Hosker, G [Sword of Cartimandua 05] Revolt of the Red Witch Read online

  Revolt of the Red Witch

  Book 5 in the Sword of Cartimandua series

  Griff Hosker

  Published in 2013by Sword Books

  Copyright © Griff Hosker.

  The author or authors assert their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author or authors of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Thanks

  Thanks to Rich for always reading. Thanks to Barb for a great author’s party. Thanks to Ste, Paul and Andy for all their enthusiastic support. Thanks again to Mum- there would have been no books without your encouragement and belief in me.

  Chapter 1

  Lulach looked at the Roman fort of Coriosopitum. It was over five years since he had failed to capture and destroy this symbol of Roman power in the north of Britannia. It still rankled with him that he and his warband had been defeated south of Morbium and that defeat had begun at Coriosopitum where the garrison foiled his attempts to take and destroy it. In the past five years he, and his father King Calgathus, had built up his armies to their former strength attacking and harrying the Romans wherever possible. Lulach had urged his father to allow him to redeem himself for his former failure and rid the north of the blight that was Coriosopitum.

  His men were hidden in the many wooded areas around the fort and the settlement of Corio. They had spent the night moving secretly into position. He would not assault the fort as he had attempted previously; he had a more cunning plan. He and his elite force were hidden in the settlement of Corio. During the night they had silently entered the houses and huts and murdered all the inhabitants. A gory and grisly task, especially when it came to killing children but he had reminded those few of his men who had qualms about such action that these people were Roman lovers and, as such, deserved the same treatment as Romans. The sentries on the walls had detected and heard nothing of the slaughter in the civilian settlement.

  As dawn approached the raiders could hear the sounds of the fort coming to life: the guards were changing and the garrison preparing for another day on the frontier. Having watched for days they knew the familiar and well practised routine. Once the guards were changed the Porta Decumana would be opened and sentries stationed outside the walls to inspect the visitors who wished to enter or pass through the fort. Lulach had identified several regular visitors taking food and other goods to clients in the fort. Once the Porta Decumana had been secured the Porta Praetorium would be opened and a larger number of sentries would march to their sentry points.

  The gates nearest the settlement swung slowly and ponderously open, Lulach and five of his men wandered haphazardly towards the gate; their hoods and cowls protecting their identity and disguising their short saxes. The sentries had become complacent for most of them were a new auxiliary cohort brought from the south. They saw what they wanted to see; the same villagers with the same goods for they saw the northern tribes as being identical, they were all barbarians. Lulach and his men held their goods in front of them and, when the sentries inspected them, they were stabbed quickly and died without a sound. Time was of the essence and the six warriors raced for the open gate. Behind them the horde emerged from the settlement and raced along the road. The guards on the tower shouted the alarm when they saw the mass of men descending upon the gate but, before they could be closed the luckless sentries were savagely and ruthlessly slaughtered. The warband raced through the gates and the auxiliaries, just awakening to a new day, barely had time to register that there was an attack.

  Lulach and his men did not pause in their stride as they raced towards the Porta Praetorium. Barely dressed and half asleep auxiliaries tried to stop the horde of ferocious warriors but the speed of the assault took them by surprise. Outside the unopened main gate the rest of the warband shot arrows to tumble the sentries from the towers and by the time the gates had been opened the battle was already decided. In the open the cohort might have fought off a warband; on the walls of the fort, using their artillery they might have withstood the onslaught but fighting in tiny pots of half-armed groups they were easily overwhelmed and slaughtered. The First Spear and his century held out the longest, fighting shield to shield around the Praetorium but Lulach remembered the devastation caused by the bolt throwers in Caledonia and the Romans suffered the final irony of being destroyed by their own weapons as the Caledonii climbed the towers and turned the hated ballistae on to the last stand of the auxiliaries.

  “Strip the bodies of all that we can use and then burn this fort!” Lulach had learned that armour helped when fighting the Roman army.

  Warriors eagerly seized the swords and javelins. Others stripped the bodies of the leather armour and daggers. Some took the shields but most left them where they were, preferring two weapons, one in each hand. Within the hour the fort was a burning pyre. The wooden fort on the eastern end of the Roman defences was no more and the only bulwark against the barbarian invasion was Luguvalium on the west coast.

  “Now brothers, we will not make the same mistakes when we came south all those years ago. When we last came here we left a trail of brave warriors in our wake. This time I want to leave Roman bones to rot. I want Roman mothers to weep and I want our people to reap the rewards of our efforts. Go with your chiefs, they know where they are to raid. We return with slaves and plunder. Kill every Roman and burn every building.”

  The cheer from his warriors was an affirmation of the popularity of his actions. He and his father had spent along months in the winter deciding upon this strategy. If they made the mistake of one warband then the Governor would send out forces from Eboracum and they knew that they could not defeat the Roman behemoth in open battle. By using smaller bands they could still defeat the patrols they met and flee before being caught by larger forces such as the Legion. Their only fear was the cavalry, Marcus’ Horse and Lulach knew that it was the weak part of the strategy. They had yet to defeat these thousand horsemen who could move swiftly and bring deadly retribution on raiders. He just hoped that they would not run into them.

  Five years had passed since the most northerly fortress in the Roman Empire, Inchtuthil, had been abandoned and since that time northern Britannia had seen a series of reverses and misfortunes. The blood of the auxiliaries now covered the land from Inchtuthil to Coriosopitum. The thin line of wooden forts and camps between Luguvalium and Coriosopitum now represented the uneasy northern frontier of the Roman world. Five years in which the relentless Caledonii had ravaged and destroyed the Roman presence north of the Tinea. Many forts and their garrisons had been destroyed whilst others had been withdrawn further south where rebellion was fermenting.

  Prefect Julius Demetrius now showed the signs of his time in Britannia and, as he looked northwards, he couldn’t help but think of what they had held and what they had lost. The charred line of forts was just a reminder that the frontier had receded. A little like his own receding hairline which made him look much older than his thirty eight years and appeared to be receding at the same rate as the frontier. He had lost many friends, family and brother officers since he had first joined Marcus’ Horse almost twenty years previously. As he removed his helmet to let the cooler air refresh h
im, he peered along the bleak moor land rising away to the west. He had crossed this land many times; he had fought and bled in this land many times but he had always thought that one day it would be safe. It would be a place where the people who farmed the savage uplands would be able to do so without worrying about enemies coming on slave raids. The land was more dangerous now than at any time since the Brigante revolt of twenty five years ago. He had not even been in Britannia then but Gaius, the old Decurion Princeps, had told him of those dangerous times when the only law in this land was the cavalry of the Pannonian Ala.

  “Sir?” He turned to see the new Decurion Lentius Gaius Servius. He was one of the many new, unfamiliar faces who had replaced some of the older officers who had served with him for so many years. He found it hard not to call him Gaius, for he commanded Gaius’ old Second Turma.

  “Yes Decurion? What is it?”

  The Decurion had come from one of the southern tribes and he had only known Roman rule and Roman peace before coming to the wild edge of Roman Britannia. In the sixth months he had been in the north he had found it hard to adjust to the frontier way of life. “Why doesn’t the Governor or the Legate just bring the legions up from the south and stop these raids once and for all? We aren’t doing much good are we Sir? We are like the man trying to plug leaks in an old barrel, as soon sas as one is plugged another erupts.”

  Julius remembered when he had first arrived and been full of aggression; he had mellowed and learned that all was not as simple as it appeared from the outside. “The Legions are guarding those parts of the land which we have conquered, ensuring that the Roman businesses in that part of Britannia prosper. Here we have yet to conquer and believe me, Lentius, if we were not here then the Caledonii would raid all the way to Deva and Eboracum and the barrel would not just have leaks, it would burst.”

  “Sorry Sir. I didn’t mean any offence.”

  “None taken. I, too, long for the day when we march north with legions and auxiliaries side by side and retake the land we once won with so much blood but that may not be for some time.”

  “Is that why we are split into three groups and patrol so far apart?”

  “Yes Decurion it makes the most of what we have got. Decurion Princeps Cilo patrols the south and west whilst Decurion Lucullus covers the east and the north. Four turmae can cover more ground than the whole ala. It keeps our presence over a wider area of this vast and empty land.” He glanced around to make sure that the turmae, men and horses, were rested and then signalled for them to follow. “Keep a keen eye out for those raiders. I know they may have returned north but something tells me they are still close by and watch out for ambushes; we have to travel close to the trees and they have learned that horses do not cope with the narrow trails in these dense woods.”

  They dropped down from the windswept ridge top and followed a small trail through the pine trees. Someone had cut some down at some point and in places they almost found space to breathe. This was where Julius missed Gaelwyn, for the Brigante scout would have been able to smell the Caledonii. Julius and his men would have to make do with their eyes and their mounts that would whinny if they were afraid of something or smelled something alien.

  Down in the valley the raiders watched the horsemen disappear into the forest. Their leader, a huge grey haired giant called Modius, had once been a member of the ala until he had deserted. His knowledge of the ala and the way they operated had saved his little band of robbers and brigands on more than one occasion. They had slipped over from the west a month earlier and had spent their time quite profitably robbing caravans of merchants moving small, but valuable cargoes like jet and copper. Some had even had gold taken, ironically, from the rivers close to Modius’ camp and following Modius’ route to Eboracum. He was a cunning leader and he knew when he ought to cut his losses. Since the ala had sent their patrols out for him he had found the pickings harder to come by. Turmae escorted the larger caravans and kept the main routes open. Modius knew the Prefect; he had served with his brother and, later, been one of the warband which killed him. As much as he would have like to do the same to his little brother he could not take on two turmae with the bandits he controlled. Now he was an independent as he styled himself, a robber baron who answered to no-one but took advantage of the unrest and the raids from the warlike tribes further north.

  “Right. They are out of sight. Single file back along this track. I want no noise and I want the last man to clear the trail. Now let’s move.”

  There was no loyalty amongst the band but Modius was an effective leader. As long as he brought them success and cowed them with his strength of arms, they would follow him. They were not warriors as Modius had once led, but they served his purpose. When they were sure that they had lost the patrol Modius headed them up the rocky gully which would eventually take them to the high waterfall. The route was hard for his men but he knew that they would fare much better than the horses of the ala.

  Seonag was the wise woman of the village. Nestled in a little dell close to the sea moors the prosperous little village made a good living mining the much sought after jet. Prized by both royalty and mystics its value exceeded that of gold. In the last three years they had had sold much to traders from the area around the holy mountain of Wyddfa. Seonag had her own theory about this but she kept her counsel for she was the last of the priestesses left in this part of the world. In her heart she knew her sisters were once again rising to take back the power they had once possessed. Despite being a widow, her husband having died young in Venutius’ first rising, she was not poor for her medicines and wise words were much sought after by the people of the village and nearby valleys. She had remained hidden when all the others of her sect had died or returned to Mona. She felt that the Mother still had a role for her to play.

  Despite her age she was the one who sensed when the band of Caledonii raiders was close by. She was afraid neither of them nor of death. She had outlived all those with whom she grew up and she knew she still had a power over men. She went to her secret place and took out her magic amulet made of intricately carved pieces of jet cunningly shaped into ravens and crows. She walked out into the daylight prepared to meet whoever came.

  Manus, as his name suggested, was a big warrior; he was one of the biggest warriors in Caledonia. At his birth his prodigious size had given him his name as soon as he emerged screaming into the world. He had loyally served Lulach for many years as a bodyguard and had earned the right to choose his own warband. Once they had crossed the Dunum he had made straight for this village despite its proximity to Cataractonium. He was gambling that the dreaded ala would be elsewhere but he had visited the place to buy jet many years earlier and he knew of high and steep paths which would enable him to escape pursuit should they stumble upon him.

  He and his men rose like wraiths from the tree line. The village was totally surrounded and the fifteen or so men unarmed. They were slaughtered where they stood. “Round up the women and the children kill the old. You eight go and gather the jet it will be in that hut over there then burn the houses and huts.”

  Just then he noticed Seonag who just stood like a rock, her old piercing eyes taking in the murder and mayhem around her. One of his men was walking up to her, his sax already ready drawn. “Hold!”

  “But you said to kill the old and this one is older than the rocks, and as ugly.”

  Manus backhanded the shocked warrior to the ground. “You are a fool Lugh! Do you not see she is a holy woman! Would you bring the curse of the Mother on to us? I am sorry mother we mean you no harm.”

  “I know. Take not all of the jet for the sisters will need some.”

  Nodding he shouted to his men. “Bring the jet to me.”

  When the slaves were tethered and the jet packed on to the two small horses used in the village Manus handed over a large quantity of jet. “Thank you. The Mother will watch over you.”

  The warband headed north at a steady lope heading for the river crossing. Manus
was already thinking about the three villages he had skirted whilst heading south. He had lost no men so far and he could gather more plunder there.

  Decurion Livius Lucullus had grown up since he had languished in a cell awaiting the whim of an Emperor. Having faced death at close hand he was a far more mature leader than his age would suggest. He had spent much time with Tribune Marcus Aurelius Maximunius and picked up not only wisdom but intimate knowledge of how the ala could and should be used in Britannia. As a native of the island and a relative of the last king, Cunobelinus, he was passionate about protecting its people. His turmae trusted his judgement implicitly. His scout had reported the smoke as they were descending from the eastern moors heading back to Cataractonium. He sensed that his men were ready to return to barracks and a little comfort after a week in the saddle but he knew that it was his duty to find out what had caused the pall of black smoke on the horizon. He wondered if the Prefect and the Decurion Princeps felt the same. He also knew he would have to investigate.

  They rode warily into the still burning village. They saw some bodies near the road and an old woman laying others into a hole in the ground. “Let us help you mother.”

  “Thank you. I am too old for this.”

  “When did they leave?”

  “They came just after dawn and they did not stay long. We were a small village and it did not take them long.”

  “Caledonii?” She nodded, there was little point denying it although she did not want to help the Romans if she could avoid it. “Which way did they go?” She waved a hand in the vague direction of north. “Thank you. Would you like my men to escort you to the fort?”

  “Thank you for your offer but I have a journey to make and it will be my last.” The young Decurion thought that this was a journey to die and he nodded sadly, sympathising with the woman who was the last of her village. But Seonag had no intention of relinquishing her hold on life until she had delivered her precious cargo to the sisters who had re-invested Mona. Her journey was not one of death but of rebirth. She would rejoin the community on Mona. Her life was far from over. Perhaps this was the last task she would perform for the Mother.