Legionary

Chapter 55

The pace was relentless. Sweat lashed from every brow and throats rasped like sand in an urn. The sun pushed against them, growing hotter and hotter until now, just after midday, soldiers began to lag and only the officers croaking out to rally them punctuated the rumble of their march.

Pavo winced as his mail vest scythed into his shoulders with every stride. The scrap of cloth stuffed in there to relieve the pressure had slipped out, sweat-sodden and bloody, miles back. His water skin sloshed mockingly — full but no time to stop and take a swig from it. The apprehension of earlier had been consumed by the brutal labour of the march — probably an army trick to distract the ranks from falling morale, Pavo thought. Then he realised he had dropped back a pace. A harmony of curses rang out as a boot caught on his heel and the disruption rippled back behind him.

‘Come on, Pavo,’ Avitus hissed, looping an arm round his to pull him level. ‘Centurion’ll boot your balls if you show up his first century.’

‘Any idea how far now?’ He panted.

‘I reckon we’re over halfway,’ Zosimus groaned, his face red as beetroot.

Halfway sounded like there was still a marathon ahead of them, Pavo winced. Every stride felt like a sack of lead was being added to his belt, and his vision began to shrink to contain just the heels of the legionary in front of him. In the periphery, yet another yawning valley rolled up ahead of them. Maybe it was his fading grip on reality, Pavo wondered, but this one seemed steeper and narrower than the rest. He noticed the two foederati wing leaders had sidled over to converse with Nerva. Eventually, the tribunus nodded.

‘Foederati, over the hilltops!’ Nerva barked from his mount, firing fingers in either direction up the sides of the valley. At once, the two wings shot free of the legion and up a side of the valley each.

‘What the…’ Pavo spluttered as he saw Gallus’ head dart left and right in shock at the unplanned move.

‘Not to your refined tactical manoeuvring taste is it, Pavo?’ Avitus gasped.

‘No, it’s just that, this formation,’ he panted, ‘we wanted the foederati close and in front for a reason.’

‘Oh did we — and how do you know?’ Zosimus mumbled.

Pavo opened his mouth to reply, but a cry from the front cut him dead.

‘Full halt!’ Gallus had both hands raised and stuttered to a stop. The legion bunched up clumsily, but within moments they were still.

‘What in Hades?’ Nerva cursed at his primus pilus, wheeling back round, stood out on his own at the front of the entire legion. ‘What’s going on, Gallus? Fall in behind me,’ he hissed.

‘Get back in line, sir. Trust me…’ Gallus held his stance, his eyes darting around the tips of the valley on either side. ‘…sir!’

Nerva stayed motionless, twenty paces ahead of the legion.

Pavo’s skin crept as he glanced up — the foederati wings had disappeared over the lips of the valley. ‘This is it,’ he shuddered.

‘Eh?’ Avitus and Zosimus grunted in unison.

Pavo stiffened. ‘Get ready.’

‘Gallus,’ Nerva bawled. ‘Get the legion moving at once.’

Then, the hum of the breeze and the chatter of the cicadas died, and a dreadful whirring replaced and swamped it. At once the sky darkened, shafts rained toward the legion from the valley top in their thousands, like a storm cloud from the underworld.

‘Shields!’ Gallus cried.

The legion broke out into a chorus of cries, and then rippled into a roof of ruby-red as they turned their shields up as the deadly rain battered down on them. Screams pierced the air — hundreds of them, where soldiers were too slow. Then the rain slowed, and Pavo sneaked a glance out from under his shield. His eyes locked on the solitary figure of Tribunus Nerva up front; he and his mount took on the appearance of some grotesque effigy, peppered with arrow shafts, his jowls limp and his eyes shocked and staring at the legion. Silently, the Roman tribunus slid from his mount, crashing to the earth like wet sand.

Pavo blinked in disbelief. Paranoia was gone. The nightmare was upon them.

The sky lightened momentarily and then again was black. Every wave of arrows tore more screams from the ranks. He looked to Gallus, crouched under his shield next to Felix. This was the life-or-death moment.

‘It’s the recon ambush all over again, Felix; we need a way out of this.’ Gallus cried over the rattle of the lethal hail.

‘We’re going to be picked off if we sit here, sir.’

‘Well then it’s pull back or push ahead. We need to get out of the low ground and out of bloody archer range.’ A shaft ripped across the centurion’s shoulder, spraying blood on his optio’s face. Neither man flinched.

‘It’s just more open terrain back there,’ Felix shouted.

‘Death or the unknown,’ Gallus spat bitterly.

Then Pavo saw it; bursting along the valley side, swerving through the arrow storm, three riders sped. The bouncing blonde topknot — it was Horsa!

‘Ahead!’ Horsa roared, ‘Get to the other end!’ He waved his spear frantically back over his shoulder towards a flat near the far end of the valley.

‘Decision made,’ Gallus growled, then stood, turning to face the legion with his shield over his back and boomed to the ranks; ‘Legion, fast as you can — get to the end of the valley.’

Pavo rose with the ranks as they raced forward, formations stretched like spilled grain. The screams of the stricken tripled without the shield roof, and every stride felt like a lottery of death as arrows zipped past his ear, thudded into the earth before him and sclaffed across his mail vest. Horsa and the two riders up ahead had slowed, out of archer range; they waved frantically, encouraging the legion on.

‘Get to that flat ground!’ Gallus cried, waving his arm again and again to the end of the valley. ‘Then form up — five ranks deep. We must hold the flanks!’

They spilled forward and the arrow rain slowed. The bedraggled cohorts poured onto the flat to about face and form up. Pavo snatched a glance along the new Roman front line at the two riders with Horsa. One was Roman. Blonde. Sura was alive!

Pavo’s mind reeled, euphoria mixed with the dread in his veins.

Then Gallus rallied the legion with a roar, battering his sword on his shield as he faced their still invisible enemy. ‘Steady, men. Let’s see what these dogs fight like when they meet us face to face. Let them taste our iron!’

An ill-fitting silence settled on the scene. The panting, rasping and groaning legionaries stared back along the valley floor at the crimson carpet of their fallen brothers. Yet, curiously, the hillsides lay green and empty, the breeze rippling through the grass. The shades that had attacked them nowhere to be seen.

‘Cowards!’ One legionary roared.

‘Come face us!’ Another added.

The legion broke out into a rabble of insults at the emptiness before them, as if beckoning an army of shades from the realm of Pluto.

Pavo looked along the lines; desperation painted on every face. These men were at their limit. Wounded and starved of revenge. So many had fallen, but it would take a ferocious enemy to overcome them still. Suddenly, the ground began to shake.

‘They’re coming,’ Pavo whispered.

‘What is it with you?’ Zosimus muttered. ‘Got a sixth sense or something?’

Then the valley tops darkened; from each side, the horizon boiled over with a mass of steel and thunder. First the Hun spearmen, clad in linen armour with leather skullcaps and wooden shields, thousands of them, tumbled down the valley’s end to converge at the bottom in a crescent. Behind them came wave after wave of Hun cavalry — spear tips jostling as they poured incessantly until the lonely valley was nearly full. Then the foederati came, the turncoat horsemen adding only a small wing to the Hun horde.

Dead in the centre of the enemy number, one warrior stood out; on a tall black stallion and clad in shimmering Sassanian iron armour, he barked out at his men through the bone and fur standards held by his surrounding guards.

‘What the…there must be ten thousand of them,’ Avitus gasped, his eyes darting back and forth over the sea of fluttering banners and spear points.

‘Twenty thousand. Plus the two thousand turncoat foederati,’ Pavo added reluctantly. Suddenly a figure bustled into place next to him — Sura!

‘You lead a charmed existence,’ Pavo welcomed him, clasping his forearm.

Sura, gaunt and sweating, grabbed at his water skin and poured the entire contents down his throat. ‘My foederati days are over,’ he asserted, burping then throwing the skin to the ground and steadying his feet into a soldier’s brace.

‘Glad to hear it,’ Avitus grinned, ‘welcome back to the ranks.’

Horsa stood just in front of them with Gallus. ‘They came at us in the next valley,’ he nodded to the east. ‘We tried to return. They couldn’t catch us, but they herded us, driving us north, away from the legion.’ Horsa punched a fist into his palm. ‘Let me and my last rider loose, sir. I’ll take down as many of those treacherous dogs as the gods will let me. The gold they were bought with will not serve them in the afterlife.’

‘Save your energy, captain, we’ve got no cavalry wing now; keep your mounts safe to the rear — if we need speed they’ll be priceless.’

‘But what’s our next move, sir?’ Felix interjected.

Gallus hesitated, scanning the Hun horde — they had formed into a crescent shape, curling around the valley’s end like pincers, their front ranks boasting huge packs of cavalry punctuated with small units of spearmen like the teeth of a predator. The horde crept forward towards the Roman line — less than two thousand strong now. At last, the primus pilus responded. ‘Horsa, Chersonesos — how far?’

‘Through the next pass and downhill. Too far, for sure.’

‘It’ll have to do,’ Gallus snapped. ‘Legion, prepare for a fighting retreat’

‘Sir,’ Felix cut in, ‘We’ve got no clear reconnaissance on that place. The city is probably packed with Huns.’

‘Horsa?’ Gallus asked.

‘It’s as your optio says, sir, we never even sighted the place.’

Pavo’s breath shortened as the Huns tightened around them like a hungry snake. The need to act overcame his fear and he spoke out; ‘Is there anything else defensible nearby? A natural choke point…or something we could use to at least cover our flanks?’

Gallus, Horsa and Felix turned, faces wrinkled in frustration. Gallus relaxed his expression first. ‘Amalric, you know this land — is there anywhere we can retreat to?’

The Gothic prince was pale and streaked with dirt and sweat as he watched the murderers of his people encircle them.

‘Amalric!’ Gallus persisted.

He jumped to attention. ‘Near Chersonesos?’ His eyes flickered and he turned to survey the hills, pinpointing his location mentally. ‘Yes! There is a small fort — Greek mercenaries built it during our civil war. It’s on the hilltop, overlooking the coast.’ He pointed up to the next valley. ‘It was used as a watch station for the shipping lanes off the coast.’

‘How far?’

‘About half that to Chersonesos, but it’s a whole lot rougher. There’s a steep rocky path we’d have to climb to get there.’

Gallus eyed the Goth — the look of despair wringing his features said it all. The question hung in his throat — what if the Huns were already there too? But the men needed to believe, and the Hun horde was now only a handful of paces from missile range. Another arrow storm would wreck the legion. ‘Fine, beats this hands down,’ Gallus snapped. ‘You lead the retreat from the rear — we’ll cut these whoresons down if they dare to come any closer.’

‘Sir!’ a voice piped up from the rear of the formation, ‘We’ve been saved!’

Gallus spun round in disbelief, together with every head in the legion.

Pavo blinked. Surely, some kind of dream lay behind them; a shimmering patchwork of iron squares crunched up over the southern horizon. A legion — a full and fresh legion of some three thousand men; scale armoured legionaries, archers, auxiliaries and a fresh cavalry vexillatio.

‘Comitatenses!’ One legionary roared. Gallus pushed his way through the ranks to face the new arrivals.

‘It’s the I Dacia!’ another added.

Gallus frowned. He had sent for the I Dacia, hundreds of miles away, only a short time ago. An impossibly short time.

Tribunus Wulfric grinned at the head of the legion.

‘Ave!’ Wulfric called.

‘Ave…’ replied Gallus. The Gothic tribunus simply stared at him, while the air hung silent bar the fluttering of banners; the torn and soiled ruby bull of the XI Claudia and the pristine emerald boar of the I Dacia. Even the Huns were stilled. ‘From whom did you receive the call to come here?’ He ventured.

‘What kind of way is that to address your relief force?’ Wulfric chuckled. ‘These men have sailed the Pontus Euxinus and marched from the neck of this peninsula at full speed to save you — and from certain death. Pull back, Centurion, fall behind our lines and we will see you safely to our fleet.’

Gallus eyed Wulfric carefully, ‘When did you arrive, and I ask again, by whose orders?’

‘Compliance is not optional. Fall back, Centurion.’

Gallus glanced over their ranks; Mainly Goths clad in legionary armour, but there were also Romans, surely eager to pitch in and help their brothers. He grimaced; what choice did he have in any case? ‘Stand down, men. Fall back behind the I Dacia lines.’

The Huns, momentarily halted by the appearance of the legion, now waited on the order from their leader. Gallus noticed how the Hun leader remained silent and motionless. As the XI Claudia rumbled backwards towards the I Dacia, he turned back to lead the retreat, when something caught his eye. A small thing that meant everything: dangling from the neck of Wulfric was a small, gold, Chi-Rho cross.

Time seemed to slow as he looked up and locked onto Wulfric’s eyes. As he did so, the Goth grew a terrible grin, and all around him, the I Dacia lifted their plumbatae as Wulfric raised his arm. The unknowing troops of the XI Claudia were marching backwards right into the range of the darts.

‘Treachery!’ Gallus roared. ‘Back ranks, about face!’

Confusion reigned as the ranks stumbled to a halt, some turning, and some continuing their backwards march. As the plumbata hail was loosed, Gallus cried out again; ‘Shields!’ The thick and heavy iron rain smashed into the crippled legion, catching hundreds of legionaries unawares, and then the I Dacia armed with the next volley.

‘Come on then, you dogs!’ Gallus spat.

Then he heard a jagged cry from what was now the rear of his army. The earth began to shake. The Huns were advancing; the noose was snapping shut.

The world shook. Pavo lifted his shield to add to the Roman wall as they instinctively bunched together. Chaos reigned; cries of saviour had rang out at first but had been quickly cut off with a hail of I Dacia plumbatae from behind, now the Huns thundered for them on their confused front. Now the XI Claudia stood like a lame gazelle in the centre of a pack of ravenous lions.

‘Hold the line!’ Felix boomed, barely audible over the thundering of hooves. ‘Hold it or we’re done for!’ With that, iron armour screeched and wooden shields groaned even tighter as the Hun mass raced to within paces of them. ‘Here they come!’

A strange calm touched Pavo. When only one outcome was possible, what was there to fear? He envisioned his father standing beside him, resplendent in his old legionary armour. Then it happened; all around, the tsunami of spear tips and swords bit into the Romans like a thick noose snapping tight on a neck. The head of the Hun infantry battered into the Roman front line, spears jabbing past his face and snarling Huns inches from him. Pavo felt his feet lifting from the earth as the full weight of their number told. His chest felt like a grape in a press as from behind, the I Dacia smashed into the unprepared Roman rear. Pavo wondered just how long it would be before Spurius and Festus fought their way through to him, and even if he could cling onto life long enough for that to happen.

He wrenched at his sword arm, wedged between his side and that of Sura. A spear tip flashed forward at his face, but he could not even lift his shield in defence. Dipping his head to one side, the spear smashed into the face of the legionary behind him with a crunch of bone and an animal scream. The Hun pulled his blood and gristle coated spear back, and with a vicious snarl, he thrust it forward again, this time at Pavo’s neck. Pure instinct kicked in, and Pavo used the surge of strength to rip his sword arm clear, and grunted as the blade parried the spear thrust. Then, with a swift jerk of his arm, he pulled the blade over his shield and ripped it through the throat of the Hun, who collapsed under the push of his comrades. Another stepped forward from the endless sea, ramming his spear forward before the first had even hit the ground. Then the sky darkened. The arrow storm had returned.

His shield was compressed against his body, and he could only tilt his head forward in hope — a handful of arrows danced off the iron intercisa but behind him, screams rang out in their hundreds, as the crushed legionaries fell like defenceless flies to the arrow storm. Glancing up, he saw the massive swell of Hun riders taking aim again as they moved to add to the push on the Claudia. His heart thundered as he lost sight of the end of their lines, such was their number.

‘We’re dead!’ He grunted.

‘Maybe so, but I’m not going out without at least a hundred of these buggers coming with me!’ Zosimus snarled.

‘Been good knowing you, Pavo,’ Sura stammered, the battle fury racing through him, ‘now let’s end this like soldiers!’

Pavo gritted his teeth, ramming his sword point forward again and again, in between ducking and parrying. Dealing out death like Hades, his face ran with warm blood and gristle, his mind hot with fury and flashes of his father, of Brutus. From the side of his eye, he saw his brothers fall. Only a precious few moments remained. Would this be a proud end? But then, who would there be to grieve for him as he had done for Father?

Then, from the rear of the Hun ranks, a terrible moan rose as something ripped right through them like an invisible serpent, throwing men up into the air like toys and sending jets of blood skywards. Then again and again. Pavo felt the pressure on his chest drop and he gasped for air as the Hun numbers fell back in confusion. Then he heard it; the twang of ballistae.

Up in the valley, the four ballistae snapped one after the other. The twenty or so auxiliaries operating them looked like gods. Gallus, Pavo thought, remembering the four fingered hand signal — the centurion had pulled a masterstroke, having the pack mule train assemble artillery and follow up the legion a good mile behind. Although not in the line of sight of the ballistae, the I Dacia had fallen back just a little in confusion at the twist, and the XI Claudia had their precious and fragile window of opportunity.

‘Pull back, to the hills!’ Gallus’ voice rattled over the eerie lull in battle. Like a wounded animal, the legion scrambled to life and moved as one, still bearing a shield wall, pushing through the join in the encircling noose between the I Dacia and the Huns. The ballistae fired another volley before the Hun leader roared and with a sweep of his hand, sent a block of some five hundred riders off to despatch the artillery.

‘Move fast, men. We can’t get encircled again or we’re dead!’ Gallus cried as they rumbled up the hillside. The I Dacia rallied their number and the Hun riders rallied likewise. As they tumbled up to the top of the hillside, a taller hill became visible, its sides strewn with rocky passes and sheer cliffs, presenting a snaking canyon in between, rising to the summit. But at the top, salvation presented itself — the tip of a stone wall. ‘To the fort!’ The centurion roared. ‘Get into that canyon — we can defend the mouth!’

The straggle of exhausted legionaries, smeared crimson and silver, hobbled for the narrow gap. The Hun riders hared in on one flank of the legion, and the I Dacia on the other just as the XI Claudia spilled into the pass. Their flanks secured, all the legionaries turned to face front and the wave of Huns and I Dacia smashed against their lines.

Pavo felt the breath rattle through him and realised he was shaking violently. Life had been snatched from the jaws of death, but for how long? Now at least he could fight without restriction, he thought, as the legion formed up with a thin front to fill the neck of the pass. He thought of the heroics of the Spartans at the hot gates; he had read of it in the library, now he was to live it and probably die for the experience. His blood pumped even harder.

‘Come on!’ Zosimus spat, smashing his gore splashed sword against his shield boss.

‘Fire plumbatae at will. Archers, fire at will!’ Gallus roared.

The legionaries launched their darts with relish, each man holding three of the deadly missiles, and the front lines of the fast approaching Hun and I Dacia army crumbled.

‘See how you like it, eh?’ Avitus growled, wiping at the bloody gash on his arm after releasing the last of his darts. ‘Get the archers firing!’ He yelled to the auxiliary units.

Overhead a thin cloud of arrows arched up and dropped onto the heads of the enemy. The I Dacia lines were well drilled and lifted their shields to deflect the danger, but the Huns, clearly unused to pitched battles and close formations, soaked up almost every arrow, swathes of them dropping with a scream, but still barely a drop in the ocean compared with their overall number.

Over in the valley, the ballista twang ceased as the artillery division were crushed under the five hundred riders sent to despatch them. Now the I Dacia and the Huns advanced on the rocky pass at full speed. Gallus forced his way into the centre of the front line.

‘We’re not beaten yet, men. Let’s make every sword count.’