The two soldiers were already moving, and Castus hauled his own horse around and booted it in the flanks. The animal was sweating, half blown and terrified by the flames all around, but it leaped forward again and plunged towards the darkness of the riverbank. Castus just clung on as best he could.
Ahead he saw the two soldiers riding hard; Vincentius was hurt, slumped low over the saddle horns. A man stepped up ahead of them, and Culchianus drove his spear through him.
Movement to the right: one of the chariot carts, a spearman in the back and the driver whipping the ponies furiously.
‘Keep going!’ Castus yelled. ‘Don’t hang back!’
The cart veered, angling to cut him off, the spearman stand shy;ing straight with feet braced and weapon raised in both hands. Onward, the vehicle closing in, then Castus dragged on the reins and jinked his horse round to the right. The animal slammed into the flank of the lead chariot pony, and the shock of the impact almost knocked him out of the saddle. Bent forward, he felt the spearhead slicing the air above his back. He swept his sword round, backhanded, and the blade sheared flesh and bone. Then he was clear, the panicked horse carrying him on as the cart veered away again.
Two men before him, raising shields, spears levelled. The first fell back as the horse kicked, and the second made a clumsy stab from his left. Castus swayed in the saddle, then he grab shy;bed the shaft of the spear and wrenched it aside. He swung his sword across his body, down over the saddle horn to chop into the Pict’s shoulder. The man howled and fell beneath the hooves, and Castus rode clear.
Trees to either side, then he was at the river and the water was bursting around him. On the far bank his two soldiers were waiting, and they turned together to confront their pursuers.
But the ford was clear behind them: figures on the far bank screamed from the darkness between the trees, and Castus could make out the cart circling back, the wounded spearman hunched in the back.
Riding again, the soldiers to either side, he urged his horse on up the dark slope towards the fort. The sound of a horn carried on the night air, then the calls of the sentries.
‘Halt there! Declare yourselves!’
‘Fortuna Homebringer! Fortuna Homebringer!’ Castus heard his own voice shouting, hoarse, but felt only the burning pain in his throat and the heaviness of failure in his gut.
‘I had the men light cooking fires,’ Timotheus said, handing him a bowl of hot broth. ‘Reckoned they might not get another chance for a while.’
Castus nodded, spooning up soup, then cramming his mouth with hard bread. Astonishingly, so it now seemed, he and the two soldiers had returned from their foray alive. Vincentius had caught a javelin in the shoulder, but it was only a flesh wound and he could still use a weapon. The wounded scout, though, had been dead before he was brought back into the fort.
‘What’s going on over there?’ he said, his mouth full. ‘Can you see anything?’
‘Nothing very much. Just the usual clamour. The crowd’s getting thicker around the main hut, by the pattern of the torches.’
Castus swallowed heavily and wiped his mouth. ‘I ought to address the men,’ he said. ‘Form them up, but keep the sentries posted.’
‘Centurion,’ Timotheus said quietly, dropping to kneel beside him. ‘The men all know what we’re up against. They know what you’re up against as well.’
Castus looked around him: the legionaries spaced along the perimeter, the others gathered in the glow of the cooking fires. All that they had feared these last fifteen days, all their worst and most horrible nightmares, were now coming true. Of course they knew what they were facing.
‘All the same. It’s only right.’
As the horn sounded the assembly he paced the line of the oval wall surrounding the camp, assessing what needed to be done. His thighs still ached from riding, and there was a cold trembling sensation in his legs. His hands too felt oddly loose and weak, and he clenched his right fist and smacked it into his palm repeatedly until he felt the strength in his arms returning.
This was what his centurion had meant all those years ago, Castus realised. The bronze mask of leadership. At the time he had thought that the mask just projected inflexible strength. Now he knew the truth: the mask concealed fear.
‘Assembly ready, centurion,’ Timotheus cried. Forty-six men stood drawn up in the last glow of the cooking fires, with the remaining ten still on watch around the walls. Castus strode forward and turned to face them, planting his feet firmly, hands clasped behind his back. He tried not to see them as an assembly of ghosts, of lost spirits, but the winged Victory figures painted on their shields appeared more substantial than the men themselves.
‘Brothers,’ he called, his voice low and steady, ‘things do not look good. Two of our men are missing, along with one of the scouts, and two scouts are dead. The Domini Marcellinus and Strabo have either been killed or have fallen into the hands of the enemy. The Picts, for some reason of their own, have turned against us and will probably attempt an assault very soon.’
He waited a moment to let the words sink in. It was better that these things should be said out loud, before the contagion of unspoken fear could eat away at them.
‘Some of you will be thinking we should pull out now, before the enemy muster against us. But that’s a bad idea. Before we got two miles down the road the Picts would be all around us. Besides, we were sent here to protect the envoy, and we’re not leaving while there’s still a chance he’s alive. The enemy outnumber us, but we’re trained soldiers, well armed and equipped, while they’re a spear-chucking rabble. We’ve got a strong defensive position here, and we can hold out as long as necessary. They hope, the Picts, that we’ll break and run. They hope they can intimidate us with their numbers and their noise. But if we stick close together and hold these walls, we’ll stand up to anything they can throw against us.
‘An hour ago, I ordered the three remaining scouts to ride for Bremenium with a message for the commander there about what’s happened. Any relief force could take days to arrive, but if we can hold off the enemy for only a day or two they’ll realise our strength and we can negotiate with honour. They give us the prisoners back. We march out of here and go home.’
He let the stress fall on the last word. No need to raise false hopes; they all knew how steeply the odds were stacked against them. But it was something, at least, to believe in.
‘Meanwhile, we’ve got work to do. Our current perimeter is too long to hold effectively – we need to shorten it. I want the wall to the south broken down and the stones carried back to make a new line here.’ He swept his arm forward and back. ‘Have the mules brought up into the enclosure and secured. Then six men fully armed to go with the slaves down to the stream with all the canteens and water containers. Fill as much water as you can carry. Two sections at a time can fall out and rest. Sleep if you can. The others will remain under arms at the defences. Optio, set the fatigues. Dismissed!’
As the assembly broke up, Castus went to the east wall and found Caccumattus sheltering there, staring out across the valley into the darkness. He had been surprised that the unimpressive little interpreter had not already made a run for it.
‘Will they attack tonight?’ he asked in a low whisper.
Caccumattus sucked his teeth, and then shrugged. ‘No, I think. Picti no to fighting in night. Too much dark – only evil gods to see them!’
‘Oh. Well, that’s some comfort, I suppose.’
He would be prepared even so. It was still possible that the interpreter had stayed in the camp to deceive them into relaxing their guard. Distant horn cries came from across the valley, and the scattered fires had coalesced into one large blaze. A funeral pyre, perhaps? Impossible to tell at this distance.