The Amber Road

by Harry Sidebottom

  Cramped and stiff, Ballista clattered down to the floor. The young Danubian Diocles was waiting, his broad peasant face imperturbable.

  ‘Draw the men up on the terrace, a column facing south, as we said, the Olbians at the head.’ The majority of the townsmen who had volunteered were of high status. Most of them wore armour, mail or scale, cut to suit a rider. With the exception of Diocles, the crew of the Fides were protected only by helmet and shield.

  ‘We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.’

  Ballista slung his shield over his back. He fumbled with the laces of his helmet. Gods, but he was always clumsy at these moments, his fingers awkward with fear. He loosened first the dagger on his right hip, then the sword on his left; finally, he touched the healing stone tied to his scabbard. The smooth amber of the latter felt cool in the sun. The long-established ritual calmed Ballista a little.

  ‘Maximus and Tarchon with me. We will reconnoitre.’

  Followed by the other two, Ballista clambered up to the next terrace. It ended in a steep bank, about ten paces high. Pulling at the coarse grass, he scrambled to the top and looked over.

  Gothic standards still flew over the tall mound of the kurgan away to his left. There were a few individuals left up there, more at its base. The latter were probably just non-combatants and the wounded. Across the plateau, through the ruins of the ancient upper town, a scatter of the injured limped back towards the kurgan. Many of them were supported by one or more evidently unhurt companions. Helping the wounded to safety was an excuse as old as Homer. Ballista felt his heart lift. Not every Gothic warrior was Woden-inspired. Better still, knowing there was no relief column that could come to save Olbia, the Tervingi had committed all their number to the storm. There was no Gothic reserve.

  Off to the right, the assault was being pressed hard. The Goths were a thick, black smear at the foot of the wall, clotted more thickly where there were ladders or ropes. At one point to the east, near where the wall vanished down towards the river, some of them had got on to the wall. Nearer at hand, they had taken the gate. There, they flowed in like a turgid river being sucked down into a sink-hole. Apart from the one toehold on the wall, it was all as good as could have been hoped.

  Ballista watched a moment longer. The Olbians were resisting with a ferocity born of desperation. A ladder was levered away from the battlements. Those on it fell, limbs flailing like insects.

  ‘Time to go.’

  The three slipped and slid down. Diocles had the men ready. Several were fumbling with armour and clothing to take a last-moment piss. Ballista felt he could do with one himself, but there was no time. He knew the urge would pass. It was just nerves.

  Ballista led them along the terrace for forty or so paces. He held up his hand, halted them, and then turned up towards the fighting.

  They came up between two long, derelict buildings. The walls still stood to a few feet, and gave them an element of cover. Ballista paused, waiting for those behind to close up. Eighty-two men were very few to try to change the course of a battle, to break a force of perhaps three thousand. It all hinged on surprise and momentum. Above all, it depended on panic, and that was in the lap of the gods.

  No time for a speech. If some historian from the imperium or scop from the far north recorded this battle, they would supply suitably stirring words: ‘freedom’, ‘home and family’, ‘courage’. Ballista grinned. A Gothic bard would use other words: ‘ferocity’, ‘bestial savagery’, ‘low cunning’ and ‘deceit’. Ballista unslung his shield. Adjusted his helmet, after the shield strap had caught on the rags masking its crest. Pulling the scarf tight up over his nose, he checked he was flanked by Maximus and Tarchon, that Diocles and the bucinator were at his back. Time to go. Do not think, just act. He drew his sword, flourished it above his head in the most martial way he could manage, and set off.

  They emerged from the ruins, and there – a long javelin cast to their right – was the extreme right of the Gothic hansa. Lumbering figures in the haze of dust and smoke, hard up against the wall. A dark horde, flashes where helmet, shield-boss or blade struck the light. The Tervingi had their backs to the new threat.

  Ballista ran at them, taking care where he placed his boots. The ground was humped, uneven, yellow-grey stones poking up through the grass. Not the moment to stumble or fall. His left leg still ached. A shout from somewhere near. More yells. The Goth ahead still unaware. Fifteen paces, ten.

  Overhand from the right, Ballista brought his sword down. The Goth was unarmoured. The sharp, heavy steel cleaved his shoulder. Ballista pushed him away with his shield. The next was turning, mouth open. Ballista thrust the sword into his stomach, up into his chest, twisted and shoved him aside. The noise was deafening: screams, shouts; Tarchon was keening some savage, incomprehensible song.

  Taken by surprise, assailed in front and rear, the courage of the Tervingi right wing ran away like water through a broken dam. In front, the unyielding wall and the rain of missiles; behind, grim-faced men wielding terrible steel. The Goths fled to the east, scrambling and fighting each other to get away from their imminent doom.

  ‘After them! Drive them like sheep!’ Ballista’s shouts were muffled by the scarf. It did not matter. A Goth stood, rooted; arms wide in supplication. Ballista cut him down.

  The fleeing Goths crashed into those to their left. Pushing, shoving, some using their swords; they sowed chaos among those still unaware of the new attack. Panic infected the next group of Tervingi. They, too, turned from the unseen, unreckoned danger, and ran.

  Ballista chased them along the wall, as Achilles had chased Hector; swift-footed, remorseless, exulting. Along the battlements, the Olbians chanted: ‘Let us be men. Let us be men.’

  Ahead, a saffron war standard rose above the confusion, just short of the town gate. At its foot was a knot of Gothic warriors. They were not moving. The broken men sheered away from them, like so many waves from a cliff.

  ‘Hold!’ Ballista had to tear the scarf from his mouth to have a chance of being heard. ‘Hold! With me!’

  Ballista checked who was still with him. Maximus was on his right shoulder; some Olbians beyond. Diocles and Romans were to his left. Jostling behind came Olbians and Romans together, Heliodorus the mutineer among them. Tarchon and the bucinator had vanished.

  As if swept by the hand of a deity, an empty space had opened between Ballista and the Goths below the standard. Off to the left, the routed fled away through the wasteland that had been the antique city. Braids and cloaks swinging, many were throwing down their armaments, the better to run. But just beyond the saffron standard a dense throng of warriors continued slowly to shuffle and jam into Olbia through the shattered gate. Above and beyond that there were still ladders against the wall, and men still fought to gain the battlements. A few hundred men had been trampled or scattered like chaff, but the battle hung in the balance. If the Goths below the saffron standard held, the day was lost.

  Ballista eyed these new opponents. Fifty or so tall men, clad in mail, gold rings on their arms. This was the hearth-troop of a war chief; a comitatus sworn to their reiks. Ballista could see the reiks in the third rank: a big man, gilded helmet and white fur cloak around his broad shoulders. If he fell, his comitatus had taken an oath not to leave the field alive.

  Time was on the side of warriors beneath the saffron standard.

  ‘Are you ready for war?’ Ballista would have to take the fight to them.

  ‘Ready!’ The response at his back was thin. He had no idea how many were left. No time to make a tally.

  ‘Are you ready for war?’

  Fifteen paces to cross.

  ‘Ready!’

  Fifteen paces to a solid wall of hard linden boards, fifteen paces to sharp spear, axe and sword.

  ‘Are you ready for war?’

  The third ritual Roman response came and died away.

  Do not think, just act. Allfather, Father of Battle, protect me.

  ‘N
ow!’ Ballista set off.

  Bright patterned leather, glittering steel, hard eyes between helmet brow and shield rim; Ballista rushed at them.

  A squall of arrows from the right tore down into the comitatus. Ballista saw at least two warriors fall. A flash of hope, dead in an instant. The rear ranks raised their shields; the comitatus did not flinch.

  Just a few paces. Always go in hard. Ballista, shoulder in the belly of his shield, crashed into the man facing him. The collision cracked Ballista to a standstill. The Goth staggered back a pace or two, until brought up short by a warrior in the next rank. The man behind Ballista thumped into his back, driving him forward. Again he was shield to shield with the enemy.

  The Goth tried to stab down over the locked shields. Ballista twisted and drove behind his shield. The blade skidded off and behind his mailed shoulder. Underarm, he tried to stab under the shields at the legs. The steel met no resistance.

  A shield crunched into Ballista’s back. At the same moment the Goth was pushed from behind. The pressure mounted as more men joined the maul. Trapped, squashed, unable to use their weapons, they were eye to eye. The Goth’s beard and hot breath were in Ballista’s face.

  A sword jabbed over the Goth towards Ballista’s head. He tucked his chin down. The edge of the blade clanged off the side of his helmet. His ears were ringing, a scrap of helmet covering was hanging over his eyes.

  The pressure increased. The clatter and grunting as more and more strong men hurled in their weight; pushing, heaving. Half-twisted, Ballista bent his knees, dug in his right heel. He shoved with all his strength. No movement; no going forward, no going back. Trapped, near blinded, helpless; the pressure getting worse. Someone sobbing in his ear. Hard to breathe, very hard to breathe. Allfather, do not let me die here. Pain in his chest. Too crushed to breathe. His vision greying at the edges. Bursting stars of light.

  Suddenly, Ballista could breathe. With his sword hand, he tore away the material from in front of his eyes. The Goth was being hauled away by his companions. Ballista was tottering back, a hand on his shoulder guiding him, his legs all unsteady. Someone supporting him, as he gasped for air.

  Seven or eight paces of trampled ground. Broken shields, a discarded sword, incongruously beautiful. Three ugly, trampled bodies. The Goths hefting their shields, steadying their line. The saffron standard snapping in the wind.

  As if complicit in some unspoken rule, both sides stood, getting their breath back. It was quiet here; the noise of battle distant, oddly irrelevant.

  Seven or eight paces. Ballista knew he could not cross that terrible space. There was no breaking these Goths. The Norns had led him to this place. He thrust the tip of his sword down into the ground, leant on the guard.

  ‘Fuckers,’ shouted Maximus. ‘Arse-fucking cunts.’

  Screened by his sworn companions, the big reiks threw back his white furs, lifted his hands to the skies. ‘War-loving Teiws, thundering Fairguneis!’ He called the gods of his people, offered his enemies to them. Deep in their chests, the Goths began the barritus.

  ‘Vandrad!’ Maximus was shouting. Diocles and others joined in. ‘Vandrad! Vandrad!’

  Ballista felt his spirit lift. Heart and courage. Wyrd will often spare an undoomed man, if his courage is good.

  Ballista found himself yelling with the others. ‘Vandrad!’ He pulled his sword from the ground, raised his shield. In time with the swelling chant, he beat the flat of his blade on his shield-boss. ‘Van-drad! Van-drad!’

  The barritus opposite faltered. A tremor ran through the comitatus. Goths were looking over their shoulders, shouting incomprehensible things in alarm.

  ‘Warhedge!’ The hearth-troop was quick to obey. They shuffled to ring their reiks with shields. Already it was too late. A solid mass of warriors was surging back out from the town gate. Like a river in spate, it hit the half-formed circle of shields. Men were swept away from the rear of the comitatus. The flood rushed at those at the foot of the saffron standard. Their solid ranks checked it for a moment. Above the turmoil the proud banner swayed, eddied, looked to fall. The reiks held it aloft in one hand. With the other he pointed across at Ballista. The Tervingi chief was shouting, his words lost in the inhuman din of the rout.

  Nothing human could withstand the torrent. The comitatus began to break up. Warriors disappeared beneath the stampede, their courage to no avail against the trampling feet. The saffron standard was borne away, bobbing like flotsam, glimpses of snowy-white fur beneath it.

  ‘Shieldwall. Brace yourselves.’ Ballista locked shields with Maximus and Diocles, thrust his blade out.

  The tide of humanity veered away, fanned out over the plateau. The seven paces of trodden earth were transformed from a place of terror to a gods-given thing of safety, an invisible rampart. Ballista drew a ragged breath. His left leg hurt. There was blood on the hilt of his sword.

  Beyond the rout, dreamlike through the dust and smoke, Ballista saw the last ladder topple away from the wall.

  The tide of running men ebbed. The gate was blocked. The Goths’ numbers were telling against them in that narrow space. Tripping and falling, they were clambering over their own. Maddened by fear and the proximity of safety, they turned their blades on each other.

  As Ballista watched, a small group ruthlessly hacked their way through the human logjam. Again the horde spilled out. Now among them were men on horses, long blades slashing down. At their head was a slight figure in a Roman helmet. Like some vengeful daemon, indefatigable and awful, Castricius cut down the defenceless Goths.

  Again Ballista leant on the crosspiece of his sword. It had worked. Pelted with missiles from the roofs, disordered and wedged in the confined street, the Goths had been unable to stand the charge of armed men on horseback. The battle was won. Ballista knew he should be exultant, but all he felt was weary.

  Part Two

  ANABASIS,

  (Spring–Summer AD264)

  The Hypanis River

  When the little boats paddled out on to the Hypanis river, Amantius the eunuch was surprised at his own reluctance to leave Olbia. He had felt no particular affection for the decrepit, backwater polis while staying there, and it had nearly been the scene of his death. If the barbarians had stormed the town, he had no doubt the ruins of Olbia would have proved his tomb. Apparently, they had come within a hand’s breadth.

  Amantius had seen nothing of the battle. When the Goths had arrived he had rushed to the lodgings of Zeno. The imperial ambassador was not to be found. His two slaves had gone as well. Scattered possessions testified to the hasty evacuation. Amantius’s courage had failed. With his boy, he had fled through the narrow streets of the acropolis to the small temple of Hygeia. There he had kept vigil – through the day, the long night and the following interminable day – praying incessantly to the daughter of Asclepius. The close confines of the temple had been crowded. Women and children had moved and muttered in the incense-laden gloom; at times, they wailed. As far as they could, the women had kept apart from Amantius. They had scolded the children away from the eunuch; away from the exotic thing of ill omen.

  The goddess was indistinct. Only her extremities were visible. Apart from face, hands and feet, she was festooned with dedications; swathes of material, and innumerable tresses of women’s hair. For his safety, Amantius had offered her his precious things: his scarlet cloak of Babylonian silk, his golden rings, the ones set with sapphires and garnets.

  The goddess may have been half hidden in the dark, but the Most High Mother had heard his prayers. Against all probability, the Goths had been routed. The pious saw the hand of a deity in it.

  Many Goths had been killed. The gatehouse was littered with them. Several dozen, unable to escape that killing ground, had been captured. Somehow, Montanus, the strategos, had managed to cool the bloodlust of his fellow townsmen. After the initial euphoria of revenge, the corpses had not been further desecrated, and the remaining captives had not been butchered. They had been deployed in the negot
iations which the first archon, Callistratus, had held with the Goths. For the return of both the living and the dead, and a substantial treasure as bloodprice for the latter, the barbarians had agreed to leave. They had not just departed but sworn great oaths to their unpronounceable gods not to return. Unless the annual tribute, now set at a substantially higher rate, was not forthcoming, the Tervingi would never again bear arms against the walls of Olbia. If they did, let the sky fall on their heads.

  Even if they had set the payment at a rate that the Olbians could not meet – and Amantius strongly suspected that was the case– the point was that the Goths would not return for at least a year. Until next spring, Olbia was the safest place to be found in the wastes of barbaricum north of the Euxine. It seemed foolish to leave.

  To someone thoughtful, such as Amantius, there was more to it than just that: the implications ran deeper. Neither Ballista nor any member of the imperial embassy had taken any part in the negotiations. They had remained out of sight, and Callistratus said he had avoided all mention of them. Amantius did not know if the barbarians were aware of their presence. But, as they were recounted, it was evident that the oaths taken by the Goths only covered the city of Olbia. They did not preclude anything against those outside the walls, let alone anyone unwise enough to venture deep into the country along the rivers. The Tervingi could do what they liked to such improvident voyagers, with no fear that their angry gods would bring the sky down upon their heads.

  Amantius looked back down the little boat, past the man on the steering oar and the up-curved stern post, past the rear two boats in the small flotilla. He saw nothing but an ephemeral safety to love in Olbia. The great expanse of scrub grass, wind-bent trees and dislocated stones where the Goths had camped. The low, stubby wall where many of them had died. The tangle of mean streets, some burnt out, down by the port where the defenders’ fires for heating oil had got out of hand. The yet more congested acropolis, where Amantius had prayed and where he had been reduced to living like a slave in a tiny attic room.