‘Down there!’ There was no other choice, for they could already hear the storming party rushing through the covered sheds, so Ferox pointed down the side. ‘Go!’ He half pushed the carriers and watched as they slid down the bank into the shadows of the ditch. Soldiers – cavalrymen from their helmets – appeared holding a ladder and jogged forward, turning into a sprint as they got the tall ladder fully out of the hut. Vindex had already gone, so Ferox followed, slipping, almost losing all balance, and gripping the piled earth to ease his way down, until it gave way and he fell the last six or seven feet. Vindex broke his fall, so that both of them ended up sprawled in the ditch.

‘Clumsy bastard,’ Vindex shouted, but the words were lost as the trumpets sounded again. There was another shout, but it was less united, and individual cries came as the storming party made it across the ramp and reached the foot of the breach. Ferox saw the troopers raising their ladder against part of the wall where it sloped down, and beside them, men were climbing up the steep pile of rubble. Another burning carcase of straw fell, then another, bathing the figures in red light. Some fell, struck by arrows or stones hurled by hand. The centurion was clear in the flamelight, his transverse crest marking him out, and he was climbing the rubble, shield juddering as it was struck by arrow after arrow.

‘We going or staying?’ Vindex asked. The carrying party had already climbed up the bank to withdraw, and only Bran and four other Brigantes remained. The others must have gone down the far side of the ramp.

‘Let’s wait.’

Vindex grunted, then looked up as light flared brightly. ‘Oh no!’ A stream of oil cascaded down from the last section of solid wall next to the breach, and almost as soon as it fell, another carcase dropped and it erupted into a sheet of flame. Men screamed as they burned. A trooper grunted as he was knocked from the top of the ladder by a stone, and the ladder slipped, fell slowly back, men falling from its rungs. The centurion was still going, then was struck in the leg by an arrow, and kneeled. A bigger boulder rolled down the breach and swatted him aside.

Trumpets sounded again, and the head of the first cohort sprinted over the ramp, ranks ragged, but pressing on towards the wall. Closer to them, other men dropped and slid into the ditch near the Brigantes and they had a ladder. Ferox did not think that they had orders, but there was no harm in trying.

‘Come on, lads, the third will beat everyone else inside!’ their centurion shouted. Ferox recognised him, struggled to recall the name, but remembered a rather stolid, unimaginative man, so this seemed a surprising action. Then he noticed Hadrian, silhouetted against the top of the ditch and cheering them on. Part of him felt it was a shame no one on the wall had seen so important a target.