‘I always saw you as more gentleman than soldier, for all of your demonic skill with a blade, Centurion Corvus, but it seems you’re a harder man than I imagined. Will I join you in the duty of avenging a dead soldier and his family? I’d call you an insubordinate young bastard and have you demoted if I didn’t know why you’re goading me. .’ He sighed, looking down at the dead man again. ‘And I don’t suppose this man’s spirit is going to thank me for doing nothing to take some form of revenge for him.’
Climbing to his feet, he looked at Marcus and Arminius with fresh determination, his teeth bared in anger.
‘So what would you have me do, Centurion, to make amends for this slaughter?’
The younger man pointed at the ditch, and the indistinct figures lurking behind the wall on its far side.
‘Get back to your command, Tribune. Your revenge can only be taken at their head, and with a thousand swords rather than just your own.’
The Tribune nodded and turned away, walking across the plank bridge without a backward glance, and Arminius followed behind him. Marcus looked back to the open ground to see the indistinct shapes of Martos and his men picking their way through the field of corpses.
‘I left the fastest of my warriors to watch out for the enemy’s approach as you requested. We can hear them mustering, too far away to be seen, but they’re out there.’
The Roman put a hand on the Briton’s shoulder, guiding him to the bridge.
‘Take your men to safety. I’ll make sure your runner crosses before we drop the planks.’
He looked about him, gauging the amount of destruction the Tungrians had wrought on the Sarmatae earthwork in the little time that had been afforded to them. One of the soldiers was struggling over his shovel, and Marcus reached out to take the implement, pointing to the flimsy bridge.
‘Go.’
As the grateful soldier headed for safety Marcus addressed the man’s comrades, hefting the shovel ready to dig.
‘We don’t have long, gentlemen, before the enemy discover us. Before they do, if we want to see tomorrow’s sunset, then we must make this ramp unusable.’
He waved a hand at the earthwork’s wreckage, so badly chewed and pitted by the frantic efforts of the soldiers that the planks were now pointing up at the Tungrians’ battlement, rather than running down to meet it.
‘And for that to come about, we must hack away as much of this’ — he pointed to the ramp’s tongue, on which they were standing — ‘as we can. Now we dig, as fast as possible, and when the time comes I will send you back to safety. So dig!’
The Tungrians set to with fresh purpose, invigorated by the sight of an officer hacking away at the compacted earth with his shovel. Looking up for a moment, Marcus found Martos at his side again, a rope in one hand and another tied about him. Martos took the shovel and pushed the Roman aside, handing him the rope’s end and then taking his place among the soldiers, plying the implement with powerful strokes, chopping into the earth and flinging the resulting clods of earth into the ditch below as fast as he could.
‘Tie the rope about you, and make it tight!’
The last remaining Votadini warrior ran out of the darkness, gesturing back the way he had come, and Marcus turned to his men with the rope knotted tightly about his chest, taking a shovel from the closest of them.
‘Go! Get across the bridge now!’
They bolted, shaking the planks so badly in their haste that one of the boards overturned, pitching two of the Tungrians into the filthy ash residue in the ditch’s bottom. Ropes were thrown down to them, but Marcus had no time to see if their rescue would be successful. Martos turned to the other plank, pushing at it with his booted foot to sending it spinning down into the ditch’s gloom. He pointed at the ramp’s end.
‘You and I, Centurion!’
Nodding his understanding Marcus set to with his shovel again, the two men digging out chunks of the ramp’s forward edge and tossing them into the ditch with the furious energy of men possessed, bending to stay out of sight of the barbarian warriors approaching out of the gloom to the west. Sliding down onto the ramp’s steep side they concentrated their efforts on the tongue itself, working frantically to cast as much of it as possible into the darkness below. Straightening his back to stretch out arms made heavy by fatigue, Marcus looked round to find familiar faces behind the turf wall, and saw bows being raised to shoot. A warrior suddenly loomed over him at the ramp’s edge, his mouth open with the shock of finding the Roman beneath his feet, but as the Sarmatae opened his mouth to call out a warning he was struck by first one arrow and then two more, pitching forward into the ditch over Marcus’s shoulder without making a sound.
Carving out another chunk of compacted soil, Marcus dropped it into the darkness, and another, ignoring the threat of attack in his haste to do as much damage as he could to the ramp. A hand touched his shoulder, and he looked at Martos to see that the Votadini had a finger to his lips. He pointed downwards, then slid away down the earthwork’s side and into the ditch’s deep shadow, and the Roman followed suit, holding onto his shovel and using it to break his descent into the darkness. He landed on the ditch’s floor, feeling his boots sink into the detritus of snow, ash and the rancid smelling sticky paste left by so many burning bodies. He whispered to Martos, wrinkling his nose at the smell that permeated the air around them despite the night’s frigid air.
‘It’s a good thing it’s so cold. On a warmer day this place would smell like the entrance to Hades.’
Martos pointed upwards.
‘And up there, well that may well be Hades itself.’
Above them men were shouting, more voices than Marcus could distinguish, and they could see the flickers of arrows being exchanged between the two sides. He looked at Martos with a wry smile.
‘Qadir and his archers will present the Sarmatae with a nasty shock, given the tribesmen have nothing to hide behind out there.’
As they looked upwards a face peered down at them from over the wall, and an arm pointed down the ditch to the west. Untying the ropes fastened about them they quietly slipped down the trench in the direction indicated for fifty paces or so, until they came across two more hanging ropes, their ends already fashioned into loops that would fit over their heads and arms to nestle snugly under their armpits. Another face appeared, familiar bearded features under a centurion’s helmet, and Marcus shared a quick glance with Martos as both men simultaneously realised what was about to happen. With a terrific jerk they were hauled bodily into the air, their bodies flying up the ditch’s steep face too fast for either of them to have any hope of controlling their ascent. The Roman found himself scrabbling at the turf wall as he was hauled bodily over it, then crashed heavily onto the ground on the other side. He looked up to see Titus, the hulking centurion of the Tenth Century, looming over him. The giant was grinning down at him, and two tent parties of his men were standing behind him with the ropes lying at their feet. Julius stood next to the big man, a full head shorter than his officer despite his own hefty frame. Getting his breath back Marcus nodded his gratitude to his brother officer.
‘Thank you, Titus. It was an unconventional return to the cohort, but welcome nonetheless.’
‘At your service, little brother. A tiddler like you is never a problem for my lads. Mind you, you might want to go and find some water. .’ His nose wrinkled. ‘The smell from your feet is worse than that being given off by our own beloved first spear, if that’s possible.’
‘Well it’s about bloody time. I lost all contact with my feet hours ago.’
Marcus looked up at Morban’s words to see that the fort’s gates had opened to allow the Britons to march out into a grey dawn. He turned back and looked out over the ditch at the Sarmatae mustering outside the range of Qadir’s bows. The Hamians’ accurate shooting had clearly discouraged any attempt to rebuild the ramp by moonlight, but now that day was breaking he knew the enemy archers would shower missiles onto both wall and fort in order to allow the workers forward with their buckets of soil.