Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) (40 page)

Gallus looked along the road to the west. The mists were swirling there as if stirred by a titan’s hand. The sound of hooves was thundering ever closer.
Come on, come on!
He mouthed, raising his spatha as the first of the Quadi cut free of the undergrowth and loped towards the road, screaming.

Just then, the mists on the westerly road drew apart. Horsemen burst into view – a hundred or more. Gallus saw them just as a blur of glinting armour. They saw Gallus and Dexion and the Quadi in the woods, then raced for the imminent clash.

Gallus’ hopes leapt for that precious instant. Then he saw what these riders were: bronze scale vests and helms; gleaming torcs around their necks; fair skin and blonde, flowing hair, beards and moustaches.

‘They’re not Roman,’ Dexion stammered, seeing the riders clearly too.

They held their lances level and lay flat in their saddles then charged. The Quadi emerging from the undergrowth by the roadside scattered like rats before a bright light, disappearing back into the woods, some throwing weapons down in their haste.

Gallus and Dexion too backed away from these charging riders. First a few steps, then they tumbled back towards the woods, seeing the snarling rictus on the lead rider’s face. Another rider broke forward and knocked Dexion to the ground with a swipe of his lance. Gallus stumbled and spun round, his back crashing against the nearest birch trunk as the lead rider slowed his mount to a trot then a walk. This horseman came a halt, stabbed his lance in to the dirt by the roadside, then drew his longsword, holding the blade’s edge to Gallus’ throat, pressing it until rivulets of blood stole down Gallus’ neck, eyeing his prize with the look of a starved jackal.

I’m sorry,
Gallus mouthed into the ether to his unavenged loved ones, realising it was all over.
I’m so, so sorry.

Chapter 21

As sleet lashed Trimontium’s walls, Governor Urbicus thrashed in his bed. The pheasant he had enjoyed for his evening meal had filled him with gas and troubled his fitful sleep with black dreams. Every howl of the gale, every snort of a passing pony or cackling of some drunk had him waking with a start, soaked in sweat. When one wild cry was cut short, he sat up, muttering, wiping the perspiration from his handsome but lined face and smoothing his black hair from his forehead, vowing to enforce a curfew after dark more strictly from now on.
If I had the men to enforce it,
he mused bitterly. He had heard nor seen nothing since the visit of that damned tribunus with the gaunt, cold stare.
Nothing!
No sign of a relief garrison, not even a single imperial messenger to advise him on when he could expect such a boon. He mused once again over acting on Gallus’ advice and training the thugs and beggars from the city to serve as militia.
They’d sooner slice my neck than save it!
he scoffed.

Just then, something rapped violently in the wind. He eyed the shutters, seeing they were not closed properly, then slid from his bed and strode to them. When he reached out, a violent gust blew them wide open and at once, his bedchamber was filled with icy winds and stinging sleet. The night flashed before him, forks of lightning streaking the sky and illuminating his town momentarily – the three hills within the walls running with meltwater and weathering the worst of the wintry deluge. The fineries of his room and the bedding were cast across the floor, his neat hair writhed and his robes rapped wildly as he fought to grasp both shutters. But he stopped, the shutters almost closed, yet not quite.
Something was moving out there.

Gingerly, he prized the shutters open just a fraction more and peered into the blackness. Another fork of lightning.
Yes – movement!
At the northern gatehouse, his precious few sentries there were signalling to each other, their shouts weak over the gale.

‘Open the gates!’ he heard one cry.

He froze, seeing the thick, iron-strapped gates groan. Through them came a sight that had him rubbing his eyes with balled fists. ‘Reinforcements?’ He gawped at the silvery column that entered: intercisa helms, mail shirts, shields and spears. He squinted at the banner they carried. A black eagle on a red background. The VI Herculia. In they came, hundreds of them, soon a thousand. He clutched his Christian Chi-Rho and half-laughed, half-wept. He had prayed for a legion and a legion had been delivered. The walls would be safe.

‘I must greet them, ensure they are here to stay,’ he muttered as he swung away from the shutters to search for his oiled cloak and boots. Then an odd thought struck him. A good six months ago he had received a scroll detailing the losses from Ad Salices. Many soldiers had fallen. Entire legions had been lost, the VI Herculia one of them . . .

A serrated scream pierced the storm and a clash of iron followed. Urbicus swung back to the shutter and peered out again. He palmed at his eyes once more, for the dream had become a nightmare. The legion had turned upon his handful of sentries. A streak of lightning threw this cold truth into sharp relief, one of the Herculia legionaries was holding a sentry by the throat and driving his sword up and into the man’s gut. The blade came back out with a wash of blood and the other Herculia legionaries roared in delight while the last few sentries ran.

‘No . . . no,’ Urbicus mouthed, sure he would awaken any moment. But when some of the Herculia soldiers threw off their helms and chanted, he saw them for what they were. Flowing blonde and red locks, beards and tattoos. He noticed now that only some of them wore legionary garb, those further back were dressed in Gothic leather armour and carried spears and longswords. Like a fire fed with fresh wind, they spilled from their formations and out across the network of streets. In moments, the screaming of his few sentries was replaced by a cacophonous shrieking as doors were battered down, homes raided, women dragged into the streets. As the northern quarter of the town was put to the torch, Trimontium’s three hills were lit in orange and dancing shadows and the Goths forged on into the heart of the settlement. He saw a brute of a man on the back of a silver stallion, waving them on. A giant in a winged, bronze helm and a jutting trident beard. This one swept a great axe at the citizens who scattered before him, blood leaping in the air as it sliced through flesh. This one was coming for the palace on the slopes of the three hills. In moments, the rider had slipped out of sight, disappearing behind an old Temple of Jove adjacent to the palace.

‘Guards!’ Urbicus cried, backing away from the shutters. ‘Bring my horse to the courtyard, be ready to ride.’

The two men he kept here in his villa would escort him, shield him in his flight.
I can be in Sardica within a few days,
he realised, thinking of his cousin, Governor Patiens.

He heard footsteps echoing down the corridor outside his bedchamber, then muted grunts and the wet slap of something heavy hitting the tiled floors. Then he heard more footsteps. No, not footsteps . . .
hooves.
He edged gingerly towards the closed doors of his chambers, fingers outstretched to the handle.

Then, as if his nightmares had escaped from his mind and into reality, the bedchamber doors were dashed back from their hinges, shredded wood flying across the room, the thrashing front hooves of the mount that had broken them still swirling in the shattered doorway. The silver stallion settled back onto all fours and the giant rider heeled the beast into Urbicus’ chamber, ducking under the doorway. Urbicus staggered back, stumbling over furniture, face agape. The colossal horseman was streaked in blood and his axe was plastered in skin and hair. His face was bent with bloodlust, obsidian eyes scourging Urbicus, smashed nose wrinkled and teeth gritted above his jutting three-pronged beard.

‘I . . . I’ll give you anything you wa-’

The giant’s axe flashed out, cleaving Urbicus’ chest. Urbicus touched a hand to the awful wound, his fingers sinking in through the sundered ribs and feeling the pulsing, hot organ in there, haemorrhaging hot, wet, black blood.

As he crumpled to the floor, he heard cries ring out all over the city, drowning out the screams.

‘
Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!
’

Farnobius sat on a carved chair in Urbicus’ atrium draped in one of the dead governor’s purple cloaks, one foot resting on a toppled statue, absently throwing grapes into his mouth. The sleet storm from earlier in the night had turned into snow, and this spiralled silently in through the opening in the centre of the roof. He eyed Egil and Humbert and wondered if these two might ever become the burdens that Alatheus and Saphrax had been.
The difference is that you are their master and they are your dogs,
Vitheric’s weak voice assured him. Farnobius nodded as he considered this, seeing the deferential, round-shouldered stance the two adopted.
Your dogs to command, to scorn . . . or to slay . . . you are adept at slaying those who trust you, are you not?

Farnobius’ head twitched and his knuckles grew white on the arms of the chair. This town had yielded a full silo of wheat, another of barley, and a healthy treasury. Coupled with the men raised from the mines two weeks ago, they were well-stocked. He gazed at the tattered VI Herculia standard on the floor he had harvested from the back of one of the Roman wagons. That and the imperial armour had been the key to this town.
Just as I showed you it would,
Vitheric said.

‘You are no master of me, boy,’ he growled, his head twitching again.

‘Reiks?’ Egil said.

Farnobius ignored him and took a deep swig of wine.

Egil and Humbert exchanged nervous glances. ‘We have grain, men, weapons, armour and riches,’ Egil said. It was not phrased as a question but it demanded an answer.

‘You think we should stay here, then?’ Farnobius said flatly.

Egil licked his dry lips and shuffled where he sat. ‘It is an option. Continuing westwards brings us to Trajan’s Gate. The Romans are skilled at holding such narrow defiles, and the dead of winter is almost upon us.’

‘And Veda did not return,’ Humbert added. ‘If the rider he was pursuing managed to forewarn the Romans then . . . ’

Farnobius raised a finger and it was enough to silence the man. He thought of what lay ahead. His horde could be at Trajan’s Gate within a few days. Sooner, even, were he to send his riders on ahead. To remain here and settle for the meagre takings of this city, or to forge on, seize the pass and ravage what lay beyond?

‘Do you truly fear the scraps of men and steel that Rome’s broken legions might pit against us at this pox-ridden pass? I certainly do not. I have settled for too little, for too long. No, we will stay here but one day and wring every last morsel of grain and gold from this place. Then, when we leave, we will march through this much talked–of narrow valley.

Rise, death-bringer,
Vitheric’s voice mocked,
for your axe is surely thirsty again after mere moments without blood.

Farnobius stood, kicking the fallen statue to one side as if to banish the voice, his head twitching violently.

‘There, we will fall upon Trajan’s Gate like Wodin’s wolves!’

Chapter 22

Five days had passed at Trajan’s Gate since the sighting of the Hun scouts. On the first day, Terra Mater made a determined attempt to hinder the legionaries’ last-gasp efforts to bolster the pass, casting upon them a vicious wintry storm. The skies had erupted, pelting the Romans with sleet as they tried to finish their work on the fortifications. By the third day, the temperature had fallen and they had awoken to find the land encrusted with ice and a gentle snow drifting down from the skies in ominous silence. The snow was endless and by the fourth day, the valley was blanketed in white. Today, a stinging, easterly blizzard that alternated between snow, hail and sleet had raged ceaselessly until now, early afternoon. More, thunderbolts streaked across the heavens every so often, casting an odd, eerie light down on the pass. Still, legionaries wrapped in their thickest, warmest garb struggled to and fro up and down the steep southern valley side, carrying timber into the thickets up there. Quadratus’ century was digging at snowdrifts on the Via Militaris and sharing hushed words, one of them jogging eastwards, away from the wall to plant short posts in the ground with coloured ribbons every few hundred paces.

Pavo padded from the fort to crouch on the edge of the northern spur, eyeing their progress while blowing into his numb hands. The snow was falling thicker than ever. ‘Enough of the bloody stuff to hamper our efforts, yet not enough to render the valley impassable,’ he muttered, pulling his thick woollen cloak round to shield himself from the driving blizzard.

‘Aye, but for a moment in the Persian sands,’ Sura said, coming to observe by his side, his eyes like slits as he peered into the storm. His optio’s face was blue and his words somewhat slurred, such was the cold. ‘Though I pity those poor bastards need it more than we do,’ he nodded through the grey of the blizzard, to the lookout posts down at the eastern end of the valley. The basic timber roofs on stilts that had been erected as shelters were now barely humps in the snow.

Pavo spat snow from his lips and looked to the activity on and around the timber wall. He prayed to Mithras that he had followed Geridus’ advice correctly. The old Comes had helped develop his ideas, and had a fair few wiles of his own stored away too.

‘They’ll have time to finish?’ Sura asked.

Pavo shook his head. ‘They can only do what they can. Farnobius will decide when it is time to finish.’

Zosimus stomped through the white to stand with them, his shoulders heaped with snow and his stubbled scalp frosted likewise. ‘Come on, you couple of shirkers,’ he said with a tense laugh, his eyes scanning the whiteout at the eastern end of the pass. ‘Enough of the talking and more of the-’ he stopped, his neck craning, eyes widening, jaw stiffening.

Pavo and Sura looked with him.

Pavo’s heart thundered.

At the eastern end of the valley, Simplex peered from the northern lookout post and into the snow-filled pass and beyond, certain the blizzard was toying with him. All day he had noticed shadows emerging then slinking back into the wall of white. This was another such, surely? He turned to his comrade with the buccina clutched in frozen hands.

‘Give the word, Simplex,’ Quietus said through chattering teeth, behind him.

Simplex looked back, seeing that his comrade’s face was riddled in indecision like a reflection of his own thoughts. ‘I don’t know, I can’t see, I can’t be sure.’

‘Aye,’ the other replied, ‘but then what was it Centurion Zosimus said? Better to be wrong than dead, wasn’t it?’

Simplex took one further look into the driving snow. The blizzard swirled then dropped for a moment. He set eyes upon a flock of hardy and well-camouflaged mountain sheep, ambling across the rugged land east of the valley. ‘Bloody sheep,’ he turned to grin at Quietus. As he did so, something shot past his ear and instantly, his frozen features were splashed with something wet, hot and coppery. Blinking the mess from his eyes, he frowned as he saw Quietus drop the buccina then clutch at something jutting from his throat. A shaft, feathers. Blood pumping from the spot where it was lodged in his windpipe, spotting the snow underfoot red. Quietus dropped to his knees, then slumped onto his side, lifeless, the tip of the arrow shaft jutting from the back of his neck.

Now the snow blossomed with crimson. Simplex had never seen blood in such quantity. He had never seen any combat in his short time in the legions – missing the fall of the Great Northern Camp as he had, much to his eternal shame, fled. Prior to enlisting with the XI Claudia, his greatest act of violence had been to help butcher a lamb for the midwinter feast of
Natalis Invicti.
His breath came and went in gasps, and it was only when he heard the soft padding of feet from down in the valley that he swung back to the east again. The flock of sheep had dispersed, and the pack of stealthy Gothic archers they had concealed were flooding forward, wrapped in pale grey hides and cloaks. Their arrows punched into the snow all around him. He ducked down behind his fallen comrade, pretending he was dead. As he did so, he saw that Quietus’ buccina was but a pace away. A thought crossed his mind then. He could remain here, unmoving. He might live if he did so, just as he had survived the fall of the Great Northern Camp. A hot tear spilled across his cheek as he realised this was not an option, and he recalled Centurion Pavo’s stirring words in their last few weeks of training.

It’s not about the man, it’s about the legion. You and your brothers are one. If you die to save your brothers, then you live on in their hearts and you will bask in Mithras’ glory.

He reached out and grabbed the buccina, put it to his lips, then sat up and emptied his lungs into it. Once, twice, thrice.

Gothic curses sounded and a shower of arrows thumped into his chest. His vision dimmed and he fell back, blood from one ruined lung leaking into the other. His dying thought helped him to face the blackness.

Fight well, brothers. Live on.

The buccina cry echoed around the pass. All work around Trajan’s Gate ceased. Every man stood tall and stared to the east.

Pavo looked to Zosimus, to Quadratus down in the pass, then finally to Sura.

‘First Cohort, First century . . .
form up!
’ Zosimus cried, sweeping his ham-like hands as if to gather his youthful recruits from their places in the wall-works. They duly dropped the logs they carried, threw down shovels and pick-axes and hurried behind the protection of the timber stockade and then on up the scree path towards the fort plateau.

Quadratus followed this with a cry of his own from down on the valley floor: ‘Third Cohort, First century – to arms!’ The Sardicans hurried through the drifts, snow spraying up in their wake, Rectus and Libo urging them on.

‘Second Cohort, First century,’ Pavo cried, ‘
with me!
’ He waved Trupo, Cornix and the rest of the younger legionaries with him to the fort. What followed was a flurry of clanking iron, banging heads, curses and snatched breaths. Herenus and his slingers helped to dispense weaponry to the legionaries, whilst the century of sagittarii strapped two and sometimes three quivers to their backs with shaking hands. Men helped their comrades into their mail shirts, buckled on swordbelts and helms, hoisted shields and spears, then filed back out into the blizzard across the fort plateau like an iron stream, snow flicking up from their every footstep. Herenus and his slingers ran only to the edge of the fort spur, where they would have a good sight of whatever enemy was approaching down this valley, and a handful of his men took up position around the two ballistae mounted there. The sagittarii hurried down the scree path from the fort spur first, then raced across the timber wall battlement and formed up on the bulge on the southern valley side. The three centuries of legionaries followed their path, spilling across the walkway of the timber stockade, but remaining on that wooden battlement and turning their shields and spears to the east. A wall topped with Claudian ruby red and sharpened steel. The eagle standard jutted proudest, the bull banner rapping in the icy gale.

‘That’s it, just as we trained for. You know your positions, shields up and together, show them nothing but your speartips and fiery eyes,’ Pavo cried as he took his place to the right of his century – on the centre of the timber wall’s parapet, with Zosimus’ century on his left and Quadratus’ century on his right. Sura barged into position by his side and the pair shared a well-practiced grunt of acknowledgement, shoulders and shields interlocked.

He glanced to his friend, saw the dark look in those usually impish eyes, and recalled Sura’s heartfelt words on their return from Persia.

We won’t die as old men, Pavo.

The pair shoved a little closer together, then peered into the blizzard. The brow of Pavo’s helm shielded his eyes from the stinging snow. For a moment, he gazed down the Succi Valley, and saw only unbroken white. A fork of lightning shuddered across the sky, part-veiled by the roiling blizzard, and its pallid light betrayed nothing. He could hear only the panting and whispered prayers of men and their cloaks rapping in the merciless squall.
A false alarm?

Then an inchoate, grey shape took form amidst the wall of white. It came and went like a reluctant shade at first – like the infernal shadow-man from Pavo’s dreams – before spilling into reality, spreading and dominating the width of the valley floor: a mass of warriors marching from the white infinity to the ghostly echoes of cursing men and whinnying warhorses, drifting in and out of earshot over the snowstorm. Then came the
crunch-crunch
of boots and hooves in snow, and the poor light glinted on the panoply of sharpened, flesh-ripping steel they carried.

With the certainty of a cock crowing at first light, Pavo felt his gut flip over, his mouth drain of moisture and his bladder swell. At least five thousand men, he realised – Taifali riders, Huns and Gothic spearmen – against the five centuries of the XI Claudia. His mind screamed at him, pleaded with him, to turn away, to flee, and to let another force come and be the salvation of this pass. But with a gnash of his teeth, the weakness was gone.

‘By Mithras, there are thousands of them. They’ll cut us apart!’ Trupo stammered, barely heard over the growing Gothic din.

Pavo leapt upon the comment, swatting it away as if it had escaped his own lips. ‘They’ll be lucky to get close enough,’ he snarled.

A chatter of nervous, almost disbelieving laughter spilled from the men of his century at this. And it seemed to scatter the spell of fear from Trupo, who nodded at the rebuke, then adopted a trembling grimace, knuckles white on his spear shaft. And it was the same in each direction Pavo looked: to his right, big Quadratus’ face was bent with the anticipation of battle, and the mad-eyed Libo bore a feral grin almost matched by the lantern-jawed Rectus. To his left, his own century and the hulking Zosimus’ snarled, muttering to themselves, some of their faces tear-streaked, some eyes looking skywards as if for a final blessing. By his side, Sura glowered ahead, lips taut and twitching to betray clenched teeth. ‘The whoreson has dared to face us,’ he said with a growl.