Marcus turned back to his friend with a smile but found the big man’s attention locked on the other side of the valley, where the river’s meandering course bent around to the east and took the road down its banks out of view.
‘Here come the scouts that Belletor sent out, back already. I wonder what they’ve seen?’
They watched as the scouting party rode around the river bend and up the valley toward the waiting legionaries, but Dubnus was pointing to a spot behind the horsemen.
‘Look! Smoke!’
A line of smoke was rising into the cold, still air further down the valley, and Julius frowned, looking across the lake at the Sarmatae scouts with a look of disquiet.
‘Whatever’s burning may be out of sight from here, but it won’t have been from where they were and yet they’re acting as if nothing’s amiss. Something isn’t right here. .’
Scaurus stepped forward.
‘I warned the idiot!’ He cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting across the lake’s frozen surface. ‘Belletor! Tribune Belletor!’
Clearly visible mounting his horse, Tribune Belletor turned his head to the source of the sound. Scaurus waved, then pointed at the smoke, now strengthened to form a thick, greasy column. Belletor looked about him, then waved back to the small group before spurring his horse forward towards the returning scouts. Scaurus’s expression hardened.
‘Blessed Mithras, the bloody fool’s not listening! He can’t see the smoke for the hill beside them. Belletor! The scouts are. .’
He fell silent as his colleague’s imperious tones reached them, audible across the open ice even if the exact words were lost on the slight breeze, and the tribune raised his fist in salute. The leading rider approached the Roman, his long lance couched to point at the ground.
‘That’s their leader, isn’t it?’
Qadir squinted into the ice’s harsh glare.
‘Yes, that helmet he wears is quite unmistak-’
He gasped involuntarily as the Sarmatae leader raised his kontos, stabbing the blade forward and ramming it into Belletor’s throat. Ripping the bloodied iron free, as the tribune tottered in his saddle, he raised his arms and bellowed a command at his followers. With a chorus of answering yells the Sarmatae flooded forward and past him, their weapons flashing in the clear winter air as they fell on the unsuspecting and unprepared Roman infantry. The men to the rear of the cohort, who had quietly mounted their horses while the legionaries’ attention had been elsewhere, took their cue and launched themselves at the resting soldiers with their lances glinting evilly in the winter sunlight. Qadir turned to Marcus in horror.
‘Deasura, it’ll be a massacre!’
Julius shook his head in disbelief as the first screams of dying men reached them. The soldiers closest to the attacking Sarmatae were mounting a desperate, unprepared defence, fighting without organisation or control, and the enemy horsemen, pressing in on them from front and rear, were reaping a bloody harvest with the long spears that allowed them to out-reach the legionaries.
‘And we’ll be next!’ He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Rejoin your centuries!’
‘Wait!’
He frowned disbelievingly as Scaurus put a hand up.
‘Tribune?’
‘I’ve seen these people fight from horseback before. Even if we form a disciplined line, and stand ready to meet their attack with our spears, they’ll just stand off for a while and pepper us with arrows from all directions, retreating whenever we try to get to grips with them, and then when we start to weaken, from the cold and our losses, they’ll make a full-blooded charge and scatter us across the valley. If we stand and fight on dry ground we’ll lose, I guarantee you that!’
Julius shook his head brusquely.
‘But if we run they’ll harry us to destruction just like they’re doing to the First Minervia. We have to fight!’
Scaurus nodded.
‘I know. But not up there. .’ He pointed to the lakeside. ‘We need to fight here, on the ice.’
Julius stepped forward, his face, only inches from his tribune’s, set in deadly earnest.
‘It’s one thing to pull off a trick like that when you’ve been practising for days, Tribune, and quite another when it’s no more than a story in one of the histories that was more than likely dreamed up by the writer to make some bloody senior officer look good! You do realise this is likely to end in disaster?’
The tribune pointed hollow-eyed at the scene of horror playing out before them. Individual soldiers were running now, while Sarmatae horsemen spurred their horses in pursuit, some spearing their victims with swift brutality while others cantered after the fleeing soldiers at a more leisurely pace, giving them time to realise that a grim death was upon them before striking. As they watched, a group of fifty or so soldiers leapt onto the ice and ran towards the Tungrians, shouting desperately for help. A score of the horsemen followed them out onto the frozen surface, cantering on either side with their lances raised to strike. Marcus pointed at them as the first men fell under the riders’ blades to leave a trail of bloodied corpses in the runners’ wake.
‘That’s Tribune Sigilis leading them, isn’t it?’
Scaurus looked at the beleaguered runners for a moment before nodding sadly.
‘Yes, it is.’ The Sarmatae horsemen closed in around the helpless soldiers, their lances stabbing out at the Romans from beyond the reach of their spears, and Marcus turned away as his friend was spitted by first one and then two of the long spears, his spasming body held upright for a moment before falling to the ice as the blades were wrenched loose. When he looked back none of the men who had run were still standing, and the mounted tribesmen ironically saluted the watching Tungrians as they turned away.
‘Exactly. We’re next. They’re toying with those boys, First Spear, and I doubt dying out here on the ice will be any worse. Besides, I’m not of a mind to meet my ancestors without at least having some pride in the manner of my death.’
He nodded decisively, turning to the two senior centurions.
‘I’m making a commander’s decision. Get your men onto the lake and into two battle lines, back to back and ready to form a circle. Do it!’
While the Tungrians flooded onto the ice without question, the First Cohort were running to a point indicated by Julius and quickly forming a line, while the Second pressed in behind them.The tribune stalked through them to find Silus and his mounted squadron waiting at the lakeside. Silus saluted, looking down at his commander with a solemn expression.
‘What are your orders, Tribune?’
Scaurus pointed back up the valley.
‘Get out of here while you still can, Decurion. Take word of this treachery to Tribune Leontius, and to him alone. There’d be little point in throwing your lives away alongside ours, if what I have in mind fails to work.’
Silus nodded grimly and saluted again.
‘As you command, Tribune. Good luck.’
He wheeled his horse and led his men away up the lakeside as the Tungrians swiftly formed up into two lines, the discipline of a thousand drills taking over from conscious thought. Scaurus nodded to Julius, who bellowed a fresh command at the waiting soldiers.
‘Second Cohort, about turn! First and Second Cohorts, Form! Circle!’
The centuries at the centre of the two cohorts’ lines marched forward a smart thirty paces out of formation, the soldiers cursing as they slipped on the ice’s slick surface. Each century to their left and right stopped a successive five paces short of their comrades, until both lines were arrayed in an arrowhead formation with one point facing toward the enemy horsemen and the line behind facing away.