Legionary, page 14
Feeling the thunder of combat pounding in his veins, Pavo felt the left side of his face and his sword hand twitching as he beheld the horrors around him. Embers rained down, settling on the bodies of the slain, faces warped with death. Outside the muffled noises of battle rose to new heights, the dull glow of flaring fires shining through the last parts of the tent that were not ablaze themselves. Through it all he saw the face of that dying boy.
My mother is waiting for me…
‘Pavo,’ Frugilo shouted. It sounded distant at first. ‘Pavo!’ he repeated, shaking him, bringing him to his senses again.
He and Frugilo turned to Emperor Theodosius and his last Inquisitor. The emperor’s chest was heaving, his nightshirt patched with sweat and gore from the fight. He beheld Frugilo and Pavo with a madness in his eyes. ‘What is this?’ he cried, addressing the heavens as if God might answer. ‘The Silver Stag talked of peace and then tries to strike me down in my bed?’ His eyes rolled down again and pinned Pavo. ‘You! You said we should wait,’ Theodosius raged – that creature of fire emerging from his icy shell. ‘You assured me it was the right thing to do.’
Pavo replied calmly: ‘It was the right thing to do, so why did you ignore me? Why did our fleet launch an attack tonight?’
‘Forget about our fleet,’ the emperor stretched his arms wide, palms upturned, ‘why did the Gothic horde set across the river and storm our camp?’
Pavo shook his head once, gently. ‘No. They came across the river in peace.’
‘I saw it too, Majesty,’ Frugilo added. ‘They brought their herds and families.’
‘What?’ Theodosius snapped.
‘They must have believed they had been granted the right to cross,’ said Pavo. ‘Why would Odotheus put his people in such danger otherwise?’
Theodosius’ face twisted as if he had just bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. ‘Permission for the Goths to cross? Permission for our fleet to launch an attack? None of this was put to me. None of it!’
‘You didn’t put our boats on standby?’ A winter chill crept through Pavo, from his toes to his scalp. Something was badly out of place here. It felt as if the legions and the horde were both dangling from the same hook. An almighty roar of a vessel sinking into the river sounded from outside, along with an explosion of screams – the noise jarring Pavo from his thoughts. He looked to the emperor. ‘I don’t know how this all came about, Domine, but I know that only you can stop it. Only you.’
Theodosius simply gazed around him, that empty, distant look in his eyes again.
‘Step outside, Domine,’ Frugilo agreed. ‘Show yourself, call to your legions. Order them to disengage. Show the Goths it was a mistake.’
Theodosius was now staring at the portrait of himself and his late wife. The fabric tassels at the edges were alight.
‘Domine?’ Pavo appealed.
Just then a burning tentpole crashed down between him and the emperor. The last Inquisitor threw his cloak over Theodosius to shield him from the flare of flames, then guided him towards the back entrance of the tent.
Likewise, Frugilo dragged Pavo back outside in the opposite direction. They stumbled out into the sharp sounds of battle and the stench of smoke just as the tent collapsed behind them. Eyes stinging, Pavo twisted to look backwards. ‘Did the emperor get out?’
‘I can’t see a bloody thing,’ Frugilo croaked. In the fire-warped air, the snow had turned into drilling rain. This at least partly-tamed the flames in the camp and prevented them from spreading.
‘We need the emperor to put a stop to this.’
‘The emperor is bewildered,’ Frugilo spluttered.
Pavo squinted towards the river: the waterway was now a huge and ramshackle platform of Gothic crafts pinioned on the prows of Roman galleys, and imperial ships snared by ropes thrown from the Gothic barges, the tangled crafts pitching and twisting, out of control on the currents. Both Gothic and Roman ships were alight, the angry colours dazzling in the surface of the Danubius. The whole sorry mess rocked and bucked in the swell of the river, swords hammering together, men screaming and falling over the rails. Legionaries lined the riverbanks with a wall of spears and shields to rebuff any further Gothic attempts to make land and storm into the Roman camp.
Yet something was missing. Two things, actually – two entire legions. ‘Where are the Claudia… and the Gemina?’ he croaked.
‘And the warriors of the Haims,’ Frugilo added.
‘Pavo!’ a voice cried from nearby.
‘Sura?’ Pavo called back. He saw them then – the ruby-shielded Claudians. Now it was they waving to him.
‘Hurry,’ Sura shouted. ‘Things are about to go sharply south.’
He and Frugilo hurried over.
Sura eyed Frugilo up and down, spotted his white baldric and gave him a nod of respect. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing into the camp with his spear.
There, the X Gemina legion were amassed, backs to the river, presenting a shield wall inland. Facing them, the warbands of Garamond and Faustius raged and fumed, remonstrating with the legion. ‘The Haims troops saw what happened on the river.’
Pavo spotted Reiks Faustius standing on a wagon within the lines of his army, appealing for calm from his own warriors and from Garamond’s men too. But the appeals were being drowned out.
‘Murderers!’ one tribal soldier brayed.
‘You attacked unarmed people!’ screamed another.
‘If they rush the Gemina,’ said Libo, ‘then they’ll sweep across our backs at the riverside. The fleet, the emperor – everything – will be crushed.’
Pavo saw the foremost of Reiks Garamond’s warriors jostling and spitting, some gesturing as if to toss their spears at the Gemina shield wall. It was like a great roof, about to cave in. If it did, then the nightmare would begin here: the Goths of the Haims would join the Silver Stag and his horde. United, they would crush the Roman force here then rampage together through Thracia. Could even the walls of Constantinople protect Izodora and Marcus?
Smoke. Blood. Screaming.
The Gates of Hades were open.
The nightmare was about to be unleashed.
One Roman liburnian was pinned near the Gothic banks, locked there by the jam of enemy rafts and skiffs around it. The pale-blue shielded Thervingi palace troops fought fiercely at the boat’s rails to fend off the enraged northerners clambering up the vessel’s sides, howling, their blood high.
‘Drive them back!’ Eriulf screamed, shoving with his shield to push one of Odotheus’ warriors away. The man fell, gawping, hitting the water in a white explosion of foam then vanishing into the cold inky currents.
He stared at the spot, for a moment sure that the man would resurface. He did not. Another Gothic cousin, drowned, dead.
‘Master,’ Bagulf hissed. ‘This isn’t right. These are our own people.’
‘Get back to your post,’ Eriulf snarled, shoving him away towards the spot at the ship’s side which he had left undefended.
Bagulf was unremitting, striding back to Eriulf. ‘You can turn this, Master. Look around you,’ he screamed. ‘This is a clarion call from Allfather Wodin himself. Look – the Haims are on the brink of revolting against the Romans. This is the time for the Vesi to-’
Eriulf clamped a hand over Bagulf’s mouth. ‘Shut up, you fool!’ he hissed, eyes darting. The din of battle was ear-splitting but Bagulf’s voice had carried, loud as a horn. Had anyone heard him shouting the name of the sect? He looked this way and that. All along the river, boats lay entangled, smoke and snow scudding across the frenzy of battle, Goths falling, Romans pitching over too. Surely none had heard? Yet he felt something – in the way one knows they are not alone in a dark room. Someone was staring right at him and Bagulf. From the Roman banks. Eriulf’s head switched round, eyes pinning the spot. But… there was nobody there. Had his instincts betrayed him?
Confused, unsettled, he shoved Bagulf a second time. ‘Get back to your post!’ he screamed, then swung round to defend against the next of the climbing attackers. As he parried one away, he snatched a look at the Roman banks and the jostling mass of the Haims troops and the regular legions there. They were – as Bagulf claimed – on the edge of drawing blades on one another. If they did then it mattered not whether the Vesi banner was raised or not. The Romans would be obliterated here, tonight.
Deep in his soul, he heard his sister, Runa, laughing in triumph. Yet he felt none of her joy. Not a jot.
Surrounded by the Claudians, Pavo thought of the dazed Emperor Theodosius. Absent in body and mind. One word from him could stop this before it unravelled completely… but where was he? If Theodosius would not put an end to this then who could?
His eyes flicked to the mighty Roman hexareme flagship, midriver.
The sides of the giant craft were crawling with Goths trying to scale its hull like city walls, and the Nervii legionaries guarded the rails as if they were city parapets, spearing down at the climbing attackers. The timbers shone with blood. His gaze halted on the crowing commander perched at the prow, ‘General Promotus is the one who called for the attack. He can call it off. One blow from his buccina horn and it will stop.’ He shuffled forward, up onto the snow rampart. ‘Promotus!’ he cried.
‘Promotus!’ Sura joined in.
‘General!’ Libo roared too.
The wall of noise from the river battle was too great.
‘We’ve got to get out there to him,’ said Pavo, eyes sweeping the banks for a free boat: there was nothing – nothing but a waterlogged and half burnt Gothic skiff that had lodged in the reeds. It would have to do. ‘This thing’ll hold a dozen of us, come on,’ he said. Instantly, he, Sura, Darik, Libo and Pulcher splashed into the shallows and surrounded the thing’s sides to help him drag it from the reeds. Frugilo, Betto, Durio and Indus then waded out into the waist-deep sections to pull on the prow, then all nine clambered aboard, taking up whatever they had to use as paddles, Pavo at the prow using an old plank as an oar. Water lapped at ankle height inside the boat – but it was still buoyant. ‘That’s it, keep left, fight the currents,’ he encouraged them.
Battle raged on the interlocked vessels all around them. An arrow zinged off of Pavo’s helm, and slingstones whooshed unseen through the night. ‘Shields high,’ Darik growled. All who were not rowing did as commanded, and the skiff sprouted a roof of ruby and gold screens.
‘Halfway there,’ Frugilo panted as he scooped his oar through the water. ‘Paddle faster.’
‘Who are you to give orders?’ Durio snapped.
‘He’s a Protector, you fucking idiot,’ Libo hissed at the younger legionary.
‘Shit. Apologies,’ Durio dropped his head, seemingly cowed… but only for a moment. He looked up again, a quizzical expression on his face. ‘I hear that you Protectores paint your arses white, to go with your armour. Is that correct?’
‘I’ll paint your arse red raw in a minute with my boot, if you don’t shut up!’ Pulcher snarled.
Frugilo laughed at all this gruffly.
‘My crotch,’ Indus moaned to Sura from the rear of the skiff, ‘my crotch is wet.’
‘Ha,’ Pulcher called back, ‘pissed yourself again, have y-’ the big man’s words caught in his throat and he looked down. ‘Oh fuck, so is mine.’
Pavo too felt deathly cold waters seeping up past his thighs.
‘This thing’s going down,’ Sura cried.
‘Bail out!’ Durio wailed.
‘No,’ Pavo said, ‘jump in there and you’re dead.’ He scanned the fire-lit surface of the river, picking out the mangle of flotsam and half broken, bobbing and entangled pieces of timber strewn between here and the hexareme. The nearest piece of useful wreckage was a capsized liburnian.
‘Paddle, fast,’ Pavo shouted.
With a frenzy of splashing and milling arms, the skiff edged forward… and downward. The prow was only just above the surface when, with a gentle thunk, it bumped into the sleek whale-back hull of the upturned liburnian. The Claudians gladly clambered up the slick planks, clinging there like limpets. Frugilo was the last to leave the skiff before it vanished into the inky currents of the river. ‘Up, come on,’ Pavo urged them onto the keel. They traversed its length like high rope walkers, hands extended to the sides. He halted at the far end, presented with a large stretch of water between him and a blazing barge – the final stepping stone to reach Promotus’ hexareme. Too far to jump, too deadly to swim.
Sura almost ran into the back of him. ‘Oh, balls,’ he summarised, staring at the gap of roiling dark currents likewise.
‘Remember that story you once told me?’ Pavo said. ‘The Frog of Adrianople, people called you… when you once leapt from one side of a river to the other in a single bound?’
‘Yes. That was bullshit.’
‘Well then we’re screwed.’
‘No, look,’ Darik rasped, pointing at a ragged shard of timber – the remains of a deck – slipping downriver speedily, towards the gap. ‘Give me a rope.’
With a frenzy of cursing and fumbling, a rope was tossed to him. Expertly, he whirled and cast it out, snagging the broken piece of deck right in the middle of the gap. A stepping stone.
‘Go, go go!’ Sura cried.
Frugilo hopped down onto the deck shard first. The thing tilted crazily and water washed across its surface, but the Protector was light on his feet, hopping another two strides then leaping and landing on the blazing barge. He found a piece of rope on there and secured the deck shard from that side too. One by one, they crossed like this, Pavo going last and feeling his recently-won muscles straining like never before to balance on the treacherous shard. Sura thrust out a hand to help him up onto the barge.
Breathing hard, he stared along the length of the barge, and the blaze at the midsection. It was the mast and spar that were alight, dripping fire, and the decks below roared orange too. Through the tiniest chest-height gap in between, the far end of the barge was visible beyond, the nose touching General Promotus’ embattled hexareme.
‘Aye, we’re going to have to do this the hard way too,’ Frugilo growled, staring at the wall of flames with him.
‘Our clothes are soaked,’ Pavo said, gathering up the folds of his dripping, bloodstained white cloak, ‘wrap them tightly around your head and neck and run.’
‘I’ve missed this,’ said Sura, chuckling with a maniacal look on his face as he organised the wet folds of his red cloak. He turned to his charges. ‘Well, you heard him. Ready?’
With a roar, they streamed along the barge, following Pavo. Pavo led with his left foot – still such an unfamiliar feeling, and tried to measure his strides as he approached the blaze. The wall of heat hit him like a slap, stole the breath from his lungs, and stung his eyes, momentarily blinding him. Now he had to rely on instinct alone – memories of the days on the muddy fields with Frugilo coursing through his mind.
‘That’s it. Set off on your left foot and jump with it too,’ called Frugilo from close behind. ‘Now!’
Pavo planted the left foot down and thrust upwards, right foot kicking out, simultaneously tucking his head down towards his chest to make himself as small as possible. He felt the deadly lick and roar of the fire on his soaking skin… and then he was through, landing well. Steam and smoke puffed from him as he blinked and could see again. He swung to see Frugilo hurdling through the blazing gap, then Sura.
In the frantic moments as the rest of the men hurdled through in the same fashion, Pavo heard something. A ragged cry. A man’s voice. Blinking, eyes stinging with smoke, he looked this way and that until he finally saw the source: Odotheus, bloodied, chest heaving, standing on his raft a short way away.
‘Why? Why?’ the chieftain called again and again. ‘You said we could cross? Where are you, Peregrinus?
Peregrinus? The name struck Pavo for its oddness: a Roman name but not one he knew.
‘Where are you, Peregrin-argh!’ The Silver Stag’s body shuddered, lanced through the breastbone by a Roman spear thrown from somewhere in the night. His legs buckled and he toppled into the waters.
Pavo stared at the spot for a moment, before, in a tumble of limbs, Darik burst through the blaze behind him. That was everyone safely through.
‘Move!’ Sura and Frugilo cried in unison.
They loped on towards the barge’s prow, still lodged against the hexareme’s side. The hexareme’s rails, above, were still writhing with fighting Nervii legionaries and attacking Goths. With a shriek, a corpulent Goth whacked down on the barge deck, a jagged star of blood erupting beneath him. The Nervii legionary who had shoved the tribesman away from the hexareme’s rail peered down at the barge and spotted the Roman nine. ‘Claudian reinforcements!’ he yelled. Moments later, a rope spiralled down onto the barge. One by one, the Claudians – well trained in this kind of manoeuvre – quickly took hold of the rope and walked up the ship’s side. Frugilo and Pavo were last to leave the barge. The Protector looked Pavo up and down. ‘Nah, you’re not getting up there with only one good arm. He then tied the end of the rope around Pavo as if he was trussing a hog.
‘You wait till I’m up there,’ he said, then climbed up the rope and onto the hexareme decks.
Pavo sighed, awaiting the indignity to come. Sure enough, the rope jolted tight as Frugilo and Pulcher hauled him up. He landed on the deck, rolled over and slashed the rope away, then struggled to his feet. Darik, Pulcher, Betto, Indus and Durio were with the Nervii at the boat’s edges, fighting off the assailing Goths. Sura and Libo were at the prow, appealing to Promotus. But a screen of Nervii legionaries was blocking them with a barrier of shields.
‘General,’ Pavo shouted, approaching.
The Nervii troopers snarled and one barged Pavo back with his shield.
‘You arsehole,’ Frugilo roared. ‘Do you know the punishment for striking one of the emperor’s Protectores?’
