William Dietrich - Hadrian's wall

The barbarians backed toward the southern gate of the milecastle they'd surged through just half an hour before, but it was a ragged rout toward a rain of arrows. The gate had been shut against them. Man after man grunted and went over, shot before they could even match blades with the Roman cavalry. As the horses pressed, the Celts were squeezed so tightly that some couldn't raise their swords. They were stuck at with lances like squealing pigs, pinned by their own dying comrades. Some, preferring death to slavery, thrust daggers into their own hearts.

Yet no arrow grazed Arden, no spear came close. Did the gods protect him?

No, it was Galba, trying to get to him. "Remember, that one stays alive, or the man who kills him is himself dead!"

What confusing conspiracy had isolated him here? What had happened to the Attacotti and Picts on the other side of the Wall? Why weren't they pouring through in support? Why hadn't Galba turned on the Romans, as promised? Brassidias had betrayed him, just as the woman had! Were they working together? Arden desperately picked up a loose helmet and hurled it at the senior tribune, hitting his shoulder.

If nothing else, he'd take the damned Thracian with him. He charged.

Galba acknowledged the challenge, his black horse bucking toward Caratacus. The Celt planned to strike at the underbelly to dismount the tribune and kill him on the ground. Yet even as he crouched to attack, he noticed that Galba had sheathed his sword and drawn something else. What? Then there was a sizzling buzz, and a whip cracked and wrapped on Arden's forearm, jerking him to his knees. "Now! The net!" Something entangling fell to ensnare Arden's arms. Two troopers had hurled the gladiatorial prop as if he were in the arena. He tried to struggle upward, but they pulled on the netting and he lost his footing again.

"Give me a chance to fight!" he cried.

The reply was harsh laughter. "See his tattoo! We've caught a deserter!"

Through the mesh he could see the last of his men pushed against the inner stone of the Wall, lances impaling them, arrows cutting them down, stones dropping on them from above. Luca fell, bleeding from twenty wounds. The Celts were singing their death songs, trying to take as many Romans as they could with them.

Then something hit his own head, and everything went black.

Stillness settled over the battlefield. To the south of the Wall, the Romans had won. Galba's cavalry had overwhelmed the Celts who'd broken through the gate and killed or enslaved every one of them. Arden Caratacus was unconscious and in chains. They'd even bagged a lean and defiant druid, caught in the conspiracy he'd spun. Kalin, the barbarians called him, clubbed to the ground and hog-tied to corral his magic. A priest to minister to the dungeon of Eburacum! The Romans spat on him and jeered, in fear.

To the north of the Wall the Celtic cavalry had triumphed. Marcus's force had been overwhelmed by a flood of numbers, and he and all his men killed, except for a handful who fought their way to the burned-out gate archway and finally gotten reinforcements from the Romans above. Longinus had survived, but the heart and the flower of the Petriana had been destroyed. His companions were dead.

The Celts, howling with triumph and wailing with grief, had retreated into the trees a mile away, taking most of their dead with them.

The stripped bodies of the Romans were left lying in the trampled and frozen mud. It began to snow harder, fogging the field.

The inner gate of the milecastle had been slammed shut against Arden's column of warriors, denying escape, and their bodies were heaped against it like a windrow of leaves. The pile was prickled with arrows and leaking a delta of blood. Now Galba ordered the corpses dragged aside and the gate opened, its lower half mottled with the stain of the dead. Eventually the heavy door swung wide, revealing the carnage of the milecastle courtyard beyond. Galba strode through in gruesome triumph, the dead the price of his victory. He stepped around the Roman bodies. He trod on the Celtic ones.

From the archway of the other side came the stink of ashes and burned flesh. Its barrel roof framed the other battlefield and its scattering of dead Romans and horses. From far away, through the gauze of snow, came the mournful drumming of the Celts.

Galba's expression was one of tight satisfaction. Everything had happened as he'd planned. He was the savior of Rome.

Huddled against the stone were the surviving men who'd ridden with the Petriana's flanking attack-a dozen in all, muddy, spattered with blood, exhausted. They were his now.

"Marcus Flavius?" he asked no one in particular.

They pointed. "A hero's death. He died standing up."

The praefectus hung from a loop of rope around his chest, his chin down, eyes closed, bloody arms dangling, one foot turned abjectly inward. Galba's face betrayed no emotion. "Indeed. We'll burn him with honors."

The Celts wouldn't come again, the tribune judged. Not for a while, at least, giving him the time needed to complete his scheme. The barbarians were headless, their leader captured. He'd won. Won everything in a morning! The praefectus dead, Caratacus in chains, the woman imprisoned and helpless, the victory his to claim alone. Now he'd see to the Roman beauty, and-

A familiar voice spoke to him from the shadows. "What's become of Valeria?"

He started in surprise. It was her slave woman, Savia! Huddled like the others against the blackened stones of the archway, a cloak around her trembling shoulders, her face black with soot. What was the maidservant doing here?

"Stand up, woman."

The familiar figure stood. A bit leaner, perhaps, swaying with exhaustion, but the same kind, stupid, cowlike face. That doggish loyalty he despised. "I'm servant to the lady," she reminded unnecessarily.

"And what are you doing here, handmaid, in the dung of battle?"

"I followed the Celts in hopes of rejoining Valeria. I was swept up in the attack-"

"Valeria's in prison. Locked there by her dead husband for adultery."

Savia looked at him with sorrow but not surprise. She knew, he realized. Knew he'd planned it this way from the beginning. Maybe he should just run her through now and be done with it, but no, what did he care what a slave thought? Besides, this mother hen might help persuade Valeria what her only choice must be. Savia, like everyone, had her uses. "That means your future is in my hands."

"Are you going to kill Valeria, too?" The question was a quiet one.

Galba walked close to her then so that the others couldn't hear. Spattered with blood and rank with sweat, he leaned close, the scar in his beard like a vast canyon. "Listen to me, slave," he whispered hoarsely. "Your mistress has one chance. One chance only. If you help me, then I can help you. If you oppose me, then I'll destroy you, just as I've destroyed everyone else who's ever challenged me. Do you understand?"

She nodded dumbly.

"Only I can save Valeria now. Do you agree?"

Savia said nothing, looking at him in wonder.

"Then come. We're going to see your mistress."

Galba burst through the entryway of the commander's house like a man who once more regards it as his, his black battle cape rippling behind to punctuate his urgency, Savia scuttling in his wake. "I'm here to see Valeria!" Slaves scurried out of his way and peered with apprehensive wonder from doorways. His skin was speckled with blood, hewn from his enemies. There was mud on his boots. Grim triumph on his face. And haste in his manner. He marched with a tramp as steady as a galley drum to the sleeping chamber where she was confined, the blood rings of his waist chain jangling of victory, his sheathed spatha rocking in rhythm. Two soldiers posted by the chamber's door snapped to attention.