Harry Sidebottom - The Wolves of the North

And the ambush of the hunt still nagged him. Someone had to have told the Alani where the Herul battue would end that day, and that someone had to have been a Herul. Naulobates was a reformer; in his own eyes, a visionary imbued with the divine. Not all men welcome either reforms or epiphanies.

The thoughts of betrayal pressed on, almost of their own accord. All that remained of the embassy that had left the port of Tanais was gathered around the wagon on which he sat. Somewhere near — no further than he could toss a bean — was the man who had mutilated the eunuch, the cruel bastard who had murdered young Wulfstan. Unless, of course, it had been the gudja, who was riding with Naulobates, or the soldier killed in the last battle. Or unless the killer had not been a man at all, but a daemon.

Calgacus was glad he was in full armour and that the big Sarmatian warhorses were hitched near the foot of the ladder.

The sun tracked up into the sky, and they waited. It got hotter, much hotter. So much for those Greek writers poor old Mastabates and the others had quoted who said it was always cold up here, and summer lasted but a few days. Calgacus had never liked the nights on the Steppe. The uncanny scale of it always made you feel insignificant, somehow pointless. But on the journey up in the spring he had enjoyed the days. He had taken pleasure in the bright colours of the flowers, in their varied scents. Now there was nothing but friable earth showing through scorched grass, and depressing clumps of brown knotgrass and grey wormwood. The only smell was dust and the bitter tang of the wormwood.

Calgacus again longed to be back in Sicily, back with Rebecca and Simon. The image of him with them in Tauromenium — under a warm Mediterranean sun, all happy — struck him with the intensity of a dream. Its very vividness made him weary.

A gust of wind advanced on them across the Steppe. It raised dust devils. Tall and swirling, they bore down with mindless ferocity, trailing great lateral branches before being torn apart. Behind them, the storm was building; malignant black thunderheads, pierced by points of flickering flame.

‘The scouts are coming in,’ Maximus said.

It took Calgacus some time to locate them. Four black dots, well spaced but converging towards the centre of the Heruli line, where the big banner with the wolves and the arrow flew. There was no point in asking the news they brought to Naulobates.

The others on the wagon stiffened then stood up to get a better view. Calgacus took his time.

Down below, the Heruli stirred. Heads popped up in the serried ranks of the horde as men got to their feet. The leaders swung up into the saddle. Messengers galloped here and there with last-moment instructions or words of encouragement.

The first Alani outriders were moving fast, raising occasional, random puffs of white dust which drifted in their wake before dispersing. At the sight of them, Calgacus felt the familiar tension in his chest.

The outriders reined in about half a mile away, strung out across the field in an extended screen of individuals. From away by the far stream, a broad, dark column of riders appeared. Just behind the skirmish line, the main body divided, fanning out at speed left and right.

Calgacus admired the neatness of the manoeuvre. Where before there had been empty Steppe, a solid battle line was formed. The dust raised coalesced into a shifting, opaque mist. Through it, the colours of individual ponies could be seen, but the riders were a vague blur. Standards floated in the murk, apparently unattached to the men below.

The Alani occupied the same frontage as the Heruli, but even Calgacus could see their formation was deeper. Even more than before, the Heruli were outnumbered.

The south wind was bringing the storm up behind the Alani. The hulk of purple-black clouds was lit from within by vivid stabs of phosphorescence. The first clearly enunciated clap of thunder reached the Heruli.

‘It is very bad,’ Alaric said.

‘It is nothing. Another of those storms of thunder and lightning, but no rain,’ Ballista said. ‘Andonnoballus told me you get them all the time out here in high summer.’

‘A dark cloud over your enemy, a clear sky over yourself — on the Steppe there can be no more forbidding portent.’ Alaric looked downcast.

‘Hercules’ hairy arse,’ Calgacus muttered, ‘this is getting worse by the fucking moment.’

Ballista studied the enemy. The Alani were chanting, brandishing their weapons. The movements and sounds were curiously disjointed. Ballista was searching for the banner with Prometheus on the mountain. He found it in the centre of the enemy line, near that of Safrax.

High, indistinct shouts came across the plain, then the low rumble of hooves and the clatter of equipment. Saurmag’s banner and several others were moving behind the Alani ranks. Through the fresh waves of dust, Ballista could see that the enemy were extending their left flank.

Nearer at hand, Naulobates yelled orders. The rear five ranks of the Rosomoni in the central contingent wheeled their ponies and cantered off to the right to form up as a new unit and prevent the horde being outflanked. The elongated, red head of Andonnoballus could be seen getting them into order.

With his narcotic-fuelled dreams of the spirit world, Naulobates might well be considered insane, but he could still manage a battle. He had done the right thing. It left the ranks of the centre and new right wing dangerously thin, but the countermove had prevented the Heruli being overlapped.

Like a festival or a dance, a battle has its own rhythms. A hush spread across the almost motionless field, as if all those thousands of men stood in awe of the deeds they were about to commit. The thunder boomed above them, an unseen blacksmith working at some celestial forge.

The keening note of a trumpet was joined by the whooping of the Alani. The enemy surged forward, and the lines of the Heruli went to meet them.

Watching a battle in which he had no part had an air of unreality for Ballista. He watched the gusts of arrows fall, the ponies racing and turning, the men tumbling beneath the hooves. The choking dust slid across everything. The confused roar of it all was loud in his ears. Yet it had a theatrical quality. It touched him no more than the imperial spectacles in the Colosseum. Men died there; men were dying here. It was almost nothing to him.

A battle confuses perceptions of time. Ballista thought he had been watching the deadly show for hours. Yet when the day darkened as the first storm clouds reached out to smother the sun, he saw it was still early morning. The unseasonable gloom invested the battle with a sombre gravity. The air hissed as the lightning speared overhead, illuminating the black thunderheads from within. The earth shook from the battle. The end would be like this, when the wolf Fenrir killed the Allfather, and the nine worlds would burn, and the gods die.

Ballista wanted it to be over. If, outnumbered though they were, the Heruli won, he would drink and feast with them. If, as must be more probable, they were worn down by exhaustion and the day was lost, he would gather his familia. They would mount the remaining big Sarmatian chargers and small Heruli ponies and try to cut their way out of the chaos.

‘Fuck,’ Maximus said.

Ballista looked where the Hibernian pointed to the west. A pillar of dust, at its base; when the lightning flashed, the glint of metal. A large number of mounted men were riding along the line of the northernmost stream. Still a way off, but travelling fast. They were heading for the camp or the rear of the Heruli line. Naulobates’ overstretched warriors had no reserve to check them.

‘No chance they are Urugundi?’ Castricius said.

‘No chance at all,’ returned Ballista.