There was a sudden waft of cold air as the leather curtain was brushed aside by a tall figure entering the hut. In the wavering glow of the flames they could see the man’s chest was heaving and his boots, leggings and cloak were spattered with mud. He strode across the hut and bowed his head in greeting to Brixus.

‘What is it, Commius?’ Brixus asked. ‘You weren’t supposed to return from your raids until the end of the month.’

‘I know, but I have news of Caesar and his army.’

Mandracus leaned forward with an excited expression. ‘Out with it!’

Commius nodded and drew a deep, calming breath before he continued. ‘We had burned a villa near Mutina and were moving on when we saw a large column of soldiers approaching along the road from Ariminum. We followed them to the town and that night captured a prisoner outside the gates, who we took back to our camp. It didn’t take long to get the truth out of him. Caesar has left most of his men in winter quarters. He has taken barely ten thousand men to hunt us down.’

‘Ten thousand.’ Mandracus sucked in a breath through his teeth. ‘That’s still too many for us to take on head-to-head.’

‘Wait,’ Commius intervened. ‘He has split his force in half. Caesar and barely five thousand are at Mutina. They are marching into the mountains even now, searching for us.’

‘Five thousand?’ Brixus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘By the Gods, what a chance he has presented to us! His arrogance is typical of his kind. He considers us a rabble, fit meat for a small force of his prized legionaries. Well, we shall punish his mistake, Mandracus. It is time to put our own plan into action. Let Caesar march into our trap. Within a few days we shall have Marcus leading us into battle, and Caesar will be crushed and taken prisoner. Or better still, dead.’

Chapter 15

15

‘They made a pretty thorough job of it,’ Festus said quietly as he prodded the blackened stump of a wooden post. He stepped back, placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the surrounding scene as Marcus dismounted. Marcus tethered the reins to an iron ring set in what was left of the villa’s main gate and joined Festus. Before them lay the remains of the buildings and gardens of what had once been the sprawling country home of a wealthy Roman. Now almost nothing stood higher than a man — only heaps of collapsed masonry and tiles and scorched skeletal lengths of timber. Smoke still trailed into the air, wafting up into the haze that obscured the sun. Soldiers were picking their way through the debris, searching for any sign of survivors, or valuables that might be saved from the ruins. Marcus sniffed and wrinkled his nose at the acrid stench of burning.

‘I can’t see any bodies,’ he muttered.