By mid-afternoon, there was a new sound: the roar of the Danubius began to rise ahead of the column. Pavo felt a sweet sense of possibility. We’ve done it! And indeed he saw, over the heads of the column and through the mesh of the woods, the green ribbon of swollen, churning water and flashes of the grey giant, Novae Fortress, on the far side. Muted cries rang back along the procession.
‘Libo’s lot are at the banks,’ Sura said, craning his neck to see the front of the column. ‘And they have prepared rafts,’ he added.
Pavo stood on his toes as he walked to see it also: the one-eyed centurion waving and marshalling the foremost Gothic people onto six large and hastily-prepared rafts – made of lashed together pine trunks – and a handful of smaller ones. Opis was ushering the Gothic warriors and the stronger men and women towards a fresh rope guide that had been set up across the river, other legionaries showing them how to use shields and inflated drinking skins for buoyancy. But the pace of the crossing was painfully slow, the legionary ferrymen taking great care to paddle gently and rhythmically in order to avoid tipping the rafts into the angry currents. Mid-afternoon became late afternoon, and nearly three-quarters of the Gothic people were safely on the southern banks. People ran up and down the length of the gradually-shrinking column to pass on messages or direct appropriate people further forward to help in the effort. Another two raft-loads of people were on their way to the other side. Just a few more trips now…
‘I’ve signalled across the water, asked my people over there to prepare firewood and forage what they can for this evening’s meal,’ a familiar voice said.
Pavo glanced round to see Runa, panting, beside him. ‘Runa? I thought you were at the front. You should be over there on the fortress banks,’ he hissed.
And that was when the thunder came. Through the air and through the soil.
Pavo’s head snapped round to the north, Sura’s too. Eriulf, Libo and Opis swung to the noise.
‘They’re coming,’ one Gothic warrior gasped. ‘They’ll destroy us!’
Pavo’s heart crashed against his ribs. They had been too slow. The Huns would shatter all those still on these banks.
‘Pavo?’ Runa quailed.
Pavo’s vision became like a hawk’s, as he saw the remnant Goths clustered against the river’s edge and the thin rearguard too – these pieces slid and twisted until he saw the solution, mouthed by Gallus’ shade in his mind’s eye.
‘Face the north… Agmen Quadratum!’ he cried as the thunder intensified, shoving Runa behind him to shield her.
In rapid time, the legionaries of the rearguard spun to face north, falling into place like an L-shaped sheltering arm around the back and eastern side of the remnant column.
Eriulf’s Goths within the rearguard gawped.
‘You are to become legions, so let the training begin now. Do as we do,’ Pavo roared as the approaching thunder grew, waving them to the western side of the column. Eriulf and his commanders hectored their charges into place until the Goths’ L-shape connected with the Romans’, to make three sides of a square – like a fortified bridgehead around the last stages of the river crossing.
Every pair of eyes watched the trees. The thunder rose in a never-ending, swelling peal.
Gothic chosen bowmen and Roman archers nocked their bows. Legionaries and tribal spearmen grappled their spears.
‘We are a wall. We will not be broken. Together!’ Pavo roared.
‘For Wodin,’ Eriulf bawled.
‘For Mithras,’ Sura cried.
Like a bird drawing in its wings, the part-square bunched up with a rattle of Roman and Gothic shield meeting edge-to-edge and the shush of Roman mail and dull flap of Gothic leather as men braced, ready for battle. Pavo and Sura shared a tacit glance, shoulder-to-shoulder. The ground shook violently now and the dull whinny of horses and snapping words of unseen assailants spilled through the branches.
Once again, Brother, we stand together, Pavo thought as he shot a look at Sura.
Until the very end, Sura replied with a look of his own.
And then Pavo saw another, barging into place along the Gothic half of the defensive front, spear and shield in hand. ‘Runa?’ he gasped.
A high-pitched, ardent shriek cut through the dense woods, then the trees in the north exploded with a riot of speeding Hun horsemen, coming like the horns of a bull, many more than they could count. Branches snapped and spun and leaves exploded in clouds as they flooded into view, lying low in their saddles, their long, dark hair and flapping hides rapping behind them. Pavo saw, dangling from the Hun saddles, recently-harvested trophies jouncing on ropes. Staring, smoke-stained heads, gawping as if trying in vain to scream warnings to the kin of Arimer. The Huns came with nocked, drawn bows, levelled spears, honed swords and spinning rope lassos.
Thrum, both sides loosed a storm of arrows, which flew like raptors, only for most to plunge into trees or thwack off branches. Many did smack home, however, the legionary by Sura’s side punched back by the bone-tipped Hun arrow that plunged into his cheek, a swathe of Eriulf’s Goths tumbling likewise with wet screams, one staggering back to topple down the muddy banking and into the Danubius. A smattering of his defenceless people fell too, downed by arrows in their unarmoured backs as they tried to board the rafts. A strip of Hun horsemen went down in a chaos of whinnying steeds, thrashing legs and riven men, blood, dirt and bracken ballooning up as the bodies skidded across the forest floor.
The blood of the stricken settled like mizzle as the flooding riders came to within fifty paces and Pavo’s lungs expelled an almost instinctive cry: ‘Plumbatae…loose!’ The weighted darts leapt from the legionary portion of the rearguard, crunching into the Hun advance. Horses plunged to their knees in pain, throwing their riders, tripping up many behind, but still they came like forceps ready to snap shut on the Roman bridgehead.
‘Brace!’ Pavo roared.
Closer, closer… then with a shrill cry from one of them, the Hun pincers split like a river around a rock, each half flooding along the bridgehead’s front, spilling round its sides. Lassos licked out like lizard’s tongues, snapping off spear tips, pulling at shields, grappling one Goth by the neck and wrenching him from the line with a snap of vertebrae. His body trailed behind the Hun rider who galloped up and down before the desperate defence, whooping in pride at his kill. Spears and arrows hammered into the beset bridgehead. Scores of men sank to the ground with weak gasps. Every few heartbeats, Pavo glanced along the front to see Runa, braced behind her shield like a demon. Yet Hun blades and missiles were swishing and battering down all around her.
Suddenly, Pavo’s shield shuddered as three arrows battered into it, one breaking through to within a finger’s width of his neck. He flashed up his spear to cut one lasso tossed at him, then lurched forward to hurl his lance at the rider who had tried to rope him. The spear took the Hun in the gut, punching him from his mount. The hooves of another rearing Hun horse thrashed right next to Pavo, one almost braining him had he not been so quick to throw up his shield to take the jarring blows. He staggered back, bumping into a young legionary with a deep red canyon torn diagonally across his face, his tongue lolling from the gap in his jawbone. The lad fell, then another two nearby were punched down by Hun arrows. He shot a look over his shoulder to the riverside: the folk and the warriors of Eriulf were across the water now. Just the rearguard five hundred of Eriulf’s spearmen and the seven hundred or so of the First Cohort remained here in this deadly ground. The families wailed and wept from the southern banks, seeing their fathers, sons and brothers pinned like this.
‘Loose!’ came a distant cry from the southern bank.
Pavo saw from the corner of his eye the many Gothic archers safely over there tilting their bows high, then heard a whistle of a thousand or more shafts zooming across the river and over the heads of the beset bridgehead formation. With a thick, wet drumming sound, the volley sailed down and into the Hun mass. Riders fell in swathes. It was enough, just enough, to ha
lt their relentless swarming. They withdrew into the woods by just thirty paces or so, but they were clearly only waiting for the arrow hail to cease before returning again. A creak of timber grinding on earth sounded behind Pavo and he looked behind and down to see Libo on one of the now-empty rafts, gesturing wildly. ‘Come on, sir, come on!’
Pavo knew either his First Cohort or Eriulf’s men could take this chance. If their mission was to mean anything, it had to be Eriulf. ‘Go, take your men aboard!’ he cried across the momentary hiatus. Take her! he added inwardly, seeing Runa was unharmed.
Eriulf straightened, his pride bruised by the selfless offer.
‘Now!’ Pavo snarled at him.
The Gothic leader barked his men aboard. Runa tried to shrug off the warriors who guided her away but acquiesced in the end. The raft was cramped but big enough for the three hundred or so of his five hundred who had survived the Hun onslaught – some part-swimming, holding onto the craft’s rear for buoyancy. They pushed off, leaving the Claudia remnant alone. Now the Huns saw the Gothic arrow hail thinning, their eyes glinting once more, their horses turning to face the banks, drawing fresh lassos, nocking new arrows to their bows, drawing swords.
‘Get ready!’ Sura screamed.
The Huns trotted forward.
‘For the Claudia!’ Opis roared.
The Huns broke into a canter now… then a charge.
‘For the Empire!’ Pavo bellowed.
‘For the love of Mithras, get on board!’ came a fourth voice behind them.
They turned to see Rectus on another raft. The big medicus’ face was wide with terror as he waved them on. Presenting a wall of arrow-pocked shields to the oncoming Huns, the Claudia men hastily back-stepped down the slippery earth banking and onto the raft, narrowing their front as they did so. Hun arrows hammered against their shields, zinged from their helms and spears battered against the ground their feet had been on heartbeats ago, tossing up wet and blood-soaked dirt. As the retracting legionary front filtered onto the raft, the Hun advance sped up and sharpened like a spear point, the foremost riders bawling some song of war as they bounded to plunge into the legionary mass. The feral-eyed lead rider had Pavo’s head firmly in his sights, his sword high and ready to swipe round. ‘Ya!’ the warrior screamed, kicking his horse into a leap.
Pavo met the feral one’s gaze and snarled to those on the front with him. ‘Spears!’
As one, the narrow and backtracking front fell to one knee, bracing their spear hafts against the timbers of the raft, tips jutting forward like a palisade. Pavo, spearless, remained standing to kick out against the banking, setting the raft adrift. The feral-eyed rider – mid-leap – realised only too late that the short distance the disembarking raft drifted in that moment had doomed him. He plunged down upon the nest of spears, his mount perforated and then its belly torn open as it slid away in a flurry of kicking hooves and pained braying. A flash of Roman swords plunged into the rider, whose wild eyes quickly dimmed. The raft tilted sharply and took a wash of water across its surface, but righted itself when the horse and Hun toppled into the currents, staining them dark red.
‘Testudo,’ Pavo called again, this time steady of voice, knowing the storm was passing.
He and the others, still facing the receding northern banks, raised their shields to eye-level, those behind bringing their shields to the sides and overhead to complete the ruby-red shell. Through the gaps, he saw the Huns spill down into the northern shallows to loose a storm of arrows at the departing raft. They thundered down on the shield-shell, but not a man was struck. Some Huns slipped from their horses, waddling in their strange gait into the water and to the rope guides. A few made it out into the deeper parts of the river before the current clawed at their dangling legs and snatched them away. Eventually, Libo ordered the ropes cut, condemning a dozen or more of the daring steppe riders to an icy, watery grave.
Pavo gazed at the Huns as the distance between the two parties grew. This was just one host of the many steppe masses. Fear the day the Huns acquire boats or engineers to build bridges of their own. A stark shiver ran up his back.
Arrows continued to rain down on the raft. The oarsmen, standing at the edges with shields on their backs, paddled methodically to take the raft to the south, to safety… back to the empire.
Within the darkness of the testudo, Pavo looked to Sura. ‘It is done,’ his Primus Pilus said quietly.
Pavo thought of the riven realm they were to return to, of the whereabouts of Fritigern’s horde. He twisted his head and saw a sliver of light from a gap in the rear of the testudo. There, he caught sight of the southern banks… Runa, alive and well. His heart brightened for a moment… then he saw Scapula, standing like a black-robed wraith near her. Gratian’s agent, watching and waiting for Pavo’s return to imperial soil.
‘Is it, old friend?’
Part 3
The Sons of Fritigern, Late Summer 379 AD
Chapter 13
They spent ten days based at Novae Fortress, foraging for supplies and tending to those wounded in the flight from the Huns. On the eleventh day, the Claudia led the Goths of Arimer south, through Moesia’s deserted and overgrown meadows. They moved cautiously, using the few horses they had to scout wide on both flanks, fearful of stumbling into the sights of Fritigern’s horde.
‘Nothing,’ Sura said, swatting a fly from his sweat-beaded jaw, squinting across the baking land. ‘Not even tracks left by hooves or boots.’
Pavo eyed the land in distrust. ‘Doesn’t mean they’re not out here, somewhere.’
‘Hold on,’ Sura said, his eyes narrowing on a slim wisp of dust rising from the high golden grass ahead, moving fast towards them.
‘Fritigern’s Riders?’ Libo hissed, slowing.
A murmur of anxiety rippled back along the column.
Pavo balanced an order for battle-readiness on his lips, his hand reaching down for his spatha hilt, until the golden grass parted an arrow-shot ahead, and a single rider sped through the gap.
‘An imperial messenger,’ Pulcher cooed.
‘This far north?’ Sura said.
‘Faster than an arrow…’ Pavo muttered, wondering what grim news the man brought.
The rider reined in his mount, which reared and shook its head. ‘The Claudia cohort?’ the rider laughed, peering at their sorry, frayed garb then looking north in the direction of the Danubius. ‘We thought you had perished over there.’ His eyes widened in wonder as they took in the vast train of Goths behind the weary cohort.
‘We very nearly did,’ Pavo replied. ‘But why are you here?’
‘I’m relaying Emperor Theodosius’ reports to Sirmium, where they will be taken on to the West and Augusta Treverorum for Emperor Gratian’s perusal,’ he said proudly. ‘Theodosius has been stricken with a grim sickness,’ he kissed a Chi-Rho ring on his finger, ‘and God willing it will pass.’
‘The emperor is unwell?’ Pavo said, gazing past the rider and on to the south, thinking of distant Thessalonica. Then he realised just how far north the man had travelled. ‘But surely you should be taking the Macedonian routes West. Thracia is no place for a messenger. Fritigern’s horde moves in these parts.’
‘You haven’t heard,’ the rider realised. ‘Fritigern and his Goths have abandoned Thracia.’
Pavo stood a little taller and now a ripple of interest rose from those around him.
‘More, the horde has broken into two halves,’ the rider continued. ‘Two mighty halves. One – the Black Horde led by Alatheus and Saphrax – now tramples around Dacia and the other,’ the fellow’s features darkened in a frown, ‘rampages through northwestern Macedonia, Iudex Fritigern at their head. He boasts of making that land his own as he did with Thracia, and he moves towards the richest regions. The cities on the eastern coast are braced. This winter will be the last before he arrives in those parts.’ The rider looked south then back to the Claudia and the Goths. ‘Speed to Thessalonica, sir, the army needs all the help it can get, g
iven what is coming for it.’
The rider sped off as quickly as he had arrived. Pavo watched him go, he and the column remaining at a standstill.
‘No Goths here, but lots and lots of them coming for the city we’re headed to. Was that good news, or bad?’ Sura said what Pavo and others were thinking.
Pavo’s face twitched and he made a low grumbling noise as he raised and waved a hand. ‘Forward!’ he boomed.
On through August they trekked southwards across Moesia in a great train of wagons and families. One day in the sweltering heat, Pavo heard a clop-clop of hooves and turned to see Eriulf ranging alongside him on one of the few Gothic horses, matching his stride. The Gothic leader beheld the land with suspicious eyes. ‘I heard tales of bountiful croplands, thick herds and orchards, springs, marble palaces and well-garrisoned roads and fortresses. Yet I came to Novae, a broken home for giants, and now I trek through deserted grasslands. Is this it – the mighty empire my father told me of when I was a boy? The green-gold paradise my people prayed for all these months?’
‘Once, it was great,’ Pavo said. ‘Novae was a home of giants indeed,’ he said sadly, thinking of the I Italica legion – crushed at the brutal Battle of Ad Salices before the Claudia had helped to turn the day. ‘And a few days’ march to the east, along the river, you would have said the same of Durostorum – once home to my legion. The town and the fort thrived, the crop fields swayed, thick with ears of wheat and barley, trade was booming, food and wine plentiful.’ Incredible whores too, Quadratus’ chuckling shade added within Pavo’s head.
‘So you too have lost your home?’ Eriulf said, intrigued.
Pavo smiled sadly. ‘The last time I was there, the fortress was brimming with Fritigern’s Goths. The roads were bare and the town desolate, its gates ajar and listing on their hinges.’
‘We can change things,’ Eriulf said, gazing southwards across the shimmering, golden grasslands, swatting a gnat from his face. ‘My men will make fine legions. How long before we reach your emperor’s palace?’
EMPIRE OF SHADES Page 21
