Адриан Голдсуорти - The Encircling Sea

Yet they came again, the wall less of an obstacle because they were now standing on the corpses of their comrades. They grabbed a spear and hauled one of the Batavians over the edge. Ferox heard the screams as the soldier was slashed again and again. His comrades threw their own spears down into the mass, wounding two, but leaving them with a shorter reach. Behind the leaders, the pirates who had been throwing javelins ran forward, leaping into the packed ditch. Men were lifted or jumped onto the rampart, and another of the soldiers reeled away, slashed across the face. Longinus jumped back to avoid a spear and the first of the pirates was across. The one-eyed veteran killed him, but in that time two more were up and the rest swarming behind them. Ferox had run to the entrance and saw the crisis.

‘Go!’ He shouted to Vindex.

Falx saved them. He bellowed in rage, punching with his shield and knocking one of the enemy off the causeway and into the water. He slashed with his gladius and beheaded a second pirate, the blood jetting up like a fountain from the severed neck. Then he dropped sword and shield and ran at the barricade, grabbing one of the enemy, lifting him high and hurling him back into the mass. Longinus killed another, the remaining Batavian pushed a pirate into the water and then slashed down with his sword, cutting through helmet and into his skull. It was over before Vindex and his men arrived.

‘I read somewhere that Spartacus used corpses to fill in a ditch and let his army cross,’ Ovidius said, appearing behind Ferox. ‘Do not worry,’ he added, seeing the centurion’s expression. ‘I have nothing to report from our high eyrie, and I needed to stretch my legs. Glad to get away from Genialis as well. The boy treats all this like something from the arena.’

‘Why are you here, my lord?’ Ferox could not help asking the question.

Ovidius smiled. ‘Back to philosophy. Well, centurion and prince of the Silures, I am here because I have spent most of my life reading about the world. My wife died decades ago bearing our daughter who outlived her by barely a day, and I have never had the inclination to take another and risk the same pain. I am rich enough, comfortable enough, and if I chose could live on in this wealth and luxury for my remaining years, and I would do all that, never having seen the world. This is the wide world.’

‘Not the safest place.’

‘What does it matter? Apart from that I have confidence in you. And in the gods’ and goddesses’ sense of humour.’

‘Anything in your books that would tell us how to make some special weapon to save us, my lord?’

‘Sorry, centurion, I dozed off on that page.’ Ferox was about to go back out when the poet plucked at his arm. He was obviously struggling to raise something. ‘I was wondering,’ he said at last, ‘what you think will happen to the hostages if we are overrun? It seems unlikely that they would spare anyone. Except young Genialis. Should we let the others – and indeed ourselves – be captured if the worst comes to the worst? I do not like to think of the Lady Sulpicia in their hands.’

‘No,’ Ferox agreed. ‘It’s best not to think about it.’

Longinus and the others limped back, and Ferox went over to Falx to take a look at his head wound. The gladiator said nothing, but that was not unusual, and sat on the stool while Ferox cleaned and bound up the wound. Professional fighters were used to being fussed over by others.

‘Do you have your freedom?’ Ferox asked after he had finished.

The small eyes looked at him suspiciously for a while. ‘The promise,’ he grunted after a while, and jerked his head out of the entrance towards the barricade where his master now stood.

Perhaps it was the sight of Probus, but a howl of rage came from the pirates and a new attack surged forward sooner than Ferox had expected. This time there was little organisation, but a couple of dozen warriors ran across the causeway and started scampering up the mound of corpses.

‘Come up if we look like breaking,’ Ferox shouted to Longinus, who nodded wearily. ‘You three stay here,’ he added, turning to Segovax and the Batavians. Then he ran towards the barricade.

The spears held them for a moment. Vindex put a man down with a thrust to the throat, Probus drove his spear through an upraised shield and into the arm of the man carrying it. He could not free the spearhead so let it go. One of the scouts stabbed forward, gouging along a pirate’s sword arm, but another of them grabbed the shaft and the Brigantian let it go rather than be pulled over. Another of the black-clad warriors bounded up the backs of his comrades and leaped onto the barricade. He had no shield, but cut with his sword and struck the scout in the neck, just above his armour. The man staggered back, clutching at the wound to staunch the flow of blood, and the pirate jumped down in his place. Brigita threw her spear at a warrior following him, hitting him in the groin, so that he shrieked and fell backwards. The man over the barrier hacked at the wounded scout, cutting off his arm below the elbow, and then barged him aside so that he fell into the lake. Another of the scouts took a spear in the face as he tried to close the gap. Vindex and Probus were fencing with opponents over the barricade, while the other scout tried to keep back two men who had waded through the water on the right-hand side.

The black-clad warrior was a big man, tall and rangy, and he went for the queen, who stood in his path. She brought her shield forward, but he was stronger and his left hand yanked it aside as his sword went up ready to cut down with a ferocious power that no helmet or armour would stop. Then he froze, gasping and coughing because Brigita’s right arm had shot forward and the tip of her gladius punched through his windpipe and throat so that it came out the other side. Ferox had hardly seen her move. Blood from the dying man sprayed across her face and armour.

Probus had lost his helmet and one of his cheeks was slashed, but he had put down his opponent. The scout had wounded one of the men in the water with a javelin, and his comrade helped him wade back to the shore. Vindex still had his spear and finished another of them, and they were going back. Both sides were struggling for breath.

‘That was a good stroke, lady,’ Ferox said.

The queen sheathed her sword, and then wiped her hand through the blood spattered across her face. ‘He had no skill,’ she said, as if it were nothing, and walked up to join them at the barricade.

Sometimes a man knew how a fight was going not by anything he could see but simply how he felt. The last repulse had taken the first heart out of the Harii and the rest, and Ferox knew that it would be a while before they came back. Cniva and the others had ridden away. There were a dozen or so men dotted around as sentries, none of them closer than fifty paces to the shore.

‘Aye,’ Vindex agreed. ‘They’ll give us a break for a while. Probably don’t realise how much they have hurt us.’ That was just as well. Five men were dead or badly wounded, and a few of the rest had wounds even if they could carry on. Nearly all the spears were broken or gone, and it would be harder to hold the barricade with swords. There were a few javelins, thrown by the enemy and still in good enough shape to use, but they had slim shafts and were not designed to be thrust.

‘Come on,’ Ferox said to the lean Brigantian. ‘Give me a hand and clear them away.’ He vaulted over the barricade, landing unsteadily on the enemy dead. Vindex followed and they began to lift the corpses and tip them into the lake. Ferox would have preferred to put them on the shore, but he doubted the pirates would let them. He just had to hope that the water nearer the tower would not be poisoned by the dead bodies.