space of a heartbeat their blood was up in a way that Marcus would never have predicted, most of the front rank screaming their defiance and, amazingly, gloriously, actually fighting back with their previously useless swords. Not all of their thrusts were anywhere near a target, but within the space of ten seconds there were half a dozen more dead and dying tribesmen at their feet for the loss of one man, who charged out of the line in the full grip of his newly discovered bloodlust, and died quickly and messily once separated from the protection of the century’s line of shields. The century had been transformed from hapless terror to clumsy but effective attack by Qadir’s sudden lunge into their front rank, and with their blood up the Hamians showed no sign of backing off their intended prey.
Thinking quickly, Marcus abandoned his original plan and gestured to the 2nd Cohort watch officers to hold their ground, then ran to the end of the 8th’s line, bellowing down its length to get his men’s attention.
‘Eighth Century!’
A brief, somehow unnatural quiet fell across the tiny battlefield, the remaining Venicones’ attention grabbed by his appearance at the end of the Roman line just as much as that of his own men.
‘Eighth Century, advance to the riverbank!’
A pair of barbarian warriors, one lean and sinewy with a pair of throwing spears and a small hand shield, the other a giant of a man with a six-foot-long broadsword, broke from the knot of surviving warriors and sprinted across the narrow gap towards him with furious purpose. Allowing no time for the Hamians to respond, Marcus stepped forward purposefully to meet their charge, ducking and twisting under the first of the thin man’s spears as it hissed past his head. Taking the spearman for his first target, given the lanky warrior’s two-pace lead on his larger companion, he slapped the man’s shield with his extended spatha before spinning in a lightning-fast full circle to the spearman’s right. The unexpected move put the barbarian between him and the broadsword’s greater threat, and Marcus scythed the long cavalry sword round in a long arc that ended in the spearman’s unprotected flank. The devastating backhanded spatha cut open his side beneath his ribcage to his spine. The grievously wounded warrior dropped his shield with a howl of agony, his bowels voiding themselves in a stinking rush as he tottered on legs turned to jelly by the wound’s fearful pain.
Shifting his balance swiftly from his bent left leg, Marcus sprang upright, kicking the grievously wounded warrior on to his comrade even as the other man drew his massive sword back, only to be thrown off balance as the dying spearman flew backwards into him. Without hesitation Marcus stepped in fast and thrust the spatha’s three- foot length through the dying spearman’s body and into the swordsman’s guts, letting go of the sword’s hilt and raising the gladius over his head. He flashed the blade down to point at the frozen Venicones, snarling at the Hamians behind him.
‘To the riverbank! No prisoners!’
The archers swept forward with the irresistible force of an incoming tide, gladius blades licking in and out of their line in silver and red flashes as they put the suddenly terrified tribesmen to the sword. The Venicone warriors that remained either went down fighting against impossible odds or broke and ran for the fallen trees’ bridge to the eastern bank. Barely a dozen escaped the Hamians’ onslaught, two of them tripping in their haste to cross the river and falling into the fast-moving flow, washed away into the mist in seconds.
The Hamians, left in gloriously undisputed possession of the riverbank, were suddenly exhausted as the brief, exhilarating combat rage washed out of their bodies. More than one man found himself yawning uncontrollably where he had felt godlike power only a moment before.
‘Now I see why you people speak of battle the way you do…’
Marcus turned from wrenching his spatha from the bodies of the two Venicone warriors to find Qadir standing at his shoulder, his sword and shield hanging loosely by his sides. This was the Qadir he had grown accustomed to, once more quietly spoken and considered.
‘It was quite amazing. One moment I was watching my men suffer at the hands of those barbarians, the next…’
He ran out of words, a small tremor in the corner of one eye evidencing his sudden exhaustion. Marcus slapped his shoulder hard, a blow calculated to sting.
‘The next minute, brother, the animal in you found his release. You took your iron to the men that were killing your men and you fought like a demon. Don’t try to rationalise your rage, recognise it for what it was, and what it will be again, if need be. Old Julius had better watch out, you could give him more than a run for his money. Oh yes, one more thing. Deasura?’
Qadir nodded.
‘She is Atargatis, our goddess. In battle we call on her as the Dea Syria…’
A sudden yelp from the riverbank had them both ducking for cover, Marcus from long practice, Qadir with a certain self-consciousness but no less speed. A flight of arrows from across the river slammed into the slumping archers, dropping one man choking with a barb in his mouth and wounding several others in arm and leg, beyond the protection of their ring mail. The 8th shuffled backwards out of the heavy rain of arrows, each man’s shield studded with feathered shafts by the time they had gained the safety of their previous position, all but invisible to the barbarian archers. Qadir stalked away up the line, counting under his breath and shaking his head sadly on his return.
‘How many?’
The chosen man’s reply was delivered in a downcast tone.
‘One hundred and forty-three men capable of fighting. We have eight dead, including the men we left by the river, and the rest are wounded in varying ways. Some of them will live… if we can get medical attention.’
Marcus shook his head.
‘Little chance of that, I’m afraid. The nearest real medic is miles away, with the legions. We’re more likely to see the Venicones face to face again. And soon.’
10
The two prefects and their first spears were standing on the hillside behind the 1st Cohort’s defence of the ford, watching the Venicone warriors on the far bank as they stood immobile in silent ranks, eerily quiet as they waited behind the mist’s diaphanous veil.
‘They can’t ford the river here, not while it’s flowing this fast and not with our spears waiting for them, and they can’t cross up or downstream because we’ve got men waiting for them there too. What else can they do but wait?’
Frontinius fell silent for a moment as he stared down at the silent tribesmen massed on the river’s far bank, then turned to his opposite number.
‘How many of them would you say there are down there?’
