No one commented.
‘Dump your mail in that ditch. I’ll make sure the quartermaster doesn’t bill you for the equipment loss,’ Malchus joked darkly. ‘Let’s go.’
So began hours of burning legs, aching muscles and scorched throats. Running through the night was abject misery, but no man complained, for what was the choice? Instead, I tried to do what Linza had told me. I tried to think about life, and not death. I promised myself that if we made the fort, then I would not wait until murder struck to see her again. That I would meet her friendship with my own.
‘You’re doing good, lads,’ Malchus encouraged us. ‘We’re getting close. Listen. There’s the river. Not even a couple of miles to go. We’ll make it; just keep going.’
I had to marvel at our leader. After the bloodshed and despite the exertion, his tone was calm, his breath steady. Malchus was a born warrior and leader. Perhaps, if the three legions that had entered the forest had been commanded by this man, then the bodies of more than fifteen thousand would not have been picked over by crows. But what chance was there of that? Malchus was not a senator. He was a soldier who had fought his way up the ladder, each step a testament to his prowess as a killer. Rome’s borders held and grew due to men like him, and yet the warrior would be no more welcome in the senate than a dog. Malchus was a tool that fit a purpose, and though the upper classes would laud him and heap praise on his armoured shoulders, he would never be seen as anything but a pawn to the men who controlled Rome. And yet, I knew deep down, he would die for them and their city.
Why were we soldiers so blind and obedient?
‘The fort,’ Malchus announced, jolting me out of my mutinous thoughts. ‘Made it, lads.’
With salvation in sight, nervous bursts of laughter broke out amongst us. Despite the death that we had left behind, relief at having survived overtook us, and I saw the white of smiles in the darkness.
Malchus announced himself to the guards on the gatehouse, and confirmed the night’s watchword. ‘Where’s the raiding party?’ he then asked.
The confused reply left me sick.
‘It’s not you?’
There was a moment of heavy silence. I thought I heard Malchus’s teeth grate.
‘Get inside,’ he said to me. ‘Get these men seen by a surgeon. I’m going back to find the others.’
‘I can come with you, sir,’ I offered, my relief overtaken by guilt as the centurion turned me down.
‘I move faster alone. Get them to the surgeon, and then report to the prefect. He’ll need briefing,’ Malchus ordered, and with those words he was lost to the night.
39
I broke the cohort commander’s instructions as soon as the gates opened and we were met with the torchlight and nervous faces of the guard.
‘Where’s the rest of you?’ a salted centurion asked, his eye appraising wounds and the blood on our skin.
‘I need to brief the prefect, sir,’ I told the officer. ‘Can your men see these two to the hospital?’
‘We can see ourselves,’ one of the survivors answered gruffly. Having come so far, they would not be carried this final distance.
By the torchlight I met the man’s eye, admiring his courage. Now safe ourselves – at least for the moment – I knew that sickening worry for our comrades was about to come crashing down.
‘Go,’ the centurion told me. As I broke into a run, I heard him call orders to bring stretchers and surgeons to the gate. If – when, I forced myself to think – the century arrived, then the centurion and his guard would be ready.
The pounding of my sandals and my blood-coated arms caused civilians in the streets to run in panic. I did not even know if they were aware that a raid had been launched, and now panicked rumours would spread like a disease. The gossip would worry some, and thrill others. Here was a break in the monotony of the siege, paid for in blood.
‘I need to see the prefect!’ I called to the guards as I approached the headquarters building in the centre of the camp. ‘Centurion Malchus sent me,’ I explained between ragged breaths.
The soldiers were understandably wary of my appearance, and held their ground as one called inside for the guard commander. The veteran appeared quickly.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
I rattled off my particulars, moving straight into the reason for my appearance, and my need to see the fort’s commander.
‘They’re still out there,’ I finished.
I found myself in front of the prefect moments later. From the instant that he took in my desperate state, Caedicius’s face was drawn and grey.
‘You say Centurion Malchus has gone back?’ he asked me again.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Centurion Hadrianus?’
‘I don’t know, sir. After the fighting, I only saw the cohort commander, and the two men we came back with.’
That left a century and sixty archers unaccounted for. Caedicius’s jaw twitched with anger.
‘Shall I ready the men to march out, sir?’ a grey-haired centurion asked. ‘Screen them back in?’
Caedicius shook his head without hesitation. ‘No. No one leaves the fort. They’ll make it back by themselves.’ He offered the words up as if they were a prayer.
The prefect then gestured to me. ‘You can go, but remain here in headquarters.’
A clerk came forward to lead me from the now silent room. I was offered a stool in a small room that acted as a mess for the headquarters staff. ‘Can I get you food? Water or wine?’ the man asked me kindly.
I said nothing.
‘I’ll get them all.’ He smiled and returned in moments. I greedily snatched the water from his hands. The man took no offence, and I chugged deeply, draining it in moments.
‘I’ll go and get you another.’
The wineskin was also empty by the time the clerk returned. My indulgence was born not from thirst, but fear. With every moment that passed without news, the knot of terror in my stomach was growing. The grip of grief about my throat was closing.
My section. My friends. Could they all be dead?
I looked at the food in front of me, and pushed it away. I knew that it would be chalk in my mouth.
‘Was it… bad?’ the well-meaning clerk ventured.
My eyes told him all that he needed to know. As he looked into them he shrank back as if I were a growling dog.
‘It was bad,’ I confirmed, not wanting to scare away the one soul who was my company.
‘Would you like more wine?’
I thought for a moment. There was something I wanted more. ‘Could you do something else for me?’
The clerk was eager to help. Moments later, he was leaving with my messages. As he left the room, I realized that I had done all that I could. I was useless now, a piece cast aside and out of the game.
All I could do was hope, and pray.
I sneered at that thought, and instead got to my feet in search of wine, and oblivion.
40
By the time my message had been delivered, and Titus had joined me in the headquarters building, a second empty wineskin lay at my feet. The huge man dumped my requested replacement of armour and weapons alongside it.
‘Stumps?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see him go down, but the century’s still out there.’
‘How bad was it?’ the big man asked, drawing up a stool beside me.
‘Chaos,’ I told the floor. ‘The whole mission was fucked from the beginning. No rain? No cloud cover? What the fuck did they think was going to happen?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Titus warned me, conscious of where we were.
‘I don’t know what happened to them, Titus.’ I shuddered. ‘What if…’