At last, he came to her tent. ‘Felicia?’ he called out, unsure if the dangerous, scalpel-wielding Lucilla might be inside. ‘Felicia?’
Nothing. Then . . . sobbing. A faint, weak sobbing.
‘Felicia, what’s . . . ’ he started, sweeping the tent flap back then falling silent as he saw Lucilla.
Lucilla looked up, her face stained with tears and her shoulders shuddering as she wept.
Pavo felt an icy stone settle in his belly.
The lamplight guttered, illuminating Felicia’s face and the angry purple bruise that had blossomed on her temple. She muttered feverishly, her skin bathed in a slick of sweat, while Lucilla dabbed at her brow with a wet rag.
‘There must be something that can ease her pain?’ Pavo insisted.
‘She’s had as much henbane as I can give her,’ Lucilla shook her head, moving the jug of crushed seeds in water from Pavo as if to stop him from trying.
‘Pavo,’ Dexion said softly, placing a hand across his chest, ‘she is as well as can be hoped. The camp physician will be by her side all night,’ he nodded to Lucilla.
‘As will I,’ Pavo insisted.
‘You know that cannot be,’ Dexion replied. ‘You are exhausted. When did you last sleep properly? You had days of marching before you even rescued me, did you not? Tomorrow, you will need to be swift, as will we all.’ He tried to force the barely touched bowl of vegetable stew and a hunk of bread into Pavo’s hands again, but Pavo pushed it away.
‘Dexion, whoever attacked her might return,’ Pavo countered, his eyes tracing the gash on her neck – a failed arterial cut, he was sure. Someone had tried to kill her. The guards who had heard a scuffle in the principia had only just missed the offender, it seemed. And what in Mithras’ realm did you think you were doing in there? he screamed inside. You promised you would wait for my return before acting on your suspicions!
Dexion took him by the shoulders and held his gaze. ‘Whoever attacked her will be long gone from this camp, I am sure of it. Regardless, I will organise a party of four to watch this tent tonight. There are some good men in this camp, believe it or not. They will see that no further harm comes to her.’
Pavo made to argue, then his shoulders slumped and he nodded. He kissed Felicia’s cheek, then rose with his brother. The pair left, walking through the camp at last light, heads bowed.
Saturninus heard the buccina blare once more outside his tent, heard the stampede of boots, the cries of his centurions and the thunder of his heart. He had been taught many years ago to hide his fear, and today, that lesson came to good use. He slid on his bronze scale vest, swept on his swordbelt and cloak, then placed his helmet on and sucked in a deep breath. The ground trembled underfoot, and the buccina cries were drowned out by the growing wail of Gothic War Horns. He drew his spatha and gazed at his wan reflection in the blade – not at all rugged or bellicose like the fearless generals he wished he could match.
‘Yet the day I stop trying is the day I fail,’ he muttered under his breath, fending off the gnashing terror in his belly once more, sheathing the blade and striding from the tent.
Outside in a haze of gold-threaded late-afternoon sunlight, chaos reigned.
Stray arrows pattered down all around the fortlet floor and a growing guttural roar sounded from outside the northerly wall. Sharp screams and strangled cries pierced the air along the battlements where the bunched line of legionaries weathered the arrow storm of the approaching Gothic assault. Some slumped, heads lolling with arrows jutting from eye sockets, while others staggered back, fell from the walkway and crunched onto the fort floor. And only a few centuries waited in reserve, standing with shaking legs, ready to rush onto the northerly battlement as needed. Saturninus hurried past them and up the steps. He pushed between a centurion and the legionary next to him to look down along the ridge. His belly clenched in terror at the sight before him. The ridge was awash with warriors. Not just a warband, many thousands of them this time, stretching off as far as he could see. The Gothic infantry front was but a hundred paces from the wall. Their helms glittered in the sunlight, flowing locks whipping up, spears, swords and bows readied. And those to the front carried with them ladders and climbing hooks.
A shield swept up before him, just catching the next volley of Gothic arrows. ‘There are too many of them, sir,’ the V Macedonica centurion cried to him. ‘We’ll be overrun.’
‘Nonsense. We have faced them like this many times before. Their numbers count for little,’ he insisted, wishing he could believe his own words.
‘Ready!’ another officer called out and buccinas sounded to reaffirm the order. At once, the line of legionaries stiffened, spears levelled as the Goths reached the wall. The ladders swung up and rattled into place with a rhythmic certainty and in moments they were thick with climbing warriors.
‘All I ask is that you hold this wall until dark,’ Saturninus cried to the centurion. ‘For then, our reinforcements will be here. A whole new legion.’ He said this as loud as he could, eager for the legionaries to hear. He stepped back as the din of battle erupted. Iron singing in discord. Snarling, screaming men. Bodies being ruined on sharpened steel. Flitting back down the steps, blood puffing overhead, he readied the reserves. ‘Watch for gaps in our lines then hasten to fill them,’ he implored them.
Then he turned away from the battle and to the fort’s southern wall and thought of the dauntless Gallus. Come on man, come on! He mouthed. The tribunus and his new cohorts should have been back by now, but there had been neither sight nor sound of them. He clapped his hands and waved one of his few scout riders over. ‘Ride south until you cross paths with the Claudia,’ he said, then lowered his voice, ‘they cannot be far from here but you must urge them to make haste.’ But the rider was distracted, looking to the southern wall.
Saturninus frowned and looked up with the scout. The thin scattering of sentries on the walls by the fortlet’s southern gate were standing a little taller, shielding their eyes, calling out some form of challenge. His heart lifted. They have come? At once, he envisioned how the Claudia would be deployed, imagining rank after rank of reinforcement, sure that victory could again be had.
His hopes were dashed like a skull by a cudgel. First, one of the sentries by the south gate was punched back, his chest riven with short, thick arrows. Then a looped length of rope swung up from beyond the southerly wall, fell over the head of another sentry and swiftly yanked tight. The crack of the soldier’s breaking neck cut off his terse scream and his body was hauled from the southern wall and out of the fort.
‘What the?’ Saturninus gasped.
Then, like a plague of ants, short, stocky warriors in hides and leathers poured over the southern wall, climbing on ropes. They fell upon the thin smattering of sentries there with the ferocity of wolves, tearing at them with daggers and long blades.
Huns? They have found the hidden path? Saturninus drew his spatha and waved to his reserve centuries. ‘To the southern wa-’ he started, but his cry was cut short when a pair of the Huns dropped to the fort floor and hoisted the locking bar from the southern gate. The gate swung open to reveal a cluster of forty or more Huns, mounted, bows nocked, faces bent in animal grimaces.
‘No, no!’ Saturninus gasped.
A cloud of arrows shot forth, punching some of his reserves to the ground, while more dismounted Huns sped along the east and west walls then clambered up the northern timber corner towers and launched a frenzied attack on the archers up there, bloodied bodies being tossed down.
The reserve centuries hurried to engage the mounted Huns who had broken inside the fort, pulling some from their mounts. One legionary’s head was cleaved by a Hun blade, brains spraying Saturninus. The stocky warrior then came for him. Saturninus saw his blade flash up to block the Hun’s, then felt the dull judder of his spatha sinking deep into the steppe warrior’s chest. He backed away from the crumpling foe and hurried up the steps to the northern wall again. Already, gaps had formed in the legionary
line there. Goths were swarming onto the battlements. The centurion who had shielded him fought on manfully, then caught sight of Saturninus. ‘Sir, we have to retre-’ his cry was cut off as an arrow took him in the throat. As he fell, Saturninus saw the swarm of armour and blades coming up the ladders. With them came a giant. Not Fritigern or any of the snake-like reiks. This man was like a titan, driving the Gothic horde on. Farnobius, Saturninus realised, the champion Gallus had spoken of.
‘Take the fort!’ the giant roared. Then his eyes met with Saturninus and he grinned a foul grin unbecoming of a noble soldier. Lifting his great axe like an accusing finger to point at the magister equitum, he bellowed; ‘Bring me that one’s head!’
From the corners of his eyes, Saturninus saw the legionaries falling in swathes. One severed head rolled before him, a length of spine trailing behind the crimson stump of a neck. The wall was all but taken. He glanced over his shoulder: the skirmish with the Huns had been won, the last few of them fleeing through the southern gate. But the horsemen had served their purpose, engaging the reserve centuries long enough for the north wall to be overwhelmed. ‘Back . . . ’ he quavered, his meek voice betraying him again, his retreating step quickening towards the steps as the giant now surged up the ladders too. ‘Back!’ he tried again, hoarsely this time. ‘Back!’ he roared now, like a lion. ‘Retreat!’ he cried. ‘The pass has fallen. Retreat to the south!’
He stumbled down the steps and into the fort, leapt upon the grey mare one soldier brought him and waved his remaining men together, riding at their rear to shepherd them to safety, through the fort’s southern gates and off down the ridge towards central Thracia. They fled at great haste, and as he looked back over his shoulder, he saw the giant Goth and his masses pour over the broken stockade. They spilled into the fort, cheering at their conquest.
The Romans sped downhill and soon the Goths who pursued gave up the chase, content in their victory and eager to pillage the fort. An hour later, when Saturninus and his ragged band of just a few hundred survivors reached the flatland south of the Haemus Mountains, they slowed, panting, shaking. Cold sweat trickled down his back as he realised that the blockade was over – with one pass taken, the other four were at the mercy of the Goths and the Huns.
‘Riders!’ he called to the handful of mail-vested equites riding with him, ‘split your forces, take word to the other four passes. Tell them to fall back to the south and take shelter in the walled cities of Thracia.’
As the riders wheeled off to the east and west, Saturninus gazed around the quiet, peaceful sunset-bathed Thracian countryside into which they fled, then touched a hand to the Chi-Rho amulet on his neck chain.
‘God forgive me for me lack of valour and protect the souls of these lands.’
Chapter 7
Pavo woke before dawn on the first morning of October after a blessedly deep, dreamless and refreshing sleep. That he felt refreshed and well caused him some guilt. He threw chill water over his face then cooked and ate a bowl of boiled, salted wheat porridge and some dried fruit hurriedly and absently in the darkness, before hastening to Felicia’s tent once more, his breath clouding as he went. The scene was the same as it had been last night: she was moaning, bathed in sweat. The bruise on her temple was black now, her eyes were partly open and she seemed to recognise him.
‘Pavo?’ she said weakly. The effort almost sent her back into blackness.
He clasped her hand and kissed it, dark thoughts crossing his mind. He had seen many soldiers take blows to the head in battle, fight on and seem well enough for days afterwards, only to suddenly collapse, the life leaving them like the light from a smothered candle.
‘She is getting better,’ Lucilla said softly, leaning over to hold a cup of honeyed water to her lips. ‘She is drinking and she ate a little bread earlier.’
Her words were like wine. He nodded and thanked her. ‘My legion will be away from the camp today on a . . . marching drill,’ he lied. ‘We will return soon,’ he added, clasping Felicia’s hand tighter and praying this was not another lie.
He left the tent, squinting into the pale orange dawn light and nodding to the four veteran legionaries who had guarded Felicia and Lucilla well. They saluted in return as he hurried back to the XI Claudia tents by the riverbank near the lone watchtower. Gallus, Dexion, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura stood in their full armour and marching burdens, watching like disapproving giants as the recruits scrambled around before them, drowning in a sea of partially-deconstructed tents. A marching drill would have been challenge enough, Pavo mused. But to steal away from the camp and race to the Shipka Pass in good time now seemed a fanciful notion.
The rest of the camp came to life around them, buccinas sounding for morning roll call and bleary faces appearing from tents all around. After what seemed like an age, the two XI Claudia centuries were formed up, tents stuffed away, spears, swordbelts and tatty, mismatching shields in vaguely the right place. Yet they stood not in a marching line but in something more akin to a swarm.
‘Into line! A line! What part of line do you not understand?’ Sura snapped. ‘Did you not listen to a thing yesterday?’
They shuffled and jinked until they stood in two separate squares, eight men along the front of each, ten ranks deep.
‘You,’ Pavo shot a finger at one who seemed to hesitate. His gaze was distant, a hand shielding his eyes from the early morning sunlight as he peered at the plains over the river. ‘Get into li-’ he stopped, seeing all heads switching to follow this lad’s gaze – even those of his fellow officers.
‘What in Hades is that?’ Zosimus muttered.
Pavo strained his eyes, seeing just a black, jostling mass – silhouetted by the sun – dust and clumps of dirt thrown up in its wake. A babble of concern broke out amongst the recruits and all around the camp. Pavo’s hand moved instinctively for his spatha hilt. The armour of his comrades rustled as they braced likewise. Then the call came from the nearby watchtower.
‘It is the magister equitum!’
A shaft of sunlight fell across the approaching shapes now: Saturninus rode at the head of a few hundred legionaries. Their armour was dotted with dried blood and their shields were scarred and bloodied likewise.
Pavo looked to Dexion, Sura and Gallus.
‘Looks like we won’t be requiring that marching drill after all,’ Quadratus said stoically.
Barzimeres gazed down from his black mount, stroking his recently trimmed and oiled beard as he beheld the sweating, soaked, whimpering and meek-voiced man who was theoretically his superior.
‘Line the riverbanks!’ Saturninus gasped, falling from his grey mare, splashing through the shallows of the Tonsus and throwing an arm back to the north. His long, dark hair, sleeves and cloak were filthy and soaked. A rainbow formed in the spray thrown up by the legionaries wading across the river in his wake.
Barzimeres shuffled in his saddle, irked by the magister equitum’s tone and somewhat unaccustomed to taking orders given that he had been the acting lord of this camp for months now. As a young lad led Saturninus’ mare away to tend to it, he noticed the magister equitum’s soldiers casting fleeting and frequent glances over their shoulders as they came to the southern riverbank. Hundreds of V Macedonica legionaries. Well, maybe a few hundred. Were the rest at the wall? He noticed that many of these ones had cast off their shields and helms, some had even thrown off their swordbelts and spears to aid their haste across the water. Oddly, he noticed something else at that moment: the russet dust cloud thrown up by Saturninus’ men seemed to remain, hovering over there across the river, beyond the green knoll to the north. No, it seemed to be growing, swelling. Was this some phenomenon of the dry weather?
‘Sound the buccinas; bring the men to the riverbanks!’ Saturninus cried out, hands clutching the air in frustration, his weak voice cracking.
‘The men are busy, sir,’ Barzimeres replied calmly, sure his composure marked him out as the true leader of the northern camp. Seeing the magister equ
itum’s blank, exasperated look of reply, he nodded to the heart of the camp. There, he had finally taken that firebrand Gallus’ advice and put the soldiers to work hewing new timber palisades. It would look better for when the Eastern and Western Praesental Armies came here, he thought.
‘Palisades?’ Saturninus spluttered, standing up on shaking legs. ‘We should never have been without them. And it is my mistake that I allowed you such a lengthy tether, Barzimeres.’ He frowned, looking all around. ‘Where is the XI Claudia?’ I gave them an order to collect their new cohorts then return to me at the Shipka Pass.’
Barzimeres bridled at this, coughing at the thickening air of dust, distracted by some distant rumble and the sight of the russet dust cloud in the north thickening further. ‘Perhaps we can talk back at the principia, sir?’
‘There is no time! The Goths are in pursuit.’
‘A few Gothic scouts is no cause for such alarm,’ he scoffed, seeing the legionaries of the great camp put down their breakfast bowls and tools and crowd around the bedraggled newcomers. ‘I’ll have my Scutarii formed within the hour and . . . ’
Saturninus leapt for Barzimeres, grappling the collar of his bronze scale vest, part hauling him from the saddle. ‘The Shipka Pass has fallen. The Hun horsemen stole around the veiled path through the impassable mountains and sliced into our rear. Those defences now lie shredded. What you see here is all that remains of the V Macedonica. Thracia is at the mercy of the Goths – the entire horde! They pursued us through the night and are but moments behind us.’
Barzimeres saw the panic flaring in the magister equitum’s eyes and all across his face. The fear that the timid leader had managed to hide well until now was unmistakeable. And it’s infecting me, damn him! he thought, feeling his belly swirl in terror. He nodded, backing away, glancing up to the lone timber watchtower that stood on the Tonsus’ southern bank. ‘My sentry will see them coming before . . . ’
Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) Page 12
