Simon Scarrow - Britannia

Cato exchanged a nod with Miro before the latter spoke. ‘How long are we staying here, sir?’

‘Long enough to give Valens and the others time to reach the main column. Till dawn at any rate.’

As he spoke, Cato realised that he had lost all sense of time, thanks to his mind being dulled by exhaustion. At that point he would have given a year’s pay just to be sitting by a fire in the warmth of a barrack block in Viroconium, sipping heated wine. Or better still, back in Rome, with Julia at her father’s house. The sharp stab of agony that came with the unbidden image drove away his weariness at once, and he cleared his throat.

‘Better make sure the horses are fed. They’ll need their strength later. Pass the word to the other squadrons.’

Miro bowed his head and spoke to his men before climbing into the saddle to carry out his orders. Cato was relieved when he left, as he had become weary of the decurion’s constant fretting. He began to pace up and down in front of the standard to keep his limbs from growing numb. The snow was already seven or eight inches deep, and he kicked it up until he had worn a narrow track as he strode to and fro, thirty steps at a time. At length Miro returned and they stood waiting as snow began to sweep in at an angle on the strengthening wind, until it became a blizzard, swishing past Cato’s ears.

It was an hour or so later, as best he could estimate, when a rider came in from the right flank, snow bursting from the ground as his mount’s hooves kicked it up.

‘Beg to report, enemy’s on the move, sir!’

‘What are they up to?’ Cato snapped. ‘Exactly.’

The rider swallowed and drew a breath. ‘We sighted a party of infantry moving to outflank us. Decurion Themistocles says he will shadow them until he receives further orders.’

Cato nodded to himself. It was time, then. The natives were clearly keen to clear the mouth of the pass as soon as possible, so that their army could move against the Romans at first light.

‘Tell the decurion to wait for the trumpet signal. The moment he hears it, he is to fall back to the campfires. Go!’

The rider pulled on his reins, swung his horse round and galloped back through the snow. Cato turned to Miro and the others. ‘Mount up!’

The men needed no encouragement to climb into their saddles, and the squadron swiftly made ready. As they waited, spears in hand, Cato stared directly ahead, squinting into the gloom. At last he saw them, a line of figures advancing across the snow. At the same time, he heard muffled shouts from his left and he turned to the trumpeter.

‘Give the signal!’

The trumpeter raised his brass horn, pressed his lips to the mouthpiece and blew. A thin, uncertain note issued from the flared end, and Cato realised that the cold must have chapped the man’s lips.

‘Spit, for Jupiter’s sake! Spit, man!’

The trumpeter turned his head aside and hawked up a gobbet before turning back to his instrument. This time he puffed his cheeks and blew, and the note was sharp and penetrating. He repeated it three times before resting, then gave the signal again. As he did so, the enemy warriors in front of the squadron halted, unsure of what lay ahead of them. Then a voice bellowed, angrily, and they came on again, apparently heedless of the caltrops that had surprised them the previous day.

‘Blood Crows!’ Cato called out. ‘Fall back!’

The Thracians wheeled about and trotted towards the glow of the fires, which still burned faintly through the gloom. A short distance further on, Cato glimpsed more horsemen to his right, and for an instant wondered if they might be the enemy, but then he saw the squadron pennant and breathed a sigh of relief. He halted Miro and his men close to what was left of the fire where he had last seen Macro. The blaze had died down and only small flames flickered in the wind amid the embers and ash. Around the fireplace, the bodies were almost covered in snow. Cato waited anxiously for the first squadron to reach them, then two more came in: those assigned to patrol the front. Then the left flank. Only Themistocles and his squadron remained out in the blizzard.

Corvinus approached Cato with an anxious expression as he reined in alongside. ‘They’re moving round the left flank, sir. We saw ’em just after I heard the signal.’

‘They’re trying to force both ends of the line. Makes sense,’ Cato replied. Then he heard shouts to his right, and the unmistakable clash of steel. All the men with him instantly turned towards the sound, and it took a beat before Cato recovered his wits and shouted the order to form a line to the right. The Blood Crows hurriedly fanned out, hefting their shields up to cover their bodies and adjusting the grip on their spears. The sounds drew louder, and then Cato saw the first of the flank squadron’s riders tearing through the snow towards them. He rode ahead of the line to intercept the man and saw that he had been wounded in the leg, blood dripping from his boot, black in the night.

‘What’s happened?’ Cato demanded. ‘I ordered Themistocles to stay clear of any fight.’

‘The decurion’s dead,’ the man responded, breathing hard as his horse snorted. ‘We kept ’em in sight and then they hit us from three sides. Lost several men before we even knew what had happened.’ He glanced back over his shoulder in alarm. More riders were emerging from the gloom, and Cato ordered them to form up behind Thraxis.

He turned back to the wounded man. ‘How many of them?’

‘I- I don’t know, sir. A hundred. Maybe more.’

‘Right, get to the rear!’

Cato returned to his position in the centre of the line and waited until it seemed that the last of the riders had rejoined the cohort, then he craned his neck forward and squinted until he saw the enemy, scattered figures on foot charging forward wildly. If they reached the fires, the ruse would be spotted at once. If they could be checked violently now, and driven off, then it might delay any pursuit until after first light. He drew his sword and swept it forward.

‘Blood Crows! Advance!’

He urged his horse into a walk and then at once increased the pace to a trot, then a canter. The distance between the riders and the oncoming natives decreased rapidly. At the very last moment, no more than thirty feet from the nearest of the enemy, Cato bellowed the order to charge, and the Blood Crows roared an inchoate war cry as they spurred their mounts on and lowered the tips of their spears. Snowflakes pattered into Cato’s face and he had to blink them from his eyes as he braced himself in the saddle and held his sword out high and to the side ready to strike. The natives had been triumphantly pursuing a broken enemy but were now on the receiving end, and their cheers died in their throats as the Blood Crows charged at them. Cato saw several men in a loose cluster directly ahead of him and steered straight at them.

The natives scattered, hurling themselves aside into the snow. One, slower than his companions, went down directly beneath the horse, his cry cut off as the weight of the beast crushed his chest. Cato slashed his sword at the last man in his path, and the blade cut into his back and shoulder and drove the native down on to his knees. Then he wheeled round and turned on those who had avoided his charge. Two men kept low and ran crouching from his path. The last braced himself as he wielded an axe. Cato swerved to take the blow on his shield and then twisted in his saddle to make a cut at the man’s head. His opponent had swift reactions and blocked with his shield in turn, then backed off. His attention fixed on the Roman officer, he never saw the Thracian coming up behind him, spear lowered, and he lurched forward, off his feet, as the bloodied point burst out of his throat.