‘Sixth Legion!’ he cried out, raising his fist. ‘Are you ready for war?’
‘Ready,’ the voices came back, uncertain.
‘Are you ready for war?’
Again ‘Ready’, stronger this time, the shouts joining in unison.
‘Are you READY for WAR?’
‘READY!’ The last shout was loud enough to echo in the damp air. Castus could feel the energy of the men, the heat passing between them. Someone started clashing his spear against his shield rim, and the rest soon joined in. A great battering noise rolled down the slope towards the enemy horde.
A man scrambled up onto the walclass="underline" it was Vincentius, with his bandaged arm. ‘Come on then, you filthy goatfuckers!’ he screamed across the valley. Then, pulling up the hem of his mail and tunic, he jutted his hips at the enemy, sneering. ‘Come on and kiss this!’
Wild laughter and cheering along the wall as Vincentius dropped back down. From the far wall Timotheus was calling for silence, but Castus gestured for him to stop. Let the men shout, let them laugh, if it gave them strength.
‘Here they come!’ somebody cried. The enemy horde gave a vast collective heave and began to surge forward, warriors howling as they advanced, punching their spears towards the wall above them.
Castus stood up again, drawing his sword and holding it high. ‘Victrix!’ he yelled.
The men took up the cry, chanting it just they had on the drill field, drumming spears against shields. ‘VIC-trix! VIC-trix! VIC-trix!’
Castus wondered where the legion had won their title. Some long-forgotten war, back in the glorious ancient days. He had never bothered to ask.
Earn it now.
‘Timotheus,’ he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth, ‘keep your men watching the eastern slope. Culchianus, make sure they don’t move round to the south. The rest of you, darts and javelins. When they get within thirty paces, stick it to them!’
But already the enemy tide was surging around the lower slopes, the painted warriors in the vanguard breaking into a run.
‘Mouth of Hades, we’re dead men now,’ a soldier said. Castus clouted him across the back of his helmet. The rush of the enemy looked unstoppable.
‘Ready darts!’ he shouted. All along the eastern wall, the men flung back their arms to throw. Iron glittered in the low sun.
One…
Two…
Three… The first of the howling painted men was well within range now. Castus drew in breath, held it, and then shouted again.
‘Loose!’
8
The missile volley broke the vanguard of the attackers, cropping down painted bodies under the hail of iron. But others were already leaping across their fallen comrades. Another volley, thrown flat and hard. Another ten or twenty enemy dead. Still they came on.
Castus stepped back from the wall, glanced to his left and then to his rear. Timotheus and Culchianus were still crouching: no attack from that side. The assault party were hurling all their strength against the western defences. All he could hear was the noise of his breath and his blood, the grunt of the men as they threw, the snarls and cries from the enemy on the slope below. He was shouting, but could not hear his own voice.
A javelin came in over the wall, and Castus saw one of his soldiers reeling back with blood spattering from a gashed throat. He dragged the man away and stepped up into his place, raising his shield just in time to catch a second missile ringing off the boss. As the Picts toiled up towards the wall the glare of the low sun struck them in the eyes; dazzled, reeling, they were easy targets for the legionaries. But the supply of darts and javelins was running short. Soon it would come to spears and blades.
‘Come on then!’ Castus yelled to the warriors on the slope, hammering the flat of his blade against his shield rim. ‘Come on!’ The vigour of battle was in his blood, a clean and powerful tonic, erasing all other thought and feeling. His vision was clear, his heart racing, and he felt a wildness that was close to joy. But he held himself back; he was in command, he needed distance.
A knot of warriors surged forward, howling, and made a rush at the wall. Two were cut down by javelins, the third leaped up and punched overarm with his spear. The point thudded off a shield, then another javelin lanced him in the kidneys and he dropped heavily, without a sound. But all along the wall others were following his lead, bolting up out of the grass and running for the wall. Castus saw a painted chest, a snarling face, and swung his shield to catch the slash of a spear and flick it aside. He paused, blade levelled, just long enough for the Pict to step in close again, then he struck. His sword grated on bone, and he punched out with his shield boss and knocked the man back from the wall. Beside him, Evagrius speared a second attacker in the face.
The first rush had been broken, but there were still more warriors piling up the slope. One of them, massive and almost naked, paused ten paces from the wall and drew himself upright. He threw out his chest and spread his arms wide, displaying the fantastic tracery of scar-pictures bold on his blue-daubed skin. Roaring, he shouted up at the soldiers – challenging them, Castus guessed, to single combat. A moment later a flung javelin caught him in the chest and stuck, quivering. Castus saw the jolt through the man’s muscles, the tightening cords of his neck; then his legs folded beneath him and the Pict fell, arms swinging, to sprawl on his back in the bloody grass. Something marvellous, Castus thought, in the mad bravery of savages. Almost a shame to kill them…
A horn blast from his left, and he swung round to see the flicker of spears along the southern boundary. Jumping back, he pulled Evagrius into his place at the wall, then cupped his hands and yelled across the enclosure to his optio. ‘Timotheus! Ten men to the south wall. Follow me!’
Running, Castus leaped across the ashen scars of the cooking fires and slammed in among Culchianus’s men. A body of Picts had angled around the slope and come up from the south, over the level ground where the previous boundary wall had been torn down. There were riders too, three or four warriors urging their shaggy ponies up and across the scree of fallen stones. Culchianus and his men had almost used up their supply of missiles already.
‘Hold back!’ Castus cried. ‘Wait till they get close!’
The warriors advanced at a low jog, keeping silent, shields raised before them. They were learning already: they had seen that single men attacking the wall would be cut down, but a mass assault might break through. Behind them the riders had reached the level ground and cantered forward, urging on the footmen. A soldier stepped quickly up onto the wall, darting his javelin down into an exposed body, and then jumped back.
Timotheus and his ten-man reserve arrived just as the Picts made their rush. A volley of javelins flung at close range cut down the first of the warriors, but then the rest were up against the wall, striking with spears and swords. Roman blades lashed back, and the din of battered shields covered the screams and stifled gasps of combat. Castus saw a soldier fall, struck through the body, and jumped to take his place as the lead horseman was cantering in close, spear raised.
For a moment he remembered Oxsa, when the armoured cavalry broke through the front cohorts and crashed against the reserve line. But this horseman was no Persian cataphract. Castus stood his ground, the wall before him, and waited until the rider made his jump. The pony reared at the wall, and Castus feinted at its head with his sword. Shying, the animal clipped the stones with its hooves and the rider was flung sideways; Castus seized his leg and pulled, driving the length of his blade straight up and into the man’s exposed flank. Hot blood seethed over his hand and down his arm, and the rider fell heavily onto the parapet as Castus dragged his blade free.