‘Sir!’

Ferox turned and saw the Dacians carrying a scorpio forward from behind the bath house. ‘Kill them!’ he ordered the crew on the engine next to him. Vepoc was loading again to his surprise, but then it was odd how some men took to machines. Ferox went to the trapdoor and shouted down to the crews below. ‘I want all the men with that ballista dead!’ The scorpio behind him slammed forward while he had his back turned.

‘Too low,’ Vepoc said.

‘Then get another arrow, you mongrel,’ the legionary said as he cranked the slide back.

Cracking like whips, the engines on the lower level spat their bolts. Men on the ramparts cheered as one of the Dacians was flung down. Another followed as engines in the next tower joined in. The Dacians managed a single shot, which slammed into one of the last riders in the column. He shook in the saddle and the horse arched away from the terrible blow, shaking its head, but somehow they kept going and made it through the gate. All the men on the walls and towers were shouting now, and hardly noticed that the half dozen Dacians lay dead around their scorpio.

XXII

Piroboridava

Ninth day before the Kalends of June

IT WAS THE birthday of Germanicus Caesar, grandson of the divine Augustus, and a man dead some eighty-six years who had never been emperor, yet who was fondly remembered by the army. In morning orders, Ferox gave instructions for the supplication in honour of the long dead hero, although he doubted that it would be as lavish a celebration as usual.

‘Anyone too drunk to do his duty will get sent out to sober up among the Dacians, is that clear?’

‘No chance of that, sir,’ Dionysius said. All of the centurions except Petrullus were present and he was doing the rounds of the walls. ‘I can maybe squeeze a double ration of wine to issue today, but that is the most if you want it to last for a month.’

‘There’s always someone with amphorae stashed away,’ Ferox said. ‘Always.’ Dionysius was in charge of the food and was doing the job with thoroughness and ingenuity, although the picture was not good, in spite of having saved some of what was in the burned granary.

‘A month?’ Claudia Enica said. Since riding back in she was more inclined to speak up in these briefings and it no longer seemed odd in any way.

Ferox doubted that they would last that long if no help came, but had set it as a target. ‘Thirty days. You said that we can manage that, Dionysius?’

‘Yes, sir. Fifteen days on near enough full rations and then another fifteen on half and we might just make it. The animals won’t though.’ There was fodder for the horses and the few pack animals in the fort for barely six days. As Ferox had expected, the cavalry had found only the debris of the convoy, the men slaughtered, animals dead or gone, waggons broken or burned, and their contents stolen or ruined. That meant that there was no more food or fodder, nor any chance of getting any more.