The scouting detachment rode down the road beyond the rapidly growing wall at a swift trot, each man keeping watch in a different direction as a defence against the potential for roaming Sarmatae scouts to surprise them from the dense forest around them. At the Ravenstone valley’s end they turned north, rejoining the path up the road that the cohorts had left to reach the mine complex. Two hours’ riding saw them over the ridge at this valley’s far end and taking their lunch in the shelter of a sparse copse of straggling trees, whose trunks and branches had been twisted and bent to the east over long years of exposure to the wind. Silus sat chewing his bread with his coarse wool cloak wrapped tightly about his body, looking down the valley’s length with professional interest.
‘Not so different from the mountains to the north of the Wall in Britannia, is it? We could almost be hunting down Calgus and his bluenoses, rather than riding out for a game of cat and mouse with these Sarmatae. Now, as to this horse of yours. .’
Marcus leant back and rubbed the mare’s neck affectionately, provoking an immediate nudge in his back from the animal’s snout.
‘It seems to me that the giving of names can bring bad luck, if poor old Bonehead is any indication. It might be better to leave her as she is, safely anonymous.’
The decurion snorted derisively.
‘That’s all very well for you, when you’ll only be getting onto her every now and then, but we’ll have to feed and exercise her every day. What am I supposed to do, tell my men “go and feed the mare”? I can just imagine the confusion. No, if you won’t name her then we will. What do you think lads?’
One of the riders spoke up from behind them.
‘She tried to bite me this morning, the crafty bitch. What about Nipper?’
Silus nodded.
‘Nipper. I like the sound of that. There you go, Centurion, problem solved. We’ll just. .’ He turned back to the view down the valley, his eyes narrowing. ‘Nobody move.’
Holding himself stock-still, Marcus swivelled his head slowly to look at whatever it was that had caught the decurion’s attention. A mile or so down the valley’s length, at the point where the river far below them swung in a tight horseshoe to the north, a party of horsemen had come into view. Silus grimaced at the sight, shaking his head.
‘At least fifty of them. There’s no way we can fight them, and if we try to run there’s a good chance they’ll chase us down before we can get clear. I reckon the best we can do is keep our heads down and let them pass us by. Get down behind the trees, slowly and smoothly, and keep your mouths shut. With a bit of luck they’ll stick to the river and give us a nice wide berth.’
The soldiers watched as the enemy scouts made their way down the valley floor at a careful pace, the riders looking about them suspiciously.
‘They’re ready for trouble, almost as if they know we’re hereabouts.’
Silus nodded at Marcus’s whispered comment.
‘They know we’ve taken occupation of the valley alright. You can be sure that the scouts whose tracks the centurion here found yesterday will have made a careful count of our numbers as we marched in, and they’ll have noted that we had hardly any cavalry. That’s why this lot have been sent forward in enough strength to deal with any riders that we might have out looking for them. It was as well that we were snuggled down here behind these trees.’
‘And once they’re past us?’
‘The decurion smiled tightly at Marcus’s question.
‘Once they’re past us, Centurion, that’s when the fun starts.’
The Tungrian scouts sat in silence as the enemy party rode slowly down the valley, watching from the scanty shelter of the copse as the Sarmatae picked over the valley floor, clearly looking for any signs of Roman cavalry activity. Silus shook his head in professional exasperation, staring down at the riders in their apparently listless examination of the ground to either side of the river.
‘Whoever’s in command down there must have a head that’s all skull. I’d have spaced them across the valley and swept every last inch, not just ridden up the riverbank.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose we should be grateful, but I hate to see a job done badly.’
They waited until the enemy scouts had ridden out of sight around the shoulder of the hill on which the Tungrians were perched, and Silus got slowly to his feet.
‘We can expect the main body to come down the river behind them soon enough, so it’s time to be on our way just in case they double back and put us between the hammer and the anvil. You three, you’re to ride south over the hill and through the forest until you find a clear path back to the Ravenstone. Warn Julius he’s got the rest of today to get that wall raised at the very best. If you spot the Sarmatae again then you go to ground and wait for them to piss off unless they’ve seen you, in which case you ride like madmen for the mine and the best of luck to you. The rest of us are going to find somewhere a bit less exposed to watch from.’
The three men mounted up and rode down into the valley at a fast trot, Silus anxiously craning his neck to look to the east for the riders who had already passed them, but his men forded the shallow river and ascended the far side without any sign of the advance party.
‘This ought to do nicely.’
They led the horses deeper into the forest that crowned the hill, leaving Arabus to guard them while Marcus and Silus watched the valley from the cover of the trees. After an hour or so the first riders of the Sarmatae vanguard trotted past their hiding place, some of them close enough for Marcus to see their faces. Silus watched them with a professional scrutiny, muttering quietly in the Roman’s ear.
‘At least this lot are doing their jobs properly, although I’d have been tempted to comb these woods as well as the valley’s slopes. And by the gods, there’s some stunning horseflesh out there. Watch what they do when they reach the end of the valley.’
As the two men watched from their shelter the riders turned south toward the Ravenstone, some two thousand strong beneath blood-red banners decorated with white swords which danced prettily on the breeze. Silus nodded to himself.
‘If we ever doubted that they would be heading for the mine, there’s the proof. At that pace they’ll reach the wall well before darkness. Let’s hope that Julius has managed to build it too tall for a horseman to jump, because that many pigstickers would make a nasty mess of the defenders if they were to get behind it.’
‘A blood-red flag decorated with a white sword? That will be Boraz, he goes to war under just such a flag.’ Cattanius looked around the officers gathered on the wall with a faint smile. ‘And I think that we can be grateful that our intelligence was correct. As you can see, Boraz is very much the junior partner in terms of the size of his warband.’
While the tribunes and their first spears stood and watched the barbarian outriders move cautiously up the valley, their men were still labouring around them, the soldiers catching turfs and laying them along the top of the rampart to form the five-foot-high parapet, behind which the defending troops would be protected from enemy spears and arrows. Julius looked out at the oncoming mass of horsemen with a long stare of appraisal.
‘If that’s the size of their advance guard then I’d say it’s of little matter to me which of your two kings has come to play. Either way we’re all dead men, if this wall fails to stop them getting among us.’ He looked about him with a grim smile. ‘Mind you, their arrival seems to have put a little more urgency into the construction.’ Where the mine workers had previously been working hard enough to avoid the ever present threat of a flogging for anyone caught slacking, their efforts had redoubled at the sight of the barbarian cavalry making their way up the valley. ‘Let’s not tell them that the wall’s already high enough to deter that lot, eh? I quite like them putting the extra effort in.’