through the stream that skirted its walls in their determination to reach the river. The Petriana’s riders paralleled their path, the leading decurions nervously calculating the distance between the leading tribesmen and the bridge for which they were driving until, with less than a mile left for the warband to run to the crossing, the lead squadron’s trumpeter blew three notes long and hard, the signal for the bridge to be fired. A moment later the first smoke rose into the clear sky above the crossing, quickly darkening into a black plume as the fire took a grip on the structure’s old timbers.
Licinius watched intently, muttering to himself as he waited for any sign that the Venicones understood the renewed depth of their predicament.
‘So, what will you do now, eh? You can’t go north, not with a river in the way, and south would be suicide, so it’s either east or west. Come on, let’s be…’
He fell silent as the warband, with a ragged cheer that was audible at a quarter of a mile distant, turned north and drove towards the river, seeming to slump into his saddle as he realised what had just happened, shaking his head as he turned to the senior decurion sitting alongside him.
‘Balls! Well, that settles one thing, there’s no doubt in my mind that Calgus has found some sort of home with the Venicones. First they make a lunge for the bridge and encourage us to burn the damned thing out, and now they’re running for the river like fifteen-year-olds on a promise.’
The decurion nodded with a wry smile.
‘Yesterday’s disaster hasn’t made the barbarian bastards any less sharp, then. Perhaps we should start running for another crossing place. I can’t see them allowing us to use whatever handy little ford he’s leading to them.’
The tribune sent ten squadrons, two-thirds of his remaining strength, away to the east to seek a point where they could ford the river and renew their pursuit of the Venicones, then led the remaining five in their close watch on the barbarians as they ran towards the point that had clearly been their objective since their initial change of direction earlier in the day. Eager to ford before the cavalry could get men across the river to resist their crossing, the tribesmen had their heads up and were running hard, the occasional man falling behind to be executed by the following cavalrymen, but the remainder covering the short distance to the river in a matter of minutes. Licinius watched with disgust as the tribesmen made their way across the ford, each man stopping to fill his water skin as the mass of barbarians made good their escape from the trap into which he had so carefully driven them. Something caught his eye, and he sat back, shaking his head in disgust.
‘And just to add insult to injury…’
He pointed at the last few dozen men crossing the shallow river, walking backwards and throwing glittering objects into the stream as they retreated towards the far bank. It was too far for him to be sure what the Venicones were scattering, but even the threat of what he was watching was enough to change the game they were playing once more, further tilting the balance of power back to the barbarians.
‘We have to assume that they’re seeding the river’s bed with tribuli, or something equally unpleasant, and there’s no way I can risk losing dozens of horses to those sharp little teeth by trying to force a crossing. This ford will be unusable until it’s been swept clean again, and that won’t be getting done any time soon.’
His deputy nodded.
‘East or west?’
Licinius shook his head.
‘East. Ten miles to the nearest ford, and ten miles back again, plus whatever distance they can run in that time. They’ll be tucked up nice and snug in whatever’s left of the Three Mountains fort by the time we get back on top of them.’
‘He looks like the sort of man we need.’
Rapax turned to examine the man that Excingus was indicating, running critical eyes over the prisoner’s face and body. The shackled legionary looked bored, standing in the weak afternoon sun and waiting to be told what to do next. His arms bulged with muscle, and a long knife scar ran down one cheek beneath close-cropped black hair. The praetorian strolled across to his place in the line of half a dozen men, tapping him on the shoulder with his vine stick.
‘What did you do? And try not to make it sound like it’s supposed to be funny.’
The disgraced soldier looked down his nose at the centurion, rolling his head as if to loosen stiffness before answering.
‘I took a centurion’s vine stick and put it up his ar-’
The praetorian struck with a speed that caught the prisoner completely unawares, ramming the stick into his solar plexus so hard that the breath exploded from his body, leaving him bent double and helpless.
‘You didn’t try hard enough.’ He turned to the centurion of the guard. ‘All right, what did he do?’
The centurion, recently come on duty and only too aware from the briefing from his predecessor of the heavily wielded authority of the praetorian’s colleague, answered without any of the bombast that might otherwise have been the case.
‘He stabbed another soldier to death in a bar fight. The dead man said something that upset him, apparently…’
‘First offence?’
‘Well, it was the first one where he got caught. He’s been a right pain in the arse to the men of his century, forever pushing them around for their rations and just to show what a big man he is. He’s also suspected of having given his watch officer a beating a couple of nights ago, but there wasn’t any proof that it was actually him.’
‘Name?’
The centurion of the guard shrugged without interest.
‘No idea. I make sure they’re fed and watered, and that they get a beating if they step out of line, but none of that means I have to pretend to be their mother.’
Rapax put his stick under the prisoner’s chin, lifting his face to reveal a grimace of pain.
‘Name?’
The soldier dragged in a breath before he answered.
‘Maximus…’ He held Rapax’s eye as the praetorian stared grimly at him. ‘… Centurion.’
‘I think I’ll just call you Smartarse for the time being. Keep the manners and you may get out of here today. Why did you kill the other man?’
‘He took the piss out of my century for getting cut to ribbons by the blue-noses when some idiot sent us south without any support, then pulled a blade when I gave him a spanking. So I took it off him and stuck it in his neck.’
Rapax nodded, calculating.
‘And do you want to be freed, or would you rather rot here until your legatus comes back to hear your story? At which point he’ll almost certainly order whatever there is left of your tent party to beat you to death for your crime. Something they’ll be happy enough to do if they’ve seen battle while you’ve been tossing it off back here.’
The prisoner was clearly unconvinced.
‘And in return, I have to do what? At least here I’m not risking a barbarian spear in my guts.’
‘And in return, Legionary Smartarse, you have to join my party, and do whatever I tell you to do, whenever and wherever that may be. As it happens, we’re going north, not south, north of the Wall to hunt for a fugitive from justice. I hear tell the rebellion north of the Wall is over, so you’ll probably be safer out there than sat in here waiting for the Brigantes to break in and make you their new girlfriend. Choose now.’
He turned away, looking at the rest of the prisoners. Maximus stared at his back for a moment before speaking.
‘All right.’
‘All right what, Smartarse? Answer carefully, or I’ll leave you here with the skin hanging off your back.’
‘Sorry. Centurion. I’d like the chance to join your party.’
‘Good choice. Let’s have Smartarse here out of these irons, Centurion, he’s got some soldiering to do.’ He turned away, focusing on the next man in the line. ‘Now, what else do we have here…?’
The centurion of the guard nodded to his deputy, who busied himself releasing the prisoner from his shackles, then stepped forward and tapped each man’s chest with his vine stick.
‘Thief, thief, attempted murder… not very successfully from the look of him… rapist, and my special favourite,
