Anthony Riches - Fortress of Spears

Drust laughed in Calgus’s face for a second time, his eyes bright with amusement.

‘You offer me the Votadini’s land, Calgus? You might as well offer me the moon, for all the cost to you, and for all the chance that I might be able to keep the ground you offer, even if I were minded to accept. If I wanted the Votadini’s land I would have taken it long since, you fool.’ He turned back to his men, pointing to the northern face of the camp’s protective palisade. ‘We need to be away from here before full dawn. You, take a message up the hill. The fence is to be opened, and our people ready to run north.’ Turning back to face Calgus, he put both hands on his hips.

‘The Votadini are nothing more than the Romans’ lapdogs, Calgus. Their royal women drip with jewellery made in the south, and their men wear swords with keener edges than would be the case if they were locally forged. If we occupy the Dinpaladyr we’ll have less than a month before a legion marches up, batters down the ‘fortress of the spears’ walls with their catapults and puts us all to the sword. The Romans like their trade with the Votadini, and through them with the rest of you fools, and they won’t be abandoning that easy money without a fight. So no, Calgus, you took the Votadini’s land and now you can defend it, or else run and hide when they kick down your gate and come looking for their revenge on you. I can run now, away to the safety of my own land behind their old north wall, and they will leave me well alone if they know what’s good for them. They might even pay me tribute to keep me behind my walls and out of the fight. But you, Calgus, you have ruined their forts and slaughtered their soldiers. You could run to the ends of the world and they would still never stop hunting you. So if I were you I’d…’

His eyes suddenly narrowed at the sound of shouting from over Calgus’s shoulder. Another voice joined the first, and a sudden scream of agony rent the air. Drust turned and roared at the men gathered about him.

‘Get that fucking fence open! It’s time to leave!’

The first Selgovae warrior through the tent door died silently, his throat torn open by a hunting knife wielded by the Votadini he’d knocked aside in his haste to enter the tent. He staggered three paces into the tent’s half-light, with his lifeblood pumping down his chest and his bowels noisily emptying into his rough woollen trousers before he pitched full length to the pale turf.

‘Lord Calgus! There are Romans in the…’

The second man was still only halfway through the flap doof shouting wildly that the alarm was raised, when the first warrior’s killer backhanded the short blade into his belly and ripped it out through his side, spilling the slippery rope of his guts and wrenching a grunted scream of pain from his contorted mouth as he fell to his knees. Martos shrugged into the old man’s white face.

‘Time to leave. Release him, Marcus.’

Aed barely had time to register the sudden cool air on his face as the Roman stepped back, lifting his arm away and pushing him on to Martos’s knife before a sudden burning pain ripped into his body. Looking down in horror, he saw the weapon’s blade protruding from his belly in Martos’s expert hand, staggering in sudden shock as the Votadini prince pulled the weapon down into his lower abdomen before twisting it savagely and pulling it free, wiping the bloody iron on his robe. A rush of warm blood gushed from the wound, filling the air with its metallic stink, underlaid by the smell of excrement, and the old man dropped to his knees and bent double with the excruciating agony of his wound.

‘Die hard, Aed. Hard, and slowly.’

He gestured to the hole in the tent’s rear, stooping to pick up a small wooden box that rested at the foot of Calgus’s bedroll and lifting the lid to peer inside, then angled the casket to show Marcus the contents.

‘I should have known. Nothing but paper. I suppose Calgus’s private letters might be of some value, if only to give your tribune something to read once the fighting’s over…’

He tossed the chest to one of his men, and the small group stepped out into the dawn’s pale light through the rent in the tent’s back wall, Marcus quickly taking stock of their situation in the sure knowledge that if the presence of a Roman officer in the enemy’s camp became known they would be beset from all sides in seconds. All about them warriors were crawling from their tents and reaching for their weapons, not yet aware of the interlopers in their midst, but only seconds from making that discovery.

‘There’s no time for slow and quiet now! Follow me!’

He drew his gladius and set off at a dead run down the path between the tents, sprinting towards the palisade where his men were waiting, Martos and his warriors close on his heels. The crude wig that had masked the Roman’s features fell away and revealed his short cropped black hair, and a tribesman blinking away sleep in his path gaped in amazement, throwing his head back to shout a warning as Marcus’s gladius ripped open his throat before one of Martos’s warriors shoulder-charged him into the side of another tent without breaking stride. A chorus of shouts was following them now, alerting the men in front of them even if the cause of the uproar was still unclear. Bleary-eyed tribesmen turned to crane their necks, instinctively reaching for weapons as they sought the source of the commotion.

Martos drew level with the centurion, straining every sinew in his magnificent physique as he pounded along beside the man who had been his enemy only days before. A straggling group of Selgovae warriors was gathering across their path, hefting their weapons in readiness for a fight as the intruders charged towards them.

Marcus tossed the gladius into his left hand and drew his spatha on the run, flashing the long blade out and bellowing a rising scream of defiance as he ploughed into their midst, flicking aside a spear-thrust with the long cavalry sword and ducking under a swinging blade before upending the sword’s owner with his leg hacked off at the knee, spinning away to his left in a double flicker of razor-edged iron. Martos matched the ferocity of his attack, hacking his way into the Selgovae with a fury that scattered the warriors, his men crowding in around him to protect their prince at any cost. A tribesman hacked down two handed at Marcus with a heavy sword, the blade sliding down his angled spatha as Marcus pivoted around his right arm, reversing his left-handed grip on the gladius’s eagle-head pommel and backhanding the short blade through the swordsman’s ribs before spinning again, tearing the blade free and cutting low, felling another warrior, both his hamstrings severed by the spatha’s harsh bite. Two more warriors ran in to the fight, and Marcus turned to confront them, starting as a spear hissed past his head and punched the closer of the pair back with his eyes rolling back to show only the whites. The other man swung his sword up to attack, only to stagger as an arrow flicked through the throng of Votadini and embedded itself in his throat. A strong grip on the neck of his mail armour pulled the young centurion away from the fight, the four surviving barbarians and Marcus’s own men forming a thin line against the gathering mass of enraged Selgovae warriors. Qadir and his two fellow Hamians were nocking and loosing arrows with a speed and accuracy that were, for the moment, felling as many tribesmen as were joining the uncertain warriors facing off the outnumbered Romans. Scarface grinned apologetically as his officer spun to face him, backing off a step at the look on Marcus’s face.

‘No time for that, Centurion, the fence is coming down…’

With a creaking, screaming tear of rending wood, the twenty-foot-wide section of the palisade that Martos had identified to him on their way in fell away from the rest of the wall. As the dust of its falling settled, Marcus saw the men who had dragged it down drop their ropes and take up their weapons, forming an unbroken line of shields in seconds. A lean centurion limped out in front of them, pointing with his sword and bellowing an order in a voice that carried far across the barbarian camp.