Their savage voices echoed through the trees and she pushed past the pain in her legs. Nothing would make her return to that salve cart. Her mind fixed onto her journey home, past the Great Northern Wall and the sea across to Gaul. And her father, her poor father who grew sicker by the day.

She should never have defied him. She should never have taken coin for her brother’s ransom and come to Britannia. But Vesta forgive her, she could not see their rift continue. She could not let her brother die!

She rounded an upturned baggage cart and dug at the broken sacks of corn. Please let there be room, let me squeeze amongst the debris until it’s safe.  

Her arms screamed with the effort of moving urns and mounds of corn. Oh, it was no use, this was taking too long. A breeze lifted the smoke, pushing damp air across her face. The wind fanned the flames and made them lick around the trees and carts. Her enslavers were almost upon her, they were almost here. 

She turned towards the darkness and fled. Run! Run whilst you still can!

Her escape ended, barred by a Celt rising like a dark demon from the roots of the earth.

Her feet froze as her gaze raked over the massive, terrifying form. His arms glistened in the fire light, his muscles bulging as he raised his bloodied sword from the dead horse at his feet. By the gods he was going to kill her!

“No!” she screamed and dropped to the ground.

Her hands curled into fists. This was it, this was death. Her mouth tightened as she waited for the sword to fall.  

But it didn’t. What had happened? Had her death come so quickly she hadn’t noticed?

She opened an eye. The man loomed over her, his sword midair, his giant hands wrapped around the hilt of his long blade. He looked like Mars waiting to attack.  

“Roman?” His question cut the air like thunder. Latin. He spoke her language.

“Yes,” she whispered through trembling lips. “Please, help me.”

Her gaze caught his stern face. She saw his eyes, blue eyes that froze her soul. But he hadn’t killed her. He couldn’t want her dead like the other Celts.

Her pursuers crashed against the end of the cart and slithered to a halt near the broken wheel. Their wild hair limed for battle glowed in the firelight and their dark hating eyes fixed onto her.

There was no option now but death. Not unless the tall barbarian intervened. She looked at him, held his gaze in the strange fire-flamed night.

“I can’t go back with them,” she pleaded. “They’ll kill me for running away.”

His face remained frozen, devoid of emotion. He wasn’t going to do anything was he? By all the gods he was going to stand there and watch them take her.

“I have no reason to help my enemy,” he replied flatly.

Tears stung her eyes. “But I’m not your enemy,” she said urgently. “And I have family that need me.”

She held his gaze, praying with every bone in her body that he would protect her.

“Please, I have to get home,” she cried.

Two of the mob stepped forward, their hands fisted and their teeth barred. How she wished she’d listened to her brother’s instructions and never gone to the fort.

The men lunged, their hands clamping around her shoulders and grasping her hair. No! They wouldn’t take her. Her brother’s life depended on her freedom. She had to fight. Clutching the mound of supplies she kicked at the men surrounding her.

“Get away from me!”

Woad covered fingers bit into her skin. Metal scraped against leather and in the firelight a blade glinted as it lifted high into the air.

“No,” she screamed. “Don’t kill me!”

His voice shattered the chaos. “Enough.”

She fought against the calloused hands holding her. Juno’s breath how they squeezed her skin. But she couldn’t shake them, couldn’t stop their fingers pushing deeper into her flesh and forcing her to the wet earth.

“Let go,” she pleaded.

But the hands held her, groping her body and grasping her hair until tears spilt down her cheeks. Would she never be free of them? Would she never see her father again?

“I said enough,” the tall barbarian barked. “I want her.”

 Her pursuers released her and argued in their own tongue, their guttural words setting her teeth on edge. She hated not knowing what they said, hated having no control over her fate.

Her attention did not move from the tall man. From his shaved angular face and the shortness of hair beneath his terrifying horned helmet.

He lifted his sword, his long muscular legs moving to a fighting stance. “The slave is mine.”

Her throat closed at the power in his voice, at the way everything around him seemed to stop and listen. Who was he?

She studied the thick torc about his neck and the heavy gold chain around his waist. This man was a chieftain. The gods save her he’d probably ordered the attack on the fort. And what about her brother? Was the chieftain holding him captive too?

He looked at her with chilling intensity, an absolute certainty that his word was law. “Come here.”

She glanced at the men surrounding her, at the tight lines on their faces, at the anger simmering in their eyes.

“When will they go,” she whispered desperately.

The barbarians jaw clenched and the lines around his mouth deepened. “Move quickly or you will die.”

A shiver crept down her spine. What would the chieftain do to her? Every bone in her body told her to run, but where could she go? She’d never make it to the road in time.

He pulled an armlet from his thick muscular arm and threw it at the slavers. The amber jewels glinted in the flames as a filthy hand picked it up.

Dear Juno he’d just bought her. The man was a barbarian and he’d just paid for her!  She must be mad to stand here and listen to him. But what else could she do? Her gaze flicked over the sword in his hand and the armour he wore to the poor fallen beast lying dead at his feet.

“Will I be your slave?” she asked.

“Yes.”

No, no, no!  She must return home. There had to be another way out of this terrible situation. Her hands went to her earlobes, to her neck, but no gold hung there anymore. Everything had been taken by the slavers.

She squared her shoulders and faced him. “Then I will pay whatever price you ask for my freedom.”

Ice blue eyes glittered in the half-light. “Roman promises are worthless.”

This man was a savage, a demon. And he owned her. She glanced into the darkness behind the cart. Forest and marsh beckoned in the foul blackness and the tree-trunks in the flickering fires rose like bars around her. But still, if she could reach them she might have a chance at freedom.

“Run and you are theirs,” he said harshly.

Her gaze snapped to the huge chieftain. The wind pushed against her hair and made the fires crack and roar. Indecision warred within her. She must find her brother, but this man offered life. 

His blade flashed as the flames spread high into the trees. “Choose quickly or we all die.”

He held out his dirty, blood stained hand. Her eyes widened at the bronzed fingers, at the trimmed nails.

Please let me find a way out of this!

She moved towards him, skirting the fallen mess-tins and spilt grain. His hand curled around her upper arm like a shackle and she pulled back. But the hand did not move. His fingers locked around her arm with the coldness of iron. He pulled her over the dead horse and raised his sword toward the mob.

“Leave,” he growled towards them.

Dirt smeared the stubble on his jaw and she prayed to Minerva she had chosen right. That she could find a way out of this enslavement.

She heard movement and her pursuers had gone, melting into the shadows from whence they came.

 “Will they leave us alone?” she asked tentatively.

“For now,” he informed her.

But that wasn’t enough. Not nearly to satisfy the hysteria pulsing through her.

They were moving, over spear-pierced shields and scattered, lifeless bodies. She tried to free her arm, to scrape back some control, some dignity, but his hand did not move.

 “I have coin,” she told him.

“Quiet. Else every warrior in search of sport will hear you.”

She bit her lip. If Minerva had her ear she’d keep quiet, she’d be content the slavers had gone. But not yet. Not until she’d gained her freedom. Not until she knew her brother Ceralius’s fate.”

“I came to find my brother,” she began.

 “Silence.”

No. There was no time for silence; every moment that passed took her further from her brother.

“But he’s been held against his will and I must find him before this fighting spreads.”

He swung her around so quickly her body crashed into his. “And where would you go this night? To the Wolves? To the tribesmen pouring in from the north hungry for their first blood? I think not. I paid for you and I do not take that payment lightly.”

The coldness in his eyes drove the breath from her lungs. What had she done giving herself to this man? He had saved her life, but he showed no mercy. He held none. She could see it in the void of his eyes. He would enslave her forever.

Again she struggled, but her strength was slipping, her legs weakening until her body felt spent.

The grip on her arm tightened. His eyes met hers and a chill ran down her spine.

 “You chose to live. Now I own you,” he ground out.

“No! I left coin with my escort. They were travelling on the road to the fort. I can give you what you ask.”

By the gods she hated offering money from her brother’s ransom, but she would get more, somehow she would find a way.

Frustration glittered in his azure eyes and the grip on her arm tightened. Did he have to be so huge? If he was Roman he would understand. If he was an officer he would let her go.

“The road north of the Wall as been taken,” he explained. “Your escort is gone.”

Her knees buckled. Her father’s men dead? How could she pay her brother’s ransom now? How could she make it back home to her father?

They regained the road and her foot slipped in the mud, her stomach churning at the sight of so many dead. She didn’t belong here, but Juno’s breath she didn’t know what to do about it.

The hands holding her tightened, pulling her against his mail-clad torso.

“Keep quiet,” he whispered harshly.

His voice thrummed through her body. The cold metal rings of his shirt biting into her skin.

And she wanted to feel protected, curse it. For the first time since setting foot on this treacherous island, her body ached to be held. But not by a barbarian. Not by the men who had taken her brother captive. Pushing herself away she fixed her attention to the road. She wished she hadn’t. Hundreds of warriors swarmed along the road, piling soldier upon beast to create a way through.

“So many dead Romans…” her throat closed over.

“We struck before your army did.”

Her feet faltered, her mind whirling with the dizzying sense of desolation. Was her brother among them? Did his captors give up hope that the money would ever arrive?

Please no. “I-I can’t stay here.” Her breath sobbed and tears stung her eyes. She had to get home. She had to see her father.

Strong arms supported her, lifting her off cold and useless feet. “You’ll not die this night. Beyond that bend is my horse,” he rasped.

She doubted any steed would wait patiently in this forest of death. And she hoped not. A horse would carry her away, when all she wanted was to curl up and die. There could be no life after this night. No honour. Yet she had to hope, had to believe that she would see her father again.

Cathal held the woman in his arms and wondered what madness had possessed him to help this Roman. Did she have otherworldly powers, like his people thought some women possessed? Was that why he had saved her from the Selgovae slavers?

He looked down on the olive face, over the long dark hair, pulled hours ago from its pins, to the gap-sleeved gown she wore, torn and dirty from her ordeal.

No. He saved her because she reminded him of someone. The fear in her eyes had evoked a memory he had spent three long years trying to forget. In that heartbeat of time, when she had pleaded for her life, something had stirred inside him. Something he could not ignore.

“If these warriors decide to they could kill us both,” he told her. “They hold no oath to me.”

She stiffened, her eyes widening in fear. “Why are you here then?”

“I came to find someone,” he admitted.

He’d cuff his brother around the ear for disappearing before a battle when he caught up with him. Nothing else would have drawn him back amongst these traitorous Selgovae warriors.

Compassion flickered in the amber depths of her eyes. The sight made him falter. Made him feel things he did not want to. Her arm, caught in his hand was slight, easily crushed or bruised with his fingers, and no one here would blame him for harming her. She was his enemy and he had vowed to push every last Roman back past the Great Wall in the south.  

Up ahead a man shouted and in the crimson flame filled night he saw a Roman standard being lifted from the mounds of dead soldiers.

The man swung the eagle on its pole in the air and the forest erupted with shouts and jeers of victory. The Selgovae warriors surged towards the man and Cathal’s gut tightened.

 “They must not see you,” he urged.

He picked up a cloak from a fallen soldier and draped it around the woman’s shoulders.

The crowd grew thicker and the warriors bashed their swords and spears against their chests. The woman flinched and he gripped his sword. “Stay with me. You will be safe.”

The words, foolish words to utter to a Roman slave made her look up at him. Her eyes were huge amber orbs in the firelight. The presence of the dead surrounded him, maybe the gods themselves, for surely they had helped them to victory today. He pushed through the crowd, keeping the woman close to his side, prepared to fight anyone who challenged him. His honour would not be ignored. He would remove her from this danger.

 He found his tethered horse and took the woman’s thin and fragile form and placed her in the saddle. She sat like a shell, empty and discarded.

“They hate Rome,” she muttered.

Curse it but he hated the desolation in her voice. “And with good reason.”

She looked at him with those strange eyes. “Why do they hate you, too?”

He gritted his teeth, biting back the pain in his side and swung himself behind her. “Tribal alliances are fragile. This one is over.”

“They would attack you for being here after you fought beside them?” she asked.

The mob arrived and joined in the jeering. A large barbarian turned to see the horse being taken and screamed his displeasure.

Turning his horse he urged it towards his camp.

His hand tightened around her small waist. She was his. His slave and he did not give such valuable items away lightly, especially with the council nearly upon him. He needed as much gold and slaves as he could lay his hands on to ensure the tribal alliances were strong.

He would achieve his goal. He would rid the northern tribe lands of Rome, even if it meant his own death.