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General slowed the pace to a canter as horsemen jostled left and right to form into a ragged line.  
    Turbis saw the enemy ahead. Less than a quarter of a mile away the barbarians had spotted the cavalry and started to stream towards the new threat. They rushed towards the horsemen like leaves blown before an autumn storm. Here and there, caught in the roiling mass of battle, Turbis saw pockets of legionaries stranded beyond the lines, fighting for their lives. To the right a lone standard waved, awash in a sea of enemy warriors.
    Turbis squinted toward the standard but was not sure what he saw. Surely a whole legion could not have survived? The Twelfth? The Third? Then, a light flashed through the heavens. Glancing toward it, Turbis saw another; it descended like a lightning flash from the sky, but it was like no lightning Turbis had ever seen. Another flash, then another and another in quick succession, white against the yellow sun.
    Martius looked toward the lights too, an eyebrow raised. He shook his head and acknowledged Turbis’s quizzical look with a minute shrug of his shoulders before, with a quick glance left and right, he leaned forward, sword pointed at the enemy. “Charge!”

CHAPTER SIX
Conlan

    SEEING YOVAS’S CHARGE STRUCK any doubt, any uncertainty, from Conlan’s mind. He knew what had to be done.
    Jonas ran at his left side. His blue eyes fixed on Conlan, an unasked question in his gaze.
    Somehow shedding the exhaustion of battle, Conlan increased his pace. He could see where the double line of the shield wall ended ahead. Yovas and his cavalry bodyguard were already bogged down. Their initial impetus, which had carried them twenty yards into the enemy ranks, had left them marooned.
    Just as Jonas predicted, the enemy had turned the Northern flank. Clearly, Father Yovas, seeing the ruin of his legion at hand, had rolled the dice and risked an audacious charge. Perhaps he hoped that he would buy the legion time to adapt, to change formation. Maybe the old father had acted on instinct alone, Conlan neither knew nor cared; one task only stood ahead of him – he had to reach Yovas.  
    Father Yovas sat atop his steed, wielding his long cavalry sword like a man possessed, his teeth clenched in a rictus grin of battle fury, eyes flashing white in the sunlight. Blood flew from the blade as he beat down on the heads of his foes. The first group of infantry had reached him now, driving like an arrow into the crush around the father and his bodyguard. Incredibly, Yovas’s charge had been sufficient to halt the enemy advance. For the moment.  
    A freakishly thin barbarian wielding a meat cleaver and bearing a small wooden shield stood ahead of Conlan, his back turned, pushing with his brothers to get forward to attack Yovas and the cavalry. Perhaps hearing the rolling thunder of the running cohorts, the barbarian turned, and faltered as he saw Conlan and his men charging forward. Before the savage could react, a javelin, thrown on the run from within Dylon’s advancing wedge, smacked through the back of his neck, catapulting him to the ground.  
    Conlan led his wedge in at full pelt, no thought for his own safety as he hurdled the fallen man. The speed and ferocity of his charge took the tribesmen by surprise. The flow of the battle around Conlan shifted as the upper hand returned to the legion.  
    Conlan and Dylon’s cohorts battled their way towards Yovas and his men, who had taken up position on a small hillock. Conlan marvelled at Yovas’s strength – almost sixty years old, he fought like a man possessed.  
    For one glorious moment, Conlan thought the battle might turn, but then a massive blonde warrior stepped forward. He towered over all nearby, mail vested, he wore a bearskin over his shoulders. His huge bare arms, twisted with muscle, glistened with blood and sweat. Unlike his countrymen, he did not scream, or shout, but let out a single roar of challenge, as if possessed by the bearskin he