‘No fires,’ he ordered, and was rewarded with a chorus of moans. They had nothing to cook anyway, and only rations of bread and salted meat. The camp had to be big, given all their horses, and they had brought blankets but no tents for the men, but the high ground was large enough for them all to have space, animals in the middle, hobbled or tethered and the men in a circle around them.
‘I want one in three men awake at all times,’ he told Sabinus, Vindex and the two decurions. ‘Patrols one hundred paces out every half hour. On horseback so you can ride down anyone unwise enough to come close. You organise that, Vindex. There’s no moon, so it won’t be too light. Keep your eyes open. There are five of us, so first and last ones on watch do a three-hour shift and the rest two hours. I’ll take the middle one, Sabinus the first and Vindex the last because he will be out a couple of times on patrol. All understood?’ They nodded. ‘And don’t worry if I clear off for a bit.’
Vindex sucked in his breath. ‘One of those nights, is it? Or are you going over the rampart?’
‘Might be an idea. Wonder how much Decebalus would pay for a good centurion these days?’
‘A good one, plenty,’ Vindex suggested. ‘But you…’ He patted Sabinus on the shoulder, and now more used to the Britons and their rough ways, the officer only started a little. ‘The centurion here likes playing games at night, my lord. Silures are all like that. Ugly buggers you see, that’s why they go out at night when they can hide.’ Sabinus did not seem reassured.
The first arrow hissed into the camp part way through the second watch, flicking a sentry’s cloak without doing any more harm. He turned towards the direction from which it had come before pitching forward, a second arrow in the small of his back. His companion was shouting the alarm, as another flew high overhead and grazed one of the horses.
‘Keep down!’ the decurion screamed. ‘Use your shields!’
Sabinus had leapt up from his blankets, jerked from sleep that had come late and with difficulty. A man pushed into him, then there was a dull smack and the Brigantian fell, the shaft of an arrow sticking from his eye. Someone else screamed in pain, and a horse whinnied and broke free of its tether. The others were stirring, panicking.
‘Get them under control!’ Sabinus shouted and ran to grab the mane of one of the nearest. ‘Whoa, boy, whoa!’ he cooed to the animal.
One more arrow whipped through the air above him, but order was coming to the little camp.
‘Wait for ’em, boys,’ Vindex shouted.
‘Stay together,’ called one of the decurions.
There was silence.
‘Where have the bastards gone?’ someone asked.
‘Quiet!’ snapped the decurion.
A man screamed, some way away in the darkness. There was a grunt, a clash of blade ringing on blade and then a yell so unearthly that Sabinus shuddered and feared that the horse would bolt, so he patted it and ran his hand through its mane. The cry went on, longer and longer until he prayed that it would stop.
‘Taranis!’ came a voice from close by. ‘The poor sod.’
‘Shut up, you stupid bastard,’ snapped the decurion, obviously unnerved by the sound.
No more arrows came and the silence enveloped them again. They waited. Sabinus felt that the horses were calm now, and knew that it was his duty to see what was happening. He stumbled over the corpse with the arrow in its eye, recovered and then went where he thought that he had last heard one of the decurions.
‘Best keep down, sir, or find a shield,’ the decurion said from the shadows.
‘Looks like you are in charge,’ Vindex added, his teeth white in the dim starlight.
‘Where is Ferox?’ Sabinus asked, forgetting to call him the Lord Ferox after the fashion of these folk.
‘Is he down?’ The decurion was still nervous.
‘You in the camp!’ The shout came from outside. ‘I am coming in. Don’t do anything daft!’
‘There he is,’ Vindex said cheerfully.
A darker shape appeared against the night, turning into a man as he walked closer. He had something bulky in each hand and when he came close Sabinus smelled the blood.
‘One got away,’ Ferox said as he dropped three severed heads onto the grass.
‘You’re getting slow, old man,’ Vindex told him.
Ferox grunted. ‘No harm in letting one tell the story. Might make them cautious next time. He won’t be back tonight and there is no one else around. Still, be prudent to keep a good watch. Did we lose anyone?’
One man was dead, the sentry wounded badly and there were a few scratches to men and horses, but it could have been worse. Ferox wished that he had a few dozen Silures to stalk the nights and make the enemy fear the darkness. Still, if they had faced thirty or forty of his fellow tribesmen then they would have lost many men, and most if not all of the horses would have been dead, crippled or stolen, leaving them with a long march to the fort, and at least one more night of murder, so that few if any would have made it back.
The next morning the sentry was feverish, but clinging on and they rigged up a blanket on a couple of poles which could be dragged along by a horse. There was no sign of the enemy, apart from the three headless corpses of the men Ferox had killed. He had tied the heads to the front horns of his saddle, so that they dangled there as he rode, just like the heroes in the songs of the tribes. The Brigantes liked that, and he suspected that Vindex was feeding the stories about the skill and savagery of the Silures in the darkness, and most of all the centurion.
Sabinus was fascinated by the sight of the heads bouncing as Ferox’s horse walked along. One had a truly ghastly wound that had destroyed the right eye. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, even in the arenas, but he had not had the courage to ask how it had been inflicted and wondered whether that had provoked the appalling cry of pain they had all heard. Ferox had scrubbed his hands when they came to a stream, without removing that much of the dark blood engrained in the nails of his right hand.
‘Daci,’ Ferox had said when Sabinus managed to ask about the man who had lost his eye. The head was bearded and had shaggy, but quite short fair hair. ‘Getae,’ Ferox had told him, lifting another with longer hair and a network of tiny dots tattooed on his forehead. ‘Probably Piephigi as they are face painters.’
‘What about him?’ Sabinus asked. The third head was older, thickly bearded and with long black hair.
Ferox shrugged. ‘One of ours, once. Who knows? Maybe a Gaul or a German. Probably had a Dacian wife and children by now, and his own few fields to till.’
‘Poor fellow.’
‘Depends on your point of view,’ Ferox said. ‘But these were no bandits or even the warriors of a local chief – they were king’s men and that can only mean trouble for us.’
‘What about the tribune?’
‘What indeed? We could not catch him even if we wanted.’
They saw no enemy for the first few hours, until Vindex and another of the Carvetii who had been riding as rearguard came up to join them.
‘I’ve seen them,’ Ferox said. ‘Three horsemen, sometimes a mile back, sometimes a little further.’
‘Shall we scrag ’em?’
‘Wouldn’t get close in the open. No, they’re showing themselves to us.’
‘Why?’ Sabinus asked. ‘Up to now they have been careful.’
‘They want us to believe that they are not afraid of us,’ Ferox spoke loudly.
‘And they are?’ Vindex sounded dubious.
‘Of course, we are Brigantes. If they do not fear that name now then they soon will,’ Ferox said and hoped that he could make it come true.