Cato felt his guts tighten as he tore his gaze away from the ominous towering masses of rock and strode over towards the auxiliary infantry filing out to each side of the valley. Before the day was out, he would have won the gorge for the army, or his shattered body would be lying with hundreds more of his comrades sprawled across the ground in front of the barricade and the triumphant faces of the enemy beyond.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘First Century! Halt!’ Festinus shouted. The rain had eased to a slight drizzle, and patches of blue sky were starting to appear. Small comfort to the drenched men standing up to their ankles in the churned muddy ground in front of the gorge. The legionaries, formed in a single line, stopped some thirty paces from the barricade, shields to the front as they grasped their javelins in their right hands. The auxiliaries were positioned on the flanks of the line, and from the right, Cato could see that the enemy was watching the fresh Roman advance warily. As the line halted, so their jeering died away as they waited to see what would happen.
‘Ready javelins!’
The legionaries adjusted their grip and drew their throwing arms back. At once, a warning was shouted by one of the warriors, and the cry was quickly repeated as they ducked down behind the rim of the barricade. Cato saw something splash into the mud a short distance in front of the legionaries, then again, and realised that the warriors on top of the crags were trying the range with smaller rocks.
Festinus glanced along the line to ensure that every man of the First Century was ready, then bellowed, ‘Loose javelins!’
The dark shafts rippled into the air as the men grunted from the effort of throwing the heavy missiles. The first volley reached the top of the arc, most of them plunging down on the far side of the barricade. A handful fell short, clattering off the boulders and rocks sheltering the enemy. Cato heard the sound of the impacts: the splintering rattle of iron heads striking shields and the dull thud as flesh was pierced. Festinus, according to his orders to slow the pace of the attack, waited several heartbeats before issuing the follow-up order.
‘Pass javelins to the front!’
The men of the Second Century handed their comrades fresh weapons from the bundles that each man carried. Once the legionaries were ready, Festinus gave the order to prepare the second volley. Once again, those warriors brave enough to show their faces at the barricade dropped out of sight. Cato turned to Corvinus and the twenty Blood Crows of his squadron and waved them forward.
‘Now’s our time, lads. Follow me!’
He set off at a trot towards the scree slope stretching up the side of the valley. On the other flank, Harpex had been watching his commander lead his men forward and now did the same with his squadron, making for the base of the crags to the left of the gorge. As they reached the loose stones, Festinus gave the order for the second volley to be loosed, and a moment later another chorus of impacts echoed off the sides of the gorge.
Cato began to climb, testing his grip on the slippery shifting stones as he hurried on as swiftly as he could. Behind him the auxiliaries scrabbled and cursed with laboured breath. As he reached more stable ground at the top of the scree, he paused and looked up at the jumble of rocks and stunted trees that lay ahead of them. It was going to be a difficult climb up the narrow angle between the crags and the rock-strewn side of the valley, he decided, just as Festinus gave the order to loose another volley. Soon the javelins would run out and the legionaries would have to form testudos to make their attack, and run the gauntlet of plummeting rocks. There was no time to waste. Cato pointed up the steep angle. ‘This way!’
He was quickly forced to go down on his hands and knees as he struggled up the slope, clutching at rocks and scrabbling for toeholds as he heaved himself up. The weight of his armour and the shield hanging from a strap across his shoulder quickly made exhausting work of it, and the cold and wet of earlier was soon not even a memory as sweat poured from his brow and his heart pounded against his ribs.
The Blood Crows had made it halfway to the top of the crags when Cato heard the order to form testudos.
‘Shit . . .’ he muttered. Festinus and the leading three centuries of his cohort were about to advance into the gorge, beneath the cliffs from where the enemy would batter them to pieces well before they could reach the barricade and engage the Deceanglian warriors. Cato renewed his efforts, snatching at handholds ahead of him and hauling himself up. Ahead he could see a narrow ledge, and a short distance beyond that what looked like the top of the crags, outlined against the clearing sky. He barely noticed that the rain had finally stopped and that the water on the surface of the rocks was gleaming in the first rays of the sun.
When he reached the ledge, he slumped down on his haunches, gasping for breath. As he waited for the others to join him, he looked down on the foreshortened ranks of the legionaries and saw the last men joining the testudo formations. There was little sense of rush about them, and a moment later Cato saw the legate ride forward and start gesticulating forcefully at Centurion Festinus. The latter saluted and turned to shout an order, and the three centuries began to tramp forward, the formations looking like scaled beetles as they edged into the gorge.
The first ten of Cato’s men had joined him on the ledge, red-faced and gasping. There was no time to rest them. ‘Come on, lads. One last effort and we’re at the top. Then we’ll cut those bastards down before they can do any more harm.’
He did not wait for a response but rose to his feet and reached for the next handhold. Thanks to the breadth of the ledge, the others could scale the rocks on either side, and they would reach the top in a wave, rather than singly, he realised with relief. Then there was a cracking noise, and a sudden rush of loose earth, and he turned to see one of his men clinging on desperately with one hand while the rock he had dislodged slid on to the ledge, its momentum carrying it further and over the edge. An instant later there was a sharp cry of alarm, cut off, and then a wild cry as one of the Blood Crows was struck and fell away from the cliff, tumbling thirty feet or so through the air before his head smashed into a boulder and his cries were silenced. But even then, their echoes sounded clearly off the sides of the gorge.
‘Keep moving!’ Cato called out to his companions as loudly as he dared, fearful that the man’s fall had attracted the attention of the enemy above them. The Blood Crows realised the danger well enough and struggled up frantically. Cato saw that he was no more than ten feet from the top and felt the lightness of relief fill his guts. Then a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he turned and spotted a fur-clad figure staring down at them, fifty feet away along the crag. The warrior thrust out his arm, at the same time crying out in alarm.
‘They’re on to us!’ one of the auxiliaries called, and the Blood Crows hesitated.
‘Keep going!’ Cato bellowed, all sense of discretion gone now that they had been spotted. ‘Get up! Get up!’
They climbed on desperately as the enemy warrior sprinted across the uneven ground, leaping between the boulders as he drew his sword and charged towards the Romans. He reached the first of the auxiliaries as the Thracian was pulling himself on to the top of the crags. Too late he saw the danger and threw his arm up in an effort to protect himself from the blow. The swordsman’s weapon flashed in the sunlight and there was a deep grunt as the heavy blade cut through flesh, shattered bone and all but severed the limb before the edge bit into the auxiliary’s shoulder, driving the breath from his body, blood spraying from the stump just below his elbow. Beyond the fallen soldier his comrades were scrambling on to the crags, unslipping their shields and drawing their swords before the enemy warrior could turn on them.