Legionary: Viper of the North (14 page)

‘Rebels?’

‘Aye. Quadratus was adamant that we should follow your advisory orders and bed in until we had more available manpower, but . . . ’

Gallus held up a hand to stop him. ‘But Lupicinus knew better.’

Pavo nodded.

Gallus shook his head, his gaze tracing the frosted rubble underfoot. Then he looked to Pavo, his ice-blue stare intense. ‘All these vexillationes out here, scattered and far from home.’ He looked up, across the horizon. ‘Go to the village, sort out the mess there, and then get back to the fort, Pavo. But by Mithras do it fast. For I fear there is a snake in the grass, and out here,’ his expression darkened as he scanned the plain behind Pavo, ‘we are in its sights.’

Chapter 5

Gallus squinted ahead and gritted his teeth once more as he beheld the bald-headed, wobbling mass that was Senator Tarquitius, wrapped in a dark-blue cloak over his senatorial toga and sat on some poor bastard of a stallion.

‘Comes with his own insulation, that one, eh, sir?’ Felix whispered from his side.

‘Aye, and his own horseshit,’ Gallus nodded. ‘It galls me to say it, but he is going to be the difference between war and peace with Athanaric.’

‘Then Mithras help us,’ Felix replied solemnly.

They fell silent as they approached the base of the Carpates. A rocky corridor led through the mountains, right into Athanaric’s heartland. A pair of Gothic spearman stood on the outcrops above, one on each side of the pass. They were dressed in red leather cuirasses and woollen breeches and carried longswords and round wooden shields. They sported long blonde locks tied into the distinctive topknots favoured by their military. The pair glared down on the approaching column and the silence was broken only by a stiff, whistling wind.

‘Friendly bastards, eh?’ Felix whispered.

‘I expected nothing less,’ Gallus replied, flicking his gaze briefly up to the sky, now blemished with gathering grey clouds. Then he raised a hand. As one, the column stopped, the mounted figures of Zosimus, Felix, Tarquitius and Salvian flanking him.

‘Ave!’ Gallus called firmly but without warmth. The Gothic sentries did not reply. ‘I am Tribunus Gallus of Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis. I have escorted an ambassadorial party here to speak with noble Iudex Athanaric, he has been expecting such a meeting for some months.’

The sentries looked at one another, then glared back down. One of them nodded and swept a finger across the five on horseback. ‘You may ride through.’ Then he squared his shoulders. ‘But the rest of your soldiers can go no further.’

Gallus gripped the reins of his stallion until his knuckles turned white. The land ahead was doubtless garrisoned with thousands of Athanaric’s finest cavalry and infantry, yet he was being stripped of his handful of men like some untrustworthy brigand. This whole sortie was getting so one-sided it was almost a taunt.

‘Don’t give them the excuse,’ Salvian whispered by his side. ‘I can see it in his eyes, he wants you to react.’

Gallus turned to the ambassador, his teeth gritted, then felt his rage dissipate just a fraction; Salvian seemed a good judge of character and intention.

The colour returned to his knuckles and, reluctantly, he turned to Zosimus. ‘Lead the centuries southeast, back to Fritigern’s territory, then make camp there. A good, solid marching camp,’ he nodded firmly, ‘and we’ll be back to lead you home by sunrise in two days’ time.’

The grinding of Zosimus’ teeth was audible over the wind.

Gallus looked to the centurion. The big man was utterly fearless, and the promise of riding into Athanaric’s lair thrilled Zosimus as much as it terrified the others. And that was just why Gallus trusted him implicitly. ‘I’d rather have you by my side through there,’ he nodded to the pass, ‘but I need you to lead these men until we return.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Zosimus relented. ‘We’ve got your back covered, sir. But I want one of my best men with you,’ the big centurion replied with a sparkle in his eyes, then slipped from his mount and handed the reins to his optio, Paulus. ‘Defend these men with your life, Paulus.’ With that, the big Thracian swaggered back past the column, barking orders. Then the aquilifer raised the legion standard and the legionaries snaked round behind him to head back down the trail with a rumble of boots, shields and iron.

Gallus twisted back to face the mountains and the Gothic sentries.

‘Now you may pass,’ one sentry spoke. With that, he lifted a horn to his lips and blew, conjuring a baritone moan that echoed through the pass and all around.

The five riders moved into the pass at a gentle trot. Paulus brought up the rear, one hand on his spatha hilt and his eyes trained on the crevices and boulders lining the walls of the rocky corridor. The basalt-grey passage wove through the mountains for some quarter of a mile in front of them, but they could see the frost-dappled green of a plain at the far end. The clopping of their mounts’ hooves on frozen ground echoed in the corridor as if a full cavalry wing followed them. But the stark truth was that five men of Rome were riding into the Gothic heartland alone.

‘I feel like we’ve been stripped of our swords, shields and armour,’ Felix muttered.

‘That’s not all,’ Gallus replied through taut lips, staring straight ahead. ‘Listen. Don’t look up, just listen.’

Felix frowned. ‘Eh?’

‘Yes, in the gaps between the clopping of hooves,’ Salvian joined in, nodding to Gallus, ‘can you hear it too?’

Felix’s eyes darted across the ground in front of him as he concentrated, then his face fell. Every so often, the juddering vibration of tensing bowstrings sounded.

‘They’ve probably got a hundred chosen archers up there, arrows trained on our necks. We’re walking through a perfect kill zone.’

‘But why?’ Felix hissed. ‘We’re on a peace mission?’

Gallus shook his head wryly. ‘We’re at the mercy of Athanaric’s whims now, and he’s a capricious whoreson.’

‘What are you muttering about?’ Tarquitius cut in, his high-pitched warbling filling the pass and startling the others.

‘Just keep your head and your voice down and ride straight,’ Gallus growled, ‘if you don’t want an arrow in your throat.’

Tarquitius’ face paled, his lips flapping as if to speak, but he was mercifully silent.

As they approached the end of the pass, Gallus wondered how a naturally defensible land like this had ever fallen from the grip of the empire. Dacia had been hard won, hundreds of years previously, and the tragedy was it had not been lost to an enemy, but evacuated wilfully. Now the past had come back to haunt the empire, with its fiercest adversary bedded in inside the protective crescent of these great mountains.

Then the ghostly orchestra of wind, hooves and bowstrings dropped away as they rode out of the pass. Another two Gothic sentries eyed their progress from above as they rode out onto the plain enclosed by the mountains.

Gallus gazed in wonderment at the sight: this heartland of the so-called barbarian Goths was thriving and organised. The bulk of the plain was dotted with farmsteads, smithies and workshops. These buildings were surrounded by fields, a patchwork of brown fallow and hardy winter crop, where men, women and children worked the land with oxen, ploughs and sickles. On the wide dirt roads linking these settlements, carts laden with supplies of wheat, barley, peas, beans, flax, linen, leather and iron ore rumbled from place to place. Where the land was unfarmed, horses grazed in their hundreds; tall and strong beasts befitting the image the Goths held as fine horsemen. Then Gallus started at another moan of a Gothic horn. He and the other four darted their eyes to the north of the plain. There, cupped on its northern side by the mountains, stood a thick, stone-walled citadel.

‘Dardarus,’ Paulus whispered from behind.

‘Aye,’ Gallus nodded, ‘a far cry from mud huts and palisades, isn’t it?’

The Goths tended not to fortify their settlements, using timber palisade if anything at all, but Athanaric had clearly veered away from that tradition with this place. The walls were sturdy, at least twice the height of a man and broad as a bull as well by the looks of it. Probably built on ancient Dacian foundations, Gallus thought, noticing the huge limestone blocks that formed the lower half of the wall. Six thick stone towers punctuated the bulwark, each stretching another five feet up and capped with timber covered guardhouses, where huddles of chosen archers stood, watching the activity on the plain. Between the towers, the battlements were dotted with the conical iron helms and speartips of Gothic sentries.

The moaning sounded again as the gates swung open and a party of Gothic cavalry rode out.

‘Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee?’ Felix said.

‘Relax,’ Salvian replied. ‘I’ll introduce us as exactly what we are – a peace envoy.’

Tarquitius clumsily heeled his stallion forward. ‘No, you will not. I will be speaking and you will be watching, learning.’

‘Senator,’ Salvian spoke evenly, ‘would it not be more becoming of you to maintain a dignified, almost majestic silence for now? After all, these are only lowly cavalrymen. Then, when Athanaric is present, and you do speak, it’ll lend all the more weight to your words.’

Tarquitius shot a furtive glance around the four of them. ‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Perhaps.’

Salvian turned to Gallus and issued a wry half-grin.

For the second time that day, Gallus smiled. He realised that disliking this man was going to be difficult.

The light was almost gone as Pavo’s fifty approached the edge of the pine thicket. The night sky was full of thick cloud, and only fleeting appearances of the waxing moon illuminated the flatland ahead.

Then they saw it: Istrita.

The circular, timber-walled settlement was elevated on a small hill and was ringed by a ditch and rampart. Firelight and shadows danced on the thatched roofs of the dwellings inside. Four squat timber watchtowers rose above the walls, one either side of the gate looking south and two on the far side of the village, looking north. Pavo could make out a pair of sentries on the platform of each. As they neared, a heckling of many voices grew louder, then, with a violent smash of clay, a collective cheer erupted.

Pavo’s step shortened instinctively at the noise, and he heard the ripple of armour as the fifty behind him did likewise. His eyes hung on one thing; a pole protruding from the centre of the village. From it hung a blackened, still smoking body. At the tip of the pole, a dark-green banner fluttered in the breeze, and a snake emblem was woven into its fibres.