But the noise, when it came, was from the other direction: a chorus of yells, a horn blast. He turned from the waist, mail shirt crunching, to see the scattered men along the northern wall wavering, a few even falling back.
‘You! And you – with me now!’ He was grabbing at men, hauling them from the mesh of combat and dragging them after him. They stumbled together, still shocked by the ferocity of the fighting, confused now. ‘North wall – run! Go!’
Then he was running with them, urging his heavy body on across the expanse of damp scrubbed turf, screaming to the men on the other walls to join him. Already he could see that he was too late: there were Picts swarming up from the northern slopes, beating aside the men at the wall and scrambling in over the defences. As he watched, a group of them kicked down the piled stones to form a breach.
‘Orders, centurion?’ Timotheus was at his side, bringing six men from the east wall.
‘Shield wall!’ Castus yelled, not even knowing how many were with him. Shields swung and battered together. Castus himself took the right wing, raising his shield before him.
‘On my command, advance,’ he said, and his voice grated in his throat. ‘Ad-vance!’
It was only a ragged double line, but it moved together, shields tight, spears raised. Across the open space of the enclosure, the Picts were massing in front of the broken wall, shrink shy;ing back now as they saw the block of soldiers advancing towards them.
Castus felt a javelin jar off his shield, then another punched through the wood and leather and stuck, swinging wildly. Something else – a flung axe – wheeled through the air and he bashed it aside.
‘Spears!’ he called, and at once the men beside him canted back their arms and threw. The volley drove lanes through the Pictish mass.
‘Swords – and charge!’
Blades rattled from scabbards as the formation broke into a run. Six paces, and they were kicking the bodies of the slain underfoot.
‘Drive them out! Stick every bastard of them!’ A crash and a jolt ran along the formation as the shields met the bodies of the attackers. Swords stabbed out between the shield rims, long blades aimed and reaching. The Picts were crumbling in the shock of impact, most of them fleeing back across the wall.
Castus saw the tumbled stones just ahead of him, the last few Picts turning at bay. Left and right, shield and sword: he turned a spearpoint, punched it aside and slashed the man down. Blood spattered his chest. He cut a second man across the face, then with all the strength of his arm he drove his blade up to the hilt in the belly of a third. He could hear himself yelling, a distant sound over the thunder in his head.
Breathless, reeling, he pushed the dead man down with his shield and hauled the sword free. Someone grabbed his arm and he spun on his heel, roaring – it was Timotheus, the optio falling back in fear, but then grinning. There was blood around his mouth.
‘…out!’ the man was telling him. ‘Out!’ Castus could not hear properly.
‘South wall,’ he tried to say. ‘Get back there…’
‘All driven out,’ Timotheus said, his mouth working but only scraps of words audible. Castus felt a pop in his ears and the world rushed back. Pump of blood, cheers of the men around him.
Another attack like that, Castus thought, and it’s over. He paced the circuit of the defences, jaw set, trying to keep the anguish from his face. Five more men and two of the armed slaves dead, and eight too badly wounded to fight again. Vincentius was among the wounded, as was Evagrius: the standard-bearer was tight-faced, lying with a smashed arm and a jagged gash in his side. But Castus smiled at the men as he passed, smacking them on the shoulders, clenching his fist. Another attack like that – he did not dare to think about it.
The ground below the southern wall was marshy with blood and heaped corpses. To the west it was hardly better; only a few of the attackers had dashed from behind their corpse-shields and made an attempt on the rampart, but the fresh bodies lying among the twisted slain had a ghoulish look. The dead Picts had been cleared from inside the enclosure and heaved back over the walls, the breach to the north repaired with piled stones. Now the light was coming in low from the west, under the dark lid of clouds.
‘Vincentius is gone,’ Culchianus told him quietly. ‘There was a second wound – lung I think. He was choking on blood.’ Ten men of his century dead, Castus thought. Ten wounded now. He bowed his head for a moment, nodding. Vincentius had never been a good soldier, but he and Culchianus had been close.
‘Wrap him in his blanket and put him with the other slain.’
Forty men left, and the four unarmed slaves. When would the moment come that they could no longer hold the walls? When would he give the order to fall back and form a shield ring at the heart of the enclosure as their enemies swarmed in across the rampart? He gazed up at the sky and felt the steady drizzle flecking his face. Was this really their fate? What good would it serve, whose god would it benefit, for them all to die in this place?
The Picts attacked again just before sunset, rushing up out of the dusk. One group came from the east, up the steep slope from the river, while another band of them swung around to the south. But they broke and fell back almost at once, as if the ebbing light had stolen their courage, and left only one man dead and another wounded.
As night fell, the hillock was surrounded by a ring of fires. Torches moved like wandering fireflies between them, and from behind their rampart the Romans could hear the wailing sounds of lamentation, the rising and falling songs praising the great deeds of the slain. The fires burned until the third watch, then one by one all were doused and the smoky blackness closed over the plain and the hills. All night, strange and savage cries rose from the darkness below the walls, inhuman, unnatural.
Castus woke to the grey light of dawn. His blanket was damp with dew, and he threw it aside and stretched his aching back and shoulders. He rubbed his face with a damp rag – the water supply was too limited for washing – then he stumbled to his feet and began his tour of inspection.
‘I hoped they might have all gone home in the night,’ he said as he stood at the western wall. The Pictish horde was a huddled mass on the plain, stirring and shifting now.
Timotheus grinned, and the dried blood smeared around his mouth cracked. The optio’s face looked as if he had been suspended over a smoking fire all night.
‘Let the men sleep as long as you can. But make sure the sentries stay alert. The enemy may try and sneak up here while we’re dozy.’
Castus crossed the enclosure to where the wounded lay. Evagrius was awake, but hooked and hollow with pain. He tried to struggle upright as his centurion approached, and Castus motioned for him to stay down. His wound was bad, but might not be fatal if it was properly dressed. Not much chance of that, though. Castus raised the man’s head and gave him water.
The sudden brass yell of the horn jolted him back, the canteen slipping from his hand. Everywhere men staggered up from their blankets, thrashing from sleep, grabbing for shields and weapons. Castus had covered the ground to the western wall before he even realised he was moving.