Fortress of Spears Read online

  ‘I told you this was the place, Two Knives. They wouldn’t have put men to watch the forest here without a quick route to safety back through their wall.’

  The Roman nodded, whispering his reply.

  ‘And since Qadir put the watchers down silently, we still have the advantage of surprise.’ Behind the barbarian one of the soldiers, his helmet crested front to back to denote his status as a chosen man and the centurion’s deputy, nodded recognition of his officer’s quiet compliment. He finished slinging his bow across his muscular shoulders, and pulled his gladius from its sheath while the centurion pointed to the wooden wall looming over the stump-studded clearing. ‘And the palisade breach is to the left of the hidden doorway?’

  The barbarian nodded confidently.

  ‘Yes, as we discussed. A twenty pace section of the wall from the hidden opening is ready to fall if the retaining bars are removed. And now, with your permission …?’

  He drew a long hunting knife from his belt and reversed its grip so that the silver line of its blade was concealed behind his arm. The Roman officer nodded decisively.

  ‘Quickly and quietly now, Martos. There’ll be plenty of noise soon enough.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Centurion Corvus, for the chance to twist my knife in Calgus’s guts I would go silent for the rest of my days.’

  The barbarian turned to his men, as the shaggy-haired warriors clustered around him.

  ‘There were three of them, one young, one old and one about my age. You, and you, you’re the closest we have to them. With me, and quietly. Any man that makes a noise will have me to reckon with.’

  The three men slipped away, quickly merging with the looming bulk of the timber palisade that had been thrown up around the barbarian camp.

  Calgus, king of the Selgovae people and self-styled ‘Lord of the Northern Tribes’, knew the argument, if it could be deemed worthy of the name, was getting away from him too quickly for there to be any chance of his regaining control of the situation. For a fleeting moment he considered taking his sword to the Venicone chieftain who was so blatantly defying him in his own camp, but the half-dozen hard-faced killers arrayed behind the man, and the heavy war hammer carried over his shoulder, killed the thought before it had time to muster any conviction. He might have been standing inside his own tent, in the middle of thousands of his own people, but these flint-eyed maniacs would tear through his bodyguard and kill him before any of his men were sufficiently awake to react. Drust shook his head vehemently, flicking his hand in a violently dismissive gesture.

  ‘This war of yours is doomed to fail, Calgus, doomed by your own hand, and the Venicone tribe will not stand alongside you while the invaders grind us all into these hills.’ He flicked the hand again, the gesture inches from Calgus’s face. ‘Our part in this war is done. We will fall back to our own lands, and wait for the Romans to decide whether we’re worth the trouble of pursuit.’

  He turned to walk away, and Calgus reached out to take his arm.

  ‘I had thought the Venicone under King Drust had …’

  The Venicone leader spun back at the touch of Calgus’s hand on the sleeve of his rough woollen tunic, his braided red hair whipping about his face with the speed of his reaction. His men froze as he lifted a hand to still their instant response, their eyes burning with the urge to fight, and he leaned in close to his former ally, speaking softly despite his anger.

  ‘You thought there was more to us, perhaps? You wonder that I can walk away from a war not yet finished? There was a time not long distant when I would have agreed with you. I considered you a comrade, Calgus, a man I could stand alongside in the fight to evict the Romans from our soil, but hear me now when I warn you one last time. The next time you lay a finger on me, I will let these animals behind me loose on your bodyguard just to see who comes off best, and you and I will discover which of us is doomed to die at the other’s hand. You thought me stupid, eh, Calgus? You thought I would never hear the rumours of your betrayal of our Votadini brothers after they had triumphed in battle for you, and that you did this because their king disputed your plans one time too many? Perhaps even simply because you could? My men were a cunt-hair from victory in their fight with the Romans at the ford, with more than a thousand heads for the taking, until Martos of the Votadini, a man deliberately betrayed and left for the Romans to slaughter by you, led his warriors into battle against mine at the crucial moment, and turned our victory into bloody defeat in a hundred heartbeats! Apparently even the Romans know better than you how to treat an ally, and while I’ll have no truck with them, neither will I risk your friendship for an hour longer. You have poisoned our own people against us, you fool, and you will pay for that mistake with your own blood, and that of your tribe!’

  Sneering disdainfully, he turned away and ducked through the tent’s doorway, leaving Calgus staring after him. A soft voice spoke from behind him, although there was iron in the words.

  ‘You must stop him, my lord. If he takes his men north we will not have enough strength to defend this place against two legions should the Romans attack.’

  Calgus spun back to face the speaker, glaring with frustration into his seamed face before nodding at the old man resignedly. His adviser was a man of unerring instincts, even if some of his advice had resulted in more difficulty than had at first seemed apparent.

  ‘And what do you propose, Aed? That I should beg our comrade to stay? I’ll not make a fool of myself to no purpose.’

  The old man smiled gently, spreading his hands out.

  ‘No, my lord, I fully agree. Your authority must be maintained at all costs. I was simply about to suggest that you might have something to offer Drust in return for his continued support.’

  Calgus frowned.

  ‘What can I possibly offer the Venicone that would persuade them to stay and fight?’

  ‘Something, my lord, which, since you have possessed it for less than a month, you will never truly miss. Something which you can always take back later, once the Brigantes south of the Wall are freed from under the Roman boot and swell your army to an irresistible size.’

  Calgus nodded slowly as the realisation of Aed’s meaning took effect.

  ‘Yes …’

  He hurried from the tent in the wake of the Venicone chieftain.

  There was a long moment of silence before one of Martos’s men reappeared from the gloom, gesturing the remainder of the raiding party forward. Marcus led his men across the ground between the fallen tree and the wooden wall in a crouching run, finding the gap in the palisade just as Martos had described it to the legions’ senior officers the previous day. The two ends of the wooden wall were overlapped, making the thin gap between them almost invisible.

  ‘Give me ten front-rankers and I could defend that little gap against a fucking legion …’

  Marcus looked over his shoulder to find one of his men standing close behind him; the stark white line that marked his face from the point of his right eyebrow to his jawbone was still visible beneath the mud daubed across his features. While the soldier was hardly one of his more stealthy men, he had point blank refused to allow his centurion to accompany Martos’s warriors to the enemy walls without his being one of the soldiers alongside him. Marcus pulled off his helmet, handing it to the other man.

  ‘Here, Scarface, make yourself useful and take this. I’m going in to find Martos. Get your ropes in place, and be ready to guide the cohort in if I sound the call.’

  The soldier shook his head with resigned disgust.

  ‘If you’re going into that nest of blue-noses with them …’ He tipped his helmeted head to indicate the Votadini tribesman. ‘… then you’d best be looking like one of them.’

  He fished a small bundle out from beneath his mail, handing it to Marcus, who opened it to find a mass of hair spilling out into his hands. He stared down at the object with fascinated disgust.

  ‘This is …’

  ‘It’s clean, I washed the skin in the riv
er only a few days ago. Put it on.’

  Marcus’s skin crawled as he pulled another man’s scalp over his head, allowing the long black hair to settle over his shoulders. Scarface squinted at him in the darkness.

  ‘Your own mother wouldn’t recognise you. Try to bring it back, there’s a soldier in the Sixth Century offered me ten denarii for it.’

  Squeezing between the gap in the palisade with his gladius drawn, Marcus found the barbarians busy dragging the last of the guards into the four-foot-deep ditch that ran around the camp behind the palisade. Martos turned to him with a grin, shaking his head at the sight of a Roman officer with another man’s hair draped across his head.

  ‘It suits you. Perhaps you should have been born north of the frontier.’

  Marcus slid his gladius back into its scabbard and covered the sword’s gold-and-silver eagle’s-head pommel with his cloak.

  ‘The palisade is as you expected?’

  The barbarian nodded.

  ‘Yes. I told you there were pre-prepared exits on all four sides of the camp, and I remembered the location of this one perfectly. Twenty paces of the wall with the logs chopped almost clean away at their bases, the whole section braced into one solid section and then locked in place with wooden beams to stop it falling over if some idiot leans against it. We’ve taken down the bracing beams that hold the whole thing to the wall on either side, so all your men have to do is give their ropes a solid pull and the whole section will fall and make a nice handy ramp into the camp. And now, if you’re ready, for Calgus.’

  Marcus nodded, looking about him at the sleeping barbarian camp. In the pre-dawn gloom the tribe’s tents receded into the darkness, the occasional fire kept burning to provide a quick source of flame.

  ‘There will be men awake, even at this time.’

  Martos nodded.

  ‘Yes, it’s certain. They know that the legions are camped on the plain close by, and that they may attack at any time, perhaps even today. Some men will sleep like dogs; others will lie awake for fear of the morning. But we will walk with confidence to Calgus’s tent, and the men that are awake will see what they expect to see, their own people going about their leader’s orders. Come.’

  The half-dozen barbarians gathered around the Roman officer, following Martos’s lead as he strode confidently into the heart of the slumbering enemy camp. They walked for a minute or so, angling to the left and climbing the slope away from the safety of the palisade, until Martos raised a hand to halt them. He looked around him and then ducked into the cover of a large tent, gathering his men to him with a gesture and whispering so quietly as to be almost inaudible.

  ‘This is Calgus’s tent. There will be guards at the entrance, so once we’re inside I want silence until we have everyone inside either dead or gagged. And Calgus is mine.’

  He looked around the group to ensure that he was perfectly understood, then dug the point of his knife’s blade into the tent’s side and drew it swiftly downwards, opening a long slit in the rough canvas wall. Marcus stepped in through the hole first with his gladius drawn, finding the tent’s spacious interior dimly lit by a pair of oil lamps. The sole occupant, a stooped figure, stood with his back to him, and he bounded forward with two quick paces to wrap his arm around the man’s mouth and jaw, muffling any cry for help with the fabric of his cloak and the armour that clad his sleeve beneath the rough wool.

  ‘Guard the door, and keep that slit held tight.’

  The two warriors moved quickly at Martos’s whispered command, temporarily securing the tent against chance discovery, and their chieftain stalked around the captive until he came into the old man’s field of view. Marcus felt him shrink away from the Votadini prince’s harsh stare, and tightened his grip against any attempt to raise the alarm, but felt only capitulation in the way the old man held tightly against him pressed back in a futile effort to escape the nightmare unfolding in front of him. Martos lifted his knife to the old man’s face, tapping a sunken cheek with the point.

  ‘Aed. Not what I’d hoped for, but a fair start. I came seeking your master, but instead I have the sour, shrunken old fuck that drips his poison into Calgus’s mind. Doubtless it was your idea that my warband be abandoned in the path of the Roman cavalry after the fight for White Strength, led into their path to be chopped to pieces, in revenge for the massacre of their cohort. And why? To get me out of the way, so that Calgus would be free to murder my uncle and take control of our kingdom.’ He put the knife’s point under the old man’s chin, digging the sharp iron up into the sagging flesh until a thin runnel of blood ran down Aed’s neck and into the folds of his robe. ‘And now, thanks to you, I am a prince without his people. My family are either dead, or suffering so badly that I could wish them dead. So let’s not bother with any of the usual denials, because if you don’t answer me quick and straight I’ll slice you open and pull your guts out for you to carry around for a while. Calgus. Where is he?’

  Drust laughed in Calgus’s face for a second time, his eyes bright with amusement.

  ‘You offer me the Votadini’s land, Calgus? You might as well offer me the moon, for all the cost to you, and for all the chance that I might be able to keep the ground you offer, even if I were minded to accept. If I wanted the Votadini’s land I would have taken it long since, you fool.’ He turned back to his men, pointing to the northern face of the camp’s protective palisade. ‘We need to be away from here before full dawn. You, take a message up the hill. The fence is to be opened, and our people ready to run north.’ Turning back to face Calgus, he put both hands on his hips.

  ‘The Votadini are nothing more than the Romans’ lapdogs, Calgus. Their royal women drip with jewellery made in the south, and their men wear swords with keener edges than would be the case if they were locally forged. If we occupy the Dinpaladyr we’ll have less than a month before a legion marches up, batters down the ‘fortress of the spears’ walls with their catapults and puts us all to the sword. The Romans like their trade with the Votadini, and through them with the rest of you fools, and they won’t be abandoning that easy money without a fight. So no, Calgus, you took the Votadini’s land and now you can defend it, or else run and hide when they kick down your gate and come looking for their revenge on you. I can run now, away to the safety of my own land behind their old north wall, and they will leave me well alone if they know what’s good for them. They might even pay me tribute to keep me behind my walls and out of the fight. But you, Calgus, you have ruined their forts and slaughtered their soldiers. You could run to the ends of the world and they would still never stop hunting you. So if I were you I’d …’

  His eyes suddenly narrowed at the sound of shouting from over Calgus’s shoulder. Another voice joined the first, and a sudden scream of agony rent the air. Drust turned and roared at the men gathered about him.

  ‘Get that fucking fence open! It’s time to leave!’

  The first Selgovae warrior through the tent door died silently, his throat torn open by a hunting knife wielded by the Votadini he’d knocked aside in his haste to enter the tent. He staggered three paces into the tent’s half-light, with his lifeblood pumping down his chest and his bowels noisily emptying into his rough woollen trousers before he pitched full length to the pale turf.

  ‘Lord Calgus! There are Romans in the …’

  The second man was still only halfway through the flap doof shouting wildly that the alarm was raised, when the first warrior’s killer backhanded the short blade into his belly and ripped it out through his side, spilling the slippery rope of his guts and wrenching a grunted scream of pain from his contorted mouth as he fell to his knees. Martos shrugged into the old man’s white face.

  ‘Time to leave. Release him, Marcus.’

  Aed barely had time to register the sudden cool air on his face as the Roman stepped back, lifting his arm away and pushing him on to Martos’s knife before a sudden burning pain ripped into his body. Looking down in horror, he saw the weapon’s blade protruding
from his belly in Martos’s expert hand, staggering in sudden shock as the Votadini prince pulled the weapon down into his lower abdomen before twisting it savagely and pulling it free, wiping the bloody iron on his robe. A rush of warm blood gushed from the wound, filling the air with its metallic stink, underlaid by the smell of excrement, and the old man dropped to his knees and bent double with the excruciating agony of his wound.

  ‘Die hard, Aed. Hard, and slowly.’

  He gestured to the hole in the tent’s rear, stooping to pick up a small wooden box that rested at the foot of Calgus’s bedroll and lifting the lid to peer inside, then angled the casket to show Marcus the contents.

  ‘I should have known. Nothing but paper. I suppose Calgus’s private letters might be of some value, if only to give your tribune something to read once the fighting’s over …’

  He tossed the chest to one of his men, and the small group stepped out into the dawn’s pale light through the rent in the tent’s back wall, Marcus quickly taking stock of their situation in the sure knowledge that if the presence of a Roman officer in the enemy’s camp became known they would be beset from all sides in seconds. All about them warriors were crawling from their tents and reaching for their weapons, not yet aware of the interlopers in their midst, but only seconds from making that discovery.

  ‘There’s no time for slow and quiet now! Follow me!’

  He drew his gladius and set off at a dead run down the path between the tents, sprinting towards the palisade where his men were waiting, Martos and his warriors close on his heels. The crude wig that had masked the Roman’s features fell away and revealed his short cropped black hair, and a tribesman blinking away sleep in his path gaped in amazement, throwing his head back to shout a warning as Marcus’s gladius ripped open his throat before one of Martos’s warriors shoulder-charged him into the side of another tent without breaking stride. A chorus of shouts was following them now, alerting the men in front of them even if the cause of the uproar was still unclear. Bleary-eyed tribesmen turned to crane their necks, instinctively reaching for weapons as they sought the source of the commotion.