The Venicone king raised an eyebrow.
‘You’ll return to your land? Why would you risk going back to the very place that the Romans will be busy putting back under their boots even as we speak? If they catch you they’ll drag your guts out while you watch, and leave you for the crows. Your people will have a bitter winter ahead at the hands of the legions, and they may not be happy to protect you, given the size of your defeat. Why not come north with us, and spend the winter in the safety of the hills beyond the River Clut?’
Calgus walked in silence for a moment before replying.
‘It might be safer for me to take up your offer, but we both know that the legions won’t be off my people’s land any time soon. Their cohorts will return to the forts that stud the road north from their wall, and their detachments will roam our hills as they wish. My people will be forbidden to gather without hard-faced centurions watching their every move, ready to set their dogs on us again at the first excuse. My people will suffer under their yoke once more, and if I desert them in such a time of need I will be unable to face any of the men that accompany me with any sense of honour.’ He stretched, still stiff from his night’s sleep. ‘I must return to take up the fight for them, or the slaughter of so many good men in our uprising will be without meaning. And besides, we’ve been subject to their whims since before my grandfather was born, and we’ve always managed to make them pay a high price for the pleasure of treading our land, both in men and gold. There’s an unfinished war waiting for me in the west, so while I thank you for the offer of protection, I cannot accept it and remain my own man.’
Drust shrugged, his eyes bright with the pleasure of marching without the Roman cavalry’s constant threat.
‘The offer stands. You may feel differently when this last fight is over.’
On the hillside high above Three Mountains, Soldier Caius waited until the tribesmen were well clear of the fort, poking away a lump of turf from the front of his hide to afford himself a better view of the sunlit ground below him. Satisfied that the warband was on the march, he bent his back and scattered the turf roof as he stood up in a shower of dirt. Brushing soil from his armour he turned away from the empty fort and started to run, heading down the hill’s flank at an easy jog as he headed for the meeting point agreed the previous day. After an hour’s run he trotted breathlessly up to the waiting cavalrymen, taking a moment to get his breath and gulp from a water skin before climbing wearily on to his horse and turning south.
Tribune Licinius received his report with a curt nod, turning to his first spear once Caius had finished his brief account.
‘A note for the pay records, First Spear, Soldier Caius to be credited five hundred denarii for his retirement pension. As we agreed this morning, messengers are to be sent south with a report for the governor, and a full squadron is to be sent north immediately with orders to track the barbarians without being detected, and report back three times a day. We’ll follow up at a respectable distance and wait to see what develops, but there is to be no attempt to engage the Venicones without my direct orders. The next time Drust sees our dragon banner I want it to be across a battlefield.’
Detachment Habitus staggered on to the ruined fort’s parade ground on legs that seemed incapable of making another step. Half of Dubnus’s command were leaning on their spears rather than carrying them, and even their centurion was grey with exhaustion after the day’s exertion. Bellowing a command that restored some semblance of military order, he walked out in front of the soldiers with a tired but satisfied smile.
‘Didn’t think you could do that, did you? You’ve marched the best part of thirty miles today, and you’re still all on your feet and ready to fight…’ He paused to share a moment of dark humour with those men whose heads were still up. ‘Even if you do look like you’ve been beaten with hammers.’
He turned away and spread his arms wide to direct their attention to the burned-out shell of a fort that stood before them.
‘This, Detachment Habitus, is Yew Tree Fort. Earlier on today we passed the forts at Roaring River and Red River.
The soldiers had spared the first of the wrecked forts no more than a passing glance, too deep in the effort of their forced march to care what they were passing, although more than a few of them had given Red River’s burned-out shell a longing stare as they’d ground past it in the early afternoon, their hopes of camping there for the night dashed as their centurion’s pace had continued unchanged.
‘We are less than a day’s march from Three Mountains, which is where I expect the men that murdered those cavalry messengers will be camping tonight. You might all be dead on your feet, but you’ve kept in touch with the men we’re hunting, which is all that matters. Now get your tents up, light the watch fires and feed yourselves, then sort your feet out and get into your blankets. We march for Three Mountains at first light, and you’re going to need your wits about you.’
Titus followed Dubnus as he walked away from the organised chaos of tent erection and made his way to the stream that would eventually swell to become the Red River.
‘Centurion, do you really believe that we can catch a party of men on horseback? The men are shattered after today’s march, and we’ll be lucky to get as much as twenty miles out of them tomorrow.’
Dubnus turned away from the swift-flowing stream and nodded his agreement.
‘You’re right. I made a calculated gamble today, that something might slow down the men holding my friend’s woman and give us the chance to take them unawares. I’d hoped that they might have delayed long enough at their camp last night for that to happen, but my gamble failed.’
The detachment had come upon the praetorians’ campfire less than an hour after resuming their march, the embers still smoking gently and the other cavalryman’s corpse face down in the bloody grass beside it. Felicia’s captors had clearly mounted up and headed north without wasting the time required to give the murdered man any dignity in death, and neither had the detachment made anything but the briefest of stops to confirm that he was indeed dead. From grim necessity they had left his corpse where he had fallen, like that of the man who had ridden south from the scene of his comrade’s murder before succumbing to the knife wound in his throat, untended other than for a coin hastily slipped into his mouth. Dubnus grimaced his distaste at the day’s compromises.
‘It didn’t come any easier to me to leave those cavalrymen lying unburied than it did to you. We’re soldiers, and we’re taught from our first day never to leave a fallen comrade as carrion, but the needs of the living are greater than those of the dead in this case. And so tomorrow, Watch Officer Titus, and despite the fact that all of our legs will be as stiff as spears, we will climb from our sleep at dawn and head north again.’
‘Won’t these praetorians just ride on again tomorrow, and vanish into the hills?’
Dubnus turned to face him.
‘Which would leave us in the middle of enemy territory, forty men at the mercy of whoever comes by, and with no idea of what to do next?’ Titus remained silent, but Dubnus could see from the set of his face that his estimation of the watch officer’s concerns was accurate. He smiled gently. ‘More than likely. And yet to gain the possibility of catching these bastards and freeing my friend’s woman from her likely rape and murder, I would take that risk and many worse without a thought. That’s what it means to be a Tungrian. Now, go and get your men moving, they’re shuffling around as if they’re already asleep, and the quicker we put them into their blankets the better they’re going to feel when I root them out again at dawn. And when you’re done, join me for a while before we turn in. I’d like to hear the story of how you got those bruises.’
He was sitting next to the century’s cooking fire in his tunic by the time Titus had finished his rounds of the guards, and looked on as the watch officer pulled off his helmet and rubbed at his sweat-moistened hair. Standing with his back to the fire, luxuriating in its heat as the evening’s air turned cool
, Titus looked down at his new centurion with a face made taut by the anger he was clearly still feeling.
‘You asked how I got these marks. The answer’s simple enough. I got jumped in the dark, soon after our fight with the Brigantes on the road to Sailors’ Town. My attacker hit me from behind, without any warning, and as a result he put me down with one punch. While I was down on my knees he then kicked me in the head good and hard a few times, just to be sure I wouldn’t be able to get up and give him any sort of fight. Then, when he knew that I wouldn’t be getting up again, and in the mistaken belief that I was already insensible, he bent over and said a few choice words to me. That was his mistake, because I might have been flat out with my head spinning, but I still had enough of my wits intact to recognise him. It was a soldier from my own century, a nasty piece of work called Maximus who I’d had call to discipline more than once. He took his chance to get some revenge that dark night, and less than an hour later walked into a bar fight that went wrong and put him in the fortress cells with a murder charge on his head. And that would have been fine with me, except that the men we’re chasing up this road turned up and took him with them as a replacement for a man they lost on the road to Noisy Valley.’
Dubnus leaned back, stretching his body to test the still-healing spear wound.
‘I see. So you have nearly as big an interest in catching these men as I do? That would explain your encouragement of their change of heart.’
Titus nodded, his face hard.
‘Yes, Centurion, I do. And I’ll drive these lads along just as hard as you will to get my chance at a rematch.’
The praetorians rode north from Three Mountains at daybreak the next morning, following the trail that the Venicones had stamped into the ground on either side of the rough trail that headed away from the ruined fortress to the north. Rapax sent a pair of riders north to scout ahead of them, with orders to ride back if they spotted any sign of movement, either Roman or barbarian. Soon after midday the outriders rode back towards their fellows at a swift canter, pointing back towards the north.
‘Cavalry coming this way, ours from the look of it. Half a dozen of them…’
Rapax sent Felicia away into the forest with a guardsman, and told his men to dismount and act in the manner of soldiers taking a brief rest from the saddle. When the riders came down the road towards them it was immediately clear that these were not messengers, but soldiers hunting for the enemy with their spears ready for use. Two barbarian warriors were roped to their horses, half running and half staggering along in their wake. Their leader reined his mount in alongside the guardsmen, surveying their unfamiliar uniforms with a jaundiced eye.
‘Greetings, whoever you are. We’re a detachment from the Petriana Wing, with orders to sweep the enemy’s trail for any stragglers, and capture them to use as an example to the Venicones before we fight them tomorrow. Have you seen any more of these scum in your day’s march?’
Rapax stepped forward, his face set equally hard.
‘Rapax, centurion, Praetorian Guard. No, we’ve seen none of these animals since we were ambushed on the road to Noisy Valley and lost two good men.’
They eyed each other for a moment before the cavalry officer spoke again, his voice a little less aggressive in the face of the praetorian’s truculence.
‘I’m under orders to sweep as far south as Three Mountains before turning back. We’ve only seen these two all the way from the road’s fork to north and east, so you’ll be safe to push on even if there aren’t enough of you to put up a fight against any more than a dozen of them. Perhaps you should wait here, and we’ll escort you north when we come back this way?’
The corn officer shook his head, stepping to Rapax’s side with a slight smile.
‘That won’t be necessary, thank you, Decurion. My escort will be perfectly sufficient for the task, given that you seem to have scoured the way ahead clean for us.’
The decurion’s eyes narrowed as he took in Excingus’s white tunic and blue cloak.
‘Yes, well, in that case we’ll be away and…’
The corn officer raised his hand to forestall their departure.
‘You mentioned a fork to the east? How far would that be?’
‘About five miles, Centurion.’
‘And from there to the “fortress of the spears”?’
The decurion shook his head grimly.
‘Another thirty or so, but I’d not recommend that you try to ride any farther east than the edge of the forest, once you reach it. You’ll still be a good twenty miles from the hillfort, but there’s a big angry warband sat between there and where you’re trying to go. You’d be best setting up camp far enough into the trees that you can’t be seen, and waiting to see what happens when we bring them to battle, tomorrow or more likely the day after. Either we’ll clear them away or we’ll lose, in which case you’ll be better off heading back to the south.’
Excingus nodded his thanks and turned to Rapax, but turned back when the horseman spoke again.
‘Centurion?’
The corn officer raised an eyebrow, waiting for the inevitable question.
‘Might I ask what’s so important that you’re willing to risk the frontier zone with only a few soldiers to protect you? If it’s none of my business you can tell me to keep my nose out, but I…’
Excingus raised a hand to forestall the decurion’s apology.
‘No problem at all, Decurion – indeed, you might even be able to help us. Just like you, we’re hunting for an enemy of Rome. The only difference between us is that you’re hunting barbarians, but our quarry is a Roman.’
‘We need to move faster, Titus. Every hour we march at this pace sees them another five miles ahead of us.’
The watch officer met his centurion’s scowl with a nod of understanding, but his face was set in a troubled frown, his voice pitched equally low to avoid it carrying to the men marching a dozen paces behind them.
‘Agreed. But look at the state they’re in. Even you look fit to drop, Centurion, and you’re the hardest man here by some distance. After yesterday, some of these men are just managing to hang on at this pace. Push them to the double and we’ll break them in short order. I say we just keep them moving, and aim to get to Three Mountains with the century still in ranks and marching.’
The centurion nodded reluctantly.
‘I know. But I can feel them slipping away from me.’
He kept a brooding silence as the century struggled north, and his mood was little improved by the sight of Three Mountains as the fortress came into view in the mid-afternoon. The detachment staggered down the road’s long slope towards the burned-out walls, their pace increasing as they realised that the ruined defences represented a chance to end their interminable march. The leading rank was still two hundred paces from the wrecked west gate when a flurry of activity caught Dubnus’s eye.
‘Horsemen! Form square!’
The legionaries were still struggling into formation around him when he realised that the approaching riders were friendly, and he pushed through the detachment’s disordered ranks, standing in place and waiting to greet the cavalrymen’s leader. The decurion reined his horse in alongside the big centurion and nodded his greeting.
‘Greeting, Centurion. We’ve been watching you for a while now, and my double-pay and I have been pondering what might bring a half-century of legionaries north under the command of an auxiliary centurion? In fact we’ve got money riding on what it is you’re doing out here, so be a good man and enlighten us, eh?’
The detachment’s soldiers watched in exhausted silence as Dubnus chatted with the cavalry officer, who climbed down from his horse after a moment’s conversation, clapping the big Tungrian on the shoulder, and then turned to another rider with his hand out. Squatting, he took out his dagger and drew a quick map in the dirt, then stood and clasped hands with Dubnus, remounted and led his men away to the north with a farewell salute. The Tungrian watched them go for a moment,
then turned and beckoned Titus to join him.
‘I told you something would turn up to tell us where to look for them. Those cavalrymen met up with the men we’re hunting a while ago, and stopped to talk. They were heading north and then east, riding for the Dinpaladyr, apparently, and making no secret of their mission, although Felicia was presumably hidden in the forest while they talked. Their decurion said he was pretty sure that there was something not right with a small party of praetorians riding this far north, hunting for a traitor or not, never mind the fact that the other centurion in the party was so clearly a nasty piece of work. When I told him their purpose, and that they’ve taken the doctor as a hostage, he told me everything he could about them, including the fact that your soldier Maximus is still riding with them.’
Titus nodded, his eyes cold with the anticipation of revenge.
‘So we keep marching?’
The Tungrian shook his head, casting a sideways glance at the exhausted legionaries.
‘No, we need them rested for tomorrow’s march. Besides, they haven’t got any more than another few miles in them, not without losing half of them by the wayside. The decurion told me about a hunter’s path that cuts the corner on their ride to the north and then east. Another thirty miles will see us within spitting distance of the spot where he told them to camp for the night and tomorrow. Seems that there’s a Venicone warband camped between them and the Dinpaladyr, and he’s advised them to wait it out rather than trying to get around the barbarians. They’ll be stopped in one place, and with one last effort we’ll be able to overtake them. And then we’ll see how brave they are, if your boys can put away thirty miles tomorrow.’
Titus nodded slowly, turning to survey his men with hard eyes.
‘They’ll manage it. Every one of them. They owe me that much. I’ll drive them on until they’re hanging out of their own arseholes…’
The detached cohorts turned from the line of march in the late afternoon of the next day, guided by Decurion Felix’s cavalry scouts to a location less than five miles from the Votadini fortress, as close as the experienced Tungrian senior centurions deemed was safe until the sun was beneath the horizon. The cohorts’ centurions were instructed to allow their men to rest, and enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of not having to build the customary turf-walled marching camp for the night’s stop. First Spear Frontinius gathered his officers and issued a terse set of orders that made very clear what the night held.
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