But Figulus was totally lost to any appeal to reason. He frowned and shook his head once, then threw himself back into the fray with a guttural snarl. A Briton wielding a long-shafted battleaxe came at Cato. He threw his shield up and dropped down to his knees, gritting his teeth in expectation of the impact. The blow splintered the wood and swept on down into the chest of a body lying at Cato’s feet. The warrior’s momentum carried him forward, straight onto the point of Cato’s sword which passed through his collarbone and into his heart. He dropped to one side, taking Cato’s blade with him. Cato snatched up the nearest weapon, a long Celtic sword with an ornately decorated handle. The unfamiliar weapon felt awkward and clumsy in his hand as he tried to wield it as if it were a Roman short sword.

‘Come on, you bastards!’ Macro growled and presented the point of his sword to the nearest enemy. ‘Come on, I said! Who’s next? Come on, what’re you waiting for, you fucking pansies!’

Cato laughed, and quickly stopped as he heard the hysterical edge to the laugh. He shook his head to try and clear a sudden dizziness, and made ready to fight on.

But there was no need. The ranks of the Durotriges were visibly thinning before his eyes. They were no longer shouting their war cries, no longer brandishing their weapons. They simply melted away, falling back from the ring of Roman shields, until a gap of thirty or so paces had opened up between the two sides, littered with bodies and abandoned and broken weapons. Here and there injured men moaned and writhed pathetically. The legionaries fell silent, waiting for the Britons’ next move.

‘What’s happening?’ Cato asked quietly in the sudden hush. ‘What are they up to now?’

‘Haven’t got a bloody clue,’ replied Macro.

There was a sudden rush of feet, and slingers and bowmen took up position in the enemy line. Then a moment’s pause before an order was shouted from behind the ranks of the Durotriges.

‘Now we’re for it,’ muttered Macro, and then quickly turned to the rest of the cohort to shout a warning. ‘Cover yourselves!’

The legionaries crouched down and sheltered under their splintered shields. The wounded could only press themselves down into the bottom of the carts and pray to the gods to be spared the coming fusillade. Risking a peek through a gap between his shield and that of Figulus, Cato saw the bowmen draw back their bowstrings, accompanied by the rising note of whirring slings. A second order was shouted and the Durotriges’ volley was unleashed at point-blank range. Arrows and slingshot hurtled towards the huddled ranks of the cohort, together with spears and swords picked up from the battlefield — even stones, such was the burning desire of the Durotriges to destroy the Romans.