The Wolves of the North (22 page)

They clattered into the semicircle, and the last two wagons were drawn together behind them.

Tarchon was grateful to slide from the back of the ill-natured, wilful pony. He stood by its head, blowing nearly as hard as the animal. He smiled happily. In Tarchon’s Suanian terms of understanding, Ballista had proved himself a Sceptre-bearer worth following. The trick with the gold had not worked, but it was cunning; worthy of the great ancestor Prometheus himself. And the northerner’s good sense when it came to warriors and those who dare not lift a weapon was exemplary. He had shown a fine lack of care for the latter. Ballista was a fine
sceptouchos
to follow, Tarchon thought. The pony swung its neck and sank its big, yellow teeth into his arm.

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.

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.

For a little time he debated whether to climb down, and, like some Homeric hero, strip the Alani noble of his fancy scale armour. The Romans had a very special award for a general who defeated the enemy commander in single combat, the
spolia opima
. He thought better of it. He was neither an Achilles nor a Romulus. And the Alani would return in numbers at any moment.

‘You hungry?’ Maximus had jogged over. He tossed a bag of air-dried meat across to Ballista. Wherever they were, the Hibernian would produce the stuff. It was a good job Ballista liked it. He took a handful and threw the bag back.

Maximus nodded at the wagons. ‘Company.’ He walked off.

Ballista got a wine flask from the saddle of his horse. The animal was cropping the grass, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding drama. As Calgacus came up, Ballista embraced him and gave him a big kiss on top of his balding head.

‘Get the fuck off me,’ Calgacus said. ‘I am not a fucking Greek.’

Ballista punched Wulfstan’s arm, ruffled his hair and shook Hippothous by the hand. He was grinning with pleasure at their survival, with pleasure at still being alive himself.

‘Wonderful reinforcements,’ Maximus called over. ‘A child, an old cripple and a pederast secretary. Nothing can touch us now.’

‘Half-witted Hibernian shite.’ Calgacus’s mutter was, again, perfectly audible above the none-too-distant sounds of battle. ‘Brain in his prick.’ Calgacus, like the other newcomers, was armoured. He was carrying a heavy axe in his left hand. His right arm was still in splints.

Ballista wondered where Wulfstan had got his too-large mailcoat. It was a wonder the boy could stand, let alone move in it. He must be stronger than he looked.

‘Castricius is coming,’ Hippothous said. His voice echoed oddly from behind the ‘T’ opening of an antique Greek helmet he had acquired a year or two back in Ephesus, or Miletus. ‘He should be here in a moment.’

‘And so will the Alani.’ Ballista was still laughing. With an effort, he calmed himself down. ‘Hippothous, take a position between me and Tarchon. When Castricius comes, he can go between Maximus and me. Calgacus, go and watch Tarchon’s back. Wulfstan, stay here with me.’

‘Will they come again?’ Wulfstan asked.

‘Yes, but they have travelled a long way,’ Ballista said. ‘They and their horses are tired. If their next attack does not break through, they will draw off until tomorrow.’

No sooner had the others started moving off than Ballista could hear the thunder of approaching cavalry. It seemed to be approaching from both sides. He very much hoped he was right about the Alani.

The Alani did not make the mistake of approaching along the riverbed again. They must have forded the river up- and downstream. From both sides, a large band of riders swept around to link up on the Steppe to the north of the watercourse. They pulled
up, a couple of hundred paces away, out of most effective bow range.

Castricius ran up. Ballista waved him over to where he wanted him to stand.

The Alani waited quietly behind two standards. One was an abstract design on cloth, a nomad
tamga
, the other a horsetail on a pole. In all, Ballista estimated about a hundred warriors. Maybe one in ten armoured. They seemed to be waiting for something; most likely a signal.

Ballista noted that there was no battle din from the wagons behind. Earlier, he had seen a big
draco
standard. The nomads were showing themselves disciplined enough to wait for the word of the chief who rode under the dragon. They would all attack at once. That was not good. Nor was the fact that down here by the river – good defensive position though it was – Ballista’s
familia
was outnumbered to the order of twenty to one.

The wind soughed through the lime trees, fretted at the thorn bushes. Out beyond the river, it raised little dust devils. They were the first Ballista had seen on the Steppe. The summer sun was drying the plains.

The nomad standards snapped in the breeze. Ballista wished he were standing under his own white
draco
; hearing its bronze jaws hiss and seeing its body writhe with menace. Ballista wished he were out there at the head of a confident troop of men, looking in, waiting to finish an outnumbered huddle of enemy. He pulled himself up. The Alani could finish the men in the wagon-laager, and do so quickly – if the nomads were well led, if they wanted it enough and, above all, if they were prepared to take the casualties. Ballista knew what he would have his men do if he were the Alani chief. They should ride up to the tree line, dismount, force their way through the scrub, some should
provide covering shooting, the rest rush down the far bank, cross the stream, and storm the near bank. But Ballista also knew that, while they were doing it, his arrows would drop at least four or five of them; and then he would hope to take one or two with him in the final hand-to-hand struggle. Maximus, Hippothous, Castricius and Tarchon should do no worse than him. Wulfstan with his Herul bow and old Calgacus one-handed with his axe might take a few more. The Alani could kill them all, wipe them from the face of Middle Earth, but thirty or more of the nomads would not see the end of the day.

Thinking about the final moments, Ballista glanced over to where his hobbled horse grazed. A cowardly thought, the thought of a
nithing
, insinuated itself through his mind. No, he would not disgrace himself in his own eyes, or those of others, or those of the Allfather. When the last moments were close, he would get the boy Wulfstan on the horse. In the confusion, he might just have a chance to get clear. He could go north. Bearing the arms of Aluith, once Wulfstan told his story, the Heruli were likely to welcome him.