Cato turned round and saw one of his men standing above a dead enemy, holding the hair in one hand as he hacked through the last few tendons of the neck with his short sword. Looking round, Cato realised they were all at it. He glanced back at the escaping Durotrigans.
'Centurion Cato!' Macro bellowed from the ford. 'What the hell are you waiting for? Get after them!'
Cato ran back down to his men, grabbed the nearest warrior by the arm and shoved him towards the Durotrigans. 'GO! MOVE!'
Some of the others looked up, saw what he was gesturing at and started after the enemy, tucking the severed heads under their arms.
'For fuck's sake!' Cato exploded. 'Leave the heads until later!'
They ignored him and started the pursuit along the riverbank. Cato stopped one man, and, with a grimace, pulled the head out of his hands. The Atrebatan warrior growled a warning and raised his sword threateningly.
'Tincommius!' Cato shouted, keeping an eye on the warrior. 'Get over here!'
The Atrebatan noble pushed his way through the men of the cohorts and approached Cato.
'Tell 'em to leave the heads alone.'
'But it's a tradition.'
'Fuck tradition!' Cato yelled. 'The Durotrigans are getting away. Tell our men to drop the heads and get moving.'
Tincommius shouted Cato's order to the cohort, but the only reaction was an angry muttering. By now the Durotrigans had a lead of nearly a quarter of a mile and were fading into the gathering dusk.
'All right,' Cato continued desperately, 'tell 'em they can keep the heads they're already carrying. We'll come back for the rest, I swear it.'
Contented by their commander's compromise, the Wolves left the mangled corpses, and few remaining prisoners, in the care of their comrades of the Boar Cohort. With heads jammed under arms, they began to chase after the Durotrigans, Cato leading the way and Bedriacus right at his heels.
The surviving Durotrigans were mainly from the chariots, and weighed down by their equipment. Despite their head start, slowly the distance closed as Cato sprinted after them, constantly looking back to make sure that his men were keeping up. Those unburdened by gory trophies stayed with him, anxious to win their share of the final glory of the skirmish. The rest struggled manfully with shield, sword and one or more heads.
There was no track on the riverbank and the Durotrigans scrambled along, fleeing for their lives, their pigtailed leader among them. Some were injured and began to fall behind.
At last Cato had almost run down the rearmost man. His heart pounded as he pushed himself to move faster, and he prepared to sink his sword in between the man's shoulder blades. When no more than ten feet separated them the man glanced back and his eyes widened in fear. So he missed the small gap where part of the riverbank had crumbled, and tripped, sprawling on the ground at Cato's mercy. The centurion paused long enough to run him through and continued after the others.
Several more of the stragglers were dispatched, and the men of the Wolf Cohort remorselessly closed on the last group of Durotrigans as the light of the dying day cast long shadows of running men across the grass of the riverbank. In the end the enemy realised the game was up and their leader shouted an order to the surviving members of his band. They stopped running, turned to face their pursuers, and closed ranks, chests heaving for breath.
Cato and his men were in equally poor shape as they surrounded the score of warriors who stood in a tight semi-circle with their backs to the river. The enemy were clearly experienced fighting men, and even though they knew their end had come, they were preparing to take as many of the Atrebatans with them as possible.
But Cato still wanted to offer them a chance to live. He pointed to their leader and waved his hand down.
'Give in,' he panted in Celtic. 'Drop your weapons.'
'Fuck you!' The enemy leader spat on the ground before screaming something unintelligible to Cato. Whatever it was, it provided the Atrebatans with the excuse to attack and they rushed forward in a wave of scarlet. Cato went with them, Bedriacus shouting his war cry at his side. The stocky enemy leader wielded his sword two-handed in a fast whirling sweep, and the first of the Atrebatans keen to have the honour of killing him was almost cut in half as the heavy blade splintered his shield, severed his arm and tore through his midriff. More of the lightly armed Atrebatans fell at the feet of the small knot of Durotrigan warriors, but there was never any doubt about the outcome. One by one the Durotrigans fell, to be butchered on the ground. At last only their leader remained, blood-streaked and exhausted.
Cato pushed himself forward opposite the pigtailed man, raising his shield and readying his sword for the decisive thrust. His opponent sized up the skinny Roman and snarled his contempt. Just as Cato knew he would, he swung his great sword up to cut his Roman foe in two. The centurion threw himself forwards and down, rolling into the man's legs. The man fell headlong over Cato's back, right at the feet of Bedriacus. With a savage howl of triumph the hunter rammed his short sword into his enemy's skull with a dull crunch. The body trembled a moment, and was still.
As Cato climbed wearily to his feet Bedriacus hacked through the dead leader's stocky neck. It was hard going, and Cato turned away, looking towards the ford, nearly half a mile away. He was so tired that every breath was agony and he felt light-headed. When he looked back Bedriacus was trying to tie the head on to the standard's crosspiece using the pigtails.
'No!' Cato shouted angrily. 'Not on my bloody standard you don't!'
04 The Eagle and the Wolves
Chapter Twelve
Word of the victory swept through the muddy streets of Calleva as soon as the excited messenger, sent by Macro, brought the news to Verica. When the two cohorts approached the main gates they saw that a large crowd had gathered outside the ramparts. At the sight of the cohorts the crowd let out a roar of triumph and delight. The Durotrigans, who had been causing so much misery and grief over recent months, had at last been given a bloody nose. In truth, it had been no more than a brief skirmish, but desperate people are inclined to celebrate the smallest of victories. And so the wild cheering carried on as the column neared Calleva. A short distance behind the two cohorts trundled the wagons of the supply convoy the Durotrigans had hoped to intercept and destroy. They had linked up with the cohorts the morning after the ambush.
At the head of the Boar Cohort, Macro proudly marched along the track. Despite his reservations about the calibre of these natives, they had performed creditably enough. Most of them had been farmers a few weeks before, used to wielding nothing more deadly than a hoe. But now they had been blooded, their spirits were high, and they might yet win his grudging approval. The Durotrigan raiders had been completely crushed; only a handful had escaped by swimming down-river as night fell. Fifty prisoners had been taken, once the Roman officers had managed to restore control over their men and stop them competing for head trophies. The Atrebatans had been particularly merciless to the handful of former warriors of their own tribe discovered amongst the enemy, and few of these had been spared.
The Atrebatan renegades could not stomach what they saw as Verica's craven alliance with Rome. So they had deserted their tribe and fled to the ranks of Caratacus, fast swelling with all those who still kept faith with the past glories of the Celtic peoples. The surviving captives stumbled along between the cohorts in two lines, tethered together around their necks, with their arms bound behind their backs. While Macro hoped to sell them to the dealers waiting in Calleva, he was realistic enough to know that the Atrebatans would almost certainly want to make a bloody sport of them to slake their thirst for revenge. Such a waste, Macro sighed, when able-bodied slaves were fetching high prices in the markets of Gaul. Perhaps Verica might be persuaded to throw the injured and weak to the mob and save the best stock for a more profitable fate.