Night had fallen and the warm air was filled with the shrill cry of cicadas, rising and falling as the whim took them. The last of the evening breeze stirred the leaves of the palm trees, making a constant rustle that served to disguise the sound of footsteps as Ajax and his men cautiously approached the fort. The walls rose above them, black against the velvet indigo of the starry night. He had decided to lead the attack with the men of his bodyguard. They would enter the fort and then open the gates for the rest of the assault force, hidden amid small fields of wheat and irrigation ditches that stretched out around the mound. The inhabitants of the houses closest to the fort had already been silenced so that none lived to raise the alarm.

Ajax felt the familiar swift flow of blood in his veins as he braced himself for action. He quietly drew his sword and turned to his men to whisper, ‘Let’s go.’

He rose into a crouch and began to make his way up the gentle slope towards the fort. Near the crest he could see the small outcrop of rock that supported a section of the wall. Here the wall was no more than ten feet high, just as Ajax had been promised by his spy. Staying low, he and his men moved closer. Then Ajax saw a movement on the wall as a sentry, with a faint sheen of starlight on the curve of his helmet and the blade of his spear, paced slowly by on his round. The gladiator went to ground, waving his men down. Staring up intently, he waited until the sentry had disappeared beyond the corner of the fort, and then he continued forward. When he reached the wall, Ajax waited for his men to catch up and then crept along until he came to the edge of the rocks. Feeling his way carefully, he climbed over them until he reached the point where a large flat boulder stood below the wall. One by one the rest of his men climbed up and spread out on either side. When they were all present, Ajax indicated to the tallest and broadest of his men, a Celt named Ortorix who had once fought as a heavily armoured Mirmillion in the arenas of the eastern Empire. Ortorix stood with his back to the wall and his knees bent, and then cupped his hands together. Ajax placed his boot in the Celt’s hands, stretched his arms up the wall and whispered, ‘Ready.’