Anthony Riches - The Leopard sword

Tribune Belletor, who had walked up to the group while the first spear had delivered Scaurus’s orders, stepped forward with a serious look on his face as the centurions dispersed back to their men.

‘Colleague, I fear my horse has gone lame.’

Scaurus nodded, his expression unreadable in the twilight.

‘As I thought it might. It’s been favouring one foot for most of the day.’

Frontinius realised that Belletor’s voice lacked its usual bombast, and folded his arms in expectation of what was coming.

‘So I’m clearly going to have to walk. Perhaps you could reduce the pace a little? I doubt I’ll be able to…’

Scaurus shook his head, reinforcing the almost invisible gesture with an extravagant sweep of his hand.

‘Absolutely not. You’ve got men depending on us to push through the pain and come to their rescue before it’s too late, and I’ll not be jeopardising their chances because you’ve neglected your own physical conditioning. Keep up for as long as you can, and if you have to drop out keep a tent party with you for safety, but don’t expect the column to stop.’ He turned away from the glowering Belletor and beckoned Frontinius closer, waving his thanks as a soldier with a newly lit torch stepped near to illuminate their discussion.

‘Time to be on our way, First Spear. I wish you good fortune in the battle to come. Perhaps this time you might stay behind the line of your men? You know as well as I do just how confused a fight can get at night, and I’d hate to lose you to one of their spears, much less one of our own.’

Frontinius chuckled dourly.

‘I’ll stay close to you, Tribune, but for exactly the same reason. Someone has to make sure none of these idiots puts his iron through you by mistake.’

The two men clasped arms, nodding at each other in recognition of the risk they were about to take in throwing their men into the confusion of a night battle. Frontinius turned away and tapped his trumpeter on the arm.

‘Sound the advance! Let’s go and see just how good Obduro’s Treveri are in the dark.’

‘First Spear!’

Sergius ran up the steps onto the grain store’s wall in response to the summons, staring out onto darkened ground between store and city. Barely a hundred men were left of the original cohort strength that had been at Obduro’s back as he’d confronted the defenders moments before, their ranks illuminated by torches.

‘Where are the rest of them?’

‘That’s why I called you, sir! The rest of them have split to either side of the store.’

The first spear turned back to the men waiting behind the wall with lit torches, and barked an urgent command.

‘They’re going to come over the rooftops. Get ready to kill them as they hit the ground!’ The legionaries and soldiers spread out, their spears held ready to strike, but after a few moments’ wait it became apparent that the expected threat wasn’t materialising. Sergius stalked across the store’s empty interior, waving both his own chosen man and Julius’s to him. Julius, who had been sitting on the ground outside Felicia’s improvised surgery with his wounded leg stretched out straight, climbed awkwardly to his feet and hobbled across to join them, using a spear shaft as a makeshift support for the weakened limb. He grimaced at Sergius, who nodded his head to recognise their shared understanding.

‘Smart boys. They know we’re waiting for them so they’re going to hack their way into one of the granaries and then fight their way out as a group. Get your lads to listen quietly and you’ll soon find out where they’re working at the walls.’

The soldiers spread out throughout the store, opening the individual granary doors and listening for any sign that the bandits were attempting to dig their way through the thick brick walls. A man standing outside a granary on the store’s western side waved his torch up and down to attract the officers’ attention, and Sergius ran across to the spot, followed by his hobbling Tungrian colleague. The sound of men hacking at the granary’s exterior brickwork was clear enough with the wide wooden doors unbarred and opened, and the two centurions exchanged a significant glance. Sergius gestured a tent party men forward, pointing into the store.

‘As we discussed it, get your shoes and belt order off, and get in there. And remember, the second they put a hole in the wall you get out and make sure you leave the doors open. After that all you’ve got to do is run for your lives…’

‘It seems we’ve lost your colleague already, Tribune.’

Scaurus turned his head to look back down the column’s length, following the first spear’s pointing hand to see a small cluster of torches falling behind the last legion century. He laughed bitterly through the pain of the stitch that was torturing his stomach, his face contorted by the stabbing pain.

‘I’ve a fair idea how he’s feeling.’

Frontinius patted his labouring tribune on the shoulder.

‘You’ll get through it. And you have to; they’re all watching you

…’

A voice from behind them spoke over the din of the soldiers’ hobnailed boots rapping on the road’s rough surface.

‘Which side of your body hurts, sir?’

Scaurus looked back at the men following him, finding in their faces the same agony he was enduring. In the wavering torchlight he saw that one of them, a twenty-year veteran from the look of him, had his eyebrows raised in question.

‘It’s in my right side.’

Even the words hurt, and for a moment he found himself wrestling with the thought of falling out of the line of march, the prospect of blessed relief from the pain mixed with the certainty that the column would disintegrate into chaos were he to stop marching. The hard-faced veteran smiled encouragingly at him, nodding his head vigorously, and while the tribune knew that his first spear would be poised to intervene, and tell the soldier to mind his own business, Frontinius was clearly holding back his instinctive retort.

‘I gets the same thing every time we marches this quick! If you breathe out hard as your left boot hits the road it’ll go away soon enough.’

Scaurus nodded at the soldier, consciously exhaling as instructed, and after a hundred paces he found the nagging pain was starting to diminish, only slightly at first, but then more swiftly, as the soldier’s trick took greater effect. Able to speak without agony again he turned to Frontinius with a growing sense of relief that the overwhelming urge to stop marching had passed.

‘I don’t know what difference it makes, but that man’s trick seems to have worked.’

The first spear pointed forward into the darkness beyond the small circle of illumination cast by the column’s torches. As they crested a shallow ridge the city had come into view, still two miles distant but clear enough through the clear night air; the watch fires burning on its high walls were flickering pinpricks of light. Beneath the walls a cluster of lights were gathered around the spot where he estimated the grain store must stand, and the tribune’s mouth tightened as he realised the depth of Obduro’s ambition.

‘You were right, First Spear. I can only curse myself for throwing the entire force west to chase shadows while leaving the city unprotected.’

Frontinius grunted, his attention fixed on the scene before them.

‘Not entirely undefended, Tribune. We’ll have to hope that Sergius and Julius can give a good account of themselves.’

Tornach pulled the last of the three climbers over the city wall’s parapet, then led them down the stone stairs that took them to the city’s west gate. Mounting the steps built on either side of the gate, two men on each side, they lifted the higher of the two weighty bracing bars that prevented the heavy doors from opening, dropping the wooden beam to the ground before repeating the action with the other. Dragging the beams away from the gateway they heaved the doors open, then stepped back to allow their leader to enter the city. Walking slowly into the city at the head of half a dozen men, Obduro stared about him with evident satisfaction.