Gordon Doherty

The Scourge of Thracia

Prologue: The Shipka Pass

August 377AD

An eagle circled the azure sky, eyes scouring the slopes of the Haemus Mountains for prey, hunger gnawing at its belly. As if helping the eagle in its search, the warm summer wind strengthened and skirled around the craggy grey spurs of rock, buffeting the jagged silvery peaks and combing through the hardy foliage clinging to the slopes. Yet this yielded only spoors, puffs of dust or shuddering bushes where rodents had fled from sight, alert to the danger. Then the eagle spotted a hardy mountain goat, balanced precariously on the edge of a scarp to chew on the rough pasture there. But the goat was vigilant and already it was backing away towards an overhang under which its kids sheltered. There was no easy meal to be had here, so the eagle glided on to the south, its shadow tracing along the ridge path that rose towards the heart of the mountains. Here, at the highest point of the range, nothing moved. The zephyrs keened and the eagle felt its strength waning as it sought out something, anything. .

Then, its eyes locked onto an odd shape sitting astride and blocking the ridge path: a stone redoubt, lined with a small clutch of ironclad men. The men carried something on top of a staff that entranced the eagle momentarily; an effigy, a reflection of itself, wings spread and beak open as if crying out. But it was. . silvery, glistening and inanimate, with some brightly-coloured banner dangling below it, rapping in the warm wind. Spellbound, the eagle circled here until something else caught its eye: more movement, coming along the ridge path from the north towards this blockade. Another group of men — far more than on the redoubt — carrying glittering blades and spears. The eagle had seen such movements before and knew what was surely coming next. A primal sense of imminent danger surged to the fore. Pure instinct took over and it beat a hasty retreat, shrieking as it went. The hunger would have to remain untended for now, but the eagle resolved to return here later in the day. . when there would surely be plenty of carrion to be had.

Sarrius started at the piercing cry, his hands clenching around his shield grip and spear. He muttered a curse at the departing eagle, then felt his embarrassment fade as he noticed that the rest of his century lining the fort’s northern wall had been shaken by the noise too. These mountains are impassable, he tried to assure himself. But, inevitably, his gaze returned to the north and along the ridge path, eyes darting nervously over the rim of his shield, impassable. . except for this cursed, dusty ridge.

The Shipka Pass had been his home and that of the V Macedonica legion for months. All the minor broken paths north and south of the range converged onto this one precipitous ridge that ran north to south, presenting a narrow yet feasible route by which man and wagon might traverse the range. The drop on either side was perilously steep, and here, at its highest point, the path widened to a few hundred paces and commanded a fine view over the range for miles. For that reason, the battered, depleted legions of Thracia had set up this windswept fort: a sturdy stone-walled compound — eight feet high — blocking and guarding the path from all that might come from the north. The sides of the cramped structure were flush with the steep drop either side of the ridge and a timber palisade lined the top of the walls, part-shielding the legionaries stationed on its battlements.

Sarrius saw no movement out there, nothing apart from rippling pools of water on the track. And beyond a half mile, he could see little, the blue-ish haze and the mountains in the north obscuring the twisting ridge path. But this lack of movement gave him no comfort. From the corner of his eye, he could see a grey-black form lying far down in the valley: the broken body of a Goth, dead for over a fortnight, white bone jutting from the putrefying flesh. It’s only a matter of time until they come at us again.

He tried to calm himself, glancing up at the pleasant summer sky. Breathe, he told himself, filling his lungs.

‘We’ll smell them before we see them,’ a nervous voice said by his side.

Sarrius turned to see his comrade, Bato, wearing a tight grin like a mask. He chuckled dutifully by way of reply, as did a few others close by on the battlements.

His fear under control, he returned his gaze to the north and fished out a piece of salted mutton from the purse on his belt. Chewing on this would lift his spirits further, he reckoned. But his hand only got to within a few inches of his lips, when his eyes locked onto something: a shuddering bush, just where the path on the ridge melted into the haze and disappeared behind a rocky peak crowned with a cairn of silver boulders. The ice returned to his veins and his vision sharpened. There had been the briefest flash of something. Eyes? Steel? His heart thumped on his ribs and he dropped the salt mutton over the wall as he readied to give the cry of alarm. . when a pair of squirrels darted from the bush, tangled in some play-fight, before racing on into another cluster of shrubs.

He glanced to Bato, then both men’s shoulders sagged with sighs of relief.

‘And that was my last strip of mutton,’ Sarrius chuckled.

Fritigern, Iudex of the Thervingi and the Gothic Alliance ducked back behind the silver cairn. He cast a sour glare at the pair of rodents that had nearly betrayed his position — play-fighting in the bush by the path just below. Fritigern was taller and broader than most, though age had rendered him a little hunched and turned his once long, fiery locks and beard mostly iron-grey. Still, the handful of warriors crouched with him looked to him expectantly. These five were his keenest scouts, each lithe and fleet of foot. While he wore the garb of a warrior-king — an iron helm, a fine baked leather vest and dark-blue robes and a cloak — these scouts were barefoot and bare-chested, wearing only trousers and armed solely with daggers. And how they had proved their worth by getting him this close to the damned fort unseen.

No Roman alarm call had been sounded, he realised. The legionaries had seen the rodents and nothing more. So he took off his helm and edged his head beyond the top of the cairn, looking to the fortified high-point of the pass once more. The fort’s northern wall mocked him with its presence. Like a great dam, it was still and obstinate, denying his hordes a route south. The serried rank of legionary steel looking on from the battlement jutted like fangs. Fin-topped intercisa helms, spears, mail vests and bright shields. A century, he thought, with maybe another three or four centuries in the neat, narrow lines of tents pitched in the limited space within the cramped fort. So few of them, he thought. So few, yet enough to stem the movements of my people. And but damn have I not tried to break through?

Indeed, the front of the wall was scarred with sword cuts, studded with hundreds of Gothic arrow shafts and stained with smoke and dark-brown dried blood. The armies of his alliance had crashed against this blockade several times, yet each time they had been repelled, his men fleeing back along the ridge path to their camp, north of the mountains.

He slunk back behind the cairn and sighed. It had been this way for months now, ever since the Battle at Ad Salices. The Romans had quickly realised the legions of Thracia could not defeat the Gothic Alliance nor drive it back across the River Danubius. So the legions had withdrawn to the south, leaving the Goths in the former Roman province known as Moesia — the northern tract of the Diocese of Thracia — and blockading the five precious passes of the mountains with stockades like this one to keep them there. Moesia might have been a welcome acquisition, Fritigern mused, were it not bereft of forage and fodder, plundered by his armies some months ago of what bounty it had to offer. And Gutthiuda, their old northern homeland across the River Danubius, had been lost to the marauding Hun hordes, so they could never return there. Now, there was no option but to break these cursed blockades, to burst through and descend into the heartlands of Roman Thracia in the south, where fresh pasture and plenty grain waited. He felt the ire and wrath of his youth rekindled, his muscles tensing with anticipation, his hands flexing, reaching for his shield and longsword.

Just then, a faint scrabbling of dust and pebbles sounded behind him. He swung round to see his sixth scout climb up from the near-sheer mountain-side and onto this rocky outcrop. The scout scuttled over to him, sure to stay out of view of the Roman fort. ‘They are changing the watch, Iudex,’ he said, stooping a little lower in genuflection.

Fritigern’s eyes widened to match the look of the scout. It was time. He heard the distant calls of the Roman centurions and the faint rumble of boots as the legionaries atop the wall filed off the battlements to be replaced by a fresh watch. This was the perfect time for an assault, he grinned, then edged his head to the side of the cairn and cast his eyes along the mountain ridge towards the fort. The long-grass and shrubs on the slopes either side of the path writhed in the wind, fleetingly exposing his vanguard of soldiers. A hundred men. They moved like insects, bellies pressed to the steep sides of the ridge, shields strapped to their backs, remaining unseen so far and moving only when they were sure the Romans would not spot them. In previous attacks, his soldiers had tried to charge along the ridge path and overwhelm the fort’s north wall head on. But each time they had been sighted a good half-mile away, and the Romans had ample time to prepare a defence against such a narrow-fronted assault. This time, they would be granted no such luxury. His lips played with a grin, tempered by the knowledge that many more of his kind would die in today’s efforts. And so it has always been, he thought, fending off his doubts.

He took up his spear, adorned with a strip of sapphire-blue silk emblazoned with a black hawk, then stood tall, chopping it to and fro like an axe. ‘Rise!’ he bellowed, the baritone cry echoing across the granite mountains like that of a war-god. At once, it brought the hundred tall, fair-haired hidden Goths scrambling up the ridge-sides and onto the path, just a handful of paces from the Roman fort’s northern wall. They came together, swung their shields round from their backs and, just as he had trained them to, they formed a mini shield-wall, breaking to allow Gothic archers to rise and loose short, sharp volleys at the wall’s unprepared defenders. Legionaries lurched and screamed as the arrows found throats and eyes, their bodies toppling from the stockade, gouts of blood staining the air as they crashed onto the ground before the Goths or tumbled down the sides of the ridge, limbs flailing. A handful of Goths broke away, drawing out grappling irons and lengths of rope from their belts. They swung these ropes like slings then hurled the irons at the timber-stake battlements, before wrenching them tight and scaling the wall.

Fritigern watched with keen eyes. The Romans’ usual iron-discipline was gone, he realised. Instead of issuing thick volleys of darts and javelins, they were panicked, with many dropping their shields and struggling to pull the grappling hooks free. These legionaries were quickly shot by the Gothic archers. Then the first of his climbers reached the walltop. These men were lost in the madness of battle, some leaping onto the battlements with great swings of their longswords, heedless of their own mortality. They cut through legionaries’ arms and torsos, spraying fresh blood on the timber palisade. But one by one, they were cut down, as he knew they would be, having served their noble purpose well. The final few climbers fought their last on the wall top and the packs of shielded Gothic archers suddenly found themselves under the full attention of the Roman archers and javelin-throwers. It seemed that the Gothic attack was about to be repelled.

Then, the ridge echoed with the wail of a Gothic war horn.

Fritigern clenched a fist in anticipation of victory, seeing the Roman defenders slow then freeze in their melee with his vanguard. Every one of them looked beyond, to what was coming up the ridge path from the north at great haste. Fritigern did likewise, turning to see his wing of galloping mail and leather-clad riders and the horde of equally well-armoured Gothic spearmen and archers running behind them. A jostling sea of blades, helms and blonde locks. A serpent of warriors, snaking as far as the eye could see along the lofty ridge path. Two thousand men, he enthused, surely enough to break this cursed blockade at last.

He slid down the scree from the cairn and onto the path. The foremost Gothic rider brought with him a riderless horse. Seeing his Iudex, he slowed to a canter. Fritigern held out a hand and grabbed the reins from the rider, hauled himself onto the saddle, then heeled the beast forward. ‘Ya!’ he cried, sweeping his longsword aloft. ‘Take the walls,’ he yelled as his forces swept ahead of him in a great din of war cries and on to press against the base of the fort wall. They carried with them three tall ladders, which they swung up to clatter into place against the battlements. Moments later, hundreds of Gothic warriors were racing up the rungs. Showers of arrows and spears thrown from the Gothic mass punched back the thinning band of legionaries atop the wall, and soon the defenders were but small pockets of men, fighting in vain to push back the ladders laden with warriors who were now only a few rungs away from the top.

‘Yes,’ Fritigern whispered, then filled his lungs to bellow: ‘Yes! Seize the battleme-’

His cry was cut short by the keening of a buccina. In moments, the walltop flooded with a fresh batch of silver-clad legionaries. Two more centuries. . then a third. He saw that they brought with them long poles fitted with steel hooks at the end. These swathes of legionaries then hooked the poles to the ladder-tops, gradually but surely forcing the ladders back from the walls until they teetered, near-vertical. A heartbeat later, the pass filled with shrill screams as the most central of the ladders toppled backwards, tossing armour-laden Goths to the ground where many perished with the stark sound of cracking of skulls and vertebrae, and many more were injured, crushed under the weight of their falling comrades. The climbers on the ladders close to the corners of the fort met a grimmer end, these ladders swinging back not onto the ridge path but out over the edges of the ridge, ladders and men tumbling down the jagged slopes in a tumult of dust, blood, snapping timber and bone and screaming. In moments, the seemingly inexorable Gothic advance had stalled — the two thousand stranded at the foot of the walls with no means of scaling the sturdy stockade. A peculiar silence descended for but an instant, before the battlements rippled with silver as a myriad darts and javelins were raised and the stretching of hundreds of Roman bowstrings sounded.

‘Loose!’ the centurion up there yelled.

The smack of iron arrowheads and javelins on crumpling armour and soft flesh seemed never ending. Gothic warriors fell in their hundreds. Blood-spray was carried by the whistling wind, up the Shipka Pass until Fritigern could taste its coppery tang on his lips.

‘Fall back,’ he snarled, seeing the legionaries ready for another volley. ‘Fall back!’

The Gothic camp lay just north of the Haemus Mountains. It was a vast sprawl of tents and torches and home to more than a hundred thousand souls; the great tribes of the Thervingi and the Greuthingi along with many ragged bands who had previously associated with neither. All now stood together as the Gothic Alliance. Near the heart of the camp, a small circle of men sat around an open fire under a cloudy night sky and a waning moon. They were dressed in leather armour and wore furs on their shoulders. Fritigern sighed as he eyed this collection of reiks across the fire. This council of noblemen was his to command, yet they looked upon him like scornful fathers. Through the swirling air and dancing sparks, he saw expressions of fury and despair, narrowed eyes laced with cunning and thin lips on the edge of yet another recalcitrant outburst.

In an attempt to pre-empt this, he spoke first. ‘Today was a black day. Many of our kin died at the Roman fort on the ridge path. But we must show conviction in our alliance. At Ad Salices, we showed that we can stand against the imperial legions.’ He grasped out, snatching at the darting sparks from the fire. His mind spun back to the spring day when his Gothic Alliance had faced the Thracian legions, turning that pleasant meadow, edged by a willow grove and the Roman hamlet of Ad Salices, into a mire of blood. ‘We can still use that as leverage — force the emperor to parley and end the blockade of the five mountain passes. Such an endeavour might ensure that no more of our kin die in the treacherous passes, and that we finally gain lands to settle south of the mountains.’

Silence reigned until Reiks Alatheus chuckled, the firelight dancing in his eyes.

‘You hark back to Ad Salices as if it was some kind of victory?’ he said calmly. This one was tall and slender with long, white locks and black eyebrows. Skilled with the sword, lethal with the tongue. ‘Yes, it was almost a fine tactical victory for us. . but it was a strategic triumph for the Romans, for their reinforcements came — we did not break them nor they us. They had the lands and resources of their vast empire to fall back on. We won nothing that day. Nothing but this Moesian wilderness they choose to corral us within.’ He cast a hand out and swept it around the night air.

‘Aye, they treat us like goats!’ Reiks Saphrax agreed. ‘There is little meat, grain or forage to be had in this strip of wasteland. It was impoverished even before we drove the Romans from it.’ The squat, bald, slit-eyed and flat-faced man threw a scrawny chicken bone stripped of every morsel of flesh into the flames as if to stress his point.

Alatheus’ nose wrinkled at Saphrax’s interruption. ‘My point is that we have no leverage, Iudex. The time for parley with the emperor has passed. The five passes must be taken by the sword. So far. . we have failed to do so,’ he said, all those at the fire glancing to Fritigern as if attributing blame. ‘And rumour tells us that Emperor Valens is readying his armies from far and wide. If he brings all his forces to these lands, then we are without hope. Thus, we must look to whatever means might be available to change this state of affairs.’ he finished with a slight bow. A murmur of agreement rippled around the circle of men.

Fritigern’s eyes grew hooded. He could not refute the man’s habitually well-chosen words, yet he knew that to remain silent would further weaken his position amongst these nobles. He could best any of them in combat, he was sure — despite his ageing body — and no one of them led enough warriors to challenge his own loyal and numerous Thervingi ranks. But together, they could destroy me. .

‘We need to act, Iudex,’ Saphrax urged him. Another rumble of accord. ‘We need food.’

This time, Fritigern opted not to react. Instead, he took up his wineskin and swigged from it. Alatheus and Saphrax, he was sure, hungered more for power than for food. These two leaders of the Greuthingi Goths had crossed the Danubius and entered imperial lands shortly after Fritigern and his Thervingi the previous year. The Thervingi and Greuthingi had quickly allied as one force, driven by their shared need to escape the wrath of the Huns north of the river, and to stave off the threat of starvation whilst marooned in Roman lands. Only adversity could serve as a crucible for such an alliance, for the largely Arian Christian Thervingi and the pagan Greuthingi had seldom missed an opportunity to quarrel and make war in years past. And so it was that the two Greuthingi Reiks had gracefully bowed to Fritigern’s command, and the many thousands of cavalrymen they brought with them had been a welcome addition to the growing Gothic ranks. Neither man had made a move to unseat him in that time, yet there was a foul air of impending perfidy whenever either spoke. The reek had always followed these two. Indeed, Alatheus and Saphrax had been mere regents before the Greuthingi had crossed the Danubius, serving the boy-reiks Vitheric; yet somehow in the great river crossing the healthy and spry lad — a strong swimmer — had drowned. Alatheus and Saphrax, of course, had been elected in his place. Would either now be so bold as to challenge his authority at the head of the Alliance? And for what prize — the chance to lead this wandering and desperate Gothic horde for themselves? No prize for any man, any man but a fool.

He looked up, sure to meet the eyes of each man around the fire. ‘In today’s assault on the Shipka Pass defences, I was repelled, but I learned much. The walls of that fort can be brok-’

Just then, a cry rang out from the northern edge of the camp, cutting him off. All necks stretched, heads turned and a murmur of confusion broke out. Fritigern peered through the forest of torches to the gloom out there. He saw many heads emerge from the sea of tents: families, children and barking dogs roused by the cry and wary of its meaning. He rose from the fire and strode to the north, embers swirling in his wake and leather-armoured bodyguards hurrying to flank him. Nearing the perimeter of the vast camp, he slowed, his eyes fixed on the blackness of night beyond. It was crawling with shapes. ‘The legions?’ he whispered to himself as the chill finger of fear traced his spine. ‘They have come round our flanks?’ Then a hand rested on his shoulder.

‘At ease, Iudex,’ Alatheus purred. ‘The Romans remain in the south guarding the five mountain passes, ignorant of all that goes on in these parts. What you see before you is an army of reinforcements.’

Fritigern swung to the tall, lean reiks. ‘What? I knew nothing of this.’ His eyes darted, trying to make sense of it all. ‘You have summoned Athanaric’s cursed Goths from the Carpates Mountains?’

Alatheus shook his head. ‘These men are not Goths, Iudex. We felt a different caste of warrior might ease the taking of the five passes.’

‘We?’ Fritigern glared at him, then repeated; ‘I knew nothing of this!’

‘We,’ Alatheus repeated, this time nodding to Saphrax, ‘felt it would be best not to trouble you with false hope in case our initiative did not bear fruit. We sent one of our best men north, across the river, to bring to you what you need.’

Fritigern switched his gaze between the two — each wearing looks of matching equanimity — then looked back to the crawling night. A rare shaft of moonlight illuminated the approaching horde: squat and stocky riders saddled on sturdy ponies, each rider bearing three slashes on their wan cheeks. ‘Huns?’ he stammered. ‘Huns!’ He could not contain his panic. ‘You fools, what have you done?’

The clouds parted to allow the moonlight to bathe the approaching horde. Many hundreds of them, scratching, cursing and spitting. These were the demon cavalry from his nightmares. The very riders that had the previous year driven his people from the fine pasture of Gutthiuda, across the river and into imperial lands, kindling this desperate standoff against Rome.

‘You think you can control the Huns?’ he hissed to Alatheus, struggling to hide his fear, recalling his old rival Athanaric’s past attempts to harness these rogue riders. ‘How many of them come?’

‘Enough,’ Alatheus smiled with irritating calm. ‘But not so many as to cause us a problem. And they bring us grain wagons too. With them come the Taifali,’ he continued, gesturing to the rear of the incoming horde. Tall, fair Germanic riders in leather and iron vests carrying lengthy lances and dark-blue shields adorned with two howling wolf heads. ‘Close cousins to the Gothic tribes.’

Fritigern ignored Alatheus, instead struggling to estimate the size of this horde of northern horsemen. A thousand Huns, maybe closer to two thousand, and the same number of Taifali, he reckoned. He sought to remain calm, to find logic in the situation: the Gothic Alliance could count over thirty thousand warriors, and that number was growing with every passing week — more than enough to keep these newcomers in check, surely. Perhaps these new riders would be of some use, he tried to convince himself. And, loathe as he was to admit it, he could not help but be impressed by the initiative, mustering a hardy wing of Germanic chargers and steppe riders and bringing them to his ranks in good order like this. This brought a question to his lips.

‘Who harnessed this horde?’

‘Our champion,’ Alatheus replied, stretching out a hand to one approaching rider near the front of the Hun horde: a mail-clad giant on a silver stallion, bull-shouldered, with raven-dark hair scooped into a knot atop his head and a trident beard.

Fritigern squinted in the darkness, then felt his stomach turn over as the moonlight flashed across this rider’s face: handsome yet spoiled by a fearsome expression and troubling, obsidian eyes. Reiks Farnobius, a troublesome leader of a few hundred of the Greuthingi Goths. The head-taker some called him. A savage on the battlefield and a mercenary off it — doubtless guided shrewdly by careful words from Alatheus’ silver tongue. And what else did he and Saphrax convince you to do, Farnobius? Fritigern thought, his eyes narrowing as he thought again of the drowned boy-reiks, Vitheric. Farnobius had once been Vitheric’s protector. Where were you that night the boy died, Farnobius?

Farnobius was the only one Fritigern doubted he could surpass in combat. Yet as the colossus approached, Fritigern sensed the eyes of all the other minor reiks fall upon him again. His skin writhed with a cold shiver as he imagined himself trapped in a pit of asps: small and troublesome on their own, deadly when united.

Farnobius halted his stallion before Fritigern, then bowed in response — tilting his head just a fraction as if adding a dash of disrespect. When he lifted his head again, he wore a grin. It was the grin of a shark, passing into a stony glower as the two beheld each other for what felt like an eternity. It was only some sharp, involuntary twitch of Farnobius’ head — as if some dark and troubling thought had snagged the man — that ended the moment.

With a low snarl, the giant reiks drew the battle axe from his back and swept it up to test the edge, cutting the air before him. The grin returned. ‘Iudex Fritigern, I bring you many more horsemen for your horde; warriors who will break the Roman blockade.’ He raised his voice so the gathering crowds could not fail to hear. A clamour of eager voices chattered and gasped at this proclamation.

‘When we next attack the mountain passes. . they will fall,’ Farnobius roared. ‘The heart of Thracia and all its fine cities will soon be ours to plunder!’

A great, guttural cheer erupted and washed across the Moesian Plain, shaking the land.

Chapter 1

The dipping mid-September sun silhouetted Constantinople’s skyline: mighty stone walls that encompassed seven hills packed with palaces, gardens, markets, baths, columns and marble temples to the old gods competing with the great new domed Christian basilicas. The air remained disagreeably hot and dry, carrying with it a tang of dung and vintage armpits. The main way that ran from the Imperial Palace region at the tip of the peninsula all the way to the land walls was bustling as usual; thick with a sea of sweating faces and jostling wagons moving to and fro in a chorus of clopping hooves and babbling voices, a haze of red dust lingering above the throng. The people shoved and shouldered past each other to buy bread, wine, fabrics and spices at the street-side stalls. But there was one face amongst the throng entirely disinterested in trade: a young, lean man with a crop of short, dark hair and a sun-burnished, hawk-like face, heading west along the main road at haste.

Pavo barged past a pair of squabbling shoppers, straightening the sleeves of his fresh white tunic and brushing a hand across his smooth jaw. After some five months in the burning sands of Persia, such simple pleasures as shaving and clean clothes were still a novelty to be savoured. The very fact he had survived the fraught journey east was a blessing he would never forget.

A two-hundred-strong vexillatio of the Claudia had been sent into Persia that spring. Yesterday, just five had returned. They had sailed from Antioch, enduring a stomach-churning fortnight at sea before reaching Constantinople and docking at the Neorion harbour in the north of the city yesterday morning. Utterly spent, they had staggered to the dusty little barrack compound that they had left behind earlier that year. His itchy hay-mattress bunk had felt like a silken cradle, and he slept dreamlessly for the rest of that day and most of this one too. Waking just hours ago, he had eaten like a starving beggar with his four surviving comrades in the barracks. Half a pheasant, three bowls of mutton stew mopped up with half a loaf of bread, then yoghurt and honey, finished with a small lake’s worth of chilled water. They had said little as they ate, each man exhausted and acutely aware of their many absent comrades who had fallen in the east. So much had changed during those months in the burning sands. So many questions had been answered, he realised, gulping back the swelling in his throat as he thought of Father. And so many new questions posed, he mused, glancing down to the leather bracelet on his wrist — Father’s last gift to him.

Numerius Vitellius Pavo, Hostus Vitellius Dexion. Every beat of my heart is for you, my sons.

He could even hear Father’s voice as he read the etching on the bracelet one more time. A father lost, the promise of a half-brother found. It truly had been a monumental time in the fiery east.

A sudden waft of floral perfume from a passing group of lead-painted ladies on the way stirred him from memory and reminded him of his destination. All throughout the unpleasant voyage home, he had yearned for the moment when he would be reunited with Felicia. Again, his mind’s eye taunted him with images of her. Her amber locks, her floral scent. Her warm, soft skin against his. Soon it would no longer be a fruitless longing. Before setting sail from Antioch he had sent her a message on the Cursus Publicus, assuring her he was well and would return to her. The imperial messenger would have reached her in a fraction of the time their sea voyage had taken. She would have had days to eagerly anticipate his return.

He noticed his surroundings growing less salubrious as the road skirted the foot of the seventh hill — with crumbling insulae tenements becoming more dominant than marble edifices. Regardless, the sight evoked a thousand precious memories within him. His early years had been spent here with Father, and now it was home for him and Felicia. He came under the shade of the city walls and the Saturninus Gate and then veered off down a narrow and relatively quiet alley. His boots clattered on the uneven flagstones, drawing glances from the few characters lingering in doorways and looking down from windows. Pavo noticed one hooded fellow with a scarred face straighten up a little as he passed. From the corner of his eye he saw the tell-tale shift of something under the cloak. Lightning-fast, Pavo swung and shot out a hand, fiercely grappling the man’s wrist through the cloak until the sinews in his arms bulged. The man winced and a dagger fell from the bottom of his cloak.

‘Go and haunt some other street,’ Pavo snarled.

The mugger’s eyes darted over Pavo’s face, panicked. He backed away, then turned and ran, leaving his fallen blade.

The moment was gone like an unwelcome breeze, and Pavo turned his attentions to the listing tenement before him. His heart pounded as he looked up to the third floor and let anticipation run riot. He bounded up the rickety timber stairs onto the third floor landing, his face broadening with an incontrollable grin. . until he beheld the vacated apartment, door ajar. His Cursus Publicus scroll lay unopened where it had been shoved under the door. The room was bereft of her things. Just a bare bed and a scarred table sat there, an irate-looking mouse scowling at him from its surface, interrupted from its meal of a bread crust. Then he saw a lonely-looking strip of red silk on the table, layered with dust. He stalked inside and lifted it, shaking the dust clear and holding it to his nose, inhaling the weak trace of Felicia’s scent. It was just like the piece she had given him which had been lost in Persia. Her farewell to him? A way of leaving the past behind? His pounding heart stumbled to a near standstill.

‘Ah, so you’re alive?’ a voice remarked glibly behind him.

He swung round to see a glass-eyed old man in the doorway of the adjacent apartment.

‘Where is she?’ Pavo panted.

‘Long gone. Back in the summer. She left here with a faceful of tears.’ The old fellow wagged a finger at Pavo as if in reproach. ‘She heard word that your lot had been slain out in the Persian deserts.’

Pavo cast a bitter look at the Cursus Publicus scroll, wishing he had been able to get word to her sooner.

‘She left the city to help at the Great Northern Camp and the five mountain passes,’ the old man added. ‘For months now, trains of workers and oxen have been leaving Constantinople in droves to help supply and maintain the camp. She felt it was the best place for her. Things are dire out there from what I hear — legions cobbled together from the few bands of men who survived Ad Salices, and more Goths than a man can count trying to break through the passes.’

‘Aye, aye, we’ve heard much talk of this Northern Camp since we returned to the city,’ Pavo said, his eyes darting as he tried to make sense of things. Felicia seemed to be enticed to danger like a bee to a bloom. Indeed, he snorted, she had been drawn to him. The flash of amusement faded and he wondered if their time together was over. If Felicia thought he was dead then he had to get word to her at this distant camp. He ploughed his fingers through his hair in frustration. Why, why didn’t you wait just a little longer? he thought.

‘Where are you headed?’ the old man said as Pavo staggered past and trudged down the stairs.

Pavo looked back up, his face sullen. ‘Where else does a man go after he has lost his woman?’

‘Have one for me,’ the old fellow chuckled.

The bustle outside seemed smothered and distant and he felt numb as he made his way back up the main street towards the Forum of the Ox. This square space was set in the dip between the third and seventh hills. The place was dominated by the glistening bronze sculpture of a bull at its centre — still bearing black stains from its days as a method of execution, where Christians would be roasted alive in its hollow belly. These days, the forum hosted no such spectacles. Now, the Forum of the Ox knew only trading by day and unfettered iniquity by night. And, rather fittingly, it was where he had arranged to convene and drink with his few surviving XI Claudia comrades.

Dusk descended as he entered the forum. Torches and lamps blinked into life and the first shrieks of laughter and crashes of breaking glass sounded from the gathered crowds of carousing folk. Cackling drunks stumbled across his path, groups roared out chorus after chorus of ribald song, and near the middle of the square, some furious short man endured the indignity of a circle of his taller friends throwing him up in the air again and again, each time with a great cry of merriment. A violent ripping sound rang out, and the next time he was tossed up in the air, his trousers were absent, and watching women squealed in mock horror at the short man’s flailing genitals while his friends roared with laughter. The sound of gaiety along with the reek of cheap wine and roasting meat hastened Pavo’s step.

Watered wine. Stick to the watered wine, he nagged himself as he made his way over to one open air tavern bearing a vine wreath and ale-stirring pole above the arched entrance and shoved his way through. The place was separated from the street by a red-brick half-wall, and contained twenty or more overpopulated tables and benches, with wine and ale barrels and jugs lining a snug in the rear wall. He scanned the myriad ruddy faces for the few he sought. He could not help but chuckle when he caught sight of Sura, standing by a brick pillar. The brash, blonde-mopped and fair-skinned legionary, Pavo’s closest comrade since enlisting nearly two years ago, was in his element, it seemed, in mid-flow of some doubtlessly fanciful tale — his hands waving in illustration — while two local women close to twice his age listened intently. He stepped a little closer to listen in.

‘The Persian Shahanshah?’ Sura snorted derisively in response to one woman’s question. ‘He was a worthy foe but, ultimately, he came up short against me. Now I’ve returned to these parts,’ he waved his hands, palms down, in a calming gesture, ‘so hopefully I can sort out the trouble in Thracia. Unofficial King of Adrianople, you see,’ he said, jabbing a thumb into his chest. ‘They say I’m cut out to lead a legion. I can see where they’re coming from. If I had a few cohorts at my command, I’d. . I’d. . ’ Sura stammered as he realised he hadn’t thought his story through and, as usual, his efforts began to unravel. His cheeks grew rosy as his lips flapped soundlessly.

‘You’d have Durostorum and all in the north back in imperial control?’ Pavo offered, stepping in next to him.

Sura did a double-take at this suggestion then grinned, seeing it was Pavo. He shoved an untouched cup of wine from a cluster of several on a shelf into Pavo’s hand then turned back to the women, nodding hurriedly. ‘Aye, er. . all of the north.’

The women cackled as they latched onto Pavo’s game.

‘Reconquer old Dacia north of the river too maybe?’ Pavo added.

Sura now fired a swift and sour glare at Pavo. ‘Pavo for fu-’ he started then stopped, seeing Pavo was alone. ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

Pavo shook his head. ‘Gone.’

Sura frowned, turning away from the women, his brow furrowing in deep ruts. ‘Gone?’ he said, his mouth agog as he reached out to place a consoling hand on Pavo’s shoulder. ‘You mean. . ’

‘No, she’s well — as far as I know. But she left the city and headed out into Thracia for this Great Northern Camp we’ve heard so much about,’ Pavo replied.

‘The Northern Camp?’ Sura spluttered in a mix of relief and dismay. He shook his head and cocked an eyebrow. ‘I shouldn’t be so surprised really. Drawn to trouble like a whore to the docks, that girl. Er. . ’ he shrugged in apology at the inappropriate analogy then clasped a hand to Pavo’s shoulder. ‘Look, we’ll find a way to get to her and to protect her.’

Pavo said nothing, simply clasping a hand to Sura’s shoulder in reply. Sura glanced at Pavo’s leather bracelet, made to speak, then hesitated.

‘Sura?’ Pavo coaxed him.

‘Eh, oh, nothing.’

Pavo saw how Sura was working hard to avoid his gaze. Then he noticed his friend glancing at the leather bracelet again. Sura knew what Pavo had found, out in the east, and had sworn to help find this half-brother. ‘You have found something? Come on, tell me.’

Sura shook his head. ‘Well, yes, something and nothing. I tried asking around in here,’ he nodded towards one gnarled drunk and then swept his head across the others nearby. ‘Nothing. Then there was one whose eyes lit up.’

Pavo’s breath stilled.

‘A veteran from the Thracian legions, discharged just a month ago — lost an arm in a clash with the Goths.’

‘He knows of Dexion?’ Pavo said.

‘Well, he looked as if the name meant something. Then he threw up all over himself and was carried out and dumped on the street side. I tried to find him but he must have staggered away.’ Sura offered an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, Pavo. I knew it was not enough. I didn’t want to torment you with such flimsy findings.’

Pavo took a moment to compose himself. ‘Ha, don’t be silly. The sot probably didn’t even understand the question. It was probably some mistake, maybe he thought you were offering him a drink?’ he laughed and tried to sound unflustered, but Sura saw right through it.

‘Look, you should go, find the others, enjoy yourself,’ Sura said earnestly nodding into the throng of bodies. ‘I’ll be over shortly.’

As Sura turned back to the pair of ladies, Pavo edged through the crowds in search of his other comrades. He thought over his friend’s news, shrugged, took a mouthful of the wine, then nearly gagged. Neat, he cursed as the potent and tart liquid rolled across his tongue. He turned round to berate Sura, but saw that his friend was already in enough bother, with the women now mocking him and his tale. ‘Ah well, neat wine it is,’ he shrugged, taking another swig.

The crowd before him parted to reveal Zosimus and Quadratus, senior centurions of the XI Claudia, at a nearby table. The pair were locked in an arm wrestle, growling, straining, sweating, veins bulging from foreheads like worms, nose to nose and glaring into one another’s eyes. He considered making a remark that perhaps they should just give in to their true desires and kiss passionately. . then quickly decided against it. The pair matched each other in formidable height and build but nobody could mistake one for the other: Zosimus the Thracian was a haggard sort with a squashed nose, stubbled scalp and anvil jaw, while Quadratus the Gaul wore a flowing blonde mane of hair and matching moustache. Twelve empty ale cups sat on the table beside the pair — six each, it seemed. . so far.

With a thwack, Quadratus smashed his comrade’s arm to the table, and a chorus of cheering rang out from the onlookers. The big Gaul grinned and nodded as he collected in a handful of bets from the bookmaker.

‘Big, cheating, farting. . bastard,’ Zosimus grumbled, then shook the table, causing it to wobble a little. ‘Look, a dodgy leg,’ he yelled, hands outstretched and eyes wide in appeal to the crowd, ‘I was at a disadvantage!’

‘You’re always at a disadvantage against me,’ Quadratus mused with a glint of mischief in his eye, settling back into his seat and accepting a fresh cup of ale from a spectator, then draining it in one go.

Pavo sat with them, then sighed and supped on his wine. Sometimes the only way to silence a chattering and troubled mind was to get roaring drunk. At least this argument seemed more plausible now that the first few swigs had warmed his blood.

Zosimus, still seething, slumped to sit on the bench beside him. He turned to see Pavo and his expression lightened fractionally. ‘Ah, Optio, fancy an arm wres-’

‘No,’ Pavo replied sharply and swiftly. He had served as Centurion Zosimus’ second-in-command since the Battle at Ad Salices and had learned some harsh lessons in that time — most on the battlefield, some in the tavern. He automatically rubbed at the shoulder that Zosimus had nearly ripped out of its socket last spring in a previous bout of arm-wrestling.

Zosimus’ scowl returned and he tore a piece of bread from a basket of fresh loaves on the table and chewed on it as though it was a shard of pewter. ‘Fine. Where’s the tribunus?’

Pavo shook his head. ‘He’ll not be joining us.’

‘Aye, well. . nothing new there, eh?’

Pavo swirled his wine and gazed into the surface. Gallus, leader of the XI Claudia, was unlike any other soldier he had ever known. Tall, lean and utterly merciless. The sharp, gaunt look of a wolf and the roar of a bear. Pure ice, inside and out, he had once thought in his early days with the legion. But it hadn’t taken Pavo long to realise that there was a gravely wounded man inside that steely carapace. A man not unlike himself. Yet something had changed in Gallus after their escape from Persia. The iron tribunus had been freed of his Persian chains, but remained shackled by some new, fiercer inner turmoil, it seemed. He had been irritable and distracted, always muttering, always gazing into the distance. Always west, Pavo mused.

Before Pavo left to come to the tavern, Gallus had been sitting, silent and alone atop the compound wall, his eyes fixed on the western skyline, lost in thought. They had shared no words — just a single glance had served as a conversation. As he had stepped out of the barrack block, Gallus had stopped him with a shout, throwing a purse of coins down to him. ‘Come back in one piece,’ he said gazing beyond Pavo’s shoulder with that faraway look. ‘Remember: tomorrow afternoon, we are to be briefed by the magister militum.’

Pavo realised he had absently lifted the purse from his belt whilst tangled in these thoughts, and noticed Zosimus’ eyes gleaming at the sight.

‘Quadratus, look at this,’ he bellowed, clutching Pavo’s wrist — drinks are on Pavo!’

A roar of drunken approval rang out from all nearby as Quadratus snatched the purse from Pavo’s hand and headed to the serving area.

Feeling his sobriety slipping away, Pavo tried to order his thoughts. ‘I think we need to keep an eye on him, sir.’

Zosimus frowned. ‘On Quadratus? Has he started farting already?’

‘Does he ever stop?’ Pavo chuckled and drank some more. ‘No, I mean the tribunus. He’s not himself.’

Zosimus sighed. ‘Aye, in all the time I’ve known him, he’s been a hard bastard. Hard, but true. His focus has always been on his legion — seeing his men right. It was his way of dealing with things, I reckon — things that happened in his past. But since we left Persia, his mind has been elsewhere. He still does his bit, I mean — has us in good order and doesn’t take any nonsense. He gave Sura a severe bollocking yesterday for leaving the latrines in a disgraceful state. And I mean severe,’ he whistled at the memory. ‘But it feels like. . like. . ’

‘Like part of him is missing?’ Pavo suggested, then thought of that wistful westwards gaze again. ‘Or elsewhere?’

Zosimus took a swig of ale and nodded, wagging a finger at Pavo in agreement then wiping the ale froth from his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Maybe he’s got too much time to think about things. These last few weeks since Persia have been strange for all of us,’ he gestured around the tavern, then to his absent swordbelt. ‘When we meet with Magister Militum Traianus and find out where in Thracia we’re to be posted to next, we can get on with it, get back to normal. Active duty keeps the mind clear, I usually find.’

Sura slumped down next to them, casting one last forlorn look at the departing women and gingerly touching an angry red hand-mark on his cheek, before latching onto the conversation. ‘What’s that? Have you heard where Traianus is posting us to?’

‘Not yet,’ Zosimus chuckled, ‘but I’ll tell you, Thracia has no shortage of trouble-spots.’

Pavo curled his bottom lip and tilted his head, seeing no flaw in Zosimus’ logic. ‘Yet we are just five men strong. What can Traianus expect of us?’

Quadratus returned just then, pushed fresh cups into each of their hands and grinned the driest of grins, revealing a flinty sobriety for just an instant. ‘He expects us to survive. It’s what we’re good at.’

Sitting a little taller at this, and without another word, they clacked their cups together and drank.

Pavo felt the darkness of deep sleep drain away. Suddenly, he sensed an ethereal scene take form around him. Strange, yet familiar at the same time. He was on a raft at sea. No, not a raft, nor a sea — it was a wooden platform, raised above an ocean of faces, waving their arms, calling out, eyeing him like a mangy dog. He felt something heavy on his ankle, and looked down to see a manacle. A heavy, iron manacle. And his legs were different — those of a young boy. A foul terror rose in his belly as he realised where he was.

No! he mouthed silently, recognising the tall, marbled sides of the Augusteum square, seeing the other slaves standing beside him, chained likewise, heads bowed, spirits broken.

Just then, he saw a grinning, corpulent face, wading through the crowd towards the platform.

‘Forty Solidi!’ Senator Tarquitius cried.

No! You’re dead, this isn’t real! He mouthed without a sound. But every instant that passed seemed to vitalise this strange, strange place. He could feel the sun blistering his bare skin, the stinging of the blisters on his feet, smell the gold-toothed slave master’s foul breath.

‘Sold!’ The slave master cried. A thick clunk of iron and the shackle was off.

Pavo felt unseen rough hands seize him from behind and push him towards Tarquitius.

No! he screamed, his voice still absent as Tarquitius’ face widened in a smug smile of victory, arms outstretched, ready to ensnare him.

As he struggled and thrashed, he noticed something. Beyond Tarquitius’ sweating, bald face and behind the rest of the yelping crowd: the crone. The milky-eyed, withered old woman who had intervened that day. She stared at him with her sightless eyes. Her face was grave and she stood with one arm extended, a bony finger pointing to the north edge of the Augusteum. As he was passed through a sea of hands, he struggled to snatch a glance at the colonnade there. Then he saw it — a figure! Little more than a shadow, half-hidden behind one column. He could see no eyes, but this one was watching him. Watching him pass into slavery.

Then, through the blackness of the shadow, the eyes glinted like jewels.

Pavo reached out, just as Tarquitius’ arms closed around him.

‘Who are you?’ he called out, his voice coming back at last.

But the shadow-man slipped behind the column.

‘Who are you?’ he yelled as he woke. He realised he was panting, sweating, sitting upright, both hands outstretched, his mouth dry and foul from the wine and his head giddy. He heard his last words echoing around the barrack block, followed by a grumble of discontent from Zosimus’ bunk, nearby.

‘Shut up, Pavo,’ the Thracian said through taut lips and gritted teeth without opening his eyes.

He noticed the shafts of pale light shining in through the shutters and guessed it was dawn. In the bunk below, Sura was fast asleep. From the bunk block next door, he heard Quadratus’ rhythmic snoring. He lay back, aware that he only had a few more hours to sleep before Gallus would have them up and preparing for the briefing from Traianus. He closed his eyes, but saw only the shadow-man behind his eyelids. Each time it seemed to jump out for him, as if to escape his nightmare. Worse, the neat wine from last night had left a vile nausea in his belly and rendered his head like a war drum. Thump, thump, thump.

When a furious volley of farting sounded from Quadratus’ room, he finally gave up on the notion of more sleep, slid from the bunk, pulled on his tunic and crept outside. He noticed Gallus’ room was empty too, his bedding awry. He soaked his face and scalp with water from the trough in the barrack parade square, then gulped a few mouthfuls to slake his acute thirst and wash away the taste of stale wine. Flashes of the tail-end of last night’s revelry came to him then: Zosimus drawing a dagger on a cat that had clawed at his ankles as they staggered from the tavern, then the sight of a short, hiccupping, trouserless man on the street outside with glazed eyes and some slurred story about his missing breeches. He palmed at his eyes then plunged his head into the water to be rid of the ludicrous scenes. He rose and swept the water from his scalp and face, then started as a messenger scuttled past him and on out of the barracks. He traced the man’s path to see he had come from the barrack walls. A figure remained up there, perched there like a crow.

‘I can see the purse was well-spent?’ Gallus said glibly.

‘Sir, it was,’ Pavo saluted, hoping he wasn’t swaying on his feet. Had the tribunus been there all night? ‘But we will be well readied for Traianus’ briefing this afternoon.’

‘Excellent,’ he said, then patted the scroll the messenger had just given him against one palm. ‘However, I’ve just been informed that the magister militum has brought the meeting forward. We are to be at his quarters within the hour.’

Pavo suddenly felt more than a little queasy.

The five stood before the wide table in Traianus’ planning room, gazing at the yellowed map of the empire pinned out before them. Pavo shuffled uneasily in the stifling morning heat, rivulets of sweat streaking down his back under his woollen tunic. It was so hot that it felt as if a hypocaust was ablaze under the tiled floor. His stomach churned from the foul wine and his mouth was parchment-dry. He eyed the goblets of cool water laid out on the table for each of them, but knew it would be against decorum to gulp from it while the magister militum spoke. Worse, the sight of the closed shutters gave the otherwise austerely decorated office the feel of a desert tomb. A swift glance along the line told him he was not alone. Sura’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot, while Quadratus and Zosimus had a grey tinge to their skin. Gallus, however, was alert, standing tall, eyes sharply following Traianus’ sweeping hands across the map as the magister militum briefed them. He showed no signs of his lack of sleep other than a slight shading under his eyes. Pavo searched the tribunus’ keen gaze for some hint of the trouble going on within, but found nothing.

‘The cane!’ an urgent voice surfaced from his medley of thoughts.

Pavo looked up groggily to see Traianus’ eyes fixed on him. The magister militum’s nut-brown skin told of a life spent under the eastern sun and his white hair placed him at maybe fifty years old. But it was his scowl and pursed lips under his hooked nose that seemed to scourge Pavo with an invisible whip. ‘Will you hand me the bloody cane!’ Traianus repeated.

Pavo started, then snatched up the cane with the bronze hand on the end, offering it to Traianus sheepishly and feeling a burning look of rebuke from Gallus on his skin.

‘So the Goths are pinned down in Moesia,’ he tapped the bronze hand on the stretch of land along the River Danubius’ southern banks where a handful of small, carved wooden horsemen were clustered, then swept the hand across the vast, curved area below this that ran west to east depicting jagged peaks, ‘but only because we can employ the great bulwark that is the Haemus Mountains.’ Traianus used the bronze hand to push five carved wooden legionaries out across the mountains, positioning five of them at roughly equal steps along the range. ‘There are five points where Fritigern and his horde might be able to bring their armies, wagons and people across those peaks, and five legions — one thousand men in each — have been deployed to resist any such effort. Thus, these five passes are vital.’ He tapped the hand along each one, west to east. ‘The Oescus Valley, the Trojan Pass, the Shipka Pass, the Kotel Pass and the Sidera Pass.’

‘And in reserve?’ Gallus asked in a tone that suggested he felt not a drop of intimidation in the presence of Emperor Valens’ direct subordinate.

Traianus grinned wryly, tapping the map just south of the Shipka Pass. ‘The Great Northern Camp.’

All of Pavo’s senses latched onto this. At once he saw how close to the Shipka Pass the camp was — barely a day’s march — and thought of Felicia. A cold stone of angst settled in his belly as he fretted for her safety.

‘Seven legions are stationed at the camp, ready to answer the call for reinforcements from any of the passes,’ Traianus said with confidence.

But Pavo thought of the glass-eyed old man’s words back at the deserted apartment, and other hearsay that he had picked up on since arriving back in Constantinople. Some say the legions out there are in disarray. Men and units patched together from the survivors of Ad Salices — limitanei and comitatenses forged together in something of a rabble.

‘Seven legions, sir?’ Gallus asked. ‘I had heard mixed reports.’

Traianus’ confidence faltered and he nodded briskly. ‘They are far from full strength, Tribunus, and most of them are somewhat pragmatic in their composition. Many fine cohorts — indeed, entire legions — were lost at Ad Salices, as you know,’ he and Gallus shared a solemn look of understanding and recollection. ‘Old legions have been laid to rest, their surviving vexillationes and leaderless cohorts have been merged with others in an effort to re-establish at least a core to the Thracian army.’

‘I understand, sir,’ Gallus nodded.

‘And that’s where you and your men come into play. You are to march your men to the great camp.’

Pavo’s ears pricked up. The magister militum’s words were like an elixir to his fears. Felicia!

But Gallus’ response was at odds with Pavo’s feelings. ‘The XI Claudia have just returned from the jaws of the Persian Shahanshah, and you plan to merge us into some other legion’s standard, sweep our proud history away like-’

‘The XI Claudia will live on, Tribunus,’ Traianus chuckled with a contented look on his face. The man was clearly encouraged by Gallus’ fiery response. ‘At the Great Northern Camp, you will find three new cohorts awaiting you. Your ranks will be what they once were.’

Gallus offered no response, and Pavo saw a look of near-disbelief on the tribunus’ face. The XI Claudia had been in tatters for years, losing men on the battlefield as fast as it could recruit replacements, always well below its on-paper strength of some seventeen hundred men. Now it seemed that the guttering flame was to be rekindled in full.

‘Magister Equitum Saturninus commands the Great Camp, and he will furnish you with your new men and further orders.’ Traianus then stretched the bronze hand out to the empire’s eastern desert borders. There, a cluster of wooden figures stood. These figures were legionaries too, but taller and broader than those in Thracia. And in their centre was a fine, plumed rider. Traianus hooked them across the map, bringing them to the Diocese of Thracia. ‘As you know, Emperor Valens is already gathering his Praesental Army in the east. Some thirty thousand men. . yet he will not be able to bring them to these lands until spring at the earliest.’

Pavo nodded along with the others. He recalled Valens telling them just this before they set sail from Antioch. Keep the mountain passes secure until I arrive, then we will rid Thracia of the Gothic blight.

But when Traianus swept the cane out again, this time to the west, Pavo frowned. There, far beyond Pannonia and the upper stretches of the Danubius, a thick blue line snaked south to north. The River Rhenus. Stationed along this great waterway was another cluster of the broad, tall legionary pieces and another plumed figure on horseback. Traianus gathered these with the bronze hand and swept them towards Thracia, following the banks of the Rhenus, then the Danubius, then down through the passes that snaked through the Dioceses of Pannonia and Dacia. ‘What you might not know is that Emperor Valens has called upon his western counterpart. Emperor Gratian will bring his Praesental Army to Thracia also.’

Pavo gawped at the two model armies, trying to imagine what such a force might look like. Sixty thousand men. The Praesental Armies of East and West were the core of the empire’s finest soldiers. Many legions of comitatenses, elite auxilia palatinae infantry and scholae palatinae cavalry, specialist troops and siege engineers. Together, they could surely end the strife in Thracia, maybe even recover the northern chunk of the diocese — the lost province of Moesia between the Haemus Mountains and the River Danubius, including Durostorum and the XI Claudia fort.

He glanced across to Gallus, expecting to see at least a glimmer of enthusiasm from the iron tribunus. But instead, Gallus’ face was ashen, fixed on the figure of the Western Emperor and his army. Then once, twice and again, Pavo noticed Gallus’ top lip twitch, betraying gritted teeth behind.

Later that day, as the sun was setting, Pavo wandered alone in the quieter streets of the city’s north-eastern wards. They were to set off for the Great Northern Camp in the morning, and he hoped a stroll would tire him enough to enjoy a good sleep. Just a few dozing drunks and enthusiastic traders were to be seen, and the market babble was replaced by cicada chatter, sailing from the gardens, orchards and groves dotted in between the great marble structures of this, the finer quarter of the capital. He bought a small loaf of fresh bread from a baker, then set off again, tearing off and eating pieces of it absently. His thoughts flashed again with the promise of what lay ahead: Felicia and the Great Northern Camp. This stirred a frisson of anxiety and excitement in his belly and when he looked up, he realised he had strolled to the Augusteum — the site of that curious dream that morning. The majestic square was bathed in deep-orange light and deserted, the only sign of life being just the few sentries on the walls of the Imperial Palace area that formed the square’s eastern edge. The light of the setting sun glimmered on the tip of the Milliareum Aureum — the gilded bronze column used as a starting point for measuring distances from the capital. The Hippodrome nearby the square’s western edge was for once free of cheering crowds, with only the sound of the imperial banners rippling gently in the warm breeze from the Golden Horn. Resting in the shade of the magnificent Baths of Zeuxippus by the square’s southern edge was a series of small, stone tables and benches, each with a latrunculi board painted onto its surface. He sat at one of these chewing on his bread, looking out across the square and wondering: all those years ago, the day he had been sold into slavery, had there really been someone watching him so keenly from the shadows? His eyes swept round to the point where the slave-trading platform had been set up that day, right at the centre. Then on to the painted colonnade on the north edge of the square. Just like the dream, pools of shadow lay beside each column. He peered into the deepest shadow, trying to conjure the image from the dream and place it there. An odd chill passed over him as he did so. For a moment, dream and reality became one as he gazed into the blackness, the shadows forming shapes of all those long dead. Tarquitius, Salvian. . Father. Nightmares of Father’s fate had haunted him for years. Was this dream of the shadow-man another that would blight him relentlessly? A sudden pluck overcame him at the thought. He stopped chewing, tossed the last morsel of bread to a sparrow that had been eyeing him, then stood.

‘To Hades with nightmares,’ he affirmed, looking off to the north-western sky and thinking of what lay ahead. ‘Felicia, I’m coming for you.’ Then he glanced once more at his bracelet and shouted aloud so his words echoed: ‘And Dexion; if you are out there, I will find you.’

Gallus, dressed in just his tunic and cloak, stepped into a forgotten doorway halfway along a quiet alley, then descended the stony steps within that wound from Constantinople’s streets and down into the blackness below. He felt the muggy night air of the city streets dissipate, a creeping underground chill quickly replacing it. He resisted the urge to gather his ruby cloak to fend it off. The stairs wound round and round, ever-descending, ever-darker. Then the descent ended. He halted, gazing into the gloom. Before him lay a long, vaulted chamber.

The old Mithraeum was bathed mostly in darkness, lit only by the guttering half-light of a torch in the street above, the pale orangey light dancing weakly through a small iron grid in the temple’s ceiling. The floor of the underground vault was dank with water leaking in from the River Lycus, which flowed unseen under Constantinople’s streets. The whitewashed walls were flaking, streaked with mildew and slime and the timber benches that lined the sides of the cramped space were rotting. Desiccated laurel and acanthus leaves from long-past ceremonies lay piled in the corners. A musty stench of decay hung in the air and a rhythmic drip-drip was interrupted only by the occasionally muffled, drunken voice from the streets above. In this Christian city, the old gods had been forgotten, it seemed. But Gallus had not forgotten Mithras, nor the oath he swore with the bull-slayer.

Gallus peered along to the far end of the temple, eventually making out the carved slab mounted vertically there. As the city slept above him, he strode towards this sacred altar. Sleep was no friend of his on the best of nights, but on this night more than any other he found no peace. He had tried to rest but had been besieged by the shrill chatter of thoughts. Memories of the past played out from the moment he fell asleep. After that, shame jabbed at him every time sleep tried to return. Why had it taken so long, so many years, to reach that moment in Persia when he realised what he must do? That moment, on the bloodied floor of the Spahbad’s arena, with Carbo standing by his side.

Eventually, we all must face our past, Tribunus.

Carbo’s last words lived on. That haggard soldier had died along with so many others out in the east. But after years of running from his past, the man had died a noble death, facing his demons, striking them square in the eye. And Pavo, that callow youth who had grown into a fine soldier and a burgeoning leader, had echoed the sentiment, having marched through the desert to find his father against all odds.

Every step through the burning sands. Every lash of the whip in those mines. Every blade that scored my flesh. It was worth it all. I faced the past. The nightmares are gone.

‘Then you are braver men than I,’ Gallus whispered into the cool blackness, his breath clouding, outlining his gaunt features and greying peak of hair.

He stalked along the centre of the long, narrow chamber, past the rotting benches and the small food-preparation antechamber, strewn with long discarded bowls and platters, shrouded in dust. When he reached the altar at the far end, he stretched out a hand and traced his fingertips over the image carved into the rock there. The relief of Mithras slaying the bull had long since lost its vibrant colours, with only flecks of paint surviving. The god’s eyes were featureless, as if blinded by the near darkness he had been consigned to. He thought back to those days when he had thrown himself into the legions and embraced Mithras’ calling. He traced a finger along the scar welt under his right wrist, recalling the blinding, white-hot pain of the initiation test that had caused it — the Mark of the Raven, they called it. As his flesh had bubbled and split, the men of the Mithraeum had hailed him as a brave soul. But Gallus alone knew the truth: he was naught but a man too scared to face his demons. For a blessed few moments, the white-hot knife had caused him to forget the awful sight of Olivia and Marcus’ corpses.

He knelt on one knee before the altar, his ruby cloak slipping around from behind his shoulders and enveloping him as his head fell forward. Pulling the idol of Mithras from his purse, he ran his thumb back and forth over the worn carving. ‘Almighty Sun, Our God. . ’ he began the well-rehearsed verse in a muted tone.

The prayer usually led his thoughts away from darkness, but this time it failed him, his thoughts snagging on one line;

‘Keep our harvest and those precious ones we love from all harm. . ’ he fell silent, shaking.

He thought of those who had slain his family and had then pursued him doggedly for years afterwards. Why had they finally let him be? Perhaps the Speculatores of the Western Empire knew of the torment that would plague him and saw it as more fitting than any gruesome death. Fated to live every day with the shades of his wife and child calling for him.

‘And I accepted this fate. Accepted it!’ he spat.

Just then, a wagon wheel clunked over the iron grating. Gallus blinked, realising the night sky up above had grown dark-blue. The new day would soon be upon the city. He stood and offered Mithras a lasting gaze. It was time to say his piece.

‘I swore to give everything to you, Mithras, asking in return only that you let me forget my past and die an honourable death at the head of the legions. Yet you starve me of both. Why?’ The question echoed around the chamber, fading to utter silence. ‘Whatever the answer may be, know this; I relinquish you from the oath, as I relinquish myself. I have been running from my past for too long.’

He gazed off through the darkness, thinking of the fecund countryside of Northern Italy, the green hills and towering cypress trees. In his mind’s eye he saw Olivia and Marcus there, playing, laughing by the wagon. Sunlight flooded the memory. It was a time of simple pleasures, until the Speculatores had entangled him — a simple farming man — in their wicked game. He had chosen the noble path, refused to do what they asked. . and lost everything for it. Everything but his own life. The image of Olivia and Marcus crumbled, and the memory of their pained screaming filled his head, then the crackling of the burning pyre. Sharp, stabbing sorrow came at him like enemy blades. He cast it aside, then thought of Traianus’ revelation today: Emperor Gratian was coming east with his armies. . and his agents. The Speculatores and he were fated to clash.

He glowered at the faded image of Mithras, his brow shading his ice-blue eyes.

‘I will run no longer,’ he hissed.

His words echoed around the vault as he swung round and strode from the Mithraeum, ascending the steps, his cloak swishing in his wake.

Chapter 2

A clear blue sky hung over the Thracian countryside. A hot afternoon breeze blew, rippling through the grass on the green hills and the golden wheat stalks on the flatland. The Via Militaris cut north-west across this pasture like a great grey vein, running all the way from Constantinople, across Thracia, Dacia and into the Western Empire, ending at the distant fortress-city of Singidunum on the banks of the River Danubius. Here at this mid-section of the great highway, two days march north-west of Adrianople and six days into their march overall, the five legionaries of the XI Claudia moved swiftly under their silver eagle standard, the ruby-red banner hanging from the crossbar bearing the effigy of a bull. Gallus led them, eyes set on the western horizon, his red cloak and the black plume on his intercisa helm rippling in the breeze. Quadratus and Zosimus followed, marching abreast, with Pavo and Sura at the rear.

Pavo felt the strain of marching keenly, sweat streaming across his brow and his skin smarting from the late summer sun. The trials of Persia had strengthened certain muscles, while others had atrophied, it seemed. He had almost forgotten what the combined weight of a legionary’s kit felt like. The helm compressing the neck, the mail shirt digging into the shoulders despite the linen focale scarf worn under the collar, the wooden oval shield dragging on the left shoulder where it was carried on a strap, the weighty spear chafing the palms and straining the right arm, the trusty spatha and scabbard jostling and rubbing on the left hip and his leather boots chewing at his ankles. Worst of all, the extra kit strapped to his back felt like carrying a baby ox: two water skins, a shovel, rope, sickle, hammer, saw, axe, pick-axe and the framework of tent poles were all stuffed in there — with Sura carrying the goatskin that would shelter the five overnight. He grunted, hauling his shield higher on its strap and ridding himself of the nagging voice telling him to stop and rest his aches.

‘It’s been a while, eh?’ Sura gasped, reading his thoughts.

‘Changed days,’ Pavo muttered absently in reply, casting his gaze around and taking a swig of his water skin to wash the dust from his throat. ‘And a changed land too, it seems. Only last year this was considered solid imperial territory. Then, we could march without armour.’

‘What’s that?’ Zosimus grunted, looking over his shoulder. ‘Nah, nothing to be wary of. I know these lands like the underside of my scrotum,’ he affirmed, then frowned and wondered at the comparison and whether he had ever actually set eyes on that part of his anatomy. He was about to add something, when they passed another deserted imperial watchtower. Beside it was a crushed legionary helm. He glowered at the abandoned tower and Pavo heard a low growl tumble from his lips. The big man was a Thracian by birth, and the sight of his homeland in disorder riled him.

The watchtower was but one such sight. The further north and west of Adrianople they marched, the more destruction they witnessed: deserted or dilapidated waystations, empty field forts, abandoned farmsteads and a stark thinning of the rural population — many having fled to the safety of the walled cities. Crop fields had been left to seed, fallow ground lay brown and bare apart from the weeds that had taken root. Fig and olive groves had grown wild and untended. In the months they had been in Persia, Thracia had suffered. The small bands of Gothic raiders who had managed to penetrate this far south before the five mountain pass blockades had been set up had reaped a heavy toll, it seemed. Even to this day, a few such bands still roamed in these lands. They passed one field where a few farmers dared to tend their crops: they did so nervously, eyes darting to the countryside every so often, their harvesting sickles clutched like weapons. The great road was empty too — as far as the eye could see. They had passed not a single imperial rider or sentry patrol in days. Every man, it seemed had been pulled to the Great Northern Camp, to focus on the main body of Goths beyond the mountains, while lower and middle Thracia had been left almost bare of protection. He shrugged, pulling his shield up on its strap again — this time for safety rather than of comfort — and took to switching his gaze this way and that.

The march grew more wearing throughout that day as they came to long tracts of heathland, dappled in purple heather and punctuated with grey limestone boulders. Here, long sections of the Via Militaris had fallen into disrepair with flagstones sunken, raised, or absent — gouged out and taken for some other purpose. In parts, repairs had been attempted, though rather crudely, with chunks of yellow sandstone and even slabs of expensive blue-veined marble crammed awkwardly into gaps. He passed over one such stone that had a worn dedication to Mars etched into it — no doubt from a forgotten temple to the old war god. Changing days indeed.

Late in the afternoon, they came to a fork in the road, where the Via Militaris continued on towards the western empire while a smaller, more ancient and broken road led off to the north. This smaller road scaled a small set of foothills, almost being swallowed by the swaying long grass that sprouted between its flagstones.

‘The road to the Great Camp,’ Gallus said, halting them and unfurling a map.

Pavo joined the others in sucking hungrily from his water skin, removing his helm and mopping the sweat from his face.

‘The camp lies a half-day’s march to the north,’ Gallus continued, ‘on the southern banks of the River Tonsus. ‘Fresh cohorts and a fresh cause await us there. Let us stop here tonight then rise early.’

It was the first words he had spoken since breaking camp this morning. Pavo helped the others in setting up the tent. Later, as Sura and Quadratus bickered over who would light the fire, he noticed that the tribunus was standing sentinel-like under a beech tree, hands clasped behind his back, again gazing west. Always west.

Darkness fell, and Zosimus set about topping bread with cheese then lightly toasting it and soon Pavo, Sura and Quadratus joined him in sitting round the fire to eat. Pavo took his piece of bread and munched on it. The warming meal innervated his tired limbs, and a swig of cool water washed it down nicely. He noticed that Gallus had not taken his piece from the plate, so he lifted it and took it over to him. Silvery spears of moonlight pierced the canopy of leaves above the tribunus and threw his face into sharp relief. The harsh, unforgiving glare was still fixed on the blackness of the western horizon. The tribunus’ troubles were well-guarded, and Pavo knew it would be a mistake to broach what little he knew of them directly. He sought a different tack.

‘The Praesental Armies will put an end to this strife, sir. We will bolster the legions at the Great Camp and await their arrival. Come next summer, these lands might once again be at peace.’

Gallus’ head swivelled, his gaze pinning Pavo. ‘Aye, the Praesental Armies of East and West will unite in Thracia. When they do, it will be the first time they have come together in a long, long time. The Goths should be wary. . as should we all.’

The words were laced with foreboding. Pavo understood Gallus well enough by now to know it was not directed at him. ‘Whatever happens, sir, know that you can rely upon your men.’

Gallus nodded, his head dipping so his eyes fell into shade. ‘I know that only too well, Optio. That just four of you remain is a fact that plagues my every thought.’

‘Eat, sir,’ he said, handing over the cheese on toasted bread. ‘Then sleep. You need to sleep.’

Something flickered at the corner of Gallus’ mouth. A prelude to a smile? Whatever it was, it vanished again. ‘Aye,’ he said, taking the food.

Pavo returned to the campfire, sat, then looked north. At first, he saw only a wall of black. Then, as his eyes attuned, he made out a speckling of stars and the stark, jagged horizon, jutting into the sky like fangs. The Haemus Mountains, the only thing that separated the Great Northern Camp from the Gothic horde.

Apprehension seemed to hang around the small party like a fog, but it failed to dampen his spirit, for the Great Camp was so near and one name rang in his thoughts.

Felicia!

The next morning, a fine mizzle fell, stealing in through a gap in the tent flap and waking them at dawn. Gallus rose first to find not a single chink of blue in the sky — just layer upon layer of scudding grey clouds. They ate a swift breakfast of hardtack biscuit and spicy sausage, washed down with a bellyful of water and a sip of soured wine. While his men bantered as they disassembled the tent, he looked westwards into the roiling grey sky, and imagined Emperor Gratian’s Western Praesental Army gathering. . and his shadowy agents readying to journey with him. Come east, you dogs. I will be waiting for you. Memories of his years of running stung him like a cloud of hornets, but he swept them away. I was once your prey, now you will be mine.

‘Sir,’ Zosimus said, scattering Gallus’ thoughts. Lost in his reverie, he had not noticed them hoist their burden of weapons and armour once more. ‘Ready to march!’

He met the eyes of each man. Each of them gazed back, expectant, loyal, focused only on their duty. . as comrades should be. This stoked an ember of guilt in Gallus’ breast. If even one of them was to fall because of his distracted mind. .

He steeled himself, donning the iron veneer across his heart then stood, sweeping his cloak back, hoisting his own shield and pack. ‘Move out!’ he cried.

Before noon, they peeled off the north road, following a dirt-track that weaved off through the last few foothills. The muddy track was scarred and pitted with myriad wheel-tracks, hoof and boot-prints. As they rounded the hills, the fine mizzle thickened into a shower, soaking their cloaks, armour and clothes and churning the earth underfoot. Each of them had raw ankles and aching backs from this rugged last section of the march.

Gallus eyed a rise ahead. A thin pall of smog hung there and the air was spiced with the scent of woodsmoke. He heard the dull clink of tools, the chatter of voices and the lowing of oxen, then spotted the tip of a damp, golden banner rapping in the breeze. The Great Northern Camp, he realised. Rest, warmth and food for his men. Tonight, when they slept, he could contemplate his own affairs once more. Over the next few days, the training and organisation of these three new cohorts would be a welcome distraction. . until Gratian brought his agents east.

The very thought of having to integrate some seventeen hundred men set his mind aflame with ideas. The new cohorts would have to be evaluated in every aspect: their physical condition, their morale, their experience, their kit. New officers would have to be selected to lead them, for too many of his trusted men had been lost in these last years — Felix in Persia, Avitus at Ad Salices and Brutus to these damned Goths. And the role of the XI Claudia would have to be established with this Saturninus, the magister equitum in charge of the mountain passes and the Great Northern Camp. For a moment, he was lost in planning, then realised his dark thoughts of the Western agents had receded entirely.

He climbed the rise and slowed at the top, the four with him slowing too. For a moment, nobody spoke. Down the gentle hill lay a wide green plain through which the River Tonsus snaked from west to east: a broad river, its torrents swollen with the autumnal rain. Nearest them on its southern banks was a vast arc of muddy ground and a sprawl of tents, people and activity. It was vaster than any army camp he had ever seen. But this was no army camp, this was a jumble of mud-spattered legionary tents, wagons, roaring campfires and grubby, torn standards. Milling and jostling amongst this disorder were masses of people — some in armour, some in robes, many clearly not even military personnel. The scene was more akin to a vicus — the typical hotchpotch of lean-to taverns, trader’s tents and brothel shacks that usually sprung up outside a legionary fortification — than a great military camp. There were maybe fifteen thousand bodies, wandering to and fro like a grazing herd. Worse, there was no visible training taking place, and no sign even of a clear street plan, with tents at odd angles and pitched too close together or way too far apart. All this was set upon a tract of near-quagmire.

‘What the?’ Zosimus said, lifting his helmet off and scratching roughly at his stubbly scalp. ‘This is it? Where’s the perimeter palisade?’

‘Where’s the watch?’ Sura added, frowning and trying to find something other than a single timber watchtower that had been erected on the furthest edge of the camp — right next to the riverbank. Atop this, one man stood, gazing down onto the camp rather than across the river and off to the north where the danger surely lay.

Quadratus, however, did the sentry’s duty for him, looking beyond the camp and the river to the jagged fangs of the Haemus Mountains, still misty blue in the haze of mizzle. ‘I hope the blockades in the passes are slightly better organised than this.’

Gallus felt many urgent questions form in his mind, then multiply and grow before fracturing into jagged shards. His head ached at the mere sight of the mess before him. The mountain passes, just a half-day’s march north of this muddle, would fall indeed if this was any indication of their quality.

At that moment, he noticed Pavo, the only one who had not commented. He had overheard the young optio’s conversations with Sura, and knew that within the muddle of a camp before them, Pavo’s woman, the flame-haired Felicia, waited. He met Pavo’s eye for a moment, and saw the anticipation in there.

I envy you, lad. You’d march into Hades to protect her, wouldn’t you? Had I only been so brave. . when it mattered.

‘Centurion,’ he said to Quadratus.

The big Gaul read the signal, hoisted the XI Claudia standard and chopped it forwards.

The five marched for the camp.

They trudged forward into ever more boggy ground, boots sucking and squelching. They reached the first of the filthy tents without so much as a challenge, a salute or a sideways glance from the people wandering to and fro. Gallus caught a whiff of strong wine. He passed something vaguely resembling an ordered row of legionary tents and felt a pinch of optimism, only to spot the piles of armour and weapons lying at one end of the row: mail, swords and helms in a slovenly heap, wallowing in mud and soaked with rain. He cast a look back at the four with him, and realised their blanched and angered expressions were a good gauge of his own. On and on they walked, past horses wandering untethered, hideously drunk men urinating on the mud-track or lying unconscious and bare-breasted women coming in and out of soldiers’ tents. He spotted a trio of chatting men dressed in mail and with spears and shields resting by their sides. Sentries, at last. He called to the nearest one. The man swung round. His face was nearly purple, with a bulbous, pitted nose and rheumy eyes. His thin hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat and rainwater and his unshaven jaw was spattered with mud.

‘Aye, what d’you want?’ the man slurred angrily through blackened teeth.

Gallus’ teeth ground together. ‘Name and rank,’ he said in a low growl.

The man gazed through Gallus for a moment then snorted. ‘Ha!’ he said, waving a dismissive hand and turning back to the other two he had been talking with.

Gallus marched through the bog, slapped a hand on the man’s shoulder and spun him round. ‘You have one more chance before I have you flogged, you. . ’ he stopped and stepped back, his nose wrinkling at that stale stench of wine again. He glanced at the man in incredulity, then to the spear he held. ‘You’re as drunk as an ass — and you’re on sentry duty?’ he said, nodding to the spear.

At this the trio of men looked to one another then burst into laughter.

Quadratus and Zosimus stomped forward to flank Gallus, each half-drawing their spathas. The zing of the steel edge rasping on the scabbard mouth served to underline their tribunus’ flinty tone and quietened the laughter almost instantly. At the same time, Pavo and Sura flanked their comrades, levelling their spears. Now the drunks fell silent.

‘At ease,’ Gallus said under his breath, raising one hand a fraction. Reluctantly, the four lowered and sheathed their weapons. ‘I feel we could quarrel with this type all day if we so desired.’ He cast a sour look around the drunken rabble in every direction. ‘Mithras knows there are enough of them. Come on,’ he waved to his men, ‘we should head for the centre of the camp. We may find some answers there.’

Near the mid-point of the camp, he spotted a jutting frame of timber with a windlass mounted upon it.

‘Artillery work?’ Pavo suggested, squinting and craning to get a better view over the passing clusters of men.

‘Not quite,’ Gallus sighed, seeing that it was in fact a screw press, surrounded by countless barrels of grapes and amphorae of wine — doubtless the source of the vile, cheap stench in the air.

He heard the tink-tink of hammers once again, much louder and closer this time, and felt the wave of heat that could only come from a nearby smith’s furnace. ‘At last,’ he growled to his four. ‘Someone both sober and with a purpose.’ But when they reached the smith’s workshop — a small area covered with a sheltering timber roof — there were no new or mended weapons or armour to be seen. Instead, the fleshy smith was working on a curved sheet of bronze, tap-tapping away at it on the round end of his anvil. Gallus frowned, seeing the ripples in the bronze taking the shape of a torso, then noticing a broken stone cast a few feet away.

‘You spend your time fashioning an intricate chestplate?’ he said. ‘There are tens of thousands of Goths not a day’s march beyond those mountains,’ he thrust a rigid arm out, one finger extended to the Haemus Mountains. ‘Who gave you permission to waste your furnace and materials so?’

The smith looked up, startled, sweeping his long, grey rain-soaked hair from his eyes. He grinned. ‘I was ordered to, by the Master of the Camp.’

Gallus felt this was a modicum of progress. ‘The Magister Equitum, Saturninus?’

The smith scratched his beard and shook his head with a look of incredulity. ‘Saturninus? No, he has been engaged at the Shipka Pass for months now.’

Gallus frowned and shot a glance to the north, his eyes narrowing on the mountains. The Shipka Pass was the centre-most of the five rocky corridors blockaded to keep Fritigern’s Gothic alliance from flooding into Thracia. The centre-most and the most difficult to hold.

‘So your leader is absent. Then who is in command of this. . camp?’ he spat the last word like a knot of gristle.

But the smith did not answer. Instead he looked up and past Gallus’ shoulder and a sickly grin split his face. He clasped the bronze cuirass using wet rags and held it up. ‘Your new armour is nearly complete, my lord.’

Gallus heard a wet, sucking thud-thud of hooves approaching behind him, then felt the hot breath of a horse on his neck. He turned and looked up, slowly and with growing dread. Before him, saddled upon a black stallion mired fetlock-deep in mud, was a barrel-chested officer wearing a bronze scale vest and a white cloak. His face was round and ruddy with a thick brown tuft beard trimmed carefully to grow out to a point that disguised what Gallus suspected was a rather weak chin. His sunken eyes were further shadowed under a bronze helmet with a jutting brow band, a lengthy neck guard and two delicately crafted bronze wings, one welded onto each side just above the ears — clearly a recent addition and the work of the cloying blacksmith.

Gallus hesitated before speaking. The man wore no clear indication of rank — no stripes on his tunic sleeve and no obvious clue as to his unit.

A tense silence ensued. Those nearby gathered to watch.

‘Tribunus Barzimeres,’ the rider said at last, eyeing Gallus askance. ‘Leader of the Cornutii, heroes of the Milvian Bridge, and of the Scutarii, the finest chargers in Thracia.’ His tone was bumptious to say the least.

As he said this, Gallus noticed that a thousand-strong unit of infantry had marched into the camp in the man’s wake from the west, four abreast. The Cornutii he recognised straight away, distinguished by the eagle feathers they wore either side of their helms and which their leader had sought to outdo with his bronze wings. Their shields and the amber banner hanging from their eagle standard depicted a twin-headed red serpent, both heads facing each other, as if ready to quarrel. He had seen these men once before, in Constantinople. They were an auxilium palatinum legion, a specialist infantry regiment of Emperor Valens’ inner guard — part of the Praesental Army left behind in Constantinople whilst the rest were garrisoned with Valens on the Persian frontier.

Behind them came the Scutarii. These mounted men wore intercisa helms, scale vests and oiled black cloaks, with shields bearing patterns of concentric red, blue then yellow circles. These fine horsemen were a wing of the emperor’s horse guard — the scholae palatinae. These two crack corps were a precursor to what forces might be mustered here in months to come when the Praesental Armies of East and West came together.

But these two pristine divisions did not excuse the pitiful state of the rest of the camp. Legions of border limitanei and the comitatenses field legions had once been the pride of Thracia. This rabble was a disgrace.

Gallus sucked in a long, slow breath through his nostrils and held Barzimeres’ gaze. ‘I am Tribunus Gallus,’ he noticed Barzimeres eyes flare for an instant at the mention of his equal rank, a chink of fear in there, ‘of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis. Emperor Valens despatched my men and I at haste to aid the effort in holding back the Goths, pending his arrival early next year. Magister Militum Traianus hastened us here from Constantinople, told us to seek out Magister Equitum Saturninus, the commander of this camp.’

Barzimeres gazed at Gallus for a few moments, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. Finally, a complacent look crossed over his face and he gazed past Gallus’ shoulder. ‘Ah, so that’s what you are: another few limitanei?’

Gallus felt his skin prickle as the man went on to bark out orders to unseen others, obviously more important to Barzimeres. He rummaged inside his cloak and produced the scroll Traianus had given him. ‘I have this message detailing our orders. . ’ he paused in disbelief as Barzimeres heeled his mount round as if to walk it away while he was still talking ‘. . a message for Saturninus — your superior,’ at this, Barzimeres’ wandering gaze snapped back to attention.

‘Saturninus is absent, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres sighed hotly as if reiterating some tired point to a recalcitrant child. ‘I am commander of this camp.’

‘Then you’ll have three cohorts of legionaries ready to repopulate my ranks?’ he finished, holding up the scroll.

Barzimeres’ sunken eyes shrunk further under an agitated scowl. He snatched the scroll and scanned it. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, waving one hand around. ‘You’ll have your men, Tribunus,’ he said, that haughty look returning. ‘I’ll have them mustered soon enough. It’s difficult to replace a fallen man in the Cornutii ranks. And the Scutarii take years to train. But your limitanei? You can find recruits lurking in any city alley,’ he laughed as if he was sharing a joke. ‘I hear that these days they even recruit the curs who cut off their thumbs in an effort to avoid service!’

Gallus’ stony expression did not falter.

‘You can set up your tent by the riverbank,’ Barzimeres said, his levity fading and his lips growing thin, ‘and you will report to me after evening curfew.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Gallus replied hotly.

At that, Barzimeres clicked his tongue to guide his stallion away, waving his cavalry and infantry units with him towards the eastern edge of the camp, urging them unnecessarily with hectoring cries.

Night had fallen, blessedly darkening the horizon and veiling the menacing outline of the Haemus Mountains. The mizzle had stopped too, but the camp was still a morass. Worse, Barzimeres had assigned them — entirely deliberately — the boggiest patch of ground for their tent. Pavo finished tying the goatskin to the tent frame and hammering the guy-ropes into the soft earth. Next, he took the opportunity to wade into the shallows of the river, ducking under to soak his head. It was white-cold and perishing, but it washed every morsel of splashed mud and filth from the march from his person. A fair bit cleaner, he ducked inside the tent. Sura, Quadratus and Zosimus had laid out their bedding on a goatskin roll that would serve as some kind of floor over the mud and were now cleaning their armour.

‘Don’t know why I’m bothering,’ Quadratus moaned. ‘Every other bugger in this place looks like they’ve had a bath in pigshit.’

‘Apart from that winged bastard,’ Zosimus flicked his head in a random direction that was his best guess as to where Barzimeres’ tent stood. ‘I bet his lot bathe him by hand every bloody night.’

Quadratus’ face split in a grin as he made an obscene hand gesture. ‘Aye, I bet they do. . ’ he said, his shoulders jostling in a chuckle.

‘Oh for f-’ Sura started. A small channel of muddy water had found a way in over the goatskin floor mat and soaked his bedding. ‘Perfect,’ he cast both hands up, dropping his half-cleaned boots.

Pavo rummaged in his pack to set up his own bedding in the empty space beside Gallus. The tribunus sat cross-legged, bed already laid out, armour already cleaned and polished, eyes staring into the distance. ‘Sir, before I sort out my gear, can I — ’

Gallus looked up, startled, as if he had been in another place entirely. He shook his head as if to clear out whatever thoughts were in there. ‘Your woman?’ he guessed.

Pavo nodded.

‘Go,’ Gallus said, flicking his head to the tent entrance, ‘but return by curfew.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ he nodded, throwing off his damp tunic, roughly towelling himself then pulling on a clean, dry white and purple-edged tunic from his pack. It felt like silk on his skin.

In a flash, he was outside, hurrying through the sodden earth. He knew where Felicia would be. Just as when they were in Constantinople and she had helped out at the barrack valetudinarium, surely she would be in the medical area of this camp too. Though in this light and given the haphazard layout of the camp, it might be more difficult than he had anticipated to find the surgeon’s tent. But across the sea of wandering and seemingly constantly inebriated population of the camp, he spotted one larger tent further along the riverbank. Close to clean water and enjoying a spot on shingle as opposed to mud, this tent had a tall wooden staff erected beside it, bearing a winding, carved serpent — the staff of Asclepius, God of Healing — and a Christian Chi-Rho to boot. His heart thundered as he slowed, then it leapt as, through the sliver of tent-flap, he caught sight of her.

In the orange bubble of lamplight within, she looked like every one of the dreams he had escaped to in those tortuous nights of incarceration deep within Persian lands. Her long amber hair tumbled all the way down to the small of her back, resting on her generous hips and the waistband of her pale green robe. Her milky skin seemed flawless, her lips ripe and glistening. He reached out to pull the tent flap back and enter when a rather grotesque squelching noise sounded — his boot had been pulled right off by the treacherous mud. He hopped to one side, balancing on one leg before tilting carefully to retrieve his boot. Felicia had a way with words; she could reduce a grizzled legionary to tears and pleas of mercy with her acerbic wit, so to hop into the tent wearing one boot or to stagger in splattered in mud would not do at all, he realised. As he wrenched his boot free, he heard her voice. Her throaty, sultry voice.

‘Even that foul wine they make here is tempting right now. It’ll warm my blood and make me numb to my filthy, damp tent,’ she said then craned her neck back and yawned, stroking her neck as she did so.

The words were anything but sensual, but the way she said them sent the blood rushing to Pavo’s loins. Well, it has been a long time, he thought.

‘I hear your man is coming to the camp soon?’ the light voice of some unseen other woman said. ‘So perhaps you will have more than wine to keep you warm at night?’

Pavo frowned. Had word somehow reached her that he was alive and well and coming for her?

‘I know that look,’ the other said. ‘You’re in love! It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Am I in love?’ Felicia chuckled. ‘No. . ’

No? Pavo’s smile faded and a scowl began to form.

‘Well, maybe,’ she added. ‘Yes. . yes I am,’ she admitted finally.

Pavo’s smile returned and he steadied himself, trying to slide on his boot in the dark as he listened in. Just then, through the sliver of tent-flap, he caught sight of the other woman, older, with grey-flecked hair. ‘Wading in blood and amputated limbs is no place for you. As an officer’s woman, surely you could be anywhere but here?’ she said. Pavo felt his chest prickle with pride, and when one sour-faced off-duty legionary stalked by, scowling at him, Pavo shot him an imperious look, as if to say, I’m an officer, don’t you know?

‘Ah, perhaps, but I came here by choice. I came here to help. And in any case, the life of a primus pilus’ woman is not the life for me.’

Pavo felt a cold pang of confusion. A primus pilus’ woman? This sent him wobbling on his one booted foot.

‘Wanting for nothing in some countryside villa? My mind would eat itself. A marble cage, as I see it. The primus pilus can have his pick of servile women, of that I have no doubt. But if he wants me, then he has to understand me.’

There it was again. Primus Pilus? Who was this Primus Pilus? His chest prickling with jealousy, he made the snap decision to confront her there and then. He wrenched on his boot, stood tall, sucked in a breath, strode for the tent flap. . then tripped over a mud-disguised and badly-placed guy rope, splashed face down in the mire and skidded inside the tent, face and body plastered with filth.

The older woman inside screamed.

‘What the?’ Felicia yelped, leaping back, snatching up a scalpel.

Pavo, clambering to all fours, waved his hands in supplication. ‘It’s me!’ he spluttered, spitting sod from his lips.

But Felicia shielded the older woman and backed around the scarred and bloodied surgical table in the centre of the tent. ‘We’ve had drunks, lechers and thieves crawling in here at all hours. So I don’t care if you’re bloody Mithras himself,’ she hissed as she held the scalpel up like a dagger. ‘Come any closer and I’ll have your balls off!’

Pavo hurriedly wiped at his face and swiped the worst of the mud from his hair. ‘Felicia. It’s me!’ Seeing her eyes dart over him uncertainly, he rummaged to pull a strip of filthy cloth from his belt, then shook the mud from this too, unmasking it as a rather sorry-looking strip of red silk.

She gasped, dropped the scalpel and stumbled back against a wooden cabinet. ‘Pavo?’ she croaked.

Pavo nodded, coming closer, swiping the remnant mud from his face. ‘I. . I. . ’

Suddenly, the older woman, in a fit of boldness, swept up the dropped scalpel and rushed for him, her face pinched and her shrill cry filling the tent.

Pavo leapt back from her wild swipe at his crotch.

‘Lucilla, No!’ Felicia cried. ‘He’s a friend!’

Pavo grasped Lucilla’s wrist, squeezing it so she dropped the implement. The woman staggered back, grumbling, clutching her wrist. ‘I’m sorry,’ he pleaded with her. ‘I’m not one of them,’ he nodded outside to the flitting shadows of passing drunks and ill-disciplined soldiers. ‘I’m here with the XI Claudia.’

‘You’re. . alive,’ Felicia stammered. ‘The Claudia live?’

‘I’m here. I’m alive.’ He grasped her by the shoulders, unmindful of his mucky hands.

Felicia’s fair skin was now paler than moonlight. ‘Lucilla, would you leave us please?’

The older woman sighed and nodded, then made for the tent flap. She did pause, however, just long enough to lift the dropped scalpel and replace it on the table, shooting a cautionary glower first at Pavo’s face and then at his crotch.

When she had left, Felicia’s brow wrinkled and she panted in shock. ‘But I heard rumours in the height of summer. They said that the XI Claudia had been lost in the desert.’ She looked him in the eye, more tears welling as she pulled a small purse of coins from under her green robe. ‘They even gave me your funeral pay-out.’

Pavo blanched at this, recalling instantly the moment from his youth when a scowling legionary had sought him out and dropped Father’s funeral pay-out into his hand. It had almost crushed his spirit. Almost. ‘I’m sorry that happened. I should have got word to you, somehow. The first chance I had was the Cursus Publicus messenger I paid to take word to you from Antioch. But he was too late, it seems. I. . I’m here now.’

‘Then you should have this.’ She tucked the purse into the belt of his damp, muddy tunic, then searched his eyes. ‘And the others?’

Pavo shook his head. ‘Only four returned from Persia with me. Tribunus Gallus, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura. The rest gave their lives bravely.’

Felicia closed her eyes as if stifling a show of grief, then clasped his hands inside hers. ‘I need to know. Did you find him?’

The question caught him off-guard. So much had changed in those months in the burning sands. ‘I found him,’ he replied, trying to keep the emotion from his voice. ‘He was alive, Felicia. My father was alive.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Then where is. . ’ she started in a whisper, then faded away as she saw Pavo look away. Instead, she simply embraced him again.

Pavo felt her warmth against him, sensed his heart beating a little faster, felt his loins stirring once more. He pulled back, cupping her chin and moving to press his lips to hers. But he halted, inches away, recalling something from moments ago. ‘You said I was a friend.’

She frowned. ‘What?’

‘To that harridan who was determined to hack my bollocks off. Just a friend, you said?’ he backed away, shaking his head, the lust of moments ago crumbling.

‘Pavo?’ Felicia replied, her face knitted in confusion.

Pavo felt that creeping jealousy tingle inside his chest again as he pieced it all together. ‘You were talking to her about some primus pilus. About love?’

‘Pavo,’ she tried to interrupt.

But he was having none of it. Already he understood what had happened. He and the XI Claudia had been missing for only days, probably, when she had given him up for dead and thrown herself at another man.

‘Pavo!’ she roared. It was a cry that nearly knocked the rest of the mud from his flesh and clothes. Even the dull babble outside seemed cowed momentarily. And her paleness of a moment ago was suddenly consumed by a flushing red band across her nose and cheeks. Her look was flinty, to say the least, and Pavo was frozen by her demeanour. She strode to him, reached up, scooped her hands around the back of his head and pulled him down, pressing her cherry lips to his.

Pavo’s mind flashed with confused voices and thoughts. His loins were more single minded. He pressed his body against hers once more and they remained interlocked for what felt like an eternity. At last, they parted. She held his gaze with an earnest one of her own. ‘I am in love. . with an utter fool of an optio,’ she said with a wistful smile.

‘Then what was all that about?’ he said.

‘We can’t talk here,’ she whispered, then took him by the wrist and led him out and into the night. With a series of determined squelches, she marched him to a small tent on the southern edge of the sprawling camp. There, without ceremony, she picked up a bucket of water resting outside and hurled it over Pavo.

It was freezing cold — more so even than the currents of the River Tonsus. He gasped in fright, then stammered in confusion. ‘What the?’

‘You’re filthy,’ she said calmly. ‘Now come inside and take that sodden, grubby tunic off.’

‘It was clean a moment ago,’ he muttered, then obediently removed his tunic and hooked it on a pole outside before following her inside dressed in just his loincloth. Inside, she struck a flint hook to an oil lamp that poured an orange bubble of light around the space and revealed two beds — one for her and one for the harridan Lucilla, presumably. She handed him a towel and as he dried himself, she poured them each a cup of fresh water and broke a small loaf of bread. They sat cross-legged on her bed, facing one another, Pavo gladly helping himself to some bread.

‘This place is a wolves’ den,’ she whispered, glancing at their dancing shadows on the tent canvas, as if they might be listening in.

Pavo’s chewing slowed. A forgotten but familiar, stony feeling settled in his gut. In his time away from imperial lands, he had forgotten — or had chosen to forget — the web of intrigue that laced every corridor, the rust of corruption that weakened every city gate and the stale breath of perfidy that lingered like mist in every province.

‘The Speculatores are at large,’ she said, mouthing this in an almost inaudible whisper.

Pavo’s blood chilled. The Speculatores had no place here, in the Eastern Empire. They were a grim and ancient institution of the West. Yet these shades had been ever-present yet unseen in all his time with the legions. Men who operated like wraiths in the shadows, stirring up dissent, murdering and stealing as they pursued dark agendas lost on most common men. They had ruptured Felicia’s life, recruiting her young brother and sending him into the ranks of the XI Claudia as an assassin. They had tried to poison the cohorts of the Claudia again, assigning Avitus to the ranks. Both agents were now long dead. The man they had been sent to slay was still very much alive and seemingly forgotten by these shadowy agents. But what was it about Gallus? What had gone on in his past life in the West that caused them to harry him so?

He thought of Gallus’ few words in these last days.

The Praesental Armies of East and West will unite in Thracia. When they do, it will be the first time they have come together in so very long. The Goths should be wary. . as should we all.

Was the Speculatores’ presence a precursor of the Western Emperor Gratian and his armies coming to these lands? He thought of Gallus’ reaction to the news of Gratian’s army coming east. ‘Of course. . ’ he muttered.

‘Eh?’ Felicia said.

He shook his head. ‘Why are they here?’

Felicia held her hands out in exasperation. ‘I know nothing other than that they are here and have been for some weeks.’

‘You’ve seen them?’

‘I could not mistake their kind, Pavo,’ she said gravely.

‘Aye,’ he nodded, placing a comforting hand on hers, thinking of her dead brother. ‘Where, when?’

She leaned closer to whisper once more. ‘Near the principia.’

Her words tickled his ear and sent a shiver racing down his back. He tried to bury the stirring this brought about in his groin and thought of the haphazard arrangement of tents at the heart of the camp. Was the detestable Tribunus Barzimeres in league with the Speculatores? Or were they here to kill him or another? Suddenly, he feared for Gallus: what if they had come, after years of silence, to finish the job?

‘By day they behave like every other wastrel in this camp — drinking, spitting and swearing,’ Felicia continued. ‘They can blend into any background. But at night, I saw one of them staggering, alone. He tripped and stumbled along until the moment came when not an eye was upon him — except mine — then he suddenly crouched, his clumsiness gone, his eyes keen. He saw that the principia area was empty, then stole past the sentries and into the tents. I watched, seeing him dart from one tent to the next, searching for. . something.’

‘And the sentries?’ Pavo gasped, then slumped in realisation that they were doubtless inebriated and ignorant to the goings-on. He sighed, knowing that the seed had been sown in Felicia’s mind. With these agents present in the camp and with the dark furrow they had ploughed in past affairs, he knew she would not rest on the matter, and neither could he. ‘We must find out more. We must.’

Felicia’s face spread with a superior smile. ‘And that is why you heard me talking about a primus pilus.’

Pavo’s eyes darted, then he laughed wearily. ‘You’re leading on some poor officer with a tent in the principia so you can keep an eye on the Speculatores?’

She nodded haughtily.

‘Not leading him on too much?’ he cocked an eyebrow.

‘The more he wants it, the more I can get away with,’ she winked. ‘But he is gone for now — off to the Shipka Pass.’

Pavo felt the jealousy crumble away. But she was playing a dangerous game. ‘Felicia, you are putting yourself right on the end of their daggers. You know only too well what they are capable of.’

She seemed to sense a lecture was forthcoming and cupped his groin. ‘And you know only too well what I am capable of,’ she said in that throaty voice, casting her hair back from one shoulder to reveal the smooth skin of her neck, and letting the side of her robe fall to reveal a full, pert breast.

Pavo felt his worries scatter at the sight. At once, her robe was thrown to the floor and Pavo’s loincloth joined it. They fell back on the bed, entwined, tasting each other’s warm flesh. It had been so long for him with only dreams of her. Now he thought of nothing else other than making this moment last. As they thrust into one another voraciously, he forgot all that was going on around him. The Speculatores, the Gothic War, the precarious mountain passes that held Fritigern’s hordes back like a weak dam and the search for Dexion! Instead, he felt only pure, lustful intoxication.

They erupted in a shared cry of delight and fell back, panting. A sweet heady spell of contentment swept over them both and he lay there with her, their hands clasped, his thoughts drifting, spinning. She rested her head on his chest and he heard her sigh weakly. He traced a finger across her skin, soothing her. Moments later, she was asleep. And the effect was catching, it seemed, as Pavo felt his thoughts slip away from him. They tumbled through a nonsensical jumble of the day’s marching chatter, and off into the blackness of the past.

And he was there again. The Augusteum’s foully hot summer air wafting around him. The bite of the shackle on his ankle. The stink of the rich heckling and bartering to own him. The hollow certainty that slavery was to be his lot. Then, behind the sea of sweating faces. . the shadow in the colonnade, watching him, watching and waiting. . but for what?

He woke with a start, the dream-world fading as it was replaced by the ceiling of Felicia’s tent and the damp, musty air of the Great Northern Camp. Felicia moaned and shuffled a little. Pavo tried not to disturb her any further, but his thoughts began to gather again like dark clouds. He swept the most troublesome thought of the shadow man away, knowing well that it would be back to plague him soon enough anyway. His next thought was rather pointedly of the shrew, Lucilla. Should she come back to the tent whilst he lay, genitals on show, she might finally get her wish to harvest his balls with the scalpel. Shaken by the thought, he sat up and tied the towel Felicia had given him around his waist, taking care to make sure his crotch was well and truly covered.

‘What’s wrong?’ she muttered sleepily by his side, stroking his back.

‘Nothing. But I’d best be getting back to the contubernium. Evening curfew can’t be far away and Gallus is not in a mood to be vexed.’ He stood up as he spoke, crouching only to fold the blanket over Felicia’s naked form, stroking her hair. ‘Tomorrow, we have three new cohorts of men to add to the legion. I’ll be a true optio once more.’

‘Still an utter fool, though,’ she muttered mischievously, turning her back on him.

‘Just promise me that you’ll not act on these suspicions of yours until we’ve spoken again and planned what to do?’

‘Yes, Pavo. Goodnight, Pavo.’

He grinned at her pluck, then stood to leave, reaching for the tent flap. But a question sprung to mind and he swung back to her. ‘This tribunus you’ve been flattering. What’s his name?’

She yawned, then sighed. ‘You’re still here?’

‘Felicia?’ Pavo insisted.

‘Dexion,’ she said. ‘His name’s Dexion.’

Pavo’s stomach fell away.

The buccinas sounded around the Great Northern Camp, signalling evening curfew. Gallus wondered if any within this shambles of a camp would heed it at all.

‘Wine, Tribunus?’ Barzimeres asked, patting the jug on the table between them.

Gallus shook his head wordlessly.

‘It’s not the foul stuff they press out there. This is a fine Gallic, tart and warming!’

Gallus glanced past the jug, past the white-robed Barzimeres and around the tall, spacious tent. ‘I have enough problems to make my head ache intolerably, Tribunus, without flooding it with that poison.’

Barzimeres curled his bottom lip, stroked his tuft beard and shrugged. ‘So be it.’ He sat back, groaning and cracking his knuckles, then clasping his hands across his ample gut — no longer well hidden behind a cuirass. ‘So earlier in the day, you seemed to have some issues with the running of my camp?’

Gallus could not contain a snort. ‘You are a military man,’ he said. Of sorts, he added in his mind. ‘Don’t you take issue with what you see out there? Drunks staggering to and fro, women crawling from tent to tent like some open-air brothel, not a whiff of works going on,’ he hesitated, glowering at the new bronze breastplate, now hanging on the altogether more impressive torso of a timber figurine with his bronze-winged helm and the rest of his armour and weapons, ‘at least, not useful works.’

Barzimeres’ eyebrows flicked up at this, as if he had just been insulted by some spiteful youth. He reached forward to tear a strip of meat from the roast hare on the table, tossing it into his mouth. ‘When Saturninus led the latest reinforcements to the Shipka pass, he left me in command. Me.’ His expression darkened, the guttering candlelight struggling to illuminate his sunken eyes as he leaned forward towards Gallus. ‘I find myself in charge of some seven thousand men. A patchwork of legionaries. The broken remains of Ad Salices. Comitatenses in groups of just a few hundred. Limitanei like yourselves in tiny bands of just ten or twenty. Their comrades had died on the field by the willows, and the imperial borders they had known for years lay broken. I formed them into seven groups of a thousand. Now they are legions in their own right, just like the five defending the mountain passes. But my seven legions found their confidence weakened, sitting here like goats in a pen, waiting for the call to march north into the mountains to reinforce whichever pass had suffered the most casualties in the latest Gothic push. They were silent, pensive. . terrified.’ He sat back, his menacing expression fading and his tone lightening. ‘So I let them live here as they would in their homes. Now what you see out there is a group of men who know only pleasure and happiness. They do not dwell on the fate that awaits them at the passes unnecessarily. Leadership is not just about leading men,’ he waved a finger as if training a dog, ‘it is about managing the minds of those men. Their hopes, fears and expectations.’

Barzimeres fell silent. Gallus’ brow bent into a frown as the man tilted his head to one side, eyebrows raised. Then he realised that the bearded officer was waiting on Gallus to click — to understand his precious wisdom, and no doubt to congratulate him on it.

‘They are legionaries as relaxed as I have ever seen, Tribunus,’ he said at last. Barzimeres nodded and gazed into the distance at this, smiling haughtily. ‘Indeed,’ Gallus added swiftly, ‘I had trouble picking out the soldiers from the pig-handlers. Now, what of the palisades?’

Barzimeres’ grin faded and the sour look returned. ‘The rain has been incessant over the mountains for three weeks now. The palisade stakes sunk in the deluge and the ditches and ramparts crumbled. They were a hindrance to our foragers and to our supply carts so we used the palisades for cooking fires and filled in the ditches.’

‘Have you considered what might happen if there is a Gothic attack on this camp?’ Gallus continued.

It was Barzimeres’ turn to snort. ‘No. No more than I worry myself over the boil that grows on my arse. The five passes are secure, Tribunus. The mountains either side of them are far taller and more impassable than the walls of Constantinople. Any Goth who seeks to scale and pass over those jagged, rocky peaks will find himself lost in the bleak heights, or lying, legs shattered in some unseen gully.’ He tore a handful of grapes free and crammed them into his mouth. ‘The carrion crows would feast upon them while they still lived!’ he roared with laughter.

Gallus nodded. It was true that the Haemus Mountains were a perfect barrier to prevent Fritigern’s hordes from moving south. ‘Then what if the Goths were to journey east, around the mountains, or if — just if — one of the passes was to fall?’

Barzimeres’ laughter faded and he gazed at Gallus with glazed and mirthful eyes, then erupted once more in a fit of hilarity. ‘If the Goths tried to come round the mountains to the east,’ he chuckled, ‘then they would face the forces stationed there. . and we would receive word of it weeks before they reached us here. Weeks!’

‘And if one of the passes were to fall?’ Gallus reiterated the rest of his question.

‘They will not, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres sighed, growing weary of Gallus’ questioning now. ‘We have held them since spring. Six months have come and gone and Fritigern’s dogs have failed to break through. They have succeeded only in breaking great packs of their finest warriors on the walls and palisades we have built there. Indeed, their last attack was nearly a month ago. They are giving up hope now, surely.’

‘But what if-’ Gallus persisted.

‘If the Goths did break through?’ Barzimeres cut him off, his heckles rising. ‘Then they would be rushing into the maw of a trap. They would flood south, aye — to the river!’ he shot out a finger towards the dull babble of the Tonsus outside. ‘Over on its northern banks what would they do then? Gaze desirously across its swollen waters at our camp as they realise they can barely get within bowshot of our tents here on these southern banks? Maybe they would drink their fill. They would be wise to, for it would be their last. The armies at the other four passes would fall back and onto their rear, pin them against the riverside. . and crush them!’ he smacked a fist into his palm as he said this, then gulped more wine.

Gallus weighed the man’s logic. There was some logic in there, but the flaws leapt out at him like flashing blades. ‘If that was a viable tactic, then surely Saturninus would have arranged it already.’

‘Hmm?’ Barzimeres grunted, clearly having consigned the argument to his ‘victory’ pile, a rivulet of wine running down his overly-groomed beard and staining his white robes.

‘If enticing the Goths south and onto the riverbanks, as you suggest, was workable, would your magister equitum not already have done this — feigned the fall of one of the passes? Perhaps he might lose a few hundred soldiers, but to corral and defeat Fritigern’s hordes as you suggest that would be a cheap price to pay.’

‘Ah,’ Barzimeres swiped a hand through the air. ‘Saturninus is a timid, diffident fellow. Some fool tied him to a sword and shoved him into command. He loves combat only when he has a sturdy wall between himself and the enemy. He knows nothing but that which I tell him.’ He jabbed a finger into his chest as if to reinforce the point. ‘Yet he is still too craven to act upon my advice.’

Gallus let this bone of contention lie. There would be no convincing him that his glorious plan was folly. He sought another tack. ‘And when the rains stop, are you so sure the Goths would be halted by the river?’

Barzimeres’ face was ruddy like the wine now. ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’

‘The swollen river is broad and fierce, but only as long as the rains fall. When this bout of rain slows and stops, the Tonsus returns to being little more than a glorified brook — was it not so in the summer?’

Barzimeres’ lips twitched, devoid of a riposte.

‘And if winter brings ice, then it presents a solid, unbroken walkway for an army to march across, does it not?’

Barzimeres’ eyes widened with Gallus’ every word. ‘Well, we will act accordingly if that happens. The palisades will be re-erected. I have a tower on the riverbank watching for any signs of danger — be it from enemy soldiers or from Terra Mater herself.’

‘And will your men remember how to dig a ditch, how to line up atop the ramparts, how to hurl a volley of darts at an onrushing enemy?’

Barzimeres bridled at this interrogation, and suddenly shot to standing. ‘You think I do not know how to instil discipline in my men? Have you seen my Cornutii, my Scutarii?’

‘I saw them. I also noticed how they choose to camp further along the riverbank in small palisade forts of their own. The rest of this rabble remain here in this disgrace of a camp and uphold your command only because they can do as they please. They do not respect you, sir.’

‘I think you need a lesson in respect, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres raged then grabbed and unfurled a scroll lying on the map table. ‘Saturninus sent a messenger today, asking for reinforcements at the Shipka Pass. He specifically asks for men who know the region north of the passes well.’

Gallus felt the balance of the conversation turning.

‘Your lot know Moesia well, do you not?’ Barzimeres’ features wrinkled as he grinned in victory. ‘Tomorrow, you will march faster and harder than ever before to the Shipka Pass redoubt. My Cornutii and I will lead the way and show you just how much skill I expect from my soldiers.’

‘But my new cohorts,’ Gallus interjected.

‘While you are gone, I can have my best men muster your precious cohorts,’ Barzimeres purred, slumping back in his chair like a contented cat.

Gallus’ nose wrinkled at the reek of stale wine on Barzimeres’ breath. The only sound in the tent was of his teeth grinding like rocks.

Pavo stumbled back to the tent, his head spinning like a drunk’s. He barely noticed the squelching mud nor thought of the missed curfew. His eyes traced the etching on his leather bracelet again and again.

Hostus Vitellius Dexion.

He had made Felicia repeat his name, his full name, countless times.

‘You are sure?’ he had gasped even when she became angry at his questioning.

‘I told you,’ Felicia had insisted, ‘he’s at the Shipka Pass and has been for three weeks.’

She had only relented in her ire when he showed her the bracelet. Her eyes had widened as she read the etching upon it. In the silence that followed, he told her everything about those final moments when Father had tied the leather band onto his wrist. ‘Dexion is my brother,’ he had whispered to her.

‘Optio?’ a voice cut through his thoughts.

‘Sir!’ Pavo half-yelped, seeing that Gallus’ and his paths had crossed. His thoughts scrambled to conjure some excuse, but his mind was in pieces.

‘What’s wrong, Optio?’ Gallus asked, the expected rebuke not coming.

‘Sir, I. . ’ he untied the bracelet, holding it so Gallus could read the etching. ‘My brother is. . but a short march from here, at the Shipka Pass.’

Gallus’ eyes widened. ‘Then you may be the only one of us who will cheer the brief Barzimeres has just given me.’

Chapter 3

A century of the Cornutii and the five men of the XI Claudia set off from the Great Northern Camp at dawn, the armoured column snaking north towards the Haemus Mountains, rain driving into their faces as the damp day wore on. By late afternoon when the grey light began to fade, they found themselves on the lower slopes of the great range.

Gallus’ chest and thighs were burning from the march. It was a welcome agony in many ways, for it meant he could not dwell on his troubles, for the unremitting crunch-splash-crunch of boots and the drumming of rain on his helm helped scatter any nascent thoughts that tried to gather. The scale-vested Cornutii marched on ahead of them as if unfeeling of fatigue — though they marched burdened only with light ration packs, while his five carried a tent and full marching supplies.

‘Concentrate only on the next mile,’ he called over his shoulder to the four with him, rainwater lashing from his brow, ‘and soon we will be at our journey’s end. A fire, a bellyful of stew and a dry bed awaits us at the Shipka Pass.’

‘Come on, come on!’ Barzimeres bellowed in an entirely different tone from the front of the march as he twisted in his saddle and looked back down the line to the XI Claudia five. He swept his spatha out and pointed it up the rain-soaked northern slopes like some sort of conquering hero. ‘Where’s the famous discipline and steel of the XI Claudia, eh?’ He slowed his stallion, falling back past his century of Cornutii, then the barely noticeable gap of a few paces, then coming to Gallus at the head of the XI Claudia. ‘Eh?’ he reiterated with an edge of venom. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted ahead. ‘Military step!’ in moments, the rhythmic footsteps of the Cornutii grew faster, and the small gap stretched to a handful of strides. ‘Look: my Cornutii are pulling ahead.’

Gallus opted not to reply.

‘So come on,’ he roared, ‘up the pace. Faster, faster!’ Then he leaned down again to whisper: ‘That’s an order, Tribunus.’

Gallus’ teeth gnashed behind his lips. Then he bellowed: ‘Military step, up the pace!’ The rhythm of footsteps increased, and the balls of Gallus’ feet scraped and slid on the ever steepening path. But within moments, the gap had closed again.

Barzimeres’ features grew pinched as he watched this. ‘Faster still, order them to full step,’ he hissed.

Gallus felt the words sting on his lips as he prepared to shout the order, but he could not. This dog would not stop until one of his men stumbled or fell. His banished thoughts flooded to the fore, and his eyes blazed with ire. ‘What do you seek to prove, Tribunus?’ he snapped at Barzimeres. ‘That a group of legionaries encumbered with kit and supplies cannot march uphill as fast as lightly-burdened soldiers? Save your misguided vendettas for a time when we are not at war. Perhaps then you and I can march in contest — if you can prise your wart-ridden arse off the saddle, that is.’

Barzimeres’ features reflected Gallus’ wrath. ‘How dare you. I outrank you. I could have you flogged. . ’ He raised his hand, bringing it back as if to rake the knuckles across Gallus’ face. Gallus willed him to strike and heard the desperate intakes of breath from those watching on from behind.

But the tension was broken when a Cornutii voice called out from the front of the column. ‘The pass!’ All eyes swung up the track. Just ahead, it bent even more sharply uphill on the back of a great ridge that wound towards the heart of the range. Up there, shrouded in raincloud, lay the lofty choke-point they sought.

The Shipka Pass.

Barzimeres growled and lowered his hand, then clicked his tongue and set his mount in motion up the path.

The rising ridge path was narrow and treacherous. Ancient flagstones poked through the shale and scree as evidence that the empire had once, long ago, tried to master this terrain. As they ascended, the raincloud began to envelop them. Shadows seemed to move before them. Rain-soaked bushes flitted in and out of view either side of the steeply rising track, the wet leaves glinting in the fading light like the armour of waiting Goths or brigands. Eventually, the air grew thin and cold. Then, some way above and ahead, tiny pockets of orange torchlight glimmered through the haze like a cloud of fireflies. The marching men of the column slowed, all eyes fixed on this ethereal sight. The Shipka defences, Gallus realised. A chill wind swept around them, moaning and driving the mizzle stubbornly into their faces.

Gallus noticed that Barzimeres was frozen by the spectacle too. His skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor and his Adam’s apple bulged as he gulped dryly and his tongue darted out to dampen his lips. Lost your pluck? Gallus wondered. He had seen the signs a thousand times before.

‘Halt!’ Barzimeres cried out, raising his hand. ‘Cornutii, about turn!’ he continued as he heeled his stallion round to face south. At once the feather-helmed legionaries swung on the spot and came back down the track. Their faces betrayed no hint of exhaustion or dismay at Barzimeres’ behaviour.

Good men, Gallus thought, plagued with a petty fool as their leader.

Barzimeres shuffled on the saddle as if to shake off Gallus accusing stare. ‘Now that I have brought you to within sight of the pass defences, I will lead my escort back to the great camp. I trust you can make the rest of the journey on your own?’

Gallus barely resisted the urge to laugh dryly. It seemed that Barzimeres was a paragon of military valour and discipline only until he came within a half-mile of danger. ‘I trust we can,’ Gallus replied flatly. ‘Now, you had best make haste, else the Great Camp will be going to ruin,’ he said, deadpan.

They climbed higher and higher up the ridge path, the mountain chill searching under their tunics and cloaks and the dull orange glow of the defences growing slowly closer. Slivers of moonlight pierced the fog here and there to illuminate the steep, unforgiving drops either side of the path, and every now and then scree loosened by their boots plummeted over the edges. Gallus heard his men talk, at first mainly of Barzimeres’ detestability. But then he heard Pavo’s words to Sura.

‘He’s up there, my brother is up there!’ Pavo insisted.

‘And Felicia was at it with him?’ was the best Sura could muster in reply.

Gallus had seen how Pavo coveted the bracelet his father had given him in Persia. Not for a moment did he believe that the message on it would lead to anything. Now, it seemed, the young optio was but moments from being united with his lost half-brother. If he has even half of your heart, lad, then this will be a fine day indeed.

He glanced up seeing that at last they were nearly at the defence works: a dark shape was emerging from the fog — a thick, squat bulwark, sitting astride and blocking the ridge like a worn tooth, the walls shining with damp and with a jagged timber palisade jutting from its edges to make a parapet of sorts. This small, square enclosure was all that stood between the Gothic hordes and Thracia? He saw faint shapes along the walls, vaguely silhouetted by the watery orange torchlight. Legionaries.

Well that’s a good start, he mused wryly. After less than a day in the quagmire camp by the River Tonsus, this keep was a fine sight. It was tiny — wedged onto the high-point of the ridge and designed to hold no more than a cohort.

‘Who goes there?’ a voice cried out from the southern gateway.

Gallus answered the challenge of the gate sentries. The timber gates creaked open and he led his five inside. Within, he saw tidy if cramped rows of legionary tents and banners. They filed along the main south-north path that split the camp in two, passing the rows of contubernium tents. Up ahead, he sighted the principia tent, and instantly spotted the eagle standard erected beside it: the white banner draped from the crossbar depicted a red bloom riven with crossed spears. The V Macedonica, he realised, seeing similar designs on the legionaries’ shields. This legion — limitanei like the Claudia — had guarded the Danubian frontier as something of a brother-legion to his own. He had heard that many of the Macedonica had fallen at Ad Salices, but the regiment lived on, it seemed.

They halted at the principia. A man emerged from this command tent. Gallus did not recognise him. Certainly, he was much unlike the giant of a man who had led the Macedonica the last time they had marched with the Claudia. This one was of Gallus’ age, medium height and whip-thin, with lank, dark hair hanging to his collar. He had wan and delicate — almost feminine — features that looked as if they had been shaped by the most delicate of hands. He wore a brown cloak and bronze scale armour that failed to disguise his narrow, rounded shoulders. ‘Saturninus, Magister Equitum of the Great Northern Camp and the Five Passes,’ he said in a timid, hoarse voice, his breath clouding in the lofty chill.

‘Tribunus Manius Atius Gallus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ Gallus replied, throwing an arm up in salute. He did not let it show, but he could not dispel a sense of disappointment that this man — subordinate only to Magister Militum Traianus — seemed so meek. He had heard so much about these mountain passes that he had built up an image of some ironclad colossus, fighting back the marauding Goths. Was Saturninus craven and unsuited to military life as Barzimeres had suggested? He pushed his doubts to one side. ‘We come at the behest of Emperor Valens, Magister Militum Traianus. . and Tribunus Barzimeres.’

‘And not a moment too soon,’ Saturninus mused as if thinking aloud. ‘Have your men prepare camp in the north-eastern quarter.’ He pointed to a small tentless patch of ground there. ‘They can eat their fill too,’ he added, nodding to a sheltered table with a steaming urn of broth and a basket of well-fired loaves.

Gallus swung round, nodded to his four wordlessly, and in moments they were at work. As Gallus turned back to Saturninus, he spotted a few Macedonica legionaries coming to and from their tents. He recognised none of them.

‘You expected to find familiar faces of the Macedonica here?’ Saturninus said, having stepped over next to him.

Gallus shrugged. ‘I am just pleased to find good soldiers here.’

Saturninus laughed. ‘Gracious words, but your eyes betray your true feelings. The Macedonica were utterly crippled in the wake of Ad Salices. Less than thirty men survived and none of them officers. . and their eagle was lost in the clash. I thought that by resurrecting the legion, by commissioning a new eagle, I might also revive the spirit of their fine past.’ He swept a hand to the silver eagle standard near the principia; it was gleaming and clearly a recent commission. Opulence, but with a purpose, Gallus thought, recalling Barzimeres’ pointless bronze vest. ‘So I drew in veterans from the south — men who know little of these lands. We have just six hundred men here. Many fell after the last Gothic attack, but the wall holds and holds well,’ he gestured to the north-facing side of the fortlet and beyond. ‘Fritigern can count many spears amongst his horde, but he does not know how to tackle a well-built wall.’

‘Long may that be the case,’ Gallus replied flatly, eyeing the battlements.

‘A century is posted on the northern parapet at all times, a century of archers is split between the two northern corners,’ he nodded up to the nearest corner, shrouded in the fog. These sections of the walls were a few feet higher than the rest. Up there, Gallus noticed the glint of stockpiled bows, lancea and plumbatae — the arrows, javelins and lead-weighted darts would be more lethal than ever when thrown from those points in the high ground, ‘and another century of legionaries is spread over the southern, eastern and western walls,’ he pointed to each wall in turn.

‘You fear they might circumvent this path and come round on your rear?’ Gallus said, his brow furrowing as he thought of the steep sides of the ridge. Surely such a move was impossible — certainly for any sizeable force.

‘We cannot neglect the possibility, unlikely as it is,’ Saturninus replied.

‘But the ridge path is surely the only way through this section of the mountains?’ Gallus insisted.

‘I thought so too,’ Saturninus nodded wearily, ‘until my men found a broken, veiled trail. It runs along the shale and scree of the ridge-side, right past this fort and all the way to the north. It is so treacherous a route that it is unlikely the Goths will stumble upon it, but we must be prepared for anything. Above all, we must hold this ridge path. As long as we do, the Goths will never be able to bring their wagons along it and to the south. Without their wagons, they have no grain, no tools, no tents. . no means of migrating south as a horde.’

‘So these walls are everything,’ Gallus nodded, appraising them once again in a different light.

Saturninus beckoned him and the pair strolled around the principia area. ‘With just over seven operational centuries, we have been running a rota of eight hour shifts for the last two weeks. Right now a third of my men sleep, a third maintain the camp and a third stand guard on the wall. But they are weary. Worse, some are growing complacent — we have not heard nor seen Fritigern or his men in nearly a month.’

‘And the other four passes?’ Gallus asked.

‘The same,’ Saturninus replied.

Gallus glanced to his four men erecting the tent — and the compact sea of legionary tents around them, then scoured the legionary line along the defensive northern stockade. ‘When Barzimeres despatched my four men and I to this pass, it was clearly not as any form of reinforcement. He told me of some sortie, into the north?’

Saturninus smiled a wry smile. ‘Ah, yes; Barzimeres. Tell me, are the reports I hear true? Has my great camp become a morass of drunks?’

Gallus sought his words carefully. ‘The blockade of the mountain passes is best served with you here and him at the camp.’

Saturninus nodded with a slight flick of one eyebrow. ‘Some men have to be tolerated, Tribunus, and that one has many names he can call upon, and so he must be allowed the command that his father bought for him,’ Saturninus laughed bitterly. ‘But enough about Barzimeres. Should the Gods be on our side, he will remain inconsequential.’ He stopped and crouched by a patch of bare, wet earth illuminated by torchlight, took out his dagger and drew five marks in a line. ‘If any one of the five passes fall, the entire blockade is foiled. The Goths will flood in through the fallen pass, and their number is such that they will be able to fall upon the rear of the other stockades with ease.’ He traced a line from the north, through the middle pass — this one — and then split it into four lines that rounded upon the rear of the other four passes.

Gallus crouched beside him. This man, however meekly spoken, clearly had no delusions of overblown strategic nous. His logic was simple and flawless. Gallus chided himself for judging Saturninus on appearance just moments ago.

‘Only while they remain on the northern side of our ramparts are we safe. And it must remain that way until the Praesental Armies of East and West arrive in the south. Only then will we have forces numerous enough to engage and defeat the Goths.’

Gallus’ thoughts darkened, imagining the shadowy faces of the Speculatores that would come with the Western Emperor and his army. His heart thudded a little harder and a frisson of ire swept across him. He dug his nails into his palm to shake off the dark thoughts, focusing on the crude earth map, imagining the great distances and mustering efforts required to bring the two Praesental Armies to Thracia. ‘Yet they will not converge on these lands until spring. Can the passes hold out that long?’

Saturninus’ face grew longer. ‘They have to, Tribunus. They have to.’

Gallus’ eyes were drawn to the section of earth north of the five passes where the Goths were currently camped: Moesia. ‘But the Goths will be starving before then. They will spare no effort in tearing these stockades down to flood south. There must be a secondary plan.’

‘There is,’ Saturninus’ face lifted in a laconic half-smile. ‘Can I trust you, Tribunus?’

‘It depends on what you are about to tell me,’ Gallus replied flatly.

Saturninus smiled again, this time it was truly wry. He tapped the area north of the five passes. ‘I heard word, little more than rumours, that Fritigern was open to the notion of peace talks. Now many say the time for talks has passed, but few have lived on the edge of the war as I have for the last half-year. So I despatched an embassy north along the ridge path, down into the Moesian plains where the Gothic horde gathers. They were to engage in an opening dialogue with the Gothic Iudex and his council of reiks.’

‘How long ago?’ Gallus asked, immediately pitying the poor souls in that party.

‘A fortnight,’ Saturninus said, ‘and the Gothic camp is but a day and a half of marching from here along the ridge path.’ He pointed off over the north wall.

‘You have heard nothing from them?’ Gallus asked and Saturninus shook his head gravely. He frowned, a fresh night breeze searching under his armour and robes. ‘Not even a ransom. . not even a severed head tossed to the walls?’

‘Nothing.’ Saturninus shook his head again. ‘Hence, the proposed foray north of the blockade. I need to know the fate of the embassy. A reconnaissance group could cross the mountains to gather this information. As I said, the V Macedonica is populated with natives of southern Greece, well-drilled in manning this blockade but without great knowledge of these mountains and little knowledge of the Moesian plains. But your legionaries know that land well, do they not?’

Gallus nodded. ‘I agree in principle, but surely a handful of equites would be best placed to ride north in less than half the time it would take my infantry?’ He looked around and located the small lean-to stable sheltering two grazing geldings.

‘Ah,’ Saturninus smiled, ‘I did try such an approach, but the riders were pelted with Gothic arrows further up the ridge path and driven back. No, this group must travel unseen. This broken trail I spoke of is the only viable route, and that is not a path for horsemen. Not at all.’

Gallus nodded, then looked up and over to the now erected XI Claudia tent, seeing Quadratus groaning, stretching his back like an old man, heard Sura flop onto his bedding with a groan and saw Zosimus sitting cross-legged, tongue poking out, attempting to lance a blister on his ankle with the end of his spatha.

‘Very well,’ he said with a cocked eyebrow. ‘My men will be ready to move out tomorrow.’

Saturninus stood and Gallus did likewise. ‘Excellent. Now let me tell you more about this embassy.’

For some reason, Gallus’ gaze was drawn back to the Claudia tent. He noticed now the absence of Pavo. He swept his eyes across the fort and found the young optio walking from tent to tent, asking the V Macedonica legionaries something — the same question over and over, it seemed, each time getting the same negative answer. ‘Tell me, sir,’ he interrupted Saturninus, ‘is there a soldier in this fort by the name of Dexion?’

Saturninus arched one eyebrow, a spark of realisation in his eyes. ‘As I said, Tribunus, let me tell you of this embassy. . ’

Chapter 4

The first dry day in a week saw the mist and low cloud lift from the heights of the Shipka Pass. A few miles north of the Shipka fort, the bleak ridge path and the rugged lands all around were dappled with the shadows of passing clouds, utterly deserted. Then seven legionaries scrambled up from a precipitous shale track and onto the ridge path. They scuttled, more like voles wary of predatory eagles overhead than soldiers of the empire.

Pavo’s chest was burning, but the whipping zephyrs at these lofty heights lent a second wind to his lungs. He shot looks all around, sure they had made a mistake in breaking from the lower, hidden path. But they had come across a series of toppled pine trunks down there and had little option. Gallus, Zosimus and Quadratus hurried at the head of the group, while Sura and two Macedonica legionaries — Sarrius and Bato — formed the rear. If the Goths have archers on the adjacent hills. . he thought with a creeping chill. Just then, a scent of pink heather danced on the air, redolent of Felicia’s scent, and this calmed him. It was a rare moment of peace. After trying in vain to seek out his brother in the Shipka fort, then enduring another night of tangled thoughts, broken sleep and nightmares of the slave market, he had woken at dawn dazed and aching, only to set off on yet another march.

Just then, Gallus flicked a hand and guided them down off the ridge and back onto the broken shale track below. It was a treacherous, narrow route that wound and twisted over the mountains just a bowshot east of the ridge path. It was littered with hidden crags, gullies and sheer climbs in places and summarised exactly why these highlands were impassable for any sort of army. Indeed, he and his comrades wore just tunics, trousers, boots and oiled cloaks, forgoing armour and carrying only their swords to aid a swift and silent journey.

They stopped in the early afternoon, sheltering from the wind behind a craggy granite lee to eat a light meal of salted meat and berries, slaking their thirsts at a brook that trickled nearby.

Quadratus squinted into the watery noonday sun and tilted the felt cap he wore on his blonde mane. ‘Sending us crawling over these hills like lice, it’s a waste of time. If Saturninus wants to know what happened to his embassy, I could tell him and save all this nonsense.’

‘How can you be certain they’re dead?’ Sura frowned, stuffing a handful of berries into his mouth.

Pavo looked up, midway through chewing on his tough, salted meat. He could only imagine what had happened to the embassy, and his mind flashed with buried images of Gothic sacrificial sites he had come across in the past — the staked bodies, the torn flesh, the skulls locked in a deathly grin.

‘If they were a day or two late, then I’d ask the same,’ Zosimus mused, slicing a chunk of his salted meat with a dagger and flicking it into his mouth, then shaking his head, ‘but two weeks? They’re bones by now.’

‘Until we set eyes upon the Gothic camp, we know nothing,’ Gallus cut in. His tone was more clipped than usual, and Pavo noticed how the tribunus met the eyes of every man but him. Then, when Pavo caught his eye and Gallus immediately looked away, he knew something was wrong.

As they readied to set off once more, Pavo stood and gazed to the south, back in the direction of the Shipka redoubt, buckling on his swordbelt, sweeping his cloak around his shoulders and hefting his light ration pack over one shoulder as he tried to make sense of it all. Dexion was supposed to be at the Shipka Pass. Felicia had confirmed it, yet every soldier in Saturninus’ camp had simply shrugged nervously or hurried away when he had asked.

‘Optio,’ a familiar voice spoke softly by his side.

Pavo blinked, startled, seeing that Gallus had stepped up beside him while the others finished their preparations to move out. ‘Sir,’ he replied, confused at the stark contrast in the tribunus’ tone from moments ago.

Gallus looked him in the eye. This was not the icy stare of the dauntless leader, nor the distant gaze of the troubled officer that had come back from Persia. This was that earnest, unguarded look of the man inside. Another fleeting glimpse of the real Gallus. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but I know all too well that I cannot keep from you that which you seek,’ he said with a tone of finality.

‘What is it, sir?’

‘When the embassy travelled north to the Gothic camp. . they travelled with a legionary escort. Your brother, Dexion, was one of them.’

The gentle words sunk into Pavo’s chest like a cold blade. He felt Gallus’ hand rest on his shoulder, but heard little else of what he said.

When evening came, a clear night sky stretched over the northern end of the Haemus Mountains and the broad plains of Moesia beyond. The scent of woodsmoke from the vast Gothic camp lent a cloying edge to the air.

Gallus and his cadre, nestled in a rocky nook a hundred feet or so up the last of the Haemus slopes, glanced down over the sea of Gothic tents on the plain and then up to the night sky, cursing the waning but still bright moon and its army of stars for illuminating the hills so. Apart from this pocket of shade they were hidden in, the mountainside almost glistened silvery-blue.

He looked back to the Gothic camp. It dwarfed the Roman camp by the Tonsus — possibly seven or eight times as big — and it was most probably in better order too, with great herds of warhorses tethered within timber corrals, and each of the factions within the Gothic horde occupying an island of well-spaced tents. They used no palisade to demarcate the edge of the camp, but tall, blonde-locked and leather-armoured warriors stood every thirty paces or so around the vast perimeter and torches on high poles cast light out onto the plain around the camp. Every sentry held a spear, longsword and shield, with a self-bow and quiver cast over their backs.

‘How are we supposed to find the embassy? The place is so bloody big,’ Zosimus muttered by Gallus’ side, squinting to the far side of the camp, which was just a blur of torchlight and shadows.

‘That’s where Fritigern is, I’d guess,’ Sura said, peering at the large tent near the centre of the camp. Outside it, a tall spear was dug into the ground, a strip of sapphire blue cloth — the colours of the Thervingi — hanging from its shaft.

‘Might be, but that doesn’t mean that’s where the embassy will be. How close are we supposed to get?’ Quadratus whispered. ‘Does Saturninus expect us to reconnoitre the entire camp?’

‘We must do what we can,’ Gallus said. ‘But if we have nothing to go on, then. . ’ his words faded as he noticed Pavo, eyes fixed on the camp, scouring every inch of it, clinging onto the last slivers of hope. ‘We will stay here until we have something to report back with, and there must be someth-’ he stopped, the breath catching in his lungs. One of the campfires down below near the southern edge of the camp grew brighter and brighter still, the flames licking up into the sky as men threw fresh wood upon it. All heads switched to this.

The bonfire cast an eerie orange light on a thick ring of onlookers. Tall, stony-faced Gothic warriors — thousands of them. ‘Thervingi. . Greuthingi and Taifali from Germania too,’ Pavo whispered.

‘Aye, but this is no all-Goth affair,’ Sura added, his voice taut with tension. ‘Look!’

Gallus followed the line of the young legionary’s outstretched finger. He squinted, his mind disbelieving, his eyes insisting. Stocky, short warriors dressed in skins and furs, made inimitable by the three crude scars carved into each cheek, their jet-black, sleek locks and the odd, asymmetric bows they wore slung over their backs. No!

‘Huns?’ Zosimus gasped, his eyes darting as he discerned hundreds of them dotted in the crowd of onlookers. ‘When did they cross the river? The Goths are supposed to be at war with the bloody Huns!’

‘Yet both are at war with the empire,’ Pavo added dryly.

‘The Shipka fort is not prepared for Huns,’ Bato, one of the two V Macedonica legionaries whispered. This scarred veteran had the eyes of a frightened boy.

Sarrius, his V Macedonica comrade muttered a series of panicked curses under his breath. ‘The dark horsemen of the north.’

Gallus sensed their panic spread like a chill, and the fear intensified when the ring of onlookers around the fire suddenly parted. The hulking leader of the Gothic Alliance, Iudex Fritigern, strode through the gap. Gallus’ eyes narrowed: the big Iudex was as imposing as ever, despite his advancing years. Fur-lined shoulders, flowing red-grey locks and beard and a weather-beaten face that spoke of all he had endured alongside his people in these last years. Flanking him were two others that Gallus recognised from the blood-haze memories of Ad Salices — one tall and wiry with long, white hair, the other short and stocky, slit-eyed and bald. Alatheus, Saphrax, he realised, the two reiks who led the Greuthingi Goths and their mostly cavalry armies — the fierce mounted wing that complemented Fritigern’s infantry masses. He noticed that this pair walked with their heads held high while Fritigern, their leader, seemed hunched, head bowing ever so slightly as he approached the fire. Behind the three leaders, two men were being dragged by Gothic spearmen. Two Romans.

‘Mithras, no!’ Sura hissed.

Pavo instinctively lurched forward, eyes straining.

Gallus’ blood chilled as the firelight fell on the pair. A prune-faced, middle-aged man wearing a dirty white Roman tunic and trousers and a younger man in the scale vest, boots and cloak of an eques rider. He glanced to Bato, who nodded hurriedly: ‘That’s them — two of them anyway. The senior ambassador and one of the escort cavalrymen.’

The pair writhed and struggled like flies caught in a web. ‘Let me go you bastards!’ the eques rider cried as he was dragged to the fire. ‘Give me a sword and fight me at least! Let me die like a sold-’

Alatheus stepped forward, then lifted a sparkling sickle and boomed over the man’s visceral pleas. ‘Allfather Wodin, hear our song of war for you. Fire our hearts with courage, for what is to come. The fire of victory we offer you in return. Let the Roman burn!’ he threw his hands up in the air, conjuring a mighty cheer that seemed to shake the rock where Gallus crouched.

At once, the two Goths holding the Roman rider pinned him to the ground and two more ran over with a spit and a length of rope. Moments later, they lifted the rider and trussed him to the spit like a boar, then carried him over and into the flames, resting the spit ends horizontally across two sets of supporting poles. The fire devoured him in moments, sweeping over his cloak and hair, his skin blistering and his armour glowing. His shrieking searched every part of Gallus’ being, the scene bringing back the dark memories. The rider’s thrashing form was engulfed in orange, and soon he fell still, with the popping and cracking of splitting flesh and flaring fat the only noise. The stench of burnt meat wafted up the hillside and the watching legionaries recoiled.

Gallus noticed that while the watching crowd cheered as if this was some kind of victory, Fritigern was alone in watching the ceremony in solemn silence. The Iudex and his Thervingi Goths were Christian, he mused, so perhaps such sacrifice was distasteful to him? Or maybe he has greater troubles? he thought, his eyes narrowing on the contrasting, haughty postures of Alatheus and Saphrax.

‘Next, Allfather Wodin, turn our bones to steel and our blood to wine. For this, we give you the blood and bone of Rome,’ Alatheus continued, then stabbed a finger at the prune-face Roman. ‘Bring him!’

The wrinkled man fell to his knees, shaking visibly, his hands pawing helplessly in the air before him as if trying to waken himself from this nightmare. But the watching crowd were heedless of his suffering. Gallus watched as Alatheus strode around the terrified old man, swiping his sickle this way and that like a torturer.

Get on with it you whoreson, Gallus mouthed, seeing the utter terror in the old Roman’s eyes.

But Alatheus handed the sickle to another: a bull-shouldered colossus of a man with raven-dark flowing locks scooped up into a topknot and a jutting trident beard. He was bare chested, with spiralling blue tattoos etched on his muscular torso, and a weighty battle axe was strapped to his back. ‘Reiks Farnobius, Champion of the Greuthingi, Taker of Heads, will honour Wodin tonight.’

Gallus watched as Farnobius stalked over to the cowering Roman — who scrambled back until almost in the flames. The giant Goth reached down and grasped at the Roman’s hair, then wrenched him round like a recalcitrant pet to face the fire. Like a harvester cutting wheat, he hove the sickle across the Roman’s throat. Gouts of blood leapt from the wound, lashing Farnobius and spraying onto the fire. The Roman’s head tilted back, like the lid of a chest, scraps of skin peeling away until it was attached to the body only by the vertebrae. With the heel of his boot, Farnobius kicked at the man’s back, the body twisting and coming away, toppling into the flames, the head remaining in his grip. Then he turned to the crowd and held his trophy aloft, roaring to them. They roared thunderously in reply.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

Gallus saw how the moonlight danced in this Farnobius’ eyes, betraying a bestial bloodlust, his face streaked with the Roman’s blood. The giant swung round, basking in the adoration, though Gallus noticed every so often how the reiks’ face twitched, as if bothered by an invisible hornet. Then he noticed now how many of the crowd were wearing not just the robes of men preparing for a night of rest, but arms and armour, and he heard the whinnying of horses from unseen stables somewhere in the camp. And in the northern half of the camp, where the majority of Fritigern’s Thervingi seemingly resided, he saw glinting silver. They’re mobilising? His flesh crept and his eyes fell back to the bonfire as he realised what was happening. A sacrificial throat cutting was the marker the Goths laid down before. . before they went to war. The next attack on the passes was imminent. And what might the coming of the Huns mean for the defenders there? His mind flashed with all manner of dark possibilities.

‘Sir,’ Zosimus said with an urgent tone. ‘They’re not finished.’

Gallus’ minds snapped back to the present as Alatheus’ next words rang out: ‘Bring the next of them!’ he cried. Duly, Farnobius and the spearmen who had dragged the two Romans to the fire stalked off towards a small tent nearby the fire to collect fresh victims.

‘We have to get back to the blockade,’ Bato insisted.

‘And what about our men down there?’ Zosimus growled, pointing towards the tent.

Gallus glanced around his men, and saw Pavo’s haunted expression, fixed on the fire. Do not let emotion cloud your judgement, a voice snarled inside him. For the first time in years, he ignored it.

‘There is much we do not know about this horde and their intentions,’ he said. ‘I’d wager whoever is left in that tent knows a damn sight more than we do. We must try to free them.’

The intensity of the sacrificial bonfire seemed to dull the light elsewhere in the camp, and for that, Pavo could only mouth a prayer to Mithras. The great cheer at the death of the next Roman had caught the attention of the Gothic sentries around the southern edge of the camp. They clustered together, craning to see the executions, leaving a stretch of forty strides unguarded. This allowed he, Sura, Bato and Sarrius to steal inside, faces smeared in dirt. Picking their way through the sea of tents, the mesh of guy-ropes and shadows, they made their way towards the prisoner tent. A stench of horse-sweat, dung and foul stews wafted around them.

‘Down!’ Sura hissed.

At once, all four crouched or lay in the shadow of the nearest tent. A pair of scale-clad Thervingi sentries strolled past them, their necks stretched and their eyes straining to see the bonfire as the screams of the next victim rang out. Pavo felt his gut turn over at the cries. What if that was my brother? They stole across to a lengthy wagon — within sight of the prison tent — and crouched.

‘Look,’ Pavo hissed, pointing to the flap of the prison tent. Two men stood guard there.

‘Huns,’ Sura growled. One had a misshapen skull, elongated at the crown with lank dark hair hanging like curtains from his oversized forehead. He was tearing at something with his teeth. The moonlight flashed over it: a raw cut of red meat, blood staining his foul teeth and dribbling down his chin. The other swigged at some milky substance from a skin. The stench of their food was even fouler than the reek of their filthy-looking hides.

‘Raw horse meat and fermented mare’s milk,’ Pavo whispered. ‘Makes a mouthful of year-old hard tack sound delicious.’

‘How do we do this?’ Bato asked behind them, failing to keep the tremor of fear from his voice. ‘The tent’s well-guarded. They’ll see us coming at them.’

Pavo’s eyes darted. ‘Yes, they will. So you give yourselves up.’

Bato gawped in horror at the suggestion. ‘Sir?’

Octar the Hun dug at his teeth with a dirty fingernail. The sinew of meat was bothersome to say the least. ‘Damned horse should have been tender,’ he chuckled to his fellow sentry, ‘I rode her with great care, after all.’

But his kinsman did not reply, instead levelling his spear, gawping into the darkness beside a nearby wagon. Octar frowned, then beheld the two dirt-encrusted shapes emerging from the shadows there. In a heartbeat, he had his bow from his back, drawn taut, the arrowhead trained on the rightmost Roman’s chest. But the pair were weaponless and had their hands raised in supplication.

Octar glanced inside the prison tent, sure none of those inside had escaped, then back to the pair. ‘Who are you? What are you doi-’ his words ended with a gasp as a white-hot pain shot through his back and tore through to his front. He glanced down to see the tip of a Roman spatha jutting from his breastbone. A moment later, it was ripped away. A heartbeat after that, he toppled to the ground and in the blackness that enshrouded him he searched for Tengri, the Sky God of the Steppe.

Pavo shook the worst of the blood from his blade and hurriedly sheathed it, Sura doing the same after despatching the other Hun. Bato and Sarrius gawped, faces dotted with Hun bloodspray.

‘Take up your swords again,’ he hissed to them. ‘Stand watch and if anyone approaches, anyone at all, whistle.’ With that, he nodded to Sura and the pair ducked inside the tent, dragging the Hun corpses with them.

As soon as they entered, a wailing broke out from the shadows inside: ‘I can smell blood,’ one high-pitched voice trilled. Pavo strained to see anything in the utter darkness — anything other than silhouetted shapes scurrying to the rear of the tent.

‘We’re Roman,’ he hissed. ‘Keep the noise down or we’re all dead.’

The wailing stopped abruptly. Gasps of astonishment replaced them, quickly followed by a flurry of questions. Pavo ignored the questions, spoken with the refined accents of ambassadors. As his eyes began to adjust, he counted six shapes: five cowering at the rear of the tent, and another sitting, tied to the centre pole. This one was silent. The rest returned to their wailing.

‘Shut up!’ Sura growled.

When they did, they heard only the nearby babble of the fireside crowd, and something else. The faint, broken noise of dry, panicked lips trying to whistle. Bato. A moment later, he and Sarrius tumbled inside, their faces agape. ‘They’re coming!’

Pavo and Sura gawped at each other’s silhouettes. ‘Bollocks!’ they hissed in unison.

‘Stay back,’ Pavo whispered to the ambassadors, now petrified into silence. He and Sura levelled their swords and took up position just inside the tent entrance.

‘They’ll burn the tent and all of us in it,’ a voice spoke.

Pavo flicked a sour glance round, then realised it was the one tied to the tent pole. ‘Then what else can we do?’

‘We have moments with which to get a head start. Use them!’ the voice replied. ‘Cut me loose!’

Pavo squinted at this silhouette and weighed the risk. He could make out just a black leather breastplate. A military man? His heart thundered. Then the crunch of approaching footsteps outside cast all thoughts aside. He felt for the rope binding the man by the chest, then fed the tip of his spatha under the bonds and yanked his blade back. The ropes fell free and the shadowy figure stood.

‘Give me a blade!’ he hissed.

Pavo hesitated for a moment, then tossed him a dagger from the belt of one of the dead Huns. The figure ran for the five others cowering at the rear of the tent then, with a blur of swiping arms, a sharp tearing sound filled the tent. At once a fissure of semi-gloom and patchy torchlight from outside pierced the near-blackness inside.

‘Come on,’ the military man whispered urgently.

As Pavo ushered each of the ambassadors through the tear and outside, he heard the guttural chatter and the crunch-crunch of the Gothic footsteps coming to the tent flap. He glanced over his shoulder to see that their approaching shadows were dancing on the canvas, illuminated by the firelight. They grew and grew like giants, and Pavo saw the swinging tail of hair and bulky outline of one that was unmistakable. Farnobius.

‘Move!’ he hissed to the last ambassador, a waddling fellow who struggled to climb from the rip at the rear of the tent. Sura swung a boot into his rear and helped him on his way then leapt out next, followed by Pavo and the soldier in the dark breastplate.

They scurried forward, darting from shadow to shadow the way they had come in, Pavo and Sura leading. Pavo heard his snatched breaths and his drumming heartbeat and little else. The Gothic sentries up ahead stood facing outwards, backs turned. He reaffirmed his grip on his spatha then glanced to Sura, who nodded, and each paced towards the sentry nearest. Suddenly, behind them, the air shook with a thunderous cry. Pavo swung to see the giant Farnobius climbing from the tear in the tent, his inky eyes sweeping round, then locking onto Pavo.

‘Stop them!’ Farnobius bellowed. ‘Take their heads!’

The two nearest sentries swung round, faces wrinkled in confusion for a moment before they saw the Roman group and brought their spear tips to bear then rushed forward.

Pavo leapt back as the first sentry’s spear thrust towards his neck. He grabbed the shaft of the weapon and wrenched the guard forward, hammering his spatha up and into the Goth’s gut. Hot blood erupted over his sword hand, then sprayed through the night when he wrenched it free and swung round to block the chopping longsword of the next Goth. This one was nimble and swift. Pavo jinked back from the flurry of blows that followed, glancing over his shoulder to see three more Goths rushing to the melee. They cut down one of the ambassadors like wheat, then hefted their swords to strike at his back. He felt the absence of his shield keenly, and knew he could not fight all four of them and win.

With an eerie whirring sound, Sura’s spatha spun through the blackness and punched one onrushing Goth through the throat, then the Roman in the dark breastplate leapt to barge another to the ground, knocking him unconscious, before slashing at the hamstrings of the last. Pavo swung his attentions fully on the Goth before him, parrying his next strike, then swinging out with a right hook that caught the warrior by surprise, catching him sweetly on the jaw and sending him spinning to the earth.

‘Run!’ he cried to the group, waving the three surviving ambassadors to the short stretch of flatland and the scree slope onto the mountain path.

‘Pavo!’ Sura yelled.

Pavo knew that tone, and instinctively leapt from where he stood. A gleaming axe smacked down into the dust where he had been, and the ground shuddered as Farnobius rushed for him, swiping up the axe from the ground then hefting it back to strike again. Pavo threw up his sword to block, but his shoulders shuddered in their sockets as the blades clashed and he was thrown back by the force of the blow. The Gothic Reiks’ sweeping axe blade then battered Sura back likewise and nicked Sarrius’ neck too. The V Macedonica legionary turned to run, but managed only a few steps before a fountain of dark blood burst from the torn artery, and he slumped to the ground, clutching at the foaming wound.

Farnobius leapt in again, swiping his axe blade around in a vast arc as if to pen the legionaries within the Gothic camp, shouting more reinforcements to him. Already, jostling shapes and shadows were approaching from nearby. ‘You will take their place on the fire, Roman dogs!’ he spat, nodding to the ambassadors, now scrambling up the mountainside. Then he heaved his axe up to swipe it round again. ‘You will burn and bleed for-’

His tirade ended abruptly when a plumbata dart hissed through the blackness. A tearing of flesh sounded. Farnobius staggered back, dropping the axe, clutching the split flesh on his bicep as three more Roman figures appeared from the foot of the Haemus slopes.

‘Come on!’ Gallus cried, his spatha red with the blood of the next-nearest sentries. Zosimus and Quadratus stood with him, the big Gaul dusting his hands together and admiring his throw.

They scrambled up the shale and scree and back into the mountains, all to the howling cries and pattering arrows of pursuing Goths, no more than a hundred paces behind. A fresh gathering of cloud cut across the moon and served to mask their route as they plunged down from the ridge path and onto the broken, veiled trail. Soon, the sound of their pursuers faded, but still they ran and ran, sliding on slippery ground, leaping across narrow gullies. Pavo heard strangled cries as some of their party fell foul of these hazards. Some hours later, they came to the granite lee they had eaten at the previous day. The scudding cloud cleared, and the moon and starlight illuminated the path behind them. No sign of pursuers. Gallus gave the order to halt.

Each man panted and said nothing. Bato fell to his knees and vomited. Pavo saw that only two ambassadors had made it — young men, the older and less nimble ones having fallen to Gothic arrows or perished on the mountain paths. Then his gaze fell upon the dark one with the black breastplate. This one strode over to Pavo, his square shoulders rising and falling as his breathing calmed. ‘You fought well back there. You saved my li-’ he stopped, frowning. ‘What’s wrong?’

Pavo tried but could not reply as he witnessed the man’s features clearly for the first time. At last, his lips let loose just one word. ‘Dexion?’

The two beheld each other, neither sure what to say next.

Veda the Hun cursed his comrades who had opted to pull back and abandon the chase. Then he cursed this broken trail that the Romans had taken. Had they stayed on the main ridge path, he would have caught them by now. Instead, he thought, pausing to sniff the air like a hunting dog, they were gone. Then an idea came to him as he eyed this winding, fragmented track, veiled by foliage and overhangs of rock for large sections. Just where did it lead? The handful of Romans might have slipped from his grasp, but they might just have led him to a far bigger prize. Perhaps the hunt was not yet over?

‘Ya!’ he hissed, heeling his pony on along the broken trail.

Chapter 5

The pinkish-orange light of another blessedly rain-free day crept across the fortlet at the Shipka Pass, glistening on the armour of the dawn watch. Inside Saturninus’ principia tent, Gallus sat before an untouched plate of bread and honey, his breath coming and going with haste and his skin, clothes and cloak still bathed in sweat from the rapid journey back across the mountains. The warbling, panicked ambassadors were led from the tent by Zosimus, and at last Gallus and the magister equitum were alone.

He turned to Saturninus, intent on summarising the ambassadors’ babbling and contradictory reports of what had happened. ‘They’re coming along one of these passes — maybe all five of them — and they’re coming soon. They were mobilising and may well be on the march as we speak,’ he panted, annoyed at the tremor of fatigue in his voice.

Saturninus paused a moment before replying — a commander’s trick that could present an air of diligence to cover a panicked mind; however, a twitching upper lip betrayed his discomfort in the end. He tucked his lank, dark locks behind his ears and shook his head, tearing a piece of bread for himself and dipping it in honey. ‘This does not change anything, Tribunus. Every day at these passes we wait on, no. . we expect the next Gothic attack.’

Gallus pinched his thumb and forefinger in the air as if catching the point. ‘But they are no longer just Goths. Are you prepared for the Huns? Or the Taifali?’

Saturninus chewed on his honey-sweetened bread, washing it down with water. ‘The Taifali are little different to the Greuthingi. And the Huns? They too are but horsemen, Tribunus. No wall has ever fallen to a cavalry charge.’

‘With respect, sir, do not underestimate the steppe riders. They are no mere chargers.’

‘Hmm,’ Saturninus mused as he chewed. ‘Then perhaps I will have scouts sent a mile or so north of each of the five passes later this morning — to watch for any advance and deny any element of surprise.’

Gallus sighed, dropped his head and ran his fingers through his sweat-damp, grey-streaked locks. He had been in this position before, listening to panicked reports from agitated scouts. A good commander remained rational, even in the face of a severe threat. He could not fault Saturninus for his stance. Then something from the previous night came to him again.

‘There’s something else,’ he said, his breath finally settled and his voice steady. ‘They have a champion — a brute of a warrior the likes of whom I have never before seen.’

Saturninus drained his water cup and shook his head as if annoyed by the notion. ‘The Goths have always had their champions. One deft swordsman will not win this war for them.’

‘I cannot contest that, but this one was different,’ Gallus countered. ‘He is more than just a warrior. He seemed to have the potential to lead as well. He roused the Goths in a way that the other reiks — or even Iudex Fritigern himself — could not.’

Saturninus held Gallus’ gaze, his eyes growing hooded. He nodded slowly, a stoic expression overcoming him. ‘My faith in you and your men was well placed, Tribunus. You did all I asked of you. I only wish I could reassure you that your efforts will not be in vain. But it seems that a storm is coming from the north. . and what else can I do but stand firm against it?’

Gallus leaned forward. ‘You can summon more men from the Great Northern Camp to this fort — ensure it will not fall.’

Saturninus stroked his chin then clasped his hands as if gathering his thoughts. ‘Aye, perhaps that would be prudent. If you were to take your men back to the Great Camp, and collect your new cohorts, could you be back here in good time?’

‘Give the order, sir, and it will be so,’ Gallus replied without hesitation.

Saturninus nodded thoughtfully, taking another swig of water before replying. ‘Then so be it.’

Gallus made to stand, when Saturninus added; ‘I hear you found the man you sought within the embassy — Dexion — and brought him back safely?’

Gallus sat back down. ‘We did.’

‘He means something to you?’

‘Not to me,’ Gallus shook his head, ‘but to one of my men. One of my best men.’ Then he shrugged, thinking of the snatched conversation he had heard between his men as they had returned along the ridge path; ‘but what for him now? He is a primus pilus — an officer without a legion, if I understand correctly.’

‘He is,’ Saturninus replied. He fell silent for a moment, then one eyebrow arched and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. ‘And the Claudia is a legion with few officers, is she not?’

Pavo rested his elbows on the palisade stakes atop the Shipka fort and looked north along the ridge, bathed in orange and dappled here and there in shade. Dexion did likewise by his side. Both men chuckled wearily, still dressed in their dirt, blood and sweat-soaked clothes, their breath puffing in the fresh dawn air. It was the first moment of silence between them since they had returned to Roman territory. While the others had reported to Saturninus or crawled into their tent to sleep, he and Dexion had opted to come up here to talk, and their chatter had been incessant — resulting in a few raised eyebrows from the grumpy legionaries walking the battlements on sentry duty.

Pavo glanced over Dexion’s face once again: paler than his own with age-lined tawny-gold eyes that gave him ten years or so on Pavo, a broader jaw and a thick crop of hair, chestnut-brown like Father’s but short and curled on his forehead in the ancient Roman style. It was only the aquiline nose and heavy brow that physically marked them as kin, but Pavo heard it in Dexion’s voice, saw it in his mannerisms and in his eyes. A warm realisation blanketed him: I’m with my brother.

Then a bitter, fleeting angst blew the warm blanket away: fate had toyed with him like this before, had it not — when he had been reunited with Father in Persia for the briefest of spells only to lose him forever? Flashing memories of Father’s last moments plagued him and the angst threatened to grow and ignite until he halted the thoughts with a deep, calming breath. This was different, he realised, his heart soaring once more. He and Dexion had escaped the Gothic camp, made it back to Roman lands and they were both unharmed. There might be a future for them. Certainly, they had no trouble in making conversation.

Dexion had told him of a troubled childhood, living in various rural villages around western Thracia and Pannonia. Father had faded from his life when he was just two summers old. His mother had been a healer, devoted to the Christian God, travelling from town to town to spread the word. Yet for all her devotion she had been stricken with a cancer and died when Dexion was nine. And so Dexion was orphaned before Pavo was even born. His life after that had been a reflection of Pavo’s in many ways — sold into slavery before buying his freedom and joining the legions firstly as a recruit, then working his way through the ranks to serve as Primus Pilus, second in command of the I Italica — a limitanei legion broken at Ad Salices after which the survivors were then dispersed into nameless vexillationes, leaving him as an officer without a legion.

Dexion uncorked a skin of soured wine and took a long pull on it. His forearm and sword hand were laced with the cuts of a soldier, just like Pavo’s, and he traced these with a finger, as if reliving all that had gone before, then shook his head and chuckled in disbelief. ‘Father was an ethereal figure to me. I dreamt of him, wondered if the face in those dreams was his or just my imaginings. I often dreamt of many things that he might have done. Even this,’ he gestured towards Pavo. ‘I sometimes imagined unknown kin. But I never, never, expected to meet them. It makes me wonder if there are any others out there,’ he mused.

‘It seems that Father roamed far and wide in his youth,’ Pavo said with a fond smile, then glanced down at the leather bracelet bearing both their names, ‘but I am sure there is just me and you to show for all his. . efforts.’

Dexion’s face wrinkled a little and his eyes searched the shadows along the ridge; a troubled look Pavo had often seen in his own reflection.

‘How did he die?’

Pavo took and swigged from the skin of soured wine and stared at his half-brother, then chuckled dryly. ‘It’s complicated. Very complicated.’

‘Tell me. I have to know,’ he said earnestly.

Pavo gazed into the distance and unlocked the vault of memories. He told Dexion everything. Not just Father’s end, but his memories of Father from youth, of his years without him and the dark dreams that drew him to Persia. Finally, he untied the leather bracelet and handed it to Dexion, telling him of Father’s final moments.

Dexion stared wordlessly for some time, his fingers tracing the inscription on the piece. ‘I struggle to recall his face. I cannot even remember his voice,’ he said at last, his words cracking. ‘He was in my life only for my first few years and then,’ he paused, a watery veil coming over his eyes, ‘he was gone.’

Pavo leaned a little closer to him and showed Dexion the bracelet once more. ‘But he never forgot you. Never. He knew only too well his own failings, but he wanted nothing but good lives for us.’

Dexion tried to smile at this, but could not.

Pavo saw the rheumy look remain.

‘And what better life could you ask for but this?’ Dexion said at last, gesturing out over the ridge path. ‘Waiting on some hairy bastard Goth to gut you and then feed you your own entrails!’

Pavo cocked an eyebrow and a silence ensued, then both men erupted in weary laughter.

‘We are alive,’ Dexion continued as the laughter died, flicking his head back towards the south. ‘We have survived in this treacherous empire, avoided all the asps that lie in its grass,’ then he nodded northwards, up the pass, ‘and all the wolves that gather at its borders. And we have found one another. That is what matters to me.’ He held up his wine skin and took a swig. ‘Not half-brothers, but brothers,’ he pronounced.

‘Brothers,’ Pavo echoed, taking the skin and drinking too.

A rumble of boots sounded on the walls nearby, signalling the changing of the guard.

‘We should get some rest,’ Dexion suggested, his eyes combing the furthest discernible reaches of the ridge as if looking for the Gothic vanguard. ‘Today promises to be long and arduous.’

‘Aye, perhaps we should,’ Pavo twisted to look down into the fort. Sura stood there. His friend’s eyes were black-ringed and bloodshot. ‘Sura?’

‘You two had better get some kip. We’re moving out at noon.’

Pavo and Dexion looked to one another, confused.

‘We’re going back south, to the Tonsus and the great camp.’

‘What? Surely we’re needed here? Surely every man is?’ Pavo frowned. ‘Does Saturninus not know what is coming this way?’

‘He does. But he wants us to alert Barzimeres, pick up our new cohorts and then return,’ Sura said, then nodded to Dexion. ‘You’re to come as well, sir.’

Dexion let out a long, lasting sigh. ‘Ah, then back to Barzimeres it is. I will be reunited with the bearded arsehole at last. He was the reason I volunteered to come to this pass and go north with the embassy, you know. Despite all that happened,’ he said, flicking a clump of gore and dirt from his black breastplate, ‘it still seems like I made the right choice.’

‘You have my sympathies,’ Pavo nodded knowingly as they left the battlements, following Sura back to the XI Claudia tent.

‘I’m not sure what use I will be though?’ Dexion mused. ‘Your legion’s business is none of mine.’

‘Aye, there is more to it. Seems you’re without a legion and now your turma of escort riders are gone too, so. . ’ Sura shrugged, nodding ahead to Saturninus’ principia tent. Gallus stood there, watching their approach like a crow, the plume of his helm flitting in the wind. Under his arm, the tribunus carried another intercisa helm bearing a white plume.

Pavo had not seen the like since Felix had worn such a helm in his ceremonial duties as primus pilus. He shared a confused look with Dexion, then his thoughts switched to the Great Northern Camp by the Tonsus and another matter he had almost forgotten. ‘Dexion, there is something we should probably talk about. There’s a girl at the camp you might have gotten to know. . a capsarius.’

‘You mean Felicia?’ he beamed. ‘I know quite a lot about her, oh yes.’ He said this with a distant, mischievous look, reminiscent of Quadratus recalling his many rutting sessions.

Pavo noticed Sura chuckling at this and cast his friend a sour look.

Felicia scowled as a brood of chickens swept around her ankles, nearly knocking her off balance before they shot off across the dry, cracked furrows of earth that ran through the Great Northern Camp. The end of the rains had been a blessing, and for the first time in weeks she could wear open sandals and walk without having to lift the hem of her robes from the mire. It was a fresh morning — the last in September — and pleasant sunshine cast a forgiving light on the sprawling camp, and some men even seemed eager to go about their duties instead of simply wallowing in wine. The smithy was alive with activity as fresh helms and swords were being crafted for the first time in weeks, and the air was spiced with the comforting scent of baking bread.

The run of fine days seemed to have calmed the Tonsus, and the waterline had receded, nearly halving the breadth of the river. Better weather, better moods and a general purpose about the people of the camp meant there were less drunken mud-brawls and thus less injured men to treat. As such, the valetudinarium was empty. But while her colleague, Lucilla, chose to spend her free time washing garments by the river, Felicia had other business to attend to. She swept by the principia encampment once more. Barzimeres and his men had leered at her the first time she had passed, but this time, she noticed that they had left, then saw the dust plume heading over to the Scutarii encampment. Gone to play with his cavalrymen, she guessed.

Now the principia was deserted. She cursed under her breath: this was the first time in many weeks that the square of command tents had been empty like this. And with Dexion still absent at the Shipka Pass defences, that meant she had no valid means of getting in there. Just four legionaries were on watch, one at each corner of the area so no intruders could slip inside. Her eyes grew hooded and a mischievous grin spread across her face. She swayed her hips just a little more as she passed one of the legionaries, drawing a bulging eye from the fellow. When the legionary glanced up and saw he had been caught eyeing her, she winked and swept past him. Flustered, he pretended to be manfully scouring the distance beyond her, then reddened and turned his gaze the other way, studiously eyeing a toad sitting on the cracked mud. With a furtive glance all around, Felicia pounced on her moment of invisibility and sidestepped into the square of tents.

She peered cautiously around the small clearing inside the tent square, then fixed her eyes on the officium tent, the place she had seen the speculatore sneaking to and from.

‘Now, let’s see what those curs have been looking for,’ she muttered as she ducked inside. The tent was bare, with just three wooden chests side-by-side. She carefully opened each one, leafing through the papers inside. Military briefings, mustering reports, lead seals and unused scrolls. Nothing of any obvious value, but then the Speculatores drew value from the most innocuous of things. The written whereabouts of a unit or a soldier was all they needed to find and kill him or bend his arm to perform some dark task for them. The proposal of some military route could present a means of sabotaging the initiative and the general’s reputation along with it.

She closed the third chest and glowered around the tent. There had to be something else, there simply had to be. Then she latched onto an idea. That night when she had spotted the speculatore, it had been raining heavily. The agent had sneaked off with something from this tent and returned later. One of these papers meant something to the speculatore, she reasoned, flipping open each case and leafing through the scrolls once again, and that means that one of them will be. .

She stopped, her breath catching as she lifted one scroll out — still marked with rain-blots. She unfurled it hastily and peered at the writing. It was smudged and barely legible and she scanned it again and again, squinting to make sense of it.

When she did, her heart pounded like a drum and her blood ran cold, her eyes freezing on one word. One name.

‘No. . ’ she gasped, her fingers trembling. Pavo and the rest of the XI Claudia were in grave danger. Their leader most of all. Her eyes scanned the name again:

Gallus.

Cat-soft on his feet, the speculatore came up behind her. Bitch, he thought, she knows! He slid the hunting knife from his belt and held it flat, flexing his arms once, twice and again, readying for the kill.

Then he lunged upon her.

Chapter 6

‘We could’ve swum that,’ Zosimus remarked as they hopped off the ferry and onto the River Tonsus’ southern banks, glancing back at the much diminished river.

‘Give it another few days of this weather and you could wade across it,’ Gallus added stonily, casting his eye around the great camp. The absence of drizzle had done much to improve affairs underfoot, and some works were underway, he could see. Still, the place was a pale shadow of a military camp. ‘Now where is he?’ he grumbled, shading his eyes from the noon sun.

‘Do you smell the horseshit?’ Dexion muttered, his tawny-gold eyes narrowing, his nose wrinkling and the white-plume on his new helm flitting in the breeze. ‘That’s usually a good indicator that he is nearby.’

Gallus had to work not to chuckle at his new primus pilus’ words. He followed Dexion’s staid gaze and saw the wing-helmed Tribunus Barzimeres, sitting bolt upright on the saddle, guiding his mount around the dry dirt tracks and eyeing the idle soldiers and handfuls who were working or training like a lord inspecting his slaves. A pair of Cornutii walked either side of his mount. ‘We’re here only to pick up our new cohorts,’ he muttered so only his men could hear, then looked over his shoulder and met the eyes of Pavo, Sura, Zosimus, Quadratus and Dexion. ‘We can set off back for the Shipka Pass at noon, or we can stay here for a few extra hours to take on more food and water and then-’

‘Noon’ll do nicely,’ Quadratus cut in matter-of-factly, and not one of them disagreed.

The corners of Gallus’ lips almost toyed with a smile. Almost. He turned back round to be greeted by the grinning features of Barzimeres, who beheld him like a wizened father.

‘Ah, Tribunus, you received my message then, eh?’

‘I did, sir,’ Gallus replied. ‘The readiness of the new cohorts is most timely, for the northern passes are in great danger. The sooner we can return there, the soo-’

‘Your stint at the northern stockades is over, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres cut in, his gaze fixed in the distance like some far-seeing general.

Gallus tensed at the rebuttal. ‘Sir, have you heard what is coming for those passes? Goths, Huns, Taifali. The Shipka Pass is at half-strength. Saturninus can call on just six hundred men as it stan-’

‘Then he’d better have them well-drilled,’ Barzimeres cut him off again. ‘For you are staying here until I say you can go. I let this one go to the passes for a two day mission and he returns to me weeks later,’ he flicked a derisory finger at Dexion. ‘Weeks!’ He shook his head. ‘Oh no, you will be remaining here under my command, I can assure you.’

‘Sir,’ Gallus insisted, a tremor of ire in his tone, ‘The passes are in grave danger.’

Barzimeres demeanour changed, growing dark as he leaned forward on his saddle. ‘Do you mean to question me in my own camp, Tribunus?’ As he said this, a group of Cornutii stretched out like wings either side of him, spears just an order from being levelled at the Claudia legionaries.

‘No. . sir,’ Gallus hissed.

Barzimeres’ stance returned to normal, like a passing cloud revealing the sun once more. ‘Then come, come,’ he waved the XI Claudia men with him and walked his horse along the riverbank until they came to the western end of the great camp and the grassy plain beyond, ‘for I have mustered your precious new cohorts.’

Pavo marched up to walk with him. ‘Sir, we can’t afford to pander to him. The Shipka Pass will not stand against the Gothic army we saw readying to move out.’

‘We have to break away from this place,’ Sura added.

‘For once, this lunatic is right, sir,’ Quadratus agreed.

When Gallus spoke, his lips barely moved. ‘We will receive our new cohorts. At dawn tomorrow, we’ll take them out on a marching exercise.’

Pavo searched Gallus’ stony features for some tell-tale glint of the eye. Nothing. An air of uncertainty hung over the group, then Dexion hinted at the tribunus’ true meaning. ‘And perhaps we’ll take a wrong turn?’

‘I’m with you,’ Zosimus chuckled. ‘A very big detour?’

Quadratus chuckled too, then slowed a little. ‘Hold on, what’s that?’

Gallus and the others followed his gaze. He saw Barzimeres slow at a meadow and ride up to a group of slight-shouldered lads in ragged tunics and trousers: a few hundred, no doubt awaiting recruitment on the first rung of the legionary ladder.

‘Your cohorts, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres beamed as he walked his horse around the young men. ‘This will be a plum task for you, will it not? Training boys to hold a spear. Perfect for you limitanei!’ he finished, roaring at his own gossamer-veiled insult.

Gallus bit back on the acerbic phrase that came to his tongue. A phrase that involved Barzimeres forcing the cohorts — a highly euphemistic term — into a place they could never hope to fit, nor want to be. Not seventeen hundred men as he had been told to expect, with four hundred and eighty men to populate the second and third cohorts and nearly eight hundred to populate the prestigious first cohort.

No, some two hundred and forty boys. Some as young as fifteen, the eldest twenty at most. They wore no armour or weapons and most were twig-limbed, looking like they would struggle to lift a shield, let alone use one. They carried just basic marching packs, with tools and bedding — the heavy goatskin tents having been set down.

Barzimeres walked his mount forward a few paces, then leaned down. ‘What’s wrong, Tribunus — were you expecting more? Men are in short supply — remember, many have fallen at the passes.’ The glee in his voice was galling, and the tone was one of victory.

‘I’ll have wooden swords brought out at once, so you can get to work on their training immediately?’ Barzimeres finished, heeling his mount round and ambling back off into the Great Camp.

Gallus watched him go, his breath coming and going through gritted teeth, then turned to the squinting, nervous recruits. There was no point in taking out his anger on these lads, for it would simply break what spirit they had and no doubt humour Barzimeres into the bargain. No, he had to make the most of what he’d been given, and throw the odious Barzimeres off the scent of his plans for their marching exercise tomorrow. He took the silver XI Claudia eagle from Quadratus’ grip, turned to his mass of recruits, pitied them for the anger they were about to endure and planted the standard in the earth like a spear.

‘I am Tribunus Gallus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ he snarled. ‘From today, I am your master. From today, you obey every word from me or Primus Pilus Dexion. From today, this eagle is your god.’ He let a long silence follow this, his eyes raking across the sea of faces, almost daring one to counter him, all the while seeing Barzimeres cantering easily back into his disgrace of a camp. ‘Do you understand?’

Another moment of silence ensued, then the few amongst the recruits who read the cue threw up their arms in salute. ‘Yes, sir!’ came a patchy chorus of barely-broken voices.

Gallus swung away from them, then met the eyes of those by his side. ‘Split them into three centuries.’

Zosimus, Pavo and Sura beckoned two-thirds of the group over to join them, while Quadratus marshalled the rest together.

‘Right,’ Zosimus grunted first. ‘Here are the basics: I’m Centurion Zosimus, your centurion, and I bloody well own you. This here is Optio Pavo, I own him and he owns you. Finally, we have Tesserarius Sura. Pavo and I own him and he owns you. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ came another chorus of replies.

‘Understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’ came a high-pitched attempt at a bolder reply.

‘Now I’ll teach you how to march, how to fight and how not to die in good time. Right now, it’d be wise to get your cooking fires kindled and get some food in your bellies, for once we start training, you’ll bloody well need it.’

As the tirade was echoed by Quadratus to his century and the third century, Gallus cast his eye over the Great Northern Camp, up to the noon sun, then off to the mountains in the north. Dawn felt like a long, long way away.

Stand firm, Saturninus, he mouthed, thinking of the hardy few atop the Shipka Pass. We will come to you soon.

With a few hours of light left, Pavo jogged back from the meadow and into the Great Northern Camp. After four gruelling hours, Zosimus, Pavo and Sura had taught their century little more than how to stand in formation. Still, they clutched their shields and spears clumsily, standing too far apart or too close together, presenting Gallus with a thousand different faults to berate them for. But at least they now had some kit, he thought, remembering Gallus haranguing the man at the stores until he got what he wished, the fellow had grudgingly handing over a dusty, battered collection of spears, swords and shields bearing a hotchpotch of colours and emblems. Helms and armour would have to wait, he thought, for the return to the Shipka Pass was only a few hours of sleep away.

But there was something else that could not wait. Someone else.

Pavo burst into the valetudinarium, then cursed as he saw nobody there but a cross-eyed fellow sitting, clutching his groin and scratching violently at it. ‘I’m first, I’ve been waiting here for bloody ages,’ he gasped, wincing scratching roughly again. ‘But there’s been nobody here all bloody day!’

He left and jogged on through the camp towards Felicia’s tent, past milling soldiers eating stew or cleaning their long-neglected armour. He had so much to tell her. Dexion was here and he was now part of the XI Claudia. Then he wondered sourly how she might react to this, how pleased she might be to see Dexion again. At that moment, he caught sight of another figure heading towards Felicia’s tent: Dexion! Instinctively, he broke into a run, determined to reach her first.

At last, he came to her tent. ‘Felicia?’ he called out, unsure if the dangerous, scalpel-wielding Lucilla might be inside. ‘Felicia?’

Nothing. Then. . sobbing. A faint, weak sobbing.

‘Felicia, what’s. . ’ he started, sweeping the tent flap back then falling silent as he saw Lucilla.

Lucilla looked up, her face stained with tears and her shoulders shuddering as she wept.

Pavo felt an icy stone settle in his belly.

The lamplight guttered, illuminating Felicia’s face and the angry purple bruise that had blossomed on her temple. She muttered feverishly, her skin bathed in a slick of sweat, while Lucilla dabbed at her brow with a wet rag.

‘There must be something that can ease her pain?’ Pavo insisted.

‘She’s had as much henbane as I can give her,’ Lucilla shook her head, moving the jug of crushed seeds in water from Pavo as if to stop him from trying.

‘Pavo,’ Dexion said softly, placing a hand across his chest, ‘she is as well as can be hoped. The camp physician will be by her side all night,’ he nodded to Lucilla.

‘As will I,’ Pavo insisted.

‘You know that cannot be,’ Dexion replied. ‘You are exhausted. When did you last sleep properly? You had days of marching before you even rescued me, did you not? Tomorrow, you will need to be swift, as will we all.’ He tried to force the barely touched bowl of vegetable stew and a hunk of bread into Pavo’s hands again, but Pavo pushed it away.

‘Dexion, whoever attacked her might return,’ Pavo countered, his eyes tracing the gash on her neck — a failed arterial cut, he was sure. Someone had tried to kill her. The guards who had heard a scuffle in the principia had only just missed the offender, it seemed. And what in Mithras’ realm did you think you were doing in there? he screamed inside. You promised you would wait for my return before acting on your suspicions!

Dexion took him by the shoulders and held his gaze. ‘Whoever attacked her will be long gone from this camp, I am sure of it. Regardless, I will organise a party of four to watch this tent tonight. There are some good men in this camp, believe it or not. They will see that no further harm comes to her.’

Pavo made to argue, then his shoulders slumped and he nodded. He kissed Felicia’s cheek, then rose with his brother. The pair left, walking through the camp at last light, heads bowed.

Saturninus heard the buccina blare once more outside his tent, heard the stampede of boots, the cries of his centurions and the thunder of his heart. He had been taught many years ago to hide his fear, and today, that lesson came to good use. He slid on his bronze scale vest, swept on his swordbelt and cloak, then placed his helmet on and sucked in a deep breath. The ground trembled underfoot, and the buccina cries were drowned out by the growing wail of Gothic War Horns. He drew his spatha and gazed at his wan reflection in the blade — not at all rugged or bellicose like the fearless generals he wished he could match.

‘Yet the day I stop trying is the day I fail,’ he muttered under his breath, fending off the gnashing terror in his belly once more, sheathing the blade and striding from the tent.

Outside in a haze of gold-threaded late-afternoon sunlight, chaos reigned.

Stray arrows pattered down all around the fortlet floor and a growing guttural roar sounded from outside the northerly wall. Sharp screams and strangled cries pierced the air along the battlements where the bunched line of legionaries weathered the arrow storm of the approaching Gothic assault. Some slumped, heads lolling with arrows jutting from eye sockets, while others staggered back, fell from the walkway and crunched onto the fort floor. And only a few centuries waited in reserve, standing with shaking legs, ready to rush onto the northerly battlement as needed. Saturninus hurried past them and up the steps. He pushed between a centurion and the legionary next to him to look down along the ridge. His belly clenched in terror at the sight before him. The ridge was awash with warriors. Not just a warband, many thousands of them this time, stretching off as far as he could see. The Gothic infantry front was but a hundred paces from the wall. Their helms glittered in the sunlight, flowing locks whipping up, spears, swords and bows readied. And those to the front carried with them ladders and climbing hooks.

A shield swept up before him, just catching the next volley of Gothic arrows. ‘There are too many of them, sir,’ the V Macedonica centurion cried to him. ‘We’ll be overrun.’

‘Nonsense. We have faced them like this many times before. Their numbers count for little,’ he insisted, wishing he could believe his own words.

‘Ready!’ another officer called out and buccinas sounded to reaffirm the order. At once, the line of legionaries stiffened, spears levelled as the Goths reached the wall. The ladders swung up and rattled into place with a rhythmic certainty and in moments they were thick with climbing warriors.

‘All I ask is that you hold this wall until dark,’ Saturninus cried to the centurion. ‘For then, our reinforcements will be here. A whole new legion.’ He said this as loud as he could, eager for the legionaries to hear. He stepped back as the din of battle erupted. Iron singing in discord. Snarling, screaming men. Bodies being ruined on sharpened steel. Flitting back down the steps, blood puffing overhead, he readied the reserves. ‘Watch for gaps in our lines then hasten to fill them,’ he implored them.

Then he turned away from the battle and to the fort’s southern wall and thought of the dauntless Gallus. Come on man, come on! He mouthed. The tribunus and his new cohorts should have been back by now, but there had been neither sight nor sound of them. He clapped his hands and waved one of his few scout riders over. ‘Ride south until you cross paths with the Claudia,’ he said, then lowered his voice, ‘they cannot be far from here but you must urge them to make haste.’ But the rider was distracted, looking to the southern wall.

Saturninus frowned and looked up with the scout. The thin scattering of sentries on the walls by the fortlet’s southern gate were standing a little taller, shielding their eyes, calling out some form of challenge. His heart lifted. They have come? At once, he envisioned how the Claudia would be deployed, imagining rank after rank of reinforcement, sure that victory could again be had.

His hopes were dashed like a skull by a cudgel. First, one of the sentries by the south gate was punched back, his chest riven with short, thick arrows. Then a looped length of rope swung up from beyond the southerly wall, fell over the head of another sentry and swiftly yanked tight. The crack of the soldier’s breaking neck cut off his terse scream and his body was hauled from the southern wall and out of the fort.

‘What the?’ Saturninus gasped.

Then, like a plague of ants, short, stocky warriors in hides and leathers poured over the southern wall, climbing on ropes. They fell upon the thin smattering of sentries there with the ferocity of wolves, tearing at them with daggers and long blades.

Huns? They have found the hidden path? Saturninus drew his spatha and waved to his reserve centuries. ‘To the southern wa-’ he started, but his cry was cut short when a pair of the Huns dropped to the fort floor and hoisted the locking bar from the southern gate. The gate swung open to reveal a cluster of forty or more Huns, mounted, bows nocked, faces bent in animal grimaces.

‘No, no!’ Saturninus gasped.

A cloud of arrows shot forth, punching some of his reserves to the ground, while more dismounted Huns sped along the east and west walls then clambered up the northern timber corner towers and launched a frenzied attack on the archers up there, bloodied bodies being tossed down.

The reserve centuries hurried to engage the mounted Huns who had broken inside the fort, pulling some from their mounts. One legionary’s head was cleaved by a Hun blade, brains spraying Saturninus. The stocky warrior then came for him. Saturninus saw his blade flash up to block the Hun’s, then felt the dull judder of his spatha sinking deep into the steppe warrior’s chest. He backed away from the crumpling foe and hurried up the steps to the northern wall again. Already, gaps had formed in the legionary line there. Goths were swarming onto the battlements. The centurion who had shielded him fought on manfully, then caught sight of Saturninus. ‘Sir, we have to retre-’ his cry was cut off as an arrow took him in the throat. As he fell, Saturninus saw the swarm of armour and blades coming up the ladders. With them came a giant. Not Fritigern or any of the snake-like reiks. This man was like a titan, driving the Gothic horde on. Farnobius, Saturninus realised, the champion Gallus had spoken of.

‘Take the fort!’ the giant roared. Then his eyes met with Saturninus and he grinned a foul grin unbecoming of a noble soldier. Lifting his great axe like an accusing finger to point at the magister equitum, he bellowed; ‘Bring me that one’s head!’

From the corners of his eyes, Saturninus saw the legionaries falling in swathes. One severed head rolled before him, a length of spine trailing behind the crimson stump of a neck. The wall was all but taken. He glanced over his shoulder: the skirmish with the Huns had been won, the last few of them fleeing through the southern gate. But the horsemen had served their purpose, engaging the reserve centuries long enough for the north wall to be overwhelmed. ‘Back. . ’ he quavered, his meek voice betraying him again, his retreating step quickening towards the steps as the giant now surged up the ladders too. ‘Back!’ he tried again, hoarsely this time. ‘Back!’ he roared now, like a lion. ‘Retreat!’ he cried. ‘The pass has fallen. Retreat to the south!’

He stumbled down the steps and into the fort, leapt upon the grey mare one soldier brought him and waved his remaining men together, riding at their rear to shepherd them to safety, through the fort’s southern gates and off down the ridge towards central Thracia. They fled at great haste, and as he looked back over his shoulder, he saw the giant Goth and his masses pour over the broken stockade. They spilled into the fort, cheering at their conquest.

The Romans sped downhill and soon the Goths who pursued gave up the chase, content in their victory and eager to pillage the fort. An hour later, when Saturninus and his ragged band of just a few hundred survivors reached the flatland south of the Haemus Mountains, they slowed, panting, shaking. Cold sweat trickled down his back as he realised that the blockade was over — with one pass taken, the other four were at the mercy of the Goths and the Huns.

‘Riders!’ he called to the handful of mail-vested equites riding with him, ‘split your forces, take word to the other four passes. Tell them to fall back to the south and take shelter in the walled cities of Thracia.’

As the riders wheeled off to the east and west, Saturninus gazed around the quiet, peaceful sunset-bathed Thracian countryside into which they fled, then touched a hand to the Chi-Rho amulet on his neck chain.

‘God forgive me for me lack of valour and protect the souls of these lands.’

Chapter 7

Pavo woke before dawn on the first morning of October after a blessedly deep, dreamless and refreshing sleep. That he felt refreshed and well caused him some guilt. He threw chill water over his face then cooked and ate a bowl of boiled, salted wheat porridge and some dried fruit hurriedly and absently in the darkness, before hastening to Felicia’s tent once more, his breath clouding as he went. The scene was the same as it had been last night: she was moaning, bathed in sweat. The bruise on her temple was black now, her eyes were partly open and she seemed to recognise him.

‘Pavo?’ she said weakly. The effort almost sent her back into blackness.

He clasped her hand and kissed it, dark thoughts crossing his mind. He had seen many soldiers take blows to the head in battle, fight on and seem well enough for days afterwards, only to suddenly collapse, the life leaving them like the light from a smothered candle.

‘She is getting better,’ Lucilla said softly, leaning over to hold a cup of honeyed water to her lips. ‘She is drinking and she ate a little bread earlier.’

Her words were like wine. He nodded and thanked her. ‘My legion will be away from the camp today on a. . marching drill,’ he lied. ‘We will return soon,’ he added, clasping Felicia’s hand tighter and praying this was not another lie.

He left the tent, squinting into the pale orange dawn light and nodding to the four veteran legionaries who had guarded Felicia and Lucilla well. They saluted in return as he hurried back to the XI Claudia tents by the riverbank near the lone watchtower. Gallus, Dexion, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura stood in their full armour and marching burdens, watching like disapproving giants as the recruits scrambled around before them, drowning in a sea of partially-deconstructed tents. A marching drill would have been challenge enough, Pavo mused. But to steal away from the camp and race to the Shipka Pass in good time now seemed a fanciful notion.

The rest of the camp came to life around them, buccinas sounding for morning roll call and bleary faces appearing from tents all around. After what seemed like an age, the two XI Claudia centuries were formed up, tents stuffed away, spears, swordbelts and tatty, mismatching shields in vaguely the right place. Yet they stood not in a marching line but in something more akin to a swarm.

‘Into line! A line! What part of line do you not understand?’ Sura snapped. ‘Did you not listen to a thing yesterday?’

They shuffled and jinked until they stood in two separate squares, eight men along the front of each, ten ranks deep.

‘You,’ Pavo shot a finger at one who seemed to hesitate. His gaze was distant, a hand shielding his eyes from the early morning sunlight as he peered at the plains over the river. ‘Get into li-’ he stopped, seeing all heads switching to follow this lad’s gaze — even those of his fellow officers.

‘What in Hades is that?’ Zosimus muttered.

Pavo strained his eyes, seeing just a black, jostling mass — silhouetted by the sun — dust and clumps of dirt thrown up in its wake. A babble of concern broke out amongst the recruits and all around the camp. Pavo’s hand moved instinctively for his spatha hilt. The armour of his comrades rustled as they braced likewise. Then the call came from the nearby watchtower.

‘It is the magister equitum!’

A shaft of sunlight fell across the approaching shapes now: Saturninus rode at the head of a few hundred legionaries. Their armour was dotted with dried blood and their shields were scarred and bloodied likewise.

Pavo looked to Dexion, Sura and Gallus.

‘Looks like we won’t be requiring that marching drill after all,’ Quadratus said stoically.

Barzimeres gazed down from his black mount, stroking his recently trimmed and oiled beard as he beheld the sweating, soaked, whimpering and meek-voiced man who was theoretically his superior.

‘Line the riverbanks!’ Saturninus gasped, falling from his grey mare, splashing through the shallows of the Tonsus and throwing an arm back to the north. His long, dark hair, sleeves and cloak were filthy and soaked. A rainbow formed in the spray thrown up by the legionaries wading across the river in his wake.

Barzimeres shuffled in his saddle, irked by the magister equitum’s tone and somewhat unaccustomed to taking orders given that he had been the acting lord of this camp for months now. As a young lad led Saturninus’ mare away to tend to it, he noticed the magister equitum’s soldiers casting fleeting and frequent glances over their shoulders as they came to the southern riverbank. Hundreds of V Macedonica legionaries. Well, maybe a few hundred. Were the rest at the wall? He noticed that many of these ones had cast off their shields and helms, some had even thrown off their swordbelts and spears to aid their haste across the water. Oddly, he noticed something else at that moment: the russet dust cloud thrown up by Saturninus’ men seemed to remain, hovering over there across the river, beyond the green knoll to the north. No, it seemed to be growing, swelling. Was this some phenomenon of the dry weather?

‘Sound the buccinas; bring the men to the riverbanks!’ Saturninus cried out, hands clutching the air in frustration, his weak voice cracking.

‘The men are busy, sir,’ Barzimeres replied calmly, sure his composure marked him out as the true leader of the northern camp. Seeing the magister equitum’s blank, exasperated look of reply, he nodded to the heart of the camp. There, he had finally taken that firebrand Gallus’ advice and put the soldiers to work hewing new timber palisades. It would look better for when the Eastern and Western Praesental Armies came here, he thought.

‘Palisades?’ Saturninus spluttered, standing up on shaking legs. ‘We should never have been without them. And it is my mistake that I allowed you such a lengthy tether, Barzimeres.’ He frowned, looking all around. ‘Where is the XI Claudia?’ I gave them an order to collect their new cohorts then return to me at the Shipka Pass.’

Barzimeres bridled at this, coughing at the thickening air of dust, distracted by some distant rumble and the sight of the russet dust cloud in the north thickening further. ‘Perhaps we can talk back at the principia, sir?’

‘There is no time! The Goths are in pursuit.’

‘A few Gothic scouts is no cause for such alarm,’ he scoffed, seeing the legionaries of the great camp put down their breakfast bowls and tools and crowd around the bedraggled newcomers. ‘I’ll have my Scutarii formed within the hour and. . ’

Saturninus leapt for Barzimeres, grappling the collar of his bronze scale vest, part hauling him from the saddle. ‘The Shipka Pass has fallen. The Hun horsemen stole around the veiled path through the impassable mountains and sliced into our rear. Those defences now lie shredded. What you see here is all that remains of the V Macedonica. Thracia is at the mercy of the Goths — the entire horde! They pursued us through the night and are but moments behind us.’

Barzimeres saw the panic flaring in the magister equitum’s eyes and all across his face. The fear that the timid leader had managed to hide well until now was unmistakeable. And it’s infecting me, damn him! he thought, feeling his belly swirl in terror. He nodded, backing away, glancing up to the lone timber watchtower that stood on the Tonsus’ southern bank. ‘My sentry will see them coming before. . ’

He looked at his sentry in the tower enclosure. Only now was the man paying attention, his mouth agape, staring to the north at the russet dust cloud beyond the green knoll there, his face as white as his knuckles. The man fumbled a buccina to his lips and filled his lungs, when a dark streak sped across the morning sky like a swarm of raptors, then plunged into the trumpeter’s chest. The buccina sounded a discordant, single note as the trumpeter toppled from the tower, riven with short, thick arrows, then crunched to the ground.

The men of the camp gawked, frozen, many in just grubby tunics and carrying no arms or armour as they went about their morning business.

‘To arms!’ Saturninus bellowed as if to shock Barzimeres’ stunned legions to life.

Pavo stared at the fallen trumpeter, lying in a broken heap only paces away from him. The man’s legs were bent backwards over his head, a white shard of spine jutting from his horribly broken neck, his eyes staring and tongue trailing from his death rictus. Dread crept across his shoulders as he looked up to where the arrows had come from. The knoll across the river was empty apart from the dust cloud. A heartbeat later, it swirled and puffed, and a jostling, vast band of tall, fair warriors surged to the top of the knoll. Gothic spearmen in their thousands, archers too. And on the flanks, riders poured into view. Like some army of risen dead, they wore a mixture of plundered Roman helms and mail shirts, along with hardened red leather Gothic armour and bronze helms.

Saturninus’ words echoed in his mind. The Shipka Pass has fallen. Thracia is at the mercy of the Goths.

The Gothic archer’s bows pointed skywards. Another dark streak sped across the sky, this time far larger.

‘Shields!’ Pavo cried instinctively as the hail sped for them. But the few hundred young soldiers of the XI Claudia were slow, panicked, some crying out in fear and staring at the incoming hail. Some came to their senses and hoisted up their shields in time before the arrows battered down. Pavo heard the din of arrows pounding down on his shield and others. But this was drowned out by screams as fledgling legionaries were struck down by these first edges of steel they had ever faced — arrows in their foaming throats and torn limbs. Behind the cluster of XI Claudia men all was chaos too. Arrows had hammered down amongst the unprepared throngs — those struck disappearing as though hauled down by some underground creature with a spurt of their blood cast up in their place. Women screamed, snatching up their children and taking flight. Commanders barked to their scattered and unprepared men. Then the Gothic war horn wailed across the river like a vengeful shade and their mighty Greuthingi cavalry walked forward, lances pointing skywards. With them came the Huns, bows nocked, swords and lassos ready. This wall of riders came down the slopes of the knoll and splashed into the river shallows on the far side.

All around Pavo, men tripped over one another, shouting, arguing and wrestling to take the nearest mail shirts and spears for themselves. Lowing oxen thrashed in distress, dogs howled and whined. The Claudia recruits were edging away from the riverside, chests rising and falling in fear.

‘Stand your ground!’ Gallus cried, halting most with the ferocity of his order.

The blood thundered in Pavo’s ears. He saw the tribunus look this way and that, searching for a modicum of order in the panic. The waterline had to be held, he realised, but an organised army was needed for that.

‘Defend the riverbank,’ Saturninus cried, marshalling his few hundred V Macedonica men over beside the XI Claudia. ‘Form a line.’

At last, something akin to a defensive line took shape in the shingle of the southern bank, the depleted XI Claudia centuries forming the left and the Macedonica men the right, with Gallus, Dexion and Saturninus in the centre. Just over four hundred men. Then another few hundred partially-armoured legionaries bunched onto the right end of the line, more coming in pockets of tens and twenties — though some had not even brought a spear in their haste.

‘Shields together!’ Zosimus roared.

‘Push up!’ Pavo demanded, barging his shoulder into the young lad at the left end of the line and locking his shield into place. He felt the lad tremble violently, heard the youngster’s breath come in snatched gasps.

‘I. . sir. . I can’t. . I ca-’

‘Stay together, stand firm and do as I do,’ he roared in a tone devoid of fear. Yet inside it was different: his heart crashed like a war drum, some cursed god had seen fit to drain the moisture from his own mouth and direct it to his bladder as he readied his spear at the right edge of his shield and peered over the rim at the approaching masses. Sura barged into place with Zosimus by his side. Both men trembled with the visceral awakening that came before battle.

‘Come on you bastards!’ Zosimus snarled, leaning forward as if eager to lunge for the coming Gothic front. Sura rapped his spear on his shield and unleashed an animal howl, his eyes glassy with tears, spittle flecking the dawn air. This spirit seemed to spread across the recruits, who stiffened and stood a little taller. Still though, the fear was bettering these young lads.

A cluster of archers heeded Saturninus’ order too, rushing to the top of the lone watchtower, ducking and rising from behind the balustrade to loose their quivers on the Gothic horsemen, now wading saddle-deep across the centre of the river, raised shields taking the brunt of the Roman arrow hail — just a few fell foul of this weak volley, sliding from their saddles and splashing into the Tonsus to be carried downriver in a crimson-streaked current. The many thousands of Gothic infantry were now following, wading into the deeper water behind their cavalry.

Pavo locked eyes with the giant rider in the centre of the Gothic advance. Unmistakeable with his hulking frame, obsidian eyes, dark hair and trident beard. . and the welt of scab on his bicep from Quadratus’ plumbatae marksmanship that night at the Gothic camp. Farnobius glowered at Pavo and across the XI Claudia section of the Roman line, the grip on his great axe tightening. You, he mouthed, recognising the Claudia veterans.

As the Gothic cavalry waded clear of the deepest section of river, their pace increased, spray puffing up in their wake, dotted with haloes of sunlight. It was a walk, then a trot, then the ground shook and the air filled with whinnies and cries of Ya! as the Gothic riders urged their mounts into a canter. Then an iron rasp rang out as longswords were drawn and spears were levelled.

‘Hold the line,’ Saturninus cried, and some men fell to their knees to brace their spears.

Pavo flicked his head left and then right to see that the thin legionary line now stretched to cover the shingle banking. Beyond either end of the line were rugged sections of broken, steep banking or fen that would halt or delay the Gothic crossing. They had a chance, just a sliver of a chance. . then he saw the darting mass far to his left: a handful of Hun riders leapt from the waters, their ponies making light work of scrambling up the broken banking. They swept round the end of the Roman line and into the camp, coming round on the rear of the Roman line.

‘Sir!’ Pavo bellowed to Gallus and Saturninus at once. ‘They’re behind us!’

Gallus and the magister equitum looked to him, wide-eyed, faces paling. With a whirring, the Huns’ lassos licked out like lizards’ tongues, looping over men in the Roman line from behind, yanking and breaking necks, leaving gaps in the line like a bad set of teeth. One rope hooked round the fin of Pavo’s intercisa and slid down as if to strangle him, but he ducked out of it just before the Hun on the end of it yanked the rope tight. Men swung round to face this threat while others roared for them to turn back to the Gothic horsemen, now clear of the shallows and breaking into a charge over the short stretch of shingle.

The recruit by Pavo’s side gawped at the Gothic rider bearing down on him on a wild-eyed stallion, then looked over his shoulder, trembling in panic, hearing the Hun lassos whirring again.

‘Eyes forward,’ Pavo snarled. ‘The line is our strength!’

‘But sir, the Hu-

The lad’s words ended with an almighty clatter of thousands of spears hammering into the Roman shield wall. Pavo was driven back some fifteen paces such was the force of it. Legionaries fell, trampled or run through. Horses reared, faces smashed with Roman shield bosses. Gothic riders screamed as they were pulled from the saddle and gutted on legionary blades. Once more, the Tonsus riverbank was sodden, this time with blood.

Pavo thwacked his spear shaft into one rider then another — no time to execute a thrust that might disable either of them, then swept his shield out to catch the blow of the first of the Gothic infantry surge. He bedded his spear butt into the reddening mud just as another rider came at him. The horse ran onto the tip and issued an agonised whinny as it toppled to the dirt, taking the lance with it. Pavo drew out his spatha and hacked the hand from an onrushing Gothic spearman, then parried the blows of another two. The cap of some unfortunate legionary’s skull spun past him, showering him with stinking grey matter and blood, and he saw two Macedonica legionaries being torn apart by a cluster of frenzied Goths, loops of gut being thrown up on the end of their spears. All the while, he realised the thin Roman line was bending. No, capitulating. Back they stalked, then staggered, then he realised they were warped out of shape. His heart plummeted when he saw the young XI Claudia recruits had turned to flight while others were left as islands in the sea of Goths. Here the handful of legionaries who strived to hold the line were being driven towards the lone watchtower, he realised as he came together with Sura, Zosimus and a clutch of the recruits once more. Then Dexion, Gallus and Quadratus were with them.

‘We can hold the ground around this tower?’ Dexion gasped, blocking a spear that was thrust towards Pavo then glancing up at the watchtower.

Perhaps, Pavo thought, until he saw the Hun lassos shooting up to grapple the timber joists near the top.

Barzimeres blinked in disbelief, his mount pacing backwards as the Goths surged forward. The Roman line before him was buckling, bending and being driven back towards the lone watchtower. He guided his mount back in step with them, using them as a screen. His guts seemed to be in the hold of a giant, icy hand and he shook uncontrollably. A palisade might have saved them, he realised now. Gallus had been right.

Aye, but he’s also a fool! he thought, seeing how Gallus fought on beside Saturninus and a few hundred legionaries in the fragmenting line before him while the rest of the camp broke south in flight. Why should I give my life just to let some other beggars live?

He readied to join the fleeing masses, then hesitated. Here, screened by the fighting legionaries and obscured by the watchtower, he was momentarily safe from the Goths. His fear ebbed just a fraction. If he was to wait here for just a moment and be one of the last to flee. . then they’ll hail me as a hero, he surmised, a hero who stood to the last. A Gothic arrow flashed past him and suddenly, his stomach heaved. A moment later, he heard the whirring of ropes and the cracking of timber from above. Hun lassos had taken a hold of the tower joists. The tall watchtower groaned, shuddered and was wrested from its foundations. It toppled into the river, splintering like kindling, walls of foaming water leaping up from either side as the cries of the archers in the tower top were swiftly muted. Those who survived the fall were dragged from the water to have their throats sliced or their bellies ripped open — steaming guts and organs toppling into the shallows. With this tumult, the legionary line’s last vestiges of cohesion crumbled and the retreating front shattered, some men running, others falling back in small groups, still fighting.

As the line dissolved before him, Barzimeres’ bowels clenched. He was alone, his screen of protection gone. Then one of the Huns loosed an arrow that tore out his mount’s throat. The black stallion reared up, tossing Barzimeres into the dirt. He scrambled back from the thrashing beast, all thought now on saving himself and nothing else. As he glanced back he saw the Gothic spears and longswords swinging to and fro casting fingers, hands, arms and heads up in the air with spouts of blood. Coming through the melee like a titan was the trident-bearded giant with the axe.

Barzimeres stumbled for the south with the fleeing crowds, panic utterly controlling him as he sensed the giant Goth coming for him. ‘Get out of my way!’ he cried turning to flee only to bash against a legionary running towards the struggle on the riverside. He recognised him as the primus pilus of his Cornutii.

‘Sir?’ The feather-helmed officer gasped. ‘What’s happening?’

Barzimeres saw the man’s eyes searching his, saw that they had found the truth of his cowardice, heard the giant Goth’s axe singing through the air behind him, readying to come down on his skull, then realised what he had to do. Grabbing the officer by the shoulders, he swung the man round and into the path of the giant Goth’s axe strike like a shield. The primus pilus’ helmet was cleaved as was his skull. Brain and blood pumped from the awful wound and showered all nearby. He shoved the corpse at the giant then hurried on southwards until he came to the rest of the Cornutii, armed and rushing towards the conflict as their primus pilus had been moments ago.

‘Retreat — to the south!’ he waved them back ‘The camp has all but fallen.’

‘But sir, the primus pilus, he is in the fray.’

‘It is too late, I saw him fall. I tried to save him but I could not. Now turn around!’ He saw his Scutarii too cantering towards the battle, and waved them back likewise.

As his palatinae legions pulled back reluctantly, he stumbled on after them. In moments, he was lagging behind them, wheezing for breath and realised he needed a horse. He looked in every direction for some hope of salvation, then saw a terrified boy standing with Saturninus’ still sweating, frothing grey mare. He hurried over to the boy, yanking on the reins.

But the boy held on tight. ‘Sir, no, this belongs to the magister equitum. He told me to hold onto it.’

The boy’s words faltered and his eyes bulged as Barzimeres rammed his dagger into the lad’s gut, then twisted the blade. ‘Saturninus is otherwise engaged,’ he growled, then leapt upon the mare and heeled her off through the camp and on to the south, overtaking his regiments then crossing the hills, passing fleeing women and workmen on the plain.

The cool autumn wind roared in his ears and he cast glance after glance behind him, seeing the brave but futile last stand of the legions of the Great Northern Camp by the riverbank. The last traces of the Thracian armies would surely perish there. He had done the right thing in saving his two palatinae regiments, he affirmed. Then he thought he heard a clopping of hooves behind him, racing, catching him. He swung round in fright, bringing up the still-bloodied dagger, only to see nothing there. Nothing but a fresh autumn wind, and a burning sense of shame.

The fragments of the watchtower were swept off downstream and the equally fragmented Roman defensive line fled or fell further and further back into the Great Northern Camp. Pavo and Sura became separated from the other Claudian legionaries. They staggered backwards, barely resisting the Gothic press, a trail of blood and broken corpses littering the ground in the wake of the retreat and a vile stench of open bowels wafting through the mild air. They stumbled as they backed over fallen tents, still-burning campfires and discarded crates and belongings. Sura slashed the chest of one Goth and Pavo booted the foe back then stabbed out at another. The pair backed through a cluster of tents and for a blessed moment, they were free of the battle — but they were also separated from their legion.

A thudding of boots startled them and they swung to the noise, swords flicking up. Dexion halted just inches from the tips. ‘Whoa — easy!’ he cried, a wry grin on his face as the swords were lowered.

‘What now?’ Sura gasped.

Buccinas cried from behind them. The order to retreat sounded over and over again.

The three turned to see that the open ground south of the camp was already streaked with fleeing Roman soldiers and people. Every cluster of legionaries still fighting within the camp now broke and fled as well. Pavo swivelled on his heel as if to join them, then he froze and his stomach fell into his boots as a terrible thought snared him. At the same time, Dexion gasped and Sura’s face fell agape.

‘Felicia?’ the three said in unison.

Pavo’s eyes swept across the mass of tents nearby. The foremost Goths were leaping over tents on horseback, cutting down a few scuttling survivors who had chosen to hide, tearing down or setting light to Roman tents and crying out in victory. They were just paces from the area with Felicia and Lucilla’s tent.

‘She might have been carried clear of this place already,’ Sura said, guessing their thoughts.

‘We have to be sure,’ Pavo said.

‘Then by Mithras, we’d better be swift,’ Dexion added.

Like deer rushing for a pride of lions, the three hared across the sea of Roman tents, bounding over debris as a thickening cloud of black smoke swept over them and the pillaging Goths converged upon them and Felicia’s tent.

Be far from here, please, Pavo mouthed as they rounded the smith’s hut. Then they stumbled to a halt. In the clearing before the tents there, Farnobius stood, his great axe dripping with blood and plastered with hair and skin. By his feet lay a handful of corpses. A man, chest cleaved. . and two women. He stared at Felicia’s pained expression, lifeless eyes staring skywards, mouth agape as if calling for him. The wound across her neck was deep and her milky skin was now grey. Lucilla’s corpse lay by Felicia’s side, her back dark red where it had met with some blade, her arms cast over Felicia as if to protect her.

He fell forward, reaching out, hearing numb, other-worldly cries and not recognising them as his own. He saw Farnobius’ giant frame jostle in glee, saw the pack of Goths that flooded into the space to flank their leader and stalk towards the legionaries. He rose, hefting up a jagged boulder and hurling it. The rock ended Farnobius’ laughter abruptly as it smashed into his face, staving in his nose. The giant fell back, clutching his face as blood pumped from his shattered nose. Pavo leapt up, tearing his spatha from his scabbard to finish the job, heedless to the nest of Goths he was about to leap into. But rough hands hauled him back.

He thrashed and kicked, unintelligible curses pouring from his lungs. Yet Sura and Dexion hauled him back from the scene, speeding as best they could from the eager Goths.

‘She’s gone, Pavo. There’s nothing you can do for her,’ Sura cried, his voice tight and his face stained with tears, flashing glances back to see that the Goths had chosen to aid Farnobius, giving them precious moments to flee.

‘Come, brother,’ Dexion added with a bitter howl. ‘I have few friends in this world. Do not let me lose another today.’

Gallus and Zosimus found themselves facing a pack of seven Goths who had broken ahead of the horde. Gallus whacked one Goth on the side of the head with the flat of his spatha, sending the warrior stumbling backwards, stupefied, into his comrades. The tribunus then plucked up a dropped torch and put light to the tents immediately before them. A wall of fire shot up and this bought him and Zosimus moments to hasten their flight.

‘Run,’ Zosimus gasped, turning and shoving Gallus with him. They leapt over a series of fallen and torn tents then hurdled a broken wagon lying on its side. They ducked down behind it, each panting and praying that they had shaken off their pursuers. Both started when Dexion and Sura staggered round the wagon’s edge, dragging Pavo like a prisoner, and ducked behind there too. For just a moment, Gallus was transfixed on Pavo. The young optio’s face was twisted in a snarl and he shook visibly with ire. His chest rose and fell like bellows and his eyes were aflame. It was a hauntingly familiar look. He noticed how Dexion and Sura retained their marshalling grip on Pavo’s arms.

‘What happened?’ Gallus asked Dexion.

Dexion shook his head briskly, the dark look in his eyes answer enough.

Just then, Quadratus skidded round behind the wagon. ‘It’s over,’ the big Gaul snarled. ‘The camp has fallen.’

‘Break for the south!’ a hoarse voice cried out as if in confirmation of the earlier buccina signals. The six behind the wagon turned to see Saturninus. His lank black hair was plastered to his face with blood and he was still surrounded by a beleaguered century of his Macedonica men and the majority of the terrified Claudia recruits who had flocked to him for protection more than anything else. They were falling back at speed now. Just a small pack of Goths harried them — most were distracted by the prospect of plundering the abandoned Roman tents and shacks.

Gallus waved his men with him as he scuttled over to Saturninus, joining his retreat.

‘Sir, where do we go from here?’ Gallus said, eyes combing the southern horizon as they fled.

‘The cities,’ Saturninus bellowed in reply. ‘We hasten south and take shelter in the walled cities.’ Then he met Gallus’ eyes and lowered his voice. ‘But I need one legion to go elsewhere.’

‘Sir?’

‘We have little time to discuss this, Tribunus. But your brief is simple. Take your men to Thracia’s western borders. In the hills there, a narrow defile called the Succi Pass links these lands to the lands of the west. At the narrowest point of the valley stands a great fortress: Trajan’s Gate. It is our last hope. It must. . must remain in imperial hands.’

‘Trajan’s Gate?’ Gallus whispered, thinking of the maps he had studied — the long, tight Succi Valley and the choke-point that bore the name of a long-dead emperor. To say that Trajan’s Gate was arterial was to understate its importance.

‘Aye. Geridus, Comes of Pannonia watches over the Gate with his armies. He must be forewarned of what has happened here. He is a good man, Tribunus — not without flaws, but a good man. Many call him the Master of the Passes, and we can only pray that he can live up to such a moniker. Your forces should bolster his and see that the Gate stands firm. For it is through that corridor that Emperor Gratian and his western army will march to our aid. Now more than ever, we need his legions and those of Emperor Valens.’

The din of the rampaging Gothic horde and the panting, panicking legionaries faded away. All Gallus could hear was Saturninus’ words, ringing like an echo.

For it is through that corridor that Emperor Gratian and his western army will march.

Fritigern hefted his longsword round to sweep the head from the shoulders of a brave legionary, then swung round to locate his next opponent, the breath rattling in his lungs. But there were no more armoured men facing him. What remained of the legions of the Roman camp were in flight, harried by packs of his horsemen. He saw a group of Greuthingi horsemen running down a fleeing Roman woman, knocking her from her feet then dragging her into the remnant of a Roman shack. Her screams were shrill and never-ending. His own Thervingi warriors were no less merciful, putting Roman tents to the torch and slaying the few who had chosen to hide within when they came running from the flames. One of his men hoisted a severed Roman jawbone on the end of his spear like some sort of trophy. The Huns circled the camp, heads scouring the massacre as if disappointed that the slaughter was at an end. Thick, black smoke coiled around him and the stench of spilled guts, coppery blood and effluent was rife.

‘The legions are broken, Iudex. They flee in disorder,’ Reiks Saphrax said, panting, nodding to the escaping pockets of Romans now far south of the camp.

He looked to the squat reiks and said nothing, then strode to the square of tents that served as the Roman principia. The din of rapine and plunder was slightly muted in the centre of this square. The area was deserted bar the carpet of dead strewn on the ground. Then he saw one body twitch. An officer. The eyes of this one were upon him. The shaking hand stretched out to his spatha, lying a foot or so away. Fritigern stalked over and drove his longsword through the soldier’s chest.

‘The gates are open, Iudex. All Thracia is ours for the taking,’ this time it was Alatheus who had sidled up to him, his purring voice incongruous with the muted sounds of pillage beyond the wall of tents. Saphrax, as always, had come with him.

Fritigern saw that Alatheus and Saphrax had spilled little blood themselves — their armour and garb relatively clean. But they don’t need to for they have a champion to do their bidding, he mused, hearing Farnobius’ lionesque roar, just beyond the screen of tents. As if conjured by Fritigern’s thoughts, the tents on one side of the square crumpled or were pulled down, opening the principia area to the rest of the camp and revealing Farnobius on the other side, clutching three legionary eagle standards and a pair of severed heads. The cyclopean warrior’s face and armour were plastered in blood and strips of skin dangled from his trident beard. The horde, amassed behind their champion, erupted in a polyglot victory cry as he pumped the standards in the air, then took them, one by one, snapping the staffs over his knee and tossing them to the dirt.

‘We must press this advantage, Iudex,’ Saphrax urged him, one fist clenched before him, his eyes shrinking to slits. Then he raised his voice, turning his head as he spoke, so all the amassed warriors could hear; ‘What is left of the Roman armies must be cleansed from the land — plucked like lice from the back of a dog before they can gather again.’

A deafening cheer of agreement exploded from the many thousands of warriors.

With a pang of angst, Fritigern recognised the attempt to force his hand. He filled his lungs and spoke even louder than Saphrax. ‘Yet they have melted into the countryside already. It might take months to find them all, and by then, the Praesental Armies will have arrived. That is what we must focus on. That is what we must prepare for.’

‘Not quite,’ Alatheus said, his voice even and confident. ‘Yes, were we to chase over Thracia, hunting down numerous hiding bands of men, we would soon fall foul of the Praesental Armies when they arrive. But the Romans do not stay scattered for too long. They always converge upon their grey-walled cities. That is where the remainder of the Thracian legions will be headed. As the predator, we should attack the nest of our prey.’

Fritigern felt the well-worded response like the back of a hand striking his face. His chest itched as he sought some equally wise rejoinder, but before he could, the massed warriors of the alliance broke out in a babble. ‘To the cities!’ they cried.

Fritigern struggled to conceal his ire, knowing that Alatheus had judged the will of the people to perfection. ‘Then we should take what food, fodder, arms and armour can be harvested here,’ he nodded to the Roman grain sacks, mail and helms already being piled nearby, then eyed Alatheus and Saphrax. This horde is not only yours to manipulate, he seethed. ‘Then we should descend to the south, fall upon Thracia’s cities like Allfather Wodin’s wolves, show the Romans that we are not a people to be controlled or corralled, but a great race that is to be feared.’

Now the watching horde broke out in a tumultuous crescendo of joy and hubris, cheering their Iudex as if the idea had been Fritigern’s in the first place. Fritigern noticed Alatheus and Saphrax’s eyes grow somewhat hooded.

The giant Farnobius stalked before the horde now, hefting his axe then chopping it down into the dirt. ‘And as we march south, I shall lead the vanguard. The lands from here to the Hellespont lie open to us now. It would be an honour to lead my forces over the Roman walls,’ he gestured to the Huns and the Taifali riders who followed him, ‘and to destroy the last of Thracia’s legions. . ’

Now Fritigern’s eyes grew hooded. So this herculean warrior considered the steppe riders to be his, and his alone?

Farnobius scooped his hands to either side and filled his lungs to continue. ‘I will-’

‘Reiks Farnobius!’ Alatheus cut in, an edge of steel to his tone. ‘The Iudex will decide how and when we advance.’

Fritigern did well to disguise a wry smile. Farnobius was a ferocious dog, and one that even the scheming Alatheus was struggling to keep under control. He stepped forward, staring Farnobius down. The colossus bowed in a reluctant show of genuflection, his dark glower showing little deference. Then came that sharp twitch of the head; a troubling sign — like the first indications of some madness within.

Fritigern turned away from Farnobius, filled his lungs and called out to his horde. ‘Now, my people, tend to your wounds and fill your bellies. Then sharpen your blades and ready yourselves to journey once more. A great bounty awaits us in the south!’

Farnobius remained where he stood, skin burning with shame as Fritigern, Alatheus and Saphrax turned their back on him, strolling off to discuss their next move. The countless eyes of the horde hung on him, no doubt mocking him like the scorned child he had been treated as.

As the crowd dispersed to pore over the wrecked remains of the Roman camp, he wrenched his axe free of the dirt and eyed the blade’s edge. It needed honing, he realised. He wiped the blood from the hilt and recalled the day he had been given this weapon. The orphaned boy-reiks, Vitheric, had bestowed it upon him as his guardian and protector. Yet he had allowed Alatheus’ poisonous tongue to convince him to betray the lad. He had helped Alatheus and Saphrax take the boy from his tent and drown him in the Danubius to claim the title as senior Reiks’ of the Greuthingi for themselves. The babbling of the River Tonsus behind him, taunting him. He closed his eyes, only to see the staring eyes of the boy in the blackness there, underwater, gawping, hands outstretched as if pleading with his protector. Then the pallid, lifeless stare of death.

Only now he realised what a mistake that had been. He glowered at the backs of Alatheus and Saphrax. I could have drowned the boy-reiks myself and taken his place, he thought. Guilt bit at his heart for allowing such a thought to cross his mind. He shook it off. But then those jackals would be no master of me.

A bestial rictus grew on his face.

Aye, my only mistake was to share power.

Chapter 8

The land echoed with a crunch-crunch-crunch of boots as the XI Claudia hastened west. Seventy nine recruits had fallen in the chaos at the Great Northern Camp. Now just two centuries-worth remained, and most of those marched with their heads down, knowing they had survived only because they had fled.

At the back of the marching column, Pavo stared into the broken flagstones and scattered grit of the ever-deteriorating Via Militaris flitting past underfoot. His boots grated on his callused ankles, his pack and shield gnawed at his shoulders, and the linen focale scarf he wore around his neck had slipped, allowing his chain mail to grind against his neck. Yet he felt nothing.

Nothing.

His knuckles were white, clutching the strip of red silk, shaking. He had barely eaten in the two days since the Great Northern Camp had been overrun. The scent of pine in the air stoked a dull, gnawing hunger and the creeping fatigue of the march was quick to ally with it, but he felt no urge to tend to either.

She’s gone?

He mouthed the question again, looking up and around the furrowed clouds in the mackerel sky. Carrion hawks danced on the zephyrs above, cawing and shrieking, ignorant to his question. He glanced at the countryside around them: tracts of rippling grass and rustling groves of dark, Macedonian Pine that offered no answer; sombre grey granite monoliths that gazed back in silence. Then the fresh October wind strengthened and searched around and under his armour as if in reply.

It was like a scourge of sorrow, an unseen shade drawing a rake across his heart, utter solitude despite the hundreds of men who marched just ahead of him.

Just then, a chorus of weak whimpers broke out over the winds. Pavo glanced up, seeing one of the young recruits hobbling, but doing his best to stay in step with his comrades. A clear thought leaked out of his despair: to go and help the lad, or berate him? He chose to do neither, instead returning to his introspection. The clank-clank of his spatha, a lethal weapon that could have been used to defend her, seemed to be mocking him.

She needed me. I wasn’t there.

He felt a wave of sorrow come again, then braced, determined not to succumb to it. He had shed not a single tear since her death. You don’t deserve to grieve, he thought. You deserve only shame.

A series of yelps sounded, wrenching him from his melancholy. He glanced up the column, marching four abreast. Some thirteen ranks ahead, a hobbling recruit had stumbled out of line, red-faced and gasping for breath, wincing when he put weight on his right ankle. Sura, marching just behind Centurion Zosimus mid-column, jogged back to hoist the injured legionary to his feet and marched with him for a few paces to get him back in his stride, before falling back to the rear of the line to march alongside Pavo.

‘Pavo, these lads have been thrown into the flames here. They’ve not even had basic training,’ Sura said, flicking a finger over the rearmost of the two centuries the recruits had been hastily formed into. Pavo’s mind flashed with memories of the gruesome training he and Sura had endured on first enlisting with the XI Claudia. Four months of loaded marches — twenty miles in five hours and forty in twelve, through boggy and hilly ground, and carrying ridiculous iron weights and bags of sand added to their packs to compound their misery. They had endured this and emerged as hardy recruits, callused and expectant of the rigours of a march. These lads, it seemed, had been drawn straight from their homes. Indeed, it was only now that Pavo noticed how many of them had dark bloodstains seeping through the lacing on their boots — their ankles doubtless rubbed free of skin.

‘I heard them talking last night,’ Sura whispered. ‘They don’t believe in themselves. One of them even dismissed himself as a coward for not standing firm at the Great Northern Camp.’

‘In the end, nobody stood firm,’ Pavo muttered. ‘Not I nor you nor anyone else — veterans or recruits. We all fled. That is why the camp now lies as a broken ruin. The only Romans who remain there are corpses,’ he said, almost choking on this last word.

‘I heard them saying they thought they had let us down,’ Sura added, flicking his eyes towards Gallus, Dexion, Quadratus and Zosimus and then to Pavo.

‘They let nobody down,’ Pavo shook his head. ‘Their empire failed them. Put them at the front of a battle line with a spear and expected them to know what to do? It is no wonder they are broken.’

‘They’re not broken,’ Sura cut in swiftly.

Pavo looked up, snapped from his malaise by his friend’s urgent tone.

‘They need you to encourage them and train them,’ Sura continued. ‘They need you to inspire them. . sir.’

Pavo conjured something like a smile to his face. The effort was akin to drawing a stuck wagon from a morass. ‘I know things are getting bad when you start calling me sir,’ he replied.

Heartened by this, Sura clasped a hand to Pavo’s shoulder. ‘We keep going, we do our duty at this pass, then when Gratian’s armies are with us we’ll march against the Goths. We’ll find that bastard Farnobius and we’ll give him what he deserves.’

‘We?’ Pavo said.

‘Me, you, him,’ He flicked a finger forward to the front of the column. There, Dexion marched by Gallus’ side, head hung low. ‘He’s even worse than you: angry like a bear with a thorn in its bollocks.’ From here, Pavo noticed how Dexion wore a dark scowl whenever he switched his head left or right. It had been the same in the past nights, when he and his brother had sat together, both quiet and lost in memory.

‘But you said we. You as well?’

‘She was like a sister to me, Pavo,’ Sura replied. It was one of those rare moments when his friend’s impish veneer faded. ‘You might not have wept for her. . yet. But I have.’

Pavo nodded, straightening his marching stance, tucking his focale in under his mail shirt and taking in a lungful of air. ‘Back to the front of the century, Tesserarius,’ he said stiffly, with a faint smile of acknowledgement.

Sura returned the tepid look with a welcome, relieved smile. ‘Aye. . that’s more like it.’

As Sura jogged forward to the front of the century to march in step with Zosimus, Pavo again eyed the ragged line that the recruits had fallen into: men swaying from side to side, some marching a good few arm-lengths proud of the rest of the column, and one using his spear butt as a cane. He heard in his mind the echoing rebukes of leaders past — many now but shades — then clacked his optio’s staff on the flagstones. ‘Come on you bloody laggards!’ he bellowed. ‘Get in line, stay in step!’

As the recruits winced and drew closer together, he nodded in satisfaction, then felt something hot stinging his cheek. He reached up, touched the lone tear and gazed at the moisture on his finger.

I’ll never forget you, Felicia.

Then he recalled the giant Farnobius, standing over her corpse, the memory of that bestial laugh penetrating to his marrow.

And I will not stop until I have avenged you.

They marched on for the rest of that day, slowing only late in the afternoon when they came within sight of Trimontium on the southern edge of the Via Militaris. The compact Roman city was unmistakeable due to the three rounded granite hills that it was built on and around. And the settlement was wrapped in a double ring of walls with tall, rounded towers jutting from the corners. A perfect fortification, Gallus thought — were it not for the sparse garrison on the battlements. Just twelve men, he counted along the circumference of the lengthy parapet. As they approached, he saw that the two above the northern gatehouse wore the garb not of legionaries or auxiliaries, but of some private retinue: brown leather jerkins and conical helms with cavalry swords on their belts. ‘Who goes there?’ one called out, neglecting to ask for a watchword and confirming their non-legionary status.

Once inside, they saw a picture of normal civilian life. Bakers carried baskets of bread, women carried babies and chatted with friends, children played with balls and threw sticks for barking dogs. It was only the sight of an armoured column of soldiers that disrupted this. It had been some time since this town had known a true garrison, Gallus realised. No doubt the cohort or centuries stationed here had been summoned to the Great Northern Camp earlier in the year — and Mithras only knew where they were, dead or alive, now.

The Governor, a handsome fellow by the name of Urbicus with dark hair streaked gray at the temples, offered the men billet, food and use of the baths. His demeanour was warm and he insisted they enjoy bowls of hot broth and bread before sitting down to discussions. It was the constant wringing of his fingers that told Gallus the demeanour was but a veneer. Shortly after the XI Claudia had eaten, he and Urbicus talked in his offices.

‘The Great Northern Camp has fallen?’ he said, standing to face the fire, his usually busy hands clasped behind his back and at rest for once.

‘The camp and the passes are no more. Saturninus and what forces remain are retreating to the cities of southern and eastern Thracia while the Goths roam across central Thracia at will,’ Gallus replied. He noticed Urbicus’ hands wring together once again as he said this.

‘And your brief?’ the Governor asked.

‘We are headed west, to Trajan’s Gate.’

Urbicus remained silent for a moment, just a few snatched breaths sounding. Then he swung round, his face ashen. ‘Stay, Tribunus. Garrison my city.’

Gallus cocked one eyebrow. Had this fellow mistaken the broken youths of the XI Claudia as veterans who might defend his city walls?

‘Your men can enjoy warm beds, ample food and the safety of our walls here. A savage Thracian winter approaches. At Trajan’s Gate you will find only a windswept valley and bleak defences. That and. . the Coward of Ad Salices,’ he spat this moniker like a mouthful of phlegm.

‘Surely you mean Comes Geridus,’ Gallus frowned, ‘Master of the Passes?’

Urbicus snorted at the moniker. ‘Geridus is a craven old man. He will offer you nothing.’

Gallus was taken aback by the man’s vehemence. ‘You and he have a long history, it seems?’

Urbicus’ obstinance faltered. ‘I. . well, no, but. . ’

‘You have met him, I presume?’ Gallus persisted.

‘I have heard of him all I need to know,’ Urbicus insisted, his lips growing taut.

‘You judge a man by the words of others?’ Gallus said, cocking his head to one side and weighing the man’s suggestion: stay and suffer a stubborn and blinkered governor here, or march on and endure perhaps yet another Barzimeres at Trajan’s Gate? It did not matter, he realised; the Gate was his legion’s destination. His brief from Saturninus commanded so. Destiny demanded it. ‘We will be leaving in the morning, Governor.’

The next day, Gallus rose before dawn. As he dressed, a bracing chill searched around the empty barrack blocks to which they had been assigned. He warmed his hands at a small brazier by the door and saw the light coating of frost on the flagstones outside: winter was imminent, it seemed, just as the odd skies of the last day or so had foretold. The two centuries of the XI Claudia woke, ate a swift breakfast of bread and bacon fat, then formed for roll-call in the dawn light. When they marched for the city gates, they found Urbicus waiting there. Gallus eyed him then raised a hand for the legion to halt. He noted with a keen eye how the twelve men on the battlements had gathered here. More, a group of citizens had gathered to watch — mostly men.

‘I repeat my offer, Tribunus,’ Urbicus spoke in a low voice. ‘Stay, guard these walls and you will not want for anything.’

‘And the empire?’ Gallus replied without hesitation. ‘What of Trajan’s Gate? Who will inform Comes Geridus of the Gothic incursion into Thracia?’ He flicked a hand up. Quadratus lifted the ruby bull standard and the legion crunched forward again.

‘Gates!’ Gallus called up to the gatehouse. The timber gates groaned and began to open with a clanking of chains.

‘Stay!’ Urbicus leapt in front of him, his eyes bulging and his handsome face streaked with sweat despite the chill. ‘Stay!’

Gallus’ nose wrinkled. ‘Why?’

‘These walls are useless without a true garrison. A band of brigands almost stole into the city last month. If what you say about the Goths is true, then we are at their mercy — high walls or not.’

Gallus looked around the gathering crowd, seeing faces of women, children and frail old men amongst them now. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a concilliatory tone. ‘I’d advise you to train the men of the city into a militia and-’

‘Close the gates!’ Urbicus snapped, backing away from Gallus, his demeanour changing and a nasty glint appearing in his eyes. The opening gates halted and the men in the crowd now stepped forward, bringing cudgels and knives from behind their backs. ‘By the fury of God, you will stay.’

Gallus glanced around the grubby mob that Urbicus had roused. A few hundred of them. ‘Do you know how easily trained legionaries could slay these men?’ he said coolly, swatting away the fact that the recruits had only experienced a fraught moment of action at the fall of the Great Northern Camp and most of those who had survived had done so only by virtue of their swiftness to flee. He stepped towards Urbicus as he said this. ‘I have witnessed it before. In Constantinople, during the riots, I saw the streets run red as thousands fell to the blades of just a century of the emperor’s guard.’ The mob halted at this. He clasped a hand to his sheathed spatha and now Urbicus too lost his pluck, his bulging eyes flicking from Gallus’ glower to the blade hilt. Urbicus backed up against the inner town wall. Gallus came nose to nose with him.

‘Now do as I say: train these men to fight Goths, not legionaries. And, for your sake and that of everyone in these walls,’ he added, his teeth gritted so his next words were feral, ‘open the bloody gates.’

That afternoon they stopped by the Via Militaris. The great highway was deserted as far as the eye could see in both directions. No sign of the Gothic horde at their rear, Gallus realised, and no sign of Roman forces ahead. . or anywhere. Had the armies at the Great Northern Camp been the very last of Thracia’s regiments?

Western Thracia was a wild country with green hills, granite shards and a tapestry of wild flowers. A birdsong of larks and martins filled the gaps in between legionary banter as they set about kindling cooking fires and sucked from their water skins hungrily.

‘Easy. . easy!’ Quadratus scolded one callow and somewhat rotund youth by the name of Trupo who seemed set to drain his skin in one sitting. ‘You’ll bloody well drown yourself if you’re not careful. Save a little — remember we still have an afternoon of marching to come.’ The chubby recruit — beetroot-red and still panting from the morning’s trek — nodded hurriedly and tried to spit his last mouthful of water back into the skin, much to Quadratus’ disgust and to his fellow recruits’ amusement.

Gallus’ expression eased at the gentle chorus of laughter. A rare speck of light on what had been a dark few days. A degree of fragile spirit amongst these terrified boys had been kindled. And it would be needed if they were to become anything like the many legionaries he had fought alongside in his military years. His gaze flicked between the few veterans that still walked the realm of the living. Zosimus and Quadratus, two who had been with him since his earliest days in the ranks. Pavo and Sura, once mere boys themselves. Now they were on the cusp of becoming true leaders. And there was Dexion, an officer who seemed to be everything Pavo might yet become: wily, astute, wary of bullshit and well-scarred from over twelve years of service. His thoughts drifted momentarily to the memory of Felix, his one-time Primus Pilus. He imagined fondly what the diminutive Felix’s reaction might have been to his replacement. A big, lanky bugger like him? Nah, never good enough to take my place — short and deadly’s what you want — like a spatha blade! The faintest hint of a smile played with Gallus’ lips, only to be scattered when he thought of all the recruits lacked: armour, training and fitness were all absent. . as was true courage. Their road would be long and arduous.

Three cohorts had been promised. A few hundred men had been delivered and just two centuries had survived their first battle. He cursed himself for ever believing in the memorandum that talked of such grand numbers.

‘Sir,’ Dexion said, stalking over to him, his white-plumed helm clasped underarm and his hair matted to his forehead. ‘They’re asking for permission to grind their grain and bake some bread?’

Gallus shot an eye to the sky. A short while could be sacrificed in order to fill their bellies properly. ‘They have an hour,’ he nodded.

Dexion wheeled round to address them. ‘Bake your bread and cook your porridge. We will be marching again in an hour and no later.’

In moments, the men had been separated into groups of eight and the burring of hand mills and crackling of kindling cooking fires filled the air, sending spirals of sweet woodsmoke into the air. Quadratus, Zosimus, Pavo and Sura strolled between them, watching how they went about this vital business.

Dexion came to stand by Gallus again, watching them. ‘Seems they know the basics?’ he mused, chewing on a cake of hard tack he had made a few days previously, watching as they made pots of porridge and kneaded dough, before placing it in small, clay clibani pots to bake. Soon, the aroma of baking bread wafted from each fire. ‘At least, they already work in contubernia of eight men and know how to cook.’

Gallus nodded, then his brow knitted. ‘Aye, except that one.’

They squinted to see one young lad near them — tall and rangy. Instead of milling grain or tending to porridge or baking bread, he was busy chopping an onion and finely slicing a clove of garlic and a sprig of wormwood, while the other seven of his contubernium watched on with wide eyes, licking their lips like hungry pets. Gallus sighed, ready to step forward and scold the lad.

‘I’ll deal with this one,’ Dexion offered, then stepped forward in his place.

Gallus strolled around the edge of the cooking legionaries, eyeing the goings-on, hearing Dexion’s tirade in the background: ‘Pheasant stew? What’s your name? Cornix? Well, Cornix, where in Hades do you think you’ll get a skinned pheasant within the next hour? I couldn’t care less if you’ve brought an onion! Shove the onion up your arse for all I care! Get some bloody bread in the clibanus and do it now!’

Gallus nodded in appreciation at the man’s sudden turn of ire. Dexion had a steeliness about him. The man had been sullen for these past few days since the girl Felicia’s slaying, but when it mattered, there was not a trace of sorrow. The primus pilus had known the girl only for a few months, it seemed, so perhaps their bond was not so strong. Pavo, on the other hand, was struggling. He glanced over to see the optio watching over the men’s cooking absently, his intercisa helm clasped underarm, his short, dark hair tousled, his hawk-like face smoke-stained and his eyes glassy. The young optio was doing his best to hide his grief, but he seemed sapped of his usual pluck. Loss was something the lad was becoming fast-accustomed to. Loss, he thought, seeing a familiar look in Pavo’s dark eyes, memories of Olivia and Marcus coming to his mind’s eye, that endless, dark sea.

He looked to the west and wondered what might be found there. At Trajan’s Gate, might his path and Emperor Gratian’s cross? And the shadowy members of the western court. . would they be with him? They had gone unpunished for their actions for years. Every passing day without justice was an affront to his slain family. Have I not waited long enough?

Destiny, he thought. Justice, he affirmed.

Chapter 9

The Cornutii marched abreast with the Scutarii riders, heading along the easterly track, across the wetlands of eastern Thracia, skirting the shores of the tranquil and turquoise Burgas salt-lake. At their head, Barzimeres swayed on his mount. He squinted into the sun and inhaled the crisp, morning air as he tore at a loaf of fresh bread, chewing happily on it as he reflected upon his obtaining of the fine grey mare. The shame had faded as swiftly as the ruin of the Great Northern Camp had slipped into the horizon.

Ah, Saturninus, you had little need of this beast anyway, it seems.

He chuckled again, casting a glance over his right shoulder and across the silvery-green tall grass of the plains. Somewhere back there lay the city of Adrianople, and the last scout that had come to him reported that Saturninus and his legions had somehow managed to gather south of the overrun Great Camp then stage a fighting retreat towards that city. Five days of rearguard action and fending off Fritigern’s harrying riders? he thought, imagining the meek and horseless magister equitum in the midst of such a fraught encounter. Ah well, they say that a fight is always better on foot, he mused, his shoulders jostling once again as he patted the neck of Saturninus’ mare.

Make haste for the cities! the scout had implored him, passing on Saturninus’ word. The Goths spread like fire!

‘That they do,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘but not in this direction. Haven’t seen one of those dogs in days!’ He cast his eyes over the salt lake again, seeing only storks and herons picking through the muddy shallows. One such bird plucked an unlucky grey mullet from the water and juggled the fish in its beak before gulping it down, the sparkling, silvery-scaled fish gone as quickly as it had appeared, devoured by its foe. Again, this reminded him of Saturninus and his desperate retreat. A great sense of contentment overcame him.

A whiff of salt-tang in the air and a weary cheer from his palatinae legions brought him from his thoughts and drew his gaze forwards again. Their destination was in sight: Deultum, the coastal town that sat on the crossroads of this eastern track and the paved Via Pontica. Framed by the Pontus Euxinus’ sparkling sapphire waters and a clear, azure sky, this fortified settlement would be a fine winter billet for his regiments. The thick, squat grey walls looked as if they had been carved from the bedrock, and the purple imperial banners fluttering over the land-facing gatehouse rapped defiantly in the stiff coastal breeze.

‘It was formed as a veterans’ colony, you know,’ he said to the nearest of his men, tossing another chunk of bread into his mouth. ‘So unlike some other cities, they will welcome a famous general and his army,’ he added, crumbs spraying.

The feather-helmed Cornutii centurion marching alongside Barzimeres’ stallion nodded, not looking up.

‘Famed for its hot springs and fine wine, it should make a comfortable home for the time being.’

‘Perhaps,’ the centurion muttered absently.

Barzimeres frowned at the response, peering down to see the man’s eyes, but the jutting iron brow of his helm shaded them from view.

A simple fellow, Barzimeres chuckled. A swordsman and no more. Why waste such well-thought-out words on his kind? He mused. ‘It has its whores as well,’ he said, sure this would hook the reprobate’s interest. ‘Though you take your chances with th-’

The words died in his throat as he saw something in the north, from the corner of his eye. Something had moved: a silvery flash. His sunken eyes swivelled to scour the tall grass and fens off in that direction. A leaping mullet? He hoped.

Nothing.

Then, just as he turned away, it came again. A glint of silver. Then another. Then many. A cold, creeping dread overcame him and the bread fell from his hand. Armoured men rose from their haunches and into view like an demon crop sprouting from the earth. Fair-skinned and tall spearmen in red leather vests, topknots billowing in the breeze, eyes merciless.

Goths? Barzimeres mouthed through quivering lips. There were hundreds of them. No, thousands. He swept his disbelieving gaze around both flanks — there were two great rows of them, one on each side of his column. And the ends of each hurried to join up behind the column, forming a vast arc all but surrounding them. Now riders galloped into view behind the join: a handful of Taifali in mail and leather and — his heart almost stopped — the head-taker!

Reiks Farnobius rode tall in his saddle, axe resting against one broad shoulder. He whistled and a small pack of Huns sped forward into view as well. Barzimeres noticed how Farnobius wore a foul look upon his face — as if he had been wronged. That the giant’s gaze was fixed upon him brought a mighty, unseen hand pushing down upon his bowels.

‘They’re everywhere!’ a cry of alarm sounded from the column as, with a buccina cry, a rattle of armour and thunder of boots the men turned away from Deultum to face the Gothic arc, forming a defensive crescent.

Barzimeres instinctively hauled the reins in his white, trembling fingers, the mare swinging round to face the Goths with his men. The Goths took to rapping their spears on their shields and erupting in a visceral, animal barritus cry. Farnobius raised his axe, ready to give what was surely the order to advance.

‘Sir?’ panicked voices called out from his Cornutii ranks.

‘Lead us, sir,’ his Scutarii riders said. ‘We can win this.’

Barzimeres felt every last morsel of his hubris drain from him, and the contents of his guts suddenly turned into a fiery stone, desperate to be released. This was his moment to prove to those who mocked his bought command. ‘The Hero of Deultum?’ he wondered. Then, as if in answer to the proposition, he glanced over his shoulder to the remaining stretch of road that lay between him and Deultum’s gates.

Or. . safety? Safety for a few who might break swiftly enough?

His resolve gone, he yanked the reins to wheel the mare around towards the city gates, but a firm hand clasped his wrist and stopped the action.

‘That is a fine horse,’ a calm voice spoke suddenly. He looked down to see the surly Cornutii centurion holding his wrist and stroking the grey mare’s mane.

‘Wha — unhand my mount and get to your place in the r-ranks!’ Barzimeres stammered.

‘My boy worked hard to look after the beast for Saturninus. . ’ the centurion replied. ‘. . a brave boy, he was. Unlike the bastard who put a knife in his heart to take the horse from him.’

Barzimeres’ whole being shook now. ‘No!’ he gasped, his gaze switching from the centurion to the Gothic arc and Farnobius’ axe, which swept down like a standard.

‘Death to the legions!’ the giant roared. At once, the Gothic lines surged forward.

Barzimeres struggled to pull the reins free of the surly centurion’s grip. ‘I–I did what I had to. In the heat of battle, men must do grim deeds in search of victory! Now get back to your ranks or we will all die!’

‘We are all fated to die one day, Tribunus,’ he replied casually. ‘But at least now, I can avenge my son before I fall here with the rest of my comrades. And you can go to your death as the Hero of Deultum. . ’ he said this, then drew a small dagger and swiped it. Barzimeres flinched, but the blade merely scored along the mare’s haunch, spilling dark red blood down its leg. The beast reared up in agony and panic and Barzimeres struggled to stay on the saddle, his helm slipping over his eyes. Then the centurion slapped the creature’s wound and the mare bolted. She burst out in front of the Cornutii spear line and galloped straight for the closing Gothic advance.

Barzimeres slid his helm up and from his eyes, hearing a great cheer from the Roman lines at the sight of their leader’s selfless ‘charge’. The mare was at full pelt, racing headlong for the centre of the Gothic lines despite his desperate yanking on the reins and digging of heels into its flanks. He saw Farnobius’ face broaden in a gleeful smile, saw the giant axe rise, glinting in the sun.

‘No! Turn, you foul creature!’ he yelped hoarsely. Worse than that weak-lunged dog, Saturninus, a scorning, sibilant voice hissed in his mind. He fumbled to draw his spatha, only to drop it in his panic and haste. His eyes locked onto Farnobius’ axe blade, swinging for him, and he felt the urine pump from his bladder to soak his breeches before the contents of his bowels were released at last. He felt only a dull clunk as the axe swept through his neck, sending his world tumbling earth over sky. When his head came to a rest in the grass, he saw his backwards-tilting headless body still saddled on the fleeing grey mare, blood spurting from the neck. By some trick of the gods, life remained with Barzimeres’ head long enough for him to see Farnobius dip in the saddle and pick it from the grass by the tuft-beard. The Goth plucked Barzimeres’ bronze winged helm and placed it on his own scalp, then hurled Barzimeres’ head to one side like a scrap of food.

With his final moments, Barzimeres heard the Gothic charge crash against the Roman lines, then the life left him as a pair of plucky carrion crows descended to devour his eyes.

The evening sky was stained with smoke and the stink of open guts danced on the wind. Fritigern watched as ladders pressed against Adrianople’s grey walls and Gothic spearmen raced up them for one final push.

‘Onwards!’ Alatheus bellowed, smashing the hilt of his longsword against the boss of his shield, his long, white locks billowing in the dusk breeze. Beside him, Saphrax echoed his cries, waving on not their own Greuthingi horsemen, but Fritigern’s Thervingi spearmen, carrying on their spears the sapphire hawk banners that had once been a symbol of pride. Yet this latest wave of attack faltered, just as it had the previous day, when the legionaries garrisoned on Adrianople’s battlements met the Gothic push, swiping heads and hands from the climbers or forcing back the ladders before the climbers could pour onto the battlements, sending those near the top crashing back onto the ground below where many already lay dead, broken or riddled with Roman arrows. Then the Roman ballista atop one of the city’s main defensive towers turned to the latest wave of onrushing Goths. With a twang and then a thud of timber, a bolt leapt from the device and ploughed into his massed kinsmen. They split like a cut of meat under a butcher’s cleaver, blood spraying up as two men were impaled and a third’s leg was torn off, while a handful more were knocked to the ground. Another bolt-thrower from the next nearest tower spat forth too, ruining four men as the bolt ruptured their heads in that one strike and sending those nearby scrambling in terror. Fritigern saw the isolated figure on top of those walls; the slight one with the long, dark hair, orchestrating the artillery with simple swipes of his hands. Saturninus’ retreat to the city might have been fraught and the Thracian armies might well have been broken in the withdrawal, but still enough legionaries remained to deny the Gothic Alliance the taking of the great cities. In the five days since the fall of the passes, the promised land of Thracia had not delivered as his people had hoped. Another bolt spat forth, this time skewering a Thervingi scout rider to his mount then casting the writhing pair back like tumbleweed blown by a gale, through a densely packed group of his archers, many of whom were crushed or maimed by the thrashing horse.

‘Enough!’ Fritigern roared. The cry drowned out Alatheus’ rallying, but it was barely needed, for now the Gothic attack was faltering. They withdrew, abandoning the ladders, handfuls more falling to the rain of Roman arrows that greeted the retreat.

Fritigern mounted his stallion and glowered at the two Greuthingi Reiks’ as he turned to leave the battle.

‘You flee?’ Saphrax cried over the drum of hooves and boots, his tone laced with derision.

‘The day is lost!’ Fritigern countered.

‘You could choose to rally them, but you do not?’ Alatheus said, stabbing an accusing finger.

‘There is no honour is dying before their walls, you fools. The Romans build fine cities and we possess little knowledge of siege-craft!’

Saphrax sneered at this. ‘A convenient argument for a craven lead-’

His words stopped short as a Ballista bolt skidded through the earth just missing him, a ruined Gothic head impaled on the tip. It was Fritigern’s turn to sneer as the squat reiks and Alatheus swiftly mounted too, and heeled their war horses out of range and then back to the north.

It was the dead of a dark, chill night when they returned to the Gothic camp, some twenty five miles northeast of Adrianople. Fritigern walked his stallion through the sea of tents and campfires, feeling thousands of eyes upon him. Soldiers on sentry duty, children and mothers carrying babes emerging from their tents, grandparents hunched and hobbling to hear the news of the latest assault on the Roman city. More, he sensed the glowers of Alatheus and Saphrax on him, riding on his flanks like allies, but their minds set on undermining him at every turn.

When they reached the centre of the camp, a slave hurried to take the reins from him. He slid from the stallion and approached the fire around which the other reiks and nobles had already gathered. They feasted on wine and crab brought from the coast and toasted over the fire. Their eyes were not full of hope like the people; their eyes were like smouldering coals.

‘Another thousand dead, I hear?’ one of them said as he sat down.

The words stung Fritigern like a brand. But before he could retort, Alatheus cut in;

‘And with just another hour’s assault, their deaths would have had meaning. We could have been dining in the basilicas of Adrianople tonight.’

Fritigern swung his gaze round on the silver-tongued reiks. It was this one and Saphrax who had lobbied him to assault the city that morning, but now shied away from accountability. The man’s tranquil gaze stoked the fire in Fritigern’s heart. ‘Don’t you see? After nearly a week of trying to better the Roman walls, have you learned nothing?’ he shot to his feet, the sweep of his dark-blue cloak sending a storm of ember into the night air. The ring of reiks visibly shrunk at the gesture. ‘To quarrel with the Roman walls is folly! We. . we,’ he reiterated, sweeping a finger round all of them, ‘have thrown men against Adrianople’s walls twice. . and twice they have been broken against those beetling fortifications.’ He drew his longsword suddenly, and fear flashed through the eyes of the watching reiks. Then he stabbed it to the ground. ‘There is still a chance. . just a sliver of possibility, that we can bring the emperor to parley.’

A murmur of agreement and disagreement broke out. Fritigern listened to the many voices, while noticing something to the north of the camp. A train of torches. Incoming riders?

‘The emperor had his chance to appease us when we first crossed the river. He betrayed us!’ one voice said, returning his attention to the matter in hand.

‘It was not the emperor who betrayed us — do you remember nothing?’ Another countered.

‘Iudex Fritigern is correct,’ another voice cut in. It was booming, silencing the others. ‘We are not strong enough to take anything from the Romans while they cower behind their walls.’

Fritigern looked up to see the hulking Farnobius, mounted at the head of the train of incoming torches: Taifali, Huns and a handful of Gothic spearmen. The ox-like leader with the smashed nose — still packed with congealed blood — had become something of a patron for the Hun riders he had brought from the north, and they followed him obediently. This, together with his already numerous band of Taifali cavalry, made him an ever-growing force in the asp’s nest of the Alliance’s politics. The giant reiks wore a plundered bronze winged helm. Fritigern had all but forgotten the man’s mission to Deultum — designed to keep the brute from the Adrianople siege. . and to deny Alatheus and Saphrax his services.

Farnobius slid from his saddle and tossed something across the ground. It rolled to a halt near the fire. A grey, blood-encrusted, eyeless head with a gaping mouth and a tuft-beard that shrivelled in the heat of the nearby flames.

‘In the field today, I slew this dog — a tribunus and his two palatinae legions — in the plains by Deultum. Remnants of each legion managed to scurry inside Deultum’s gates, but we did not pursue them or challenge the walls. Our victory came in the field, as all victories past have.

‘Reiks!’ Alatheus hissed as if irked by the man’s boldness and almost certainly angered that he was addressing the leaders of the horde as equals.

‘Instead we returned here, to this camp,’ Farnobius continued, his voice a little louder — just enough to drown out Alatheus, ‘A place that offers little forage. A place where the pasture grows thinner by the day. Is this the prize you foresaw when we conquered the mountain passes and spilled into these lands?’ A babble of voices called out in support. ‘When the Roman Emperors of East and West converge on Thracia, do we want to face them as an army of starved wretches, or fierce, strong ranks, each man well-fed and clad in armour as good as any Roman might wear?’

‘The emperors will not be here for many months. You fear tomorrow when it is today we should eye with concern,’ Alatheus scoffed.

Fritigern noticed how the younger warrior ignored his supposed master’s latest interjection, then added, flicking his hands up to rouse opinion from the rest; ‘what is it to be?’

‘Hold your tongue, Farnobius!’ Saphrax growled, but few paid attention — most entranced by Farnobius’ homily.

‘Strength!’ one cried out.

‘Face them with vigour and steel!’ another agreed.

Fritigern ignored the squat, slit-eyed reiks. ‘So what would you have us do, Reiks Farnobius?’

Farnobius met Fritigern’s gaze, then gestured to a train of ants, scurrying from near the fire to a rock a few feet away and eyed them with disdain. ‘The Romans cannot remain behind their walls until the Praesental Armies arrive. They fled there in disarray — their grain lies in but a few cities and their weapon fabricae in a few others. If they are not to starve or go short of iron vests and blades then they will have to come out, taking resources from one city to the next. . across the field.’

Fritigern’s eyes narrowed. He had rarely heard Farnobius speak before now, and had considered him a mindless warrior — a savage blade with no brain. But he spoke well; his tone was even and his words considered.

‘Then,’ Farnobius continued, grinding the heel of his boot upon the train of ants, ‘we take our plunder.’

A cacophony of cheering and dispute rose up at this, many nobles shooting to their feet, gesticulating with one another.

Fritigern’s gut tightened.

‘Abandon this tomb of a camp and the fragile hope that the Roman Emperor will parley with us,’ Farnobius pressed on. ‘Let the horde roam across Thracia and plunder all that does not lie behind Roman walls: wagons, waystations, unwalled towns, quarries and mines. Soon, our bellies will be full and all of our armies will wear scale and mail like the ranks of Suerdias and Colias,’ he gestured to two of the watching Goths who had once served as Roman centurions. ‘Unleash the horde!’ he affirmed.

Another babble of discord broke out.

‘Enough!’ Fritigern rose to stand. Immediately, he wished he had not, as the difference in height between Farnobius and he was stark, the giant towering a good head above him. But the voices had hushed and he had their attention. ‘Reiks Farnobius’ proposal has merit. But we will not be abandoning this camp,’ he said this with a tremor of ire, stilling a few reiks already on their way to rouse their riders as Farnobius had suggested. ‘Not yet. Here, we take stock of our herds, mend our wagons, care for our wounded, and await word of parley from the emperor. We must at least try this route first.’

Farnobius bristled, his jaw twitching, his ruined nose wrinkling and his nostrils flaring.

‘Sit down, Reiks Farnobius,’ Saphrax said, a little too gleefully, waving him down like a recalcitrant child. ‘Your thinking is unfettered with the shackles of reality and has served only to show that you have much still to learn.’

Fritigern swung round upon Saphrax. ‘His reasoning is sound, and untainted with personal ambition. It is just not right for our people. . not right now.’

Saphrax recoiled as if detecting a nasty smell. Alatheus leaned closer and whispered to his crony, and this seemed to calm him. When Fritigern looked up, he saw that Farnobius had left the gathering, catching sight of his swooshing dark tail of hair as he disappeared into the night. The man was enraged. A dangerous beast at the best of times, Fritigern hoped the firebrand’s anger was with Saphrax and not with him.

Farnobius stalked back to his tent, shoving the slave boy aside and barging inside. Never had he felt such ignominy. Saphrax’s mocking words echoed through his head and Fritigern’s public denouncement of his plans prickled like stoked embers in his chest. He paced back and forth, and the bare-breasted, flaxen-haired concubine lying in his bedding pushed up against the corner of the tent, gathering up the furs around her. The slave boy gingerly approached him, holding out a cup of wine as if offering a scrap of raw meat to an angered lion. Farnobius snatched at it, took a long gulp of it, then another. The wine brought a calmness to his veins and his breathing slowed. His concubine saw that he was relaxing and drew back the furs, offering herself to him. Farnobius stared at her, feeling how the wine had numbed his mind and sensing the stirring in his loins.

He gazed into the surface of the wine cup. The blood-red drink was almost opaque. But, as always, he saw below its surface the image that had followed him since that dark night. The gawping features of the boy Vitheric as he fought to breathe absent air. The confusion in those bulging eyes as he stared up at his protector. Confusion, then realisation that came in the moments before his life slipped away. The surface of the wine tremored as Farnobius’ hand shook and the image of the boy vanished. Then, from the gathering outside he heard the shrill, echoing laughter of Saphrax.

He glared at his concubine. ‘It is not wine and women I need,’ he snarled, throwing the wine cup down and sending the woman scurrying behind the furs again. ‘As long as I stand in the shadow of Alatheus and Saphrax, of Fritigern, then I will always be theirs to scorn and belittle.’

He clapped his hands. The slave boy crept in like a dog expecting a beating. ‘Rouse the Taifali, and the best of my steppe riders too. They are to ride with me before dawn.’

‘Master?’ the boy frowned, this order for a night sortie new to him.

Farnobius caught his instinct to strike the boy for questioning him, because another thought cut across his mind: the few reiks and nobles around the fire who had spoken up in support of his proposal. If they truly believed in his vision enough to come with him, they would add another two thousand infantry to complement his two thousand Taifali riders. ‘And take word to Egil and Humbert. Tell them that if they wish to share my destiny, they should bring their spearmen and meet me outside the camp.’

‘Outside, Master? To go where?’ the boy asked.

He crouched, hands resting on his knees to be level with the boy, the torchlight sparkling in his dark eyes as he thought of the bounty to be had in the furthest corners of Thracia, the glory to be won. . the respect of the horde. . or even the obedience of the horde? For a moment, he imagined himself as the one who would control the rest. Fritigern, Alatheus and Saphrax would be his dogs. . if he was to let them live. A savage, lustful grin stretched across his face as he thought out his strategy. An army of his own would leave tonight. They would plunder the Roman wagon trains that were sure to be crossing the plains between the great cities.

He lifted and placed upon his head the bronze-winged helm taken from the foolish Roman general at Deultum.

‘Where am I going? Out there, boy, to bleed Thracia dry.’

Chapter 10

Six days had passed since the fall of the passes and the Great Northern Camp. The XI Claudia marched through the afternoon, with Centurion Zosimus leading a chorus of Tits and Ale, which had the desired effect of shaking the gloom from the column and keeping the recruits moving at a good pace — the tune taking their minds from the march.

‘The barrels on the bar were brimming with aaale, and the innkeeper's wife she was hearty and haaale. . ’

The big centurion proceeded through a few verses that described — somewhat implausibly — how the innkeeper became distracted long enough for his wife to seize the chance to sit upon Zosimus’ lap. The big Thracian then finished a mime of shaking his face in two imaginary oversized, rounded objects then sang the next line: ‘Then I came up for some air and to drink my shaaaare. . ’

Some of those singing along spilled into laughter.

Gallus glanced back and noticed that Pavo too had joined in, having been cajoled by Sura. The spark had returned to the young optio’s eyes, and the sight warmed him.

‘He’s back with us again,’ Dexion said.

Gallus realised the primus pilus was looking back with him. They both saw how Pavo marched straight and tall, his hawk-like gaze on the century, hectoring them for their marching positions in between verses.

‘Aye, I have learned not to underestimate that one. But having you along with us has undoubtedly helped,’ Gallus guessed. ‘He’s lost a lot in the last few years. At every corner, at every turn.’

‘I see a lot of my younger self in him. He needs focus, responsibility,’ Dexion insisted. ‘Let him immerse his thoughts on something other than loss. Let him lead. You know he’s strong enough.’

The words could have been Gallus’ own. ‘Perhaps you’re ri. . ’ his words trailed off. Both men’s eyes were drawn to the black pall of smoke up ahead, just off the Via Militaris.

‘Halt,’ Gallus hissed. Then he flicked beckoning fingers. ‘I need two men.’

In just his mail shirt, tunic, boots and swordbelt, Pavo settled in a beech thicket north of the Via Militaris and scoured the scene: a fire-blackened villa surrounded by a charred orchard. The fig and olive trees had been plundered of their fruits, and the building itself had been robbed of any majesty it once possessed: doors hanging from hinges, toppled columns and smoke still rising from embers of the blaze that had gutted the insides. The bodies of the unfortunate owner’s personal bodyguards lay strewn around the villa’s main entrance, laced with longsword cuts, studded with arrows, eyes harvested by the crows and the empty sockets and wounds surrounded by clouds of flies.

‘Gothic outriders?’ Sura whispered, crouched in the beech thicket by his side.

‘Perhaps,’ Pavo guessed. ‘Fritigern’s scouts maybe.’

‘But I’d bet my last follis that Dux Vergilius fled from here long before they put the place to the sword,’ Sura muttered bitterly. His eyes were darting, certain the Goths were still nearby.

Pavo sighed, thinking of Vergilius. The retired dux was a sot of a man who had found himself unwittingly entangled in webs of subterfuge during his days of power — webs that had more than once snared the XI Claudia. ‘I’m sure Vergilius is gone, but so are the Goths,’ he whispered in reply. ‘They must have been gone for some time,’ he nodded to the dead bodyguards, their skin grey and putrefying and the bloodstains on their clothes and armour dark brown.

‘I still don’t like it,’ his friend muttered.

But Pavo persisted. ‘The Goths have raided the place and left, why would they return? This might just be a perfect place for us to sleep tonight — shelter and maybe some fresh rations.’

Sura still looked unconvinced, then looked around the fading, gold-threaded light that stretched across the sky and shrugged. ‘Aye, well, I’m not going to suggest that to the tribunus without having a closer look first.’

‘Fine, after you,’ Pavo nodded towards the villa.

Sura scowled at him, then stole out from the thicket and scuttled across the orchard floor. Pavo followed close behind. Both men keenly felt every twig cracking underfoot, heard every breath like a buccina cry, imagined Gothic eyes upon them and refused to meet the empty, bloody socketed stares of the dead bodyguards as they picked past those corpses.

They came to the main entrance with the tumbled column. The smoke was still thick here, and swift glances inside revealed only murky blackness. Pavo clasped a hand to his spatha hilt. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

Sura nodded. The pair rose and crept inside.

Smoke coiled like wandering wraiths before them as they beheld the ransacked tablinum. It seemed as if the Goths had gone to war with the walls. The delicate frescoes there were scarred with the edges of swords and ruined by the smoke, the delicate scene of a summer meadow now resembling the aftermath of a battle. The finely-tessellated floor had been hacked apart in a frenzy, the coloured blocks broken like scree, mixed with shattered pottery, shredded timber chairs and two toppled porphyry statuettes of Plutus and Vesta — the old Roman Gods powerless against the Goths. Pavo noticed something in the corner of the room: a small niche in the wall. In it sat a bronze Christian Chi-Rho, mounted on an iron frame, untouched while everything around it lay in ruin.

‘Thervingi,’ he whispered.

Sura swung round. ‘Eh?’

‘They destroyed everything but the Christian symbol.’

‘And?’ Sura hissed impatiently.

Pavo hesitated. If they were Thervingi, then they were most likely on foot. If they were on foot, then they might not be as far away as he had hoped. ‘Just saying, that’s all,’ he said, stowing this fear and turning his attentions on the next room in the villa.

Just then, a faint scratching noise stilled both of them. Pavo’s blood turned to ice. He and Sura shared a fraught glance. Sura gestured to the door that led further into the villa’s interior. Pavo nodded, albeit hesitantly then raised a hand and pushed it open. The charred door creaked treacherously, and Pavo swore silently that he would personally boot it clear of its hinges on the way back out. But his thoughts were soon brushed away as he beheld a relatively untouched atrium. A fountain trickled away in the heart of the collonaded, open-topped space. The columns lining either side were wrapped in winter honeysuckle and beds of cyclamen, hyacinth, fennel and thyme studded the walkway, gardening spades and a rake piled neatly beside them. The herby, floral scent and the babbling fountain for a moment gave the illusion that this place was all in good order.

‘Was that what we heard?’ Sura whispered, nodding to the gurgling fountain.

Pavo was about to agree, when it sounded again. Scratch-scratch.

Both men’s heads shot round to the shadowy doorway looming at the far end of the atrium and leading into the heart of the villa.

They edged towards the door, both with hands firmly on their spatha hilts and the blades half drawn. The pleasant scents of the atrium faded and the stench of decay returned as they approached. Inside was pure blackness for just a moment, until they realised it was a vestibule of sorts — a series of doors on each wall. Sura crept in one door and explored what looked like a culina in search of food. The far wall was stacked with pots and pans, a stone kiln was built into one corner and hooks dangled from the ceiling. Pavo strained to watch his friend’s back from the doorway. Then, from the gloom within he heard a dull plunk, and a muted yes! Sura turned round, holding an amphorae. Wine! He mouthed in excitement, guzzling on it then offering it to Pavo. Pavo shook his head and left Sura to dig around in the rest of the cabinets within the culina.

He moved on to the other doors, looking inside one to see that it was a cubiculum, the bed within unmade — the bedding strewn across the floor. The next room was another bedchamber, and Pavo sighed as he saw that it was much the same as the last. . except. . the bed was not empty.

A shape lay beneath the blankets and a tousled mop of fair hair was splayed on the pillow. A Goth? Rooted where he stood, he scanned the form in the bed, then realised he had to act. If the sleeping Goth awoke and raised the alarm then how many others in the countryside nearby might hear? He stalked forward, drawing his spatha as carefully as he could, levelling it to the man’s neck to buy his silence. Then, with the end of his boot, he hooked the blankets and kicked them from the bed, tensing, ready to strike. But the form in the bed remained inert. He blinked, hoping his eyes were deceiving him. No, it was real: a slave girl, no more than fifteen. She lay, face gaunt and blackened with death, throat cut, the bedding under her stained with long-dried blood and her shrivelled, milky eyes staring at the ceiling. The girl’s face became Felicia’s in his mind’s eye.

He sunk to his knees by the bedside, running his hands across his hair. Hot tears spilled from his eyes. He choked on the sobs that tried to follow and clasped the dead girl’s hand. I’m sorry, he repeated over and over. I’m so, so sorry.

He thought then of their few years together. Of their fraught romance in Durostorum. Of her fiery spirit and her fearless heart as she pursued what she felt was right, at all costs. Of how just memories of her had brought him through battle, spurred him through blizzards and drove him on through burning sands. Of the sweet, sweet scent on the nape of her delicate neck.

When Pavo emerged from the sleeping chamber and back into the vestibule, Sura’s face fell, seeing the dead girl he cradled in his arms. ‘She deserves a burial at least,’ Pavo said sombrely.

Sura said nothing, merely nodding and fetching the two spades from outside.

They buried her in the atrium flower beds. Pavo took the red strip of silk from his purse, held it to his lips and inhaled its fading scent one last time, then crouched, burying it with her. Time seemed an irrelevance as he remained there, gazing through the winter flowers, walking with Felicia in his memories. It was only when Sura placed a hand on his shoulder that the spell was broken. It was nearly dusk, he realised.

‘We’d best report back,’ his friend said.

Pavo stood and the pair made to retrace their steps and leave the villa, when they heard it again.

Scratch-scratch.

It shook Pavo back to grim reality. They both peered into the blackness of the vestibule at the one door they had not yet explored. They stalked back inside and pushed it open. The gloom betrayed only the first stone steps of a staircase leading underground.

Scratch-scratch.

They beheld one another. ‘We have to investigate,’ Pavo said at last, pushing the sorrow away. ‘We were asked to report if this place was free of Goths.’

Sura nodded. ‘The wine,’ he whispered to himself, glancing back to the amphorae in the culina, ‘just think of later. . and the wine.’

Gallus eyed the darkening eastern horizon, then swept his gaze across the streaked orange-gold of the western sky and to Vergilius’ blackened villa an arrowshot ahead. Darkness was but moments away and the men of his legion were again out in the open countryside. Imperial lands, he scoffed, but infested with Gothic warbands. He looked around the two centuries of his legion. Nervous, youthful faces, each knowing that a chill early winter night on this open ground by the Via Militaris with no fires and probably little sleep awaited them unless they could take shelter within the villa. He glimpsed over at Zosimus and Quadratus, each of the centurions keeping watch down the highway’s eastern and western stretches. They had not uttered a word so far. The recruits posted nearer the villa’s grounds with Dexion were equally silent. His eyes scoured the villa. Come on, Pavo, come on!

Suddenly, Dexion’s white-plume rose. For a moment, he was still, then the primus pilus twisted round and silently but urgently beckoned Gallus.

Gallus darted north, crouching by Dexion’s side, the door of hope creaking open ever so slightly as he eyed the villa, sure Pavo had given some signal that it was deserted and safe. But one look at Dexion’s face slammed the door shut. His skin had paled in alarm and his eyes were wide, staring.

‘Goths to the north,’ he whispered, flicking a finger up and in that direction, as if casting an imaginary stone over the villa’s roof. ‘On foot. Four hundred, maybe more.’

Gallus’ eyes narrowed to slits and a wraith’s cold hand searched his skin as he saw them. Thervingi spearmen and archers. Had Fritigern’s horde ridden ahead of them? No, he realised, seeing that they were an independent warband — one of the roaming bands that had avoided the mountain corral and had been raiding these parts since Ad Salices, he guessed. Like a steely herd, they jostled as they marched, many wearing Roman helms and scale or mail vests. Another Roman vexillation had been caught on the road, he realised — or perhaps a wagon-train from the imperial fabrica at Naissus had been ambushed and pillaged of the weaponry and armour meant for recruits just like those he led. They also carried with them spoils of rapine: sacks of clanking silver and gold coins, plates, cups and jewels and the few horsemen with them led wagons heaped with forage.

‘Sir?’ Dexion gasped as the Goths converged on the villa, spilling round its grounds and entering.

Gallus saw from the corner of his eye his new primus pilus’ angst, the beads of sweat darting down his face, yet he maintained his flinty demeanour.

‘We have to act, sir!’ Dexion implored him.

Gallus had heard such words a thousand times before. He shared the man’s thoughts, felt the same fears gnawing at his gut. Pavo, Sura. . another two brothers consigned to the death-march of my nightmares? And so many had fallen directly due to his orders. He looked over the two centuries of his men. He saw the icy fear sparkle in their eyes. They knew nothing yet of soldierly life other than these few days of marching and the shattering blow a horde of Goths could deliver to a legionary line — as so ably demonstrated at the Tonsus and the Great Northern Camp. They had to be trained to face odds like these. But tonight? No, they were not ready.

‘We pull back,’ he said stonily, nodding to the south and across the Via Militaris, where a shady beech dell offered some hope of concealment.

Dexion gawped, while the recruits peeled back without a moment of hesitation.

‘How can you. . with just a few words, they are dead. My brother is as good as dead?’

The words were like a knife in Gallus’ breast, but the wounds there were old and gnarled, and he did not flinch. He felt Dexion’s hands grapple his cloak as if to shake him to his senses. ‘At the Great Northern Camp, we stayed on the waterline and fought by Saturninus’ side, despite the odds, did we not?’ he pleaded, his eyes searching Gallus’ distant stare. ‘They only outnumber us two to. . ’ he stopped, gasping, frustration crumpling his features as more Goths poured around the villa, ‘. . three to one.’

Gallus did not make to push him away. Instead, he fixed him with a gimlet stare. ‘Pull back, Primus Pilus. That is an order.’

Gallus saw something in Dexion’s golden eyes — a spark of hubris. Dexion’s crouched legs stiffened as if ready to spring towards the villa. Gallus knew what was coming next and swept out his spatha instinctively, resting the flat of the blade across the man’s chest. ‘Two of my men are beyond saving. I do not wish to lose another today.’

As the order was passed around, the men of the XI Claudia swept over the highway like a shadow. Gallus was last to cross. Dexion with him, head bowed. As they crouched in the dell, Gallus cast a last look to the darkening north. For a moment, his eyes betrayed a glimpse of the wistful storm inside.

Mithras, if you have any strength left to give, then give it not to me, but to them.

The inky pool before them grew darker as they descended the stony staircase. Pavo ran his palms along the wall, feeling the stonework grow dank and cold as the stairs wound round and down.

‘This is torture,’ Sura hissed, behind him. ‘I can’t see a bloody thing. And the steps are a bit sli-’

His words ended abruptly, and Pavo felt something heavy slam into his back. The pair tumbled down the last few steps in a flurry of curses and yelps. At the bottom, they both leapt to their feet and drew their weapons, facing one another, sword to sword, then breathed a sigh of relief as they realised what had happened. ‘A bit slippy, aye?’ Pavo said sarcastically.

When he saw Sura’s furtive, flicked, single-fingered hand-gesture of a reply, he made to protest, then realised something. He could see. He glanced around and saw the weak shaft of twilight that was piercing the gloom, streaming in from a ground-level grating near the top of this cellar. It was enough to discern a collection of barrels on a rack lining the near wall. Wine, no doubt. There were a pair of spears leaning against the wall and a pile of dry, cracked hides in the corner next to them. The only other thing in the room of note was on the far wall. A door. It was no ordinary door, this was a bulky, iron-strapped timber ingress, more akin to a side gate on a grand city wall.

The pair approached it. Pavo saw fresh scars on the thick timbers, and traced a finger over them. ‘A strong room? Someone’s been hacking at this recently.’

‘I wonder who?’ Sura scowled.

‘There’s something else though. Something’s missing.’ Pavo glanced over the hinges, the iron strapping and skirt. ‘There’s no handle?’ He crouched to peer through the keyhole and the hole where the handle should have been, seeing nothing but darkness. . and the faintest glimmer of something. Gold?

‘No handle? Nonsense!’ Sura scoffed, nudging him aside. ‘I used to be known as the finest locksmith in Adrianople, you see,’ he said, crouching, hands resting on his knees as he winked through the hole adroitly.

‘Sura, I’ve been there, I’ve picked locks. That one is no simple latch,’ Pavo sighed.

But Sura ignored him. ‘Thing was, most of the time I was hired by folk wanting to get in to other people’s property,’ he looked up, flicking his eyebrows up as if in admission of ill-behaviour. ‘I gave it up when I was caught and they tried to ram the keys up my-’

‘Quiet,’ Pavo hissed.

Sura frowned, midway through a gesture of looping one thumb and forefinger together and forcing the other forefinger through it. Then his face paled as he heard it too.

Scratch-scratch.

‘It’s coming from inside,’ Sura whispered, leaping back from the bolstered doorway. ‘How?’

‘There must be someone inside,’ Pavo realised. ‘They must have taken shelter in there and locked themselves inside.’

‘But who would have the keys?’ Sura replied.

Both shared a look of realisation. ‘Dux Vergilius?’

Pavo crept forward again, ready to call out to whomever was behind the door, when Sura slapped a hand across his chest. He followed his friend’s frozen stare. Up the well of steps, orange torchlight danced. Shadows jostled on the walls.

The legion? Pavo mouthed, hearing a dull babble in the villa up above.

Sura cupped a hand to his ear, then shook his head, his face falling. Goths, he mouthed in reply. A heartbeat later and the babble grew louder, the torchlight brighter and the shadows larger, stretching out and down into the cellar along with the thrum of descending footsteps.

Pavo’s heart hammered on his ribs.

They both looked for somewhere to hide, then their eyes simultaneously locked onto the pile of dried hides.

Gaufrid the Goth scratched roughly at his crotch and swigged the last of the wineskin he had picked up from the villa’s larder, then belched loudly as he descended into the cellar. The eight men who shared his plan followed closely behind. He beheld the bulwark of a door that had defied him and the men of his warband so obstinately over this last week, still grinning back at him, unsullied apart from the few scrapes he and his comrades had subjected it to. He tossed the wineskin to the floor and snarled, drawing the axe he had picked up from an abandoned forester’s cabin and hacking at it once more. Splinters of wood flew in every direction, but the door held firm and he only stopped when he became breathless.

‘Damned Romans and their barriers,’ he panted.

‘There is little point in blunting another weapon on it,’ a comrade remarked.

Gaufrid swept his collar-length fair locks up into a knot and tied them above his head. ‘Then what are we to do; let the greedy bastard who leads this warband continue to take the spoils of our efforts, or break this door down and take whatever treasure lies behind it for ourselves?’

‘If there is gold in there and we find a way in, do you think he’ll let us waddle back up the stairs and keep whatever we take?’ the other countered.

Gaufrid’s eyes darted as he thought things over. ‘Perhaps we could come back alone in a few days?’

‘There is no time. We are to eat here then march for central Thracia and be reunited with Iudex Fritigern.’

Gaufrid issued a deep, throaty sigh, then swung away from the door. ‘So be it,’ he snarled, then violently chopped the axe down into the centre of the piled hides where it wedged upon something, before waving the others with him from the cellar.

As the door clunked shut at the top of the stony staircase, Pavo fell back from the inside of the stronghold keyhole and gasped for the deep breaths he had longed to take while the Goths had been down here.

Sura chuckled by his side, flicking a long, bent nail over in his hand, his grin barely visible in the trickle of gloom that fell into the locked chamber via the keyhole. ‘Master locksmith, I told you. And you doubted me?’ he said.

‘Keep your voice down. If they come down here again then they’ll have your balls and mine on a plate, door or no door,’ Pavo hissed, hiding his admiration that, for once, one of his friend’s outlandish boasts had actually proved well-founded. With the sense of urgent danger ebbing, he suddenly realised that they were inside this mysterious chamber but surrounded by total blackness beyond the tiny chink of light at the keyhole. They had no idea who, or what, was in here with them. He felt around on the floor with his foot, disturbing some loose, shale-like pile of something just a stride into the darkness.

‘Mithras! I think we’re good for wine and ale money for the next while,’ Sura whispered, scraping up a handful of the loose material. ‘Gold solidi, piles and piles of them.’

‘What the?’ Pavo gasped, picking up handful after handful

‘Seems like Dux Vergilius left behind a fair bit of his fortune,’ Sura remarked.

Pavo shook his head. ‘Hold on — the noise, remember?’

Sura’s silence was telling. Pavo felt a chill from within the unseen depths of the treasure chamber. His skin prickled and he was sure he saw shapes moving in the blackness. He stooped by the keyhole and tried to reflect the fading twilight from the surface of a coin, but it was useless. And they dared not open the door for fear of the Goths upstairs hearing.

‘Find something,’ he said. He and Sura picked their way over the piled coins, feeling the walls as they went. All was cold and hard. Then Pavo felt something different. Something warm, writhing. He leapt back and the thing leapt from his hands. ‘Mithras!’ he yelped.

‘What?’ Sura gasped. ‘Wait a moment, I. . ’

Three grating noises sounded from the far side of the chamber, and at once, an orangey pool of light sparked to life, revealing Sura, holding a lamp he had found in one hand and his flint hook in the other. The orangey bubble grew into a rich yellow, revealing the cat-sized rat that Pavo had fondled moments ago, now at the door.

Scratch-scratch.

Pavo made to sigh in relief, then saw the look of horror on Sura’s face, his gaze fixed on Pavo’s feet. Pavo looked down, then staggered back. The blue-grey corpse of a man lay there on the piled coins. Dead for only a day, he guessed. His eyes and cheeks had been chewed away by the rat, but enough of the veined flesh remained along with the unkempt, white hair for Pavo to recognise him.

‘Vergilius?’ Sura stammered, stepping over cautiously. ‘He must have been too afraid to leave. He must have starved in here.’

Pavo eyed the filthy, urine-soaked robe the dux wore. Then he noticed the gold coins clutched in the man’s palms, lined with teethmarks, and saw the chipped edges of the teeth in the gawping mouth. ‘Aye, it would seem so, thought not for want of trying.’

Chapter 11

It was a clear, crisp mid-morning, and the men of the XI Claudia milled around the grounds of the now-deserted villa. Pavo stoked the campfire outside the villa then took his pot of porridge and ate immediately, welcoming the fierce heat. The tense wait through the night had left him ravenous. His meal finished, he took a long pull on his skin of soured wine and sighed deeply. The Goths had left for the east that morning at dawn just as the angry Gothic warrior and his comrades had discussed. Pavo and Sura had unlocked and left the treasure vault only when they heard the voices of the XI Claudia, and in particular those of Gallus and Dexion, demanding that the estate be searched for their comrades.

‘I was sure you were dead,’ Dexion said, his face still fixed with a giddy smile, his meal untouched as he beheld Pavo. Then he shot Gallus an apologetic look. ‘Though I should have had more faith, I suppose.’

‘Nah,’ Quadratus cut in, stopping only to belch through flapping lips. ‘These two have a knack for avoiding the edge of a blade.’

‘And that one,’ Zosimus added, scratching roughly at his scalp with his porridge-caked spoon then jabbing it towards Sura who was pouring cups of the harvested wine for everyone, ‘is a bloody lunatic, which somehow seems to help.’

Sura took this as a compliment and flashed a grin. ‘Helped each of us take a healthy purse of gold,’ he reasoned, patting his own takings from Vergilius’ strong-room.

‘So it seems that our mission to Trajan’s Gate will be a quiet one?’ Dexion added, clasping his hands and nodding as if envisioning the journey ahead.

‘If what we heard was right, then perhaps it will be. As long as Fritigern chooses to concentrate his horde in central Thracia,’ Pavo shrugged.

In just a few hours they would be at the strategic corridor that linked the Eastern and Western Empires. While the Goths seemed set to make some permanent camp in the heart of Thracia, a good hundred miles to the east, the XI Claudia would merely have to reinforce Geridus’ garrison at Trajan’s Gate until Gratian’s forces arrived. Pavo imagined the Western Emperor’s great army preparing to move eastwards like a colossal silver creature, and Emperor Valens’ Eastern Praesental Army on the Persian frontier likewise readying to board fleets of triremes and to march across Anatolia to come to Thracia. Soon, surely, the Gothic War would be over.

‘By spring, these lands might be at peace again,’ Dexion said quietly, as if reading his thoughts.

Pavo allowed himself to consider the prospect, until a stiff breeze picked up, and he saw scudding grey clouds on the eastern horizon, coming west. He noticed Gallus standing, eyes darting distrustfully to east and west, his plume and cloak lifting and whipping in the wind. ‘If a peaceful spring comes, then I will welcome it. Until then, I’ll keep my spatha and shield close to hand.’

Reiks Farnobius lay flat in his saddle and heeled his silver stallion onwards into a gallop, leaping over the toppled wagons and through black smoke and licking flames. Screams rang out all around him, but fewer and fewer with every passing heartbeat, every hissing Hun arrow, and every driving Gothic spear. He flexed his arm and held his axe out like a harvester’s scythe, eyes trained on the fleeing Roman auxiliary before him, feeling the howling wind rush over his bronze-winged helm. The Roman sped forward like a startled hare, shooting glances back over his shoulder as Farnobius closed in. The auxiliary threw down his battered iron helm in the vain hope that it would aid his escape. Farnobius grinned at this. ‘And now my blade will not be dulled,’ he growled as he swept the axe into the back of the auxiliary’s skull. A chunk of the man’s head came away, leaving a gaping, pinkish-grey segment like a once-bitten apple. Blood sprayed from the man’s ruined head and he fell flat on his face like a discarded child’s toy. All around lay similarly ruined, mail-shirted corpses and imperial mounts, dead in the bloody mire of broken wagons.

Farnobius reined his mount in, bringing the beast rearing up. All around him, his Taifali and Goths cried out in victory. As if not to be outdone, his small contingent of Huns cheered even louder.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

He walked his mount round to face them, picking his way over the shattered remains of the Roman supply train that had dared to cross these plains between walled settlements and now lay as a black and crimson stain on the flatlands. He dug the edge of his axe down into the pile of spilled barley and wheat grain and flicked it up. ‘Food for our bellies and not the Romans!’ he roared as the grain rained down again. Though in his heart, he heard the echoing voice of the long-dead boy-reiks, Vitheric. In a lilting, harmless tone, it said: do you recall the last meal of barley stew we shared — on the evening before you murdered me? With a snarl, he shook his head then flipped open the lid of a chest with his weapon and knocked it on its side. Coins poured onto the dirt. ‘Your money, not theirs!’ he cried again. But Vitheric’s earnest voice was quick to respond: much of it debased and worthless, only a few of them gold.

A polyglot refrain erupted as his men fell upon the toppled wagons. Some raked through bloodied earth and shoved cleaved limbs aside to get every last coin and to fill their pockets with as much grain as they could carry. They did not yet see that the pickings from these few wagon trains was indeed sparse — too sparse.

Yet never had he felt more alive. Twenty six years of living in Alatheus and Saphrax’s shadow, a shadow blown away by his courageous break from Fritigern’s camp, two days ago. He cast his gaze over his army. Just over four thousand men — Egil and Humbert’s two thousand spearmen and his two thousand Taifali riders along with just over a hundred Huns. More, they were well-fed and encouraged men, not like the wretches who hesitated back in Fritigern’s camp.

But they will grow hungry for more gold soon enough, the dead child’s voice reiterated.

‘Gold,’ he muttered to himself, his lips barely moving. ‘Always gold,’ he affirmed, his thoughts turning to tales he had heard of the Romans’ source of the precious metal, ‘and I shall give them gold.’ He wheeled his stallion round and addressed his army. ‘Tomorrow, we will ride south. There, I promise you plunder as never before!’

The men erupted in a cheer at this, the Huns wheeling their mounts in celebration and throwing praise to Tengri, their sky god. The Taifali and Goths chanted to Wodin and the plain reverberated to the baritone chorus.

He swept his axe overhead, bringing it down to point them south. Like a brood of raptors, they swirled round to ride and march in his wake.

Having left the ruined villa and marched all day, the XI Claudia stopped at dusk and made camp on a defensible rocky plateau just a half-day’s march from Trajan’s Gate. Pavo volunteered for sentry duty at the plateau-edge and immediately wished he had not, for his eyelids grew heavy and his thoughts spiralled off towards sleep. He bit his lower lip to stave off the fatigue, but it was not enough. A moment later, his head nodded forward and his mind swam in an ocean of dreams. Then, from nowhere, one image rushed at him like a shark rising from the inky depths: the shadowy figure watching him in the slave market. This time it was not a mere sliver of blackness; it had grown and now it writhed. The eyes pierced through time and the ethereal matter of dreams and pinned Pavo. Barely a heartbeat after nodding off, he was awake. Wide awake. Why had this dream not let him be? And each time the dream recurred, the dark figure appeared more ominous, the black shade swirling into being from glowering eyes and a chill smile. The coolness of the night seemed to multiply with these thoughts. Pavo shook his head and forced a quiet chuckle to himself as if to make fun of the dream. . when something moved, right behind him.

He swung to see a tall, dark shadow, looming over him.

‘Mithras!’ he gasped, his spatha half drawn when a shaft of moonlight revealed Gallus’ gaunt features. He slid his spatha back into its scabbard. ‘Bless Luna for her light else I might not have stopped, sir.’

‘Aye, you were trained well, Optio. One of the last of our kind,’ Gallus said, his breath clouding in the chill.

Pavo noticed the melancholy in the tribunus’ eyes and saw how he waited there. This was no passing check on his sentries. He wondered if, like those few, fleeting moments in the past, Gallus wanted to speak to him. Not as a legionary, but as a man. Yet broaching this possibility with Gallus was like finding a missing link in a mail vest. So he stuck to protocol. ‘Nothing’s moved out there, sir,’ he said dutifully. ‘Not a thing.’

‘I know, I’ve been watching,’ he replied. ‘Sleep and I are at loggerheads tonight, it would seem.’

And most nights, Pavo thought. Gallus was a taciturn man outside his duties as a tribunus, but few who had served in the legion had missed his plaintive night-cries for his dead family. He wondered if that was to be his own fate; to mourn Felicia and Father and all those others for eternity.

‘In any case, duty sometimes blunts the sharp edge of a man’s troubles,’ Gallus said, then looked briefly unsure of himself. ‘And perhaps. . talking too.’

Pavo’s senses sharpened. The tribunus’ steely carapace was coming down.

‘News of Felicia’s death saddened me,’ Gallus continued. ‘I have been close enough to Dexion in these last days to see how much it has hurt him, so I can only wonder at the depth of your grief.’

Pavo frowned, then it all became clear: the tribunus was not seeking a sympathetic ear, no, Gallus had come to console him. He shook his head stiffly. ‘In battle, you come to expect loss, and what happened at the Great North-’ he stopped as grief surged from his breast. It seemed to rake across his heart and tighten his throat as he saw the image of her body again. He fought it back, the dark voice in his head hissing once more. You do not deserve to grieve.

‘I just wanted you to know that I. . I understand.’ Gallus seemed to have difficulty saying these words. ‘You did not deserve such a blow, lad. Not after all that happened in Persia.’

Pavo dropped and shook his head, his gaze searching the dirt around his feet. ‘I have lived one vision a thousand times in these last few days, sir. If I had just reached her sooner, before Farnobius. . she would be with me now. I failed her, just as I failed to save Father.’ He halted, determined not to succumb to the stinging tears gathering behind his eyes.

‘That Fritigern’s horde, Farnobius and all, fell upon the Great Northern Camp was not your doing,’ Gallus countered abruptly. ‘You did all you could to stop that happening. You marched into the Shipka Pass and right into the heart of the Gothic camp to save the embassy. Then, when the pass fell and the Goths came to the Tonsus, you were one of the few who took to the river’s edge, took the blows of the Gothic blades and stood firm for as long as you could. Had you not, then many more would have died.’

Pavo nodded solemnly, his eyes failing to meet Gallus’ demanding glare.

‘But those merits are like a pale light for you right now, are they not?’ Gallus guessed.

Pavo took a deep breath. ‘At Vergilius’ villa yesterday, there was a dead girl. A slave. She didn’t look much like Felicia but,’ he stopped, shaking his head, ‘in some strange way I wanted to believe that she did — that it was her.’ He sighed recalling the numbness as he had laid the girl in her grave. ‘Sura and I buried her. I whispered to her as we did so. I don’t know why, for I never knew her nor her me, but I spoke to her as if she was Felicia; the final words I should have shared with her. I should have been there, before Farnobius cut her down. . ’ he reiterated.

Gallus’ brow knitted into deep ruts. ‘The web of regret is a tangled one, lad. A dark creature lurks in there. It feeds on your regrets, devours your self-pity with relish. If you submit to it, it will consume you.’

‘But I feel something inside me. It is like fiery talons, growing, lashing at my insides.’

Gallus beheld him with a keen eye, as if Pavo had just spoken of a secret only he knew. ‘Anger. And rightly so,’ he said gently. ‘It must be spent, but it is a mistake to turn it upon yourself.’

Pavo stared through the ground before him. ‘Then I shall turn it on him. Farnobius,’ he muttered, wondering if the giant even knew what a wound one swipe of the huge axe had bestowed. His nose wrinkled and his fingers tightened into fists. ‘Farnobius,’ he repeated, this time as a hiss. Then he imagined the innumerable Gothic horde and the giant in their midst. His mind’s eye played a cruel trick then, pitching the scattered few remnants of the Thracian legions against such might. His shoulders sagged. ‘Yet it seems that some are beyond reach?’

Silence. Pavo looked up, seeing Gallus’ stiff glower searching the western night sky.

‘No man is beyond reach,’ the tribunus whispered at last.

‘Sir?’

Gallus stirred from his trance, his eyes meeting Pavo’s. There, Pavo saw his own reflection, his expression matching Gallus’. There was a lasting silence before the Tribunus spoke.

‘You seek justice from an impossible place? To enter the spider’s maw and pierce its black heart? That is a dark path, Pavo, and one I never wished you to tread. But I know its twists and turns only too well.’

Pavo gazed at the tribunus, and it all fell into place: Gallus’ slain family, the Speculatores’ pursuit of the tribunus’ blood. The man’s obsession with the Western Emperor’s journey to the east. ‘It was the Speculatores?’

Gallus seemed frozen for a moment at the mention of the word.

‘They took your family from you. They are the black heart you seek?’

Gallus’ eyes returned to scouring the western night sky. . finally he nodded. ‘You would have gladly died to save Felicia, wouldn’t you?’ he said softly.

Pavo accepted the change of tack and knew to press no further. ‘Father lived and died as a soldier, gave his life to save me in the end and took his enemies with him, so there is some solace in that. But Felicia? She had no place on the end of a blade. How can I ever forget what happened to her, sir?’

‘You can’t. You shouldn’t,’ Gallus sighed. ‘But remember her for what she was to you, not for how it ended. I. . only wish I could live by that mantra.’

Pavo nodded, then noticed Gallus’ hand edging towards his purse, but, as if scolded by a silent wraith, he retracted it. In the purse, Pavo knew, was the tribunus’ idol of Mithras. A worn piece depicting the god of the legions’ birth from rock. Gallus would oft be seen clutching the piece, sometimes on the march, sometimes as he perched like a crow on a fort wall, watching over his training ranks, sometimes even in the moments before battle, Pavo had seen him clasp the piece. But ever since they had set off from Constantinople, he realised, he had not seen the idol in the tribunus’ hands. ‘Does Mithras ease the pain?’

Gallus laughed at this. It was an odd sound and one Pavo had never heard before. A laugh that carried not a hint of mirth. ‘Even Mithras is powerless to soothe the blight that is loss. He and I understand this now.’

‘Then what does it take?’ Pavo asked.

Gallus gave him a knowing, almost surprised look. ‘Why, it is just as Carbo told me with his last breaths in Persia. It is just as you told me on the road home from that burning land.’ He clenched and shook a fist as if recalling the moment. ‘Face the past, face the nightmares,’ he punched the fist into his palm. ‘Strike them down!’

Chapter 12

The last leg of the march was swift and relentless — ever westwards like the scudding grey clouds. The two centuries of the XI Claudia hurried along the Via Militaris, leaving the winding green pastures of Thracia behind as they marched along this ancient, rising path towards the mountainous region that linked Thracia to the Diocese of Dacia. The Roman highway, ragged and in disrepair in the flatlands, was now all the more dilapidated here in the rugged highlands: where flagstones had been missing or hastily filled in with ill-fitting stones back in central Thracia, here there was no sign of attempted repair. Potholes dotted the road, filled with baked earth or pools of stagnant rainwater, and grass and shrubs had taken root in almost every join between the stones, as if Terra Mater was on the cusp of consuming the road that had dared to stride across her lands.

Pavo felt the chill winds tug at his cloak and drew it tighter. From his position at the rear of the column, he was pleased to see the recruits marching in something like a line and roughly in time. Then he frowned when three of them stumbled together and nearly brought the column to a farcical halt.

Dexion, having fallen back to march with him, sighed and sucked in a lungful of air. ‘There’s nothing you or I can do to improve them just now. All that matters is getting through this wilderness and to this mighty fort at Trajan’s Gate. There we can drill them properly — make them legionaries.’

Pavo swatted a fly from his face. ‘Aye, and they might be afforded helms and mail vests there too. Such things a soldier needs and such things a soldier makes.’

He glanced all around them, and saw that as the highway climbed, the land on either side grew jagged and craggy, parts cloaked in forests of pine and spruce. They couldn’t be far from the Succi Valley, he reckoned.

By early afternoon they came to a severe, straight valley, maybe five hundred paces wide and with steep sides carpeted in tall grass, winter blooms and russet ash thickets. It was almost a perfect V-shape — as if a titan had driven a plough through the earth and bedrock aeons ago. The highway stretched off along the floor of this furrow like a fading grey stripe.No wagon or army could traverse this countryside except via the road — despite the grievous state of disrepair it was in. The importance of this marching route was becoming clearer with every step.

Their breaths and footsteps echoed as they marched along this valley and tiny streamlets of rainwater gurgled by the side of the road. It seemed as if the valley might be infinite, until at last, the horizon changed, the valley floor narrowing to around two hundred paces and the valley sides seemingly intent on choking the highway.

Now the echoes were intense — every breath and scrape of boots repeated a hundred times. Pavo scanned the steep valley sides which loomed over the road like sentinels. Then his eye snagged on something coming into view, something perched halfway up the northern slope on a rocky spur — jutting stonework, framed by the valley side and the grey clouds above. A fort? he wondered, hearing the babble that broke out as the others saw it too. Or ruins? he mused as they drew closer: a red-brick fortress indeed. It sported three listing, antiquated towers, lichen-coated like the walls, which were also etched with deep, dark cracks. Despite it’s ruinous state, the structure peered down on the Via Militaris from its lofty perch as a raven might eye a mouse. He and Dexion jogged forward to the front of his century, drawing level with Zosimus and Sura. ‘An old legionary ruin?’

‘Must be,’ Zosimus agreed.

Sura scratched at his head. ‘If that’s a ruin, then who’s that up there?’

Pavo and Zosimus’ brows bent into frowns. Pavo saw it first. A handful of tiny forms up there were spilling from the fort’s twin-towered gatehouse and out to line the edge of the rocky spur. A sudden rustle of iron sounded as the rest of the XI Claudia saw them too, bringing shields a little higher and bracing in fear of attack.

‘Hold on, they’re ours. . ’ Dexion muttered in confusion.

‘At ease, they’re sagittarii,’ Gallus called back, confirming Dexion’s suspicion.

Pavo squinted and saw that they were indeed imperial archers. They wore bronze helms with nose-guards, fluttering red cloaks and scale vests, and carried their composite bows and quivers on their backs.

‘What’s a century of archers doing out in this wilderness?’ Zosimus agreed. ‘Maybe an escort that can take us through this grim ruin and onwards to Trajan’s Gate?’

Pavo saw the lone, sorry purple imperial banner fluttering atop the eastern tower and felt his heart sink into his belly. ‘Sir, I think this is Trajan’s Gate.’

Gallus felt his mood grow thornier as he left the Via Militaris, crossed a small brook and climbed the steep, winding scree-path up the northern valley side to the fort spur. There was little doubt, he affirmed, quickly unfurling the map; they had stayed on the Via Militaris for just under five hours since dawn. This was their destination. This was Trajan’s Gate, the mighty fortified choke-point that linked East to West. He could not suppress a derisive snort. The dilapidated fort that guarded this valley seemed to have been paid little attention since the reign of Trajan himself, hundreds of years ago. And they had passed not a single lookout, watchtower or beacon on the approach to this place.

‘Who goes there?’ an archer with a tuft of red plumage on his helm called down to them from the top of the path.

Gallus tucked away the scroll, raised a hand to halt the column, then peered up the path and addressed the archer.

‘Tribunus Gallus of the XI Claudia. I bring my legion to reinforce the defences of Trajan’s Gate,’ he wondered if he had unconsciously inflected the term defences. ‘We bring word for Comes Geridus.’

‘The XI Claudia?’ the sagittarius frowned, eyeing the motley collection of ancient and mismatched shields the recruits carried, then he shrugged in acceptance when he saw the ruby bull banner carried by Quadratus and waved them on up.

Gallus waved his men on once more, leading them up and onto the grass-carpeted plateau. As the rest of the XI Claudia filtered up onto the plateau, Gallus took a moment to survey the place properly. The spur was nestled into the valley side which sheltered it from the north and offered a fine view over the imperial road below to the south. A juniper grove had claimed the flat ground to the rear of the spur and abutted the fort’s northern wall. The fort itself took up about half of the remaining space on the plateau and, owing to the limitations imposed by the terrain, it was an oddly-shaped structure, tapering in width from west to east: the western wall before him, dominated by a moss and root entangled twin-towered gatehouse — clearly of the time of Trajan as he had suspected — was forty paces wide while the eastern wall looked like it was less than thirty paces wide and sported a single tower at its centre. The southern wall which looked down on the Via Militaris was some seventy paces long and featureless apart from a grievous, shuddering crack down its middle wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Likewise, the battlements along the wall and tower tops were in a ruinous state, large sections almost devoid of walkway or parapet. And not a single sentry up there, he realised.

He turned his attentions back to the gatehouse before him. The northern gatetower looked like a good push might topple it, but the southern gatetower was slightly less ramshackle and at least showed signs of recent repair. By the foot of this tower, there was a shadowy hole dug into the plateau floor: a tunnel with steps carved into the rock, he realised, leading down through the valleyside to the valley floor — probably giving sheltered access to the brook down by the Via Militaris. Then he looked up; this southern gatetower also had a reasonably intact parapet. . and there was something else up there, he realised, seeing some bulky object atop the tower. He craned his neck and peered at this, framed by the fast-moving grey clouds. Whatever it was, it was huge. .

The centurion of the sagittarii saluted stiffly. ‘Comes Geridus is in the fort, sir,’ he said, gesturing to the double gateway leading inside.

Gallus clicked his fingers and ordered the rank and file of the XI Claudia to fall out by the juniper grove. As the recruits gratefully set down their marching packs and dug out their rations, he beckoned his officers with him. His eyes narrowed as he noticed a dark earth mound by the foot of the walls. A fresh grave? Then he noticed the recently — and badly — hewn replacement gate resting inside the gatehouse and awaiting installation.

‘Repairs?’ Pavo guessed.

‘Or firewood,’ Sura snorted.

‘They’ve had a shot at it,’ Zosimus offered.

‘They’ve made an arse of it, you mean,’ Quadratus countered.

‘There’s work to be done here,’ Dexion surmised.

‘There is,’ Gallus concluded. ‘How smoothly that work will go depends on who commands this pass. Barzimeres set some memorable standards for incompetence, but let us pray that he is not outdone by this. . Geridus.’

The two archers flanking the gateless arch parted with a salute. They seemed disciplined enough, he thought.

The space inside the fort walls was cramped. A small grain silo, a baking kiln and a lone barrack block big enough to house a century and no more lined the northern wall and a lean-to timber stable rested against the southern wall. A handful of riders in military tunics and boots stood nearby, eating bowls of stew and casting furtive glances at the newcomers. Gallus met their gazes but quickly turned his attentions to the dusty, smoke-stained, two storeyed principia in the centre of the fort that dominated the limited space. Two more archers waited at the doorway there, again parting as he approached. They entered into a windowless hall where light and dark battled. A roaring fire crackled in a blackened hearth, filling the space with a welcome heat. The room was otherwise barren and dusty, with just a table by the fire. A bald, bulky, white-bearded man sat there, hunched over a map.

‘Tribunus Gallus of the XI Claudia,’ Gallus said. The man did not look up. Gallus strode closer and cleared his throat, expecting the man to latch onto their presence at any moment. But as he came to within a pace of the table, he saw the firelight dance in this man’s eyes. They were lost, gazing through the map and off into memory. The man was old, certainly — maybe approaching sixty — but he still had the tall, powerful frame of a warrior, despite the tattered old citizen’s robes he wore.

Gallus halted by the table, the others fanning out by his side. Silence hung over them, with only the occasional sound of snapping kindling piercing it.

‘You are Comes Geridus, the famous Master of the Passes?’ Gallus said, uncertain this was the man he sought.

The man did not flinch, and still he did not look up. ‘Famous you say?’ he replied at last, his voice a deep, baritone burr, entirely devoid of inflection. ‘Perhaps. Yet fame is a joyless commodity; like a fire without heat or a meal without nourishment. Fame follows me like a pig with bad wind: creates a fair din and offers nothing other than a sinful odour.’ He chuckled dryly. ‘Master of the Passes? No, not any more. Now, I am merely the Coward of Ad Salices. And that,’ he wagged a finger, ‘is a truly sour fame.’

Gallus’ eyes flicked to the floor momentarily as he remembered the words of the half-maddened Governor Urbicus of Trimontium.

A craven old man. He will offer you nothing.

His mind swept back to the Battle of Ad Salices. The late arrival of the western legions had been vital, Comes Richomeres leading those armies to the field just when it seemed certain that the Thracian armies might be crushed by Fritigern’s Goths. Richomeres had been hailed as a hero for snatching a dignified stalemate from the jaws of defeat, but there had been other whispers passed around too, of another western general who had been sent to the battle but had never arrived.

‘They said I turned back through fear,’ Geridus said as if following Gallus’ pondering. ‘Yet I have known decades of war, my skin is laced with cuts and my dreams are filled with the shades of lost comrades.’

Gallus frowned, wondering just how far this old man had reached inside his thoughts. ‘No man who stands with the legions in battle is a coward, sir.’

Geridus looked up now, beholding Gallus and the others with his hazel eyes, his black and wispy eyebrows in stark contrast with his white beard. His skin was mottled with age and bagged around his eyes.

‘Yet they call me just that; the Coward of Ad Salices,’ he muttered, pouring himself a cup of wine — not the first of the day, Gallus guessed going by the man’s rubicund, fleshy and thread-veined nose. ‘And I cannot deny them such accusations. . for I did indeed turn back. My once powerful limbs would not carry me to war.’

The man met Gallus’ eyes, no, pinned him. At last, Gallus had to look away.

Geridus laughed a hoarse and throaty laugh. ‘You have nothing more to say? What does one say to console a coward who accepts his shame?’

Gallus noticed then, in the far corner of the room, a saddle, boots, shield, a swordbelt bearing a gem-hilted spatha, a magnificent bronze cuirass and a red plumed helm — all mounted on a timber frame. The fine armour was coated in dust like everything else, and cobwebs billowed with every breeze that stole into the room. Unused for some time, it seemed. ‘One might offer a second chance. Perhaps, sir, the holding of this pass might rinse the stain from your reputation?’

Geridus held Gallus’ gaze blankly for a moment, then roared with laughter, the throaty burr echoing throughout the room as if a hundred men had been tickled by Gallus’ words. When the laughter died, he shook his head. ‘My reputation is broken, Tribunus, irrefutably. I am merely waiting now.’

‘Waiting?’ Gallus frowned.

‘To be discharged. In the spring, another is to replace me. Maurus — a cruel, fickle and untrustworthy dog who has bought the favour of Emperor Gratian. So my reward is to spend my final years in retirement, recounting my shame with every passing day until the ferryman comes for me.’

Gallus sensed Geridus’ melancholy creeping under his armour, and knew it would be affecting those by his side too. ‘A winter lies between you and retirement, Comes. Is that not enough to offer you a chance of redemption? Certainly, last winter was enough to turn the eastern empire on her head, so surely it should not be asking too much for one man to guide his own fate this year? The empire needs men like you at this very moment. Indeed, I have been sent here to forewarn you of the situation. The five passes have fallen and the Goths have spilled into central Thracia. This defile has become vital once more, for if Emperor Gratian and his Western armies are to come to the aid of this land, then-’

Geridus raised a hand, beholding Gallus with a keen eye and an odd grin. ‘I remember when I was like you — free of my ailments and iron to my core. . ’

Gallus’ patience was thinning. ‘Sir, my legion is here to help you in holding this pass until Emperor Gratian and his army come east in the spring. The vigour of my men and I will aid your cause. I hope you will put your all into the task then Gratian will see you for the man you are, and not be guided by the whispered rumours of the ambitious who have plotted to supercede you.’

Geridus’ eyes changed for just a moment. In their depths, Gallus was sure he saw an ember glowing as the Comes thought over the suggestion, then he winced, a hand shooting down to his shin. He rubbed at the robes there, his face pinched in pain. Silence overcame the room again, until Geridus sat up at last with a sigh, scratching at his shiny bald pate and turning back to the map. ‘Perhaps, Tribunus. . perhaps.’ His eyes fell upon the area west of Trajan’s Gate. He tapped a finger on this section. ‘But as things stand, Gratian might not travel east at all.’

Gallus tensed. ‘That is impossible. It has been agreed. I heard confirmation of this from the lips of Emperor Valens in Antioch.’

Geridus sighed, eyes darting over the map. ‘Valens’ hopes are one thing. Reality is another. Gratian has his own difficulties at the moment,’ he said tapping the region around the Western Diocese of Italia’s northern borders and the precarious gap between the natural barriers of the upper Danubius and Rhine. ‘The Alemanni are said to be on the verge of revolt. Their King, Priarius, is a fractious whoreson.’ He then tapped the area marked as the Western Diocese of Pannonia, north and west of Trajan’s Gate, skirting the River Danubius’ upper course. ‘And here, the Quadi raid the western borders like wolves, fiercer than any Goth, I can assure you.’

‘Hearsay has no place over imperial orders,’ Gallus snapped, sensing his modicum of hope fading. Gratian must come west! I will have my revenge!

Geridus’ thick, dark eyebrows lifted like a dissatisfied teacher. ‘This is not hearsay, Tribunus. The last word that came from the West confirmed Gratian’s troubles. That was over two weeks ago, and there have been no more messengers since. . normally we expect Cursus Publicus messengers on a daily basis.’

Gallus felt his flesh creep with ire. Justice! ‘Then surely we can despatch messengers westwards to implore him? The five passes have fallen. More than one hundred thousand Goths sit in the heart of Thracia right now,’ he leant over the map table and shot a finger out to the east. ‘Every inch of Roman land from here to the Hellespont is on the brink of collapse.’

Geridus sighed and took a long gulp of wine, that distant look returning to his eyes as he gazed into the fire. ‘I will send no more riders to Gratian.’

Gallus backed away from the table. ‘Why?’

Geridus flicked his head to the rear of the room. ‘Resigned though I may be, I have no wish to abandon my duties. I have just eighty archers to defend this pass. Outside, I have eleven horses and eleven equites remaining. Two weeks ago, I had thirty — and thirty men to ride them. Two parties I have sent west to establish what has happened with the imperial messenger system. The first I heard nothing from for a week. The second the same again. . until one of them returned here, torn and bloodied. He and his men had found the bodies of the first party then fell into a Quadi ambush themselves. He died this morning.’

Gallus thought of the fresh grave outside.

Geridus tapped a finger on the map again and dragged it from Trajan’s Gate, tracing a line northwest, up through the westerly stretches of the Succi Valley and on across the Dioceses of Dacia and Pannonia, before coming to the River Danubius and following its course to the Diocese of Italia. ‘This route is fraught, and riddled with foes. The Quadi insurgents that took the heads of my riders have doubtless been responsible for the non-appearance of messengers or scouts coming from Gratian’s court. They control many of the roads in Dacia and Pannonia. Thus, I will not send more of my precious few to their deaths.’

Gallus drew a spare stool and sat opposite Geridus, steepling his fingers and fixing the man with a gimlet stare. ‘Comes. . Emperor Gratian must be told that the five passes have fallen.’

Geridus remained exasperatingly unmoved by Gallus’ agitation. ‘Then show me the legions that will clear a path to the West to tell him. Until then, Gratian shall remain in his palace within the walls of Augusta Treverorum in Gaul, ignorant of the troubles of this land.’ He lifted his cup, swirled it, then frowned. ‘You eye me with contempt?’

Gallus heard the steely edge to his tone and relented, feigning deference to his superior. ‘You state only grim reality, sir. But to accept it is to succumb to it.’

‘What would you have me do?’ Geridus continued, then gestured towards the door, where one of the sagittarii stood guard. ‘You have seen how it is. I have just a century of bowmen to command. The legions of Pannonia are fully engaged on the Upper Danubius and as stretched as these forces are. I have no means of getting word to Gratian’s court.’

‘Allies, then?’ Gallus suggested. ‘Some who might carry word for us?’

Geridus sighed and rubbed at his temples. ‘There is a band of Sarmatians roaming somewhere on the pasturelands near the Danubius. They have sided with the legions of Pannonia in the past, but they are screened by the Quadi and equally as out of reach as Emperor Gratian is.’

‘There must be something, some way,’ Gallus’ eyes darted as he thought over the infrastructure of the empire’s messenger system. Roads, waystations, well-fed horses and riders. A single scroll could travel from Londinium to Alexandria in under three weeks. That system was in pieces, it seemed. The first fracture that might lead to a collapse? His mind swung back and forth, then fixed on one idea. ‘Let me try,’ he said at last.

Geridus supped his drink calmly and remained in a state of torpor. ‘Go on.’

‘Let me lead a contubernium west.’

Geridus’ dark eyebrows shot up. ‘You have not heard a word I said,’ he tapped the map west of Trajan’s Gate again as he said this.

‘I heard and heeded every word,’ Gallus countered.

Geridus swirled his cup and drank some more, his eyes never leaving Gallus. ‘I am ordering you and your men to stay put, Tribunus.’

That night, a cold wind howled through the pass and the junipers rustled and hissed over the square of XI Claudia tents pitched on the patch of free flat ground just outside the fort entrance. Pavo flitted up the stone-stepped, rounded tunnel that led from the valley floor, emerged from the tunnel mouth and out onto the plateau by the southern gatetower. He handed the skin of fresh brook water to Cornix and sat next to him and Trupo, watching as the former painstakingly chopped garlic and onion into tiny pieces before frying it in bacon fat over the fire. The aroma was delicious as it was, but Cornix then proceeded to add crushed juniper berries and the meat from a rabbit they had caught just before sundown along with a few splashes of the cool water. Eventually, Cornix handed him a strip of cooked meat. Pavo chewed on the succulent flesh, the juices rich with flavour and warming in his belly. ‘Mithras, Cornix, where in the empire did you learn to cook like that?’

Cornix shrugged, nudging at the remaining frying meat with his dagger. ‘I picked things up here and there. A legionary who can cook tends to enjoy a few extra benefits,’ he said, lifting his wineskin and shaking it — clearly holding more than the usual meagre ration.

Pavo chuckled and supped on his own skin of watered, soured wine, casting occasional glances to Gallus’ tent. Geridus’ rebuttal of Gallus’ pleas had left an icy tension hanging over the cramped spur. Gallus had retired to his tent early, and Pavo could only imagine what levels of anger Geridus’ refusal had stoked in him.

‘He’ll take it out on us, most probably,’ Sura said, sitting down with them and taking a piece of cooked rabbit for himself. He chewed for a moment, eyes sweeping back and forth as if in judgement. ‘A bit more garlic,’ he nodded. ‘Aye, just another pinch. I cooked for the Governor of Adrianople once, you see. . ’

Trupo and Cornix smirked and just caught the laughs as they saw Pavo roll his eyes.

‘Lauded me all that day, he did. Set me up to cook for others. I’d have been rich. . if it wasn’t for the dodgy wine someone poured for him later in the evening. They say he was on the latrine for a full two days — half his normal size when he finally came out.’ Sura’s face wrinkled as if to reassure himself. ‘Definitely the wine,’ he affirmed.

Pavo turned away to mask a chuckle, then noticed Dexion stalking amongst the campfires. He welcomed the thought of another chance to chat with his brother: every time they had done so in their short time together had been like a salve to both men’s hearts. Simple talk of simple things — tales of their childhoods, their time in the legions, memories or stories of Father — had made the bleak present almost bearable. And Felicia? Well they did not talk of her, but whenever their chatter fell into a lull, Pavo’s thoughts swiftly turned to her. At these times he also noticed his brother’s eyes growing distant and doleful and knew that their thinking was in harmony. So he stood, waving a hand to catch Dexion’s attention and then to the empty spot by his side. But Dexion’s face was creased, tawny-gold eyes darting this way and that. ‘Sir?’ he said, sticking to decorum whilst there were other soldiers within earshot.

Dexion put a finger to his lips in a plea for quiet, then beckoned him and Sura.

The pair stood and walked over to join Dexion, who had halted by the juniper grove and was now cupping an ear to the night.

‘What is that?’ he started and then stopped. A ghostly, muffled tink-tink of iron sounded. It was as if it was echoing from a great distance away, but nearby at the same time, coming and going with the breeze.

‘A goat herder?’ Sura mused, looking off into the night, his face betraying his own doubt.

‘No, not the iron tapping noise. . that,’ Dexion insisted.

Pavo and Sura strained, hearing nothing. Then. . a voice. A lone voice, coming and going over the whistling wind, speaking from somewhere in the blackness.

Fine, strong limbs. Ferocious talons. Time does not ravage you as it does me, it seems.

Pavo, Sura and Dexion looked to one another uncertainly, then followed the direction of the voice.

Aye, they once called me the Master of the Passes. Long, long ago. Perhaps if I had the opportunity to throw you into battle, dear friend, I might be known as such again. But time has caught up with me at last.

Pavo’s eyes widened. That burring voice. ‘Geridus!’ he whispered.

Sura and Dexion looked to him, eyes widening in realisation, then Sura slapped a hand across Pavo’s chest and pointed up. On top of the southern gatetower, a silhouetted, tall and broad figure hobbled awkwardly on a cane. It was unmistakeably Geridus, and he seemed to be circling the bulky, hide covered shape up there. ‘What in the name of Mithras is he doing?’

‘More importantly. . who is he talking to?’ Dexion added. The tower was out of bounds, Geridus had insisted.

Pavo’s skin crept as the chill wind stole the eerie chatter away again.

Chapter 13

Acuelo had always been a cumbersome man, slow-moving and easy to tire. Back in his legionary days, he had often dreamt of retirement and a peaceable few years on a farm or the like. However, cruel fate — and a wicked desire to gamble what he had — had seen fit to render him penniless and thus, he had no choice but to serve penance as a sentry in the Abderan gold mines.

Deep in this honeycomb of caves and tunnels within the most southerly of the Rhodope Mountains, he felt his chest grow tight and numb. The heat in this oppressive space seemed to suck the air from his lungs faster than he could draw it in. He blinked and tried to steady his breathing, flexing his fingers on his spear shaft. Sweating bodies and malevolent eyes lingered all around him and the chipping of pick-axes and rasping coughs echoed from every direction. Every so often this was punctuated with the dull thunder of rock crumbling and being loaded into the mule-carts and the waft of dry, suffocating dust. He shook his head to try and rid himself of the dizziness, then looked around for something to focus on other than his own malady. He saw one of the gold miners — Dama, a brutish, mean-eyed felon from Macedonia — loading rocks into the mule-led cart. Not gold ore or seam, just granite laced with quartz. Acuelo realised the bad yield would be attributed to his watch and deducted from his pay. And I need those coins for the next big race! Then a dark thought crossed his mind. That nagging yet earnest voice. But damn, is there not always a next race? Is that not why you and your family live in perpetual penury?

Shaking off the thoughts, he stomped over to Dama and swung the butt of his spear at his back. The shaft batted the man — not enough to bruise or scrape, but enough to get his attention. Dama swung round, his face twisted in a snarl. He took a step forward, only for the iron shackles on his ankles to restrain him, keeping him fixed at the mine wall. For good measure, Acuelo flipped his spear round to rest the point on the cur’s chest.

‘Gold, and I leave you in peace. Rocks, and I will not.’

Dama spat on the floor. ‘When I escape, Acuelo, I will tear your fat head from your old, misshapen body. Then, my comrades and I will seek out your family. They live in the sentry camp in the foothills, do they not?’

Acuelo unconsciously backed away, his confident spear tip dropping a little.

Now one of Dama’s fellow Macedonians, a flat-nosed man named Vulso mining nearby, turned to add; ‘Your wife’s last memories will be of me, thrusting into her. . after the rest of us have emptied our seed inside her, of course.’

The relish and vigour in Vulso’s tirade brought a further tightness to Acuelo’s chest. The gloomy cavern all around him seemed utterly airless and intolerably hot. Spots swam across his vision, and he staggered as he stepped back from them.

‘What’s wrong, Acuelo?’ Dama sneered.

‘Perhaps you should sit?’ Vulso added.

Acuelo wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and pant for all the air he could take in. The pain was crushing now — as if an ox was sitting on his breastbone. But when he saw Vulso stepping as far as his chains would allow him and reaching out as if to relieve Acuelo of the burden of his spear, he summoned some spark of vitality and swung the tip back up at the Macedonian. ‘Get back to work!’ he snarled.

The rebuke worked, and the pair turned back to the rock-walls of the cavern, shooting spiteful glances over their shoulders. Yet the effort had all but floored Acuelo. He waved to his fellow sentry, a lean young man seemingly less-affected by the conditions. ‘Watch them!’

He stumbled through the honeycomb of dimly-lit caverns and tunnels, eyes fixed on the bright spot of light ahead. It grew and grew until at last he stepped out onto the ledge on the mountain’s northern face. At once, he was bathed in winter sunlight and a fresh, biting salt-tanged wind cooled him and rapidly eased the tightness in his chest. He opened his eyes and looked down over the lower peaks of the Rhodope range to the distant town of Abdera on the coast and the blue, silky haze that was the Mare Aegeum beyond. He shuffled, straightening his old, tattered military tunic, hitching his sweat-soaked loincloth up and swiping the perspiration from his brow. He rested his considerable weight against the mountainside and sighed, closing his eyes, trying as best he could to remember why he did this every day. A wife, two sons and seven grandchildren. Everything. One eye cracked open and gazed upon the dusty, vicus-like sentry camp down in the foothills. A timber shack by the walls of that grim compound was all he could afford for his loved ones. Then he thought of the bet he had placed the previous week. His last coins — and they were always his last — on a horse race around the Abderan track. He looked to the coast and the outline of the town, squinting and trying to discern the stables — though all he could see was a dust cloud of some crowd approaching the town. A very large crowd, he realised. So many spectators for one race? And indeed, the race was to be run today. Victory for the Thessalian mare and he would be rich. Rich and gone from these mines! Defeat and. . he sighed and let the thought dissipate. No, victory today and it will be the last race I ever bet upon, he affirmed. Moments later, the nagging voice countered; victory today will only fuel your next loss. He pinched his nose between forefinger and thumb as if to crush the irritating voice of reason.

However it was some fractious babble deep inside the heart of the mountain that offered distraction. No doubt those two Greek dogs were giving his comrade trouble now. This drew a wry chuckle from his tired lungs: those curs had been caught robbing imperial tax-wagons, and now they would spend their lives in those caves, clawing out the gold seams to replenish the empire’s strained treasury. His chuckle was short though as he realised that their fate was not so different to his own. He thought again of the Thessalian and the race.

He gazed down over the mountain’s lower northern face and conjured fantasies of a different life, his eyes coming to a turquoise rock pool and birch glade just by the section of winding path where the mountain merged with the foothills. This tranquil sight always seemed to calm him. Today though, there was something different. He frowned, squinting, noticing a lone figure crouched by the edge of the pool, scooping and drinking water. Odd, he thought, noticing that the figure wore not the rags of a sentry or robes of a messenger or merchant, but some kind of armour. Legionaries, here? The last he had heard, the legions were all tucked away inside the walled cities while the Goths dominated the plains of central Thracia.

When the figure stood, Acuelo was somewhat taken aback, for he rose and rose, taller than any man he had ever seen. His raven-dark hair was knotted at the nape of his neck and he sported a trident beard. Yes, he wore a mail shirt, but he was no legionary. He placed a fancy bronze helm on his head — adorned with what looked like wings above each ear. The giant looked up then, and seemed to meet Acuelo’s eye, before waving an arm, as if beckoning something, someone, up from the lower section of the path.

Acuelo’s heart thudded and he felt the wintry wind chill him now, and a tingle of chest pain returned. A blonde-haired warrior hurried past the giant at the rock pool and on up the hill track towards this ledge. Acuelo tensed: the baked leather armour, the fair skin and hair, the scarred wooden shield. Now there was no doubt. Reports indicated that the Goths had made the heart of the Thracian plain their own, but that the cities and the mountains were safe. The reports were wrong. He gawped as another Goth jogged into view after the first, ushered by the giant beside the rock pool, who then joined them in loping up the mountainside. Then another approached, followed by a steady stream of them. They bounded up the mountainside path like insects, all the while shooting glances to the ledge. To Acuelo.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed more streams of the Gothic warriors, flooding up the path on the eastern mountain face towards the mine entrance there. Suddenly, a distant clash of iron from the sentry camp snatched his attention: hundreds of these Goths were pouring around it, climbing over the wall like ants. The screams of the handful of sentries in there carried in the breeze. ‘No!’ he wailed, thinking of his family.

Perhaps it was the years that had passed since his last military service that suspended him in disbelief. A hurled Gothic spear clattering down just a pace from him soon remedied that. He staggered back from the ledge and into the hot breath of the mines, a nascent cry of alarm building in his throat, only to hear that the quarrelling voices within from before had grown. Gothic voices. They were in the mine already, he realised. Echoing, jagged cries and the clang of iron weapons.

‘To arms!’ he cried, lifting his spear and looking on down the tunnel for his fellow sentries. He saw the young, lean lad he had left in charge stepping backwards out of another cavern, his lance falling to the ground. Suddenly a spear tip burst through the lad’s back. The spear tip was wrenched clear, the lad fell, and in his place stood Vulso and Dama, free of the mine wall, shackles hewn. Vulso turned his stolen spear on Acuelo, while Dama picked up the dead young sentry’s lance.

‘What. . how?’ Acuelo stammered, seeing many other prisoners rushing to and fro, freed and carrying weapons, falling upon sentries like packs of wolves. Then he saw Goths darting around, hacking at the shackles of certain prisoners.

Vulso held up his hewn chains. ‘It seems that our wishes have come true sooner than we could have hoped, Acuelo. Now, I had best make this quick, else your wife might be entirely spoiled by the time I get to her. . ’

Acuelo felt a dull pop as Vulso thrust the spear into his breastbone, then drove ahead, running him backwards, out onto the ledge, before snapping the spear back. The action caused Acuelo to swing round, swaying, his feet on the brink of the ledge, hot blood pumping from his ruptured heart, bitter winter air sweeping around him. He saw that the sentry camp down below was now ablaze and the screaming from there had stopped. He whispered a weak prayer of thanks to Pluto that his family was most probably already dead and would suffer no more. With his last few moments of clarity, he also noticed that distant Abdera was being overrun by these raiders too. The stables were ablaze and the sky was stained with smoke. Then the final race has been run at last, he thought with an unexpected sense of relief, before he toppled forward over the ledge and plummeted, the life having left him before his body crunched and buckled on its way down the ragged mountainside.

Farnobius stalked through the mines, dragging his axe along a wall of ore, trailing a spray of sparks behind him. His army of Gothic spearmen flooded along the tunnels with him, as did the miners they had freed. Unchain just the strong, young ones, he had told his men.

These mines would bring him wagon-loads of gold but, more importantly, extra men. His horde was strong, with two thousand Taifali riders and nearly two thousand Gothic spearmen under Egil and Humbert, not to mention nearly a hundred of the most loyal Huns. But these men could not be squandered. No, he needed dogs of war, men who could be thrown at the enemy without a second thought.

He came to a vast cavern within the mines, strode up to a shelf of bedrock and swung round to face the prisoners and spearmen following in his wake.

‘Romans! I am Reiks Farnobius, true Lord of the Greuthingi. . and soon, I will be master of this land,’ he boomed. His words reached every corner of the mine. The gathered miners listened, wide-eyed, more pushing into the cavern, jostling to get a better view of their saviour. ‘You were consigned to these mines by masters who saw fit for you to work and die here. They gave you no choice. Today, I come here and offer you a choice. Join me, fight with me against those who condemned you. . or defy me. . and die.’

The last word echoed through the mines and the Greuthingi flanking him and dotted all around the cavern levelled their spears. The prisoners flinched at this. He saw a pair of them — one with a flat nose and the other with devious, dark eyes. ‘Your answer?’ he said, pinning these two with his glare.

‘We are not soldiers,’ Vulso said warily.

‘We are thieves,’ Dama added.

‘And murderers,’ another prisoner, still in chains, spat. ‘That one raped an old woman then killed her. That’s not the act of a mere thief.’

Vulso shot the prisoner a sour look.

Farnobius wondered at the type of men he might harvest from this exercise. Dogs of war and no more, he reaffirmed, then intensified his glower on the flat-nosed one. ‘Make your choice. Gold, rapine and glory await you should you choose wisely.’

Vulso and Dama shared a glance, their angst melting away as they considered the booty to be had, then both nodded. ‘We choose to serve you, Reiks.’

Hundreds of voices echoed this, and Farnobius grinned as he sensed his horde’s mood swelling. The Greuthingi started the familiar chant, then the prisoners caught on and joined in.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

Later, Farnobius stood amongst the smouldering ruins of the sentry camp at the foot of the mountains. He glowered at the single handcart before him. It held just a few chunks of gold-streaked ore.

So very, very little, the voice of Vitheric’s shade said without a hint of mockery, yet the words scourged Farnobius’ hopes.

‘It is all they could find,’ Egil, the minor Greuthingi noble, insisted.

‘I promised them wagons of gold,’ Farnobius growled, detecting the eyes of his men darting over the takings from the mine and remembering his promise to them just a week ago at the ruined wagons.

‘These mines are all but spent, Reiks Farnobius,’ Humbert, Egil’s comrade, shrugged.

Farnobius was irked by the way Humbert said this, his voice loud and clear as if to announce the failure to the horde. This reminded him starkly of Alatheus and Saphrax, the asps who had used and humiliated him for years.

‘There is but a fraction of what you hoped to find,’ Humbert continued.

Farnobius’ top lip twitched and his axe-arm tensed. Another word and your head will spin free. .

Then the sibilant tone of the dead boy-king spoke again; You would grant him such a swift death? Then you must truly respect this one.

Farnobius’ head twitched violently as he shook the voice away, and his fingers tightened on his axe.

‘I did, however, find these,’ Humbert added, holding up a pile of scrolls then nodding to the charred remains of a timber building, ‘in there. Maps, messages,’ he said, unfurling a few and pinning them open on the edge of the hand cart with daggers.

Farnobius’ ire faded and the axe-arm slackened as he followed Humbert’s finger, tracing across the map.

‘This seems to show the gold stores of the empire.’ Humbert tapped upon Abdera, where a golden dot represented these mines and another at Constantinople seemingly represented the treasury and mint where the mined gold ended up. ‘Thracia’s gold stores are well and truly secured behind the walled cities,’ he concluded, tapping similar gold dots at Adrianople and Athenae.

‘You offer me nothing I do not already know,’ Farnobius sighed.

Humbert offered a weak smile and pointed to one of the scrolls he had unfurled. ‘No, there is more. This message describes the situation to the west, beyond Thracia — in the Dioceses of Dacia and Pannonia and all the provinces encompassed by those lands.’

Farnobius frowned, looking over the foreign writing on the scroll and then to the area west of Thracia. Many of the cities here and all the way to the waters of the Mare Adriaticum were dotted with gold. ‘More gold hidden behind well-manned walls?’ he said, exasperated.

Humbert shook his head, his grin growing as he traced a section of the writing. ‘Unlike here, the garrisons of the western cities are weak, some even non-existent. The western legions are concentrated elsewhere.’

A shiver of excitement ran up Farnobius’ spine. Glory, riches, a kingdom that can be carved out in my name.

But the echoing voice of Vitheric was quick to counter; A kingdom of glory built upon the rotting foundations of a small, trusting boy’s corpse.

His head twitched again and he issued a low growl as his eyes traced back over the map, seeking out the route from Thracia to those western lands. His efforts were foiled by the etchings of mountains forming a wall between east and west, then his gaze snagged on the one winding valley passage that cut through these heights. Under it was scrawled a faded name. The Succi Pass. At its narrowest point was a tiny drawing of what looked like some minor stone fortification. Here was inscribed the text Trajan’s Gate. Nothing else was marked on the map. No other barriers apart from this one. His thin smile returned in earnest.

He swung round to his watching horde, holding the scroll aloft. ‘Today, we have seized a great treasure. A map that will take us to the gold stores of the West. A land barely defended. A land that can be ours. Tomorrow, we set off to the West, to Trajan’s Gate and the spoils that await us beyond!’

Muted chatter broke out. For a moment, he doubted whether they would accept this: a scroll when they had been promised tangible bounty. Then the chatter spilled into a refrain of cheering. The chant started then, and he basked in the glorious clamour.

‘Far-no-bi-us, Far-no-bi-us, Far-no-bi-us!’

He thought nothing of the dogs, Alatheus and Saphrax. He heard nothing from the persistent shade of the boy-king whose life he had taken in the shallows of the Danubius. The moment was his. The day was his. Then something moved in the corner of his eye to spoil it. A lone figure was scrambling down the mountainside, behind his horde. It was a Roman in a red military tunic, his skin and hair blackened with dirt and smoke. Farnobius silently beckoned the nearest of his foot archers. The Goth handed him a self-bow and an arrow. Farnobius nocked, winked and drew to his cheek, then loosed. The arrow sailed through the air and punched into the dirt where the Roman had been standing just a moment ago. Now the cur was in flight, rushing and vaulting onto a riderless horse — a piebald mare. A moment later, the Roman had heeled the beast into a gallop, haring north-west.

Might your kingdom of glory be toppled by just one rider? Vitheric asked. Mine was stolen from me by the strangling hands of just one man. .

Farnobius gazed into the ether, lost in the truth of the words.

A Hun rider trotted over beside him. The stench of the man gave him away and shook Farnobius from his trance. It was Veda the scout, the one who had found the secret path around the Shipka Pass. The rat-faced rider wore a wolf-skin on his head like a crown, the fangs marking his forehead and the pelt hanging down his back. His keen eyes followed the Roman rider’s path. ‘Shall I kill him?’ Veda asked, nocking his bow.

Farnobius’ brow knitted. The escaping dog might have heard of his planned route west. Should word reach those lands, his rapine might not be as smooth as he had hoped. ‘Do it.’

Veda’s asymmetric compound bow stretched, then relaxed again, the arrow unloosed.

‘What are you doing?’ Farnobius growled.

‘He is too far away, Master. It would be a waste of an arrow. But I can hunt him, if you wish? Just as my people hunt antelope on the steppe.’

Farnobius’ chest prickled. He grabbed Veda’s collar and hauled the rodent-faced man closer. ‘Catch him, kill him. . ’ he growled, his smashed nose wrinkling and his head twitching violently, then eyed the Hun’s wolf pelt. ‘. . and bring me his skin!’

Chapter 14

Veda raced after the fleeing Roman through daylight and black night. For seven days the chase continued, his sturdy steppe pony never quite swift enough to match the Roman piebald’s pace, but strong enough to ride on and regain lost ground while the Roman beast had to rest. And this morning, the chase would end, he vowed.

He clung to his galloping pony’s neck and basked in the chill late-October wind whipping across his face and furring the wolf skin on his head. White cloud streaked the blue heavens as if cast there by Tengri the Sky God himself, the tall grass before him stretched for miles and if he ignored the snow-clad Haemus Mountains to the north, he could almost imagine that he was on the great steppe once more — the home he and his people had left behind to seek bounty in Roman lands as allies with the Goths. For that moment, he was home, almost heedless of the vital task Reiks Farnobius had set him.

Then something wrenched him from his reverie. An assault on the senses. He slowed, sitting tall on the saddle, his nose shooting skywards like a hound on the scent. His eyes fixed on the weak pall of smoke rising from a depression in the tall grass, barely a quarter of a mile ahead. He slowed his pony to a canter as he approached the small patch of flattened grass. He could smell it now: woodsmoke. And he could hear the crackling of kindling and snorting and shuffling of a tired mount. His rodent-features bent into a chill grin, and he slipped from the saddle and crept towards the source of the noise. Parting the tall grass like curtains, he beheld the filthy, shaking Roman, crouching, back turned, heaping more grass and twigs onto the feeble fire he had kindled. The man was shivering uncontrollably, dressed only in a light tunic, and his chestnut mare lay on its belly, still lathered with sweat from the relentless flight.

A swift beast and a skilful rider, aye, mused Veda, but you thought that when the horizon was between me and you, you were safe. That was your mistake.

Veda’s brow dipped, his eyes sparkling and fixed on the Roman’s neck as he silently drew a sickle from his belt. Then he leapt like a preying cat.

It was only the startled whinny of the exhausted mare that foiled his strike. The Roman swung round, throwing out an arm that caught the sickle blade as Veda descended. The blade slashed the edge of the Roman’s wrist and chipped bone, while the Roman’s fist crashed into Veda’s jaw. A burst of white light exploded behind Veda’s eyes and he rolled through the grass. An instant later though, he was back on his feet, only to see the Roman speeding off into the swaying, shoulder-high grass like a panicked deer, trying in vain to call back his bolting mare.

Veda noticed the dark rivulets of blood staining the grass and marking the Roman’s path. He touched his fingers to the blood, then brought them up to his nostrils, sniffing then grinning once more.

Run for your life, Roman. It’ll make the kill all the sweeter, he mused as he leapt back upon his steppe pony and heeled her on in pursuit. Just like the great hunt in the steppes, he enthused, I can toy with this dog. Circle him, herd him, pin him into a corner. . then peel the skin from his body. First, perhaps I should deal with his fleetness of foot. .

He drew his composite bow, nocked, drew with thumb, forefinger and middle finger, then loosed. The arrow whizzed through the air and thwacked into the Roman’s shoulder. Blood puffed and the Roman dropped into the grass and disappeared from sight.

‘No!’ Veda growled, angered that he might have killed his prey all too quickly. Then, when the Roman re-emerged, clutching his wounded shoulder and running — but with far less alacrity this time — Veda’s rictus returned. Chuckling, he took a swig of fermented mare’s milk and sighed in contentment, then trotted after the Roman.

He was gaining on the fleeing man easily, and took to eyeing the land ahead: foothills and rugged highland. He watched as the Roman burst from the edge of the sea of grass, then loped on into those hills. The man was weakening from his wounds, Veda noted with relish, seeing him scramble and fall as he tried to ascend a steep, craggy bank, leaving smears of blood from his wounds as he did so. Still, the dog managed to reach the top of this hill. Veda kicked his mount on in pursuit. At the crest, he halted, seeing the Roman flailing down the far side and then stumbling onwards along the floor of a great, steep-sided valley. And what a valley: it was as if a great plough had been dragged, undeterred, through the mountainous terrain. Then his eyes fell upon the broad stripe of dilapidated grey flagstones that ran up the heart of this valley. The Roman Road, Veda realised.

I had better be swift, he affirmed, fearing that the Roman might find shelter or comrades here. He hoisted his sickle and checked that the edge was keen. Keen enough to peel flesh, he mused, then kicked his pony into a gallop. The thunder of hooves on earth exploded into a loud clacking as the pony burst onto the Roman road. Veda leant from the saddle, holding the curved blade out, ready to swipe at the back of the Roman’s neck, almost tasting the scent of his bloodied wrist and shoulder in the air. Forty paces behind, twenty, five. He shrieked as he drew the blade back to swipe when, at the last, he pulled out of the blow. His nose shot in the air again, and his head switched to the small ash thicket on the southern valley side. There, a pile of fallen leaves rustled, something was hiding in there. Not an animal — something larger! Veda’s eyes bulged and at once he swung his composite bow from his back, nocked and drew with thumb, forefinger and middle finger. As he took aim, two silver figures burst from the leaves and in the same movement, hurled something at him.

The first lead-weighted plumbata pierced his chest and tore his heart in two. The second ripped his jaw from his skull. His arrow loosed askew as he was thrown back from the saddle. For Veda, the hunt was over.

Pavo staggered forward as the dart leapt from his grip, leaves falling from him and a grunt escaping his lips. Sura roared by his side, loosing likewise. The darts hammered into the Hun rider before he could loose his bow, and the arrow shot skywards as the rider fell back in a cloud of blood. Instantly, Pavo swung away from the corpse, his muscles tensed as he looked down the valley and off across the grasslands from where the Hun rider had come, sure this one was just the first of many. The streaking, scudding clouds overhead played tricks with his eyes, casting shadows across the hills like onrushing warbands. But the land was empty.

‘Just one rider?’ Sura said, panting by his side.

Pavo frowned, then glanced over his shoulder at the hobbling Roman the Hun had been pursuing. The man had fallen to his knees by the roadside, a handful of paces away. They could tend to him in a moment — first, there were bigger questions to be answered. ‘Why would a Hun rider be out here, alone? They ride in packs.’

‘Not another bugger to be seen!’ Zosimus called down to them from his lookout post — little more than a hole dug into the hillside to offer the sentries a modicum of shelter from the winds — on the opposite valley side. Cornix and Trupo were up there also, shielding their eyes and scouring the surrounding lands just to be sure. Eventually, they confirmed it. ‘Not a soul moves out there, sir.’

Zosimus jogged down the valley side, his eyes still combing the land. ‘That’s what worries me,’ he murmured to Pavo and Sura. ‘This advance watch was a good idea,’ he flicked a finger to each of the discreet lookout posts here at the start of the Succi valley, about a half-mile east of the pinch-point and the fort itself — Gallus had managed to convince the lethargic Geridus to establish this. ‘But still this bastard managed to ride within bowshot of us before we noticed him,’ he added, nudging the wrecked corpse of the Hun with his boot while Trupo and Cornix descended the northern valley side then came to help the wounded Roman to his feet.

Pavo nodded. ‘If more of them were to come this way, they might have us before we can get word back to the fort.’

‘More are coming,’ a desperate, panting voice said behind them. They turned to the wounded Roman. His face was caked in soot and dirt, but still they could see the greyness of imminent death beneath. Trupo and Cornix could not support his weight and he crumpled to his knees. His head lolled on his shoulders and his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

Pavo, Sura and Zosimus shared a chill look.

‘What did he say?’ Zosimus demanded.

Pavo dropped to one knee and cupped the man’s head in his hands. ‘More are coming?’

The man’s skin was damp with sweat and icy-cold, and Pavo felt the pulse on his neck weakening and slowing.

‘Who? From Where? How many?’ Sura added, joining Pavo in crouching before the man.

‘He has broken from Fritigern’s horde. . with his men. Five thousand men. He is coming. . to break this pass. . to ravage the western cities,’ the man slurred. ‘He took the gold mines of Abdera a week ago.’

‘Who?’ Zosimus demanded.

The man’s eyes flared as if recalling some nightmarish memory. ‘Far. . Farnobius,’ he finished. His next breath escaped with a death rattle.

Pavo stared into the dead man’s eyes, the last word ringing in his ears.

A gentle hubbub of muttering sounded across the fort plateau as the XI Claudia centuries got into line, marshalled by Dexion and Quadratus as the big Gaul readied to outline the training they would receive over the next few months to take them from raw recruits to battle-ready legionaries. Gallus stood nearby, watching over them. He saw the young lads’ eyes flick furtively towards him again and again, looks of fear, admiration, awe. Gallus felt only guilt; guilt that he knew his heart was not here with them as it should be. They were to be trained to die for their brothers and here he was, mind constantly drifting to the west, wondering, hoping, longing for nothing other than his chance to seize revenge.

As Quadratus strode menacingly back and forth before them, letting his silence stoke talons of fear within the young lads’ bellies, Gallus tried to concentrate on the job in hand. Martial rigour was one of the few things that eased his troubled thoughts, so he focused on the big Gaul’s crunching footsteps. One, two, three, four. . he counted.

Tink-tink-tink-tink. Came another sound, almost in time. From behind him? He blinked, frowned, glanced over his shoulder and around the plateau. Nothing. Then again, a moment later.

Tink-tink-tink-tink. It was here and yet not here. Before him and yet not. Coming and going with the fresh breeze. Was this some trick of the Gods?

As Quadratus gleefully started some vicious homily, Gallus turned away, sure this odd noise could be pinpointed. It sounded again — over by the fort gates, he was sure. He stepped towards it, ears pricking up, yet when he got there, it sounded again. . to his left? And as soon as he turned round to face that direction, it came again — tink-tink — but this time to his right. He swung in that direction to see the juniper grove; only a thick mesh of trunks and branches. ‘What in Hades is that?’ he whispered, turning back to face the troops again. Then he froze as, from the corner of his eye, something snagged. It was a hunter’s instinct. Had something moved in there, amongst the trees? Cold fingers of doubt walked up his spine as he turned back to the grove. He saw that, indeed, a branch of one tree was quivering. He stalked towards the grove, his breath held. As he did so he heard something else: the faint snapping of twigs and bracken within. Deer? he wondered, peering into the shadows. He reached up to part the branches and look inside, when a shrill cry pierced the air from behind him.

‘Sir!’

He swung round to face the cry, as did Dexion, Quadratus and all of the recruits. Three figures emerged up the scree path and stumbled onto the plateau. Zosimus, Pavo and Sura. The grave looks on their faces was enough to rid his mind of any other thoughts.

Moments later Gallus and Dexion were inside the principia, craned over Geridus’ map table, imploring the Comes to act. ‘Given the starting point of Abdera and the estimated pace of a Gothic horde, the rogue reiks will reach this pass within two weeks,’ Gallus insisted.

Geridus, seated as ever and outlined by the fire that blazed in his hearth, gazed at Gallus’ fingertip where it was stabbed into the map.

‘Five thousand Goths would swamp this pass,’ Dexion added. ‘You must see there is no doubting this.’

Silence. Then a loud slurp as Geridus drained his wine cup before pouring some more.

‘Sir, every moment we let pass is a moment that this Farnobius and his army approaches. We must, must, act,’ Gallus demanded.

Geridus swirled his wine cup, his expression unaltered.

‘Comes,’ Dexion tried again, ‘we need to bring reinforcements to this pass, or we need to fall back to where we can find them. Either way, we need you to give the order. This pass is yours. On your watch it will stand or fall.’

Geridus sipped his wine, his gaze drifting to the flames.

Gallus and Dexion shared an exasperated look. Then, when the Comes drained his cup and poured another, Gallus nodded to the door. He and Dexion strode to leave.

But a burring voice stopped them in their tracks. ‘Take my horses and my riders, then.’

Gallus swung on his heel.

‘You do know the danger that lies west of here?’ Geridus added.

‘Quadi, chaos, an imperium in turmoil. Aye, you described it all too well,’ Gallus replied.

‘Then take my horses and riders and hasten word to the west. Do whatever you must to garner reinforcements for this cursed pass.’

Gallus’ eyes darted, his mind combing over who from the Claudia would ride west with Geridus’ men. Himself and at least one other, he decided. ‘It will be done. I will lead the riding party personally.’

Geridus’ left eyebrow arched at this. ‘Then you are a brave soul, Tribunus. For unless you are swifter and hardier than all my men who have tried until now. . that westerly road will be the death of you.’

His words echoed around the room. Gallus ignored the creeping chill they brought to his flesh. And it will be the death of the blackhearts too, he thought, knowing that only by going west could he ensure Gratian would come for Thracia. He cleared his mind of this momentarily and thought of the many men he would be leaving behind. ‘What will happen here?’

Geridus looked up from the rim of his cup, his eyes rheumy and hooded from inebriation. ‘Here? Here the rest of the forces will remain. We have been tasked with holding this pass,’ the drunken veil slid away for just a precious moment, and his eyes brightened with a sad echo of long-lost vigour, ‘and that is just what we shall do.’

Pavo stood with the two formed-up centuries of the XI Claudia. He watched in silence as eight of Geridus’ riders saddled their horses by the fort’s gateway then hoisted themselves onto their mounts. They were dressed in scale and mail vests, flowing red robes and helms. This, he could accept. But the rider at their head, he could not. Gallus was saddled on a tall steeldust gelding. The tribunus wheeled a hand around, bringing the eight equites into line behind him, then faced the formed ranks of the Claudia.

‘I will be gone for weeks, maybe longer,’ Gallus said.

Pavo shook his head involuntarily. No, the voice inside said again.

The tribunus met the eyes of each of his men and added. ‘Emperor Gratian will hear of the situation in Thracia. More, I will do all I can to summon and despatch reinforcements to this soil before this bold reiks approaches. When Farnobius comes, you will not stand alone. I promise you this. In the meantime, bolster the defences here, draw what manpower you can from the countryside or the nearest towns. This pass must hold.’

Gallus and Pavo locked eyes for a moment. A gaze worth a thousand words.

Pavo’s thoughts crashed together in turmoil. The tribunus was to ride west at haste, through Quadi-infested lands until he made it to an operational Cursus Publicus waystation or all the way to Gratian’s court itself. He alone knew of the tribunus’ intentions if he crossed paths with the Western Emperor’s Speculatores. And at equal pace, Reiks Farnobius was coming for the pass. The giant who had slain Felicia was coming here. Pavo could stand and face the whoreson. Anger and angst lashed against one another as he beheld these twin concerns.

Gallus said nothing as they remained in that gaze, but the tribunus’ words from their chat a week ago surfaced in his mind.

Face the past, face the nightmares. Strike them down!

Pavo offered him the faintest of nods and the tribunus replied in kind.

Clopping hooves and the spluttering of a horse sounded behind Pavo. He barely noticed the noise, until he saw a look of guilt cross Gallus’ face, the tribunus dropping his gaze at last. Frowning, Pavo turned to see the source of the noise. It was Dexion, walking a black mare through the ranks and over to join the outgoing party.

‘Dexion?’ Pavo gasped, clutching at his brother’s reins.

‘I have to go,’ he whispered to Pavo, clasping his shoulder. ‘The legion can defend this pass without me. By the Gods, you have survived long enough before I showed up! I will bring Gallus back. Both of us will return, I promise you this.’ His tawny-gold eyes grew glassy, then he turned away and vaulted onto his mount, heeling her over to Gallus’ side. Pavo beheld this, the last of his kin, readying to leave. His chest and throat swelled and seemed set to burst with some plea for the pair to stay, but he knew they were right. Someone had to take word west.

‘In my absence, you have the legion,’ Gallus said soberly to Centurion Zosimus.

‘Sir!’ The big Thracian replied with a salute, his craggy features betraying not a droplet of fear.

Gallus and Dexion threw up a hand in a valedictory salute, and the formed ranks saluted them in reply. Pavo felt the gesture was akin to hurling a rock at the pair. But there was no time left. They had to leave, and leave they did, snaking from the plateau edge and off down the scree path at a walk. Once on the valley floor, he heard Gallus roar; ‘Ya!’ and the small riding party swung onto the Via Militaris and broke into a gallop for the west. He watched Gallus’ black plume and Dexion’s white plume as long as he could discern them. Finally they were gone and their dust cloud faded along with the thunder of hooves.

His lips moved just enough to whisper;

‘Mithras be with you both.’

Chapter 15

Just an hour later, the legion had eaten and a steely air of determination had settled across the fort spur. There was much to do, too much. But it had to start without delay. Pavo set down his barely-touched bowl of stew and bread and strode over to face the few centuries of the legion, standing by the juniper grove alongside Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura. The sea of youthful eyes that beheld them were beset with trepidation. Their bodies were still without enough muscle or carrying too much fat, and their stances and positions were wrong. Most troubling of all was that they now had less than two weeks to correct these life-or-death faults.

Zosimus was the first to break the silence.

‘Allright you skinny runts; you think the last few weeks have been hard?’

A few nodded, their more savvy comrades nudging them with elbows to stop them.

‘Ha! Well let me tell you that you’ve had it easy so far.’ The big Thracian centurion punched a fist into his palm. ‘Now it’s time to make legionaries out of you. Now you’re going to know what it feels like to pass out from pain.’ He stopped and let a foul grin spread over his anvil jaw, striding over to the ranks and leaning a little closer to come eyeball to eyeball with Cornix. ‘Now you’ll long to make it to the end of the day and enjoy a mouthful of soggy hard tack!’ He strode back and forth. ‘Running should sort you out, down the scree path to the Via Militaris then up the southern valley side. Once you get up to the top,’ he paused, the evil grin returning, ‘you come all the way back. Optio Pavo here will have a nice little surprise for you when you return, won’t you?’

Pavo read his cue and stood a little straighter. ‘Yes, sir! Now, you heard what the centurion said: strip down to all but your boots and tunics, into line and. . ’

Zosimus hurried over to their head as the recruits barged into each other in a panic. ‘. . move out!’

The jostling recruits followed Zosimus off the fort plateau and down the scree path towards the valley floor and the Via Militaris. As the big Thracian’s rhythmic encouragements faded, Pavo and Sura set about hammering chest-high stakes into the earth in a rough grid formation for sword practice. Pavo felt each thump numbly, his mind still in a scattered mess.

‘They’ll make it,’ Sura said.

‘What?’

‘Dexion, Gallus, they’ll make it to the West.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Pavo panted, lifting up the next stake.

‘Think of what Gallus has been through before. Then think just how angry he’s been in these last weeks. Now, who do you fear for most — Gallus and Dexion, or the poor Quadi who might dare to stand in their way?’

‘I know who my coins would be on,’ Quadratus chuckled, joining them in their task.

Pavo frowned at the pair, then broke down in dry laughter, before helping hammer another stake into the ground. The recruits returned a short while later, gasping, some staggering. The portly Trupo was the most spent of all, his face a shade of puce. Pavo and Sura ushered them into the forest of stakes, tossing wooden swords and shields to each as they passed.

‘And take your positions, one man to each post. Shields high, swords to the right and thrust, hack, feint, stab!’

The clack-clack of spathas delving into timber and the resultant spray of splinters went on for some time. Pavo saw how they held the weapons with fear and discomfort. The blisters would have to come soon, so the calluses could quickly follow, he mused. After that, familiarity with the blade would not be far behind. After an hour of this, Quadratus theatrically stretched his arms and yawned. ‘Hmmm, I quite fancy stretching my legs. Who’s with me for another run?’ The sweating, trembling recruits looked up, aghast. Silence. ‘Ah, that’ll be all of you then.’ With a chorus of muffled whimpers, they fell into line behind Quadratus. Off they went again down the slope from the fort and on up the southern valley side.

‘Mithras, I remember those days,’ Sura commented, piling up wraps of plumbatae darts for the next bout of training as he watched them go, ‘legs like rock the day after.’

‘Aye, and brains like dung,’ Zosimus said with a snort. Then he sighed. ‘Running will make them stronger and faster, but two centuries against five thousand?’

Pavo curled his bottom lip. ‘If nothing else, training them hard will keep their minds from what is to come.’

‘Aye, that is true,’ Zosimus chuckled. ‘Though some of us at least need to focus on that alone. This place is nothing like the great barrier we expected. If we’re to stand any chance, it has to become just that. . a barrier, a blockade.’

Pavo realised the big Thracian was looking to him and Sura. In his time in the legions, he had been dutifully led by officers who would position the centuries, devise the formations in a field battle and architect the defences in a blockade. Several ranks had stood between him and such discussions, but here, he realised he had to be part of it. Gallus was gone, Geridus wallowed in malaise within his fort, and Zosimus and Quadratus alone could not be expected to formulate their strategy.

He eyed the valley floor, the high ground of the fort plateau that he stood upon and the section of the southern valley side that bulged as if to meet it, then at the Via Militaris squeezing through the gap below. The narrow passage and the high ground were theirs to exploit. His mind began to dig at every feature of the landscape: the near-skeletal beech trees further along the valley side, the flat-spot on top of the southern bulge, the pock-marks on the Via Militaris where flagstones were missing. ‘There are things we can do here, things to make our numbers count for more.’

Zosimus’ eyes grew hooded and he nodded. ‘There certainly are. Come on then, let’s hear it?’

‘Could we block the pass?’ Sura mused first, his gaze fixed on the valley’s narrowest point between the fort spur and bulge on the southern valley side, opposite.

‘Given the time we’ve got we could throw up a timber wall, maybe,’ Zosimus mused, stroking his jaw. ‘That would keep our lads busy, certainly, and we all know the Goths don’t like walls.’ Then he turned round to eye the fort with disdain. ‘Though we should repair this place as a priority,’ he said, tracing out the broad, shuddering crack in the fort’s southern wall with a finger and then along past the crumbled battlements and the listing towers.

Pavo nodded. There was much to be done and so precious little time to do it. He heard Quadratus and the recruits panting as they returned up the scree path, and decided that a look around the southern valley side might spark some further ideas. As the recruits spilled back onto the plateau, gasping, spitting and wheezing, Pavo stepped up, setting down his helm and slipping his swordbelt and mail off. ‘And off we go again,’ he said, waving them with him. He ignored their groans and hoarse protests as they followed him back down the scree path, knowing that the pain in their limbs and lungs today meant more strength and speed in the days ahead.

Seven repetitions of this gruelling run they undertook, and by the end of it even Pavo struggled to gather in enough breath. By evening, his muscles had stiffened and he devoured two bowls of the spicy stew Cornix had prepared. As he ate, he heard the recruits talk of their day, some slapping others on the back in congratulation as if their training was complete now. A wry grin forced its way across his lips, and he saw Sura, Quadratus and Zosimus — sitting by the fire with him — grinning likewise.

Six days passed like this. Running, intensive sword and formation practice, plumbatae throwing, repairs to the fort, timber hewing and gathering for the wall and foraging to fill the fort’s stores. The relentless effort — leading the marches, shouting them into place until he was hoarse and rising before dawn to ensure everything was ready for the day ahead — kept Pavo’s mind from darker thoughts, and during those days he took heart in how much the recruits improved: they were no veterans — not by any stretch of the imagination — but at least now they held their spears and shields well. And the first calluses came by that sixth day; now they handled their swords with a degree of confidence, and each knew their place in the ranks — some even taking to correcting the others and ensure they were exactly one arm-width apart. But as he headed to his tent on the plateau on the sixth night, exhausted, he wondered how raw the scars of the fraught battle at the Great Northern Camp were in their minds. The chaos on the banks of the Tonsus came back to him: the screaming, the flashing Gothic blades, the blood. He had developed a tolerance to sights such as those. The soldier’s skin, they called it. But to the young lads it would have been raw, visceral, terror incarnate. And to those who had turned and fled, shame would be in that vile mix. They had hidden their fears well in these last days, though he had heard them chatting nervously about the approach of this feared Gothic Reiks and his horde. As he retired that evening, he even heard one ask another: when Farnobius comes, will you stand?

‘You will have to,’ Pavo mouthed to himself as he slumped onto his bed, ‘else Thracia will fall.’

This black truth troubled him until well after dark. It was only some hours after the rest of the legionaries in his tent had fallen into a chorus of snoring that he too fell into a deep, dark sleep.

Pavo felt the heat of Constantinople’s summer sun sear his skin. The shackle seemed to gnaw on his ankle and Tarquitius’ cries of glee were piercing. He felt the slave-trader unlock his chains, then felt the seas of hands pass him down like an animal to his new owner. This time, however, Pavo did not struggle. This time, he kept his eye on the spot at the rear of the Augusteum. This time, he saw the shadow-man earlier than usual.

Who are you? he mouthed, his eyes blazing under a dipped brow as he beheld the dark form. He noticed how the figure seemed poised, ready to spring from the darkness and into the writhing masses of the square. Just then, the hand of Tarquitius’ bodyguard wrapped across his mouth. He felt himself being dragged from the square, but refused to look away from that spot. The shadow man watched his plight.

Act now! Pavo shouted, shaking the bodyguard’s hand from his mouth. Come, buy me, mock me, slay me — do whatever you came to do. . just show yourself!

At this, the shadow-man stood tall. . and walked away.

The pink light of dawn woke Pavo. For once it was not with a start. He looked around the contubernium with a frown, angered at this persistent riddle. It is a dream and no more, he scoffed, longing to believe he could accept that. He sat up, his blanket falling from his bare chest, and noticed Cornis, Trupo and Auxentius stirring too. The urgency of all that was going on at this pass suddenly came to the fore.

Not a moment to lose, he thought, then rose with a groan, stretched his weary muscles, drew on his tunic and swept his woollen cloak around his shoulders. As soon as he emerged from the tent, he swiftly drew the cloak tighter as the morning chill bit at him. The plateau, the fort and all of the tents erected here in its shadow were shrouded in thick frost, glinting in the early sunlight. He heard the first groans coming from within the other tents. The recruits had been forewarned about ambulatum practice today — essentially full-step marching but with maneouvres thrown in too, each century tasked with outflanking the other and using the terrain to their advantage. Another day of relentless training, he mused, and we must work faster to fortify this damned pass, he realised, eyeing with dismay the roped outline of the yet-to-be-started timber stockade across the valley floor down below. Up here on the plateau, the huge crack in the fort’s southern wall had at least been mended with rubble and mortar, but the repair of the eastern and southern battlements was a laborious and slow job and the double gateway on the western wall still lay open and gateless. They were days behind in their plans already.

A moment later, another dark, cold thought gnawed at his belly. It had now been a week since Gallus and Dexion had left to ride into the grim westerly lands. What if. . he felt panic swirl in his breast, but caught it like a hornet, feeling it sting and thrash. . then crushed it. The effort left him drained, only moments after waking. But he couldn’t dwell upon it, knowing that every moment of every day was crucial.

Quadratus emerged from his tent too, groaning and stretching, then emitting a furious buccina-cry of sorts from his buttocks. ‘I’ll get the lads to work,’ the big Gaul said, then nodded up and along the steep northern valley side to the advance lookout post there, ‘you go and put Zosimus out of his misery.’

Pavo stalked to the rear of the plateau and then on up the steep embankment of the valley side and to the east, the scree and frosted moss underfoot crunching with every step and his breath clouding in the air as he climbed. A true buccina cry keened behind him shortly afterwards, and Pavo heard the recruits stumbling from their slumber and coming together for roll-call. When he reached the top of the valley, he heard the distant bleating of mountain goats and sheep and the chirruping of dawn birdsong. Not a soul to be seen on this bitterly cold upland. . except one.

He beheld the solitary form sitting in the dug-out shelter beside an unlit beacon. Zosimus’ cloak was clasped tightly around his shivering shoulders and his face was framed perfectly by the white linen scarf he wore tied around his head. His nose, lips and cheeks were a shade of indigo, his eyebrows speckled with frost like the earth around him. His face was bent in a scowl that said in no uncertain terms: harumph!

‘Change of guard, sir. Quiet night?’ he offered.

‘Eh?’ Zosimus started, turning to Pavo. ‘Ach, you know, pretty dull,’ he said, letting go of his life-or-death grip on his cloak so it fell round his back. ‘Don’t know why I bothered with this,’ he shrugged, stood up and stretched somewhat stiffly, grunting with every cracking joint. ‘Stewing, I was.’

Pavo noticed the centurion’s blue fingertips but thought better of goading him any further. He gazed around the morning horizon and then down into the steep Succi Valley, his gaze coming to the pinch-point of Trajan’s Gate from where he had come. ‘Emperor Trajan most probably stood here,’ he mused, ‘nearly three hundred years ago. Maybe he even had similar conversations?’

‘Maybe,’ Zosimus replied with a shrug. ‘Or maybe he waited down there in the shiny new fort, unable to speak because he was sucking on a whore’s tits and drinking Falernian while some lackey stood up here, freezing his cock off and standing watch?’

‘I can take the next night watch up here if you like?’ Pavo offered with a chuckle.

‘Why, so you and that bloody lunatic can cause some sort of ruckus?’ Zosimus nodded to the fellow sentry on the tip of the southern valley side. From here, Pavo could just about make out Sura’s blonde hair poking from the shallow lookout burrow by the ash thicket. Zosimus chuckled at his own jibe, before breaking down into a coughing fit then bringing up and spitting a greasy ball of green-grey phlegm. ‘Nah,’ he continued, ‘truth be told, I’m just glad to be away from Quadratus. He might be a tent away, but his foul gases know no boundaries.’

Pavo produced and offered a parcel of salted meat and hardtack to his centurion. ‘Busy day ahead. I thought you might appreciate this for the walk down?’

Wordlessly, Zosimus took the parcel and tore off a chunk of salted mutton in his teeth, then offered Pavo the hard tack. Pavo crunched into this and both men squinted into the sun, rising from the eastern end of the Via Militaris. The skyline of inner Thracia seemed at peace, serene. What a wicked illusion, Pavo mused, wondering just where beyond that horizon the bastard Farnobius was.

‘We reckoned two weeks,’ Zosimus mused, his thoughts clearly attuned with Pavo’s.

Pavo scratched at his scalp and nodded. It had been a week since the Roman rider and the pursuing Hun had come to this valley. He thought of the Goths, their number and their aptitude for moving in vast hordes at pace. ‘Then we should prepare as if he will arrive sooner.’

‘Agreed,’ Zosimus replied stonily. Then his mood lightened a fraction. ‘And we’ve been doing just that — did Quadratus tell you?’

Pavo’s frown was answer enough.

‘We spoke to Geridus last night, him and I. The Comes has agreed to cede command of his century of archers to us. He asks only that he can keep six of them back. . no idea what for,’ the big Thracian shrugged.

‘But the rest are ours and that’s what matters,’ Pavo said, lifted by this news, ‘seventy four more men with which we can plan the defence of this place. An extra seventy four pairs of hands to put the timber stockade in place.’ He too wondered for a moment why Geridus had kept back six men. He looked west and down the valley side, along to the fort. From this lofty vantage point, he could almost make out the hide-covered shape atop the fort’s southern gatetower. Whatever it was, it was big. And Geridus was particularly protective about that tower, keeping it locked at all times. The tower with the odd mass atop it, the six archers being held back. . and that infuriating tink-tink noise that had disturbed his sleep on some nights — all these oddities in this strange world of Geridus swirled in Pavo’s thoughts until he thought his head would burst.

More perplexing was the Comes’ continued lethargy; the man’s malaise was almost mocking the efforts of every other soul at this damned pass. What had caused such loss of self-belief? Some haughty officers had branded him a coward for his non-appearance at Ad Salices, and Geridus had accepted this as his lot. Yet the century of archers obeyed and respected him absolutely, and men do not follow cowards so readily, Pavo mused. And the other half of his legend — the genius that had earned the title ‘Master of the Passes’ was exactly what they needed right now. Guile, guts and confidence. The aged Comes was something of an enigma. ‘Just what are you, old horse?’ he muttered.

‘We’ll get through this without him, despite him, even,’ Zosimus remarked, following Pavo’s gaze.

Pavo felt a twinge of pity for Geridus, though he was not sure why. ‘He is no Barzimeres, sir.’

‘Aye, but his spirit is gone,’ Zosimus said, holding Pavo’s eye, ‘and a broken commander is just as dangerous as a bad one.’

Pavo considered backing Geridus again, but decided there were greater battles to be fought with the precious time they had. ‘The real problem we have is manpower. Geridus’ archers are a welcome resource, but we need more if we are to have any hope — not just to build these defences in time but to man them.’

‘Aye, we do,’ Zosimus agreed. ‘Our lads are stronger now, they know how to stand in a line, shield-to-shield. But even then we need another few hundred men at least if we’re to have enough spears to stand across the top of this timber wall and face Farnobius. . Goths only fear walls that have legionaries atop them. So aye, reinforcements would be a fine thing, but we’re relying on the tribunus and the primus pilus to bring such help to us when they return. . if they ret-’ he stopped, following Pavo’s instinctive and pained glance to the western horizon. ‘They’ll be back,’ Zosimus said in his best attempt at a concilliatory tone.

Pavo showed no emotion, but felt the big Thracian’s gesture of support like an arm round the shoulder. ‘I hear what you’re saying: any officer worth his salt would hope for the best and plan for the worst?’

‘Exactly,’ Zosimus said.

‘Then perhaps we should try to talk with Geridus again: as a Comes he must know of places near here where we can draw extra men.’

Zosimus sighed, his eyes drifting over the fort and the principia within its walls. ‘We can but try. I’ll speak to him when I go back down to the fort — I’ll try and sort out a meeting today, at the end of your stint up here.’ Then a dry grin spread across his face. ‘Who knows, the old bastard might even share some of his wine with us. It’d only be fair, given that I’ve spent the night up here, guarding his bloody pass, all alone with no bloody thanks or-’

Suddenly, a serrated, baritone bleating sounded just paces behind the big Thracian.

‘Mithras’ balls!’ Zosimus yelped then swept out his spatha, only to see a grumpy sheep eye him with disdain and utter another guttural, tortured bleat. ‘Think that’s clever, do you?’ he made as if to swipe the beast with his half-eaten stick of salted mutton, sending the creature into an ungainly flight off across the valley side. ‘Any more of it and you’ll be tomorrow’s ration!’ he called after it. Satisfied that he’d put the sheep in its place, the big centurion wandered off down the frosty hillside back to the fort. Pavo watched him go, then settled in the dug-out shelter Zosimus had spent the night in, and gazed out to the east. Thoughts of all the plans that lay half-finished and of the recruits’ readiness, or otherwise, for battle scampered across his mind. But one thought marched to the fore as he imagined what lay beyond the eastern horizon.

Bring your horde, Farnobius. I will be going nowhere.

This thought gave him but a heartbeat or two of focus, before he found his gaze drawn back over his shoulder to the west. His mind flashed with images of his brother and Gallus lying undiscovered on the perilous western roadside, grey, torn by savage blades and ruined by the carrion crows. ‘Why did you let me find him?’ he addressed the skies over Trajan’s Gate as if some deity hidden there might respond. ‘Why, only to snatch him away days later?’

He closed his eyes and tried to block out the black thoughts.

Ride swiftly, he mouthed.

At noon that day, Pavo sat with Quadratus, Zosimus and Sura around Geridus’ table. The aged Comes was slumped in his chair by the fireside. His iron-grey beard did well to hide what little expression there was on his tired features, and his bald pate glistened with a fine film of sweat.

Zosimus’ report was brief: ‘It has been a week and Tribunus Gallus has not sent back reinforcements. We have just two centuries of legionaries: most of whom have but weeks of training behind them, and they lack mail shirts, helms or decent boots. Saturninus could not hold the five northern passes with thousands of veteran legionaries, so how can we hope to hold this one with just this handful of ill-prepared men? Farnobius approaches with five thousand men. We will be obliterated. More, if this pass falls then Gratian’s western army will be diverted into a war with Farnobius’ horde. They will not be able to come to the aid of the Eastern Empire. The matter is simple: we need more men.’

An eternity passed, and it seemed as if Geridus did not care to respond.

‘You think I can conjure fresh men?’ he said at last in his throaty burr, watching the flames and swirling his wine cup. ‘From what — the dirt on the valley floor? I have given you all I possess, have I not?’ He waved a hand, irked and clearly well-inebriated. ‘My archers are yours and my riders are right now doubtless ringed by Quadi bandits on the westerly road!’

Pavo felt Zosimus’ ire. Geridus’ swift reply seemed to be pressing on the big Thracian’s shoulders like an iron burden. Gallus was not here to interject. The tribunus could be swift, subtle or acerbic as needed. But Zosimus, Pavo reckoned, probably felt only a pressing urge to grab this wine-addled giant by the shoulders and beat some sense into him. But the centurion composed himself and persevered. ‘But surely you know of regiments or vexillationes that can be summoned before Reiks Farnobius arrives?’

‘The Diocese of Dacia is bereft of legions, just like Thracia. But I know of smaller regiments that could stand against the number of Goths you expect. Fine, scale-clad cohorts. Veterans too,’ Geridus laughed. ‘Yet they are not mine to simply pluck from their bases like wooden figurines on a battle map. No, they are owned and kept closely by the venal-hearted, self-serving bastards who helped bring Dacia to its knees.’ His snarling tone shook the hall. ‘And if, without such manpower, this pass falls, what would they call me then. . the Fool of Trajan’s Gate?’ he said this and then chuckled bitterly and swigged again on his wine.

Zosimus met the eyes of Pavo and the others, as if garnering their support. ‘Sir, you speak of this as if there is no doubt.’

‘People have made up their minds about me, Centurion,’ he said, stroking his bushy white beard.

Zosimus’ brow furrowed, his eyes darting from the Claudia men with him to Geridus and back again. ‘Then let another try.’

Geridus arched one stark black eyebrow in reply.

‘Let my men try to levy these troops you talk of,’ Zosimus pressed on. ‘Just tell us where we should look.’

He waited for some form of response. It came only in the form of Geridus’ bloodshot and hooded gaze and the faintest of nods. ‘Take my last two horses then,’ he added at last, flicking a finger towards the door. ‘Go to Sardica, a day’s ride north-west of here.’

‘There are legionaries there — men we can levy?’ Quadratus asked.

Geridus conjured a weak smile. ‘Oh yes. But I can assure you that the self-serving bastard Governor of that place will give you exactly what he gave me. . nothing.’

Chapter 16

Gallus felt every fibre of his being screaming, straining, and longing to take a deep, cool lungful of air after their fraught dash for the last three miles.

Breathe!

But the slightest noise would be the death of them. He locked eyes with Dexion, pressed up against the frosty limestone ridge beside him with his white-plumed helm clutched to his heaving chest, then cast a glance down the line of six surviving but horseless equites hidden likewise. Concealed behind this ancient shard of rock, jutting from the land on the Via Militaris’ southern edge, they were but paces from the motley band of warriors standing on the highway. Gallus risked edging just a few inches to his right, enough to snatch a glance around the limestone rock. The deathly-pale, flat-faced, blue-eyed and red-haired Quadi leader wore a white, horn-plate vest, the segments of horn jutting like the feathers of an angered bird, and a bear pelt over his shoulders. This one and his band had pursued them all morning. Now he stood clutching a wickedly curved sica blade with the other hand in the air, one finger raised as if to orchestrate the utter silence of his sixty followers. They were bare-armed, shoulders and torsos wrapped in pelts and hardened hides and they each carried shield, axe, sword or spear and some wore bronze helmets. The leader’s cool gaze swept around the dark pine forest hugging the Via Militaris, and darted at every distant snapping twig or flurry of flapping wings within. At this hour — mid-afternoon — the light would betray the slightest movement.

‘Birgir,’ one of the Quadi whispered to the red-haired leader. ‘They are not here.’

Birgir thrust a flat palm at the warrior. ‘Oh, they are here. . ’

Gallus stifled a curse, knowing they could do nothing but remain frozen and hope to remain unseen. How has it come to this? He mouthed. After seven days of riding without incident, they had been camped that morning, horses tethered by a stream, when a volley of arrows from the trees had downed two of the beasts and caused the others to bolt in panic. A frantic scramble had followed as they fled along the road on foot, pursued by this band. Only a hill had left them unsighted long enough to slip out of sight behind this rock. But this Quadi leader had scented Roman heads as his prize, and was in no mood to let them slip from his grasp, it seemed.

A scraping of mail on rock sounded from one of the equites. Gallus saw Birgir’s head switch round to the limestone shard like a preying bird, and ducked back just in time. He saw the offending eques had sunk to his knees, overcome with weariness and starved of the breath his lungs craved. From the road, the slow, steady beat of approaching footsteps sounded. Dexion and Gallus shared a fraught glance. The footsteps changed to the crunch-crunch of boots on fallen leaves. Closer and closer, until only paces away. Gallus flexed his hand on his spatha hilt. Maybe if they could take down the leader they might have a chance. No, he affirmed, sixty men against himself, Dexion and these six he barely knew — it would be folly to die for such odds, and a slight on the name of those he sought vengeance for. He relinquished his grip on the sword, then stooped and hefted a small rock in his hand and tossed it up and over the limestone shard. The footsteps crunched ever closer, until they seemed to be just a pace away from rounding the limestone shard. Gallus’ hand returned to his spatha.

Then the clatter and crunch of the landing rock sounded, somewhere deep in the trees on the far side of the Via Militaris. A flurry of muted gasps and curses sounded from the waiting Quadi warriors on the road. The approaching footsteps ceased, then hurried away to the opposite roadside. In the racket that followed — spears being levelled and clacking into place at the edge of Quadi shields — Gallus sucked in the air his lungs demanded, then wasted not a heartbeat before waving his men away from their hiding place and off into the pine forest. The noise of their escape was concealed by the Quadi din and their focus on the northern side of the road. Gallus shot glances over his shoulder as they ran deeper into the dark forest. The light from the roadside was falling away. They were surely far enough away now — the Quadi cur and his men had lost the scent.

He was in the act of lifting his hand, readying to give his men the signal to slow, when an inhuman howl from the roadside sent a wave of dread across his flesh. He staggered to a halt, peering back at the pool of light and the roadside.

Dexion panted, his eyes widening as he saw it too.

Another Quadi tribesman had joined the others. This one had with him two whining, snarling, black mastiffs tethered on a length of rope. These hounds were in torment, straining at the leash, baying and yowling, desperate to be let loose into the southern forest. Gallus heard Birgir’s hoarse reprimand to the dog-man, then heard the man implore his leader, pointing into the southern forest whenever he could spare a hand. Gallus felt the hounds’ eyes pin him, then, when Birgir at last heeded his tracker and turned to look, he felt his blood run cold. The red-headed warrior’s brow dipped, his eyes piercing the gloom and raking over Gallus and his men. He raised his sica and pointed it into the woods, then uttered a rasping cry to his men.

In a flurry of motion, the Quadi spilled into the woods with a thunder of battle cries. The mastiffs were unleashed and their unrestrained howls seemed to sweep out and around Gallus and his thin band of men. They were coming at haste, spreading out like an eagle’s talons, readying to grasp their prey.

‘Run,’ Gallus growled. ‘Run!’

At once, they were loping across the bracken-floor, ducking under branches, charging through ferns and leaping over obstinate, knotted tree-roots. A hissing split the air and an arrow thwacked into the pine trunk by Gallus’ right, showering him with bark. Another hiss, this time met with the wet punch of flesh and an eques’ cry. Then another — the fleeing eques ahead of him toppling, clutching in vain at the arrow that had lodged in the back of his neck. His cries of agony were accompanied by gouts of blood from his nose and mouth. Another arrow glanced from Dexion’s helmet with an iron zing.

‘They’re drawing closer!’ Dexion bellowed.

Gallus heard the panting of the pursuing warriors clearly now. . and then the animal growling of a dog racing for him. He swung round just as the black mastiff launched itself at him. A swipe of his shield was just enough to throw the dog back, but the weight of the beast knocked him from his stride and sent him sprawling on the forest floor.

As he rolled round to right himself, he saw a trailing eques fall, screaming as the other mastiff snarled and gnawed on his leg, tearing a strip of flesh from the bone. A moment later and a Quadi spear to the heart ended the man’s torment. Dexion hauled Gallus to his feet yanking him away from another hurled spear. They tumbled on, The Quadi now hurling insults after them, growling and shrieking like demons.

‘We’re dead!’ Dexion gasped.

Gallus heard his primus pilus’ words, but only as a dull and distant echo. This was no place to die, not while justice evaded him. Then he heard something else, up ahead through the ever thickening trees: a dull, constant roar. Yet all he could see was the dark mesh of branches. His mind conjured up all sorts of visions of another Quadi warband waiting somewhere up ahead — the final phase of a well worked trap? Anger drove him on now. Whatever waited on him up there would feel the edge of his spatha. He would not die meekly. He urged Dexion and the three panting equites onwards. ‘Faster, faster!’

His cries ended abruptly when the mesh of branches ended and he burst into some sort of clearing. Bright, winter sunlight almost blinded him, but not before he skidded to a halt on the edge of a rocky precipice. He swayed, arms extended for balance, gawping down into a deep ravine. The roar of a waterfall at one end was deafening, its foaming white torrents toppling into the ravine, sending up a thick spray that caught the light and conjured brightly-coloured haloes, filling the base of the chasm with a fast-flowing watercourse that swirled and splashed around a series of jagged rocks. The youngest of the equites slid as he tried to halt himself, and that simple slip sent him flailing over the edge. Gallus and Dexion each shot out a hand to catch him, but both were too late. His cries filled the gorge as he fell, then a thick cracking of bones on one of the jutting rocks ended them flatly.

Gallus looked from the ravine to the trees behind him, the mist from the waterfall soaking him. From the treeline, the footsteps of the Quadi grew louder and louder. He, Dexion and the last two equites riders pushed up, back to back, Dexion’s white plume and Gallus’ black plume whipping in the spray.

A moment later, Birgir burst from the trees, sica hefted overhead as he leapt. Gallus swung his spatha up to cut across the man’s armoured chest, but this only shaved off a handful of the horn plates. Then he pulled his blade back to parry Birgir’s strike, but this only succeeded in deflecting the strike into the collarbone of the eques by his side, the edge plunging deep into the man’s chest cavity and ruining his heart and lungs. The eques crumpled as black blood spouted from the wound. Birgir let his sica fall with the stricken legionary then swept his longsword from his baldric, bringing it round for Gallus’ neck as the rest of his warriors burst into view, spears and swords ready to strike.

Gallus brought up his shield just in time to catch Birgir’s longsword blow, and felt the strike rupture the shield badly, splinters stinging his face and the shield handle breaking free of the rest. He threw down the useless guard and parried Birgir’s next blow with his spatha. A moment later, the last of the equites went down, slashed across the belly by a longsword. Gallus staggered back towards the precipice with Dexion as Birgir lined up to swipe across both of them, while the others took aim with their spears. This maw of steel came for him in a silvery flash, and he barely felt Dexion’s forearm slap across his chest and haul him back.

‘Jump!’ the primus pilus bellowed.

Gallus felt his boots kicking out, scraping at the edge of the precipice, then sensed a moment of utter weightlessness. For just a heartbeat, he was hovering there, above the void, Dexion’s bold cry of defiance ringing in his ears, the coloured haloes expanding and shrinking in the spray all around him, Birgir glowering from the cliff-edge, fiery locks whipping across his face, mouth wide in a cry of fury as he saw his prize slipping away. Then, as if time itself raced to catch them, they plummeted into the ravine like a ball of steel. The roar of the water intensified, the spray thickened and Gallus saw the world above shrink in an instant. So the rocks below would be his resting place, he realised, and closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

When it came, it was like the kick of a mule. It knocked everything from him.

Blackness.

Olivia crouched beside him, like a Capsarius would by a wounded soldier on the battlefield. He dared not blink lest it dispelled her image into the swirling, misting ether that surrounded them. Her fawn skin, her dark, sleek locks and her almond eyes were all he wanted to behold. Now and forever. Suddenly, the patter of lighter footsteps sounded, and little Marcus came to his mother’s side, clutching her, his eyes wide with fright for but a moment as he stared at Gallus.

‘Father?’the boy said.

Gallus’ heart broke at the sound. He reached up to stroke the boy’s face. ‘Is this real?’

Olivia leaned over to kiss Gallus’ brow. ‘Only you know the answer to that.’

‘Then I will stay here in search of the answer.’

But Olivia shook her head. ‘You have chosen a road that will bring you here in good time,’ she said, her voice laced with sorrow, ‘but your journey is not yet complete.’

‘No, I welcome this as the end of my journey,’ Gallus protested.

Olivia smiled a mournful smile. ‘You forget just how well I know you. Just as the sun marches across the sky and does not stop before it reaches the western horizon, neither will you yield before you stand before those you seek.’

He clasped her hands. ‘But I will come to you in the end?’

She hugged Marcus closer, then wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘Aye.’

Gallus saw how she looked up and around, her eyes fearful as if knowing what lay behind the mist. He wanted nothing more than to hold them both at that moment, to assuage their fears, to protect them as he should have done. But the mist thickened, coiling around them like tentacles. ‘No,’ he said, his voice weak and distant as he reached out for them. But as his arms stretched, they grew distant, fading into the fog.

No. . no! he cried out.

The mist faded and instead he saw just rising coils of smoke, heard the crackling of a fire. The memories of Olivia and Marcus’ bodies on the pyre came for him like wraiths.

No!

‘Sir!’ A voice cut through the gloom. The veil of blackness fell away and at once he was surrounded by dazzling orange flame and wracked with pain. He realised he was lying prone and shot to sitting, erupting in a fit of rasping coughing. His lungs felt as if they were on fire and white-hot pain lanced through battered ribs. He blinked and shielded his eyes from the fire.

‘Do not try to stand, sir,’ the voice spoke again.

‘Dexion?’ he croaked, seeing the primus pilus, face smeared with dirt and sweat, crouching by his side and hugging a blanket to his shoulders. Only now his surroundings became apparent. The all-surrounding fire was but a small campfire crackling away beside him within a ring of stones, sporting a silvery eel on a spit and some soggy hardtack toasting on twigs. They were sheltered in a cove by the side of a calm brook, and the firelight and a clear, starry night illuminated the outline of the craggy ravine high upstream. On the other side of the stream and hugging the edges of the cove was the ubiquitous, thick pine forest. Gallus saw his outer clothes and Dexion’s resting atop a frame of twigs near the fire. Memories of the plummet into the ravine rushed back to him.

‘How long have I been unconscious?’ he asked, alarm overcoming him as he noticed the absence of his swordbelt.

‘Since yesterday,’ Dexion replied, throwing down the scabbard and belt. ‘And it will be a few days at least before you can wield that again, or wear your armour,’ he said, nodding to the neat pile of Gallus’ mail shirt and helm inside the cove.

‘A whole day has passed?’ Gallus frowned. A fiery pain flared in his side again and he touched a hand to his aching ribs.

‘They are not broken, just bruised. I checked,’ Dexion said. ‘The fall nearly knocked me unconscious too but, er. . ’ his face grew somewhat ashen, ‘. . you sort of broke my fall.’

Gallus snorted dryly at this, then winced, clutching a hand to his wounds, before drawing his swordbelt closer and looking askance at the fire — a beacon in lands like these. ‘But the Quadi, they are hunters, they must know to look downriver for us?’

Dexion shook his head. ‘They are gone. I trekked back up the side of the ravine — keeping myself out of sight, of course,’ he said, gesturing to his dirt-smeared features. ‘I heard them arguing before that cur, Birgir, ordered them to abandon the search. We’re alone out here.’

Gallus cocked an eyebrow. ‘Alone, apart from the many other brigands and barbarians who seem to be roaming these lands with impunity.’

Dexion sighed and sat beside Gallus and handed him a water skin. ‘Geridus had a point — this stretch of the highway is no more under imperial control than the distant frozen northlands.’

Gallus took a long and welcome pull on the water skin. The cool brook water seemed to soothe his fiery airways and calm his groaning belly. ‘It is worse than the Comes described. What else was there to protect those travelling the Via Militaris but the fire-blackened watchtowers and empty forts we passed on our ride? And it is thought to be like this all the way to Singidunum in Pannonia. . what chance do we stand of making it to. . ’ he stopped, looking to Dexion. ‘You know we are not turning back, don’t you?’

Dexion shrugged, lifting a twig from the fire and taking a piece of toasted hardtack from the end. ‘I suspected you might say that. And why should we? To return without having passed word to Emperor Gratian, eight men lighter. . that would serve nobody. In any case, we are more than half way into the troubled stretch — closer to the upper Danubius than to Trajan’s Gate. To go back might be more dangerous than to proceed. And I promised Pavo we would return safely.’

Gallus accepted a chunk of the toasted hardtack and chewed upon it, nodding in appreciation. ‘Then our thinking is attuned. Though now we are on foot, and I fear the journey will be grim in either direction.’

Dexion’s tawny-gold eyes glazed over and the firelight danced in them. ‘So be it.’

As Dexion tended to the eel, turning it in the flames, Gallus’ mind flitted with thoughts. This journey was his and his alone. At the end of the journey waited his prize: vengeance. . and then? Were he to be struck down having meted justice then Olivia’s words would prove true; eternity in that foggy netherworld would be his reward. But did Dexion deserve to be tangled in this deadly quest? Yet what can I do — continue on alone and send this man back through the treacherous route we have just endured, alone? he reasoned.

Gallus closed his eyes and saw the grey, marching ranks in the blackness of his mind. The shades that would never leave him. How many hundreds, thousands, now? I’m sorry, he mouthed, resting his forehead in his palms, imagining the eight brave equites joining the endless procession, trying as best he could to fend off the forming image of Dexion along with them.

‘Those riders died on the edge of Quadi blades,’ Dexion said.

Gallus looked up, somewhat shocked that the primus pilus had read his thoughts. But he saw that Dexion was absently carving the meat from the eel, his gaze distant and their deliberations having coincided.

‘As would we had you not tossed us from that precipice,’ Gallus added. ‘It takes a brave man to do what you did. You saw what happened to the rider who fell and landed on the rocks, didn’t you?’

‘Aye, I will not forget either,’ Dexion said, handing him a thick cut of eel flesh. ‘But at that moment, I had two choices: die meekly and have my head taken to some Quadi chieftain’s hall to be displayed like a trophy. . or jump. Jump and probably be dashed on the rocks, but maybe, just maybe, to land in the water and not drown or crack my head on the bed of the ravine.’

Gallus nodded, chewing on the eel meat — tough but instantly innervating.

‘In the end, that sliver of possibility won. We’re alive. Those men did not die in vain, for we might still achieve the two things you set out to,’ Dexion continued.

Gallus stopped chewing, a sense of guilt and selfishness overcoming him. Vengeance? Justice?

‘To take word to the Western Emperor and see Thracia relieved by Gratian’s armies. . and to return to the XI Claudia and to my brother. The last one may well be selfish, I know, but-’

‘Pavo has endured a troubled life,’ Gallus said. The words were instinctive and surprised him. ‘There is nothing selfish in wanting to be near to and protect those you love.’ He felt his ravenous appetite wane after only a few mouthfuls of meat, and took to swigging water instead. At that moment, he longed to be back in the misty netherworld, with them in his arms.

The fire crackled and they said nothing.

‘Will you return to Olivia’s side, sir?’ Dexion said at last.

Gallus switched his gaze upon Dexion like a brand. ‘What did you say?’

Dexion’s face paled. ‘I. . your wife? You spoke her name in your sleep, over and over. I assume she is the one you would want to protect, to be beside?’

‘Then you must have heard incorrectly, Primus Pilus,’ Gallus snapped, tossed the remaining scrap of eel meat into the flames then pushed himself to his feet. His body was riven with spasms of pain and at once he wanted nothing more than to crumple back to the earth, but Dexion’s words taunted him.

I assume she is the one you would want to protect, to be beside?

‘Sir, I didn’t mean to overstep the mark,’ Dexion pleaded.

‘Tomorrow will be a hard march, but my wounds won’t slow me,’ Gallus said, gazing around the night sky, then unhooking his now-dry and smoky-scented cloak from the fireside and sweeping it around his shoulders like a blanket. ‘It would be prudent to get as much rest as we can before then.’

He uncorked his water skin and emptied the contents over the fire. With a hiss, the flames were doused, the gentle orange light was extinguished and the cove fell into blackness.

They rose at dawn the next day to find the cove dusted with a thick frost. Pools near the brook were frozen and the air had a fierce bite to it. After a light breakfast of hardtack and salted meat and very little conversation, they set off and stayed clear of the Via Militaris — instead moving along the forested lands hugging its southern edge. In here at least they were as veiled as any other cur hiding in the undergrowth in this troubled territory. Indeed, they actually observed two more Quadi bands using the Roman road as if it was their own.

‘Geridus talked of Sarmatian riders in these parts — allies, he called them. They seem to be as absent as the legions,’ Dexion mused, more to himself than to Gallus.

Gallus realised it was one of the few things the man had said all day. He felt a prickle of embarrassment on his neck as he realised how much his hasty rebuke the previous evening had cowed the man. As if to add salt to his discomfiture, his bruised ribs flared with pain. ‘They are thought to be in the north, nearer the River Danubius,’ he replied as clearly as he could without sounding snappy. But his primus pilus’ point was a strong one: they had so far tried and failed to rouse reinforcements to despatch back to Trajan’s Gate: most forts they had passed were deserted, ruined, or with only skeleton garrisons. And then there was Sardica. He could not help but emit a low growl as he remembered the fraught and brief exchange with the Governor of that city.

‘Then this place is little more than a Quadi kingdom; a sea of tribesmen with precious few islands of imperial authority,’ Dexion surmised. ‘Much like the situation in Thracia with the Goths.’

‘The Goths number hundreds of thousands. The Quadi are few and will scatter like rats when Gratian brings his army east along this path. They are merely taking advantage of the empire’s plight in other areas: as the armies are drawn to the areas of trouble — in Thracia, Persia or the Rhenus — the regions they leave behind are at the mercy of such banditry. It has always been this way. Believe me, I have seen it often enough.’

They marched on into the afternoon, noting that the clear morning sky was gradually being swallowed by ominous grey clouds. A short while later, the forest thinned and the sky unleashed a ferocious icy deluge upon them. The chill rain soaked them in moments despite the protective canopy of forest, then it turned to sleet, stinging them and numbing their extremities. The wind picked up too, sparring with them like a fist-fighter, denying their efforts to press on. Before the light had faded, both men struggled to control chattering teeth and the sleet grew blinding, driving at them.

‘We need to stop, sir,’ Dexion implored him. Clasping one hand to keep his cloak around him and the other pointing to a sheltered dip in the forest floor — the hole left behind when a giant pine had toppled and brought its roots up with it.

‘We can only be a few days from the Danubius. There, surely, Roman rule will be enforced. There, we will find riders to take word to Emperor Gratian. There, we will find reinforcements that we can send back to Trajan’s Gate. We march until darkness is upon us,’ Gallus snapped. Only as he said this did he notice the light was already slipping away.

‘Sir, tomorrow we can march at pace, but only if we find warmth and shelter for tonight.’ Dexion’s face was drawn and weary, and his eyes seemed to search Gallus. ‘If anything it will hasten our journey and. . ’ his words faltered.

Gallus saw the passing fear on Dexion’s face and felt his stubborn, icy resolve thaw. ‘Aye, wise words, Primus Pilus. Let us gather kindling before the light fails.’

Chapter 17

Pavo and Sura stood by a babbling fountain at the heart of Sardica’s forum, each carefully scooping and throwing water over their faces after their hasty march. The city’s frost-coated mighty walls and turrets enveloped them in every direction, leaving just a broad square of grey sky overhead. They had marvelled at the immense arena sitting just outside the city, and admired the tall, sturdy walls too, but Sardica’s interior was even more impressive: broad streets embellished with columns, statues and sculptures to rival Constantinople itself. A vast basilica hemmed one edge of the forum, and an ornate, marble-fronted bathhouse stood at the other end. The upper tiers of the colossal arena they had marvelled at outside the city jutted even higher than the southern walls. All around them, the populace wandered, chattering, carrying wares from the market. Some were togate in the ancient tradition, many wore fine silk robes. Barely a beggar to be seen, and not one soul carried an inkling of fear in their eyes. The closest they came to showing any sign of upset was when they meandered past the fountain, noses wrinkling slightly as they looked askance at Pavo and Sura’s grubby, dusty features, tattered military garb and dull, battered helms they carried underarm.

Pavo snorted at one shrew-like woman who scowled at them. ‘They act as if the fate of the world outside these walls is not theirs to be concerned with?’

‘Aye, and they’ve got men to spare, it seems,’ Sura nodded to the battlements where a healthy garrison was posted, wrapped in scale vests, fine red cloaks and wearing polished intercisa helms that looked as if they had yet to be blessed with the swipe of a Gothic sword. ‘A good cohort’s worth, I’d say. Comitatenses too — well hoarded within these walls when they could have been put to good use outside. They should be able to spare at least half for us, eh?’

Pavo held Sura’s innocent look of hope for a moment to be sure he was being serious. ‘Let’s just meet with the governor first? Ah, here we go,’ he added, looking over Sura’s shoulder to the pair of scale-clad legionaries who approached.

‘Governor Patiens will see you now,’ the tallest one said as if addressing a beggar rolling in his own filth.

Patiens lay on his side, stretched out on a quilted day bed in a chamber just off the palace’s peristyle garden. He stroked an evil-looking cat — completely hairless like its master though lacking the gaudy paint Patiens wore on his face. Around him sat a ring of well-fed nobility, their jowels wobbling as they laughed uproariously at his tales. Pavo and Sura were stripped of their swords then shown inside by the ascetic legionary pair. Unlike the frosty streets outside, the chamber was warm like a summer’s day, and Pavo felt the heat rise from the tiled floor and the hypocaust underneath. The walls were painted with bright scenes of blossoming orchards and gardens — every flower in bloom and every fruit ripe — birds and insects and bright-eyed people in fine robes, eyes wide as if fixated on Patiens’ tales too. However, on hearing the man’s weak rhetoric and woeful humour — mostly based around highlighting how rich he was — it was clear to see this lot were mere sycophants.

The pair came to the rear of Patiens’ ring of admirers. Pavo noticed the table in the centre of the gathering, laden with many jugs of wine, goose livers, stuffed birds and roast goat. His mouth suddenly moistened and his belly gurgled, a little too eagerly.

Patiens halted his tale mid-sentence, his jovial demeanour at once falling away and a cold air replacing it. He looked to the legionary sentries escorting Pavo and Sura, flicking his head up a fraction as if to demand an explanation.

‘Legionaries from Thracia, Dominus.’

Patiens’ expression darkened further and he waved a hand to dismiss his two men.

All heads turned to Pavo and Sura.

‘Well?’ Patiens said, his neck extending and his face agape as if mocking them.

‘I am Optio Numerius Vitellius Pavo of Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, Second Cohort, First Century, sir.’

‘Very good. Well done!’ Patiens sat tall, clapped his hands frantically and guffawed, looking round his ring of toadies and rousing harmonising laughter from them too. ‘Will that be all?’

Pavo felt the utter lack of respect like a stinging slap. Before replying, he had to remind himself of the huge gulf in rank between Patiens and himself. ‘We have been sent here from Trajan’s Gate in the Succi Pass. There, Comes Geridus commands only two centuries of legionaries and one of archers. He is tasked with holding the pass in anticipation of Emperor Gratian’s march east. Such a small garrison might have been adequate at the outset of this strategy, but the situation has since changed — the Gothic horde has broken through the Haemus Mountain passes and now holds central Thracia.’

He paused, expecting a reaction from Patiens. The man just glowered at him as if being pestered by some over-attentive slave. Then an incongruous and strained smile bent his face. ‘Ah, Geridus — the Coward of Ad Salices — he finds himself at a more suitable, lowly station does he? The windswept furrow that is Trajan’s Gate sounds like an ideal home for such a craven fool!’

At Patiens gentle upwards flick of his hands, the ring of admirers hooted with laughter, gripping their bellies and throwing their heads back in a sickening show of flattery. ‘The doddering oaf cried his way out of battle,’ Patiens roused them, feigning hysterics, ‘and now spends his days weeping over his own failures!’ The chamber shook with the hilarity this apparently deserved.

Pavo thought to defend Geridus but shook the notion away. ‘Sir, a wing of the Goths are right now coming west. Five thousand men, led by a murderous bastard,’ he said this and had to stop to compose himself. But the venom behind the last word brought wide-eyes from the onlookers. ‘They are set on breaking through Trajan’s Gate and spilling into these lands,’ he jabbed a finger at the fine, heated and tiled floor. Still, no reaction. ‘Governor, should they succeed then your fine city is the first they will fall upon.’ Now he fell silent and vowed to remain that way until the man replied.

Patiens’ nostrils flared. ‘These leeegionaries from Thracia seem to have brought our gathering to an end.’ He flicked up his hands as if to wave the toadies away.

One long-necked and cross-eyed groveler misread Patiens’ signal and erupted in laughter at this, only to fall instantly silent and hang his head in shame as the Governor shot him an icy look. Patiens clapped his hands this time and, like a flock of scattering geese, his audience was gone. The governor stood and waved Pavo and Sura with him. He walked with a swaying gait, muttering to himself as he went, leading them up a red-veined marble staircase that wound through floor after floor. They came to a green-speckled porphyry chamber that opened out onto a semi-circular balcony edged with a carved balustrade. The view was a vertiginous and fine one, overlooking the fine street plan of Sardica’s halls, villas, gardens and markets. Many storeys high, it even afforded a perfect vista beyond the city’s walls and down into the floor of the arena just outside. The chill winter air up here was spiced with sweet woodsmoke from small sconces glowing at the corners of the balcony.

Patiens absently admired his fine city, as if he had forgotten about his visitors. Pavo and Sura shared a concerned look, each conscious of the vitality of every passing moment.

‘Sir, of all the matters that trouble my legion, time is the-’

Patiens raised a hand to cut him off. ‘Your tribunus passed through my city over a week ago. I know all there is to know.’

Pavo felt a wave of relief. ‘Tribunus Gallus was here?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Patiens waved his hands dismissively. ‘His primus pilus and eight riders too.’

Dexion! Pavo felt the hard ball of tension that had lingered in his stomach since his brother and Gallus had set off ease just a little. Still much might have happened to them since they had passed through here, but it gave him hope.

‘They were in a damned hurry to ride west,’ Patiens continued. ‘Like you, they thought they could simply commandeer my garrison. They were wrong.’

‘Sir, the matter is simple. With just the few hundred men we have currently, the pass will fall and Farnobius’ Goths will be at your walls before long. More, this will divert Emperor Gratian’s campaign away from Thracia, and might even condemn those lands to defeat at the hands of the main Gothic horde.’ He stepped forward, daring to rest his hands on the balcony by Patiens’ side like an equal — a step too far on the rungs of social etiquette, probably, but the issue had to be pressed. ‘Grant us three of your centuries, sir, and the pass can be held.’

‘Can be held? You don’t sound so sure, legionary,’ Patiens hissed, eyeing him askance.

‘Victory cannot be guaranteed. Few things in life can — bar the scorching sun in June and that high tides will follow low. . and that if we do not have more men and weapons and armour to equip those already at the pass, it will fall.’

Patiens forced a woefully inadequate smile. ‘Fine walls protect my city,’ he said. ‘I am no military man, but Goths do not break down city walls, or so I believe.’

Pavo frowned and snatched a glance over his shoulder to see Sura’s eyes narrowing too. ‘No, but they build ladders and swarm up them like maddened ants. They might not take your walls, but by Mithras, they will try. . and there are plenty of them to replace those who might fail at first. Spare your citizens the threat of hearing these barbarous whoresons clawing at the battlements.’

‘A cohort of comitatenses legionaries makes a strong garrison for these fine walls,’ Patiens continued as if Pavo had not spoken. ‘Were I to dilute their number on some lost cause. . ’

‘Sir, I implore you,’ he reached out to clasp the governor’s arm. A screech of steel halted him.

‘Not another inch,’ a stony voice spoke from the archway leading out to the balcony. Pavo and Sura swung round to see the grim legionary pair standing there, the tall one’s spatha part unsheathed.

Pavo backed away, a dull nausea churning in his gut. No men, no arms, nothing. He looked to Sura and saw his friend looked as lost as he felt.

‘I will grant you something, however,’ Patiens continued. He beckoned Pavo and Sura back to the balcony edge, offering a placatory palm to his own soldiers. For a moment, Pavo wondered if the next thing he would feel was the grim-faced legionary’s hands butting into his back and throwing him over. Instead, Patiens reached out and pointed. Pavo followed the line of his outstretched finger, and a momentary optimism gripped him when his eyes ran over the barracks of the legionary garrison. Auxiliary centuries? Maybe not the same prospect as hardened comitatenses legionaries, but men that knew how to stand and fight.

The twinkling of hope extinguished when Pavo saw that the governor was in fact pointing at the insulae — the serried rows of ramshackle tenements behind the barracks.

‘The slums are a stain on my city. Some say it is a necessary one, but I find the antics of the rats in that licentious maze nothing but an insufferable distraction.’ Patiens swung and nodded to his two guards. One of them hurried off inside. ‘You need men? You can have your pick of men from the taverns and shacks in that quarter of the city,’ Patiens grinned. ‘And I will even fund you for doing so. I’ll even have wagons of armour and weapons ready for you by the time you leave — and I assume that will be soon?’ he said, his eyebrows rising as if demanding an affirmative.

Pavo nodded, unable to judge this offer as a curse or a blessing, nodded.

‘And we have an understanding that once this gift has been granted, there will be no further attempts to requisition men or supplies from my city?’ Patiens added.

Pavo nodded, his face stony.

Patiens’ sickly smile reappeared and he clapped his hands twice in quick succession. Footsteps rattled up the stairway and the legionary returned, carrying with him a small sack that jangled with the unmistakable clunk of coins. He held it out for Pavo.

Pavo took it, eyeing the sack and reaching out for it gingerly.

‘Don’t get too excited, Legionary. It is merely a few handfuls of bronze folles. Enough for you to conjure the rats from their layer,’ he nodded to the slums again, a feral grin spreading over his features. ‘If they do not devour you. . ’

‘Duck!’ Sura yelped, hauling Pavo down just before a foaming cup of ale hurtled across the tavern and exploded against the far wall.

‘Mithras’ balls!’ Pavo gasped, then pushed Sura with him to avoid the rolling, thrashing tangle of three men beating Hades out of one another. Fists swung and boots sunk into bellies. The pair backed away from the brawl until they reached the grimy rear wall, wincing as they felt their backs stick to some unknown substance staining it. The grim inside of this place was nearly as dark as the night outside, with just a few candles and lamps lighting the ramshackle interior. The fighting mass tumbled this way and that, throwing up a haze of sawdust from the floor. All the carousing drinkers nearby roared with laughter, spat or threw punches and kicks as the fighters passed. A smirking, grey-faced fellow by Pavo’s side chuckled darkly as the one-eyed fighter with the wild brown hair, who seemed to be taking a merciless beating from the other two, suffered a finger being pushed into his good eye. This sent One-eye leaping back, arms milling round, knocking chairs over and shredding the table he landed on — ale fountaining everywhere.

‘Shouldn’t the tavern keeper step in here? This place will be kindling by morning!’ Pavo shouted over the tumult to the smirking man.

The man looked at him blankly for a second. ‘I am the tavern-keeper,’ he grinned. ‘And why would I want to stop the brawl?’ He patted the bag tied to his belt. Coins — more than Pavo had hidden in his cloak. ‘I make more from these fights than I do from selling drinks.’

‘They bet on this?’ Sura gasped.

‘Why not?’ The tavern-keeper shrugged, then took to roaring in delight, punching the air before him as One-eye came back, threw a hook at his first attacker then lunged in to head-butt the second on the bridge of the nose. The crack of snapping bone sent the second into a heap, but the first recovered quickly from the hook and barged One-eye to the filthy floor, then raised a foot as if to stamp on his foe’s head, but One-eye was sharp. Like a cat, he grabbed his attacker’s raised shin and hoisted himself up. His jaws opened, his foul teeth bared, his good eye sparkling. . before he sank his fangs into his attacker’s groin.

The noise that followed was something akin to a snarling hound tearing at flesh accompanied by the shrieking of a hoarse woman. With a meaty ripping noise, the fight was over. One-eye stood up, spat his opponent’s testicles onto the floor, dabbed entirely inadequately at the blood around his mouth and chin with a soiled rag of cloth, then brushed the sawdust from his person.

Sura turned away and threw up on the floor as the sawdust-flecked testicles rolled to a halt before him. Pavo felt his guts weaken too, and only caught himself when he realised One-eye was glowering at him now. The eye was judging him, suspicious of the leather bag in which Pavo’s mail shirt and helm were concealed in.

‘Hold on, you’re military!’ One-eye said, swaying, puffs of bloody spit clouding the air as he spoke. The babble in the tavern died and all eyes fell upon Pavo and Sura.

‘Not tonight,’ Pavo waved a hand as if sweeping away the attentions of the crowd — an action which in any case failed.

‘One of Patiens’ lot?’ a sturdy, lantern-jawed thug sitting in the corner growled. ‘The last of his shiny bastards that visited this place went missing, did they not?’ The dark chorus of laughter from all around sat uneasily with Lantern-jaw’s stiff glare, fixed on their military tunics.

‘We are legionaries, aye, but not Patiens’ men,’ Sura insisted.

‘Still, you’re not welcome here,’ the surly thug replied.

‘Unless they fancy a fight?’ One-eye cut in, his blood-soaked face bent in an awful grin, looking to the tavern keeper as if to start another round of betting.

Sura flinched at the suggestion, and Pavo felt a sudden vulnerability around his groin area. ‘We’re here to have a drink, slake our thirst. . then we’ll be gone. We don’t want any trouble.’

Lantern-jaw scrutinised them for a moment, then waved a finger to the tavern keeper. ‘Then have your drink and be gone,’ he said. The tavern keeper brought two cups, a jug of wine and a half-loaf of bread over to Pavo and Sura, ushering them to a free spot at one table.

They sat, munching into the bread — stale but welcome in their empty bellies all the same — and supping on the vinegary and greasy wine. The attention faded from them and the general babble of swearing, cackling and arguing struck up again. Then he noticed lantern-jaw through the forest of bodies and limbs, watching them from the corner.

‘Gah!’ Sura recoiled from the wine. ‘This stuff is vile.’ He lifted his water skin surreptitiously and watered the drink down, adding some to Pavo’s cup too. Supping it and managing not to scrunch up his face too much, he added; ‘so that was probably the worst possible start to our efforts. One-eyed maniacs, bitten bollocks and a tavern full of legionary-haters.’

Pavo sighed. This was the place, they had been told by a toothless hag in the streets, where the men of the slums went every night. ‘To scramble their minds and poison their bellies,’ Pavo muttered, repeating her description.

‘Eh?’ Sura said, cocking an ear towards him.

‘Nothing. This was a wasted trip. Patiens is using us to try and lure some of these thugs from his streets when he should have given over some of his centuries. If Gallus had the time to remain here and demand soldiers, I doubt he would have ended up in this latrine.’

Sura clacked his cup to Pavo’s in a gesture of support. ‘You pressed Patiens and pressed him well. The man is an eel. I was up for kicking his balls, but I suppose that’s why you’re an optio and I’m not.’

Pavo half-smiled and took a swig of his foul wine. ‘Regardless, we will walk out of this city tomorrow morning with no fresh men. Come on,’ he said, standing and pushing his stool back, ‘we should find a place to sle-’

A hand like a ham clamped down on Pavo’s shoulder, pushing him to his stool again, and another punched a dagger blade into the desiccated timbers of the table. Lantern-jaw sat between Pavo and Sura and released his grip on Pavo’s shoulder. Sura braced, a hand shooting for his leather bag where his spatha was concealed. A pair of hands gripped Sura’s wrist though, halting him. ‘That sword comes out and you can kiss your balls goodbye,’ One-eye hissed, his fetid breath wafting across the table as he sat the other side of Sura.

‘I told you, we’re not here for any trouble,’ Pavo said, matching Lantern-jaw’s flinty glare with one of his own. ‘But, by Mithras, we can kick up a storm if that’s what you want.’

Lantern-jaw’s scowl grew fiercer and fiercer, then melted into a grin and a dark chuckle. ‘Aye, these curs are definitely not Patiens’ lot.’

At this, One-eye lost his edge of madness — although the bloody face and wild hair suggested it was not entirely gone. ‘What are you then? Two legionaries from outside? I’ve heard of no passing patrols or mobilised legions in these parts. It’s turning into a savage wilderness beyond this city’s walls.’

Pavo weighed the situation. To say too much might guarantee a blade in their guts. Not enough could well end in the same result. It was a bitter choice of poisons, he thought, eyeing the vinegar-wine, but one they had to make. He and Sura shared a tacit glance and nod. ‘Optio Numerius Vitellius Pavo of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, Second Cohort, First Century,’ he said steadily enough so these two could hear but quietly enough that nobody else could.

‘Decimus Lunius Sura, Pavo’s Tesserariusin the First Century,’ Sura offered next, then beheld One-eye for a moment and added; ‘and one-time fist-fighting champion of Adrianople, I’ll have you know. I once knocked seven shades of sh-’ a jab of Pavo’s elbow ended the spiralling rhetoric.

‘XI Claudia. . so you are limitanei, not comitatenses?’ Lantern-jaw mused, leaning back on his stool, arms folded and the fingers of one hand stroking his chin.

Pavo and Sura shared another look, both expecting some slur on the role of the border legions.

‘The ones who do the real fighting on the edges of the empire?’ One-eye said, then brought his wine cup up and drank heartily. ‘I’ve heard what the limitanei face: Goths, Quadi, Franks and Alemanni from the forests in the north. You fight what comes for you and usually without warning. Then the comitatenses like Patiens’ lot come into play when it suits them — when the northern bastards have broken into Roman lands.’

Pavo could not help but smile wryly at the description. ‘It’s a complicated business, but you’re not far off the truth.’

‘Rectus,’ Lantern-jaw said, raising his cup and nodding. ‘I used to be a medicus, would you believe? Pulling swords from the flesh of the lads in my auxiliary century when I wasn’t ramming my own blade into Goths and the like.’

‘Libo,’ One-eye added with a flash of that foul-toothed, maniac grin.

‘We once served in the same century’ Rectus said with a bitter smile. ‘We garrisoned the walls of this city. I had a house on the hill near the palace — nothing fancy, but it was clean at least: no rat-turds in my grain, that kind of thing.’

‘What happened?’ Pavo asked, sensing the tension draining from the meeting.

‘Patiens was awarded the post of governor. Now he’s a man with certain tastes. . ’

‘He’s an arsehole!’ Libo yelped in summary, then shot furtive glances around to check nobody had heard.

Rectus gave him a reproachful look, then turned back to Pavo and Sura. ‘Let’s just say he likes to have money to spend on young slave boys. Plenty of money.’

Pavo shuddered as the words stoked memories of his years of slavery in Senator Tarquitius’ villa.

‘So when the comitatenses cohort was billeted here, and Patiens realised they were paid from the imperial coffers and not his governor’s budget, he saw a way to make a quick saving. Our auxiliary unit was disbanded.’ He held out his hands and shrugged, looking all around the tavern. ‘I couldn’t pay for my home anymore. A comitatenses legionary moved in as I was marched out. I slept in the grim shadows of this place — on street corners, in doorways, anywhere that I could sleep and still waken sharply enough should some cutthroat try to rob me.’

‘I know that place,’ Pavo said his eyes misting. Rectus was about to scoff at the suggestion, but Pavo continued; ‘When I was a boy, I spent months in the gutters of Constantinople, with no home or family. I was close to starvation when I was taken by slave-traders.’ He lost himself in memory for just a moment, his mind playing tricks with him as he saw the gloom at the rear of the inn roil and move like the shadow-man from his dream. A shiver passed over his skin. Who are you?

Rectus seemed to detect Pavo’s sober mood and his planned retort did not materialise. He nodded and chuckled dryly instead. ‘Then we misjudged you.’

‘And we you,’ Pavo replied, seeing the shadows at the inn’s rear vanquished as a fresh torch was lit there — revealing just a handful of men drinking and bantering. This triggered a thought. ‘How many of you are there?’

‘The auxiliary unit?’ Rectus said, then curled his bottom lip in thought. ‘There were nearly five hundred of us. A few hundred left before the Gothic War broke out, thought they might make a living or find a home out in the fields or down in the Greek parts. Quite a few have drunk too much of this poison and never woken up,’ he added with a wince, pinging a finger off the edge of his cup. ‘How many are left? Eighty, ninety men, perhaps? And there was a century of Cretan funditores too. Sharp-eyed slingers, they were, led by a wily dog by the name of Herenus. Most of them are still here,’ he said, looking around the tavern, his gaze snagging on a few swarthy-featured men.

‘What would you give to be soldiers again?’ Pavo said, holding Rectus’ eye.

Rectus frowned and sat back, his nose wrinkling. ‘I’d rather serve a rabid dog than defend Patiens!’

Sura’s eyes sparkled now as he latched onto Pavo’s thinking. ‘Screw Patiens. Our legion needs men.’

Rectus’ face lifted in surprise. ‘Legionaries? But our lot were a mixed bunch. Short lads like me — too small for the legions,’ he gurned.

Sura shook his head. ‘That is no longer a barrier to march under the eagles. We lost our primus pilus, Felix, just months ago. He was a hardy soldier, a savage warrior and one of the best men I’ve had the pleasure of marching with. Yet he could barely see over the bar at the local inn.’

Libo’s shoulders jostled in poorly-stifled laughter at this.

Rectus tilted his head one way and then the other as if in deliberation. ‘Your offer sounds sweet right now, but why do you come here in search of recruits?’ he flicked his head back and up. ‘What exactly is going on. . out there?’

Pavo knew his next words had to be earnest. ‘The Goths are coming, and we need more men to block the Succi Pass against them. Our comrades are right now bolstering the old fort at Trajan’s Gate, but men are in short supply. Patiens gave us a few coins to buy recruits and you can have them, but bring your old comrades together and come with us and you will have full legionary wages,’ he tapped his forefinger on the table as if making a solemn oath, ‘. . and you will have your honour and self-respect once more. Do you not crave the brotherhood your old unit once had?’

Rectus swished some wine in his mouth. ‘I had three brothers. Didn’t trust one of them. Not at all.’

Pavo cocked an eyebrow.

‘Two killed each other in a quarrel over a woman, and the last one,’ he patted his dagger, ‘I saw to him.’

A silence followed until Rectus’ broad grin suggested it was a joke. Or maybe not. .

‘But aye, there were many fine days when we were true soldiers,’ Rectus continued.

‘And many foul ones too,’ Libo added, eyebrows raised as he recalled some grim memory

Rectus and Libo seemed to share a conversation with just a few looks, then the one-eyed man spoke; ‘Shall I gather the lads, see what they say?’

‘Aye. But do you think it’s a good idea to ask Eunapias?’ Rectus said, nodding to the man from the fight, now clutching a bloody rag to his butchered groin, sweating profusely and gulping neat wine to ease the pain.

‘Nah,’ Libo grinned, ‘he doesn’t have the balls for it.’

It was a foul, grey afternoon and a wintry gale buffeted them as they came along the last stretch of road back to Trajan’s Gate, yet Pavo felt nothing but a burning sense of pride. He and Sura had left with nothing but now returned with a century’s-worth of Sardican legionaries and a century of darker-skinned Cretan slingers. He twisted in his saddle and looked over his shoulder to see Rectus and Libo and the chestnut-skinned Cretan, Herenus, near the front of the new recruits. Unlike Pavo and Sura in mail, cloaks and iron helms, the pair carried only their auxiliary spears and wore felt caps and thick cloaks to weather the worst of the wind. Many of the others with Rectus and Libo carried nothing more than a dagger. Some had bows or slings and a few brought just ancient bronze shields strapped over their backs. But if this was a problem then behind the column was the solution: Three wagon-loads of old armour: torn but usable mail shirts, battle-scarred helms, dull-edged spears and blades that needed work with a whetstone, along with a selection of well-used shields and ancient-looking boots. Enough to arm and equip the Sardicans and most of the youths back at the Trajan’s Gate fort, he hoped. Patiens had given them what he considered scrap. Pavo saw it as treasure.

As they came round a slight bend in the valley, Pavo saw something that further warmed his heart. Across the pass, the skeleton of a timber stockade was in place — some eight feet high. He could hear Quadratus’ gruff tones, marshalling the recruits. Timber struts were being raised on ropes and lowered into place in what might soon take shape as a battlement. Sharpened stakes were piled nearby for what would be the palisade front to the wall. Better still, when he looked up onto the fort spur on the northern valley side, he saw that the western towers were all but mended. With these two centuries from Sardica, they might yet block the pass and bolster the fort battlements before. . his thoughts grew icy as he looked off down the pass. . before Farnobius’ horde arrived.

A buccina wailed, heralding their arrival. The lads working on the timber wall dropped their tools and stood tall. At first, they all looked east in fear, assuming the signal was a warning. But then, when they switched their heads to the west and saw Pavo and Sura, they cheered and punched the air. The sound was like an elixir and the valley sides seemed only to amplify it.

‘This lot have been busy,’ Sura said. ‘Mithras, we should go away more often!’

‘You did it,’ a gruff voice waylaid them. ‘You bloody did it!’ Zosimus repeated as he jogged down the scree path from the fort spur. His joy was tempered slightly when he ran his eye across the motley bunch in tow.

Quadratus came up from the wall works to join them, and headed straight for the wagons, whipping the hemp blanket back to reveal a jumble of shiny and not so shiny apparel. ‘What the?’ the big Gaul scowled as he lifted out a bent Gothic longsword, then tossed it over his shoulder like a bored infant. The wagon driver watched on in bemusement. Next, Quadratus lifted out an iron scale vest, but it was more orange with rust than silver, and he offered a cocked eyebrow to Pavo as if questioning the haul.

‘We’ve fought with worse, sir,’ Pavo said, approaching the wagons, stroking the mane of one of the horses.

But Quadratus was absorbed with the arms and armour. He lifted a long blade with a curved end. ‘A falcata? I don’t like the falcata. I’m more dangerous with a spatha,’ he said, lobbing the curved sword back onto the pile.

‘You’re dangerous the moment you open your eyes in the morning!’ Zosimus roared with laughter.

As Sura took up the falcata and tried to give Quadratus an expert lesson in handling the blade, Zosimus approached and guided Pavo away from the column of Sardicans and Cretans. ‘Right, there’s been a lot of effort put in over the last three days, but the biggest part lies ahead.’

‘The stockade will be finished in good time now, sir, I’m sure of it. And then we can put our minds to what else can be done to this pass.’

‘Indeed, but first we need to sort out what men we have. We can have walls with all sorts of bells and horns on them, but if these men don’t know how to fight as centuries and all of them together as a legion, then we’re beaten.’

Pavo nodded. ‘The Cretans will be fine — they’re already well used to fighting in and around legionary cohorts.’ Then his eyes fixed on Rectus and Libo. ‘As for the Sardicans, they have served as auxiliaries in the past, so they’ll have some experience of manoeuvres and drills. They’ll know how to look after their kit and — despite appearances — they’re not in bad physical shape. I reckon they will make a century of decent legionaries. Rectus and Libo would make a good pairing to lead the legionary century. Rectus as centurion and Libo as optio. We could organise mock-combat, Quadratus’ century versus theirs — it’d give Trupo and the young lads a chance to experience shield to shield fighting, and it’d sharpen the Sardican’s skills.’

‘No,’ Zosimus said flatly.

Pavo balked at this. ‘What? We need to give them some form of combat practice, otherwise-’

‘I meant the bit before that. The Sardicans can form a legionary century, aye, but Rectus and Libo aren’t fit to lead them. Quadratus’ll be leading them’

‘But they’re the natural leaders of that lot, they-

‘That’s not how we do things in the legions. A man doesn’t walk into the post of centurion. He has to earn his rank through years of service,’ Zosimus clenched a fist and held it between them as he spoke, knuckles white, ‘spill his own blood to save his brothers, show that his life comes second to the success of the legion.’

Pavo saw the fire in the big Thracian’s eyes.

‘You’re not getting it are you lad? Quadratus’ll lead the Sardicans, so Trupo, Cornix and the whelps he has led until now need a new centurion.’

Pavo blinked, then nodded. Then realisation dawned.

‘You’ll lead the young lads. You’re a centurion now. I’m moving my lads into the First Cohort, and you’re taking my place as head of the Second cohort. You’ve earned it and more, Pavo. Gallus has known for some time that you were ready for this. He left it to me as senior centurion to make the call.’

The wind whistled around them. Pavo found no words to reply. He recalled the moment before Ad Salices when Zosimus had told him he was to be an optio. Then, doubt had riddled his body and his first thought was that the promotion was a mistake. This time, he simply fixed Zosimus with a firm eye and nodded. ‘I’ll lead them well, sir.’

‘And you’ll take that lunatic Sura as your optio?’ Zosimus replied with a cocked eyebrow, nodding to Sura’s wild lunges with the falcata as Quadratus looked on nervously.

Pavo smiled. ‘Aye, I will.’

Farnobius walked his silver stallion amongst the dead strewn across the south-central Thracian plain. Flies buzzed over the open guts and riven flesh. Crows cried overhead. An entire legion, he reckoned. Not one had escaped this time. He leaned to one side of his saddle and hooked an intercisa on the corner of his axe blade, then cast an eye over his Goths, Huns and Taifali. Some wore the iron vests harvested from the Romans slain at Deultum, but many still wore the frayed, crude dyed Gothic leather armour that had been passed down from generation to generation. He turned back to the staring face of the corpse he had taken the helm from: a gaunt, bearded fellow, features caked in dirt. He stared at the lifeless countenance, almost challenging it to take shape as Vitheric’s. But the dead boy-king’s face did not materialise, and the oft-nagging voice was not to be heard.

‘You fall quiet, boy. Perhaps you are at peace now?’ he whispered hopefully, glancing around anxiously in fear of any of his men hearing him. Vitheric did not reply and his men did not hear. Instead, they busied themselves unbuckling scale vests and taking up Roman shields, swords and helms for themselves.

Farnobius turned on his saddle and looked to the western horizon. The march north and west had been steady and enjoyable. Soon they would meet the Romans’ great western highway: the Via Militaris. Then they would move at haste for the Succi Pass and the fabled Trajan’s Gate. The riches of the West waited beyond. Nobody had come close to challenging him so far. Fritigern had not even dared send forces to curtail his efforts. Scribing his own destiny at last was an enjoyable thing, he mused. Then a nagging doubt spoiled his mood: the grain wagons were running low. Five thousand mouths demanded feeding before they would break this damned Roman pass for him. Yet grain could only be found inside the walls of the damned Roman cities.

I was not strong or gifted with the sword, but I had a good mind, the voice of the dead boy-king spoke at last, as if sensing Farnobius’ building frustrations. Perhaps I could have helped you with such puzzles?

Farnobius failed to suppress a sharp twitch of the head. Then he heard a dull thud-thud-thud. He turned to see one rather dim-witted spearmen bashing at something with a rock. He looked a little closer: the man had found a pack of walnuts amongst one dead legionary’s rations and was battering at one in an attempt to break inside its shell. This fellow had the dead Roman’s armour piled by his feet, claimed from the spoils as his own, it seemed. Only when the spearman picked up the Roman soldier’s helm and used its heavy rim, did the walnut crack.

You see? Vitheric asked.

Farnobius’ lips curled up into a smile as his thoughts converged and an idea began to form. .

Chapter 18

The first day of November saw winter truly grip the land and brought Gallus and Dexion to a skeletal elm forest, bejewelled with icicles. Gallus’ cloak, helm and dark eyebrows were shrouded in frost, much like Dexion and the silent, deathly-still woods around them. Nothing was to be heard but the monotonous crunch-crunch of their boots on the icy carpet, muffled and muted by the veil of white all around. In the two days of trekking since leaving the cove by the waterfall, there had been no further clashes with the Quadi, both men now adept at melting into the icy glades or lying flat in the undergrowth at the sound of hooves or boots on the nearby road. At first, Gallus had hoped one of these passing patrols might be Roman — tasked with dispersing the belligerent tribesmen. Soon though, he realised that he and Dexion were most probably the only legionaries in the field in this stretch of Pannonia. A spark of hope was needed. The sight of a single Cursus Publicus rider would be enough, proof that the artery of communication between east and west had been reopened. But there was nothing of that sort. Nothing but cold, still, freezing wastes ahead.

Wordlessly, Dexion offered him a piece of salted mutton. He took it and chewed upon it without thought, the salty texture of the meat adding strength to his stride, partially thawing his frozen jaw and bringing moisture to his mouth. Their meagre rations were growing thin. Indeed, he had not bargained on such a long stint without some refuge in a Roman town or village where they could top-up their supplies and take shelter.

When Dexion’s footsteps halted, Gallus blinked, as if shaken from the trance of the march. ‘Primus Pilus?’ he said, slowing.

Dexion’s eyes were lost, darting, one hand cupped to his ear. ‘Can you hear it?’

Gallus frowned, coming to a halt. Without the crunch of the march, the muted sounds of nature came through: the occasional flapping of wings or disturbed branches, the hiss of falling frost or the scampering of a winter hare. Then he heard it: the gentle babble of a river.

‘The Danubius?’ Gallus said at a whisper, waving Dexion with him towards the sound. It was coming from a thick bank of fog, up ahead. He traced the nearby Via Militaris, seeing how it slipped into the wall of mist. If it truly was the river they could hear, then this was where the great road ended, and that was where the fortress-city of Singidunum lay also. Legionary contact. Riders to take them on to Emperor Gratian. Reinforcements to send back to Trajan’s Gate. Our quest is over, he realised.

‘Porridge,’ Dexion said.

Gallus cocked an eyebrow at the odd outburst.

‘In the first barracks or imperial settlement we come to. Grey, tasteless, foul, wheat porridge,’ Dexion expanded. ‘Just so long as it’s hot. And a fire, a roaring fire. Then onwards, to take word to Gratian and maybe we can send men back to Trajan’s Gate. If it is not too late. . ’

Gallus noticed the dark frown that came over his primus pilus’ face. In the mechanical slog of the march and in focusing on little other than survival and the promise of vengeance, he had almost forgotten about this man’s hopes and fears. ‘Pavo and the others will hold that pass,’ he reassured him as they crept through the woods, the river ever closer.

Dexion nodded in silence, as if longing to believe those words. Then the pair fell silent as they entered the bank of freezing fog. Every sound was muted and distorted now. Icy droplets gathered on their faces, soaking and chilling them. He combed the grey, eager to see what he knew must be there. Imperial banners, familiar accents, hope. The dull roar of the river grew and grew and then at last Gallus did spot the ghostly outline of high walls up ahead. He made to hasten forward, only for Dexion to slap an arm across his chest, halting him.

‘Primus Pilus?’ Gallus growled.

But Dexion’s suddenly pallid face and the hand cupped to his ear was answer enough.

Gallus heard it too now: the jagged twang of Germanic voices, shouting gaily through the fog. The chill mist crept across the flesh on his neck as he saw Singidunum’s walls drift in and out of view as the fog bank moved. ‘The Quadi besiege the fortress?’ he whispered to Dexion.

Dexion shook his head, pointing to the battlements. There, dull outlines of men moved like wraiths. They carried axes, resting on their shoulders, and locks of long, billowing or braided hair. ‘The Quadi have taken the fortress!’

They stumbled back into the treeline. Gallus motioned for them to move west, past the fortress-city’s walls and so they picked a little further through the undergrowth, they came to the edge of the Via Militaris just beyond Singidunum where the road’s final stretches ran along the River Danubius’ southern banks. Here, they crept forward, ducking down in the ferns by the roadside, and beheld the extent of the Quadi forces. To their right, the fortress of Singidunum and the dock beneath the city walls were crawling with them. To their left, the westerly road was blockaded by a line of them standing guard, and out in the River Danubius was a small sandbank island, blanketed in fog. The murky outline of a small quadriburgium fortress stood on the apex of this island — a square enclosure with four projecting corner towers — and the Germanic voices echoed over there too.

‘Sir,’ Dexion panted. ‘How in Hades can we go west from here?’

‘We cannot, Primus Pilus. But by Mithras, we will.’

When night fell across the Upper Danubius, it brought still more of the thick fog and a deathly cold with it. Gallus blew into his hands and wished he could return some feeling to his legs too. They had been crouched like this for hours by the side of the Via Militaris, waiting and watching the goings-on at the road blockade, at Singidunum and at the small fort on the river island.

‘That boat is our only chance of breaking to the west,’ Dexion insisted, nodding to the sandbank island and the small fishing boat resting on its shores. ‘We can’t charge the sentries on the westerly road,’ he said, flicking a finger to the cluster of thirty or so fair-haired and bearded Quadi posted there, resting on their spears, axes slung over shoulders and torsos wrapped in furs. ‘And Singidunum’s walls and docks are too well guarded for us to seize a vessel from there,’ he continued, his eyes drifting across the conquered fortress’s walls, eyeing jealously the fine biremes within the harbour.

In between drifting fog clouds, Gallus examined the beached vessel on the sandbank island. Small yet sleek, oars lying inside — a craft designed for rowing upstream. Upstream and to the west. The fog might well screen such a move. ‘There is a small matter of getting across there, Primus Pilus. Have you ever tried to swim the Danubius? She is a savage waterway.’

Dexion’s shoulders slumped a little as if on the cusp of accepting defeat, then his head shot up, eyes locking onto something. ‘We don’t need to swim,’ he hissed, pointing to a jagged shape snagged in the shallows just upstream, in between their hiding place amongst the ferns and the road blockade. ‘A raft?’

‘The remains of some craft, I’d say,’ Dexion mused. ‘But enough to see us over to the island and onto that fishing boat.’

Gallus looked to Dexion askance. ‘I see that a proclivity for unbalanced plans runs in the family blood?’

‘Aye, there is much that Pavo and I have in common,’ Dexion chuckled.

‘You’re right, we have to try,’ Gallus said, sliding off his mail vest and helm, tucking them into his leather bag, then he crumbled some frozen earth in his hands and smeared it across his face, gesturing for Dexion to follow suit. ‘Are you ready?’

The firm words seemed to stir Dexion from his thoughts. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, his face soon little more than white eyes and teeth, his plumed helm tucked away in his own bag.

They watched as the thirty Quadi on the westerly road bantered amongst themselves confidently — complacently, even. The men on the walls of Singidunum were more diligent, however, each of them scouring the land whenever the fog thinned in patches.

Gallus waited until the freezing mist clouded and thickened, passing between them and the walls. ‘Now,’ he hissed when the last sentry up there became obscured in the fog. The pair darted like hares, the ferns shaking in their wake. The Via Militaris seemed to be a thousand paces wide, Gallus thought as he hurried across it, certain the sentries on the westerly road would spot him. But he reached the northern edge of the road and skidded down the embankment to the shallows of the Danubius, grabbing at reeds to slow his descent as best he could. He came to a halt, shin-deep in water, panting. Dexion slid down beside him. The pair waited anxiously, listening. The jagged babble of the sentries on the road seemed different; disturbed, more alert.

‘They saw us, or heard us?’ Dexion whispered, his eyes widening.

Gallus pushed a finger across his lips, pointing up with his other hand. Up there, on the roadside, footsteps crunched past. A few uncertain challenges were barked out in the Quadi tongue. Gallus and Dexion pressed their backs to the Danubius’ banking as tightly as they could, but when Gallus glanced up, he saw that a Quadi warrior had stepped forward from the sentry position to investigate the noise, only feet above them. At once, he recognised him — Birgir, the leader of the band that had almost had them at the waterfall. This flame-haired, deathly-pale, flat-faced warrior wore a bronze helm, that distinctive horn-plated vest and that lethal sica on his back. He looked around the road, then twisted as if to look down the banking into the shallows.

Gallus’ teeth clenched. His hand shot for his spatha hilt and Dexion’s his.

Birgir froze, his hunter’s instinct sharpening his vision and hearing — he could even taste the myriad flavours in the air. Something wasn’t right, something was here, he realised, swinging round to the road’s edge. Something was in the shallows. .

Suddenly, from the reeds down there, a rabbit shot up the banking and across the road. The big warrior’s gaze snagged on its flight then, in one motion, he drew the sica from his back and hurled it. With a wet clunk, the blade halved the rabbit. Birgir grinned, stooping to pick up his prize and dangle it at his watching comrades.

‘We were told to fear the legions, but it seems the Romans send rabbits to admonish us!’

As the rest of the Quadi sentries erupted in laughter, a fresh, even thicker bank of fog drifted over the road, obscuring them for a moment. Birgir grinned as he thought of the fine meal this creature would make. Then he froze again. The hunter’s ear. A faint crackling of reeds. He swung back to the fog-obscured banking and shallows; something was moving down there again.

He silently stooped to put the rabbit corpse on the road then drew his sica again without a sound, bringing it round, ready to strike. The fog thinned. His back and shoulders tensed, the blade ready to fall. But there was nothing. . just a patch of reeds. Birgir stalked away, irked that his instinct had betrayed him.

The current on the Danubius was gentle as they pushed away from the shallows. The makeshift raft — the side of some broken imperial supply cart by the looks of it — drifted silently downstream, water lapping over the surface, thick mist all around. Gallus and Dexion lay belly-down on it, hands in the water in an attempt to steer the raft towards the sandbank island with the distinct disadvantage of being unable to see their destination. The improvised craft seemed to be pulling towards the centre of the river. If they steered too severely, they would slip past the island on this nearside then return to the shallows right by Singidunum’s dock. If they steered too little, they would be drawn out past the sandbank island and into the foaming, churning currents in the centre of the great river.

‘Gently — bring us back in a fraction,’ Gallus whispered to Dexion as they guided the craft. He heard his primus pilus’ teeth chatter as the icy river water took its toll. ‘That’s it. . no more!’ he said, seeing the tip of the sandbank island materialise in the fog. ‘Up,’ he added, carefully shuffling up into a crouch and helping Dexion to do the same. They both stared at the fishing craft on the sandy edge of the island. Should the heavy fog remain, they might be upon it and off upriver in moments. He glanced down to gauge the depth of the water, ready to step out from the raft, when he froze.

‘Mithras, no!’ Dexion gasped.

The fog receded to unveil a line of twelve wraith-like figures on the sandbank before them. The thunder of the Danubius’ current fell away, and Gallus heard nothing but the creaking of drawn Quadi bows, trained on them.

Just behind, they saw two white elm trees some six paces apart. From the upper branches, something dangled. Something that did not make any sense. A mutilated mass of flesh. Gallus stared at it until he recognised it as a shard of a corpse — a leg, one side of a torso, a single arm and a head hanging by a rope tied to the ankle of the leg. The body was riven from groin to shoulder, tendrils, shredded ribs and guts dangling from the massive wound where the rest of the body had been ripped away. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the other half of the corpse, hanging from the opposite treetop by the other ankle, a rag of legionary tunic still clinging to the flesh. Then the workings of the vile execution mechanism became starkly obvious when he saw the lost bark on the trees, where the tips of each had been bent down to ground level then released to tear this poor soul apart.

The Quadi bows creaked, drawn a little more taut. Gallus dropped his swordbelt to the sand, and Dexion followed suit.

Chapter 19

The November chill cast the Succi Valley and the Trajan’s Gate fortifications in a shell of hard frost, but the four centuries of the XI Claudia and Geridus’ century of archers worked like a colony of ants. Zosimus led the Cretan slingers and the sagittarii in felling the skeletal ash trees on the southern valley side, the rattle of axes, rasping of saws and crunch of falling trees never-ending as they finished the timber wall blocking the pass. Quadratus and a handful of his Sardicans mixed and applied mortar to freshly gathered stone, fashioning new battlements for the fort’s walls, while a handful more sawed at some of the freshly felled tree trunks in an effort to construct ballistae. Pavo, meanwhile, strode out before his century and the remainder of the Sardicans, Sura walking by his side.

He came to a halt before them, eyeing their formed ranks, still feeling like an optio awaiting the assertive commands of his centurion. But he noticed how the legionaries all stared dutifully into the distance, risking the occasional furtive glance at him. They’re waiting on my command, he realised. It stoked angst in his belly, and this was something that might have crippled him and quietened his tongue in years past. But during his few years in the legion, he had learned to embrace fear, to taste it, welcome it, understand that it could only harm him if he believed it could. A wry grin lifted one edge of his lips, and the fear was gone.

‘What’s it to be, sir?’ Sura whispered. ‘Hill marching or work on the defences?’

Pavo looked over the garb they wore — harvested from the wagons Patiens had afforded them. It was a fine thing that none of these lads were now without helm or armour. Some of them wore fairly new mail shirts, but some wore ancient, dried-out leather cuirasses, and others’ armour bore tears, edged with the brown stains of long dried blood. The helms too bore dents and scratches. The shields they had been given by Barzimeres back at the Great Northern Camp were particularly weary-looking — old and battered, sporting a hotchpotch of faded colours and designs from various different legions. Not the fine garb of a comitatenses legion, but at least they clearly resembled legionaries now. But something was still missing, he realised, scratching his chin as he tried to pinpoint exactly what. His eyes flicked back to the shields, then he looked to the fort, thinking of the storehouse inside. ‘Bring out the paint.’

An hour later Pavo’s century and the Sardicans sat, cross-legged and brushing paint — Claudian ruby-red — onto their shields. The old, chipped, faded and heterogeneous mix of colours and emblems were slowly and surely becoming recognisable as those of one legion. Trupo was maybe a little too enthusiastic, lashing the paint on in thick slops so it sprayed him and all nearby.

‘Easy, easy!’ Pavo yelped as a thick splash of it landed across his boots.

‘Sorry sir,’ the young soldier said sheepishly as his comrades chuckled.

‘Mithras, lad, just the shields, not the entire pass,’ grinned one of the Sardicans — a man who had until now been guarded and unsure of the recruits.

Sura came over to walk by his side. ‘A bit of paint, a common purpose — who’d have thought it?’

‘Gallus,’ Pavo replied instantly, a smile lifting one edge of his lips. ‘He told me how, before our time, when he was a centurion, he helped bring his men together just like this. He said the century’s banner was tattered and filthy. The signifer who carried it marched with his head down, as if ashamed of his duty, and the rest of the century were quiet and nervous. So he had them clean and repair the standard, then set them to ambulatum training — one half of the century tasked with outmanoeuvring or ambushing the other. At the end of a day of training, he awarded the standard to the victorious half. Within a week, he said they were up before the morning buccina call, climbing over one another to have their kit ready, desperate to be prepared and to win. The quiet ones found their voice, the signifer marched with his head held high, hoisting the banner as if it was the legion’s silver eagle standard itself.’ Pavo paused and cast a hand across the legionaries around them. ‘We’ve had new recruits pulled in from all over — young lads like this who think they’re in it alone, veterans from other legions who believe they’ve been prized from their true unit unfairly. . brigands, even, who would rather eat camel turds than serve the empire. It’s this, the symbol of the legion — the colours and the unity — that draws all those sorts together. It’s not all about the empire or about each man alone, it’s about a sense of belonging, the unit, the brotherhood.’ He felt a slight stinging behind his eyes as he thought of his lot before joining the XI Claudia — a freed slave with nothing, no family, not a true friend to call his own. His gaze darted to Sura, and to Zosimus and Quadratus. Then his thoughts drifted to Gallus and Dexion, somewhere beyond the pass. Mithras protect them.

‘Then we’ll get the others busy with the paint later,’ Sura nodded, looking to those working on the fort and on the timber wall across the pass.

They observed as some of the legionaries proceeded to paint gold and black emblems over the newly ruby-daubed shield fronts. Some created images of the legion’s bull emblem, others edged their shield in a ring of gold and painted a radiant Mithraic sun around the boss. One of the Sardican soldiers carefully outlined a Christian Chi-Rho on his shield and both Sura and Pavo admired his handiwork. Then they noticed Libo adorning the centre of his shield with a rather detailed and angry looking phallus. Pavo and Sura winced in unison. ‘Easy on the detail,’ Pavo whispered to him as they passed. Libo looked up, tongue poking from his lips in concentration, his good eye wide and intent on not blinking. ‘Ah, yes sir,’ he said, his concentration breaking.

Quadratus climbed down from the scaffold on the fort’s southern wall, his blonde moustache plastered in mortar, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. ‘Well, if nothing else, it looks better,’ he said, unconvinced. The flat battlement walkway was in place, but the crenelated parapet had yet to be constructed. ‘Another few days and we’ll have a defensible fort on our hands,’ the big Gaul added.

Centurion Zosimus appeared then, leading his youths up onto the fort spur. They were red-faced and panting, but they each wore broad grins. ‘We have a wall,’ Zosimus declared brightly. All eyes switched to the plateau edge and down into the valley: indeed, the timber stockade across the pinch-point of the pass was complete. Eight feet tall, topped with sharpened stakes and with a basic timber walkway fixed to the western side with ladders leading up to it. ‘The more work we pour into this,’ he added, ‘the more this Farnobius and his Goths will soil their trousers when they see it.’ Zosimus’ expression changed then. ‘Speaking of which, did some filthy bastard do their business upstream of the latrines?’ he nodded down into the pass and the small brook that ran past the mouth of the tunnel that led to and from the plateau — that spot was meant to be for drinking water. A wooden bench with holes cut into it had been set up over this waterway downstream of the drinking point. ‘I thought I’d celebrate finishing the wooden wall with a handful of fresh stream water, only to see a used sponge sitting in the stream bed, grinning up at me.’ The big Thracian cast a reproachful look at Quadratus as he said this.

The big Gaulish centurion threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘Oh I get it: it was my fault, was it? Just because of one trip to the bathhouse in Tomis — years ago — and one small accident, I’m suddenly the source of all water contamination events?’

‘One small accident? You dropped a turd in the baths!’ Zosimus roared in incredulous laughter. The centuries of men around them exploded in a chorus of laughter too, but only until Quadratus’ red and angry glower quietened them.

‘Next one to make a sound is on latrine duty,’ he grumbled before berating Libo for detailing wiry hairs on his shield’s phallus emblem.

‘Thrust, hack, feint, stab!’ Pavo screamed as his century danced around the forest of wooden posts set up by the fort, chopping at them with their swords.

‘I want to see splinters in the air and blunt swords!’ Sura added.

They fought in the full weight of armour plus shield, plumbatae darts, spear and spatha. He noticed how most of these young lads had now developed knotted muscle on their limbs. They moved sharply and with confidence. He saw in some of them a determination, teeth gritted, bent on bettering themselves. Many of them no doubt thought of what was coming for this pass and weighed this against their fraught first battle at the fall of the Great Northern Camp. ‘Excellent work, lads. Keep it up,’ he encouraged them. He noticed in particular the lad Trupo: the young recruit’s eyes were bright and his swordsmanship had improved dramatically. And, Pavo was sure, the lad had shed a libra or two of weight — he was now lean and without the puce-tinge to his cheeks that had been a feature of his first few marches. His comrade Cornix worked equally hard nearby, the pair seemingly intent on outdoing one another.

‘Break!’ he barked, waving the men back from the posts. They formed up as if for inspection.

‘Shield wall!’ A clatter of wood sounded as the matching, bright ruby shields rippled up and into place. Good, he thought, seeing how they now held their shields high, showing only their eyes, helms and the tips of their spears poking like fangs from the top right hand side of each shield. A far cry from the haphazard line they had formed on the Tonsus riverbank at the fall of the Great Northern Camp. But a moment of perfection was not enough, he realised. He waited, stalking before them, letting the silence work its magic. Soon, a few arms began to tremble, the shields slipping down, arms numb and weakening. Pavo stalked past one such legionary then, in a flash, tore out his spatha and stabbed it down as if for the ailing youth’s throat. The fellow yelped as the blade halted just inches from his windpipe, then quickly hefted his shield up, knocking the spatha blade up and away. Pavo grinned fiercely. ‘Better. Remember, you’re stronger than you think. And in battle, you have no second chances.’ All along the line, similarly wayward shields were quickly hoisted to the correct height. ‘You might well think you are tired, but when the body aches, the mind must come to the fore,’ he tapped his temple. ‘In battle, your shield is your brothers’ and his yours.’

‘Aye, now let’s see how strong these runts of yours really are!’ Quadratus interrupted, leading his Sardicans over, Libo and Rectus grinning at the fore. ‘Down spears and swords,’ he demanded. With a clatter of iron, the weapons were cast down by the Sardicans and by Pavo’s men.

The two centuries faced each other, fifteen paces apart. Sura strode around the rear of each group, drawing a line in the dirt behind the heels of the men. ‘And. . advance!’

With a thunder of boots, the two groups stomped forward. ‘Stay in line!’ Pavo barked, seeing Cornix break forward a few paces. With a clatter of shields and a chorus of grunts, they came together. Boots scraped on dirt and frost billowed up as they shoved and shouldered. Libo shot wild grins at Trupo as the two vied for supremacy, and Pavo felt a knowing smile tug at his lips as he heard the men jibe and banter as they pressed to win the contest. Neither side seemed set to give in, until Libo hooked out a leg around Trupo’s shin, yanking it back and pulling the young lad to the ground. At this, Pavo’s group faltered, pushed back first one step, then two and then were driven back by Quadratus’ encouraged lot. The contest was over in moments as Pavo’s men were pushed over the earth line from where they had started. Trupo, lying in the middle ground, semi-trampled, sat up, spitting dirt from his mouth. ‘Libo, you dirty whoreson!’ he spluttered over the exhausted victory cries.

‘A dirty, victorious whoreson,’ Libo corrected him, holding out an arm to help him up.

Pavo chortled at this. ‘Discipline is everything, yes, but do not overlook the swift, simple things that can win a skirmish: a head-butt, a boot in the balls, a. . ’ he decided to leave it there, seeing Libo’s good eye gleam with the possibilities. ‘Now, take up your plumbatae,’ he yelled, nodding to Sura.

As Sura took the century off to drill them in hurling their lead-weighted darts at the near-end of the small practice range, Pavo strolled over to the swarthy-skinned Cretan slingers, occupying the far end of the range and training to a tune of jagged Cretan cries from their leader, Herenus. Herenus loosed his own sling and observed the progress of the others, his leathery skin and fine, aquiline features wrinkling between encouragement and disappointment. His century of men were unburdened with armour — most wearing just woollen tunics, trousers and cloaks, and they carried daggers, slings and leather pouches filled with shot. He watched as the nearest of them drew the looped end of the sling over their forefingers, loaded small stones into the pouch then grasped the other, knotted end between thumb and forefinger.

‘Lift,’ Herenus cried.

All raised their slings. A brief whirring like a cloud of dragonflies sounded before the slings were loosed in unison. A thick crackle of stones punching deep into the timber butts or tearing clean through the straw ones sounded. Thirteen had hit their targets, maybe, but the rest thumped into the earth of the valley side, sending puffs of frost and dirt into the air. Pavo bit down on his bottom lip. Such a fine margin of accuracy could be the difference between holding the pass and losing it: the slingshot, almost invisible in flight, could turn a battle — but only if they were aimed true. He watched the next volley from the slingers. This time only eight hit their intended butts. The next volley was better with nearly half succeeding. He noticed as he watched that the group of eight nearest Herenus continuously struck their targets, and struck them well — deep holes bored in the centre of the trunk sections and torn through the straw dummies.

‘Herenus’ eight, what are they doing differently, sir?’ he asked Zosimus, nearby, without taking his eye off the training.

‘Nothing that I can see,’ Zosimus replied, squinting and watching as they used the same technique: load, loop, spin and loose. ‘Perhaps it’s the luck of their contubernium.’

‘They share a tent?’ Pavo said.

‘Aye, always have, they said.’

Pavo strode over to Herenus and halted him from his next shot with a hand to the shoulder. ‘That’s a fine eye for the target you have.’

Herenus grinned at this. ‘My father once told me I’d never be a slinger.’

‘What’s your secret?’ Pavo said, eyeing the sling but seeing that it was just an ordinary weapon with a leather pouch and cord hanging from either side.

Herenus flicked up the next piece of shot — an acorn-shaped piece of lead — and caught it in his hand. ‘My father was right. . until I tried slinging these.’ He nodded to the slingers nearby, taking smooth but more spherical pebbles of different types of rock from their pouches and loading them. ‘These men are doubtless better marksmen than I or my tent mates,’ he said as the slingers loosed the rough pebbles only for most to go astray again, ‘but slinging different shapes and weights changes every shot. The only way to guarantee hitting a target time after time is to ensure that nothing varies between shots: same slinger, same sling, same technique, same shot.’ He rolled the acorn-shaped lead piece in his hand. ‘And this shot, the contours. . makes it fly true every time.’

‘Where did you get this shot?’ Pavo asked.

‘It is what I have remaining from the time before my men were disbanded.’

Pavo’s eyes hung on the lead piece. ‘You have much left?’

‘Not really. My contubernium and I have been using this lot all day,’ he replied sheepishly.

‘Can you make more?’

Herenus frowned. ‘Well, I can try. I’d need a smelting furnace, some lead and a cast — I can make a cast, I suppose, and-’

‘Do it,’ Pavo said. ‘Take whoever else you need to help you. You can use the oven in the fort — I’ll arrange it with Comes Geridus. If you need any materials, come to me. Make as much as you can, plenty for all the slingers here.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Herenus said.

‘Good thinking. But will he have the time?’ Zosimus asked as Herenus beckoned a handful of his tent-mates and headed for the fort.

‘Maybe, maybe not. It’ll lift their spirits, if nothing else,’ Pavo replied. He gazed on down the valley to the eastern end, seeing the tiny dots of the advance lookout posts, one on each valley side. The men stationed there were under no illusions as to their responsibilities: the first sight of an approaching enemy and the buccina was to be blown hard.

Still nothing.

He gazed down at the timber wall blocking the pass and noticed the sagittarii stockpiling arrows and javelins there. Then he saw that Quadratus had now put his Sardicans to work in assembling the newly-fashioned ballistae along the edge of the fort plateau, pointing down into the mouth of the choke-point. Meanwhile Zosimus’ century was at work atop the fort walls, hefting slabs and stones into place as the crenels were gradually reconstructed, and fitting the new, iron-strapped timber gates onto the fort’s double entrance. The pass was unrecognisable from the near-deserted, crumbling ruin they had come to nearly a month ago. Five centuries of men would man this redoubt and man it well, he insisted.

‘Strong enough?’ Zosimus said, reading his thoughts.

Pavo almost imperceptibly shook his head. ‘Something tells me it’ll take more than a firm defence to hold this place.’ His gaze and Zosimus’ had turned to the fort. Through the open double-gateway, they saw the principia. ‘I can’t help but feel that the old man in there — Master of the Passes — might be the difference. If he can believe in himself once again.’

That night, whipping winter winds drove along the valley from the east. Wrapped in their thickest oiled woollen cloaks, the sagittarii stood watch on the timber stockade down in the pass, and at the advance lookout posts further down the pass, while the four centuries of the XI Claudia sat around a fire sheltered outside the fort’s western wall. They ate a meal of steaming spiced wheat porridge — a recipe of Cornix’ invention — and hard tack biscuit.

All eyes were on Trupo as he held both palms out, a small purple gemstone in one. He clapped his palms together three times, then held them out again. The gemstone was gone. Trupo beamed as if awaiting a chorus of applause. All he received was the odd sniff and shuffle.

Zosimus blew into his hands then shook his head. ‘That was rotten. Probably the worst trick of the night,’ he said, stooping to pick up the gemstone where Trupo had so obviously cast it down. ‘What about a story? Come on, you Sardicans must have some tales to tell,’ he said with a wicked grin, one eye slightly bulging.

Perhaps feeling under pressure, Rectus piped up: ‘Well, there was this one time when Libo and I were on patrol. We marched to Trimontium and were given the evening off.’ He grinned as he lost himself in the memory. ‘We met a couple of women that night. Shapely women,’ the grin intensified as he outlined such a figure with his hands. A gruff chorus of chuckling rang out across the gathered men.

Libo sat a little taller, casting haughty looks around with his good eye, proud to be mentioned in this tale of sexual prowess.

Rectus continued; ‘Then they invited us back to a room they shared. . ’

Suddenly, Libo’s face fell. He shook his head urgently, trying to catch Rectus’ attention.

But Rectus was in full flow. ‘We were drunk, you see, and it was dark. I tumbled into the room and felt around for my woman. I finally grabbed her and she grabbed me. It was all groping and kissing, you know?’ Another rumble of throaty laughter. ‘She’s a fiery one, I thought as we tumbled around. . until the two women lit a lamp on the other side of the room,’ Rectus shot an awkward look at Libo.

Libo’s head fell into his hands.

Rectus shrugged and flicked his head to one side. ‘Aye, that was a quiet march back to Sardica the next day, I can tell you. . ’

A stunned silence and a few stifled shudders greeted the climax of the tale.

Ever the entertainer, Quadratus stepped into the breach. ‘Here, I’ve got a trick,’ he said, lifting a piece of kindling from the fire, burning at one end, then bent over, holding the flame near his buttocks.

Having seen this trick before, Pavo decided to act on his instinct. He got up, swept his cloak around his body and paced from the shelter of the fort’s western wall. As he went, he heard a noise that sounded like a duck being strangled followed by a whoosh of flames, and the night sky behind him glowed orange for just an instant. ‘Mithras, what evil is this?’ one rasping voice called out in terror over the chorus of gagging and retching that followed along with Zosimus’ howls of protest.

Pavo edged around the fort’s south-western corner and glanced out into the bracing tempest, looking east, down the pass. He saw only blackness. He shielded his eyes with a hand and scoured the night. Only when he caught sight of the orange glows of the two braziers atop the valley sides at the eastern end of the pass did the tension in his stomach ease. Yet the driving wind took to keening, as if mocking the buccina call of alarm they all feared — nobody knew how close Farnobius’ horde was, only that he was coming, and surely at haste. He slipped back from the storm, into the lee of the fort’s western wall and the warmth of the fire. As he strolled, listening to the banter, he looked through the open double-gateway and into the fort, seeing the dull glow of the fire within the principia’s doorway, and wondered if Geridus even shared these fears. He thought again what the old Comes might bring to them should he shake off his malaise. To have a legend like him stand with them in the defence of the pass would surely steel the men’s hearts. More, if they could tap into but a fraction of the man’s fabled guile. .

Just then, he heard a scraping noise, high above. He looked up and saw a shadow atop the southern gate tower, hobbling around the hide-covered object, supported by a cane.

Geridus! Pavo realised. What are you up to, you old cur?

‘I’ve seen that before,’ a voice spoke next to him. It was Rectus. The lantern-jawed legionary was looking up at the tower-top with Pavo.

‘Aye, spends his days inactive in his principia, guzzling on wine, and then hobbles up there to spend his nights talking to the blackness,’ Pavo mused.

‘No, I mean that gait. I’ve seen soldiers suffer from it in the past. I used to be a medicus, remember?’

Pavo’s eyes narrowed.

Pavo entered the principia. Inside, the hearth blazed as usual and an intense heat swirled. Geridus sat by the fire, having returned from his sojourn to the top of the southern gate tower, his skin lashed with sweat from the effort and a wine cup in his hand as always. On the table by his side lay a plate of rabbit meat.

‘Sir?’ Pavo said.

Nothing. Just the crackling of logs on the fire. And. . that infernal tink-tink noise. It came and went, as if emanating from somewhere inside the principia building. Pavo shook the distraction from his mind and repeated; ‘Sir?’

‘What now?’ Geridus said in a low drawl, his head lolling. The exertion of the climb up the stairway in the southern gate tower had clearly taken its toll. ‘I would rise to show you out, but I fear I cannot take another step today.’

‘Sir, Farnobius’ Goths will be upon us within days. The men have worked the skin from their hands to put in place a stockade down in the pass, battlements on this fort’s walls and ballistae along the edge of this spur.’ He held out his scraped and callused palms as if to prove these claims. ‘The fragments of broken or lost legions we have gathered now call themselves the XI Claudia and they will stand against the Goths. But they will stand stronger for the sight of you. Do you know that they whisper your moniker?’

Geridus’ chest jostled in a chuckle. ‘The Coward of Ad Sal-’

‘Master of the Passes,’ Pavo cut him off sharply with a steely tone that reminded him of Gallus.

Geridus’ head rose, shakily, his eyes bloodshot and his bald pate gleaming. ‘What use is a name, lad, when I can barely walk for more than a few moments?’

‘The ailment that prevented you from riding to Ad Salices? The sickness that has been misconstrued as cowardice? Show me it,’ Pavo said.

Geridus was taken aback by his bluntness. But a moment later he lifted the hem of his robe to reveal bare, swollen feet and horribly bloated and rubicund ankles. It was as if he had been striding barefoot through nettles.

Pavo sat near Geridus, realising that military decorum would not be required for this conversation. He eyed the swollen joints and the purple, angry toes and knew it was as Rectus had suspected. ‘Have you ever had a physician look at this?’

Geridus beheld him for a moment, then his chest bucked with a mirthless laugh. ‘Of course I have, lad. It was one of the first things I did when it blighted me. Indeed, as the Battle at Ad Salices raged on many miles to the east, I was in these lands being examined. The fellow poked and prodded at me then told me of my curse. No hope, he said, none at all. Worn joints and advancing years, he said.’

‘You have gout,’ Pavo said flatly.

‘What? No,’ Geridus waved a hand and swigged more of his wine.

Pavo stood and waved a hand to the doorway. Rectus entered.

‘I had a comrade who suffered from this, sir,’ the lantern-jawed legionary insisted. ‘It rendered him immobile for days.’

‘This is not a matter of days. I have shuffled and hobbled on these ruined ankles since Ad Salices. Eight months have passed and on not one of those days have I been able to place my feet in sandals or boots, let alone lace them up.’

Pavo sighed, realisation sinking into place like a heavy stone in his stomach. ‘And since the day you were forced to miss the Battle at Ad Salices, have you taken comfort in wine and meat?’

Geridus’ nostrils flared in indignation. Such a flash of vigour was an oddly welcome sight. ‘I have remained here and done as I wished, and who would not, when all outside these walls seem to be whispering of my cowardice?’

‘Wine and meat aggravate your condition,’ Rectus said. ‘The legionary who had this was restricted to water and wheat porridge. He was well within a week.’

Geridus’ eyes darted. ‘And I drank the grape-must the physician prescribed for me. For weeks! Yet this blight only intensified.’

Pavo felt a needling sense of something darker coming from this chat as he saw Rectus’ eyes widen in horror. ‘He prescribed you grape-must? Sir, that serves only to aggravate gout.’

Geridus fell silent, his eyes darting and his jaw dropping. Then he roared aloud with a laughter bitter enough to curdle milk. ‘Damn you, Maurus. . damn you!’ he growled, smashing a ham-like fist into the table that almost crushed the timbers.

Pavo frowned.

‘The jackal who is to replace me. He was there that day. It was he who summoned the physician.’ He sat there, chest rising and falling, eyes burning into the table’s surface.

The veil of malaise had fallen at last, Pavo realised. But when the giant warrior made to rise, he crumpled back into his chair, wincing. ‘Drink nothing but water, and plenty of it,’ Rectus said, bringing over a water jug from a shelf by the hearth, pouring a cup and putting it before Geridus. ‘And keep your feet raised,’ he said, drawing another chair over before Geridus and lifting the man’s legs onto it. ‘You should eat nothing but wheat porridge and bread. No meat, no alcohol.’

‘By Mithras, legionary, are you trying to kill me?’ he said in a dry burr, scowling at Rectus.

Pavo grinned at this. ‘No, he’s trying to save us all.’

Rectus’ thumbed at his lantern-jaw, then clicked his fingers. ‘Ah, and one last thing,’ he said, then plucked a hemp sack from the shelf and hurried from the hall, barging from the principia. A moment later he returned, the sack full of broken up ice from some frozen water pool, and pressed the sack onto Geridus’ raised feet.

‘Mercy!’ Geridus cried, his head shooting back.

‘Keep the affected joints cool, and you should be walking without pain within days.’

‘And why, why, would I want to walk: to stand against the Goths? My reputation is already tarnished beyond repair, lad. No battle will restore my name.’

Pavo sighed and shook his head, stepping forward to hold Geridus’ gaze. ‘I marched to Sardica a few days ago to levy more troops to defend this pass.’

Geridus rolled his eyes. ‘Patiens try to touch your arse, did he?’

A thin smile grew on Pavo’s lips. ‘No. . but I watched as he and his acolytes told stories of you. Of no interest to you though, I’m sure.’ He said this and then swung on his heel as if to leave.

Geridus’ scowl faded and his eyes grew keen, his neck lengthening. ‘What’s that?’

Pavo turned back and didn’t bother repeating himself, well-aware that the Comes had heard him clearly. ‘He savoured the telling of your part in, or rather your absence from, the Battle of Ad Salices.’

Geridus’ eyes blazed.

‘They were in fits of laughter,’ Pavo twisted the knife. ‘Those fat, useless officials in expensive robes, bellies stuffed with goose and wine.’

A low growl like that of an angered hound grew in Geridus’ chest. It rose and rose and his lips curled back until his teeth were bared. With one arm, he swept the table clear of his cup, wine jug and meat.

Pavo did not flinch as the contents of the table clattered past him and across the fort hall. ‘Patiens’ wiped tears of laughter from his eyes as he ridiculed you.’ He took a deep breath as he prepared for a somewhat risky final line. ‘I must say, it was very entertaining. . ’

Then, as if launched from a catapult, the giant warrior shot to standing, his immense frame covering the fire and his vast shadow bathing Pavo. ‘How dare you?’

Pavo held his gaze. ‘You seem to be on your feet again?’

Geridus started in shock, glancing down at his ankles, automatically moving to grab his chair for support. But he slowed, realising he did not need to — the ice-sack had already taken much of the swelling away. He looked up and glared at Pavo, a glare that was finally tempered with a dry smirk. ‘You wily whoreson,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll abide your cure, but I will be sure to lament it at every turn.’

Pavo nodded at this.

‘Yet your faith in me is ill-placed. I am but one man, and even if I can shed my affliction, you cannot expect one more Roman blade to alter the fate of this pass?’ Geridus said.

‘Perhaps not, but you are no mere warrior. Just the sight of you on the defences would stir our men’s hearts and weaken those of Farnobius’ horde. And,’ he mused, ‘I feel that with your mind clear of the wine and your ailment, you could help bolster this pass without even moving from that chair.’

Geridus’ eyes narrowed. ‘Ah, yes, the art of deception upon which my erstwhile reputation was founded?’

‘Exactly that. I have been thinking over it myself. The terrain, the materials, the expectations Farnobius might have as he approaches us.’

Geridus sat back down and gestured for Pavo to sit opposite. ‘Then we should have much to discuss,’ he said with a renewed brightness in his eyes.

The following day, Pavo crouched behind a knoll as an ever-angrier noon sky of roiling grey clouds gathered. The wind screeched and howled around the rugged terrain near the eastern end of the Succi Valley. Trupo, Cornix and the rest of his century were crouched behind him, panting, desperate not to let their fatigue tell. They had been well-disciplined so far in this bout of ambulatum training — manoeuvres like these might not help them in a defensive battle at the Trajan’s Gate defences, but it would bond and strengthen them further and keep their minds sharp.

‘Not a sound,’ he whispered to them, cupping a hand to his ear. A faint scratching, scrabbling sound danced on the gale. Coming from over the knoll? Somewhere over there, Quadratus’ century of Sardicans and Zosimus’ century of young recruits moved — and it was a certainty that the youths in that unit would betray their position again with some tell-tale noise. He heard the noise again, closer — massively closer. Behind him? His heart thundered and he swung round to see Sura, crouched behind him, helm removed and held between his knees and his fingers fiddling to reattach a bunch of white feathers to the sides of his intercisa helm.

‘Sura for fu-’

‘How will they know I’m an optio otherwise?’ he shrugged.

‘By not acting like an arsehole?’ Pavo suggested. ‘Remember the last cur we met with wings on his helm?’ he said, thinking of the loathsome Barzimeres.

‘Aye, true,’ Sura said, his face falling. He tossed the feathers to one side and put his unadorned helmet on again. ‘Hold on, listen!’

All listened in now. It was clear this time: the dull thud-thud of boots, approaching from the other side of the knoll.

‘We can get to the top of the hill before them, throw up a spear line!’ Cornix suggested.

‘No, that will just drive Quadratus’ men back, it won’t give us victory — and that’s what this exercise is about,’ Pavo whispered tersely.

‘What then?’ he replied.

Pavo’s eyes darted, then met with Sura’s. He looked to Cornix: ‘Okay, take forty and do as you suggest,’ he motioned to the crest of the knoll. ‘But hold them up there.’

‘Sir?’ Cornix frowned.

‘Do it!’ Pavo hissed, then waved the rest of the century with him.

Pavo and his men flitted round to the edge of the hillock. There he saw the two sides: Quadratus, Rectus, Libo and the Sardicans, crouched and scuttling up one side and Cornix and his forty racing up the other — destined to clash on the brow. ‘Hold!’ Pavo whispered, lifting one hand to halt his forty as the two forces met up there, yelping in fright more than anything before clashing together. Poles and wooden training swords clacked against shields. Quadratus’ eighty men pushed against Cornix’ forty. In moments, the weight of numbers started to tell, with the big Gaul’s century driving Cornix’ forty back downhill.

Pavo saw Quadratus hold back, confusion pinching his face. ‘Hold on — this is only half of-’

‘And. . forward!’ Pavo roared, drowning out Quadratus’ words as he led his forty round and up the far side of the ridge, racing for Quadratus’ rear.

‘You wiry bastard!’ Quadratus howled as Pavo rushed up behind him, tapping him with his wooden pole. ‘Kill,’ he said as the rest of his men swept in on the rear of the Sardicans.

‘Enough!’ Quadratus bellowed as they clashed and tumbled onto the grass, but still a few playful jabs of wooden weapons were exchanged. ‘I said enough!’

The play-fighting ended abruptly. Even Pavo was taken aback by Quadratus’ tone. Then he followed the big Gaul’s wide-eyed stare. There, less than a quarter mile away, a small cluster of riders watched on from a promontory nearby, east of the valley mouth. Just twenty or so of them.

Pavo staggered forward a few steps, the vicious wind ruffling his hair.

Huns.

They watched like sentinels, their long, fine dark hair and the manes of their ponies whipping in the wind, their bows nocked but resting across their saddles. For a moment, Pavo was sure they would loose and pepper him and Quadratus with arrows. Then one of the Huns waved the rest away with him, racing back down towards the Thracian plains.

‘Farnobius’ scouts?’ Sura uttered.

‘Aye,’ Pavo replied. ‘And how far behind is their master?’

Quadratus’ eyes combed the horizon. ‘We have days. If we’re lucky.’

Chapter 20

The hall inside the quadriburgium on the sandbank island echoed with the snapping, cracking and squelching of a feast being enjoyed by many, yet only one man indulged in the fare. Gallus watched as the figure across the table set about his meal. The candle was guttering, and when cast in shade, Clothar the Quadi King had an air of humanity about him. But when the flame leapt up again, it cast his cadaverous skull-face and thin wisps of fawn hair into sharp relief. The man was ill, that much was clear, and seemingly determined to eat all he could as if to defy his sickness.

Clothar tugged at the end of a bone and drew it from his mouth, his decaying, yellowed teeth stripping it bare of every last morsel of flesh, the juices spilling down his receding gums and over his grey lips and bony chin. ‘What is wrong, Romans? You are not hungry?’ he said, taking up another joint of goat meat.

Gallus and Dexion said nothing. They had suffered no ill-treatment since their capture on the beach of the sandbank island two evenings previous. Indeed, they had been given water and bread each morning along with clean, dry tunics to wear. Despite this, Gallus sensed a bleak future. It was something to do with Clothar’s demeanour, the way he beheld his captives and even his own men with a wolfish, animal air. Clothar had set this captured Roman quadriburgium up as his residence, it seemed. A wise choice, given that the empire could not retake it without men and a flotilla of sorts. With Clothar at the table was another pair of Quadi — high-ranking nobles, it seemed, going by the jewelled bracelets they wore and their smooth and relatively unworked hands. Quadi sentries stood at each corner of the hall, and Birgir — the pale, flat-faced hunter — stood just behind Clothar’s chair like a guard-dog.

‘Refusing food is poor etiquette,’ Clothar tutted and wagged a finger, then chuckled at his own joke before gulping down wine. ‘Worthy of reprimand!’ he added, his skeletal grin broadening as he looked to his two fellow nobles as if to bring them in on the jest. The two — one shaven-headed and one red-haired — looked nervously at one another, then laughed too.

Their reaction confirmed everything Gallus had assumed about Clothar.

‘Three years ago, there was a banquet just like this,’ Clothar said, gesturing to the plates of meat, fruit, wine jugs and bread between them. ‘Romans ate with Quadi. Except,’ he held a finger in the air as if to freeze time, ‘at this banquet it was a Roman who had invited the Quadi to dine.’ He stopped to gnash at more goat meat. ‘And no ordinary Roman. . Emperor Valentinian, no less,’ Clothar leant forward, his teeth bared in a foul rictus uplit by the candle.

Gallus’ mind raced. Valentinian’s last years had been spent fighting these dogs — indeed, it was said that the old Western Emperor had died in apoplexy at their impudence. If only his agents had suffered such a fate too, he mused bitterly.

‘King of the Quadi before me — Gabinus, my brother — was Valentinian’s guest that evening.’

Gallus felt an even darker mood settle across the table: even the two nobles shuffled uncomfortably on their seats.

‘He came in good faith, hoping to strike some truce with your emperor,’ Clothar continued through a mouthful of meat. Then he slowed, chewing carefully, decisively, his colourless tongue lashing out across his lips. ‘But Valentinian had one of his agents put a cord around Gabinus’ neck as he ate. Choked the life from him,’ Clothar’s nostrils flared and his sunken eyes came alive with wrath, his shoulders squared and he stood a fraction from his seat like some corpse rising from the grave, ‘then tossed his body to the dogs!’

The end of the tale echoed around the hall. Gallus imagined a Quadi tribesman stealing up behind him with a taut cord readied to be wrapped around his neck in retribution. He did not flinch.

Clothar slumped back, then laughed mirthlessly. ‘If you do not wish to eat now, I understand,’ he purred. ‘For your minds will no doubt be on what fate I have in store for you?’

Gallus remained tight-lipped. He mocked the first gnashings of fear in his belly and refused to look away from Clothar’s steely stare.

‘The Roman garrison we bested to take this place and your fortress-city on the southern banks. . we took a few hundred alive. They have kept me entertained for some time — I believe you saw my means of making two legionaries from one, outside? Well, your emperor is always keen to raise more numbers for the legions, isn’t he? I was merely helping him in that respect,’ he said with a hoarse chuckle, then leant forward again, the feral grin returning. ‘But the thing is. . I have run out of subjects.’ He glanced to the leather bags lying by the doorway, Gallus’ plumed intercisa and Dexion’s white-plumed helm visible. ‘So to have two officers walk into my clutches is a fine thing indeed. At first light, the treetops will be bent down once again, and two officers will become four. . ’

Gallus stared through the high barred opening at the wisps of freezing mist that flitted by outside. This dank, dark and featureless chamber was to be theirs for the night and at dawn they were to be led out for execution at the grim elm trees. The chamber’s thick wooden door had been locked hours ago. They had sat in silence at first, then the fort began to echo with the howling and snarling of dogs and the wailing of some poor soul. That had finished some time ago, and Gallus guessed there were only a few more hours until dawn.

Dexion sighed, his eyes closed and his head resting against the cell wall. Gallus wondered what this one pondered in these, his final few hours.

‘Why did you leave him — and the others — behind, sir?’ Dexion said at barely a whisper.

The words were like a brand on Gallus’ neck. He could not meet Dexion’s eye as they echoed around the room. ‘Pavo and the Claudia veterans? Because I needed them to remain at the pass, not to die out here on this miserable journey of ours,’ he said at last.

Dexion did not reply. ‘Then I am disposable?’ he joked weakly.

‘No, you are a hardy soldier and I needed just such by my side. The Succi Pass requires a legion if it is to be held. The Claudia do not need me: Zosimus, Quadratus, Pavo and Sura, they could all lead my legion. They will lead the legion and they will hold the pass. That’s why I left them behind.’

‘That and, I suspect, because you care for them,’ Dexion suggested tentatively.

Gallus looked to Dexion, unflinching. ‘A tribunus who cares for his men will find himself beset with grief,’ he said, the truth of it lancing his heart. ‘I chose the best men to stay behind, and the best man to come west. These choices have to be made, and if that means some men might die, then it becomes a choice of whom. The choice of a tribunus. . a choice without a trace of glory or honour.’ His words trailed off with a bitter edge and he ran his hands across his face to rid himself of the prickling shame.

‘I understand,’ Dexion said quietly. ‘Back at that burnt-out villa, when Pavo and Sura were trapped inside as the Goths approached, I had no place questioning you. My emotions took hold of me when I should have known better. As an officer, it is expected of you to send men to their deaths and carry on, unblemished. Indeed, when I was a centurion in the I Italica, I posted sixteen men to hold a fort gate when we were attacked by Goths. I knew as I spoke those words that those men were going to die. But they would gain us a sliver of time — enough to see the rest of the century out of the rear gate and to safety.’ He gazed into the shadows at the far side of the cell as he spoke, as if imagining their faces there. For just a moment, Gallus almost thought he could see them too. ‘I didn’t have much time to think about it, and I only realised afterwards that I had chosen the lads I did not know so well. I had spared the ones I considered my friends.’ He shook his head and chuckled coldly, his breath puffing in the cool air. ‘And the next time I saw my optio, he looked at me as a drunk might behold a cup of water. Pure, utter loathing. Why didn’t you put me on the gate? he said. They were just boys.’ He shook his head. ‘I may not have scars on my flesh from that battle. . but some wounds are so deep that the scar lies buried within. Invisible.’ He fell silent, staring into the middle-distance.

‘It is said that a man’s choices define him,’ Gallus said at last. ‘And if that is true, it chills me to my marrow to think what I have become. But while I scourge myself over lost comrades, I know that not once. . not once. . has a man died needlessly or at least without good reason under my watch.’ His gaze grew steely. ‘But there are some who infest the empire like lice, burrowing, gnawing, feasting on the flesh of good men, breaking the spirits of heroes and dealing death like a black currency.’

‘You speak of the Speculatores?’ Dexion asked.

Gallus’ head snapped round upon him.

Dexion balked. ‘I. . I know now why I should not have asked after your wife and boy,’ he said.

Gallus frowned, then realisation dawned. In these last days of arduous travel, he had found himself for once drowsy and quick to sleep whenever they stopped and made camp in the forests. Most days he had awoken fresh and revitalised, but some days, the nightmares had persisted until dawn. ‘I have often been told that I talk in my sleep. I presume that in these last weeks, I have been somewhat rambling?’

Dexion smiled sympathetically. ‘You spoke of the agents of the West. Not in any detail — just enough to make it clear that they were responsible. I do not wish to anger you again, just to let you know that I understand.’

Gallus beheld him with a sideways look. ‘Do you, truly?’

‘Perhaps not,’ Dexion conceded. A moment of silence passed, then the primus pilus added; ‘But tell me, give me a chance to understand.’

Gallus sighed and slumped. It seemed for a while that he was finished and would say no more. ‘Those parasites feasted upon the blood of those I loved,’ he said suddenly, breaking the silence. ‘They took a simple man’s life and wrung it, strangled it of joy and affection. They created me.’ His mind threw up a medley of images: the numb escape from northern Italy into the Eastern Empire; the haunted face he saw staring up at him when he stopped to drink from a stream; the gaunt, unfeeling husk he had become as the weeks had passed; the utter lack of pity as he tore his blade across the throat of the first speculatore sent to assassinate him — the blade sawing back and forth until it rasped against the cur’s spine and Gallus’ whole arm was wet with hot blood; the many more who had been sent to complete the task and died just as abruptly; Avitus, the little optio who had been sent to try once more, but who had turned, instead defending Gallus loyally until his death at Ad Salices.

‘All I know of the Speculatores is that they are dark, dark bastards,’ Dexion said, his face lengthening. His eyes darted and he licked his lips nervously. ‘Sir, you came West only to alert Emperor Gratian to the situation in Thracia, didn’t you? Assure me of this. Tell me you do not plan to confront him or these agents of his?’

Gallus gazed into the blackness of the cell. He wondered if, by dawn tomorrow, his torment would be over — brutally but swiftly by virtue of the elm treetops. Then, who would know his story? Who would care? In these final hours, perhaps it was time to speak the words he had never spoken. He recalled then the solemn confession of Carbo, moments before the troubled man had met his end. If I cannot face the past, then perhaps I should share it? He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ‘I have no quarrel with the Western Emperor. But his agents? Well, let me tell you a story. When I am finished, you can ask me that question again.’

Dexion nodded uncertainly.

Gallus’ eyes grew glassy as he searched back into the past. ‘There was a senator called Nonus who lived in Italia, not far from the city of Mediolanum in the north. He was an affable old fellow who could talk and talk without drawing breath. He owned plush farmlands in the Po Valley and needed many workers to tend them.’ Gallus held out his hands, examining the chapped, rough edges of his fingers in the ghostly moonlight. ‘He might have bought slaves to till the soil and gather his harvest, but he did not. My wife and I were granted a small, single-roomed home on his estate along with other families. We rose at dawn, worked in the fields all morning, rested and drank cool water and ate bread in the shade of the olive groves during the hottest hours, then worked all afternoon too. I suffered not a lash on my back nor a cross word from old Nonus. He had a strong company of hired guards that watched his villa, but nobody supervised his farmlands. Trust was granted and rewarded. When it came to harvest time, Nonus’ fare was legendary — dates, olives, marrows, carrots, asparagus and the sweetest honey — all bounteous and delicious, for we worked those lands as if they were our own. The old senator paid us well and treated us as friends. We had the pleasure of dining with him at his home more than once: not some stuffy, pompous show of affectation, no, just a simple meal enjoyed with earnest friends.’

‘Later, when Olivia fell pregnant, she could not work. I worried that her condition might anger Nonus or stretch his patience. But instead, when I told him the news, the old man embraced me with tears in his eyes. He said he would make sure that the finest obstetrix would be there to help with the birth. His wife had been barren and died young, you see, so he had never had children. He told me on that day that he saw those who lived on his lands as the closest thing he would ever have to progenies of his own. Marcus was born the following summer, on a sweltering July afternoon. Nonus was there, his tears flowing again. Olivia hugged our baby boy and I cradled them both in my arms. In all my life, I have never known such a tranquil moment, and I longed for nothing other than those I had right there with me.’

Gallus paused as a long-forgotten pang of emotion caught him off guard then. A thickening around his throat, a stinging behind his eyes. The hooting of an owl outside the cell brought the steeliness to the fore once again.

‘It was under a waning September moon that the Speculatores approached me. They came in the guise of wanderers, you see, a pair of them ambling across our farmlands dressed as common men. They said they were stuck without a place to stay and I offered them the hay bales in the barn by our home. They asked if they could have something to drink and eat before they retired and again I obliged, bringing them stew, bread and wine. We chatted in hushed voices so as not to wake Olivia and Marcus, and for all the world I could have believed they were who they claimed to be. Until one of them asked me if I had heard of Nonus’ recent activities in the Senate House. It seemed that he had spoken out against Emperor Valentinian’s policy of making war with the Quadi. I sensed it then — their true motive. I did not know the exact nature of what they were to ask of me but I knew it would be ignoble. And it was. Lead Senator Nonus to the cliffs by Lake Benacus, they whispered like friends seeking to help me, then walk away when you see our agents approaching. Then their friendly demeanour dropped from their faces. And if you consider defying us, one of them said then nodded towards the open doorway into my home. There, in the blackness, I could just make out Olivia and Marcus, sleeping on the bed. Standing over them was another figure, a third man in a dark red robe, his face masked in a veil. He twirled a small dagger in his fingers so as to catch the moonlight. It hovered just inches above their sleeping forms. The message was stark and unequivocal. They left after that. I spent the rest of that night, sitting by the bed, watching Olivia and Marcus, asleep, unaware. They knew nothing of the Speculatores’ visit. I looked out through the doorway and across the estate to Nonus’ villa — well-protected by his troop of bodyguards — and wondered if the old man had any inkling of what had happened, just an arrow-shot away from his home.’

Gallus sighed, his head falling towards his chest.

‘So I brought old Nonus to Lake Benacus on the day they told me to. We sat upon the cliff tops, chatting in the fresh autumnal air, gazing out across the placid waters. We talked of Marcus, of his future on the estate, of Olivia’s hopes and mine for a second child. It was getting on in the afternoon when Nonus issued a weary sigh and beheld me with an odd look I had never seen before. You are supposed to leave me here, are you not? he said. I will never forget his tone — that of a disappointed Father. I tried as best I could to stammer a reply, but he was having none of it. He nodded to the cypress thickets behind us at the cliffs. Go, leave me. The thugs waiting in there will be growing impatient. I tried to explain, but words had never felt so insufficient. I knew the risks involved in speaking out against the Emperor Valentinian, Nonus said. He has reacted as I feared he might. . and his Speculatores are seldom defied. You know I do not think ill of you for doing as they asked, don’t you? I read the fear in your eyes — it has been there all day. They threatened your family, didn’t they? That’s how they operate. The weather-beaten senator looked at me sorrowfully. ‘I forgive you. I understand. Now do not drag this out: either cast me on the rocks yourself or go, leave me here. You must know what will happen if you do not obey them? Think of your family, Gallus.’

‘His words struck me like a wasp’s sting. I had not even held a sword in all my life and here he was, asking me to do something as simple as walk away from him and condemn him to death. It was then that I finally managed to get my words out: I will protect them, Senator, but not at the forfeit of a good friend’s life. A snapping of twigs startled us both then. We turned to see figures emerging from the forest path leading through the cypress trees. Seven red-robed men, faces veiled. The Speculatores had come to execute the senator. One held a tensed garrotte. Nonus stood, lips trembling, backing towards the cliff edge. Be at ease, I whispered in his ear, then I lifted my fingers to my mouth and whistled.’

‘The shrill signal brought a pack of Umbrian bandits I had hired hurrying from behind the rock pile nearby. They fell upon the momentarily stunned Speculatores. The Speculatores fought like wolves, slaying many of their ambushers, but the Umbrians numbered nearly forty, and soon the last of the red robes had fallen.’

‘What have you done? Nonus beseeched me.’

‘Only what I had to, was all I could say in reply.’

Dexion nodded as he listened intently, then he shuffled as Gallus fell into a lasting silence. ‘A noble choice,’ he said quietly.

Gallus looked up at him. ‘A fool’s choice! For what did it achieve?’

Dexion was taken aback, his eyes widening.

‘Nonus was right,’ Gallus hissed. ‘Weeks later, I was returning from a market trip to Mediolanum when I saw something up ahead. I slowed the cart, sure my eyes were deceiving me, even as I stared up at the broken, bloodied body of the old senator. He was fixed to the trunk of a spruce tree by the roadside by a bolt hammered through either shoulder, his stomach slit and his guts spilled down his legs. Wolves had gnawed at the entrails and at his limbs. I raced home, caring nothing for the produce and tools that fell from the cart. If they had found Nonus then surely they would have carried out their threat on my family.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dexion said, bowing his head.

‘It did not end there. No, they let me return home to find Olivia and Marcus. No harm had come to them; they were well — merely confused by my angst and my panicked story. We fled our home, taking to the road. The Speculatores let me live the life of a brigand for weeks, sleeping and eating on the wagon, always moving, wary of every passer-by. They let the dark parasite that is fear consume me, burrow into my mind. For those weeks I did not sleep, I barely blinked, I jolted at every noise, every movement.’ Gallus stopped, his lips trembling. ‘Finally, I became exhausted from the torment and let my guard down one night. I allowed myself to drain a skin of the venom they call wine and fall asleep instead of standing watch over Olivia and Marcus as they slept by the wagon. They found me that night. They carried out their threat, slew my beloved family and knocked me unconscious. I often wonder if the Speculatores meant to leave me alive so I could see their bodies. I had been consumed by fear for weeks, only to endure an endless plague of shame afterwards.’

The confession was over. A long silence passed. Gallus felt the weight of his troubles absent for a few precious moments. But gradually, the tightness in his chest returned. It had changed nothing. He looked to Dexion; ‘Now, do you still have a question for me about my intentions?’

Dexion shook his head. But Gallus knew he was not finished. ‘But had you not stood for your beliefs, Nonus the Senator would have died and his blood would have been on your hands. Yes, your wife and boy might have gone unharmed. But would Olivia have been able to look you in the eye? Would little Marcus shy away from your touch? Would you not have known equal shame whenever you caught sight of your own reflection?’

‘Is that supposed to offer me comfort, Primus Pilus?’ Gallus asked, squinting at Dexion.

Dexion shook his head. ‘Not at all, sir. It is just that. . sometimes the only thing that can truly destroy a man is himself. Blackness in the mind can suffocate the spirit and ruin a man more than any blade. Sometimes it needs another to show him the folly of letting the blackness win. I just want you to know that I see nothing but nobility in the choice you made.’

Gallus felt his flinty demeanour fall away at these words. ‘And you are the first to have heard of it. I always thought that if I was ever to share this tale, then it would have been with your brother. I see a lot of my younger self in him, and I think he more than any other understands me. But. . ’ he sighed, glancing around the cell, thinking of all that separated him from Pavo and the rest of the XI Claudia: thick stone walls, hundreds of miles and imminent execution, ‘. . it seems that it is not to be.’

Silence reigned once more. What more could a man do in his final moments than contemplate his past. Yet I was supposed to face it, he thought bitterly. The Speculatores would never be brought to justice. Olivia and Marcus would go unavenged.

He picked up a handful of grit from the floor, crumbling it between his fingers. Something hit him then: a smell, an earthy scent that seemed to have tumbled from his memories of the crop fields in the Po Valley. He held his fingers up, seeing that it was not grit but wheat kernels with flakes of chaff falling away. Old fare, he realised, so dry it was surely harvested years ago. A flash of realisation shot through him. He stood, his mind at once alert, his eyes combing the darkness. Then he sunk to all-fours, moving around the floor, running his fingers across the cold stone.

‘Sir?’ Dexion said from the blackness.

‘Move!’ Gallus hissed, shooing Dexion from where he sat.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I knew it!’ Gallus growled, finding more wheat then standing, moving around the walls and running his fingers along the mortar. ‘This room was once used to store grain.’

He sensed Dexion’s confusion. ‘Grain must be kept dry. The only way to do that is. . ’

‘Ventilation,’ Dexion whispered urgently, realising at last. He squatted by Gallus, touching at the section of wall — a square, rough and pitted unlike the smooth blocks of stone around it.

‘It’s been filled with rubble and mortar, but it’s loose enough to come away,’ he said, grunting as he tugged at a piece in the corner to pull away a tiny fragment of the mortar.

‘But we have no tools, nothing to dig with?’ Dexion sighed. ‘And these fort walls must be several feet thick.’

Gallus cast him as hard a glare as he could manage — hoping it would cut through the blackness. ‘Then we use our hands!’

On and on they went. The roar of the Danubius outside did well to disguise the scraping and the tumble of small boulders of rubble from the vent. As pieces of sharp-edged debris came free, they used this to dig and scrape. On and on they went until Gallus fell back from the vent, panting, his tunic slick with sweat and layered with clumps of dust. An hour had passed, he was sure, and still they had tunnelled only a half-foot into the vent. Worse, his fear that it might narrow towards the outside seemed to be materialising — if the wall was as thick as they thought then the outer opening of the vent would have narrowed to be too small for them to slide through. He moved back to the vent as Dexion fell away in exhaustion this time. Taking up a piece of slate, Gallus hacked and chipped at the loose mortar. The slate snapped and so he took up the two shards, scraping, gouging, his lean frame working like a machine. Soon the slate was gone, ground to pieces, and still he pulled and gouged at the mortar with his bare fingers, heedless of the nails ripped clear of their beds or the blood running down his forearms. By his side, Dexion worked doggedly too.

‘We can do this!’ Gallus snarled. ‘There may be a foot to go but we can do this!’

‘But, sir,’ Dexion said, stepping back from the vent.

Gallus glanced round to see his primus pilus gazing up at the barred opening near the chamber ceiling. The silvery-black of the foggy night had lifted. Now, nascent daylight hovered out there, spilling into the cell and bathing it in a charnel grey. Over the rush of the river, they heard jagged laughter and babbling outside and up above.

‘It’s dawn. . ’ Dexion said, his tone flat, resigned.

Gallus glowered to the sliver of daylight beyond the bars, then to Dexion, then to the tunnel.

Birgir flitted down the steps to the stony corridor where Clothar’s prisoners were held, his horn vest clicking as the plates rose and settled with every stride. The place reeked of decay — mainly because of the corpses that languished in the chambers here. He held his breath, then beckoned his two bleary-eyed comrades with him towards the cell at the end.

They stopped by a cell halfway along, peering through the small grate on the doorway. Inside, the bald noble that had dined with Clothar and the Romans the previous evening lay in the corner, clutching his knees to his chest. The king had thrown the other noble to his hounds, watching with glee as the man had been torn apart. This morning, one of the hounds had been running around with the cur’s red-haired scalp clutched in its jaws. ‘We will bring you bread soon,’ he called through the grate. ‘You will be plump and hale for the dogs tonight.’ He watched long enough to see the noble curl up into a tighter ball and heard the man’s gentle weeping, then laughed and waved his two comrades on to the end of the corridor and the cell there.

‘Get back, Roman filth!’ he spat, pushing his face to the grate on this door. ‘Back against the wall!’ His eyes scoured the room in search of them. Once, twice. Nothing? Then his gaze snapped onto the odd, dark shape on the cell’s left-hand wall. A hole. . a tunnel?

‘The bastards have escaped!’ he snarled, his fingers fumbling with the keys, his mind racing with what tortures King Clothar might subject him to for losing these prisoners on his watch. In a blur, he thrust the key in the lock and barged the door open, his two men bundling into the room with him. He hurried over to the narrow hole and climbed in, but stopped, seeing that it only went a few feet into the thick walls. It led nowhere. His spinning thoughts came to a halt upon hearing the strangled half-cries behind him, and the wet rip of steel across flesh. He ducked back from the tunnel and spun round to see his two comrades lying dead on the floor, and the wolfish Roman — who must have been hidden, pressed flat against the wall by the door — rushing for him, stolen axe hefted. He felt only a dull thud and then blackness as the axe blade chopped down on his crown, splicing his head in two.

‘Be silent and swift!’ Gallus whispered as he and Dexion stalked through the prison corridor, heads twisting this way and that. He stopped by the door of the cell holding the whimpering man, then pushed the keys lifted from Birgir’s corpse under the door and moved on. They flitted up the winding stone steps and into the open square at the heart of the fort, which was streaked with mist and edged with colonnade. They ducked behind a set of barrels within the shadow of the colonnade, peeking between the gaps. A pair of Quadi were milling by a brazier, cooking a spitted hare over the flames. The main gate was just beyond them. Three of Clothar’s hounds — fierce, black mastiffs — lay asleep nearby, enjoying the heat.

‘They’re on watch, just like the men on the westerly road. They will not move,’ Dexion cursed.

‘No, they will move,’ Gallus growled, picking up a piece of loose mortar from the flagstones, then hoisting it, ready to throw. Just as he did this, one of the hounds roused. Its eyes were sleepy but its ears had pricked up and its head was turning towards the barrels. Gallus hurled the piece of mortar, watching as it arced across the square, then landed on the brazier, nudging one jutting piece of glowing red-gold kindling. The men never noticed, but the dog did, its head switching to the brazier. The kindling snapped and toppled onto the dog’s rump. The hound’s howl brought Gallus and Dexion’s hands to their ears and shook the fort, and in moments the other dogs had woken. The first dog leapt upon the nearest of the two sentries — its supposed attacker, then the others attacked the second.

From the walls above, Gallus heard dark laughter from the merciless Quadi sentries up there, no doubt enjoying this impromptu bout of dogs feasting on men. ‘Come on,’ he beckoned Dexion with him. They skirted round the edges of the square, staying in the shade of the colonnade, the fort’s open gate only paces away. They came past the doorway to Clothar’s feasting hall, saw the two leather bags which held their armour and snatched them up, then hurried on and down the darkened slope that ran through the gatehouse and outside into the wet sand and thick mist. Through the fog, they could see the Danubius’ rushing waters but nothing of Singidunum on the southerly banks.

‘Slowly,’ Dexion whispered, stopping Gallus from running too far from the shadow of the gateway, pointing up to the guards on the quadriburgium’s four protruding watchtowers. ‘Stay close to the walls until we come round to the boat,’ he motioned, pressing his back to the wall and edging round to the western side.

They rounded one of the towers and beheld the grim white elm trees with the riven cadaver still dangling from the tops. Gallus peered into the shroud of mist beyond until he saw the outline of the fishing vessel at the waterline, then clasped a hand to Dexion’s shoulder. ‘On my word. . ’

But another voice cried out; ‘archers!’

Gallus and Dexion’s heads shot up — from the tower above, Clothar glowered down on them, his wan skull face reddening with ire. A moment later, a cluster of Quadi archers bent over the wall tops, nocking arrows to their bows.

‘Run!’ Gallus bundled Dexion forward.

Arrows thumped down, quivering in the sand and in the bark of the elm trees. One skimmed Dexion’s neck, sending up a spray of blood. Another tore past Gallus’ thigh. He hobbled on, sure the next arrow would take him, but the hail had stopped, the mist had obscured them from the archers’ sights. Grunting, he and Dexion shoved at the fishing boat. After what felt like an eternity, the craft moved freely in the water. Dexion threw and oar into Gallus’ outstretched hand as if agreeing a tacit plan, then both men leapt into the craft and hauled at the oars, willing the water back, fighting against the current of the great river, desperate for the shore to slip into the mist. The quadriburgium began to fade and was gone, then the elm trees began to grey, then. . then Clothar loped into view on the sandy shore. ‘Stop them!’ he cried, waving to some unseen warriors behind him.

Gallus dropped his oar and stood.

‘Sir, what are you doing?’ Dexion gasped.

Gallus ignored him, hoisted the axe stolen from Birgir and hurled it. It flew true and pierced Clothar’s breast, ruining his heart and pinning him to the trunk of the nearest elm. ‘I can’t live with that bastard breathing the same air as me,’ Gallus said, shooting Dexion a wild look, then sitting to take up his oar once more.

As they slipped into the mist and further upriver, they saw the hounds racing out to the shore, then gnashing and tearing at Clothar’s twitching and bloodied corpse.

Next, they heard a war horn wailing. From the shore, jagged shouts rang out and bells rang from the direction of Singidunum’s dock. A splash of oars just beyond the curtain of mist sounded, followed by another and another, coming after them.

Gallus dropped and hoisted his oar again, then fixed Dexion with an iron look. ‘Row, Primus Pilus. . row!’

Reeds crackled and snapped and their boots splashed in the shallows as they hauled the fishing craft up onto the southern banks of the river. Gallus’ arms were numb and almost powerless. His breath came and went in rasps and the blood pounded in his ears. Hours of frantic rowing upriver had brought them two miles, maybe three, Gallus hoped, west of Quadi-held Singidunum.

‘Out of sight. . a little more,’ he gasped as they hove the ship into the gorse bushes. They hadn’t seen or heard their pursuers for the last hour. Had they given up? Surely two Romans were of little consequence?

Dexion groaned then dropped the colossal weight, staggering back, his face wet with fog and perspiration, leaves and grime clinging to his skin. He swiped the moisture from his chestnut brown locks and rested his hands on his knees, squinting downriver from whence they had come. The mist was burning off now, the cloak of grey lifting.

‘First, we should find the westerly road,’ Gallus panted, scouring the foliage of the riverbank and looking beyond at the mesh of pine and birch forest. ‘Once we’re upon it, we can gauge whether. . ’ his words faded as Dexion’s panting halted. He shot a glance at his primus pilus, saw how Dexion’s hawk-like features were tensed, eyes wide, then looked downriver with him.

Nothing. Then. . shadows. Next, the gentlest lapping of oars over the thunderous river torrents.

He saw the shadows take shape: a Quadi warrior, lifting a horn to his lips, his savage features unveiled just as he emptied his lungs into the war horn. The terrible wail shook Gallus’ heart. Another two vessels flanked this one. Thirty or so men, a nest of spears, bows and eager faces.

Two Romans were indeed a great prize, it seemed.

A tacit glance with Dexion, and they both darted from the riverbank, thrashing through gorse and reeds and towards the forest. Gallus’ fatigue derided his every stride. Branches thwacked into his face, gouged stubbornly at his legs and arms, knocking him from side to side. The damp, freezing air seemed to catch in his lungs and the stink of decay grew stronger as they plunged through semi-frozen swamp.

‘They’re ashore,’ Dexion gasped, looking over his shoulder.

Gallus heard the scraping of the Quadi boats being dragged into the shallows, then the thick, jagged cursing of the barbarian warriors and the crackling and crunching as they pursued. ‘Look forward, think only of what lies ahead,’ he urged Dexion, fighting for breath. ‘The westerly road cannot be far and if the empire has retained control of this stretch of the river then. . ’ his words tailed off as he heard something up ahead. Hooves. Clopping hooves. . on flagstones. Coming from the west. Imperial riders?

‘Equites?’ Dexion panted, sharing his thoughts. ‘Let it be so!’

Gallus spotted the frosted grey flagstones just a few bounds ahead through the branches, the road cutting through this forest and across their path like a scar. He saw everything he had staked on this journey spin before him like a dice. Olivia, Marcus. . justice for them and vengeance for the curs who took them from him. The men of the XI Claudia, the closest thing he had to family. . left stranded by him, depending on him, trusting him. But the unruly weave of thorny undergrowth seemed determined to hold him back, ripping at his flesh, snaring his legs. He drew his spatha and hacked through this snare in a frenzy, and Dexion followed suit. The guttural curses of the following Quadi seemed just an arm’s length behind him, when at last he slashed through a last coiled tendril of gorse and tumbled onto the road. At once, Dexion was by his side, both men with spathas raised towards the woods they had just left, seeing the cluster of Quadi bounding for them from those dark depths.

Gallus looked along the road to the west. The mists were swirling there as if stirred by a titan’s hand. The sound of hooves was thundering ever closer. Come on, come on! He mouthed, raising his spatha as the first of the Quadi cut free of the undergrowth and loped towards the road, screaming.

Just then, the mists on the westerly road drew apart. Horsemen burst into view — a hundred or more. Gallus saw them just as a blur of glinting armour. They saw Gallus and Dexion and the Quadi in the woods, then raced for the imminent clash.

Gallus’ hopes leapt for that precious instant. Then he saw what these riders were: bronze scale vests and helms; gleaming torcs around their necks; fair skin and blonde, flowing hair, beards and moustaches.

‘They’re not Roman,’ Dexion stammered, seeing the riders clearly too.

They held their lances level and lay flat in their saddles then charged. The Quadi emerging from the undergrowth by the roadside scattered like rats before a bright light, disappearing back into the woods, some throwing weapons down in their haste.

Gallus and Dexion too backed away from these charging riders. First a few steps, then they tumbled back towards the woods, seeing the snarling rictus on the lead rider’s face. Another rider broke forward and knocked Dexion to the ground with a swipe of his lance. Gallus stumbled and spun round, his back crashing against the nearest birch trunk as the lead rider slowed his mount to a trot then a walk. This horseman came a halt, stabbed his lance in to the dirt by the roadside, then drew his longsword, holding the blade’s edge to Gallus’ throat, pressing it until rivulets of blood stole down Gallus’ neck, eyeing his prize with the look of a starved jackal.

I’m sorry, Gallus mouthed into the ether to his unavenged loved ones, realising it was all over. I’m so, so sorry.

Chapter 21

As sleet lashed Trimontium’s walls, Governor Urbicus thrashed in his bed. The pheasant he had enjoyed for his evening meal had filled him with gas and troubled his fitful sleep with black dreams. Every howl of the gale, every snort of a passing pony or cackling of some drunk had him waking with a start, soaked in sweat. When one wild cry was cut short, he sat up, muttering, wiping the perspiration from his handsome but lined face and smoothing his black hair from his forehead, vowing to enforce a curfew after dark more strictly from now on. If I had the men to enforce it, he mused bitterly. He had heard nor seen nothing since the visit of that damned tribunus with the gaunt, cold stare. Nothing! No sign of a relief garrison, not even a single imperial messenger to advise him on when he could expect such a boon. He mused once again over acting on Gallus’ advice and training the thugs and beggars from the city to serve as militia. They’d sooner slice my neck than save it! he scoffed.

Just then, something rapped violently in the wind. He eyed the shutters, seeing they were not closed properly, then slid from his bed and strode to them. When he reached out, a violent gust blew them wide open and at once, his bedchamber was filled with icy winds and stinging sleet. The night flashed before him, forks of lightning streaking the sky and illuminating his town momentarily — the three hills within the walls running with meltwater and weathering the worst of the wintry deluge. The fineries of his room and the bedding were cast across the floor, his neat hair writhed and his robes rapped wildly as he fought to grasp both shutters. But he stopped, the shutters almost closed, yet not quite. Something was moving out there.

Gingerly, he prized the shutters open just a fraction more and peered into the blackness. Another fork of lightning. Yes — movement! At the northern gatehouse, his precious few sentries there were signalling to each other, their shouts weak over the gale.

‘Open the gates!’ he heard one cry.

He froze, seeing the thick, iron-strapped gates groan. Through them came a sight that had him rubbing his eyes with balled fists. ‘Reinforcements?’ He gawped at the silvery column that entered: intercisa helms, mail shirts, shields and spears. He squinted at the banner they carried. A black eagle on a red background. The VI Herculia. In they came, hundreds of them, soon a thousand. He clutched his Christian Chi-Rho and half-laughed, half-wept. He had prayed for a legion and a legion had been delivered. The walls would be safe.

‘I must greet them, ensure they are here to stay,’ he muttered as he swung away from the shutters to search for his oiled cloak and boots. Then an odd thought struck him. A good six months ago he had received a scroll detailing the losses from Ad Salices. Many soldiers had fallen. Entire legions had been lost, the VI Herculia one of them. .

A serrated scream pierced the storm and a clash of iron followed. Urbicus swung back to the shutter and peered out again. He palmed at his eyes once more, for the dream had become a nightmare. The legion had turned upon his handful of sentries. A streak of lightning threw this cold truth into sharp relief, one of the Herculia legionaries was holding a sentry by the throat and driving his sword up and into the man’s gut. The blade came back out with a wash of blood and the other Herculia legionaries roared in delight while the last few sentries ran.

‘No. . no,’ Urbicus mouthed, sure he would awaken any moment. But when some of the Herculia soldiers threw off their helms and chanted, he saw them for what they were. Flowing blonde and red locks, beards and tattoos. He noticed now that only some of them wore legionary garb, those further back were dressed in Gothic leather armour and carried spears and longswords. Like a fire fed with fresh wind, they spilled from their formations and out across the network of streets. In moments, the screaming of his few sentries was replaced by a cacophonous shrieking as doors were battered down, homes raided, women dragged into the streets. As the northern quarter of the town was put to the torch, Trimontium’s three hills were lit in orange and dancing shadows and the Goths forged on into the heart of the settlement. He saw a brute of a man on the back of a silver stallion, waving them on. A giant in a winged, bronze helm and a jutting trident beard. This one swept a great axe at the citizens who scattered before him, blood leaping in the air as it sliced through flesh. This one was coming for the palace on the slopes of the three hills. In moments, the rider had slipped out of sight, disappearing behind an old Temple of Jove adjacent to the palace.

‘Guards!’ Urbicus cried, backing away from the shutters. ‘Bring my horse to the courtyard, be ready to ride.’

The two men he kept here in his villa would escort him, shield him in his flight. I can be in Sardica within a few days, he realised, thinking of his cousin, Governor Patiens.

He heard footsteps echoing down the corridor outside his bedchamber, then muted grunts and the wet slap of something heavy hitting the tiled floors. Then he heard more footsteps. No, not footsteps. . hooves. He edged gingerly towards the closed doors of his chambers, fingers outstretched to the handle.

Then, as if his nightmares had escaped from his mind and into reality, the bedchamber doors were dashed back from their hinges, shredded wood flying across the room, the thrashing front hooves of the mount that had broken them still swirling in the shattered doorway. The silver stallion settled back onto all fours and the giant rider heeled the beast into Urbicus’ chamber, ducking under the doorway. Urbicus staggered back, stumbling over furniture, face agape. The colossal horseman was streaked in blood and his axe was plastered in skin and hair. His face was bent with bloodlust, obsidian eyes scourging Urbicus, smashed nose wrinkled and teeth gritted above his jutting three-pronged beard.

‘I. . I’ll give you anything you wa-’

The giant’s axe flashed out, cleaving Urbicus’ chest. Urbicus touched a hand to the awful wound, his fingers sinking in through the sundered ribs and feeling the pulsing, hot organ in there, haemorrhaging hot, wet, black blood.

As he crumpled to the floor, he heard cries ring out all over the city, drowning out the screams.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

Farnobius sat on a carved chair in Urbicus’ atrium draped in one of the dead governor’s purple cloaks, one foot resting on a toppled statue, absently throwing grapes into his mouth. The sleet storm from earlier in the night had turned into snow, and this spiralled silently in through the opening in the centre of the roof. He eyed Egil and Humbert and wondered if these two might ever become the burdens that Alatheus and Saphrax had been. The difference is that you are their master and they are your dogs, Vitheric’s weak voice assured him. Farnobius nodded as he considered this, seeing the deferential, round-shouldered stance the two adopted. Your dogs to command, to scorn. . or to slay. . you are adept at slaying those who trust you, are you not?

Farnobius’ head twitched and his knuckles grew white on the arms of the chair. This town had yielded a full silo of wheat, another of barley, and a healthy treasury. Coupled with the men raised from the mines two weeks ago, they were well-stocked. He gazed at the tattered VI Herculia standard on the floor he had harvested from the back of one of the Roman wagons. That and the imperial armour had been the key to this town. Just as I showed you it would, Vitheric said.

‘You are no master of me, boy,’ he growled, his head twitching again.

‘Reiks?’ Egil said.

Farnobius ignored him and took a deep swig of wine.

Egil and Humbert exchanged nervous glances. ‘We have grain, men, weapons, armour and riches,’ Egil said. It was not phrased as a question but it demanded an answer.

‘You think we should stay here, then?’ Farnobius said flatly.

Egil licked his dry lips and shuffled where he sat. ‘It is an option. Continuing westwards brings us to Trajan’s Gate. The Romans are skilled at holding such narrow defiles, and the dead of winter is almost upon us.’

‘And Veda did not return,’ Humbert added. ‘If the rider he was pursuing managed to forewarn the Romans then. . ’

Farnobius raised a finger and it was enough to silence the man. He thought of what lay ahead. His horde could be at Trajan’s Gate within a few days. Sooner, even, were he to send his riders on ahead. To remain here and settle for the meagre takings of this city, or to forge on, seize the pass and ravage what lay beyond?

‘Do you truly fear the scraps of men and steel that Rome’s broken legions might pit against us at this pox-ridden pass? I certainly do not. I have settled for too little, for too long. No, we will stay here but one day and wring every last morsel of grain and gold from this place. Then, when we leave, we will march through this much talked-of narrow valley.

Rise, death-bringer, Vitheric’s voice mocked, for your axe is surely thirsty again after mere moments without blood.

Farnobius stood, kicking the fallen statue to one side as if to banish the voice, his head twitching violently.

‘There, we will fall upon Trajan’s Gate like Wodin’s wolves!’

Chapter 22

Five days had passed at Trajan’s Gate since the sighting of the Hun scouts. On the first day, Terra Mater made a determined attempt to hinder the legionaries’ last-gasp efforts to bolster the pass, casting upon them a vicious wintry storm. The skies had erupted, pelting the Romans with sleet as they tried to finish their work on the fortifications. By the third day, the temperature had fallen and they had awoken to find the land encrusted with ice and a gentle snow drifting down from the skies in ominous silence. The snow was endless and by the fourth day, the valley was blanketed in white. Today, a stinging, easterly blizzard that alternated between snow, hail and sleet had raged ceaselessly until now, early afternoon. More, thunderbolts streaked across the heavens every so often, casting an odd, eerie light down on the pass. Still, legionaries wrapped in their thickest, warmest garb struggled to and fro up and down the steep southern valley side, carrying timber into the thickets up there. Quadratus’ century was digging at snowdrifts on the Via Militaris and sharing hushed words, one of them jogging eastwards, away from the wall to plant short posts in the ground with coloured ribbons every few hundred paces.

Pavo padded from the fort to crouch on the edge of the northern spur, eyeing their progress while blowing into his numb hands. The snow was falling thicker than ever. ‘Enough of the bloody stuff to hamper our efforts, yet not enough to render the valley impassable,’ he muttered, pulling his thick woollen cloak round to shield himself from the driving blizzard.

‘Aye, but for a moment in the Persian sands,’ Sura said, coming to observe by his side, his eyes like slits as he peered into the storm. His optio’s face was blue and his words somewhat slurred, such was the cold. ‘Though I pity those poor bastards need it more than we do,’ he nodded through the grey of the blizzard, to the lookout posts down at the eastern end of the valley. The basic timber roofs on stilts that had been erected as shelters were now barely humps in the snow.

Pavo spat snow from his lips and looked to the activity on and around the timber wall. He prayed to Mithras that he had followed Geridus’ advice correctly. The old Comes had helped develop his ideas, and had a fair few wiles of his own stored away too.

‘They’ll have time to finish?’ Sura asked.

Pavo shook his head. ‘They can only do what they can. Farnobius will decide when it is time to finish.’

Zosimus stomped through the white to stand with them, his shoulders heaped with snow and his stubbled scalp frosted likewise. ‘Come on, you couple of shirkers,’ he said with a tense laugh, his eyes scanning the whiteout at the eastern end of the pass. ‘Enough of the talking and more of the-’ he stopped, his neck craning, eyes widening, jaw stiffening.

Pavo and Sura looked with him.

Pavo’s heart thundered.

At the eastern end of the valley, Simplex peered from the northern lookout post and into the snow-filled pass and beyond, certain the blizzard was toying with him. All day he had noticed shadows emerging then slinking back into the wall of white. This was another such, surely? He turned to his comrade with the buccina clutched in frozen hands.

‘Give the word, Simplex,’ Quietus said through chattering teeth, behind him.

Simplex looked back, seeing that his comrade’s face was riddled in indecision like a reflection of his own thoughts. ‘I don’t know, I can’t see, I can’t be sure.’

‘Aye,’ the other replied, ‘but then what was it Centurion Zosimus said? Better to be wrong than dead, wasn’t it?’

Simplex took one further look into the driving snow. The blizzard swirled then dropped for a moment. He set eyes upon a flock of hardy and well-camouflaged mountain sheep, ambling across the rugged land east of the valley. ‘Bloody sheep,’ he turned to grin at Quietus. As he did so, something shot past his ear and instantly, his frozen features were splashed with something wet, hot and coppery. Blinking the mess from his eyes, he frowned as he saw Quietus drop the buccina then clutch at something jutting from his throat. A shaft, feathers. Blood pumping from the spot where it was lodged in his windpipe, spotting the snow underfoot red. Quietus dropped to his knees, then slumped onto his side, lifeless, the tip of the arrow shaft jutting from the back of his neck.

Now the snow blossomed with crimson. Simplex had never seen blood in such quantity. He had never seen any combat in his short time in the legions — missing the fall of the Great Northern Camp as he had, much to his eternal shame, fled. Prior to enlisting with the XI Claudia, his greatest act of violence had been to help butcher a lamb for the midwinter feast of Natalis Invicti. His breath came and went in gasps, and it was only when he heard the soft padding of feet from down in the valley that he swung back to the east again. The flock of sheep had dispersed, and the pack of stealthy Gothic archers they had concealed were flooding forward, wrapped in pale grey hides and cloaks. Their arrows punched into the snow all around him. He ducked down behind his fallen comrade, pretending he was dead. As he did so, he saw that Quietus’ buccina was but a pace away. A thought crossed his mind then. He could remain here, unmoving. He might live if he did so, just as he had survived the fall of the Great Northern Camp. A hot tear spilled across his cheek as he realised this was not an option, and he recalled Centurion Pavo’s stirring words in their last few weeks of training.

It’s not about the man, it’s about the legion. You and your brothers are one. If you die to save your brothers, then you live on in their hearts and you will bask in Mithras’ glory.

He reached out and grabbed the buccina, put it to his lips, then sat up and emptied his lungs into it. Once, twice, thrice.

Gothic curses sounded and a shower of arrows thumped into his chest. His vision dimmed and he fell back, blood from one ruined lung leaking into the other. His dying thought helped him to face the blackness.

Fight well, brothers. Live on.

The buccina cry echoed around the pass. All work around Trajan’s Gate ceased. Every man stood tall and stared to the east.

Pavo looked to Zosimus, to Quadratus down in the pass, then finally to Sura.

‘First Cohort, First century. . form up!’ Zosimus cried, sweeping his ham-like hands as if to gather his youthful recruits from their places in the wall-works. They duly dropped the logs they carried, threw down shovels and pick-axes and hurried behind the protection of the timber stockade and then on up the scree path towards the fort plateau.

Quadratus followed this with a cry of his own from down on the valley floor: ‘Third Cohort, First century — to arms!’ The Sardicans hurried through the drifts, snow spraying up in their wake, Rectus and Libo urging them on.

‘Second Cohort, First century,’ Pavo cried, ‘with me!’ He waved Trupo, Cornix and the rest of the younger legionaries with him to the fort. What followed was a flurry of clanking iron, banging heads, curses and snatched breaths. Herenus and his slingers helped to dispense weaponry to the legionaries, whilst the century of sagittarii strapped two and sometimes three quivers to their backs with shaking hands. Men helped their comrades into their mail shirts, buckled on swordbelts and helms, hoisted shields and spears, then filed back out into the blizzard across the fort plateau like an iron stream, snow flicking up from their every footstep. Herenus and his slingers ran only to the edge of the fort spur, where they would have a good sight of whatever enemy was approaching down this valley, and a handful of his men took up position around the two ballistae mounted there. The sagittarii hurried down the scree path from the fort spur first, then raced across the timber wall battlement and formed up on the bulge on the southern valley side. The three centuries of legionaries followed their path, spilling across the walkway of the timber stockade, but remaining on that wooden battlement and turning their shields and spears to the east. A wall topped with Claudian ruby red and sharpened steel. The eagle standard jutted proudest, the bull banner rapping in the icy gale.

‘That’s it, just as we trained for. You know your positions, shields up and together, show them nothing but your speartips and fiery eyes,’ Pavo cried as he took his place to the right of his century — on the centre of the timber wall’s parapet, with Zosimus’ century on his left and Quadratus’ century on his right. Sura barged into position by his side and the pair shared a well-practiced grunt of acknowledgement, shoulders and shields interlocked.

He glanced to his friend, saw the dark look in those usually impish eyes, and recalled Sura’s heartfelt words on their return from Persia.

We won’t die as old men, Pavo.

The pair shoved a little closer together, then peered into the blizzard. The brow of Pavo’s helm shielded his eyes from the stinging snow. For a moment, he gazed down the Succi Valley, and saw only unbroken white. A fork of lightning shuddered across the sky, part-veiled by the roiling blizzard, and its pallid light betrayed nothing. He could hear only the panting and whispered prayers of men and their cloaks rapping in the merciless squall. A false alarm?

Then an inchoate, grey shape took form amidst the wall of white. It came and went like a reluctant shade at first — like the infernal shadow-man from Pavo’s dreams — before spilling into reality, spreading and dominating the width of the valley floor: a mass of warriors marching from the white infinity to the ghostly echoes of cursing men and whinnying warhorses, drifting in and out of earshot over the snowstorm. Then came the crunch-crunch of boots and hooves in snow, and the poor light glinted on the panoply of sharpened, flesh-ripping steel they carried.

With the certainty of a cock crowing at first light, Pavo felt his gut flip over, his mouth drain of moisture and his bladder swell. At least five thousand men, he realised — Taifali riders, Huns and Gothic spearmen — against the five centuries of the XI Claudia. His mind screamed at him, pleaded with him, to turn away, to flee, and to let another force come and be the salvation of this pass. But with a gnash of his teeth, the weakness was gone.

‘By Mithras, there are thousands of them. They’ll cut us apart!’ Trupo stammered, barely heard over the growing Gothic din.

Pavo leapt upon the comment, swatting it away as if it had escaped his own lips. ‘They’ll be lucky to get close enough,’ he snarled.

A chatter of nervous, almost disbelieving laughter spilled from the men of his century at this. And it seemed to scatter the spell of fear from Trupo, who nodded at the rebuke, then adopted a trembling grimace, knuckles white on his spear shaft. And it was the same in each direction Pavo looked: to his right, big Quadratus’ face was bent with the anticipation of battle, and the mad-eyed Libo bore a feral grin almost matched by the lantern-jawed Rectus. To his left, his own century and the hulking Zosimus’ snarled, muttering to themselves, some of their faces tear-streaked, some eyes looking skywards as if for a final blessing. By his side, Sura glowered ahead, lips taut and twitching to betray clenched teeth. ‘The whoreson has dared to face us,’ he said with a growl.

Pavo frowned, then followed Sura’s gaze as the Goths broke out in a cry. An assured, throaty chant.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

The chant grew fierce as one colossal mounted figure emerged from the grey.

He felt a steely hand pass across his heart at that moment. His brow dipped and he thought only of Felicia. This dog of a reiks would pay. Then his mind flashed with images of the absent Tribunus Gallus. The iron wolf was absent maybe, but also very much by his side — mantras and lessons from his years under Gallus’ tutelage sparked in his thoughts and would serve him well today. He thought of Father and Dexion, imagining them with him too, steadfast, mocking the odds before them. Avitus, Brutus, Felix, Habitus, Noster, Sextus. . the armies of the dead that Gallus had talked of stood with him too. At that moment, he avowed to live through this, to be reunited with Gallus and Dexion again.

As the Goths approached, the timber stockade trembled from the vibrations. He sensed some of the men of his century back away from the edge of the timber stockade, just a half step or so. This brought back flashes of his first ever battle. He wished he could tell them the fear would ease over time, but the truth was that the fear never left, it just became a dark and familiar presence. ‘Pull together!’ he roared. ‘Shoulder to shoulder — not a sliver of a gap between your shields.’ A surge of vigour overcame him. ‘This is your wall, built by your hand. Now stand. . your. . ground!’ he snarled.

He heard Zosimus and Quadratus utter similar commands and felt a surge of elation as the legionaries along the walltop erupted in a surge of noise. Spathas clattered against Roman shields. The buccinas sounded over and over in competition with the Gothic din. The baritone chorus of men with fire in their blood swamped the Gothic commotion for that precious moment, and Pavo was sure that — just for a moment — their advance slowed.

Suddenly, the Roman war-song faded and the Gothic advance did too, coming to a sudden halt just a few hundred paces shy of the pass defences. The valley was eerily quiet with just the blizzard daring to whistle. Then the Gothic ranks rustled and the giant horseman rode through the sea of spearmen, archers and cavalry.

Pavo beheld Farnobius with a flinty glare.

The Reiks took to riding his silver stallion along the Gothic front like an emperor, his savage axe held aloft. His chest bulged like a bull’s and his jaw jutted with hubris, the black trident beard jostling with every stride and the nose Pavo had shattered shuddering like a lightning bolt between his inky-black eyes. He took to rallying his masses with some Gothic homily, and this roused rhythmic cheers from them, each one causing the ground to tremble. It was then that Pavo noticed the giant’s headwear.

‘Hold on, is that-’ Sura started.

‘Barzimeres’ helm. Aye, it is,’ Pavo confirmed.

‘Wonder what happened to the rest of the useless bastard?’ Sura mused.

Farnobius’ sermon ended, then he swung his mount round to face the Roman defences and walked it forward a few paces, snow flicking up with every stride. His grin was devoid of mirth and more like that of a ravenous predator, and half of his face was plastered in snow.

‘Brave Romans, you have come to the sacrifice, I see? It would have been easier to send a herd of lambs.’ His Goths broke out in a raucous laughter at this.

Pavo remained unblinking, the needling rhetoric glancing from him like a wayward arrow from his helm.

‘There are a few hours of light left, but I feel no need for my men to make camp, for this tumbledown stockade of yours will be shattered by dusk.’ He cast a hand to the west. ‘But I am no brute. I understand that every fibre of your being longs to stay far from the ends of our swords. So I offer you these next few moments to run. Go, scatter into the hills like wild sheep. Spare me the trouble of taking your heads.’ He drew his grim axe and deftly flicked it over in his grip, the blade flashing in the poor light.

Not a single legionary moved. But Pavo sensed their spirit being sapped by these words. He heard one set of teeth chattering, and felt the pulsing heartbeats of the others through their pressed-together stance. When a pair of spears were passed forward from the midst of the Gothic ranks, Pavo squinted at the shapeless masses atop them, then recoiled at the grey-blue, staring and lifeless heads fixed on the lances. Governor Urbicus of Trimontium, he realised, seeing the black hair and flashes of grey at the temples of one head. The other, almost black with decay, sported a brown tuft beard hanging below a gawping mouth. Barzimeres, Pavo realised.

‘Well we’re finding out what became of him, piece by piece,’ Sura muttered dryly.

‘What is bravery, courage anyway?’ Farnobius continued, planting the butts of these two spears in the ground and allowing snow to settle on the cold, rotting heads. ‘Is it not what Roman generals talk of while they stand far behind the battle lines drinking wine and gorging on goose livers?’

Still, not a legionary moved, but now Pavo felt their stance change: they were not leaning forward and putting their weight behind the shields as before, but shrinking, pulling back. His brief and fierce homily to the legionaries felt like hours ago. What more could he offer? He glanced to Zosimus and up to Quadratus on the walls. Both men were likewise searching for some riposte. When it came, it was from none of the three centurions.

‘You talk of courage, Goth?’ the voice cried in a throaty burr, then a wineskin hurtled overhead from the fort spur and splashed down on the no-man’s land between the Goths and the timber wall, bursting in a shower of crimson, stark against the snow. ‘Then let me offer you some liquid courage. With Mithras as my witness. . you will need it!’

All heads in the Roman defences switched round to see the tall, broad figure that strode from the spur then down the scree path before emerging onto the timber stockade. Like a guiding father, Geridus strode along the rear of the legionaries lined up there, patting their shoulders firmly, offering whispered words of encouragement. The hulking warrior moved stiffly, but walked without aid. His giant frame was encased in his bronze cuirass and he wore his red-plumed helm, the dust at last cleaned from the fine armour. The garb transformed him, accentuated his huge shoulders, the shade of the helm’s brow adding a fire to his eyes, and the bushy grey beard perfectly framing a scornful half-smile. ‘Stand firm, legionaries,’ Geridus boomed as he came to the centre of the walltop, near Pavo. ‘This defile has never fallen and today it shall be no different. As Master of the Passes, I say it is so and so it shall be.’ Then he beheld Farnobius with the look of an impatient father and flicked one finger at the burst wineskin that lay before the reiks. ‘Drink up, brave Goth.’

One legionary burst out in a nervous chuckle and, moments later, raucous laughter was pouring from the lips of the XI Claudia. In this bitter cold, Pavo felt a spike of warmth, hope, hubris perhaps, but a welcome sensation nonetheless. The manner of it seemed to slap the confidence from Farnobius, who bristled, his head twitching and his lips muttering as if to some unseen companion. He backed away to his lines, axe pointed at Geridus like an accusing finger then flicked to the spiked heads. ‘Your head will be next, old man.’

The siren-song of the blizzard ebbed for a moment as Farnobius wheeled round to face his horde. Pavo felt the men by his side ease their stance just a fraction. ‘Be ready. . this is it!’

Then, the storm whipped up in a frenzy like never before, driving at them, shrieking like a storm of shades, blinding, stinging. As if Farnobius had conjured this wrath, he swung round to face the Romans, his mount rearing up as it turned, his arm swinging his axe forward like a standard and his lungs casting forth a demonic howl. ‘Destroy them!’

The Gothic war horns blared in a frenzy and the horde surged forward, churning through the snow. A sea of jostling infantry led the advance at a jog, carrying tall ladders. A thousand, Pavo reckoned. Enough to swamp the walls. Some four thousand more mad-eyed horsemen cantered behind them: the pack of Huns and swathes of Taifali riders. Enough to send terror rampaging through any man’s veins. But Pavo knew that a cool head was paramount. He saw how the advancing pack of Gothic infantry raced past the short staff wedged in the ground with a red ribbon tied to it, then twisted his head towards Geridus.

‘Red, sir,’ he growled.

Geridus nodded in silence, then flicked a finger to the buccinators. These trumpeters sounded one short, shrill note and immediately the men up on the edge of the fort spur burst into action.

‘Ballistae, loose!’ a call came from up there. A cacophonous bucking of wood and a whoosh sounded. Like a pair of swooping eagles, the ballista bolts shot down upon the Gothic advance and wrought great gashes in their ranks. Men running towards the Roman wall were suddenly cast back at three times the speed, their shields shattered and reduced to kindling, their chests run through by the bolts and their hurled bodies serving to break the limbs and the spirits of those behind, showering all nearby in blood and chunks of flesh. Pavo saw a few slow, their thoughts doubtless pondering the merits of staying back out of the range of the bolt-throwers. Their hesitation was not left to seed, however, as Reiks Farnobius berated them from his safe vantage point behind. ‘Onwards, you dogs!’

Now Geridus’ eyes narrowed as the Goths ran past the staff with the blue ribbon.

‘Blue!’ Zosimus called out.

Geridus nodded to buccinators again. Two notes sounded. This time the slingers on the spur and the archers on the opposite bulge rippled to attention. ‘Loose!’ Herenus howled from the fort spur and the sagittarii centurion echoed from the southern valley side. The creaking of bowstrings and whirring of slings was followed by a flurry of twangs and a chorus of hissing overhead. This storm of missiles rained down on each side of the Gothic advance. Roman arrows quivered in shields or pierced thighs and necks and cast up blood to fleck the blizzard in red. A swathe of spearmen sank to their knees or were punched back from the advance. The shot, however, was even fiercer. Defying the storm, it seemed that not one of the lead spheres missed its target. Goths stumbled as they ran, dark holes appearing in their faces or foreheads where the shot had ripped through them, blood pumping from the wounds and ending the battle for them. Sixty felled, Pavo reckoned. A fine volley, but not nearly enough.

His eyes widened as he saw the Gothic response. Behind the Gothic spearmen, a forest of arms rose, clutching self-bows. Twang. . hiss. The volley was thick, matching the stinging snow in number. ‘Shields!’ he cried in unison with Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura.

The ruby shields of the XI Claudia rippled up even higher, tilted back a fraction. A merciless rattle of iron thumping into wood rang out. The sound of tearing flesh and snatched screams marked out those who had been too slow or had fallen prey to a stray arrow. Pavo glanced along the line, seeing a few gaps appear where his men had been felled: some lay crumpled over the sharpened tips of the wall, others had been punched back from the battlements and lay broken down on the snow behind the stockade. One swayed where he stood, an arrow jutting from his eye socket and a soup of blood and brains pumping from the wound and down his face before he toppled from the line, face-first into the pass.

‘Again,’ the ballistae crewmen roared, sensing the need for a retort. Thrum. . whoosh!

One screaming Goth lost in battle-fury ran ahead of his comrades, only to be silenced as a bolt took him in the face, scattered his head like a ripe watermelon and left his headless body to run on a few steps before it stumbled and fell, convulsing as dark blood spurted from the neck. The bolt flew on, untroubled by this, to rip the arm from another Goth then pin the man behind to the ground. The other bolt hurtled through the groin of a spearman, then that of another and another again behind him. All three screamed, clutching the soaking, bloody mess that remained of their pelvis and genitals, before collapsing, rendered unconscious by the pain.

Another volley of Gothic arrows, another drum of iron on Roman shields, another clutch of precious legionaries down. The thick, unbroken line on the battlements was now peppered with gaps. And, Pavo realised, there were no fresh cohorts held in reserve. Just this jumble of men, freezing, scared. . but together, he affirmed. They were standing firm. The ghosts of the Great Northern Camp and the fraught encounter on the riverbank were being faced.

And Farnobius’ horde were only seventy paces away, Pavo realised, seeing that the Goths were almost at the staff with the rapping green ribbon, readying their ladders to assault the wall. ‘Plumbatae!’ he cried. That’s it, he thought as the three centuries rippled and hoisted their lead-weighted darts, let’s make this look real. ‘Loose!’ he cried.

The Goths thundered onwards, all attention on their shields and avoiding the imminent rain of Roman darts.

That’s it, just a little further. .

‘Hoist the ladders!’ Vulso roared as the Roman plumbata hail thinned and he and his fellow freedmen from the mines loped onwards. His flat nose wrinkled as he squinted ahead. Just fifty or so paces to the wall. Forty. . thirty.

‘There’s hardly any of ‘em,’ Dama, his mean-eyed comrade from the mines roared with glee as he saw the line of legionaries atop the stockade. ‘We’re goin’ to gut ‘em, take their heads. . take their purses.’

‘And that’ll just be the start of it,’ Vulso agreed, his voice trilling as they ran. ‘Think of the riches we’ll have when we break this wa-’

Vulso’s voice seemed to be sucked from his lungs as the world under his feet fell away. He barely had time to scream before the sharpened stake in the shallow pit he had fallen into pierced his groin and burst from his ribs. It was as if his blood had turned to fire. Agony blinded him. All around he heard swiftly muted screams, the thick cracking of bone and the wet splash of bodies being torn apart and innards leaping free. He grabbed at the writhing sensation below his torn ribs, and felt what he thought was some kind of serpent speeding past him, until he realised it was a loop of stinking, steaming blue-grey intestine escaping from his belly.

The flashing white before his eyes faded just a fraction, and as blackness closed in, he saw Dama beside him, eyes rolled up into his skull, the spike he had landed upon having pierced his jaw and burst from the top of his head.

He felt a surge of pain like he had never before known and assumed it was death approaching. But it was not. Pinned here, he would suffer for some time.

Pavo gawped at the advancing Gothic line as they plummeted into the band of snow-covered lilia pits, planted just days ago across the width of the Via Militaris. One moment Farnobius’ infantry had been running forward and the next it was as if some vast, unseen butcher’s blade had swept away their legs and hauled them down. Wet punching sounds of perforated flesh, cracking ribs and cartilage, and the animal screams of broken men filled the pass, and a sudden waft of raw guts swept across the legionaries on the wall. The Gothic advance had come to a sudden and gruesome halt. Men behind the front blundered onwards, unaware, only to stumble or trample over their impaled comrades. Pavo took no delight in the awful scenes, but when he looked up and saw Farnobius, still safely mounted further back, his face twisted into a savage grimace. Come forward, you bastard!

‘Now, lad, now!’ Geridus barked, clasping his shoulders and shaking him from his thoughts.

Pavo set down his spear, snatched up the pole with the golden cloth and swished it from side to side overhead. Three sharp buccina blasts accompanied this signal. Gradually, the chaos around the band of lilia pits ebbed as a thunder filled the air. Pavo’s eyes again pinned Farnobius, revelling in the flash of confusion on the giant’s face. The thunder grew raucous and then, suddenly, from the southern valley side on the Gothic flank, twelve horseless and driverless wagons burst from the skeletal, snow-coated ash woods there and hurtled down the steep sides. Then a pack of blazing arrows shot from the woods, thwacking into the wagons and igniting their resin-soaked timbers. At once they erupted into balls of orange fury. Some wagons toppled and careened onwards, slewing wildly towards the valley floor and sending out offshoots of the blazing timbers they were packed with.

‘Back. . back!’ Farnobius cried, his face uplit in orange as he saw that he was within the jaws of this snare. Pavo leaned from the timber wall, one fist clenched, willing the blazing wagons to crush the cur. But the giant reiks surged clear. Yet the wave of Gothic infantry snared upon and before the band of lilia pits were not so fortunate. The wagons crashed over the stricken, crushing heads and chests and setting light to those nearby. The all-white pass was suddenly a vision of wintry fire, screaming Goths running to and fro, the ladders dropped, shattered or ablaze. The ghostly, riderless wagons finally came to a halt only after the survivors of this first Gothic attack wave took flight, hurrying back up the pass to Farnobius’ side.

Pavo felt the tension ebb and his clenched fist fell limp. His head lolled in failure.

‘It was a fine ruse, lad — an anvil of spikes and a hammer of blazing wagons — one I would have been proud to think of myself,’ Geridus shook him by the shoulders, ‘and we lost only a handful of men. Now get your head up. The day is but young.’

But when Pavo did look up, he noticed the fleeing wave of Goths. Some carried Gothic spears. A few had Gothic features, but the vast majority were darker-skinned. Men of Greece and Macedonia. ‘They’re our men,’ he realised.

‘Brigands, thieves, no doubt,’ Geridus dismissed them with a swipe of his hand. ‘After a pretty coin or two.’

But Pavo saw how the untouched, unused four thousand or so with Farnobius behind the mess of the burning wagons were true warriors. The Germanic Taifali with their tall, powerful mounts and their dark-blue howling wolf shields. The dense pack of Gothic spearmen and the pocket of vicious Huns. ‘We’ve thinned his weakest men and no more.’

‘No, we’ve repelled them,’ Sura interrupted now, ‘look.’

Pavo and all others atop the stockade peered into the driving snow. Just as they had emerged from the snow, now they faded into grey again. Farnobius was waving them back. Away from the pass?

Farnobius’ chest rose and fell as swathes of the beggars he had taken from the mines — taken from the mines, armed and fed — washed past him, clutching wounds, staggering, coming to a halt at the side of his horde. He longed for one of the survivors to dare to flee on past the horde and away from the valley, vowing that he would ride any such down and split their skull.

A frozen waste, aflame and soaked with blood, Vitheric’s weak voice asked, was this the prize you sought when you pressed your hands to my throat and held me under the waters of the Danubius?

He realised his hands were trembling and his head jerked violently.

‘What now, Reiks Farnobius?’ Egil asked, eyeing him gingerly. ‘We could still return to Trimontium. It is unlikely the Romans have taken any measures of control since we left.’

Farnobius’ eyes snapped round on Egil. He wondered if this diffident noble secretly sneered at him behind those steady words. Egil and Humbert had beseeched him to remain in Trimontium over the winter. But they were wrong. Victory had to be taken here today, at any cost. He glowered over the incongruous vision of the pass before him: the heat haze above the black and blazing wagons, the swirling, thick blizzard around it and the brown timber wall beyond that filled the defile and barred the route west. Just a thin band of iron fin-topped helms watched on from that stockade, part hidden behind bright, ruby-red shields.

You have the numbers, but they have the high ground, Vitheric said. So how might a pack of wolves bring down an eagle?

Farnobius’ eyes darted, wondering if any others could hear the dead boy’s voice as clearly as he could. But all around him gazed back at him either blankly or with looks of concern. How might a pack of wolves seek to bring down an eagle? Was the shade of Vitheric toying with him? Farnobius’ chest rose and fell rapidly as panic began to set in. Then it came to him. He looked to Egil and Humbert with a creeping smile.

‘Sometimes, to defeat an eagle, you must shake it from its lofty perch.’

As Egil and Humbert shared a confused glance, Farnobius turned away from them and looked over his horde, seeking out the few who would bring him victory.

Over an hour had passed since the Goths’ retreat back up the pass. The flames of the wagons had now died, leaving a black scar across the snow before the timber stockade. The legionaries remained in position atop the battlements, teeth chattering in the cold, eyes fixed on the ghostly shadows of the storm. Zosimus, Quadratus Geridus, Pavo and Sura had gathered at the middle of the battlements.

‘They’re finished, surely,’ Quadratus insisted, pointing down into the pass where the Goths’ broken and burnt ladders lay near the band of lilia pits. ‘They’re not coming over this wall now.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Pavo countered.

‘Perhaps they’re simply fashioning new ladders?’ Sura mused.

‘No,’ Zosimus said with distrusting eyes, ‘they’re up to something. They want us to wait here, watching the east, freezing, guessing.’

‘It is safest to adopt a position of distrust,’ Geridus agreed. ‘We should stay vigilant.’

Pavo noticed the timber walkway shudder ever so slightly. He frowned, seeing that not a man on the parapet had moved. He was about to dismiss it when he saw a build-up of snow slip from one of the sharpened palisade tips. But there was certainly no thaw underway. Then he felt the shudder again. Suddenly, he remembered Saturninus’ words on that frantic day when the Great Northern Camp had been overrun: The Shipka Pass has fallen. The Hun horsemen came around the impassable mountains and sliced into our rear! His eyes widened as he turned to look over his shoulder, down behind the timber wall where the Roman spears and quivers were stocked. His eyes traced further up the pass and locked onto a swirling current of snow.

‘Turn!’ he cried.

The others with him started at the cry. Pavo heard only their babbling replies as he saw the dark horsemen emerge from the snow and race for the rear of the Roman wall. Nearly one hundred Huns bore feral snarls on their faces and whirled looped ropes like slings above their heads.

Geridus swung round and gasped at the sight of them. ‘What the — how. . no cavalry can ride around this pass! It cannot be!’

‘These are no ordinary horsemen, sir,’ Pavo cried. ‘They can ride rugged hill trails like no othe-’

His words were cut off as the lassos licked out, leaping up to the wall, wrenching unsuspecting legionaries down by the neck. Panic erupted as many of them thought thousands were bearing down on their rear.

‘Slingers!’ Pavo bellowed to Herenus and his men. Only now they saw what was happening, and loaded their slings with fumbling hands. ‘Sagittarii!’ he echoed to the archers.

But the Huns were at work. Now they looped their ropes around the buttressing beams and up and over the sharpened picket tips. Like a colony of ants at work, they wheeled away, using the strength of their ponies to set the timbers to groaning, bending, then, with a sickening shredding noise, the stockade shifted violently under Pavo’s feet. A heartbeat later, the whole thing moaned, then sagged back, the picket-stakes that were hauled back dragging others with them. Legionaries half-climbed, half-fell down the ladders. Many were thrown down by the violent lurches of the structure. Pavo slid and scrabbled as those with him slipped away. Suddenly, he was falling. A moment later and with an almighty crash, he found himself buried in snow. For a nightmarish moment, he could not dig himself free, but when he did, he saw the nightmare was truly upon him: the wall had fallen. It lay broken, men scattered behind it, while the Huns raced back off into the grey at the western end of the valley — though many of those hardy steppe riders lay writhing in the snow, peppered with belated Roman arrows and slingshot.

‘Up, up!’ Zosimus screamed, helping legionaries from where they had fallen, haranguing those not rising fast enough.

Pavo helped Cornix to his feet then swung to the rumbling from the eastern end of the valley. Beyond the ruin of the wall, the lilia pits and the blackened wagons, the grey, ethereal mass of Farnobius’ horde had returned. It was darkening, coming forward. Racing forward.

‘Retreat to the fort!’ Geridus cried, wincing as he hobbled on his weary legs, one ankle seemingly injured.

Slowly at first, then quickened by the sight of the onrushing horde, the legionaries rushed to the scree path, the sagittarii hurrying down from the southern shoulder of the pass to join them. Pavo was near the back of the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder as he readied to step onto the scree path. Farnobius’ Goths came at a charge, leaping over the lilia pits, scrambling over the collapsed wall. And the giant reiks came too now, waving his Taifali cavalry with him at a gallop. He glanced up at the steep and difficult path up to the fort plateau, then back to the horde, ever closer.

‘We don’t have time,’ he cried.

‘What?’ Sura gasped, turning with him to see the reality. Now the Goths were swinging round to face the northern valley side, forming a narrow front and readying to drive up the scree path in pursuit.

‘Go, go!’ Zosimus urged the legionaries further up the path, then leapt back down beside the pair. A moment later, Quadratus was with them too. ‘Not one of these whoresons gets through us, aye?’ the big Gaul said.

‘Aye,’ they growled in reply. A handful of legionaries followed suit and added to this line — enough to blockade the narrow uphill path and add a thin second rank. Squashing together and forming a shield wall, they backed up the path slowly, feet crunching in the gritty snow, presenting their spears downwards to the foremost Goths — Screaming tribesmen with bloodshot eyes and the wet redness at the back of their throats glinting.

‘Brace!’ Pavo yelled.

The Gothic charge seemed heedless of the slight high ground the Romans enjoyed and slammed into the narrow front. The battering of colliding shields rang out along with the wild song of sparring iron. Pavo felt the breath leap from his lungs as a great weight surged onto his shield — a stocky Goth had clambered up and over it. Pavo thrust his spear up, tearing the foe’s belly and enduring a shower of guts as a reward, then lifted his shield arm just in time to block two well-aimed spear thrusts. What followed was a blur of thrusting spears and Gothic longswords clanging against Legionary spathas and helms as they defended like lions, stepping back up the scree path. Pavo’s limbs grew numb and his breath came in rasps as he parried a Gothic blade then lanced another opponent through the ribs. He lost sight of their progress up the path, knowing only that to blink or look over his shoulder would be fatal. All he heard from the plateau behind and above was some odd grinding noise — like metal and wood working together. In the corner of his eye, he saw only comrades falling — the men in the second rank rushing to take their place. Then came a moment when he sensed the strength leave him. His next parry was weak, and the Gothic blade battered from his helm and another scored across the bridge of his nose and cheek. He felt Sura and Zosimus by his side stagger and stumble too. Moments later, he felt the ground even out underfoot and realised they had stumbled up and onto the fort plateau. They were just paces from the fort gates and respite, but without the narrowness of the path to protect their flanks, their narrow front buckled and Goths swarmed to envelop them. Pavo saw Farnobius riding up the path, face alight with glee, axe raised. He heard that odd metallic-wooden clunking noise once more — this time growing into a titanic groan, as if rushing for him — then a cry sounded from behind them.

‘Down!’ a burring voice cried.

He swung to the shout, then saw a colossal shape rushing for him: like a great eagle’s claws — open and razor-sharp, every steely talon as tall as a man. Instinctively, he ducked under this nightmarish apparition, his comrades doing likewise. But the Goths all around them, blinded in their quest for blood, were not so swift. With a swoosh that split the blizzard, the talons ripped through the nearest of them. Blood showered Pavo as his mind raced to understand what was happening while more Goths staggered back in fear of the awful talons. Every hair on Pavo’s neck stood rigid as he looked up from where he was crouched and saw a vast horizontal timber beam, swinging out from the fort’s southern gate tower. From it dangled thick ropes and on the end of these, the vicious claws. Up on the gate tower he saw the outline of Geridus, framed by a streak of lightning and hurling curses into the storm as he and a handful of his men operated this merciless device, swinging the claw arm to and fro over the scattering Goths. Then, when the claw was hovering over a tight pack of Goths, the ropes slackened. The claw plunged down upon them and at once, like a tendon, the ropes snapped taut, lashing the four talons together.

Four men were caught in the device’s grasp. One was snared right on the ends of the talons and run through in four different directions. The claw was lifted up and a soup of this Goth’s bowels, blood and bladder sprayed down on the others nearby.

Pavo gawped at this: so this was the Comes’ ethereal friend — a merciless war-machine? He barely felt the hands that hoisted him and the others back from the devastation, hauling him inside the fort. Only when the fort gate was slammed shut did the spell break.

Farnobius backed his stallion away from the ferocious claw as it swung to and fro. The device had cut down mere handfuls of his men, but the sight of it was enough to drive his men back. Not one of his warriors had even approached the fort gate because of it. He licked his lips, judging the flight of the claw, eyeing the ropes. ‘Have the men bring the Roman ladders up from their toppled timber wall.’

‘Reiks?’ Egil said, his voice laced with fear and his eyes tracing the claw’s path.

‘Do as I say. And you can stay down there — this place is only fit for warriors,’ Farnobius growled as he drew his axe from his back, then walked his stallion forward onto the plateau.

Ever forward, invincible king, Vitheric’s voice urged him. Nobody can slay you.

Moments passed and Pavo remained sitting where he had slumped inside the fort. He wondered if the chaos outside the closed fort gates was real. In here, he could only hear dull roars of the storm and foreign voices outside. In here he was sheltered from the stinging blizzard, a strong warmth came over his skin as feeling began to return. Then he saw the staggering, gasping, momentarily lost men of his century around him, dotted around the inside of the fort. He saw Zosimus and Quadratus rise, and rose with them, knowing there was to be no respite. ‘On your feet!’ he bellowed.

He led them up the stony staircase on the inside of the fort’s southern wall, up onto the battlements. As soon as he ascended onto that lofty parapet, the blizzard was back, swishing, sparring and thicker than ever. Pavo shielded his eyes from the squall and peered all around. These newly repaired battlements were well-stocked with javelins and spears. Geridus’ archers and Herenus’ slingers were already lined up and loosing what remaining missiles they had down onto the Goths on the plateau. He ushered his men into place and Zosimus and Quadratus did likewise with their centuries. ‘Together, shields up, spears level, as before!’ he barked to them, then sped over to the southern gate tower, flitting up the few steps onto the rounded parapet here. Now he saw the great claw for what it was: a massive beam anchored by an immense load of iron and fixed to a pivoting iron-strapped timber floor.

‘See?’ Geridus said, spinning to him and grinning maniacally. ‘Farnobius came here to feast, but just a dash of terror is enough to turn any meal sour.’ The old Comes showed no sign of his old affliction, his beard was caked in snow and his face was almost blue with the chill.

The claw opened again, snatching up a Goth then swinging and releasing him at pace against the fort walls, where his brains were dashed out against the stonework. The rest of the Gothic spearmen were darting to and fro, like sheep escaping a wolf. Pavo glanced back along the walls. They had lost maybe sixty men in the melee so far. More than two centuries-worth of legionaries, plus one of slingers and one of archers remained. That number might hold this fort for some time, especially as the Goths had no means of gaining entry. And with this mighty claw. .

He craned over the roof’s edge, ducking back momentarily as a Gothic arrow skated off the battlement beside him, then he froze, seeing Farnobius edge forward. The giant was flanked by a host of his spearmen who held up their shields as he slid from his stallion, watching the swinging claw and tossing his axe over and over in his grasp.

‘Sir. . ’ Pavo started, then Farnobius roared, leaping forward and up, swiping his axe blade across the ropes that suspended the claw. With a thick snapping, the tendons were severed. The claw dangled by one, fraying rope, then this unravelled and the great iron talons thumped onto the plateau.

‘Ah,’ Geridus yelled over the gale, ‘then the fun is over.’

Pavo barely heard this, seeing the Goths who now raced unbounded up the scree path and onto the plateau carrying the Roman ladders that had fallen with the timber stockade. ‘Mithras, no!’

Geridus stepped back from the shattered claw, his eyes widening as he saw the ladder-tops swinging up against the fort’s southern wall.

Clack-clack-clack, they sounded as they made contact with the parapet.

Wordlessly, the aged Comes drew his gem-hilted spatha from its scabbard. ‘It is time to whet my blade once more, it seems,’ he said at last in a stony burr.

Pavo barged from the gate tower and back into place with his century on the southern walls. The Goths were already scurrying up the rungs of their ladders like a plague of ants, their long, blonde locks flowing from their stolen Roman helms, daggers clutched between their teeth and longswords held in white fists. A hail of arrows from below screened the climbing Goths. This volley plunged most densely into the sagittarii, and thirteen of these precious archers groaned, clutching the shafts embedded in their chests and throats, before slumping where they stood or toppling out over the fort walls, bronze helms falling off and red cloaks billowing.

‘Get these ladders away from the walls. Come on!’ Pavo roared, taking up his spear then pressing the butt against the top rung of the ladder and pushing, waving Trupo and Sura to his aid.

‘Push!’ he groaned, grasping the ladder top and shoving it back from the wall. The ladder wavered there, almost vertical, the battle of weight undecided, until Cornix and two other legionaries jabbed their spear butts at it too. Now, the ladder creaked upright, then toppled over, taking Pavo’s spear with it, out into the Gothic mass with a chorus of screaming. Men fell from the ladder or leapt clear, but those on the highest rungs were dashed on the snowy ground, necks broken by the weight of their armour. One fell on the nest of his comrades’ spears and another landed before a Taifali horseman, starting the warrior’s mount and causing it to rear up and thrash its hooves at his head, staving in his skull.

A great cheer rose up from the men on the walls and Pavo felt the fiery grip of hope. Along the wall, two more ladders tumbled, felling or injuring the climbers and disrupting the sea of warriors beneath — one of the ladders toppling right over the edge of the plateau and skating down the valley side in a flurry of thrown up snow and bodies. But moments later. . clack!

Another ladder was swung into place and this time the Goths were wise to the Roman ploy. They sent men up in even greater haste to add weight to the ladder. Pavo, Sura, Trupo, Cornix and four others pushed with all they had. The ladder lifted from the wall and the arms of each Roman trembled, breaths held in their lungs as they sought the final push. Pavo felt his head swim as the Goth swaying there near the topmost rung gawped, hair swooshing in the gale, sure the ladder was about to fall like the others. Then he grinned as more comrades added to the weight of the ladder and the strength of the legionaries began to fade.

‘Back!’ Pavo cried, seeing that the ploy was spent as the ladder thwacked back into place against the battlements. The legionaries took one half-step back from the parapet. ‘Plumbatae!’ he bellowed, hearing Quadratus and Zosimus cry in unison.

The legionaries each unclipped one of their three lead-weighted darts form the rear of their shields, then hoisted them.

‘Loose!’

As one, they took a step forward and hurled the darts over the wall at the upcoming Goths and the masses at the feet of the ladders. The volley was like a swarm of iron raptors. The darts flew true and battered down on Gothic skulls, shields and shoulders. Blood and matter spurted into the whipping blizzard.

‘Again,’ Pavo shouted. Another volley, another precious few moments stolen.

‘Again!’ Zosimus finished, marshalling the third volley.

The last of the plumbatae rained down. Gothic screams danced on the storm. Hundreds of them had fallen. Had this been a battle of even numbers then it would already have been won. Instead, they had merely dented Farnobius’ horde. Indeed, the ladders bent and shuddered with more climbers almost as soon as the final volley was spent.

‘Ready,’ Pavo rallied the recruits as he drew his spatha. ‘Now you grip your spear and you do not let go. If a face appears above the edge of the wall — run it through.’

The recruits within earshot nodded frantically, their faces drained of colour.

Pavo saw that the ghosts of the Great Northern Camp still haunted them. At once, Gallus’ words came to him, and spilled from his lips in a throaty cry; ‘Face the past, face the nightmares. Strike them down!’ he yelled. ‘For the Claudia!’

‘For the Claudia!’ the legionaries echoed in a visceral cry of defiance.

An instant later, he was shoulder to shoulder with Sura and Cornix, the blood pounding in his ears, watching the empty ladder top, hearing the breathing of the warrior ascending, smelling the reek of blood on his clothes. A grinning head appeared: rotten teeth framed in an unkempt blonde beard, eyes aflame with bloodlust. Before Pavo could even draw his spatha back to strike, Cornix thrust his spear forward with the roar of a veteran. The tip punched into the Goth’s eyes and lodged in his brain.

‘Ha!’ Cornix roared in victory. Blood spouted from the eye socket and, still locked in a grin, the Goth fell back from the ladder lifelessly, taking Cornix’ spear with him.

Suddenly, the lad’s confidence drained, his spear-hand swiping out at the disappearing weapon. ‘I’m sorry sir, I-’

‘Eyes on the ladder!’ Pavo spat.

The next man to come over the ladder top did so like a gazelle, leaping rather than climbing. He landed on the battlements and sent his longsword sweeping out to clear a space. Pavo ducked under the swipe, which knocked Cornix’ spatha-jab aside, sent Sura tumbling onto his back and sliced open the throat of the next nearest legionary. This heartbeat of disruption allowed two more Goths to climb onto the walls. They formed a bridgehead of sorts, splitting the solid line of legionaries on the battlement, parting Pavo from his century and slashing wildly to allow more comrades still to scale the ladder.

‘Close the line!’ he bawled. But the Goths were not for moving. He saw it was the nimble one — the first one to make it onto the battlements — who was their leader, with the others gathering behind him. This warrior’s hatchet face was fixed on Pavo as he brought his sword sweeping down, cleaving the legionary, Auxentius, through the shoulder. The legionary line was fragmenting. Then Hatchet-face came for Pavo. Pavo threw up his spatha to block then hoisted his shield to catch the man’s next blow, which felt like a bull charging into his shoulder. Splinters flew from his shield and he staggered towards the wall’s edge, his back wrapping over the parapet. Teetering there, he felt Hatchet-face try to grab his ankles and help him over the edge. Pavo booted his foe in the mouth, sending him back in a shower of blood and teeth, but the action sent Pavo sliding over the parapet — in some way fortunate, given that a Gothic sword clashed down on the spot where he had been, sending snow and sparks leaping from the stonework. Not convinced by this spot of luck, Pavo flailed, fingers grasping for something to stop his fall, then clasped onto the parapet edge, body and legs dangling down over the fort wall with thousands of Goths gathered below. Then Hatchet-face appeared over him, leaning out. ‘You might as well let go, Roman,’ he hissed in a jagged Gothic twang. ‘It will be less painful.’ He drew a dagger from his belt and rested it on Pavo’s fingertips. ‘I will make a trinket of your fingers — an offering to Allfather Wodin.’ With that, his grin sharpened and he tensed his shoulders to chop down.

Pavo roared in defiance. A sickening crunch of steel splitting bone filled his head, coppery blood spattered over his face, and he waited on that nauseous, weightless sensation of falling. But there was no such thing. And no pain in his fingers. He looked up, blinking and spluttering through the streamlet of dark lifeblood that gushed from Hatchet-face’s mouth and chest. His eyes fixed on the tip of a spatha blade protruding from the Goth’s breastbone, then he frowned at the look of shock on his lifeless face. The Goth’s body slumped forward, the dead weight crushing Pavo’s fingertips. He roared, feeling the corpse’s body armour pinch what remaining strength he had to hang on.

In the next heartbeat, his grip failed him. The weightlessness ensued. But at the same time, a bloodied hand wrenched Hatchet-face’s corpse back by the hair and hauled it back, then a hulking figure shot out a hand, grasping Pavo’s at the last, before wrenching him back onto the roof.

‘Ach, it is a good thing you are the lean type,’ Geridus groaned, wincing as he staggered back breathlessly from the parapet then shaking Hatchet-face’s blood from his blade.

‘Sir, we have but moments, the walls are almost overru-’ Pavo stopped, seeing the walls were already overrun. Legionaries and Goths fought like wolves all around him and the Gothic numbers would soon tell.

‘Aye, aye,’ he growled, ‘so let us employ our final gambit.’

Pavo frowned, hoisting his shield as a Goth swiped at him then cutting down with his spatha to shatter the man’s arm. ‘What gambit?’

‘To the gatehouse,’ Geridus roared over the beset parapet. ‘To the gatehouse!’ he repeated.

Word spread. It was fraught, but first Herenus and his slingers, then the sagittarii, then the legionary centuries who fought a defensive action, backed along the battlements towards the gatehouse. Men fell too rapidly, legionaries spinning away from Gothic swords, faces or necks torn. Pavo heard the echo of the southern gate tower’s enclosed stairwell behind him. Moments later, they were inside. The Goths did not follow, instead pressing on to wash around the battlements, assuming the Romans were in flight and the fort was theirs to ransack. As he and his legionaries sped down the winding, barely lit stairs, he scoured the darkness, confused, sure Geridus had lost his mind. Were they to spill into the innards of the fort then all was lost, for there was nowhere left to defend within. And to spill outside. . he shuddered at the thought of dying in the midst of Farnobius’ masses out there.

He saw the dim outline of an opened doorway at the foot of the stairwell — a small opening meant for guards to enter or leave by. Here, Geridus waited, shepherding the legionaries out one by one but at haste, whispering to them, directing them.

Pavo froze. ‘You’re leading us out onto the plateau?’

Geridus waved the rest outside, then led Pavo as the last man. They were veiled by the blizzard and the curve of the southern gate tower from the mass of Goths around the fort’s southern wall. The Comes held out a hand, pointing to the dark, descending tunnel that led to the brook on the valley floor. ‘Down into the pass,’ Geridus whispered.

‘And then?’ Pavo replied, his gaze darting to the edge of the Gothic mass, swarming only paces away around the southern wall in eagerness to swamp the newly taken battlements and as yet unseeing of the Roman escape. ‘If we leave this fort then Trajan’s Gate has fallen. We have failed.’

Geridus offered him a dry grin as he heard from up above the victory cries of the many Goths now pouring over the fort’s southern wall. ‘If we leave this fort then it is not before time. For the walls can both stave off an attacking foe. . or destroy them.’

Pavo saw how he nodded to the juniper grove. Lightning struck across the sky and for the briefest of moments, he saw shapes within the trees: the six sagittarii that the Comes had held back. They read Frigeridus’ signal and began to drop from view, one by one, each of them leaping down into some hole the ground. ‘What the?’ He gasped. Then all that had happened in these last weeks flashed before him, the memories swirling like the blizzard, before one leapt out at him: the ghostly tink-tink of tools they had heard at night. At last he realised that all along, it had been coming from underground. Under the fort. ‘Sapping tunnels?’ he whispered. ‘You’re going to bring the walls down?’

‘I let your men patch up the stonework, but only so much,’ Geridus said. ‘The walls depend upon the wooden beams within the sapping tunnels — beams smeared with pig fat. When my men set light to them the timber will buckle. . and no mortar will keep the walls upright,’ he said, then peered into the grove. Moments later, the six men came scrambling back into view, climbing out of the sapping mine along with thick clouds of stinking smoke. ‘It is done,’ the first said as they burst from the grove and over to Geridus.

‘Then we have little time, come,’ Geridus urged Pavo and the six archers onwards with him, down the winding tunnel that led to the pass floor. The howl of the storm and battle fell away as Pavo half-stepped, half-slid down the precarious descent of ancient stairs, only stopping when he came out into the storm again, his boots splashing through the frozen crust and icy waters of the brook in the valley floor. Here, he found the beleaguered survivors of the XI Claudia along with the slingers and archers — a few hundred men all told. Stained with smoke and blood, running nearly doubled over, some supporting one another, panting. They backed away, westwards up the pass, turning frequently and anxiously at the fort up on the spur. The fulcrum of Trajan’s Gate was overrun. The walls were packed with Gothic infantrymen and many of Farnobius’ riders, dismounted and eager for a share of the spoils. All but a band of some five hundred of his Taifali riders had remained at the foot of the scree path, looking up at the spur and the fort no doubt in envy of their comrades who danced on the tower-tops, roaring victory songs into the storm.

A heartbeat later, a chorus of shredding timber sounded and the fort shook visibly and grey dust billowed into the blizzard. The victory cries ebbed. Gothic heads twisted one way and then the other in confusion. A moment later, another chorus of bucking and the crash of crumbling stone. Now the Gothic song fell silent as huge chunks of masonry toppled from the walls. The whooshing of the storm alone filled the pass. Pavo was sure he could discern Reiks Farnobius up there on the edge of the plateau, backing away from the fort walls, sensing something was wrong.

Then, with a roar that defied the storm or any battle cry, the great grey walls rushed for the ground. Sudden screams were short-lived, and in a moment, all that remained of the fortress was a heap of rubble and a churning dark cloud of dust.

Pavo gazed at the black, swirling stain in the storm, transfixed.

‘Mithras,’ Sura whispered, falling back into the snow. ‘We have stopped them?’

The possibility almost burrowed into Pavo’s heart, almost sowed a seed of hope. Almost. Then his eyes widened as the remaining black veil of dust was whipped away by the blizzard. ‘It’s not over,’ he said with a hoarse whisper.

‘Eh?’ Zosimus grunted, squinting, his face etched with bemusement at what he had just witnessed.

‘It’s not over,’ Pavo repeated, his eyes locked on the trickle of horsemen fleeing down the scree path, coming to the pack of five hundred Taifali and Greuthingi riders there. ‘They’ve seen us. He’s seen us!’

Pavo heard the wails that broke out as he set eyes upon the form of Farnobius, coated in grey dust at the head of some five hundred riders as they wheeled away from the scree path and on at a gallop towards the XI Claudia. The giant reiks issued some animal battle cry and held his axe aloft, strong as ever.

‘Together! One more time!’ Pavo roared, he and Sura waving quivering legionaries up to stand with him.

‘Together!’ Zosimus and Quadratus echoed.

They stumbled back from the Gothic charge, forming a rudimentary line. Yet their number was nowhere near enough to block this wider section of the pass. With their flanks exposed, Pavo realised, they would not be winning this battle. But I’ll take that dog down with me, he vowed, seeing that Farnobius was coming for him — the reiks remembering him from the raid on the Gothic camp and the battle on the banks of the Tonsus. He saw the wild-eyes and clouding breath of Farnobius’ stallion, the gleaming edge of the reiks’ hoisted axe and the foul, blood-streaked grin on the cur’s face.

His fingers itched for a spear, but his spatha was all he had left. His lips longed to give the order for a plumbatae volley, but all the weighted darts were gone. He yearned to hear the whirring of slings or bows, but that moment had long since passed. Lightning tore across the heavens, casting Farnobius’ features in a demonic light and the ground shuddered violently as the Gothic charge came to within ten strides, seven, three. .

‘To the last man, brothers!’ Pavo roared as horsemen punched into the Roman line, shattering it. Legionaries were chopped down, battered back and trampled. He could only duck under Farnobius’ chopping axe blade, and his swipe in riposte to hamstring the reiks’ beast missed and the chance was gone as Farnobius ploughed on into the legionary mass.

Pavo swung round, seeing Cornix spin away from the next swipe of the axe, his face scored from jaw to forehead. Sura’s spatha was battered from his grip with the next attack and then a fellow legionary was cleaved through from shoulder to lung. The giant reiks then chopped his axe down on one sagittarius’ head — crumpling helm and skull and bringing an explosion of blood and brains from the man’s mouth. All around, blood fountained where spear met throat or longsword tore across face. Severed hands, still clutching spatha or shield, flew into the air where the bearer had been overly brave in his swing. One of Farnobius’ riders attacked Pavo next. Pavo feinted one way then leapt up to plunge his spatha up under this one’s ribs, the blade sinking deep into the man’s chest cavity. As this rider slid from the saddle, Pavo swung round to face the melee of Gothic horsemen and Roman legionaries. It was not hard to find Farnobius. The reiks had scored a trail of devastation, broken Roman bodies strewn in the reddened snow around him as he forged on through the skirmish. It was only a thick clang of iron that halted his progress. Geridus’ gem-hilted spatha had stayed Farnobius’ axe, both weapons tremoring, both men’s arms shaking. The two giants were matched in size but Farnobius had youth and health on his side, and the high ground of his saddle. But Geridus swung out of the deadlock, ducking away from the axe’s edge, grappling Farnobius’ shin and pulling him from the stallion. The giant reiks fell with a roar, the bronze winged helm rolling from his head. But he was on his feet in seconds. Pavo hurried through the melee towards the encounter as Farnobius lashed at Geridus, driving the aged Comes back with a rapid succession of blows from his axe, sparks flying from every parry of Geridus’ sword. The vigour of youth triumphed, and Geridus stumbled in a rut of packed snow, falling, bringing his sword up to block the shower of blows Farnobius rained upon him.

‘Die, old man,’ the reiks roared. ‘My speartip grows cold without your head to adorn it!’

Geridus’ reply came as a wheeze and Pavo saw that the Comes was on the brink. Gallus’ words once again streaked through his mind at that moment in a blaze of fury.

Face the past, face the nightmares. Strike them down!

He lunged through the last few strides towards the pair, then leapt, bringing his spatha up and then chopping it down on Farnobius’ shoulder. The strike tore the reiks’ mail shirt and gouged at his flesh. He swung round with an animal roar, eyes set on Pavo. With Geridus floored and gasping for breath and every Claudian comrade locked in a desperate battle around him, Pavo realised he was alone.

‘You!’ Farnobius hissed, his hand momentarily flicking up to touch his broken nose. ‘You will die on this cursed pass, Roman,’ the reiks snarled, then lunged forward. The wound was bleeding only lightly and the reiks was no slower or weaker for it, Pavo realised, as the axe swept out at neck height. He bent back, the blade skimming the collar of his mail vest. He tried to stab out at Farnobius’ flank in the moment of the reiks’ follow through, but the colossus was too fast, parrying like lightning. ‘You are destined to die on this blade,’ Farnobius taunted him.

Pavo’s top lip tremored and he leapt forward with a roar, crashing his spatha down at the reiks once, twice and again. The giant staggered back, laughing partly in shock, touching a hand to the red streak across his chest, under the new tear in the mail there. ‘That is the second time you have bloodied me today, boy, and the last.’

He feinted to rush for Pavo’s left, then, belying his size, switched to the right, bringing his axe round for Pavo’s ribs. Pavo could only throw himself forward to avoid the blow. He rolled through the snow, then righted himself, twisting and seeing — for a precious instant — that Farnobius’ guard was down. He brought his spatha round with what strength he had left, then felt the dull clang of the flat smashing against the reiks’ temple. The giant staggered, a confident grin appearing then fading. Then he toppled onto his back, his eyes rolling in his head. Pavo hurried to stand over him, resting the tip of his spatha on Farnobius’ throat. Farnobius blinked, then realised his situation. He shot a glance to the nearest Gothic riders, and Pavo looked with him: two nobles, by the looks of it.

‘Egil, Humbert?’ Farnobius roared. But they offered only stony glances then turned away and fought elsewhere. At this, the reiks cupped his fingers over his ears and shrieked, as if trying to block out some tormenting voice in his head.

‘Do it, then,’ Farnobius said, turning his gaze back to Pavo. ‘At least my death will come in victory, for my riders have all but overrun this pass. Why do you hesitate?’ he spat, the skin of his neck growing taut against the blade.

Pavo felt a stinging hatred in his chest. ‘Do you even remember her?’

‘Her?’

‘Felicia. She would have been my wife. She would have borne my children. You cut her down like a butcher, at the Great Northern Camp.’

Farnobius’ face wrinkled in confusion, then a light in his eyes told Pavo he had remembered. ‘At the River Tonsus when you broke my nose? The girl with the amber hair? I remember. I was at her tent. I was the first of my people to reach there.’ Then the giant’s face wrinkled in confusion. ‘She was dead already, Roman.’

Pavo blinked. ‘What?’

‘I would have enjoyed taking her head, yes, but when I came to her she and the others with her were already dead. They lay there, throats slit. I assumed they had chosen to end their own pitiful lives. But no, those wounds had been inflicted by another.’

Pavo shook his head. ‘No. . no!’ He staggered back, the spatha trembling. All around him, the weight and strength of the Gothic horsemen was telling, and legionaries were falling in sprays of blood.

He barely noticed Farnobius rising, eyes trained on Pavo, hand reaching out for the axe.

Felicia? Pavo mouthed. How can I avenge you now?

Farnobius stalked towards Pavo, lifting his axe.

Just then, the storm winds faded to nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was as if they were paying respect to the legionaries on the cusp of death. The snow fell gently, drifting in the sudden hush. Suddenly, Farnobius froze and looked to the west. Pavo did too. It was as if both had sensed the odd crackle in the air that comes before a lightning storm.

Then came the thunder.

A din like a rolling deluge, pouring from the west. Further up the western end of the pass the greyness swam and swished then spat forth a fury of shadows. Horsemen. A hundred. A thousand. More than twice that number. They poured from the west like demons, rushing for the skirmish. Pavo saw their long, flowing blonde locks, their fair skin and heard their jagged war cries. His spirit all but guttered and died at that moment. There was no point in running.

The Goths and legionaries all around halted in their combat stances like Farnobius, looking to the onrushing riders in puzzlement.

Pavo looked to Geridus. ‘This is no wile of mine, lad,’ the old Comes panted.

‘Gothic cavalry?’ Quadratus panted nearby.

It was Geridus’ hoarse cry that answered. ‘No. . the Sarmatian riders.’

Pavo heard the words and tried to understand’ Allies? After so long alone at this wretched pass? They wore bronze scale vests, tall pointed helms and they carried long, weighty lances but no shields. He saw the stony determination on their faces, their lances trained on the melee. Then he braced as they ploughed into the fray like a harvester’s sickle, ripping man and horse to pieces in puffing clouds of crimson. Their weapons found only Gothic flesh, and Pavo and Farnobius shared one last glance. The giant reiks’ head twitched and he mouthed his last words into the ether to some invisible other. Forgive me, Vitheric. A heartbeat later, the giant reiks was ripped from view, trampled under a fury of hooves. Flesh, blood and bone were cast up in all directions.

Pavo gazed absently into the mizzle of red that filled the air around him as the Sarmatians ended the gruelling conflict, wheeling and cutting around him. When the red mist faded, he heard cries of joy from the shattered men of the XI Claudia. Cornix fell to his knees, shaking, muttering a prayer over and over. Others laughed hysterically before one of them stopped and crumpled to the ground, cradling his knees to his chest, shaking and then sobbing. One retched and vomited. He saw Libo shower a group of surrendered Goths with a volley of curses, Rectus holding him back from adding to the verbal assault with a physical one. He looked to Geridus, Zosimus and Quadratus then finally Sura, each man plastered with crimson gore. Like him, none of these men showed the slightest hint of emotion. The soldier’s skin was thick, after all these years. He closed his eyes and fought back the tears.

The storm had left the valley by late afternoon. It had the good grace to blanket the countless corpses in white before it left. Pavo had staggered up to the spur, eyed the tumbled remains of the fort, then helped gather the bodies of Roman and Goth alike. Exhausted, he then sat cross-legged at the edge of the plateau, looking up at the sapphire sky and the black band in the east that heralded the coming clear winter night, bringing with it a scattering of stars. Down below, the few hundred Goths who had been taken prisoner sat on the snow, hands bound, watched by Trupo, Cornix and the remainder of his century together with a band of the fierce Sarmatian riders.

He noticed Zosimus and Quadratus near them, talking with the Sarmatian leader — a fellow with a thick, blonde beard and nearly snow-white skin. Their breaths puffed in the air as they spoke, and Pavo wondered what they might have to say. The Sarmatians had long been in a treaty of alliance with the empire, yet they had come only after so many had died. Of the three legionary centuries who had held the pass, just over half remained. Herenus and his slingers had suffered only a handful of casualties, but the sagittarii numbered just eleven now. Yet the dead here was but a speck compared to the loss suffered across Thracia in the wake of Farnobius’ rampage.

‘We did all we could,’ a voice said.

He looked up to see Sura, who sat next to him, offering him a grubby wine skin.

Pavo took a pull on it and handed it back. ‘Aye, we did. But what if one day our best efforts are not enough?’

Sura’s eyes searched his. ‘As long as we don’t stop trying. That’s what matters,’ he said, his usually impish face sober and earnest.

Pavo smiled wearily at this, looking over his bloodied, dirt-encrusted hands, still shaking from the trauma of battle. His thoughts started to turn to the great, dark, unanswered question: Dexion, Gallus?

‘I sensed them coming, you know,’ Sura said, sitting a little straighter, the familiar mischievous lilt in his voice.

‘Eh?’ Pavo frowned, his thoughts scattering.

Sura jabbed a thumb over his shoulder up the pass to the west. ‘The Sarmatians. I heard them coming before anyone else.’

Pavo cocked an eyebrow, eyeing Sura askance. Then he relaxed, realising the trick had worked — the dark thoughts were gone. You can read me like no other, friend, he thought.

Sura was in full flow now: ‘Back in Adrianople, they used to call me the bat, I could hear people speaking through three foot thick stone wa-’

A ham-like hand stuffed a lump of bread in Sura’s mouth. ‘Chew that, it’ll help with the cold. . though it will only temporarily stem the horseshit that tumbles from your lips,’ Geridus said. ‘Now, you’re needed — get down there and help with the prisoners.’

Sura made to protest, then found the bread a welcome alternative to voicing his ludicrous stories. He got up and left the spur.

Pavo looked up at Geridus. ‘Without the claw or the toppling of the fort, the battle would have been over long before the Sarmatians got here,’ he said. ‘Farnobius’ men would have spilled on through the pass.’ He looked over his shoulder to the broken heap of rubble that remained of the fort. ‘Why did you keep the claw hidden?’

‘I knew what devastation it could wreak, how it could crush the lives from so many men. It was the same with the tunnels. It. . it. . ’ Geridus’ face lengthened and he shrugged. ‘It is like when a man knows there is a dark side to his personality. He hides it, pretends it does not exist. Sometimes though, it must be embraced and brought to the fore to fight off a greater evil.’ He shook his head and gazed into the middle-distance. Pavo recognised that look — the same one Gallus wore after every battle, as if beset with guilt for those who had fallen under his command.

Geridus forced a smile and swept a hand through the air. ‘In any case the claw was but one layer of redoubt. Without the lilia pits and the burning wagons, it would have been over far sooner,’ Geridus countered with a knowing nod, sitting where Sura had been. ‘Without each of you tenacious whoresons, it might never have been. Each man played a part in this day. Each is a hero,’ Geridus countered.

Pavo glanced over the thousands of lumps in the snow — shards of iron, bone or raw flesh poking through. ‘Yet to forge a hundred heroes, a thousand good men must die, it seems.’

‘Talk like that’ll see you in the Senate House, lad.’

‘Never. My place is here,’ Pavo smiled.

‘Here?’ Geridus cocked an eyebrow and glanced around the bleak pass.

‘Not here. I mean. . wherever they are,’ he nodded to the ragged men of the XI Claudia down in the pass, seeing Sura bantering with Libo as he joined them, cupping his hands to his ears and no doubt regaling them with his ‘Bat of Adrianople’ nonsense. ‘The pass is secured and so Emperor Gratian can come east. Emperor Valens will come west from Antioch also. They will unite in the plains of Thracia, face Fritigern’s horde and the Gothic War will be brought to an end. I will do all I can to bring my legion up to strength so we can help in that effort.’

He noticed Geridus shifting a little uneasily. Was it something he had said?

The Comes sighed deeply, then met his eye with a dark look. ‘Put your faith not in emperors, but in your gods and your comrades,’ he said at last.

Pavo frowned at this. The old man’s scars ran deep indeed, it seemed. He looked to lighten the mood. ‘And what about you, now your reputation is restored? No man can deny your bravery or cunning. You are truly the Master of the Passes. This sly dog, Maurus, perhaps Emperor Gratian will no longer see him as fit to replace you anymore?’

Geridus laughed in that deep, baritone burr that echoed along the pass. ‘Lad, Maurus is welcome to come and take this place off my hands — stinking in the summer and freezing in the winter. If there’s one thing you and your lot taught me more than anything else, it’s that it matters not what hot-headed curs out there say or think about you. It’s about here,’ he tapped his breastbone. ‘I know who I am, I am no longer trapped in that fog of illness my enemies threw me into. In there I was searching for a way out instead of looking for myself. And it was my mistake to let my guard down in the first place.’ He stood, groaning again. ‘So no, my military days are over. A villa in southern Greece, now that would be quite something,’ he said with a sparkle in his eye and a grin. ‘Bread, dates and chilled spring water brought to me by busty maids. . aye, I’m sure they could teach me a thing or two.’ He made to leave the plateau, but stopped, weighing his words carefully and offering Pavo one last piece of advice, batting his fist to his breastbone. ‘Remember, lad: gods and comrades.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Pavo nodded.

Pavo watched the big man go down the scree path, then felt his thoughts return to the dark question. He glanced west again, seeing in his mind’s eye Gallus the iron wolf, and Dexion, the last of his blood. So long and not a word from them.

Just then, Pavo felt the twilight chill bite at him. He stood, swept his cloak a little tighter and descended from the plateau. As he came to the men of the XI Claudia, he saw Zosimus and Quadratus locked in conversation — savoury, for once. As he approached, he noticed how the light from the nearby cooking fires cast long shadows of the two across the churned, stained snow. The shadows danced and jostled with the flickering blaze. Pavo’s eyes darkened as he thought of the dream. While so many men had fallen, the shadow-man of the Augusteum had stayed with him. Every night, the scene had replayed in his troubled mind.

Show yourself or be gone, Pavo mouthed.

‘Here he is,’ Quadratus said edgily as he saw Pavo approaching.

Zosimus looked round too, his face perplexed as he scratched at his anvil jaw.

‘Sir?’ Pavo said, a sudden sense of dread stirring in his gut.

Zosimus seemed to be weighing his words carefully. ‘It. . it seems that the Sarmatians’ arrival was no coincidence.’ He nodded to the wing of scale-vested riders, now tending their mounts and preparing cooking fires of their own. ‘They were despatched here at haste.’

‘By one of our own,’ Quadratus added, then corrected himself. ‘Two of our own, actually.’

Pavo dared not speak the words, but yearned for the two centurions to say them.

‘Tribunus Gallus and Primus Pilus Dexion sent them here,’ Zosimus finished.

Pavo felt these words echo round his mind and wash through his veins like an elixir. ‘They. . they are well?’

‘Aye, the iron tribunus and the tenacious dog that is your brother — you thought a winter journey across half an empire was beyond them?’ Quadratus chuckled.

‘The Sarmatians saw them to a Cursus Publicus waystation and on their way to Emperor Gratian. They’ll be arriving at his court any day now.’

Pavo swung to the western horizon. The fading daylight was fighting against the night, but out there lay hope. The XI Claudia would be strong again and Gallus would march at their head. Dexion would serve with them, bonding blood with brotherhood. Emperor Gratian and Emperor Valens would unite and the Gothic war would be brought to an end. Thracia could be saved.

The bitter winter’s night could not fend off his elation. The weary but hearty laughter from the XI Claudia nearby strengthened his resolve. Only the echoing words of Geridus could temper his burgeoning hope.

Put your faith not in emperors, but in your gods and your comrades.

Chapter 23

The Western Province of Belgica Prima was bathed in fine winter sunshine and sheathed in a thick fur of morning frost. The silver-grey roads that cut across the rolling hills and meadows all led to one place: the mighty city of Augusta Treverorum. The city’s beetling grey walls straddled the waters of the River Mosa, dominating the ancient river valley just as Emperor Gratian dominated his entire western realm from the palaces within. The place was a hallmark of imperial power: the vast, domed Basilica of Constantine, a fine and ancient arena, majestic temples, great bathhouses, wool mills and clusters of red-tiled villas segmented by broad streets and leafy forums.

The legionary garrison in the fourth storey of the high grey towers flanking the city’s mighty eastern gate strode back and forth, blowing into their hands and stoking the brazier, glancing from the arched windows and out across the countryside. There was always little activity in these winter months. But when they spotted a trio of riders approaching on the eastern road from Mogontiacum, they halted. The pace of these riders marked them out from the other few ambling wagons or herders.

‘Is that a messenger?’ one said, leaning on the sill of the opening.

‘Aye, looks like he bears the papers of the Cursus Publicus,’ his centurion agreed, nodding to the scroll clutched in the lead rider’s waving hand.

‘What of the other two?’ the first replied, frowning at the tall and gaunt man on one side, his dark, grey-streaked hair unkempt and his jaw sporting the beginnings of a beard. He wore a ragged, filthy red cloak. On the other side, a younger man rode, a hawk-like expression and a thatch of overgrown brown hair and similarly scruffy stubble on his chin. ‘They look like bloody barbarians.’

‘Hmm,’ the centurion mused. Ruses like this — with forged scrolls and men wearing stolen messenger robes — had been used in recent weeks by the rebellious Alemanni from across the Rhine to hijack Cursus Publicus waystations. . but what harm could three men inflict upon this great city? He chuckled at his own naiveté, then nodded furtively to the archers deeper inside the tower eating bread by the brazier. At once, these men hurried over to the nearby window, nocking arrows to their bows and peering at the approaching three but staying in the shadows and out of sight. ‘On my word,’ the centurion said, lifting a hand, one finger extended.

He leaned his other hand on the sill and called down to the trio. ‘What is your business?’

‘I bring word for the Emperor,’ the Cursus Publicus rider replied.

Of course you do, the centurion thought, seeing the furtive glances of the gaunt one by the rider’s side. This was no mere message. He teetered on swiping his finger down. The archers stretched their bowstrings in expectation of this.

‘From the East,’ the rider added.

The centurion’s complacency faded. ‘The East?’

‘From Thracia, sir, all the way from Thracia!’ the messenger insisted.

The centurion’s ears perked up and a shiver danced down his spine. The Quadi insurgents on the upper Danubius had cut off all communication with the east for over a month. Emperor Gratian had been enraged when he heard of this. I must know of the eastern situation. My uncle, Valens, is expecting me to march to his aid. Yet I find that my own realm is in turmoil? The Cursus Publicus — the very fabric that weaves my cities and provinces together, is unravelling?

The centurion then began to salivate, for Emperor Gratian had offered a reward. Word from the east would buy those who brought it a fine estate and early retirement too. He waved the archers back then made to call down to the gatehouse, when a last modicum of caution gripped him. ‘Who rides with you?’ he challenged the rider again.

‘Tribu-’ the rider started to reply, when the gaunt, wolf-like one grunted something and bowed his head a fraction, so his features were hidden. The rider looked to the two flanking him and then back up to the centurion. ‘Two soldiers of the Thracian legions.’

Now the centurion saw the leather bags the pair carried over their shoulders. Legionary kit.

He let his doubts fade and focused on the reward.

‘Open the gates!’

Gallus’ head swayed with his mount’s every stride through Augusta Treverorum’s flagstoned streets as he and Dexion followed the messenger towards the palace in the city’s north-eastern quarter. The journey had been relentless since they had crossed paths with the Sarmatians. That moment when the lead rider had pinned him to a tree, blade on his throat, had been the nadir of their quest. Moments later, when the Sarmatian chieftain had recognised him and Dexion as Romans, the blade had fallen and the rider had embraced them. The steppe riders had led them to the nearest Cursus Publicus waystation then set off for Trajan’s Gate at haste, eager to reinforce the legionaries there as Gallus had implored them to do. Loyal and fierce allies, Gallus thought once again, and Thracia will need them in what is to come.

As soon as the Sarmatians had set off, Gallus and Dexion had accosted the nearest imperial rider in the waystation. The young lad made little sense of their weary and garbled explanations, but soon they were off, the rider leading them overnight to the next waystation. There they swapped their exhausted mounts for fresh ones, and the imperial rider tasked his colleague at that waystation with leading them onwards to the next stop. And on it went over the next few weeks, Gallus and Dexion snatching just a few hours of sleep and rushed meals on the saddle as they galloped through fog, blizzards, flooded roads and gales. In the frenzied journey, he thought only of the objective. Reach Gratian’s court. Now, he had to confront the consequences.

Yes, the Western Praesental Army could now be hastened to the east. Yes, Thracia might yet be saved from the marauding Gothic hordes. Yes, his comrades in the legion, so far away, might yet know victory and see their families and friends safe and well.

But what about you, Gallus? a dark voice goaded him from within. What now, iron tribunus?

He looked up furtively, scanning the streets of this fine city. Passing eyes seemed to linger a little too long on him. Grim-looking legionary sentries posted in the forums they passed looked a little grimmer than they should. A boy tossing a stick for a dog ran to pick the piece of wood up when it landed before Gallus’ mount’s hooves. The boy’s playful expression fell away when he met Gallus’ ice-cold eyes, and he backed away, frightened.

It is written all over my face. They can see I am not here merely to bring word to Emperor Gratian, he thought. ‘They know,’ he muttered to himself.

‘Sir?’ Dexion said.

The young officer’s voice stirred him from his morose thoughts. He looked to his primus pilus, seeing Pavo for an instant then recognising the few features that marked him out as that plucky lad’s older brother. Dexion looked every bit as gruff and weary as Gallus felt, and this gave him a degree of comfort. ‘Merely thinking aloud,’ Gallus replied.

As they followed the Cursus Publicus messenger uphill towards the palace region, Dexion rode a little closer. ‘Sir,’ he said in barely more than a whisper, ‘outside, when we were challenged. . ’

‘Nobody in this place must know my name,’ Gallus cut him off. ‘You are Dexion, Primus Pilus of the XI Claudia. I am a veteran from your ranks, nothing more.’

Dexion flinched a little at Gallus’ tone, and Gallus immediately felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry. Like you, I’m exhausted. But without you, I couldn’t have made it all the way here. Your blood is every bit as fiery as your brother’s, and I want you to know that what happens next. . well, I don’t want you to be part of it. I want you to return to Thracia, find the XI Claudia — Mithras willing that the Sarmatians rode to their aid in time — and lead them in my stead.’

Dexion’s face paled and he shook his head. ‘No, sir. . what are you planning to-’

‘I don’t know,’ Gallus whispered. ‘But I know that I cannot rest until the shame of my past has been eradicated. They always follow the emperor and his court. They are here,’ he hissed, flicking a finger to the looming palace gates and the hulking marble edifice beyond — silhouetted in the winter sun. ‘The Speculatores are here.’

‘Sir, please, I beg of you, be wary. . ’

Dexion’s words faded as they came to a halt before the palace gates, flanked by a pair of bearded, bronze-helmed guards there.

Heruli, an auxilium palatinum legion, Gallus realised seeing their shields of concentric white and red rings. Part of Gratian’s Praesental Army. The army of the West and maybe the saviour of the East? He wondered.

The palace gates groaned open and they dismounted, surrendered their arms and armour, then left the Cursus Publicus rider behind and followed the Heruli inside. They strode through ornamented archways, fine lawns and gardens speckled with scented winter blooms and fountains babbling gaily. The aroma of spices and cooking meat wafted from the lower chambers of the great palace as they approached, and Gallus realised how long it had been since he had eaten properly. But hunger could wait. .

Justice could not.

They climbed the marble stairs and entered the palace’s cavernous main hall. A cloying, sweet smoke wound from sconces mounted on the forest of porphyry columns. Every footstep echoed around the room, bouncing from tiled floor to frescoed wall and gilded ceiling. Slaves scurried past, shooting horrified glances at their tattered condition, while the noses of fine-robed courtiers wrinkled as they passed. When they came to a towering doorway, the Heruli halted, one slipped inside then returned. ‘The emperor will see you now.’

Dexion looked to Gallus.

Gallus shook his head. ‘This is not the time for me to speak. . sir,’ he said, bowing deferentially as if Dexion was his superior.

Dexion beheld him with one last look, then nodded. ‘Then be seated, soldier, until my dialogue with our emperor is complete.’

Gallus watched Dexion slip inside the imperial chamber, then slumped on the bench by the door. For the first time since that dark confrontation in the Mithraeum in Constantinople, he drew the idol of Mithras from his purse. He stared at it absently, thinking of Thracia, of his brothers in the XI Claudia, of the hope for that land and his people. Then he wondered at how close the dark agents were to him right now — how close justice was.

Which is it to be? The dark voice taunted him.

The thought troubled him greatly until, like the passing of a cloud, he saw that it was a false choice. It can be both, he retorted, Thracia can be saved, he glanced to the door of the imperial chamber, knowing that Dexion’s words would surely spur Emperor Gratian into action, and I. . I will have my revenge.

Torches crackled in the corners of the dim throne room, sending dancing shadows across the painted scenes of the old gods and the fresher emblems of the Christian faith. A raised dais in the centre of the room was crowned with the imperial throne. Dexion came to a halt before the dais, genuflected, then beheld the young man on the seat of power. Draped in a purple robe and silk brocade, he looked every inch the youthful emperor. His fair skin was flawless and unblemished, his golden locks were swept across his forehead and his delicate features bore an expression of pure equanimity. There was no trace of a scowl or disgust at this guest’s ragged condition. It was then that Dexion noticed there was nobody else in the room. Not a single guard.

‘You bring word from the East?’ Gratian said, breaking the tense silence.

‘The Goths have overrun Thracia, Dominus,’ Dexion replied, licking his dry lips. His words seemed to be swallowed in the echo of the emperor’s question.

Gratian did not flinch. ‘And what of the legions in those lands — the comitatenses and the limitanei?’

Dexion mulled this over, thinking back to the fragmented remains of Thracia’s field army and of the scattered border legions. ‘They remain a force that can at least monitor the Gothic movements, but-’

‘Yes, yes,’ Gratian interrupted, swishing a hand lazily as if swatting a fly. ‘But when my Uncle Valens comes from Persia with his Eastern Praesental Army, will the remnant of the Thracian forces be enough to supplement his ranks and to win this Gothic War?’

Dexion remained silent, his golden eyes darting to the shadows around the dais.

Gratian’s air of serenity evaporated and his face bent into a predacious grin. ‘Come now, we are alone. You can speak freely.’

Dexion beheld this feral creature before him. . then responded with a cold grin of his own. ‘Without your aid, Dominus, Thracia will fall.’

Gratian slunk back in his throne and chuckled with satisfaction. ‘Excellent. . excellent. Then the fate of the Eastern Empire is in my palm. And who better to rule over both East and West, but a saviour? I will muster my armies and yes, I will take them east. . but only when it suits me to do so.’ He stood and descended from the dais, his cloak trailing behind him. He beckoned Dexion with him to the tall, segmented and stained window at one side of the throne room, looking down the gentle slope to the heart of the city. ‘Your time in the east has been lengthy, and your comrades wondered not when but if they might see you return here.’

Dexion nodded, gazing down to the side of the forum, where the boy they had passed played with his dog. Joyous, unburdened with life. A true smile played with his lips, then crumbled as he saw the boy’s mother and father come for him. They took a hand each and walked him, lifting him with every second step, the dog yelping playfully as the boy laughed. He had known no such pleasure. His father had abandoned him and Mother to survive on their own — deserting them in favour of another family. And Father’s abandonment had stoked the cancer in Mother, he was sure. His forehead furrowed into deep, dark ruts as he thought of Pavo. He had first sought out his lost half-brother long, long ago, finding him on that hot summer’s day at Constantinople’s slave market. He watched from the pillars at the rear of the square as the fat and rich had bid for his last blood-relative, all the time weighing the purse of coins he was sure would be enough to buy Pavo for himself. He had watched, one foot ready to stride forth and into the bidding.

He had watched, ready to save his half-brother. . then he had walked away.

Pavo had been favoured by Father, why? Why should he step in to save the boy who had gained all he had lost? He gazed into the ether, losing himself in this question, a fiery heat spreading across his chest and his top lip twitching, then he considered the emperor’s words.

Your comrades wondered if they might see you return here.

It was as an orphan that he had found his true family. Not the military as he had told Pavo, but the Speculatores. They were his blood and his soul. When one fell or was lost, others would replace them. They would never leave him, never abandon him. Pavo was nothing to him — nothing but a mocking reminder of his loss.

Something pinched at his heart. It was a dull sensation, something he had not felt in many years. Loss? You deplore it and yet you peddle it!

He tried to ignore the black voice, but it threw up memories of his actions in these last months. His jaw stiffened as he tried to fend off the images. There were certain people who could not resist digging, prying. That the thug he had paid to deal with the bothersome Felicia could only clumsily wound her meant he had been forced to strangle the thug then silence the bitch himself during the chaos of the Great Northern Camp’s fall. He felt that pinch at his heart again, then he remembered how this had stoked such sorrow in Pavo. A flicker of a movement came to his lips — a tortured, tight smile.

‘It has been a busy time, Dominus,’ he replied. ‘Busy, but fruitful.’

Gratian sighed, eyeing the populace passing on the streets below with disdain. ‘And what of the other matter. Did you find some trace of the other one?’

Dexion brightened at this. ‘Tribunus Gallus? Why, yes, Dominus. Indeed, I have brought him to you as a prize.’

Gratian’s lips broke back into that avid grin. ‘He is here?’

Dexion nodded. ‘He is outside this very room, Dominus. It was an arduous undertaking, leading him here, but I know you have been waiting a long time to have him in your presence. Though it would have been easier had you allowed me to open his throat back in Thracia.’

Gratian cocked an eyebrow as if at once both impressed and concerned for his agent. ‘As you once so deftly dealt with his wife and boy?’

Dexion nodded, his mind flashing back to that shadowy night near Mediolanum when he had slain the mother and child. After so many years of training, it had been his first true assignment in his time with the Speculatores and one he remembered with pride. It had sealed that interminable bond.

‘That cur outside was a bane of my father’s reign,’ Gratian said with a wavering voice through gritted teeth. ‘He supported the senatorial dogs who stood against Emperor Valentinian and then evaded every blade sent to end his miserable life.’

‘So what is to be done with him, Dominus?’

Gratian’s eyes ignited with a rapacious fire. ‘Bring him to the lower chambers. I will enjoy this. . ’

Glossary

Ambulatum; Legionary ‘maneouvres’ training in which soldiers would take part in mock missions, marching in full kit over difficult terrain at military or full step. Cohorts would often be pitted against one another, tasked with outflanking or ambushing their comrades in an effort to test and strengthen each unit’s hardiness and readiness for real battle.

Auxilium Palatinum (pl. auxilia palatina); These elite infantry regiments of the late Roman Empire served as the emperor’s core guard in his Praesental Army. Auxilia palatina legions would have been distinct in their appearance, with many retaining some unique decorative symbol on their armour that nodded to their origins, e.g. the Cornutii wore horns (or more likely feathers) on the sides of their helmets, just as the barbarian tribe they were originally recruited from did.

Ballista (pl. ballistae); Roman bolt-throwing artillery that was primarily employed as an anti-personnel weapon on the battlefield.

Buccina; The ancestor of the trumpet and the trombone, this instrument was used for the announcement of night watches and various other purposes in the legionary camp.

Castrum (pl. castra); Fort or fortified camp.

Chi-Rho; The Chi Rho is one of the earliest forms of Christogram, and was used by the early Christian Roman Empire. It is formed by superimposing the first two letters in the Greek spelling of the word Christ, chi = ch and rho = r, in such a way to produce the following monogram;

Clibanus; A small clay oven used by legionaries to bake bread.

Comes; Commander of a field army of comitatenses legions.

Comitatensis (pl. comitatenses); The comitatenses were the Roman field armies — a ‘floating’ central reserve of legions, ready to move swiftly to tackle border breaches. These legions were considered the cream of the late Roman army, second only to the palatine legions in the Praesental Army.

Contubernium (pl. contubernia); A grouping of eight legionaries (ten contubernia per century). These soldiers would share a tent and would receive disciplinary action or reward as a unit.

Cubiculum; Bedchamber.

Culina; Kitchen.

Cursus Publicus; The imperial courier system facilitated by state-funded roads, waystations, stables and dedicated riders. The riders were tasked with carrying messages all over the empire.

Diocese; An administrative and geographical division of the later Roman Empire. Each Diocese contained a collection of provinces.

Dominus; A respectful honourific indicating sovereignty.

Eques (pl. equites); Roman light cavalry, used for scouting ahead and screening the flanks of a marching legionary column.

Fabrica (pl. fabricae); The workshop of a Roman legion located within the legionary fort or camp. Skilled artisans and craftsmen such as engineers, carpenters, masons, wagon-makers, blacksmiths, painters and other artificers worked in the fabrica, using devices such as smelting furnaces and water cisterns to produce arms and equipment for the legionaries.

Falcata; A curved blade used for slashing down over defending shields so the point could pierce the skulls of the defenders.

Follis (pl. folles); A large bronze coin introduced around 294 AD with the coinage reform of Emperor Diocletian.

Funditor (pl. funditores); Unarmoured Roman slingers who would take part in the skirmishing before a battle.

Horreum (pl. horrea); The Roman granary and storehouse for other consumables such as wine and olive oil.

Iudex; The fourth century Goths did not have kings as such. Instead, each tribe — led by a reiks — would elect a ‘judge’ or ‘iudex’ who would steer them through a period of migration or conflict.

Imperator; Title of the Roman Emperor.

Insulae; The often architecturally-unsound tenement blocks of the empire’s urban sprawls.

Intercisa; Iron helmet constructed of two halves with a distinctive fin-like ridge joining them together and large cheek guards offering good protection to the face. The illustration on the cover provides a good example of this style of helm.

Latrunculi; A Roman board game. Known as ‘the Game of Brigands’, it was vaguely analogous to modern Draughts, and is thought to have been useful for teaching military manoeuvres and tactics.

Libra; The Roman measurement of weight roughly equivalent to the modern pound.

Lilia; Pits filled with sharpened stakes dug into the earth outside Roman fortifications. Often hidden or covered by foliage, these pits were the bane of any attacking army.

Limes (pl. limites); The Roman frontiers, studded with forts, military roads, choke points and walls. These borders would be manned by the limitanei legions.

Limitaneus (pl. limitanei); The limitanei were the frontier soldiers, light infantry spearmen who served in the legions posted along the empire’s borders.

Mithras; A pagan deity particularly loved by the legions — probably something to do with the belief that Mithras was born with a sword in his hand! In the late 4th century AD, Christianity had taken hold in most of the major imperial population centres and it was only in remote areas like the limites that the last worshippers of Mithras were to be found. The cult of Mithras is thought to have evolved from the Persian Mithra, the God of Light and Wisdom. Also, although Mithras is often described as ‘Deus Sol Invictus Mithras’, he is not to be confused with Sol Invictus (the God of the official imperial cult established by Emperor Aurelian).

Natalis Invicti; The birthday of Sol Invictus, the ‘Unconquered Sun’ — believed to be the 25th December.

Officium; The clerical staff of a Roman commander. These record-keepers would reside and work in or near the camp or fort’s principia.

Optio; Second-in-command of a Roman century. Hand-chosen by the centurion.

Plumbata (pl. plumbatae); A lead-weighted throwing dart carried by Roman legionaries, approximately half a metre in length. Each legionary would carry three to five of these clipped in behind his shield. They would launch them, overhand or underhand, at their enemy prior to sword or spear engagement. They required some skill to throw accurately, but had a tremendous range of nearly ninety feet.

Praesental Army; Literally ‘the Army in the Emperor’s Presence’. By the late 4th century AD, the Eastern and Western Emperors each possessed such an army, comprised of crack corps of auxilia palatina infantry legions and scholae palatinae cavalry brigades as well as many more specialist units. It is thought that both Eastern and Western Praesental Armies numbered upwards of thirty thousand men.

Primus Pilus; The chief centurion of a legion. So called, as his own century would line up in the first file (pilus) of the first cohort (primus).

Principia; Situated in the centre of a Roman fort or marching camp, the principia served as the headquarters. In a standing fort, the principia would be laid out as a square, with three wings enclosing a parade area. The legionary standards, wage chest and religious shrines were housed inside the wings along with various administrative offices.

Quadriburgium (pl. quadriburgia); High-walled, sturdy, square Roman forts that became prevalent towards the end of the 4th century AD. Characterised by their huge, rounded and protruding corner towers, these structures indicated the increasingly defensive stance of the empire in these times.

Reiks; In Gothic society, a reiks was a tribal leader or warlord. Whenever the Gothic tribes came together to fight as a united people, a ‘council’ of reiks would elect one man to serve as their Iudex, leader of the alliance.

Sagittarius (pl. Sagittarii); Roman foot archer. Typically equipped with a bronze helm and nose-guard, mail vest, composite bow and quiver.

Schola Palatinum (pl. Scholae Palatinae); The elite cavalry regiments of the later Roman Empire. Typically, these crack riders would serve in the Emperor’s Praesental Army.

Sica; A bent or curved dagger — a smaller version of the falcata — used for stabbing down around armour or shields.

Signifer; Standard-bearer for a Roman century.

Solidus (pl. Solidi); Valuable gold coin in the later Roman Empire.

Spatha; The Roman straight sword up to one metre long, favoured by the Roman infantry and cavalry.

Speculatore (pl. speculatores); A shadowy secret police employed throughout the Roman Republic and Empire. They tended to focus on internal affairs and domestic threats, carrying coded messages, spying, and assassinating on command.

Tablinum; A room in a Roman house separating the atrium and the peristyle gardens. Often this space would be used for carrying out business discussions.

Terra Mater; The Roman Goddess of the Earth (literally ‘Mother Earth’).

Tesserarius; Each legionary century had one man who served as a tesserarius. They would be answerable to the optio and their chief responsibilities were organising night watch and protecting watchwords.

Thermae; Roman bathhouse, comprising a dressing room (apodyterium), cold room (frigidarium), warm room (tepidarium) and hot room (caldarium).

Tribunus (pl. tribuni); The senior officer of a legion. In the late 4th century AD, a tribunus was usually in charge of one or more legions of limitanei or comitatenses.

Turma (pl. turmae); The smallest unit of Roman cavalry, numbering thirty riders.

Valetudinarium; A medical building in a Roman camp or fort.

Vexillatio (pl. vexillationes); A detachment of a Roman legion formed as a temporary task force.

Via Militaris; The nearly 1000km long highway constructed in the 1st century AD running from Constantinople all the way through the Dioceses of Thracia, Dacia and on into Pannonia to the fortress-city of Singidunum. So-called because it was the main road the legions marched through the Balkan Peninsula.

Vicus; Legionary forts and camps were not long constructed before being abutted by these slum-like settlements of shacks, inns, brothels and traders’ markets, all eager to provide the soldiers with licentious entertainment and lighter purses.

Content

Gordon Doherty
The Scourge of Thracia

Prologue: The Shipka Pass

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Glossary