‘Because you are my enemy. Rome is my enemy. I will kill Romans until I am killed. That is the way of things. Now, prepare yourself.’

He stood up and drew his sword. Philipus’s eyes widened into a frightened stare. He threw up a bloodied hand. ‘No!’

Ajax frowned. ‘You are already dead. Face it with dignity.’

Philipus was still for a moment and then he lowered his hand and turned his head up and to the side, baring his throat. He clenched his eyes shut. Ajax drew back his arm, aimed the point just above the notch in the trierarch’s collarbone, and then drove the blade in with a powerful thrust. He ripped the sword free and a jet of crimson spurted out. Philipus’s eyes snapped open, his mouth sagged and he gurgled briefly before he bled out, limbs trembling, then he was still. Ajax used the sleeve of the dead man’s tunic to wipe his sword clean and then sheathed it with a metallic snap.

‘Karim!’

One of his men, a dark-featured easterner, came trotting forward. ‘Sir?’

‘Take five men, work through the buildings. Kill the wounded and any others that may have been missed. Have the bodies rowed across the bay and dumped in the mangrove. The crocodiles will make short work of them.’

Karim nodded, then looked above the head of his leader and thrust out his arm. ‘Look!’

Ajax turned and saw a thin trail of smoke rising up into the clear sky beyond the wall of the fort. ‘That’s the watchtower. They’ve fired their signal beacon.’ Ajax looked round quickly and waved over two of his lieutenants. He addressed a tall, muscular Nubian first. ‘Hepithus, take your squad to the lookout post at the double. Kill the men and put the fire out quick as you can. Canthus, take the tower at the head of the bay.’

Hepithus nodded and turned to bellow the order to his men to follow him, before running back through the gate. The other man, Canthus, had dark features and had once been an actor in Rome before he was condemned to the arena for seducing the wife of a prominent and vindictive senator. He smiled at Ajax and beckoned the other party to follow him. Ajax stood aside to let them pass, and then strode across to the wooden steps that led up on to the wall of the fort. From there he entered the gatehouse and a moment later emerged on to the tower platform. He surveyed the supply station and took in the fort, the bay, the small river craft drawn up on the sand a short distance from the mangrove where a stretch of river led inland. In the other direction he watched as Hepithus and his men stormed into the lookout post and extinguished the signal fire. The smoke trail that marked the sky began to disperse.