The Tungrians did not cheer the second time that the enemy pulled away, going further back up the slope to rest and gather themselves for the last great effort. Instead the auxiliaries gulped for breath like men surfacing after time under water. Only a dozen were still on their legs and they formed a single rank, spaced wider apart than was safe and still only just managing to shelter the thirteen wounded. The rest had been dragged out of the formation by the Britons and slaughtered if they were not already dead. Several of the Selgovae waved aloft heads cut from the corpses. There were more warriors dead or crippled than Romans, but it did not matter. Ferox doubted that they would stand against another attack. Down the slope one of the groups of Romans had vanished, and the other had shrunk and was beset on all sides. He wondered what had happened to Vindex and the message and why no help had come, but it no longer really mattered, for unless they came very soon there would only be corpses to find.

Ferox sighed, breathed deeply, and stepped out of the ring of soldiers. There was one last gamble, and he might as well roll the dice, because if it did not work then they were all dead men. He raised his heavy shield and his gladius high.

‘Does any dare to fight me?’ He glared at the mass of warriors just a couple of spear lengths away. ‘I am Flavius Ferox, centurion of Rome and Lord of the Silures.’ The last was not true, but what did that matter in a man’s last moments? ‘I am a warrior and spit on you cowards who do not dare to meet me man to man.’ He spoke slowly because the local accent was so strong and he wanted them to understand. In their place, he would have lobbed a couple of spears at such a boastful idiot, but they were not Silures and Ferox relied on the tribesmen’s sense of pride and their love of a gesture fit for song.

The man carrying the Roman shield stepped forward and then turned to face the warriors, raising his spear high and roaring at them. The Selgovae cheered him, while Ferox fought back the temptation to run forward and stab the man in the back. He needed time, and that meant playing by the rules.

‘Come on, then, or do you need the shouts of others to make you brave?’ Ferox said.