‘As we waited for them to surrender, however, something strange started to happen in the sky over our heads. Clouds gathered, boiling up into huge thunderheads and darkening from white to a sullen grey in what seemed only a few minutes. Rather than release the rain that their appearance promised, they continued to grow and darken, turning an unnatural colour, blue-green, like a huge bruise on the heavens. It seemed as if the sun had fallen below the horizon, and so much light was blocked out that we could barely see the Romans as they stood and waited for our next attack. Then, without those warning rumbles a storm usually gives out, a mighty thunderbolt speared down from the clouds to shatter a tree not fifty paces from our line, instantly sending it up in a pillar of flame. The roar of thunder that accompanied it was instant, without any pause at all, and it battered at our ears so powerfully that some men were deafened by the noise. My own hearing was certainly affected, as if my head were wrapped in heavy wool.’
He paused, smiling wryly at Marcus.
‘Now I am not, you must understand, a man given to what you Romans call ‘superstition’, but even I, I will admit, was taken aback by this sudden sign from the skies. My comrades were for the most part terrified out of their wits, and the Romans could not have failed to see our previously solid line disintegrate into chaos, even if they still lacked the energy to attack us. Moments later, though, while our warriors were still quailing at the flaming tree so close to our shields, and what it might mean, a rainstorm smashed down from the clouds gathered overhead. The rain lashed down so hard that it stung our skin, and the downpour was so fierce that trickles of water became busy streams in minutes.
‘Of course, where we saw a dark omen the Romans, whose shields bore the thunderbolt their legion’s name boasted, saw quite the opposite. Once they had collected enough of the falling rain to slake their thirsts they came at us like ghosts out of the storm, their faces painted with mud like the barbarians they called us. We saw their shields, every one emblazoned with the lightning bolt, loom out of the storm’s murk and that was enough for most of us.’ He shook his head sadly, his eyes misting over with the memory. ‘We were broken men before ever the fight started. They put us to the sword, showing no mercy until we broke and ran for the hills. I ran with the rest, of course, not to do so would have meant dying without ever getting a chance to fight back, such was the panic around me, but when I got the chance I hid myself and waited for the Romans to pass. I meant to attack them without warning, and die with some pride, unlike my comrades, who were falling to their swords and spears without even turning to fight.
‘It was a lost hope, of course. The second I leapt from cover I had half a dozen soldiers in my face, and I went down to a bash on the head from a man I never saw. That would have been it, except a young tribune stopped them from killing me, and claimed me as a slave. A tribune, as you may have guessed, by the name of Scaurus. He gave me a strange choice but a clever one, either to serve him as a bodyguard, and earn my freedom by saving his life and thus repaying my debt to him, or go back to my people in shame, my life forfeit, and forbidden to fight again for fear of the retribution of his god. He told me that when he realised that the legion’s men were trapped, with many soldiers and even officers terrified for their lives, and knowing that they would all die without some divine intervention, he offered a prayer to Mithras. He told me that he offered to bring another man to his service for every remaining year of his life if the god would show his hand and provide some chance for the Romans to regain their natural ascendancy over us. It seemed to him that the words were barely out of his mouth when the clouds started to gather… I chose to serve him, of course, and so joining his service to Mithras was only right.’ Marcus nodded his understanding.
‘And in return you’re training him to fight the way that you do?’
The German gave him a strange look, then nodded.
‘Yes. And he’s a quick student… And you, Centurion, will you share your story with us?’
Marcus looked across the clearing at Dubnus, asleep in his cloak on the grass.
‘I cannot tell you much, or you will both be in as great a danger as my friend there. I will tell you that I hope for little more than you have both achieved, to find some measure of peace after the events that have conspired to bring me here. I crave the ability to turn my mind to the future, rather than brooding on the past and dreaming of revenge.’
Qadir nodded his head, looking squarely into his centurion’s eyes.
‘That is a wise desire, Centurion Corvus. The lust for revenge can take over a man’s life, and come to master him until it drives him to the exclusion of all other cares, but I can counsel you from my own experience that it bears little fruit other than bitterness and destruction. When I took a man’s life as recompense for my personal loss, I found little in the act to compensate me for the price I was to pay for that moment of bloodlust.’
Once the sky above them was darkening to purple Marcus roused his men, many of whom had taken the chance to get some sleep before the long night before them, and set them to making their silent approach to the wall’s defenders. After a few minutes’ progress across the open hillside he realised with a start that he could hear almost nothing from the troops behind him. Intrigued, he peeled away from the line of march and squatted in the grass, watching and listening as the soldiers moved slowly past him. After a moment’s contemplation of his men he realised with an even greater surprise that the men making the more audible noise as they progressed up the hill were not the Hamians, but the 5th Century men who were supposed to be their teachers in the art of night patrolling. He got back to his feet when the column’s rear passed him, dropping in alongside Qadir and speaking quietly in his ear.
‘Your men seem to have the measure of this, Chosen.’
The other man smiled at him through the evening’s gloom.
‘No need to be quite so surprised, Centurion. I told you that we are hunters by training, and that we spent much time hunting in the forests of Germania. These men all know what it means for their stealth to be the difference between eating and going hungry. And now I suggest that you make a little noise and return to your place at the head of the column. These men won’t stop advancing until you tell them to.’
By the time the sun had set, and the moon had risen to take its place over the empty countryside, the main barbarian strength was already south of the rampart. The warband had crossed the frontier undetected through an abandoned mile fort between The Rock and White Strength, flowing unhindered out into the open ground behind the wall. Scouts led the warband to within a mile of White Strength, with Calgus and his bodyguard following close behind. Apparently undetected, the barbarians deployed quietly into and through the silent pine forest that ran to within two hundred paces of the fort’s southern gate, silently closing the noose on the 800-man garrison without betraying their presence so close to their enemy’s main line of defence. Calgus squatted down on his haunches at the forest’s edge and the main tribal leaders gathered around him, their differences forgotten in the wake of his speech that morning.