‘They’ll finish that ramp today, no matter what they have to throw at it.’
His deputy stamped down the century’s line with a curse at his frozen feet.
‘Shall I get the men ready to move, Centurion?’
Marcus nodded his assent, watching as the stocky chosen man made his way down the ditch’s line, shouting commands to his men and readying them to pull out of the position. Tribune Leontius came forward with his men, looking out over the ditch’s earth wall at the ramp and smiling happily at the state of the earthwork.
‘Well done, Tungrians, that’s put a knot in their cocks. It’ll take them a good long time to get that rebuilt and ready for an attack. And now, if you don’t mind, we’ll reclaim this rather desirable property back from you. There’s hot food waiting for you in your barracks.’
The soldiers formed up and marched away from the wall without a second glance. With his men back in their barracks, and for the most part asleep as soon as they had consumed the meal that had been prepared for them, Marcus made a swift visit to the hospital to see his wife, who took one look at his exhausted face and sent him away to his bed. Awakened seemingly only minutes later by a heavy knocking, he opened the door to find Julius waiting for him.
‘What time is it?’
The first spear hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘Mid-afternoon. The Sarmatae are only an hour or so from completing their ramp, so Leontius and the tribune have agreed to bring our boys forward and make a stand beside the Britons. Tell Quintus to wake your men and warm them up ready to fight, then join me on the fort wall. The tribune wants us to have a look at the field of battle from an elevated position before we take up our positions.’
When the young Roman reached the walls he found Julius and Scaurus watching the enemy in silence. The duel between the barbarian archers and the Thracians was continuing in a desultory manner, although most of the enemy’s attention was now focused on keeping the Britons’ heads down, as the ramp inched closer to their wall. Looking along the wall’s length Marcus realised that the bolt throwers were no longer sending their heavy missiles into the mass of slaves toiling at the earthwork.
‘It seems that the remaining torsion bars have broken. Leontius was here a few minutes ago muttering something about dealing with a certain legion artillery officer, not that he’ll ever get the chance.’ The tribune fell silent, staring pensively out at the mass of humanity being driven forward behind the enemy archers. ‘All of that murder last night. . and we might as well not have bothered. There are thousands of them.’
Julius nodded.
‘This Purta must have scoured the entire plain for every slave he could buy or take. No wonder he was happy to spend his labour so cheaply yesterday if he had this lot in reserve to throw at us. Obviously he came prepared.’ He turned to Scaurus, straightening his back and saluting. ‘The cohorts will be ready for action soon enough, Tribune. I suggest we parade them outside the barracks and get ready to sell ourselves as expensively as we can. It’s been a pleasure serving with you, sir, and. .’
His eyes narrowed as a distant trumpet sounded from the west, beyond the barbarians, answered a moment later by another which seemed to come from the hills to the east. Scaurus leant forward over the wall’s parapet, ignoring the risk of a Sarmatae arrow to stare out over the enemy host.
‘That sounded like one of ours. .’
Leontius hurried up the steps behind them, pulling on his helmet and joining Scaurus at the parapet with a look of disbelief. The horns sounded again, and as they looked out over the corpse-strewn battlefield Julius gestured at a point beyond the enemy host.
‘My eyes may be deceiving me, but those look like ours. .’
Staring out across the Sarmatae host, Marcus found what Julius was indicating, a line of armoured men made tiny by the distance.
‘They’re not advancing.’
Leontius snorted in dark amusement.
‘Nor would you be, Centurion, if you came round that corner and found yourself face-to-face with that many barbarian horsemen. I’d imagine that they’re working like madmen to get their stakes in the ground, while their officers frantically try to decide whether they should attack, defend or just make a run for it and pretend that they were never here.’
Julius glanced at him with an amused look, then turned to Marcus.
‘Your eyes are sharper than mine, Centurion. What emblem can you see on their banners?’
The Roman stared out at the legion’s rapidly forming line.
‘A lion, First Spear.’
The burly senior centurion turned back to Leontius with a smirk.
‘In which case, I think you can stop worrying about those lads turning tail, that’s the Thirteenth Gemina out there. First Spear Secundus won’t be countenancing anything of the sort.’
‘Excellent work, Gaius! Young Leontius will go back to Rome with a ringing commendation, and doubtless a quick step up the ladder for stopping the Sarmatae for long enough that we could bottle them up. He was decent enough to brief me properly as to what your men did last night, and from what I’ve heard you clearly played a key part in this whole thing.’
Legatus Albinus had ridden into the fort from the east just before dark at the head of two cohorts of legionaries, ending any lingering risk that the Sarmatae might attempt one last all-out drive to cross the ditch and escape the trap in which they were caught. He and Scaurus were alone in the fort’s headquarters while Leontius assisted the Fifth Macedonica’s broad stripe tribune in bringing his men forward through the fort to hold the obstacle overnight. Scaurus shook his head disparagingly at his mentor’s praise.
‘We were in the right place at the right time, Legatus, that’s all it was. Tribune Leontius is the man who made this fort ready to repel any attack up the valley, which is more than many of his colleagues might have done.’
Albinus smiled knowingly.
‘Understood, young man. But I’ll make sure your part in this is recognised, one way or another. You’re too good an officer to be left running an auxiliary cohort for much longer.’
‘Thank you, sir. And as for our enemy?’
The legatus smiled broadly.
‘Once Leontius’s dispatch alerted us to the fact that we’d been fed misleading intelligence, Pescennius Niger and I agreed that our only course of action was to advance through the mountains, and come at the enemy from the rear, using Stone Fort as the anvil for our hammer.’ He paused, raising his eyebrows at the tribune. ‘Tremendously risky, of course. What if we’d got here and found that the Sarmatae had already smashed through you, and were rampaging off into the province, eh? That’s the kind of outcome that has a man falling on his own sword, so I really can’t imagine what can have possessed my colleague to accept such a hasty course of action, although I suspect his first spear might have played a large part in overcoming his natural caution. He is a rather fearsome individual once his temper’s aroused, and since he’d been urging caution as to how much of the intelligence from within the Sarmatae camp we believed, he was practically ablaze when we discovered the truth.’
He grinned triumphantly at Scaurus, waving a hand in the air in the manner of a man accepting the plaudits of a grateful people.
‘But it seems to have worked out rather well, all things considered. The only ways out of this valley other than through this fort are the two valleys that combine to the west of here, and we have them both blocked by large forces of infantry behind nice strong turf walls and with plenty of wooden stakes set up to prevent any foolishness by the enemy’s horsemen. There are auxiliary cohorts dug in on the high ground on all sides with archer and bolt-thrower support, so if the enemy do try to make a run for it over the hills we’ll chop them to ribbons. And if they try to renew their attack on Stone Fort then we’ll just swing the hammer and smash them against your walls. We have the Sarmatae hemmed in, Gaius, and Purta’s balls in the palm of our hand, which will make the agreement of terms that favour Rome’s interests relatively simple if he doesn’t want to find his head on a sharpened stick.’