The Blood Road (Legionary 7): Legionary, no. 7

by Gordon Doherty

  His mind sped in a thousand directions. They could not hope to fight the horde in the city streets: it would descend into a chaotic dance of a thousand bouts of individual combat – and there would only be one winner. He thought of the wharf. The fleet! The prize Fritigern sought was now their only hope.

  ‘The sea walls,’ he called over to General Modares, who shouted the same back to him, both having reached the same conclusion.

  ‘Take us to those ships,’ Theodosius seethed through clenched teeth, the first of the Gothic thrown axes and loosed arrows pinging and whizzing down near him. ‘I may lose a city today, but by the will of God, I will not lose the Classis Moesica too.’

  ‘Brace,’ Modares howled. ‘Plug the main way, begin a steady retreat towards the wharf.’

  ‘Riders, dismount!’ cried Bacurius, sliding from the saddle and swishing his brown cloak to one side to draw his sword, his Scutarii horsemen following suit and joining the front line with him.

  Clack! went thousands of shields, the sound repeating along the line as the battered relief force and the tattered remnant of the city defenders joined together. They filled the main avenue like a giant stopper – one hundred or so men wide and thirty or more deep. For the first time in years, Pavo – shieldless – found himself absent from the front rank. It was a most uncomfortable sensation, but he had no time to think about it, bawling encouragement to the front-liners as the Goths came at them like the jagged finger of a monster, set on pushing back and crushing the stopper. The streets of Thessalonica filled with throaty howls as the gap shrank to nothing.

  ‘Fear not Romans, for it will soon be over for you!’ the leading Goths bellowed.

  With a din of steel biting into shield, the Goths fell upon the Romans. Blood puffed up and the impact shuddered through the ranks behind. Pavo felt it like the kick of a horse. Goths spilled up onto the buildings on the street side, chosen archers loosing down upon Legionary heads. A screaming warrior holding an axe in each hand leapt down into the ranks. A dozen Roman spears jabbed at him, but the man was in a battle-frenzy. He landed in the rank behind Pavo and swung the twin axes, one into the shoulder of a Claudia legionary, the other into the back of a Gemina man. Pavo turned to tackle him, but the foe ripped the axe from the shoulder of the poor Claudia legionary and brought it round before Pavo could bring his spatha to meet it. Seeing the Goth was about to sever his sword hand, Pavo pulled to one side, dodging the cut, but the flat of the axe whacked against his wrist. The pain was immense, and Pavo felt all feeling slip from his spasming hand. He heard the clatter of his spatha falling to the ground, quickly being swallowed up by the stumbling and speedy retreat, then gawped as the warrior struck again for his unprotected body. A spear ripped through the foe’s neck from the left, and the man was gone. Modares, fighting his way through the ranks, clasped a blood and sinew-coated hand on Pavo’s shoulder. ‘You have no spear, sword, helm or shield. Your fight is over, Tribunus.’

  ‘Give me a sword,’ Pavo growled, squatting to grab one of the fallen Goth’s axes, but as he stood, the axe fell, his stunned hand unable to grip it. The Romans were driven like cattle, down the white stone wards, past the domed rotunda and almost as an insult, backwards through the triumphal arch. Blood sprayed and steel clattered, staining the great monument’s white stones.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Modares snarled, shaking him. ‘We’re dead, all of us, unless we can have the sea gates open to receive us and ready to be barred shut as soon as we pass through them. And we need the fleet to be prepared.’ Modares hauled him through the rapid backstep as he spoke. They came to the rear of the retreat. Fifty or so marines waited there, panting, sweating, stained red like every other. Their centurion – a turnip-headed fellow – saluted him. ‘Get these men to the boats,’ Modares commanded. ‘They are enough at least to unhitch the galleys and lay out boarding planks. As long as we can push out to sea, we can escape this slaughter.’

  But Pavo saw how citizens were bursting from their homes, horror-stricken at the Gothic storm that had befallen their city. They clutched belongings in their arms, mothers carrying babies, men leading goats and yapping dogs running with them. ‘The boats might carry the army, but the people? There are many, many thousands of souls in this city. We cannot abandon them.’

  ‘The boats will house a few thousand people, no more. If the East is to have a chance, it must be the emperor and his army who take to those ships.’

  Pavo felt a pulsing heat of anger within him, one glance around enough to see the sheer number of innocents who would die or be enslaved if the army withdrew. The curly-haired lad clutching his pet lamb who had cheered in support earlier now cowered by an animal’s drinking trough at the edge of a small market – about to be swallowed up in the storm of battle. Just then, a Gothic arrow sped down from one of the rooftops and pinned the lamb and boy there.

  ‘Pavo,’ Modares snapped. It was the first time the general had ever used his name without his rank. ‘There is no time to debate this. Go… go!’

  Backing away from the retreat, Pavo cast his eye over the marines, all waiting on his word. ‘Move!’ he roared, setting off down one alleyway, Turnip-head and the marines sprinting with him. ‘This is a shortcut to the harbour,’ he panted as he ran. They vaulted over strewn possessions, tore down flailing awnings and washed garments hanging out to dry, and heard the citizens wail as they passed.

  ‘What’s happening? Why are you running?’ they cried.

  Pavo’s soul almost turned to ashes. How could he tell them? A mother stepped out before him and he almost bowled her over. ‘Get out of my way,’ he growled, skidding to a halt. Then he realised he recognised her.

  ‘My boy, he took his lamb to the drinking trough. He was going to take water out to the men fighting on the turf wall. Have you seen him?’

  A sharp grief stabbed at Pavo’s chest and behind his eyes. ‘I… I…’ he started, seeing many other moon-eyed faces emerging from their homes, clutching garments and treasured possessions. ‘By the light of Mithras, get to the wharf,’ he said, his voice cracking.

  He and the marines took off once more along the alley, now followed by a growing herd of people, chased by the sounds of battle pouring rapidly from the landward side of the city. Pavo eyed the end of the alley and caught a whiff of salty sea air. Almost there. He sped from the alley end and out onto the agora, now half-draped in late afternoon shadow. The stretch of triumphal avenue leading to the docks was empty and serene, the cypress trees and palms swaying gently in a hot wind, untouched by the frenzied retreat just an arrow shot away and closing. But that was all a peripheral blur: for the sea gates were open and… ‘By the God of the Light, no,’ he gasped.

  There, filling the sea gate, amassed on the sea walls and the open market wards, glaring across the agora at him and the ramshackle entourage, stood nearly two thousand Gothic warriors – including some of the ones they had taken prisoner at the odeum shortly after landing. They tapped their spears and swords on their free hands like butchers, eyes baleful, grinning like sharks.

  ‘How?’ the turnip-headed marine centurion spluttered.

  Pavo’s eyes swept to and fro across the waiting mob, then beyond, over the low sea walls to the stretch of shore and the gap at the end of the turf bastion. The gap was nearly closed thanks to the rising tide, but the sand nearby was churned and stained red. Bodies lay broken and some floated in the shallows. ‘The gap was overwhelmed,’ he whispered. ‘Eriulf?’ His heart thundered, knowing the Comes was dead and his men too. They must have been overcome there, or maybe the prisoners escaped and attacked them? Rest well, Brother, Pavo mouthed, then turned his eye to the serried Goths blocking the way onto the wharf.

  The citizens broke out in a rising wail of terror. Thousands of them – women, children and frail old folk – had now clustered around and behind Pavo and the marines, as if those few might save them.

  Pavo shared a look with Turnip-head, and the man’s face said it all. It was over. They would all die her
e today. But something wasn’t right, Pavo realised. Something with the wharf. He looked beyond the waiting, gleeful Goths, and saw that indeed something was missing. No masts. ‘Where is the fleet?’

  The marines gasped and muttered, then Turnip-head pointed. ‘There! At sea.’

  Pavo squinted and shaded his eyes from the glare of the sparkling waters. About a stadium out from the wharf, a number of dark shapes bobbed. Every boat in the Classis Moesica. ‘Who… how? The Goths have the fleet,’ he realised with horror.

  ‘It does not matter,’ Turnip-head moaned, clasping Pavo’s shoulder and twisting him round to look back into the heart of the city. The spilling, raucous roar of battle now echoed down the triumphal way, and the Roman retreat and the enormous swarm of attacking Goths driving them this way had rolled into view. Blood spurted from the hazy, silvery chaos, along with thrown weapons, chunks of shield, armour and body parts.

  Pavo stared at the twin horns upon which they were to be butchered, then dipped his head like a bull waiting to charge. He flexed his shaking hand, the feeling only now returning to it. ‘Will somebody give me a fucking sword.’

  Eriulf stood on the prow of the lead hexareme, the sea wind casting loose locks of hair behind him like the tails of a draco standard, his face glistening with a fine layer of sweat and bathed in the reddening sun. The city was mostly shadow now, but in the parts where the sunlight still stretched, he could see it all: the band of Goths holding the wharf and the sea gate, the mass of silvery battle, edging down the triumphal way towards the agora, and the crowds of citizens trapped in the centre of the white-flagged space. There was one silver-garbed one amongst them, draped in a red cloak. Eriulf’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am sorry, Brother,’ he said softly, ‘but before we were brothers, she was my sister. She died on my sword, and I can never forgive myself for that. That I struck her down to protect the emperor will haunt me forever. For this reason, I am sure, you would understand. If I could have saved you, I would have. But it was not to be. Your emperor and his army must perish here today. It will be quick, my friend, if you do not fight.’

  Yet as he spoke, he saw a tiny flicker of light as someone tossed a weapon to the red-cloaked one. He sighed deeply and let his head drop, turning his back upon the shoreline. He eyed the dried gore under his fingernails: the blood of one of the men in the land wall’s main gatehouse. He had not known the man he had killed there, and felt no hatred towards him. But he and the dozen others in the gatehouse had to die in order to bring this disaster upon the Roman state.

  ‘What now, sir?’ asked Randulf. He and the other rogue Thraciana men dotted around the Hexareme looked at him in veneration. The Thraciana manning the other ships too gazed over towards him.

  ‘Now, we wait until the screams and sounds of battle fade. Then, we return to the wharf. Finally, I will talk to Iudex Fritigern face to face. Together, we can organise a plan to deal with what remains of the Eastern forces, and how we might set up the cities as capitals of our own.’

  ‘In the dusk, we will feast in Thessalonica’s halls,’ one Gothic auxiliary raved, ‘while the carrion feast on the meat of the dead Romans!’

  Eriulf’s eyes rolled up and pinned the man. The fellow’s enthusiasm drained on the spot and he visibly shook. ‘I go too far, sir?’

  ‘You forget that amongst the Romans, some good men walk.’

  The fellow nodded and gulped, averting his gaze.

  Eriulf pinched the top of his nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘But no, I go too far. I allow weakness to taint my thoughts. For everything I have taught you,’ he said, addressing them all, raising his voice so even those on nearby ships could hear. ‘Everything you have learned, has been about the destruction of the empire and the rise of our kin from its ashes. It is an empire which has dragged our people into their lands and treated us like dogs. Thervingi, Greuthingi, Taifali, Sons of Arimer like me, or any other tribe: we are Goths, Wodin-chosen one and all.’

  The crew erupted in a rumble of throaty cheers.

  He stepped up onto a crate, patting his breastbone. ‘We are the worthy ones, the Vesi.’ He heard the spirit of his dead sister, Runa, whisper the words in his ear as he spoke. The mask of his Christian beliefs cracked and slid away. Very soon, it would no longer be needed. Fritigern’s horde might well be Arian, but that did not matter – they could be taught the old ways… given time. ‘When the time is right, I have taught you all, the Vesi will rise. That time is now, my kindred. That time is-’

  ‘Sir,’ Randulf gasped.

  Eriulf shot the man a foul glare. How dare he cut off the climax of a homily? But he noticed that the man was gawping back towards the shore, his face as white as snow. Then, like an invading wall of sound, a paean of horns shook the air, crawling across the seas from the shore. Roman horns.

  Eriulf’s skin crept. He twisted, slowly, to the land. Nothing had changed in the city: the Roman army and the citizens were now pressed together hopelessly in the agora, between the main body of the horde and the men lining the sea wall – hammer and anvil. Again, the eerie and echoing song of imperial horns wailed. Eriulf’s eyes rolled up, across the amphitheatre-like city, beyond its walls and broken dirt bastion, to the golden plains of Macedonia. The fields were empty and the horizon bare.

  And then a blotch of silver split heaven and earth. It spilled out into a stripe, then a wide band – wider even than the city. Triumphal and rapid blasts of more horns came and above the silvery band splashes of colour appeared at regular intervals. Eriulf gripped the Hexareme’s rail.

  ‘Wodin’s mercy, the legions of the West!’ one man cried.

  ‘They will fall upon the backs of the horde,’ Randulf croaked.

  ‘Sir, what are we to do?’

  Eriulf’s mouth dried of all moisture, his mind blank. Was this the end for the horde, for the Vesi cause?

  The throbbing song of trumpets was joined by a reply of low, moaning Gothic horns. Eriulf’s ears pricked up. ‘Fritigern has spotted the threat. He sounds for a retreat,’ he whispered.

  Every single man on the fleet craned over the edge of the vessel and watched as the horde, pressing upon the beleaguered Eastern legions on the northern and eastern edges of the agora square, gradually, then frantically pulled back. They streamed north through the city streets and the great pressure was lifted. Before the silvery tide of Western legions drew close enough to intercept, the warbands of the horde spilled from Thessalonica’s land gate and through the demolished turf bastion gate, out onto the plains. There, Fritigern’s blue hawk banner rose and the moaning horns sounded again. In a storm of dust, this huge mass rolled northwards, into the low hills that tapered from Mount Cissus.

  ‘The prisoners we set free and the two warbands we let in, they are now pinned at the wharf,’ Randulf said. ‘We must help them.’ the man’s head switched to and fro along the decks of the Hexareme and the other two giant vessels. ‘The ballistae, sir. We could wreak havoc with them.’

  Eriulf took a time to respond. Great things come from great sacrifices, Runa’s ghost whispered in his ear. When he finally did reply, he spoke calmly. ‘Yes, man the artillery. On my word...’

  Pavo, locked in combat with the sea-wall Goths, shielded a group of citizens with his body, while snatching looks behind him. The hordesmen who had poured into the city from the landward side were gone. Still it was not clear why. But they were gone! Now the two thousand foes who had seized the sea wall were trapped – the beleaguered Eastern legions turning to face them and the gap at the end of the turf bastion swallowed up by the tide. From the jaws of defeat, a breath of hope sighed. But this only seemed to spur the sea wall Goths into a renewed and fervent attack, no doubt eager to follow their fleeing hordesmen. He lashed his spatha across the spear thrust of one Goth.

  ‘Why does the fleet move sharply?’ Turnip-head panted, wiping sweat and blood from his face as he shoved another eager Goth back.

  Pavo parried a sword strike and caught a glance of the ships out there. They were t
urning, indeed, the bronze rams on the beaks of the ships flickering like molten gold as they manoeuvred, settling into place, side-on to the shore. Something else glinted – a series of flashes all along the hexareme rails – and Pavo’s heart plummeted as he realised what it was. The ballista bolts sped like a venue of iron-beaked vultures. Many of the other legionaries saw it too, and a great cry of despair rose… until the bolts ripped down into the backs of the Gothic two thousand. Pavo saw a red churn of blood and body fluids spit up behind the man he was facing, then the man himself arched his back, the tip of the ballista bolt bursting through his sternum and coming to a rest at last having already ruined more than seven other warriors behind him. Pavo, Turnip-head, the citizens and the legions who had been pushed down here from the land walls all took many steps back as, all along the low sea walls, Gothic warriors were punched from the battlements or the bolts arced expertly over the low defences and ploughed through the packed enemy ranks. One burst a man’s head, pinned two others and broke the legs of several more.

  ‘Eriulf,’ Pavo said, realising what had happened, looking out to the fleet – blood-red in the dipping sun. ‘It’s Eriulf and the Thraciana Auxiliaries. He took the fleet before the wharf fell! Mithras bless you.’

  Soon, the remaining Goths were in ruins, the sea walls stained red like much of the city. They pressed up inside the sea wall for shelter in their eagerness to be out of the line of sight of the brutal bolt throwers, tossing away their weapons. When at last the rain of iron shafts fell still, the battered remnant of the legions which had been pushed back from the land defences now rushed to the killing ground, seized the dropped weapons of the Goths and pinned them in a teeth of spears.

  ‘It’s over,’ Turnip-head whispered in disbelief. Citizens fell to their knees around the marine and Pavo, weeping, thanking their gods and the soldiers alike. Pavo saw the worried mother from earlier, her face stained with tears.