Castus stepped back towards the palisade. Chaos of shouting down below: the testudo had buckled and collapsed, but soldiers were scrambling up with their bare hands now, or pushing each other up on their shoulders. Only six men inside the enclosure. Retreat? The thought died – no chance of getting out of here alive now.
Blades on all sides. Castus blocked a blow, turned the sword aside and slipped his own blade down it to shear off the attacker’s knuckles. A spear jabbed at his shoulder, punch shy;ing into the mail. Another thudded into his shield, splitting the boards. Feet braced, Castus felt an odd calm settling over him. He moved without thinking, fought without fear. All the men who had followed him over the wall were down and only he remained. Move, block, cut. A blade slashed his leg above the knee, but he barely felt it. If I die here, he thought. If I die here… Blood sprayed hot across his face.
Then the rush came from behind him, the chorus of shouts as Modestus and his men vaulted in across the wall and flung themselves into the fight. Castus took two long strides forward. Drove his levelled blade against the silhouette of a warrior and heard him shriek. Wheeled, slashed back. His sword sliced through a man’s arm, and he saw blood jump in a black torrent.
‘What took you?’ he said, but it came out as a scream.
‘Sorry, got into a scrum down there!’ Modestus was laugh shy;ing, his mouth bleeding.
Sound of a horn blast from the lower enclosure: Valens and his men had captured the outer gate. The defenders in the upper fort were hanging back now, hurling javelins from the weaving shadows. The air was full of drifting sparks and flecks of flame.
‘Get to the inner gate!’ Castus shouted. ‘Form wedge and straight across the compound!’
They formed up around him as he moved, raised shields butting rim against rim, swords levelled. Castus set the pace, jogging, the knot of armoured men tight to either side. He had no real idea how many had followed Modestus over the wall – enough, he hoped. Ten paces, then fifteen, the defenders falling back before the moving wedge. A steady clatter and thunk of flung javelins against the wall of shields. With a jolt of surprise, Castus realised that the man to his right was Diogenes.
Staring over the upper rim of his shield, Castus could see the mass of men gathering around the upper gate. Warriors, all of them: Drustagnus’s picked warband. And there with them, standing up on the low wall above, was Drustagnus himself. Castus recognised him at once: the flat scowling face, the crest of black curls. For a moment he thought the Pictish chief had recognised him too – but Drustagnus was calling to his warriors, screaming at them to turn and face the approaching enemies who had somehow forced their way into his fortress.
The gateway was a narrow stepped passage cut down through the rampart and the rock beneath, sealed with a gate and covered with a wooden platform. The passage was only wide enough for three men standing abreast; attacked from below, it would be almost impregnable. But from the upper fort it was no more than a culvert, a gap in the low wall.
The space between the gate and the moving wedge of Roman troops narrowed fast. A hedge of spears against them now, a rising wall of men.
‘Double pace!’ Castus shouted, his voice ringing between the close shields. ‘Charge…!’
The wedge drove into the thicket of spears at a run, crashing aside the first few warriors. The others gathered, crowding together. Four more paces and Castus ran his shield up against the pack of bodies. Diogenes was pressed against his side, another soldier to his left. Together they shoved, sliding blades out between the shield rims. Spears jabbed and flickered above them.
A long moment of heaving, then the pack broke and Castus staggered forward, half tripping over a dead man. A sword clashed off the bowl of his helmet, and he felt the dizzying clamour of it in his skull.
Fighting all around now, the wedge splitting, the opening of the gate passage still blocked by a solid plug of enemy warriors. Castus hammered down an enemy shield, slammed his own into the man’s chest and knocked him aside.
‘Diogenes! Keep close behind me!’
Blood filled his left eye and he blinked it clear. He chopped down at an attacker, once and then twice; the warrior’s sword broke near the hilt, and he hurled the shard at Castus’s face. Another lunged forward from the press: one hammering blow shattered the man’s shield, the next chopped into his shoulder.
The Pict buckled and fell, dragging Castus’s arm down, the sword still firmly caught in his shoulder blade. Castus kicked at the dying man’s chest, hauling on his sword hilt, but the weapon was trapped. He released it, got both hands behind his shield.
‘Sword!’ he yelled. ‘Somebody get me a fucking sword!’
He swung the shield with both fists behind the boss, punch shy;ing it against men to left and right. A blade struck the neckplate of his helmet and raked down his back, grating against the mail. The boards of his shield were split, and only the rawhide rim held it together. Then it was ripped from his grasp completely, and Castus saw a huge bare-chested warrior raising a spear to strike at him. For a heartbeat he stood, open-handed, open-mouthed. Then Diogenes darted in from his right and slashed the big Pict across the stretched muscles of his abdomen. The man crumpled, dropped the spear and fell back.
‘Thanks,’ Castus said, planting his boot on the chest of the corpse at his feet and hauling his weapon free.
Above him, on the wall, Drustagnus stood alone directing his warriors. Castus glanced up at him, then down at the mass of men still blocking the gate. He reached out his left hand, seized a Pict by the hair and dragged him close, hacking at his neck with the sword. Kicking the body away from him he pushed forward, barging the enemy aside with his shoulders. He could sense the fight ebbing from them now, the panic taking hold. Trapped in the narrow gate passage, they could already hear the Roman horns blaring from the lower enclosure. Castus raised his sword in a two-handed grip, feinting at the warriors in front of him, and they dropped and squirmed aside, writhing up out of the gate passage like snakes from a burning wheatfield.
‘Modestus, get the gate open!’ he cried, not even sure if Modestus was there. Then he was scrambling up onto the wall parapet. His left leg was pouring blood, the fabric of his breeches soaked black, and his head was still ringing from the blow to his helmet.
Drustagnus was only a few paces away, brandishing his spear at the men below him. Castus edged forward, crouching. He could take the man with a rush and a swift strike, but something stopped him. A heady rush of wild pride.
‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘You know me?’
The Pictish chief turned quickly, swinging his spear down level in a boar-hunter’s grip. No sign of recognition on his face; he just snarled and lunged. Castus slashed back, and his sword rang against the iron spearhead. Drustagnus stabbed again, breathing hard from his throat, and Castus stepped back and parried the blow. With the third lunge, Castus twisted to his right and grabbed at the spearshaft with his free hand. Drustagnus dragged back on the spear, but Castus was already inside his guard. For a moment they wrestled together, their weapons trapped between them. Castus felt the heat of the man’s body close against him, smelled his breath and his sweat. Then he drew back his head and butted it forward into the Pict’s face, heard bone and cartilage crunch under the iron rim of his helmet. The spear went up, and he levelled his blade and drove it in low. Drustagnus fell against him, choking blood.