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Then Murad muttered something and there was a brief exchange of muted conversation between him and Symeon before the latter turned to Macro.
'Centurion, we are being watched, but don't look round. Murad saw a man in the dunes a moment ago. Just for an instant, then he disappeared.'
'One of our raider friends?' Macro responded softly.
'Almost certainly. They will attack us soon, I think.'
Macro glanced ahead and saw that the route would shortly take them through a shallow depression, with a stony rise of ground on each side. A good place for an ambush, he realised. Symeon was right.
'I'll pass the word to my men to make ready.'
Symeon nodded gently as Macro reined in his horse and dismounted unhurriedly. He bent over and made to examine the front leg of his mount. The first of his men came alongside.
'Prepare yourself,' Macro said in a low voice. 'They're close by.'
He repeated the warning as more men passed, then straightened up, as if satisfied by his inspection of the horse's leg, and walked the beast back down the line of the caravan, alerting the rest of his men, until he reached the last string of animals.Then he remounted and trotted back to the front of the caravan, just as it began to enter the depression.The sun's glare reflected off the slopes and made the air even more hot and oppressive as the loose column of men and beasts passed between the two low ridges. Macro kept glancing from side to side as discreetly as he could, the anticipation creating the familiar dryness in his mouth as he waited for the raiders to launch their attack. But nothing broke the quiet as the caravan slowly made its way along the depression. As the sun crept down from its zenith the ground began to rise up gently to rejoin the plateau beyond. Macro felt the tension in his muscles ease and he turned to Symeon, intending to comment sourly on the failure of the desert raiders to snap up this easy prize. Instead he froze, staring over Symeon's head towards the ridge on their right. All along it, figures of men, swathed in black, leaped into view as they urged their camels down on the caravan. At first there was no sound, but as soon as they started down the slope, in a scattered wave, they broke the silence with a shrill ululating cry. Macro's men responded in the ma
Symeon shouted an order and the thin screen of escorts galloped towards him as Macro drew his sword and held it low, so that the raiders would not see that it was not the curved blade favoured by the other riders. Around him Tabor, Adul and Murad cast aside their outer robes and snatched out their swords, polished blades glittering in the bright sunlight.They raised them overhead and shook them in a brazen challenge at the raiders charging down the slope towards the caravan. As the other escorts reined in and formed up in a mass behind their leaders Symeon turned to Macro with a wild grin of excitement.
'Now we shall see the character of these raiders! Hah!' He snatched out his sword and, like the others, shouted his war cry and challenge to the enemy.
True to their orders, the auxiliaries at the centre of the caravan melted away, leading their horses up the opposite slope as they scrambled over the loose sand and stones. At the sight of the men fleeing from the scene without a fight the raiders urged their mounts on and their shrill cries intensified. The men at each end of the caravan held firm, still jerking the reins of their mounts as if they were having great trouble controlling them. The desert raiders ignored them, as Macro had hoped, concentrating their attentions on the easy pickings at the centre of the caravan. As soon as they reached the first camels they leaped from their saddles and ran to the sides of the loaded animals to search for the richest pickings. Macro waited until most of the raiders had dismounted to seize their spoils and only a handful remained on the backs of their camels, swords drawn as they kept watch on the mounted escort around him. This was the moment that he had been waiting for and he filled his lungs and bellowed the order out to his men.
'Second Illyrian! To arms!'
The shout echoed down the depression, and all the men who had been fleeing up the slope suddenly stopped, casting aside their loose robes. They hurriedly discarded the fake bales of goods from their saddle horns and scrambled on to the backs of their mounts, wheeling them round as they snatched out their swords and charged for the confused tangle of men and animals at the centre of the caravan, letting out loud cries of their own.These were taken up by the men at each end of the caravan, suddenly in full command of their horses as they prepared them to attack the desert raiders.
'Come on!' Macro shouted to Symeon, jabbing his sword at the raiders. 'Get 'em!'
With a savage cry Symeon gave the command to his men and the trap was closed. Over the head of his horse Macro could see the dark-robed figures of the raiders freeze for a moment as they perceived the danger hurtling towards them from three sides.The quickest to react threw themselves back into their saddles and yanked the reins round towards the ridge they had descended from only moments before. Others, more foolhardy, still frantically struggled with the abandoned pack animals in the caravan, desperate to snatch some prizes away before they escaped. As Macro and the escorts raced down the side of the caravan they began to fan out into a line that angled away from the caravan so that they might catch the raiders in the flank before they escaped.They were close now and Macro saw the nearest raider turn towards him for an instant before whipping the rump of his mount with frantic desperation. Macro raised the tip of his sword and angled his horse towards the man, but before he could strike there was a blur of flying robes at his side and Murad surged past, teeth clenched in a triumphant grimace as he swept in between Macro and his man.There was a dazzling flash as Murad's blade scythed through the air and cut deeply into the angle between the man's head and shoulder. With a shrill cry, the raider spasmed and seemed to leap off his saddle, blood spurting from his terrible wound as he tumbled to the ground.
Murad cried out in triumph, laughed madly in Macro's direction, then turned away and spurred his horse towards the next raider.The centurion felt a flicker of anger at the way the man had interposed himself between Macro and his intended target, but then he smiled grimly. It did not matter. Let Murad have his moment of victory. The important thing was to make sure that the trap succeeded as completely as possible. Macro straightened up in his saddle, craning his neck as he tried to get an overview of the fight. There was a dense haze of dust at the centre of the caravan as dark figures hacked away at each other. Raiders were still abandoning the caravan and fleeing back up the slope, chased by Symeon's escorts and the Roman cavalry. Macro spurred his horse on, jerking the reins so that he was galloping straight for the swirling melee at the heart of the fighting. A riderless camel galloped out in front of him, and Macro swerved round it just in time as his horse let out a panicked neigh. Then he was in a swirl of dust, blinking as he felt the grit on his face and in his eyes. Another camel loomed up, this time with a rider on it, and the man's eyes widened as he saw Macro hurtling towards him. His curved blade swept out and up, and then the flank of Macro's horse crashed into the side of his camel and he slashed down at Macro's head. Macro, with the sour scent of the raider's mount filling his nostrils, only just had time to throw out his blade to deflect the blow that would have cleaved his skull to the jaw. The parry jarred his arm; then, as the man was recovering his sword for another slashing attack, Macro leaned in and thrust the point into the man's side, under his raised sword arm. The blow was truly aimed, and crunched through cloth, flesh and ribs before it tore through the man's lungs and pierced his heart. He folded slightly towards Macro before the blade dropped from his limp fingers. He grunted a curse, then flopped forward over his saddle horns.