Fearful of his reputation being tainted by a military failure, he decides the Ninth Legion's fate should remain a mystery and Dias must be silenced. Devastated, Dias reports to Agricola, who worries that news of the legion's annihilation will lead other tribes to revolt. Bothos, joyfully riding toward the Romans, is mistaken for a charging Pict and shot by an archer. They fight, with Dias choking Thax to death. Reaching Hadrian's Wall, now under construction, Thax threatens Dias, afraid he will report his dishonourable actions. Taking the Picts' horses, Dias and Bothos continue south, reuniting with Thax. Brick is killed, as are Vortix, Aeron, and the rest of the Britons, with Dias finally killing Etain. Seeing Etain's warriors approaching and tired of running, they set up a defensive position inside the fort. They find the outpost abandoned, with an order declaring that the Roman troops have retreated south by order of Emperor Hadrian. When Bothos, Dias, and Brick leave Arianne's in the morning Arianne, having become fond of Dias, is saddened to see him go. When Etain and her warriors arrive, Arianne hides the Romans under her floorboards. She gives them shelter, food, and medical attention for Bothos. When Thax falls Macros returns to help him, only for Thax to cut his Achilles tendon and leave him to the wolves.ĭias, Bothos, and Brick find the forest hut of Arianne, an exiled Briton accused of witchcraft who learned Latin from a nearby Roman outpost. The two encounter a wolf pack and end up running. Meanwhile, Macros and Thax have washed up further down river. Etain has launched her own attack on the Romans, and Dias and Brick return to discover Leonidas dead and Bothos wounded. Dias and Brick raid the enemy camp, killing two men and wounding a third, who reveals they are being pursued because of the death of Gorlacon's son, which Thax had kept secret. Dias’ group camp for the night while their pursuers camp across the river. After several days' pursuit, the Picts continually catch up with the fugitives, who jump off a cliff into a river to escape them Tarak is killed before he can jump, and Macros and Thax become separated from the others. The Romans plan to travel north away from Roman territory, to throw the Picts off their trail, then head west and back south. Gorlacon sends her after the legionaries at the head of a group of mounted warriors, including Vortix and Aeron, to avenge his son's death. The next morning, Gorlacon burns his son's body on a funeral pyre and forces Virilus to fight Etain, who as a child witnessed her parents raped and slaughtered by the Romans she kills him with a spear through the heart. In Gorlacon's hut, Thax suffocates the king's young son to prevent him giving them away.
Sneaking in at nightfall, they are unable to break his chains, and he orders them to return to Roman territory without him. The few survivors – Dias, the legionaries Bothos, Thax, Brick, Macros and Leonidas, and the cook Tarak – set out to rescue Virilus, finding him at Gorlacon's village. Marching north, the legion rescues Dias from his pursuers.Įtain leads them into an ambush where, surprised by flaming pitch-wood 'boulders', they are massacred and the wounded Virilus is captured.
He dispatches the Ninth Legion under General Titus Flavius Virilus to eradicate the Pict threat, providing him with a Celtic Brigantian scout, Etain. Brought before Pict king Gorlacon, who has united the northern tribes, Dias is brutally interrogated, but escapes on foot.Ī messenger from the fort reaches Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman governor of Britannia, who hopes to obtain favour with the Roman Senate and transfer back to the comforts of Rome. At the Roman outpost of Pinnata Castra, Pict warriors led by Vortix and Aeron kill the entire garrison, taking only the second-in-command, Centurion Quintus Dias, because he can speak the Pictish language. The Picts engage in guerrilla warfare against the Romans along the Glenblocker forts and the Gask Ridge at the southern border of the Scottish Highlands. The Roman Empire has been unable to fully conquer Britain, reaching a harsh stalemate in the North.
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