Simon Scarrow4_ - The Eagle and the Wolves

This time Cato could not help sniggering and the surgeon looked at him with a concerned expression. 'I think you'd better sit down, sir.'

'No. I need to see Cadminius.'

'Over there, sir.' The surgeon pointed to the far end of the hall where the captain of the king's bodyguard and several of his men were standing guard on the entrance to the training compound. The stout wooden door had been tightly wedged shut and timbers had been nailed across it. A steady series of thuds sounded from the far side. Cato stepped round the surgeon and picked his way over the wounded towards Cadminius.

'How are we doing?' Cato called out in Celtic, trying to sound calmer and more confident than he felt inside.

Cadminius turned his face sharply. 'They won't get in for a while. It'd take a battering ram to get through that door.'

'Doubtless they're sorting something out even as we speak.'

'Doubtless… Might just chuck them Tincommius' head to use meantime.'

'Tincommius? Where is he?'

'Safe enough,' Cadminius smiled. 'We've trussed him up nicely, hand and foot. He won't be doing any more harm. I've given orders for him to be killed the instant one of those Durotrigan bastards sets foot in the hall.'

'Good.'

'What's the situation out front?'

'We're holding them back, for now.'

'And later?'

Cato laughed and wagged his finger before he turned back towards the entrance of the hall. 'I'll see you later, Cadminius.'

Outside, the sunlight made Cato squint. The enemy were still shouting and chanting their war cries, but had drawn back from the redoubt, and the legionaries were looking warily over the breastwork. Someone had found a cache of hunting spears and almost all of the legionaries had one to hand.

'Cato! Over here!' Macro shouted from a wagon at the front of the redoubt. Cato picked his way over the men resting on the ground and hauled himself up beside Macro. From the slight elevation the view across the enclosure revealed a dense mass of Durotrigans no more than a javelin's throw away. Directly in front of the redoubt lay the piles of their dead and wounded from their first assault. Here and there a man moved feebly, some screaming in agony from terrible wounds, others moaning softly.

'How many did we lose?' Cato asked quietly.

'A few. But they took the worst of it and rather lost their appetite for the fight.'

Cato gazed wearily at the Durotrigans. Some of the warriors in the front rank were rushing forward, screaming defiance into the faces lining the breastwork and then running back. 'Looks like they're working another one up.'

'We'll be ready for them. How's the leg?'

'I'll live.'

'Oh, good. Better get ready. Looks like they're about to charge. I want you in the next-but-one wagon. Keep our lads on their toes. That's the last of the legionaries. Have your Wolves ready to fill any gaps.'

'Yes, sir.'

Cato dropped down into the enclosure, recovered his shield and called his men into formation. A quick head count gave him a strength of thirty-four. That was all. Thirty-four men from the original two cohorts he and Macro had trained and led into battle. The survivors stared straight ahead, red-eyed, filthy and many stained with their own blood and that of their enemies. They looked like beggars, reminding Cato of the human flotsam he had seen as a boy, drifting around the mean backstreets of Rome. As a boy? That was just over two years ago, he reminded himself. The two years he had served with the Eagles seemed like more of a life than all the years before.

Yet these men were no beggars, and pulled themselves erect as they stood behind Mandrax and his Wolf standard. Cato made no attempt at stirring them on to yet greater valour, as the generals in all the history books did. He simply told them to take the place of every man who fell defending the breastwork. Then he saluted and took his position in a cart to the left of Macro. A short distance to Macro's right he saw Figulus and returned the wave that the optio made to him.

'Here they come!' shouted Macro.

The enemy rippled forward, then all at once a roar swept through their ranks, and they charged towards the redoubt.

'Hold steady!' Macro bellowed above the din. 'Just keep them out!'

Cato tightened his grip on the shield handle and braced it against the inside of the breastwork. Over the rim he watched the enemy rushing towards him, a sea of woad-patterned flesh and spiky lime-washed hair. They closed on the redoubt, clambering over the bodies of their comrades who had fallen in the first assault. Then they reached the hastily erected defences and tried to get at the warriors thrusting at them from above. The advantage of height and reach was with the Romans, and scores of Durotrigans fell to quick thrusts of the spears. Cato had only his sword and watched for his opportunity. Then directly below him a man threw himself forward and braced his arms against the side of the wagon Cato was standing on. Immediately the warrior behind scrambled on to the man's back and launched himself towards Cato. The centurion slammed his shield boss into the man's shoulder and the warrior toppled to one side. As he fell he grasped the shaft of the spear being wielded by the legionary fighting beside Cato, wrenching the weapon from the Roman's grasp.

'Shit!' The legionary snatched at his sword, but was too late to spot the spear thrown from one side. The tip caught him under the chin and passed straight through his neck, the impact hurling him back so that he crumpled over the rear of the wagon.

'Get a man up here!' Cato shouted over his shoulder. 'Now!'

As soon as the gap opened in the defenders' line a group of the enemy swarmed forward to press home the advantage, and Cato found himself facing three men, armed with swords, hacking and thrusting at him. He pressed himself inside the curve of the shield and slashed and hacked back at them in a desperate frenzy that bore little resemblance to the rigorous sword training that had been harshly drilled into him by the legion's instructors. There was a lucky strike as his blade caught one of his opponents across the knuckles, shattering the bones of his sword hand. The man screamed and fell back into the swirling mass of the warriors thrusting their way towards the redoubt. But his two comrades were more wily, and while one feinted at Cato the other waited for a chance to strike round the edge of the centurion's shield, and only the curved surface of his segmented armour saved him from injury as a blow glanced off the side of his chest. Then the gap was plugged as an Atrebatan took his place at the breastwork and thrust his sword down towards one of the men trying to kill Cato.

How long the fight raged around the redoubt, Cato could never be sure. There was no time for thought; only the instinct to fight and survive. As he stabbed and parried with his sword, and blocked savage blows with his shield, Cato shouted out encouragement to the men around him, and called for replacements whenever he was aware that one of them had fallen out of line. Even though five or six Durotrigans must have perished for every one of the defenders struck down from the breastwork, they could afford to take the punishment. Indeed, the very number of their losses seemed to provoke an ever-greater desire to close with the Romans and their Atrebatan allies, and they pressed forward tighter than ever, heaving against the defences so forcefully that Cato could feel the wagon shifting beneath him.

As the sun began to dip behind the bulk of the hall the redoubt fell into shadow and the slanting light illuminated the enemy with an intense contrast of light with dark that made them seem all the more vivid and fierce. Cato's arms felt drained of strength, and desperation was no longer enough. Only iron will forced his shield arm to stay up and his sword arm to thrust with enough punch to strike a lethal blow. But for every man he sent reeling back into the mob, another took his place with the same implacable urge to obliterate the defenders.