EMPIRE OF SHADES

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Balls!’ Sura yelled in fright, somewhat putting an end to their chances of catching the boars who scampered away in fright.

  With a hop and a leap, Sura and Siward managed to scramble back onto the far side of the creek before the pine crunched to a rest in the stream bed.

  Siward shot a murderous look at Sura.

  Runa eyed the unbridged creek. ‘You can’t jump, and we have no vines to rig up a way across. Go back, find another way around. If you cannot, then return to the plateau.’

  ‘But you,’ Siward replied. ‘How will you get back over?’

  ‘I will find a way,’ she said, devoid of doubt.

  And they were gone. Pavo and Runa explored another mile of forest. A while later, a rumble erupted and both of them started, each taking their spears level not as hunters but as warriors. Yet the rumble came not from Huns’ hooves but from the sky. Distant thunder. Runa scowled up through the canopy of leaves towards the sky. In a breath, the shade-laced sunlight up there faded as the sun was swallowed up by a pall of dark cloud. A plump droplet of rain splashed on her cheek.

  ‘We should head back,’ Pavo said as the thunder pealed again, much closer, a few raindrops spitting through the trees.

  Before Runa could dismiss his suggestion, the heavens burst, and the rain lashed down in a sudden deluge. It was fierce and stinging, blinding almost. A deafening roar of thunder now directly overhead, in time with a jagged thorn of lightning that ripped down, stabbing into a tall pine nearby with a spray of sparks. The pine listed with a groan, and a blazing mesh of branches fell before Pavo and Runa like the barring arm of a sentry, showering them with sparks before the hammering rain doused it. They backed away, just as the pine crashed down entirely with an almighty din.

  ‘Over there,’ Pavo yelled over the next boom of thunder, spotting a natural hollow. They hurried over, skidding down into the hollow. The rocky wall at one side of the depression had a small overhang. They ducked and entered the tight space, the overhang shielding them from the stinging rains. They sat with their backs to the rocky wall, legs outstretched, panting and sweeping rainwater from their hair and faces. The rain drummed furiously just inches from their toes, falling in sheets from the edge of the overhang so as to act like a glassy veil around their makeshift shelter. They watched as, beyond the waterfall-like boundary, the lowest point of the hollow just outside their shelter soon became a frothing, gurgling mire. Pavo looked to Runa, her skin glistening wet. He saw that she was shivering, and so was he. He noticed a small ash-circle of a past hunter’s fire between them, and pulled the few twigs and lumps of dry bracken and moss from around him and piled them on the ash circle, then drew out his legionary flint hook and struck iron on stone. After a few strikes, sparks sprayed onto the moss. He cupped his hands over it and blew gently. Coils of white smoke rose then a gentle orange flame leapt up. A moment later, the small fire crackled. Runa was still shivering, but when he drew his legionary cloak off and tried to wrap it over her shoulders, she shuffled away.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, resting the cloak by her feet in case she changed her mind. The rain intensified with every boom of thunder. He stoked the fire with a twig, then skewered the small portion of bread in his leather bag and toasted it over the flames. When it was well-fired, he broke it in two, handing Runa half and crunching into the rest. They ate and washed the simple meal down with a swig of berry juice from a skin. Silence fell between them. After a while and when it was clear the rains were not going to let up, Runa shuffled onto her knees. Pavo tried not to take notice as she brazenly took off her tunic and wrung it out. With Runa bare-breasted in just boots and a loincloth, it was no simple task to keep his eyes averted.

  ‘More restrained than most men,’ she laughed dryly as she slipped her clothes back on.

  ‘I am a tribunus, you are the daughter of a Gothic reiks. Do you know how much rests on the outcome of my mission here?’ Pavo rebuked. ‘My homeland lies in pieces, and the horde who shattered it are right now coming back to grind what precious little remains into dust. The empire needs your people, needs your father’s fealty.’

  Runa’s face lengthened a little.

  ‘Whenever Arimer’s name is mentioned, your eyes sag and dull a little, why?’

  She poked at the fire now.

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  Silence.

  ‘If something has happened to him, Runa, tell me,’ Pavo leaned a little closer to her. ‘Arimer is the one who sent the appeal to my emperor. If something has befallen him, you must tell me.’ His head echoed with all the strangeness of life on the plateau. The missing legionary pair, the absent king, the odd chanting. He looked at Runa, her profile long, her eyes gazing into the sheeting rain in deep thought. She certainly did not want to speak of her father, but perhaps she could tell him of other things. His mind turned back to the chanting: ‘What does… Vesi… mean?’ he ventured.

  He saw her throat contract – a tense gulp.

  Pavo leaned a little closer to her. ‘I don’t mean to upset you with questions; it’s just – my men, they have reported hearing things in the night. I did too. That word, over and over. It makes them fearful and uncertain, and-’

  ‘It means “worthy”,’ she said flatly. She looked round to meet his eye now. ‘Some within my tribe believe they are of a higher order.’

  Pavo’s head tilted just a fraction, his eyes darting as he recalled the sibilant chants. Doom to the unworthy. Glory to the brave. Vesiii…

  ‘And the unworthy,’ he asked guardedly, ‘who might they be?’

  ‘Any who do not believe in their ways,’ Runa replied. ‘Be they Goths, Sarmatians… Romans.’

  A chill touched Pavo’s damp flesh. ‘And your father too?’

  Again she fell silent.

  ‘They overthrew your father, didn’t they?’ Pavo persisted.

  ‘The Vesi are few,’ she sighed, gazing into the embers. ‘Yet they strike hard, and at the highest of men.’

  Pavo saw the tears well in Runa’s eyes and let her be. But his mind spun crazily. Arimer, gone – exiled or worse? And to what end? Who had benefited from his disappearance? The lightning flashed again and it was like a spark to his thoughts. ‘Eriulf,’ he whispered, a shiver creeping over his shoulders like an icy cloak. ‘It was Eriulf, wasn’t it? He is a… Vesi?’

  Runa snatched in a half-breath, her eyes moving – not turning fully upon him, but edging briefly that way like one who has heard their name mentioned but doesn’t want it to show. ‘The Vesi are secretive and stay hidden. The people of the tribe do not even know who amongst them follows the Vesi way. I cannot believe for an instant that my brother is one of them… or that he had anything to do with my father’s disappearance.’

  Pavo’s eyes darted across her face, he gripped her by the waist to be sure she would not turn away again. ‘Are you certain?’

  She glanced down at his arms, muscles bunched, cinching her there, then gazed up and into his eyes, the tears now spilling down her cheeks. ‘Pavo, I have never been more certain. And we cannot let these dark doubts cloud the way forward for my people.’

  The thunder roared overhead, the rain more relentless than ever. His mind roiled and raged too. And the sweet, smoky scent from her hair played havoc with long-forgotten desires.

  ‘These rains will surely be the last of the summer storms. Once they are gone, we can cross the river. Think of these things, Pavo, good things,’ she said, drawing into his embrace, sliding her hands around his back.

  He sighed. ‘But that is still more than a moon away. Runa, I must find out what happened to my missing men, and to your father and-’

  She put a finger to his lips. ‘Can I not be free from these things, just for a time? On the plateau, I am Arimer’s daughter. All expect me to know the answers to their woes when I don’t even know the answer to my own. You too – I have seen the iron burden you carry, even when you wear no armour. Out here,’ she said, a need coming into her eyes, ‘we can be free.’ She look
ed through the sheet-fall of rain. ‘Let the storm rage,’ she said, then turned back to him, her nose now a finger’s width from his, ‘and shelter us from our troubles… for a time…’

  ‘Runa, I-’ Pavo started, but her lips pressed to his, ending his sentence. It had been so long. His mind flashed with his last night together with Felicia, and as the lightning flickered, illuminating their shelter, he imagined her in his arms once again. Grief swirled with momentous desire and he drew Runa fully to him, tasting her warm, wet lips, smelling her woodsmoke-scented skin and hair. She seized him in kind, and within a moment, drew off his tunic. He lifted hers off too, her warm, weighty breasts shuddering to a rest against his bare chest. They tussled like this, removing the last of their clothing before Pavo thrust inside her as they fell back onto his cloak. Her strong thighs clamped around him, her moans coming from deep within. It was the greatest crescendo Pavo had known, her weeping with ecstasy in his ear and he roaring like the thunder as they climaxed together.

  In the aftermath they lay together like that, by the small fire, the cloak drawn over them for warmth as the light faded and the thunderstorm continued into the night. Perhaps all was well, he mused. The Goths were infamous for their fickle ways, raising then deposing leaders at will. What mattered was that they were with him and would come back into the empire with him. Together, they could stand against Fritigern’s horde. It was foolish, Pavo knew, but he let sleep drift over him as the storm raged on outside. Mithras blessed him, for once, with a deep, dreamless slumber.

  Sura remained awake that night and on watch at the plateau edge, despite the driving storm. Every other hunting party had come in. All but one. Soaked to his skin, he refused the rightful sentry of his place there, snapping at him: ‘The tribunus is out there still when he should have returned before dusk. We wait and we watch.’

  And for long hours, he scoured the blackness below as if he might suddenly develop the ability to see through it. It was only hours before dawn when he felt sleep bettering him, his eyelids drooping and his mind slipping into oblivion. Three times he slapped himself and twice he took a draught of neat posca. The fourth time, his head nodded forward. Despite the raging rainstorm all around him, he felt the sweet, warm embrace of sleep… but only for a few moments. His eyes blinked open. The rains raged on, buffeting him relentlessly. But it wasn’t the storm that had awoken him, it was something else, dancing in between the tiny gaps of silence as the tempest swished and lashed on changing winds. Chanting?

  Pavo had brought the subject up more than once, but Sura had never heard it. Until now.

  ‘The time of the worthy approaches…’

  He turned, ever so slowly, to look behind him, across the plateau, the storm wind cuffing him like a hard slap. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the night and the cramped sea of Roman and Gothic tents. Nothing moved bar the few drenched perimeter sentries a good twenty paces away either side of him. No light came from within any tent. In the fading of the lightning flash, his eyes locked onto the plateau’s eastern edge. Somewhere from the blackness over there, he heard it again. ‘Vesiii…’

  Dipping his head against the rain, he headed over that way. ‘Bloody mumbling arseholes,’ he gnashed. When he reached the edge, slippy and crumbling, he peered down over the bluff-side. Nothing but stark, black night. Then… boom!

  Lightning and thunder came together, and Sura saw the bluff-side illuminated briefly. The flash vanished as quickly as it had arrived, but something was left in Sura’s eyes – an outline of the momentary image, halfway down the sheer bluff: a ledge, a cave mouth and… a man? He peered at the spot, then at the vertical precipice before him. ‘How can any man get down there,’ he muttered. ‘Unless,’ his eyes fell on the small, almost hidden outcrop abut a shin’s height below the edge. He stabbed out a foot over the precipice, feeling around with his toes. They rested on flat rock – narrow, but standing proud enough from the sheer face to allow him to peer down towards the spot where the odd vision had been.

  The next flash of lightning came. He saw that indeed, there was a cave mouth about halfway down. The man, however was gone. Gone or imagined. But in the fading flickers of the lightning, he saw also the answer to the riddle of how one could reach that impossible cave mouth: this outcrop was but one of a series of crude, well-hidden steps, leading down there. Blackness took over once more. The chill raindrops streaking down inside his collar sent a flurry of cold shivers across his flesh. Only a lunatic would attempt to descend those wet, shallow and uneven steps in the darkness.

  Sura’s lips rose in a fierce smile, fixing in his mind’s eye the spot where the next step had been revealed by the lightning. ‘But damn, if you Goths are hiding something, I will find it. Here and now.’

  Edging down, back pressed to the cliff-face, he prodded out one foot after another, finding step after step. Now he not only heard the chanting, but felt it too, the rock behind him even vibrating a little with it. The steps widened when he came to the ledge and he realised he was at the cave mouth. The entrance was narrow, and he turned to face it, crouching, peering inside. There was nothing… except a faint trace of orange within. Licking his dry lips, feeling his bladder pulse as if battle awaited – the soldier’s curse – he crept forward. The cavern tunnel was just high enough to stand. The chanting grew vibrant and whole as the orange light intensified. Sura saw a bend ahead, and edged up towards it to peek around. What he saw sent dead fingers walking up his back.

  The small cave was lit by a single torch. At one end, three stakes stood proud. On one was a well-rotted head. The patches of remaining skin were black and leathery, and coils of a thick, golden beard hung in tatters from the gawping jaw. On the head rested a wondrous helm with a sparkling, pebble-sized green gemstone set in the brow. He had only seen the likes on high Goths and powerful reiks before. A leader’s helm…

  Arimer, Sura mouthed, realising that the reiks of these people certainly was not coming back.

  On the next stake was another, bald-pated head, the teeth clenched in a skeletal death-rictus, centipedes scurrying in the rotted eye sockets. Rags of a Roman pallium robe hung from the wretch’s neck. Vitalis the diplomat, Sura realised.

  And from the third stake, Molacus gawped back at him, eyes white, mouth locked in a silent scream, dried up sinew and strings of meat dangling from his roughly-severed neck.

  Beyond the gatepost-like heads, another short tunnel led on towards the chanting. Sura steeled himself, touching a hand to his spatha hilt instinctively, then crept along it until he saw a larger chamber at the end. The breath in his lungs froze as he saw five tall, shadowy shapes. He ducked back behind a wrinkle in the corridor wall and prayed they hadn’t seen or heard him. Ever so slowly, he edged his head out and saw that the five were Gothic elders – long-bearded ones he had seen amongst the others up above, ones who had never spoken nor stirred commotion of any sort. Raban, the tall, friendly, iron-haired one who had offered them broth on that first night seemed to be their leader. Yet tonight he wore red streaks of paint across his face and an expression of utter malice. And in one hand he held a vicious-looking sickle as he muttered words of incantation.

  ‘Arimer, the false reiks, shamed the Gods when he called upon the unworthy of the empire,’ Raban droned. ‘But come they did. And now the worthy must spill the blood of the ranks of the unworthy who infest our home,’ Raban said. ‘Now the Wodin-chosen will slay the emperor’s spawn. The time of the Vesi draws closer.’

  ‘Vesiii…’ the rest hissed.

  Sura stepped back once, twice, then found himself scuttling back through the stony corridor. His eyes darted in every direction, and he realised he had to get through this, had to rouse the cohort, had to tell Pavo… had to find Pavo. He arrived at the cave opening, staggering out onto the ledge, wet with the still-lashing rain. He waited there for a panicked moment, begging Jove to throw down another thunderbolt and light the way back up the dark steps. When the lightning came, the giant, broken-nosed Goth standin
g on the nearest step brought the haft of a spear cracking down into Sura’s temple. Everything turned as black as the night.

  As dawn broke, Pavo and Runa awoke to silence. The storm had cleared and the hollow was quiet, dotted with glass-still pools of rainwater. They rose, ate bread and drank stream water, then hiked back through the undergrowth. A mix of emotions ran through him: guilt – for sleeping through the night when they should have returned to the plateau before now; elation, heightened with every recollection of their passionate lovemaking; and, urgency – a need to get back to the high camp, the Goths and his legionaries.

  As they went, Runa seemed on edge, every so often dropping to her knees to rest a hand on the damp ground. ‘The thunder is gone… and yet not,’ she said.

  Pavo frowned, looking at the clear sky. He was confused for a moment until he felt the faintest sensation underfoot. A pale tremor in the soil. Now he too looked around suspiciously. ‘Horsemen?’

  ‘Aye, distant,’ she replied. ‘But if we can feel their movements here then they must be numerous.’

  Silently, Pavo helped her rise and the pair hurried on in the direction of the plateau.

  Runa slashed through a nest of thorns with her spear, and at last the plateau came into view, its white sides shimmering in the early sun. But there was something odd about the heights. Pavo squinted at the men lining the edge: not Gothic chosen archers as usual, he realised… Legionaries.

  ‘My men guard the heights?’ he said as they came to the swamp and began picking their way across it.

  Runa looked up, her face equally wrinkled in confusion. ‘I… it would seem so but why…’