Legionary

Chapter 29

Gallus watched the activity on the dockside pensively, sipping water from his cup. What he would gain from this he wasn’t sure, but his gut told him to come here and see this new legion set sail. Sitting alone on a bench outside the dockside drinking hole he was, for the first time in months, dressed as a citizen, not a soldier. For a moment, his thoughts wandered; the absent weight of his scabbard and spatha felt like a missing limb. It felt strange, it let old memories back in.

He shook his head and turned back to the water’s edge. So the I Dacia legion was almost ready to ship out, to begin their role as a roaming sentry legion, sailing the lower Danubius and the western Pontus Euxinus. Their fleet was supposed to complement the Classis Moesica, but in reality the rickety collection of triremes that the limitanei used to patrol these waters would be the mongrel herd hanging on to the stern of this immaculate new fleet.

Having ravaged the XI Claudia for officers, the ships of the fleet were already well-manned with legionaries, their armour as pristine as the trireme timbers were fresh. Now they would head upriver to collect Fritigern’s mercenary hordes. It galled Gallus to think the Roman peasants in his ranks were being clad in rusting, ancient armour while the Goths they fought to protect the empire from were being dressed in the finest, freshly tempered scale-plate vests. He wondered just how strong the borders could be if the same investment was made into the limitanei ranks.

The sixty vessels cut their moorings and drifted free of the dock wall. At this, the gathered crowd roared in farewell. Once in the current of the mighty Danubius, the ships engaged their triple banks of oars, and then began to row upstream, with the power of the remiges winning against the current of the river. Gallus squinted, sure the fiery locked figure on the head trireme was glaring back at him. Wulfric.

The fleet gradually disappeared as it slipped upriver towards the late afternoon sun. The limitanei of the Danubius were well beyond cracking point now that the I Dacia initiative had begun. Once the Bosporus mission set sail, the empire was wide open. The thought chilled him to the bone.

Wide open.