‘You afraid, lad?’ Macro asked quietly.

‘Yes, a bit.’

Macro smiled. ‘Of course you are. So are the rest of us. But we’re here now and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

‘I know that, sir. But it doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘Just keep a tight hold on the standard.’

The Germans held a steady pace until they were close to the wall. Then a war horn cried out from somewhere in the night and from all round the village came more horns, and wild warrior roars crashed like a wave against the thin Roman line manning the flimsy palisade. In front of the gate, the dark forms swarmed up to the ditch and hurled the faggots into the deep shadows while others rained down a shower of arrows, spears and rocks on the defenders. With a shield raised over his head, Macro looked up to see that the pile of faggots was filling the ditch in two positions, one on either side of the gate. In a little while the ditch would be filled to a width that would allow the Germans to throw a stream of ladder-bearing men directly up against the wall. Worse still, heaving its way through the horde came the battering ram — the biggest threat to their position.

As long as the legionaries kept their heads, scaling ladders could be dislodged and pushed back, but a ram would inevitably break through the rough-hewn village gate. Then Macro and his men would have no defences to shelter behind and the Germans would overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers. With reckless bravery, the Germans had quickly filled the ditch and, rather than making a direct assault, Macro was surprised to see them ramping the faggots up against the wall. Those Germans that fell were simply tossed on to the growing pile.

All at once the enemy horde parted in front of the gate and the battering ram, a stout pine trunk with branch stumps for handles, was carried up to the gate by a score of burly men. As the ram crashed against the gate timbers, the impact was felt by all those on the wall above. Macro peered down behind the gate as the second blow thudded home and he saw the crossbar nearly leap from its brace, only just held in place by the frantic efforts of the men he had left on guard. Several pegs were already starting from their sockets.

‘This isn’t good,’ Macro muttered and turned back to look over the wall. Even as the defenders hurled stones down each casualty was instantly replaced and the rhythm maintained. ‘This isn’t good at all.’

‘Isn’t there something we can do, sir?’ asked Cato.

‘Oh yes! If we had Greek fire, we’d fry ‘em up nicely.’

Cato dimly recalled what little he had read of the experimental weapon and found it hard to believe that the element burned with a national accent. But from the gleam of longing in Macro’s eyes it would appear that the Greek variety was something quite special.