‘Could it be burned out?’
‘With a big enough catapult to get a missile over a wall that high, and with a good supply of oil to set light to the buildings behind it, yes. Neither of which we have in our possession, of course. Short of that, the only way into that fortress is going to be something that we’ve never lacked as a people, those Roman strengths that the empire was built upon. This is going to come down to a combination of old-fashioned guile and ruthlessness.’
The scouts waited until the sun was almost at its zenith before moving. On the river’s grassy plain below them the last Roman troops were marching into the ford from the river’s southern bank, and the soldiers on the northern bank were forming up for the remainder of the day’s march, Iudicael nodded decisively.
‘Let’s be away now. They’ll be moving soon enough. Keep flat until we’re over the top of the hill and the risk of being spotted is gone, and then we ride for the fortress.’
His comrade nodded, and the two men squirmed away from their hiding place over the flat hill’s summit, confident that their movement would go unnoticed given the organised chaos on the plain below. Once over the hilltop they stood, hurrying down the slope to where their horses were tethered by a small lake. Momentarily relaxing with the release of pressure once they were out of sight of the cohorts camped on the hill’s far side, they were brought up short by the sudden realisation that their horses were missing from the trees to which they had been tethered. Before either of them could react to the loss, a man rose from the grass to their left and called a warning to them in their own language, his accent rough but understandable.
‘I only need one of you alive, and there are men all around you. Surrender to us now or one of you will die quickly, the other slowly. Surrender to us now, and I guarantee you your lives.’
The older of the two froze, looking about him for the speaker, but the younger tribesman bolted without a second thought, running hard towards the lake. An arrow whistled through the warm air and dropped him into the hillside’s long grass with his legs still kicking out his death throes, and Iudicael raised both hands, watching with resignation as the hillside’s long grass around him came alive with armed men. The soldiers spread out quickly, their weapons facing outwards in defence, while three of them walked past his comrade’s still-twitching body without breaking step. Their uniforms put paid to any last hope he’d had of the ambush being a mistake, and the small group’s leader gave him a dismissive look.
‘Tie his hands and put him on his horse. I want this man in front of the tribune as quickly as possible.’ He turned back to Iudicael with a hard-faced stare. ‘And you’d best make your mind up before we get there. With your mate dead you’re the only source of information we’ve got as to what’s happening inside the fortress of spears, and we’re going to squeeze everything you know out of you in the next few hours. That can either happen in a nice, quiet and calm way, or it can take a lot of shouting and screaming, most of it being done by you, but the end result’s going to be just the same. Me, I’d prefer it if we just had a nice chat and you told us what you know without any nastiness. I’ve heard enough of your lot screaming their lungs out in agony for one year, but only you can decide how it’s going to be, and once we get into camp you’re going to be asked a lot of difficult questions by some men who are in too much of a hurry to worry about hurting your feelings. So start thinking.’
The volunteer squadron rode down the shallow hill up which the legion detachment were leading the way and presented themselves to the command group riding at the cohort’s rear. Silus jumped down from his horse with a smart salute to Scaurus and gestured to the surviving Selgovae scout with a flourish.
‘As promised, Tribune, here’s the last of the men sent to watch for our approach.’
Scaurus returned his salute, and turned his horse from the line of march before climbing down and walking across to look closely at the captive.
‘Well done, Decurion, you’ve allowed us to steal a march on the men holding the Votadini captive. Tribune Licinius will have to confirm your promotion, but I can’t see him arguing with my decision given this success. From this moment on you’re a decurion. Well done.’
Silus saluted again, then tipped his head to the prisoner.
‘Thank you, Tribune. What would you like me to do with this?’
Scaurus flicked an indifferent glance at Iudicael, who was sitting helplessly with his hands bound in front of him.
‘I’m not sure there’s much point in trying to get any information out of him. We know everything that we need to know about the Dinpaladyr, and anything he tells us about the Votadini holding it will likely be false. I think I’ll just give him to Martos for entertainment when we camp tonight. He never tires of the opportunity to send another Selgovae to Hades with his balls in his mouth.’
Silus nodded and saluted once more, turning to take the horse’s reins and lead it away.
‘Spare me, Lord, and I will tell you everything I know! I swear to tell you the truth, I swear to my gods Cocidius and Maponus not to deceive you!’
Scaurus met the tribesman’s imploring eyes with a cold stare, raising an eyebrow and snorting derision.
‘You weren’t listening, Selgovae. I already know everything I need to know about the Dinpaladyr. You’re of more value to me as an offering to the Votadini prince your master betrayed and left to die than for whatever stories you think you can fool me with.’
The captive bent over his bound hands in supplication.
‘I can tell you much that you cannot know, Lord. I can tell you who holds the fortress, how many warriors he commands, how much food they have …’
He fell silent as Scaurus stared hard into his eyes, then nodded to Silus.
‘We’ll have the prisoner down from his horse if you please, Decurion. And you, whatever your name is, the second I think you’re lying to me I’ll have you hamstrung and left to die here. I’m sure there are wolf packs roaming these hills that would appreciate the gift. You can start with the name of the man Calgus sent to take the fortress.’
The Venicones marched from the remains of the Three Mountains fort soon after noon with Drust and Calgus at their head. The Venicone king took a deep breath of the day’s cool air, watching as his scouts loped forward up the road to the north.
‘It’s good to be able to move without the bloody Romans dogging our steps. We’ll march to the north until we’re over these hills, then turn east and head for the Dinpaladyr. Let’s hope that your men are still in command of it.’
Calgus, marching alongside him in the chill morning air, laughed tersely.
‘They’ll still be there. I sent one of my more energetic men to take a firm grip of the Selgovae, and if I know him half as well as I think I do, he’ll be riding them harder than they’ve experienced for many a year. I’ve visited the fortress on more than one occasion, and I can assure you that without a legion’s catapults these Tungrians will still be camped out in front of those walls when we arrive, scratching their heads as to how they might get inside. Once your warriors have rolled over them and taken revenge for us both, I’ll gather my men from inside the fortress and take them west to our own hills.’
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 t
heir 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 ce
ntury, 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.
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