The five hobbled over to the sparse grass of the farmhouse hillside, Pavo and Gallus looping an arm each around Valens’ shoulders, taking most of his weight as the emperor stumbled and staggered. His head lolled, his breath rasped wetly and he seemed to grow heavier with every stride. When Valens winced, Pavo tore away and threw aside a strip of the Emperor’s purple and gold edged cloak that had snagged on the jutting arrow. They started to climb the hill, this side of the slope in shade thanks to the now half-set sun beyond the brow.
Pavo heard his own breath come and go with that of the others, each man utterly exhausted, their thirst unslaked and their bellies neglected since that morning. From the corner of his eye, he saw the distant ruby-red blotch on the darkening southern horizon that marked Libo, Rectus and the others they led in their flight back to Adrianople.
Move swiftly, brothers.
But he, Sura, Gallus, Valens and the single candidatus were alone, with the entire Gothic horde milling just a half mile behind them. If Alatheus and Saphrax got their way then there would be Gothic riders searching the land soon, no doubt. An emperor’s head was to be had, after all. A look over his shoulder to the north confirmed it: parties of riders and spearmen were now cantering out in all directions from the battle ridge, many of them now no doubt clad in the plunder of Roman armour from the many thousands of legionaries lying dead up there.
This tacit warning was enough to hasten them on until the farmhouse came into view at the top of the hill. The sight took Pavo’s breath away: sanctuary, respite, hope… yet why, why had it been the place of his dark dreams? It was just a simple farmer’s home: whitewashed walls, a red-tiled roof and an abutting thatched barn. The main door lay slightly ajar and there was no sign of life. Of course it’s deserted, he scolded himself, every such home across Thracia has long been abandoned.
But as they came to the top of the hill, the nimbus of the deep-red setting sun seemed to frame the place in a fiery light, as if it was ablaze. The sight sent a shiver across Pavo’s skin as he helped carry Valens to the main door.
‘Sura?’ he panted, flicking his head towards the doorway.
‘Eh? Oh, yes,’ Sura said, creeping up to the door first, nudging it open and stalking inside with his spatha half-drawn. Utter silence followed, then a somewhat girlish shriek sounded followed by an unearthly animal howl. A calico cat with a face like thunder bolted from the door then Sura returned to the doorway and ushered them inside. ‘It, er, caught me by surprise… just as my boot caught its arse a minute later.’
They filed inside, squinting into the dusk sunlight streaming in from the window opposite. The whitewashed interior was devoid of furniture apart from a chair lying on its side and some scattered bowls by a blackened hearth on the left wall. Beside the hearth was a narrow timber stairway leading up to an attic or sleeping area of some sort, and in the space underneath the stairs was a sturdy-looking timber door – probably leading down to a storage cellar. At the top of the right-hand wall was a ladder leading to a small, open hatch which led into what looked like a hay loft in the abutting barn.
The candidatus righted the toppled chair and Pavo and Gallus eased Emperor Valens onto it. Instantly, he slumped, and the shaft of red sunlight that spread across his face barely masked just how pale he was. Gallus helped Pavo to unbuckle the emperor’s white-steel armour, which fell to the flagstoned floor with a crash like a speared rider toppling from the saddle. The pair unfastened the emperor’s swordbelt and then their own, resting them by the foot of the narrow staircase, then crouched before their emperor. ‘Do we have food? Water? Bandages? Anything at all?’ Gallus asked.
The candidatus fished around in his belt and handed over a haircloth wrap. Pavo untied this and spread it out. A chunk of hardtack, a sliver of cheese and a strip of salted mutton was all it held. Sura lifted a small bucket from the shade of one corner and put it down beside the meagre fare. ‘Water?’ he said, eyeing the discoloured liquid in the bucket askance. ‘It’ll have to do,’ Gallus affirmed, scooping his intercisa helm from his head and placing it down, then tearing a strip from the hem of his tunic and soaking it with water, before tearing Valens’ robe and peeling it away from the injured shoulder to dab at the arrow wound.
Pavo met Gallus’ eye briefly: the blood was washing from the wound and had already soaked Valens to his knees. Both men had seen injuries like this in the legion. Both knew what it meant. Neither voiced their thoughts.
‘Watch the approach,’ Gallus said to the candidatus, who was wringing his hands anxiously, looking on. The bodyguard moved over to crouch by the window and keep abreast of the Gothic riders outside. ‘They’re fanning out, riding in sweeping arcs,’ he said.
‘Search parties,’ Gallus muttered, his eyes scouring the stone floor of the farmhouse in thought.
‘They’ll come here soon enough,’ Pavo said. ‘We need to find a place to hide.’
Gallus looked all around the bare hearth room, his eyes coming to the hay loft, the cellar door and the staircase to the attic. ‘Sura, reconnoitre the rest of this place.’
Sura nodded, hurrying over to the cellar door. With a few heaves, the thick door was open, and he stalked into the blackness beyond, his hand on his spatha hilt.
Gallus and Pavo turned back to the emperor. His eyes were open now, his face was pitifully wan – almost as pale as his white hair – and runnels of sweat gathered and dripped from the end of his nose and chin.
‘Ah, you two,’ he said with a feeble smile. ‘The Iron Tribunus of the XI Claudia and his young firebrand centurion.’ He chuckled weakly and wetly. His words trailed off with a wet cough, his face creased in pain and he clutched Pavo’s forearm. ‘When we talked, Centurion, back in my tent at Melanthias… it was the first time in years I have spoken like that with someone who had nothing to gain by bending my thoughts, swaying my decisions. Perhaps I should have listened to my soldiers more often?’
Pavo thought again of his fraught early days in the legion, of the time he had stood before the emperor during the desperate events of the Bosporus mission. A mere recruit then, he had begged for the ear of the man at the zenith of the East, and had been granted his wish. Valens had taken his word and sent reinforcements to that wild, northern kingdom, saving the Claudia legionaries trapped there at the last. ‘You listened well enough, Domine.’
‘Yet they won’t write such in any chronicle,’ he panted, his voice growing weaker and his eyelids closing. ‘I’ve led the Army of the East to disaster. I have broken my realm. In light of this, no man will dare to speak of what little good I have done, or tried to do.’
‘Then shame on them,’ Gallus said flatly. ‘Shame on them for their ignorance.’
Valens turned to Gallus.
‘I have seen enough in my years to know that no emperor is blameless,’ Gallus said. ‘All have black deeds to their name, sour events to stain their reign, ignominious results on the battlefield. But a distinction must be made between those who strive to do what is right, regardless of the outcome, and those who do what they wish, heedless of those they harm.’
‘Kind words for a dying man,’ Valens croaked.
‘I do not pander to anyone, Domine,’ Gallus replied flatly. ‘Your brother, Valentinian, was a bastard.’
Valens’ eyes lit up for an instant. For a moment, Pavo feared Gallus had spoken out of turn. But the emperor acquiesced with a weak nod of the head. ‘I loved him… yet he was a man even more ruthless than I.’
Gallus’ teeth ground. ‘His agents took my family from me. A foul, wasteful spurning of life. Your nephew, Gratian, seems drunk with power already, despite his youthful years. He had no intention of coming to stand with you in battle. His goal was merely to dangle the possibility before you and to madden you and your armies into action, then step in as the saviour and claim the East for himself. I know this because I rode like a demon to reach his court and hasten him to the East, only to be thrown in his dungeons where I languished for many months at his torturers’ mercy.’
Pavo’s eyes widened. ‘Sir?’ he gasped, only now noticing the wicked weals of scar peeking from the collar of the tribunus’ mail shirt and noticing the profile of his nose – clearly broken in recent months.
Gallus gave him a slight shake of the head – enough to still the flurry of questions that came to mind.
Valens nodded feebly. ‘The greatest… pity is that I believe you entirely, Tribunus,’ he wheezed.
Gallus shook his head. ‘The greatest pity is that I did not arrive back here soon enough to warn you and confirm your fears, Domine.’
Valens laughed weakly. ‘Even if you had, Tribunus, I would still have had to march to face Fritigern. My soldiers were already restless and I could not forsake the precious grain at Nike. It makes me wonder why man questions fate – is he ever truly its master?’ He groaned and his head lolled towards Pavo. ‘You… you remember that accursed wave that nearly… killed me? Feels as if… it’s coming for me now. I can see the lashing waters. There’s… there’s someone in… there,’ he lifted a trembling hand, a faint look of recognition appearing on his deathly features as he looked between and behind Gallus and Pavo. The pair looked round and saw nothing there.
‘G… Ga… Galates?’ Valens said weakly, his eyes glazing over, his pupils dilating. A moment later, he slumped back on the chair, his outstretched arm fell limp and swung by his side and his eyelids drooped. A rattling breath escaped his lips, his head slumped forward, and he was still.
Emperor Valens was dead.
Pavo stared at the emperor’s body in silence, seeing the white eagle from his dream.
‘Galates?’ Gallus said. ‘Galates was his-’
‘His late son,’ Pavo finished for him, recalling the grave at Melanthias, desecrated by the Greuthingi.
‘His loved ones were waiting for him?’ Gallus muttered to himself. Pavo looked to see the tribunus’ face, etched with an odd mixture of trouble and hope.
Just then, the candidati keeping watch by the window saw what had happened, turned to the dead emperor, fell to his knees and struck up a low, heartfelt Christian lament, tears staining his cheeks.
Pavo saw Gallus’ lips twitch as if eager to order the man back to his watch, but the tribunus hesitated, allowing the man a moment with his god. But Pavo could not control the words on his tongue. ‘Sir,’ he said, his mind numb with the barrage of questions. ‘What is this torture in Gratian’s dungeons you spoke of? What happened to you? Dexion said you fell at the hands of the Quadi on the road to the West.’
Gallus’ jaw tensed and he stood, moving away from Valens’ body, failing to meet Pavo’s eye.
Pavo’s questions bubbled and spat and an angry heat spread over his chest as he thought of the missing Zosimus and Quadratus and their odd, tight-lipped behaviour around Dexion. ‘Sir, tell me what happened!’ he pressed, rising to follow Gallus as he stalked over to look from the window. ‘Sir,’ he said, calmly this time. ‘Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura are my brothers. Each of us look to you for guidance. You are the father of the legion. I need you to tell me what happened.’
Gallus met his eye at last. ‘Lad, now is not the time. Perhaps when we’re away from this place and-’ his words ended abruptly, his lips receding over clenched teeth as he glared past Pavo’s shoulder like a growling wolf.
Pavo swung round. There, descending the narrow stairs from the attic, was Dexion, his black breastplate stained in blood from the battle, his white-plumed helm dangling from one hand and his black cloak flowing behind him. ‘Brother!’ Pavo cried.
‘No!’ Gallus growled, throwing an arm across Pavo’s chest to stop him.
‘What the?’ Pavo gasped, but fell silent when Dexion stepped down into the hearth room and another figure stepped out behind him: the young, silver-toothed, freckle-faced explorator, Hosidius, bringing from behind Dexion’s back a loaded, crossbow with bronze-plated limbs. He swept the weapon up and round, as if to show he could loose it at any man in the room, spreading his feet evenly and winking behind the bolt groove.
‘Dexion, beware,’ Pavo cried, seeing his brother still had his back turned to the weapon.
But Dexion did not flinch. Instead, he merely raised a hand and extended a finger. This action seemed to quell Hosidius’ eagerness just a fraction.
Pavo’s mind swirled this way and that with confusion. Dexion and this killer were together? More, he saw how Dexion and Gallus were locked in a stare that seemed to crackle and spark across the room. Then he noticed how Hosidius had positioned himself before the swordbelts, resting at the foot of the staircase, and saw from the corner of his eye the hand of the startled candidatus – the only armed man amongst those surprised by Dexion and Hosidius’ arrival – edging towards his sheathed spatha. The candidatus had drawn the blade merely a finger’s-width when Hosidius swung the crossbow to meet the threat. A thick twang sounded, the bolt was loosed, taking the candidatus in the breastbone. His upper body jolted backwards while his legs swung out before him and he was dead before he hit the ground.
As the mizzle of blood settled and mixed with dust motes in the room, Pavo gazed at the dead candidatus, then met Gallus’ eyes. Together, the pair looked at Hosidius and lurched for him, knowing the silver-toothed marksman’s powerful bow was cumbersome to reload. But, within a blink, Hosidius tossed down the spent weapon and drew a second one from his back, already loaded, halting Gallus and Pavo after only a step.
Pavo backed away again. ‘What is this? Will someone tell me what is going on? Dexion?’
Dexion shrugged then gestured with an open hand to Gallus. ‘You may as well tell him, given the limited time you have left.’
Pavo frowned at his half-brother’s tone and odd words, and felt a cold sense of trepidation as Dexion stepped forward, out of a red shaft of sunset and into the shade, his features at once shadow-like. Memories of the dark dream shuddered across his mind.
Gallus let out a deep sigh, then said in a low, baritone voice: ‘I’m sorry, lad.’ His eyes never left Dexion as he spoke: ‘This one might well share your blood… or maybe that’s another one of his foul lies.’
Pavo’s eyes narrowed, flicking from Gallus to Dexion. The pain and anger in the tribunus’ face contrasted sharply with the tranquil look on Dexion’s.
‘He is no man of the legions,’ Gallus said. ‘He is a speculator – one of Gratian’s own. One of those who orchestrated the savage twist in the battle today.’
Pavo scowled. ‘Never.’
But Dexion did not contest this. ‘It was as the scroll you found said. I returned from the West in time to ensure the emperor’s victory. My emperor’s victory.’
‘Dexion?’ Pavo whispered, shaking his head.
‘It was his hand that took the life of my wife and my boy,’ Gallus continued. ‘It was his hand that took… Felicia.’
Pavo backed away from both Dexion and Gallus. ‘Enough… enough!’ But when he saw the placid look remain on Dexion’s face he felt his blood run like ice. ‘Brother?’
‘I did my master’s bidding,’ he replied, lifting something from his purse and fixing it onto his finger: a ring with an emblem of the staring eye just like that from the scroll. ‘The two oafs as well – Zosimus and Quadratus – they fell in the doing of my duty. I obey my orders, I am spared the burden of feelings.’
Pavo shook his head, stepping back once again. His heart pounded on his ribs and his breath grew short. ‘Why are you saying this?’
‘Perhaps I owe you the truth, Brother,’ Dexion replied. ‘I know how much Felicia’s death hurt you, but she had to die. Nobody could find out about me… lest the events of today might never have come to pass. Valens might have lived or, worse – won the battle. My master would not have been pleased had it been so.’
Pavo heard such conviction in the black, twisted words. ‘You killed her? You killed Felicia?’
Silence. That cool, unflustered look remained on Dexion’s face.
A heavy, cold stone settled in Pavo’s belly. ‘She was to be my wife. She and I were to have children, a home, a future,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘You killed Zosimus and Quadratus? You slew my tribunus’ family? And today, you have brought death upon the East… thousands upon thousands lie dead back on that ridge. What… what are you?’
Dexion stepped towards him, hands outstretched as if in greeting while Hosidius kept Gallus pinned within the sights of the crossbow. ‘I’m your brother, Pavo. I’m your blood. Father’s blood runs in my veins as it does in yours.’
Pavo gulped, wanting to hear only those words and forget those that had gone just moments before.
‘Don’t listen to him, Pavo,’ Gallus hissed. ‘Whatever he was when your Father sired him is gone, lost – rotting within the belly of a dark, cold demon.’
Dexion’s top lip twitched as he heard this, and with a single, raised finger, the crossbow spat again, the shaft punching through Gallus’ mail shirt and into his ribs. The Iron Tribunus staggered back against the wall.
‘No!’ Pavo cried, making to run over to Gallus.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ Dexion said calmly, placing a hand on his sword hilt and stepping over to block Pavo.
Pavo halted, breathless. To his left, Hosidius pointed his crossbow to the floor, braced a foot to the stirrup and – with a ‘click’ – reloaded it with a fresh shaft, before bringing it to bear again, winking behind it, trained on Pavo.
Pavo could not tear his eyes from Gallus, seeing the tribunus slump down the wall, clutching at the shaft in his torso, lifting his hands away to see they were covered in black blood. Images of the injured wolf from the black dream crackled just behind his eyes.
‘His fate is sealed, as it long ago should have been,’ Dexion said. ‘It was my mistake for letting him get this close to saving his emperor and his precious legion.’
Pavo turned to face Dexion, seeing the shadow and light pass over him again as he approached. ‘Mithras, tell me this is another of my foul dreams. Brother, tell me this also.’
‘Like the nightmares you told me of? Of the man watching you as you were sold at the slave market?’ Dexion said. ‘I watched you for some time, you know.’
Pavo’s lip trembled. ‘It was… you?’
Dexion nodded. ‘How did it feel that day, to know that you were utterly abandoned and at the mercy of fate? I remember how it felt when I was a boy of few years and I had to listen to my mother weeping. Father abandoned her and me, choosing you and your mother instead. She wept for him – wept like a weak fool. I chose a different path. I chose not to feel. I chose the brethren.’
Brethren. The sibilant word crept over Pavo’s skin.
‘I chose the eternal brotherhood of the Speculatores. They will never abandon me and they have unshackled me from my feelings.’ He wagged a finger at Pavo. ‘I once thought I hated you for what you had and I did not: Father’s love. Now I realise it was a mistake – I was weak to let feelings guide me. I do not hate you. No, I see hope for you, Pavo: you do not have to die today. Perhaps you could serve my master as I do; brothers, working side by side? We spoke of this on the march, remember? I said I could teach you to quash your dreams, spurn your nightmares, master your feelings. I could teach you to forget, to embrace the numbness. All the pain and anger would be gone,’ he clenched a fist in conviction, ‘gone. No more anger, no more fear, no more guilt. Does that not sound like a brighter future? Join me, Brother…’
Pavo looked across his brother’s face – so like his own – and into those tawny-gold eyes, intent on finding some sign that this was all a mistake. When a reply came, it came straight from his heart. ‘Never,’ he said flatly.
Dexion’s placid look faltered, his cheek twitching.
‘Never,’ Pavo repeated. ‘You offer me the chance to spurn my nightmares? Brother, you are my darkest nightmare.’ A hot tear shot down his cheek as he said this. ‘Slay me and my comrades, but we will die with warm blood in our hearts. I will never become what you are… a walking shade… dead inside.’
Dexion’s top lip flickered now, the tranquil look crumbling. ‘Then it is simple. You will die.’
He raised a hand and Hosidius’ finger squeezed on the crossbow trigger. In the same moment, the cellar door swung open, Sura lunged from within, batting the crossbow up just as the shaft was loosed. The bolt shot up to the top of the room, zinging as it ricocheted from the stonework, sending a shower of sparks arcing up across the ceiling and into the hatch leading to the hay loft.
A brief hiatus followed, Pavo and Dexion glaring at one another.
With a screech, Dexion drew his gem-hilt spatha. For a moment, he gazed at the blade, his face wrinkling as if some long lost part of him was crying out for him to stop. But the soulless, empty look returned to his eyes. ‘As my master commands.’
At once, Dexion lunged for him, the sword thrust aimed straight for his heart. Pavo threw himself to one side just as the sword blade streaked through the air where he had been, cleaving the ladders to the hay loft. He landed on his side on the floor then kicked out at Dexion’s legs, his heel jarring on Dexion’s shin and sending him staggering backwards. Meanwhile, Sura grappled with Hosidius, punching, kicking and butting at one another as they rolled across the floor. Puffs of grey and then black smoke spewed from the hay loft and an orange glow appeared and quickly grew violent, fierce crackling coming with it. In a trice, the flames were licking out across the ceiling of the hearth room. By the gods, no, he mouthed, seeing the dark dream forming around him.
A determined grunt brought his attentions back to the flying mass that was Dexion coming for him, a knife in one hand and the gem-hilted spatha in the other. He rolled away then snatched up a section of the ruined ladders like a shield. Dexion’s sword shattered the makeshift barricade then sliced past Pavo’s wrist.
A cry from nearby saw Sura roll away from Hosidius, a dagger jutting from his shoulder before the freckle-faced one pounced on him again. Dexion leapt into Pavo’s path before he could intervene. Savage tongues of flame now lashed down the walls of the hearth room and fiery embers from the ceiling plummeted down between them.
He circled Pavo like a lion in the arena. Pavo, still weaponless, turned to face him as he moved, shooting glances at Gallus. The tribunus was still slumped against the wall, his chest rising and falling in short, weak breaths, his eyes closed and his hands clasped over the crossbow bolt wedged deep in his ribs.
Pavo saw Dexion’s right leg bend as if to lunge and made to dodge right, when a joist of fiery timber crashed down by his side, halting him, showering him with stinging sparks. He could only stagger back against the wall as Dexion’s spatha came chopping down, straight for his neck. The honed edge would sink in as far as his spine. Everything flashed before him: as a child, paddling in the Propontis; With Father; Father gone; as a slave in Tarquitius’ villa in Constantinople; Then… freedom… the legion… his brothers. He steeled himself to die like a soldier as so many others had that day.
But a hand shot up between the chopping blade and him, clamping around Dexion’s wrist.
Pavo blinked, sure the inferno was playing tricks with his eyes. But, like a shade rising, Gallus stood, hands clutching Dexion’s forearms, his greying features drawn and weary. He rose and rose to his full height, towering over Dexion, his gaunt face lacking a crumb of pity. Dexion’s assured look faded and faltered when he tried and failed to shake free of Gallus’ grip. Gallus glowered down upon him, squeezing his wrists until the blades tumbled from the speculator’s hands.
Suddenly, the ceiling groaned and roared, and a huge section above the nearby the stairs caved in, sending a wall of fierce heat, stinging smoke and sparks across them. A crack of stone sounded and the farmhouse seemed to list to one side with an ominous moan. The main spar holding up the central; section of the roof above Gallus and Dexion creaked and splintered, barely visible through the ceiling of flames.
‘Sir,’ Pavo rasped to Gallus, stepping back, snatching up Dexion’s dropped sword and swiping the smoke away from his eyes. ‘Get back. The roof’s about to collapse!’
Dexion suddenly lurched forward in Gallus’ grasp, thrusting his brow up at the tribunus’ nose. Gallus merely leaned back to avoid the blow and Dexion snarled, still ensnared in Gallus’ firm grip. ‘When I first awoke in the dungeons of Treverorum, you told me calmly how you had killed my family. You recounted each of your murders without feeling,’ Gallus said, his voice steady, but wet with blood in his lungs. He glanced up at the now sagging inferno of a roof then swivelled Dexion round to wrap an arm around his neck and pulled it tight until his lean but muscled bicep bulged, the veins throbbing through the skin. ‘You have fought all your life to free yourself from emotions and feelings. Well, Speculator, let me free you from your feelings… forever.’ Dexion’s hubris was gone, his eyes bulging, his mouth open, hands clawing at Gallus’ forearm, mouthing words that could not escape his constricted throat, his face growing an angry shade of purple and his lips turning blue.
‘Sir – the roof!’ Pavo cried. But when Gallus met his eye, he saw the greyness of the Iron Tribunus’ skin, the black blood still pouring from the crossbow bolt in his ribs. A thick lump formed in his throat as he realised no man could save the father of the XI Claudia. When he saw in Gallus’ free hand the hewn, worn wooden idol of Mithras, he knew the tribunus understood this too.
‘My time is over, Pavo,’ he said, unflustered by Dexion’s flapping arms and panicked kicks. ‘Yours is not. Get out, save yourself.’ His pupils were beginning to dilate. ‘This land needs men like you, and there are so few left. And I,’ he said, looking into the ether, a moment of doubt crossing his face, ‘I… if Mithras wills it… have someone to meet.’
Dexion’s eyes were bulging now, gaping at the groaning section of ceiling above him. The speculator mouthed Pavo’s name twice. Pavo paid no attention to him. Instead, he backed away, eyes on Gallus alone as a single, hot tear shot across his face. ‘I’ll never forget you, sir,’ he whispered. ‘Never.’
‘Nor I you, lad. Nor I you,’ Gallus replied with a valedictory nod, and the rarest of things: a gentle smile.
It was the last Pavo ever saw of him. The centre of the ceiling caved in with the roar like that of a legion rushing into battle, and the middle of the hearth room was buried under a fiery mass of timbers, tiles and soot.
Pavo stumbled back, biting his lip as more tears shot across his cheeks.
‘Into eternity, hail and farewell,’ he whispered, fighting the urge to sob, his eyes fixed on the spot where Gallus had been standing. For a time he was lost, trapped in the eye of the nightmare.
It was only the stinging smoke and the sounds of struggle that snapped him from his trance. He staggered back towards the hearth, finding Sura and Hosidius choking the life from one another. Without a moment’s deliberation, Pavo picked up a fallen crossbow bolt and hammered it into the foe’s temple. The freckle-faced agent’s grin collapsed and he fell limp instantly. Pavo kicked the corpse away then looped an arm around the retching, soot-covered Sura and helped him to his feet.
‘Pavo, what… what happened?’ Sura gasped.
‘On your feet, Optio,’ he said, his eyes widening as he looked around the surrounding wall of flames, caging them within the blaze, fiery talons closing in on them from every direction. ‘At the last, it has come down to just us…’
They gazed defiantly at the fiery prison, at the sagging section of roof above the corner they had been backed into. Beyond the wall of flame, they saw the blazing shutters.
‘There’s not a chance we can make that,’ Sura said.
‘Not a chance,’ Pavo agreed.
Glowing embers and blazing chunks of wood rained down around them, and the ceiling groaned, moments from giving out entirely.
Each sucked in a breath and roared in unison.
‘For the Claudia!’
Fritigern shielded his eyes with a hand and squinted into the last rays of sunlight and the brilliant orange blaze as he cantered up the hillside.
‘They are inside, Iudex! They are inside!’ the horseman by his side exclaimed, holding up and shaking a strip of purple and gold edged, blood-streaked cloth he had found on the slope. ‘The Emperor of the Romans is in that blaze – I’m sure of it!’
Fritigern raised a hand, silencing the man, then slowed his mount to a walk as he climbed towards the burning farmhouse. With him was this fellow and two others of his own scout cavalry. Many other riding parties had been sent out in other directions to claim such a prize – Alatheus and Saphrax’s Greuthingi had ridden with the greatest speed, urged by their lords to be the ones to claim Valens’ head. Their clamour to find, sever and hoist a man’s head left an acrid taste in his mouth. It was that grim token they sought in order to claim that victory had been won today by the Greuthingi and to then surely challenge him as Iudex of the Gothic Alliance.
‘We must bring his body from the flames,’ the eager rider pleaded, sliding from his saddle and taking Fritigern’s reins as they reached the hilltop. The intense, dry heat from the fire – a good thirty paces away – prickled on his skin, made the hairs on his arms shrivel and seemed to fold and stir the dusk air before him. The blaze roared as each timber beam collapsed with a thick crack, sending up plumes of flame. ‘Send me in,’ the rider pressed. ‘I will find him and bring him or his body out. We can be the ones to ride back into our camp tonight with the emperor’s head. Then nobody will be able to dispute your authority.’
Fritigern felt a tiredness overcome him at that moment. He beheld the roaring inferno and the black skeleton of the farmhouse in its midst, then looked down at the rider as a Father might glower upon an inadequate son. Far behind the dismounted man, the battle ridge loomed in the northern horizon. A dim blue blanket of twilight was graciously creeping up the southern slopes, veiling the stain of bodies, the buzzing flies and the legions of carrion hawks feasting upon the dead. They would have to move the wagons from the top of the ridge come the morning, before disease set in. It was a numb, dispiriting thought.
‘Iudex,’ one of the other riders pressed. ‘You have won a great victory today, yet you do not don a look of triumph?’
Fritigern didn’t even turn to the man, his eyes combing the countryside instead. This day had begun with the hope of finding a place for his people within the empire. It had ended with countless deaths and the certainty that the Romans would never forget, never forgive.
‘I beg you, give us direction,’ the dismounted one begged, turning from Fritigern to the farmhouse, straining like a dog on a leash to be allowed to plunge into the fiery mass and claim Emperor Valens’ body. ‘Iudex!’ he said, suddenly standing taller, eyes wide, nose in the air like a hunting hound, one finger shooting out to point into the wall of flames and billowing black smoke. ‘I see movement. Someone is in there!’
Fritigern gazed into the wall of flames. Within the chaos of orange, he saw fleeting blackness where the flames parted or swayed. For a moment, he too thought he saw something move. Something, someone. Then, over the roaring blaze he was sure he heard a hoarse cry. A cry of the legions. It was there and not there, maybe a trick of the inferno, before a colossal crunch of collapsing timber drowned it out.
‘Not a soul lives in there,’ Fritigern said flatly, then heeled his mount back around to walk it back down the hill.
‘But Iudex. The Emperor? If he burns in there then we can still get his body at least.’
Fritigern shot the man a gimlet stare. ‘Tell me, rider: would you follow a leader who dragged his enemy’s corpse from the pyre? Would it make you proud to serve such a man?’
The rider shrunk and said nothing.
‘The Roman Emperor is dead and will soon be but ashes. Let our power-hungry Greuthingi cousins tire themselves tonight in search of their elusive prize,’ he said with a desert-dry glance across the hills, the tops now cloaked in twilight, seeing Alatheus and Saphrax’s men still wheeling and galloping, calling out to one another desperately.
As he and his three horsemen descended the hill, the blaze calmed behind them. The roaring flames became a steady, crackling fire, fading as they drew away. Then, an odd feeling passed over him: he was sure he was being watched. Calmly, he drew in his reins and looked back over his shoulder, uphill.
The three riders stopped with him. ‘Iudex, what is it?’ one horseman said, looking up to the empty hilltop with a frown.
Fritigern turned back to them, a wry smile on his face, then waved them on towards the ridge and the wagon stockade. ‘To camp, riders.’
Gallus found himself in an eternal darkness. A void. Nothing. Where were the twin gateways?
Then grey wisps of smoke coiled around him like hungry asps, shackling him, drawing him through the abyss, faster and faster. Was this the road to Tartarus? His punishment for all his years of dealing death on the battlefields? But suddenly, as if sensing danger, the smoky asps released him and scattered. He slowed and was still again… but he was not alone.
There was something in the void. Something coming for him. One of many foes he had bested, now coming for vengeance, he wondered? He searched around the foggy ether. Nothing.
‘What is this?’ he said into the darkness. ‘Who’s there?’
As the silence intensified, he felt something he had long ago shunned creep across him: fear. The presence was drawing closer… ever closer. When he knew the unseen aura was almost upon him, he braced, as if for battle.
Suddenly, a warmth touched him and he felt something at last: a hand… a warm hand clasping his, fingers interlacing. Then another, tiny pair of hands clasped there too.
‘Daddy?’ Marcus said, vanquishing fear forever.
‘Come with us, my dear,’ Olivia whispered sweetly in his ear, ‘your journey is over.’