A Roman buccina sang to try to regain a semblance of order, only for the note to end on a sudden screech, the musician surely having met the end of a Gothic sword. The red-grey dust now rose so thickly is was like twilight – choking, blinding and impenetrable. Amidst the chaos he could see only shadows and flashes of horses and men: a glimpse of Bacurius One-Hand on the saddle, raging like a demon, slashing and hacking down three enemy horsemen, then a cluster of Flavia Felix men being butchered, then a legionary head bounced wildly across the ground near him – one of Hormisdas’ men. He ducked instinctively, hearing the whistle of an approaching slingshot. The polished stone punched through the iron crest-fin of his helm, where a heartbeat ago it would have taken him in the temple and ruined his brain. He swung to his right, just as a Goth loped from the dust, spear held two-handed at waist level, face and bald head wrinkled in a mastiff-like snarl. Pavo jerked his midriff out of the path of the charge, then parried the thrown axe of another.
‘They’re overwhelming us,’ one legionary howled, before an axe slammed into his chest and a Gothic rider trampled his corpse.
Heart thundering, Pavo realised he had lost control of the Claudia ranks – they were scattered in this dusty chaos like fodder for the Gothic riders and spearmen. No… no! he mouthed, swinging this way and that in search of hope.
And then he heard a thunderous cry of joy. Swinging to the noise, he saw the men on the outer edge of the Gothic noose fall back like a rammed palisade as the Western legions broke through the noose from inside. The Petulantes, Pavo was sure, having seen their leaping wolf shields before. An iron-vested colossus of a man led them – face wrinkled with fire-scars on one side, thin hair hanging and plastered there with battle gore. Merobaudes, he realised, recognising the man from the day of Theodosius’ coronation.
The giant – suffering many small wounds by the looks of it – shot Pavo an animal rictus that was probably supposed to be an expression of greeting, before bringing his sword round to almost halve one Gothic rider at the waist. As the Petulantes spilled free from the noose, so too did another pair of Western legions, the VIII Augusta and the I Noricorum. The entire noose quickly collapsed into a mass melee of hand to hand fighting, all battle-order gone. Chaos followed, neither side now with any positional advantage. Steel sang and men fell in scores with every breath.
‘Crush them!’ Alatheus’ voice carried over the tumult. And again, this seemed to reinvigorate the Goths. Pavo glanced in every direction, eyes stinging, but could not spot the reiks. Instead, he saw Libo fighting off a trio of Gothic spearmen, but as he barged over to help, a giant of a Goth swung his longsword round and across Libo’s belly, ripping through his mail shirt, his tunic and his flesh, blood leaping from the wound in gouts. The leader of the Claudia’s First Cohort’s mouth stretched wide in silent agony, his head shooting back, his good eye clenched shut, his wooden eye staring skywards.
No, Pavo’s eyes widened as the one-eyed centurion – his most experienced man behind Sura – pirouetted and slumped to the dirt.
‘Bastaaards!’ came a hoarse roar from behind. Rectus, the legionary Medicus, hobbled forward from the fringes of the melee, taking his weight on his lame leg without complaint, swinging a sword and his crutch at the Goths, ploughing a furrow until he came face-to-face with Libo’s killer. With a sweep of the crutch, he took the giant’s feet from under him. ‘Curse you, curse you to Hades you bastard: he was my oldest friend!’ the medicus bellowed as he stabbed down into the fallen Goth time and again, dirt and blood spurting up.
Just then, Hormisdas and a clutch of his Theban legionaries led a counterattack against the Greuthingi riders, driving them back, only for them to come again with a renewed charge. But with every momentary swing of momentum in favour of the legions, Alatheus’ voice would shriek out, demanding more from his warriors.
Pavo found himself separated from his comrades, swinging this way and that in search of friend or foe. When hands slapped on his shoulders he swung, his spatha-tip halting just a finger’s-width from Sura’s neck. ‘Sura for fu-’
‘Come with me,’ Sura said, spitting a gummy mix of blood and sweat from his lips, shielding his eyes against the dust. He scooped an arm around Pavo’s shoulder, guiding him towards the edge of the battle. They ducked and parried as enemy warriors flew across their path and at them like shades, and as fellow legionaries staggered before them, gripping torn bellies, intestines bulging between their bloody fingers. At last, the dust thinned and Sura pointed.
Pavo’s face hardened. While the Greuthingi wedge had hammered into the relief force, Alatheus had hung back, protected by two mounted guards, calling out brave words from the saddle, asking his warriors to die for him. ‘We strike him down and the horde will break.’
‘But damn, they will,’ Sura agreed.
The pair lurched away from the fray, bursting from the dust cloud and hoisting taken Gothic spears as they hared for the Gothic reiks.
Alatheus’ face turned as white as his long, sleek hair and robes, his dark eyebrows stark. Sura’s spear flew almost true, lancing the guard standing by Alatheus’ right, pinning him to his horse. Man and beast went down in a thrashing, screaming, whinnying mass. Now the reiks visibly shrank in his saddle, flicking a finger to urge his last horse guard into position like a shield. Pavo hurled his spear at the last horse guard, striking the man in the chest.
Another pair of Gothic spearmen broke from the fray to shield their reiks. One leapt upon Sura and the two clashed spears frantically. The second stepped before Pavo, spear levelled. Alatheus, behind the man, grinned down at Pavo. ‘Open his belly,’ he said calmly.
The Gothic spearman judged Pavo’s position, then jabbed out with his lance. Pavo pulled back, the sharp tip scoring across his mail shirt with a spray of sparks. The man tried again, first battering Pavo’s helmet so hard that it flew free of his head, bouncing across the dust. Then he came again, slicing deep across Pavo’s left shoulder. Pavo cried out but caught the haft of the spear just under the iron head and yanked it, hauling the spearman towards him, then drew his spatha and rammed it under the man’s armpit. As the Goth slid away, Alatheus’ hubris vanished. With a kick into his mount’s flanks, the reiks turned and bolted, speeding round the edge of the battle and up the hill.
Pavo’s head switched from the sight of the fleeing reiks to Sura, locked in combat with the second spearman. Indus and Cornix were rushing over to help him and take on a trio of tribal warriors speeding to the scene. ‘Go,’ Sura snarled, punching the last bodyguard hard, knocking him out cold, then leaping up to stand with Cornix and Indus just as the Gothic trio closed on them.
Pavo loped over to the riderless Greuthingi stallion, still stained with the blood of Alatheus’ horse guardsman, and clambered up onto its back with his sword hand – the shield arm with the torn shoulder burning with pain when he tried to use it. The beast reared up, but he cupped his legs around its flanks and stroked hard on its neck to calm it. He heeled the beast into a gallop, cutting clear of the fray and arrowing towards the slender plume marking Alatheus’ escape route.
The din of battle faded behind him as he sped up the winding trail towards the hilltop, all the while looking above for any sign of danger. The path was littered with smashed bodies of sagittarii and ballista crewmen who had fallen from the bluff edge of the hilltop when it had been overrun by Goths. Here, without the dust cloud of battle and under the full heat of the late afternoon sun, flies droned in clouds over the corpses. Vultures worked on the handily opened bodies – merely an appetiser before the main feast that would follow the battle. One bird pulled quivering strands of grey-pink brain from a perfectly split skull, throwing the morsels up and catching them in its open beak.
He reached the death-stained hilltop and slowed. Nothing. Nobody. Roman bodies lay slumped over the ballistae up there, and the trail that meandered off down the hill’s northern face then on to the northwest towards Sirmium was marked with many bootprints. He halted then, noticing a few of t
he dead and their odd garb. Alani, he realised. Gratian’s Alani guardsmen. He slid from the mount, switching his head in every direction across the high ground. From the corner of his eye he realised that the smudge of battle down below was now slowing, packs of Goths scattering, the first victory cries splitting the skies. Roman victory cries. Without Alatheus’ booming bluster, the day was turning. A spike of elation rose within him.
And then it fell away to the sound of a stretching bowstring. He swung on his heel to see, emerging from behind a small rock cairn, Reiks Alatheus and a lone Gothic chosen archer, hair scraped tight in a high, golden topknot, bow nocked and trained on him. Alone with his slowly-numbing and blood-soaked shield arm, he suddenly realised how foolish his pursuit had been.
‘Shall I kill him, Master?’ the bowman said.
Alatheus’ smiled carefully. ‘No, not with the bow. Make him jump.’ He nodded towards the eastern edge of the hilltop and the bluff edge. The archer flicked his bow in that direction twice. Pavo remained where he was, part-drawing his spatha as a firm fuck you.
The bowman loosed. The shaft spat through the air and ripped through Pavo’s left earlobe, a splash of blood soaking his already gore-matted face and hair. ‘I have never missed a shot in my life,’ the bowman purred, nocking again. Thrum – the second arrow spat through the air and Pavo’s right earlobe burst in a puff of red. ‘Now move, as my master commands.’
Cautiously, Pavo back-stepped towards the bluff-edge. His mind worked like a speeding war horse. The hilltop was largely bare. Nowhere to leap to for cover, nothing he could snatch up to use as a shield. Step by step he went, and finally he felt his heels touch the edge. His eyes darted down behind him. The drop was the height of six men and the path below decorated with the broken, vulture and fly-infested shells of men he had passed on the way up.
‘Good,’ Alatheus grinned. ‘Now, jump.’
The chosen archer’s bow creaked.
No, not like this, Pavo screamed inside. ‘The battle is won, I will die happily,’ he bluffed.
‘The horde is scattered, but enough survive to be gathered up again,’ Alatheus countered. ‘Your lands will be stripped of everything, Roman. Every last morsel of gold and grain.’
‘Fritigern will seek peace,’ Pavo said calmly. ‘He is the true leader of the Goths. You are just a firebrand… a master of locusts.’
Alatheus’ lips twitched. ‘And the master of your fate, legionary. Now… jump.’
‘Hated by most of your kin,’ Pavo continued, ‘used like a hound by the Western Emperor.’
Alatheus’ eyes narrowed.
‘I know what happened at Adrianople,’ he pressed. ‘I know all too well. Gratian dangled promises before you. Riches too, no doubt. And you believed him,’ he managed a gentle chuckle. ‘And look at you now – a ragged brigand who has led his people to a sorry end.’
Alatheus’ nose curled over his lips as he dunted the haft of his black-flagged staff against the ground. ‘Jump.’
Pavo stood his ground.
‘Reiks Alatheus, we should not delay,’ the bowman said as a now raucous and full Roman song of victory sailed up from the low ground of the battlefield.
‘Do what you must,’ Alatheus said.
Thrum, a third arrow spat for Pavo’s chest. Fiery instinct tore at him: he threw himself backwards, off the bluff edge, the arrow shooting through the air where he had just been. Flailing, blind panic rising in his gut and surging into his chest, his good hand clawed out. In that moment of weightlessness, everything flashed through his mind. Mithras, it cannot be the end. Hear me.
With a jolt, his palm clasped onto a wart of rock, right below the edge. Legs dangling, battle-weakened sword arm burning, shield arm hanging uselessly, he felt his strength drain from him, felt his precarious grip slide until he was hanging only by his fingertips.
‘It seems our legionary friend needs a helping hand,’ Alatheus’ voice sounded, somewhere above the bluff edge. A moment later, the reiks’ head and that of the chosen archer craned over, the pair gazing down at him like lords, smirking. ‘You were right, legionary. Gratian promised me things and did not deliver. Perhaps he has victory today, but his legions have been battered. And he scurried back to Sirmium, as I knew he would – to safety… but by now, he will have found something very different waiting on him there. And I want to be there, to see his face, to see the light in his eyes fade away. So,’ he snarled, raising his staff, lining up the end with Pavo’s fingers, ‘will you just die!’
A faint whirring sounded. The chosen archer looked to his left, eyes suddenly wide, before a spinning spatha whacked, edge-first, into his face, cleaving it from forehead to chin, the hilt jutting above his head. With a wash of dark red blood, the Goth spasmed then crumpled like a dropped curtain. Alatheus, staff still raised and ready to strike Pavo, turned to gawp at the source of the blade, then stammered some half-word as the sound of a pair of rushing boots rose rapidly towards him. In a flash, a leg swung out from the hilltop, booting into the reiks’ chest, sending him out and over the edge, over Pavo’s head, then plummeting like a ball of lead, screaming like a gull. With a whack like a club bursting a watermelon, the scream ended.
Sura’s head appeared over the edge, an arm extended. He hauled Pavo to safety, the pair gazing down for a moment at the spread-eagled, agape Alatheus, on his back on the path below, a star of blood exploded around him and his white robes and hair strewn with some string of innards that had escaped on impact.
‘So, it’s over. We won,’ Sura panted, wrenching his spatha from the chosen archer’s face.
‘I’m glad to hear it. A moment later and that,’ Pavo groaned, pointing down at Alatheus as vultures and flies descended upon him, ‘would have been me.’
Sura curled his bottom lip in thought. ‘One less arsehole in the world. Several million to go.’
Shaking from exertion, Pavo turned again to the hoof and boot-printed Sirmium track, then to the mount he had ridden up here, cropping at a patch of grass with Sura’s stallion.
‘As I said, it’s over,’ Sura said again, caution creeping into his voice.
‘Not truly,’ Pavo said.
‘Pavo?’ Sura said in a low burr.
‘One last effort, Brother,’ he said, looking up at Sura. ‘One last foray, to avenge our fallen ones? To make right what went wrong at Adrianople? To see that justice is done?’
Eriulf ran uphill with his auxiliaries, his hair having fallen loose from its knot, swaying and swishing, sticking to his sweat and blood coated body.
‘They’re not here,’ the foremost auxiliary said as they spilled onto the hilltop.
Eriulf’s eyes shot across the grim, lifeless scene, spatha clutched.
‘But I saw Tribunus Pavo race up here after Alatheus, the Primus Pilus, Sura, followed him,’ said another auxiliary. And now a few of the XI Claudia had climbed up too. ‘Where is the tribunus?’ they asked anxiously. ‘The hoof-tracks – they lead towards Sirmium,’ one realised.
But Eriulf heard little of their words. As the victory song rang out from down below, he sensed something, deep inside, something troubling, something lurking just beyond the realm of comprehension.
‘Well there’s Alatheus,’ another auxiliary gasped, peering over the bluff edge.
Eriulf stepped towards it, peered over and saw the reiks – or what was left of him. The carrion hawks had emptied his belly and snapped away his ribs to pull out most of his lungs. His face was torn away too. The sight conjured the oddest feeling, triumph and despair fighting within him.
He dropped his spatha and sank to his haunches, gazing down at the corpse. After a time, he looked out over the filthy stain of the battle further below. Still and quiet now, apart from the sombre soldiers working to separate the bodies. So many bodies. Nearly half the Black Horde lay dead down there, most of the rest disarmed and corralled in a ring of imperial spears. Now the despair took hold.
‘Sister,’ he mouthed into the ether, ‘what awaits us beyond
this life? It must be better than this, surely?’
The chatter of legionaries and auxiliaries behind him, gathering up the dead on the hilltop, scattered his thoughts. He turned, part-rising from his haunches and reaching out to collect his sword. His hand hovered there, for beside his imperial spatha lay a Gothic longsword, the handle etched with filigree.
‘What am I?’ he whispered sadly.
Chapter 22
Pavo and Sura approached Sirmium at a gallop, racing over the River Savus via a stone bridge, then slowed to a canter as they came to the city’s huge western gatehouse. Pavo’s eyes darkened as he saw that the gates lay open. Worse, there was no sign of a watch upon the walls. He spotted odd blotches on the stonework either side of the gateway. ‘Handprints? Blood?’ he said. Now they slowed to a walk, the smell of burning reaching them.
‘Smoke,’ Sura whispered as he spotted the thick grey plume that began to rise from within.
They slid from their mounts and stepped closer to the gatehouse, seeing more crimson handprints, a few dropped spears and the scrapes and scores on the flagstoned road of recent trouble. And then, in the shadow of the gatehouse, they saw felled sentries, their eyes wide, throats open, the blood soaking their fronts wet and recent.
A shared look was enough to have both drop into a cautious stalk, hands on their scabbards, as they entered the city. The place was so different from that last time they had been here: now, the streets were deserted. No, Pavo realised, seeing anxious faces peering from the shuttered windows then ducking away again, the people are here, they’re just hiding. But from what? The stench of burning was rife now, and a gentle, eerie and silent rain of ash and embers floated around them. More, statues of emperors old lay broken across the fine square. Hand carts lay on their sides, goods scattered where they had been abandoned. Wispy shadows of the drifting smoke, high above, interrupted the glare of the blistering sun.
EMPIRE OF SHADES Page 36
