Some distance away, keen eyes watched the invaders digging their earth. They had seen the precautions the Romans had taken and knew they couldn’t risk attacking the column with two cohorts of cavalry ready to come to the defence of any area they believed right to take advantage of and so they waited.
“A wolf can stalk their prey for days until the right moment presents itself.” Caratacus said. “Patience is always rewarded in time as we will be when we destroy these men that hide themselves in metal and iron.” His accomplices nodded in agreement as they backed away from the trees and bushes they had used to help conceal themselves with.
After dark had fallen and the defences were in place, fires lit up small groups of Roman soldiers sat around fires. Sentries were silhouetted as they moved along the perimeter. Lines of brown tents were visible, set up in neat rows and safely behind their fortified position. Wolf mouths lay in the dug trenches, the small spikes embedded as a horrible surprise for any wood-be attacker, they could maim or entangle anyone or anything before a pilum was hurled at the unfortunate individual or animal to put them out of their misery. Animals caught by the devices would usually find themselves being slaughtered and then cooked the next day.
Some of the soldiers relaxed in their tents talking or playing dice or betting on the outcome as old rivalries were re-ignited, others decided to get some sleep as early as possible because they knew that come the morning they would be expected to march between twenty five and thirty miles once again.
The first of the Britons reached the pit and straining his eyes in the half light, saw some of the sharpened spikes below. He turned and whispered to the man coming up behind him, giving him instructions to take back to their leader. The man wheeled quietly around on his stomach hardly making a noise and went back in the direction it had taken so long to cover.
Sometime later, much later and with the stars sparkling like diamonds in the night sky, he returned but was not alone. Other warriors struggled with thin branches and logs cut from trees far away, they had dragged them forward as other men struggled to get them across the pits. One man stood on a particularly small spike that he hadn’t seen in the dim light and the iron pierced his foot. He almost screamed out in agony but stopped himself as he pulled his foot free of the sharp metal. He scrambled back up the bank and crawled towards the trees and safety, there would be no Roman heads for him this night.
The sleeping soldiers had no warning of the attack nor did the sentries except for the fizz of fire arrows as they pierced tents and set fire to others. Some landed harmlessly on the grass and burnt out straight away. In the same instant from nowhere, Britons appeared inside the perimeter moving with stealth, silently moving towards the enemy. High on aggression and incensed with fury, the warriors crashed into the tents some jumping onto them and preventing the occupants from escaping, hacking and slashing their large swords two handed into the struggling heads and limbs trying to get free of the material inside.
As a trumpet further down the line signalled the alert, it was already too late for many of the men of the Second Augusta. Most didn’t even get free of their tents, some half asleep, half dressed and some even fell half naked outside wherever they could and were hacked to death with no mercy.
“Alarm, alarm! To arms!” Shouted a sentry some hundred yards away, now running towards the burning tents, “What the fucks going on? How did those blue bastards get inside?” He cried out to no-one in particular as he ran and was joined by others as men leapt from their own tents as he passed.
The Britons were already pulling back and were now running towards the cover of the trees as some were still struggling free of the pit. The advancing Romans were too far away to reach them however and the fastest hurled their pilums at the retreating Britons, the first of which were now already entering the tree line. The furthest pilum landed feet behind the last Briton.
The Romans that got to the attacked position first, found garrotted sentries and dead and dying soldiers. Logs and branches covered the pits where they had made their escape. The Britons had somehow out thought them and had got through the defences without the alarm being sounded. Enraged a Centurion ran through the large almost vertical spikes before the pit and over the logs, waving for the following men to continue with him, they did.
Some distance away, Vespasian watched from his area of the perimeter and suddenly ordered the trumpeter to sound the retreat suspecting what was about to happen. He screamed for his men to withdraw whilst officers gathered around staring at him in disbelief as he ran forward but it was too late.
As the legionaries got to within twenty paces of the retreating Britons, the trees seemed to come to life with movement, branches swaying. The leading soldiers realised too late that they had fought their last battle as chariots raced out of the wood towards them. They carried at least three lime covered warriors at either side of the vehicles and within no time, encircled them. All but one Briton jumped off every chariot and then immediately ran at the isolated soldiers who were already weary from the chase.
Vespasian watched helplessly as at least twenty more Roman lives were lost to the blades of the frenzied madmen and women that were hacking at them. Screams disturbed the night as flaming shadows danced over the horrifying scene beyond, reflected off the trees and faces of the Britons.
Finally the screams ended but some soldiers, at least four were dragged up, put onto chariots and driven off. Vespasian looked on and realised that they must still live. He stared straining to see properly and observed one Briton standing alone, staring back at him. He was fully clothed and was wearing an enormous double plumed helmet, Caratacus! As another native approached him, Caratacus raised a large sword and pointed it at the Roman General, he stood for several moments, then turned and walked slowly into the cover of the trees and vanished from sight.
Chapter Six
With dawn came the reality of the atrocities carried out the night before. Bodies were strewn around the valley floor of the former resting place. The army in its marching line was now divided, its middle segregated where the enemy had attacked. Scorched and with some wagons still burning, it was testament to the stealth and brutality of the plan carried out by Caratacus. Vespasian had decided to isolate the ravaged land where his men had died and had reinforced the defences facing each other in the two camps running through the valley’s track.
Smoke still smouldered from burnt out tents, wagons and material and even flesh, the smell was overwhelming as men moved in to clear away their fallen comrades and bury their corpses. Water was used to douse burning flames as men passed buckets from one to another from a nearby stream.
The General’s anger hadn’t subsided as he once again walked amongst his dead. His hands trembled with fury as he covered his mouth with one hand, the stench almost making him empty his bowels and spill its contents over the smouldering earth. Soldiers searched nearby woods where the last of the slaughter had taken place, brave men that had tried to pursue the murderers from the night before. Their corpses lay at awkward angles, limbs bent where they had fallen. Some still wore their helmets and armour but they had still died vastly outnumbered and isolated, where they had been cut to pieces.
Their only saving grace was that they had died relatively quickly and hadn’t burnt to death like the poor bastards that had gone to their gods in their tents, victims of the fire arrows or hacks to the head or body by large swords and axes. The smoke from the devastating attack could be seen from some miles away as Varro and his small band approached on their horses cautiously entering the clearing from the west.