Reign of Iron (50 page)

The elephants were ripping into the infantry and still killing a great many, but their charge had been brought almost to a halt by men and women fighting back fiercely with long spears, and every now and then an elephant fell. It was hard to guess, but she reckoned out of the fifteen thousand men and women who’d taken to the field, only a few hundred at most had been killed, and almost of all of those by the elephants. The way things were going, Lowa reckoned that the elephants might kill two thousand of hers before they were stopped. It was a lot, it was a horrible thought, but if she were to beat Caesar there were going to be losses and she couldn’t dwell on them. He’d lost twice that number in his first attack on Big Bugger Hill and hadn’t faltered. Still, she wished that she was with her army, fighting, without time to think like this. She’d enjoyed potting a few legionaries earlier but there were no enemies in range now, and she had to stay where she was to co-ordinate her forces.

She was distracted by little Dug screaming angrily down in the fort, no doubt because a new plaything – a sandal or a stick or similar– had been taken from him. Her son was another problem. It had been a simple decision to keep him in the fort, because she didn’t want to risk herself running off and deserting the army again to save him. However, now they were surrounded and he was stuck there, whereas just the day before she could have sent him and Keelin off west to Dumnonia or Kimruk or even over the sea.

Then she heard the aurochs horn.

Moments later the great cattle appeared around a hill to the east, Atlas riding the lead beast. They tore towards the elephants.

She felt a rush of elation. This should change things.

If the aurochs could take out the elephants, then it was possible her infantry might be able to force its way back to the fort relatively intact. Once she had them back in the fort, she was confident of holding out for a long while, while raiding the besieging Romans every night and thinning their finite ranks. It had been a mistake to believe the false shouts and commit her entire infantry, but it wasn’t the end by any means.

The one thing, she thought, that could still ruin everything, was Felix’s legion of demons. She scanned the land but could see no sign of them. The last shout had said that they were still at their base to the east, but with her shouter network compromised, that meant nothing.

As if to mock her, another shout rang out: “Demons remain at Corner Bay.” The shout came from the west, the wrong direction – Corner Bay was to the east. Lowa guessed it was really meant as a taunt, and what it really said was “Demons nearby and about to attack.” She hoped that it didn’t.

Felix grinned as he pictured Lowa hearing that last shout. His operation to take over her messenger network had been a success. His Celermen had captured and gagged all of them swiftly and silently, without any raising the alarm. Then, after some light but painful torture and a three-pronged iron fork rammed into their spines, they’d shouted whatever he’d told them to. Amazing how compliant people were when you held the handle of a tool that could paralyse them with a twist. He’d made one of the shouters tell him how it felt, having that alien metal buried in his back, scraping bone and tugging at such vital cords. “Very bad” was the unsurprising gist of his reply.

Felix’s Celermen and Maximen had killed a few captives and run to a wooded hollow to the west of the fort the night before. He guessed that the declivity was a pond in the winter, but it had been a sunny summer so it was dry, cool in the shade of the leaves, and hidden from both Romans and Britons. Since the first invasion of Britain he’d lost twenty-eight Celermen and nine Maximen, so he still had twelve of the former and eleven of the latter. The losses sounded heavy and indeed they were greater than he would have liked, but almost all of them had been killed by factors he hadn’t anticipated; those wicked arrows from the new British bows, for example, or the raid that had caught them off guard. He’d learnt from his errors, become more controlled and more cautious, and from here on he would not lose his troops so carelessly. He was also confident that once Caesar had defeated the British, it would be no effort to capture Caesar himself and take over the Roman army. This far from Rome, it would be years before Pompey or Crassus or any of those fools sent anyone against him, and by then it would be far, far too late.

According to the Celerman watching the battle from the branch of a tree above, the Romans had the upper hand. Lowa had fallen for the false shouts and committed her entire force attacking one legion. She’d been surprised by the arrival of ten thousand men from the west. The elephants ripping into the east flank of her army had increased her woes.

“New British squad arrived!” called the Celerman. “Looks like aurochs in armour, couple of hundred of them, coming from the south-west.”

Interesting, thought Felix. Surely they’d be no match for the Yonkari elephants? And if they were, and the British somehow turned the tide of the battle? Then Felix would defy Caesar’s orders and his demons would leave their hiding place. The Romans were going to win this one.

Lowa held her breath as the African animals swung round to meet Britain’s giant war cattle. The aurochs were a magnificent sight – thundering bovine muscle with swept-forward, iron-capped horns as long as chariot draught-poles. Each was so huge that the riders perched atop them, even Atlas, looked like midgets. Massive and formidable as the aurochs were though, the elephants were a great deal larger. But the aurochs were faster.

One elephant reared on its back legs to stamp down on an attacking aurochs, but the giant bull accelerated like a whipped horse, drove its long horns into the elephant’s underside and ripped out a shiny cascade of intestines. The African beast crashed down onto aurochs and rider.

Most of the leading aurochs were stamped or gored, but not before they’d brought down several elephants. Unseated aurochs riders in ringmail finished off injured beasts with heavy blades and easily overcame the lightly armed Yonkari crews. The second rank of aurochs charged between the foreign animals, bellowing rage, ripping through armour with their horns, spilling great washes of blood and viscera.

Atlas’ aurochs was impaled on a tusk, but he ran along its neck while pulling his axe from his back holster, and leapt onto the elephant’s head. He dispatched the crew with a few powerful swings of his double-bladed weapon, but a heartbeat later an aurochs, smacked aside by one elephant’s long snout, drove its horns into the back leg of Atlas’ elephant. The African monster reared, trumpeting, and collapsed. The Kushite jumped and landed, leapt again to avoid being crushed by the falling elephant, then dodged out of the path of a galloping aurochs.

Lowa lost sight of him. Others battled on. Half the elephants were down but the rest were fighting like the trained, enraged monsters that they were. None was fleeing. A large section of legionaries swung to help the elephants, hurling pilums at the aurochs riders. Ringmail proved no defence against a javelin thrown full strength from a couple of paces.

The bronze-helmeted leader of the elephants rallied his remaining riders and charged the thickest press of aurochs. His elephant, the largest animal in the field, tossed three aurochs with its tusks then grabbed a passing rider with its long snout and threw her twenty paces into the air. This one was wearing a blue dress rather than ringmail. Lowa couldn’t be sure at that distance, but it looked a lot like Ula. As she fell, the elephant swatted her with his snout, breaking her back.

The elephant counter combined with the legionaries’ missile attack was effective. Soon there were only a few aurochs standing. But there were fewer elephants. Two aurochs charged the great lead elephant from either side and skewered it. The lead elephanteer jumped on to one rider, brained man and aurochs with his club, jumped back over his own beast, somersaulting as Chamanca might have done, and killed the other rider and his mount. Attackers dispatched, he leapt back onto his dying elephant, beat his chest and wailed.

The elephants were defeated. A few thrashed about, but the aurochs tribe finished them. Only a dozen aurochs were left standing from the two hundred that had attacked, but many of the riders had survived to make short work of the elephant archers and hold their own against the legionaries. Several Africans fled but their bronze-helmeted leader fought on. He was doing well, running around and killing Britons with fearsome efficiency. Meanwhile, more and more legionaries were joining the battle, pressing towards the remaining Aurochs tribespeople.

Atlas reappeared, shouting at the Branwin foresters to rally to him and hewing down any legionaries who came within reach. He looked like he was searching the corpses and carcasses for something or someone – Chamanca, Lowa guessed. She looked about for the Iberian, but something else caught her eye, off to the north. Cantering into view with his praetorians around him was the unmistakeable red-and gold-clad figure of Julius Caesar. Running behind him were his remaining two legions, led by dozens of pairs of horses pulling scorpions and catapults.

Trapped between legions, her infantry were perfectly placed and contained for the Roman missiles to tear them to shreds. She told the trumpeter to blare out the command to speed the retreat to the fort. It was going to be tough; they still had two legions of Romans to fight through, plus a third if the legion in reserve to the south joined the battle.

“Big badgers’ balls,” she said.

“H
ere comes the end.” Ferrandus pointed at Caesar’s advancing legions.

“They’re beating the legionaries,” said Spring.

“They’re holding the legionaries, but once those scorpions start shooting – and look, he’s got catapults, too – they’re fuc— They’re dead. The bolts and missiles will arc up nicely over the legionaries’ heads, then come down and mince your British friends.”

“Nicely put.” Spring glared at him.

“My tact-free friend is right,” said Tertius. “Surrender or death. Those are the options for the Britons. That’s assuming Caesar lets them surrender.”

Spring looked about desperately. Most of the charioteers had retreated back to the heavily armed hillfort, but they were few compared to the Roman forces. The cavalry were gone, the aurochs were gone and there were two legions between the infantry and the fort. The British men and women were doing amazingly well, surrounded but holding; more than holding – constantly refreshing their front lines from the centre, they were eating into the lines of attacking Romans. Moments before she had hoped and believed that the British might have been able to fight their way back to the fort. But now she saw that Ferrandus was right. As soon as the Roman projectile weapons rolled into range, things would get very messy for the remaining infantry. But it didn’t mean that they were beaten! It simply
couldn’t
mean that.

She strained her brain and clenched her fists and tried to pull magic from somewhere. She felt nothing. She hadn’t felt a flicker since Dug had died. And anyway, even if she could kill Dug all over again, what could it possibly achieve? Last time she’d wanted all the enemy armies dead and the wave had come. Now with the Romans and British so close, even if she could set the land on fire or make it rain spears, she’d kill the Maidunites, too. Even if she’d had magic, there was nothing she could do.

She looked at the small figure of the blonde woman, pacing the north wall of the hillfort. Spring could feel her frustration and anxiety even at this distance.

“Can I go, please?” she asked the praetorians.

Ferrandus looked at Tertius. Tertius turned to Spring.

“It’s possible that we could get away with letting you go, assuming Clodia went along with it. In a battle this size you can get away with pretty much anything by blaming it on the battle.”

“Clodia?” asked Spring. Clodia looked back at her. She’d never seen such a serious expression on the Roman woman’s face.

“But,” continued Tertius, “even if we were certain to never be discovered, we wouldn’t let you go.”

“We’ve come to like you, you see, even if you are a barbarian.” Ferrandus cocked his head. “And we’d rather you were alive.”

“And of course we
might
be found out and crucified, and we’d rather that we were alive, too,” added Tertius.

“There is that.” Ferrandus nodded.

“Let her go,” said Clodia.

“With all respect, your worship,” said Ferrandus, “it’s not your—”

Clodia nodded at her guards. They raised their bows and drew, arrows pointed at the praetorians. “If it were my people I’d want to be with them. I understand what Spring has to do and I know you do as well. Even if you don’t, your alternative is an arrow or two in the chest.” Clodia smiled.

“Well, if you put it like that,” said Tertius.

“I will tell Caesar that I forced you to free her,” said Clodia. “Would you like my guards to make it more convincing? Arrows in your legs perhaps?”

“I’m sure your word is good enough for Caesar,” said Tertius.

Ferrandus nodded and untied Spring. She gathered her reins.

“Before you go,” Tertius unwrapped a long leather bundle from their pack pony. “I’ve been keeping this for you. I was going to give it to you when they made you queen, but you might as well have it now.”

He peeled off the remaining leather and revealed Dug’s hammer.

Spring felt tears well in her eyes.

“I don’t know what to say!” she said.

“Don’t say anything, just bugger off and for Jupiter’s sake
don’t get killed
.”

Atlas found Chamanca propped against a dead elephant, blinking.

“All right?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. I was simply surveying the scene before—” She choked, heaved and coughed up a gush of blood.

Atlas had never seen anybody vomit that much blood and live much longer. He dropped into a crouch and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Cham—”

He was interrupted by a voice behind him. “Another African – a Kushite, I think?” said the voice in Latin. “Kushite is my elephant’s favourite food. He ate many in his youth.”