Ferox felt it better not to be drawn. If this did not work, then he would have problems enough for the moment. ‘I must go, my lord. The engines and archers will shoot when you give the order.’

‘Good luck, Ferox,’ Piso said, managing a smile.

‘You too, sir.’

Ferox went down to the lower platform on the tower, waiting to be sure where the siege towers were heading. They were getting close to the crossings, and he heard Ephippus shouting at the crew of the monâkon to shift the great machine just a little. Hopefully that would not take too long. The tower on his left was moving steadily until it stopped, and with some care and little pushes this way and that to turn it, the men lined it up with the ramp across the ditches. The one on that side was narrower and less well made than the other. On Ferox’s right the second tower would move a few paces and then stop, but did not need to be turned and was pretty much squarely in the middle of the ramp.

Piso must have given the order, although Ferox did not hear it, for scorpiones cracked and bolts started to fly. Both towers quivered slightly when missiles hit them, but for the moment the archers on top were crouching behind cover. Some of the men pushing began to fall, for they were sheltered only from the front and vulnerable to missiles shot at an angle from the rest of the rampart and tower. Horns were blowing and men were cheering in the usual Dacian manner, and their own archers and engines kept up a steady barrage. A light-coloured stone came straight at them and men shouted to take cover, so that no one was hurt, but with a resounding clang it struck the bronze front piece of the scorpio over on the left, leaving it bent and one arm hanging down loose.

‘Bugger’s buggered,’ Naso said ruefully, and went to help the crew of the remaining machine.

The monâkon’s high arm slammed into the pad above its high frame and a great stone went high and straight towards the first tower, the one on the left. Ferox thought that it was going too high when at the last minute a figure popped up. The stone shattered the man into fragments, flinging some high into the air.

‘Daft sod,’ an auxiliary said. ‘Teach him to be nosey.’

‘Shit! Look at that!’ one of the Brigantians shouted. The first tower was on the causeway, coming across the outer ditch, when suddenly it lurched to a staggering halt, the front wheel sinking down into soft earth and the whole thing leaning sideways.

The monâkon lobbed a second stone, having reloaded faster than Ferox expected, and he wondered whether the line would be wrong now that the tower was at such a strange angle. Yet the stone hit with a great crash, shaking the whole thing so that he wondered whether it would topple over.