"Cannot. My oath."

"Ai, then thee'll be downed for sure again and me not about to help. Must fight. Have I not lost good horse, too? Guenloie, pray for me."

It was over quickly. A number of the Coritani dead, the rest sensibly turned tail, pounding away toward the fort and the fog. While Padrec lay in the wet grass trying to catch his breath, Drust scampered about the meadow, calling in the mist.

"Malgon. Brother, cry out. Where?"

Padrec retrieved his sword. One of Malgon's best. He couldn't use it any more than he had, for parrying his way out of trouble. He would not kill with it. . . . But was that so? If there'd been time with that painted lunatic, visible death coming at him? Just silly luck Drust was there to save him. Next time he could die, and for nothing. If there'd been time, would he have used it?

"No."

The Coritani lay where he fell, the blood startling against the coiled designs in blue woad on his chest.

No, I would not. I will not.

He was trying to sheath the weapon with hands that didn't work too well, when Ambrosius strode toward him, pilum angled jauntily over the shoulder of his bull-hide breastplate.

"Patricius, look at this. Marvelous!"

4 'What, then?"

"This." Ambrosius snapped the pilum off his shoulder, hefting it with intense purpose and satisfaction, boyish as Drust with his new sword. "It'll work. Huns and Goths have used it. There were Sarmatian foederati who used it with the Second Legio at Caerleon. It'll bloody well work, I tell you."

"Have we lost many men?"

"Not a man. Not a man. Lances ..." Ambrosius subsided, still in his dream. "Cavalry with lances. Should be longer. Heavier."

Drust and Malgon returned with handfuls of bloody, pinkish meat. They offered Padrec a generous share. Ambrosius' enthusiasm paled by several shades. "What in hell is that?"

"Coritani horse." Padrec chewed hungrily. "All the meat we get of late," he added meaningfully. "At least it's fresh. Do have some, Tribune."

"No . . . thanks. Don't you people eat mutton?"

"Mutton!" Drust hooted through a mouthful. "What mutton be that?"

"Your regular ration.''

"Last sheep to cross my sight did still walk," Malgon informed him.

"And the last hint of pork at Eburacum," Padrec said. "Horse isn't at all bad. A bit tough, better cooked. Orders, Tribune?"

"Let's get on. If it's clear enough. I want to see the fort before that patrol stirs them up."

The three of them grinned sourly after the retreating tribune. "Dost nae care for horse, brothers," Padrec shrugged. "Cut me some more."

"Did speak of mutton," Malgon wondered suspiciously. "What mutton?"

"Who knows? But by Saint Alban, will find out, brothers, and that with speed." We must have better food. The tribune sees what we're eating. I'm going to complain again and keep complaining until something is done.

They learned in time to slice the horsemeat thin as shavings and cook it on green sticks over a fire, when a fire could be had, one of the basic lessons of war besides sleeping dry and staying alive. Along with the others, Padrec took to catnapping when he could. Rest was precious as food. Half the habitual prayers of his day, like fast days, were a thing of the past. Sometimes his Mass was perfunctory if not half skipped. He missed sharing things with Dorelei, the sound of her voice, grave or gay, riding beside him or before they fell asleep at night. At other times he felt the simple male need of her body as a tightness in his loins, although that became less and less as the campaign wore on. Hunger, worry, and fear were water on that fire. In the spiritual fervor of taking his first orders, he convinced himself that flesh was the smallest part of a consecrated man like himself, a mere afterthought to keep soaring spirit humble. In the musky heat of loving Dorelei, he knew he was male and mortal, and this coupling not a taint but a seasoning to all else in life. He was the better priest for it, but so much for asceticism. He yawned, dozing with his head against the saddle. Ai, listen to me. Were she here right now, I'd be too tired to do anything about it.

He tried to draw the image of her with him toward sleep, pull her small, dear body against the sensuous fatigue in his.

All he could see was the long slope bright with tomorrow's sun, and the men at the top waiting for him.

The first fort fell easily. There were less than two hundred warriors behind the earthwork ramparts. Padrec's squadrons walked up the slope until the first arrows fell just short of them. Behind the horse was an entire cohort with scaling ladders. When the alae mounted and spurred forward, the infantry followed at a run.

The main attack was centered on the well-defended entrance to the hill fort and for several hundred yards to either side. The slope was gentle with no serious obstructions. Padrec's men swept back and forth like fish

swimming just offshore, sending flight after flight at the ramparts, keeping Coritani heads down while the assault troops moved in. The attack was beautifully clear in principle but didn't allow for frightened men in the furnace of their first battle, or being slowed by the defensive ditch before the ramparts, dropped ladders, foot and horse getting in each other's way, and enthusiastic Faerie charging right up to the walls to loose again and again and running short of arrows too soon. When the walls were breached by Gallius with his first wave, some of the Faerie didn't hear the horn sound for recall; the rest simply ignored it. The Coritani tribesmen were lunatic with battle rage, some of them leaping down from the walls to certain death, running into the Parisi ranks, screaming and swinging their swords.

An eddy of confusion: the attack faltering as foot soldiers, ladders, and milling horses snarled together. Pad-rec reined the bay gelding cruelly. The animal had more endurance than Cru's gift-horse but was not yet used to Padrec's rein or seat. Padrec saw the attack slow, then Malgon rising from his arrow-shot pony, and spurred forward to scoop up his brother. Malgon hopped nimbly up behind, hugging Padrec's middle.

"Jesu, Mai! They never heard the horn." Padrec pushed the horse through the advancing foot, sword raised, shouting to the Prydn, "Back! Back!" until he was hoarse. Little by little, out of the roil of men swarming over the ditch and up the walls, clumps of small riders broke off, trotting or running afoot down the hill to safety, to form again their never-clear notion of squadron order behind Padrec, some of them skipping and dancing with pure excitement until Ambrosius rode up, bawling at them to cease.

"Damn it, Patricius, don't these fools know the signal to withdraw? Do you know how many of them could have been lost just for lack of discipline? By Mithras, I've seen more order in a troop of clowns. Just lucky you didn't lose more. Just lucky."

Ambrosius cursed and fretted and won the day, mov-

ing his engineers into the fort to make it impregnable, and added another line to his lessons.

A mob of tribesmen on horses are just that, a mob. Not clowns they need to be but dancers, horse and man part of the same body and will. Otherwise far too many horses will be lost, as we did, beside a few Faerie whose bodies simply vanished afterward—into Faerie-land, I suppose.

As Ambrosius learned, so did Rhiwallon. He no longer joked with his chiefs about Parisi cowardice. They saw the plodding line of the legion and what it could do, and the word "inexorable" came to mind. Skirmish warfare with cavalry could delay but not defeat them, and nothing short of fifteen thousand men, more than Rhiwallon could ever field, would retake the hill fort at Wye. If VI Legio was not yet an inspired fighting force, it could build with awesome speed. The simple bank and ditch at Wye became two in as many days. Rhiwallon's scouts said it looked like a colony of ants gone berserk. The inner ramparts were now palisaded with stout posts interlaced with wicker; the outer vallum prickled with tree trunk obstacles, fronted with triangular ditching in which "lilies" were planted—sharp, fire-hardened wooden stakes to take the impetus and the fight out of charging Coritani. Three-tiered archery towers reared at regular intervals.

On the move, the legion was learning even faster as the boy tribune recalled for them the military genius of a fading empire. No tribal loyalties, no favoritism. Minor offenses were punished with fatigue details, more serious ones with flogging, and there were several summary executions for attempted desertion or disobedience in action. The great snake coiled around a hill, nested briefly to make it impregnable, and moved on. Rhiwallon sent Cadwal home for safety. He could afford one lost hill

but not two. Two gone, the third would fall in a matter of time. Churnet Head had to stand. He would command the hill himself. Churnet would be much harder to take than Wye, better manned, the approaches steeper and more thoroughly prepared. The outer ditches would be planted with the Roman sort of lilies and a few tricks perhaps the boy tribune hadn't encountered in his Caesar.

Padrec had to admit Ambrosius was right about discipline. It saved time and lives. When they stopped to camp even for one night, the defense ditches were dug, tents up in minutes, smiths at their endless repair, cooks readying a meal even as the camp filled out its familiar rectangular shape around them. Food was on Padrec's mind as he clumped down the line of tents at sunset. The mess situation had gone from bad to intolerable. They were the hardest worked and the worst fed. Not a question of shortage; the foot ate well all the time. After continual complaints, Ambrosius called this accounting. Briccu, the tribune's tent guard, recognized Padrec and saluted respectfully. He was a Christian and often heard Mass with the Prydn.