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 command 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.