'Get those on the straw!'

The sweating legionaries tipped the embers into the straw and, despite the slight dampness, smoke and small flames flickered into life. As the fire caught and sizzled, Macro pitched more straw on top and smoke began to billow causing the nearest legionaries to break into fits of coughing.

'Right then! Over the wall with it!' Macro shouted. 'Use whatever you've got, but get it over the wall!'

The Romans dived in with pitchforks, the few remaining javelins and even short swords and the burning bundles of straw, sparks crackling high into night, blazed down on to the hapless Germans with the battering ram. Shouts and screams of terror sounded from below and the pounding at the gate ceased. At the foot of the wall Macro could see the ram lying abandoned, almost covered in burning straw. The heat hit his face a stinging blow and Macro stepped back. No-one would be using that battering ram for quite a while, even if it failed to burn completely.

'Hah! Look at them run!' Cato beamed. 'They'll not be trying that again tonight.'

'Maybe.' Macro nodded. 'Maybe. But two can play that game. Look there!'

Cato turned to follow the direction the centurion was indicating. The ramps built by the attackers were finished and, as he watched, torches arced up from the German lines and fell in an explosion of sparks in among the faggots. Within moments the ramps were ablaze and bright orange flames licked up the village walls driving the legionaries back. One hapless soldier, fully illuminated by the flickering glare, was hit by several arrows and pitched forward into the blaze with a scream of terror that abruptly ceased. Cato shuddered, but before he could spare the poor man any more thought a small flame suddenly licked through a gap in the walkway.

'Oh no,' he muttered, then turned towards Macro. 'Sir! Look there!'

Macro looked down just in time to see another, larger, tongue of flame hungrily flicker through the walkway. The gate was on fire. Some of the straw must have landed too near the wall. 'That's just fucking great! So much for German fire.' He glared at Cato.

'We could try to put it out.'

'Shut up! It's too late for that.' The centurion's mind raced. All three fires on the wall had a firm hold and were burning ever more fiercely even as he watched. There was nothing they could do to put them out now. And if they stayed on the wall they would be burned as well as providing nicely lit targets for the German archers. There was nothing for it. They must give ground until the fire died and they could move back up to defend the wall. But, with the gate already well ablaze and two more openings burning through the wall, in a matter of an hour's time the Sixth century's defence of this side of the village would collapse like a cheap tenement block. And that would be long before dawn and any hope of relief from Vespasian.

'Stand back!' he roared out so that all his men would hear him above the raging crack and roar of the flames. 'Off the wall!'

He waited until the last man had descended the gate ramps and then he took a final look towards the palisade, where sharpened stakes of wood hissed and steamed in the withering heat. Beyond the wall, the front ranks of the Germans were illuminated brilliantly and their triumphant faces wavered and shimmered through the heat-distorted air. Then he ran down to his men and formed the main body up in the street inside the gate, with two smaller sections fronting the stretches of wall ignited by the Germans.

'What do we do now, sir?' Cato asked.

'We have to wait – and pray that the fire lasts.'

The fire not only lasted, it raged, sending swirling streams of sparks high up into the night sky where they mingled and melted the falling snowflakes. Most of the sparks slowly glowered into nothingness, but some fell back to earth – landing on the angled thatch roofs of the village. Even as Macro was cursing himself for deciding to burn the ram, and thereby the gate he was intending to save from the ram, Cato drew his attention to the nearest huts. Smoke curled up from the roofs, and here and mere an orange twinkle gleamed, then rippled into flames. Macro glanced round anxiously and saw that the huts as far back as fifty paces from the wall were catching fire. Unless they moved they would soon be trapped right in the centre of the blazing inferno to come. A sudden crashing sound drew his gaze to the front, where the entire gateway was collapsing into the roaring flames.

Beyond they could hear the Germans shouting triumphantly. They would be edging towards the blaze, itching for the moment when the fires had subsided enough to allow them to stream into the village and slaughter the cohort. But for now the flames showed no signs of subsiding, indeed the fire was growing ever more intense as it spread amongst the huts. The heat in the street was already intolerable and Cato found himself squinting to protect his eyes, buffeted by the wavering, stinging air. The centurion knew the time had come to retreat, a bitter truth to swallow – but a necessary one.

'All troops to me! All troops to me! Back down the street!'

The legionaries turned and quick-marched until they reached the limit of the fire where Macro ordered them to halt and close up once again. The men looked back in relief, glad to be out of immediate danger. The position they had occupied moments earlier erupted in a shower of sparks as a building collapsed across the street where they had been standing.

'Close one, sir,' muttered one of the men.

'We're not out of it yet,' Macro replied sourly. 'Fire's spreading fast. We'll fall back with it. If we're lucky, we can keep the fire between us and Herman.'

'Until we run out of village,' Cato said softly.

Macro turned quickly, on the point of shouting out some abuse, but the boy was right. 'Until we run out of village,' he agreed. 'Or Vespasian reaches us.'

The fire, let loose like an uncaged beast at some amphitheatre, raged across the village, hungrily devouring all in the path of its blazing jaws. Above it, the sky glowed orange and the snow falling from the sky melted into rain. Little by little the legionaries gave ground and, as they did so, Macro became aware that the blaze at the gateway was dying down far more quickly than it should. He frowned, uncomprehending. Then he saw Germans beyond the falling flames, throwing buckets of water on the ruins of the gate where smoke and steam mingled. As he watched, the men around him became aware of what was happening and a low murmur of despair trickled through the Sixth century. The Germans were clearly not content to leave the Romans to the eventual wrath of the fire, they wanted blood, and the street leading up to the gate was nearly clear of flames due to its relative breadth.

'Silence!' Macro shouted. 'We're not done for yet. Not as long as we can keep the fire between us and them. First two squads with me. Castor!' Macro yelled to the century's veteran. 'See to it that the rest tear down buildings along the street – anything that helps the fire line spread. Got that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But you keep the line open for us. When you're done you call us back. We'll fall back through you.' Macro turned to the front two squads. 'All right, lads, listen. If Herman gets down the street we have to hold him back long enough for the others to do their work. Then we run like hell. Come on then.'

With Macro and Cato at their head, the two squads marched down the street and stopped as close to the ruins of the gate as the heat permitted. There Macro formed them into an unbroken shield wall and they waited. But not for long. The fire at the gate was quickly extinguished leaving a smouldering heap of ruined timber. The Germans stumbled across it, heedless of the residual heat, and resumed their chain of water jars where the burning building had fallen into the street. As the enemy laboured the Romans waited silently and Cato, in the second rank, held the shaft of the standard tightly to stop himself shaking too obviously. He glanced sidelong at the men around him, silent and still, eyes grimly watching the Germans working towards them.