Arrows of Fury: Empire II

Book 2: Empire series

by Anthony Riches

Genres: Historical Fiction; Action & Adventure

Synopsis

The thrilling sequel to WOUNDS OF HONOUR continues this action-packed series set in Roman Britain

Release date: December 9, 2010

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 368

Sample

Writing the second book in the Empire series was always going to be harder than the first, and not only because of the sudden and necessary imposition of a deadline as opposed to the leisurely approach that was possible with the first. Writing a debut novel was, for me, an activity fuelled by aspiration and ambition, whereas the delivery of the sequel featured the addition of a decent sized dash of nervousness to the mix. Everyone has one novel in them, or so the cliché goes, but from the moment I knew I’d sold three, the big question in my head was whether I could even deliver a second commercially acceptable story. Of course I knew the back-story that will see Marcus through the decades of the empire’s difficult transition to rule by Septimius Severus, and that controversial emperor’s reign, but could I actually write a story about the months following the battle of Lost Eagle?

The answer, to my eventual relief (and a good deal of eye rolling by those close to me), was yes, I could. Successful delivery of Arrows of Fury can be credited primarily to the assistance of the usual key people in the writing side of my life. First and foremost, my partner Helen told me in no uncertain terms to stop worrying and get on with it, and chased me to write when internet car reviews held more attraction than the next 500 words. My agent Robin Wade told me much the same thing, albeit in his usual breezy and convivial style, and my editor Carolyn Caughey gently pointed out what was needed to make the first draft of the manuscript into a second draft that really worked, and didn’t ever let me believe I could get away with nearly good enough. Carolyn’s assistant Francine Toon was always on hand with prompt and effective assistance when needed.

I was provided with valuable factual assistance by several people who have expertise in the period. Adrian Wink, purveyor of authentic Roman military equipment at www.armamentaria.com, helped me with both kit to play with and insights as to its maintenance and carriage by the soldiers of the day, and equipped me for the charity walk I’ll be plugging later. John Conyard of Comitatus (www.comitatus.net) was kind enough to take time out from knocking soldiers over with his cavalry horse at Maryport to give me a fresh perspective on Roman archery. Pete Noons and the Roman Military Research Society (www.romanarmy.net) were hospitable and helpful, and demonstrated their equipment with both zeal and demonstrable enthusiasm. Dr Jon Coulston gave me some valuable insights into the reality of the Syrian archer in 2nd century Britannia, and dispelled the myths of men in long flowing skirts once and for all, and Jon and Dr Mike Bishop’s excellent and learned book Roman Military Equipment is recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.

Lastly, the draft manuscript was beta tested by a few people, notably Paul Browne and David Mooney, and their critical input was of great value in picking out a few points that could be improved.

Robin Wade and I plan to walk Hadrian’s Wall for charity when this book is published, and we’ve chosen Help for Heroes (www.helpforheroes.co.uk), an organisation which highlights both the worst and the best in Britain’s attitudes to its armed forces. If you’re interested in reading more about the walk, please go to my website (www.anthonyriches.com), where you can find further details.

September, AD 182

The Tungrian centurions gathered round their leader in the warm afternoon sunshine, sharing a last moment of quiet before the fight to come. Marcus Tribulus Corvus winked at his friend and former chosen man Dubnus, now centurion of the 9th Century, which Marcus had previously commanded, then nudged the older man standing next to him, his attention fixed on the ranks of soldiers arrayed on the hillside behind them.

‘Stop mooning after these legionaries, Rufius, you’re a Tungrian now whether you like it or not.’

Rufius caught his sly smile and tip of the head to Julius, the detachment’s senior centurion, and picked up the thread.

‘I can’t help it, Marcus. Just seeing all those professional soldiers standing waiting for battle takes me back to the days when I stood in front of them with a vine stick. And that’s my old cohort too …’

Julius turned from his scrutiny of their objective and scowled at the two men with an exasperation that was only partly feigned. Rufius nudged Marcus back, shaking his head solemnly.

‘Now, brother, let’s be fair to our colleague and give him some peace. It’s not his fault that it’s taken all morning and half the afternoon to get two thousand men and a few bolt throwers into position. Even if my guts are growling like a shithouse dog and there’s enough sweat running down my legs to make my boots squelch for a week.’

Dubnus leaned over and tapped the veteran centurion on the shoulder.

‘I think you’ll find we call that wet stuff “piss” in this cohort, Grandfather.’

The older man smiled tolerantly.

‘Very good, Dubnus. Just you concentrate on taking your lads into action as their centurion for the first time, and I’ll worry about whether I’ll be able to hold my bladder in a fight for the fiftieth time. Youth, eh, Julius?’

Julius, having turned back to his study of the defences looming before them, replied in a tired tone of voice that betrayed his growing frustration with their prolonged wait in front of the tribal hill fort they would shortly be attempting to storm.

‘Might I suggest that you all shut the fuck up, given that it looks like we’ll actually be attacking soon? Just as soon as those idiots have been cleared from the top of their wall that’ll be us on the march, and ready for our starring role in Tribune Antonius’s great victory over the Carvetii tribe. When I send you back to your centuries you get your men ready to advance, you repeat our orders to them all one last time, and remember to keep your bloody heads down once we’re on the move.’

Julius cast a disparaging glance at the batteries of bolt throwers ranged alongside his four centuries, their sweating crews toiling at the weapons’ hand winches as they ratcheted the heavy bowstrings back ready to fire. He tugged at the strap of his helmet, the crosswise crest that marked him as a centurion ruffled by the breeze as he turned back to stare at the wooden walled fort to their front.

‘I don’t trust those lazy bastards not to underwind and drop the occasional bolt short. And when we do attack, let me remind you one last time that our objective is to break in and take the first rampart. Just that, and only that. Tribune Antonius has been crystal clear on the subject.’

Marcus managed to keep a straight face despite Rufius’s knowing smile. It was an open secret among the officers of the 6th Legion’s expedition against the rebellious Carvetii tribe that the legion’s senatorial tribune, the legatus’s second-in-command, was desperate to prove his readiness to command a legion of his own before his short tenure in the position ended to make way for another aspiring general.

‘Once the way’s clear to the second gate we let the legionaries through to take their turn, got it? So, clear any resistance behind the first wall and then hold your men in place. No battle rage, and no trying to win the fortification crown. Not that any of us would ever be so favoured with two cohorts of regulars all vying for the honour. Once we’ve done our bit I’ll call the bloody road menders forward and they can do the rest.’

The officers clustered around him turned to watch as the bolt-thrower battery to the right of their soldiers loosed a volley of three missiles at the hill fort’s outer wooden palisade, barely two hundred paces from the ranks of their soldiers. At such close range the weapons crews were taking full advantage of their weapons’ accuracy, and another of the barbarian warriors lining the fort’s wooden walls was plucked away by the bolt’s savage power, most likely dead before he hit the ground behind the palisade. After a moment the remaining defenders ducked into the cover of the fort’s thick wooden beams, and the artillery crews grinned their satisfaction as their officer shouted at them to get back on their weapons’ hand winches and prepare to shoot again. Julius nodded.

‘That’ll be it; their heads are down. Get back to your centuries.’

The four centurions saluted him and turned away, heading for their places in the two columns of auxiliary infantry waiting to either side of the heavy wooden ram that was key to their assigned task of breaking into the hill fort. Dubnus, the leader of the century that led the right-hand column, a tall and broad-shouldered young centurion with the frame of an athlete and a heavy black beard, spoke quickly to his chosen man, who in turn set the century’s watch officers to one last check that every man was ready to fight. While they fussed over armour and weapons for the final time Dubnus shouted the century’s orders across their ranks, repeating Julius’s command to take the first rampart and then hold to allow the legions through with their assigned task complete. That done he drew his gladius and picked up a shield he’d left on the ground in front of his men, smiling wryly at Marcus, who stood at ease beside him in front of the century with his helmet hanging from one hand.

‘When I got my vine stick last month I assumed I’d never have to carry a shield again in all my days …’

His friend’s eyes were alive with the prospect of the impending action. He was as tall as Dubnus, and if his body was less massive in its build it was still impressively muscled from the months of incessant conditioning since he had joined the cohort in the spring. His hair was as black as a crow’s wing, and his brown eyes were set in a darker-skinned face than was usual in the locally recruited auxiliary cohorts. A long cavalry sword was sheathed on his left hip, while the shorter infantry gladius, which usually hung on his right hip, was in his right hand. Its ornate eagle’s-head pommel gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, the intricately worked silver and gold polished to a dazzling brilliance.

‘… and yet here you are, hefting a painted piece of board again as if you were still in the ranks? Perhaps you’d rather go forward with just your vine stick for protection, eh, Dubnus?’

‘No, I’ll put up with the burden this once, thank you, Marcus. Those blue-nosed idiots aren’t going to keep their heads down for long, and they’ll throw everything but the water troughs at us once we’re through the gate. If we get through the gate. Now, you’re sure you don’t want to lead the Ninth Century forward one last time?’

His friend shook his head, gesturing to the front rank of the century arrayed behind him.

‘No, thank you. These are your men now. I’m only along for the ride. After you, Centurion.’

A sudden bray of trumpets stiffened their backs, calling the waiting centuries to readiness for the inevitable command. Marcus pulled on his helmet, his features suddenly rendered anonymous by the cheek guards’ brutal lines, then took up his own shield.

‘Infantry, advance!’

Julius turned back to face his men from the head of the left-hand column, drawing his sword and pointing it at the fort.

Tungrians … advance!’

At his command the detachment’s two columns marched steadily forward down the gentle slope that ran down to the hill fort’s perch high above the valley below. Three sides of the fort’s position were utterly unassailable owing to the heavily forested and precipitously steep slopes that fell away from the pinnacle to the north, south and east. The only possible approach to the hill fort was from the west, where a flat and treeless ridge angled up to meet the hill on which two legion cohorts and their supporting artillery were gathered, ready to follow up on the advance of their Tungrian auxiliaries. Bordered on both sides by the wild forest of oak and birch that made the hill fort’s steep approaches so difficult, the space beneath the trees thick with holly, alder and hazel that made it practically impassable, the ridge’s wide path led arrow straight down to the fort’s massive outer gates. Only here was there any realistic prospect of an attacker’s advance meeting with anything but disastrous rebuff, but in anticipation of such an obvious approach, the fort’s occupiers had long since constructed an elaborate series of defences across the fort’s western face. Three successive palisades of thick wooden beams defended the innermost point of the fort, the hill’s flat summit.

The Tungrians hunched behind their shields as the fort’s wooden rampart loomed in front of them, casting nervous glances at the thirty massively built barbarians striding purposefully between them. An iron-tipped battering ram fashioned from a tree trunk hacked from the surrounding forest hung between the two ranks of prisoners, and swung to and fro as they marched down the ridge’s slope. Each pair of men on either side of the ram was shackled together at the wrist, their chains wrapped around the tree trunk to remove any chance of flight, and every man was naked from the waist up, while a legion centurion and a dozen hard-faced soldiers marched alongside them in grim silence with drawn swords. The legion officer barked a command into the oppressive silence that greeted their advance.

‘When we reach the gate you barbarian bastards will swing that ram as if your lives depend on it. Which they do!’ He waited a moment to allow the men among them that spoke some Latin to translate his words for the others. ‘When the gate’s breached you will be released from your chains, and you will then go forward into the fort and take on the defenders with any weapon that you can get your hands on. Any man that runs will be put down by the soldiers alongside you or behind you without a second thought, so if you think that’s a better choice than going through the gates you can think again. Those of you that survive the attack will be freed to return to your villages with your second brand.’ Some of the men glanced down at the mark crudely burned into their right forearms, ‘C’ for ‘captivus’. ‘Let me remind you that if you decide to run, and in the unlikely event that you actually get away with it, the lack of that second brand to cancel out the first one will get you crucified when you’re recaptured. And that, my lads, is not a pleasant way to leave this life. Far better to die cleanly here in the sunlight than choking out your last miserable breaths in agony, and with your back opened up like a side of bad meat.’

Dubnus nudged his friend.

‘Keep your eyes open for them once we’re inside. I’m pretty sure that half of them fought us at Lost Eagle, I even recognise a couple of them, and they’ll probably be only too happy to take one or two of us with them. Especially men wearing crests on their piss buckets like you and me.’

Marcus nodded grimly as the attacking force came to a halt in front of the massive wooden gates.

‘Archers, ready …’

He glanced back, seeing the century of Syrian archers arrayed behind their small force taking up positions from which to shower the ramparts with arrows if the defenders were sufficiently unwise to show themselves. The legion centurion commanding the ram’s conscripted bearers pointed at the gates, bellowing the command for them to start their assault. With a collective grunt of effort the ram-bearers swung the tree trunk backwards, then heaved it forward with a collective lunge, the iron head’s arc ending against the gates’ timbers with a rending crash, sending a shower of dust cascading down on to the leading Tungrian soldiers waiting alongside them. A tribesman popped up from behind the wall and lifted his arms to hurl a rock down on to the ram’s bearers, but fell back with an arrow in his neck and a dozen more studding the palisade’s wooden wall before the missile even left his hands. Twice more the ram swung back and hammered into the gate’s creaking timbers, and with the fourth blow the left-hand gate sagged tiredly on to the ground, ready to fall. Julius barked an order back into the expectant silence.

‘Tungrians, wait for my command …’

The ram’s fifth collision with the fort’s defences ripped away the left-hand door; its shattered remnants fell back into the gap between the fort’s first and second palisades in a cloud of dust and splinters. Without the strength of its support, the right-hand gate surrendered after another two blows of the ram’s massive iron head, leaving the gateway open and empty. The waiting legionary guards tossed keys to the barbarians’ chains to the shackled men, waiting behind their shields with drawn swords as the prisoners freed themselves from the ram. Some of the barbarians gathered their chains to use as crude weapons, while others simply looked about them at the Roman troops gathered to all sides in a combination of hatred and simple terror. With the last of them freed, the centurion pointed his sword at the gateway.

‘Go! Go and earn your freedom!’

For a moment longer the prisoners hesitated, until a shaggy-haired giant who had hefted the ram’s heavy nose with straining muscles bellowed his defiance and loped forward into the fort, triggering a collective howl of anger and a sudden mad charge from the men behind him. As the last of the barbarians vanished through the gateway, Julius flashed his sword down.

‘Advance!’

The four centuries trotted quickly towards the smashed gate’s opening, flinching involuntarily as the bolt throwers on the hill behind them spat their heavy missiles over their heads in a salvo of shrieking iron. As Marcus rounded the gateway and stepped over the fallen gates’ shattered timbers a falling man rebounded from the palisade in front of him and hit the ground with a wet crunch of shattered bones, a bolt buried deeply in his chest. He stepped forward and hacked reflexively at the dying man’s head to make sure of the kill, then stared up and down the curved face of the inner wall. There seemed to be no other target for his sudden urgent need to take his blade to another enemy, only the half-naked barbarian prisoners milling about between the walls to either side of them and a few scattered corpses of the bolt throwers’ earlier targets. He started as a scream sounded from the rampart to his rear, suddenly feeling horridly vulnerable to whatever was happening above and behind him. Instinctively raising his shield as he spun to face the outer wall, he felt a clanging thud as a spear intended for his back found only the iron boss in the shield’s centre. The spearman howled his frustration at the miss, then staggered forward off the wall and turned a neat half-somersault to the ground with an arrow buried in his neck, the price of standing to make the throw.

A flicker of movement caught Marcus’s eye, a mob of a hundred or more barbarians streaming round the fort’s inner wall from his right, waving swords and axes in the air as they charged towards their attackers with berserk howls. They ripped through the barbarian prisoners without mercy, clearly aware of their former allies’ need for redemption through victory and taking no chances with their loyalties. For whatever reason, and whether it made sense or not, the defenders had committed most of their strength to meeting the Tungrian attack head on. Any chance that the legion cohorts would be bearing the brunt of the battle once the auxiliaries had broken the fort’s first line of defence was clearly no longer a reality. Dubnus had seen the barbarian charge, and stepped forward with a bellowed command that cut through the moment’s confusion.

‘Form a line!’

A good part of the 9th Century was through the gate already, and in seconds they had an unbroken wall of shields raised across the gap between the first and second palisades, the other centuries clustering to their rear in the thin space between the walls. The wave of attackers crashed into them, hammering at the shield wall with swords and axes, while the Tungrians held them at bay and stabbed back at them with practised skill, aiming killing blows at their throats, bellies and thighs. Stuck behind the line, Marcus craned his neck to see what was happening behind the fort’s enraged defenders. As he watched, the massively built prisoner who had headed the first wave of attackers through the gateway got back to his feet a dozen paces behind the rearmost enemy warrior. A red smear across his forehead indicated that one of the defenders had clubbed him to the ground without taking the precaution of checking that the blow had been sufficient to put him out of the combat. He was pointing to something that was out of sight to Marcus around the inner wall’s curve, bellowing words that were inaudible over the battle’s cacophony of screams and curses. With a sudden flash of insight Marcus realised what he must be pointing at.

‘The next gate …’

He turned to Dubnus, pointing urgently past the seething mob of barbarians on the other side of their shield wall.

‘The second gate’s open! Give me ten men, quickly!’

He sheathed his spatha and tossed the shield aside, climbing nimbly up the rough wooden ladder that led on to the wall’s wooden fighting platform with a sudden burst of energy born of his realisation that the way to the heart of the fort had been left open behind the mass of warriors throwing themselves on to the Tungrians’ shields. Climbing on to the narrow platform, he looked out for a moment across the ridge, back to the legion cohorts waiting in the afternoon’s sunshine, their standards gleaming prettily in the sunlight. He waved down at the Syrian archers with the agreed crossed-fists gesture to indicate that the wall was taken, the signal to stop shooting at anything that moved along the wall’s length. The archers’ centurion waved back, barking to his men to stand down, and another man joined Marcus on the rampart, his face dimly remembered from his time commanding the 9th Century earlier that summer. Their eyes met, and as Marcus raised a hand to beckon him on down the wall in his wake a hot spray of the soldier’s blood stung his eyes. A heavy bolt had opened his throat with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, the man’s blood fountaining across Marcus’s mail armour as the soldier toppled choking back into space and fell on to the men fighting below them. Another bolt slammed into the timber an inch below the top of the wall, directly in line with Marcus’s stomach, and the third screamed past his head with a hand-span to spare and no more, burying itself in the rough timber of the second palisade. Another man climbed on to the wall, and Marcus recognised Scarface, a 9th Century soldier with little respect for the cohort’s officers.

‘Best keep you fuckin’ head down, Centurion, or those legion tosspots’ll put a dart clean through it.’

Marcus nodded, ducking below the rampart and beckoning the other man on.

‘Follow me!’

He scuttled off down the line of the rampart bent almost double, slipping and almost falling on a patch of still-wet blood, and looked back to make sure that the men who had climbed up after him were following. Thirty paces around the outer palisade’s curve from the point he had climbed up he dropped from the platform’s eight-foot elevation to land beside the massively muscled prisoner, drawing both swords as the man spoke in rough Latin, his voice a bass rumble.

‘Gate open. We close, they trap.’

Marcus nodded, beckoning his men to jump down.

‘What’s your name?’

The Briton spoke without taking his eyes from the open gate.

‘Lugos.’

‘Come with me, Lugos. I may need someone that speaks the language, and you’ll be safer with us than staying here. If this works you’ll be a free man by the end of this fight.’

The big barbarian nodded curtly, and Marcus led his small party along the curve of the inner palisade to the gate, still open despite the obvious risk to the fort’s security. Marcus peeped round its timber frame, seeing a cluster of a dozen warriors standing next to the much smaller opening in the fort’s third and last wall. He pulled his head back, speaking quickly to his men.

‘There’s only one more gate. It’s still open, and they’ve only left a few men to guard it. We’ve already captured this one, and if we can stop them closing that one we’ve got the fort at our mercy. Are you with me?’

The three 9th Century men who had followed him nodded readily, Scarface glaring round at his comrades in a way they knew only too well, while the three others, from other centuries and therefore less used to his way of doing things, stared back with a mixture of uncertainty and apprehension. It would have to do. The barbarian had acquired a spear from somewhere, and stared down at him without any visible expression.

‘Very well, gentlemen, let’s go and win ourselves a fort.’

He threw himself round the gate’s wooden frame and shouted a challenge at the warriors guarding the last gate, wanting them to see the small number of men charging along the wall at them with a single officer at their head. They dithered for a moment, caught between the need to deny the Romans the gate they were entrusted to guard and the opportunity to kill their enemy, and in that time his sprinting pace halved the distance between them. Glancing back, he saw that only the barbarian, his three former soldiers and one other man had joined him, but it was too late to do anything but face the enemy warriors, suddenly confident as they realised that they outnumbered their Roman attackers by two to one and came forward with their swords drawn.

Jinking to right and left, Marcus batted aside the leading warrior’s sword-thrust with the long blade of his spatha and hit the man hard with his right shoulder, punching him back into the men behind him and gaining a moment’s confusion in which his small group could gather their strength. Spinning away from the tangled knot of barbarians, he readied himself to take on another warrior, only to see Lugos leap at his intended victim with a blood-curdling howl, spitting him through the guts with a downward lunge of the spear he had found and leaving it buried deep in the man, taking the sword from his nerveless fingers. He raised the weapon over his head and hacked it down into another warrior’s unprotected head, his eyes bulging wide with the bloodlust. Marcus dragged his gaze from the spectacle in time to parry a sword-blow from his left with the gladius’ short blade, spinning to his right and chopping the spatha’s heavy blade through his attacker’s spine, severing the man’s head in a shower of gore. The headless corpse toppled stiffly backwards to the turf. The other Tungrian soldiers were in the fight now, crowding in behind Scarface’s lead, and the gate guards were abruptly on the defensive as they found their strength almost halved.

Marcus looked beyond them to the last gate, knowing that their unexpected run of luck could still end in stalemate if the men remaining inside managed to get it closed. The eight-foot timbers of the fort’s innermost palisade were more than stout enough to hold off the attackers for long enough for the remaining occupants to have time to make their escape over the walls on the fort’s far side, and down the steep slopes into the surrounding wild forest, whose secret paths only they knew.

‘Scarface, hold them! You …’

He pointed at the panting Lugos, hooking a thumb at the last gate.

‘… with me!’

The other man nodded, understanding the Roman officer’s purpose if not his words, and the pair burst past the knot of fighting men and ran hard for the gate. A single man hurried through the gap just as they reached it, drawn by the sounds of battle, and died on the barbarian’s sword without ever quite comprehending how badly the fort’s defence was undone, the slippery rope of his guts falling through his torn stomach wall as Lugos pushed him back against the timber rampart and lunged at him again, shoving the sword’s blade up into his chest to skewer his heart. Marcus burst through the gate and stopped, his swords held ready to fight as he took in the scene before him. A wide-open space crowned the hill’s crest, perhaps fifty paces in diameter and surrounded on all sides by the final wooden palisade. A single timber-built hall stood against the enclosure’s far wall, and the open space between gate and building was studded with smoking cooking pits and the scattered remnants of their last meal. A single warrior stood outside the hall, and as Marcus stood breathing heavily in the gateway he shouted something through the door behind him. A massively built warrior stalked through the doorway, a fighting axe held in one hand and a round shield in the other, the thick gold torc around his bull neck marking him as the tribe’s king. He stood for a moment, taking in the sudden reality of his defeat before setting off towards Marcus at a lumbering trot with his bodyguard running alongside him.

The centurion looked back at the gateway behind him, seeing that the prisoner was still the only man to have reached as far into the enemy’s defences. He stabbed his spatha’s long blade into the grass at his feet, pointing to the gate and chopping at the air with a bladed hand.

‘Destroy the gate!’

Even if he lost this last fight there would be troops following up soon enough, once the battle between the first and second walls was resolved, and the fort’