Marching alongside Drust, his throat so dry that his breath was coming out in harsh panting rasps, Calgus looked across at the grinning horsemen walking their horses less than a hundred paces away on either side of the Venicones.
‘There’s desperation in the air, Drust, I can smell it. And so can you, I’d guess. Any ideas?’
The Venicone king ignored him, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground rising before them as they tracked slowly up a broad dry valley.
‘Your men need water, Drust. They’re at the end of their tether for the lack of it. Another hour like this and you’ll have another five hundred dead, and three times as many again before the sun sets. And in the morning you’ll struggle even to get them back on their feet for lack of food.’
Drust turned a baleful eye on his captive, one hand caressing the hilt of his sword.
‘Perhaps I should offer to trade the Romans your head for safe conduct.’
Calgus shrugged, watching a party of horsemen under a snapping dragon banner canter up the length of the warband.
‘There’s your chance, then. That’ll be their tribune, mounted on that grey horse with the rather fetching armour. Why don’t you call out and see if he’ll bargain with you? I’d imagine you’ll get a short reply, though. He’s got you by the balls, and I’m pretty sure he’s only wondering whether he can manage to have your head tied to his saddle horns without another night in the field.’ He ignored Drust’s tightly clamped jaw and continued. ‘See how there are twice as many horsemen to your left as to your right? There’s a reason for that, Drust, and that reason is that since those bastards know this ground like the back of their hands they want to keep you away from something.’
Drust raised an eyebrow, too weary to ask the question. Calgus grinned triumphantly, knowing that he held an advantage over the Venicone king.
‘Water, Drust. Water and, although they don’t know it, food too. Yes, I thought that might get your atten—’
His words were choked off as the Venicone leader took him by the throat, almost unable to draw breath past the pinching hold of Drust’s fingers on his windpipe.
‘Food, Drust … enough for … every man … still standing …’
The other man pulled him close, snarling into his face.
‘Where?!’
Calgus shook his head, a feral grin showing his teeth despite the burning pain in his lungs.
‘Fuck you … kill me … and you die too …’
Drust pushed him away, drawing his hunting knife and putting the point to Calgus’s throat. His voice was level again, the anger burned out by the truth of the other man’s words.
‘What food?’
Calgus shook his head, laughing despite the blade’s cold point pricking at the stubble lining his throat, and the coughs racking his body.
‘Put the sword away … If you were going to kill me … you would already have pinched my life out.’ He hacked up a lump of phlegm, spitting it on to the turf at the other man’s feet and sucking in a great draught of air before speaking again, his words acerbic in their new-found confidence. ‘I’m not quite the fool you take me for, Drust. I knew that I might have to fall back to the north, and so I concealed enough meat in a location close to here for ten thousand warriors to fill their bellies three times over. Whole oxen, Drust, dozens of them. Butchered, salted, and wrapped in enough cloth to keep the worms out, and that was less than ten days ago …’ He paused, looking at the expression on Drust’s face. ‘And so the question, great king of the Venicones, is just what a belly full of meat for every man of your warband might be worth to you? And while you’re thinking about that, just ponder what you’d give for a good strong stone wall between you and those horse-fucking bastards tonight.’
Drust stared at him without expression.
‘You’ve already given me enough to tell me that I should drive my men to the west, and that I’m looking for a Roman fort that you’ve already conquered. What more do I need?’
Calgus smiled quietly, concentrating on putting one leg in front of the other.
‘I’m sure you’re right. We’re only ten miles from the place I’ve got in mind, so why don’t you just blunder about the hills hoping to stumble across the exact spot, eh? I’ll tell you what, why don’t you just stop wasting time on me, and get on with leading your men to the right place. Feel free to come back for another chat if the need arises.’
He watched silently as the Venicone warlord turned away. Drust cursed quietly, looking about him at the cavalrymen walking their horses patiently on every side, their spearheads glinting in the sunshine. He shook his head, then turned back to his prisoner.
‘Very well! What do you want, Calgus? Stop playing with me before I lose my patience!’
Calgus met his angry glare with a level stare.
‘What do I want, in return for stone walls to allow your men to sleep without fear of sneak attacks, that and a belly full of meat? When your alternative is for those bastards to keep right on chopping your tribe up one man at a time, today, and tomorrow, and for as long as it takes them to run your last men into the ground? Let me think.’ He put a hand to his chin, pretending to consider the question for a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what I want, Drust. I want to be a guest of the Venicones, an honoured ally, rather than a prisoner under threat of having my head handed to the Romans. That, and your sworn oath that my place with your people is safe for as long as I like. Either you guarantee my safety, and swear on something I can believe in, or I’ll leave you to blunder round this country until you’ve all succumbed to your hunger and their spears. Those cavalrymen won’t be going hungry tonight, they’ll already have riders out hunting down game and collecting water, and their field supplies will be following close behind. They’ll sleep a few miles away, where their camp fires won’t be visible to you, and in the morning they’ll find you again and keep on killing every man that falls out of the march. Best you choose now, Drust, while there’s still time to make it to my refuge before darkness.’
After the midday meal Marcus’s scouting party rode steadily away from the rest of the squadron, heading east in the direction that Lugos had indicated as the path taken by the tribal band from which he’d managed to escape. Looking to his left from the height of his horse’s saddle, Marcus could see the distant figures of the rest of the squadron scouting away to the north, less the message riders he’d sent back to warn Decurion Felix of the warband’s likely presence in Alauna.
The half-dozen men trotted their mounts along with each man set to watch an arc of terrain to ensure continual vigilance in all directions, and they rode in silence for the most part, still conscious of the clash of wills between their officers earlier in the day. After an hour or so Double-Pay Silus whistled softly, pointing at the ground before them with his spear.
‘Tracks. Lots of boots.’
Marcus stopped his mount to look at the focus of his deputy’s attention. The ground before them was thick with the imprints of the tribesmen’s rough leather boots; every one pointed east.
‘Any idea how long ago they passed?’
Silus shook his head with a faint smile.
‘Could have been any time in the last few days, this ground’s been damp enough to hold a mark for weeks now …’
Arminius dropped his bulk from Colossus, squatting to poke an exploratory finger into one of the bootprints.
‘These prints are new, less than a day old. See the sharp edges? I’d say these are the men we’re looking for. They were in a hurry too, the stride length tells me that they were running.’
Marcus looked about him before turning back to Silus.
‘I think we should concentrate our attention on the front now. How far from the fort are we, do you think?’
‘No more than five miles. We could work our way round to the north-east, there’s a nice thick wood on a hill that’ll hide us from anyone watching from the fort’s walls. That’s where I told Decurion Felix that we should regroup.’
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sp; Another hour’s careful approach brought them within sight of the fortress town, its walls and gates apparently still intact. Leaving the rest of the party to wait in a thick copse of oaks, Marcus, Arminius and the double-pay slid quietly through the trees until they had a clear view of the settlement. Silus shook his head unhappily, staring at the fort’s thick stone wall that loomed over the vicus’s houses and shops, clustered around its sturdy main gate.
‘If they realise we’re out here, all they’ve got to do is stay in there with the gates shut, and we’ll be reduced to starving them out.’
Marcus stared intently at the walls, searching for any sign of life.
‘They might already have been and gone.’
Silus shook his head with the certainty of experience.
‘Not likely. There’d be some movement in the vicus if they’d already pushed off, even if it was only a few survivors. As it is I’d imagine that they’re busy drinking themselves stupid and screwing the arse off anyone who was stupid enough not to have run while the going was good. There’ll have been more than a few of those poor bastards that reckoned it was a better gamble to stay with their homes and businesses.’
Marcus looked up at the sky.
‘It’ll be dark before we can get the infantry here, but we could at least make sure that Tribune Scaurus knows what’s going on, and work out what to do tomorrow. You stay here, and make sure that Felix keeps his men out of sight when they turn up, and I’ll head back down the road until I find the detachment. Come on, Arminius.’
‘Gods below, what are they up to now?’
Tribune Licinius watched with disquiet as the Venicones veered from their steady march northwards, the warriors at the warband’s head turning their path almost to the west in the space of a few seconds. The decurion alongside him shook his head in disgust.
‘They’re making for the bridge over the River Tefi, sir! Either they’ve been biding their time, or someone inside that bloody nest of rats has grown a brain.’
Licinius stared at the mass of warriors, his mind racing.
‘Yesterday I wondered if I’d seen Calgus in their ranks. And today a body of men that has to date acted without any sign of understanding the ground they’re stamping under their feet is suddenly making moves that look suspiciously as if they know where they’re going. I wonder …’ Shaking his head decisively, he turned to his first spear. ‘Well, we’re not just going to sit here and watch them dig their way out of this hole, not after all the effort we’ve spent pushing them into it. Send three squadrons forward to gather firewood and prepare the bridge over the Tefi for burning if they get within a mile of it. I’d rather have to rebuild the bloody thing than watch them make their escape over it and then put it to the torch to stop us from following.’
The decurion saluted and turned away to issue his tribune’s orders, and Licinius glanced over his shoulder, searching for the handful of men that were never far from his side, waiting their turn to carry his words across the empty landscape.
‘Messenger!’
The warband seemed to be moving faster than had been the case during the long weary morning, as if some fresh purpose were invigorating the warriors, urging them to accelerate their pace across the rolling ground between them and the river. They surged forward, passing the burned-out wreck of Yew Tree Fort and splashing through the stream that skirted its walls in their determination to reach the river. The Petriana’s riders paralleled their path, the leading decurions nervously calculating the distance between the leading tribesmen and the bridge for which they were driving until, with less than a mile left for the warband to run to the crossing, the lead squadron’s trumpeter blew three notes long and hard, the signal for the bridge to be fired. A moment later the first smoke rose into the clear sky above the crossing, quickly darkening into a black plume as the fire took a grip on the structure’s old timbers.
Licinius watched intently, muttering to himself as he waited for any sign that the Venicones understood the renewed depth of their predicament.
‘So, what will you do now, eh? You can’t go north, not with a river in the way, and south would be suicide, so it’s either east or west. Come on, let’s be …’
He fell silent as the warband, with a ragged cheer that was audible at a quarter of a mile distant, turned north and drove towards the river, seeming to slump into his saddle as he realised what had just happened, shaking his head as he turned to the senior decurion sitting alongside him.
‘Balls! Well, that settles one thing, there’s no doubt in my mind that Calgus has found some sort of home with the Venicones. First they make a lunge for the bridge and encourage us to burn the damned thing out, and now they’re running for the river like fifteen-year-olds on a promise.’
The decurion nodded with a wry smile.
‘Yesterday’s disaster hasn’t made the barbarian bastards any less sharp, then. Perhaps we should start running for another crossing place. I can’t see them allowing us to use whatever handy little ford he’s leading to them.’
The tribune sent ten squadrons, two-thirds of his remaining strength, away to the east to seek a point where they could ford the river and renew their pursuit of the Venicones, then led the remaining five in their close watch on the barbarians as they ran towards the point that had clearly been their objective since their initial change of direction earlier in the day. Eager to ford before the cavalry could get men across the river to resist their crossing, the tribesmen had their heads up and were running hard, the occasional man falling behind to be executed by the following cavalrymen, but the remainder covering the short distance to the river in a matter of minutes. Licinius watched with disgust as the tribesmen made their way across the ford, each man stopping to fill his water skin as the mass of barbarians made good their escape from the trap into which he had so carefully driven them. Something caught his eye, and he sat back, shaking his head in disgust.
‘And just to add insult to injury …’
He pointed at the last few dozen men crossing the shallow river, walking backwards and throwing glittering objects into the stream as they retreated towards the far bank. It was too far for him to be sure what the Venicones were scattering, but even the threat of what he was watching was enough to change the game they were playing once more, further tilting the balance of power back to the barbarians.
‘We have to assume that they’re seeding the river’s bed with tribuli, or something equally unpleasant, and there’s no way I can risk losing dozens of horses to those sharp little teeth by trying to force a crossing. This ford will be unusable until it’s been swept clean again, and that won’t be getting done any time soon.’
His deputy nodded.
‘East or west?’
Licinius shook his head.
‘East. Ten miles to the nearest ford, and ten miles back again, plus whatever distance they can run in that time. They’ll be tucked up nice and snug in whatever’s left of the Three Mountains fort by the time we get back on top of them.’
‘He looks like the sort of man we need.’
Rapax turned to examine the man that Excingus was indicating, running critical eyes over the prisoner’s face and body. The shackled legionary looked bored, standing in the weak afternoon sun and waiting to be told what to do next. His arms bulged with muscle, and a long knife scar ran down one cheek beneath close-cropped black hair. The praetorian strolled across to his place in the line of half a dozen men, tapping him on the shoulder with his vine stick.
‘What did you do? And try not to make it sound like it’s supposed to be funny.’
The disgraced soldier looked down his nose at the centurion, rolling his head as if to loosen stiffness before answering.
‘I took a centurion’s vine stick and put it up his ar—’
The praetorian struck with a speed that caught the prisoner completely unawares, ramming the stick into his solar plexus so hard that the breath exploded from his body, leaving him bent double and helpless.
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nbsp; ‘You didn’t try hard enough.’ He turned to the centurion of the guard. ‘All right, what did he do?’
The centurion, recently come on duty and only too aware from the briefing from his predecessor of the heavily wielded authority of the praetorian’s colleague, answered without any of the bombast that might otherwise have been the case.
‘He stabbed another soldier to death in a bar fight. The dead man said something that upset him, apparently …’
‘First offence?’
‘Well, it was the first one where he got caught. He’s been a right pain in the arse to the men of his century, forever pushing them around for their rations and just to show what a big man he is. He’s also suspected of having given his watch officer a beating a couple of nights ago, but there wasn’t any proof that it was actually him.’
‘Name?’
The centurion of the guard shrugged without interest.
‘No idea. I make sure they’re fed and watered, and that they get a beating if they step out of line, but none of that means I have to pretend to be their mother.’
Rapax put his stick under the prisoner’s chin, lifting his face to reveal a grimace of pain.
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