‘Get as far to your right as you can.When I tug on the rope once, go to ground and pull it taut! When I tug it again, run up the slope as hard as you can!’
He saw the other man bare his teeth in a slash of white and then Drest was gone, crabbing away across the slope as fast as he could. Their pursuers were closer now, and Marcus could hear them calling softly to each other as they skipped nimbly down the steep hillside. He tugged on his end of the rope, then pulled hard to take up the slack and raise the cord a foot or so off the ground. The warrior closest to him caught sight of the Roman in the corner of his eye just as he reached the trap, turning to point with his mouth opening to shout a warning as he tripped and cartwheeled away down the hill, the breath bursting from his body in a loud grunt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Marcus tugged frantically at the rope again and ran back up the slope, his legs pumping as he dragged the rope upwards, praying that Drest was doing the same. Another warrior tripped and was gone without ever seeing the impending threat, and then the rope snagged against something more solid. Making one last titanic effort, Marcus turned his back to the hill and forced himself up another few paces with his thighs aflame from the effort, wrenching the rope upwards to be rewarded by a cacophony of screams as the knot of men who had stopped to listen, alerted by the shout of their comrades as they fell, were pitched into the air to tumble away down the slope. He listened for any other presence on the hill, but could hear nothing other than the wind whispering across the slope. Even the cries of the hunters were now inaudible, although whether that was a good thing or not was beyond his understanding.
Sanga’s tent party reported for their spell of guard duty four hourglasses after darkness had fallen, and were directed to their section of the marching camp’s perimeter by the ever irascible Quintus, the century’s chosen man and its acting centurion in Marcus’s absence.
‘You know the drill. Keep your mouths shut and your eyes and ears open. If you hear anything more exciting than a hedgehog grunting out a curler then you blow the fuckin’ whistle and wait for the rest of the century to reinforce you, right?’
While most of the cohort had the luxury of removing their boots and rolling themselves into their cloaks and blankets, the Fifth were dozing fitfully, fully equipped and with their weapons close to hand, ready to form the first line of resistance to any threat that might materialise out of the night’s stygian darkness. Sanga, the unofficial leader of the eight-man group who would be guarding a third of the camp’s perimeter, saluted the chosen man and watched him limp away into the camp’s interior.
‘Poor bastard. Without a centurion to take some of the load he’s on his feet every two hours to make sure the incoming guard climb out of their nice warm blankets and take their turn.’ He spat on the turf and shook his head. ‘I could almost feel sorry for the man. Almost …’
At his side Saratos grunted, reaching a hand up into the sleeve of his heavy chain-mail armour to scratch at his armpit.
‘Had hard day. His leg hurting a lot, from way he walking.’
Sanga shrugged, the gesture almost invisible in the starlight’s dim illumination.
‘Like I said, I could almost feel sorry for the bastard. Right then, my lads, just like it always is. Take up fifty-pace spacings down the turf wall, and use the marks chopped into the mud to tell you where your beat starts and stops. Keep walking, keep your eyes and ears open and shout for me if you see or hear anything you don’t like. Don’t put your helmets or their liners on unless you hear the stand-to being blown, or you won’t be able to hear the bluenoses sneaking up on you, and I don’t care how cold your delicate little ears get. Anyone I catch leaning on the wall will get a good fucking dig from this — ’ he held up a scarred fist, and then lowered the hand to tap meaningfully at the hilt of his sword ‘- and anyone I find asleep won’t have to worry about being sentenced to death because I’ll already have sent you to meet the ferryman myself, right?’
The knot of men gathered about him nodded dourly and dispersed to their various points along the camp’s turf wall, as familiar with the routine of guard duty as they were with Sanga’s threats, which were more than idle. Saratos lingered for a moment, watching as the other men trudged away to their posts before turning back to Sanga.
‘We march fifteen miles today, north and then east. Tomorrow perhaps we march west back to gap in hills, then south back to yesterday camp, then go back to fort of Lazy Hill. Is a long march. You think Quintus can march so far?’
Sanga laughed softly in the darkness.
‘Old Quintus? He’s had trouble with that hip of his for years now, and every winter sees it get a little bit worse, but I’ll bet you a clipped sestertius to a freshly minted gold aureus he’ll go the distance tomorrow just fine. See the thing is, if he doesn’t manage to keep up with the blokes he’s shouting at he’s no more good as a chosen man than a wooden fire poker, at which point he’ll get offered his discharge without the option of refusal. And he’s got no more idea what to do if he ain’t a soldier than most of these dozy sods. Now get about your watch, old son, and don’t forget, mates or not, if I catch you leaning, I’ll give you a reaming!’
The Sarmatae recruit smiled to himself and turned away, pacing down the turf wall until he reached his allotted stretch of the camp’s defences, as far down the four-foot-high rampart as it was possible to march without turning the corner into the next tent party’s patrol area. Fighting off the urge to yawn, he started his beat, up and down the mud wall, stopping to stare out into the darkness every few paces, sweeping his adjusted vision across the landscape and cocking his head on one side to listen intently to the night’s incessant background noise for any sign of a disturbance that might indicate the presence of an enemy. Other than the wind’s gentle hiss through the trees beyond the marching camp’s walls there was little enough of any note other than the occasional disconsolate bark of a fox in the distance. Frowning at a tiny sound, almost more imagined than actually heard, he stared out into the darkness for a moment and then turned his head to look up the wall’s line to his right, the man patrolling that section of the camp’s defences lost in the gloom. As he swung round to look to his left, wondering if the sentry from the next tent party was perhaps enlivening his shift with a little sport, he was hit from behind by a pair of bodies, the wind driven from him by the impact.
Drawing breath to shout a warning, he felt a coarse piece of cloth being thrust into his mouth, reducing his protest to an inaudible murmur, and one of the men crouched over him stabbed a fist down into his temple, momentarily stunning him. Blinking furiously to clear the flashing lights from his vision, the Sarmatae felt himself being dragged across the grass and into the cover of a small tree that had been deemed too much of an effort to uproot from within the camp for the sake of one night. A hard voice whispered in his ear, its tone laden with menace.
‘Right, you fuckin’ know-all barbarian ballbag, I’m going to teach you what it means to respect the blokes what have been here a lot longer than you, eh, horse fucker?’
Coming to his senses Saratos recognised the harsh whisper as that of Horta, the soldier he had faced down that morning, his eyes narrowing as he recognised the dull silver line of a dagger in the man’s hand. Shaking his head again he tried to get his feet beneath him to push his body upright, only to have them kicked away by the knifeman’s comrade Sliga, who bent to mutter a warning with one hand squarely planted on the Sarmatae soldier’s face, the other brandishing a knife. He hissed a warning, flying spittle flecking Saratos’s cheeks.
‘No you fucking don’t! You can take your punishment like a good little boy!’
Taking the opportunity fleetingly presented to him with a feeling of incensed gratitude at the soldier’s mistake, Saratos spat out the cloth gag and snaked out his free hand to grab at the neckerchief intended to protect his captor’s neck from the edges of his mail’s iron rings, dragging the soldier’s face close to his own. Before the man could react he found his nose firmly gripped between Saratos’s teeth, with a sudden intense pain from which no amount of arm waving would free him. Tensing his arm to strike out with the dagger, he found his fist wrapped in the fingers of the Sarmatae’s free hand, pinning the weapon against his body, and after another hideously painful squeeze of the recruit’s jaws he found himself unceremoniously kicked away, as Saratos leapt to his feet with his assailant’s dagger in his hand.