Then the lane turned a corner, and there ahead lay the storage pits. The covers had been pulled back, and beyond the pits a handful of the enemy were still in view, weighed down by booty and struggling to catch up with their comrades who had placed good sense above greed.
'Get 'em!' rasped Cato.
The legionaries ran forward in open order. This fight would be man to man – the shield wall would not be necessary. Shouting the legion's battle cry, 'Up the Augusta!' they fell on the Britons as if they were hunting rats in a granary. Immediately ahead of Cato a Roman caught up with a Durotrigan warrior who was dragging a huge bundle through the snow. The Briton sensed the danger behind him and turned, raising an arm in terror as the short sword rose up above him. Cato found himself cursing the legionary's lapse of training – the short sword was designed for stabbing, not cutting, and the man really should know better than to let his bloodlust overwhelm his training. Bad as a fucking one-day-wonder recruit. The expletive jumped unbidden into his mind, and shocked him for an instant, until he realised with a wry smile, just how far he had become immersed in the military world.
The Briton screamed as the short sword hacked through his forearm and shattered the bone so that the limb flopped like a freshly caught fish.
As Cato ran past the legionary, he shouted, 'Use your weapon properly!'
The legionary nodded guiltily then turned back to finish off his shrieking victim with the point of his sword.
Cato passed more bodies sprawled in the snow, their booty scattered around them – dark bundles of cloth from which spilled silver goblets and plates, pieces of personal jewellery and, bizarrely, a pair of carved wooden dolls. A Durotrigan warrior no doubt looking for a gift to carry home to his children, Cato guessed. He was startled by the thought that the men who had wrought such terrible destruction on this settlement and were capable of massacring even its youngest infants might have children of their own. He looked up from the dolls and saw dim shapes slipping through the remains of the palisade, pursued by Romans panting hoarsely from the chase and excitement of battle.
Cato clambered up the steep turf slope to the roughly hewn wooden stakes of the palisade. On the far side, spread out across the ditch and the white landscape beyond, were the dark shapes of those who had managed to escape the slaughter of their comrades back in the settlement. A number of his men joined him, anxious to get after the enemy.
'Hold still!' Cato managed to cry out hoarsely, despite the pain in his throat. Some of the men continued forward, and Cato had to shout again, straining to make his order louder. 'Hold!'
'Sir!' someone protested. 'They're getting away!'
'I can bloody well see that for myself!' Cato cursed angrily. 'There's nothing we can do. We'd never catch them now. Have to hope the cavalry scouts see 'em.'
Discipline and good sense halted the men. Chests heaving from their exertions, and steamy breath whipping around their heads, they watched the enemy flee into the darkness. Cato was shaking, partly from the cold wind that blew even more keenly up on the ramparts, and partly from the release of nervous tension.
Had so little time passed since they had rushed the enemy in the centre of the settlement? Forcing himself to concentrate, he realised that the whole affair could only have lasted little more than quarter of an hour. No sounds of fighting carried on the wind, so the skirmish at the gate must be over as well. All finished with as quickly as that. He recalled the first ever battle he had fought in. A village in Germania, not so very different to this one. But that desperate fight had lasted an afternoon and through the night until the first rays of dawn. Short though this fight might have been, the same burning exultation at having survived fired his veins and made him feel somehow older and wiser.
His throat ached abominably, and it was an agony to swallow or move his head too far in any direction. That huge Durotrigan warrior had almost done for him.
Chapter Thirteen
The faint pink glow in the sky cast a paler shade over the snow lying across the ruined settlement. As if the very earth itself had bled during the night, thought Cato as he rose stiffly from the corner of a wall where he had been resting under his army cloak. He had not slept. It had been too uncomfortable for that; his thin frame meant he felt the cold more keenly than the more muscled and hardened veterans of the legion, like Macro. As usual the centurion's full-throated snore had filled the night, until awakened for his century's turn on guard duty. Then, having woken the next officer on the rota, he had slipped instantly back into a deep sleep with a guttural rumbling that sounded like a distant earthquake.
A light layer of snow cascaded silently from the folds of Cato's cloak as he stood up. Wearily he brushed the remainder off and stretched his limbs. Picking his way over the rubble, he approached the huddled form of Figulus and gently poked him with the toe of his boot. The legionary grumbled and turned away without opening his eyes and Cato had to deliver a kick.
'On your feet, soldier.'
New to the army though he was, Figulus knew when he had been given an order and his body responded quickly enough, though his somewhat slower mind struggled to catch up.
'Get a fire lit,' ordered Cato. 'Make sure it's on clear ground away from anything combustible.'
'Sir?'
Cato gave the legionary a hard look, unsure if the lad was taking the piss. But Figulus stared back blankly, not a trace of guile in his simple features, and Cato smiled. 'Don't build the fire too close to anything that might catch light.'
'Oh, I see.' Figulus nodded. 'I'll get on with it, Optio.'
'Please.'
Figulus ambled off, scratching his numb backside. Cato watched him and clicked his tongue. The lad was too dim and too immature for the legions. It ought to feel strange to be making that kind of a judgement about someone who was a few months older than he was, and yet it didn't. Experience brought more wisdom than age ever could, and that was what counted in the army. A sense of well-being flowed through Cato's body at this further evidence that he was becoming fully attuned to the life of a soldier.
Clutching his cloak tightly about him, Cato made his way out of the ruined huts where the Sixth Century had spent the night. A few men had already stirred and were sitting in bleary-eyed semi-consciousness, watching dawn break in a clear sky. Some of them bore the marks of the previous night's skirmish: bloodstained rags tied round heads and limbs. Only a handful of men in the cohort had been mortally wounded. By contrast, the Britons had been cut to pieces. Nearly eighty of their band lay stiffening down by the gate and over twenty more were heaped by the well. The wounded and prisoners numbered over a hundred, packed in the remains of a barn under the wary gaze of half a century assigned to guard them. A few Druids had been taken alive, and were lying, tightly bound, in one of the storage pits.
As he crunched across the frost-hardened snow towards the pits, Cato saw Diomedes squatting to one side, staring fixedly at the Druids. A strip of cloth was wound round his head and dried blood stained the side of his face. He did not look up as the optio approached and gave no sign of life apart from the regular curling wisp of exhaled breath. Cato stood a few paces to one side for a moment, waiting for the Greek to acknowledge his presence, but he did not move, just stared at the Druids.
For their part, the Druids lay on their sides, hands securely fastened behind them and ankles bound. Although they were not gagged, they made no attempt to talk and just glared angrily at their guards as they shivered on the snowy ground. Unlike the other Britons that Cato had encountered, these men wore their hair long, with no attempt at lime-styling. Thick and matted, it was tied back in a long unkempt ponytail, while their beards were left free. Each man bore a dark moon tattoo on his forehead and wore black robes.