The Valentian Campaign Page 5

  “You are Cato?” The man spoke in bad Latin but he was understandable.

  “I am Cato,” he said with a sharp nod and the messenger gave him a weary salute before handing over a bone cylinder that was sealed at both ends with wax. “Thank you - Corcorix, take care of this man please.”

  As Corcorix led the messenger away Cato cracked the seal on the near end of the cylinder and shook out the message, which was on a scraped piece of animal hide. He read it quickly and then cursed under his breath. When he looked up from it distances and times rattled through his head for a long moment. Then he looked around. By a happy co-incidence he could see that Poplicala was riding up the column, along with Aurelianus the Younger and he waved at them urgently. The two spurred their horses towards him the moment that they saw him and as they approached he held the message out.

  “Bad news from the North,” he muttered as Poplicala unrolled it and squinted at the writing. “The Painted People have assaulted the Antonine in three places along its Westernmost part. The defences held them, but they’ve been weakened. The Damnonii are desperately appealing for as much help that we can give them as soon as possible.”

  The two other men looked over the message grimly. “How far away are we from the Antonine now?” Aurelianus the Younger asked.

  “For the infantry – six days. For the cavalry, if we started out now, three days. We could get there a little sooner, but we’d have exhausted horses and tired men who were in no fit state to fight. We don’t have a choice – we have to send the cavalry ahead now. They’re the only ones who can get there in time.”

  “Where shall we head for? We can’t defend the entire Wall!”

  Cato rubbed his chin, his mind racing. “We head for the most obvious place. If they strike at the Antonine before we get there then they’ll overwhelm it and then head for the most obvious place to loot. So we’ll head there. For Alt Clud.” He looked around. “Corcorix!” he bellowed. “All Turmae leaders are to meet me at once! And I need messengers for Dux Gratianus and for the leaders of the infantry! Move!”

  Chapter Twelve

  There was smoke to the North again. A lot of it. Cunoval stared over the Wall and cursed under his breath at the sons of whores who were out there burning whatever they could get their hands on. And then he paused and directed a fouler, weightier curse at the sons of whores who had sent those poor starved scum South.

  Looking cautiously around – said scum had had some archers with piss-poor excuses for bows earlier on – he grunted and then levered himself down heavily behind what remained of the rampart.

  He looked at it for a long moment and then patted the moss-covered wood with a sight. The Romans had built it. A long, long, time ago though. It had been in his grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s time. Long ages ago. It was still impressive. It had a base of stone, with turf piled on top of that, and then right at the top a wooden wall. He wasn’t sure if the first Romans who had built the wall had made that last part or not, as bits of it had been pulled apart and then rebuilt over the years, either by the local tribes (for building materials and firewood) or the Romans themselves during some of their campaigns over the years.

  But the wall had been neglected these past twenty years and a neglected wall tended to be a wall that was falling apart quite a bit. The wooden parts anyway. The road that ran to the South of the wall needed some work as well, and as for the ditch on the North side of the wall, well… it was best to say that it was in disrepair.

  They’d done their best. They hadn’t had enough men. They hadn’t had the right tools. And if Cunoval had to be honest, in his heart of hearts, they hadn’t really had the skills. Not really. They weren’t Romans. People up here scorned the Romans as being soft Southerners, what with all their little luxuries, but his father had once told him, in a voice like beaten iron, that those Southerners could fight as if the Crone herself was behind them. That he should never underestimate them. He knew Constantine, the king of the Damnonii, well and Constantine was half Roman himself.

  He looked around at his ragged little band of fellow Damnonii. There had been a hundred of them five days ago. Now there were barely sixty of them, and fifteen of them were wounded. They’d repaired those parts of the wall that they’d been able to, they’d stood watch on the rotted remains of the watchtowers, they’d slept in the dry parts of the nearby fort with the roof that had only partly fallen in and they’d fought with desperate bravery against the small horde of Painted People who had tried to claw their way over it these past two days.

  A sigh ripped its way out of his chest. There had been a time when the Painted People had not been their enemies. When they had been in fact their allies. Of course, that had been in his father’s father’s time, and even after that there had been an amity between the Damnonii and the others to the North. The past summer had changed all that. The rain had been bad enough, although apparently it had been even worse to the North. The storms had made it worse. And again the North had borne the brunt of the storms. It had been bad enough to knock barley flat, to wash sheep away and leave cattle covered in mud and rail-thin. Travellers from the North had even spoken of buildings reduced to ruins and ships that had been blown to the North-East, never to return.

  He looked at the men again. They looked tired. But they were still alive and where there was life there was hope. Then he blinked. A rider was flogging a lathered horse Eastwards down the road towards them. And he recognised him. It was Vortix, and he looked as grim as he ever could.

  “Cunoval!”

  “Vortix! What news from the West?”

  Vortix reined his exhausted horse to a halt and then dismounted onto legs that visibly shook with weariness. “Much, and all of it bad. Titorix and his lads are all dead. Those painted bastards are over the wall to the West. Around a thousand of them – two war bands at least.”

  Cunoval felt the blood drain from his face. “Damn. That many?”

  “That many. The bastards are all over the place. I cut three of them down on the way here.” And sure enough there was blood on his cloak and also blood on his horse.

  “What does Constantine want us to do?”

  Oh this was worrying, because Vortix responded with a wince. “Constantine and his sons have withdrawn to Alt Clud, fighting all the way. They’ve drawn off as much of the strength of the Painted People as they can on the way. And they’re swarming all over the place there. Dying as well. Some of them eat what they can steal and then die the next day.”

  Cunoval shuddered. Wonderful. Pestilence on top of everything else. Then he thought hard. “So,” he said heavily, “We’ll need to hold here and somehow attack West? We don’t have the men! We can’t do both.”

  Vortix shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I’ll see what it’s like further East and then send what I can to you. The Votadini should be able to send men to help us. And I’ve heard that-”

  A long low noise interrupted him. It came from the South, more than a few miles to the South, but it was not a noise that he’d ever heard before.

  “What in the name of the Crone was that?”

  But it was old Esca, the veteran spearman who had killed ten men that day with deceptively easy-seeming stabs of his spear, who stood and stared to the South with a grin on his face. “Buccina! Buccina! That is the sound of the Romans! Roman horns! They are coming!”

  Cato reined his horse in at the top of the hill and then looked out over the landscape to the North. He could see a dark smudge there that might just be the Antonine Wall. He could also see the smoke that meant that men were fighting, burning and killing there.

  “I want the Second and Third Turma to sweep North to the Military Road that runs alongside the Antonine Wall. The rest will follow us Westwards. The local tribes are defending the Wall but tell the Turma leaders to watch out for any retreating forces – the Painted People aren’t always painted, so it might be hard to tell the difference at times.”

  The messengers all nodded at him a
nd then urged their horses into canters and then gallops. Cato watched them go with a fierce intensity. Then he looked around to see Poplicala and Aurelianus the Younger, both of whom were grim-faced.

  “If the Painted People are over the Wall in places then I want us to hit them hard and fast. The further South they get the worse things can be. The good news is that they seem to be dissipating their strength in attacking across a wide area. The bad news is that they still have enough men to hit Alt Clud in force. If that falls then everything we’re trying to defend here in the North will be fatally undermined. Stay close to me. And Corcorix. Hopefully this won’t be too bad. I don’t think that the North has seen this number of cavalry since the days of Septimus Severus. But I made a promise to these lads, a promise that I’d get them home. And I will.”

  The other two looked at him and then nodded respectfully. “Cato,” Poplicala said after a long moment, “You are a different man than you used to be. A greater man.”

  Cato looked at him, feeling bemused. “I am who I am. I am Lucius Tullius Cato. I cannot be any other.” Then he smiled fiercely. “Now – ride! Ride with me! To save the North!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Buccina player behind him was getting a bit red faced as he rode and blew at the same time, but the noise was impressive. And it was giving heart to the Damnonii that they met, who were rallying and cheering as they swept past. The cheering was a good thing to hear. The men were grinning as they rode on, their morale soaring. They’d need every bit of it, because suddenly he could see the first band of Painted People ahead. They were a rough lot, less than 50 of them, dressed in bits of leather armour and with spears that looked roughly made at best. But they were still a threat as they pulled those spears down and around at the approaching Turmae.

  “Archers up!” He’d spent some time training some of those men who could use a bow at how to fire from the saddle. It wasn’t easy and they had to use short bows due to the limited amount of space that they had on horseback and they were certainly nowhere near as talented as some of the barbarian horse archers he’d heard about. But even a handful of such archers could do some serious damage, enough to punch a hole in a warband, and after five quick volleys the band of Painted People suddenly had a gaping void in their centre – and he was galloping hard for it as the last arrows claimed their victims.

  “Bannerman follow me!” Cato roared as he galloped and he heard the snap of fabric coming loose into the wind behind him, followed by the hollow roar of the red dragon banner as it followed him.

  One or two of the Painted People were trying to refill the gap as he arrived in it, but they were an undisciplined lot and he slashed out to his right and left as he rode through. One man had enough time to scream and the other never uttered a single word as his throat was slashed.

  Corcorix was to the right of him now and old Poplicala to his left they both helped him carve a bloody hole all the way through the enemy and as they did he cursed in his head. This was foolish – he shouldn’t be risking himself and the others in this way, but he wanted to make sure that he was setting the right kind of example. Heh. Stupid.

  He wheeled his horse around and then grinned fiercely. The remaining Painted People were doing exactly the wrong thing to do and scattering. Individually they were little more than targets and the Turmae was taking full advantage of that, judging by the screams and the noises as swords cut through flesh and muscle and bone.

  And then they were done – a victory. But it was just the beginning of what would be a long day. “Bannerman! Buccina! All of you! Form on me! Form on me!” The other horsemen rallied and assembled around him and he looked up at the red dragon as it flapped lazily in the air above them. “Right – onwards!”

  They rode like a deadly wind Westwards. Always Westwards. The Damnonii were rallying now, the sound of the many Buccina players were sending out a call to fight, a call to war. Luckily the few bands of Painted People who had broken out to the South had been disorganised and scattered – and had been easily smashed to pieces.

  Cato led them, Cato drove them. He seemed to be everywhere, or so a slightly bewildered Aurelianus the Younger thought as he rode with the rest of them. There was a fire within him, a fire that he was starting to recognise as the same kind of fire that burnt in his father. Everywhere he went he encouraged, supported and on rare occasions admonished. And he did everything that his men were doing. They could see him fighting, they could see him galloping, they could see him leading.

  It was humbling to think that this was a man whose boots he might one day have to fill and he shuddered at the thought of what would happen if someone got lucky with an arrow or a spear and killed him. The men almost worshipped him. Losing him would shatter their morale.

  “If they stand and fight then count their spears – I don’t want anyone taking silly risks and throwing away their lives when faced with superior numbers,” Cato called out to some of the section leaders of one of the Turmae. “Flank them, harry them, don’t give them a chance to stand and band together. If they do stand in large numbers then pick them off from the edges or use your archers. If there are any Damnonii around then use them – have them attack one side whilst you hit them on the other. Don’t take risks with your men – we’ll need as many as possible if the rest of the Painted People are besieging Alt Clud. Questions?”

  The others shook their heads.

  “Then go!”

  They rode off and Cato looked around at Aurelianus. “Westwards! We ride Westwards!” And then they were off again.

  Constantine ap Constantine puffed slightly as he neared the peak of the larger of the two stony hills that made up the fortress of Alt Clud. He was tired. Too tired, he knew, to think straight. It was a tiredness not just of the body but also of the heart and the mind. It had been a long day. And the previous days had been just as long. And just as unpleasant.

  At least, he thought with relief, young Quintus was going to not just live but also keep his leg. He’d probably have a limp for his pains, but he’d live. Heh. Presuming, that is, that they survived the next few days.

  He reached the peak and nodded at the sentry there. “Any new guests?” He asked the question dryly.

  The sentry, a young man with red hair and keen eyes, nodded gravely. “Yes, my Lord. A group of horsemen rode in not long after noon. To the North. They’ve built a hut of some sort there. About an hour later another group joined them. And they came with about 500 spears of infantry.”

  Constantine squinted to the North, wondering how that boy had somehow spotted all that through the haze and then nodded. “Keep a close eye out,” he said roughly and then he strode over to the other side and focussed tired eyes on the horrible vista below.

  Alt Clud was the strongest position in the area. In a way it anchored the Antonine Wall on its Westernmost side. The great rock reared out of the River Clud itself, with the River Leamhna guarding its left flank. There was a wooden rampart on a stone base on the spit of land that connected it to the mainland. And that wooden rampart was all that stood between Alt Clud and the scum on the other side.

  He narrowed his eyes and glared down at them. There had been fields on the other side of the wall. Huts as well. And at least one village not too far away. No more though. They were gone now. Instead hundreds of fires polluted the air to the North. And when the wind blew from the North it brought with it a stink. The Painted People were polluting the ground. Almost literally.

  He sighed. He and his sons had made it into the fortress, along with the majority of those forces that he’d been able to pull together from the chaos that had been overwhelming the Western end of the Antonine Wall, two days ago.

  Hearing weary feet scuff on stone behind him he turned to see his eldest son walking up to him. “Lucius. How goes it down there?”

  “Well. The water supply is well guarded, we have food for a while at least and the fishing boats have returned with a fresh catch. The fletchers are complaining though – they ne
ed more wood for arrows, to fill the quivers again after that first attack.”

  Constantine grimaced. “Tell them to get wood from the other side of the Clud now that the fishermen have returned. Bring a few geese back as well. Both for the arrows and the cook pots!”

  Lucius smiled briefly. “Father.”

  “Yes?”

  “We have just over a thousand spears in the settlement. And a lot of other mouths. Women. Children. The old. We don’t know how long we can hold this place – the Painted People have attacked twice already. The supplies don’t last forever.”

  “The Romans will come.”

  “We don’t know that, not for sure and-”

  “They will come!” Constantine unclenched his fists. “We heard that they were coming. They will come. Gratianus sent word. They will come.”

  “Father…”

  He wheeled on his son. “Do not doubt. There is Roman blood in you, boy. Never forget that. Never! Our family was placed in charge of the Damnonii for a reason – to help hold the North! I gave you a Roman name when you were born. And your brothers. I know that you sometimes make yourselves known by other names, but you should not!”

  Lucius looked at him levelly. “Father. We may have Roman blood, but we are a pale shadow of them. We cannot build like them. We-” And then he paused and frowned and turned slightly to the East.

  “What?” Constantine asked.

  “I thought I heard something. Horns.”

  Constantine paused himself, closed his eyes and listened hard. After a long moment he opened his eyes again and then grinned savagely. “Buccina!”