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  ‘Slow down,’ Malchus whispered, and the leading ranks slowed just enough so that men would not crash into the backs of the soldiers ahead of them.

  ‘Halt.’ The formation came to a stop. Malchus began to ghost along its flank, passing down his orders. ‘Get off the track and into the ditch. I’m going ahead to take a look.’

  We were close, then. With the other men, I slithered into the dark maw of the ditch beside the dirt road, my sandals sinking into ice-cold water and slime. White eyes peered over shield rims as men strained to see into the black. Breath was hushed. Muscles were tight. Soon, Malchus returned.

  His teeth were bright beneath the clouds. He was grinning. ‘They’re asleep.’

  It was time for a slaughter.

  30

  Malchus ordered us to place our shields and javelins down in ordered rows on the dirt track. Even with their waxed covers the shields had grown heavy with rain, and their weight would be an unnecessary encumbrance for what Malchus had planned.

  ‘Archers to stay here with the kit. Be prepared to loose volleys on my command,’ the centurion whispered.

  I wondered at the temperament of the men who would be watching our backs. Legions won battles because brother would die for brother – even those they had never met. Would this hold true with auxiliaries who had been accused of rape and murder by those they would be called to fight alongside? Claims that had led to their own comrades being killed by an angry mob?

  I hoped it wasn’t a question we would need answered.

  ‘My boys, short swords only,’ Malchus went on. ‘They’re asleep, lads. They think we’re cowards. They think we’re going to sit in the fort and wait to die. They’re going to learn the hard way about the Nineteenth when we creep in there and slit their throats.’

  Satisfied that his men were now unburdened, Malchus turned to myself and the Batavians and smiled. ‘Let’s go.’

  We followed him along the unpaved road, our footfalls soft and padded. A light wind carried rain into our faces, but no sound that would betray us to the enemy.

  Were they truly off guard?

  Taking a shallow bend, lights suddenly appeared ahead of us. They had been screened by trees as we approached. To be still burning in the rain suggested that they were in some way sheltered, which supported the notion that Arminius had settled down to starve us out, whilst the number of fires suggested that this was the main body of enemy troops. Sentries should have been posted beyond the bend and trees, but no one had stirred at our approach. So effortless was our advance that a warning began to sound in my mind that we were crouching our way into a trap. But then I looked at the silhouette of the centurion ahead of me. Malchus was a born killer. He was a wolf, and if there was a snare waiting for us on that track, he would have smelt it.

  The wax hide of tents was pale by the firelight. Rain drummed from the shelters in a rhythm that was almost hypnotic. I saw no movement. No tell-tale flickers. No dark shadows against canvas.

  My heart began to thump. Imposed silence could be louder than any clash of armies.

  Malchus stopped and began to gesture to the men behind me. Section by section, his troops peeled away into the darkness. As we crept to the fringe of the enemy encampment, I began to see Roman soldiers slipping between the tents like wraiths.

  Malchus stalked forwards and then held up a hand. We were beside a sagging tent. Beneath the patter of rain I could hear snoring. My heart beat faster still. I tilted my head back, desperate to catch moisture for a throat parched with nerves. Malchus took hold of the tent’s flap and, with the delicacy of a lover, opened the canvas. He stopped then, smiling at me. Giving me the honour of the kill.

  I forced my breath down into my lungs, willing my heartbeat to slow and my hand to be steady. I stepped within the tent, a waft of stale sweat and ale assaulting me. My eyes were already adjusted to the night, and so I could see the four dark shapes on the ground. Snores and heavy breaths guided me to their heads. I gently reached down with my hand and felt hair, long and lank. The man was sleeping on his front, and so he made it easy for me. I felt for the point where his spine met his skull, and drove my dagger within. What noise came from his death was covered by the snores of his comrades and the rain on the waxed hide. One by one, the tent’s occupants died in bliss.

  I stepped out into the wet air.

  Folcher now held the flap; Brando and Malchus were out of sight. I assumed the centurion had run out of patience, and wanted to indulge in his own killing. I could hear the sounds of it now: the slashing of blades and cut-off chokes. It wouldn’t be long until the Germans woke.

  ‘Prisoners,’ I whispered into Folcher’s ears, gesturing to the next tent. We crept over and then, slowly, the Batavian pulled back the flap. I looked within, seeing two forms that suited my purpose perfectly.

  And then we waited. We waited, until a scream signalled that the time for stealth was over.

  ‘Now!’ I shouted to Folcher, pouncing on the prone figures.

  Shocked out of slumber, the Germans instinctively began to kick and jerk violently. The resistance was expected, and I pummelled my fists into a skull over and over until blood flowed, cheekbones cracked like eggs and the struggle ended. I felt the warmth of piss as my terrified prisoner lost control. Beside me, Folcher had subdued his own captive.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I grunted, as much to my prisoner as to Folcher, who now began to let loose a savage torrent of his own language, doubtless telling the prisoners what would happen if they thought to resist.

  We pushed the staggering figures out into the open. Screams and challenges were beginning to echo. Many of the Germans were waking to blades at their throats, but not enough – we were outnumbered, and Malchus was not going to risk being cut off as we had been on the raid for wood.

  ‘Back! Back! Back!’ he called.

  My feet slipped on the wet soil as I obeyed the command; I only regained my balance as I gripped the arm of a passing legionary. Even in the night, there was no mistaking him.

  ‘Stumps?’

  ‘Shut up and run!’ he shot back at me.

  It was not a time for questions, and I moved off on his heels. By the light of the German campfires, I now caught my first sight of the man who was my prisoner. The man was a boy, barely into his teens. His partner in Folcher’s grip would have had a grey beard had it not been stained bloody crimson, and I could tell by the terrified animal look in his eye that he was the boy’s father.

  It was not my place to pity them. Instead we pushed them onwards, converging on the road where I saw other soldiers dragging their captives by hair or shirt. One offered enough trouble for the legionary holding him to tire of the effort, instead ramming his sword so deep into the German’s stomach that it appeared through his back.

  ‘Have it your way then, you prick,’ I heard him spit as he stepped on to the corpse, the blade pulling free of the body’s suction with a wet slurp.

  Legionaries were all about me now. We were running, though there was no sound of pursuit at our backs. I looked over my shoulder, and saw none of the tell-tale signs of moving torches that would signal the enemy preparing to follow. Perhaps it was simply the rain dousing their flames, and they would attempt vengeance in the darkness. Either way, we would not wait in place to aid them.

  Panting, we rounded the bend in the track, a straight run then to where the archers had been left with our kit. We made it without incident, the only danger the uneven surface of the road. Men cursed as they hit rain-filled potholes, but the only violence on the track came in the soldiers’ language.

  ‘Who’s got prisoners?’ Malchus called as we reached the Syrians and our shields. ‘Bring them here! Quickly! Hurry!’

  With Folcher I pushed my captive towards the centurion’s voice. Beside his silhouette I found a gaggle of Syrians. They had rope in their hands, and quickly went about binding the captured enemy. Tied together, the Germans became vertebrae of the same miserable spine.

  There was no time to
catch the breath that burned in my chest, and within moments I had a shield and javelin in hand. In the darkness, I felt more than saw the century forming up on the track. All was in good order. There were panting gasps, suppressed giggles of nervous laughter and the loud clearing of nostrils, but no moans from wounded men.

  I dared to hope that we had got away clean. Malchus wanted to make sure of it.

  ‘Archers,’ he hissed. ‘Three volleys. Creep the range. Loose!’

  I heard a strange voice translating the order, and then the first of the arrows whistled out into the night. It wasn’t until the third and final volley that the fire was greeted by a scream; there was a pursuit in the darkness, but Malchus had now given the Germans something to think about. I hoped it would be enough. We were a long way from the fort.

  ‘Century,’ Malchus ordered. ‘Jog-trot.’

  We moved off, fear and excitement pushing our pace a half-step quicker than regulation. The rain grew heavier; sandals slapped and tramped into wet dirt. Amongst the sheets of the downpour, teeth flashed white as men dared to hope that we had made our escape so easily.

  ‘How many you get?’ a buoyant young voice whispered to a comrade in the darkness.

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Bollocks! I bet you never even got three. You can’t even cut your dinner, you dickhead.’

  ‘Keep the fucking noise down,’ Malchus’s optio growled beneath his breath.

  We trotted on to the steady chorus of hobnails, shifting equipment and the rap of rain against steel. At pauses that seemed to be random and unplanned, Malchus would order archers to loose arrows along the track behind us – there were no screams. No hoof beats. There seemed to be no enemy on our heels, and after hours of sweating into tunics already soaked by rain, a thick black line appeared against the lip of the horizon.

  It was the fort.

  Unable to contain the release of nervous energy, a young voice spoke up as we passed beneath the welcoming gateway: ‘Piece of piss.’ And then he laughed.

  I couldn’t blame him for his relief. We had put our heads into a bear’s jaw and survived. With what seemed like little loss to ourselves, we had killed, and we had captured.

  I looked at those prisoners, now visible in the torchlight. Most shook with nerves; a reek of piss and shit came from them.

  ‘Bring the prisoners to me,’ Malchus ordered. As he paced the fort’s dirt, rain dripped from his helmet’s brim, framing a face filled with hate. His eyes were ablaze as he took in the pathetic sight of his foe. ‘You wanted to get in here, you goat-fucking cunts?’ he taunted them. ‘Well, welcome. Make yourselves at home! We’re going to have lots of fun together.’

  I looked at the miserable captives, and knew that their lives had run their course.

  So be it. My comrades were safe for another night, and my concern was for no one but them.

  Such was war.

  31

  As the prisoners were led away by fresh soldiers of the garrison, the men of the raiding party were formed up and counted off by Malchus and his optio. In the shadows beneath the wall and between buildings, nervous civilians looked for the faces of their loved ones.

  ‘We didn’t lose a single man!’ Malchus announced to a cheer. ‘Archers, get back to your part of camp. Nineteenth Legion, great job, boys! We pulled on Arminius’s balls tonight. He’s going to be fucking sore in the morning. Dismissed.’

  Men laughed and smiled as they fell out of the ranks, seeking out comrades with whom to share their war stories. Spared our own casualties, the tales were told with excitement and humour. I overhead these snippets as I sought out my own comrades.

  ‘You should have seen his face when he woke up!’ one soldier laughed. ‘Old bastard shat himself! Fucking stank! Bet no one will be tryin’ to move into that tent.’

  His comrade howled with mirth. ‘How many d’ya kill?’

  ‘At least three. I left one with his own dagger in his guts. Not goin’ to be a good mornin’ for ’im.’

  That tale, like so many of the others, ended in glee. I wasn’t smiling myself – I was looking for Stumps, worried that he had tagged along on the raid without permission, and would not have been counted in the tally.

  I let loose a sigh of relief when I found him leaning back against the wall, shielded from the elements.

  ‘Come on,’ I told him, offering a hand. ‘Let’s get back to the block before we get cold.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m knackered. Just leave me here for a nap.’

  ‘You didn’t come this far to die of the cold. Get up,’ I ordered, at the same time hauling him to his feet so that my friend’s face was inches from my own, and close enough that I could smell the wine on his breath.

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  He shrugged. ‘Only an idiot like you volunteers for that stuff sober. Course I was fucking drunk. And I intend to get back that way. All that fucking running knocked me sober.’

  ‘Dry kit and food first,’ I told him, leading off towards our barrack block.

  Brando and Folcher were already there. Stripped of their equipment and wet clothing, wrapped in dry cloaks, they were beginning to clean the mud from their equipment and the blood from their blades.

  ‘Let us do that for you,’ Dog offered. ‘You get some food and rest.’

  Balbus and Micon quickly followed the man’s example, Statius more grudgingly so, his face sour as he took hold of Stumps’s mail and sword. Then, as he pulled Stumps’s blade free of its sheath, I saw him sneer – the steel was clean. I expected the arrogant soldier to open his mouth, but following his beatings, Statius had the sense to keep it shut.

  ‘Food then sleep,’ I repeated to the men who’d accompanied me that night.

  ‘I’m going to see Titus,’ Stumps told me instead.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. It was a friendly hand, but firm enough to hold him from the doorway. ‘Get some rest, Stumps. Titus isn’t going anywhere.’

  He pouted. ‘I want a drink.’

  ‘I’ve gu-got a wineskin you can have,’ Balbus smiled. ‘It’s bu-behind my bunk. Go ahead.’

  After a flare of his nostrils, Stumps did his best to muster a nod of gratitude for Balbus’s offer; then he slipped into the bunkroom.

  My shoulders dipped a little with relief. I wanted to keep Stumps close. I wanted to ask him questions: how had he got himself on to the raiding party, and why? Having volunteered, why hadn’t he drawn blood when the Germans were at our mercy? These were all questions that needed to be asked alone, but for now my greater need was to keep the man in the sight and company of his section. Drunken solitude was increasingly his desire, and no good ever came of such a thing.

  My loose gaze snapped from the wall as Dog spoke to me, smiling. ‘Go to bed, Felix. We’ll take care of this. You look fucked,’ he added, clearly with the best intentions.

  He wasn’t wrong. Nervous excitement had carried me back to the fort, and so I had barely felt the aches and pains that now seeped from within my bones and into my muscles.

  I managed to smile back at him. ‘I am.’

  And so I crept into the bunkroom, which was lit by a single candle. In the near darkness I heard Stumps suckling from a wineskin like a hungry babe.

  ‘Felix,’ he whispered as I lay down on my own bed, ‘I didn’t kill anyone tonight.’

  ‘I know,’ I answered, hoping that my words sounded like a simple acknowledgment, and free of the judgment I had heard in his own. ‘We can talk about it tomorrow, if you like?’ I offered.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  ‘Nah. I’m fine,’ he lied.

  Brando and Folcher entered a second later. The night’s killing, and the talk of it, died with their heavy snores.

  Or so I thought.

  I shot upright in my bed, my head colliding with the wooden slats of the bunk above me.

  ‘Fuck!’ I cursed.

  Reeling from that blow, I reached for my dagger as the screams that woke me continued to pierce the
night.

  ‘Wake him up!’ I then ordered.

  Brando grabbed hold of Stumps’s shoulders and shook him like a child. My friend’s shrieks were long and woeful.

  ‘Out of the way,’ I ordered, clapping my hands over Stumps’s mouth and nose. His body snapped from its dream state in desperate need of oxygen. As I saw the white eyes bulge open like a newborn foal’s, I pulled my hands away.

  ‘You bastard!’ he gasped.

  ‘You were screaming and thrashing. I was worried you’d fall out of your bunk.’

  ‘Much better that you suffocate me then, yeah?’ Stumps taunted, propping himself up on to his elbows as his chest heaved. ‘Where’s that wine?’ he finally demanded.

  ‘You fu-finished it,’ Balbus apologized.

  ‘Fuck’s sake. All right. Move out the way.’

  Stumps made to get out of the bunk, but I stayed where I was. ‘Dawn’s still a way off, Stumps.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s fair to say I’m wide awake, thanks to your comforting skills.’

  Brando laughed at the words, his thick chest heaving as he snorted. Something about the sound was contagious. Folcher was the first to pick it up, giggling like a virgin, and soon even Stumps himself was smiling. Perhaps we would have all fallen back to sleep, if it hadn’t been for what we heard next.

  It was another scream, but without doubt this howl was born from physical pain, not imagined.

  ‘The prisoners?’ Folcher guessed.

  ‘Gods,’ Dog swore. ‘I’ve never heard one go for so long.’

  Statius smiled in the candlelight. ‘Malchus knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘What are they du-doing to him?’ Balbus swallowed, a dry tongue running over his lips.

  No one answered. For a long time our silence held, ears cocked to the sounds of the tormented cries.

  Brando finally shrugged, pulling a thick cloak over his head. ‘I’m going to sleep.’ The other men who had risen from their bunks slowly followed his example. Eventually, I was left to stand alone beside Stumps. He looked at me from his bunk.