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

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Eh, four, why?’ said Gasto

  ‘Well, there were nearly fifty when we first came, and we’ve taken four every time,’ said Boda. ’The old bastard will be of no use to us after today.’

  Gasto curled his bottom lip and nodded once, slowly. ‘You round up the geese, I’ll drown him.’

  ‘Ya,’ Boda yelled, heeling his horse into a canter.

  The old man looked up, his poor sight meaning he could only stare in the vague direction of the noise of hooves. ‘No… no!’ he screamed, backing away, crouching and reaching out to gather his beloved geese.

  The geese, of course, scattered, panicked by the noise. Boda cantered onto the well-trodden earth outside the simple home, herding the four birds towards the red bluff face. When the old man shambled over in an attempt to intervene, Gasto lowered his spear across the fellow’s path. ‘Don’t worry, old man. You won’t miss them. Not for long, anyway.’

  Boda leapt from his horse and grabbed two of the birds by the neck, ready to wring the life from them.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Gasto, hopping down from his own horse and grabbing the old man, bending one of his arms behind his back and steering the fellow’s head in the direction of the birds. ‘Can you see better now, old fool?’ The two half-strangled birds honked and flapped in terror. Gasto barged the old man over to the tarn’s edge, kicking the backs of his knees. The man fell and Gasto plunged his head under the surface. ‘Or how about now, old man? Can you see? Can you see your dead wife now?’ he roared then nearly buckled with laughter.

  And then his head exploded.

  The slingshot had burst his forehead like the top of an egg, and he fell – that mocking look frozen on his face – into the tarn, and floated out into the depths in a slick of his own brains and blood.

  Boda whirled round, only long enough to see what had happened, before an arm clamped around his neck from behind and twisted, sharply. With a crack of bone, he fell, still alive but paralysed from the neck down. The geese fell free of his grip and ran to join the other two.

  Boda looked up at the eagle-faced Roman who stood over him. ‘I… I am Boda,’ he croaked, ‘I am a great warrior… warden of these parts.’

  The eagle-faced one crouched by him. ‘You are a coward and a bully. Today, this old man and his geese are victors over you.’ With that, he drew a small knife and carefully nicked Boda’s neck. The artery spewed blood and in moments, Boda fell into a cold, dark, eternal abyss.

  Pavo rose from the staring corpse and turned to the old man, just as Sura leapt down from his hiding place on the roof, tucking his sling into his pocket.

  ‘May the Goddess of the Grain bless you,’ the old man wailed, falling to his knees and kissing the hands of both of them.

  Pavo helped him up. ‘You have sheltered us and fed us for this past moon, friend. It is us who wish you the blessings of the gods.’

  ‘You will eat like emperors tonight,’ he said, wiping tears from his eyes.

  Pavo rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Tonight, you will eat our shares. We have what we need,’ he said, watching as Sura stripped the two dead Goths of their garments and armour, ‘and time presses down upon us. We need to be on our way, before the two forces north and south of here come together.’

  ‘I will be in the path of battle, then?’ the old fellow said, lifting one goose and kissing its head. The bird pecked playfully at his bulbous nose.

  Pavo glanced around the tarn, the bluff and the scree track. Rugged, broken terrain. ‘No. This is not a battlefield,’ he assured him, picking up the leather bags of his and Sura’s possessions and slinging them over the backs of the two Gothic horses. He shot a last look at the two dead Goths. ‘And few men – Goth or Roman – are as cruel as that pair.’

  By mid-afternoon, they had buried the two Goths and were on their way, clad in soft, dark red leather jerkins, green cloaks, blue woollen trousers and wearing the shields, spears and longswords of the slain two. Sura went bare-headed; thanks to his pale features and golden locks it did not matter if anyone saw his face. Pavo wore the one called Boda’s visored helm – a cheap imitation of what a reiks might wear. It covered most of his head and the visor part-hid his dark eyes and aquiline nose. Even better, both sported several months’ worth of beard growth, taking the edge off of any lingering Roman-ness.

  ‘Those two pricks came from the stronghold in the northwest,’ Pavo reiterated the plan, ‘so they’ll be missed there, but nobody worth their salt will notice their absence anywhere else. So the Tonsus and the twin hills it is.’

  ‘Right into their camp? You’re sure?’ Sura said. ‘We could ride north across the meadows in between the Gothic watch points. We might not be seen at all.’

  Pavo shook his head. ‘They’re too close together – within sighting distance, that’s how the beacon system works. They’re more likely to ride out and challenge a pair of riders racing through the gap between two guarded points than they are to make a fuss about two scout riders ambling right into one of them.’

  It took them the rest of that day and the next to come within sight of the twin hills. Since they had last set eyes upon it, the hilltops had been fortified with stakes and squat archer platforms. Two hundred or more Goths were up there, strolling inside the stake palisade, mock-sparring or gazing south, watching the horizon. As they approached along the Tonsus’ eastern bank, they passed Goths down on the lowland by the shallows, washing clothes and filling waterskins. A few looked up as they moved by. One, washing what looked like a well-soiled loincloth, caught Pavo’s eye… and stared.

  Pavo felt a spike of fear try to pin him. He swallowed the sensation with a disguised gulp, and offered the Goth a grunt and a flick of the head. The warrior grunted back, and returned to washing his disgusting undergarments.

  The two horses climbed the rightmost of the hills, and the shadow of the picket line fell over them. The two soldiers guarding the simple, low gate called down to them. ‘You’re not one of our lot.’

  A warm welcome, thought Pavo. At once, his certainty and confidence over the plan drained. Sura’s idea of charging north across the meadows between this stronghold and the next one seemed eminently more sensible. Why would riders from another post come to this one? With news, maybe. But what news? For water… no, the streams and rivers were abundant in these parts at this time of year. His horse nickered and spluttered.

  ‘The horses need some silage,’ he said before too long a silence passed.

  The man’s eyes narrowed, before he shrugged and motioned to the one manning the gates. The gates groaned backwards and they walked their mounts inside. Gruff and guttural laughter rolled from a bunch of Goths gathered around the stones of an unlit fire, and they clacked cups of barley beer together in self-congratulation of some sort. None paid them a bit of attention.

  ‘There’s the back gate,’ Sura murmured under his breath.

  It lay open. Beyond, the way to Kabyle.

  ‘You!’ a voice snapped, behind them.

  Pavo’s stomach twisted. As slowly as he could, he looked back over his shoulder. The gate sentry was frowning at them. ‘Hay for the horses? Over there.’ he pointed at the piled dry grass, where other horses were picketed and cropping away happily. Pavo tilted his head in what was meant to be a lazy nod of gratitude. They slid from their saddles and let the horses eat, praying for a moment that the beasts would have enough of an appetite to validate the story.

  ‘Give it until the hour is out, then we’ll leave. It’ll be dusk by then, and it’ll be easier,’ he whispered to Sura.

  ‘Another story!’ cried one of the beer-drinking ones, spittle flying from his lips, his fair moustache coated in froth. None of the men around the circle volunteered. The fair-haired one swept his head around, his face covered in blue spiral tattoos. ‘What about you two?’ he said.

  Pavo’s heart sank like a stone.

  ‘I’ve got this,’ Sura whispered, stepping forward. ‘You want a story that will make you laugh?’

&nbs
p; They cheered in agreement.

  ‘About dead Romans?’

  Another cheer.

  ‘About big tits?’

  A raucous roar this time.

  ‘There was this time when Pa- er, Pavherd and I came across the river – before the war.’

  The Goths shared odd looks at the name ‘Pavherd’, but seemed to be following the tale happily enough.

  ‘We went to one of the Roman taverns in Durostorum.’

  The mantra of a good lie, Pavo thought, keep it as close to the truth as possible.

  ‘The barmaid in there, well,’ Sura faltered for a moment, shooting a furtive glance at Pavo. ‘She was beautiful.’

  Pavo gulped away a pang of grief, thinking of Felicia.

  ‘And Pavherd here had his way with her.’

  The Goths raised their cups and yelled in appreciation as Sura did an elaborate pelvic thrusting motion in mid air. ‘Me? I caught the eye of an older sort. Breasts like plump waterskins.’

  ‘Raar!’ the Goths cried, one shaking his head from side to side as if rubbing his face in said bosom. Pavo almost laughed too – it was the story of their first visit to the Boar and Hollybush in Durostorum as recruits.

  ‘A filthy Go… er, a filthy gormless Roman took exception to this though. Started throwing his weight around. I cracked my elbow back into his face, dropped him like a stone. Swung round and left hooked another – broke his nose. Pavherd here ended up scrambling about behind the bar, knocking over a stack of barrels. An entire contubernium, I knocked out. And the big-chested maiden? Well let’s just say she couldn’t walk for a week after that.’

  They exploded in a cheer once again, then settled. A few were misty-eyed now, muttering about the times before the war, when the empire and the Gothic tribes had traded and been allies of sorts. ‘When do you think they’ll come?’ said the tattooed one, flicking his head to the south.

  ‘The Western legions?’ replied Pavo. ‘before the moon is out, I’d say.’

  The Goth’s eyes tapered a little, and for a moment, Pavo felt certain that the man had seen right through his act. He took a sup of his beer and regarded Pavo as a man might evaluate a piece of fruit on the turn. ‘They say Gratian is a different prospect to Theodosius.’

  Pavo nodded. ‘Aye, he is. His armies are stronger, his state more secure. But his heart will split like any man’s, when the time comes to put a blade through it.’

  This conjured the biggest cheer of the night. The tattooed one raised his cup to the two and beamed manically. ‘I saw you make for the northern gate earlier – you are heading back to Kabyle?’

  ‘Aye,’ Pavo said warily.

  ‘Then tell the lazy dogs there that Kori can smell them from here,’ he roared at his own joke.

  Dusk came, and Pavo and Sura walked their horses from the rear gate of the hilltop camp without challenge. They trotted north and – when darkness came – picked up into a canter.

  ‘I meant what I said back there,’ Pavo called to Sura as they rode. ‘Gratian will mobilise his legions soon. We must get to Kabyle before he does, to show Fritigern the offer of peace. To somehow get his response back to Constantinople. Theodosius may have shunned me before, but he cannot pass up a solid offer of peace.’

  They sped on into the night, stopping to shelter in a deserted stone watchtower on the banks of a foaming stream. They tied their horses in a nearby field, gathered what kindling they could find and made a fire and laid out their bedding on the tower’s top level – open to the skies. In the morning, they rose, splashed cold stream water over their faces and ate a simple breakfast of bread smeared with fat before setting off again. Their destination rolled into view before midday, and it had them both muttering oaths: it was a dust-bowl land which rose in the centre, where the Tonsus snaked past the stout mound-settlement of Kabyle. A haze of red dust hung in the air over the place and all around it, and the land there seemed to move as if crawling with ants. Warbands wheeled and ran across the flat ground on the Tonsus’ west banks in practice-combat, and on the eastern banks the riders of the horde charged to and fro or brushed and preened their mounts.

  ‘For every single spear Gratian brought from the West, one waits in reply, here. If it comes to battle, it will be a slaughter on both sides,’ Pavo muttered.

  ‘If we can get to Fritigern, that’s exactly what we tell him,’ Sura said solemnly.

  They kept up the same demeanour that had got them through the hilltop stronghold, sitting proudly in their saddles as they clopped across a wooden bridge spanning the Tonsus. The far bridgehead touched the banks before the lower town’s gates, and they passed inside unchallenged.

  Within Kabyle, mothers washed and mended clothes, children ran around in play near a well, faces painted like warriors with the river clay, dogs yapped and the stench of the horde’s livestock wafted through the heat. The town was a jungle of simple, red-tiled Roman homes – albeit long neglected and repaired with thatching in places – with the mound acropolis at the centre rising like a trophy.

  ‘The acropolis,’ Sura whispered in Greek, ‘that’s where he is. See the royal guards up there?’

  Pavo watched the majestic, cloaked warriors gliding along the battlements slowly and steadily, watchful and mesmerising. They wore visored helms like him, and he wondered if they peered down at them just as he did up at them.

  ‘Father!’ a shrill voice cut through the air like vinegar through oil.

  Pavo looked down to the dusty flagstones before him. A boy with a shock of blonde – nearly white – hair scampered from the well and towards him, leaving tiny wet footprints in his wake, his lone braid at the back of his head jostling in his wake. Pavo stared at the lad, horror arising in him.

  ‘Father is bac-’ the boy stopped dead, his face scrunching up, eyes regarding the horse, the garb Pavo wore, then falling upon the exposed lower half of Pavo’s face… and the short, shaggy beard. Black as night, unlike Boda’s pale whiskers.

  ‘Balls,’ Sura groaned under his breath.

  The boy backed away, and Pavo knew it would be to tell his friends or his mother of this stranger wearing Father’s armour. ‘Boda is laid low with a fever,’ Pavo said in the calmest tone he could muster.

  The boy’s face flickered up in an unconvincing smile. His eyes slid towards a nearby house where adults had gathered.

  ‘Kori tends to him at the Tonsus hill camp.’ Pavo continued.

  The boy tilted his head one way then the other. Maybe convinced, probably not. He scampered off.

  ‘We had to be quick anyway, but now we need to get to Fritigern before that lad raises suspicions,’ Pavo hissed.

  They slid from their saddles, picketing their horses by a watering area with a drinking trough. A few other cavalrymen milled about nearby, applying oil to their weapons, talking eagerly of the impending clash with the legions.

  Pavo and Sura offered some of them grunts by way of greeting, before approaching the long, winding track up to the acropolis. The sun shimmered on the scree slopes – the only means of cover being small patches of dark ferns and gorse. Two Gothic spearmen stood watch halfway up, as watchful as their royal guard counterparts.

  ‘No man can sneak up there,’ Sura groaned. ‘Not even me.’

  ‘Not even you,’ Pavo replied wryly. He looked sideways to see that every other person nearby had some business or purpose, and those who did not languished convincingly, slumped in doorways or stretched out in patches of shade, sleeping. A few passers-by stared at them, and one slumbering man prised open one eye to peer at them. Every moment that passed felt like the Gothic veil they wore was being peeled off bit by bit. Realising they were right in the middle of the flagged road leading to the slopes, Pavo nudged Sura and the pair shuffled over into the pleasant shade by a tavern where men supped on cups of foaming beer. They watched for nearly an hour, and nothing changed. At last, an open-backed wagon rolled by and on up the hill, heaped with sacks and baskets. They watched it go. When it trundled past the two spea
r guards halfway up, they heard the driver say: ‘Grain and game for the Iudex’ stores. There’ll be another one along within the hour with fodder for the horses.’

  It was like a key clunking in a lock. Pavo turned to Sura. Both shared a flicker of a smile.

  Chapter 15

  Hartmut peered down from the acropolis gatehouse, surveying the shimmering lower town. His royal guard armour felt like an oven. Sweat raced down his neck and back and he longed for the cool of night when he could retire to the small barrack house up here for shade and rest. ‘Only’ another four hours to go, he thought, dryly, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth and his brain pulsing inside his skull. He noticed then the gaze of Hengist – Fritigern’s bodyguard and advisor – burning into the side of his head. Hartmut had fainted once before on watch, and had only narrowly escaped execution when he explained to Hengist that he had not fallen asleep. He had sworn then that it would never happen again, to his Iudex and to himself.

  A clatter of hooves and wheels rose from the avenue below. The second wagon with the hay. Activity, he mused, glad of something to take his mind off the crawl of time. He glanced towards the stairs leading down from the parapet into the acropolis grounds. He would have to open the gate when the wagon came up here. He stretched one foot out towards the stairs, but a loud bang! stopped him. His head and many others jerked towards the noise. Down below, the wagon had fallen still, sagging to one side at the rear.

  ‘A broken wheel,’ he heard someone down there groan. ‘A pole in the spokes,’ moaned the driver – an old fellow with blonde hair streaked with strands of white. ‘Someone must have thrown it.’

  The air of alarm dissolved into a muted babble of discussion and a swell of bodies as men gathered round to help. Hartmut saw one man talking to the driver then beckoning him down. As others got to work on replacing the wheel, the driver was talked into entering the tavern by one pair. The driver hesitated at first, then saw the chaos of the half-dozen men who were trying to prize off the broken wheel, and shrugged, gladly accepting a cold cup of beer. It was almost an hour later before the wagon was on its way again, and by then Hartmut was back to feeling foggy and tired. The late afternoon heat was always the most trying, he mused as he hauled the gate bar away and pulled the gates open. The wagon rolled in and Hartmut welcomed the driver. Part-silhouetted by the late sun, the fellow seemed different somehow. Younger? The power of barley beer! He thought with a chuckle as the wagon rolled out of sight behind the acropolis storehouse.