Jack Whyte - The Singing Sword

Picus's horse bridled and jigged nervously, jostling mine, which reared, almost unseating me. I pulled him back down savagely. Vegetius looked at both horses.

"One more thing. I don't sleep well at night. I often walk outside alone when everyone else is asleep, and I've noticed that if a fox barks or an owl hoots up on those hills to the east where you are going, it sounds as though he's just beyond the buildings. I don't know why it should be so, but sound really travels from up there, so be careful."

"Thanks for the warning," Picus said. "We will take care to make no noise."

"Nobody would hear us tonight, anyway," I said, and I immediately wanted to bite my tongue out.

"No," said Vegetius, his face expressionless. "The sounds of the burning should cover everything, but there's no point in taking chances."

"No, you're right. We'll take none." I felt awful, mentally cursing my big mouth. "Vegetius, I wish there were something I could say or do about this."

"What could you say? What's to be done, Varrus? What could you do to change anything?" He smiled bitterly, his face ghostly in the moonlight. "What could I have done, even if I had been at home? I would be dead now, with my family. At least this way, I'll have some vengeance."

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder and then I turned to Picus. "We'd better be going."

"Yes, you're right. Sulla, my friend, there is nothing I can say to ease your pain, but we can offer retribution, for what it is worth, on the heads of your enemies. Farewell."

I passed the word back through the ranks and we moved out. Within a quarter mile we found the farm track and followed it until we reached the fork. There we swung to the south, following the wheel ruts in the chalky ground until we began to climb. As we rode higher the wind died away. Picus stopped me and signalled to one of his men who rode directly behind us. The man came up to where we waited.

"General?"

"The wind is gone. It was blowing from our right, taking our noise away from the enemy. Any minute now, we are going to start smelling smoke from the burning buildings. It won't be pleasant. Pass the word back to bind the horses' nostrils. We don't want to wake anyone below with the noise of their whinnying. And tell the men to take it slowly. I want no noise, is that clear?"

"Yes, General."

"Good. Then make sure it is equally clear to everyone you tell it to, and tell it to everyone!"

We started moving again, riding two abreast, slowly enough that our horses took the gradient easily. I had bound a kerchief over Germanicus's muzzle and Picus had bound his mount's with a scarf. We rode in silence until Picus spoke in a low voice.

"My heart cries out for poor Sulla. It must be purgatory to wait as he does, within two short miles of home, not knowing if your loved ones are alive or dead."

"Aye," I responded. "I don't know if I could bear up as stoically as he under the same circumstances. It's ripping me up inside just trying to imagine it. God only knows what he's going through, knowing that it's real."

We rode on again in silence for a distance, and again it was Picus who spoke.

"Where do you think they came from, Varrus?"

"I've been racking my brains on that one. They have to have come up from the south."

"But that's what? Thirty miles? Forty?"

"Easily. Perhaps more."

"Inland, Varrus? It doesn't make sense. Why so far? On almost any other stretch of coast on the island, they'd have come across a town or a village within twenty miles. Their leader must have iron balls. Forty miles into hostile territory is a lot of risk."

"They may not be from the sea."

He jerked his head around to look at me. "What do you mean?"

"They could be outlaws."

"Rebels? Where from, in God's name?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea, Picus, but I know there are small groups of outlaws around. I ran foul of one group the first time I came out to your father's villa, before it became the Colony. That was a long time ago. Perhaps they are growing stronger, organizing themselves."

"But where would they come from?"

"Where do desperate men ever come from? They might be deserters. They could be farmers who have lost their farms, or villagers whose own homes have been destroyed — who knows?"

"By the living Christ! If these are deserters I'll crucify every one of them, living or dead!"

"Then again, they might have come down from the north-west, through the hills from the estuary, but that's even more unlikely. That's Ullic's territory, and his people watch those shorelines like eagles. I just can't imagine them getting through Ullic's country unseen, even though much of it is brush and heavy woodland."

"Well, we'll know in a couple of hours."

We had reached the pasture at the top of the hill and we could see the burning ruins quite plainly now in the valley below us. We looked down at the smoke-wreathed scene in grim silence.

"Sulla said to hold to the right and follow the line of the trees." Picus pulled his mount around and led us downhill until the tree line loomed up out of the darkness ahead of us, blocking the burning farm from our view. The smoke was heavy now, oily and sour-smelling. As we rode on along the line of trees, each man among us began to prepare himself for what lay ahead of us. We were coming very close now to battle.

Less than an hour later we rounded the end of the trees and found ourselves in open fields. We had ridden clear of the drifting smoke some time previously and the glowing buildings now lay to our right. Picus led us out into the open until we were directly abreast of the burning villa, where he signalled a halt and summoned his man again.

"Tell the men to dismount and stretch their legs. Water the horses. It will be dawn in less than an hour. That will be when we attack. I want no sound before then. Nothing. No talking. These people may have sentries out, so we can take no chances. Clear? Spread the word and then come back to me."

The man's silver wristlet slapped against his breastplate in salute. "Yes, General!"

"Fine. Next time, salute me quietly."

"Yes, General."

As soon as the man had gone, Picus swung his leg over his horse's head and dropped to the ground. I did the same, but backwards, taking my good leg over Germanicus's rump and holding his mane, favouring my bad leg as I lowered myself, rather than dropped, to the ground. It was good to be off his back. My buttocks ached.

"We have a hundred and fourteen men, counting ourselves, Varrus. How do we use them best?"

"Any way you want to." I was pleased to see that he, too, was kneading his buttocks. "But we have open ground ahead of us and a two-mile advance to the villa. I think we should make the most of our numbers, letting them see how many of us there are. It should scare them to death before we ever reach them. Our objective is to run them into the infantry. I suggest that we attack either in two lines of sixty or in three lines of forty. Three lines might be better. Ten paces between each two men and the same distance between each two lines. That way, to anyone seeing us coming, it'll look as though there are hundreds of us."

"I think you're right. That's the tactic we talked about last time I visited the Colony. I've had my men working on it, but we've never tested it."

"Neither have we. But it should work. There's enough room."

"So, three lines converging into three arrowheads. Can your men do this?"

I smiled at him. "Can crows fly?"

"Who will lead the third line?"

"Bassus. He's my strongest leader."

"Let's get him up here."

Within the quarter-hour we were ready, instructions having been passed among the men. This was a brand-new tactic designed one cold winter night by Picus, Titus Harmen and myself, expressly for situations like this one: open ground, room to manoeuvre, surprise on our side and an enemy who had never encountered cavalry before.