The sun was low in the sky, and already the grass was tinged with a faint orange hue as a light breeze stirred the slender blades of green. There would be plenty of daylight for a few hours yet, and the Durotrigans would be wiped out long before they could escape under cover of darkness.
Half an hour must have passed before the advance scouts of the enemy column appeared half a mile from the ford. In all that time Bedriacus had kept absolutely still. Only his eyes moved, restlessly scanning the landscape, and Cato began to have more confidence in the hunter. Cato felt the faintest touch of a hand on his arm and looked round at Bedriacus. He nodded gently towards the track and Cato's eyes searched for a moment before they fixed on the distant figures. Two men on horseback, side by side, slowly approached round the curve of the hill. They came on cautiously enough, glancing around them as they approached the ford.
'Bedriacus…' Cato said softly.
'Sa?'
Cato pointed to the scouts and drew his finger across his throat, and then indicated the track just down from the crest. Bedriacus smiled his gap-toothed smile and nodded, shuffling away from Cato and easing his way behind a large tuft of spiky grass right at the edge of the track. Then he lay perfectly still again.
Peering carefully through the grass, Cato watched the scouts walk their horses up to the far side of the ford, no more than a hundred paces away. They stopped and exchanged some words, gesturing back in the direction of the main force of the Durotrigans. Then, both men slid from the backs of their mounts and led them into the pebble-bottomed shallows of the river. While the horses lowered their muzzles into the lazily sparkling current, one of the scouts waded a few steps downstream, untied his waist cords and unleashed a long golden arc of piss with a grunt of satisfaction that carried up the slope to Cato. When he had finished, the man just stood staring down-river for a moment and then hitched up his breeches and retied the waist cord. Making his way back to the riverbank, he sat beside his companion and gazed across the ford. Cato forced himself to keep still. With the sun low in the sky behind the scouts the crest of the hillock would be well lit, making any sudden movement easily detectable. But, as time crawled by, the scouts gave no sign that they were at all suspicious.
Something glittered in the distance and Cato shifted his gaze beyond the two scouts. A column of chariots came bumping along the track and the low sunlight was reflecting brilliantly off the highly polished bronze helmets of warriors riding on the small platforms above the axles. Fourteen chariots had come into sight before the first of the infantry appeared. With the sun almost at their backs Cato had to squint to make out any details of their equipment. His heart lifted as he saw that the vast majority were lightly armed and only a few sported helmets. Their shields were slung across their backs, and they carried a mixture of weapons, mostly swords and spears, together with large haversacks for their marching rations. At the rear of the loose column was a small band of more heavily armed warriors, and behind them a score of mounted men. Nothing that the Atrebatans could not handle, provided they stuck to their training and kept formation.
As soon as the scouts were aware of the approach of the column, they quickly stood up, mounted their horses, and crossed the ford. Cato ducked his head, turned towards Bedriacus and hissed. The hunter quickly met the centurion's eyes and nodded. Cato pulled his helmet on and clumsily fastened the ties with excited fingers before pressing himself down into the grass. He heard the voices of the scouts, chatting in cheerful tones in their lilting Celtic dialect, quite unsuspecting. Beneath the pitch of the voices was the distinct steady clumping of hoofs, and the breathy snorting of one of the mounts. As they came closer Cato felt his heart pounding against his ribs, and was momentarily surprised that the pain had gone from his side. He eased his sword from the scabbard and tightened his grip on his shield handle. The scouts sounded so near now that he was sure they must be only feet away. Yet time seemed to extend endlessly, and he watched a bee drone over his head, haloed by the orange glow of the sinking sun.
Then there were shadows darkening the longest blades of grass as the two Durotrigans started to cross the crest of the hillock. Surely they must see Cato now. Or if not Cato, then Bedriacus, or some sign of the hundreds of men lying further down the slope. But then Cato realised that his cohort was in the shadows. It would take a moment before the scouts' eyes adjusted to the gloom after the bright burnishing glow of the slope rising from the ford. He heard the scouts pass by him. They must be almost upon Bedriacus. Cato's mind raced. Why the hell didn't the hunter strike? What-
There was a gasp from the track, a horse whinnied, a man drew breath to shout and then there was the sound of a body thudding to the ground. By the time Cato had risen to his knees it was all over. Twenty feet away Bedriacus was easing one of the scouts from the back of his horse. The man was already dead: the handle of a knife protruding from under his chin, the blade punched up into his brain. His companion rustled in the grass for a moment, blood pumping from his slashed throat and spraying crimson droplets over the surrounding tussocks. Then he was still.
Bedriacus yanked his blade free of the scout's skull and wiped it clean on the man's long hair as he looked up at his centurion. Cato nodded his approval and pointed at the horses, nervous and a bit flighty at the shock of the hunter's sudden appearance. Moving slowly towards them Bedriacus whispered softly and gently ran his fingers across their silken flanks until his grip tightened on the reins.
'To the rear,' Cato whispered in Celtic.
The hunter nodded, clicked his tongue and led the animals down the track between the hidden centuries, and set them loose. Whatever magic he had worked on the beasts continued to have its effect and they calmly tore at the lush growth of grass beside the track. Bedriacus padded back to Cato to retrieve the wolf standard and took position beside his commander.
The rumble of chariot wheels on the other side of the ford was clearly audible now, and the moment Cato heard the first splashes he turned down the slope and, cupping his hands, called as loudly as he dared, 'Cohort! Stand up!'
Nearly five hundred men appeared from the long grass, silently rising to their feet, oval auxiliary shields tightly gripped. The splashing noises from the ford grew in volume as the infantry started across the river. They could no longer hear the noise of the chariots. They must have stopped, as Cato had guessed they would. The ford would make a perfect spot for the Durotrigans to camp for the night; largely hidden by the surrounding landscape, on dry ground with a river to water the horses and men.
'Draw swords! Make ready to advance!'
Cato turned back to Bedriacus. 'Stay here.'
The hunter nodded and Cato crept up the track, stretching his neck to catch sight of the situation at the ford. Half of the Durotrigan column was across. The chariot drivers were already unhitching their horses, while their warriors stood together at the edge of the river, clustered around a short, bull-like man with blond pigtails, who was evidently giving them their orders for the evening. As he looked round at his men, he suddenly froze, staring straight up the track in Cato's direction. He had seen the scarlet crest on the centurion's helmet, brilliantly illuminated by the rays of the setting sun.
'Shit!' Cato angrily slapped his sword against his thigh. He rose to his feet, plainly visible to the men down by the ford now. A ripple of alarmed shouts passed through the ranks of the Durotrigans. The men still in the ford stumbled to a halt at the sight of the figure on the crest of the ridge, sunlight glittering off his silvered armour.