Julius jumped to his feet and the other men closed in on the fire, swords drawn. A part of Julius noted with pleasure that Ciro stayed at his post.

In the light of the fire, a black line of enormous ants moved like oil over the ground, disappearing back into the shadows beyond the light. Suetonius was becoming frantic and began to tear off his clothes.

“They’re all over me!” he wailed.

Pelitas stepped forward to help him and as his foot stepped near the column, part of it slid toward him and he scrambled back with a shout, pulling at his legs with his bare fingers.

“Gods, get them off!” he cried.

The camp dissolved into chaos. Those who had been brought up on the coast were far calmer than the Accipiter officers. The ants bit as deeply as rats, and when the soldiers found them, their bodies broke away to leave the jaws still attached and tearing into the skin in death spasms. The grip was too strong to be pulled away with fingers, and Suetonius was soon covered in the dark heads, his hands bloody with tugging at them.

Julius called Ciro over and watched as he calmly checked the two Romans, breaking off the remaining bodies with his powerful hands.

“They’re still in me! Can’t you get the heads out?” Suetonius pleaded with him, shuddering in terror as he stood almost naked while the big man searched his skin for the last of them.

Ciro shrugged. “The jaws must be dug free with a knife, they can’t be prized apart. The tribes use them to close wounds, like stitches.”

“What are they?” Julius asked.

“Soldiers of the forest. They guard the column on the march. My father used to say they were like the outriders Rome uses. If you stay clear, they will not attack you, but if you are in their path, they’ll make you jump like Suetonius.”

Pelitas turned a baleful eye on the column that still streamed through the camp. “We could burn them,” he said.

Ciro shook his head sharply. “The line is endless. Better just to move away from them.”

“Right, you heard him,” Julius said. “Pack up and get ready to move a mile down the coast. Suetonius, I want you clothed and ready to go. You and Pelitas can work the jaws out of your skin when we’re settled again.”

“It’s agony,” Suetonius whimpered.

Ciro looked at him and Julius felt a pang of shame and irritation that the young officer was showing such a poor face to the recruits.

“Move, or I’ll tie you down over the ants myself,” he said.

The threat seemed to have an effect, and before the moon moved far in the sky, a new camp was set up, with Ciro and two others finishing their watch. They would all be tired from lack of sleep in the morning after the excitement.