The Wolf's Gold (18 page)

The remaining soldiers slung their spears over the heads of the kneeling front rankers, shivering the advancing line of Sarmatae again with a second barrage of sharp-edged iron, then closed up to their comrades, ready to fight.

‘Swords!’

With a rustle of blades on scabbard throats the soldiers drew their swords, setting themselves to receive the enemy assault with feet planted and shields raised. Hundreds of the barbarians lay dead and wounded on the ground before them, but the mass of the enemy was still far stronger in numbers than the perilously thin line of defenders. Roaring their rage at the Romans the Sarmatae stormed past and over their dying comrades, hurling themselves onto the defenders’ shields with howls intended to chill their blood as they battered and tore at the Tungrian line.

‘What do we do now?’

Marcus looked down at his spatha’s patterned blade for a moment before answering Sigilis’s question, pulling the eagle-pommelled gladius from its place on his other hip as he spoke.

‘Now, Tribune, we stand and wait to see if our plan succeeds. The archers will keep shooting into the enemy rear until they’ve run through their arrows, and my men know very well that they must either stand fast or die here.’

‘Should we perhaps pray to Mars for victory?’

Marcus nodded, raising the spatha to show Sigilis the finely carved intaglio of Mithras stabbing the sacred bull, which he had paid a priest to attach to the sword’s pommel with fine gold wire during the cohorts’ long journey down the river Danubius. The engraved oval of amethyst was a dull purple in the early morning light.

‘If it will help you, Tribune, then yes, indeed you should pray to your god. As you can see, I give my faith to Mithras to strengthen my sword arm, but divine help from any of the gods you care to mention would be very welcome about now.’

He turned away, waving his sword at the reserve century under Centurion Caelius, who were waiting at the slope’s crest behind the Thracians. Caelius waved back, shouting the order for his men to march around the archers and make their way down the slope. The Sarmatae numbers were already starting to tell, pushing the Tungrians back up the slope towards the archers. The Tungrians were still butchering the barbarian warriors whenever the soldiers could bring their swords to bear, but were nevertheless slowly but surely losing the fight as the Sarmatae inexorably drove them off their ground by sheer crush of numbers. The air was filled with the hum of arrows as the Thracians launched volleys of arrows over the top of the soldiers’ helmets and into the enemy’s tightly packed throng, but the missiles seemed to be no more than an irritant to the enraged tribesmen. Caelius’s century dived into the battle, adding their weight to the centre of the Tungrian line, but their additional muscle seemed to have almost no impact on the struggle. Marcus shook his head at the sight of the reinforcements’ booted feet churning the soft ground as they too were pushed back by the crush of the enemy, realising that his command was all but doomed.

‘They don’t even have to kill us. All they have to do is push us back another hundred paces and it’s all over. Once we don’t have the slope to help hold them back they’ll force us over the crest without any trouble at all, and then they’ll break the line and hunt us down individually.’

Marcus looked back, hoping for any sign that his message to Tribune Scaurus had born fruit, but he knew the runner would barely have reached the valley floor. Sigilis stepped forward with a clenched fist.

‘Surely we can’t just let this scum push us off the field? What can we do? There must be something . . .’

Marcus looked levelly at the young tribune and shook his head slowly, but it was Arminius who spoke first, his face hard.

‘What can we do? Nothing, except fight and die like men when the time comes. Are you ready to fight and die, Lugos?’

The huge Briton standing beside him grunted, hefting his hammer and staring at the warriors raving against the Tungrian shields.

‘Lugos ready. I send many warriors before me.’

A shout from the archers on the ridgeline one hundred paces behind them caught Marcus’s attention, and he craned his neck to peer over his men’s shields at whatever it was their centurion was indicating with his pointing hand. Realising what it was that the Thracian officer was trying to tell him, his shoulders slumped momentarily as the enormity of their predicament became clear.

‘Holy Mithras above, there are
more
of them!’

More men were emerging from the trees behind the first wave, at least a thousand well-armed men in full armour and wearing metal skullcaps in the Sarmatae fashion, some wielding bows, other armed with axes and long spears. Marcus shook his head grimly at Sigilis again, raising his swords ready to fight.

‘Well if ever there was a time for that prayer, Tribune, this is it.’

4

The detachment’s senior officers watched from the top of the turf wall as the Sarmatae cavalry cantered across the defensive line’s frontage in a straggling mass of horsemen. They were showing no sign of any eagerness to mount an attack beyond the occasional speculative bowshots whose arrows fell dozens of paces short of the wall. Tribune Belletor raised an imperious eyebrow as he stared out across the space that the soldiers had cleared of all vegetation for a distance of several hundred paces.

‘Well they certainly don’t seem to be in any hurry to come in and get us. I thought these barbarians were fearless animals, but all I see here is fear and uncertainty. Perhaps this is going to be easier than you expected, eh colleague?’

Scaurus nodded his agreement, staring out at the motionless infantry waiting well out of bowshot as their masters rode up and down the wall’s length in a compact mass of riders.

‘It certainly doesn’t fit with the behaviour I’m used to. In the German Wars these men would have been fighting to get over the wall since an hour before dawn.’

His colleague shrugged, huddling deeper into his cloak.

‘Perhaps these barbarians are a little more concerned for their own skins than the men you fought in Germania? It looks to me as if they’re looking for a weakness in our defences.’

Scaurus snorted his laughter.

‘Well if that’s the case, they’re unlikely to find any. We’ve had too long to get this place ready. But that still doesn’t ring true for me . . .’

The ground in front of the wall was sodden, saturated with water drained from the lake high on the Ravenstone’s eastern wall and carefully channelled down a stream bed carved into the valley’s long slope by Sergius’s legionaries, then carried under the wall by pipes set in position before the first turfs had been laid. Archers waited with nocked arrows along the defence’s entire length, each of them flanked by a pair of Tungrians ready to repel any attempt to climb the earth defence. The valley’s sides to either side of the wall were defended by forests of wooden stakes backed by Belletor’s legionaries, and the watching Romans could well understand why the Sarmatae commander was loath to commit his men forward into the teeth of such a formidable defence. Julius watched for a moment longer as the horsemen wheeled and rode down the wall’s length again, still careful to stay beyond the reach of the defenders’ bows. He frowned, tilting his head to one side in puzzlement.

‘Something isn’t quite adding up here.’

His tribune raised an eyebrow, while Belletor stared morosely out at the wheeling horsemen.

‘What’s troubling you, First Spear?’

The big man stepped forward, pointing out at the warriors waiting patiently behind the line along which the Sarmatae cavalry were cantering up and down.

‘A discrepancy, Tribune. Centurion Corvus estimated that four thousand infantrymen passed his position yesterday. How many infantry can you see?’

Scaurus fell silent for a moment, scanning the men waiting in silence on the valley’s sloping floor.

‘Not many. A thousand?’

‘Exactly. There ought to be more of them. And if they’re not here . . .’

‘Then where are they?’

The two men looked at each other for a moment before Scaurus nodded decisively, turning for the steps cut into the wall’s rear and ignoring Belletor’s incredulous gaze.

‘Well spotted, Julius! You stay here with Tribune Belletor in case they decide to become a little more aggressive. I’ll take the reserve centuries, and with a bit of luck it won’t be too late!’

He hurried across to the remaining four centuries of the Tungrians’ First Cohort who were waiting fifty paces behind the wall under the command of Dubnus, ready to be used as reinforcements in the event of a serious threat to any section of the defence. Before he had time to explain his fears as to the suspiciously small Sarmatae force facing them, a single soldier ran breathlessly up to him and panted out his message. Scaurus listened for a moment before pointing up at the Saddle, his voice taut with urgency as he addressed the centurions.

‘It’s as I feared. The enemy have turned what we took for a diversionary attack into their main thrust. They’ve left enough men down here in the valley to avert our suspicions while their infantry deliver the decisive blow. We have to get up there and reinforce our comrades, before they’re thrown down into the valley with a mob of blood crazed barbarians at their heels.’

The Tungrians followed him up the hill as fast as they were able to climb the steep slope in their heavy armour, hearing the sounds of battle swelling above them as they approached the crest. Scaurus stopped just short of the top, panting for breath and pointing to the ground before him.

‘Form up and prepare to fight!’

He led the soldiers up the slope’s last fifty paces in a double line of battle with his heart pounding, knowing that they might well be marching into a fight that was already lost, but found himself gaping in amazement as the scene unfolded before his eyes. The Tungrians were holding their ground by the slightest of margins given the strength arrayed against them, and for a moment the tribune’s eyes narrowed in disbelief until he realised what it was that his first glance across the scene had missed. While the Sarmatae closest to them continued their assault on the Roman line, the men to their rear were themselves under attack by a mass of warriors whose rearmost men were still emerging from the forest, throwing themselves into the attack in a manner quite different from the ordered advance in line that would have typified a Roman assault. Snapping out of his momentary amazement, he pointed down at the beleaguered Tungrian line and shouted a command that his centurions swiftly echoed with their own shouts.

‘Reinforce the line!’

His men hurried forward, calling encouragement to their comrades as they joined the embattled line and pushed past the exhausted front rankers, pulling men out of the fight and stepping swiftly in to confront the bloodied tribesmen with fresh determination. Along the Sarmatae line the barbarians recoiled in shock as the unblooded Tungrians tore into them with furious purpose, spears stabbing out over their shields to reap a fresh harvest from the exhausted men facing them. Marcus walked stiff-legged with fatigue away from the line with both of his swords bloodied and his armour sprayed black with the gore of the men he had killed, Arminius and Lugos at his shoulders. He pushed the patterned spatha into the soft turf and saluted his tribune wearily.

‘That was well timed, sir; we were all about ready to drop.’

Scaurus looked past him.

‘Where’s Sigilis?’

The young centurion hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘In there. He insisted on taking his turn in the front rank.’

Scaurus nodded meaningfully at Arminius, and the big German stepped into the crush, pulling the junior tribune out of the fray by the neck of his bronze chest plate. Breathing heavily, Sigilis dropped the shield he had taken from a wounded man and leaned on his sword, looking up at Scaurus from beneath the brow of his helmet as the older man nodded his head and smiled.

‘Well met, Tribune Sigilis, and indeed well done for showing these men how a Roman gentleman takes his share of the fighting, but I think you can be indulged with a moment’s rest, eh?’

Sigilis nodded blankly, looking down at his sword arm as if only just noticing the blood that painted it dark red all the way to his elbow. His knees started to buckle as his legs shook with delayed reaction to the shock of the fight, but Arminius shot out a muscular arm and held him upright with a hand wrapped around his bicep. Scaurus turned back to Marcus.

‘That was a closer run than you’d have liked, I expect, Centurion?’

Marcus nodded, his eyes still fixed on the newcomers who were forming the other half of the trap that was closing with slow but irresistible power about the embattled Sarmatae.

‘Without them we would have been broken before you reached us. Who are they?’

Scaurus shook his head soberly.

‘I have absolutely no idea, Centurion, but whoever they may be, they’ve probably saved this entire valley. And now, if you’ll permit me, I think it’s time we finished this fight and took some heads to mount over our battlements.’

Marcus nodded, and the two men stepped back up to the rear of the Tungrian line, now three men deep and holding its own with relative ease. Scaurus raised his voice to the parade-ground roar that always came as a surprise when heard for the first time, given the urbanity with which he usually spoke.

‘Tungrians, we have them by the balls! Now we finish them!’

An arrow flew past the tribune’s head close enough for both men to hear the breathy whistle of its passing, but neither of them flinched as the rear rank’s eyes turned to them.

‘Front ranks, with your spears, ready!’

A cheer resounded along the line’s length, as the fresh replacement soldiers readied themselves for what they knew was coming.

‘Rear ranks, with all your strength,
push
!’

The Roman line ground forward, the remorseless pressure of their shields pinning the warriors facing them against the mass of men trapped helplessly behind them, lifting some of the Sarmatae off their feet and rendering them all but powerless as the sheer crush prevented them from wielding their swords. The fresh Tungrian front rankers went to work with their spears again, stabbing repeatedly at the men three and four ranks back in the warband, plunging their iron blades deep into throats and chests before ripping them free to strike again. Marcus looked to Sigilis, who was watching the slaughter with a sick expression, and waved a hand at the battle’s bloody mayhem.