Even then the terror did not stop.
As they waited on the earth-built ramparts they saw the enemy pushing the three captured catapults towards the walls. There was no fear at first, for there were no stones for them. But the tribesmen did not hurl stones. They loaded the firing basins with severed heads, and rained these down on the camp. By morning the open ground within the walls was filled with them.
As dawn came a rider on a grey horse approached the walls, reining in his mount just out of bowshot. Oranus, and all the other defenders, had stared at the man. This was Connavar, the Demon King. They had seen him fight the day before, cutting and killing like a man possessed. He sat now on his grey, his patchwork cloak billowing in the dawn breeze. Appius strode to the battlements, stood silently for a moment, then glanced at Oranus.
‘Follow me,’ he said. To the horror of the terrified Oranus, he clambered over the battlements and climbed down into the trench and up the other side. Oranus scrambled down after him and the two men walked out onto open ground.
Appius walked slowly, arms clasped behind his back, as if he was out for a morning stroll. Oranus looked at him, and saw no fear in the patrician features. They reached the horseman. Oranus looked up once. He was wearing a white-plumed, full-faced helm of gold-embossed iron. Only his baleful eyes showed through the curved slit. He seemed somehow inhuman. Oranus focused instead on the hilt of the sword in the scabbard at the king’s side. He heard Appius speak.
‘Your men fought well, Connavar.’
Connavar ignored the compliment, and when he spoke his voice, distorted by the helm, sounded metallic and cold. ‘You have two choices, Appius. You can stay here and we will destroy you, or you can march your men back to the lands of the Cenii. If you give me your word you will not stop until you reach the sea I will allow you to pass unhindered. And I will see that supplies are brought to you on your journey.’
‘Will you return to us the body of Valanus?’
‘I doubt I could gather all the pieces, or recognize them if I tried,’ said the king.
Oranus felt his legs begin to tremble, and he almost passed out with fear.
‘Then it shall be as you say, Connavar. But I have badly wounded men in the fort. I will need some wagons for them.’
‘You will have them. Be ready to leave in an hour.’
‘I’ll need a little more time to bury the heads you . . . returned to us.’
Two hours then,’ agreed Connavar. The king swung the grey and cantered back to the waiting Keltoi army.
Oranus turned to the general. ‘If we leave the fort, sir, they will surely massacre us.’
‘Perhaps, though I doubt it. Connavar is a cunning strategist, but also a man of his word.’
‘But why should he allow us to leave?’
‘Because – although he has won the battle – his forces have taken huge casualties. Any full attack on us here would see him lose three men to our one. Yes, we would die, but it would achieve nothing. As it is, we will march away with our tails between our legs, and every surviving man will talk of the Demon King of the Rigante. We will carry his legend home, and it will spread like a plague. The next army to march here will march with fear in their hearts.’
The long, slow march to the coast had been a painful one. Many of the wounded died on the way and were buried by the roadside. All along the way Keltoi tribesmen gathered to watch the defeated men of Stone trudge wearily back to the sea.
For Oranus it was the end of a bright career. Throughout the years since he had rarely known a night pass without terrible dreams, where severed heads called out to him, where sharp swords were piercing his flesh.
Had it not been for the skill of Appius he, would have died on Cogden Field.