by Angus Watson
His father had told him to obey Pompey and Pompey had handed his command to Caesar. He’d done what the Romans had told him to so far, but in his heart he felt that he could obey only orders that came directly from his father, and his father was a long way away, across many lands, two seas and the great ocean of sand. Here there was nobody to command him.
Another elephant trumpeted and at the same time there was a noise ahead and to the right–a footstep. He held his pace and didn’t turn. Imps and demons were surely not meticulous enough to use the cover of noise when tracking their prey. No, this was a human. Just one, he thought, and light. A woman or a young man. He gripped the knob of his wooden club harder. The weapon had been carved from a branch of the hardest wood, its head polished, its shaft whittled down to a pole and fired until it was stronger than iron. It was more than a weapon; right now it was a walking and investigation cane, used to help his stride and poke anything that he didn’t want to touch–dog shit, for example, to see how long the town had been deserted. It could also be thrown a long distance, and used as a straightforward club. Jagganoch was superbly skilled with it. Many times revengeful Romans, their kin killed by his elephants, had run at him with swords, expecting to find easy victory against a man with a stick. Instead they had found easy death.
He was close enough to hear his stalker’s breathing now. It was a woman. No matter. He was as happy to kill a woman as a man. He passed the alley that she thought concealed her and heard a small excited intake of breath–he knew that sound, it was the noise of a top predator. He made it himself before a kill; lions did the same before they charged their prey. The woman would be on him in moments. She was in for a surprise.
Chamanca slipped behind the hut as the bronze-helmeted Africa walked past. He was a fine-looking man. He was a good deal slimmer than Atlas, but the lion skin over his shoulder left one of his arms and part of his torso bare, so she could see his excellently defined muscles rippling over each other under their covering of velvety, dark brown skin.
As well as the lion’s pelt he was wearing a legionary’s leather skirt and sandals, but instead of a sword he had a long mace. He was carrying it like a walking cane, but she could tell from the wear around its shaft that it was used as a club.
She wasn’t meant to attack and, up to now, she hadn’t been tempted to, because her own mace, sword and teeth would have been little use against the gigantic war beasts. She’d seen elephants in Iberia and been impressed, but these were much bigger. They were going to be a problem.
But it made all the sense in the world to kill this man, who appeared to be the leader and had made the mistake of walking off on his own. He looked like he was full of delicious blood, too. That was a bonus.
He passed and she padded out after him, silently. He did look formidable–lithe and strong–and she considered stabbing him in the spine to immobilise him. But where would the fun be in that? She leapt.
Chapter 8
Felix walked among the massacred Britons. The sharp stink from their eviscerated stomachs was eye-watering. He knew it would have disgusted most people, but he sniffed deep and shuddered with pleasure. He liked a number of smells that others found unpleasant–rotting flesh, unwashed men and women, stale urine–but his favourite was freshly spilled guts.
He found four more dead Celermen, meaning that he’d lost eight on the landing–nearly a quarter of them. He was surprised and upset that so many had died. More surprisingly, another Maximan had been killed in the mêlée. One of the Maidunites had rammed a sword through the gap in the armpit and into his heart. Well done, Felix thought. The killer had identified another weak spot in the armour that the captive Elann would have to strengthen.
So he was down to twenty-seven Celermen and eighteen Maximen, not even five hundred paces from the shore and they’d met only a fraction of the British army. On the bright side, Felix considered, since this lot had killed two Maximen and eight Celermen where the entire Usipete and Tengoterry army had killed precisely none, he guessed that this had been Lowa’s elite force, the equivalent of Zadar’s Fifty, and his little squad had destroyed it. Yes, he’d lost ten men in the process, which was too many, but it was unlikely that they’d have to face such skilled soldiers again. Next time he’d have the Maximen attack first, arms raised to protect their eye slits, followed by the Celermen, and he shouldn’t lose another one. The lesson on the beach had been expensive but valuable.
The next problem was that they’d killed all the magic fuel, save for the seven crew members from the ship. It wasn’t the end of the world; it just meant they’d have to find a village within an hour or so, before the life-force of these latest victims wore off.
As Felix pondered all this, Bistan came striding through the gore. “One got away!” he announced cheerily. “A woman on a horse. Another woman held up one of the Celermen so long that her friend escaped.”
“Mars!” cursed Felix. “How—Actually, never mind.” It was good that one of them had escaped to tell the rest of the British about his legion. Hopefully they’d be terrified into surrender.
He looked about for a living horse. There was none, so in the end he left the crew, two Maximen and two Celermen guarding the ship, climbed up on Gub’s shoulders and told the rest of his legion to run behind them, westwards along the coast. In every part of every country he’d ever been to, there had always been coastal villages so they were bound to come upon one soon.
Bouncing along on Gub’s shoulders was exhilarating, like running with a pack of hunting animals. The sun was lowering behind them, stretching their shadows longer as they ran across the alien land. Over the sea to their right, the evening rays cast a delicate blue, tending to rust.
But soon he began to worry. They hadn’t seen a soul. The crops were gone from the fields and there was no fruit on the trees. When they did come upon a village it was deserted, not so much as a chicken scratching the barren dirt, the grain sheds open and empty.
The second village was tucked into a rocky crevice by the sea. By the time they strode down its steep but neat cobbled street, it was dark, they were a good ten miles from the ship and the power gained from the Maidunites had worn from all the Celermen and Maximen except Bistan. Gub had begun to struggle under Felix’s weight and in the end the druid had dismounted to trudge along with the rest of them.
“And my energy will be gone soon, boss,” the head Celerman cheerily reported to Felix. “I can feel it ebbing out… yeah, I think it’s gone now, actually. What do you want to do?”
“Search the village again!” he shouted. Surely there were a couple of stubborn old people hiding in a hovel?
“There’s nobody here, boss, we’ve looked.”
“All right, tell everyone to muster. We’ll walk back to the ship. But you won’t.”
“Where will I go?”
“Head south-east. If you find an opportunity to fuel yourself, take it. Find Caesar. Tell him where we are and that we require expendable men.”
“OK!” Bistan ran off to do as he was bidden.
Chapter 9
Jagganoch felt the ground shift under the woman’s weight and heard her breathe as if she’d been shouting. She leapt and he dropped, tossed up his slender club, caught it by the handle and spun. If it had smashed her ribs, as intended, that would have been that, but somehow she melted round his strike, landed and jabbed a hard little fist at his face. He rolled with the blow and swept his club back, catching her calves and sweeping her off her feet. She fell back, sprang on her hands and leapt in a backward somersault. Her speed and athleticism was impressive.
She crossed her hands over her torso and uncrossed them in a flourish, unsheathing a ball-mace and a sword. Her teeth were filed to points. She was small in stature and dressed like the serving wench at an orgy, yet she radiated power. For the first time in a fight since he’d been a child, Jagganoch took a step back.
“You’re quick,” she said.
“You’re quicker.”
“I am.�
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“But I am stronger,” he smiled.
“I doubt it.”
“Iberian, by your accent?”
“Clever man.”
“You are also beautiful.”
“I am,” she agreed.
“Perhaps we should make love instead of fighting?”
She grinned and shook her head. “I am flattered but no thank you. I already have one African. You are superfluous and will be culled.”
All the time Jagganoch was looking for a moment of distraction, a way in, but there was none. The Iberian was bouncing on her heels, poised like a riled snake.
Jagganoch smiled. “I had not expected to find interesting opposition on this island.”
“There are plenty more like me. Thousands.”
“Then where are they? Why am I able to take this town unmolested?”
“We’re luring you all in for the kill.”
“It is I who will be killing today.”
Jagganoch swung his club.
Chamanca lifted her sword to meet the blow, but it was more powerful than she’d thought possible. Her sword was whacked from her grip and sent spinning. She swung her mace, intending to press him back and catch the sword as it fell, but he brought up his club handle hard, very hard, and she had to leap back to avoid it. He jumped back, too, and the sword clattered onto the road.
He was very good. Not as good as her, but he was stronger. It was possible that he might beat her. Unlikely, but the offer to make love instead was beginning to seem more appealing.
“Why do you fight for the Romans?” she asked. “They are monsters.”
“As am I.” He came at her, darting forwards then back, swinging left and right with his club.
She dodged and blocked, but he was wearing her down and she saw no gap for the counter with her mace. She’d become used to fighting with two weapons. She considered dropping to smash his knees or crush his balls, but if that went wrong she’d be at his mercy. She couldn’t remember ever having to think this much during a fight.
He broke the onslaught and stood back.
“You look worried,” he said. “Perhaps you instead would like to change sides? You could ride into battle with me on my elephant Bandonda. There is no greater feeling in the world.”
“I will ride on your elephant with you, if it is against the Romans.”
He shook his head, smiling, and Chamanca darted in. He saw, but too late. She hammered a punch into his guts and cracked her ball-mace into his temple. He fell, unconscious. She jumped onto him and sank her teeth into his neck. Oh, it was good, it was very good. Saltier and hotter than Roman blood.
Engrossed, she heard the footsteps almost too late. A dozen of them, maybe more, charging. She sprang to her feet, snatched up her sword and sprinted away. She felt missiles whizzing, and dodged. Two clubs like Jagganoch’s whistled past. She ran on, scurried up the side of a hut, bounced off its roof, over the town wall and away. She would have loved to have stayed and played, but she had work to do.
Felix and his legion arrived back at their landing site after several hours’ walk to find two Maximen, two Celermen, no ship and no ship’s crew.
“Where’s the ship?” he asked.
“Done gone,” rumbled a Maximan.
“What?”
“What he’s trying to say,” said one of the Celermen who’d stayed behind, “is that the ship is gone.”
“I guessed that. But why? How?”
“We were tricked, I’m afraid,” said the Celerman. “Almost as soon as you were gone, the tide came in–and by Jupiter did it come in, never seen anything like it. I thought it was a flood or another great wave, but the sailors said it was normal.”
“Yes. Big tides here. And?”
“And they said they needed to anchor the ship to stop it drifting off. They told us it was dangerous for people who didn’t know the sea, and told us to wait above this line of seaweed,” he pointed at a dark line in the pale sand, “so we did. The crew all went to the ship and climbed aboard. The water came higher and higher, then the ship was floating. They pulled up that leather thing—”
“The sail.”
“That’s it. They pulled that up and off they went. That way.” He pointed out over the moonlit, empty sea.
“On the bright side,” said the Celerman, “they were true to their word about the seaweed. We stayed above it and the water came right up to it, but not over it. Did you find any people on your trip, or any food? We’re all pretty hungry here.”
Chapter 10
Lowa stood alone on her command tower, high above the palisade on Big Bugger Hill. All across the wide plain to the north, lit up rather fetchingly from the east by the rising sun, was the Roman army.
It could not be called a surprise assault. There were thousands of men, all marching in neat, boring squares. To the east was cavalry and to the west of centre was a battering ram, towed by oxen. The ram looked pretty much exactly the right size and weight for smashing her new hillfort’s gate. She counted five legions, which meant they’d left one legion of five thousand men guarding the ships.
She looked along her palisade, lined with dozens of scorpions and hundreds of archers. It had looked formidable the day before, but in the context of twenty thousand men marching towards it looked like exactly what it was–a wooden wall that could be knocked down.
The front line of the Romans was approaching her longbow range. She stretched her arms up above her head, clasped her hands and bent over to one side, then the other.
“Badgers’ spunk trumpets, that’s a great look,” said a voice that she’d once known very well. She turned slowly.
“Dug,” she said, suddenly feeling faint and grabbing the tower’s wooden wall. It was her head wound, she told herself. He was leaning against the wall at the other side of the tower. “Are you a ghost?” She wanted to run over to him, but held back.
“No, not a ghost, just part of your mind talking to you. I guess you’ve conjured me up to reassure yourself,”
“No, you’re not part of my mind. I have plans, I don’t need reassurance. And I don’t hallucinate. You’re a bloody ghost…”
“I’m not.”
“My love, you’re lying.” She’d always been able to read him. “Go deep into my mind and just maybe there’s a part capable of creating a vision of the man I love in a time of duress. However, nowhere, nowhere, would you find any part of me that could ever come up with the phrase ‘badgers’ spunk trumpets’.”
“Ah,” he looked abashed. “But you still love me?”
Lowa smiled. “That’s not the point. What are you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you, although this possibly isn’t the best time.” She glanced at the Romans. They were still just outside her bow range. “I know that you’re not part of my mind. So what are you?”
“It worked on Spring.”
“What did?”
“She believed I was in her mind.”
“I bet she didn’t. She’s just more indulgent of you than I am. Look, we don’t have long. I miss you and want to hold you and I’m so happy to see you because perhaps it means that one day I’ll be with you again, but you always had terrible timing. The Romans are attacking.” She looked over her shoulder. The front ranks were coming to the edge of her bow range. “Tell me quickly, why have you come?”
“Our son is in danger from one of those demons.”
“He’s here, in the fort. Do you mean we’re all in danger from demons?”
“I saw a vision. There were people around but I could only see him, then there was a shout–‘Demons attacking from the north-west.’ Shortly afterwards… little Dug was killed, by a demon.”
“Oh, piss.” Lowa had a vision of her routed army, of herself crawling broken-legged and hearing the words Demons attacking from the north-west. “Why have you told me this?”
“So you can save our son.”
Lowa sighed. “I’ll do my best to save everyone, him most of all. I have to fig
ht now. I love you, Dug. Please come back to me after this, assuming I’m not already with you. Although, actually, can you do anything useful? How about scaring Caesar?”
“I love you as well,” he said, and he was gone.
She turned to face the Romans. They were in range. She slotted an arrow, drew and shot.
Two heartbeats later one of the two oxen pulling the battering ram went down. The archers and scorpion crews lining Big Bugger Hill’s palisade cheered. A couple of heartbeats later, she loosed another arrow and hit the second oxen, which toppled more slowly with a pained lowing, soon drowned out by more British cheers.
The Roman legionaries stopped as one and the squares of men nearest Big Bugger Hill raised shields to form impenetrable armoured boxes around themselves. They waited and the British watched as something that looked like a longhouse on wheels–a shield for the battering ram, presumably–was rolled forward, and a couple more oxen were driven in from the back lines.
During this lull, Lowa looked around for Dug again but he wasn’t there. Seeing him had filled her with a joy that she hadn’t felt in a long while and at the same time pissed her off massively. Why hadn’t he appeared to her before? And why couldn’t his warning be less cryptic? She would do her best to keep little Dug safe, and she’d listen out for the Demons attacking from the north-west shout, but really she could not be focused on him, not today, with twenty-five-thousand-plus men marching at her wooden walls and fifteen-thousand-strong army.
She wondered how Chamanca was getting on with the second phase of their plan for the chariots. And where the Bel was Atlas with those armoured aurochs? There hadn’t been so much as a shout from Atlas since he’d headed to the Aurochs tribe. Where was he?