The two Romans threw their shields down and ran after the figures streaming back towards the safety of Calleva. In among them ran the Durotrigans, screaming with exultation as they ran their foes down and stabbed and slashed at those too slow, or too panic-stricken to escape their pursuers. Cato led his comrade in a straight line, crouching low and running as fast as his legs could carry him. Only a few of the Durotrigans paid them any close attention, and of these only a handful tried to stop them escaping. But singly, they were no match for two legionaries and were quickly cut down.

They had run for just over a mile when Figulus suddenly pulled Cato’s arm.

‘Listen!’

‘What?’ Cato turned round, chest heaving as he gulped for breath. The effort of running such a distance in his chain mail had exhausted him. Spread out around them were the survivors of the two cohorts, still flooding back towards Calleva. The Durotrigans had dropped back, and were busy looting and mutilating the bodies of their Atrebatan enemies.

‘Look!’ Figulus gasped as he pointed back towards the smouldering remains of the decoy supply column. ‘Over there!’

A line of horsemen was galloping over the crest of the hill that had earlier concealed the Durotrigan ambush. As soon as they reached the bottom of the vale they spread out, lowered the tips of their spears and urged their horses on towards the scattered remnants of the Wolves and the Boars, still struggling towards Calleva’s ramparts.

‘Shit!’ Cato panted, unbuckling his belt. ‘Run! Don’t stop for anything.’

The dreadful screams of those being ridden down in the long grass began as Cato struggled out of his harness and desperately wrenched the heavy chain mail over his head. He dumped it on the ground, snatched up his sword and ran after Figulus, already some distance ahead of him. He was halfway back to Calleva when the wound to his side began to make itself felt once again. He had thought it quite healed, but now the extreme exertions of the fight and rout caused a stabbing throb down the entire side of his body, so that every breath was agony. His heart pounded so much that it filled his ears almost to the exclusion of every other noise, and drowned out the screams of the dying, the exultant cries of the Durotrigans and the thrumming of horses’ hoofs as the enemy charged to and fro amidst the panic-stricken men fleeing for their lives.