Cato 04 - The Eagle and the Wolves (12 page)

‘Lie down!’ he shouted in Celtic, and the Atrebatans dropped out of sight into the grass.

‘Bedriacus! On me!’

The wolf’s head standard rose up from the ground, followed moments later by the grinning features of the hunter. He trotted over to the centurion and Cato indicated that they crouch down, before scurrying back up towards the crest of the ridge. As he reached the top, he moved to the side of the track and dropped on to his stomach. Bedriacus got down beside him, carefully laying the standard in the grass. Cato unstrapped his crested helmet and put it to one side as he propped himself up on his elbows and fixed his eyes on the track on the other side of the ford. For a moment his eyes wandered along the treeline where Macro’s cohort was concealed but Cato saw no sign of movement. Everything was set, and the scene looked peaceful enough to allay the suspicions of the Durotrigans when they appeared.

The sun was low in the sky, and already the grass was tinged with a faint orange hue as a light breeze stirred the slender blades of green. There would be plenty of daylight for a few hours yet, and the Durotrigans would be wiped out long before they could escape under cover of darkness.

Half an hour must have passed before the advance scouts of the enemy column appeared half a mile from the ford. In all that time Bedriacus had kept absolutely still. Only his eyes moved, restlessly scanning the landscape, and Cato began to have more confidence in the hunter. Cato felt the faintest touch of a hand on his arm and looked round at Bedriacus. He nodded gently towards the track and Cato’s eyes searched for a moment before they fixed on the distant figures. Two men on horseback, side by side, slowly approached round the curve of the hill. They came on cautiously enough, glancing around them as they approached the ford.

‘Bedriacus . . .’ Cato said softly.

‘Sa?’

Cato pointed to the scouts and drew his finger across his throat, and then indicated the track just down from the crest. Bedriacus smiled his gap-toothed smile and nodded, shuffling away from Cato and easing his way behind a large tuft of spiky grass right at the edge of the track. Then he lay perfectly still again.

Peering carefully through the grass, Cato watched the scouts walk their horses up to the far side of the ford, no more than a hundred paces away. They stopped and exchanged some words, gesturing back in the direction of the main force of the Durotrigans. Then, both men slid from the backs of their mounts and led them into the pebble-bottomed shallows of the river. While the horses lowered their muzzles into the lazily sparkling current, one of the scouts waded a few steps downstream, untied his waist cords and unleashed a long golden arc of piss with a grunt of satisfaction that carried up the slope to Cato. When he had finished, the man just stood staring down-river for a moment and then hitched up his breeches and retied the waist cord. Making his way back to the riverbank, he sat beside his companion and gazed across the ford. Cato forced himself to keep still. With the sun low in the sky behind the scouts the crest of the hillock would be well lit, making any sudden movement easily detectable. But, as time crawled by, the scouts gave no sign that they were at all suspicious.

Something glittered in the distance and Cato shifted his gaze beyond the two scouts. A column of chariots came bumping along the track and the low sunlight was reflecting brilliantly off the highly polished bronze helmets of warriors riding on the small platforms above the axles. Fourteen chariots had come into sight before the first of the infantry appeared. With the sun almost at their backs Cato had to squint to make out any details of their equipment. His heart lifted as he saw that the vast majority were lightly armed and only a few sported helmets. Their shields were slung across their backs, and they carried a mixture of weapons, mostly swords and spears, together with large haversacks for their marching rations. At the rear of the loose column was a small band of more heavily armed warriors, and behind them a score of mounted men. Nothing that the Atrebatans could not handle, provided they stuck to their training and kept formation.

As soon as the scouts were aware of the approach of the column, they quickly stood up, mounted their horses, and crossed the ford. Cato ducked his head, turned towards Bedriacus and hissed. The hunter quickly met the centurion’s eyes and nodded. Cato pulled his helmet on and clumsily fastened the ties with excited fingers before pressing himself down into the grass. He heard the voices of the scouts, chatting in cheerful tones in their lilting Celtic dialect, quite unsuspecting. Beneath the pitch of the voices was the distinct steady clumping of hoofs, and the breathy snorting of one of the mounts. As they came closer Cato felt his heart pounding against his ribs, and was momentarily surprised that the pain had gone from his side. He eased his sword from the scabbard and tightened his grip on his shield handle. The scouts sounded so near now that he was sure they must be only feet away. Yet time seemed to extend endlessly, and he watched a bee drone over his head, haloed by the orange glow of the sinking sun.

Then there were shadows darkening the longest blades of grass as the two Durotrigans started to cross the crest of the hillock. Surely they must see Cato now. Or if not Cato, then Bedriacus, or some sign of the hundreds of men lying further down the slope. But then Cato realised that his cohort was in the shadows. It would take a moment before the scouts’ eyes adjusted to the gloom after the bright burnishing glow of the slope rising from the ford. He heard the scouts pass by him. They must be almost upon Bedriacus. Cato’s mind raced. Why the hell didn’t the hunter strike? What-

There was a gasp from the track, a horse whinnied, a man drew breath to shout and then there was the sound of a body thudding to the ground. By the time Cato had risen to his knees it was all over. Twenty feet away Bedriacus was easing one of the scouts from the back of his horse. The man was already dead: the handle of a knife protruding from under his chin, the blade punched up into his brain. His companion rustled in the grass for a moment, blood pumping from his slashed throat and spraying crimson droplets over the surrounding tussocks. Then he was still.

Bedriacus yanked his blade free of the scout’s skull and wiped it clean on the man’s long hair as he looked up at his centurion. Cato nodded his approval and pointed at the horses, nervous and a bit flighty at the shock of the hunter’s sudden appearance. Moving slowly towards them Bedriacus whispered softly and gently ran his fingers across their silken flanks until his grip tightened on the reins.

‘To the rear,’ Cato whispered in Celtic.

The hunter nodded, clicked his tongue and led the animals down the track between the hidden centuries, and set them loose. Whatever magic he had worked on the beasts continued to have its effect and they calmly tore at the lush growth of grass beside the track. Bedriacus padded back to Cato to retrieve the wolf standard and took position beside his commander.

The rumble of chariot wheels on the other side of the ford was clearly audible now, and the moment Cato heard the first splashes he turned down the slope and, cupping his hands, called as loudly as he dared, ‘Cohort! Stand up!’

Nearly five hundred men appeared from the long grass, silently rising to their feet, oval auxiliary shields tightly gripped. The splashing noises from the ford grew in volume as the infantry started across the river. They could no longer hear the noise of the chariots. They must have stopped, as Cato had guessed they would. The ford would make a perfect spot for the Durotrigans to camp for the night; largely hidden by the surrounding landscape, on dry ground with a river to water the horses and men.

‘Draw swords! Make ready to advance!’

Cato turned back to Bedriacus. ‘Stay here.’

The hunter nodded and Cato crept up the track, stretching his neck to catch sight of the situation at the ford. Half of the Durotrigan column was across. The chariot drivers were already unhitching their horses, while their warriors stood together at the edge of the river, clustered around a short, bull-like man with blond pigtails, who was evidently giving them their orders for the evening. As he looked round at his men, he suddenly froze, staring straight up the track in Cato’s direction. He had seen the scarlet crest on the centurion’s helmet, brilliantly illuminated by the rays of the setting sun.

‘Shit!’ Cato angrily slapped his sword against his thigh. He rose to his feet, plainly visible to the men down by the ford now. A ripple of alarmed shouts passed through the ranks of the Durotrigans. The men still in the ford stumbled to a halt at the sight of the figure on the crest of the ridge, sunlight glittering off his silvered armour.

‘Cohort!’ Cato roared out the order. ‘Advance!’

The six centuries of Atrebatans marched up the slope, trampling down the long grass in their path. As they reached the crest they moved out of the shadows and formed a brilliant line of scarlet along the top of the hillock, with the gilded wolf’s head sparkling on top of its standard, as if it were on fire. Down by the ford the leader of the Durotrigans had quickly recovered from his shock and was bellowing orders. Already the chariot drivers were desperately trying to replace the harnesses and traces on their horses. The infantry column stumbled forward again, spilling out along the far bank of the ford as they anxiously watched the approaching line of shields.

Beyond the ford Cato saw movement along the treeline of the forest, and then Macro and his cohort spilled down the slope and started forming up across the track, sealing the Durotrigans in the trap. At first the Durotrigans did not notice the new threat, so rapt were they by the vision of the red lines of Cato’s men sweeping down the slope towards them. Then there were shouts, arms pointed and more and more heads turned to look back across the ford. A groan of despair and terror rose up from the disorganised mass of men with their horses and chariots.

Cato slowed his pace until he fell into a gap in the front line of his cohort, with Bedriacus directly behind him. The Durotrigans were no more than twenty paces away now, a mass of dark shapes silhouetted against the glittering sweep of the river. Straightening his shield in front of him, Cato raised his sword into the thrusting position.

‘Wolves! Charge!’

With a roar, the Atrebatan line broke into a run down the last stretch of the slope and slammed into the confused enemy mass with a clattering, crunching thud. Immediately the air was rent by screams of agony and the sharp ring of edged weapons striking each other. The centurion thrust his shield in the press of bodies, jabbing his short sword through the gap between his shield and that of the Atrebatan warrior to his right. The blade connected with something, began to twist, and Cato rammed it home. He heard the man grunt as the breath was driven from his body, and then the Roman wrenched the sword back, blood spraying past the handle and on to his arm. To his right the Atrebatan warrior was screaming his war cry as he smashed his shield boss into an enemy’s face and finished the man with a thrust to the throat. For an instant Cato felt a surge of pride that all the intensive training of recent days was paying off and these Celts were fighting like Romans.

Cato stabbed again, felt his blade being parried, and threw himself forward behind the shield, conscious that the Atrebatan line was steadily pushing forwards on either side. Even so, he must keep up the momentum of the initial charge. Keep going forward and the enemy would be shattered.

‘Forward, Wolves!’ Cato shouted, his voice shrill, almost hysterical. ‘Forward! On! On!’

Men either side took up the cry and drowned out the Durotrigans’ cries of panic and terror. Cato sensed a body at his feet, carefully lifted his foot and planted it on the other side as he prepared to strike his next blow.

‘Roman!’ Bedriacus cried out right behind him, and Cato felt the torso turn against the back of his calf. He just had time to glance down and saw the bared teeth of the Durotrigan warrior as he pushed himself up from the ground, and the arm drawing back a dagger. Then the man shuddered, grunted and collapsed as the spiked end of the wolf standard burst through his chest, just below the collarbone.

There was no time to thank the hunter, and Cato pushed on, driving the Durotrigans back towards the ford. Over their heads he caught sight of the other cohort as it piled into the rear of the Durotrigans’ column, scattering the mounted warriors and cutting them down before they had the wit to try and escape.

Suddenly a huge shape burst out from among the Durotrigans in front of Cato: an older warrior, wearing chain mail over a light tunic. His sword arm was raised over his head and the long blade flashed in the sun as it reached the top of its arc. Then, as it slashed down, Cato threw himself into the man’s body, punching his short sword into the chest. It caught on the chain mail, not penetrating, and the man gasped explosively as the blow drove the air from his lungs. His own blow faltered slightly, but because Cato had leaped inside its sweep the blade passed over his shoulder and instead the pommel caught the centurion a shattering blow on the side of his helmet, flattening the horsehair crest. Cato’s jaw crashed shut on the end of his tongue as his vision exploded into a dazzling white for an instant and he fell back on the ground.

He heard a cry, he blinked and his vision cleared. The enemy warrior sprawled beside him, skull cleaved in two. Cato looked up and saw Artax standing over him. Their eyes met, and the Atrebatan noble’s sword rose towards Cato’s throat. For an instant Artax’s eyes narrowed and with a cold chill of certainty Cato knew that he would strike and have his revenge here in the heat of battle where Cato’s death would be easily accepted. Just as Cato tensed himself to try to dive out of the path of Artax’s blade, the Atrebatan smiled and wagged the point mockingly. Then he turned and was gone, lost in the press of men determined to crush the Durotrigans.