Somewhere in the heather beyond, scouts who should have given warning stared sightlessly into the mists that touched their upturned feces. The attack struck the Romans completely by surprise-and this time it was no sudden ambusn and swift retreat. The hills swarmed with Picts, and Calidius Falco felt the chill touch of fear.
Since an attack on a column usually came from the rear, the legions marched with their baggage train in a protective position near the middle. Calidius had intended to build a summer camp in the Highlands, so that Legio IX was hampered with enormous quantities of equipage and paraphernalia, as well as the plunder they had taken on the march. Panic reigned as Pictish arrows struck the ponderous baggage train. Straining horses plunged and screamed, throwing all into disorder as deadly shafts cut them down. Men dashed about blindly-seeking in vain for cover from the hail of arrows. Wagons overturned, throwing screaming women and children onto the crimson-streaked boulders. In seconds chaos was master.
Already stretched out in a long and disordered array in order to pass through the deep gorge, Legio IX was suddenly cut in half by the hopelessly entangled baggage train in its center. Desperately Calidius threw his cavalry against the archers massed along the slopes above. In the steep-walled ravine their stirrupless horses were worse than useless, and in a matter of minutes the arrows of the Picts had annihilated the mounted auxiliaries. And now Calidius Falco knew his position was untenable.
Still the storm of arrows fell. Still the hidden Pictish army held back in its sheltered position beyond the crest of the valley. Quick flanking movements to the fore and rear of the column cut off advance or retreat within the defile. To remain in the gorge was certain death. The only slim chance for the Ninth was to storm the slopes of the ravine and break out of the trap. Desperately the legionaries sought to form testudines, to clamber up the steep acclivities in the teeth of Pictish arrows. It was virtually impossible to keep shields interlocked over the pitched terrain of massive boulders and matted gorse, but somehow ragged clots of legionaries gained the crest.
And there struck the main body of the Pictish army.
The battle lasted throughout the day. But its outcome was foredoomed after that first deadly storm of arrows. Had the legionaries been able to regroup upon struggling out of the ravine, had there been fewer Picts awaiting them beyond the crest… But more than half their number sprawled dead upon the precipitous slopes, and the heather was alive with Picts.
Howling war cries which had echoed before the Stone Age, ten thousand Picts fell upon the legionaries who won past the lethal curtain of archery. This was battle without quarter-fought now in uncounted individual clashes of savage ferocity and Roman courage. As a wolf pack attacks a beleaguered elk herd, the near-naked Picts ripped at hastily formed testudines-assailing the upraised shields with a constant barrage of deadly shafts, stabbing with spear and sword wherever a wavering shield opened a chink in the protecting wall, dragging down legionaries within by the very crush of their bleeding bodies. Time and again the legionaries sought to regroup. But their ranks had been shattered by the ambush, and between every desperate knot of armored legionaries swarmed a seething mass of blood-mad savages who fought with no thought but to slay until slain.
The Romans died hard. The heather was strewn with gory monuments where a closing ring of Pictish dead at last centered upon a mound of butchered Romans. But this time barbarian cunning and savage ferocity overcame superior Roman discipline and armament. Legio IX fought grimly to the end, for the legionaries knew it was for them a last stand.
And as the sun burned the western ridges, the Ninth Legion was no more.
Othna Mak Morn gazed upon the victory that was his triumph and his bane, and felt no regret. Chief of the Wolf clan, his was the dynamic spirit that had rallied the scattered Pictish tribes against the Roman invaders-his the keen mind that had planned this ambush-his the tireless sword arm that had raged across the mountainous battlefield, constantly in the fore wherever Roman resistance held the Picts in check. Finally on that blood-drenched field Othna Mak Morn had fallen from the score of wounds that no surgeon could staunch. And while the wounds that gashed his flesh should have stolen his life hours ago, somehow the war chief of the Picts clung to vitality until the last enemy had fallen.
A gore-spattered nemesis, Othna yet stalked across the battlefield, leaning heavily on the thick shoulders of two other clan chiefs. Their brutish feces were shadowed with grief, for the greatest warrior of their race would not share the victory feast his valor had won.
At the brink of the gorge another chieftain toiled up the slope in answer to Othna’s hail. Like Othna, his form and features were straight and well-molded-evidence of a pure aristocratic bloodline as opposed to the mongrel heritage of the gnarled and dwarfish figures about them.
“Is it finished below, Utha Mak Dunn?” demanded the war chief. Utha of the Raven clan it was, who had led the Picts who attacked Legio IX from the rear-cutting off retreat and forcing the desperate Romans to storm the valley walls.
“Almost so, Othna Mak Morn. By the Moon-Woman, I see nothing but Roman carrion here above! The dogs would have done well to die below and save so hard a climb!”
Utha’s grin fell as he saw the paleness of Othna’s face. A glance at the bleak faces of the others told him all that need be said.
“You said, almost?” Othna growled.
“A cavern opens from the walls of Serpent Gorge,” Utha explained. “When we finally cut down the last of their rear guard and fell upon their baggage train, we found that many of the fools had taken refuge within.”
“How many?”
“I can’t say. Some hundreds, perhaps-though many are women and children from the baggage train. The cavern seems to be a large one, for they’ve drawn wagons of supplies in with them and barricaded the entrance.”
“Can’t you break through?” Othna’s face was implacable.
“So far the Romans have held. The passage is narrow, and it’s impossible to rush their barricade. Time and again we’ve had to drag away our dead to clear the entrance for another assault.”
Utha paused. “Calidius Falco would negotiate a surrender.”
Othna shook off the arms that supported him. “Calidius yet lives!” he shouted. “Thousands slain, and the chief of my enemies yet lives!”
“He cowers in hiding with women and children,” Utha answered scornfully. “With him is the eagle standard of the Ninth and the last of his personal guard. He vows that he and those with him will fight to the last man unless we grant him terms of honorable surrender…”
“By the gods!” Othna stormed. “I’ll grant him such terms as he has offered our people-fire and sword, rope and cross!”
He drew his sword and strode forward, “Are we dogs and slaves of dogs that a handful of cornered Romans think to demand such of us! Picts! Who will follow me into a rats’ den!”
That final blaze of fury was the final spark of life. Othna Mak Morn toppled forward, and Utha caught his slack form as he fell.
“Wo! Wo to Pictdom!” intoned the white-bearded priest who closed the glazed eyes. “In your hour of triumph, your greatest son has fallen. Wo to Pictdom! Wo to the Men of the Heather!”
Utha Mak Dunn bowed his head. Old Gonar was right. Only Othna Mak Morn’s personal dynamism had united the scattered clans into a short-lived confederacy to repel the Roman invaders. Half the blood of Pictdom had been spilled to win this victory, and with Othna dead the clans would quickly drift apart. “Othna has a son,” Utha suggested.