by Angus Watson
He peered back through the gorse. The Romans were coming in. Transport boats filtered in between the warships, which, one by one, moved closer to the shore. The transports had a shallower draught than the previous year’s and had been constructed so that they could be disembarked more easily. The legionaries leapt from the broad landing planks without getting their sandals wet, and immediately formed shield tortoises before advancing up the beach and creating a perimeter. Other legionaries unloaded catapults and assembled them in a matter of heartbeats, while yet more carried small barrels from the boats and loaded them into the giant slings. The catapults fired and moment later circular wooden crates of oil were landing in the gorse all around Mal. They burst, spraying oil. The Maidunite didn’t need to wait until archers disembarked and dipped arrows in burning pitch to work out what was going to happen next. Sometimes running was the right thing to do.
On horseback once more, he watched the gorse burn. As the smoke billowed and shifted in the wind, he glimpsed thousands of Romans, busy building their camp. They were fearsomely efficient, and this time they’d chosen a much better spot for their bridgehead base. The cleared gorseland would provide a vast area for a camp. To the south, it was flanked by a broad, shifting and impassable river delta. To the north there was marsh, also impassable, and limited access along the beach–almost none at high tide but plenty when the tide was low. To the Romans’ west, leading inland to the rest of Britain, the way was clear.
Lowa cantered north, Adler at her side, the Two Hundred following behind. They were going on a demon hunt. Each, Lowa included, carried minimal provisions, a sword, a recurve bow and Elann’s demon-slaying arrows designed to fly faster and pierce the thickest armour. Their shafts were ash, heavy and tough but difficult to form into the long, dead-straight dowels required. Their long, sharp heads were the finest, most painstakingly smelted and hammered iron and the feathers the very best a goose had to offer. Each one took a day to make. Lowa hoped it had been worth it.
The plan was to hit Felix’s legion fast and hard, then return to Big Bugger Hill. In a perfect world they’d kill all the demons and remove the most troubling part of Caesar’s force before taking on the rest of it. She expected that they’d kill some of them before having to flee. The other possibility was that the demons were faster than horses, and would kill all of them. So her choice, hers alone, was putting two hundred men and women in terrible danger. But what alternative did she have?
Of course, there was one very obvious alternative that would save them all.
It wasn’t too late. She could march up to the Roman camp, make an alliance with Caesar, then help him conquer the rest of Britain. Caesar would have to accept her offer. Her army might be smaller than his, but she had fifteen thousand infantry and nearly fifteen hundred chariots, so surely he’d be grateful to have those for rather than against him?
And then Caesar would have Britain. Every Briton–every living man, woman and child, and countless people yet to be born–would be slaves of Rome. But did it matter to most who was in charge? Why did she give a crap? She may have spent most of her life in Britain but she’d been born in Germany. What did it matter to her if the Romans took Britain?
A lot. It mattered an awful lot. The argument that the majority of people didn’t care who ruled them didn’t work here, because under Lowa they were free and increasingly prosperous but under the Romans they would live like animals, allowed only enough resources for survival while the surplus was shipped off back to Rome so that men might build palaces and ponds for their pet fish. Britons slaving so that carp might be comfortable. No, that must not happen.
She rode on. One thing cheered her. When she’d ridden onto the beach, she’d spotted Spring waving at her, next to Ragnall on the railings. She knew from Atlas and Carden that Ragnall had turned traitor, but she didn’t believe for a heartbeat that Spring had. She must be biding her time, looking for her moment. It warmed her just to know that Spring was alive, and it encouraged her. Hadn’t Spring saved them all before? Then Lowa remembered the cost of that victory. If Spring was to be their saviour again, what could the price possibly be? She shuddered. It had taken Dug’s death last time. There was a new Dug now… She shook her head. It didn’t bear thinking about.
Ragnall left Spring outside the tent for once, guarded by Ferrandus and Tertius, to watch the camp being built. She knew he’d done it so that she’d be awe-struck by the Romans’ amazing camp-building skills and, very annoyingly, she was reluctantly impressed. By running round like well-regimented blue-arsed badgers all day, by nightfall the Romans had converted the heathland behind the beach into a large, excellently defended camp. They called it a camp, but it was more like a town–a city even.
When they’d finished their ditch-digging, palisade-raising and tent-erection, instead of clapping each other on the backs and breaking open a few hundred casks of ale as the British would have done, the legionaries set to training, sharpening swords, polishing armour and generally being useful. They were so efficient.
“Aye, efficient and deathly boring,” said Dug.
“How can it be boring to be busy the whole time?”
“Doesn’t give you any time to think.”
“But thinking makes people unhappy.”
“Aye, that’s true, I suppose, but it’s better to be thinking and unhappy than not thinking at all.”
“You reckon?”
“Aye…” He did not sound convinced.
Chapter 3
Out of sight of the rest of the fleet, Felix ordered his twenty Maximan to kill the first twenty captives.
The Maximen slaughtered the Gauls in various ways–they did love to experiment–and returned to the oars. The ship surged north up the coast then west along the River Tems at speeds that a low-flying seabird would have been proud of. Felix remembered the river. It was the same route he’d taken all those years ago on his way to becoming Zadar’s druid. He’d hated the scenery then–the low, tree-fringed mud and sand banks, the choppy brown-grey water, the pointless gulls–and he’d been resentful at having to leave Rome. Now all of it excited him. Get ready for a new master, he told the gulls. Prepare to be firewood, he told the trees.
He turned to the captives, piled in the back of the ship. When they’d seen the Maximen chop, bash and twist the first twenty to death and toss them into the sea like chum, they’d yelled and strained at their chains for a long and fruitless time while Felix enjoyed ignoring their pleas. They were well secured and eventually they’d settled down.
Before they’d set off, he’d been about to order the Maximen to break their legs like the last lot to stop them leaping overboard, but he’d realised just in time that it would be handy to have them walking once they got to the other side, so instead they should be chained up. Secure in the stern, some stared defiance, some whimpered, some were catatonic with horror.
He shouted for the rowers to halt. It looked like a good place to land with firm sand and a wide enough expanse of it that they’d be out of missile range and he’d see any attack coming well before it reached them. He scanned the shore for a good while. The Maximen stared at him dumbly, holding their oars in readiness, and wavelets slapped against the hull. Finally he was satisfied that it was safe and he commanded the helmsman and the Maximen to row for shore. He had to shout for them to slow down–the speed they were going, the ship would have exploded when it hit the beach. They cut their pace a great deal, but even so he nearly flew off his feet when the prow wedged into the sand.
Felix ordered everyone to disembark. By Hades, he liked being the main man, the one everyone looked to for orders, even if was just this little gang. How much better would it be when he was king of the world? He climbed carefully over the bow, scanning the treeline for trouble and finding none. He dropped onto the compact sand and sniffed the salt air. Oh, it was grand to be back.
Lowa gulped. Atlas and Chamanca had not exaggerated. Walking up the beach were twenty gigantic, armoured men. Their size was ama
zing, but what really caught the eye was the fact that they were carrying a ship on their shoulders. She recovered her cool. These were the Ironmen. Twenty of them, as reported. Lowa was queen of the Maidunites and not one to be fazed. She’d expected these armoured giants and here they were. That was that.
Next to the Ironmen she counted thirty-five springy brown figures–the Leathermen. They were running about like well-rested and recently fed children, goading along a large group of shuffling, chained captives. Behind them was a gang of men who were probably sailors. By the way they were pointing and larking excitedly, they were also surprised to see men carrying a ship. Leading the lot of them was Felix. He was a good few hundred paces distant, but she’d have recognised the bastard’s swagger anywhere.
She pulled herself backwards out of her bushy observation post and ran through the woods to the clearing where her horse, Adler and the rest of the Two Hundred were waiting. It was time. Either Elann’s arrows would be sharp enough to pierce the Ironmen’s armour and fast enough to hit the speedy Leathermen, or they wouldn’t.
“Give the orders,” she said to Adler. “String bows, ready arrows and follow me.”
Felix saw branches shake at the edge of the beach. Could have been an animal, probably it was a deer or something, but maybe it was a British watcher.
“Bistan!” he shouted.
“Yeah, boss?”
Yeah, boss? He’d been too slack with this lot. His next load of demons would have respect drummed into them. “Five Celermen, including you, kill five captives then head for the trees there,” he pointed. “Capture anyone you find and secure them in the spare chains. Do not kill or maim them.”
“You got it!”
Bistan and four others ran over to the captives, slashed the throats of the five nearest, then ran for the treeline as fast as diving falcons.
They were fifty yards from the trees when the first cavalrywoman burst from the foliage, followed by dozens more armed men and women on horses. The Celermen flew at them but a swarm of arrows flew at the Celermen. They dodged and ducked faster than Felix’s eye could follow but one Celerman fell. Riders poured from the trees shooting arrow after arrow. Another Celerman went down. The other three reached the Maidunites and leapt at them and finally Felix found the breath to shout: “All Celermen and Maximen, kill the captives and attack! ATTACK!”
By the time Lowa had nocked her third arrow, two were down but three were on them, blurred brown figures, blades flashing as they hacked and slashed. She searched for a target, but they were too fast. She was more likely to hit her own. She slapped her bow into its holder, unsheathed her sword and tried to follow their movements. It was impossible. A flash here, a blur there–that was all that she could see of the foe. Men and women screamed and tumbled from their horses, blood spraying. Riders flew from their mounts, whether bucked or thrown by the Leathermen she could not see.
Something leapt for her and she slashed instinctively. The blade connected and her attacker whumped onto the sand. It was a human-shaped creature, entirely cased in brown leather but for a slit for its eyes and the slit across its throat from her sword. It bucked and blood gouted from its neck, then it was still. It couldn’t possibly be human, but it seemed that it could be killed like a human, although not easily; her sword strike had been lucky, not planned.
She looked up and down the ranks. Only a few heartbeats had passed since they’d first sighted them but the Leatherman attack was over. Five of the demons had died, but far too many of her own force had been killed or injured. There were over a dozen riderless horses and at least that many soldiers were clutching wounds.
She heard “ATTACK!” shouted from the beach. Felix was pointing at them. The Ironmen and Leatherman ran at their own captives, weapons aloft, presumably to kill them and fuel themselves.
Lowa blew three short blasts on her whistle, the signal for instant retreat. From the damage that five of them had done, the Two Hundred would be obliterated if they took on the demons. However, the speed the Leathermen had come at them, they were faster than horses. They were in serious trouble and her defence of Britain had not started well.
“North along the treeline!” she shouted, pulling reins and kicking her own mount. Their best chance was along the grass between the beach and the trees, then around the west end of the forest. The trees might hamper her retreat, but on good ground in the open and over a long stretch surely the horses would be faster than the demons?
Before they’d gone a hundred paces, the demons were gaining. Now that the remaining Two Hundred were clear she saw around twenty corpses and five dead horses on the beach, and those were just the ones she could see at a glance. How could they kill so many so quickly? Someone struggled woozily to his feet from the midst of all the dead and she felt a ridiculous flash of joy that one of her riders had survived. But it was a Leatherman. It shook its head, spotted the fleeing cavalry–looked straight at her, it seemed–and leapt into pursuit, swinging its arms and perceptibly catching up in just a few heartbeats.
The rest of the demons were still gaining. They showed no signs of slowing. They would be on the backmarkers in no time, killing those then chasing down and catching fleeing riders until there were none left, exactly as her cavalry would have done if they were pursuing routed infantry. If this carried on, they’d be picked off one by one and killed. If they turned to fight, they’d all be killed but they’d take some of the demons with them.
“Big badger’s bollocks,” she said to herself.
She thought of little Dug, toddling along with his arms in the air, babbling happily. She pictured him sitting down and playing with his three-legged wooden dog, looking up when someone came into the hut, seeing that it wasn’t his mother and going back to his playing. And now it was never going to be his mother coming into the hut. He’d never see her again.
She jammed the tip of her whistle into her mouth and blew out the orders. The Two Hundred obeyed like the disciplined, superbly skilled cavalry they were. They yanked on reins, pulled horses round and arranged themselves into a double line around Lowa, arrows nocked, bows drawn, blades shining keenly at their hips.
“Hold!” she shouted.
The Leathermen were coming fastest, the Ironmen thundering a good fifty paces behind them with a mighty clanging like stampeding iron oxen. The monsters obviously responded to simple orders like “Attack,” Lowa thought, but this charge had no strategy. Good, she thought. Maybe their lack of discipline would help Mal and the others defeat the demons that were left after the Two Hundred’s last stand.
“Hold! Two salvos on my command then swords!” she shouted. They were a hundred paces away… Sixty paces.
“Shoot!” The thrum of so many bowstrings was a wonderful sound. The arrows flashed through the air, the Leathermen ducked and weaved like a school of fish. Several went down. As they unleashed the second salvo she saw one Ironman fall. Maybe the arrows could pierce that thick armour? If arrows could penetrate it, then so would a good sword thrust.
“CHARGE!” she yelled. She slotted her bow into its holder, lifted her blade and slammed heels into her horse. Around her the Two Hundred did the same. They surged forwards, men and women screaming in joyous, raging defiance as they galloped at the demons.
Chapter 4
Yilgarn Craton had seen a giant hut once, when he’d had the honour of guarding Jocanta Fairtresses on her visit to a fair at a causeway town. The giant hut had looked exactly the same as a normal one, but everything–the door, the roof, even the wooden uprights and twigs that made up the wall–was ridiculously bigger than it should have been. From a distance it had pleased Yilgarn. The people gawping at it up close looked strangely tiny, which he found amusing. Up close, he’d hated it. It had made him feel tiny too and Jocanta had teased him.
The new Roman camp that had sprouted in one day from the heath brought back all these feelings because it reminded him of the giant hut. It looked just like the previous year’s camp, only everything was freakishl
y larger; the encircling ditch was deeper, the walls were double the height, the gates were twice as massive. Inside, the tents were the same as last year’s, but there were many, many more of them.
It was overwhelming. His head became lighter but heavier at the same time and he thought he was about to vomit and possibly shit himself. He stopped walking and bent to touch his toes. That usually helped.
One of the escorts yapped at him in Latin.
He swallowed. It was passing already. Those eggs at breakfast had smelled funny. That’s what it was. He’d never liked seagull eggs–who the Bel liked fishy eggs? It wasn’t nerves. Other men might have been intimidated by this gigantic base, but not Yilgarn. He swallowed again and pictured Jocanta congratulating him on his deeds, then walked on through the camp, rolling his shoulders even more than usual and flexing his biceps. All the Romans stopped to stare as he passed, no doubt taking him for some British hero–which he was. And he’d be a Roman hero, too, before long. It took more than a couple of minging eggs to beat Yilgarn!
They didn’t bother with the plume-headed centurion this time; they took him straight into the middle. By the amount of black-clad men and snooty fuckers wearing a lot of bronze, it had to be the commander’s camp. Clearly he was expected and so he should have been. He had a lot to tell the combover general.
Atlas’ eyes felt like they were gummed shut. Finally they came unstuck and sprang open. The light was like spears through his head. He tried to lift a hand for shade, but nothing happened so he closed his eyes. He tried to wiggle his toes. Pain bolted through his body and limbs.
He opened his eyes again, slowly this time.
He was in a hut. Something noxious was cooking on a stove. So his nose worked but he’d have preferred that it didn’t. There was noise to his right. Ears were also good then. He tried to turn his head but had to settle for swivelling his eyes.