‘I hope so, sir.’ Rufus took his sword in hand again and looked round. The village was quiet, except for a loud drone of insects and then Cato realised that it came from a short distance ahead where a shoulder-high mud-brick wall had been built to hold the villagers’ livestock. He swallowed nervously as he made his way over to the pen and looked over the wall. The interior lay in gloomy shadows now that the sun was low on the horizon. Heaped inside the pen lay the bodies of the villagers. Old, young, men and women - none had been spared.

‘What did they do that for?’ asked Rufus as he joined Cato. ‘If they needed food then why not just take it and let these people live?’

‘Ajax is continuing to make his point,’ Cato replied grimly. ‘He wants the people of the province to know that we cannot protect them. Word of this will spread and the governor will be facing demands for soldiers to protect every village from Ajax and his renegades.’

Rufus thought a moment and shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure, sir. It doesn’t feel right. This place is too isolated to serve such a purpose.’

‘Then why?’

‘To keep them quiet. To stop them giving us any intelligence on the number of Ajax’s men, their condition, and the direction they took when they left the village.’

Cato reflected briefly and nodded. ‘He would do it for those reasons, sure enough.’

‘Sir!’ a voice called out and Cato and Rufus turned to see one of the legionaries beckoning to them from between two mule stables on the far side of the thoroughfare. ‘Over here!’

They hurried over between the stables where a handful of mules stood staring at their empty mangers, and emerged into an open, dung-covered space. The bodies of the advance party lay sprawled on the ground where they had been dragged and dumped.

‘Shit,’ Rufus muttered. ‘That explains it.’

Cato knelt down and examined the bodies more closely. ‘Arrow wounds. Looks like they were ambushed.’ As he spoke the words, he felt an icy fist clench round his heart. He looked up at Rufus sharply. ‘That’s why the villagers were killed.’

Before the centurion could respond, there was a warning shout from the street running the length of the village, then a faint whirring sound and a cry of pain. The two officers rushed back between the stables, shields up as they looked round. One man was down on the ground, propped up on an elbow as he stared at the shaft of an arrow protruding from his breast. Another was staggering around as he tried to grasp the arrow that had struck him in the back, smashing through his shoulder blade. More arrows whirred through the air and Cato saw another man struck in the sword arm, pinning it to his side.

He filled his lungs and bellowed. ‘AMBUSH! Shields up. Legionaries! On me!’