The first spear watched the returning soldiers for long enough to identify the auxiliaries marching alongside them.
‘The Vangione and Cugerni cohorts. That’s Fine View and Aelian Bridge evacuated, then, but no Frisians… Julius, call a centurions’ conference and brief our brother officers that we’ll be on the road at first light tomorrow. Anyone that needs anything to be ready for war had better get their shit in a pile double quick. If I’m any judge of men those lads have seen something that they didn’t like very much, and I don’t think our new governor’s the type to let an atrocity go unanswered. And send a runner to the prefect. Now that the eagles have come back to roost we’ll be called to a senior officers’ briefing soon enough, I expect.’
They were. As ordered, the auxiliary cohort prefects gathered in the fort’s headquarters, where the grim-faced governor and his legates were waiting for them, both men’s cloaks and boots still spattered with mud. Once the officers were settled in the chairs set out for them the governor stood, his face more stony than usual.
‘You’ll be aware that White Strength was attacked last night, and that both legions went forward at full strength to attempt the garrison’s relief. What you don’t know is what they found when we got to the fort. Legatus Equitius, you were leading, you’d best tell it.’
The Tungrians’ former prefect rose, looking across the gathered prefects and first spears with a bleak stare.
‘We advanced on White Strength in haste, but with three cohorts abreast where possible, a front broad enough to hold the barbarians if they chose to attack us out of the ruins of the fort. We could see the flames from three miles out, probably past their worst but still licking at the sky. We crested the last ridge and I ordered a halt, and a deployment to battle formation. The ground around the fort was teeming with lights, hundreds of torches, which we mistakenly assumed was the warband waiting patiently for us to arrive. Twentieth Legion deployed to support us, and to refuse any attack from either flank, and then I ordered the Sixth forward in a deliberate attack, slow enough to detect any traps or ambush. The way down to face them was clear of anything that might have obstructed our advance, or any sign of hostile intent, and I was soon pretty sure that there were no tribesmen waiting for me at White Strength, although that didn’t explain the torches still burning around the fort…’ He paused for a moment, rubbing his tired face with one hand.
‘I rode forward to join the lead centuries, curious to understand the point of the display. We were perhaps three hundred paces from the fort when I guessed the truth of the matter, and half that when I realised with a sick heart that my suspicion was justified.’
The officers leaned forward to hear his voice as it sank close to the point of inaudibility with the memory’s apparent power. ‘The torches on which we were advancing were not, you might have guessed by now, simple brands left burning to guide us to the scene of the Frisian cohort’s massacre. They were human bodies…’ The legatus shook his head with the memory. ‘… human bodies, stripped and then impaled on wooden stakes, painted with pitch and set on fire. An entire five-hundred-man cohort slaughtered and then used as a demonstration of our enemy’s appalling brutality in victory.’
He fell silent for a moment, staring at his boots, then spoke again, turning to the governor and inclining his head respectfully. ‘Believe me, sir, when I tell you that there’s no desire in my head to tell you how we should fight, but be assured that my legion will be eager for blood when we face these bastards across a battlefield.
Sixth Legion has sworn to Mars Cocidius and Jupiter that we will take these men down whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.’
Legatus Macrinus stepped forward, his face dark with a thunderous rage.
‘As has the Twentieth.’
The governor took the floor, looking across his gathered officers and taking stock of their facial expressions and body language.
‘So, gentlemen, our enemy has raised the stakes quite dramatically. In the space of a day he has confirmed that his army is still in the field, he has destroyed an entire cohort and burned out yet another wall fort. He has our men desperate for the chance to slip their collars and run wild at his warriors. As a statement of intent it’s dramatic enough, but as a device to tempt us off our own ground, and away from the strengths that will win us this war, it’s masterful.’ He looked around the briefing, seeing thoughtful looks start to take hold among his subordinates. ‘We will find that warband, and we will take their heads and leave the remainder for the crows, that I promise you, but we’ll do these things in our usual disciplined manner. There will be no rash gestures, not by our soldiers and most certainly not by anyone in this room. Any man here that breaks this rule, or even connives at its circumvention, will be stripped of his rank and sent back to Rome for punishment. Are we clear?’
The officers nodded soberly, recognising the truth in Ulpius Marcellus’s harsh words.
‘Good. Make sure that message reaches all corners of your commands, along with this. I will sacrifice to the gods alongside them in thanks for bloody revenge when we find and flatten this gang of savages under our hobnailed boots, but that victory will be gained in the tried and tested way, fighting in line and taking our enemies’ lives while offering none of our own in return. That’s all…’
A flurry of activity in the headquarters’ entrance hall turned the assembled officers’ heads. A familiar figure strode into the room, his ornate helmet held under one arm. His age-lined, hawkish features were alive with the joy of the moment, a man in his prime doing what he loved most. He walked quickly to the front of the room, snapping off a salute to the governor and nodding to his friend Equitius.
‘Tribune Licinius? I presume the Petriana wing has news for us, given your unexpected entrance?’
Licinius nodded confidently.
‘Governor, my men remain in the field, standing guard around a detachment of the enemy who seem to have lost their way. There are fifteen hundred of them, more or less, camped in an old hill fort less then ten miles away from here as the crow flies. We came upon them in the late afternoon, as we patrolled back towards the wall. We must have been in too much of a hurry when we passed them on the way out, but they’re bottled up well enough for now, I had the horns blown long and hard enough to bring the Augustan wing to join us, so we ought to be able to keep them there overnight.’
The governor looked to his legates.
‘Well, gentlemen, perhaps our prayers are answered.’
Equitius frowned.
‘I can see no good reason for any barbarian to be anywhere other than tucked up safely in whatever hide they’ve built in the deep forest, well to the north. Taking up a position so close to the wall is tantamount to suicide… or sacrifice.’
‘You suspect a trap?’
Equitius nodded, looking to his fellow legatus for support.
‘There’s something not right with this. No leader in his right mind would choose to put his men in such a trap unless he expected to have his chestnuts pulled out of the fire. My instinct is to take this gift, but to make very sure that we screen the attacking force with overwhelming strength, just in case these trapped men are bait in a larger plan.’
Ulpius Marcellus nodded decisively.
‘I agree. Let’s grind these unfortunates into mince, gentlemen, and give our men something to cheer about.’
Frontinius walked back to the Tungrians’ section of the camp deep in thought, his mind dwelling on the slaughter inflicted on the
Frisian cohort, men he had soldiered alongside for half of his life. The mood in the cohort’s lines was more anger than sorrow, attitudes hardening as the manner of their comrades’ slaughter and the defilement of their corpses sank in. The news that a woman had been killed in the fort’s vicus the previous evening, raped and then strangled in the opinion of Clodia Drusilla, barely merited a mention in their conversations alongside the enormity of this latest barbarian atrocity. Julius was waiting for him in the c
ommand tent, pacing impatiently around the small space with a hand on his sword.
‘We’re marching in the morning, yes?’
The first spear nodded, dropping his helmet on the table.
‘Yes. We’ve got an appointment to destroy a warband that the Petriana have bottled up north of the wall, unless they’ve allowed the barbarians to slip away in the meantime. We’ll not be back in camp until we’ve found Calgus and taken our iron to him and his murdering savages, I’d say. The next few days are going to be more than exciting enough for a pair of old soldiers like you and me. And now I’d better go and make sure that Morban’s found someone to look after his grandson. The last thing we want is for the poor sod to be worrying about the boy when things are getting hectic.’
The army marched soon after dawn the following day, each of the two legions supplemented by auxiliary cohorts to make up two forces ten thousand men strong, each with the legion’s cavalry thrown out in front of them to provide a screen against the threat of a barbarian ambush. The 20th Legion turned east a mile south of the wall, shaking out on to a wide front and heading for the charred wreckage of White Strength, while the 6th Legion and its supporting cohorts, including both the 1st and 2nd Tungrians, headed on north through the gate where the road met the wall. Scaurus had briefed his officers fully, making clear their part in the next day’s plan.
‘The governor’s decided to clear the ground to the north and south of the wall before we strike out into enemy territory. He wants to be sure that our supply line back to the Valley stays open while we dig Calgus out of the hills, so we have to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting to jump out behind us once we’ve marched north. We’re also to deal with the warband that the Petriana have trapped about ten miles north of here, although there’s still no clear reason why they’d be camped out in such a dangerous spot. So ourselves and the Second Cohort, and the Cugerni, will go north of the wall with Sixth Legion, turn east once we’re clear of the forest and sweep the ground in front of the wall. When we reach the spot where the warband’s waiting for us we’ll split into two groups, one under Tribune Antonius to attack the hill fort and another led by the legatus to form a defensive line to the north and make sure nobody tries to interfere.’
After the briefing he’d spoken with Frontinius, outlining his plan for the next day.
‘I’ve suggested to Legatus Equitius that we take the lead once we’re through the wall gate, and peel off a century to have a quiet wander through the forest and look for any sign of the enemy before meeting the rest of the cohort on the far side. That will get Centurion Corvus safely out of the public eye for another few hours. His men are supposed to be hunters — let’s allow them to do something they ought to be good at.’
Once the Tungrians were well clear of the wall gate Frontinius stepped clear of the column and waved back in the pre-agreed signal. At Marcus’s command the 8th Century peeled off the line of march and stepped on to the twenty-pace strip of ground dividing the road from the forest, cleared of any vegetation to prevent an attacker from falling on marching troops without any warning. The Hamians stood and watched as the column ground past them up the road, the auxiliary cohorts followed by a seemingly endless stream of legion centuries, their layered plate armour marking the difference between them and the auxiliaries that led the column.
‘Your men seem alert enough.’
Marcus turned to find the German, Arminius, at his shoulder, his eyes on the Hamians as they took their short rest break. Casting a careful eye over his men, Marcus was surprised to note that one man in every tent party was watching the forest’s dark wall intently, and ignoring the legion’s parade up the road.
‘Yes, they seem to have absorbed their lesson about keeping watch well enough.’
He stared into the forest, pleased to see that the ground cover between the looming oaks was light enough for his men to pick their way through it with relative ease. At his command, the century shook out into a long line, with ten feet between each man, and at Qadir’s shouted signal they stepped off into the forest to the east of the road with their shields unslung and swords held ready to fight. Once they were fifty paces or so into the forest each man was as good as alone in the gloomy light that managed to penetrate the thick overhead cover, the mass of vegetation all around them dulling the faint sounds of their passage to near-inaudibility. Scouting through the forest with the apparently instinctive caution that had so surprised Marcus the previous night, they hunted through the shadows for an hour before low whistles passed down the line summoned him to the scene of a discovery. Several men were gathered around a patch of scorched earth. Marcus took one look and spoke quietly to his soldiers.
‘You four, all-round defence, ten paces out, and keep your eyes on the trees and your mouths shut. And listen. If a rabbit has a noisy bowel movement anywhere within a mile of here I want to know about it. You and you, signal the century to gather here. Quietly.’
He turned back to the object of their interest to find Arminius squatting down alongside the burnt earth, poking at the ash with his finger.
‘These ashes are cold, but recent. And it’s a big fire, enough for twenty to thirty men.’
Marcus waited until the century were gathered around him, their faces both eager and nervous with the discovery.
‘I want a search of the area around this fire, fingertips in the grass, knives in the soil. Thirty-odd barbarians don’t camp out without leaving some clue as to who they were. And do it in silence, no talking. Raise a hand if you find anything.’
Qadir quickly organised the troops to form a search line and sweep across the area around the fire’s black scar on their hands and knees, searching the ground in front of them with their fingers and probing the soil with their daggers for any small item that might have been dropped and trodden into the earth. After ten minutes a soldier put his hand in the air, his find carried across to Marcus by one of the watch officers. The man held out his hand, showing off a small piece of silver that the centurion took from his palm.
‘Jewellery. Very pretty. Someone’s going to be annoyed when he finds this missing from around his neck.’
A replica axe head, crudely fashioned but still recognisable for what it represented, sat on his palm. He showed Qadir the find.
‘Seen anything like this before?’
His deputy shook his head, staring blankly at the glinting pendant.
‘I have.’
The two men turned to find Arminius staring at the tiny silver ornament, his face creased in concern.
7
It was mid-morning by the time that Felicia was ready to remove the arrow from the wounded cavalry officer. She stood over her patient, his eyes slitted in a deathly pale face as he clung to consciousness with a tenacity that gave her hope for his survival, despite the blood-crusted arrow protruding from his armpit.
‘Decurion? Decurion, can you hear me?’
The exhausted officer’s eyes flickered in her direction, his mouth opening fractionally in a hoarse whisper.
‘I hear you.’ He swallowed painfully, licking his lips.
Felicia knelt by the bed, taking one ice-cold hand in both of her own.
‘My horse…?’
She smiled despite her concern.
‘Your horse, Cornelius Felix, bit two men and kicked several more black and blue while they were getting the arrow out of him, but I’m told he’s happily chewing his way through the fort’s stock of barley even as we speak. And as for you, Decurion, you have a barbarian arrow deep in your left armpit. It seems to have missed your lung, and more importantly the artery that runs through your shoulder down your arm, but it must come out immediately. I need to clean out your wound and prevent the onset of sepsis. You’ve lost too much blood already, and you’ll lose more while I remove the arrow, but to leave it there will probably kill you anyway…’
His lips moved again, the smile touching his eyes this time.
‘Get the blasted thing out now,
eh?’
She nodded mutely.
‘Do it, but promise me…’
‘Yes?’
‘If the arm has to come off…?’
‘Yes?’
‘Just kill me. I can’t ride that monster Hades one-handed…’
Shaking her head sadly, she gently squeezed the cavalryman’s right hand.
‘My oath forbids me any such act. We’ll just have to make sure this stays attached to you. Now drink this…’
She put a beaker to his lips and patiently tipped the drink into his mouth in small sips.
‘What is it…?’
‘A mixture of wine, honey and the dried and powdered sap of the poppy flower. It will make you drowsy, or possibly even put you to sleep given the amount of blood you’ve lost. What I have to do to you now is going to hurt considerably more than the pain you’re in at the moment.’
The doctor waited for a few minutes, noting the soldier’s gradually slower breathing as the drug took effect.
‘He’s asleep. Let’s move him to the table. You have to keep his arm absolutely as it is now, straight out from his body. We have no idea what the arrowhead might be touching in there…’
She supervised the orderlies as they carried the decurion from his bloodstained bed to the operating table, where so many men had laid in recent months, their wounds open to her gentle, skilful fingers. The table’s surface was criss-crossed with the scars inflicted by her knives and saws, marks left from those occasions when she had decided that the removal of a limb was a safer alternative than risking the onset of gangrene in a shattered arm or leg. The wood’s grain was rubbed smooth by the incessant scrubbing she insisted on to remove each successive man’s blood from the surface before the next soldier was laid out for her attention.
‘Keep his arm steady… that’s it. Now get him on to the table.’
Arrows of Fury e-2 Page 21