Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4)

by Gordon Doherty

  LEGIONARY

  THE SCOURGE OF THRACIA

  by Gordon Doherty

  First Kindle Edition 2015

  © 2015 Gordon Doherty

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

  www.gordondoherty.co.uk

  Also by Gordon Doherty:

  LEGIONARY

  Numerius Vitellius Pavo, enslaved as a boy after the death of his legionary father, is thrust into the border legions just before they are sent to recapture the long-lost eastern Kingdom of Bosporus. This sees him thrown into the jaws of a plot, so twisted that the survival of the entire Roman world hangs in the balance…

  LEGIONARY: VIPER OF THE NORTH

  In the frozen lands north of the Danubius a dark legend, thought long dead, has risen again. The name is on the lips of every warrior in Gutthiuda; the one who will unite the tribes, the one whose armies will march upon the empire, the one who will bathe in Roman blood . . .

  The Viper!

  LEGIONARY: LAND OF THE SACRED FIRE

  When Optio Numerius Vitellius Pavo and a select group of the XI Claudia are summoned to the Persian front, they leave Thracia behind, knowing little of what awaits them. They know only that they are to march into a burning land of strange gods. They whisper tales of the mighty Persian Savaran cavalry and pray to Mithras they will see their homes and families again. But for Pavo, the east holds the greatest mystery of all . . . the truth about his father.

  STRATEGOS: BORN IN THE BORDERLANDS

  When the falcon has flown, the mountain lion will charge from the east, and all Byzantium will quake. Only one man can save the empire . . . the Haga!

  STRATEGOS: RISE OF THE GOLDEN HEART

  Stay strong, Haga, for the Golden Heart will rise in the west. In the morning, he will wear the guise of a lion hunter. In the afternoon, he will march to the east as if to conquer the sun itself. In the evening you will stand with him in the final battle, like an island in the storm . . .

  STRATEGOS: ISLAND IN THE STORM

  The storm is upon us, Haga. The answers you seek dance within its wrath . . .

  On the plains of Manzikert, one great power will rise and another will fall. On the plains of Manzikert, Apion will face the storm.

  Table of Contents

  Maps & Military Diagrams

  Prologue: The Shipka Pass August 377AD

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Writing would be a very solitary pursuit without the good folk who offer me guidance, debate, theory, banter . . . and arrows (beautiful arrows!), all of which have kept me smiling and helped shape the work you are about to read.

  Sarah, Mum, Simon, Alun, Glyn, Sandra, Chris, Barry, Leni, Gavin, Dr Gheorghe, Petyo, Psellos (the 21st century incarnation) and Anax – this one’s for you.

  High Command Structure of the Eastern Imperial Army

  See glossary (at rear of book) for a description of terms

  Note that full and interactive versions of this and all the diagrams & maps can be found on the ‘Legionary’ section of my website, www.gordondoherty.co.uk

  Structure of Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis

  See glossary (at rear of book) for a description of terms

  The Roman Empire, circa 377 AD

  The Roman Diocese of Thracia

  & the Epicentre of the Gothic Wars, circa 377 AD

  Trajan’s Gate at the Succi Pass

  Prologue:

  The Shipka Pass

  August 377AD

  An eagle circled the azure sky, eyes scouring the slopes of the Haemus Mountains for prey, hunger gnawing at its belly. As if helping the eagle in its search, the warm summer wind strengthened and skirled around the craggy grey spurs of rock, buffeting the jagged silvery peaks and combing through the hardy foliage clinging to the slopes. Yet this yielded only spoors, puffs of dust or shuddering bushes where rodents had fled from sight, alert to the danger. Then the eagle spotted a hardy mountain goat, balanced precariously on the edge of a scarp to chew on the rough pasture there. But the goat was vigilant and already it was backing away towards an overhang under which its kids sheltered. There was no easy meal to be had here, so the eagle glided on to the south, its shadow tracing along the ridge path that rose towards the heart of the mountains. Here, at the highest point of the range, nothing moved. The zephyrs keened and the eagle felt its strength waning as it sought out something, anything . . .

  Then, its eyes locked onto an odd shape sitting astride and blocking the ridge path: a stone redoubt, lined with a small clutch of ironclad men. The men carried something on top of a staff that entranced the eagle momentarily; an effigy, a reflection of itself, wings spread and beak open as if crying out. But it was . . . silvery, glistening and inanimate, with some brightly-coloured banner dangling below it, rapping in the warm wind. Spellbound, the eagle circled here until something else caught its eye: more movement, coming along the ridge path from the north towards this blockade. Another group of men – far more than on the redoubt – carrying glittering blades and spears. The eagle had seen such movements before and knew what was surely coming next. A primal sense of imminent danger surged to the fore. Pure instinct took over and it beat a hasty retreat, shrieking as it went. The hunger would have to remain untended for now, but the eagle resolved to return here later in the day . . . when there would surely be plenty of carrion to be had.

  Sarrius started at the piercing cry, his hands clenching around his shield grip and spear. He muttered a curse at the departing eagle, then felt his embarrassment fade as he noticed that the rest of his century lining the fort’s northern wall had been shaken by the noise too. These mountains are impassable, he tried to assure himself. But, inevitably, his gaze returned to the north and along the ridge path, eyes darting nervously over the rim of his shield, impassable . . . except for this cursed, dusty ridge.

  The Shipka Pass had been his home and that of the V Macedonica legion for months. All the minor broken paths north and south of the range converged onto this one precipitous ridge that ran north to south, presenting a narrow yet feasible route by which man and wagon might traverse the range. The drop on either side was perilously steep, and here, at its highest point, the path widened to a few hundred paces and commanded a fine view over the range for miles. For that reason, the battered, depleted legions of Thracia had set up this windswept fort: a sturdy stone-walled compound – eight feet high – blocking and guarding the path from all that might come from the north. The sides of the cramped structure were flush with the steep drop either side of the ridge and a timber palisade lined the top of the walls, part-shielding the legionaries stationed on its battlements.

  Sarrius saw no movement out there, nothing apart from rippling pools of water on the track. And beyond a half mile, he could see little, the blue-ish haze and the mountains in the north obscuring the twisting ridge path. But this lack of movement gave him no comfort. From the corner of his eye, he could see a grey-black form lying far down in th
e valley: the broken body of a Goth, dead for over a fortnight, white bone jutting from the putrefying flesh. It’s only a matter of time until they come at us again.

  He tried to calm himself, glancing up at the pleasant summer sky. Breathe, he told himself, filling his lungs.

  ‘We’ll smell them before we see them,’ a nervous voice said by his side.

  Sarrius turned to see his comrade, Bato, wearing a tight grin like a mask. He chuckled dutifully by way of reply, as did a few others close by on the battlements.

  His fear under control, he returned his gaze to the north and fished out a piece of salted mutton from the purse on his belt. Chewing on this would lift his spirits further, he reckoned. But his hand only got to within a few inches of his lips, when his eyes locked onto something: a shuddering bush, just where the path on the ridge melted into the haze and disappeared behind a rocky peak crowned with a cairn of silver boulders. The ice returned to his veins and his vision sharpened. There had been the briefest flash of something. Eyes? Steel? His heart thumped on his ribs and he dropped the salt mutton over the wall as he readied to give the cry of alarm . . . when a pair of squirrels darted from the bush, tangled in some play-fight, before racing on into another cluster of shrubs.

  He glanced to Bato, then both men’s shoulders sagged with sighs of relief.

  ‘And that was my last strip of mutton,’ Sarrius chuckled.

  Fritigern, Iudex of the Thervingi and the Gothic Alliance ducked back behind the silver cairn. He cast a sour glare at the pair of rodents that had nearly betrayed his position – play-fighting in the bush by the path just below. Fritigern was taller and broader than most, though age had rendered him a little hunched and turned his once long, fiery locks and beard mostly iron-grey. Still, the handful of warriors crouched with him looked to him expectantly. These five were his keenest scouts, each lithe and fleet of foot. While he wore the garb of a warrior-king – an iron helm, a fine baked leather vest and dark-blue robes and a cloak – these scouts were barefoot and bare-chested, wearing only trousers and armed solely with daggers. And how they had proved their worth by getting him this close to the damned fort unseen.

  No Roman alarm call had been sounded, he realised. The legionaries had seen the rodents and nothing more. So he took off his helm and edged his head beyond the top of the cairn, looking to the fortified high-point of the pass once more. The fort’s northern wall mocked him with its presence. Like a great dam, it was still and obstinate, denying his hordes a route south. The serried rank of legionary steel looking on from the battlement jutted like fangs. Fin-topped intercisa helms, spears, mail vests and bright shields. A century, he thought, with maybe another three or four centuries in the neat, narrow lines of tents pitched in the limited space within the cramped fort. So few of them, he thought. So few, yet enough to stem the movements of my people. And but damn have I not tried to break through?

  Indeed, the front of the wall was scarred with sword cuts, studded with hundreds of Gothic arrow shafts and stained with smoke and dark-brown dried blood. The armies of his alliance had crashed against this blockade several times, yet each time they had been repelled, his men fleeing back along the ridge path to their camp, north of the mountains.

  He slunk back behind the cairn and sighed. It had been this way for months now, ever since the Battle at Ad Salices. The Romans had quickly realised the legions of Thracia could not defeat the Gothic Alliance nor drive it back across the River Danubius. So the legions had withdrawn to the south, leaving the Goths in the former Roman province known as Moesia – the northern tract of the Diocese of Thracia – and blockading the five precious passes of the mountains with stockades like this one to keep them there. Moesia might have been a welcome acquisition, Fritigern mused, were it not bereft of forage and fodder, plundered by his armies some months ago of what bounty it had to offer. And Gutthiuda, their old northern homeland across the River Danubius, had been lost to the marauding Hun hordes, so they could never return there. Now, there was no option but to break these cursed blockades, to burst through and descend into the heartlands of Roman Thracia in the south, where fresh pasture and plenty grain waited. He felt the ire and wrath of his youth rekindled, his muscles tensing with anticipation, his hands flexing, reaching for his shield and longsword.

  Just then, a faint scrabbling of dust and pebbles sounded behind him. He swung round to see his sixth scout climb up from the near-sheer mountain-side and onto this rocky outcrop. The scout scuttled over to him, sure to stay out of view of the Roman fort. ‘They are changing the watch, Iudex,’ he said, stooping a little lower in genuflection.

  Fritigern’s eyes widened to match the look of the scout. It was time. He heard the distant calls of the Roman centurions and the faint rumble of boots as the legionaries atop the wall filed off the battlements to be replaced by a fresh watch. This was the perfect time for an assault, he grinned, then edged his head to the side of the cairn and cast his eyes along the mountain ridge towards the fort. The long-grass and shrubs on the slopes either side of the path writhed in the wind, fleetingly exposing his vanguard of soldiers. A hundred men. They moved like insects, bellies pressed to the steep sides of the ridge, shields strapped to their backs, remaining unseen so far and moving only when they were sure the Romans would not spot them. In previous attacks, his soldiers had tried to charge along the ridge path and overwhelm the fort’s north wall head on. But each time they had been sighted a good half-mile away, and the Romans had ample time to prepare a defence against such a narrow-fronted assault. This time, they would be granted no such luxury. His lips played with a grin, tempered by the knowledge that many more of his kind would die in today’s efforts. And so it has always been, he thought, fending off his doubts.

  He took up his spear, adorned with a strip of sapphire-blue silk emblazoned with a black hawk, then stood tall, chopping it to and fro like an axe. ‘Rise!’ he bellowed, the baritone cry echoing across the granite mountains like that of a war-god. At once, it brought the hundred tall, fair-haired hidden Goths scrambling up the ridge-sides and onto the path, just a handful of paces from the Roman fort’s northern wall. They came together, swung their shields round from their backs and, just as he had trained them to, they formed a mini shield-wall, breaking to allow Gothic archers to rise and loose short, sharp volleys at the wall’s unprepared defenders. Legionaries lurched and screamed as the arrows found throats and eyes, their bodies toppling from the stockade, gouts of blood staining the air as they crashed onto the ground before the Goths or tumbled down the sides of the ridge, limbs flailing. A handful of Goths broke away, drawing out grappling irons and lengths of rope from their belts. They swung these ropes like slings then hurled the irons at the timber-stake battlements, before wrenching them tight and scaling the wall.

  Fritigern watched with keen eyes. The Romans’ usual iron-discipline was gone, he realised. Instead of issuing thick volleys of darts and javelins, they were panicked, with many dropping their shields and struggling to pull the grappling hooks free. These legionaries were quickly shot by the Gothic archers. Then the first of his climbers reached the walltop. These men were lost in the madness of battle, some leaping onto the battlements with great swings of their longswords, heedless of their own mortality. They cut through legionaries’ arms and torsos, spraying fresh blood on the timber palisade. But one by one, they were cut down, as he knew they would be, having served their noble purpose well. The final few climbers fought their last on the wall top and the packs of shielded Gothic archers suddenly found themselves under the full attention of the Roman archers and javelin-throwers. It seemed that the Gothic attack was about to be repelled.

  Then, the ridge echoed with the wail of a Gothic war horn.

  Fritigern clenched a fist in anticipation of victory, seeing the Roman defenders slow then freeze in their melee with his vanguard. Every one of them looked beyond, to what was coming up the ridge path from the north at great haste. Fritigern did likewise, turning to see his wing of galloping mail
and leather-clad riders and the horde of equally well-armoured Gothic spearmen and archers running behind them. A jostling sea of blades, helms and blonde locks. A serpent of warriors, snaking as far as the eye could see along the lofty ridge path. Two thousand men, he enthused, surely enough to break this cursed blockade at last.

  He slid down the scree from the cairn and onto the path. The foremost Gothic rider brought with him a riderless horse. Seeing his Iudex, he slowed to a canter. Fritigern held out a hand and grabbed the reins from the rider, hauled himself onto the saddle, then heeled the beast forward. ‘Ya!’ he cried, sweeping his longsword aloft. ‘Take the walls,’ he yelled as his forces swept ahead of him in a great din of war cries and on to press against the base of the fort wall. They carried with them three tall ladders, which they swung up to clatter into place against the battlements. Moments later, hundreds of Gothic warriors were racing up the rungs. Showers of arrows and spears thrown from the Gothic mass punched back the thinning band of legionaries atop the wall, and soon the defenders were but small pockets of men, fighting in vain to push back the ladders laden with warriors who were now only a few rungs away from the top.

  ‘Yes,’ Fritigern whispered, then filled his lungs to bellow: ‘Yes! Seize the battleme-’

  His cry was cut short by the keening of a buccina. In moments, the walltop flooded with a fresh batch of silver-clad legionaries. Two more centuries . . . then a third. He saw that they brought with them long poles fitted with steel hooks at the end. These swathes of legionaries then hooked the poles to the ladder-tops, gradually but surely forcing the ladders back from the walls until they teetered, near-vertical. A heartbeat later, the pass filled with shrill screams as the most central of the ladders toppled backwards, tossing armour-laden Goths to the ground where many perished with the stark sound of cracking of skulls and vertebrae, and many more were injured, crushed under the weight of their falling comrades. The climbers on the ladders close to the corners of the fort met a grimmer end, these ladders swinging back not onto the ridge path but out over the edges of the ridge, ladders and men tumbling down the jagged slopes in a tumult of dust, blood, snapping timber and bone and screaming. In moments, the seemingly inexorable Gothic advance had stalled – the two thousand stranded at the foot of the walls with no means of scaling the sturdy stockade. A peculiar silence descended for but an instant, before the battlements rippled with silver as a myriad darts and javelins were raised and the stretching of hundreds of Roman bowstrings sounded.