‘We have to go!’ I told Brando, grabbing him.
Despite the gore on his face, the man’s eyes were sharp and focused. ‘Help me with Folcher,’ he told me.
I followed him to the dark shape of his friend. Instinctively, I knew that he had passed.
‘Help me get him on my back,’ Brando urged me.
‘He’s dead, Brando.’
‘I know that he’s dead,’ the man told me with the calm that precedes a warrior’s grief. ‘But I’m not leaving him here. Help me.’
I did, pushing the body of our friend on to the Batavian’s wide shoulders. My hands came away warm, and wet.
‘Get to the rally point,’ I told him. ‘I need to find the others. Go.’
Brando broke off at a run, adrenaline compensating for the burden of his comrade’s body. The whine of the whistle still pierced the night, but it was moving now, towards the trees. The clash of blades had dropped, but the screams were growing. So too the German commands and challenges. Had the raid become a rout?
There was no way for me to telclass="underline" I was between the tents, and my world was confined to the few yards around me.
‘Seven Section!’ I shouted. ‘Seven Section!’
No voice returned my call. No figures appeared around me.
‘Seven Section!’ I tried again. This time, there was movement to my right.
Germans.
A pair of swordsmen. One carried a torch in his left hand, and by the glow of those flames I saw the excitement etched into their hungry faces. With a sudden sickening realization, I realized why.
My hands were empty.
They charged at me, eager to butcher such idiot prey. On instinct I turned, and ran.
I’m not sure which body tripped me, but I tasted blood and dirt as my face drove into the floor like a spade. The golden light and shadow cast by the torch told me that a blade was on its way into my back, and so I rolled sideways. It bought me a moment to push away, but the torchbearer saw my eyes on an escape, and broke from his partner so that they faced me from both sides.
I looked quickly from one man to the other, needing to know which would be the first to attack. Both were young, and grinning. Both were eager for the kill.
They came at me in the same moment. Trapped in the alleyway between tents, I was left with no other option. With all my strength, I threw myself against the tent’s canvas, and prayed that the tent pegs had not been driven so deeply into the wet soil that the lines would take my weight.
They didn’t, and the canvas buckled beneath me, rope snapping free of the dirt as the tent’s side collapsed. Already I was moving, needing to free myself before they recovered from the unexpected. I escaped a swipe of a blade by inches, coming off the canvas like a sprinter at the games. The Germans were on my heels, but my arms were empty, and I used them to power my steps, charging between the tents, knowing that if there were any Germans in my way I would have no other option but to try and run by them. I was under no illusion that such a tactic would leave me gutted from a sword’s swing, but what choice did I have?
And so I ran. I ran from the camp and into the open ground between the tents and trees. This space was now a hunting ground, tribesmen whooping with glee as they chased down the fugitives who had dared set foot in their camp a second time. The whistle was gone, replaced by screams and the drumming of hooves as a half-dozen horsemen whirred amidst the chaos, chopping blades into exposed backs and driving spears into heaving chests.
It was a nightmare and a blur. I ran with blinkers, my sight and focus on nothing but the blackness of trees that offered at least the smallest chance of survival. Why did I survive the massacre in the open ground where others did not? Why had I come through such things before, when many had fallen? I could not speak to that. Maybe the name that Arminius had given me was true. Maybe I was the lucky one. Whatever the reason, I plunged into the barbed bushes of the forest as if it were the most inviting Mediterranean waters.
Caught up in the easy slaughter of the open ground, the trees seemed empty of Germans. I took no chances and moved at a crouch towards the rally point that I was certain must be deserted.
Cries of pain and barked orders echoed through the branches as I quickly stalked my way to be clear of the carnage. I hoped that Brando had had the time to get clear before the enemy were fully roused, but what of the rest of my section? I hadn’t set eyes on them since I had turned to the first tent, and Folcher had moved to the flap.
Folcher. One moment he had been alive and vital, the next he was dead. I had seen his end, and yet I hadn’t. The memory was so vivid, and yet a blur.
I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to mourn him. I was unarmed and with an enemy army at my back. So far as I knew I was the only survivor from the century. If I allowed myself to stop and to consider what that meant, then I would not live through the night. Despair would overcome me.
The sounds of battle – of massacre – died as the wall of trees grew behind me. Soon I reached the rally point. I forced out a breath, telling myself that it was only what I had expected. What I was accustomed to. I was alone, I thought.
But then I heard the sound behind me, the slightest scrape of steel.
There was someone in the trees.
I was being hunted.
38
I held my position, and trusted my instincts. I was being hunted, and I would let myself be caught.
‘How did you know?’ Malchus whispered, slipping through shadows to join me at my side.
‘I can smell soap on you, sir,’ I answered honestly.
‘I sent the rest of them back,’ Malchus explained.
From his tone, I took it that ‘the rest of them’ were pitifully few.
‘You can catch them up,’ he told me.
‘What are you doing, sir?’
‘I’ll take my chances here. More of the boys could be lying low.’
His tone betrayed his true feelings, but Malchus was an honourable officer. He was not about to abandon hope for his men.
‘Listen,’ he instructed me, and we lapsed into silence, attempting to distinguish the sounds of the forests from the noise of the enemy camp, now fully roused. A few cries of pain echoed in the night, but largely what we could hear was the mumble of raised voices.
The enemy would be organizing search parties, I was certain. I could only hope that they would wait for the dawn, cautious in case the attack had been a ruse to draw them on to the blades of a larger force.
After a while, Malchus spoke. ‘There. Listen.’
I heard it. Footsteps. They were timid and careful. Not the sound of a German warrior flushed with victory.
‘Wait here.’
The centurion returned soon. With him was a legionary. His silhouette was alien to me, and I knew that he was not of my own section. He was injured, his breathing shallow as he clutched at his shoulder.
I had questions that I burned to ask him, the need to know the fate of my comrades gnawing at my chest, but I held my tongue, placing our survival first. Malchus left again, and returned with another soldier. The third time that the centurion left my side, he returned alone.
‘I don’t think there’s anyone else,’ he announced quietly to straining ears. ‘Follow me.’
We turned our backs on the victorious chants of the Germans, and slid into the black undergrowth.
We followed the cover of trees for as long as we were able. When we broke into open ground, Malchus was blunt in his orders.
‘We’re not going to take the track. Whether they attack our boys or not, there’re going to be cavalry scouts out there. We’ll make best speed through the fields. That means we fucking run. If we’re out here when daylight breaks, then we’re dead.’