The scouting detachment rode down the road beyond the rapidly growing wall at a swift trot, each man keeping watch in a different direction as a defence against the potential for roaming Sarmatae scouts to surprise them from the dense forest around them. At the Ravenstone valley’s end they turned north, rejoining the path up the road that the cohorts had left to reach the mine complex. Two hours’ riding saw them over the ridge at this valley’s far end and taking their lunch in the shelter of a sparse copse of straggling trees, whose trunks and branches had been twisted and bent to the east over long years of exposure to the wind. Silus sat chewing his bread with his coarse wool cloak wrapped tightly about his body, looking down the valley’s length with professional interest.
‘Not so different from the mountains to the north of the Wall in Britannia, is it? We could almost be hunting down Calgus and his bluenoses, rather than riding out for a game of cat and mouse with these Sarmatae. Now, as to this horse of yours. .’
Marcus leant back and rubbed the mare’s neck affectionately, provoking an immediate nudge in his back from the animal’s snout.
‘It seems to me that the giving of names can bring bad luck, if poor old Bonehead is any indication. It might be better to leave her as she is, safely anonymous.’
The decurion snorted derisively.
‘That’s all very well for you, when you’ll only be getting onto her every now and then, but we’ll have to feed and exercise her every day. What am I supposed to do, tell my men “go and feed the mare”? I can just imagine the confusion. No, if you won’t name her then we will. What do you think lads?’
One of the riders spoke up from behind them.
‘She tried to bite me this morning, the crafty bitch. What about Nipper?’
Silus nodded.
‘Nipper. I like the sound of that. There you go, Centurion, problem solved. We’ll just. .’ He turned back to the view down the valley, his eyes narrowing. ‘Nobody move.’
Holding himself stock-still, Marcus swivelled his head slowly to look at whatever it was that had caught the decurion’s attention. A mile or so down the valley’s length, at the point where the river far below them swung in a tight horseshoe to the north, a party of horsemen had come into view. Silus grimaced at the sight, shaking his head.
‘At least fifty of them. There’s no way we can fight them, and if we try to run there’s a good chance they’ll chase us down before we can get clear. I reckon the best we can do is keep our heads down and let them pass us by. Get down behind the trees, slowly and smoothly, and keep your mouths shut. With a bit of luck they’ll stick to the river and give us a nice wide berth.’
The soldiers watched as the enemy scouts made their way down the valley floor at a careful pace, the riders looking about them suspiciously.
‘They’re ready for trouble, almost as if they know we’re hereabouts.’
Silus nodded at Marcus’s whispered comment.
‘They know we’ve taken occupation of the valley alright. You can be sure that the scouts whose tracks the centurion here found yesterday will have made a careful count of our numbers as we marched in, and they’ll have noted that we had hardly any cavalry. That’s why this lot have been sent forward in enough strength to deal with any riders that we might have out looking for them. It was as well that we were snuggled down here behind these trees.’
‘And once they’re past us?’
‘The decurion smiled tightly at Marcus’s question.
‘Once they’re past us, Centurion, that’s when the fun starts.’
The Tungrian scouts sat in silence as the enemy party rode slowly down the valley, watching from the scanty shelter of the copse as the Sarmatae picked over the valley floor, clearly looking for any signs of Roman cavalry activity. Silus shook his head in professional exasperation, staring down at the riders in their apparently listless examination of the ground to either side of the river.
‘Whoever’s in command down there must have a head that’s all skull. I’d have spaced them across the valley and swept every last inch, not just ridden up the riverbank.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose we should be grateful, but I hate to see a job done badly.’
They waited until the enemy scouts had ridden out of sight around the shoulder of the hill on which the Tungrians were perched, and Silus got slowly to his feet.
‘We can expect the main body to come down the river behind them soon enough, so it’s time to be on our way just in case they double back and put us between the hammer and the anvil. You three, you’re to ride south over the hill and through the forest until you find a clear path back to the Ravenstone. Warn Julius he’s got the rest of today to get that wall raised at the very best. If you spot the Sarmatae again then you go to ground and wait for them to piss off unless they’ve seen you, in which case you ride like madmen for the mine and the best of luck to you. The rest of us are going to find somewhere a bit less exposed to watch from.’
The three men mounted up and rode down into the valley at a fast trot, Silus anxiously craning his neck to look to the east for the riders who had already passed them, but his men forded the shallow river and ascended the far side without any sign of the advance party.
‘This ought to do nicely.’
They led the horses deeper into the forest that crowned the hill, leaving Arabus to guard them while Marcus and Silus watched the valley from the cover of the trees. After an hour or so the first riders of the Sarmatae vanguard trotted past their hiding place, some of them close enough for Marcus to see their faces. Silus watched them with a professional scrutiny, muttering quietly in the Roman’s ear.
‘At least this lot are doing their jobs properly, although I’d have been tempted to comb these woods as well as the valley’s slopes. And by the gods, there’s some stunning horseflesh out there. Watch what they do when they reach the end of the valley.’
As the two men watched from their shelter the riders turned south toward the Ravenstone, some two thousand strong beneath blood-red banners decorated with white swords which danced prettily on the breeze. Silus nodded to himself.
‘If we ever doubted that they would be heading for the mine, there’s the proof. At that pace they’ll reach the wall well before darkness. Let’s hope that Julius has managed to build it too tall for a horseman to jump, because that many pigstickers would make a nasty mess of the defenders if they were to get behind it.’
‘A blood-red flag decorated with a white sword? That will be Boraz, he goes to war under just such a flag.’ Cattanius looked around the officers gathered on the wall with a faint smile. ‘And I think that we can be grateful that our intelligence was correct. As you can see, Boraz is very much the junior partner in terms of the size of his warband.’
While the tribunes and their first spears stood and watched the barbarian outriders move cautiously up the valley, their men were still labouring around them, the soldiers catching turfs and laying them along the top of the rampart to form the five-foot-high parapet, behind which the defending troops would be protected from enemy spears and arrows. Julius looked out at the oncoming mass of horsemen with a long stare of appraisal.
‘If that’s the size of their advance guard then I’d say it’s of little matter to me which of your two kings has come to play. Either way we’re all dead men, if this wall fails to stop them getting among us.’ He looked about him with a grim smile. ‘Mind you, their arrival seems to have put a little more urgency into the construction.’ Where the mine workers had previously been working hard enough to avoid the ever present threat of a flogging for anyone caught slacking, their efforts had redoubled at the sight of the barbarian cavalry making their way up the valley. ‘Let’s not tell them that the wall’s already high enough to deter that lot, eh? I quite like them putting the extra effort in.’
The officers watched as the Sarmatae vanguard rode cautiously up the valley, until they were no more than fifty paces beyond the best distance that an archer atop the wall’s fighting platform could hope to coax
from his bow. A single rider came on, the tail of a scarlet banner trailing over his shoulder. Reining his horse in a few paces from the wall’s foot, he sat in silence for a moment and looked up and down the rampart with an amused smile before calling out to them.
‘How very Roman.’ His voice carried to the officers easily enough in the afternoon’s calm, the confident tones of nobility obvious to the listening Julius. ‘You hide behind your walls without any regard for the cowardice you display. Far better to meet an enemy on the field of battle, sword to sword, than to disgrace yourselves like this. .’ He waved an expressive hand at the wall, shaking his head in apparent sadness. ‘When you go to meet your ancestors they will ask you whether you died like men, and all you will be able to say is that you built a tall, strong wall and then hid behind it with your knees knocking together.’
Scaurus looked down at him dispassionately.
‘Possibly, but I won’t be talking with my grandfather any time soon, whereas you my friend have already booked a place at the table with yours tonight, unless you get to whatever point it was you came to make and then shift your arrogant barbarian backside out of the range of my bowmen.’
The horseman nodded up at Scaurus.
‘As you wish. I am Galatas, son of King Asander Boraz and commander of his horsemen. My father has sent me before him in order to offer you a most generous gift. You will be permitted to depart this place with your lives, and with your weapons and armour, if you will quit your defences tomorrow at dawn. My father is willing to allow you this magnificent gift of mercy if you will swear to withdraw from this part of your province, and promise never to return.’
Scaurus looked down at the horseman for a moment before speaking, shaking his head gently from side to side.
‘A generous offer indeed, and I must ask you to thank your noble father for his magnanimity. I am forced, however, to refuse this“ gift of mercy”. It seems to me that while we would be leaving this place with our lives and our equipment intact, our honour and dignity would be left here shredded beyond any repair. I’m sure that your father, man of honour that he undoubtedly is, will understand my reluctance to accede to his request.’
Galatas smiled darkly back up at the Roman.
‘This is both as I expected and hoped. It is a mark of pride for our people that no man can truly consider himself a warrior until he has taken the head of one enemy soldier, and has the dead man’s helmet to bear witness to his conquest. Your crested helmet will look fine on the wall of my great hall when I succeed my father. Perhaps I will cut off your ears before I kill you, to nail up alongside it?’
Scaurus pulled the highly polished helmet from his head, deliberately tilting it to send bright reflections flickering at the Sarmatae noble.
‘This old thing? This helmet has been in my family since long before your great-grandfather was pissing in his napkin, and not one of the seven generations that have worn it have ever brought shame upon it. By all means come and find me, Galatas son of Asander, and I will spare a moment to demonstrate to you why it is unwise to promise to do a thing so patently beyond your capabilities. Now be off with you. If you are still within bowshot after a count of thirty, I will have these archers turn you into a pin cushion.’
They watched as the Sarmatae prince rode away.
‘So, now that they’re here and likely to set up camp just over there, I suppose we really ought to get a couple of centuries of the Thracians up here to keep an eye on them. It’s all very well threatening a man with bowmen, but it’s probably a little empty as a gesture unless there are actually bows in the wall. First Spear, I suggest that it would be sensible to send a runner to their prefect and ask him to send some men down here with plenty of spare arrows. I’d better go and wake up my esteemed colleague to the fact that the war seems to have come and found us.’
Marcus and Silus watched in silence as the main body of the Sarmatae host marched down the valley past their hiding place, waiting until the barbarian infantry and the body of horsemen at their rear had all passed before risking even the most cautious of discussion.
‘Perhaps four thousand foot soldiers, and another four thousand or so horse to add to the two thousand that passed us earlier.Cattle too, perhaps two hundred oxen, and did you see the slaves they were driving along in the middle of all that infantry?’
Marcus nodded, his face dark with anger.
‘Yes. And I also noticed that a good number of them looked Roman. And they were not all men.’
Silus shrugged.
‘There will always be some fools who put the pursuit of profit over common sense. Doubtless when the last emperor declared the Sarmatae pacified there were a fair few idiots who made tracks across the border in search of trading profits. Mind you, why a man would be stupid enough take his woman and children into that sort of risk is beyond me.’
Marcus looked down the valley at the barbarian host’s rear.
‘We’ll have our work cut out if that many men come at us together.’
Silus smiled knowingly.
‘But they won’t, will they? You found the tracks of scouts around the Saddle on the Ravenstone’s northern side, so it’s a fair bet that he’ll send a party of men up there to make a flank attack behind the wall. Not too many, mind you, or we’ll know there’s something going on just from the lack of numbers in front of the defences, but if a couple of thousand foot soldiers were to come down that north slope behind us it’d be about over. They’ll come at us from two directions at once, I reckon, and depend on us having to split our strength to cope with both attacks. Come on. .’
He led the Roman back into the trees, and they remounted their horses and rode cautiously after the Sarmatae, allowing Arabus to lead and interpret the tracks left by the enemy host.
‘These men are travelling heavily laden.’ The scout pointed to the bootprints left in the soft ground by the passing foot soldiers, comparing them with one of his own deliberately laid alongside. ‘The print is deeper than mine. And see. .’ — he bent and picked an ear of corn from the mud — ‘they are carrying sacks of grain. It seems that they have come prepared to besiege the valley, if an outright victory is not gained at once.’
They followed the tracks as they turned south towards the Ravenstone valley, and after a mile or so Arabus stopped, pointing to the ground before them.
‘The warband has split. Most of the men, and all of the horses, carried on down this way towards the entrance to the Ravenstone valley. But here’ — he pointed to their left, up a narrow defile almost hidden by trees — ‘a large party of warriors on foot has turned off the main route. They are marching for the Saddle, I expect. It will take them hours to reach it since the path into the hills will be difficult, but they will have scouted it well enough to be sure of reaching it before darkness falls. Either tonight or tomorrow at dawn they will attempt an attack on the valley by that route.’
Marcus nodded, staring up into the hills.
‘And they may well succeed, unless we can bring this news to the tribune.’
‘Whether this Boraz is a junior partner in this war or not, it seems that our defences are ready just in time to confront the barbarians with something a little more difficult than what they may have been expecting. Our scouts estimate six thousand horsemen and perhaps three or four thousand foot soldiers from their dependent peoples.’ Tribune Belletor looked at the assembled officers for a moment before continuing. ‘We expect them to make a serious attempt at getting over or around our wall soon after dawn, so I want every available man either on the wall or behind it, and ready to fight from first light. Yes, Tribune Sigilis?’
The youngest of the senior officers stepped forward, pointing at the map with one finger to indicate the long ridge that ran along the valley’s northern side.
‘Sir, it seems from Centurion Corvus’s scouting report as if the enemy plan to attempt a flanking attack from the north.’
Marcus and his companions had made their way into the valley ove
r the Saddle just before dark, having used game paths scouted out by Arabus to lead their horses around the Sarmatae warriors they had tracked up the side valley. Picking their way carefully through the traps laid out across the flat ground earlier that day by the Tungrian pioneers, they had descended wearily into the valley as darkness fell. Their arrival had resulted in a combination of relief that they were safe and consternation at their news, and Sigilis had swiftly agreed to go through with Scaurus’s suggestion that he attempt to influence Belletor into defending their Ravenstone’s obvious weak point. He indicated a spot on the map of the valley, putting a finger on the Saddle’s location.
‘I must admit that I had anticipated such a move, given the centurion’s report of the open ground up there, and so I suggested to our colleague Rutilius Scaurus that he might get his pioneers to give the ground up there a bit of attention, in anticipation of a fight for that particular piece of high ground. .’
Scaurus stepped forward with his face carefully composed.
‘Which I was happy to do, given the wisdom I saw reflected in the suggestion. Although as we all know, to a determined enemy an undefended obstacle is no obstacle at all. It might be wise to detach a part of our strength to watch this potential point of attack — perhaps five centuries from my First Cohort and three centuries of the Thracian archers? Indeed further to that, colleague, I think that the command of such a critical part of the valley’s defence is a job for a senior officer, and so I suggest that Tribune Sigilis might be given an independent command in this instance? Perhaps Centurion Corvus here might act as his second in command, and assist him in the control of unfamiliar soldiers?’
Sigilis looked to Belletor in question, and after a moment the tribune nodded graciously to Scaurus, who saluted gravely before turning to the younger man.
‘Thank you, colleague. Tribune Sigilis, I hereby detach half of the First Tungrian Cohort to your command, with Centurion Corvus to assist you. Use them wisely, Tribune, I’d like them back in good condition when you’re done with them. You are to organise the movement of the required forces this evening, and put your men in place before nightfall. I’d expect the attack to come at first light, but we’ve no way to know this Boraz’s intended schedule, so let’s not run the risk of the show starting before your men are in place. On your way, gentlemen. Now, as to the rest of the defence, if I might make a suggestion. .’
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