Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  “Would you like to touch me?” she asked, flickering her eyelashes at him. She was hungry for blood and she’d had quite enough of this man perving at her. He could tell her about the cavalry while she drank his life away. He’d probably enjoy it.

  “No, I don’t like to touch. I like to look. Perhaps you would like to turn round and bend over, with your legs straight.”

  “And then?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Tell me how the Germans met their end first and I’ll do it.”

  “You swear you will?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Right. That vile, dark druid Felix has used some sort of magic to create demon warriors. I would not believe it myself, had I not seen them train. I wasn’t meant to. I rode away as soon as I realised what I was watching and thank Mars I wasn’t seen. There aren’t many of them, around fifty. But they’re as powerful as an entire legion, possibly much more so. Some of them move like you did on the wall. Others are bizarrely big and strong. They are amazing and unnatural and it’s an open secret in the upper ranks that they massacred the German cavalry with very little effort.”

  Was this a version of what Atlas had tried to do in Vesontio, Chamanca wondered? Was this a plan to feed her demoralising information then let her escape back to the Germans? Probably not. Spreading the rumour among merchants would be a more certain and safer way of feeding news to the enemy than freeing her. And she was hardly one to rule out the idea that magic could enhance fighting abilities. “How did he create them?” she asked.

  “That I do not know. Nobody does. I’ve heard rumblings that the whole thing is somehow linked to Crassus’s mass crucifixion of Spartacus’s rebel gladiators.”

  “Mass crucifixion?”

  “Six thousand, all on one day. They were rebels, but it was too much. Tasteless.”

  “Why do you think Felix was involved?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve told you all that I do. You already know much more than most of the centurions and all of the legionaries. Felix’s legion is being kept well away from them to stop word of it getting back to Rome. A group of devils created by dark barbarian magic would not play well in the Senate. They will, however, be very pleased with the victories it will secure. Now please will you do what I asked?”

  “Tell me one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “What is the point? What is Caesar trying to achieve?”

  “Conquest, simple enough.”

  “No, that’s not it. There must be more.”

  The centurion looked over his shoulder again.

  “All right. But if I tell you, when you bend over, I want to you to say over and over how much you’d like me to … to make love to you.”

  “OK.”

  “Caesar’s goal is Britain. There is something there that he wants. That is all I know, I swear. Now, please do what I said.”

  Chamanca turned round, her mind racing. What could Caesar possibly want in Britain, other than conquest? Was it something Felix wanted? Out of nowhere, the beginnings of an idea as to what – or, more accurately, who – it might be came springing to mind.

  Chapter 20

  The Germans moved fifteen miles to more open ground. There was one trial on the way, in which Ragnall and other criminals were made to crawl along a stretch of stream converted by flagstones into an underwater tunnel. Ragnall had swum and dived a great deal on the Island of Angels, and he’d maintained some capacity for holding his breath. It was a long way from enjoyable, especially the part when he’d clawed past two newly dead who hadn’t made it to the end, but finally he surfaced and heard Flotta’s “Alive!”

  Despite it all, he found that he was warming to King Hari. The man was psychopathic, sure, and had attempted to kill Ragnall three times, but he was perpetually cheerful and, apart from the murdering, a kind old soul.

  He had had a short length of chain soldered on to Ragnall’s ankles to hobble him, and there were always a couple of soldiers nearby who appeared to be guarding him, but other than that King Hari treated Ragnall as if he were part of his inner circle, which included Atlas, Carden and Flotta the Left as well as a dozen fur-panted men and women. Shuffling along with other captives, he didn’t see the leaders often during the day, but every evening he’d eat with them next to their fire.

  Nobody other than King Hari ever spoke to him, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t imagine that Atlas and Carden had anything friendly to say, anyway. He caught Flotta looking at him every now and then. Vanity said she might find him attractive, but the voice of reason – which always sounded a lot like Drustan – told him that she was gloating to herself about knocking him out with one blow.

  One big problem with the evening gatherings was that there was no booze. The Germans, apparently, had seen how alcohol had weakened the Gauls and sworn off it. In his two years in Rome Ragnall had developed a healthy suspicion of people who didn’t drink, plus, with the constant threat of another trial and a nasty death hanging over him, by Bel he could have done with some alcohol himself.

  The German infantry, as Atlas had advised, dug in to block Caesar’s supply lines, while the five thousand-strong cavalry remained nomadic, somewhere beyond the Roman position.

  Every day, Caesar marched his army to the German wall, the legionaries taunted his soldiers, and King Hari held them back. Every day, reports came of the German cavalry slaying Roman foragers and winning skirmishes against the smaller and ever-dwindling Roman cavalry.

  “The joys of small horse victories are beginning to pale. Should I ignore the Brits and use my army to smash these insolent Romans?” King Hari asked on the fifth evening as they ate around the campfire. It took Ragnall a moment to realise that the king was addressing him.

  “No, I think everyone is right,” said Ragnall. “You may have the numerical advantage, and some fine warriors, but the Roman army is the culmination of centuries of military analysis, theory and training. They move more like a flock of birds than a group of men.”

  “How do they manage this? Do they have larks under those helmets? Ha ha!”

  “Each legion, each little army in other words, is split into groups. The smallest is made of eight men, called a contubernium. There a ten of these to a century…”

  Ragnall found himself sitting next to a crackling campfire, explaining the structure and tactics of the Romans to a group of enthralled listeners. The vague niggle that he was betraying Julius Caesar was overridden in part by the fact that the general had sent him to his certain death as envoy to the Germans, and much more so by the joy of knowing more about a subject than other people and having them listen while he explained it. After a lifetime of being talked down to, it was great to be the one in the know for once.

  So he told them everything he knew, from how the army’s structure had been reformed into its current shape by Caesar’s uncle Marius, to how one of the nails in the head of a pilum was a wooden dowel, designed to break on impact so that the enemy couldn’t throw it back.

  A few days later, Ragnall noticed that the atmosphere of warm, chuckling confidence that had been bubbling up merrily in the German camp had cooled a great deal. The daily report from their successfully rampaging cavalry had not come for three days. Meanwhile, increasingly plausible rumours were drifting in from the Roman camp that the German cavalry had been wiped out by a rockslide. Ariovistus sent spies who reported that, indeed, that was what all the legionaries were saying. The German cavalry had chased the Romans into a ravine where a rockslide had buried every last one of them. It was a sure sign that the Roman gods were more powerful that the German ones and that they were all doomed.

  One woman, however, a beautiful prostitute who had hitherto reported on Roman manoeuvres with unfailing accuracy, told them that stories of demons and evil magic killing the German cavalry were rife among the upper echelons.

  Over the next few days there was no sign of the cavalry, nor of a satisfactory explanation for what had happened to them. King Hari
’s avuncular smile morphed into a madman’s grimace. He wanted to send all his force against the Romans immediately, but Atlas insisted that they must not leave the fortification. More cavalry was on its way from Germany and would be with them in two moons. The plan was still sound, only delayed. King Hari ranted that two moons was too long and that they must strike. Most of the Germans had favoured a full-scale attack from the off, and soon Atlas’ few supporters swung their support to their increasingly bellicose king. Atlas remained unwavering in his advice to stand, but six days after they had last heard from the cavalry, the king announced that the German army would storm forth from behind their wall and destroy the Romans at dawn the next day.

  Seeing that King Hari was adamant, Atlas offered to lead the right wing of the attack. He had, he said, a few scores to settle. Ragnall was overwhelmed by a swirl of admiration and contempt for the African. Atlas was the only one, other than Ragnall himself, who knew that the German attack was doomed, and he had advised against it all along. Yet here he was, offering to lead a section. What a hero, thought Ragnall, and what a fool!

  Chapter 21

  Dug reached the crest and a massive new view opened up. He liked a new view. He stretched out his arms and yawned in relaxed delight, despite the full blast of a stiff, Danu-loved south-westerly which whipped his hair and made his eyes water.

  He enjoyed his walks with Spring. There was, however, also great pleasure in walking alone. Greater pleasure, possibly. After a few miles’ striding, his thoughts and concerns always seemed to drift from his body, mingle with the plants, animals, air and sky, then return, bringing the world back with them, so that he was immersed in nature; less a human and more just another animal making his way across the land.

  He was striding the great humpbacked white sea cliffs along the coast from his farm. To his right was an expanse of green grazing land dotted with a neighbouring farmer’s brown sheep. Ahead, the cliff hurtled into the distance, rising and falling in precipitous chalk ridges until it disappeared, then reappeared as a hazy ridge of southwards-sweeping land. Further south was the great sea, much darker blue than the sky, whipped into lines of white foam by the wind. The fishing and merchant vessels that usually dotted its vastness would all be bobbing in bays today, their crews ashore, waiting for the wind to die down to safe sailing levels. Dug had spent a while working as a sailor. His favourite days had been those on which it was too windy to sail.

  He’d reached a particularly high point of the rolling cliffs, perhaps the highest. He could see three more rises. The next was a small one, the following two each higher than the previous, but not so high as his vantage. Another human, the only other one he’d seen all day, came into view over the top of the farthest rise. From that distance she was a dot, running along the cliff path towards him, about two miles away. Soon after she appeared, she disappeared, behind the steep second rise.

  Just a dot, two miles away, but he knew it was Lowa. But of course it wasn’t, he told himself immediately. Even now, after three years, he was still seeing Lowa where she wasn’t the whole time. This was just another one of those annoying, stomach-turning instances. But it really could be her. Few people went running on their own. Spring was the only other one he knew who did, and the distant figure wasn’t Spring. He always knew when Spring was coming.

  He realised he wasn’t smiling any more. He felt nauseous. The hill-climbing sweat that had dried in the fresh wind burst anew from his pores. The fresh invigorating of the grass and sea vaporised, leaving only his own stale odour.

  “Badgers’ bollock blisters!” he said out loud. It pretty much definitely wasn’t her. He strode resolutely down his slope, knees jarring, very much not part of nature any more. He tried to pretend to himself that he was interested in the fascinating rock formation here. It jutted out, away from the coast path, into a hammerhead-shaped peninsula. He knew when he got over the next rise that he’d see an archway running through the western hammerhead of rock. Now, that was definitely an intriguing bit of scenery, and he should probably have a good think about how and why the gods had made it, and if, indeed, there was any purpose? Perhaps there was no purpose in it and no need for a purpose? Perhaps the arch just was? Maybe there was no point to any of it? Perhaps—

  It was Lowa. Her blonde head appeared over the next summit then the rest of her, dressed in a light linen skirt and sleeveless shirt. If she was surprised to see him, it didn’t show. She slowed her run and stopped when she got to him.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Her angel-spun hair fluttered in the wind, her blue eyes shone steady and brighter than the white cliffs and all the sea and sky. Her smile was her smile, a little nervous, deeper down a little sad, but on the surface happy and lovely and full of life. She leant down, hands on knees and puffed out a breath that seemed to recover her completely, even though she must have been running at some lick to reach him so quickly, and for some distance to be all the way out here. She straightened up, pushing her hands against her hips.

  “Hi,” he said, “out for a run then?”, regretting the words before he’d started to say them.

  “Still as sharp as ever, then?” It was a deserved jibe.

  “Well, you could be escaping from invisible ghosts, or just walking very quickly.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right. But I am, in fact, out for a run.”

  “Aye. Spring not with you?” Badgers’ tits, another Toutatis-cursed fool question.

  Lowa looked left, along the gentle valley that led inland, then up the slope behind her, then out to sea, then back to Dug, her eyes glinting with amusement. “Apparently not,” she said.

  “No. How are you?”

  “Right now, tired, and likely to be exhausted soon. I’m on a longer circuit than usual.”

  “Which is why I’ve never seen you out here before.”

  “Never been here before.”

  “That would explain it. So, all good?”

  “Yes, you?”

  “Aye. Just out for a walk.”

  “I’d guessed.”

  “I like it out here.”

  “It’s great scenery.”

  “It is. Good cliffs.” He could not think of a single thing to say.

  She looked at him, a little confusion in her eye perhaps? Or was that sorrow? Regret, even?

  “You’d better get on. Your legs’ll seize up if you stop too long,” he found himself saying. He wished that he could say something, anything, to make her walk with him for a while, to talk. To come back to his, to stay.

  “You’re right,” she said, “I’ve already stopped too long. Have a good walk, come to Maidun some time!”

  And she was off.

  “Aye, I’ll see you there soon!” he said to her disappearing back. His heart shouted for her to turn round. She didn’t. He turned himself and strode on, doubling his place, ordering his mind to return to the discussion of rock formations.

  Lowa blinked to stop herself from crying as she ran up the hill. She could not get to the top of it fast enough, and when she did she wanted to carry on up into the sky and never return.

  She’d tried to be relaxed and funny – kind even – but she’d been utterly unable to come up with the words and, for some reason that Bel only knew, the words that had come out had been cutting and mean. At one point she’d just fucking stared at him like a loon! She wanted to die. And he’d been lovely and kind, and her aggressive sarcasm had been unpleasant, and he hadn’t been able to see the back of her quick enough, telling her to run on, like you might tell a smart-arse child, but really you were saying “how about fucking off now, you annoying little turd?”

  She crested the ridge and powered on downhill, faster than before, faster than she should be going on such a long run. Halfway down, she stopped. She’d go back and apologise. Not only for being a dick a moment before, but for everything. She’d tell him that she still thought of him all the time, that she’d been mad to shag Ragnall – she had been mad, consumed with g
rief for her sister and hatred for Zadar. She’d tell him that she missed him. Tell him that you love him! said a voice from somewhere. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, she thought. But I will be kind, I will see if he’ll forgive me. You’ve been on your own too long! said the internal voice again. Oh bugger off, she thought at it, while conceding that it did have a point.

  She turned and ran back up the hill.

  He wasn’t there when she reached the summit. He must have already cleared the next rise, which meant he’d sped up, which meant he wanted to get away … but she was resolved now and she wasn’t going to think herself out of it. She sprinted down the hill.

  Chapter 22

  A few days later Chamanca was woken by the trumpets, howls and beating drums of a far-off battle. She bit the inside of her lip. No, not dreaming. The Germans were attacking. Her stomach ached to be out there, fighting with them. Or against them, it didn’t matter. Hearing a battle that she couldn’t join was the aural equivalent for her of a starving, freezing wanderer looking across an uncrossable chasm at a village celebrating its annual roast boar festival.

  She continued working her wrist chains against the iron pole. Her perseverance was paying off to her surprise, and she’d worn more than halfway through. Given another day, she might have rubbed away enough to snap it with a shove. However, if the battle had started, she didn’t have another day. If the Romans won, she’d be taken back to Rome and it would be a good deal harder to escape. If the Germans won, and blood-up, victorious soldiers found a gorgeous woman like her chained to a bar … well, she’d managed to persuade the Romans that she was still dangerous while chained to the loop, but if a few of them rushed her then she was in trouble.

  She’d been working gently at the iron thus far, not wanting to alert her guards. Guessing that they’d joined the fighting, she started to rasp away with all her strength. Nobody came running in, so she guessed that she’d been right.