Shadows in the Night by Jane Finnis

That horse has been dead since last night, throat cut with a knife as you said. From the tracks I could see five attackers on foot, and there was someone else there too, a lookout of some sort I’d say, keeping well back from the path—small footprints, maybe a woman or a boy. I don’t know who any of the attackers were, but they all had on Roman boots, with the uppers nailed and stitched onto the soles. They make quite different prints from native boots. They must have been bought in somewhere like Derventio or Eburacum, because our local cobbler in Oak Bridges makes boots in the traditional way, you know, each one just a single piece of leather. I’ve not seen any of those tracks before, but I’ll know them again.”
    “How?” I asked, pouring him a refill.
    “Boots with stitching or nails are all different from one another if you know what to watch out for. For instance, one of the attackers had very worn heels, and part of the stitching missing on his left sole. That sort of thing. The other two, the riders, had army type riding-boots, fairly new.”
    “ Two riders? We’ve only found one.”
    “Two horses came down off the road, at a walk, both being ridden, with the attackers walking. Both men got off the horses, or were dragged off, in the clearing there, and the one horse was killed. There was a fight, and they both put up quite a struggle, but they hadn’t much chance against five. Luckily for them both, something interrupted the attackers. I don’t know what, maybe some odd noise scared them. One rider managed to mount up and gallop off towards the road, and the other was left here, bleeding. Quite a lot of blood, all in one place, so probably he was unconscious and they thought he was dead. Anyway the attackers ran away down towards the river. Eventually the wounded man crawled back along the track, up onto the road, and found his way to your forecourt. He was lucky they didn’t come back for him later.”
    “That’s brilliant, Hawk! Thank you.” I truly was impressed, and relieved that my faith in him had been justified.
    “Tell me one thing.” He fixed me with his piercing gaze. “The man you found, was he carrying any kind of message?”
    I handed him the bone disc with its grim threat, and he didn’t seem surprised, but nodded and stared awhile in thoughtful silence.
    “What does it mean, Hawk? You know something about this?”
    He put the disc on the table. “Just a few rumours. Have you heard of the Shadow-men?”
    “Shadow-men? No. Some sort of religious group?”
    “Not exactly, though the Druids encourage them. A war-band, but a secret one. The main thing about them is that they’re Britons of the old sort, who want to put the calendar back to before you Romans came. They’re mostly young and headstrong, just boys, but there are some older ones involved as well, training them to kill. Not like their ancestors killed, riding chariots into battle. The Shadow-men kill by stealth, at night. Their members are supposed to keep themselves secret, but some of the younger ones are easy to spot. They can’t resist showing off in their war gear.”
    “I’ve seen them.” I described the group of native warriors in the bar.
    Hawk’s eyes glinted. “Vitalis leads them, but young Segovax is the better fighter. They’ve been riding around for a few days now, just daring someone to give them any trouble.”
    “Yes, that was the feeling I got. They had a kind of tension, like a taut bowstring. But they’re only fooling about, surely?”
    “Not fooling, though they’re not dangerous on their own. But there are some more experienced men leading them, and they’re keeping themselves carefully hidden. This Shadow of Death, for instance.” He glanced down at the bone disc. “He’s their leader, but who he actually is, nobody knows.”
    “So this threat, ‘Get out or die’…they really want to drive us out?”
    “Yes.”
    “They seriously think they can?”
    “Yes.”
    “But