Chapter 5

Southern Caledonia

Claudius rode swiftly through the wooded hills of southern Caledonia, his back and legs tired after weeks of chasing the escaped prisoners across Britannia. If it had been left to him, he would have abandoned the chase a long time ago. Either the elements or local patrols would have eventually captured them, and it wasn’t like these were the only bandits operating in the less populated parts of the country.

The problem was, it wasn’t easy to find a small group of men in a country still torn apart by years of brutal war, and one where a large percentage of the men were not even on the island, leaving villages mostly full of women, old men, and young boys. There were burned-out villages and the refuse of war across Britannia. Of course, it wasn’t just about stopping banditry. He understood that the escape of the prisoners had been something of a political black eye for the Empress, which is why she had pushed Faenius so hard to apprehend them, and why Faenius had pushed Claudius.

Nothing pointed to the tricky politics of the situation more than the six Caledonian praetorians riding with him. Though officially assigned to “assist” in the search for the escaped prisoners, Claudius suspected the real reason the warriors accompanied him was to keep watch on the Roman interlopers. Although they were, ostensibly, countrymen now, the Caledonians had been given promises that they could maintain their own territorial security, and riding with a century of Roman praetorians seemed to be making them nervous.

Which was almost certainly going to mean someone from Caledonia complaining to the Empress, which would lead the Empress to complain to Faenius that the search had now caused diplomatic unrest or the like, which would result in runners to Claudius at the bottom of the extended chain of misery.

Claudius slowed his horse as Cait, their tracker, came into view. The man tended to range far ahead of the group to keep his own men from obscuring the tracks he was following. Him stopping usually meant he had found something. Claudius held up his hand for the column to stop and rode ahead, by himself, to speak to the tracker.

Thankfully, the Caledonians stayed behind this time. The first several times this situation had happened, they’d insisted on joining him, sending Cait into apoplexy as they proceeded to destroy the tracks he’d been trying to show Claudius, setting the column back several days as he worked to reacquire the prisoners’ tracks.

“The tracks are getting fresher,” he reported when Claudius reached him. “These men are tiring, I’d wager. Running low on food as well.”

“How can you tell?” Claudius asked.

“They’ve doubled back on themselves three times, and they’re becoming more spread out. I think they’re looking for a new village to raid. They don’t have any idea how sparse this region is.”

“Our luck,” Claudius said. “It’s why their tracks have gotten easier to follow, too, I bet. They’re growing desperate.”

“Probably.”

“Do you think we could catch up to them today?”

Cait scratched his beard. “Maybe, if we’re swift about it. They can’t be more than a few hours ahead now.”

“Then move out as fast as you’re able. I’ll ensure the men keep up.” Cait snapped a sharp salute, then leaped into his saddle, spurring the horse to a brisk canter. Claudius turned to his century. “You heard the man. Ride hard, but pace your mounts. We may have to fight before day’s end.” With a chorus of acknowledgment, the praetorians formed up. Claudius glanced at the six Caledonian warriors accompanying them. Their leader, Bress, met his gaze and nodded.

Satisfied they would keep up, Claudius spurred on his horse, leaving the rest to follow.

They rode on for hours, keeping a brisk enough pace that the horses were starting to show the effects. They weren’t the only ones. His men were wearing out. If this went on for much longer, he’d have to send someone to catch up to Cait and pull the tracker back in for the night, leave the prisoners until the following day, and hope they didn’t give his men the slip. Again.

Just about the time he was ready to give up, they caught up to Cait again, who waved him forward as soon as they were in sight. Claudius signaled the column to halt and rode up to the tracker by himself.

“They’re just ahead, in a gulley,” Cait said. “I caught a glimpse of a cookfire.”

Claudius assumed it was far enough ahead that the thundering hoofbeats wouldn’t alert them. The pair rode back to his line, where Claudius dismounted and handed the reins over to one of his men. Ordering them to wait there, he and the tracker walked for almost twenty minutes through the trees and up a small rise before Cait signaled him to get low and crawl to the edge of an overlook.

Peering over the edge, he couldn’t see much. More trees a short drop down, but otherwise more undisturbed forest. He trusted the tracker, though, and kept searching until he found it. Wisps of smoke rising up from a section, the tell-tale signs of a campfire. That could be anything, though. Hunters, trappers, or maybe completely unconnected bandits.

If they were going to charge in, they needed to be sure. So he and Cait lay there as the sun continued to get closer and closer to the horizon, trying to peer through openings in the trees and see something. They waited long enough that Claudius began getting nervous. If they waited much longer, they would either have to move to get a closer look, a possibly foolhardy move, or get his men and go charging in and hope for the best. An equally poor option.

Then he saw it. Staring through his spyglass, looking through a thin opening in the trees, he saw a ragged, bearded man shuffle into view. He didn’t recognize the man, but he recognized the tattered clothing. It was one of the prisoners.

Scowling, Claudius backed away from the edge and hurried back to his men.

They broke through the trees into the clearing with a roar, sending the small band of prisoners panicking. Claudius hadn’t noticed it until they were almost on top of the prisoners, but the location they had chosen was a double-edged sword. It protected them from being seen unless they were stumbled upon, but it also formed a dell. A small area where sound was blocked from the surrounding hills, muffling it or preventing the sounds of the horses from being heard before his patrol was right on top of them.

Caught unawares, most of the escaped prisoners were cut down in the first savage moments. A few managed to grab weapons and tried to rally a defense, but they were hopelessly outmatched. They had been running for months, starving and weakened, and were trained to fight in phalanxes, not as individual guards as the praetorians were.

Still, Claudius had to admire their ferocity, cornered as they were. With a bellow, a massive, bald man wielding a woodcutter’s axe charged straight at Claudius. Claudius easily turned the wild blow aside with his spatha before recovering and countering, ramming the weapon into the man’s ribs. He collapsed with a gurgle, the axe falling from limp fingers.

Even as he fought, Claudius kept one eye out for prisoners trying to escape. Most were dead already, but he spotted a younger one scrambling away from the carnage. Claudius whistled sharply and pointed. Two of his men broke off and tackled the fleeing man.

Within moments, the brief struggle was over. Bodies littered the campsite, only a handful still breathing. Claudius cleaned his blade on a scrap of cloth.

“Bind the ones still alive,” he ordered. “Make sure they won’t cause trouble on the ride back.”

As his men set to work, Claudius took stock of their own casualties. Nothing serious, though young Castor would likely carry that axe scar on his cheek for the rest of his days. Claudius watched one of the men who’d run and then been dragged back into the clearing, a lanky man with a scraggly beard, his hands tied behind his back, being thrown roughly to the ground next to the bodies of the men he’d been on the run with. Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead. Walking to him, Claudius grabbed him by the tunic and hauled him upright.

“You’ve caused a lot of trouble these past months,” Claudius said, glaring at the man.

The prisoner met his gaze and spat. “Go to hell, Roman dog.”

Claudius backhanded him across the face. “You’ll pay for the innocent civilians you slaughtered. The villages you raided and burned.”

Claudius knew this wasn’t his job. He’d been sent to capture the men, nothing more. Certainly not to teach them a lesson. But he’d also been forced to witness their atrocities across Britannia, and part of him wanted payback.

“We did what we had to do to survive,” the man snarled. “It’s no less than what you Romans have done to us.”

The man started to respond with another insult, and Claudius hit him again, harder this time. The prisoner’s head snapped back, blood spraying from his mouth.

“You’ll learn the cost of that survival when we get you back to Devnum,” he said to the man, dropping him back to the ground. “Round up the ones that can walk. Any too injured to move, slit their throats and leave them here.”

That was an act of mercy, more than any of these men deserved. He should have left them here, bound in the dirt, left to bleed out.

Still, as they got the men ready to travel, Claudius looked around the makeshift campground, at the bodies of the dead prisoners, and took a moment to be satisfied. It had been a long chase, but they’d finally run the bastards to ground. Justice was served.

Daramouda Ky sat atop his horse just outside the gates of Daramouda, watching as row after row of legionaries marched past him, down the wide dirt road leading east. Though winter snow still capped the distant peaks, the roads and fields had thawed enough to mark the beginning of another campaigning season. His third since arriving in this version of his past, and since joining the war against the Carthaginians. More than anything, he hoped it would also be the last year of their protracted war.

“The men look ready after their long winter, my lord,” remarked Vibius from one of the horses next to him.

Aelius was still in the city, and Marcus, one of their newer legates, had marched out at first light at the head of the nearly reformed second legion, which left Bomilcar, Auspex, and Vibius to watch the men’s march out of the city. Ky liked to use this as a sort of informal review, a chance to let his commanders see the men, marching in good order, and for the men to see their commanders. Once the campaign started, things could get chaotic, and this was a good opportunity to build unit spirit, which, in the end, helped the overall cohesion of the legions themselves.

“Let’s hope so,” Ky said.

“This is going to be different than the previous years, you know,” Bomilcar said. “So far, you’ve been fighting in barely conquered territory, where the empire didn’t have a foothold. They’ve controlled Italy for centuries. This will not be the same fight.”

“I know, but it’s the fight we have,” Ky said. “I just wish we weren’t as spread out. We’re going to be down three legions by the time we make the turn south.”

“What other choice do we have?” Bomilcar said. “We have a lot of ground to protect. The Carthaginians may have been pushed out of Western Germania, but they still control most of the east, along with all of Persia, Syria, and all of Africa. That is a lot of ground to protect ourselves from, and they will stop at nothing to defend the homeland.”

“I know,” Ky said.

They had been having the same argument all winter, trying to decide the best disposition of their forces. Some wanted to leave everything but Greece to the allied tribes and pull all of the legions in for the attack on Italy and Africa, while others wanted to add a year to the war, focusing only on clearing the rest of the continent, including eastern Germania and Greece to the Aegean, before they turned their attention to Africa next year.

While Ky didn’t agree with leaving the entire continent to their allies, he also didn’t want to add another year to the war, which had left him with the worst of all options. Spreading themselves out to try and both attack a fortified Italy and Africa while providing protection for their new allies by blocking the continent from re-invasion by the Carthaginians from the east.

It meant they were strong nowhere, even more reliant on their technological advantage than they had been before.