Galba laughed and scratched his chin.
“We’ll see soon enough. At least we’ll have the defences up soon.”
Baculus nodded again.
“I wish we still had Calvus or Ruga with us. The few remaining engineers we’ve got don’t have between them half the experience of either of those poor sods. Still, as you said: we’ll see soon enough.”
Galba blinked twice and tried to reel in his whirling thoughts. A knocking; heavy and fast. Urgent. Blink. The room was dark. Yes, middle of the night.
Blearily, the legate pushed back his blankets and rubbed his eyes as the hammering on the door began once again.
“All right. I’m coming!”
Pulling down his ruffled tunic and wishing the Gauls had discovered heated floors, or even just smooth floors, he shuffled to the entrance and undid the latch, swinging the heavy wooden door open. A legionary barely old enough to shave stood at attention outside, a look of heavy concern weighing down his features.
“What is the meaning of this, soldier? bli
The young man looked panicky, but also red-faced and exhausted. He’d been running. Alarms were triggered in Galba’s head as he realised this must be one of the perimeter guards, since no one else would have cause to be armed at this time of night. With a snap the blurred fuzziness of waking from a deep sleep evaporated and Galba straightened, his eyes straying to the periphery as he listened.
“Sir… beg to report sir that the Veragri have gone!”
More alarms. The legate’s eyes darted to the native settlement on the far side of the river, behind the red-faced legionary.
“Gone? From the town?”
“Yessir.” The legionary was calming down now and Galba realised the lad was still standing stiffly to attention.
“Stand at ease. Details, man. What’s happened?”
“Watch centurion sent me to find you sir. He sent a patrol to check out the town and it’s completely deserted, sir.”
Galba frowned and rubbed his stubbly chin.
“Why in Minerva’s name would he be sending out patrols in the middle of the night?”
“Sir?”
Galba shook his head.
“Wait here.”
Leaving the bewildered legionary in the dark road, Galba rushed back into the squat stone building and grabbed his sword belt and boots. Pausing inside the door, he hurriedly pulled the boots on. The night was chilly but dry, much as the last two days had been, and he could get by without his cloak for the sake of a few minutes. Strapping on his belt, he strode back out into the night air.
“Take me to the watch centurion.”
The soldier saluted and started to march off at high speed down the road toward the bridge. As they strode forth, Galba peered ahead into the darkness. It may have been dry, but the sky was filled with fast clouds that hid the stars from view and it was hard to pick out detail at any distance. The bridge was the only area of the camp defences that was still under construction. The old Celtic bridge of heavy wooden piles with no rails had been upgraded, given a new surface and sides, but also incorporated into a new fortified gate system at that end of the camp. It appeared, as he squinted into the darkness, that work was almost complete.
Beyond, past the narrow, swift waters of the Dranse, the settlement of the Veragri lay silent and dark. It would have been eerie, but for the fact that, since the arrival of the Twelfth Legion, the native settlement had been silent and dark every night.
The pair approached the gate and bridge to see a small group of soldiers at the entrance, two of them bearing officer’s crests.
“Centurion?”
The men turned and saluted as their legate came to a halt before them.
“Legatus. You’ve heard the news, sir?”
Galba nodded.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well, sir” the centurion said, tapping his vine staff idly on his leg, “one of the lads thought he saw something out there in the fields about an hour ago. We didn’t think much of it. Picket guards is always seeing things in the dark and this was on the other side of the river, way out past the town…”
Galba frowned.
“What did he see?”
“Said he thought he saw maybe a half dozen people running off toward the valley side, sir. Well we watched for another twenty minutes or so, sir, but saw nothing more. No one else appeared and no other guard saw them.”
The irritation was welling up in Galba. Baculus was right. These men were too inexperienced to be commanding a campaign like this.
“And this seemed unimportant enough to go on watching without having any kind of alarm raised?”
The centurion flinched.
“Well sir, it was only a few folk and they was running away, not coming toward us; and that’s even if he wasn’t mistaken about it anyway.”
“Centurion, we are in hostile lands, surrounded by a treacherous bunch who would outnumber us a hundred to one if they all pull together. What else happened?”
“Well, I looked hard at the town and realised that there was no smoke coming from the roofs and it’s quite a cold night, sir. If they was just settled in for the night, they’d be keeping warm sir.”
“And this didn’t push you to raise the alarm?”
“I sent a patrol across the bridge to check the town, sir.”
Galba rubbed his temples as he squeezed his eyes shut.
“And they discovered the town was completely deserted. And then you decided to send for me?”
“Yes sir. They must have run away.”
Galba stared at the man. Clearly, he was an idiot. The legate was winding himself up to deliver a tirade when he noticed the startled looks on the faces of the soldiers around them and forced himself to relax, exhaling slowly. The officer class were still very inexperienced, but they were all he had and hauling them over the coals in front of their men would hardly serve to improve matters at this point. He nodded to himself and kept a straight face as he turned to the optio beside them.
“Raise the alarm, but do it quietly. No buccinas or shouting. Just pass the word and get every man awake, dressed, equipped and to the wall as fast as you can.”
The optio saluted and ran off, taking several of the legionaries with him to help spread the word and Galba turned back to the centurion.
“I want a dozen of your fastest men out of their armour and split into groups of three. Send one group down each branch of the valley, past the town. I want a three mile search down there and then they can report back. The other two groups need to get up the valley sides and to the top of these hills. I want a clear picture of what’s going on here.”
“You think there’s trouble, sir?”
“You’re damn right I think there’s trouble. They’ve not run away; they’ve no reason to. And if they’re not running away that means they’re organising; massing somewhere. We could be knee deep in the shit any minute now.”
The centurion nodded, a hunted look about his eyes, and sent one his men to rouse the soldiers of his century and bring them to the gate.
Galba ignored the quiet activity going on around him as the camp burst into silent, eerie life. Instead, he climbed the steps to the rampart by the bridge gate and turned slowly, casting his gaze over their surroundings. The town had emptied under the cover of darkness, and that meant that they were gathering somewhere secretly. There were seven hundred or so left of the Twelfth and at least twice that number of enemies had just left Octodurus. There was no doubt in Galba’s mind that the Veragri from the town had met up with a much larger force somewhere. His uneasiness of the last few days seemed to have been well founded.
Squinting, he peered off down first one valley and then the other, straying up the slopes and…
He stopped dead. Silvery moonlight had just, for a fleeting moment, flickered through the fast scudding clouds and there had been reflections, high up on the hills above the valley. Galba found he was holding his breath. Sharply, he reached out to the legionary nearby, who stood fast, watching the empty settlement across the river.