Legionary

Chapter 10

In a final echo of winter, a heavy snow had settled over the land of Bosporus. The thirty eight men of the XI Claudia and the handful of Gothic prisoners plugged on through the pillowy drifts, zigzagging around swamp and marshland on one side and hills on the other to inch further east across the peninsula neck. The rescued prisoner Proteus lay limp on a stretcher, his legs crippled and his skin pale through loss of blood — the boy had only muttered in a fever since they rescued him from the fort.

They rounded the base of a hill and a pure white plain yawned out before them. Gallus marched up front alongside Felix; the pair gritted their teeth to prevent chattering in the icy headwind that met them from the plain, the full wrath of the cold raking through armour and clothing.

‘What d’you think Proteus meant by it…run?’ Felix mused.

‘Something has gotten into these Goths — that’s for sure. These men fought like cornered wolves,’ Gallus nodded back to the train of prisoners, then shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘The lad’s not likely to make it, you know,’ he whispered.

Felix nodded in resignation. ‘If we can get to pitch camp somewhere sheltered tonight, he may come round given heat, food and water. At least, long enough to tell us more.’

The wind whipped the falling snow into a stinging blizzard, and Gallus pulled his woollen cloak tighter. ‘It’s top priority for all of us, Felix. We’re dying out in this freezing Hades.’

The second fort was supposed to be somewhere in this region, but the white plain rolled out unbroken.

‘More bloody snow…’ The optio halted in his tracks, slapping an arm across Gallus’ chest.

The crisp and unblemished snow ended abruptly; a dark smear of activity stained the plain to the north. The second fort took on an immediate insignificance in comparison with the thousands of people swarming around it. Smoke scudded across the sky from the east.

‘Halt!’ Gallus barked, raising a hand. He waved the column in to tuck into the hillside. ‘We’ve got company, lots of company,’ he spoke steadily. ‘Avitus, Zosimus, get the prisoners tucked in to the side. Keep watch in either direction. Felix, you’re with me,’ he ordered, beckoning his optio. The pair jogged up to a lip of snowdrift, dropping to their stomachs just before the ridge. Gallus’ mouth dried as he took in the scene of devastation on the plain ahead.

A ragged Gothic exodus swarmed around the broken remains of the fort, led by an army numbering thousands of horsemen and infantry, followed by a train of women, children and oxen tripling the overall number. To the east, the land was a charred checkerboard of burnt farmland stretching off into the horizon. Even the driving snow could not disguise the broken huts and tell-tale humps of mass graves pitting and scarring the land in between.

‘These people…they’re being driven from their land,’ Felix gasped. As the wind howled around them, a faint sobbing could be heard along with the drumming of hooves. ‘What is it — plague, pestilence maybe?’

‘There’s more to it than that, Felix; those graves are warrior graves,’ Gallus pointed to the humps, pricked with swords, hundreds of them. ‘They’ve been beaten in battle…and beaten badly. Now they’ve adopted a scorched earth policy on their own farms — desperate measures.’

‘Intelligence didn’t mention warring Goths tribes here?’ Felix quizzed.

‘No, it is, or was a unified kingdom according to…’ a weary look wrinkled his features, ‘…our intelligence. I think they were faced with something they knew they couldn’t defeat. We need to talk to our Gothic prisoners.’

‘They haven’t spoken a word, sir. They’ll die first — stubborn bastards, worse than the lot over the Danubius.’

‘They will talk…’ Gallus was cut off by the gasp of one of the crouched legionaries behind him. Turning, he caught the briefest glimpse of a figure high on the hillside, turning his blood colder than the chill air. Like a cobra, the figure ducked back and disappeared.

‘Felix, was that…’

The optio’s face was grave. ‘Yes, sir, the riders from the forest…’

Snow whipped across the huddle of legionaries, lips and noses blue as they scoured the verge above; the face that had been there only moments before now seeming like a trick of the light as they scanned the brilliant white and the foggy grey of the snowstorm.

Zosimus scaled the shear face up to the verge — despite his enormous weight and the bitter ice that clung to the rock face he moved like a spider. Gallus and Avitus tumbled up the winding path to intercept the stranger from the other side. The snow took on a fury like never before, and they struggled to see even paces ahead.

In a brief moment of respite as the wind changed, the tip of the hill was clear, and Gallus blinked as he saw the form of Zosimus hanging by his fingertips from the verge — as the dark figure on the hilltop hared in.

‘Zosimus,’ Gallus roared. His words swallowed by the storm winds as the figure swiped a blade at the defenceless legionary. A dull roar echoed over the howling blizzard as it kicked into full gear again, and Gallus closed his eyes as he saw the big Thracian fall limply to the rocks below. Another brother fallen.

‘Sir, we’ve got him cornered,’ Avitus cried out.

Gallus shook the confusion from his head. He nodded, drew his sword, and pointed his fingers in a V. He stalked out to the left of the dark figure, and Avitus took the right.

‘Drop your weapons, you’re surrounded!’ The figure spun round in a half-crouch, coiled like a spring, sword in hand. Gallus stalked forward, his spatha raised and trained on the man. The stranger’s stony expression was gradually unveiled in the murky light. Curtained by long black hair, he bore the distinctive features of the riders from the forest: skin both dark and buttery, face flat and almost square, with almond eyes, a small, squat, distinctly un-Roman nose and a thread-like moustache hanging around his lips, upon which the driving snow began to settle. But it was the angry triple welt of scars on each cheek that stilled the breath in Gallus’ lungs.

A cluster of legionaries, led by Felix, shuffled up around them.

‘Felix? The prisoners?’ Gallus howled over the blizzard.

‘Sir, we saw Zosimus fall!’ Felix gestured to the foot of the hill, his face grim. ‘There are fifteen guarding the prisoners, but we thought you might need some extra muscle?’

‘There’s only one of them, Felix, but I don’t see his horse — there must be more of them around. Stay alert.’ Gallus then turned to the stranger. ‘Drop your weapon, or you’ll be dead before your next breath,’ he barked.

The man’s glance darted at the men encircling him, his eyes growing and his toothy grimace widening. He backed off pace by pace until his heel kicked snow from the verge onto the rocks below. With a grunt the stranger buckled, dropped to his knees and cursed in a jagged foreign tongue.

Gallus stepped over to him, lifting his sword to his throat. ‘Who are you?’

The stranger looked up to his captor, rage welling in his eyes.

‘I have failed, honour is lost!’ He rasped in a broken Greek.

‘Who are you, and who are your people?’ Gallus pressed, forcing his sword point to mark a white crease against the man’s skin.

‘I am the first of the storm; my kin will destroy your people like a plague. Tengri the sky god watches from above, and he wills your end. You will be swept away like kindling,’ he spat.

‘Who is your leader and where are your people?’ Gallus pressed on. ‘I warn you, I want answers, not threats!’

At this, the stranger’s eyes sparkled, and his weak rasping grew into a bellowing laugh as the blizzard picked up fiercely. Gallus held steady as a chill ran through him. Suddenly, the laughter stopped and the stranger bore a bold grimace.

‘Your people will destroy themselves. Already they plot their own destruction yet they don’t even see it…and…they want us to help!’

Gallus’ brow furrowed. ‘Enough of this game playing, you will talk! If you don’t want…’ Gallus recoiled as, fast as a striking cobra, the stranger whipped a dagger from his boot and thrust it into his own jugular. A torrent of dark blood spouted from the wound, and the life drained from his body in seconds. The legionaries stood in silence as his body toppled forward into the scarlet snow. Then a chorus of screams rang out from below. The legionaries scrambled to the edge of the hilltop. Gallus punched a fist into his palm; the Gothic prisoners lay in a splatter of blood along with the fifteen legionaries left to guard them and the crippled soldier, Proteus. Arrows still quivered in their chests and necks. A clutch of the mysterious horsemen sped away, swords stained red.

‘Felix, take ten down there and check for survivors.’ His optio’s face was grim. Clearly, all below were dead. ‘And proceed with caution.’

Gallus looked around as his men muttered in fear. Before it could swell into panic, he swallowed his rage. ‘We’re in the middle of something big here. It was and still is our prerogative to get back to friendly territory to report this.’ He looked to the north; the Gothic horde was moving off, thankfully oblivious to the goings-on above them. He then looked to the east.

‘We bury our men first, and then we move on to the eastern coast without delay. A small detachment can scout the last fort on the way. The boys we left behind on the shore will be bringing the Aquila round to the eastern neck of the peninsula tomorrow night to the agreed rendezvous point. Then we can go home!’ The legionaries shivered, nodding in approval.

Just then Felix padded up to the hilltop. ‘Sir, Zosimus, he’s alive! He just let himself fall to dodge the blade. He’s cracked some ribs and his shoulder, but he’ll mend!’ The legionaries let out a roar of approval.

‘Let’s get the fat bastard onto a stretcher then; I’ll take the first shift on carrying him. To the coast and the Aquila! Who’s with me?’ The legionaries broke the driving blizzard with a chorus of support.

Gallus held his steady gaze until the last of his men had turned away and only then let his face fall. The coast and the Aquila were so very far from here.