Reign of Iron: Iron Age Trilogy: Book Three

by Angus Watson

  “Right,” Lowa said as Adler dragged the dead Haxmite away by his feet. She wanted to get this finished. “Everyone, make sure that everyone else knows that this man was executed and why it was done. I will talk to his commander, Yilgarn Craton. When we have repelled the invader, I will investigate the theft of grain and destruction of property myself and make sure that any surviving perpetrators are punished, reparations paid and damage repaired. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, there’s the matter of the large invasion of merciless killers who could make landfall at any moment.”

  “What will we do for food until you’ve finished mucking about with the Romans? Your army took it all.” Hardward was unappeased.

  “My quartermaster will ensure that nobody starves. Talk to her.”

  “It was not your food to take!”

  Lowa was running out of patience. “Look, Hardward, I have over twelve thousand soldiers here and near that number again in cooks, blacksmiths, healers and others. With that many gathered, there will be crimes. There will be murders. That’s because we are human, and, Danu knows why, that is how humans behave. I am sorry that you and Jostan’s family have borne the brunt and I advise the rest of your people to stay clear of my troops as much as they can, and to report any problems immediately to me or my generals. That’s the best I can do other than leave, but if I leave, the Romans would invade unopposed. If that happens, they will kill or enslave all of you.”

  “So you say, but that’s not what we’ve heard. We have a merchant who visits yearly from Rome, so we know all about them. They have gallons of wine, a surfeit of delicious food and fine clothes. They heat their giant, stone-built huts with hot water running from room to room in bronze channels. They have farming innovations which means they spend less time toiling in the fields and more time bathing in their hot water, gorging on piles of food and making love to each other. I could go on.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “All these things they will bring here.”

  “Yes, for themselves. We Britons they will kill. You younger people,” Lowa spoke up so the rest of the village could hear, “if they don’t slaughter you, they’ll enslave you. You’ve heard they have innovative farming methods. What do you imagine these are? Magic seeds? Crops that harvest themselves? Nope, sorry, the innovation is slaves. Slaves do the work while the Romans sit idle. They don’t even whip you themselves–they have other slaves to do that. And when the slaves realise they shouldn’t have let themselves be taken in the first place and rebel? They kill them, in their thousands.”

  “Queen Lowa, you are wrong. The merchants tell us of a life in Rome—”

  “They have told you only half the truth, and barely that. They will tell you that Rome is a place of idleness and decadence. It is, but only for Romans. Slave markets all around their empire process tens of thousands every day. Caesar has marched through Gaul and left unimaginable horror in his wake. Hundreds of thousands of corpses rot in the fields and trains of slaves that would stretch from here to Maidun have been marched from their homes. I’m sorry my army does not behave perfectly, but raided supplies and one murdered man are the price you pay for us to repel the invader. A great many of my men and women are likely to pay for your defence with their lives.”

  “What you’ve failed to grasp, Queen Lowa, is that we do not require you to repel the invader. For us, you are the invader.”

  He had not listened to a word. Danu’s tits, she hated people who didn’t listen. She drew her blade. “All right, if that’s how you feel. Everything else still stands–investigation, reparations and so on–but if you and your Taloons aren’t out of this square in twenty heartbeats I’ll kill the lot of you.”

  The old man looked at her sword, then into her eyes. “I’m afraid that you’re rather proving my point.”

  “Nineteen heartbeats.”

  The chief shuffled away, shaking his head. His villagers followed him, flashing reproachful glares at Lowa. Here was proof that she was no Zadar. People who crossed him never got the chance to look reproachful. If he’d been commanding the army, the Taloons would have looked terrified, then they would have looked dead.

  Lowa turned to Atlas, Chamanca, Mal, Adler and Maggot.

  “Right,” she said. “Here’s the plan. Given how far south Felix was sailing, Maggot is sure that Caesar doesn’t know yet that the demons have returned to Gaul.”

  “Sure as I can be of anything, but how can we know anything for sure?”

  “Indeed. Thanks. So, my guess is that Caesar is holding off and waiting for his demons to attack us tonight, either to destroy us or freak us out so much that we’re a pushover when he lands tomorrow. We’re going to convince him that’s what’s happened. We’ll keep it up with the horns, then, immediately after sunset, we are going to fake the noise of a battle. After that we’ll blow no more trumpets. He won’t see his own troops arrive on the shore, so Caesar will assume we’ve defeated them or that they’ve retreated, but he’ll think that we were weakened fighting them and the legions will land at dawn. We will be ready.”

  “Why aren’t we landing?” said a praetorian near Ragnall at the bow of the flagship. It was the middle of the day and they’d done nothing but look at a beach for most of the morning. The only excitement had been a few tiny figures appearing on the shore–most Romans’ first sight of the exotic inhabitants of this wild, distant isle–and the regular wall of sound from the Britons’ horns blaring out across the waves. “They haven’t got an army,” the praetorian continued, “they’ve just got a fuckload of trumpets.”

  He was not alone in the sentiment. For a good while everyone out of Caesar’s earshot had been griping about being stuck on a ship when there was a perfectly good place to land right there. Ragnall had heard somewhere that all soldiers were whingers, but he was amazed how quickly they called into question the judgement of a leader who had not made one tactical error in nearly three years of campaigning. Ragnall didn’t know why Caesar was holding, but he knew that there had to be a good reason for it.

  “Ragnall!” called a praetorian from the stern. He made his way back and found Caesar scanning the coast, looking, oddly for him, less than utterly confident.

  “Ah, Ragnall, good,” said the general. “Say an army landed twenty miles to the south. What impediments might prevent them marching cross-country to the shore that Caesar is regarding right now?”

  Ragnall didn’t have a clue, he’d never been to this part of Britain, but that wouldn’t be an acceptable answer for Caesar. “Ah, well, there’s a wide river–the Tems–and several woods.” He had no idea where the Tems was, but was pretty sure it wasn’t far, and there were always woods.

  “Mountains?”

  “There are no mountains in southern Britain.”

  “Marshes?”

  “Marshes… yes, some. I haven’t really—”

  “All right, all right, thank you.” Caesar looked along the boat. Praetorians and legionaries looked back expectantly. He contemplated the shore. You could feel the impatience of the men, keen to disembark these crammed and unusual transportations.

  “Give the signal to land,” Caesar told Labienus.

  Chapter 6

  Chamanca and Atlas walked away from Lowa’s briefing. Chamanca quite liked Lowa’s plan. It meant she’d have to wait until the morning for blood, but she’d waited so long now that a little longer couldn’t hurt, and besides she could do things with Atlas that were almost as good as the joy of blood. Yes, she thought, taking his arm in her hands. They’d go back to their commandeered hut now and—

  “ROMANS COMING IN!” came the shout.

  “Fenn!” said Chamanca. They ran back to the centre of the village. Lowa was there, giving orders.

  “Adler, all cavalry including the Two Hundred will go to the beach. Now.” Adler ran off.

  “Mal, the scorpions will form up to defend the path through the marsh, but be ready to move if the Romans carry boats over the spit, or swim, or cross the water between here and t
he spit.”

  “Can they not sail their ships round the spit?”

  “No, too shallow and cliffs to the south. The only place they can land is the spit and the only way off the spit without swimming or floating is the path through the marsh.”

  “But what if—” Chamanca put a hand on his arm and shook her head. This was not the time to be questioning their general. And besides, Chamanca knew what Lowa was doing even if Mal didn’t. The spit looked like a great place to land from the sea, but, once on it, the Roman army would be more or less trapped. Their options would be to go back to sea, or to come inland across water or up the narrow path through the marsh. Either of those latter options, and they’d be torn apart by scorpion and arrow fire.

  Mal seemed to get her point, nodded to himself, and strode away.

  “Atlas–infantry should not be needed yet. Tell them to hold by the village, to rest, sleep and eat, but to be dressed for fighting with their weapons ready. Ensure your company commanders are ready to run their men anywhere to defend a crossing, then come to the beach to join me and the cavalry.

  “Chamanca,” Lowa continued, “same deal with the chariots. They’re to cover the path foremost, but keep an eye for anyone crossing the channel and be ready to move quickly to support the infantry with slings and arrows and not get in its way. Once they’re in position make sure your deputy knows the plan, then get on a horse and join us on the beach. I have a role for you and Atlas.”

  Chamanca grinned and ran to find her chariots, blood lust fizzing in every limb.

  The first ships ran aground, still a good forty paces from the shore. Ragnall gripped the rail and watched legionaries jump from the boats, swords aloft and roaring heroically. He shared their excitement. Ragnall knew that Britain was just Britain, a place of mud and beer and brutes, but to the legionaries this wild land was another world–unknown, exciting and, surely, terrifying. If he’d been one of them he’d have roared, too.

  Their ardour was immediately dampened, unfortunately, when they found that the water was deeper than it looked. The tallest sank up to their chests. The shortest went under. Holding swords and shields aloft, some waded in while others helped their smaller brothers in arms. The next soldiers off the boats climbed down a great deal more gingerly.

  On Ragnall’s boat, Caesar’s mouth was a line of frustration. Ragnall saw his point. Those cursed Gaulish boat builders should have made transports with shallower draughts! He followed the general’s gaze to the shore, past the legionaries’ slow, ragged and painfully vulnerable advance. If a few hundred archers appeared now, then surely they’d have to retreat? Luckily, all was quiet. More and more boats swished aground and legionaries disembarked more carefully. However, on a nearby boat he saw a lone legionary become frustrated by the delay and jump from too far back in the boat. Ragnall shouted a warning, but too late. The legionary splashed down and disappeared. His hands surfaced, but weighed down by leather and metal, that was the best he could do. A couple of heartbeats later his hand appeared again, just one this time and further out to sea. He was jumping for air and heading the wrong way. On the next jump only his fingertips broke the surface. He was going to drown. Ragnall shouted at the men still on his ship, all queuing to leap off the front, but nobody heard him.

  Jupiter’s tits, Ragnall said to himself. He peeled his toga over his head and dived off the side. He swum across with the powerful, overarm stroke that he’d learnt on the Island of Angels, and dived under as he approached what he hoped was the turbulence caused by the drowning man’s thrashing. He found the man straight away, grabbed him around the waist, and, staying underwater himself, hoicked him up above the surface and marched him to the side of the ship. After what seemed like far too long a time, the legionary found a grip that held and hauled himself up. Ragnall leapt, sucked in air and climbed onto the boat where he stood naked save for his sandals. Luckily the waterlogged legionary, the helmsman and a couple of crew were the only people left onboard. The legionary found him a blanket.

  While Ragnall had been rescuing the man, he saw hundreds and hundreds–thousands–more Romans had disembarked and were wading for shore, swords and shields aloft. Here we go, thought Ragnall. This is a big moment. The beginning of the Romanisation of Britain. Day One of the Reign of King Ragnall.

  “Thanks for that!” said the legionary, high-pitched and happy. “Thought I was a goner, then. And you know what? All I could see when I was down there was my wife telling me how stupid I was. ‘Didn’t even get to dry land!’ she was saying. ‘You’re so thick you can’t even get off the right end of a boat!’ I tell you, I was glad to be dying for a moment. Not that I’m not grateful that you rescued me, I am. And I do love by wife although, between you, me and the lantern post, she can be a right bitch. Now, I’ve got to be going so… oh, by fucking Mars!”

  Ragnall followed his gaze, past the thousands of wading Romans. Cantering along the beach towards them were several hundred British cavalry riding in two well-ordered lines. The nearer line hurled spears and took bows from their backs as their first missiles impaled some of the keener shore-bound soldiers. He recognised the woman at their head, speeding up into a gallop, blonde hair dancing behind her, recurve bow pumping shot after shot into the wading Roman ranks–Lowa! And, right behind her, that was Chamanca and Atlas. These latter two dismounted. While the others all carried on with their bows, Atlas and Chamanca walked towards the sea, the African holding his axe, the Iberian her ball-mace and short sword. So she had survived the sea battle. He wondered where Carden was. He hoped he was all right–he’d been thinking of giving a role in his new Britain to the big man who might or might not have saved him from Ariovistus by catapulting him into a lake.

  Behind the front row of archers picking targets and shooting directly into the soldiers, the back line of cavalry sent a volley of arrows upwards. The missiles peaked, paused and fell in among the legionaries.

  Ragnall looked to the command boat–he should be getting back, he thought–but its oars were in the water and it was swinging south, away from him, along with the eleven other warships. So he could either swim ashore through the storm of arrows and join the fight or stay in the transport. He decided to stay where he was for now.

  “Rather them than me!” said the helmsman, walking up to stand next to him. He was a stout man, bearded but bald, with hair sprouting from the neck of his sailor’s jerkin. A Syrian, Ragnall guessed, from the east end of the Mediterranean. “They’re getting their arses handed to ’em!” The Syrian nodded, as if agreeing with himself.

  Ragnall did not dignify his defeatist comment with a reply. But he did have a point. Lowa and her Maidunites were slaughtering the legionaries. Ragnall had never seen the Romans anywhere near the trouble that they were in now. Even Caesar, he supposed, was prone to the odd error. Although, in the general’s defence, it was his first sea invasion, and, more pertinently, if the Gauls had built him proper transport boats, the legionaries would be ashore and much more ready to defend against the deadly iron salvos.

  They were getting there now. None of the Romans, Ragnall was proud to see, was attempting to return to the boats. Despite arrows stopping as many as one in every two, they waded on. Their courage was stirring. The first legionaries reached the shore and formed their shields into a defensive tortoise. Ragnall cheered. The helmsman gave him an “Oh, you’re one of those, are you?” look, but Ragnall ignored it. On the shore the first tortoise advanced up the beach, becoming more hedgehog than tortoise as arrows zipped into shields. All along the shore, more impregnable tortoises were forming.

  Ragnall bounced on the balls of his feet. He was thrilled, but confused. He wanted the Romans to triumph, but he also wanted the Britons to do well. Part of him hated watching the legionaries die, but part of him was glad that Lowa and her army were fighting so intelligently. There was no doubt about it, he was proud of his homeland. The British, as he’d pointed out repeatedly over the last two years, were not Gauls.

  Atlas’ first
swing smashed two shields and severed a Roman arm. Chamanca dived through the breach in the tortoise’s shell. The Kushite scanned left and right as he brought his axe down again. It was vital that their route back to their horses was left open. Their role was to kill a lot of Romans, quickly, then get out of there. They weren’t seeking to win the war that day, just to give the Romans something to talk about around their campfires.

  In front of him legionaries screamed under their shields then the shell fell away to reveal dead Romans, dying Romans, confused Romans–and Chamanca, sucking on a Roman neck. Atlas stepped in to dispatch the confused legionaries. The last of them was a reasonable fighter who dodged a couple of axe blows before an arrow took him in the chest, heralding Lowa’s arrival.

  “We’re done,” she said, nodding to the south, where the Romans’ warships teeming with slingers and archers were drawing into a line and about to be in range of the British cavalry, then to the north, where a giant tortoise formation was advancing behind a brave man carrying a gold eagle standard. Lowa took aim, shot, and the aquilifer–the man carrying the standard–went down. Another snatched it up immediately, though, and the Romans kept coming, not slowed at all. The cavalry’s arrows were having no effect on the shielded Romans and soon they’d be cut off from their retreat across the marsh. It was, indeed, time to go.

  “Come on,” said Lowa, and ran off.

  Chamanca was still sucking away at the moaning legionary’s neck.

  “Let’s go!” Atlas said.

  She held up a hand to indicate that he should wait a heartbeat. He looked up the beach. A dozen or so of the Two Hundred were galloping at the large tortoise, pumping impotent arrows into it, but drawing it away from their escape route. To the south, the Roman ships came into range and their archers loosed a salvo. At him and Chamanca. He crouched and reached for a Roman shield, but the Sobek-cursed thing was attached to a dead man’s arm. He yanked, just as the arrow took him in the shoulder. It slid through skin, ripped muscle, grazed bone, ripped more muscle, burst skin and the head was out of his back.