‘Ready,’ he called.
They came with a howl, a mass of bare-chested, bearded warriors carrying painted oval shields and the wicked curved knives Festus had described. Swords, too, of similar design but heavier and wielded two-handed.
‘Now! Ride on!’ The three men reacted instantly to Valerius’s roared command. The opening to the left was where the Dacians wanted him to go, which meant that beyond the gap would be a carefully set ambush. Better to take their chances in the open. He kicked his mount to the gallop, aiming for an almost imperceptible break in the line of boulders ahead, and heard a welcome roar of frustration from behind.
But his enemy hadn’t entirely neglected the hillside and a line of warriors rose from the scrub in front of Valerius. He heard the zip of an arrow and felt the wind of something past his right ear. At first he thought it was a near miss, but the arrow took one of the Dacians in the centre of the chest and he realized Serpentius was shooting from behind his shoulder. Another horse might have checked at the howling barrier ahead, but this was a trained cavalry mount. Time and again on the practice ground he had been forced to ride through alarming, screaming men like these until he had become certain of his own invulnerability. Without any urging from Valerius the horse surged ahead, teeth bared and screaming his own battle cry. Valerius kept his head down and his sword ready and concentrated on staying in the saddle. A sickening crunch followed by a momentary check. A snarling face appeared below and to his left and he felt hands scrambling for his foot. The sword sliced down and the face disappeared in an explosion of bright blood. More faces among the rocks, mouths gaping in surprise. Then he was through and into the trees beyond the boulder line. He glanced over his shoulder and felt a surge of relief. Marcus galloped a few paces behind, a broad grin on his leathered face. Behind him Serpentius roared with laughter. Heracles rode at his side wearing a grimace of concentration and holding a severed Dacian head between his teeth by its long hair.
‘You’ve never seen anything like it,’ Serpentius called. ‘A single cut and it spins up into the air, then the crazy bugger catches it with one hand. I told him to get rid of it, but he seems attached to the bloody thing.’
Marcus shouted something at the young Sarmatian, and with a grin Heracles allowed the head to drop free.
Valerius’s heart still hammered from the mad charge, but his mind was frantically attempting to work out where they were. He recalled some details of the map in Vitellius’s quarters, but the tracks Festus had followed had twisted so much it was difficult to know just what direction they had taken. He looked up at the sun, which was over his right shoulder. Late morning, perhaps approaching noon, which meant it was now in the south. If they turned back and travelled due west, they would eventually reach the river, but that would take them straight to the Dacians. The safest way back was to ride north-west, take a wide arc to avoid the ambush and work their way through the hills until they reached the plain. After that they should be home free.
But he hadn’t ridden all this way to give up now.
‘Publius Sulla’s outpost can’t be more than a couple of miles ahead,’ he said. ‘We go on.’
Marcus wiped blood from his sword with a piece of saddle cloth. ‘Do you think he’ll still be there?’
‘I think there’s only one way we’re going to find out,’ Valerius said grimly. He had no doubt that the patrol’s vanishing act and the Dacian ambush were linked to the man he sought, but he would worry about that later. His first priority was to survive. He ordered the three men to conserve the contents of their water skins and Marcus handed out the food he’d brought. The rest of the rations had been with the patrol.
After about ten minutes they came across a path. Serpentius studied the ground. ‘Old tracks, but too big for native horses. Roman cavalry mounts, probably a few mules.’
They followed the trail for a mile and a half before they came to a broad, man-made clearing. At its centre stood a small temporary fort surrounded by three wide ditches and a six-foot turf rampart mounted with sharpened wooden stakes. The only entrance was across an earth causeway and the wooden gate was protected from direct attack by a raised bank that restricted the approach. The defences looked pathetically inadequate against the primeval forces they’d met earlier. As Valerius studied the fort, the blast of a horn was followed by shouting and a line of polished helmets appeared above the palisade.
Valerius drew to a halt short of the triple ditch. ‘Couriers from General Vitellius,’ he shouted. ‘With orders for the fort commander.’
From behind the earth barrier came the sound of a gate creaking open.
XXIII
A powerful voice called from the rampart. ‘Approach, friend, but do it slowly and keep your hands where we can see them.’ Valerius heard Marcus laugh. It was a typically cautious frontier welcome. Better to be nervous than dead. He took a deep breath and kicked his horse forward.
To meet Publius Sulla.
At first sight, the interior of the camp was as unimpressive as the exterior. He doubted whether familiarity would improve the experience. Lines of worn leather tents, sufficient to house a full century, filled the centre, beside a larger tent which would be the commander’s quarters. Horse lines and latrines had been set up beside the turf banks of the parapet, all contained within a dusty space sixty paces square. A painfully small squad of men went about the daily business of the fort while the rest manned the ramparts. Two weeks in this place would wear down any soldier’s morale. Two months would drive him mad.
Publius Sulla, tribune of the Seventh and brother of the traitor Cornelius, waited alone in the centre of the dirt square that passed for the parade ground. A terrible melancholy overcame Valerius as he recognized the man he had come to take back to Rome. When last he’d looked into those pale eyes they’d been staring at him from a blackened skull. He’d expected a likeness, but no one had warned him that Publius Sulla was Cornelius’s identical twin. Different characters, certainly — Publius was leaner, harder and more earnest than his brother — yet in looks they were indistinguishable. A vision of a writhing column of flame engulfed Valerius’s mind and whatever he had meant to say died stillborn in his mouth.
‘Is this all?’ The young commander broke the silence. ‘I was expecting a column with a month’s rations. What I see is four more mouths to feed.’
Valerius handed his reins to Marcus and the veteran gladiator led their mounts to the horse lines. ‘Gaius Valerius Verrens, at your service. I apologize, tribune, but we were parted from our escort and ambushed a few miles south of here.’
‘Ambushed?’ Publius instantly forgot the missing rations. ‘That’s impossible. We have a truce with the Dacian king and I spoke with his representatives not five days ago. If the situation had changed my spies in Coson’s camp would have informed me before now. Clodius!’ A veteran legionary appeared from his place at the parapet. ‘Increase the alert and send out a patrol. I want to know if there’s any movement within a mile of the fort. It’s possible we have a renegade band trying to stir up trouble. But tell them to act defensively. I need information, not heads.’
Valerius was impressed by the young man’s professionalism. He issued his orders without any sense of panic or confusion. The ambush was just a new dimension of this complicated command to be dealt with. ‘An interesting posting to volunteer for, tribune,’ he ventured.
‘Volunteer?’ Publius’s laugh betrayed his bitterness. He led Valerius up a set of wooden steps to the top of the rampart. ‘No one would be foolish enough to volunteer for this. You’ve seen our position. This should be an auxiliary command. Instead, those men lining the walls are the dregs of the legion; the moaners and the shirkers and the brawlers. I have eighty of them, plus twenty horse, to cover fifty miles of frontier, and they stay alert because I’ve managed to convince them that if they do not they will die here. Not that they should need much convincing. We’re ten miles beyond the Danuvius and any chance of reinforcement, and we’ve been down to half rations for five days. The moment Coson decides to break the truce, which he will, the Dacians will gobble us up like a wolf pouncing on a newborn lamb. This post is meant to be a show of Rome’s strength. The reality is that it is a sacrifice to my general’s vanity.’ He looked directly into Valerius’s eyes. ‘Now, to your business, Praetorian. Even a lowly junior tribune knows that it does not take four men and an auxiliary escort to deliver orders.’