Ballista looked for Andonnoballus in the chaos of the laager. Men shouted, and horses called. A surprising number of domestic animals had escaped from the wagons and now darted about between the river and the semicircle of the laager. It was as well the oxen had been driven out.
The young Herul was in the centre of it all. Still on horseback, his long head rose above the confusion. Turning, he called out orders, encouragements and reprimands. He pointed and men ran to do his bidding.
‘Where do you want me?’ Ballista asked.
Andonnoballus saw him and smiled. It struck Ballista the Herul would have been a handsome northern warrior were it not for the deformed skull and the tattoos.
‘Down by the watercourse. Hold the bank. How many men do you have with you?’
‘Just Maximus and Tarchon.’
Andonnoballus looked at the other two.
‘They are just members of the staff,’ Ballista said. ‘No use in a fight.’
‘Take them anyway,’ Andonnoballus said. ‘I will try to send you one or two more — if we can spare them.’
Ballista summoned the others to his side. The two members of staff shuffled up. They would not hold his gaze. They were terrified; they would be no use. Maximus trotted his horse over. He was holding a chicken by its feet. He wrung its neck, and tied it to a rear horn of his saddle. Tarchon had to be called several times. The Suanian, a wistful look on his face, was standing holding his pony at arm’s length. He seemed lost in some barbaric other world. Seeing him made Ballista feel guilty about Porsenna. That he had disliked the pompous haruspex made it worse.
There were about forty paces of riverbank between the end wagons of the makeshift fortification. Half a dozen mature limes grew in quite an evenly spaced line. Ivy curled up their lower trunks. There was some thorny undergrowth between them and the lip of the watercourse.
The whooping of the Alani was growing louder.
Ballista and Maximus dismounted. They hobbled their horses, bringing the reins over the head and tying them around a foreleg. Tarchon did the same, although with some difficulty, and getting nipped in the process. They each took their bowcase from their saddle. Ballista told Maximus to take the right, Tarchon the left. He would take the centre. Use the limes as cover.
Both the staff had disappeared already. As if hiding among the baggage would do them any good if the Alani broke into the camp. Inconsequentially, Ballista realized neither of them could be frumentarii. In just this one instance, it was a pity. All frumentarii were trained soldiers before they were seconded. They could not have known it, but they had saved the wrong men. Yet Ballista doubted if the haruspex could have been a frumentarius. It was impossible to imagine he had ever been a legionary.
Pushing through the shrubs, Ballista quickly inspected the river. There was a steep drop of some ten, twelve paces down to the water. The soil of the bank looked quite loose, friable. The river was about twenty paces across. The far bank, if anything, was higher. You could get a horse up and down, but it would not be easy. All that was very good. Not all aspects were as encouraging. The water was not deep, not above knee level at any point. The bed of the river looked solid. The vegetation on the far bank matched that on the side of the camp, giving the Alani the same cover as the defenders until they attempted to cross the river. Yet, all in all, it could have been far worse.
The howls and roars of fighting came from behind Ballista. The Alani were attacking the wagons. The noises told him it was not yet hand to hand. The Alani were pressing close with a storm of arrows. Ballista went back, thorns plucking at his clothes. Overshot arrows were plunging to the ground all around. Ballista sheltered under the branches of the central lime, back against its smooth, grey trunk. He kept an eye over his shoulder on the river and what he could see of the Steppe beyond. He devoted the rest of his attention to holding his small buckler out ready to deflect any arrows that made it through the foliage.
Ballista looked up through the leaves at the sun. It was early afternoon. He was hungry. They had missed lunch. It was going to be a long day.
XVIII
The first Alani outriders were no time in appearing. They came splashing down the bed of the stream from the right, moving at a high-stepping trot. They must have climbed down the bank somewhere off to the east.
Ballista took a dozen or so arrows from his gorytus and pushed them point down into the soil at his feet. They would be easy to get at there. Some said the dirt poisoned the wound. Ballista did not care about that, he just needed them to hand. He leant the bowcase back against the tree. There were about forty arrows left in it. He selected one. Waiting, he ran his forefinger and thumb down the shaft to check it was straight and true, he felt the feathers, and finally he nocked it.
The noise of combat rolled across from the wagons.
Maximus was taking his time. Ballista was dry-mouthed with apprehension, but he admired the Hibernian’s control. So far, there were only six Alani riding in line. Let them get well into the killing ground. The foremost rider was bareheaded; a strip of scarlet cloth holding back his long brown hair. His upper body was encased in bright scale armour. He must be a nobleman. Those following were unarmoured, in patterned tunics and trousers. Ballista knew what was in Maximus’s mind.
An arrow hissed across from the left. It narrowly missed the head of the Alani noble. That fool of a Suanian, Ballista thought. All the Alani brought up their bows, scanning both banks for targets. The leader went to kick on. An arrow punched deep into the shoulder of his mount. The warhorse plunged, half unseating its rider. Ballista stepped out, drew and released. His arrow sank into the injured horse’s flank. It reared. The Alan went sprawling. As it landed, the warhorse sank to its knees.
Alani arrows were whipping through the branches. Ballista drew again. The rear horse he had intended as his target was already out of control, maddened by the pain of the arrowhead embedded in its neck. Maximus was doing well. Ballista calmly shot an Alan in the centre of their line out of the saddle.
With the riverbed ahead and behind partly blocked by dead or dying animals, the Alani realized their dreadful position. Almost as one, those still mounted set their horses at the far bank. An arrow from Tarchon took one in the shoulder. The Alan somehow clung on as his pony scrambled up the almost sheer incline. You could not fault their horsemanship. And you could not fault their courage. They were only intended to scout.
A flash of silver, like the belly of a fish. The Alani nobleman in the scale armour was out of the water, hauling himself up the opposite bank. An arrow from Ballista’s left missed him. One from the right did the same. Hand over hand, he scrabbled, the soil landsliding behind him. The other Alani, having forced their horses through the sharp bushes, had turned and were shooting to cover his escape.
Ballista stepped clear of the tree. As he closed one eye and drew, an Alani arrow screeched close past. Part of him noticed he had reverted to the normal European two-finger draw. Another incoming shaft snapped a twig a foot or two away. He released, and stepped back into cover. He heard the splash as the body fell back into the water, and the babble of angry foreign voices. At twenty paces, even metal armour offered little guarantee of protection.
When he had stilled his breathing, Ballista peeked out; the other side of the tree, low down and quick. No arrow thrummed at his face. As far as he could see, the Alani outriders had gone. The noise of the skirmishing along the line of the wagons at his back must have masked their hooves. Below, down in the water, were two dead horses and three dead men. Ballista had not noticed the third die.