‘H-, h-, h-, help m-, me…’ he managed to groan through his broken mouth.
Nobody heard, and if they did, nobody cared.
There was another sound, however, besides that of the crowd at the banquet, that brought the blood-chilling horror of the present rushing to the fore: the sound of a crackling, hungry fire.
The brazen bull … Oh no, oh by all the gods, no…
‘That brazen bull is looking rather starved my friends, don’t you think?’ Batiatus yelled as he stood up from his chair. ‘I think we should soon feed it! What say you?’
A resounding roar of approval ripped through the hall.
Batiatus looked all around him, grinning with an evil satisfaction.
‘Soon, soon my friends! But first, yet another show!’
‘Is Viridovix going to fight the gorilla now?’ shouted an inebriated man, with a shiny bald pate and a massive gut bulging against his silk chilton. ‘When are we going to see this gorilla you’ve been promising us?!’
‘Patience my friend, the gorillas are coming,’ Batiatus replied with a self-satisfied grin. ‘But first, let it be known that my good friend Octavian has brought in a special force that he has been assembling, a force that I and my doctore have been helping to train. Maharbaal!’
Maharbaal jumped up from one of the tables. Unlike most of the guests he was stone sober, as he was a teetotaller.
‘Boss!’ he barked, giving Batiatus a stiff salute.
‘Bring in the troops, Maharbaal.’
‘Yes boss!’
Maharbaal, kitted out in light armour, strode out of the hall through one of the side doors, returning minutes later at the head of a force of eighty soldiers, most of whom were armoured in the same style as himself: a type of armour that mixed elements of standard-issue Roman legionary gear with that of the more elaborate gladiatorial style.
At the back of the hall, Claudius leaned over to whisper to Lepidus.
‘This must be the first century of what will become our Huntsmen’s army. First this century of eighty men, then a cohort, then a full legion … And finally, an army. An army that will eventually be the most elite armed force in the world. Therein lies true power, my friend.’
Lepidus nodded, stroking his receding chin as he stared at the troops.
‘Aye, so it does, so it does,’ he murmured. ‘I only wish we’d been privy to this plan earlier, eh? It makes me wonder what else Octavian might be hiding from us … Hmm. Anyway, let’s see what these fighters can do.’
With a series of brusque commands, Maharbaal got the troops to form up in two lines.
‘All of these troops have been trained in the same gladiatorial style in which my elite warriors have been instructed,’ Batiatus explained to the guests. ‘Maharbaal and I have been assisting Octavian in this for a number of months now. Like the gladiators, they train from sunrise to sunset in a variety of styles, using a number of different weapons. Each man is assigned a type of weapon to be his main weapon, based on which weapon it turns out he is most proficient at handling in training. Now Maharbaal, a demonstration, if you will!’
‘Yes boss!’ the tall doctore barked. ‘Troops, left column, attack formation! Right column, defensive formation!’
In one unified motion, each column manoeuvred into their specified formation with a precision so rapid and smooth that it was veritably mechanical.
‘Observe, my friends,’ Batiatus commented coolly, sipping liberally on his wine, ‘the traditional Roman “tortoise” shield wall, used with such devastating effect against all manner of undisciplined barbarian foes. This cube of interlocked shields is all but impenetrable, is it not?’
The crowd buzzed in agreement.
‘Myself and Maharbaal have been working on a number of new and unorthodox tactics with which to approach otherwise standard combat routines. See now, my friends, what we call the “burrowing badgers”. The troops are named badgers after that particular animal’s ferocity when cornered in tight spaces. As for the burrowing, watch closely.’
‘Troops! Prepare for demonstration!’ Maharbaal gnarled.
The defensive column, formed up in a tortoise formation, grunted and locked their tall shields together, forming a tight and seemingly impenetrable barrier. While they were doing this, the column of aggressors manoeuvred themselves into a wedge, with two very heavily armoured fighters forming the foremost tip. Both of these men were short, each no more than five feet tall, but both were very stocky, compact and muscular in build. The heavy plate armour they wore was studded all over with many eight-inch-long blades, each sharpened to a razor’s edge, but these blades were covered over with leather sheaths for the purpose of this demonstration. Each man carried two wickedly curved knives, one in each hand, which featured double blades – one facing up out of the wielder’s hand, and one facing down, with a handle in the centre. These blades were also covered over with protective sheaths.
‘Advance!’ Maharbaal ordered.
The wedge began moving forward, with the soldiers advancing at a trot.
‘Crossbows! Engage!’
From out of each wing of the wedge two crossbowmen stepped. Their crossbows were of an exceptionally powerful and heavy nature, and each carried a thick barbed bolt to which a length of rope was attached, making it a harpoon, essentially.
‘Aim! And … loose!’ Maharbaal shouted.
The crossbowmen loosed their heavy projectiles into two of the shields at the front centre of the tortoise formation. The heavy bolts, with their broad quad-bladed barbs, punched through the shields and remained embedded in them, the barbs and spike-studded shafts of the projectiles holding them fast.
‘Badgers, charge!’
The two stout and heavily armoured badgers barrelled straight at the shield wall, while four tall, strong troops at either side of the advancing wedge gripped the ropes attached to the harpoons embedded in the shields. An order was yelled out from the wedge just before the badgers reached the wall, and with a vicious, simultaneous jerk of force,
