Deciding that there was nothing else for it, Crispinus rode up to the first cohort. ‘Sweep those fellows off the bridge for me!’ he told the centurion at the head of the column. Caecilius was not in command, for he was too valuable to risk.

‘Sir!’ The man saluted and gave a wicked grin. ‘At the double!’ he shouted and led his men in a jog down the road, armour clinking in time as they went.

Romans were falling, as archers on the far side of the ditch lobbed missiles high, hoping to clear their own fugitives. Some of the legionaries were too excited to be careful and dropped, hit in the face or beneath the knees where the shield did not reach. Even more felt arrows clang against their helmets or the reinforced armour on their shoulders.

Ferox kept his men together as he crossed the trackway, sprinting because the head of the first cohort was bearing down on them. He wanted to get past them and over to the left side of the bridge because most of his men had fallen back in that direction.

‘Out the way!’ the centurion leading the column screamed at them.

The last of the Brigantes was across as the elite of the legion, the tallest men and many of the most experienced, pounded along the track. On the bridge, the phalanx stood ready, pikes of the first five ranks lowered and braced in both hands, and the ones behind holding the shafts at an angle.

‘This way!’ Ferox shouted, for the noise had redoubled, the pursuing Romans still cheering, but shouts and horn blasts meeting them from the defenders on the far side of the ditch. He ran, taking his men to the bank twenty paces or so from the bridge. An arrow whisked through the air and buried itself in the chest of one of the young warriors who had not worn his cuirass. ‘Shields! Form a line here!’ The others clustered either side of him, forming a wall of shields. Another man yelped as an arrow grazed his leg. Then one was flung bodily backwards as a bolt from an engine drove through shield, mail shirt and flesh, sending him flying and knocking two others off their feet.

‘Shit!’ Vindex yelled.

‘Down there!’ Ferox pointed into the ditch and half ran, half jumped down the slope. This was one of the patches where travellers too impatient to wait for the bridge to be clear had worn down a rough track. ‘Come on!’ There were other Romans dotted along the ditch, men whose enthusiasm had carried them this far. The last of the defenders were scrambling up the far side, either using one of the paths or rope ladders put there for this purpose.

‘That way!’ Ferox swept his arm across the far side of the ditch.

Vindex nodded. ‘With me! Shields.’ The danger was that the enemy would line the bank and shoot them down where they stood.

‘Engines, where are you?’ Ferox searched around, then saw the first of the legionaries with the light ballista slipping and sliding down to join them. Behind came another clutching a sack filled with bolts. Ferox looked up at the bridge to check the angle. This would do.