The scream shattered the peace in the little valley, frightening the raven which had settled on one of the corpses. Ferox looked up and saw that the male captive had woken and taken a spear, walking up beside the Red Cat and the boy and driving the weapon into the boy’s back. He fell forward, and the captive jabbed with the spear again and again, grunting with the effort.
Ferox ran over, drawing his sword. He expected a wild look in the captive’s face, but instead there was just pleasure.
‘Bastard!’ The Red Cat spat the word, and then rolled out of the way because the spear was now aimed at him.
‘He is mine!’ the young man shouted in Latin, his tone expecting obedience, and Ferox reversed his sword and struck with the dome-shaped pommel against his forehead. The former captive dropped.
The Red Cat rolled and managed to push himself up on his elbows and then stand.
‘You had better kill me,’ he said in a flat tone. ‘Because if you do not, then I swear by Sun and Moon that I will kill you one day.’
Ferox stared at him, but put his blade back in its scabbard. ‘You’ll have to wait your turn to try.’
Half an hour later he saw a pair of horsemen down by the loch. He did not recognise them and they kept their distance and watched. An hour after that, a dozen horsemen appeared from the other end of the valley, and the two watchers galloped away. The new group headed straight for him, and one of them cantered ahead.
‘I found some friends,’ Vindex said, pointing back at the approaching horsemen, all of them heavily armed. The leader, a huge, bearded man, waved in greeting.
‘Didn’t know you had any.’
‘You have been busy, I see,’ the Brigantian said, looking around at the debris of the fight.
‘Yes.’
Vindex glanced at the centurion’s side, seeing the rent in his armour. There had not been time to ease the mail shirt off and bind up the injury.
‘Bad?’ the scout asked.
‘No.’
‘Pity,’ Vindex sighed. ‘I really could do with a new pair of boots.’
II
‘REMEMBER HIM?’ Vindex asked, jerking his head up towards the top of the tower.
Ferox glanced up. They were approaching the main double gateway of Vindolanda, the top of the timber parapet some thirty feet high. A pair of sentries peered down. They were mail-clad Batavians with fur-like moss glued to the tops of their bronze helmets, but he knew that the scout was not speaking of them. There were three stakes mounted on the parapet, although at the moment only one was occupied. The head impaled on top of it was black, flesh long withered away and skin shrunken tightly around the skull.
‘Aye, I remember.’ Ferox had never learned the man’s name, but his followers called him the Stallion, and he had claimed to be a druid or priest and worker of magic sent by the gods to purge the lands of the Romans. His message was one of hatred and blood and the year before last he had raised an army to make his vision come true. Ferox had warned his superiors of the impending storm and been ignored until it had broken, and then had helped them gamble and somehow smash the fanatics. A lot of people had died, some of them horribly, before they had won, and he still shuddered at the thought of what had happened and what might easily have followed. Ferox had wounded the Stallion in the battle, but the priest had escaped only to be sacrificed by his own allies a few days later. Ferox and Vindex had found his corpse swinging from a yew tree and brought the head back here as ordered.
‘Still haven’t heard much about Acco,’ Vindex added, once he realised that his companion was not going to say any more. Acco was a true druid, one with the old knowledge, and he had supported the Stallion and then inflicted the triple death when the man was beaten.
‘One day, we will.’ Ferox worried that Acco had vanished for he feared what the man was doing. The Stallion had been a wild dog, unthinkingly angry, his beliefs a mishmash of old ideas and exotic rituals taken from half the religions of the empire. Acco was different, one of the last of the true druids, a man who had seen the groves at Mona before they were burned, and if his loathing of Rome was just as strong it was cold and calculating. It was he who had sacrificed the Stallion, giving him slow poison and then slicing at his flesh with a flint knife as the noose had slowly strangled the man. The triple death of a magician was meant to propitiate the gods for his failure, and brought immense power to one who performed it.
‘Maybe he’s died,’ Vindex suggested without conviction. ‘He must be getting on a bit.’
‘Huh,’ Ferox grunted. Acco was out there somewhere, waiting, plotting, and they must keep searching for any news of the man because otherwise it might be too late when he appeared.
‘Yes.’ Vindex decided that he would get no more from the centurion and instead turned his horse to leer at their captives. He pointed up at the two empty stakes on the tower. ‘Look at that, boys, they must have known you were coming!’
Segovax and the Red Cat ignored him, but that was nothing new. In the two and a half weeks they had spent travelling back, the brothers had said almost nothing. Segovax did his best to hide his discomfort, and Ferox could not help admiring the man’s strength and determination. Vindex had wanted to kill them both.
‘Best for him,’ he claimed. ‘Poor bugger will be in pain all the way and there won’t be anything nice waiting at the other end. And the other one swears that he’ll kill you – and me as well – so why not sort him out now? Don’t fancy sleeping with one eye open all the way home either.’
The Red Cat was fitted with shackles to the wrist and another pair for his legs whenever they dismounted. Vindex had brought them. ‘Just in case,’ he said, and wanted to do the same to Segovax.
‘Reckon he’d can’t do much with a leg and arm bust,’ Ferox insisted.
Vindex was unconvinced. ‘If that one had no legs and no arms he’d still try to bite you.’
They compromised on using a shackle to fasten the man’s good arm to tree or log whenever they stopped for the night. Each time they fitted it, Segovax said nothing, just staring into their eyes. Almost the only time he spoke was to tell them that the boy stabbed to death by their captive was the Red Fox’s son. Like his brother, he swore to kill Ferox as soon as he got the chance.
‘You’re good at making friends, aren’t you?’ Vindex said. ‘Still sure you don’t want me to finish them both?’ Ferox did not answer.
It was easier in the first week when they were accompanied by the high king’s men. These were the friends Vindex had encountered, a dozen big warriors led by a German exile called Gannascus. The first time they had met, the big man had almost killed Ferox, but since then respect had grown to friendship, at least as far as their different loyalties allowed.
‘Give them to me,’ the big warrior said. ‘I’ll take them back to Tincommius. The high king has been wanting their heads for years. The sly little one has taken too many of his best horses.’
‘They are my prisoners, and I’m taking them back,’ Ferox insisted.
‘Huh. Twelve of us, four of you, and our home a lot closer.’ Gannascus looked grim and even more massive than usual. ‘We could take them if we wanted.’ He held Ferox’s gaze for a moment and then threw back his head to roar with laughter, something he did very often. He patted the Roman on the shoulders, laughing even more when Ferox winced because of the graze to his side.
While they rode with Gannascus and his men they were too formidable a band to attract the attention of casual attackers. It also meant that it was easier to guard their prisoners. Ferox was still surprised to have met the German so far to the west. Tincommius’ influence was spreading wider than he had thought. The high king was a friend to the Romans, an ally, at least while it suited him, which merely meant that he treated the Romans just as they treated him. Yet his strength kept growing, while the garrison in Britannia was weak and likely to get weaker soon enough. Ferox had heard rumours that Trajan was planning for a big campaign on the Danube. At best that would mean few new drafts coming to keep units up to strength, and at worst it would mean more troops being posted away from Britannia. The tribes all knew that Rome was weaker than in the old days when the Romans had first came to the north. That sense of retreat was something the Stallion had used to inspire his supporters. Acco did the same and he was still out there. In the past, the druid and high king had been friends and they could easily join together again. It would be a dangerous combination because both men were as clever as they were ruthless. Ferox feared that one day he would face them and Gannascus in battle. Maybe that would be the end of his story.