At the instruction, the men reached their hands up to their saddle horns and braced their feet.
‘First squadron . . . mount.’
There was a series of grunts as the men drew themselves up and on to the saddles before swinging their right legs over and sitting up straight and steadying their horses.
‘Form a line on me.’
The standard-bearer moved alongside the decurion, and the rest of the men took up position to his side, stretching away into the mist. Their shields hung across their backs but their spears had been left in camp, as they would be encumbered by their scaling equipment. Several had ladders, some twelve feet in height, tucked under their sword arms. Cato edged Hannibal into place beside Miro, and then all was still along the line, save for the occasional snorts of the horses, the flicker of tails and the twitching of their dagger-like ears.
The darkness began to recede from the horizon and a thin smear of pale light edged into the sky, the details of the surrounding landscape gradually emerging from the gloom. Cato could see the rest of the cohort and the dismounted men behind them, shields grounded, spear shafts resting on shoulders as they worked their hands together to keep their fingers from going numb. Some stamped their feet, and warm breath flickered briefly, like grey feathers, and vanished. Twisting in his saddle, he saw Festinus at the head of his cohort, heavily armoured men standing in silent formations beside their large rectangular shields. He felt his heart begin to beat quicker as his ears strained, waiting for the first strident note that would sound the attack. Despite the cold, his palms felt clammy and his throat was parched. There was no sound of life from the enemy settlement, but it was hard to tell above the tiny ripple of noises along the Roman line and the steady thud of blood pulsing through his skull. He felt an urge to edge his mount forward to the edge of the dip in which the vanguard was concealed, just to be certain that nothing was amiss. But he forced himself to resist. It was too late now. The plan was made, and the signal would be given at any moment. All that remained was to brace himself to charge, and hurl himself on the enemy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Even though he was expecting the signal, the distant blast of the bucinas of the army’s headquarters detachment caused Cato to lurch slightly in his saddle. At once, the nearest men looked to him in anticipation. He snatched a deep breath as he thrust his arm up and called out, ‘Vanguard! Forwards!’
He kicked his heels in, and Hannibal lurched forward, breaking into a canter up the rise and out of the thin skein of mist on to the open ground facing the enemy’s ramparts less than half a mile away. To his left came Miro and his squadron, and then the rest of the Blood Crows, horses’ hooves drumming across the white-frosted grass. Some of the men shouted their war cries, in defiance of their orders to keep silent, and Cato trusted that their officers would take them to task for that later on. This was no wild charge, laden down as they were with ladders and coils of rope and grappling irons, but every man knew that the speed of the attack was the surest guarantee of incurring as few casualties as possible.
Cato leaned forward and urged his mount on, his eyes fixed on the enemy lookouts, waiting for them to sound the alarm, inaudible as it would be above the din of hooves pounding over the iron-hard ground. But his ears did pick out the sound of more Roman trumpets as the headquarters signal was repeated by the other units of the army surrounding the Deceanglian capital. This too was part of the plan, to confuse the enemy about the direction of the attack and hopefully give Cato and his men a chance to carry out their task before the enemy could oppose them in strength. He glanced quickly over his shoulder and saw the first of the legionaries emerge from the misty hollow and strike out towards the gatehouse at a steady trot. The tension of waiting had gone. They were committed now. Victory and glory awaited them, or defeat and death. But all thought of the outcome was shredded by the sheer exhilaration of the attack, and Cato’s lips tightened into a fierce grin as he raced forward.
The enemy lookouts on the ramparts and gatehouse stood their ground implacably, but if the alarm had been raised, their comrades were slow to react, Cato thought, as he rapidly closed the distance to the outer ditch. As he approached, he reined in to allow the rest of his men to catch up. The first riders stopped at the edge of the ditch and dropped from their mounts, leaving one man in five to hold the reins for his comrades. Carrying their ladders and grapples, the men half ran, half slid down the steep outer slope, leaving furrows in the frosted grass. Cato remained in the saddle and rode along the rampart towards the bridge leading over the ditch to the gatehouse. Above him in the thin dawn light he could make out the dark figures of two native warriors. Turning in his saddle, he saw that the auxiliaries on foot were closing up. Some distance behind them trotted the legionaries, a rippling wave of shields and polished helmets. At the rear came the men carrying the ram.
Slipping down from the saddle, Cato steered clear of the bridge, where he would present a clear target for the enemy, and instead scrambled down into the ditch, narrowly avoiding one of the sharpened stakes set at an angle designed to impale a careless attacker. The reverse slope was steeper and presented more of a challenge for the Blood Crows, and they had to use their hands to help them gain the narrow strip immediately below the timber posts of the rampart. An auxiliary was setting one of the ladders up close by, and Cato nudged him aside.
‘I’ll go first!’
He placed a boot on the first rung and thrust himself up, climbing as quickly as he could. His heart was beating wildly, and any moment he expected to see one of the enemy warriors look over the rampart, or appear directly above to thrust the ladder away. There was not much space to angle the ladder securely, and he was forced to lean into it as he ascended. As he came within a sword’s length of the top, he reached for the handle of his weapon and drew it before he continued. Tensing his muscles, he took the last two rungs in a rush, swinging his boot up and over the palisade and heaving his body on to the walkway, where he landed in a crouch, sword raised, ready to fight.
Nothing moved. Above the pounding of blood in his ears, the only other sounds were the grunts of his men scaling the walls and the rumble of nailed boots on frozen soil as the legionaries surged towards the gatehouse. He glanced round swiftly, but he was alone on the walkway, until one of the Blood Crows joined him a short distance away. Then more men heaved themselves over the top of the palisade. Still there was no reaction from the enemy. Cato could see the head of one of the men on the gatehouse against the grey of the dawn sky, unmoving. Grasping his sword firmly, he strode the short distance to the steps leading to the tower and rushed up them, sword raised. Bursting out into the confined space, he made ready to strike at the first enemy he saw. Only there was none. Just crude facsimiles of men fashioned from wicker and clothed in rags. Their spears were shafts of wood propped up against them.
He stared at them in shock. Eventually he rose from his crouched position and crossed to the nearest of the dummies. He examined it warily, as if it might yet be some kind of trap, then prodded it hard with his sword. It collapsed on to the worn wooden boards, its ‘spear’ clattering beside it. Cato stared down and muttered softly, ‘Fuck me . . .’
Sheathing his sword, he hurried to the rear of the tower and gazed out over the mass of conical thatched roofs. Coils of woodsmoke still rose from several locations amid the huts, but there was no other sign of life. Nor was there any fighting along the parapet on either side. A number of his men were standing there looking about nonplussed. Further along, one of the auxiliaries sprang forward and kicked over another of the dummies, hacking at the wicker in bitter frustration. The steps leading down to the walkway creaked as Decurion Miro entered the tower, still holding his sword ready. The two officers exchanged a look before Cato sighed.