‘Sir?’
‘We’re pulling out back to the column, but we have to be smart. Hold here with your lads while I sort out the others. We will pull back from the walls into the centre of the fort before we bring back the men from the gates. We also need to get all the wounded away. Your mules, too. I don’t want anybody to have their pay docked for losing army property!’ A few of the men grinned.
Before he left he had the Tungrians rig up a stretcher from a couple of spears and some cloaks to carry the now unconscious Titus Annius. He got the legionaries to make something similar for their own man wounded in the leg. The heather was burning for a long way along the slope behind them. He looked at the little gap in the rampart that Rufus had mentioned, but saw that the hillside beneath it was ablaze so that they could not use it. That meant the other main entrance, the one near the saddle and in plain view of the Selgovae. The optio of the Tungrians had taken charge of the gateway and had a line of men occupying it. So far no warriors had tried an attack, but a few were skirmishing with javelins and slings, so he had sent his own slingers out to hold them in check and even drive them back some distance. One auxiliary had an injured knee and another man had had his nose smashed, leaving his face swollen and bloody, and there were several bundles of rags down the slope – tribesmen who had not spotted the cast lead bullets used by the auxiliaries. They were harder to see than pebbles and flew straighter because of their even shape, but by now the Tungrians were running low and using whatever stones they could pick up. So far the Selgovae had not noticed and were keeping their distance.
It was getting darker, and not just because of the fires that kept the air thick with ash and unpleasantly hot. Ferox looked for the tesserarius, a quiet veteran with face and arms the colour of teak.
‘Pick a dozen good men and come with me.’ As the man gathered his detachment, Ferox told the optio to keep the men at the gate, but to form the rest up in a deep column inside the fort. The wounded commander arrived, carried by four men. ‘Detail ten men to stay with him at all times.’
Ferox hurried back to the far end of the fort, the tesserarius jogging alongside. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Gambax, my lord.’
‘You and your men wait here, but keep off the path.’ There was a narrow track winding through the centre of the old settlement. Over to their right, the thatch of a burning house collapsed, sending up a flurry of sparks. ‘I’ll be back to take charge, but your job is to cover the retreat of the legionaries, so once they go by, you form a line across the path and hold. Someone else will be waiting to cover us. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. I’ll be back.’
The legionaries had two more wounded, both in the foot or shin where missiles had gone under their shields. Four more corpses in front of the gateway showed that they had thrown back another little attack. Three men too injured to walk, four to carry each of them, and another man with a wounded arm left fourteen fit men to stand with the centurion. Ferox sent the wounded and the carriers back and got Rufus to divide the others into two groups. Seven men went back along the path to where it turned the first corner.
‘Count to fifty and then bring the rest back. If no one is following then get everyone back. I have a covering party waiting to protect you.’ He snatched up a shield left by one of the wounded men, feeling the weight, but glad of the hours he had spent using a heavier practice shield.
Ferox counted in his head and was past fifty before he reached the Tungrians. Turning, he saw the first legionaries come into sight, coughing from the smoke. Rufus and the others appeared a moment later. He beckoned them on, and told the auxiliaries to open out and let them through. Sweat poured down his face from the heat, leaving pale rivulets in the grime from the smoke.
He repeated the count and reached fifty again. ‘Go. Form on the back of the column. I’ll be right behind you.’
The Tungrians doubled away and he stared down the path. The shout came from his left, and he saw a warrior crouching on top of the rampart, calling back to the others that the Romans were fleeing. Ferox followed the auxiliaries.
‘Sound the charge!’ he shouted at the cornicen. ‘Now!’ The man was standing next to the dense column of Tungrians, with the signifer carrying the vexillum. Both had bearskins over their helmets, the paws crossed and pinned into place on their chests. The cornicen licked his lips and played the three rising notes of the charge, the last one drawn out.
‘Go!’ Ferox yelled.
‘Charge!’ That was the optio at the head of the century. The Tungrians guarding the gate dashed forward and down the slope towards the Selgovae. The warriors skirmishing scampered away, not sure how far the Romans were going. Behind the optio and his men, the main column jogged out of the gate, shields and equipment thumping, and then wheeled to head up to the saddle. Ferox panted as he ran to catch up, for he needed to be there if he was to make this work. Behind the Tungrians came the wounded and the legionaries’ mules, with Rufus and his fourteen men and Gambax’s party at the rear.
The Selgovae were chanting war cries, blowing their tall trumpets, the noise growing louder all the time, but were still unsure what was happening. It would not last. The optio halted his men. Ferox was near the top of the pass and yelled at the Tungrians to split into two halves. The front of the column kept going, vanishing over the crest, while the others turned about as the wounded were carried or limped past them.
Ferox stopped on the crest beside the waiting auxiliaries. He looked down into the valley and saw the front half of the column going rapidly downhill. For a moment he worried that they were panicking and had forgotten their orders, but then they halted and faced about. A bigger worry was that there was no sign of any troops from the main force coming back for them. For over a mile the valley side was empty. Back nearer the fort there was only flames and masses of dense smoke, which should at least make it harder for the Selgovae to follow them that way. A great howl of rage and excitement surged up as the tribesmen realised that their enemy was not only in the open but running.
Rufus and the rearguard struggled up to the crest, the legionaries burdened with their bulky red shields, the Tungrians loping up the slope with more ease. ‘Stop fifty paces down the slope,’ Ferox told him, pointing down towards the main valley.
The optio and his men were turning now, running back as he had ordered, but the closest warriors sprang forward very fast. Javelins flashed as they went through the air. An auxiliary fell, a spearhead driven deep into his thigh, and beside him another man slipped or tripped. Two Britons were on him before he could push up again. They jabbed with their spears, piercing his mail, and the man writhed, back arching from the pain. Another warrior reached the soldier hit in the leg and slashed down with his long sword, easily beating aside the wounded man’s feeble attempts to block the blows. Scores more Selgovae were bounding up the slope. Hundreds more were surging around from the heights at the far end of the old fort, racing to join the hunt.
Ferox saw the optio in the middle of his men, the two upright feathers on his helmet making him seem taller than the rest, but then the man fell, perhaps hit by a stone. Two of the Tungrians went back for him only to be engulfed by the tide of warriors streaming up the slope. Ferox heard a long piercing scream, saw flashes of swords hacking and the three auxiliaries were gone. The optio’s remaining men sprinted away, some dropping shields and spears in a desperate quest for speed.