Chapter 9

 

Colias the Goth raised a hand, bringing his warband of a thousand Thervingi spearmen to a halt under the cruel midday sun. These last weeks of June had been hotter than any this land had ever experienced. The parched central Thracian plain – some thirty miles east of Adrianople – which they had traversed that morning ended here. Which way now? A hot, weak breeze ruffled the scorched golden grass around his ankles and he licked his desert-dry lips and surveyed his options: the silvery Rhodope Mountains to the west, rugged green-gold hills to the north… or a narrow gorge, straight ahead. It was a shallow, tight corridor, with sheer bluffs of white rock on either side. The floor of the still and silent arroyo was studded with yellow broom, purple rhododendron bushes and huge, ancient-looking and moss-coated shards of fallen white rock. It seemed like a pleasant corridor, and perhaps they could even march in the thin strip of shade offered by the leftmost gorge wall. Vitally, it would lead him and his thousand spearmen to the banks of the River Hebrus before the end of the day. But still he peered at it with scepticism. He had learned to treat all things this way.

His head throbbed and his swollen tongue poked out and traced his desiccated lips again, as if trying to make up his mind for him. Grain was the precious resource Fritigern had compelled his warbands to seize from the Romans and stockpile, but today, it was all about water. He thought of the full water barrels they had possessed just yesterday – full enough to slake the thirsts of his warband for several days. Yesterday they had raced across this section of Thracia to which Fritigern had assigned them, and had intercepted and raided a reckless and somewhat hopeful Roman wagon train that had dared attempt a transport of cattle, wine and arrows between two of their walled settlements. Colias had never felt more in control as he ordered his men to take the food and weapons for themselves. The men had been eager to slay the Romans but he had let them flee. Let them go – more mouths for the Romans to feed, he had reasoned with his warriors. In truth, they were merely old men and boys and he had no wish to murder them. They had made camp, eaten hearty meals of fresh bread and goat stew followed by foraged berries and the wine… lots of the wine, knowing that there would be plentiful water with which to soothe their doubtless thick heads in the morning. When morning came they had awoken, furry-tongued and bleary eyed. Colias had heard an angry dispute at the water barrels as he approached with his cup. Men who had been closer than brothers the previous night with wine warming their blood, now stood nose-to-nose and snarling like rabid dogs. He shouted them down, the sharp tones doing nothing for his pounding head, then pushed past them to see what had happened. The barrels stood there, seemingly undamaged. But the patch of dry, baked earth upon which they had been set up was no longer dry or baked, but dark and damp. One of his men had knocked upon the barrel as if to demonstrate, the hollow echo confirming what had happened. The timbers are split, his man had confirmed, prodding with a knife at the base of the barrel where the wooden staves were parted and the water had flooded out. One badly riveted barrel he could forgive, but for all six to have shed their water overnight… now that was a cruel trick from Allfather Wodin himself… or someone else. He eyed the gorge ahead once again, then looked back over his shoulder to his warband. Nearly a thousand heads baking under their leather or iron helms, barely shading drawn faces, black-lines under their eyes and puckered lips. They clung to their spears for support more than anything else, and the chorus of rasping breaths told him all he needed to know. With water, he would have taken them north, across the hills and the open heath beyond at a more leisurely pace. But with without water, this gorge was the only viable route.

‘Forward,’ he croaked, waving a hand overhead, leading them down the gently sloping ground that led into the gorge with a crunch of boots on gravel and scree.

As often happened when he grew weary, his mind drifted back to his old life, when he had once served as a centurion in the empire’s legions. He and his fellow Goth, Suerdias, had garrisoned the city of Adrianople bravely. It had been their home back then, before the outbreak of war. Yet in the first days of conflict, the Roman populace had violently ousted the Gothic legionaries from the city walls. His teeth ground together as he recalled the vitriol of Adrianople’s citizens that day. They had hurled spears, rocks and buckets of waste at him and his men, killing several. Aye, well, I have spilled plenty of legionary blood since, he mused with a stubborn smirk that quickly dissolved into a troubled frown.

They marched on through the gorge, sighs of relief sounding when they entered the shade down there. Even the chatter in his mind fell silent for a while as the echo of boots took over. A modicum of peace. But when a small rock tumbled down the cliff-side, tossing up tiny puffs of dust as it went, his warrior’s instinct kicked in. He was sure – he just knew – something had moved up there on the gorge side. But there was nothing there. He raised a hand to halt his warband. The crunch of boots ceased almost instantly and the sudden silence grew deafening. His eyes swept around in distrust and his hand and a thousand others grappled spears and longsword hilts.

Then came a sound that almost totally disarmed him. The plonk of a cork and the thick, luscious glug-glug of water toppling from some vessel. A series of gasps sounded from his men as they looked all around to locate the source of the noise.

‘That’s it, get rid of it, all of it,’ a rowdy voice demanded. The words echoed through the gorge. ‘Every last damned drop.’

Colias looked this way and that before his eyes locked upon the three figures who emerged on top of the northern bluff. Romans, he mouthed. Instantly, he and his thousand spearmen’s weariness was cast off. They turned to face the northern gorge top, spears clacking as they were levelled to point up there at the trio. One – a bald, pox-scarred officer with an eyepatch and a wild, lop-sided smile-cum-grimace – mopped sweat from his brow with a rag. Two young legionaries stood by his side – one a dark, hawk-faced lad and the other blonde-haired and rosy-cheeked – emptying amphorae of sparkling water onto the ground up there.

‘Legionaries? How?’ he growled. These men had snuck up on his flank in silence. The legions did not creep up on his kind – they moved like herds of cows, all din and clamour. But this odd trio wore legionary tunics and belts but no clanking armour – nor a jot of iron to catch the sun and betray their position. How long had they been tracking his warband?

The bald, savage-looking one beamed down at him and spoke in a voice that pealed like a bell through the gorge. ‘But damn, it is hot, eh?’

 

‘Is it him?’ Bastianus whispered over his shoulder to Pavo.

Pavo nodded. ‘It is Colias of the Thervingi. Once Colias of Adrianople,’ he whispered back.

‘And you’re sure about him?’

Pavo’s eyes narrowed on the lead Goth down in the gorge. Colias and his kinsman, Suerdias, had once served in the garrison of Adrianople as centurions. But when the Gothic War broke out, the populace had turned upon the distinctly un-Roman pair and their legionaries, chasing them from the city, driving them to defect to Fritigern’s growing horde. ‘He was once loyal to the empire. As loyal as they come.’

Bastianus pursed his lips as if musing over this, then turned back to the Goth and his warband standing down in the gulch floor, gesturing towards the amphorae being drained by Pavo and Sura. ‘Water! We have too much of the bloody stuff, you see,’ he continued in a voice loud enough to be heard in faraway Persia. When he winked at Pavo and Sura, they took their cue. Sura dropped his vessel in exaggerated fashion, allowing it to shatter on a shard of grey rock. With a shivering reflection, the remaining contents soaked the stone and the earth and dribbled down the face of the bluff with a melodic trickle. ‘Ah, it slipped,’ he said sarcastically.

Pavo held up his amphora and drank deeply, letting the water spill over his face, soaking his linen tunic.

‘You,’ Colias snarled, his face bending into a bitter scowl. ‘You took our water.’

‘No, we have our own. We did, however, test the integrity of your barrels,’ Bastianus said with a nonchalant snort and a quick hitch of his crotch. ‘You were sound asleep. Soft leather, you see,’ he said, lifting one leg to show off his boot, ‘all too silent.’

The Goth’s spear hand trembled. Pavo knew what was coming next. The war cry, the thousand spears would race back out of the gorge and come round onto this bluff to snare them. The man had almost lost his head to anger, he realised. Swiftly, he tossed down his amphorae and snatched up the rag of red cloth strapped to his belt and swished it overhead. The action stilled the Goth and his men for a moment, and then they were stilled utterly when a wall of bodies sprung up around the three taunting Romans in response to the signal: a line of seven legionary centuries dressed in tunics, wearing dark felt caps in place of helms and bearing ruby-red XI Claudia shields, Zosimus and Quadratus leading two of them.

Pavo hooked the cloth back on his belt and took up his spear and shield from Rectus, who brought them to him, then fell into place with Sura at the head of the centremost century. ‘Ready!’ he cried in unison with Zosimus and Quadratus, their voices almost matching Bastianus’ in volume. He watched the Goths’ eyes, knowing that this was the crucial moment: their eyes darted and they looked to one another. He imagined the thoughts in their heads: the Romans have the high ground but we have greater number.

Once more, Colias seemed ready to take that chance, but a shout from Zosimus across the corridor brought a rumble of boots from the top of the opposite gorge wall. The Goths’ faces fell as they turned to look up over their shoulders. Seven more centuries of Romans looked down on them from that side. A century of sagittarii – having dispensed of their armour – stood with their bows nocked and drawn. Herenus and his century of funditores flanked them on the left, slings loaded with shot, raised and spinning with a waspish rasp. A century of the emperor’s precious ballistarii stood on the right, their crossbows loaded and latched, their keen eyes trained along the shaft, targets sighted. Beside them stood a century of the Lancearii javelin throwers, wearing jerkins and boots, javelins raised and ready. Three more Claudia centuries completed the line there. Pavo heard the expulsion of breath down on the gorge floor. Finally, as if to end the matter, the heat haze at the far end of the canyon swirled as an ala of two hundred unarmoured equites carrying spears and bows emerged from the bend beyond, jostling into place at a canter, sealing off the Goths’ route that way. Agilo the explorator led this mounted force. Finally, a further three centuries of Claudia legionaries spilled down into the gorge behind Colias, clacking their shields together, two-high, to form a deep and solid, spear-tip punctuated wall, sealing off any hope of retreat. Now Pavo saw the Goths’ shoulders slump.

But Colias still had fire in his eyes. ‘Three more warbands roam just a few miles north. The outrageous din of your voice will have alerted them.’ he said, stabbing a finger at Bastianus. ‘You might have enough time to save your necks if you run.’

‘Ah,’ Bastianus chuckled, utterly unperturbed, before rearranging his crotch again. ‘Would that be the same three warbands we tracked and trapped?’ His face creased in a theatrical mocking smile. ‘Think about it. You haven’t heard from them for days, have you?’

Colias’ top lip trembled then curled back, revealing gritted teeth. ‘You stole into our camp last night. You could have slain us then, in our sleep, yet you did not. Why? Why do you revel in playing games with men’s lives? Come then, you’ve had your fun, now cut us down as you did the other warbands,’ he snarled, ‘but we will take many of you with us into the afterlife!’

‘Cut you down? By Mithras, we will if you make us,’ Bastianus retorted like an angry bear, drawing his spatha with a zing. ‘Or,’ he added, ‘you can throw down your spears, slake your thirsts, then walk away from this war.’

Colias snorted, taken aback.

‘The three other warbands chose that option. They laid down their weapons, and right now they are being marched to the south, escorted by three of my centuries. They’ll serve in the Greek islands and in the Peloponnese or be shipped to Africa.’

Colias snorted and bristled. ‘You expect us to embrace the offer of slavery?’

Bastianus shook his head. ‘You’ll be drafted into the legions. We need men… to protect other parts of the empire, to keep the peace and prevent other wars like this.’ The scarred general crouched on one knee now, as if trying to block out all others and talk only to Colias, his lone eye trained on the man like an eagle peering down from its eyrie. ‘We need men like you, Colias. Colias of Adrianople.’

Colias blinked at the use of his name and the reference to his old life. But the narrow eyes returned. ‘Why should I trust you? How do I know you would not simply take our weapons then cut our throats – just as the Roman curs tried to do that day in Adrianople when they turned upon me and my Gothic century?’

‘You’ve served us before. Things turned sour, aye,’ Bastianus mused. ‘But war tarnishes the most glittering of things, does it not?’

Colias noticed a fair few of the men with him shuffling in discomfort.

‘How many of those in your warband were part of the Adrianople garrison with you?’ Bastianus asked. ‘Men who knew peace and purpose within the empire before the war? Today, I’m offering you that once more: a home, a place, a purpose.’ His avuncular tone ended when he raised his spatha and appraised its gleaming, honed edge with a hard eye and added: ‘Make the right choice, Colias.’

Colias’ features were wrought with indecision. He looked round the noose of Roman soldiers once, twice and again. Finally, he sighed and threw his spear into the earth before him, where it stuck and quivered. ‘Our war is over,’ he called over his shoulder to his men.

 

Colias and his men were stripped of their weapons and marshalled by Agilo and his riders. The Goths’ doubt and distrust was slowly assuaged only when a few contubernia of Zosimus’ Claudia legionaries descended into the gorge, taking them water to drink.

Pavo finally let the tension in his shoulders ease. Over the last week, Bastianus had led this heterogeneous ensemble, not like an army marching to battle, but like bandits, criss-crossing lower Thracia, doubling back, keeping their route deliberately erratic. They scuttled through long grass, forded rivers, and slipped over hills like fast-moving asps. Agilo always rode ahead, scouting and pinpointing Gothic warbands, then signalling back to the column with a flash of sunlight from a bronze disc. Four thousand Thervingi had been disarmed so far. He eyed the damp dust by his feet at the edge of the bluff where he had emptied the amphora as a taunt. The day was theirs, and water had been spilled in place of blood. Could a war be won by such means? He knew the answer even before Bastianus sidled over, gazing down at the Goths in the gully.

The Magister Peditum spat into the dust and wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘I reckon we’ll need two centuries from your lot to escort them south – down to Perinthus where we sent the others.’

Pavo nodded. ‘I’ll organise it.’ He glanced over the small army of unarmoured Claudia legionaries, missile troops and horsemen. Another one hundred and sixty men to escort this lot on top of the centuries who had taken the other warbands south. The small army was growing swiftly smaller.

‘No, we can’t,’ Bastianus said.

‘Sir?’

‘You’re thinking we can’t carry on like this,’ Bastianus clarified. ‘And you’re right.’

Pavo looked all around the horizon. ‘There are many warbands still out there.’

Bastianus grunted in agreement. ‘Too many. Soon, we’ll have to get our swords wet.’

Just then, Agilo walked his horse up and along the edge of the bluff, having ridden from the gorge floor.

‘Give me good news, Agilo,’ Bastianus said.

Agilo shook his head. ‘Same as the others, sir. They don’t know.’

Bastianus’ gaze fell to the Goths being questioned down on the valley floor. His good eye narrowed like a man considering a dark course of action and he drummed his fingers on his sword hilt. ‘You’re sure?’ he said in a low, ominous burr.

‘I’m sure,’ Agilo said firmly.

Bastianus spat again. Pavo sighed. Each of the warbands they had captured had been questioned about the location of Fritigern’s secondary camp and the vital grain stockpile it reportedly held. Each of them had been equally vociferous in insisting they knew nothing. Fritigern has told only a select few of its whereabouts, one had sworn – even when a heated blade had been held near his eyes.

‘Then it is simple: the hunt continues,’ Bastianus mused.

 

 

The following day, the patchwork force – now reduced to just fifteen hundred men – finally broke from their pattern of moving across fields and hills and risked marching along the Via Militaris instead. This section of the road was in grievous disrepair – sections of flagstone buckled and jutting. All eyes combed the low, golden hills along the roadside in case of ambush. Pavo’s eyes were keener than most. By his reckoning if they stayed on the highway then they might come within sight of the Narco waystation sometime tomorrow. He squinted into the setting sun, seeing a flash of light there: it was Agilo galloping in from the north, a plume of dust billowing in his wake. The explorator went straight to Bastianus, divulging his findings from his latest foray ahead before dropping back to ride near the column’s rear.

Then he noticed that Quadratus, Zosimus and Sura were marching together. He jogged forward to draw level with the trio, who were already deep in conversation, muttering and making disguised gestures towards Bastianus.

The Magister Peditum was sitting bolt upright on the saddle, humming some tuneless ditty, laughing sporadically as he went as if in some jestful conversation with himself.

‘Pissed as a plague rat, surely,’ Zosimus reasoned.

‘Insane,’ Quadratus said instantly, summoning then spitting a lump of rubbery phlegm with a snort, then he added with a nod at Sura; ‘definitely worse than you.’ He turned to Pavo. ‘What do you make of him?’

‘Our new leader?’ Pavo offered. ‘Mad as a cut snake.’

‘He’s doing what he said he would though,’ Sura interjected. ‘That’s four warbands removed from the board, and several more herded further north in just over a week. How many men have we lost in that time?’

‘Three,’ Zosimus said with a grin. ‘That takes some doing.’

‘Aye,’ Pavo said, ‘you know I’d give anything to have Gallus and Dexion back and in charge of the legion. We all would. But this man is a shrewd one. He knows what he’s doing. Maybe he’s not so crazy after-’

‘Halt!’ Bastianus bellowed, raising a hand as if he had spotted an enemy up ahead. The manic general slipped carefully from the saddle of his roan and swung his head round to face his weary men. ‘Turn! Face the sides of the road!’ he screamed, spit flecks shooting from his mouth, the lone eye darting, his face stretched in alarm.

A murmur of angst broke out as the column at once dissolved into two parts, one half facing the northern edge of the road, the other facing south as if preparing for a sudden attack on both flanks. Pavo’s eyes swept over the countryside. No Goths, no movement at all out there in the mix of deep orange light and long, stretching shadows. He glanced to Bastianus and caught the briefest glimpse of mischief in the man’s eye.

‘Cocks out,’ Bastianus roared, ‘and… piiiiiiiisssss!’

A moment of stunned silence passed while Bastianus rummaged to lift up the front of his tunic. Then came the distinctive hiss and patter of liquid hitting dirt. A puff of steam rose and the Magister Peditum sighed in liberation. The men broke down in laughter and a chorus of muted but relieved curses.

‘A dash of danger – always helps me along, if you take my meaning,’ Bastianus boomed as he continued to soak the roadside, the rest of the column going about their business likewise. ‘Gets the old bladder bulging, eh?’ With a grunt and a shuffle, he was finished. He tucked himself away then took to striding down the centre of the road, between the two walls of urinating men. ‘We’ll camp here tonight,’ he mused, eyeing the plateau just off the road, ‘then tomorrow, we’ll leave the highway again and cut north through the plains.’

Pavo’s head switched round at this. Leaving the road meant they would not pass Narco after all. He tried to find some logical reason to put to Bastianus to change his mind, but the Magister Peditum continued before he could find one.

‘The town of Bizye, south of the Mons Asticus uplands, is still in imperial control. But its walls are in a state of disrepair and its garrison is weak. The Goths have bled the place almost dry,’ he continued, glancing to Agilo, who nodded his affirmation of this. ‘They’ve helped themselves to tribute: draining the grain silo and stripping the gold and bronze from the temples. The people there are gaunt and impoverished. That battered town has nothing left to give. And it seems that a warband is on its way there once more. When they reach Bizye and find no tribute to take, they will likely opt for slaughter.’

A series of muted grumbles sounded along the column.

‘If they reach Bizye,’ Bastianus added with a dry smile.

Narco can wait, Pavo thought.

 

 

The plain just south of the hazy blue outline of the fertile Mons Asticus mountain range was a picture of serenity: a carpet of tall, golden grass basking in summer heat. The gentle, warm afternoon wind sighed through the high stalks, swaying them, but not enough to reveal the Second Cohort of the XI Claudia, knelt in silence there in a two-deep line.

Pavo felt the dry soil under his knee tremble. He stretched his neck a fraction and saw a pillar of dust rise from the cleft between the hills to the north. A savage cry from that direction heralded the arrival of a thick band of Thervingi spearmen. They swung into view and spilled from the cleft, jogging onto the plain. Pavo heard Cornix’ breathing grow short and fast as the enemy infantry quickened towards their hidden position.

‘That’s not one warband, that’s two!’ Cornix hissed as the enemy came to within a few hundred paces.

‘Perfect,’ Sura replied with a dry smile.

‘Shame it’s not three,’ Pavo added, then looked along the crouched line and saw Bastianus’ eye trained on the Goths, his lips itching to make the call.

‘Rise!’ the Magister Peditum cried at last. As one, the Second Cohort shot to their feet, instantly shoulder-to-shoulder, clacking their shields together and rattling their spears into place between the gaps. ‘Haaaa!’ Pavo cried in unison with Sura, their hubris rippling through the men either side of them and the second rank who roared likewise.

The Goths gawped, momentarily slowing, then erupted in an excited chatter as they saw the lone cohort before them – just four hundred and eighty men to their two thousand. Their shock fading, they bounded forward, drawing sparkling longswords as they went. ‘We are a wall!’ Pavo screamed just before the Goths crashed against them like a herd of maddened oxen with a rattle of iron upon iron. A maw of swords flashed out at him, clashing from his helm and the rim of his shield. Near-blinded, he thrust out his spear, tearing into unseen flesh but knowing that, alone, his cohort was doomed.

But they were not alone.

‘Haaaaaa!’ came the pealing cries. Two sets of voices. Two more cohorts. Zosimus and the First rose from the grass on the Goths’ right flank and Quadratus and the Third shot up on the enemy left. Like iron jaws, they fell upon the warbands’ flanks.

‘Haaaaa!’ the Lancearii, slingers, archers and ballistarii howled as they too rose from the grass to swarm around the Gothic rear like closing gates, loosing javelin after javelin, an endless hail of shot and arrows. Pavo lashed his spear up, battered his shield forward and felt a warm spray of blood lash across his skin from comrades by his side and foes alike. For a moment, the Goths seemed set to best the trap and he felt his cohort straining to hold its line. But hold it they did and, surrounded, the Gothic cries of zeal became the screams of dying men and their efforts now turned entirely to flight. They barged and kicked, clambered and scrambled clear of the Roman death grip, managing to surge through the missile infantry lines.

Only breaths after it had begun, it was over. Pavo staggered and fell to one knee as the press of battle before him faded, the Goths speeding back through the tall grass from whence they had come. The Lancearii, slingers and archers were ready to loose on their backs, just waiting for Bastianus’ order.

‘Let them go,’ Bastianus cried shrilly. ‘We need some of the hairy bastards to survive to tell the rest of the warbands that it’s a bad idea to linger in this part of the world.’

Pavo rose, using his sword like a staff. A carpet of blood and bodies lay before him, over seventy legionaries lay dead or groaning amongst the Goths. Seventy comrades gone in mere heartbeats. Bizye had been spared a visit from this warband, but it remained broken and bereft of food for its populace. So many more towns across Thracia teetered on such a precipice. He thought of the grain Emperor Valens had shipped in from Egypt and the islands: while it had relieved the threat of famine in Constantinople and the southern coastal cities, it had not been conveyed to places like Bizye for fear of attack in transport. Hunger, he realised, might be the death of many more Romans than any Gothic sword. Grain was fast becoming the currency of this treacherous war.

He saw Bastianus crouched by a patch of unbloodied dust, dotting the ground and plotting his next move. An idea formed in his mind, and he walked over to join the general.

 

 

‘Look,’ Hartwig said, slapping the back of his hand across his fellow-warrior’s chest. His finger shot out across the sun-baked prairie. Golden dust, tracts of short, green grass and… wagons!

‘Seventy, eighty of them, coming this way,’ Jarl, crouched by his side atop the dusty knoll, whispered like a man enchanted by the sight of unexpected gold. ‘An imperial caravan,’ he realised, eyes searching into the sweltering horizon: somewhere far to the south lay Perinthus, the imperial coastal city. Rumour had it that Egyptian grain had been shipped there. Now, it seemed the empire dared try to feed its inland cities with it. ‘They think they can ride across our soil,’ he said, jealously eyeing the wagons, each with an arched timber frame, covered with dust-stained white cloth. This convoy was headed for Adrianople, he guessed. Packed with grain. He cast a look over his shoulder at the thousand Thervingi spearmen concealed behind the knoll.

‘They’re coming this way,’ Hartwig whispered, stroking his sandy beard. ‘Just a few scout riders as an escort too,’ he pointed out the three unarmoured men with spears riding alongside the train.

‘And the plain is empty apart from the convoy. Just dust and air. No nooks, no high grass, no forests, no cliffs for that cursed wraith legion to conceal themselves in,’ Jarl added.

‘They haven’t been sighted since Mons Asticus,’ Hartwig said with a tremor of ire.

Jarl spat into the dirt. Hartwig’s brother had been killed by this elusive band of Romans on the plains of Mons Asticus three days ago. Many more warbands had been trapped, assaulted or driven north by them. ‘They will pay when next they take to the field. And if we take this grain, they and every other Roman will grow weak with hunger.’

‘Aye, and imagine if we were to bring such spoils before Iudex Fritigern?’ Hartwig mused.

‘I’ll be having a few loaves of fresh bread before we hand it over, I can tell you,’ Jarl grinned, rubbing his paunch. ‘And if the drivers are carrying coins…’

‘Then they’d most likely go missing in the confusion,’ Hartwig flashed a matching grin.

‘Do we spare them?’ Jarl said, pointing to the driver of the foremost wagon, a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. ‘Fritigern was clear that we should. But…’

‘But he’s not here,’ Hartwig finished for him.

Jarl nodded in agreement then silently raised a hand overhead, scooping it forward. His thousand warriors rose and stole around the knoll-side, ready to waylay the caravan when it came into view. He and Hartwig scrambled down through the dust to join them just as the crunch and grind of cartwheels grew closer. There was a moment of stillness before the foremost wagons rolled around the knoll-side.

‘For the glory of the horde!’ Hartwig howled, swiping his spear through the air like a standard, waving the warband on. They flew across the short stretch of dusty ground towards the flank of the convoy, weapons raised, seeing the wide-eyed wagon-drivers gawp and shout in panic.

‘Take the foremost wagons!’ Jarl bellowed, seeing the drivers fumble with the reins. ‘Barge them onto their sides and-’ his words stuck in his throat, trapped there by shock, as the driver stood up and yanked at a rope: the white cloth enshrouding the body of the wagon dropped like a sail, revealing not a granule of wheat, but a bunch of some thirty ballistarii, crossbows loaded, eyes trained along the bolts. In the next heartbeat, Hartwig saw it all: the wagons all along the train shed their awnings, exposing packs of slingers, archers and ruby-shielded legionaries. The wraith-legion. With a thrum of crossbow levers, the ballistarii loosed. A bolt took Hartwig in the eye, casting him into blackness.

Jarl wailed, staggering back with the rest of his warriors, as the legionaries crammed aboard the wagon he had been about to clamber onto hurled their plumbatae. The weighted darts thumped into his men, wrecking chests and faces and one thwacked into his knee, lodging there. With a howl, he pitched onto his back, gazing into the sky, cradling the knee as blood pumped from the wound. The pain was indescribable, and he could barely comprehend what was going on around him: seeing just the packs of ruby warriors leaping from the wagons and falling upon his warband. Screams and a mizzle of blood floated in the air above him and when they faded, he was laughing giddily – maddened by the shock from his grievous wound. A cluster of faces appeared, staring down at him, outlined by the sky. A bald, eyepatch-wearing madman and a clutch of legionaries.

‘No grain for you Goth,’ the one with the eyepatch growled. ‘Though I suspect you’ve enjoyed your last meal anyway. The real grain caravan is behind this one, on its way to Adrianople, Bizye and Nike.’

Curse you, you dog-ugly Roman, Jarl tried to reply, but emitted some garbled, pained animal sound instead.

A legionary – hawk-faced and young – suggested something to the bald one, who nodded his assent.

‘Fritigern keeps two main camps. Kabyle and…’ the hawk-faced one asked.

Jarl felt his breathing grow shallow and began to see dark spots in the sky.

‘And?’ the legionary repeated. ‘Where is the secondary camp?’

Jarl laughed weakly, feeling his face and neck growing cold. ‘The place we house our grain surplus? You think Fritigern would tell a wretch like me?’

With a zing, a spatha was drawn and poked under Jarl’s chin. ‘Talk, Goth,’ a blonde-haired and moustachioed bull of a legionary insisted.

Jarl sought out some caustic riposte, but the black spots conquered the sky, the coldness claimed his body and death swept him away.

 

‘He’s dead?’ Bastianus said then spat into the earth. ‘Damned inconsiderate, if you ask me. Still, a fine plan, Centurion. The wagons drew them to us like flies to a corpse.’

The praise was lost on Pavo, who gazed into the dead Goth’s eyes, imagining the knowledge in there evaporating like mist. ‘And this second camp of theirs, we’re like the flies, chasing them to find out its location.’

Zosimus glowered at the body. ‘And as long as we can’t locate it, we can’t threaten it.’

‘Locate it?’ Agilo said then whistled. ‘Mithras knows I’ve tried. My riders have striven to scout further north but it’s crawling with Goths up there.’

‘And it’s our job to keep driving them up there too,’ Bastianus said, eyeing the surrounding lands with a mean eye. ‘Send the wagons back to Perinthus, bury the dead, then we should be on our way. Our job is not yet done.’

Soon, they were on their way again, marching through the remainder of the hot afternoon. Pavo fell into a trance of sorts as they went. He barely noticed when the crunch-crunch of boots on dust changed into a firmer clatter of hobnails and soles on flagstones. He blinked, seeing that they had re-joined the Via Militaris. It was like a splash of cold water to his face. He eyed the milestone at the side of the road and felt a shiver of realisation: they were again nearing the Narco waystation. He counted off the miles as they progressed, willing Bastianus to stay true to the highway this time.

Just as the sun was slipping behind the western hills, Bastianus called for them to halt and make camp in the lee of a gentle hillside. Pavo’s face creased in confusion. This was it, he realised: the site of Narco. But here or as far along the road as the fading light allowed him to see there was nothing – certainly no waystation. Had he miscounted the miles?

He unslung his light pack and stretched, surveying the patch of flat ground and the trickling stream nearby before helping the Claudia lads to mark out the camp perimeter. When he heard bleating behind him, he turned to the hill overlooking the site. A few sheep were munching on the grass up there, and an old shepherd stood alongside them, resting his weight on a crook. A rare sight, Pavo thought, for almost every country-dweller had fled to the cities. A young man – the shepherd’s boy, he guessed – came hurrying over with several skins of water and a bag of bread loaves. The boy made his way to Bastianus.

‘My father saw you coming and had me draw this water and bring bread for you. It is a joy to see the imperial standards in the countryside. It has been so long.’

‘You live out here?’ Bastianus said, impressed.

‘We are the only ones in these hills not to have fled to the cities. I have been pleading with Father for some time to do so. My cousin lives in Bourdepa a few weeks’ trek to the west and he has a spare room we could have. But Father has lived here since he was a boy and he insists our shack is our home. He is adamant that the war will not drive us away. He nearly wept with joy when he saw your legionary banners approach,’ the lad smiled, then his face creased as he glanced back at his aged father on the hillside. ‘You will make these lands safe once more, won’t you?’ he asked.

Pavo saw the manic look in Bastianus’ eye fade – just as it had when he had connected with Colias at that crucial moment. ‘We’ll try. By the gods, we’ll try.’

The young man smiled and handed one of the skins to Bastianus.

The Magister Peditum gratefully accepted it and tipped most of it over his gleaming bald head. The mad look returned. ‘But damn, that is good.’ he spluttered in thanks, then called up to the old shepherd on the hillside, raising the water skin like a cup of wine. ‘May your sheep grow fat and your cock stay hard!’

Pavo saw the look of bemusement this conjured on the shepherd’s face, then wondered just how well the old fellow knew these lands. ‘Lived here since he was a boy?’ he muttered to himself. He climbed the hillside towards the shepherd. ‘Centurion Pavo,’ he introduced himself. ‘My commander, he is…’

‘Amusing,’ the old fellow finished for him.

Pavo chuckled. ‘He’s certainly that.’

‘I once served this legion you know,’ the old fellow said, pointing a knotted finger at the Claudia’s ruby bull banner. ‘Still have my armour – one of my few possessions. I served under all manner of tribuni. Bright and dim, bold and craven, prim and perverted. Lots of perverts,’ he added with a knowing eye.

‘He’s not our tribunus,’ Pavo said. ‘Tribunus Gallus is our true leader.’ When he saw the old man look around as if to locate the tribunus, he added: ‘he’s… absent. Lost somewhere on the western road. My brother Dexion is with him. We pray they will return to us, but it has been some time and we’ve heard nothing,’ he said with a sad smile, then drew the folded paper from his purse.

‘What have you got there?’ the old man said.

‘A forlorn hope,’ Pavo sighed. ‘I’m looking for a place near here. A place called Narco.’

‘The old waystation?’ the old man said, eyeing the paper with interest. ‘Then you’ll be disappointed.’

Pavo followed the old man’s finger as he pointed over to the side of the brook on the hill’s crest. The green grass here was spoiled by a rectangular patch of charred earth, outlined by blackened timber stumps – like bad teeth in a foul mouth open wide. He wandered over to it. ‘This is… was Narco?’ he muttered absently.

‘Until a few weeks ago, it was,’ the old fellow rested both hands and his chin on his crook and eyed the ruin with disdain. ‘Abandoned since the Goths broke through the mountains, mind you. But even before then it was best avoided: they used to sell vile ale and filthy food – only the imperial messengers were treated to the fresh stuff. And the donkey they kept here was mean too – bit my hand once when I tried to feed it.’

Pavo brushed a foot through the ash. ‘Why did the Goths burn it if it was deserted anyway?

The old man looked up at Pavo, one eyebrow arched. ‘The Goths did not burn it: A Roman did. I saw him: a rider of some sort with a crossbow. He came here and put a torch to the place.’

‘That makes even less sense.’ He unfolded the paper and held it up. Narco holds the truth. ‘Nothing survived the blaze?’

One side of the shepherd’s mouth flicked up subtly as he read it. ‘Come with me.’

The old man shuffled away, beckoning Pavo. Pavo switched his gaze from the shepherd to the camp works down at the foot of the hill, guiltily realising he was neglecting his duty in setting up the camp for the night.

‘Latrines!’ Bastianus howled. ‘We need volunteers to dig out a latrine pit.’

Mind made up, Pavo followed the old fellow, who led him into a poplar grove, telling him tales of his youth, chuckling cheerfully as he recalled them. A shack stood in a small dell in the middle. He invited Pavo in and put a pan of water on the fire. As the water boiled, he brought out an armful of scrolls, dumping them on the small table and inviting Pavo to sit.

‘The place was abandoned at haste when the mountain passes fell, and so all this was left behind,’ the shepherd said, pouring the now boiling water into two cups and dipping a small muslin bag of herbs and roots into each, colouring the water a dark green. ‘Private letters, military inventories, bills… threats!’ he laughed.

Pavo took a sip of the herbal brew – hot but deliciously sweet and earthy. He peeled open each scroll to glance at the contents. Dull and detailed.

‘I took these scrolls thinking they would be safer with me than in the empty waystation. Seems I was right – for nothing would have survived that blaze, nothing!’ the old man said, laughing again.

Pavo sighed as he scanned the bland texts, one after the other. ‘These could be of great use to a light sleeper,’ he joked.

‘This one might be of great use to you, Centurion.’ The shepherd handed him one scroll.

Pavo looked up, noticing the man’s cheerful chuckling had stopped.

The shepherd wore a wry look on his weathered face. ‘Your brother’s name is Dexion, you said. You want to know the truth about him?’ the shepherd said. ‘Then this might well be what you were looking for.’

Pavo eyed the scroll, his mouth growing dry. He took it and unfurled it, an odd sense of foreboding coming over him. The staring eye emblem struck him first.

‘The eye – like your note,’ the old man said eagerly. ‘And… ’

Pavo combed over the text. It was nondescript – a vague message. But there was one line that smacked him between the eyes:

…Dexion has reached Treverorum. He will return in time to ensure the emperor’s victory…

‘What is this?’ Pavo gasped.

The old shepherd shrugged. ‘This paper was not kept in Narco’s storage room, but hidden in a locked box in the attic. Whatever it is, it was not meant to be seen by just any eyes… and then I dropped the box, breaking it, and, well, I let curiosity get the better of me. I read it, though it made no sense to me – but I knew it would mean something to you – what with that unforgettable eye and your brother’s name. So what does it mean – good news or bad?’

Pavo realised he was smiling. ‘It means… he made it. Dexion and Gallus made it to the West,’ he whispered. ‘And if they made it there then… then they’ll be coming back with Gratian’s army, surely.’ He shot to his feet, grasped the old man by the shoulders and embraced him. ‘Thank you,’ he said, making for the door, eager to tell his comrades. He halted in the doorway though, turning round, realising he should give the old man something in return. He patted his purse – coinless, then realised it was not money the fellow needed, but advice. He remembered the old crone’s words in the foul dream.

The war has yet to reach its blackest phase.

‘We will do all we can to rid this land of war,’ he said, ‘but you should listen to your boy. Go to Bourdepa and take shelter within its walls.’

The shepherd sipped his brew and smiled gently. ‘Perhaps,’ he said after a time, then smiled, ‘after all, who am I to disobey a centurion’s order?’ Then he waved a hand at the door. ‘Now go, share your news with your comrades,’ he said, chuckling.

Pavo gave him a warm nod then left, hurrying back out of the grove and over the hilltop towards the camp works. As he came back down the hillside to the camp by the Via Militaris, Bastianus’ war horn voice split the air. The trenches and tents were in place and the men were slaking their thirsts while Bastianus walked his nickering roan amongst them. ‘You served me well today, men. Fritigern will know of our exploits and of his vanquished warbands,’ he raised and shook one clenched fist, turning to meet every eye. ‘Most have fled lower Thracia, but still some remain! So let’s get the tents up, fill your bellies, slake your thirst and get to sleep.’ Bastianus’ neck stretched as he scanned the sea of faces. ‘And whoever the farter is, keep the noise down. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. Not-a-bloody-wink!’

Quadratus didn’t seem to notice the many sets of scornful eyes that turned towards him, instead he just continued to chew upon a rather iffy-looking stick of salt mutton.

Pavo slowed down by Quadratus’ side, breathless, waving Zosimus and Sura to him as well. He unravelled the scroll and held it up so they could read it. All eyes combed the letter blankly for a moment.

Sura laughed and slapped Pavo’s back. ‘Thank you, Mithras,’ he grinned.

‘You have heard our prayers,’ Quadratus added, his face lighting up. ‘Now what – we wait?’

‘Maybe,’ Pavo mused. ‘Or we could finish the job we started here… chase the rest of the Goths from this land – clear a path for their return.’

Big Zosimus scooped his arms around the others and shook them, his face split with a beaming grin. ‘They’re coming back… they’re coming back!’

 

 

A welcome breeze blew across the hot plains as Suerdias the Goth halted for a moment to eye the land ahead: open grassland for miles, just a cluster of foothills ahead smudging the flat southern horizon. He glanced to either side of him. Three clusters of tall, fair-haired Thervingi warriors were massed to his right and another three to his left. Six warbands. Almost six thousand men, clad in baked red leather armour and mail. A small army. Fritigern had insisted that the warbands should move alone, each group of one thousand distinct and swift. But the stinging attacks from this wraith legion – a legion that had seemingly been everywhere in southern Thracia at once – had been telling. Many warbands had fled north, abandoning the regions they had been tasked with holding. The five who remained in southeastern Thracia had flocked to his group, seeking direction. Some talked of withdrawing north together. Suerdias smiled at the notion, for there would be no such retreat.

This track would lead them down to the southern coast of Thracia, where the port towns of the empire had so far held out, stubbornly refusing to pay tribute. ‘Because they have only ever been threatened by a single warband… so far,’ he mused. ‘They will pay tribute… or they will burn,’ he whispered, then raised and scooped a hand overhead. ‘Forward!’

As they moved off again at a jog, he wondered where his old comrade, Colias, was right now. Rumour had it that he had meekly surrendered to this cursed wraith legion. ‘What happened to your famed courage, Brother?’ he said quietly, recalling the Roman citizens’ brutal attack on his and Colias’ century that day in Adrianople. ‘How could you forgive them?’ His face hardened. ‘I most certainly will not.’

His eyes sharpened on the foothills a mile away: the coast was still some way off, but maybe from up on those hummocks he and his men might sight the sparkling waters and the silver-walled cities that would be their prize. Perhaps the sight might stir their hearts and rid them of their doubts and thoughts of retreat? Perinthus, the port-city, would be their first target. With this much manpower the place could be stormed and taken. He imagined himself within the Roman halls there, draped in silk like a king, feasting on meat and wine while his warbands patrolled the walls and struck out at the other towns and cities nearby. He visualised the grain ships that might sit in the harbour there and wondered at what power he might gain by his custody of them. Perhaps Fritigern would finally pay him due respect and offer him a place on the Council?

A spearman slowed by his side. ‘Dust!’ he gasped.

Suerdias raised a hand to slow the six thousand. He followed the man’s outstretched, pointing finger. There, from the foothills on the horizon, a slender wisp of golden dust spiralled into the air. One edge of his mouth lifted. The wraith legion? I will enjoy this. ‘Spread out!’ he bawled. The six warbands were quick to widen their marching line into a broad, pincer-like line. The groups at each end moved ahead a little, knowing this manoeuvre well – it would be their job to race around the flanks and rear of this Roman band. ‘Forward,’ he hissed.

‘We move like lions,’ he bawled as they progressed, ‘our spears like claws.’ As he spoke, he saw the wisp of dust from the foothills thicken. His brow furrowed a little. ‘We have heard tales of this wraith legion taking our brothers captive. We will offer no such mercy.’ He sought more rousing words, but felt his throat tighten as the golden dust cloud grew so thick it became brown then almost black. ‘We… we…’ he stammered, his eyes staring as the dust cloud swiftly broadened, billowing out for a half mile or more – almost as wide as the foothills themselves. He slowed and his men slowed with him. As the thumping of their footsteps ebbed, they heard just the whispering breeze and some six thousand panting breaths. Then the ground shivered under them, and a dull, distant rumble sounded. Suddenly, a wall of men spilled up onto the tops of the nearest foothills in a halo of sunlight. Bright shields and iron speartips. Romans.

‘The wraith legion?’ the spearman by Suerdias’ side croaked.

But the wall of men grew broader and broader as more crested the hills. A front, half a mile wide. Suerdias’ eyes bulged. ‘No,’ he rasped in barely a whisper, realising just how many regiments must be coming behind this one for them to kick up that colossal, churning dust cloud, ‘that is no mere legion. That is the Army of the East.’

Wails of panic sounded all around him as the wall of legionaries marched solemnly down from the crest of the nearest foothill. Crunch-crunch-crunch. ‘Flee!’ one spearman cried. It was enough to shatter their collective courage and they turned and raced to the north. Suerdias fled with them, lamenting and cursing himself as he went.

 

 

‘Halt!’ Bastianus cried.

The Claudia ranks stopped dead.

‘They’re running,’ Sura whispered in disbelief, seeing the six warbands breaking back to the north.

‘It worked?’ Pavo gasped. He dug his spearbutt into the hilltop then looked each way along their front – just one rank deep, stretched out over half a mile. He then looked over his shoulder: on the floor of the shallow valley behind the line, Agilo and his equites were still charging back and forth along the valley floor, from one end of the legionary line to the other. Each rider had branches tied to their mounts’ tails, the dried wood and leaves trailing behind them and still throwing up the dense and broad screen of dust.

‘Enough!’ Bastianus roared down into the valley, then broke down in a coughing fit as the dust wafted over him, momentarily engulfing him. The riders slowed and the giant dust cloud faded.

‘It worked,’ Pavo affirmed, looking north again and seeing the warbands now fading into the horizon.

All along the line there was a moment of doubt, then they erupted in a chorus of cheering. Men sent prayers to their gods and others laughed and punched the air in delight.

 

Later that afternoon, Pavo sat with Bastianus, Zosimus, Quadratus, Sura and Rectus at a small fire near the foot of the Rhodope Mountains, the rest of the ensemble spread out near them around fires of their own. The deception to drive off six whole warbands had worked brilliantly, and Bastianus had allowed the men to celebrate. Watered wine had gradually become less watered, and the archers had hunted a few mountain goats which now cooked over spits. Pavo chewed at the meat – tough but rich and tasty – gulping at his wineskin, feeding the warm glow within. He could not control the smile that spread across his face as he thought of the Narco scroll again.

…Dexion has reached Treverorum. He will return in time to ensure the emperor’s victory…

But Bastianus’ sigh reigned in his thoughts. The Magister Peditum was still mulling over their mission, even after a hearty dose of wine. Pavo chewed the last of the meat from his bone and tossed it into the fire, then stoked at the coals with a twig and eyed the latest dirt map, by Bastianus’ feet. They had liberated the southern sector of Thracia from the Gothic warbands. But the stretch of lands to the north was vast, and still firmly in Gothic hands.

‘We’ve herded these damned warbands like sheep,’ Bastianus muttered to himself, pausing to saw at a joint of juicy mutton with his teeth, ‘but Fritigern will be content to keep them roaming further north. He needs a stiffer jolt,’ he pushed his palms towards one another in the air, as if compressing an invisible cushion, ‘to force him to bring the horde together. That was our brief and we must find a way to achieve it. Yet every time I draw my damned maps in the soil to devise a plan, it always comes back to... ’ he stopped and sighed.

‘To the secondary camp?’ Pavo guessed, sitting alongside the Magister Peditum.

Bastianus looked up, nodding, tapping a twig on the vast, unmarked tract of the map that marked out northern Thracia. ‘Aye, to that damned secondary camp. The one possession of Fritigern’s we might be able to get at.’

Pavo thought of the mountains, forests, plains and rivers in the north. Countless hidden valleys, abandoned Roman towns and defensible hills. He sighed and gazed into the fire. ‘There are many sites he might have chosen. I could mark the best of them for you – if only we had the time and means to scout each of them.’

Just then, the sound of hooves startled them. They turned from the fire to see Agilo riding in. The poor explorator had been denied the chance to savour the success of the morning – instead being despatched by Bastianus to scout the retreat of the six warbands.

‘Agilo?’ Pavo said, rising with the others, his gaze flicking to the north, at once fearing the six thousand Goths had regained their nerve and turned around to face the phantom Roman army they had ‘sighted’ that morning. But the land was deserted.

‘They’re gone – running like deer, headed to the plain around Kabyle as far as I could tell,’ Agilo said, panting, sliding from the saddle of his sweat-lathered mount.

Bastianus punched a fist into his palm in satisfaction and the others around the fire and those nearby shouted in delight.

‘But on my way back, I saw something else,’ Agilo added, stilling the chorus of celebration, ‘There is another party still in these parts. Not spearmen, but riders. The wing that attacked and razed Melanthias – two thousand strong. Swift, strong and well-armoured.’

Bastianus’ face bent into a sneer. ‘Greuthingi,’ he hissed through his yellow teeth, as if the word was poisoned. And that one word was enough to rile the gathered men. Not all Greuthingi were savage, Pavo thought, but those who rode in the Gothic Alliance – Alatheus and Saphrax’s men – were swiftly gaining such a reputation.

Agilo nodded. ‘Those very same bastards who cut the throats of women and children at the imperial manor. I crossed paths with a frightened merchant: it seems these riders struck Beroea two days ago, rushing the city gates while the wagon train of grain supplies tried to enter. They did to the people within what they did to the residents of Melanthias.’ A dark murmur rose from the men. ‘I watched them ride. They seem to be sweeping an area within a days’ ride from the River Hebrus. They must be moving along its banks.’

‘Fancy paying them a visit?’ Bastianus cut in, a dark smile spreading across his features. ‘For the slain of Melanthias, for the dead of Beroea. Let us send the riders scuttling north just as we did with the many warbands. It is time to twist the knife!’ He rotated his wrist sharply as he said this, conjuring a visceral cheer.

 

 

Three days passed. Pavo woke in the darkness to a chorus of whispers and a balmy night air. With a flurry of rustling, grumbling, whispering, spitting and coughing, he and the rest of the XI Claudia emerged from their tents – pitched in the floor of a sheltered vale. The midnight sky was veiled in roiling, angry clouds. Pavo and Sura gathered the Second Cohort with hushed orders, Zosimus and Quadratus doing likewise, and the single centuries of Lancearii, slingers, archers, crossbowmen and two hundred riders assembled next to them. They were almost as dark as the night itself, for every man wore a felt cap and dark cloak over their tunic, a shield strapped to their back – covered in brown hide to disguise its vivid colours. Every Claudia legionary was armed with his spatha and a spear.

Bastianus strode before them, his scarred face puffy from a lack of sleep and coated in a light sweat. It had been this way for the last three days, camped and resting during daylight hours, then when darkness fell and no enemy eyes could spot them or their dust cloud, they would rise, like nocturnal hunters. On the first night, Agilo had ridden west and sighted the Greuthingi cavalry camp on the Hebrus’ northern banks. On the second night, the legion had marched in darkness to come within two miles of the place. Tonight, it was time to strike.

No orders were given. Every man had been well-drilled as to what was to happen. Instead, Bastianus silently flicked a hand towards the western end of the valley. Pavo looked to Zosimus and Quadratus, offering them a firm nod. ‘Be seeing you two soon?’

‘If Mithras wills it,’ Zosimus said with a dry half-grin.

Agilo peeled away along the valley floor like a cat with Bastianus close behind. Pavo led his Second Cohort in their wake, leaving the rest of the legion and the various missile troops behind. They moved in near silence. When they emerged from the western end of the valley, they saw what looked like a huge, shadowy, winding serpent on the move, a quarter mile to the south: the dark, winding waters of the River Hebrus, tumbling endlessly eastwards. They made good time across the dry grassland to come to the river’s northern bank, then followed the course of the waterway, westwards and upriver along its grassy hinterland, just a gentle crunch-crunch betraying their presence in the darkness. Owls hooted as if awoken by their passage, and crickets chirped rhythmically, as if dictating the step of the march.

Pavo drew closer to Bastianus. ‘How far, sir?’ he whispered.

‘See that kink in the river up ahead?’ Bastianus replied, his lone eye trained there.

Pavo peered into the night, eyeing the S-shaped meander, a half-mile beyond. There was the faintest orange glow on the northern riverbank. Campfires. The glow spread across a fair chunk of the land there. Two thousand horsemen, he thought. Two thousand mounted spears.

Bastianus seemed to hear his thoughts. ‘Without their horses, they’ll be no match for us. We get inside the perimeter, scatter the horses then hammer the riders,’ he said. ‘Now drop back, pick six of your men, six you can trust,’ he added. ‘We’re going in first.’

Pavo nodded and fell back. His first thought was to find Sura. He peered through the darkness, knowing his optio would be at the back of the first century.

‘Sura, you’re with me.’

Pavo tapped Trupo and Cornix on the shoulder as he passed them, plus three others who were of the same calibre – Melus, Herma and Opis. ‘To the front,’ he whispered. The seven returned to Bastianus’ position just as the Magister Peditum brought the cohort to a halt before a fallen ash trunk a quarter mile from the glow up ahead. Now they could make out some detail: the Gothic camp was laid out in a huge semi-circle, the flat side hugging the water’s edge.

‘We’re ready,’ Pavo said. But Bastianus said nothing. Pavo noticed the troubled look in the man’s bulging, lone eye. ‘Sir?’

‘They’ve got a strong watch. Stronger than I thought,’ he muttered so only Pavo heard. ‘Look.’

Pavo peered into the darkness until his eyes allowed him to see what Bastianus had seen: a myriad of torches at the camp’s perimeter. The blur of orange told of a double or triple watch.

‘There’s no way they could have wind of our plans,’ Agilo cut in, seeing it too.

‘No,’ Bastianus said with a dry laugh and a glance to the night sky, ‘but they’ll have heard about us, no doubt. Vigilant bastards.’

‘We haven’t engaged yet. There’s still time to retreat,’ Agilo suggested.

‘Damn, no. The men’s morale would be dashed. Doubt is a dread beast that can crush an army… ’ his words trailed off and he looked up. As if a sadistic god was listening, the restless clouds above had parted, casting a shaft of bright moonlight down on the stretch of ground between the camp and the legionaries, the fringes of the light touching the ash trunk, illuminating Bastianus’ craggy and sweat-bathed face. ‘Down!’ he spat. At once, the cohort dropped to their knees and bellies in the grass, the fallen ash their only veil. Pavo, Agilo and Bastianus dropped to sit, backs to the trunk.

‘Cah!’ Bastianus groaned, palming at his face. ‘We’re pinned here!’

‘Not for long,’ Pavo suggested, looking up. ‘The clouds are restless.’ He thought of something then, something someone had told him. ‘Time is like a turning sword: in one breath its tip hovers at your belly, the next its hilt lands in your palm.’

‘Perhaps,’ Bastianus mused, casting a sour and impatient look at the moon. ‘But there are only so many hours of darkness to work with.’ He gestured to Agilo, who rose and crept to the end of the ash trunk, carefully edging his head round to peer out at the Gothic camp.

‘Like a turning sword,’ Bastianus chuckled. ‘Where did that line come from? You’re too young for the sagely maxims.’

Pavo smiled wryly. ‘Tribunus Gallus. He had us hide in an eyrie for four days once, just waiting for the chance passage of a Hun scout who would have discovered the Claudia’s position had he got through. Miserable, it was. Freezing rain then snow. At one point I thought my balls had turned blue and fallen off.’ He arched one eyebrow. ‘We stopped the Hun scout though – skidded down from the eyrie and leapt on him as he rode through. Knocked him out with a punch that broke a knuckle… luckily I couldn’t feel my hands.’

Bastianus glanced sidelong at him. ‘Gallus, aye? I’ve heard your lot talking about him. The Iron Tribunus, they call him. What’s his story? Did he fall in battle?’

Pavo almost laughed dryly at the question. What’s his story? Now there was a tangled and slippery rope. ‘He and our primus pilus, Dexion… my brother, rode west last winter to take word to Emperor Gratian’s court. The Cursus Publicus was in a mess, you see, and somebody had to warn Gratian about the fall of the mountain passes and the Goths’ seizure of Thracia.’

Bastianus’ gaze, flicking up to the still fully-visible moon every so often, now fell to Pavo and stayed there. ‘This pair travelled… to Gratian’s court?’

‘They did,’ Pavo replied.

Bastianus’ brow knitted and his manic eye was masked in shade for a moment.

The silence that followed reminded Pavo of something. ‘That look on your face, I’ve seen it once before. Old Comes Geridus at the Succi Pass wore that same expression when I asked him about Gallus and Dexion’s chances of making it there and back.’ His eyes grew distant for a moment as he recalled the old man’s words. ‘Put your faith not in emperors, but in your gods and comrades,’ he said to me. The memory sent a shiver up his spine, despite the balmy night air.

‘Old Geridus?’ Bastianus chirped. ‘Now he was a wily bastard.’

‘You knew him?’

Bastianus flashed a pithy grin. ‘He and I endured years – too many years – close to the Western Court.’

‘So what did he mean by it?’

Another silence followed, then Bastianus sucked in a breath as if having resolved on a diplomatic answer. ‘One of the reasons I came east was to serve Valens – a leader who retains my respect. The West is becoming a tangled nest of spies and informants. The boy-emperor and his agents… how can I put it,’ his words trailed off as he shook his head and looked Pavo in the eye with that earnest glint which replaced the madness every now and then. ‘What are we and our comrades, but pawns of Gods and Emperors?’

The phrase seemed to usher the cold breath of watching shades over Pavo, and the pair beheld each other for a moment.

‘Sir!’ Agilo said suddenly, causing them both to start.

‘By the gods, man-’ Bastianus gasped, but when he saw the urgent look on Agilo’s face, his head shot up like a curious hare, poking just up over the fallen ash. Pavo and Sura peeked over too. The moonlight – a bane just moments ago – had now shifted away to shine on the Gothic camp, illuminating the many milling men, tents, torches and campfires. The watch was thick indeed – a sentry every ten paces on the curved landward edge of the camp. But Agilo was gesturing to the riverside edge of the camp – watched by just a few warriors, strolling to and fro along the water’s edge where the current lapped at a steep earthen banking. Pavo also noticed that the middle of this section of river was turbulent and choppy, with swirling whirlpools and foaming rapids, glittering like silver treasure in the moonlight.

‘They assume they will not be attacked from that side, that no enemy can cross the river,’ Pavo whispered.

‘Nobody but a fool would try,’ Sura added, a grin growing on his face. ‘But we can wade up the shallows on this side. And that banking will hide us if we stay low and quiet.’

‘Yes we can,’ Bastianus chuckled. ‘You see that copse?’ he pointed to a tangled cluster of beech trees on the section of the banking running alongside the camp, just a few paces from the pen of Gothic war horses. ‘That’s our bridgehead. We work our way through the shallows to it. From there, we can get to their horses and scatter them. Then… ’ he patted the buccina tied to his belt and nodded back to the waiting Second Cohort.

‘Let’s go,’ Sura whispered.

Bastianus shot a finger in the air. ‘Just one more thing.’ He rummaged at his belt and untied a small sack of something, then pulled out a clod of earthy matter, gestured to Sura and dropped it in his palm.

‘What the?’ Pavo recoiled. The stench hit them all at the same time. ‘Dung?’

‘Oh yes,’ Bastianus cackled, ‘the Gothic horses will get jittery if they smell men approaching, but they’ll relax if they smell that. And more to the point,’ he said, taking a handful for himself and wiping it over his face gleefully, lifting his eyepatch to smear some around the edges of the gnarled cavity underneath, ‘that damned fickle moonlight and the torches in there might be the death of us and our pale faces. Go on,’ he urged Sura to do likewise.

Sura looked around for support. Finding none, he muttered some curse about the dung smelling like Quadratus, then accepted the order as one might accept the lash of hail or the sting of a wasp, smearing it over his face too. Trupo, who had been chuckling quietly at Sura, then fell silent when Sura handed the dung to him. Sulking and dung-smeared, Trupo then handed it on and it came at last to Pavo, who held his breath and wiped the filth across his face.

‘That’s the spirit,’ Bastianus cackled.

Just then, the troubled sky cast cloud across the moon and stole its light entirely. Now the river, the camp and the ground leading up to it were veiled in night once more.

‘The sword has turned,’ Bastianus grinned wryly at Pavo. ‘Are we ready?

‘Ready,’ the small group replied in unison.

Bastianus’ eye shrunk to a slit as he rose and climbed over the fallen tree trunk. Pavo, Agilo, Sura, Trupo, Cornix, Melus, Herma and Opis followed him, while the rest of the Second Cohort remained concealed behind the toppled tree.

Moments later, they crept into the shallows, wading forward quietly. Agilo and Bastianus led the way, with Pavo and Sura close behind and the others bringing up the rear. The water felt icy-cold on Pavo’s shins and thighs and in stark contrast to the balmy night air. The hiss of the rapids disguised the splashing as they moved, but the current in the shallows grew stronger the further they went and the sucking mud on the riverbed seemed determined to hamper their progress. When they drew up to the edge of the Gothic camp, they ducked to keep the earthy banking between them and the eyes of the riverside sentries and moved just a pace every few breaths. Pavo’s feet seemed to sink ever deeper into the mud with every step, the water growing deeper, coming up to his chest to make the going even more difficult. Indeed, the current was now pulling at his legs. One sudden surge nearly knocked his feet from under him and he snatched at a loose root in the banking just before the water could haul him from the bank and out into the deeper sections… out into full view. Then, as if to warn the Gothic guards, a dull clap of thunder pealed across the angry sky. The monstrous sound chilled Pavo even more than the water.

But he saw Bastianus and Agilo up ahead. They had made it to the beech copse and were crawling up the banking there, secreting themselves within the mesh of branches. He pressed on to join them, when an unwelcome sound pinned him. Footsteps then breathing, right above him. Glancing up, he saw a pair of bearded warriors on the edge of the banking, towering over him, gazing out over the river, oblivious to his presence only feet below. Just a few shoots of grass and ferns part-veiled him from them. The breath halted in his lungs and suddenly the muddy torrents swirling around his ankles felt like clawing hands, eager to prize him out from under his scant veil. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sura, Trupo, Cornix, Melus, Opis and Herma, backs pressed flat against the muddy incline to stay hidden. Pavo tried to edge away from the spot, when the swirling cloud parted to cast down a bony finger of moonlight, right upon him. He froze, swore silently then mouthed a prayer of thanks to Bastianus for the dung. Above, the two warriors began chatting and Pavo knew he was pinned here. As they talked, he caught fragments of their conversation. He knew enough of the Gothic tongue to piece it together.

‘…the Thervingi warbands who have fled back to Kabyle?’ he spat. ‘Water–for-guts! Yet they’ll doubtless be first in line to take the grain handouts – especially with their beloved Fritigern running that place. But we’ll get our share – by Wodin’s Sacred Grove we will,’ one said testily.

‘Maybe not from Kabyle. But we’ll ride to the river fort if we have to,’ another Goth agreed. ‘They say the silo there is overflowing with plundered grain. And it’s packed with other treasures. You see the helm and vest our leader parades in?’ Pavo saw them both turn to look back into the camp. ‘Roman armour. He found it in that very same place last winter when he helped set up the permanent camp there.’

‘But it is many days’ ride to the north. When next will we be riding that way?’

Pavo’s skin tingled. A second Gothic stronghold? A fort laden with vital grain and more? He realised they were talking about the elusive secondary Gothic camp. Many days ride to the north, by a river? He turned his head to hear more, eager to catch one word, one clue that would narrow it down just a fraction.

But suddenly the torrents strengthened, stealing his foothold on the riverbed, hauling him out into the deep water. Cold panic shot through him. He slung out a hand at another loose root protruding from the earth and grasped it firmly. The panic ebbed as the tendril held good… but only for a heartbeat: with a chorus of snapping and cracking, the root tore free of the banking. Out he was dragged, towards the rapids.

‘Oh shi-’ he hissed, then felt something heavy crash down upon his head. An instant later and he was under the surface, water shooting up his nose, bubbles, reeds, algae and murk all around him and the quarter-breath in his lungs demanding to be refreshed already. Panic set in and he thrashed instinctively for the surface. Only when two hands grasped at his biceps and shook him did he make sense of it all: Sura, a few inches away, gazed at him wide-eyed through the swirling water where he too was crouched, his head like Pavo’s just a foot under the surface, his left hand clasped around a cluster of eelgrass, anchoring the pair against the pull of the rapids. His friend pressed one finger to his lips before jabbing it upwards.

Pavo twisted his head towards the bank and froze. Looking up from his fish-eye view, he saw the rippling shapes of the two Goths, edging down a less-steep section of the banking to the waterline. He heard their dull, warbling voices vibrating through the water.

‘What was that noise?’ one asked, eyes combing the dark surface of the water.

‘Eels no doubt,’ the other replied. ‘Taste good if they’re cooked long enough.’

‘Go on,’ the first said, pointing at what must have been a swirl of bubbles above Pavo and Sura, ‘spear it. Or do you need me to rope it to a tree before you can kill it, like the Roman bitch from Beroea the other day?’

‘Eh?’ the second Goth snapped in reply. ‘I’ll show you,’ he growled then stomped out into the shallows, wading towards Pavo and Sura.

‘Bollocks,’ Sura warbled with an escaping air bubble as they saw the Goth’s booted legs coming towards them. The spear lanced into the water and split Sura and Pavo apart, but missed both, wedging between two rocks. Laughter sounded from the banks as the first Goth turned away to stroll off along the bank. ‘Lost your spear as well,’ he said as he went.

‘Balls to you,’ the shamed spearman snarled, turning to wade from the river also.

Pavo felt fire in his lungs now, as if they were set to burst. As soon as the two Goths were up the banking and back in their camp he could rise and… but the angry spearman halted, turned round and came back to the river again. ‘While I’m here,’ he grunted, then stuck a hand into his trousers, rummaged and pulled out an enormous appendage.

Horrified yet unable to move or react, Pavo and Sura watched as the Goth sighed and unleashed a jet of urine into the water where they hid. On and on the man’s bladder delivered. Mithras make it stop! Pavo screamed in his mind as the water grew a tad warmer. Black spots tinged the edges of his vision and he felt his limbs weaken as the air in his lungs grew foul. The Goth finally stopped urinating… for a heartbeat, before continuing, this time in a thicker, more voluminous flow and a relieved groan.

To Hades with this, Pavo thought, reaching down by his side where the man’s spear was embedded in the riverbed. He prized it from the rocks, then swung it up as he rose from the water.

The Goth’s expression of utter bliss melted into a look of gaping horror as he locked eyes with the dark, dirt-smeared legionary that shot out from the river. Then he emitted some silent howl – or perhaps one that only dogs could hear – as his own spear tip scythed off his manhood. With a thick splash, the fleshy mass disappeared into the murky water and shot off downstream. Quick as a lion, Sura shot up behind the man, clamping a hand over his mouth and wrapping an arm round his neck, choking him until he fell unconscious then letting his body drift off downriver.

‘We’re alive?’ Pavo gasped, the sweet air filling his lungs and charging his blood, sweeping away the black spots.

‘Just,’ Sura whispered, ushering him towards the beech thicket as a deafening clap of thunder spread across the roiling sky, now directly overhead. They waded out of the shallows and into the mesh of beech trees, finding Bastianus and Agilo crouched there.

‘I noticed an eel escaping downriver there,’ Bastianus commented with a stifled laugh.

Sura shrugged. ‘Aye, he was well-endowed, but not half as much as me. Back in Adrianople, they used to call me the serpent-’

A sharp jab in the ribs from Pavo’s elbow ended his ill-timed boast. ‘We’re in the heart of a Gothic camp?’

‘But damn, we are,’ Bastianus whispered as Trupo, Cornix, Melus, Opis and Herma waded up to the copse to join them. ‘Now let’s set about bothering a few horses… ’

 

Pavo stalked towards the trussed Gothic war horses. They shuffled and whinnied in fright every time the sky snarled with thunder. Good cover, he thought, better than dung. He part drew his spatha, keen to keep the gleaming blade hidden until it was needed. With a quick glance around to confirm that he was still unseen, he moved over to the nearest beast, smoothing its mane and stroking its muzzle. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not going to be a peaceful night for you, nor me,’ he whispered. He unsheathed his sword and chopped through one tether, then another, working his way through the many steeds near him. He heard the muffled noise of tethers being cut in a similar fashion nearby and every so often rose to look over the beasts, seeing the Gothic sentries and those milling within the camp remained unaware. Cutting the beasts’ bonds was one thing, but scattering them all would be another. Slap their rumps, cut their hides – use your imagination! Bastianus had advised. We want a mass stampede.

He hoisted his spatha to cut once more when, from nowhere, a titanic longsword swung down and knocked the spatha from his grasp. ‘What the?’ he stammered, swinging round to see a bull of a warrior grinning at him.

‘What’s this?’ the scarred man cooed as the sky roared with bone-shaking fury. ‘A lone Roman?’ he said then lifted a leg and thrust his boot at Pavo’s gut, winding him and sending him sprawling before slashing out with the sword once, twice, thrice. Pavo dodged one way and then the other – devoid of armour and spry for it, just as Bastianus had intended. This seemed to confuse and anger the Goth, but only until Pavo tripped and toppled onto his back. He felt time slow as the giant hefted his blade up, two-handed, ready to strike. But he noticed something else: the muggy air that had been growing hotter and balmier all night suddenly took on an acute, foul stench like that of a tanner’s yard. More, the ether around the giant warrior seemed to crackle and spit. He and the Goths shared a moment of odd camaraderie – both bemused by the strangeness. Suddenly, a great white flash of light forked down from the sky, spearing into the giant and his raised longsword. For an instant, it looked as if the man was alight inside, a molten glow shining from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. An instant later, and he flew backwards through the air as if kicked by an invisible and enormous steed. Pavo gawped as the man’s body crunched against a post at the edge of the timber pen, his skin blackened and his hair half-fused onto his blistered, bubbling and smoking face. His longsword had landed some way away, glowing dully where it had landed on top of one tent, which swiftly burst into flame.

All around him, panic erupted. The horses wrenched clear of their tethers without the need for his spatha. They reared and whinnied in terror, barging past him and near trampling him, before bolting through the camp in every direction, some even charging over tents and churning those asleep inside. Pained and panicked cries rang out and a thick waft of smoke hit Pavo as the tents neighbouring the burning one caught light too. He saw sentries darting around beyond the orange blaze, saw them shout and point in his direction, and realised it was now or never. He tore out his spatha and readied to fight. Where is Bastianus? his mind screamed. He has to give the signal!

A pair of hands slapped onto his shoulders, sending his heart into a frenzy.

‘I asked you to frighten the damned horses – but how in Hades did you conjure that?’ Bastianus cackled, patting his back then taking up the buccina and blowing once, twice and again.

Pavo sought a reply, but a Gothic cry cut him off. ‘Romans!’

The sentries on the camp’s landward perimeter, the sea of heads poking from tents and the men around campfires all heard the cry loud and clear. Every pair of Gothic eyes turned to the tiny cluster of nine legionaries at the heart of their camp. There was a hiatus of disbelief then, like a noose snapping tight, they surged for the centre of the camp, dodging the rattled horses, leaping over burning tents, longswords drawn and spears raised, hair whipping behind them and faces bent in baleful snarls.

‘Together!’ Sura yelled as the nine contracted into a tight circle.

Pavo swung his spatha up just in time to hack away a thrown spear while the others hurried to tear their shields from their backs and swept them up in a protective wall. Herma and Melus hoisted their shields overhead to complete a mini-testudo.

The air was driven from Pavo’s lungs as the sheer weight of Gothic bodies crashed into the tiny shell of shields. He ducked and shifted as swords and spears rattled upon his shield. By his side, his saw Sura’s head shoot out of a gap in the testudo, just far enough to sink his forehead into the bridge of one Goth’s nose before retracting. A hot shower of blood coated Pavo as a Gothic spear plunged into Melus’ cheek and went clean through his face. As Melus fell, Pavo lanced his spatha out through the gap left behind and into the windpipe of the killer. One Goth dead, so many more clamouring to slay him. Suddenly, a pair of bloody, filthy hands wrapped over the top of his shield, and the knuckles turned instantly white as they tried to haul it away with seemingly limitless strength. Pavo felt a surge of panic like never before as the shield was prized from his grip. A wall of gleeful Goths saw the chink in the desperate defence and lunged for him.

‘For the Claudia!’ he roared, sure this was the end.

‘For the Claudia!’ the few others repeated as a fork of lightning lit up the sky and the mass of foes clamouring around them.

But another fierce cry erupted from the darkness beyond the boundaries of the camp like an echo, but one thousand times more brash.

‘For the Claudia!’ the First and Third Cohorts roared as they poured into the Gothic camp from the now undefended landward side – a wall of ruby red shields. Thunder boomed and Pavo saw Zosimus and Quadratus leading the charge, barging into the rear of the Gothic mass like bulls, their shields smashing faces and their spathas tearing through bodies. An instant later, a cry from the riverside added to the frenzy: For the Claudia! the Second Cohort cried as they raced from their hiding place downriver and surged into the camp too, charging in from its eastern end. They hammered into the flanks of the Greuthingi before the warriors could react. The sudden influx of legionaries instantly drew every Gothic sword away from Pavo and the beleaguered handful of men at the horse pen. The Roman reinforcements moved like cats, leaping into the fray, abandoning formation and fighting man-to-man as Bastianus had instructed them. They bounded, ducked and circled swiftly – freed from the burden of armour – and the Goths seemed thrown by this, many looking this way and that, wary of legionaries circling behind them, swinging clumsily to cover their flanks and rears.

A voice cried out from behind Pavo: ‘down!’

Herenus? Pavo recognised the Cretan twang, and he and the others instantly dropped to their haunches. From the blackness somewhere near the camp’s eastern edge, a waspish rasp sounded and a shower of silvery missiles – shot, arrows, bolts and javelins – sped through the air where Pavo had been standing a moment ago. The hail plummeted into the backs and flanks of the Greuthingi and they fell in swathes. Pavo twisted to see Herenus and his slingers emerge from the blackness, slings loaded and spinning again. The Lancearii flanked them, fresh javelins hoisted, and the sagittarii nocked fresh arrows as they advanced too. The ballistarii came with them, crossbows loaded and aimed, and it was they who began the second hail. One savage-looking warrior swung to tackle the emerging marksmen. His face remained in an animal snarl even after a crossbow bolt had punched through his forehead and burst out the back of his head, expelling a surge of brain matter and black blood as he wilted like a flower.

In the hiatus before the next volley, Herenus waved Pavo and the crouching cluster to their feet. ‘Go!’

‘Let’s finish this!’ Bastianus howled, rising and leading the few to join the ranks of the Second Cohort. Pavo, shieldless, threw a left hook at one Goth then drove his spatha into the man’s side, before hacking the sword hand from another who was about to strike Sura. He spun on his heel and swept a reverse cut across the throat of another as the lines dissolved into a chaotic melee to the backdrop of the burning, chaotic camp and the wrathful, lightning-streaked skies. Soon, as if drawn together by nature, he found himself side by side with Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura, shoulder-to-shoulder, their battle cries in harmony. It was only when he swept his spatha all around him and found no more foes that he realised it was over. He heard splashing as some of the Goths ran for the river, and the dull shouts of others fleeing into the night. All around him and the panting, sweat and blood-lashed legionaries was a carpet of Greuthingi dead intermingled with several hundred legionary bodies.

‘It’s over,’ Sura wheezed, clasping a hand to his shoulder. ‘It’s over… and we’re alive.’ Soldiers nearby wept, some laughed in disbelief, others prayed. Zosimus and Quadratus bashed their foreheads together then locked arms.

Bastianus climbed atop the heaped crates at the centre of the camp, kicking the lid from one. Gold and silver shone inside. Roman gold and silver – bounty raided from Beroea, Pavo realised. The Magister Peditum spread his arms out wide, his scarred, battered features uplit in orange from the burning tents. ‘And thus,’ he proclaimed with a genial smile so ill-suited to his demonic appearance, ‘southern Thracia is truly purged of Goths. Their spearmen fled before us and now their vile horsemen run in their wake!’

An almighty cheer exploded at this.

When he leapt down, he gathered Pavo and the other officers while the rest slaked their thirst with well-earned water and wine.

Agilo was first to speak. ‘Then we should make haste back to the emperor. If we march back to Melanthias in the morning, we can be there within a week.’

Still panting, Bastianus wiped the sweat from his bald scalp, readjusted his eyepatch then wagged a finger. ‘Why would I return when we are not finished? What we achieved here tonight gives Emperor Valens a chance to manoeuvre, to move his armies some way from Melanthias without fear of raiding attacks from the warbands, but only so far, for the warbands still roam like countless fangs, dispersed across the north. I promised Emperor Valens I would drive Fritigern to reunite the horde.’

‘Fritigern is shrewd,’ Agilo argued. ‘He won’t harness the horde again unless he has no other choice.’

‘We must find the secondary camp,’ Bastianus growled. ‘Find it and hit it hard.’

Agilo shrugged. ‘But damn, sir, my riders have tried – relentlessly – to forge north to locate it. It remains elusive, like mist.’

Pavo, listening, thought back to the silent approach through the waters to this camp, the half-conversation between the Goths that he had overheard. ‘No, not anymore,’ he said.

Bastianus and Agilo turned to him.

‘I overheard the sentries talking: this wing of riders know where the secondary camp is,’ Pavo said. All heads looked round the bodies on the ground. All dead, those that had fled now well scattered into the night. ‘Or rather, they knew…’

Bastianus looked bemused for a moment, then his face scrunched up like paper. ‘Oh for fu-’

A groan cut him off. A groan from a Gothic ‘corpse’.

Bastianus’ face lit up. He strode through the fallen and grabbed one prone rider by the plume of his helm, hoisting him up onto his knees. Their leader, Pavo guessed, going by the helm and fine mail shirt. The bearded man had taken a blow to the head and seemed dazed.

‘Well?’ Bastianus barked at the Goth. ‘Fritigern’s second camp – where is it?’

The Goth looked back blankly. ‘I know nothing. Fritigern has told only a few-’

Bastianus raked his knuckles across the man’s face, bursting his lips in a shower of blood. ‘One more chance, then you’ll wish you’d talked.’

The man’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t know.’ he pleaded.

Bastianus pinned him with a steely stare.

‘You must believe me!’ he insisted. ‘You must… must… ’ his words trailed off and his head lolled.

For a moment, Pavo almost felt pity for the rider, until he saw the man’s hand slide towards his sword belt. ‘He’s going for his-’ he started, but the Goth was quicker than the lightning, drawing a small knife and plunging it into his own neck. Sheets of blood spat forth and the warrior toppled forward.

‘Wonderful!’ Bastianus roared, booting a clump of bloody earth in anger. ‘After weeks of hunting, we find one Goth who knows where this damned camp is and then he does himself in.’

As the Magister Peditum went off on a tirade, Pavo’s gaze fell upon the plumed helm on the head of a dead Goth. It was an intercisa – a plundered Roman piece. He moved over and crouched before the corpse, a shiver dancing across the skin of his neck as he examined the small marking on the helmet’s cheekguard. ‘We don’t need the Goths to tell us. I know where it is,’ he gasped.

‘Pavo?’ Zosimus said with a bemused chuckle.

‘They said the camp was many days ride to the north, by a river,’ he replied, looking up. ‘They’re in the fort at Durostorum.’

‘Who, what?’ Bastianus said, head flicking between Zosimus and Pavo.

‘The Goths. Their second base in the north: it’s the fort at Durostorum,’ he repeated, gesturing to the marking on the helms, unique to the fabrica in the XI Claudia’s old, abandoned home.

Quadratus crouched to examine the marking too. ‘Mithras’ balls – he’s right!’

 

 

As dawn broke, the silver-toothed figure watched a messenger speeding from Bastianus’ lot across the burnt-gold grassy plain: a horseman tasked with taking word of their victories over the Goths back to Valens.

A lone horseman – will they never learn? he chuckled, cleaning his nails with the semispatha.

He lifted his loaded crossbow from his back, rising a little from the hummock at the edge of the plain, took aim and smiled, knowing that to squeeze the lever was to pluck the rider’s life. The confidence of a master marksman. But he let his finger relax and tucked the weapon away again on the strapping on his back.

‘Some messages favour my master’s designs, some do not,’ he mused.

Bastianus’ lot were doing well, and now, it seemed, they were just one step away from completing their mission – to prime Fritigern and his horde for battle.