One of the Britons stood up straight, mouth open wide as if to shout, but Ferox heard no sound, and his horse kept going. The warrior turned, pushing at the men behind, and suddenly the mass broke apart, men running away. A gap opened and the mare flew into it. Ferox cut down, felt a momentary jar as the sword hit bone before biting into the skull, and his gladius was almost pulled from his hand before the speed of his horse wrenched it free. A warrior came at him from the right, spear thrusting at his chest, and he beat it aside and was past, running amid a loose crowd of fleeing men. He leaned into a thrust, caught a man at the top of the spine, saw him drop and kept going. There were cavalrymen close behind and on either side, slashing more often that they stabbed.
Ferox sliced down, the man sheering away at the last minute so that the triangular tip of the centurion’s blade cut through one eye and the warrior’s cheek. The Briton clutched at the wound screaming until Victor drove his heavy spear full into the man’s back. Masclus was pushing his horse through the press, and Ferox watched as he drew level with a running man, cut back and took the warrior’s head off with a single blow. A jet of blood pumped up into the air, and horses and soldiers alike were spattered with blood, but little of it was their own.
Not all the Britons were helpless. Two men came at Ferox, one from each side, and he yanked hard on the reins and made his mare rear, front feet flailing, and one man lost his teeth when a hoof slammed into his face. The centurion hacked through the right arm of the other warrior, the hand still clutching a workman’s axe as it fell free. He raised the blade again and cut across his body at the first enemy, missing his head and biting into his neck. With the next blow blood was pumping and the man dropped.
Ferox pushed on, and the crowd was more scattered, and yet still there were ten or more Britons for every Roman riding among them. It was intoxicating to have so many enemies at your mercy so that a rider could choose which one to kill next. Alexander had led his Macedonians like this, and it was small wonder that the king soon felt himself to be a god, because there was an exultation and raw excitement about such slaughter that was like nothing else. The auxiliaries killed and killed, and there were still more enemies as the troopers grew weary, and their horses went faster than the men on foot and soon burst out of the back of the great mob of Britons. Ferox looked around him and there were no more warriors to cut down, for all had been left behind. His horse began to slow, but he forced the mare on until she was properly clear and only then halted her and turned her around.
Ferox tried to shout, but had to cough before any sound would come. His mouth was dry as dust, and his voice cracked as he called out, ‘Rally, rally on me!’ He waved his sword in the air and his arm felt like lead. Men came to join him, all wide-eyed, not quite believing what they had done. Vindex was with them, the blade of his long sword notched, and Masclus with some of his Batavians, even the fur on their helmets flecked with blood. The Thracian was there as well, and the man looked down at his thigh, puzzled because he was wounded, but not remembering how it had happened. Some forty men had made it through. Ferox did not know how many had fallen, although he could see a couple of dead horses among the crowd of enemies who now milled about, uncertain what to do. They had stopped running. Beyond them he could see a few dozen more cavalrymen, which meant that some had not broken into the enemy formation. The legionary horsemen were further back and it was hard to see them through the snow.
He looked towards the centre and there was another lull in the fighting. It was strange to see the backs of the Britons rather than the Roman cohorts. Second Augusta did not seem to have made any ground, but they had not lost any either, and instead the two lines had fought until they were spent and then shuffled back so that they were a couple of spear lengths apart. He could see the six signa of the cohort clustered together in the centre of their line, but could not see the legionaries. The Britons were massed, fifteen, maybe twenty deep in places, and if the Stallion was still with them he would be whipping them up into a fresh frenzy. Ferox wondered whether II Augusta could hold and was pleased when he saw arrows arching high over the cohort and landing among the dense mass of enemy. Someone must have seen the danger and sent the archers to support the legionaries. In the centre the Batavians had made a little ground, but were still hugely outnumbered, and as the snow flurries became heavier he could not see the left flank and could only hope that XX Valeria Victrix and the cavalry were holding their own.
‘Right, lads, back we go to where we started,’ he said, running the blade of his sword through the mare’s mane to clean off the blood. ‘Go again before they start counting.’ A few of the men grinned, for there were hundreds of warriors in front of them and they were gathering together again, many of them turning to face the Romans who were now behind them. Yet if Flaccus sent the legionaries and the other horsemen charging in from the other side then they might still panic and flee.
‘Sir!’ Masclus pointed past the Britons to where the legionary horsemen were wheeling away to face north. For just an instant the snow slackened and Ferox glimpsed one of the cohorts of VIIII Hispana from the second line also turning away from the main battle. The reserves were shifting to meet a new threat at the very time the battle was balanced on a knife edge.
With a dull roar the Britons facing II Augusta went forward again, forcing weary limbs and fading spirits to try one more time. Ferox hoped that the legionaries could hold, for there was now nothing behind them.
‘Come on, those people have lived too long already,’ Ferox called to his men, his sword pointing at the re-forming Britons. Vindex laughed, his eyes wild.
‘Charge!’ There was no point building up the pace gradually. Horses and men were tired and it was just a case of getting them to go at the enemy as fast as they could. His men did not cheer, saving their strength for the fight, but they followed, a ragged line two ranks deep.
The mare jerked into a canter, stumbled, recovered and found new strength to go faster. The Britons were close, and among them were corpses, the snow settling quicker on them than it did on the damp ground so that they looked like little white mounds. Some of the Britons stood back to back, weapons ready, but Ferox ignored them and rode into the spaces where men fled from their path. The back of a warband was where the cautious and timid lurked, so there were few bold spirits and many more without the sense to realise that running was the most dangerous thing they could do. Ferox cut a man down and made for the next one, only to see the Briton fling himself flat so that he could not reach him. He hoped that someone behind him had a spear to finish the rogue off, but there was no time to worry and it was better to keep moving.
The Romans drove into the loose crowd of warriors, stabbing and hacking, pressing on wherever there was a space or one opened up ahead of them. They wounded and killed, but there was not the same surprise and momentum as the first charge and more of the enemy fought back. A Batavian took one man in the throat with his heavy spear, while another reeled back when his horse bit the warrior’s face, leaving it a bloody ruin. Another Briton drove a sharpened stake into the animal’s belly, and it screamed as it fell, throwing its rider who hit the ground hard and was hacked to pieces in moments.
Ferox pushed on, lunging to pierce a man’s skull just where he bore the tattoo of the horse, but another man, more of a warrior this time, was on his left, and two great blows shattered the centurion’s shield and left it weak and broken. He was about to turn and face him when another wild-eyed, tattooed man charged at him, his open mouth frothing, and it took all Ferox’s strength to block the furious blow of an axe held two-handed.