When the Eagle hunts c-3

by Simon Scarrow

  'Watch it!' Macro yelled. 'Slingshot!'

  The Romans only just managed to shelter behind their shields in time as the first volley flew in diagonally from the flanks of the enemy line. With a roar the Durotriges charged home behind the volley. The sharp rattle and crack of the slingshot on the front of the Isquare showed that the slingers had made sure of their aim: But one shot flew over Cato's head and struck one of the'niules harnessed to a wagon in the centre of the formation. It pulverised the eye and the bone surrounding the socket,.and with a shriek of agony the mule plunged about in its traces, terrifying the other three beasts harnessed to the same wagon. In an instant the wagon swerved into its neighbour and with a protesting groan from the straining axle, it slowly tilted to one side and overturned.

  The injured were thrown out, scattered beneath the thrashing hooves of the panicked mules. One man, crushed by the side of the wagon, let out a terr!ble groan before choking on the blood that gushed from his mouth. He fell back lifeless.

  The shrill braying of the injured mule split the air and made Cato shudder. The wounded on the ground desperately tried to crawl out from under the t6rrified mules but many were trampled before they could get free. Then another wagon went over and fresh cries of terror and pain rent the air.

  'Cohort! Halt!' Hortensius shouted. 'Get those fucking mules sorted out!'

  He dived towards the injured animal who had started the chaos and plunged his sword deep into the mule's throat before tearing the blade free. The blood gushed out. For a moment the mule stood stupidly hanging its head, looking at the crimson pool splashing about its hooves. Then its knees went and it collapsed into the blood, mud and snow.

  'Kill 'em all!' Hortensius yelled, and thrust the nearest soldiers towards the terrified animals.

  It was all over in a moment and the surviving injured were hauled back into the scant shelter of the undamaged wagons. The cohort could not move any more, not without abandoning its wounded to the bloody savagery of the Durotriges. For a moment Cato wondered if Hortensius was cold-blooded enough to save what was left of his cohort and try to break out towards the relief column. But he remained true to the credo of the centurionate.

  'Close ranks! Close ranks around the wagons!'

  The legionaries engaged to the rear and sides slowly backstepped, thrusting out with their swords as the Durotriges stabbed and slashed against the shield wall, driving it back until the Romans compacted into a small knot round the surviving wagons. Those legionaries who stumbled and fell as they gave ground were crushed underfoot and then hacked to death by the Britons. Cato stuck close to Macro, tucked in behind his shield and striking out at the sea of enemy faces and limbs in front of him.

  'Careful, lad!' Macro called out. We re right by the mules.

  Cato's foot splashed into the animals' blood and he felt the rasp of mule hide against the back of his calf. On either side of him, men of the Sixth Century were backing up against the bodies of the mules, too hard pressed by the Durotriges to clamber round or over them. With a roar of defiance Macro stabbed the tip of his sword into an enemy's face. As the man fell, he seized the chance to scramble over the flank of the mule.

  'Come on, Cato!'

  For a moment the optio stood facing two Britons, young men like himself, but thicker set with hair limed into crazy white spikes. One carried a qaroad-leafed war spear, while the other had armed himself with a short sword he had snatched up from a Roman b'od. Both of them made a feint, hoping to distract the optio.enough for a fatal thrust, but he kept his shield moving, prese,:nting it first one way, then the other, his eyes darting from.spear to sword and back again.

  He dared not try to get over the dead mule while the two warriors waited for his guard to slip. Suddenly the spear tip flickered forward. Cato instinctively swung his shield to counter the threat, sending the t!p glancing down. Seizing his chance, the other Briton leaped forward and thrust at Cato's stomach. A rough hand grasped Cato by a harness strap and bodily yanked him over the mule's body. The sword missed him and Catosprawled on the ground, winded and gasping.

  'They nearly had you there!' Macro laughed and jerked Cato back to his feet. Struggling to draw breath and clutching at his chest, Cato could not help wondering at the way his centurion seemed to exult at the prospect of imminent death. A strange thing, this madness – this euphoria – of battle, Cato reflected. Shame he would not live long enough to consider the phenomenon more fully.

  The men of the Fourth Cohort instinctively closed ranks in an uneven ellipse around their wounded comrades. The enemy swarmed round them, hacking and chopping at the Roman shields in a rising frenzy as they sought to destroy the cohort before it could be reached by the relief column quick-marching towards them, but still far off. In the savage intimacy at the heart of the struggle Cato's mind was wonderfully cleared of any thoughts but the need to take the life of his enemy and preserve his own. His shield and his sword felt like natural extensions to his body. Warding off blows with one then striking with the other, Cato moved with the deadly efficiency of a well-trained machine. At the same time, tiny sensory details, frozen images of the fight burned themselves into his memory: the acrid stink of mule sweat and the sweeter odour of blood; the churned-up ground about his muddy boots; the blood-spattered faces of friend and foe, feral and snarling; and the aching cold of the winter morning shuddering through his exhausted body.

  The Durotriges whittled away the men of the cohort one by one. The wounded were drawn back into the centre while the dead were thrown out of the formation to stop their bodies being a hazard underfoot to their surviving comrades.

  And still the cohort lived on; the enemy dead piled up in front of their shields so that the Durotriges had to clamber over them to get at the legionaries. They presented perfect targets for the short swords as they balanced precariously on the uneven, yielding mass of dead and dying flesh, from which the terrified cries of the still living rang out above the thud of shields and sharp ring of metal on metal.

  The intensity of the moment robbed Cato of any sense of the passage of time. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his centurion on one side, and young Figulus on the other. But Figulus was no longer Figulus the soft-featured lad perpetually fascinated by a world that was so very different from the squalid slum he had been born into in Lutetia. Figulus had been slashed above one eye; the torn flesh was hanging from his brow and half his 'ace was dripping with blood.

  The gentle lips were drawn back in a savage snarl as he hissed and spat with the effort of battle. The months of training might never have,taken place; as agony and rage took hold of him, he slashed and hacked with his short sword in a manner it had ne,er been designed to be used.

  Even so, the Durotriges shrank back from him, awed by his terrible wrath. He drew back his blade for another lunge, and his elbow smashed into Cato's nose. For an instant the optio's head burst with white light before the pain rushed in.

  'Steady there!' Cato shouted into his ear.

  But Figulus was totally lost to any appeal to reason. He frowned and shook his head orce, then threw himself back into the fray with a guttural snarl. A Briton wielding a long shafted battleaxe came at Cato. He threw his shield up and dropped down to his knees, gritting his teeth in expectation of the impact. The blow splintered the wood and swept on down into the chest of a body lying at Cato's feet. The warrior's momentum carried him forward, straight onto the point of Cato's sword which passed through his collarbone and into his heart. He dropped to one side, taking Cato's blade with him. Cato snatched up the nearest weapon, a long Celtic sword with an ornately decorated handle. The unfamiliar weapon felt awkward and clumsy in his hand as he tried to wield it as if it were a Roman short sword.

  'Come on, you bastards!' Macro growled and presented the point of his sword to the nearest enemy. 'Come on, I said! Who's next? Come on, what're you waiting for, you fucking pansies!'

  Cato laughed, and quickly stopped as he heard the hysterical edge to the laugh. He shook his head to try
and clear a sudden dizziness, and made ready to fight on.

  But there was no need. The ranks of the Durotriges were visibly thinning before his eyes. They were no longer shouting their war cries, no longer brandishing their weapons. They simply melted away, falling back from the ring of Roman shields, until a gap of thirty or so paces had opened up between the two sides, littered, with bodies and abandoned and broken weapons. Here and there injured men moaned and writhed pathetically. The legionaries fell silent, waiting for the Britons' next move.

  'What's happening?' Cato asked quietly in the sudden hush. 'What are they up to now?'

  'Haven't got a bloody clue,' replied Macro.

  There was a sudden rush of feet, and slingers and bowmen took up position in the enemy line. Then a moment's pause

  before an order was shouted from behind the ranks of the Durotriges.

  'Now we're for it,' muttered Macro, and then quickly turned to the rest of the cohort to shout a warning. 'Cover yourselves!'

  The legionaries crouched down and sheltered under their splintered shields. The wounded could only press themselves down into the bottom of the carts and pray to the gods to be spared the coming fusillade. Risking a peek through a gap between his shield and that ofFigulus, Cato saw the bowmen draw back their bowstrings, accompanied by the rising note of whirring slings. A second order was shouted and the Durotriges' volley was unlehshed at point-blank range.

  Arrows and slingshot hurtled towards the huddled ranks of the cohort, together with spears' and swords picked up from the battlefield- even stones,,'such was the burning desire of the Durotriges to destroy the,Romans.

  Under his wrecked shield Cato crouched as low as he could, wincing at the terrific din made by the barrage of missiles cracking and thudding against shields and bodies.

  He looked round and met Macro's gaze under the shadow of his own shield.

  'It never rains but it pours!' Macro smiled grimly.

  'Story of my life in the arrr, so far, sir,' Cato replied, attempting a grin to match his centurion's apparent fearlessness.

  'Don't worry, lad, I think it's passing.'

  But the fire suddenly renewed in intensity and Cato cringed into himself as he waited for the inevitable – the searing agony of a slingshot or arrow wound. Every moment he remained unscathed seemed nothing short of a miracle to him. Then, all at once, the barrage stopped. The air became strangely still. The enemy's war horus sounded and Cato was aware of movement, but did not dare glance out in case yet more missiles came their way.

  "Get ready, lads!' Hortensius croaked painfully from nearby. 'There'll be one last attempt to rush us. Any moment now. When I say, get back on your feet and prepare to receive the charge!'

  There was no charge, just a jingling of equipment and clatter of spear butts as the Durotriges drew back from the ring of Roman shields and marched off in the opposite direction to the Second Legion's camp. The enemy gradually picked up speed until they were quick-marching away. A thin screen of skirmishers formed up at the rear of the column and hurried along in its wake, casting frequent nervous looks behind them.

  Macro cautiously rose to his feet and started after the retreating enemy. 'Well, I'll be…' Quickly he sheathed his sword and cupped a hand to his mouth. 'Oi! Where are you wankers off to?'

  Cato started in alarm. 'Sir! What do you think you're doing?'

  Macro's cries were taken up by the other legionaries and a chorus of jeers and catcalls pursued the Durotriges as they marched over the crest of the shallow ridge and into the vale beyond. The Roman taunts continued for a moment longer before turning to shouts of joy and triumph. Cato turued round and saw the front of the relief colunm rising up the track towards them. He felt sick as a wave of deli.rious happiness washed over him. Sinking down to the ground, he lowered his sword and shield and let his head rest heavily in his hands. Cato closed his eyes and breathed deeply a few times before, with great effort, he opened them again and looked up. A figure detached itself from the head of the column and jogged up the track towards them. As the man approached, Cato recognised the craggy features of the camp prefect. When Sextus drew near to the survivors of the cohort, he slowed down and shook his head at the dreadful scene before him.

  Scores of bodies were strewn across the ground and lay in mounds around the cohort. Hundreds of arrow shafts spiked the ground and protruded from bodies and shields, nearly all of which were battered and splintered beyond repair. From behind the shields rose the filthy, bloodied forms of exhausted legionaries. Centurion Hortensius pushed his way through his' men and strode towards the camp prefect, arm raised in greeting.

  'Good morning, sir!' Despite his best efforts, the strain showed through in his voice. 'You took your fucking time.'

  Sextus shook his hand, ignoring the blood congealing in a wound on the centurion's palrh. The camp prefect stood, hands on hips, and nodded.towards the survivors of the Fourth Cohort. 'And what kind of a bloody shambles do you call this? I ought to put the lot of you on fatigues for a month!'

  Beside Cato, Figulus watched the centurion and the camp prefect exchange their greetings. He was silent for a moment before he spat on the ground. 'Bloody officers! Don't you just fucking hate 'em?'

  Chapter Eighteen

  The general eased himself onto a cushioned chair with a momentary wince. Several days in the saddle had not been kind to his backside and the slightest pressure was painful. His expression gradually relaxed, and he took the cup of heated wine that Vespasian offered him. It was slightly too hot for comfort but Plautius needed a drink and something warm in his belly to counter the numbness in the rest of his body. So he drained the cup and gestured for a refill.

  'Any further news?' he asked.

  'None, sir,' Vespasian replied as he poured more wine.

  'Just the details I sent to you at Camulodunum.'

  'Well then, any useful intelligence of any kind?' Plautius continued hopefully.

  'Not just yet, but I've a coh6rt returning from patrol of the border with the Durotriges. They might have gathered some useful information. They seem to have run into a little trouble on their way back. I've sent a few cohorts out to see them home safely.'

  'Ah yes. That would be the skirmish I saw on the far side of the camp as we rode up.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Have the cohort commander debriefed immediately he returns to camp.' The general frowned for a moment, staring into the faint coils of steam rising from the cup clasped in his hands. 'You see… I have to know as soon as possible.'

  'Yes, sir. Of course.'

  Vespasian took a seat opposite his general, and an awkward silence grew. For almost a year Aulus Plautius had been his commanding officer and he was not certain how to respond on a more personal level. For the first time since he had met Plautius – commander of the four legions and twelve auxiliary units charged with invading and conquering Britain – the general was revealing himself as just an ordinary man, a husband and father consumed with fear for his family.

  'Sir?'

  Plautius continued looking down, one finger gently stroking the rim of his cup.

  Vespasian coughed. 'Sir.'

  The general's eyes flickered up, tired and despairing.

  'What am I to do, Vespasian? What would you do?'

  Vespasian did not reply. He couldn't. What can a man say in the face of another's awful predicament? Ifthe Druids had been holding Flavia and Titus, he little doubted that his first, and most powerful, instinct would be to take a horse and find them. To set them free or die in the attempt. And if he were too late to save them, then he would wreak the most terrible revenge he could upon the Druids and their folk, until he too was killed. For what was life without Flavia and Titus – and the child that Flavia was carrying? Vespaian's throat tightened uncomfortably. To distract himself from this train of thought he rose abruptly and went to the tent flap to shout an order for more wine. By the time he returned to his seat, he had composed himself, though inwardly he raged at what he saw as his
weakness. Sentimentality was not permitted in an ordinary ranker; in a legion commander it was tantamount to a crime. And in a general? Vespasian gave Plautius a guarded look and shuddered. If someone as high and mighty as the army's commander had so much trouble keeping his private grief from view, what hope was there for a lesser man?

  With a visible effort Autus Plautius stirred from his introspection and met the legate;s gaze. The general frowned for an instant, as if unaware of precisely how long he had been drowning in his own despair. Then he nodded emphatically.

  'I must do something. I,heed to make arrangements to have my family rescued before time runs out. There's only twenty-three days left before the Druids' deadline.'

  'Yes, sir,' replied Vespasian, framing his next question avoid any hint of censure. 'Are you going to carefully to exchange the Druid prisoners for your wife and children?'

  'No… not yet at least. Not ntil I've tried to rescue my family. I won't let a bunch of superstitious murderers dictate terms to Rome!'

  'I see.' Vespasian was not quite convinced. Why else would the general bring the Druids with him from Camulodunum? 'In that case, what plan do you have in mind to recover your family, sir?'

  'I haven't decided yet,' Plautius admitted. 'But the main thing is to act quickly. I want the Second Legion ready to move as soon as possible.'

  'Ready to move? Move where, sir?'

  'I want to start the campaign early. At least, I want the Second Legion to start early. I've prepared orders for your legion to move into the territory of the Durotriges. You're to crush every hill fort, every fortified settlement. There are to be no enemy warriors or Druids taken prisoner.

  I want every tribe in this island to know the cost of murdering a Roman prefect and taking Roman hostages. If the Druids and their Durotrigan friends have any sense they will return my wife and children at once, and sue for peace.'

  'And if they don't?'