by Angus Watson
She could have jumped and reached their ankles, but she’d never be able to pull those nails out. Even if she could have got them down somehow, they were surrounded by Caesar’s special guard and his entire army. If she didn’t do something very soon, she was going to be on a cross herself. On the plus side, Ragnall’s vindictive shittiness had got her away from Caesar and everyone else’s immediate attention.
She heard the general call to his praetorians to ride to the fort, demand that they open the gates, clear out the Britons and retrieve Lowa’s son.
“And Keelin!” shouted Chamanca from her cross.
“Indeed, do not harm the nanny called Keelin and allow her to keep hold of the child.”
Spring was glad to see that Lowa had arranged this as part of the deal, and also that Caesar was sticking to it. He’d done terrible things and no doubt he would do more, but he did appear to have some sort of moral code. It was a hypocritical, self-serving, disingenuous moral code, but at least he had one.
“Hold there!” shouted a voice that Spring knew and hated. Everyone turned and she took the opportunity to drop on to her chest, behind the pile of soil that had been dug out to plant the crucifixion uprights. She peered over it to see Felix walking up the hummock, his Leathermen following, Ironmen crashing along behind them.
“Felix!” cried Caesar. “Dare you command Caesar’s praetorians?”
“Felix dares,” said Felix. “Caesar will do what Felix tells him from this moment forth.”
“He will not. Praetorians, kill Titus Pontius Felix,” said Caesar.
Before the praetorians had done much more than move, the Leathermen were among them, diving, darting and slicing. Spring gasped. They were so fast! So much faster than before, and they’d been far too fast then. Within moments, most of the praetorians were dead. Nearby legionaries rushed in, but the Ironmen, almost as quick as the Leathermen, darted forward and slaughtered them so easily and so messily that no more legionaries dared attack. They took several steps back to encircle the hillock and look on warily from behind their shields.
“Get away now, Spring,” whispered Lowa from above her. “Run. Stay low.”
“Not without you!” said Spring, pressing herself into the grass.
She peeked up and saw the six head centurions, one from each legion, standing between Caesar and the demons. Ragnall stood next to them all like a passer-by who had wandered unwittingly onto a bard’s stage and was now standing mouth agape, trying to work out what the Bel was going on while the audience laughed at him. Then he seemed to wake up, and he bent to pick up Spring’s hammer. Get off that! Spring thought.
“Where is the girl Spring?” asked Felix, striding up. She pressed herself into the ground behind her pile of soil.
“Spring?” Caesar replied.
Felix turned to Ragnall. “Do you know, boy?”
Ragnall watched mesmerised as Felix’s monsters killed the praetorians and legionaries like foxes among stupefied chickens. The heavily armoured ones were moving too fast for his eye to follow. The leather-clad ones were faster. The geysers of blood spouting from slashed-open men reminded him of the fountains in Pompey’s theatre. He realised that he was watching with his mouth open and closed it quickly. He spotted Spring’s hammer where it had fallen and picked it up. He doubted he’d be able to do much with it, but he’d dropped his sword fighting Spring and this seemed like the sort of time to be armed.
Felix shouted for his creatures to fall back and form a perimeter around himself, Caesar and the command group. Several hundred legionaries crowded round, but none dared attack. Behind them, other legionaries were leading the British prisoners away. If they’d seen the disturbance on the command hill, they were getting on with their work rather than running over to find out what was going on, as British soldiers would have done. That, thought Ragnall, shows why Roman culture will always be better than British.
“Where is the girl Spring?” said Felix
“Spring?” said Caesar.
“Do you know, boy?”
“Yes, she’s…” He looked over to the crosses where he’d last seen her. Lowa, Atlas and Chamanca all shook their heads at him, each looking more threatening than the next. Ordering him what to do. People were always ordering him about. “She was over there last time I saw her, but she must have run.”
“The boy lies. She is in the British fort,” said Caesar. “I freed her and sent her there.” Ragnall opened his mouth to say no, she wasn’t, but he could feel Caesar telling him not to even though the general wasn’t looking at him. For some reason, he obeyed.
“Hmm. Then command your legions to attack Saran Fort. I want the girl.”
“I will not. The Britons have surrendered.”
“Yet the fort’s gates remain shut and the girl might be escaping as we speak. You will give the command to attack it.”
“No.”
“You,” said Felix, pointing at one of his Celermen. “Kill the centurions, then press your blade one finger’s breadth into Caesar’s neck.”
“Wait!” cried Caesar, as the Celerman leapt forward, sword flashing.
“Hold!” said Felix. His minion stood back. It was too late for one centurion, who was already down, hands clamped to his neck and blood squirting between his fingers. The remaining centurions stood between Caesar and Felix.
“You will all be dead in moments, including you, Caesar, if you do not command your troops to attack the fort.”
“Give the order,” sighed Caesar.
One of the centurions walked away down the low hill towards the armies, followed, on Felix’s orders, by a Celerman. A moment later a trumpet rang out. The two legions nearest the fort turned and jogged towards it, shields coming up over their heads as they neared. As soon as they were in range, scorpion arrows flew from the fort in graceful arcs, followed by catapult-hurled incendiary buckets. The defenders might have surrendered, but they’d stayed prepared.
Great holes were blasted in the legionaries’ tortoises, promptly filled as the legions ran on towards the fort. Behind them, the carts full of wall-mounting debris rumbled into place.
“I thought we agreed that you would rescue the wee boy.” Dug sat atop the pile of soil sheltering her from Felix’s gaze.
“Well things got a little in my way, didn’t they?” she whispered.
Dug looked up at Chamanca, Lowa and Atlas on their crosses, then at the legions attacking Saran Fort, then back at Lowa. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing raggedly through gritted teeth, clearly in great pain and struggling for breath. Dug’s eyes narrowed. “Spring, you have to save him. Now.”
“How?”
“Here comes a horse. Why don’t you jump on that?”
A riderless horse was walking towards her. One of its flanks was coated in blood but the animal seemed unharmed, nosing through the grass as if there wasn’t a crowd of monsters a dozen paces away.
Spring jumped up and ran for it.
“There she is!” she heard Ragnall shout.
“Stop her!” Felix cried. Leather-clad arms were round her waist before she was halfway to the horse. She was being carried, struggling, towards Felix. She hated being carried, she decided. Nobody ever carried her anywhere for her benefit.
“So!” said Felix when the Leatherman plonked her down, keeping hold of her shoulders. “Finally I have you and your magic!”
Spring laughed. “I don’t have any magic, you idiot.”
Felix’s default sneer twisted into a bulge-eyed stare. “Yes, you do.”
“I really, really don’t. Do I look like I’m lying?” He peered at her, she smiled back. His eyes bulged and his mouth opened a little.
“You do,” he managed eventually. “I saw you at Maidun.”
“You saw Dug Sealskinner at Maidun, and he died two years ago. His magic was linked to me, and I could use it, but I killed him to create a giant wave that drowned three armies and the magic died with him.”
“You made the great wave?”
>
“Dug made that wave. It was his final act. And now, without him, there is no magic. I haven’t felt a glimmer of it since. Really! I could have used it loads of times. Now would be great moment, for example, to explode your ugly bald head, but I can’t. If I was some powerful druid, don’t you think I would have used my magic to escape? To halt this invading army? Look into my eyes, you know I’m not lying.”
Felix did, then shook his head. “Oh no, that simply cannot be right. There is great magic on this island. And it is nearby. I know it.”
“Maybe, I wouldn’t know, but it’s not in me and you’re a fool.”
“I was wrong all this time…” Felix continued, looking disappointed. “Oh well,” he said, perking up. “I’ll find the source of magic, it shouldn’t be hard with the whole island under my boot. And you, Spring? You can be the first casualty of my search.”
He reached for his sword.
Chapter 11
Lowa watched as thousands of legionaries attacked Saran Fort. The defenders had seen the new Roman attack as a signal to resume hostilities, but, with almost all of her army in chains, the fort didn’t have nearly as many defenders as it needed. It would not last long.
Meanwhile, the agony in her wrists and ankles was a little less intense. The pain from her wounds still pulsed through her like blades bisecting her limbs, and she had a strong urge to hang her head and weep, but she would not give in to it. Her sacrifice, she told herself, was to save her son. Then she told herself, no, her sacrifice was a result of her being an idiot taken in by false shouts.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Spring running out from below her, towards a riderless horse. Lowa felt a flash of hope for the girl, but Ragnall spotted her and shouted, a Leatherman flew in like a bolt from a scorpion and caught her. Lowa sighed so hard that it ripped at the nails in her hand. No more heavy sighing, she told herself.
The demon carried the girl to Felix. Lowa couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Spring looked remarkably chipper. Caesar and his praetorians and the rest of the Leathermen were behind Felix. Ragnall stood off to one side. Lowa thought back to that night in the woods seven years before when she’d shagged him. Why had she done that? Had it really been Spring’s magical wish? Surely not? Looking at him now, though, she couldn’t work out why else she would have had her way with him. For all her killing under Zadar’s orders, betraying Dug and sleeping with Ragnall was one of her greatest regrets. But perhaps it had been the girl’s magic all along and she should meet Dug in the Otherworld with a clear conscience?
Spring was laughing at Felix now. Was that a good thing? And was there an Otherworld? Lowa had always thought not; humans were simply conceited animals who’d deluded themselves that they were more special than slugs and squirrels. But then she’d seen magic, she’d felt it in her and she’d seen the Spring Tide… So maybe humans were special, maybe there were gods, and maybe when this cross torture finally killed her, she’d find herself in some idyllic field with her sister, Dug, her mother…
There was a flash of movement to the east. Seven cavalry were galloping across the only part of the landscape that wasn’t full of legionaries, towards Felix. He was so intent on questioning Spring that he hadn’t spotted them. Caesar had, though. He reached out to subtly tap his centurions and they all took a few paces back.
A woman led the seven cavalry, followed by two black-clad praetorians and four gaily dressed archers. As they closed, Lowa saw that the woman was in a white dress that was little more than a shirt, with a jewelled dagger on each hip. With her shining hair and spotless outfit, she looked like a parody of a Warrior. However, the praetorians brandishing swords and the other four, riding with their legs and raising bows with arrows strung, looked like they knew what they were doing.
But they were too late. Felix raised his blade to kill Spring.
The horsewoman shouted a command in Latin. Felix paused and turned as the arrows flew. One zipped into his arm and he dropped his sword, then the horses were on them. The Leathermen danced to avoid flashing hooves. The woman galloped straight at Felix, whooping some kind of hunting cry. The Leatherman holding Spring threw the girl to one side and leapt to bundle Felix clear. Ragnall saw the danger at the last moment and dived away, still clutching the hammer.
Seizing the moment, Spring ran from the confusion, towards the fort. Ragnall ran, too, in panicked flight towards the crosses. He looked over his shoulder and saw Spring. Hefting the hammer, he sprinted after her.
Felix, recovering his wits, also spotted Spring, grabbed a Leatherman, pointed at her and shouted.
The Leatherman flipped his sword in the air, caught it by the tip, drew his arm back and hurled it like a throwing knife, straight at Spring.
Ragnall reached Spring and leapt, hammer aloft.
The Leatherman’s sword hit Ragnall square in the back and sliced through him. Ragnall fell and his hammerblow missed Spring by a finger’s breadth. Spring turned, stopped, snatched the hammer from Ragnall’s fingers and ran on.
Ragnall raised a hand after her, as if imploring her to stop, then collapsed.
Ha! Come on, Spring, Lowa thought, pain replaced by hope. She didn’t know what she was hoping for, but by Danu she wanted the girl to get away.
Felix screamed orders and his Leathermen gave chase, the sword thrower out in front. Meanwhile, Caesar and his centurions were beating a hasty retreat, but Felix shouted another order and within moments they were surrounded by Ironmen.
Spring’s mounted rescuers rallied and charged in among the Leathermen. The archers were killed almost immediately, but the praetorians fought well, delaying all but the lead demon. The female rescuer chased after him. Lowa wondered who she was. She might not look like a soldier, but her horse was the fastest the queen had ever seen and the woman knew how to ride it.
The two praetorians went down, one hamstrung and the other to a mighty punch, and the crowd of demons ran after Spring. They were a long way back, but the lead demon was right on her, the horsewoman almost on him.
The Leatherman leapt for Spring. At the same moment the mystery woman threw herself from her horse, a dagger in each hand.
The dagger blades sank to the hilt into the demon’s back. Woman and monster tumbled in a ball of waving limbs. When they came to a stop, the demon had somehow taken a blade from his back and was straddling the woman, dagger held aloft. But Spring had stopped, too. She whirled the hammer in an arc and whacked it into the side of the demon’s head.
The Leatherman fell, the woman leapt up, grabbed the dagger from the demon’s hand, slammed it into his neck and shouted something at Spring.
Spring turned and ran on towards the fort. Or at least towards the backs of the several thousand legionaries attacking it.
Come on, Spring! thought Lowa. She didn’t know what the girl could achieve, or how she could possibly escape by running into the massed ranks of the enemy, but, even as pain twisted in every part of her and each breath was a tortured trial, she willed her on and implored whatever gods were watching to help her.
Spring reached the back of the tortoise. As far as she could see from left to right were legionaries, all facing away from her with their shields overhead. Nearby was a whizz then a bang followed by screams, as an incendiary bucket landed on the Romans’ shield roof and burning oil seared through the skin of the men below.
She glanced over her shoulder. Leathermen were coming.
There was only one way to go. She leapt like a salmon and vaulted on to one of the back-markers’ raised shield. It tilted horribly, but Spring jumped to the next one and she was away, leaping from shield to shield towards the fort. She could think of nothing but getting to little Dug. It was the same feeling of unshakeable purpose as when she’d killed his father. She had to reach the boy.
A scorpion bolt smashed down in front of her. She dodged a flying head and diverted around the hole left in the shield roof by the mighty barb. An incendiary bucket landed paces away and the shield below her fell away
. She crashed down into legionaries. Before any of them had recovered from the surprise of a barbarian woman landing among them, she had scrambled back up onto their shields and was off.
She glanced behind her and saw Leathermen trying to follow across the shields. They were a good way back, and two fell between gaps in the tiny amount of time she was watching. They were much heavier than her. The top of a man-made tortoise, she thought, was one of the few surfaces in the world over which she might be quicker than the Leathermen.
As she approached the fort, arrows rained down around her in a deathly torrent. She reached the base of the Roman ramp. It was nearly completed and legionaries were marching up it, shields aloft. As she began the final sprint up it, an arrow slapped into her left shoulder.
Badgers’ bollocks, she thought, running on. Her arm fizzed with pain and weirdness and she couldn’t lift it. She sprinted up the slanted shield roof, injured arm flapping at her side. The legionaries at the front were carrying a bizarrely long and narrow wooden screen; Spring thought it must be for protection from arrows but they dropped it as she arrived and she saw that it was a bridge, spanning both of Saran’s walls.
She leapt off the front rank of legionaries’ shields.
Straight into a salvo of British arrows.
They weren’t meant for her, she knew that, but they did the damage all the same. At least two pierced her left arm to add to the one in her shoulder. One was in her right leg, one in her stomach, one through her cheek. Then another one in her stomach. And one in her chest.
She staggered on, across the bridge.
“I’m Spring!” she managed. Defenders grabbed her and pulled her through their ranks, but then they immediately turned to face the foe. Left alone, she was pirouetting, then falling off the other side of the wall. She dropped ten paces and crumpled onto the hard earth of the hillfort floor.