The Eagle and the Wolves

'Dress your lines!' Cato bellowed out to his men and the century commanders immediately started to shove and kick their men into order. A pounding of hoofbeats a

'What the bloody hell are you doing, Centurion? Get your men forward!'

'Sir, there's something wrong about this.'

'Get your men forward! That's an order! You want that lot to escape?'

'Sir, the wagons. Look at them.'

'Wagons?' Quintillus glared at him. 'What about the bloody wagons?' He thrust the point of his sword towards Cato. 'Get forward, I say!'

'Those aren't wagons,' Cato insisted. 'Look at them. They're chariots.'

'Chariots? What bloody nonsense is this?'

'Chariots tied back to back, to look like wagons,' Cato explained quickly, and stepped over to one of the bodies. 'And these men, dead long before the chariots were set alight.'

Macro came ru

Before Cato could reply, there came the distant roar of a war cry. The raiders at the end of the vale had seen their pursuers stop. Now they turned and were charging back towards the Atrebatans, screaming like madmen.

'I don't believe it,' Quintillus said softly. 'They're attacking us.'

Cato tore his gaze away from the enemy bearing down on them, and swept his eyes over the hillsides.

'There! There's your reason,' he said bitterly, thrusting an arm towards the trees on the hill to their left. Durotrigan warriors were pouring out from the shadows beyond the trees and forming up in a dense mass barely two hundred paces from where they were standing. Cato turned to the other hill. 'And there!'

For an instant the tribune's well-ma

'Wolves!' Cato quickly turned to his men, hand cupped to his mouth. 'Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Centuries! Refuse the left flank!'

As Macro sprinted off to join his men, the three centuries at the extreme left of the Atrebatan line folded back to face the Durotrigans massing on the slope above them. Unlike the natives in the two cohorts, the enemy were heavily armed, many with chain mail protecting their bodies. Already Cato could see that the Atrebatans were outnumbered; the tables had been completely turned on them and their Roman commanders. Cato spared their enemy an instant of grudging admiration before he turned to Tincommius and spoke to him in Latin.

'Get out of here! Get back to Calleva, as fast you can. We won't be able to hold them for long.'

'No,' Tincommius replied. 'I'll stay here. I'd never make it.'

'You'll go.'

Tincommius shook his head and Cato turned towards the tribune.

'Sir! Take him. Get him out of here!'

Quintillus quickly nodded and reached down for the hand of the Atrebatan prince, but Tincommius shook his head and, stepping back, he drew his sword.

'Quick, you fool!' shouted Quintillus. 'There's no time for heroics. You heard the centurion! Give me your hand!'

'No!'

For a moment the three men froze, each glancing anxiously at the others, then the tribune withdrew his hand and took a firm grasp of the reins.

'Very well. You had your chance. Centurion, carry on. I'm going for help.'

'Help?' Cato angrily turned on the tribune, but Quintillus ignored him. Savagely yanking the beast's head round, he kicked his heels and spurred the pony back towards Calleva, leaving Cato staring after him, lips pressed together in cold contempt and fury.

'Help?' Figulus snorted. 'How fucking thick does he think we are?'

Before Cato could reply there was a blast on a war horn to their left, immediately joined by another from the right. With a triumphant roar the Durotrigans poured down the slope towards the ordered lines of the Wolves and the Boars. Even as he glanced round his men Cato saw that some of them were already stepping back from their position in the line. He must keep them in hand, before the line started to crumble.

'Hold your position there!' he roared at the nearest unsteady man, who guiltily jumped back into place. Cato cupped his hands. 'Cohort! Ready javelins!'

The second line took a pace back while the men in front changed their grip on the javelins and braced their feet apart, ready to throw the deadly missiles into the wildly charging ranks of the enemy. Cato glanced to the left and then straight down the vale. The small group they had seen initially, no more than thirty paces away, would reach them first.

'First, Second and Third Centuries… release!'

With a collective grunt of effort the men threw their arms forward and hurled their javelins. The volley was more ragged than that of fully trained legionaries, Cato noted, but it achieved nearly the same terrible effect. The dark shafts arced up into the sky and then dropped down on the Durotrigans, who tried to take cover from the volley. It was instinctive, but quite useless. Those who managed to raise shields to protect themselves were almost as effectively skewered as those who did not as the heavy iron heads punched through the shields and tore into the flesh beneath. There were nearly two javelins for each man in the small charge, and after the crash and clatter of the volley only half continued on towards the Wolves, leaving their comrades dead or screaming in the long grass. The survivors would be easily dealt with and Cato turned his attention to the much larger band of Durotrigans charging down the slope towards the other three centuries.

'Make ready!' Cato bellowed, his nervous voice rising in pitch. 'Release!'

The front ranks of the Durotrigans went down in a rippling wave of stumbling and stricken men. But at once, those behind rushed over their dead and injured comrades, and threw themselves towards the oval shields of the Wolves.

'Draw swords!' Cato called out, wrenching his own blade free of its scabbard. The ridged ivory handle fitted well into his tight grip and he pushed his way into the second rank of Figulus' century. 'Keep those shields up and hold the line!'

The volley of javelins had done its job and the enemy crashed singly into the shield wall rather than engulfing it in one wave. The first score of Durotrigans to reach the Wolves were cut down the moment they tried to burst into the shield wall, killed by swift thrusts of short swords from every side. But then the main weight of the charge crashed into the thin line of the Atrebatans, and the cohort reeled back from the impact. Cato fixed his eyes on the savage expression of a huge warrior making straight for him, sword swinging up for a killer blow. The centurion didn't give him the chance, and threw himself under the man's arm, ramming his blade into his foe's throat. A sheet of warm blood gushed over Cato's arm as the warrior dropped to his knees, clutching desperately at the huge wound in his neck. Cato ignored him, quickly finding another target: an older man with a spear. This veteran was not as strong as the first, but more experienced and more wary. He feinted at Cato and, as the centurion made to block the blow, the old warrior dipped the spearhead under Cato's blade and thrust towards his chest. Only a wild twist saved Cato from the full impact. Even so, the glancing blow spun him round, driving the breath from his lungs. The veteran quickly drew his spear back to deliver the fatal thrust, but a shield boss crashed into the side of his head and he crumpled down.

'Sir!' Figulus shouted, risking a swift glance at his centurion. 'You hurt?'

'No,' gasped Cato as he snatched up a shield from one of his men lying dead at his feet, helmet cleaved in two by an axe blow that had shattered the skull.

Keeping the shield high, Cato glanced round to see that the line of his cohort had disintegrated and the men were lost amid a general melee of stabbing spears and swinging swords and axes. His ears filled with the thud of blows landing on shields and shattering bodies, the metallic clash of desperate parries and the cries and screams of the dying. Cato stepped back and looked over his shoulder. Macro's men had also been driven in by the ferocious charge, and in between the two sides of the desperate skirmish the three centuries that had faced the first charge were breaking, dropping their weapons and streaming back towards Calleva, ru