Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) (45 page)

His fingers itched for a spear, but his spatha was all he had left. His lips longed to give the order for a plumbatae volley, but all the weighted darts were gone. He yearned to hear the whirring of slings or bows, but that moment had long since passed. Lightning tore across the heavens, casting Farnobius’ features in a demonic light and the ground shuddered violently as the Gothic charge came to within ten strides, seven, three . . .

‘To the last man, brothers!’ Pavo roared as horsemen punched into the Roman line, shattering it. Legionaries were chopped down, battered back and trampled. He could only duck under Farnobius’ chopping axe blade, and his swipe in riposte to hamstring the reiks’ beast missed and the chance was gone as Farnobius ploughed on into the legionary mass.

Pavo swung round, seeing Cornix spin away from the next swipe of the axe, his face scored from jaw to forehead. Sura’s spatha was battered from his grip with the next attack and then a fellow legionary was cleaved through from shoulder to lung. The giant reiks then chopped his axe down on one sagittarius’ head – crumpling helm and skull and bringing an explosion of blood and brains from the man’s mouth. All around, blood fountained where spear met throat or longsword tore across face. Severed hands, still clutching spatha or shield, flew into the air where the bearer had been overly brave in his swing. One of Farnobius’ riders attacked Pavo next. Pavo feinted one way then leapt up to plunge his spatha up under this one’s ribs, the blade sinking deep into the man’s chest cavity. As this rider slid from the saddle, Pavo swung round to face the melee of Gothic horsemen and Roman legionaries. It was not hard to find Farnobius. The reiks had scored a trail of devastation, broken Roman bodies strewn in the reddened snow around him as he forged on through the skirmish. It was only a thick clang of iron that halted his progress. Geridus’ gem-hilted spatha had stayed Farnobius’ axe, both weapons tremoring, both men’s arms shaking. The two giants were matched in size but Farnobius had youth and health on his side, and the high ground of his saddle. But Geridus swung out of the deadlock, ducking away from the axe’s edge, grappling Farnobius’ shin and pulling him from the stallion. The giant reiks fell with a roar, the bronze winged helm rolling from his head. But he was on his feet in seconds. Pavo hurried through the melee towards the encounter as Farnobius lashed at Geridus, driving the aged Comes back with a rapid succession of blows from his axe, sparks flying from every parry of Geridus’ sword. The vigour of youth triumphed, and Geridus stumbled in a rut of packed snow, falling, bringing his sword up to block the shower of blows Farnobius rained upon him.

‘Die, old man,’ the reiks roared. ‘My speartip grows cold without your head to adorn it!’

Geridus’ reply came as a wheeze and Pavo saw that the Comes was on the brink. Gallus’ words once again streaked through his mind at that moment in a blaze of fury.

Face the past, face the nightmares. Strike them down!

He lunged through the last few strides towards the pair, then leapt, bringing his spatha up and then chopping it down on Farnobius’ shoulder. The strike tore the reiks’ mail shirt and gouged at his flesh. He swung round with an animal roar, eyes set on Pavo. With Geridus floored and gasping for breath and every Claudian comrade locked in a desperate battle around him, Pavo realised he was alone.

‘
You!
’ Farnobius hissed, his hand momentarily flicking up to touch his broken nose. ‘You will die on this cursed pass, Roman,’ the reiks snarled, then lunged forward. The wound was bleeding only lightly and the reiks was no slower or weaker for it, Pavo realised, as the axe swept out at neck height. He bent back, the blade skimming the collar of his mail vest. He tried to stab out at Farnobius’ flank in the moment of the reiks’ follow through, but the colossus was too fast, parrying like lightning. ‘You are destined to die on this blade,’ Farnobius taunted him.

Pavo’s top lip tremored and he leapt forward with a roar, crashing his spatha down at the reiks once, twice and again. The giant staggered back, laughing partly in shock, touching a hand to the red streak across his chest, under the new tear in the mail there. ‘That is the second time you have bloodied me today, boy, and the last.’

He feinted to rush for Pavo’s left, then, belying his size, switched to the right, bringing his axe round for Pavo’s ribs. Pavo could only throw himself forward to avoid the blow. He rolled through the snow, then righted himself, twisting and seeing – for a precious instant – that Farnobius’ guard was down. He brought his spatha round with what strength he had left, then felt the dull clang of the flat smashing against the reiks’ temple. The giant staggered, a confident grin appearing then fading. Then he toppled onto his back, his eyes rolling in his head. Pavo hurried to stand over him, resting the tip of his spatha on Farnobius’ throat. Farnobius blinked, then realised his situation. He shot a glance to the nearest Gothic riders, and Pavo looked with him: two nobles, by the looks of it.

‘Egil, Humbert?’ Farnobius roared. But they offered only stony glances then turned away and fought elsewhere. At this, the reiks cupped his fingers over his ears and shrieked, as if trying to block out some tormenting voice in his head.

‘Do it, then,’ Farnobius said, turning his gaze back to Pavo. ‘At least my death will come in victory, for my riders have all but overrun this pass. Why do you hesitate?’ he spat, the skin of his neck growing taut against the blade.

Pavo felt a stinging hatred in his chest. ‘Do you even remember her?’

‘Her?’

‘Felicia. She would have been my wife. She would have borne my children. You cut her down like a butcher, at the Great Northern Camp.’

Farnobius’ face wrinkled in confusion, then a light in his eyes told Pavo he had remembered. ‘At the River Tonsus when you broke my nose? The girl with the amber hair? I remember. I was at her tent. I was the first of my people to reach there.’ Then the giant’s face wrinkled in confusion. ‘She was dead already, Roman.’

Pavo blinked. ‘What?’

‘I would have enjoyed taking her head, yes, but when I came to her she and the others with her were already dead. They lay there, throats slit. I assumed they had chosen to end their own pitiful lives. But no, those wounds had been inflicted by another.’

Pavo shook his head. ‘No . . .
no!
’ He staggered back, the spatha trembling. All around him, the weight and strength of the Gothic horsemen was telling, and legionaries were falling in sprays of blood.

He barely noticed Farnobius rising, eyes trained on Pavo, hand reaching out for the axe.

Felicia?
Pavo mouthed.
How can I avenge you now?

Farnobius stalked towards Pavo, lifting his axe.

Just then, the storm winds faded to nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was as if they were paying respect to the legionaries on the cusp of death. The snow fell gently, drifting in the sudden hush. Suddenly, Farnobius froze and looked to the west. Pavo did too. It was as if both had sensed the odd crackle in the air that comes before a lightning storm.

Then came the thunder.

A din like a rolling deluge, pouring from the west. Further up the western end of the pass the greyness swam and swished then spat forth a fury of shadows. Horsemen. A hundred. A thousand. More than twice that number. They poured from the west like demons, rushing for the skirmish. Pavo saw their long, flowing blonde locks, their fair skin and heard their jagged war cries. His spirit all but guttered and died at that moment. There was no point in running.

The Goths and legionaries all around halted in their combat stances like Farnobius, looking to the onrushing riders in puzzlement.

Pavo looked to Geridus. ‘This is no wile of mine, lad,’ the old Comes panted.

‘Gothic cavalry?’ Quadratus panted nearby.

It was Geridus’ hoarse cry that answered. ‘No . . . the Sarmatian riders.’

Pavo heard the words and tried to understand’ Allies? After so long alone at this wretched pass? They wore bronze scale vests, tall pointed helms and they carried long, weighty lances but no shields. He saw the stony determination on their faces, their lances trained on the melee. Then he braced as they ploughed into the fray like a harvester’s sickle, ripping man and horse to pieces in puffing clouds of crimson. Their weapons found only Gothic flesh, and Pavo and Farnobius shared one last glance. The giant reiks’ head twitched and he mouthed his last words into the ether to some invisible other.
Forgive me, Vitheric.
A heartbeat later, the giant reiks was ripped from view, trampled under a fury of hooves. Flesh, blood and bone were cast up in all directions.

Pavo gazed absently into the mizzle of red that filled the air around him as the Sarmatians ended the gruelling conflict, wheeling and cutting around him. When the red mist faded, he heard cries of joy from the shattered men of the XI Claudia. Cornix fell to his knees, shaking, muttering a prayer over and over. Others laughed hysterically before one of them stopped and crumpled to the ground, cradling his knees to his chest, shaking and then sobbing. One retched and vomited. He saw Libo shower a group of surrendered Goths with a volley of curses, Rectus holding him back from adding to the verbal assault with a physical one. He looked to Geridus, Zosimus and Quadratus then finally Sura, each man plastered with crimson gore. Like him, none of these men showed the slightest hint of emotion. The soldier’s skin was thick, after all these years. He closed his eyes and fought back the tears.

The storm had left the valley by late afternoon. It had the good grace to blanket the countless corpses in white before it left. Pavo had staggered up to the spur, eyed the tumbled remains of the fort, then helped gather the bodies of Roman and Goth alike. Exhausted, he then sat cross-legged at the edge of the plateau, looking up at the sapphire sky and the black band in the east that heralded the coming clear winter night, bringing with it a scattering of stars. Down below, the few hundred Goths who had been taken prisoner sat on the snow, hands bound, watched by Trupo, Cornix and the remainder of his century together with a band of the fierce Sarmatian riders.

He noticed Zosimus and Quadratus near them, talking with the Sarmatian leader – a fellow with a thick, blonde beard and nearly snow-white skin. Their breaths puffed in the air as they spoke, and Pavo wondered what they might have to say. The Sarmatians had long been in a treaty of alliance with the empire, yet they had come only after so many had died. Of the three legionary centuries who had held the pass, just over half remained. Herenus and his slingers had suffered only a handful of casualties, but the sagittarii numbered just eleven now. Yet the dead here was but a speck compared to the loss suffered across Thracia in the wake of Farnobius’ rampage.

‘We did all we could,’ a voice said.

He looked up to see Sura, who sat next to him, offering him a grubby wine skin.

Pavo took a pull on it and handed it back. ‘Aye, we did. But what if one day our best efforts are not enough?’

Sura’s eyes searched his. ‘As long as we don’t stop trying. That’s what matters,’ he said, his usually impish face sober and earnest.

Pavo smiled wearily at this, looking over his bloodied, dirt-encrusted hands, still shaking from the trauma of battle. His thoughts started to turn to the great, dark, unanswered question:
Dexion, Gallus?

‘I sensed them coming, you know,’ Sura said, sitting a little straighter, the familiar mischievous lilt in his voice.

‘Eh?’ Pavo frowned, his thoughts scattering.

Sura jabbed a thumb over his shoulder up the pass to the west. ‘The Sarmatians. I heard them coming before anyone else.’

Pavo cocked an eyebrow, eyeing Sura askance. Then he relaxed, realising the trick had worked – the dark thoughts were gone.
You can read me like no other, friend,
he thought.

Sura was in full flow now: ‘Back in Adrianople, they used to call me
the bat
, I could hear people speaking through three foot thick stone wa-’

A ham-like hand stuffed a lump of bread in Sura’s mouth. ‘Chew that, it’ll help with the cold . . . though it will only temporarily stem the horseshit that tumbles from your lips,’ Geridus said. ‘Now, you’re needed – get down there and help with the prisoners.’

Sura made to protest, then found the bread a welcome alternative to voicing his ludicrous stories. He got up and left the spur.

Pavo looked up at Geridus. ‘Without the claw or the toppling of the fort, the battle would have been over long before the Sarmatians got here,’ he said. ‘Farnobius’ men would have spilled on through the pass.’ He looked over his shoulder to the broken heap of rubble that remained of the fort. ‘Why did you keep the claw hidden?’