Reign of Iron (51 page)

Atlas stood and turned. The leader of the Yonkari was walking towards him, swinging a club – the same sort of club that had killed his father. He looked exactly like the murderer from Atlas’ memories. It couldn’t be the same man, he was too young, but he could be the son of the man who’d killed his parents. Atlas decided that it definitely was. It would help him in the fight to come.

“Your dead elephant has no more need of sustenance,” said Atlas.

“It speaks Latin? What a clever Kushite it is.”

“It gets cleverer,” said Atlas, tossing his giant axe lightly from hand to hand.

Spring rode down through the woods on the flank of the hill. She could hear the clash of iron and the shouts of the fighters, but block that out and, in the cool of the trees, with butterflies flitting between shafts of sunlight, she might have been a million miles from the fighting. She might have been walking through woods with Dug on that first day they’d met.

He was sitting on a branch of a dead tree where the track turned a corner.

“Are you sure that’ll take your weight?” she asked.

“Aye, I don’t think I weigh anything.”

“Well, it’s good to see you. I’ll be seeing you more permanently soon.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m going to join Lowa and fight to the end.”

“I see you’ve got my hammer back. That’s good and I’m sure you’d fight like an angry weasel, but I’ve a better plan than charging at the Romans and dying and losing my hammer again.”

“Which is?”

“Rescue wee Dug. He’s in the fort with Keelin. Fort’s surrounded on all sides but this one, for now. You can ride in, grab the bairn and ride out.”

“But—”

“I understand why you want to be at Lowa’s side, but save him, and you save all that’s left of me and Lowa. We can continue, through him.”

“I suppose…” She was half convinced, but then she realised.

“Hang on, I’ve created you in my head, yes?”

“…Aye.”

“So my coward mind must have made you appear now to get me out of doing what’s right.”

“Rescuing wee Dug is the right thing to do.”

“It’s not.”

“What would Lowa want you to do? What would I want you to do? And what’s the right thing to do? Is dying more noble than rescuing a wee child?”

Had Spring not been on a horse, she would have stamped her foot.

Chamanca was amused by the concern in Atlas’ eyes when she’d vomited blood. Had it been her own blood, he might have had cause to worry.

She tried to push herself up on her arms, but didn’t have the strength. Her legs she couldn’t feel at all. Maybe Atlas
had
been right to look so worried.

And now, as he squared up to the other African, she was worried. Atlas was a great fighter, but he didn’t have magical speed at the best of times and now he looked slower than normal. By the sallowness of his skin, he was unwell. Jagganoch did have magical speed and his skin shone like a healthy fox’s coat. She’d have to help her man, but that would require standing up at the very least, and she couldn’t quite run to that yet. She could feel the dreadful wound to her head healing, but not fast enough.

The two men circled, club poised, axe flicking from hand to hand. Atlas was huge and hulking in his tartan trousers, sleeveless leather jerkin and iron armbands. Jagganoch, in his lion skin and legionary’s skirt, was lithe, bouncy and terrifying.

Jagganoch darted in, his club blurring as he probed for a gap. Atlas parried with his axe handle, effectively but clumsily in comparison with the Yonkari. Jagganoch pressed. Atlas retreated and stumbled. A smile flashed onto the elephanteer’s face as he swung his club for the killing blow. Chamanca tried to leap to Atlas’ defence but could not.

Atlas’ stumble had been a feint. He tossed his axe to his left hand, grabbed the club as it whizzed down, pulled it to one side and darted in with a head butt which pulverised Jagganoch’s nose. Atlas threw the club aside, dropped his axe and stepped after the reeling Jagganoch, raising his fists. He jabbed his pulped nose once, twice. Jagganoch’s head lolled. The Kushite dropped his fists and set to punching the Yonkari man’s guts and ribs again and again, hammering hard as a horse trying to kick its way out of a burning stable. As Jagganoch began to falter and collapse, Atlas swung his fist down, around and up into the elephanteer’s chin, shattering his jaw and lifting him off his feet. Jagganoch flew four paces and landed hard, out cold.

Chamanca felt bad for underestimating Atlas. He’d had it under control from the start. He was a much better fighter than she’d ever given him credit for. Better than Jagganoch certainly and – maybe – even a little better than she was.

The Kushite strode up to the unconscious elephanteer, ripped off his bronze helmet and tossed it away, grabbed his wrist and pulled him over to Chamanca. Holding him by his hair and his lion skin, Atlas lifted Jagganoch’s head so that his neck was nicely in range of the Iberian’s teeth.

“Thought you might want a drink,” he said.

Unable to see the battle, Ragnall was frustrated. His section of cavalry had been ordered to ride around to the south of the fort to catch any Britons making a run for it. None of them had. They’d seen the aurochs charge past to the east and thankfully the aurochs hadn’t seen them, or at least had had bigger fish to charge at. That had been the only interesting thing all day and now a whole legion had joined them guarding the southern escape route, so his section of the cavalry’s role was redundant. However, orders were to stay there, so stay there they did. They could hear the battle. Ragnall was sure he could taste the adrenaline and battle lust thick in the air, but he didn’t know what was happening. He had to go and see.

He rode up to the captain. “I want to check the east of the fort.”

“Sure thing, whatever, go.” The cavalry, comprised of men from conquered tribes, was more relaxed than the legions.

Ragnall galloped to the east. He could see people watching from the walls of Saran Fort. He wondered if any of them recognised him. Then, riding from the woods to the east, heading for the fort, was someone he recognised.

Spring stopped when she saw him. “Still a Roman then?” she said.

“You’ve escaped” was all he could think to say. She looked good, in her leather shorts, white shirt and riding boots – exact copies of Lowa’s clothes, just like she was an exact copy of Lowa. They were evil female twins, twisted tools of the gods who existed only to bring him low.

“And you’re still observant,” she smirked.

Ragnall felt heat rise up his neck. Still she mocked him. He had started a new phase in his life. Hitting Spring had been a low. He was noble now. But she was
such an insolent little bitch
! She had no respect for him, not a scrap. Not as a man, not as her husband … He would have to teach her some. It had been a fair fight last time. He wouldn’t let that happen again. She had the Northman’s hammer at her side, he was surprised to see, but there was no way she was strong enough to wield it, so effectively she was unarmed. He pulled his sword from its scabbard.

“You’re recaptured,” he said. “Get off your horse.”

“Sure thing. When I get to the fort!” Spring kicked her horse and galloped away.

Ragnall followed. His horse was faster. She turned and it was a joy to see her expression slide from cocky to concerned when she realised that he was going to catch her. She jinked the reins to dodge and weave, but it was easy to cover her evasions. He caught up well outside the range of the British archers on the fort and cracked her on the back of her head with the flat of his blade. She fell off, bounced and rolled to a crumpled stop. He circled around and jumped down next to her prone body.

He was worried that he’d killed her, but she was breathing regularly. He’d take her to Caesar, so that the new king and queen could be in the thick of things when the old queen was defeated. He wouldn’t kill her, not yet, he decided. He’d keep her as a captive wife and teach her how to respect him.

He had nothing to tie her with. If she woke … he was stronger now from the exercise of riding all day and he was armed, but the idea of being bested by her again in a fight … There was a bulge in the pocket of her leather shorts. It was a bowstring. What a stroke of luck and a joyful irony! Praise Jupiter, said Ragnall to himself. It seemed like the gods were with him today. It was certainly his turn for it.

He turned the girl on to her front, laid Dug’s hammer on her back and tied her hands to its shaft.

C
hamanca stood and shook herself. Jagganoch’s blood was the best she’d ever tasted, and she felt fully restored. More than restored. Pressing her fingers to where he’d whacked her with his club, she could feel the bone swiftly reknitting.

Just as she was thinking what an amazing person she was, dozens of legionaries ran up, filing between dead aurochs and elephants, surrounding her and Atlas, pilums poised. Atlas raised his axe, Chamanca crouched, ready to leap into action.

“Surrender, we have you surrounded,” said their leader, in a voice Chamanca recognised. He was wearing a plumed helmet, but she’d have known him anywhere.

“It’s the masturbating centurion I told you about,” she said to Atlas, in Latin so that all his men might hear. “He’s the one who came into the tent where I was chained and beat his little bit of meat while the other Romans were all fighting Ariovistus.”

“Silence! You cannot escape!” the wanker shouted, reddening as more legionaries piled in, some climbing onto dead elephants and aiming their spears at the British pair. There were dozens of them.

“He’s right,” said Atlas.

“I will not surrender.”

“I’m going to. I’ve died quite enough times recently. We get captured, we live to fight another day.”

“Maybe not, they might kill us.”

“I know,” said the mighty African Warrior. “But I also know I cannot win this fight and I don’t want to see you die.” He placed his axe on the blood-soaked ground and raised his hands.

Chamanca looked at her lover. His skin had a grey tinge and the spark had gone from his eyes. He was spent. She looked around. Maybe seventy legionaries looked back, all ready to hurl their spears. She still might have made it out of there, she’d faced tougher odds … Actually that probably wasn’t true, but she had faced horrible odds and come through. Then again she’d been captured by the Romans before and come through. The thought of being captured again by the pervert centurion didn’t appeal, but it was better than seeing Atlas die.

“Oh, for Fenn’s sake,” she said, and tossed her mace and sword down next to Atlas’ axe.

“Keep those pilums on them!” the centurion cried excitedly. “Gather their weapons and tie them up.”

Felix climbed the tree with the help of two Celermen. He did not like what he saw. The aurochs were finished, but so were the elephants. The British infantry were surrounded, and Caesar’s newly arrived scorpions and catapults were ripping great holes into them, but the barbarians were fighting strongly, maintaining discipline, refreshing their front rank regularly and pushing back towards the fort. Soon the Romans to their south would be driven into range of the fort’s scorpion bows and archers. Already he could see Lowa and her cursed longbow potting legionaries as if she were a wanton boy swatting flies.

He knew what would happen. Caesar would pull his legionaries away before they came in range of the fearsome firepower of the fort, the Britons would get back their redoubt and there would be a siege. That could last months. It might even force the Romans to return to Gaul. He could not have that.

There was only one thing to do.

Lowa shot legionary after legionary, spreading panic through the back rows of the two legions between her infantry and the fort. All their Roman training, and they hadn’t learnt how to put up an effective shield wall at the rear. The speed her men and women were pushing them, they’d be in range of the other archers and the scorpions soon. Many Britons were being taken out by the Romans’ scorpions and catapults to the north, but not too many. That’s what she had to tell herself. She could not think of the individual men and women dying. She was losing an acceptable proportion of her force to the Roman heavy weapons, and she was remedying the situation by bringing them back to the fort. Similarly, she told herself, she wasn’t shooting retreating men who might have lovers and children, she was reducing the strength of the enemy.

“Lowa!” By the way the trumpeter shouted, she guessed he’d been trying to get her attention for a while, but she’d been fixed on plugging legionaries. She shook her head, feeling like she’d woken from a dream. The man was pointing. She looked, and did not like what she saw.

To the west, the Roman ranks were parting at the command of a small, balding man. Hulking behind him were the Ironmen. Tripping along in their wake came the Leathermen. There were a good deal fewer than Mal had reported from the attack at Big Bugger Hill, so his raid had been some success, but there were still quite enough.

They reached the front line and Felix held back while his troops passed. The Britons saw the Ironmen towering behind the legionaries and readied their shields. The Iron giants pushed the Roman soldiers aside and swung their swords.

They waded through the Britons, chopping, kicking and smiting. Behind them the Leathermen finished off any that the Ironmen missed. Men and women wielding every manner of weapon hurled themselves at the giants but none had any effect. Arrows and slingstones pinged off them. As they killed more and more, rather than tiring, their sword strokes and blade-legged kicks came faster and harder. The Britons tried to get round behind them, but were thwarted by the Leathermen, who were now moving so fast that it was hard to keep track of any individual.

Legionaries pressed behind the demons, exploiting the tear in the British ranks. The entire western flank of her army crumbled. She watched, praying to the gods to give her men and women strength, aching to see just one demon fall. None did. They pressed on, unstoppable.

Far, far too many were dying, far too quickly. With the attack of the demons the rest were doomed, too. They’d be destroyed before they reached the safety of the fort and the covering fire of the scorpions.