Cassius among them. They lived for war.
The bowmen waited nearby, their bows nearly as tall as a man and able to kill at three hundred paces. They'd provide covering fire. Each arrow had been shaped smooth over long winter evenings, given a name, marked with that name, and fitted with a slim iron arrowhead that could punch through armor. The war-maiden Brisa was among them, and Arden would trust her to find a fat target before anyone.
Still another group were the Scotti, who'd sailed from Eiru. They'd marched in only the night before, painted blue and garbed for war, grim and anxious. He'd never fought with their kind, but they said they wanted Roman blood to avenge a captured prince of theirs, a man named Odocullin of the Dal Riasta. Murdered, they said.
He envied their grim passion.
His own excitement, so long anticipated, was curiously absent. The world seemed a plain of ashes, its taste like sand. He'd opened his heart to two women in his life, and both times it had been squeezed like a rag, wrung dry of blood. He'd thought that after Alesia his sorrow had scabbed over and that he could never be hurt that badly again, but then he'd dropped from the oak to see Valeria on her mule cart, frightened and brave and wily enough to use her brooch pin to unhorse him, and with that he'd been lost.
So he hunted her again, captured her, and introduced her to his world. And just when Arden needed her most, trusted her most, desired her most, Valeria had deserted him for her husband. Chosen an empty marriage over love! She'd even taken her wedding ring back with her. She'd run to warn the Romans and ensure his defeat, to set up his death. And indeed, he longed to die after this betrayal.
First, he would do all he could to injure Rome.
And then die, with a Celtic cry in his throat.
'You really hate them, don't you, Arden?' Luca asked. 'That's how you're different from us, who just want gold and wine and silk and cotton and horses.'
'I know them. That's how I'm different.'
He turned and walked to Savia, who had trailed him for protection like a dog ever since Tiranen. He'd tolerated it because, strangely, she reminded him of Valeria. She'd given some of her strength to the girl. Any good Roman would choose duty over love, she'd told him. And any Celt would choose passion, he'd replied.
'Where will your lady be?'
'In the fort of the Petriana, I suppose.' She looked at him sadly. She knew Valeria had broken his heart, just as he had broken Valeria's with this senseless war.
'If we get through the Wall and overwhelm the garrison, I want you to find her, protect her, and bring her to me.'
'What will happen to her if I do?'
What would happen? He didn't know. He feared the moment, even as he desired it. Dread, and anticipation. 'By then my sword will be slick with gore and my arms weary from killing. I'll look into her eyes and heart-look at the woman who made love and then left me-and let us both decide, together, what our fate must be.'
Savia closed her eyes.
Now he must lead them to it.
Arden walked out in front, where the druid Kalin waited with a raven-headed staff. The barbarians stood as one when he did so, a great host rising up out of the dry and frosted grass like a crop of death. What must it look like from the Wall, this host materializing in the mist?
They were ready.
Caratacus raised his sword and faced his men. He'd no doubt of their courage. 'For Dagda!' he shouted. His voice floated in the winter air.
Kalin raised his own staff. 'For the gods of the oaken wood!'
The warriors roared their reply. 'For Dagda!' Their shaking spears were like a field of wheat in the wind, their howls that of the pack. 'For the sacred wood!' Neck torques and silver armlets gleamed in the pale light. Muscles, greased against the cold, shone like bronze. Celtic cattle horns were lifted and blown to add to the din, a clamor like the trumpeting of geese.
We're coming, the horns promised. Stop us if you can.
Then they charged, hard ground rumbling under their running feet.
XXXVIII
The Celts raced toward the Wall in a streaming pack, shattering the thin ice of the Ilibrium as they crashed across its shallows and yelling at the cold. Then they surged up its far bank and scrambled toward the Wall like a cresting wave. Twenty carried a pointed log of forest pine to batter the gate, its snout a great brown phallus of revenge. Dozens more had grappling hooks on the end of coils of line.
A handful of Romans could be seen at the parapets above the gate now, running this way and that and shouting alarms. A trumpet sounded. Arrows began to sail out toward the attackers, most thunking into shields or sticking harmlessly into the ground. One found flesh, however, and a warrior grunted and went down. Then another Celt caught a shaft in the eye and whirled, screaming. There was a bang and a scorching sizzle in the chill air. The huge arrow of a cocked ballista rocketed into the barbarian charge, crashing into a tier of barbarians and bowling them over like crockery, their shields splintering under the impact.
It had started.
The attackers howled and shot arrows in turn, the woman Brisa among them. The steady rain of barbarian shafts took one catapult operator squarely in the chest, pitching him backward, and helped clear the parapet of Roman heads.
'Rapid aim!' Arden roared. 'Don't give them time!'
One Roman soldier got a shaft through the throat, gurgled, and pitched violently over the wall, landing in a heap in the ditch at its base. A chieftain howled and dashed forward and in an instant the Roman's head was chopped off and thrown down the slope toward the river, bouncing like a ball. A woman of the Attacotti chased it, caught it, and danced by the Ilibrium, holding it aloft.
A Roman arrow shot the decapitator down.
The ballista fired again, but this time its range was long and the missile sizzled over the head of the first wave of attackers.
'We're under their fire! It's safest at the Wall!'
The defending arrow fire began to slacken and grow inaccurate. Romans who leaned out from the Wall to shoot or hurl stones became instant targets, reeling backward with five or six shafts jutting from their bodies. A grappling hook soared up, caught a defender, and jerked him over the lip of the parapet. Other hooks caught on the crenellations, and the barbarians began climbing the barrier hand-over-hand.
The dirt causeway that led over the defensive ditch hadn't been dug away, and so the Celts with the battering ram had an easy time of it, trotting across to hurl the end of the log against the gate. Its boom reverberated under the stone archway, shaking the entire mile-castle. The oak ominously cracked. Then another slam and another, even as a few javelins and arrows dropped from above.
'Keep shooting! Rain arrows! Throw hooks!'
The line of the grappling hooks made a shrill whine as they cut neat parabolas in the winter air, the ropes cinching the face of the Wall in an entangling web. A Roman leaned out to chop a line with his sword, and Brisa coolly shot an arrow that punched through his ear. He screamed and disappeared. First one Celt, then two, then three scrambled up to struggle with the defenders. At a dozen different points now the barbarians were scaling the Wall like flies. The defenders were desperate.
The ram crashed again, and then again, and finally the crossbeam broke and the gate burst, collapsing in a tangle of timber. Barbarians bounded over the top of their discarded ram. A few legionaries tried to stem the tide but were hopelessly outnumbered and swiftly cut down. Up on the top of the wall the Romans simply broke and ran, fleeing east and west along the crest of the barrier. Triumphant Celts streamed up their ropes and dropped down into the courtyard of the milecastle. The barracks was hurriedly ransacked, the second gate that led south was thrown open, and Arden led a throng of warriors through the mile-castle and into the grassy military zone beyond.
