The older warrior slumped away from the log a split second later with an agonised, bubbling grunt. His eyes rolled upwards as the arrow buried deep in his chest took his life. Their leader ripped the hunting horn from his belt, grabbing a deep breath and putting it to his lips, only to shudder with the bone-crunching impact of an arrow into his own ribs. The horn fell from his nerveless fingers to the fallen leaves with a soft thud, and he stared stupidly for a moment at the short length of its feathered wooden shaft jutting from his chest, feeling his blood spraying from the terrible wound chopped deep into his body by its iron-tipped head. His vision narrowing, he sank slowly to his knees, caught for a moment between life and death as a noiseless figure ghosted across the forest floor towards him.
Without any sound that the dying barbarian could make out, the shadowy figure was abruptly beside him, a tall, lean man dressed in a grey cloak and with a Roman gladius gleaming palely in his right hand, his face painted with stripes of dark mud beneath a cross-crested helmet to match the forest’s dappled moonlit floor. He grabbed at the tottering warrior’s hair to steady him and lifted his sword to strike, angling the blade for the killing thrust. He looked into the dying man’s eyes for a moment, then ran the gladius’s razor-sharp blade through the helpless tribesman’s throat and eased him down to lie glassy eyed in the leaves. Putting a hand inside the tunic beneath his mail armour, he touched a pendant hanging around his neck and muttered a quiet prayer.
‘Unconquered almighty Mithras grant you safe passage to your god.’
He dropped into the fallen tree’s shelter, staring intently at the palisade for any sign that the scouts’ deaths had not gone unnoticed by the warband camped behind its protective wall. His brown eyes were pools of darkness in the night as he stared fiercely into the gloom, his fingers white with their grip on the sword’s hilt. After a long moment of complete silence, other than for the rustle of leaves in the night’s gentle breeze, he turned and whistled softly. A dozen men rose from the cover of the undergrowth fifty paces from the camp’s palisade and crossed the space between the forest edge and the fallen tree with swift caution, weaving noiselessly around the stumps of trees felled to build the camp’s wall. They dropped into the fallen tree’s cover and were instantly still, each one of them aware that any unexpected sound might waken the barbarians sleeping beyond the palisade. Half of the small group were, at first glance, declared enemies of the other half dozen, their shaggy hair and long swords in stark contrast to the soldiers’ close-cropped heads and short infantry blades. After a moment one of the barbarians bent close to the cloaked swordsman, speaking softly into his ear.
‘I told you this was the place, Two Knives. They wouldn’t have put men to watch the forest here without a quick route to safety back through their wall.’
The Roman nodded, whispering his reply.
‘And since Qadir put the watchers down silently, we still have the advantage of surprise.’ Behind the barbarian one of the soldiers, his helmet crested front to back to denote his status as a chosen man and the centurion’s deputy, nodded recognition of his officer’s quiet compliment. He finished slinging his bow across his muscular shoulders, and pulled his gladius from its sheath while the centurion pointed to the wooden wall looming over the stump-studded clearing. ‘And the palisade breach is to the left of the hidden doorway?’
The barbarian nodded confidently.
‘Yes, as we discussed. A twenty pace section of the wall from the hidden opening is ready to fall if the retaining bars are removed. And now, with your permission…?’
He drew a long hunting knife from his belt and reversed its grip so that the silver line of its blade was concealed behind his arm. The Roman officer nodded decisively.
‘Quickly and quietly now, Martos. There’ll be plenty of noise soon enough.’
‘Don’t worry, Centurion Corvus, for the chance to twist my knife in Calgus’s guts I would go silent for the rest of my days.’
The barbarian turned to his men, as the shaggy-haired warriors clustered around him.
‘There were three of them, one young, one old and one about my age. You, and you, you’re the closest we have to them. With me, and quietly. Any man that makes a noise will have me to reckon with.’
The three men slipped away, quickly merging with the looming bulk of the timber palisade that had been thrown up around the barbarian camp.
Calgus, king of the Selgovae people and self-styled ‘Lord of the Northern Tribes’, knew the argument, if it could be deemed worthy of the name, was getting away from him too quickly for there to be any chance of his regaining control of the situation. For a fleeting moment he considered taking his sword to the Venicone chieftain who was so blatantly defying him in his own camp, but the half-dozen hard-faced killers arrayed behind the man, and the heavy war hammer carried over his shoulder, killed the thought before it had time to muster any conviction. He might have been standing inside his own tent, in the middle of thousands of his own people, but these flint-eyed maniacs would tear through his bodyguard and kill him before any of his men were sufficiently awake to react. Drust shook his head vehemently, flicking his hand in a violently dismissive gesture.
‘This war of yours is doomed to fail, Calgus, doomed by your own hand, and the Venicone tribe will not stand alongside you while the invaders grind us all into these hills.’ He flicked the hand again, the gesture inches from Calgus’s face. ‘Our part in this war is done. We will fall back to our own lands, and wait for the Romans to decide whether we’re worth the trouble of pursuit.’
He turned to walk away, and Calgus reached out to take his arm.
‘I had thought the Venicone under King Drust had…’
The Venicone leader spun back at the touch of Calgus’s hand on the sleeve of his rough woollen tunic, his braided red hair whipping about his face with the speed of his reaction. His men froze as he lifted a hand to still their instant response, their eyes burning with the urge to fight, and he leaned in close to his former ally, speaking softly despite his anger.
‘You thought there was more to us, perhaps? You wonder that I can walk away from a war not yet finished? There was a time not long distant when I would have agreed with you. I considered you a comrade, Calgus, a man I could stand alongside in the fight to evict the Romans from our soil, but hear me now when I warn you one last time. The next time you lay a finger on me, I will let these animals behind me loose on your bodyguard just to see who comes off best, and you and I will discover which of us is doomed to die at the other’s hand. You thought me stupid, eh, Calgus? You thought I would never hear the rumours of your betrayal of our Votadini brothers after they had triumphed in battle for you, and that you did this because their king disputed your plans one time too many? Perhaps even simply because you could? My men were a cunt-hair from victory in their fight with the Romans at the ford, with more than a thousand heads for the taking, until Martos of the Votadini, a man deliberately betrayed and left for the Romans to slaughter by you, led his warriors into battle against mine at the crucial moment, and turned our victory into bloody defeat in a hundred heartbeats! Apparently even the Romans know better than you how to treat an ally, and while I’ll have no truck with them, neither will I risk your friendship for an hour longer. You have poisoned our own people against us, you fool, and you will pay for that mistake with your own blood, and that of your tribe!’
Sneering disdainfully, he turned away and ducked through the tent’s doorway, leaving Calgus staring after him. A soft voice spoke from behind him, although there was iron in the words.
‘You must stop him, my lord. If he takes his men north we will not have enough strength to defend this place against two legions should the Romans attack.’
Calgus spun back to face the speaker, glaring with frustration into his seamed face before nodding at the old man resignedly. His adviser was a man of unerring instincts, even if some of his advice had resulted in more difficulty than had at first seemed apparent.
‘And what do you propose, Aed? That I should beg our comrade to stay? I’ll not make a fool of myself to no purpose.’
The old man smiled gently, spreading his hands out.
‘No, my lord, I fully agree. Your authority must be maintained at all costs. I was simply about to suggest that you might have something to offer Drust in return for his continued support.’
Calgus frowned.
‘What can I possibly offer the Venicone that would persuade them to stay and fight?’
‘Something, my lord, which, since you have possessed it for less than a month, you will never truly miss. Something which you can always take back later, once the Brigantes south of the Wall are freed from under the Roman boot and swell your army to an irresistible size.’
Calgus nodded slowly as the realisation of Aed’s meaning took effect.
‘Yes…’
