Retracing his steps, he found his fellow infiltrators waiting impatiently.
‘I have scouted the best way into the enemy camp. Follow me.’
The noble tugged at his arm, whispering fiercely.
‘Have you killed the guards?’
‘No, Lord, not yet.’
‘But-’
Biting down on his exasperation, he shook his head with an expression he hoped would not betray his frustration.
‘Lord, from the very moment we make our first kill we will have only a short time before their bodies are discovered. We must make that time as long as possible. Trust me in this.’
He turned and led them to the point from where he had watched previously.
‘Stay silent and still.’
Pacing forward in the darkness, he waited until the guards to his left had turned and walked down their beat towards the fire, stepping quickly and lightly across the space separating him from the wall, easing noiselessly into its shadow and staring intently at the men standing at the camp’s corner as he knelt to scoop up a handful of the dusty soil. When they showed no sign of reaction, he rose from the gloom and paced towards them with a measured, confident tread. He had no shield, but in every other respect he appeared authentic enough to stand up to a brief scrutiny in the darkness, his armour and helmet pulled from a dead Roman cavalryman retrieved from the open desert. Drawing his long knife, and reversing his grip on the hilt to put the blade in the shelter of his arm, he strode towards the guards, being careful not to speed up as he got closer.
The nearest of the two registered his presence in his peripheral vision at the very last moment, turning with a question as Varaz punched the knife through his throat and ran at the other man, hurling the handful of sandy dust at his target to buy a moment’s confusion before the knife tore into his neck and severed both windpipe and vocal cords. The dying man gasped silently for air as he contorted into his death throes, then shuddered, and was gone. Dragging the corpses into the earth wall’s cover, the assassin scowled as his comrades made their inevitably noisy appearance, feet scuffing in the dirt as they crouched low in poses.
‘Over the wall!’
They obeyed his hissed instruction without question, their leader pausing for a moment to look at the bloodied killer.
‘And you?’
Varaz looked at him with none of his previous deference, noting the hint of fear that had replaced the man’s previous air of superiority.
‘I’ll stay here until you’re well into the camp. As well for the Romans to see one their own when they walk back this way. When they turn back again I’ll follow you in.’
The noble nodded, swallowing nervously without even realising it, and went over the wall in pursuit of his fellows. Varaz stared after him for a moment, calculating the odds that they would get close enough to the king to strike the fateful blow, then hefted a fallen shield and stood up, strolling out into the moonlight with a deliberate pace, quietly muttering to himself.
‘Just another bored sentry.’
9
Exhausted, the legion’s men had needed no encouragement to sleep on the hard ground in their blankets, rather than taking the time and effort required to erect the leather tents that could only encumber them in the event of an attack. Julius found himself accompanied by Varus as he walked the perimeter wall with a tent party of Tungrians, having disdained sleep once again in order to ensure that the legion was ready to defend itself against the attack he believed to be inevitable. The young patrician stopped, looking up and down the wall’s length at the sentries patrolling their allotted sections of the defence, then turned to the senior centurion with as close to an apologetic expression as he was likely ever to get.
‘I have to admit, First Spear, that I may have misjudged you. When the legatus first took command I was of the opinion that you were nothing better than a northern lunatic. When you had the entire legion sleep overnight without tents I called you a sadist, and then when you had the trumpets blown in the middle of the night I cursed you for a maniac …’
He paused, smiling wryly.
‘I can only apologise. Clearly you had just such a situation as this in mind.’
Julius nodded at him, accepting the hard-earned respect with a straight face.
‘It’s not that hard, Tribune. Once you’ve seen a campaign or two, you find it natural to place yourself in the enemy’s boots, so to speak, and ask yourself what he might do, if he’s desperate enough. It’s simple experience.’
The younger man took a moment to stretch his back before resuming their walk towards the lone sentry standing at the point where the northern and eastern sides of the camp met.
‘That may be true, but nonetheless, First Spear, you’ve become the heartbeat of the Third Gallic. If we survive this insane expedition on which the emperor has sent us, it will be entirely due to the legatus’s cunning tactics and your iron control of the men that enables him to even consider them.’
He looked at Julius with unabashed admiration, something the first spear was ill-accustomed to receiving from the legion’s senior officers.
‘You won’t have any problems from any of the young gentlemen either, not since that remarkable vic-’
Turning back to their path around the wall he stopped, frowning at something barely visible in the shadow of one of the camp’s entrances.
‘Is that a man lying down?’
Julius started and strode forward, putting a foot under the supine body and kicking the man onto his front. A dark, wet stain covered his neck and chest, and his weapons and helmet were missing. Another dead sentry was lying in the shadow of the earth wall, and, looking up, he realised that the lone figure they had seen patrolling the wall a moment before was nowhere to be seen. The first spear spun to face his superior, pulling the sword from his left hip.
‘We’re being fucked! Air your iron, Tribune, and stay close to me! You!’
He pointed to his trumpeter.
‘Sound the stand to!’
The first notes of the summons to action broke the camp’s silence with the power of a thunderclap, and before the first echoes had died away the legion was struggling to its collective feet, soldiers shrugging off their blankets and reflexively reaching for their weapons.
‘Stand to! Prepare to defend the camp!’
The closest centurions heard Julius’s bellowed command and repeated it in their own parade-ground roars, each successive cohort springing into action as the order rippled across the camp’s expanse. Rushing forward to the walls, each century took its place in the wall of iron that was rapidly building behind the earth wall, soldiers swiftly arraying themselves into solid ranks despite the near darkness and settling into place as they had practised so many times before with a solid line of shields facing out into the darkness and another held overhead to protect against lofted arrows, their glinting swords held ready to fight. Julius looked about him, pride in the speed of his command’s response tempered by a nagging sense that something was not as it should be.
‘No arrows.’
Varus looked at him uncertainly.
‘No arrows, First Spear? Isn’t that a good thing?’
The Tungrian shook his head.
‘No arrows, no attack.’
‘And that’s a bad thing?’
‘They’re not attacking. They managed to fool the sentries, which means they must have looked familiar, but having made their opening there’s no follow-up.’
Understanding hit the two men simultaneously, and Varus gasped at the audacity of the Parthian plan.
‘The prisoners!’
‘Fuck the prisoners! They’re after the king!’
The first spear spun, shouting an order at the closest centurion.
‘You! With me, and bring your men!’