All along the four-man-wide column shields were being raised, the men closest to the path’s edges lifting their boards to either side against the threat of enemy warriors bounding in to attack them with spear and sword, while the men behind them hoisted their shields over their heads to protect themselves and the outermost soldiers against the volley of arrows that was expected to be the first signal of an ambush. Centurions were bellowing at their men, encouraging their centuries to join up into an unbroken line rather than leave gaps that would enable each of them to be isolated and destroyed piecemeal. In the forest around them Julius could hear shouted commands, and he pulled the tribune deeper into the cover of the shield walls to either side.
‘Here it comes!’
The first volley of arrows hammered against the raised boards, some of the missiles rattling off the heavy iron bosses and rims while more thumped into the defence’s layered wood and linen to protrude like the spines of a hedgehog. A second volley sighed in the air for an instant before punching into the hastily formed line, the man beside Scaurus stiffening as if a snake had bitten him before slumping to the path with an arrow, which had managed to flit through a narrow gap in the wall of shields, buried deep in his neck.
Julius ripped off the dying man’s helmet, tossing it to Scaurus along with the padded liner.
‘Put that on! You’re going to need it!’
He snatched up the man’s shield, putting it back into the hole left by its absence before the gap could become a target for the next volley.
‘Pugio!’
His shout brought his deputy running up the line in the narrow space between the two banks of raised shields.
‘If he’s not already dead then put this poor bastard out of his misery! We’ll be on the move soon, and any man that can’t stay the pace either dies at our hands or theirs!’
The third volley hammered home, but as far as Julius could see the cohort’s line was holding firm. With every second that passed without a fourth cascade of arrows he knew the odds increased that the enemy warriors were already on the move. Dropping the shield he raised his head and bellowed the order that would either save them from the ambush or consign them to the horrific death he intended to mete out to their attackers.
‘Now Qadir! Now!’
From behind the shields that had protected the Hamian’s waiting archers a return volley of arrows flicked out into the forest, but as they flew high into the trees it was immediately evident that they were not intended to find human targets. Each of the arrows trailed a thin ribbon of greasy smoke, their iron heads adorned with blazing lumps of wool that had been cut from the archers’ cloaks and dipped in oil, ready to be lit from the torch that Qadir’s optio had carried from their last rest halt. Each arrow found a mark within fifty paces of the path, slapping into the upper reaches of the fir trees that marched away into the distance to either side in their confused ranks. Within seconds their bright flames had spread into the tree’s highly combustible needles, and as the Venicone warriors sprinted from the forest’s cover towards the waiting Roman line, their voices raised in a chorus of blood-curdling screams, the trees above them caught fire with a sudden crackle and fizz of burning pine needles. Julius watched with grim satisfaction as his officers bellowed the orders for their men to prepare for the Venicone charge, their soldiers levelling a bristling hedge of spearheads at the oncoming wave of barbarians.
As the warriors charged into the double wall of shields, struggling through the forest’s undergrowth onto the cohort’s waiting spears, the forest above them bloomed with the light and heat of a rapidly increasing number of burning trees, as the flames that were consuming the archers’ original targets quickly spread through the canopy. For a few brief moments the Venicones continued their assault, although more and more of them were looking over their shoulders at the roof of flame that was spreading across the trees behind them, feeling the inferno’s searing heat starting to become intolerable. Even behind the protection of a wall of shields Julius could feel the heat increasing by the moment, and he watched in grim fascination as smoke began to rise from the men at the rear of the attacking mob.
With a sudden howl of agony one of the warriors caught light, his clothes and hair flaring up and sending him screaming away from the battle in search of some escape from the intolerable pain, only to run deeper into the seemingly impenetrable wall of flame that was gathering strength about the Tungrians and their attackers. He vanished into the blaze, his screams rising to a crescendo before they were abruptly silenced, and for an instant the tribesmen dithered, staring at each other in consternation as the terrible nature of the trap their would-be victims had sprung on them became clear. With a sudden, apparently collective decision they broke and scattered, each man looking for his own escape as they ran in all directions seeking to get out from beneath the flames that were now licking through the trees above the soldiers. Even with his helmet to protect him Julius could feel the heat of the forest’s destruction becoming intolerable, and he realised that if his men didn’t move quickly they would share the tribesmen’s uncertain fate. Shaking his mesmerised trumpeter by the shoulder, he shouted into the young soldier’s face.
‘The retreat! Blow the fucking retreat and start running!’
As the first notes of the new signal blasted out over the fire’s swelling roar the Tungrians stirred from their momentary fixation with the blaze’s rippling tendrils of flame, their ranks turning away from the terrified enemy warriors to face back down the path into the heart of the forest.
‘Too slow!’
Julius stepped out of his men’s protection, putting both hands around his mouth and bellowing a single word down the length of his command.
‘Run!’
The cohort’s column lurched into motion, the soldiers obeying long-ingrained conditioning in the absence of rationality that had fled in the face of the monstrous blaze roaring around them. Goaded and beaten by their officers and chosen men, the rearmost centuries stumbled back down the path up which they had marched moments before. Grateful for his helmet and armour’s protection against the fire’s heat Julius looked about him as his men started to move, realising that the barbarian war band which had been poised to roll over them in an unstoppable wave had shattered in the face of the fire’s awful power. The Venicone tribesmen were still running in all directions in the hope of escaping the conflagration, and as he watched in amazement a tall, heavily built man still holding the axe that he would have been wielding against the Tungrian line sprinted out of the blazing trees with his hair and beard alight, bellowing out his pain and fear. A heavy branch fell from the canopy as the tree above him cracked explosively, the thigh-thick bough smashing the burning man to the ground in a shower of sparks. Julius winced, bellowing a command down the column of men in front of him.
‘Run!Run for your fucking lives!’
Led once more by Arabus, the remnant of the raiding party stumbled out of the Dirty River’s swamp and onto the firmer ground of a gravelled path more by luck than judgement. Arabus knelt to touch the packed stone surface as if to give thanks to the divine providence that had led them onto its firm footing.
‘This is the way we came the night before last. The road that leads back to Lazy Hill is half a mile or so to the south, and Gateway Fort is a mile or so further on down the road.’
In the thinning mist behind them the calls of their hunters sounded closer than before, the baying of their dogs echoing across the silent landscape in a chorus of eager howls and yelps. The tracker looked up at his comrades and shook his head.