Julius waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’ll consider it once I’m finished eating.’
Pavo swung from the general’s camp area and strode back through the lines of tents, furious.
Hooves broke his chain of thought when the exploratores returned. Excited and nervous chatter broke out as the word spread: for some reason the Goths had halted in the north, not much further on than when Modares’ scouts had first sighted them. A night of restful sleep then a morning’s march and the Army of the East would could confront them.
Pavo returned to the Claudia section of the camp, where the men were still finishing the earthworks. He picked up an earth-shifting basket and leapt down into the v-shaped ditch. A morning’s march, Pavo thought as he heaved basketfuls of dirt up and over his shoulder. A morning’s march to face Fritigern. Memories of the bleak day at Adrianople came to him like crows settling over a corpse.
As he dug, he heard nervous and sometimes nonsensical chatter from the legionaries. For many who had come from the intake of slaves and beggars, tomorrow would be the first taste of full-scale campaign warfare. For some, it would also be the last. He set down his basket: mucking in with the ranks was one way to build unity, but it was a calming voice they needed now.
‘The days of marching are long,’ he mused. Many of the newer lads glanced up. ‘It’s a long time to think, of what lies ahead,’ he looked to the Scupi Ridge then back in the direction of Thessalonica. Of what you’ve left behind.’
The legionaries with a few scars of war paid attention now too: Stichus looked up, so too did Indus and Durio. ‘Thinking of your family, back home,’ Cornix smiled.
‘Of your woman,’ Opis raised one eyebrow as if conjuring a bedroom memory.
‘And your wife,’ Pulcher added with a playful, craggy smile.
‘Of the moments that pass like wine dripping from a vase,’ Rectus smiled sadly. ‘That can never be put back in, and you ask yourself: why am I here and not with them?’
Pavo patted a hand on his heart. ‘They are with you, always. And everything you do out here: every step, every spadeful of dirt, every swing of your sword is for them.’
The men’s eyes seemed to grow glassy in the dim light, many smiling fondly. It had lifted them, he hoped. Timed perfectly, a cheerful tune rose from a lyre at a nearby Gemina campfire.
Sura waddled over from the wagon train with a ropeful of drinking skins. ‘And the quicker we get our section of ditch dug out, the sooner we get to crack into this wine – matured as it dangled by the buttocks of an angry and flatulent pack mule.’
Libo sniffed the air: ‘Notes of dung with a lasting hay finish.’
They set down their armour and burdens for the night and sat, barefoot in just their tunics to eat a good meal of stew and bread, drank a good share of watered wine and joked and told tales of their pasts. Pavo saw that the tension and fear had eased. They would sleep well. Most turned in and eventually, only Pavo and Indus remained awake. Handing his drinking skin to the young Cretan, he rose.
He wandered by the stables, stroking the manes of the nickering Scutarii horses as he past, then came to the western end of the camp, bathed in a moonlight shadow thanks to its proximity to the hilly ridge and the mountain looming immediately to the north. Both the ridge and the palisade were lined reassuringly with legionary watchmen – the two Fortenses centuries on the ridge and the entire Nervii legion on the palisade. He glanced up the mountain – now but a giant shadow. To his surprise, he saw a pair of Hiberi legionaries hiking up the trail towards the lake up there. Julius had listened, for once.
On he went around the peaceful camp, the ever-so-gentle trickle of the brook waterfall was soothing – something else that might help the men sleep, he mused. Most of the legions had turned in now.
‘All quiet?’ he asked one Nervii sentry atop the wooden watchtower, standing with his red-starred shield strapped to his back. ‘Out there, quiet enough,’ the Nervii sentry chuckled. ‘But in here…’ he flicked his head towards a tent, where a man within was snoring like a stuck hog.
‘Bear well, comrade,’ he said, walking on until he came to the section in the southwestern corner where Eriulf and his few were camped. Thick, ox-hide tents and two timber lean-tos were arrayed in a row before a large ash pit, embers where earlier there would have been flames. He smelt the mouth-watering aroma of well-roasted boar rubbed with herbs. He hadn’t eaten the like since the last time he had spent the night around the Gothic fires. The tents were dark.
He noticed something odd: three pots of damp earth lay near the fire, the contents gouged with finger marks – something they had always done up on the plateau just before they were due to go on a hunt. There was a fourth pot with something else in it, something different. He stepped towards it, confused, when something caught the edge of his vision. The moonlight shadow of a cloud, passing over the mountains high up near the lake. There for that fleeting moment then gone again. Strange, he thought, looking into the night sky – clear and cloudless. He stared at the mountainside for a time, before breaking down in a weary chuckle. ‘You are tired, man,’ he chided himself, then stepped over to Runa’s tent, pulling the flap back.
It was empty.
Stepping back, he moved to the next tent, Siward’s. Empty too. Then the next and the next. By the time he came to the last tent, he expected the same, only for Eriulf to sit bolt upright with a start, eyes thick with sleep and fright.
‘Pavo?’ he croaked. ‘What’s going on?’
Pavo did not answer, his eyes flicking this way and that. He twisted back round to the ash fire and settled his gaze on the fourth pot there. Crouching, he dipped his fingertips in and held them up, dripping red.
And then he saw the boot prints leading away from the fire… into the heart of the camp.
‘Pavo?’ Eriulf repeated.
Up on the mountain by the shores of the high lake, Gryllus of the Hiberi tilted his drinking skin back, the dash of soured wine in there enough to stoke his senses and fight off the urge to sleep after the gruelling trek up here. He sighed and rested the skin on the rim of his blue-gold shield, turning his head slowly from left to right. From here he could see everything: the Roman camp, the Scupi Ridge and the flatlands leading all the way to the north and that faint band of orange lights the scouts had reported.
‘Thirty miles away,’ he muttered happily, throwing the words over his shoulder towards his comrade, ‘at least. Don’t you think, Trifus?’
Trifus, who had fought alongside Gryllus at Adrianople, jolted. ‘But the cows need some hot water for their boots,’ he croaked in confusion.
Gryllus scowled at him, seeing his veined, bagged eyes. ‘What the? Were you asleep?’
Trifus cleared his throat and stood tall, inhaling through his nostrils. ‘Fritigern’s cows, er, probably are in, er, hot water if, er…’ his head flopped in shame. ‘Yes, I was asleep.’
‘Drink this,’ Gryllus sighed, shoving the drinking skin into Trifus’ chest. ‘I’m going for a piss.’
He wandered over to a bush near the lake side and shifted his tunic and loincloth to one side. He gazed up at the stars and was soon in full flow. ‘Can you imagine,’ he called over his shoulder to Trifus, ‘what it’ll be like to face those hairy bastards again? This time it’ll be on our terms. If they come here tomorrow, they’ll have to climb over that ridge down there to get to us. And if we march north towards them, we’ll have them on the flats. Either way they’ll have no advantage.’
Silence.
‘We lost too many brothers at Adrianople. I still think of them every day. I find it helps – do you?’
Silence.
‘Are you sleeping again? I’ll bloody well stone you to death if you are.’
A wet, heavy splash.
He swung round, tucking himself away. ‘If you’ve dropped my drinking skin I’ll-’, he fell silent.
Trifus’ face hung agape, eyes wide, belly opened and guts hanging free like coils of rope. Gryllus and he shared a last lo
ok before Trifus collapsed. As soon as he did, two shadows creeping either side of Gryllus shot up and flashed their daggers up and hard into his ribs once, twice, again. He staggered back from them, looked down to the Roman camp and tried to shout, but found his breath was gone. He toppled to one knee, clutching the stab wounds, blood pumping through his meshed fingers, lights flashing in his eyes. And behind his assailants, the night seemed to writhe. Shapes, many of them, creeping along the heights from the north, spilling round the lake’s shores like an army of ants.
Now he understood: the Gothic camp and Fritigern’s people were far to the north and that’s what the scouts had seen, but the Iudex’s warriors had not been so idle.
‘You’ll never… ’ he gurgled up at his attackers, ‘… never get inside our camp. The ramparts are too high and the watch is too strong.’
One of the shadows that had struck him crouched. The Goth grinned like a shark, his long, fair hair like his face smeared with dirt. ‘If only I could let you live a few moments longer to see how wrong you are, Roman fool. We have men inside your camp already… and the ramparts will soon be flat,’ he hissed, pointing to the group of a dozen or so dirt-masked men who broke forward from the emerging masses towards the spot where the trickling brook began its descent from the lake, down to the lowlands and the camp. The earth there had been recently disturbed. And was that a beam of timber. And struts. Recently hewn?
‘What have you don-’ Gryllus started, then sighed weakly as the Goth jabbed a dagger up through his heart.
Strolling near the heart of the camp, Magister Militum Julius glanced over the emperor’s pavilion: dark and still, five Lancearii standing like turrets around it. The sight of their speartips, pale and deadly in the moonlight, gave him a thirst for the vengeance which he had been long denied.
He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, wishing the night away, longing for the light of day and the chance to strike steel with the horde. Not once had he been granted the chance to face the Goths in true battle. Never once allowed the chance to unleash his rage. He looked down at his black breastplate, gleaming, unscarred and unstained with blood. It seemed like an affront to his murdered daughters. He saw again the image of the two defiled girls floating in the impluvium, and his teeth ground like rocks. The massacre of the Goth-born soldiers in Chalcedon had been unsatisfying and empty, only swelling that horrific thirst.
He looked up across the Scupi Ridge, thinking of the flats beyond and the Sons of Fritigern. ‘Tomorrow, I will slake my thirst, you bastards. I will drink your blood and I will spit on your corpses,’ he snarled under his breath, arm tensing as he imagined dealing death-blow after death-blow to barbarian warriors.
His mouth widened in a wicked, lustful grin as he played out the fantasy. He barely noticed a gentle hand resting on his shoulder from behind, and a heartbeat later when something brushed deftly under his chin, like a smooth finger tracing a line. ‘What do you think you’re doing,’ he tried to say, but no sound emerged. Instead he felt a sudden sensation of soaking warmth. He looked down, seeing cascades of dark blood sheeting down his cuirass. Clutching his neck, he felt the clean, ear-to-ear slit, the blood pumping out over his hands. He swung to the hand that had touched his shoulder, seeing there a smirking Goth, backing away from him, dagger in hand and a red stripe painted across the bridge of his nose.
Julius part-drew his spatha, took a half step towards his killer, then fell flat on his face, dead.
Sura could not sleep. He could not help but think of his old grandad in the bleak room in Adrianople. How long had it been since he had sent a legionary purse home to him? How long had it been since the annona payment had been distributed to the soldiers? Certainly it was a few months overdue. He threw on his cloak, tunic and boots and stepped out into the fresh night air. Opis, Durio and Stichus were watching the Claudia section of the camp vigilantly. Crickets chirped, and a lone wolf howled somewhere off to the south. Barring that and the occasional growling fart from a tent, all was still and silent.
He spotted the two Lancearii standing by the entrance to Theodosius’ pavilion tent. And he noticed something odd: there was no sentry on the side of the tent facing the Claudia section. Protocol demanded that a watch should be present on each side of the emperor’s tent, lest someone try to sneak inside. There was a man at the rear however… until he blinked and that Lancearius was gone too. Eh? His heart pounded, sure he was mistaken. But when his eyes flitted back to the two by the tent’s entrance, one of them fell silently and swiftly, an arrow taking him in the throat. And in the instant that his guard-partner opened his mouth to shout, a black figure leapt upon his back and hauled him down from sight.
The emperor’s tent lay unguarded. Another dark figure stole inside. The sight commanded an army of icy spiders across Sura’s skin. He sucked in a breath to cry out, when, with a whoosh, fire arrows spat from nowhere, landing in the nearby stable pens and supply tents. Pitch-filled vases smashed down near them and in a trice, the darkness exploded with towering orange flame. The horses in the imperial stables reared up, whinnying, some kicking the basic timber corral down, then many charging out across the camp. Men rose in panic, legionaries in a state of undress, scrambling for their swords and shields.
‘What’s going on?’ Rectus roared, stumbling from his tent, cupping his bare genitals and scratching his head as acrid smoke scudded across the camp. ‘We’re under attack? Up, up!’ he roared, finding his walking cane and beating all of the Claudia tents. ‘All of you, to the palisade.’
‘No, they’re already inside,’ Sura yelled. ‘There are Goths in the camp. The emperor is in danger.’
‘Goths in the camp,’ Cornix, Libo and Stichus and many others cried. Chaos ensued. All heads on the perimeter swung to the shouts, then the Nervii commanders there barked knots of their men away from the ramparts and towards the commotion. Sura sprang towards the emperor’s tent, leading a straggle of half-ready Claudia legionaries, leaping over ropes, vaulting over dying fires. He heard the smash of iron upon iron and saw the emperor barefoot and wearing just a white camisia, lashing a sceptre against the spear of the dark assailant, driving the foe from his tent.
As Sura ran, a sword flashed out and nearly took his head off, had he not tilted his neck to one side just in time. He fell into a roll then leapt up to face the blackness where the blade had come from.
‘It ends for you here, Roman dog,’ Siward spat, then lunged for him.
Sura froze, disbelieving, but big Rectus blocked the Goth’s strike with his walking cane, and the blow never came. ‘Siward? Why?’ he gasped.
Siward swiped out at Rectus, warding him off, then took aim for Sura again, his face daubed with a red streak. ‘Because it is our duty, our oath. The Vesi are honour-bound… to destroy you and everything about you. Your empire is a poison.’
‘You are one of them? This is madness. You can’t win this fight,’ Sura said, backing off a little, realising that the assailants consisted of the rest of Eriulf’s men. No Eriulf amongst them, however. ‘Drop your sword or you will die.’
Siward laughed. ‘Then so it shall be. But so will you… for this day is already lost for you and your kind, Roman.’
‘Look around you,’ Sura growled. Indeed, all but a few of Eriulf’s men were pinned down or falling to their knees, slashed across the chests by Roman spathae. The thick ring of Nervii who had peeled back from the ramparts now formed an inwards-facing cordon of spears around the principia area. The assassination attempt was over. ‘The emperor has not been slain, your men have failed.’
‘Have we?’ Siward rasped. His words trailed off into a bitter laugh. And then he lunged forward. But Sura, fast as a lion, blocked the strike, then rammed his spatha hard into Siward’s chest. The Goth sank to his knees, vomiting blood. ‘I thought we were comrades,’ Sura snarled, ‘and I almost wept when I saw your kinsmen being taken to Egypt.’
Siward slid from the blade, and Sura stood tall, panting. The Fortenses were now wrestling the l
ast of the rogue Goths to the ground.
Libo, gasping, came up beside him. ‘He was a Vesi?’ he panted, seeing Siward’s red-painted death rictus.
‘He died for nothing,’ Rectus snarled at the corpse.
‘No,’ Sura said, raising one finger. ‘Listen.’
He, Libo and Rectus stared at one another until they heard it: almost masked behind the clamour of confusion within the camp – a stark crunch of spades and axes from high up on the dark mountain, and the groan of shredding timber…
Sura peered high into the night, up the slopes of the rocky height, Rectus and Libo following his gaze. At the same time the Nervii commanders and sentries still on the ramparts turned too, looking up, bristling with realisation. ‘Get back,’ Sura rasped towards the men on the northern palisade, facing the mountain’s lower slopes. ‘Get back!’
But his cry was drowned out by the shattering of timbers and a roar. Not a roar of men, but something much more deadly.
Pavo and Eriulf had seen the sudden commotion in the heart of the camp. The pair had taken just a few bounds towards the trouble when the incongruous, rushing, roaring din had risen. It was like an earth tremor, causing the ground to shudder violently. Pavo saw the dark sides of the mountain change, suddenly glowing with white, fizzing, churning peaks, tumbling downhill in a fury. Coming and coming fast.
‘They’ve breached the lake,’ Pavo stammered. ‘They knew we were coming. They knew we would camp here. The brook,’ he realised, thinking again of the unworn rock at the waterfall by the roadside, ‘they even set that brook running as bait.’
‘What?’ Eriulf yelled, switching his head from the colossal wall of oncoming water to Pavo and back again.
But before Pavo could answer, the white rapids crashed onto the low ground then stormed the camp’s northern edge. With a boom like a battering ram of the gods, the water whacked against the rampart, spume and geysers spurting up and over the palisade, tossing back the wooden watchtowers like kindling, punching the sentries up there back as if they had been struck with ballista bolts. The earthwork crumbled away in moments, the waters flooding inside the camp, knocking men off their feet, washing tents away like fallen leaves. The deluge spilled on into the heart of the camp, flooding the earth, part-dousing the blaze at the stables with a great hiss and a cloud of white smoke. The torrents came to within five paces or so of a backwards-staggering Pavo and Eriulf before, at last, retreating and dissipating.
EMPIRE OF SHADES Page 28
