Legionary

Chapter 37

A vulture soared on a zephyr, high above the neck of the peninsula. The skies were clear, but so was the ground — not even a hint of blood or scraps anywhere. The vulture drifted on across the mountainous ridge, crossing over into Bosporus. At once, the ground turned from grey green to deep crimson. Circling below, thousands of fellow carrion birds eyed the growing pile of carcasses in growing impatience. The vulture swooped to join them.

‘Pile them higher!’ Apsikal barked at his soldiers. ‘Noble Balamber will only be happy when the Tengri the sky god can taste their blood…and the Romans can see the tip from their cities!’ He strolled amongst the gore-spattered troops, swiping at bloodspots on his own mail vest as he went. Seven thousand bodies, stripped of armour and jewels. These Goths were no match for Hun warfare. A victory won with only a few hundred casualties on their side. The Hun juggernaut was unstoppable, he enthused, turning to take in the sea of yurts filling the plain to the horizon. Horses whinnied at every remaining spot of open grass, feasting on the sparse pickings jealously. He strode over to his mount, stroking its ears as it munched. ‘Not long now,’ he whispered. ‘Soon you will be feasting in the gardens of the Roman Emperor.’

Apsikal looked up at the tent of Balamber; a large enclosure, but certainly not embellished in any way — he was too wily to let his love for jewels and riches show. The Huns did not live under a king, but the strongest noble held power just as great as one. The men feared Balamber absolutely, but they loved him too. Being a horde leader, seeing Balamber’s wrath first hand almost daily, Apsikal knew only of the fear, and it was time to report on the battle. He could not stall any longer. To lie and live, or tell the truth and die? His heart thundered.

He ducked as he entered the inviting warmth of the hide tent. The setup inside was simple; areas were sectioned off to make the entrance lobby he stood in, a room for his concubines and a council room. Oil lamps flickered in the gloom, casting dancing shadows across the stern figures of Balamber’s personal guard. They parted without a sound as he approached.

Apsikal felt as though he was descending into an underground labyrinth as the curtains flapped behind him and a scent of burning meat curled around his nostrils; the council room was darker still and only a dim outline of Balamber was visible at the far end, slumped on his rudimentary throne — a simple timber bench on a raised platform. Apsikal approached gingerly, stopping at the foot of the platform. He looked up at the shadowy outline of the man; the man who had led their people through poverty and famine, moulding them into an army that nobody in the east could resist.

‘Noble Balamber,’ Apsikal spoke, his voice trembled. Moments passed with nothing but painful silence. Then Balamber shuffled to sit upright, to his full and towering height.

The first thing Apsikal noticed was the intensity in his leader’s eyes. Was it fury? Like Apsikal and most of the Huns, Balamber wore a snaking moustache and kept his flowing, jet-black hair tied back into two knotted tails. His nose curled over the top of the moustache, the rising and lowering of which was usually a good indicator as to his mood. On his cheeks he wore the three distinctive childhood scars seared into his flesh by ritual-abiding parents many years ago — designed to introduce the young to pain and to discourage beard growth. Wrapped in a dark-red robe, Balamber simply rested his hands on the arms of the throne, and stared.

Apsikal gulped. ‘Our business is complete with the rebel Goths, Noble Balamber. We have stripped their carcasses of useful materials, and desecrated their bodies, as you commanded.’

Balamber gave the merest of nods.

Apsikal unravelled a tattered scroll listing the inventory of bloody takings from the massacred Goths. Being one of only three literate members of the horde had sealed his rise to prominence. He drew a deep breath to ream off the highlights of the takings, but Balamber raised a hand.

‘Are they dead?’ He asked, his face devoid of emotion, all apart from his eyes, now almost burning holes in Apsikal. ‘All of them?’

Apsikal cleared his throat. The question he was dreading. Genocide was the order he had been given by his leader, and he had failed to complete the order in full, albeit by the merest of fractions.

‘They…’ He cleared his throat again. Lie and live, tell the truth and die. ‘They had a detachment of light cavalry, Noble Balamber. They managed to despatch a few of them before we shattered their lines.’ Apsikal paused as his leader shifted forward on his seat, his moustache lifting as his lips pursed.

‘Fewer than twenty of them escaped, Noble Balamber, and that was after several hundred fled. We brought them down in swathes with a single volley of arr…arrows…’ Apsikal stuttered to a halt.

‘Then those twenty will be dead and their skulls added to the pile before we move from the camp at the end of this week,’ Balamber asserted, his voice steady, fingering the gold cross hanging on a chain around his neck. ‘And you will complete your orders this time. Gold piled higher than the corpses outside awaits us if we succeed here, along with the keys to the Roman Empire!’

Apsikal nodded and two beads of sweat coursed down his forehead.

‘For if you do not fulfil my expectation this time, then the finest armour from the pile outside will be melted down and poured down your throat.’ He pounded a fist on the arm of his throne.

Apsikal dropped his head and fell to one knee.

‘I will not fail you this time, Noble Balamber.’