He’d found it hard not to smile when he had joined the Tenth Century in the centre of the circle a few moments before, amused by the way that their new centurion was sitting on a rock in the middle of his men with a small but very clear gap around him on all sides. Where Titus would have been at the very heart of his century’s press of men, his growl of a voice inspiring them to the acts of mayhem they would shortly be wreaking upon their enemies, Dubnus was clearly still a man apart. The events of the previous hour had proven that he could command the pioneers, but their attitude towards him was clearly still one of tolerance rather than respect. Dubnus got to his feet, taking a handful of dirt and rubbing it into his hands to dry the fluid that was still leaking from his blisters, the result of taking his turn in the frantic rush to complete the defences that had been his conception.
‘Tenth Century, on your feet!’
The pioneers got up from where they were resting after their exertions, a few of them copying their new centurion’s manner of drying his hands. Dubnus looked about him, nodding slowly at what he saw.
‘That’s more like it! Now you look like men who are ready to take their revenge on the bastard who ordered the ambush that led to Titus’s death! Who’s ready to come with me and kill their king?!’
One of the larger men in the century stepped forward, looking down at his centurion and then across the circle at the heaving press of men that stood between them and the horsemen at the rear of the barbarians.
‘I am! But how are we going to get at him, with that lot in the way?’
Dubnus grinned at him, and the pioneer’s eyes narrowed at the sudden glint of insanity in his new officer’s eyes.
‘That’s easy enough, if you’ve got the balls for it!’ He raised his voice to a parade-ground bellow, loud enough for every man inside the circle of trees to hear him. ‘Tenth Century, if you want revenge for Titus, follow me! If any of you isn’t man enough then stay here, and regret missing the chance for the rest of your miserable, snivelling lives! For Titus!’
He sprang across the clearing towards the barbarians, and for an instant his men stared after him with sheer amazement before the man he had challenged raised his voice in an equally berserk roar, running after his officer with his axe raised over his head.
‘For Titus! Follow the Prince!’
Suddenly the entire century was in furious motion, the soldiers pumping their legs with all their might as they strove to catch up with their centurion, shouts of ‘Titus!’ and ‘The Prince!’ rending the air. In his place behind the Fifth Century Marcus saw the pioneers flooding towards him with his friend at their head, but as he opened his mouth to welcome them to the fight the big man winked at him and leapt up onto the tree to his right, running up the trunk’s inclined surface as quickly as he could. His men followed, more of them climbing onto the tree to the Fifth’s left, and the young centurion’s faced creased with amazement as he realised exactly where it was that Dubnus was leading his men. Julius had joined him and Scaurus at the rear of the embattled century, and met his tribune’s amazed glance with a shrug.
‘Surely he isn’t going to …?’
The first spear drew his sword, spitting on the churned ground.
‘He bloody well is! It’ll either end in victory or kill us all, but he’s just shown us our one chance to mount a counter-attack! So, shall we join him?’
Calgus didn’t realise what was happening until the trees to either side of the frantic pushing match for the gap began to shake, their branches quivering beneath the weight of the heavy axe men as they stormed up the trunks’ gentle incline. With a wild yell the first of them, an officer to judge from the crest across his helmet, threw himself from the very end of his tree, his arms and legs flung back as he flew through the air towards the royal party. For an instant the Selgovae’s world was reduced to the murderous expression on the leaping man’s face, his eyes pinned wide and his teeth bared in a snarl of bestial ferocity. He was still marvelling at the Tungrian’s apparent insanity when the big man dropped to the ground a dozen paces from them, rolled once and spun to his left, laying about himself with the big axe in his right hand and smashing tribesmen from his path with the shield’s iron boss, another man leaping from the tree behind him and immediately springing to his officer’s side. Within a few heartbeats there were ten of the axe-wielding monsters in the very heart of the war band with more of them jumping into the fight with every second, big men, beyond big, hulking giants who seemed set on painting themselves red with Venicone blood and were going about it at a rage-fuelled pace, hacking their way out from their landing places in all directions in a flurry of heavy axe blades that felled one or two men with every blow.
The closest of the king’s bodyguards to the fray fell from his horse, and Calgus realised that the animal had been unceremoniously decapitated, the warrior dying in a froth of blood from a huge chest wound while he was still struggling to free himself from beneath the beast’s dead weight. The man who had killed him stood for a moment with his legs astride the still-warm corpse, raising the axe’s red blade to the sky and howling his triumph as blood rained down on his face and armour. Leaning forward, Calgus cut the mare’s reins free of Brem’s saddle, quailing as the king turned and raised his sword with an incoherent cry of rage as he realised that the Selgovae meant to flee. Before the blow could land the wounded king lurched back in his saddle with an arrow protruding from his chest, and Calgus realised that there were archers on the trees to either side of the war band, perhaps thirty of them pouring arrows into the packed mass of warriors as fast as they could. He ducked as low as possible, watching as the king toppled stiffly over his horse’s side and fell beneath the hoofs of the remaining animals. Unable to reach the dangling remnant of the mare’s reins he grabbed its right ear and pulled the graceful head round, trying to turn the beast away from the fight, but the horse was still wedged between the dead king’s mount and the men jostling around them.
The axe men were fighting in a more disciplined manner now, and their initial mad charge into the battle’s heart had given way to a tight formation organised around the lead of their centurion. Forming a two-sided line they were hewing at both the tribesmen trapped between them and the circle’s defenders and those warriors attempting to rescue their comrades, chanting three words over and over as they hacked their way into the battered tribesmen. It took a moment for him to realise exactly what it was that they were shouting, the chant gradually rising in pitch and volume as the other soldiers took it up, bellowing the words as they stormed into the fight.
‘Titus! The Prince! Titus! The Prince!’
The Selgovae’s blood ran cold at the realisation of what it was that he was hearing, and he redoubled his efforts to back his horse away from the crush of men as the Tungrians, further reinforced by a continual stream of men along the two fallen trees, tightened their stranglehold on the trapped and increasingly helpless Venicones, while the axe-wielding giants fought to keep the rush of men seeking to rescue their brothers at bay. With a last frantic effort he persuaded the mare to back away from the embattled king’s guard, as they fought for the body of their dead ruler, praying harder than he had ever prayed for them to ignore him as he turned the beast away from the fight and kicked its flanks to spur it up the ridge, and to the safety of the open forest. Looking back he saw a Roman officer with two swords fight his way out of the fray and stare after him, and he grinned as he recognised the dead legatus’s son, the man who had so cruelly cut his ankle tendons and left him for dead on the occasion of their last meeting. Turning in his saddle he shouted back at the Roman, his voice shaking with the closeness of his escape.