Breth mac Eddarrnonn pulled back the branches of the bush on either side of his pale woad-coated face and brushed back his short ash-blond hair. He wanted to see down the hill toward the Roman fort. It lay just on the other side of the long Roman wall that would soon span all the way across the land, the way construction was going, from the Norse Sea to the Gaelic Sea. Confident that the blue clay designs all over his naked body would camouflage him in the darkness, he laughed to himself as he watched a dozen Roman soldiers march up and down the other side of the wall in formation.

Not only were the barbarians’ movements against nature and thus inadvisable on principle, but also they were foolish strategically. When they came to the end of their march and all turned around at the same time, they made it too easy for Breth to creep through the next break in the bushes down the hill without being seen even if he hadn’t been camouflaged. And on to the next gap between bushes. And the next.

He had to suppress his laugh lest they hear him. The savages were asking to be raided. He was just one man this night, here only to scout, but soon he would come back with every fighter in his clan, who would all have time to creep down this hill undetected, so stupid were the invaders and their wall. It could not be allowed to be finished. Even though it was easily climbed by people, it would block the natural migrations of many animals and make game dangerously scarce.

When at last Breth reached the barbarians’ wall, he easily climbed the ten feet to the top using the wall’s own stones as hand and footholds. Hidden up there by the branches of a nearby tree, he scouted out the fort to his satisfaction, reckoning how many soldiers were inside, where they slept, and where the fat leader sat talking and eating with his team leaders.

These savages were so confident in the power of this flat square fortress they had made that they even had music at supper time. They felt safe and secure enough to broadcast their location to everyone for miles around through the music of their bagpipes.

Oh, to be sure, Breth’s people had bagpipes too. As did the Angles and the Saxons. Everybody did — except the Gaels. But the Picts seldom were able to play their pipes, relying on stealth warfare as they did.

These so-called Romans, however, flaunted their bagpipes. They played their strange tunes long and often, as if to declare to the rest of the island ‘We Romans are here to stay! You shall not be rid of us!’ These cocky invaders even piped their signals in battle, undaunted by the prospect of their enemies also hearing their signals. Sheer arrogance.

Comfortable in his perch on top of the wall under the tree – and completely without the need for food or rest — Breth sipped from his water skin all night, waiting to see how close to sunrise it was when these dozen guards went in and a dozen fresh guards came out.

Once he had observed all he felt he needed to, Breth took from a small bag attached to his water skin the hammer and chisel his brother Talorc had made at the forge in their far-off village home and got to work drawing symbols into the top row of stones in the wall.

He didn’t always chisel exactly the same sequence of pictures, but it was a version of the same story any other self-respecting Pictish Celt would have carved in the savages’ wall, given the opportunity. His pictures told how the invaders had come and driven the Picts and the other Celts of these islands so far north that there was barely any arable land. They showed the stories of all the Celtic resistances, each raid on the impostors south of the wall pictured out in curly symbols. His carvings boasted how the impostors owed the Picts in particular a great debt for all the land they had claimed for themselves alone, and symbolically Breth promised that one day, the invaders would be made to repay this debt.

As did every stone carver, Breth added his own personal touch. He chiseled out in graphic detail how the impostors had taken the life of his dear Caitlin. And just as graphically, he portrayed all the ways he would avenge her.

Breth was in the middle of creating an especially beautiful flourish of bush leaves around his face at his favorite lookout point when he realized the mistake he had made in getting too involved in his storytelling.

Two arrows came whistling toward him, and more had been loosed but gone astray, judging by the sounds he heard. The next volley likely wouldn’t miss.

Cursing, he jumped down from the wall with his tools in his hands and turned to run back up the hill — only to find the entire dozen guards coming around the end of the wall at the gate opening.

Casting the tools aside, Breth reached overhead and grabbed his large two-handed sword out of the sheath he wore on his back as he ran up the hill to the first break in the bushes. Once he got through, he turned and jumped on top of the first guard, who was forced to come at him alone, so narrow was the passage.

Duly surprised, the first guard fell, creating a barrier for his fellows and buying Breth time to run up the hill to his next pre-selected ambush point. And so on it went until he neared the top.

Cursing at himself again for getting carried away with his stone carving and losing track of the bigger plan ― scout out the fort now and come back with all the fighters in the clan later ― Breth prematurely pulled the rope that loosed the stones he and his clan had stockpiled up here. They were intended for a raid, but now he was wasting them on a personal escape after a scouting trip that had already been over.

Disappointed that he couldn’t take the time to look over his shoulder and see how many barbarians he killed with his avalanche, Breth dove off the other side of the hill into a river and swam away.