It’s not about the man, it’s about the legion. You and your brothers are one. If you die to save your brothers, then you live on in their hearts and you will bask in Mithras’ glory.
He reached out and grabbed the buccina, put it to his lips, then sat up and emptied his lungs into it. Once, twice, thrice.
Gothic curses sounded and a shower of arrows thumped into his chest. His vision dimmed and he fell back, blood from one ruined lung leaking into the other. His dying thought helped him to face the blackness.
Fight well, brothers. Live on.
The buccina cry echoed around the pass. All work around Trajan’s Gate ceased. Every man stood tall and stared to the east.
Pavo looked to Zosimus, to Quadratus down in the pass, then finally to Sura.
‘First Cohort, First century . . . form up!’ Zosimus cried, sweeping his ham-like hands as if to gather his youthful recruits from their places in the wall-works. They duly dropped the logs they carried, threw down shovels and pick-axes and hurried behind the protection of the timber stockade and then on up the scree path towards the fort plateau.
Quadratus followed this with a cry of his own from down on the valley floor: ‘Third Cohort, First century – to arms!’ The Sardicans hurried through the drifts, snow spraying up in their wake, Rectus and Libo urging them on.
‘Second Cohort, First century,’ Pavo cried, ‘with me!’ He waved Trupo, Cornix and the rest of the younger legionaries with him to the fort. What followed was a flurry of clanking iron, banging heads, curses and snatched breaths. Herenus and his slingers helped to dispense weaponry to the legionaries, whilst the century of sagittarii strapped two and sometimes three quivers to their backs with shaking hands. Men helped their comrades into their mail shirts, buckled on swordbelts and helms, hoisted shields and spears, then filed back out into the blizzard across the fort plateau like an iron stream, snow flicking up from their every footstep. Herenus and his slingers ran only to the edge of the fort spur, where they would have a good sight of whatever enemy was approaching down this valley, and a handful of his men took up position around the two ballistae mounted there. The sagittarii hurried down the scree path from the fort spur first, then raced across the timber wall battlement and formed up on the bulge on the southern valley side. The three centuries of legionaries followed their path, spilling across the walkway of the timber stockade, but remaining on that wooden battlement and turning their shields and spears to the east. A wall topped with Claudian ruby red and sharpened steel. The eagle standard jutted proudest, the bull banner rapping in the icy gale.
‘That’s it, just as we trained for. You know your positions, shields up and together, show them nothing but your speartips and fiery eyes,’ Pavo cried as he took his place to the right of his century – on the centre of the timber wall’s parapet, with Zosimus’ century on his left and Quadratus’ century on his right. Sura barged into position by his side and the pair shared a well-practiced grunt of acknowledgement, shoulders and shields interlocked.
He glanced to his friend, saw the dark look in those usually impish eyes, and recalled Sura’s heartfelt words on their return from Persia.
We won’t die as old men, Pavo.
The pair shoved a little closer together, then peered into the blizzard. The brow of Pavo’s helm shielded his eyes from the stinging snow. For a moment, he gazed down the Succi Valley, and saw only unbroken white. A fork of lightning shuddered across the sky, part-veiled by the roiling blizzard, and its pallid light betrayed nothing. He could hear only the panting and whispered prayers of men and their cloaks rapping in the merciless squall. A false alarm?
Then an inchoate, grey shape took form amidst the wall of white. It came and went like a reluctant shade at first – like the infernal shadow-man from Pavo’s dreams – before spilling into reality, spreading and dominating the width of the valley floor: a mass of warriors marching from the white infinity to the ghostly echoes of cursing men and whinnying warhorses, drifting in and out of earshot over the snowstorm. Then came the crunch-crunch of boots and hooves in snow, and the poor light glinted on the panoply of sharpened, flesh-ripping steel they carried.
With the certainty of a cock crowing at first light, Pavo felt his gut flip over, his mouth drain of moisture and his bladder swell. At least five thousand men, he realised – Taifali riders, Huns and Gothic spearmen – against the five centuries of the XI Claudia. His mind screamed at him, pleaded with him, to turn away, to flee, and to let another force come and be the salvation of this pass. But with a gnash of his teeth, the weakness was gone.
‘By Mithras, there are thousands of them. They’ll cut us apart!’ Trupo stammered, barely heard over the growing Gothic din.
Pavo leapt upon the comment, swatting it away as if it had escaped his own lips. ‘They’ll be lucky to get close enough,’ he snarled.
A chatter of nervous, almost disbelieving laughter spilled from the men of his century at this. And it seemed to scatter the spell of fear from Trupo, who nodded at the rebuke, then adopted a trembling grimace, knuckles white on his spear shaft. And it was the same in each direction Pavo looked: to his right, big Quadratus’ face was bent with the anticipation of battle, and the mad-eyed Libo bore a feral grin almost matched by the lantern-jawed Rectus. To his left, his own century and the hulking Zosimus’ snarled, muttering to themselves, some of their faces tear-streaked, some eyes looking skywards as if for a final blessing. By his side, Sura glowered ahead, lips taut and twitching to betray clenched teeth. ‘The whoreson has dared to face us,’ he said with a growl.
Pavo frowned, then followed Sura’s gaze as the Goths broke out in a cry. An assured, throaty chant.
‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’
The chant grew fierce as one colossal mounted figure emerged from the grey.
He felt a steely hand pass across his heart at that moment. His brow dipped and he thought only of Felicia. This dog of a reiks would pay. Then his mind flashed with images of the absent Tribunus Gallus. The iron wolf was absent maybe, but also very much by his side – mantras and lessons from his years under Gallus’ tutelage sparked in his thoughts and would serve him well today. He thought of Father and Dexion, imagining them with him too, steadfast, mocking the odds before them. Avitus, Brutus, Felix, Habitus, Noster, Sextus . . . the armies of the dead that Gallus had talked of stood with him too. At that moment, he avowed to live through this, to be reunited with Gallus and Dexion again.
As the Goths approached, the timber stockade trembled from the vibrations. He sensed some of the men of his century back away from the edge of the timber stockade, just a half step or so. This brought back flashes of his first ever battle. He wished he could tell them the fear would ease over time, but the truth was that the fear never left, it just became a dark and familiar presence. ‘Pull together!’ he roared. ‘Shoulder to shoulder – not a sliver of a gap between your shields.’ A surge of vigour overcame him. ‘This is your wall, built by your hand. Now stand . . . your . . . ground!’ he snarled.
He heard Zosimus and Quadratus utter similar commands and felt a surge of elation as the legionaries along the walltop erupted in a surge of noise. Spathas clattered against Roman shields. The buccinas sounded over and over in competition with the Gothic din. The baritone chorus of men with fire in their blood swamped the Gothic commotion for that precious moment, and Pavo was sure that – just for a moment – their advance slowed.
Suddenly, the Roman war-song faded and the Gothic advance did too, coming to a sudden halt just a few hundred paces shy of the pass defences. The valley was eerily quiet with just the blizzard daring to whistle. Then the Gothic ranks rustled and the giant horseman rode through the sea of spearmen, archers and cavalry.
Pavo beheld Farnobius with a flinty glare.
The Reiks took to riding his silver stallion along the Gothic front like an emperor, his savage axe held aloft. His chest bulged like a bull’s and his jaw jutted with hubris, the black trident beard jostling with every
stride and the nose Pavo had shattered shuddering like a lightning bolt between his inky-black eyes. He took to rallying his masses with some Gothic homily, and this roused rhythmic cheers from them, each one causing the ground to tremble. It was then that Pavo noticed the giant’s headwear.
‘Hold on, is that-’ Sura started.
‘Barzimeres’ helm. Aye, it is,’ Pavo confirmed.
‘Wonder what happened to the rest of the useless bastard?’ Sura mused.
Farnobius’ sermon ended, then he swung his mount round to face the Roman defences and walked it forward a few paces, snow flicking up with every stride. His grin was devoid of mirth and more like that of a ravenous predator, and half of his face was plastered in snow.
‘Brave Romans, you have come to the sacrifice, I see? It would have been easier to send a herd of lambs.’ His Goths broke out in a raucous laughter at this.
Pavo remained unblinking, the needling rhetoric glancing from him like a wayward arrow from his helm.
‘There are a few hours of light left, but I feel no need for my men to make camp, for this tumbledown stockade of yours will be shattered by dusk.’ He cast a hand to the west. ‘But I am no brute. I understand that every fibre of your being longs to stay far from the ends of our swords. So I offer you these next few moments to run. Go, scatter into the hills like wild sheep. Spare me the trouble of taking your heads.’ He drew his grim axe and deftly flicked it over in his grip, the blade flashing in the poor light.
Not a single legionary moved. But Pavo sensed their spirit being sapped by these words. He heard one set of teeth chattering, and felt the pulsing heartbeats of the others through their pressed-together stance. When a pair of spears were passed forward from the midst of the Gothic ranks, Pavo squinted at the shapeless masses atop them, then recoiled at the grey-blue, staring and lifeless heads fixed on the lances. Governor Urbicus of Trimontium, he realised, seeing the black hair and flashes of grey at the temples of one head. The other, almost black with decay, sported a brown tuft beard hanging below a gawping mouth. Barzimeres, Pavo realised.
‘Well we’re finding out what became of him, piece by piece,’ Sura muttered dryly.
‘What is bravery, courage anyway?’ Farnobius continued, planting the butts of these two spears in the ground and allowing snow to settle on the cold, rotting heads. ‘Is it not what Roman generals talk of while they stand far behind the battle lines drinking wine and gorging on goose livers?’
Still, not a legionary moved, but now Pavo felt their stance change: they were not leaning forward and putting their weight behind the shields as before, but shrinking, pulling back. His brief and fierce homily to the legionaries felt like hours ago. What more could he offer? He glanced to Zosimus and up to Quadratus on the walls. Both men were likewise searching for some riposte. When it came, it was from none of the three centurions.
‘You talk of courage, Goth?’ the voice cried in a throaty burr, then a wineskin hurtled overhead from the fort spur and splashed down on the no-man’s land between the Goths and the timber wall, bursting in a shower of crimson, stark against the snow. ‘Then let me offer you some liquid courage. With Mithras as my witness . . . you will need it!’
All heads in the Roman defences switched round to see the tall, broad figure that strode from the spur then down the scree path before emerging onto the timber stockade. Like a guiding father, Geridus strode along the rear of the legionaries lined up there, patting their shoulders firmly, offering whispered words of encouragement. The hulking warrior moved stiffly, but walked without aid. His giant frame was encased in his bronze cuirass and he wore his red-plumed helm, the dust at last cleaned from the fine armour. The garb transformed him, accentuated his huge shoulders, the shade of the helm’s brow adding a fire to his eyes, and the bushy grey beard perfectly framing a scornful half-smile. ‘Stand firm, legionaries,’ Geridus boomed as he came to the centre of the walltop, near Pavo. ‘This defile has never fallen and today it shall be no different. As Master of the Passes, I say it is so and so it shall be.’ Then he beheld Farnobius with the look of an impatient father and flicked one finger at the burst wineskin that lay before the reiks. ‘Drink up, brave Goth.’
One legionary burst out in a nervous chuckle and, moments later, raucous laughter was pouring from the lips of the XI Claudia. In this bitter cold, Pavo felt a spike of warmth, hope, hubris perhaps, but a welcome sensation nonetheless. The manner of it seemed to slap the confidence from Farnobius, who bristled, his head twitching and his lips muttering as if to some unseen companion. He backed away to his lines, axe pointed at Geridus like an accusing finger then flicked to the spiked heads. ‘Your head will be next, old man.’
The siren-song of the blizzard ebbed for a moment as Farnobius wheeled round to face his horde. Pavo felt the men by his side ease their stance just a fraction. ‘Be ready . . . this is it!’
Then, the storm whipped up in a frenzy like never before, driving at them, shrieking like a storm of shades, blinding, stinging. As if Farnobius had conjured this wrath, he swung round to face the Romans, his mount rearing up as it turned, his arm swinging his axe forward like a standard and his lungs casting forth a demonic howl. ‘Destroy them!’
The Gothic war horns blared in a frenzy and the horde surged forward, churning through the snow. A sea of jostling infantry led the advance at a jog, carrying tall ladders. A thousand, Pavo reckoned. Enough to swamp the walls. Some four thousand more mad-eyed horsemen cantered behind them: the pack of Huns and swathes of Taifali riders. Enough to send terror rampaging through any man’s veins. But Pavo knew that a cool head was paramount. He saw how the advancing pack of Gothic infantry raced past the short staff wedged in the ground with a red ribbon tied to it, then twisted his head towards Geridus.
‘Red, sir,’ he growled.
Geridus nodded in silence, then flicked a finger to the buccinators. These trumpeters sounded one short, shrill note and immediately the men up on the edge of the fort spur burst into action.
‘Ballistae, loose!’ a call came from up there. A cacophonous bucking of wood and a whoosh sounded. Like a pair of swooping eagles, the ballista bolts shot down upon the Gothic advance and wrought great gashes in their ranks. Men running towards the Roman wall were suddenly cast back at three times the speed, their shields shattered and reduced to kindling, their chests run through by the bolts and their hurled bodies serving to break the limbs and the spirits of those behind, showering all nearby in blood and chunks of flesh. Pavo saw a few slow, their thoughts doubtless pondering the merits of staying back out of the range of the bolt-throwers. Their hesitation was not left to seed, however, as Reiks Farnobius berated them from his safe vantage point behind. ‘Onwards, you dogs!’
Now Geridus’ eyes narrowed as the Goths ran past the staff with the blue ribbon.
‘Blue!’ Zosimus called out.
Geridus nodded to buccinators again. Two notes sounded. This time the slingers on the spur and the archers on the opposite bulge rippled to attention. ‘Loose!’ Herenus howled from the fort spur and the sagittarii centurion echoed from the southern valley side. The creaking of bowstrings and whirring of slings was followed by a flurry of twangs and a chorus of hissing overhead. This storm of missiles rained down on each side of the Gothic advance. Roman arrows quivered in shields or pierced thighs and necks and cast up blood to fleck the blizzard in red. A swathe of spearmen sank to their knees or were punched back from the advance. The shot, however, was even fiercer. Defying the storm, it seemed that not one of the lead spheres missed its target. Goths stumbled as they ran, dark holes appearing in their faces or foreheads where the shot had ripped through them, blood pumping from the wounds and ending the battle for them. Sixty felled, Pavo reckoned. A fine volley, but not nearly enough.
His eyes widened as he saw the Gothic response. Behind the Gothic spearmen, a forest of arms rose, clutching self-bows. Twang . . . hiss. The volley was thick, matching the stinging snow in number. ‘Shields!’ he cried in unison with Zosimus, Quadr
atus and Sura.
The ruby shields of the XI Claudia rippled up even higher, tilted back a fraction. A merciless rattle of iron thumping into wood rang out. The sound of tearing flesh and snatched screams marked out those who had been too slow or had fallen prey to a stray arrow. Pavo glanced along the line, seeing a few gaps appear where his men had been felled: some lay crumpled over the sharpened tips of the wall, others had been punched back from the battlements and lay broken down on the snow behind the stockade. One swayed where he stood, an arrow jutting from his eye socket and a soup of blood and brains pumping from the wound and down his face before he toppled from the line, face-first into the pass.
‘Again,’ the ballistae crewmen roared, sensing the need for a retort. Thrum . . . whoosh!
One screaming Goth lost in battle-fury ran ahead of his comrades, only to be silenced as a bolt took him in the face, scattered his head like a ripe watermelon and left his headless body to run on a few steps before it stumbled and fell, convulsing as dark blood spurted from the neck. The bolt flew on, untroubled by this, to rip the arm from another Goth then pin the man behind to the ground. The other bolt hurtled through the groin of a spearman, then that of another and another again behind him. All three screamed, clutching the soaking, bloody mess that remained of their pelvis and genitals, before collapsing, rendered unconscious by the pain.
Another volley of Gothic arrows, another drum of iron on Roman shields, another clutch of precious legionaries down. The thick, unbroken line on the battlements was now peppered with gaps. And, Pavo realised, there were no fresh cohorts held in reserve. Just this jumble of men, freezing, scared . . . but together, he affirmed. They were standing firm. The ghosts of the Great Northern Camp and the fraught encounter on the riverbank were being faced.
Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) Page 33
