‘Cato! Over here!’ Macro shouted from a wagon at the front of the redoubt. Cato picked his way over the men resting on the ground and hauled himself up beside Macro. From the slight elevation the view across the enclosure revealed a dense mass of Durotrigans no more than a javelin’s throw away. Directly in front of the redoubt lay the piles of their dead and wounded from their first assault. Here and there a man moved feebly, some screaming in agony from terrible wounds, others moaning softly.

‘How many did we lose?’ Cato asked quietly.

‘A few. But they took the worst of it and rather lost their appetite for the fight.’

Cato gazed wearily at the Durotrigans. Some of the warriors in the front rank were rushing forward, screaming defiance into the faces lining the breastwork and then running back. ‘Looks like they’re working another one up.’

‘We’ll be ready for them. How’s the leg?’

‘I’ll live.’

‘Oh, good. Better get ready. Looks like they’re about to charge. I want you in the next-but-one wagon. Keep our lads on their toes. That’s the last of the legionaries. Have your Wolves ready to fill any gaps.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cato dropped down into the enclosure, recovered his shield and called his men into formation. A quick head count gave him a strength of thirty-four. That was all. Thirty-four men from the original two cohorts he and Macro had trained and led into battle. The survivors stared straight ahead, red-eyed, filthy and many stained with their own blood and that of their enemies. They looked like beggars, reminding Cato of the human flotsam he had seen as a boy, drifting around the mean backstreets of Rome. As a boy? That was just over two years ago, he reminded himself. The two years he had served with the Eagles seemed like more of a life than all the years before.

Yet these men were no beggars, and pulled themselves erect as they stood behind Mandrax and his Wolf standard. Cato made no attempt at stirring them on to yet greater valour, as the generals in all the history books did. He simply told them to take the place of every man who fell defending the breastwork. Then he saluted and took his position in a cart to the left of Macro. A short distance to Macro’s right he saw Figulus and returned the wave that the optio made to him.

‘Here they come!’ shouted Macro.

The enemy rippled forward, then all at once a roar swept through their ranks, and they charged towards the redoubt.

‘Hold steady!’ Macro bellowed above the din. ‘Just keep them out!’