‘Our hero like a gentleman inclined his head once more,
And wondering who was booked in next he headed for the door,
On leaving the house to his surprise he found an impatient queue,
His chosen man, watch officer and his clerical writer too!’
The two men shared a moment of unspoken understanding, the fact of their vastly different origins rendered meaningless by desperate circumstance. The prefect tipped his head to the centurion, lifting his shield a fraction as the barbarians massed just beyond sword-reach and readied themselves for their final assault. A voice rang out above the warband’s baying clamour, and the tribesmen fell silent. From behind the barbarian line the voice called again, this time speaking perfect Latin, to the prefect’s astonishment.
‘Soldiers of Rome, I am Calgus, Lord of the Northern Tribes. I have taken your messengers, burned out your fort, and reduced your strength to a shadow of its former pride with only a small portion of my army. Your position is hopeless, and in a few minutes you will all be dead, or dying in ways that will make you beg for death. If you surrender now, you can spare yourself such indignity. You have fought well against impossible odds, but there will be no rescue for you. No word of this dirty little battle will have reached your legions yet, they still lie asleep behind their walls at Noisy Valley, and you truly are alone in the dark. Surrender to me, soldiers, and renounce your service of the empire and I guarantee you will not die here…’
Prefect and centurion shared another glance, the senior officer raising a questioning eyebrow, his grim amusement obvious. There was no way that the surrender of a Roman of the equestrian class, so obviously advertised by his purple-edged tunic, would be greeted with anything other than protracted torture from which his eventual death would be a welcome relief. The centurion spat on the blood-slickened cobbles, then called back to the unseen speaker.
‘You bastards just want some prisoners to make sport with. We’ll not die now, I’ll give you that, but you’ll drag us away to the hills for a more leisurely game than you’ll get here. If I’m going to die then it’ll be with a sword in my hand, and with as many of you dead as I can manage before you put me down, not with my dick sawed off and my eyes pulled out in some forest clearing. Now fight or fuck off, before the legions turn up and bend you over for a good shagging, you blue-nosed turd punchers!’
The prefect nodded his respect, looking around at his men and raising his voice to be heard in turn.
‘Well said, Centurion. Let’s show this barbarian scum how Roman soldiers fight to the bitter end.’
Calgus spoke again, his voice light with amusement.
‘Very well. If death is what you desire, I shall grant your wish.’
His voice hardened as he barked out an order in his native language, the waiting warriors pressing forward to swing their swords down on to the tightly packed soldiers, while others thrust their spears into the gaps opened as the defenders lifted their shields to fend off the fierce sword-blows.
Calgus stood in the ruins of the shattered fort, pulling his cloak over his face against the reek of smoking timbers. His bodyguard had spread out round him, stabbing down into the fallen auxiliary troops whose corpses still littered the narrow streets of White Strength to ensure that none of the fallen soldiers was faking death. The combined stench of burnt wood, blood and faeces was overpowering even through the cloak’s rough material, the bodies of the defeated Romans littering the ground in increasingly tight circles centred on the piled corpses of their last stand. The Votadini warriors he had put at the front of the assault were busy taking heads and searching for booty, but Martos spotted Calgus and called his men to attend their leader. They stood and gathered around him, bloodied but proud of their victory. Calgus stared around him with evident pride.
‘Warriors, you have struck a huge blow at our enemy! A whole cohort of their traitors torn to pieces! Another of their forts made useless to them, and another piece of their defences burned out. Mark my words, the soldiers to the east of this place will be clenching their arses when they see the smoke from this victory rising into the sky come the dawn!’
He pulled his sword from his hip and punched it into the air.
‘Victory!’
The warriors gathered around him echoed the shout in a mighty roar. He sheathed the blade, clasping arms with Martos.
‘Well done, Prince Martos, well done indeed. Your men have proved themselves, despite the mutterings of some of the men around my council fire. The Votadini will be in the front rank of the great plan that will have these Roman bastards off our land for good, and you, my friend, are going to be the man your people will praise for your victory. All that remains now is for you to complete the job, as we discussed. I’ll leave a small party of my men to guide you back to the forest when you’re done… and be assured, you’re part of my plans for the future of this country once we’ve smashed their remaining strength.’
Martos nodded his gratitude, turning to encourage his men in their last grisly task. Calgus moved away with a quiet smile of satisfaction, heading for the fort’s gates and the road back to the warband’s forest encampment. At the gates a single figure detached itself from the shadows and stood waiting for him. The man was reed thin, with only a short sword to burden him.
‘My lord.’
‘You know what to do. Don’t fail me.’
The gate guards standing guard duty on Noisy Valley’s northern gate tumbled sleepily out of the warmth of their guardhouse, their haste encouraged by their centurion’s shouts and liberally applied vine stick as he chivvied them up on to the fort’s wooden walls.
‘Get your fucking helmets on and get ready to fight, there’s something coming down the road! You, go and get the first spear! Run!’
The sounds were distant, sometimes lost in the wind, but distinctive enough, boots and hoofs clattering on the road’s paving stones. The soldiers peered out anxiously over their shields, hefting their spears and looking for something to throw them at. The centurion strained to make out more detail in the uncertain light of the torches fixed over the wall’s parapet.
‘They’re ours! Get the gate open and get them inside!’
Two hundred men and more clattered through the briefly opened gates, their centurion raising a weary hand to the guard century’s officer, who was staring at the arrow protruding from the right flank of the horse he was leading. The horse’s rider was apparently more dead than alive, slumped unconscious in the saddle with his dangling right arm black with blood. The centurion spoke with quiet authority, watching as his exhausted men marched into the safety of the fort’s walls.
‘Good morning, Centurion, I’m Tribulus Corvus, centurion, First Tungrian cohort. White Strength fort has been attacked by a force I estimate to be several thousand strong. The barbarians were shooting fire arrows and had broken through the gate when I last saw it…’
The unconscious rider groaned softly, his arm dripping blood on to the road’s surface.
‘Mars, look at all that blood, it’s a wonder you got him this far.’ The guard centurion turned away, barking orders at his men. ‘Bandage carrier, get something round that arrow and put some pressure on it or he’ll be dead before we get him to the hospital. Chosen, you look after this lot, I’d better get the first spear and the prefect out of their beds. The war’s back on again!’
The eastern sky was showing the first signs of the dawn’s onset by the time the toiling Votadini tribesmen had completed their grisly task, and the tribes’ warriors were eager for the command to run for the forest’s safety. A trio of Selgovae warriors stood ready to guide them, their leader a painfully thin man clearly well accustomed to covering ground at speed. Martos strode over to the man, gesturing with a hand to the north.