A massively built warrior was advancing down the landing’s length towards him with another man at his heels, a long spear in one hand which he threw at Marcus as the Roman emerged from the doorway. Jerking his head back, he was too slow to avoid the viciously sharp spearhead’s blade completely. A cold, stinging sensation drew itself across his nose and cheek as the spear thudded into the door frame beside him, and as the cut went from its initial numbness to the familiar burning pain of severed flesh he snarled out his wounded fury, ducking under the spear’s shaft and stepping out to meet the charging warrior blade to blade as the Venicone wrenched his sword from its scabbard. Parrying the onrushing warrior’s first vicious thrust with the spatha’s angled edge he raised the legatus’s gladius high to his left like a scorpion’s sting, putting a shoulder hard into the big man’s chest to stop him dead and using the impact’s circular momentum to spin fast, burying the shorter sword deep into the back of his neck and feeling the snap of his attacker’s spine as the sword’s stout iron blade cleaved through it and ripped out through his mouth. Leaving the sword buried in the warrior’s slumping corpse he took the spatha two-handed, looping the long blade behind his right shoulder and up high into the smoky air before stepping forward to drive it down into the man behind his first victim as the Venicone cringed under the descending line of flickering steel, grunting with the effort as the patterned sword slashed down into the helpless man’s body and cut him in two from shoulder to hip. The corpse tottered for a moment and then fell apart in a rush of blood and internal organs, while the Roman stood with one leg pushed forward and the sword held in both hands with its point almost touching the floor and a savage snarl on his blood-speckled face.
‘Run!’
Tarion’s shout snapped Marcus from his momentary reverie, his gaze following the thief’s pointing hand across the tower’s open square to the landing’s far side where another four men were running from the room opposite them. Wrenching the gladius’s blade from his first victim by stamping on the dead man’s head and twisting the blade to free it from the severed vertebrae’s tight grip, he followed the fleeing thief down the stairs three at a time. Looking back, he saw that Verus had lifted the terrified priest’s body over his head and carried him out onto the landing, screaming defiance at the advancing warriors while the old man struggled helplessly in his iron grip. Staggering to the platform’s edge, the legionary grunted as he hurled the holy man out into the void, then squealed out a high-pitched laugh that raked the talons of its insanity down the back of the Roman’s neck as the soldier drew his sword to fight. The priest flew to the ground below them with a final scream of anguish, his frenzied howl cut off as abruptly as he hit the stone floor with a crunching impact. Tarion shot an amazed glance at Marcus.
‘If they’re not awake down there then they never will be. Come on!’
Bounding down the stairs the two men stormed past the fallen priest, Marcus noting from the corner of his eye that one of the old man’s fingers was twitching against the cold stone flags. Looking back up at the platform above them he saw Verus overwhelmed by the men storming in to assault him, one of the warriors burying a spear deep in his side before another thrust a sword up into his jaw as the legionary staggered under the first wound’s fearful pain. Turning back to the hall’s door the Roman readied his weapons as Tarion pulled the heavy wooden door open, crouching low to peer around the door’s thick frame. There were half a dozen or so corpses scattered across the open courtyard, some of them lying still while a pair of men were still writhing, grasping ineffectually at the arrows that protruded from their bodies. As he stared out into the darkened compound an arrow hissed overhead from his left to rattle off the stones of the wall by the main gate.
‘We can’t stay here!’
The thief was tugging at his shoulder, pointing back at the Venicones hurrying down the stairs behind them, their blades black with Verus’s blood. Marcus nodded decisively, taking a deep breath.
‘Follow me!’
Ducking round the door frame he ran for the fortress’s eastern side with the thief close behind knowing that the archers at the courtyard’s other end would be putting arrows to their bows in reaction to the sudden movements below them. With a hissing riffle of feathers and the sigh of iron cleaving the air, an arrow flew past his ear so close that he felt its passage as much as he heard it.
‘Eagle!Friendlies coming in!’
The answering shout from the darkness beneath the eastern wall was recognisable as Arminius’s voice, a note of urgency in his bellowed response.
‘Get down!’
Marcus dropped to the ground, dragging the thief down with him, and flinched as a flight of arrows whirred over their heads. Looking back over his shoulder he saw a warrior who had clearly chosen to pursue them into the teeth of the unseen archers’ threat stagger backwards clutching at his chest, while another turned tail and hobbled back into the cover of the tower’s open doorway with a hand grasping at his wounded thigh.
‘Now! Run for it!’
Both men leapt to their feet at the command, sprinting across the fortress’s courtyard with arrows loosed from the western wall flicking past them and clattering off the stone walls.
‘Here!’
Marcus recognised Arminius’s voice and ran towards it almost blindly, his ability to see in the darkness still compromised by his exposure to the tower’s torchlight, dragging Tarion along in his wake. The German took his arm and they climbed the stone stairs that led to the wall’s fighting platform.
‘We need to go quickly, before they wake up and send a party around the walls to cut us off from our escape route!’
He bundled them along the wall, past the two Sarmatae who were nocking arrows to their bows and shooting into the darkness at the fortress’s far end. As the German passed the two men they shot one last arrow apiece and then abandoned their positions, dropping in behind Marcus as he followed Arminius around the wall’s curve to the spot where Drest waited for them, huddled in behind his heavy wooden shield from which a pair of arrows protruded, one barely an inch from the rim. Arminius gestured to the wall, and without a word the Thracian tossed his shield over the parapet and then climbed after it, keeping his body low against the stones as he eased himself over the wall. Readying himself for the ten-foot drop on the wall’s far side, Marcus moved to follow him only to receive a heavy blow from behind that forced his face into the cold stone of the wall, the eagle falling from his hand onto the walkway’s hard surface with a harsh metallic clatter.
6
Turning awkwardly, Marcus pushed the dead weight of a man’s body from his back and found himself looking down at Tarion, who had dropped onto his knees and was bent back as if in adoration of the sky above.
‘Arrow.’ Radu pointed to the thief’s back. ‘He is dead, even if he is still breathing.’
‘Aye.’ Arminius’s voice was flat with resignation in the young Roman’s ear. ‘We’ll have to leave him.’