Centurion

'A fine shot!' Macro bellowed from the other end of the square. 'A denarius for that man, and any others you knock down!'

The offer of a reward had its effect as the slingers released their shots even more swiftly and the horsemen immediately shied away to a much greater range where their fire could not be so accurate. Cato noticed that the enemy's barrage slackened until there were clear intervals between each handful of arrows. Finally, as the sun rose over the horizon and cast long shadows across the desert, the enemy archers ceased their shooting altogether and retired a short distance to dismount and rest their horses as they took a quick meal from their saddlebags.

'Seems we have something of a stand-off,' Parmenion muttered.'They can't crack us and we can't get at them. Not until our cavalry is ordered forward.'

'Yes, it's about time for that.' Cato turned towards Macro and waved an arm to attract his friend's attention. As soon as Macro saw him, he gave Cato the thumbs-up. Cato pointed to the two bucinators standing just behind the Second Illyrian's standard and Macro nodded deliberately as he grasped Cato's intention. Cato turned towards his bucinators, but before he could give the order Parmenion grasped his arm.

'Sir! They're moving.'

Cato swung round and saw that the enemy riders had thrown down their rations and were hurriedly scrambling back into their saddles and snatching the bows from their cases.

'Looks like they're going to charge us after all.'

'Let 'em try it,' Centurion Parmenion growled. 'They'll not break into the square. Not in a fair fight.'

Cato smiled briefly. Parmenion clearly belonged to that element of the Roman military that held the view that archers were cowards. For his part Cato saw them as merely another means of waging war. Archers had their limitations as well as their advantages. Unfortunately, the present circumstances favoured their advantages.

'Close up!' Cato shouted. 'Front rank! Present javelins! Prepare to receive cavalry!'

Around him the auxiliaries and legionaries braced themselves with grim expressions as they stared at the enemy, still hurriedly mounting up and forming into loose bodies of men amid swirls of dust. As the riders gathered together, behind their serpent standards, Cato frowned.

'What the hell?'

Parmenion squinted over the ranks of the auxiliaries standing silently in front of the two officers. 'They're facing the other way. Why?'

Cato shook his head. This was strange. They were forming up quickly, as if to charge, but away from the two Roman cohorts. What was happening? Just then, the faint, strident blasts of a horn sounded in the mid-distance, from beyond the enemy horsemen.

'Reinforcements?' Parmenion wondered hopefully. 'Ours or theirs?'

'Not ours. We're the only body of Roman soldiers for a hundred miles around.'

More horns sounded, and then there was a reply from the men who had been attacking the two cohorts a moment earlier – a clear sharp note of defiance. And then they charged away from the Romans in a cloud of dust kicked up by the thundering hooves of their mounts. The Roman troops gazed after them in amazement. Macro hurried across the square to Cato.

'What the fuck is going on?'

'No idea, sir. Only that there's more horsemen out there. Might be more hostiles and those men have gone to join them, or, if we're lucky, someone's come to help us. Either way, we should call in our cavalry.'

'You're right. Do it now.'

'Yes, sir.' Cato turned to give the order to the bucinators carrying the large curved brass horns. They took a breath, puffed their cheeks and a moment later the signal blasted out. They repeated it twice before lowering their instruments and then all eyes turned back towards the receding wave of enemy horsemen. Thanks to the red-hued cloud of dust they had kicked up it was hard to pick out any detail and only once in a while could the dim figures be seen amid the sandy haze. But the sound of horns, and the faint clash of weapons and shouted war cries that carried back to Roman ears, told their own story.

'Who the hell is attacking them?' asked Macro.'I thought we were the only Romans out here?'

'Perhaps Longinus has sent a cavalry column out after us,' Centurion Parmenion suggested hopefully.

'Maybe,' said Cato. 'But I doubt it.'

'Then who is it, sir?'

'We'll know soon enough.'

As the three officers and their men continued to watch in silence, the distant fight raged on. Occasionally a figure would flee from the fight and burst free of the obscuring dust cloud to race off over the desert. Here and there a riderless horse emerged and trotted aimlessly away. At length the sounds of battle died away and then there was quiet, as the sun rose low in the sky and its blood-red beams streamed over the landscape.

Parmenion turned and called out,'Here come our boys!'

The Second Illyrian's four cavalry squadrons were galloping towards the two cohorts, armour glinting in the early morning light. Cato spared them a brief glance and then turned back. He took a sharp breath.

'Look!'

Macro and Parmenion faced round as they followed the direction of Cato's outstretched finger.

A rider had emerged from the slowly settling cloud of dust. He was dressed in black and the first rays of the rising sun played off the silver ornaments of his harness and coned helmet. Reining his horse in, he stopped to examine the Roman soldiers before him, still formed into a square.Then more figures resolved into sharp outlines behind him as other mounted men appeared. Still more rode out of the dust until at last Cato calculated that the man must have at least a hundred followers. They rode forward and stopped behind their leader and stared at the Romans.

'Great,' Macro muttered. 'Now what? Hostiles?'

Cato scratched his chin. 'Out here? More than likely. However, they've seen off those horse-archers. Let's hope that my enemy's enemy really is my friend.'

A moment later their leader raised his arm and gestured to his men to follow him as he rode steadily towards the two Roman cohorts.

08 Centurion

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Macro cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, in Greek, across the intervening ground. 'That's close enough! Stop right there!'

The leader of the approaching horsemen raised a hand to halt his followers and then continued to walk his horse defiantly towards the line of Roman shields. For a moment Macro wondered if the man did not understand Greek. It was unlikely, he reasoned, since Greek was commonly spoken across the east, even here where the native tongue was Aramaic. Close by Macro, one of the legionaries armed with a sling began to swing it round in an arc and let the whirring disc of leather thong and weighted pouch rise up over his head.

'Lower that sling!' Macro barked at him. 'No one is to take a shot at him until I give the order! The denarius bounty is temporarily revoked.'

Most of the men laughed at that, especially those who had not been given a chance to swap shield for sling. Cato had often wondered at the pleasure soldiers took in the frustration of their comrades and he shook his head with a wry expression. The legionary dropped his wrist and the sling shot thudded on to the ground. Once again silence settled over the Roman lines as the lone horseman continued towards them, openly contemptuous of Macro's earlier instruction.

'Cocky little bugger, isn't he?'

'Well, at least he isn't ordering his men to attack us.'

Macro jerked his thumb towards the cavalry approaching from the other direction. 'And why would he, with our lads on the way?'