Arrows of Fury e-2

by Anthony Riches

  ‘So you’ve got another chance at glory, First Spear Frontinius. We’re to assault the hill fort with the other auxiliary cohorts while the Sixth Legion sits on its backside and watches us go about it. I’d imagine that young Antonius couldn’t have imagined a better result if he’d tried.’

  The First Spear shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘We get to attack a barbarian warband uphill, into prepared defences, while the legion cohorts sit and laugh at us from behind their shields. We might win, but it’ll be a bloody victory. I’d take Lost Eagle over the goat-fuck this could turn into if Cocidius decides we’ve had enough divine favour for one lifetime.’

  Scaurus nodded.

  ‘Unless we can turn their flank, and avoid a frontal attack, I’m forced to agree with you.’

  Frontinius snorted.

  ‘Turn their flank? Unlikely, since they’re defending a circular position.’

  They walked into the prefect’s tent, and Scaurus slumped into a chair, gesturing the first spear into the other.

  ‘I take your point. Talk me through it, then. You’re the leader of this particular warband. How do you go about defending yourself when the Romans come to play?’

  Frontinius scratched a circle in the tent’s dirt floor.

  ‘They’ll assume that we’re coming from the south, since they know well enough that we’re camped here. They’ve not had the time to put up any kind of palisade, so if it was me in command of that rabble I’d line them up behind the southern side of the earth rampart, ready to fight but safe from any artillery we might have with us. Then I’d post a few men on top of the wall, perhaps four or five each to north, south, east and west, to watch for our approach. He knows that a force this size can’t approach silently, so a few men with sharp eyes and ears ought to be enough to warn him of an advance from any direction. After that it’d be simple enough to move his force around the wall to match our point of attack. And, when we do show our hands, he’s got time to get any field defences he’s prepared into place, sharpened stakes, tribuli, that sort of thing. If we had any sense we’d just sit back and wait for them to give up for lack of food and water.’

  ‘And if we split our forces?’

  ‘He splits his, and the basic problem remains unchanged.’

  Scaurus nodded slowly.

  ‘So the watchers on the wall are the key. If they fail to give a warning, the warband remains oriented on our most likely line of advance.’

  Frontinius glanced across at him sharply.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well… I was just thinking about the Eighth Century…’

  Frontinius nodded unhappily.

  ‘So was I. We’ve got a problem with Centurion Corvus’s visibility already, and I suspect your idea’s about to make it worse.’

  Five minutes later the two men walked into the 8th Century’s section of the camp and sought out Marcus, quickly outlining the prefect’s idea to the young centurion.

  ‘Could it work?’

  Marcus nodded slowly.

  ‘I think so, Prefect. There’s a man who’ll have a better judgement than mine, though.’

  He called for Qadir. The chosen man mulled the idea for a moment, and then he too nodded.

  ‘Yes, we can do this. But not wearing armour.’

  He held up a hand to silence the first spear’s reaction.

  ‘Please believe me, First Spear Frontinius, we can only perform this task if all conditions are right. We must be in position at exactly the right moment, when the rising sun lights up the men on the earth wall. We must reach that position completely undetected, or we will lose the element of surprise. And to do this we must not be burdened with your heavy mail shirts, helmets and shields. It would be impossible for us to make a silent approach carrying all that weight, and your plan, Prefect, depends on our being as silent as a fox hunting across the desert at night.’

  Frontinius pulled a sceptical face.

  ‘And if the barbarians discover you? What will you do against hundreds of them without your equipment?’

  The tall chosen man returned his stare without blinking for several seconds.

  ‘First Spear, in the Eighth Century you have one hundred and sixty of the best archers in the world at your command. Every one of us is capable of putting three arrows into a man-sized target at one hundred paces in less time than it would take a man to run the distance. It would be a brave warrior that could run into that.’

  The prefect looked at Marcus questioningly.

  ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I suggest we wear our cloaks to cover up our tunics, but otherwise it should work well enough… if we can deal with their flank sentries undetected.’

  Scaurus took a deep breath.

  ‘In that case, First Spear, I suggest we go and speak to my fellow prefects. Although whether Gracilus Furius will appreciate our pulling his balls out of the fire is debatable.’

  As it happened, both Furius and the Cugerni prefect agreed with the plan readily enough, while Tribune Antonius picked a piece of lint from the broad senatorial stripe that decorated the right shoulder of his tunic and smiled in quiet amusement at the contrast between this quiet acceptance and the man’s bluster of an hour before. He dismissed the officers to their preparations with a last quiet word of encouragement.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, you’d better go and warn your centurions that tomorrow starts early and will end in victory. I’m looking forward to seeing the cohorts that won us the battle of the Lost Eagle in action again.’

  Appius waited until well after dark before leaving his tent, with both cohorts bedded down for the night and the sentries’ attention turned mainly outside the marching fort’s earth wall. Dressed in his dark leggings and tunic, and keeping to the shadows, he made swift and silent progress through the camp and into the 1st Cohort’s lines, slipping from the shadow of one tent to the next with a careful eye open for the patrolling soldiers, all the time keeping the other closed to protect it from the torches providing patchy illumination for the rows of tents. Within minutes he had found the tents housing the Hamians, slinking noiselessly up their line until he reached the spot where he estimated the centurion’s tent would be positioned. Worming his way round the tent, he lifted the front flap fractionally, peeking into the darkened interior with the previously closed eye wide open. A single body was lying rolled up in a blanket, a centurion’s helmet laid alongside the bed with a vine stick next to it. He slipped quietly inside the tent and across the grass floor to the neatly folded pile of clothes that awaited the young officer’s wakening, ignoring the wooden chest at Marcus’s feet for fear of a noisy hinge waking the sleeping man.

  Running his hands across the garments, he encountered a hard object, the prick of a pin to his finger telling him that it was the cloak pin he had picked up from the floor of the Arab Town officers’ mess. He pulled the metal disc from its hiding place beneath the man’s cloak and grinned to himself in triumph, slipping it into his pocket and moving silently back to the tent’s entrance. Opening the flap a fraction, he froze into immobility as a patrolling sentry padded past, the man’s attention clearly elsewhere since the slight movement went unnoticed. When the soldier was twenty paces farther down the line of tents the intruder slipped out of the small opening, leaving the sleeping centurion none the wiser as to his presence.

  The cohorts mustered for their short march to the hill fort an hour before first light, hundreds of torches blazing out into the darkness. Marcus walked with Qadir as the chosen man checked his men’s equipment in the flickering light, watching as the Hamian and his watch officer took each man’s bow in turn and tested its draw.

  ‘It is customary,’ the big man had told him. ‘They expect us to examine every man’s bow before we use them in battle. If I were to ignore the ritual they would fear some form of bad luck befalling them. Besides, better for a man’s bowstring to part here than in the heat of battle.’

  Dubnus walked down to the 8th’s place at the
rear of the Tungrians’ column, smiling grimly at the sight of Marcus in his cloak, the heavy wool held closed with a borrowed bronze pin. He glanced at Antenoch, noting the clerk’s sombre demeanour.

  ‘What’s wrong with him? Don’t tell me he’s getting nervy before a fight for the first time in his life?’

  His friend frowned in the flickering torchlight.

  ‘No, nothing like that. My cloak pin’s gone missing and he’s blaming himself. I’ve told him it’s my fault, it probably fell off last night, so it’ll either be trampled into the mud or safely tucked away in some lucky soldier’s pack.’

  His friend grimaced his sympathy.

  ‘Everyone in the cohort knows it’s yours, so if it’s found it’ll come back. And besides, you’re better off with that bronze pin this particular morning. It’s just a shame you’ve no armour underneath the cloak.’

  Marcus returned the smile with a raised eyebrow and lifted the heavy wool to reveal his mail shirt.

  ‘We haven’t all given up on the virtues of a good strong defence. Once the blue-noses realise what’s happening they’ll come across that fort like a pack of dogs after raw meat, and someone’s going to have to deal with the men that dodge our arrows.’

  His former chosen man nodded solemnly.

  ‘We’ll be with you as quickly as possible.’

  Marcus tapped the hilts of his swords.

  ‘And until then I’ll be getting some practice with these. Just don’t take too long.’

  He shook hands with Morban, detailed by the first spear to remain behind and look after Lupus, much to his disgust. Frontinius had ignored his protests, waving him away dismissively.

  ‘It’s not as if a standard’s going to make much difference in this instance, and you should have made sure he was being cared for. Grin and bear it, Standard-bearer, because it isn’t going to change.’

  The auxiliary cohorts led the column out of their temporary camp in a blaze of torchlight, making their way across the intervening ground between the marching camp and the hill fort at a brisk pace. The 8th Century, dressed in their dark cloaks and without armour or shields, slipped in quietly behind the last of the three auxiliary cohorts, keeping back far enough to be sure that the torchlight would not betray their presence to any lurking scouts. Marcus and Qadir watched from the darkness behind their comrades as the cohorts paraded for the assault before the hill fort’s southern rampart, the centurions marshalling their men with bellowed orders.

  ‘Is it always this way? They’re making enough noise to summon the dead from their resting places.’

  Marcus shook his head despite the darkness.

  ‘No, they’re making a special effort to get noticed. Once the warband have taken the bait we can get moving.’

  They waited for a long moment before Qadir tugged at his centurion’s sleeve, pointing as vague figures appeared on the wall in the pale golden light of the cohorts’ torches.

  ‘There. On the wall! There must be hundreds of them.’

  Marcus strained his eyes, watching as men appeared along the length of the fort’s southern rampart.

  ‘Yes, and there will be many more hidden behind the wall. A target for every arrow we have and more besides. Follow me!’

  Marcus led the 8th away into the deeper darkness, scouting away to the west around the fort’s curving earth wall, moving slowly to ensure that the century stayed together as they crossed the rough ground. When he judged the distance they had moved away from the main force was sufficient he stopped the advance with a soft command to Qadir, and the Hamians settled down to wait for the dawn. In the distance they could clearly hear the sounds of men being prepared for a fight, shouts of command and the occasional blare of a trumpeter’s horn, all the while answered by the harsh cries of the barbarians waiting for them. Qadir spoke quietly into his ear.

  ‘There must be thousands of the savages, to judge from their noise. If this goes badly then ours will not be the only lives lost this day. I have read about assaults on defended positions like this, and I fear your friends will pay a steep price to take that ground.’

  Marcus nodded into the darkness, his face grim as he searched the invisible horizon for any sign of the coming dawn.

  ‘We’d best not miss the mark, then.’

  In the space of two minutes a subtle difference in the sky above the fort’s earth wall became clear to the waiting soldiers, the beginnings of a gentle change of hue in the night sky to the east. Within another five minutes the first real hint of dawn tinged the slowly retreating darkness with a faint pink hue. Marcus stared intently up the slope, sensing Qadir doing the same at his shoulder without having to look round.

  ‘There.’

  He followed the other man’s pointing arm, seeing a silhouette against the faint glow.

  ‘And another.’

  The shape of a shaggy-haired warrior moved across the dawn’s faint glow as he crossed the earth wall’s surface to speak with the first man spotted. They stood facing the south, ignoring their guard duty to focus on the likely point of attack. Qadir murmured quietly into Marcus’s ear.

  ‘We are still deep in darkness down here, so they see nothing and neglect their given task. They speak of the fight to come at their front gate, and perhaps their desire to be part of that, rather than this less than noble duty. Either that or they wonder if they might still slip away into the dawn unnoticed…’

  Marcus nodded again.

  ‘Can your men take them down with this much light?’

  Even in the gloom he saw the white of his chosen man’s teeth bared in a fierce smile.

  ‘We can, but we need better light for the next task. Besides, I expected more than these two. A short while longer would be wise, I think?’

  Marcus whispered agreement, and the two men waited while the glow of the eastern horizon slowly brightened. He was on the verge of ordering the attack when another silhouette climbed up the fort’s slope, seeming to rise up out of the earth in front of them, and joined the other two men, now clearly outlined against a pink dawn sky.

  ‘He must have been at the foot of the slope, perhaps praying silently to his gods?’

  Marcus snorted mirthlessly.

  ‘Emptying his bowels, more likely. It’s time. Another five minutes and they’ll have enough light to see us. Antenoch, stay here to guide the Ninth Century to us once the excitement starts. I don’t want to risk them missing their way in the dark and leaving us without any means of fighting back if the barbarians get past our arrows.’

  Qadir nodded, muttering a quiet command to the dozen archers he had picked out for this critical first task. Still indistinct to Marcus’s eyes, their capes merging with the fort’s deep shadow, they nocked arrows to their bows and took up the first slack. Marcus nodded to his chosen man.

  ‘Now.’

  Pulling back their bowstrings until the weapons made tiny creaking sounds under the strain, the archers made the last adjustments to their points of aim, waiting for Qadir’s command. The chosen man paused for a long breath to allow them to settle, then hissed a terse command. The barbarian sentries staggered under the impact of a dozen arrows, all three slumping to the ground as the humming note of the bowstrings died away, hopefully unheard from within the fort. Marcus drew his cavalry sword and bounded forward up the slope, reaching the top in thirty seconds of scrambling climb, then dropped on to his chest and hugged the earth wall’s parapet alongside the fallen barbarians. One of the men was quietly choking on his own blood in the dawn’s silence, his bubbling breaths silenced by a swift stroke of the blade across his throat.

  From the wall’s vantage point the enemy camp was laid out beneath him, their fires still burning across the area enclosed by the circular rampart. In the dawn’s pale light, with the sun still below the forested horizon, the mass of the enemy gathered 250 paces away on the slope of the hill fort’s southern wall was an indistinct seething wall of shaggy warriors baying for blood. Only the warband’s front rank was standing on th
e earth wall’s parapet, presumably to protect the remainder of the warband against the possibility that the legion artillery’s bolt throwers might yet make an unwelcome appearance. The remainder were gathered in the southern rampart’s protection for the time being. Marcus could clearly hear the shouts of their leaders, building their men up for the bloodletting to come and obviously determined to make the invaders pay dearly for every foot gained. Scanning the wall to the east and south, he quickly spotted the expected groups of sentries still watching the ground to their front, clearly still unaware of the threat to their rear. Crawling back to the edge of the rampart, he beckoned Qadir and his selected archers to join him, muttering into the big man’s ear.

  ‘I need you to take down the other two groups of sentries…’

  He pointed out the fresh targets to Qadir, who swiftly detailed a target to each of his men.

  ‘… but two arrows each may not be enough for a silent kill. I suggest you bring up the rest of the century, and have them ready to start shooting the second the sentries are down.’

  Qadir nodded, and waved the rest of the century forward to just below the rampart’s lip. Grim faced, they nocked arrows and held their bows pointing downwards, ready to lift, draw and shoot. Marcus looked at Qadir one last time.

  ‘Ready?’

  The chosen man nodded.

  ‘Shoot.’

  Qadir jerked a hand forward to unleash his picked marksmen’s arrows. The sentries fell under the Hamians’ volley, one man clearly attempting to call out a warning despite his wounds, but the clamour of both the waiting cohorts and the warband’s imprecations drowned out his efforts long enough for another arrow to slam into his back and drop him face down on to the wall’s dried mud. As the sentries fell the remainder of the 8th’s men scrambled up the last few paces of climb, quickly forming two lines with their bows held ready to shoot, every one of them now staring at Qadir in readiness for his order. Without waiting for permission, Qadir spread his arms to indicate that the whole century was to shoot, then pivoted to point at the mass of warriors unwittingly waiting under the threat of their bows.