The Scourge of Thracia

Chapter 13

Acuelo had always been a cumbersome man, slow-moving and easy to tire. Back in his legionary days, he had often dreamt of retirement and a peaceable few years on a farm or the like. However, cruel fate — and a wicked desire to gamble what he had — had seen fit to render him penniless and thus, he had no choice but to serve penance as a sentry in the Abderan gold mines.

Deep in this honeycomb of caves and tunnels within the most southerly of the Rhodope Mountains, he felt his chest grow tight and numb. The heat in this oppressive space seemed to suck the air from his lungs faster than he could draw it in. He blinked and tried to steady his breathing, flexing his fingers on his spear shaft. Sweating bodies and malevolent eyes lingered all around him and the chipping of pick-axes and rasping coughs echoed from every direction. Every so often this was punctuated with the dull thunder of rock crumbling and being loaded into the mule-carts and the waft of dry, suffocating dust. He shook his head to try and rid himself of the dizziness, then looked around for something to focus on other than his own malady. He saw one of the gold miners — Dama, a brutish, mean-eyed felon from Macedonia — loading rocks into the mule-led cart. Not gold ore or seam, just granite laced with quartz. Acuelo realised the bad yield would be attributed to his watch and deducted from his pay. And I need those coins for the next big race! Then a dark thought crossed his mind. That nagging yet earnest voice. But damn, is there not always a next race? Is that not why you and your family live in perpetual penury?

Shaking off the thoughts, he stomped over to Dama and swung the butt of his spear at his back. The shaft batted the man — not enough to bruise or scrape, but enough to get his attention. Dama swung round, his face twisted in a snarl. He took a step forward, only for the iron shackles on his ankles to restrain him, keeping him fixed at the mine wall. For good measure, Acuelo flipped his spear round to rest the point on the cur’s chest.

‘Gold, and I leave you in peace. Rocks, and I will not.’

Dama spat on the floor. ‘When I escape, Acuelo, I will tear your fat head from your old, misshapen body. Then, my comrades and I will seek out your family. They live in the sentry camp in the foothills, do they not?’

Acuelo unconsciously backed away, his confident spear tip dropping a little.

Now one of Dama’s fellow Macedonians, a flat-nosed man named Vulso mining nearby, turned to add; ‘Your wife’s last memories will be of me, thrusting into her. . after the rest of us have emptied our seed inside her, of course.’

The relish and vigour in Vulso’s tirade brought a further tightness to Acuelo’s chest. The gloomy cavern all around him seemed utterly airless and intolerably hot. Spots swam across his vision, and he staggered as he stepped back from them.

‘What’s wrong, Acuelo?’ Dama sneered.

‘Perhaps you should sit?’ Vulso added.

Acuelo wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and pant for all the air he could take in. The pain was crushing now — as if an ox was sitting on his breastbone. But when he saw Vulso stepping as far as his chains would allow him and reaching out as if to relieve Acuelo of the burden of his spear, he summoned some spark of vitality and swung the tip back up at the Macedonian. ‘Get back to work!’ he snarled.

The rebuke worked, and the pair turned back to the rock-walls of the cavern, shooting spiteful glances over their shoulders. Yet the effort had all but floored Acuelo. He waved to his fellow sentry, a lean young man seemingly less-affected by the conditions. ‘Watch them!’

He stumbled through the honeycomb of dimly-lit caverns and tunnels, eyes fixed on the bright spot of light ahead. It grew and grew until at last he stepped out onto the ledge on the mountain’s northern face. At once, he was bathed in winter sunlight and a fresh, biting salt-tanged wind cooled him and rapidly eased the tightness in his chest. He opened his eyes and looked down over the lower peaks of the Rhodope range to the distant town of Abdera on the coast and the blue, silky haze that was the Mare Aegeum beyond. He shuffled, straightening his old, tattered military tunic, hitching his sweat-soaked loincloth up and swiping the perspiration from his brow. He rested his considerable weight against the mountainside and sighed, closing his eyes, trying as best he could to remember why he did this every day. A wife, two sons and seven grandchildren. Everything. One eye cracked open and gazed upon the dusty, vicus-like sentry camp down in the foothills. A timber shack by the walls of that grim compound was all he could afford for his loved ones. Then he thought of the bet he had placed the previous week. His last coins — and they were always his last — on a horse race around the Abderan track. He looked to the coast and the outline of the town, squinting and trying to discern the stables — though all he could see was a dust cloud of some crowd approaching the town. A very large crowd, he realised. So many spectators for one race? And indeed, the race was to be run today. Victory for the Thessalian mare and he would be rich. Rich and gone from these mines! Defeat and. . he sighed and let the thought dissipate. No, victory today and it will be the last race I ever bet upon, he affirmed. Moments later, the nagging voice countered; victory today will only fuel your next loss. He pinched his nose between forefinger and thumb as if to crush the irritating voice of reason.

However it was some fractious babble deep inside the heart of the mountain that offered distraction. No doubt those two Greek dogs were giving his comrade trouble now. This drew a wry chuckle from his tired lungs: those curs had been caught robbing imperial tax-wagons, and now they would spend their lives in those caves, clawing out the gold seams to replenish the empire’s strained treasury. His chuckle was short though as he realised that their fate was not so different to his own. He thought again of the Thessalian and the race.

He gazed down over the mountain’s lower northern face and conjured fantasies of a different life, his eyes coming to a turquoise rock pool and birch glade just by the section of winding path where the mountain merged with the foothills. This tranquil sight always seemed to calm him. Today though, there was something different. He frowned, squinting, noticing a lone figure crouched by the edge of the pool, scooping and drinking water. Odd, he thought, noticing that the figure wore not the rags of a sentry or robes of a messenger or merchant, but some kind of armour. Legionaries, here? The last he had heard, the legions were all tucked away inside the walled cities while the Goths dominated the plains of central Thracia.

When the figure stood, Acuelo was somewhat taken aback, for he rose and rose, taller than any man he had ever seen. His raven-dark hair was knotted at the nape of his neck and he sported a trident beard. Yes, he wore a mail shirt, but he was no legionary. He placed a fancy bronze helm on his head — adorned with what looked like wings above each ear. The giant looked up then, and seemed to meet Acuelo’s eye, before waving an arm, as if beckoning something, someone, up from the lower section of the path.

Acuelo’s heart thudded and he felt the wintry wind chill him now, and a tingle of chest pain returned. A blonde-haired warrior hurried past the giant at the rock pool and on up the hill track towards this ledge. Acuelo tensed: the baked leather armour, the fair skin and hair, the scarred wooden shield. Now there was no doubt. Reports indicated that the Goths had made the heart of the Thracian plain their own, but that the cities and the mountains were safe. The reports were wrong. He gawped as another Goth jogged into view after the first, ushered by the giant beside the rock pool, who then joined them in loping up the mountainside. Then another approached, followed by a steady stream of them. They bounded up the mountainside path like insects, all the while shooting glances to the ledge. To Acuelo.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed more streams of the Gothic warriors, flooding up the path on the eastern mountain face towards the mine entrance there. Suddenly, a distant clash of iron from the sentry camp snatched his attention: hundreds of these Goths were pouring around it, climbing over the wall like ants. The screams of the handful of sentries in there carried in the breeze. ‘No!’ he wailed, thinking of his family.

Perhaps it was the years that had passed since his last military service that suspended him in disbelief. A hurled Gothic spear clattering down just a pace from him soon remedied that. He staggered back from the ledge and into the hot breath of the mines, a nascent cry of alarm building in his throat, only to hear that the quarrelling voices within from before had grown. Gothic voices. They were in the mine already, he realised. Echoing, jagged cries and the clang of iron weapons.

‘To arms!’ he cried, lifting his spear and looking on down the tunnel for his fellow sentries. He saw the young, lean lad he had left in charge stepping backwards out of another cavern, his lance falling to the ground. Suddenly a spear tip burst through the lad’s back. The spear tip was wrenched clear, the lad fell, and in his place stood Vulso and Dama, free of the mine wall, shackles hewn. Vulso turned his stolen spear on Acuelo, while Dama picked up the dead young sentry’s lance.

‘What. . how?’ Acuelo stammered, seeing many other prisoners rushing to and fro, freed and carrying weapons, falling upon sentries like packs of wolves. Then he saw Goths darting around, hacking at the shackles of certain prisoners.

Vulso held up his hewn chains. ‘It seems that our wishes have come true sooner than we could have hoped, Acuelo. Now, I had best make this quick, else your wife might be entirely spoiled by the time I get to her. . ’

Acuelo felt a dull pop as Vulso thrust the spear into his breastbone, then drove ahead, running him backwards, out onto the ledge, before snapping the spear back. The action caused Acuelo to swing round, swaying, his feet on the brink of the ledge, hot blood pumping from his ruptured heart, bitter winter air sweeping around him. He saw that the sentry camp down below was now ablaze and the screaming from there had stopped. He whispered a weak prayer of thanks to Pluto that his family was most probably already dead and would suffer no more. With his last few moments of clarity, he also noticed that distant Abdera was being overrun by these raiders too. The stables were ablaze and the sky was stained with smoke. Then the final race has been run at last, he thought with an unexpected sense of relief, before he toppled forward over the ledge and plummeted, the life having left him before his body crunched and buckled on its way down the ragged mountainside.

Farnobius stalked through the mines, dragging his axe along a wall of ore, trailing a spray of sparks behind him. His army of Gothic spearmen flooded along the tunnels with him, as did the miners they had freed. Unchain just the strong, young ones, he had told his men.

These mines would bring him wagon-loads of gold but, more importantly, extra men. His horde was strong, with two thousand Taifali riders and nearly two thousand Gothic spearmen under Egil and Humbert, not to mention nearly a hundred of the most loyal Huns. But these men could not be squandered. No, he needed dogs of war, men who could be thrown at the enemy without a second thought.

He came to a vast cavern within the mines, strode up to a shelf of bedrock and swung round to face the prisoners and spearmen following in his wake.

‘Romans! I am Reiks Farnobius, true Lord of the Greuthingi. . and soon, I will be master of this land,’ he boomed. His words reached every corner of the mine. The gathered miners listened, wide-eyed, more pushing into the cavern, jostling to get a better view of their saviour. ‘You were consigned to these mines by masters who saw fit for you to work and die here. They gave you no choice. Today, I come here and offer you a choice. Join me, fight with me against those who condemned you. . or defy me. . and die.’

The last word echoed through the mines and the Greuthingi flanking him and dotted all around the cavern levelled their spears. The prisoners flinched at this. He saw a pair of them — one with a flat nose and the other with devious, dark eyes. ‘Your answer?’ he said, pinning these two with his glare.

‘We are not soldiers,’ Vulso said warily.

‘We are thieves,’ Dama added.

‘And murderers,’ another prisoner, still in chains, spat. ‘That one raped an old woman then killed her. That’s not the act of a mere thief.’

Vulso shot the prisoner a sour look.

Farnobius wondered at the type of men he might harvest from this exercise. Dogs of war and no more, he reaffirmed, then intensified his glower on the flat-nosed one. ‘Make your choice. Gold, rapine and glory await you should you choose wisely.’

Vulso and Dama shared a glance, their angst melting away as they considered the booty to be had, then both nodded. ‘We choose to serve you, Reiks.’

Hundreds of voices echoed this, and Farnobius grinned as he sensed his horde’s mood swelling. The Greuthingi started the familiar chant, then the prisoners caught on and joined in.

‘Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us!’

Later, Farnobius stood amongst the smouldering ruins of the sentry camp at the foot of the mountains. He glowered at the single handcart before him. It held just a few chunks of gold-streaked ore.

So very, very little, the voice of Vitheric’s shade said without a hint of mockery, yet the words scourged Farnobius’ hopes.

‘It is all they could find,’ Egil, the minor Greuthingi noble, insisted.

‘I promised them wagons of gold,’ Farnobius growled, detecting the eyes of his men darting over the takings from the mine and remembering his promise to them just a week ago at the ruined wagons.

‘These mines are all but spent, Reiks Farnobius,’ Humbert, Egil’s comrade, shrugged.

Farnobius was irked by the way Humbert said this, his voice loud and clear as if to announce the failure to the horde. This reminded him starkly of Alatheus and Saphrax, the asps who had used and humiliated him for years.

‘There is but a fraction of what you hoped to find,’ Humbert continued.

Farnobius’ top lip twitched and his axe-arm tensed. Another word and your head will spin free. .

Then the sibilant tone of the dead boy-king spoke again; You would grant him such a swift death? Then you must truly respect this one.

Farnobius’ head twitched violently as he shook the voice away, and his fingers tightened on his axe.

‘I did, however, find these,’ Humbert added, holding up a pile of scrolls then nodding to the charred remains of a timber building, ‘in there. Maps, messages,’ he said, unfurling a few and pinning them open on the edge of the hand cart with daggers.

Farnobius’ ire faded and the axe-arm slackened as he followed Humbert’s finger, tracing across the map.

‘This seems to show the gold stores of the empire.’ Humbert tapped upon Abdera, where a golden dot represented these mines and another at Constantinople seemingly represented the treasury and mint where the mined gold ended up. ‘Thracia’s gold stores are well and truly secured behind the walled cities,’ he concluded, tapping similar gold dots at Adrianople and Athenae.

‘You offer me nothing I do not already know,’ Farnobius sighed.

Humbert offered a weak smile and pointed to one of the scrolls he had unfurled. ‘No, there is more. This message describes the situation to the west, beyond Thracia — in the Dioceses of Dacia and Pannonia and all the provinces encompassed by those lands.’

Farnobius frowned, looking over the foreign writing on the scroll and then to the area west of Thracia. Many of the cities here and all the way to the waters of the Mare Adriaticum were dotted with gold. ‘More gold hidden behind well-manned walls?’ he said, exasperated.

Humbert shook his head, his grin growing as he traced a section of the writing. ‘Unlike here, the garrisons of the western cities are weak, some even non-existent. The western legions are concentrated elsewhere.’

A shiver of excitement ran up Farnobius’ spine. Glory, riches, a kingdom that can be carved out in my name.

But the echoing voice of Vitheric was quick to counter; A kingdom of glory built upon the rotting foundations of a small, trusting boy’s corpse.

His head twitched again and he issued a low growl as his eyes traced back over the map, seeking out the route from Thracia to those western lands. His efforts were foiled by the etchings of mountains forming a wall between east and west, then his gaze snagged on the one winding valley passage that cut through these heights. Under it was scrawled a faded name. The Succi Pass. At its narrowest point was a tiny drawing of what looked like some minor stone fortification. Here was inscribed the text Trajan’s Gate. Nothing else was marked on the map. No other barriers apart from this one. His thin smile returned in earnest.

He swung round to his watching horde, holding the scroll aloft. ‘Today, we have seized a great treasure. A map that will take us to the gold stores of the West. A land barely defended. A land that can be ours. Tomorrow, we set off to the West, to Trajan’s Gate and the spoils that await us beyond!’

Muted chatter broke out. For a moment, he doubted whether they would accept this: a scroll when they had been promised tangible bounty. Then the chatter spilled into a refrain of cheering. The chant started then, and he basked in the glorious clamour.

‘Far-no-bi-us, Far-no-bi-us, Far-no-bi-us!’

He thought nothing of the dogs, Alatheus and Saphrax. He heard nothing from the persistent shade of the boy-king whose life he had taken in the shallows of the Danubius. The moment was his. The day was his. Then something moved in the corner of his eye to spoil it. A lone figure was scrambling down the mountainside, behind his horde. It was a Roman in a red military tunic, his skin and hair blackened with dirt and smoke. Farnobius silently beckoned the nearest of his foot archers. The Goth handed him a self-bow and an arrow. Farnobius nocked, winked and drew to his cheek, then loosed. The arrow sailed through the air and punched into the dirt where the Roman had been standing just a moment ago. Now the cur was in flight, rushing and vaulting onto a riderless horse — a piebald mare. A moment later, the Roman had heeled the beast into a gallop, haring north-west.

Might your kingdom of glory be toppled by just one rider? Vitheric asked. Mine was stolen from me by the strangling hands of just one man. .

Farnobius gazed into the ether, lost in the truth of the words.

A Hun rider trotted over beside him. The stench of the man gave him away and shook Farnobius from his trance. It was Veda the scout, the one who had found the secret path around the Shipka Pass. The rat-faced rider wore a wolf-skin on his head like a crown, the fangs marking his forehead and the pelt hanging down his back. His keen eyes followed the Roman rider’s path. ‘Shall I kill him?’ Veda asked, nocking his bow.

Farnobius’ brow knitted. The escaping dog might have heard of his planned route west. Should word reach those lands, his rapine might not be as smooth as he had hoped. ‘Do it.’

Veda’s asymmetric compound bow stretched, then relaxed again, the arrow unloosed.

‘What are you doing?’ Farnobius growled.

‘He is too far away, Master. It would be a waste of an arrow. But I can hunt him, if you wish? Just as my people hunt antelope on the steppe.’

Farnobius’ chest prickled. He grabbed Veda’s collar and hauled the rodent-faced man closer. ‘Catch him, kill him. . ’ he growled, his smashed nose wrinkling and his head twitching violently, then eyed the Hun’s wolf pelt. ‘. . and bring me his skin!’