The Scourge of Thracia

Chapter 16

Gallus felt every fibre of his being screaming, straining, and longing to take a deep, cool lungful of air after their fraught dash for the last three miles.

Breathe!

But the slightest noise would be the death of them. He locked eyes with Dexion, pressed up against the frosty limestone ridge beside him with his white-plumed helm clutched to his heaving chest, then cast a glance down the line of six surviving but horseless equites hidden likewise. Concealed behind this ancient shard of rock, jutting from the land on the Via Militaris’ southern edge, they were but paces from the motley band of warriors standing on the highway. Gallus risked edging just a few inches to his right, enough to snatch a glance around the limestone rock. The deathly-pale, flat-faced, blue-eyed and red-haired Quadi leader wore a white, horn-plate vest, the segments of horn jutting like the feathers of an angered bird, and a bear pelt over his shoulders. This one and his band had pursued them all morning. Now he stood clutching a wickedly curved sica blade with the other hand in the air, one finger raised as if to orchestrate the utter silence of his sixty followers. They were bare-armed, shoulders and torsos wrapped in pelts and hardened hides and they each carried shield, axe, sword or spear and some wore bronze helmets. The leader’s cool gaze swept around the dark pine forest hugging the Via Militaris, and darted at every distant snapping twig or flurry of flapping wings within. At this hour — mid-afternoon — the light would betray the slightest movement.

‘Birgir,’ one of the Quadi whispered to the red-haired leader. ‘They are not here.’

Birgir thrust a flat palm at the warrior. ‘Oh, they are here. . ’

Gallus stifled a curse, knowing they could do nothing but remain frozen and hope to remain unseen. How has it come to this? He mouthed. After seven days of riding without incident, they had been camped that morning, horses tethered by a stream, when a volley of arrows from the trees had downed two of the beasts and caused the others to bolt in panic. A frantic scramble had followed as they fled along the road on foot, pursued by this band. Only a hill had left them unsighted long enough to slip out of sight behind this rock. But this Quadi leader had scented Roman heads as his prize, and was in no mood to let them slip from his grasp, it seemed.

A scraping of mail on rock sounded from one of the equites. Gallus saw Birgir’s head switch round to the limestone shard like a preying bird, and ducked back just in time. He saw the offending eques had sunk to his knees, overcome with weariness and starved of the breath his lungs craved. From the road, the slow, steady beat of approaching footsteps sounded. Dexion and Gallus shared a fraught glance. The footsteps changed to the crunch-crunch of boots on fallen leaves. Closer and closer, until only paces away. Gallus flexed his hand on his spatha hilt. Maybe if they could take down the leader they might have a chance. No, he affirmed, sixty men against himself, Dexion and these six he barely knew — it would be folly to die for such odds, and a slight on the name of those he sought vengeance for. He relinquished his grip on the sword, then stooped and hefted a small rock in his hand and tossed it up and over the limestone shard. The footsteps crunched ever closer, until they seemed to be just a pace away from rounding the limestone shard. Gallus’ hand returned to his spatha.

Then the clatter and crunch of the landing rock sounded, somewhere deep in the trees on the far side of the Via Militaris. A flurry of muted gasps and curses sounded from the waiting Quadi warriors on the road. The approaching footsteps ceased, then hurried away to the opposite roadside. In the racket that followed — spears being levelled and clacking into place at the edge of Quadi shields — Gallus sucked in the air his lungs demanded, then wasted not a heartbeat before waving his men away from their hiding place and off into the pine forest. The noise of their escape was concealed by the Quadi din and their focus on the northern side of the road. Gallus shot glances over his shoulder as they ran deeper into the dark forest. The light from the roadside was falling away. They were surely far enough away now — the Quadi cur and his men had lost the scent.

He was in the act of lifting his hand, readying to give his men the signal to slow, when an inhuman howl from the roadside sent a wave of dread across his flesh. He staggered to a halt, peering back at the pool of light and the roadside.

Dexion panted, his eyes widening as he saw it too.

Another Quadi tribesman had joined the others. This one had with him two whining, snarling, black mastiffs tethered on a length of rope. These hounds were in torment, straining at the leash, baying and yowling, desperate to be let loose into the southern forest. Gallus heard Birgir’s hoarse reprimand to the dog-man, then heard the man implore his leader, pointing into the southern forest whenever he could spare a hand. Gallus felt the hounds’ eyes pin him, then, when Birgir at last heeded his tracker and turned to look, he felt his blood run cold. The red-headed warrior’s brow dipped, his eyes piercing the gloom and raking over Gallus and his men. He raised his sica and pointed it into the woods, then uttered a rasping cry to his men.

In a flurry of motion, the Quadi spilled into the woods with a thunder of battle cries. The mastiffs were unleashed and their unrestrained howls seemed to sweep out and around Gallus and his thin band of men. They were coming at haste, spreading out like an eagle’s talons, readying to grasp their prey.

‘Run,’ Gallus growled. ‘Run!’

At once, they were loping across the bracken-floor, ducking under branches, charging through ferns and leaping over obstinate, knotted tree-roots. A hissing split the air and an arrow thwacked into the pine trunk by Gallus’ right, showering him with bark. Another hiss, this time met with the wet punch of flesh and an eques’ cry. Then another — the fleeing eques ahead of him toppling, clutching in vain at the arrow that had lodged in the back of his neck. His cries of agony were accompanied by gouts of blood from his nose and mouth. Another arrow glanced from Dexion’s helmet with an iron zing.

‘They’re drawing closer!’ Dexion bellowed.

Gallus heard the panting of the pursuing warriors clearly now. . and then the animal growling of a dog racing for him. He swung round just as the black mastiff launched itself at him. A swipe of his shield was just enough to throw the dog back, but the weight of the beast knocked him from his stride and sent him sprawling on the forest floor.

As he rolled round to right himself, he saw a trailing eques fall, screaming as the other mastiff snarled and gnawed on his leg, tearing a strip of flesh from the bone. A moment later and a Quadi spear to the heart ended the man’s torment. Dexion hauled Gallus to his feet yanking him away from another hurled spear. They tumbled on, The Quadi now hurling insults after them, growling and shrieking like demons.

‘We’re dead!’ Dexion gasped.

Gallus heard his primus pilus’ words, but only as a dull and distant echo. This was no place to die, not while justice evaded him. Then he heard something else, up ahead through the ever thickening trees: a dull, constant roar. Yet all he could see was the dark mesh of branches. His mind conjured up all sorts of visions of another Quadi warband waiting somewhere up ahead — the final phase of a well worked trap? Anger drove him on now. Whatever waited on him up there would feel the edge of his spatha. He would not die meekly. He urged Dexion and the three panting equites onwards. ‘Faster, faster!’

His cries ended abruptly when the mesh of branches ended and he burst into some sort of clearing. Bright, winter sunlight almost blinded him, but not before he skidded to a halt on the edge of a rocky precipice. He swayed, arms extended for balance, gawping down into a deep ravine. The roar of a waterfall at one end was deafening, its foaming white torrents toppling into the ravine, sending up a thick spray that caught the light and conjured brightly-coloured haloes, filling the base of the chasm with a fast-flowing watercourse that swirled and splashed around a series of jagged rocks. The youngest of the equites slid as he tried to halt himself, and that simple slip sent him flailing over the edge. Gallus and Dexion each shot out a hand to catch him, but both were too late. His cries filled the gorge as he fell, then a thick cracking of bones on one of the jutting rocks ended them flatly.

Gallus looked from the ravine to the trees behind him, the mist from the waterfall soaking him. From the treeline, the footsteps of the Quadi grew louder and louder. He, Dexion and the last two equites riders pushed up, back to back, Dexion’s white plume and Gallus’ black plume whipping in the spray.

A moment later, Birgir burst from the trees, sica hefted overhead as he leapt. Gallus swung his spatha up to cut across the man’s armoured chest, but this only shaved off a handful of the horn plates. Then he pulled his blade back to parry Birgir’s strike, but this only succeeded in deflecting the strike into the collarbone of the eques by his side, the edge plunging deep into the man’s chest cavity and ruining his heart and lungs. The eques crumpled as black blood spouted from the wound. Birgir let his sica fall with the stricken legionary then swept his longsword from his baldric, bringing it round for Gallus’ neck as the rest of his warriors burst into view, spears and swords ready to strike.

Gallus brought up his shield just in time to catch Birgir’s longsword blow, and felt the strike rupture the shield badly, splinters stinging his face and the shield handle breaking free of the rest. He threw down the useless guard and parried Birgir’s next blow with his spatha. A moment later, the last of the equites went down, slashed across the belly by a longsword. Gallus staggered back towards the precipice with Dexion as Birgir lined up to swipe across both of them, while the others took aim with their spears. This maw of steel came for him in a silvery flash, and he barely felt Dexion’s forearm slap across his chest and haul him back.

‘Jump!’ the primus pilus bellowed.

Gallus felt his boots kicking out, scraping at the edge of the precipice, then sensed a moment of utter weightlessness. For just a heartbeat, he was hovering there, above the void, Dexion’s bold cry of defiance ringing in his ears, the coloured haloes expanding and shrinking in the spray all around him, Birgir glowering from the cliff-edge, fiery locks whipping across his face, mouth wide in a cry of fury as he saw his prize slipping away. Then, as if time itself raced to catch them, they plummeted into the ravine like a ball of steel. The roar of the water intensified, the spray thickened and Gallus saw the world above shrink in an instant. So the rocks below would be his resting place, he realised, and closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

When it came, it was like the kick of a mule. It knocked everything from him.

Blackness.

Olivia crouched beside him, like a Capsarius would by a wounded soldier on the battlefield. He dared not blink lest it dispelled her image into the swirling, misting ether that surrounded them. Her fawn skin, her dark, sleek locks and her almond eyes were all he wanted to behold. Now and forever. Suddenly, the patter of lighter footsteps sounded, and little Marcus came to his mother’s side, clutching her, his eyes wide with fright for but a moment as he stared at Gallus.

‘Father?’the boy said.

Gallus’ heart broke at the sound. He reached up to stroke the boy’s face. ‘Is this real?’

Olivia leaned over to kiss Gallus’ brow. ‘Only you know the answer to that.’

‘Then I will stay here in search of the answer.’

But Olivia shook her head. ‘You have chosen a road that will bring you here in good time,’ she said, her voice laced with sorrow, ‘but your journey is not yet complete.’

‘No, I welcome this as the end of my journey,’ Gallus protested.

Olivia smiled a mournful smile. ‘You forget just how well I know you. Just as the sun marches across the sky and does not stop before it reaches the western horizon, neither will you yield before you stand before those you seek.’

He clasped her hands. ‘But I will come to you in the end?’

She hugged Marcus closer, then wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘Aye.’

Gallus saw how she looked up and around, her eyes fearful as if knowing what lay behind the mist. He wanted nothing more than to hold them both at that moment, to assuage their fears, to protect them as he should have done. But the mist thickened, coiling around them like tentacles. ‘No,’ he said, his voice weak and distant as he reached out for them. But as his arms stretched, they grew distant, fading into the fog.

No. . no! he cried out.

The mist faded and instead he saw just rising coils of smoke, heard the crackling of a fire. The memories of Olivia and Marcus’ bodies on the pyre came for him like wraiths.

No!

‘Sir!’ A voice cut through the gloom. The veil of blackness fell away and at once he was surrounded by dazzling orange flame and wracked with pain. He realised he was lying prone and shot to sitting, erupting in a fit of rasping coughing. His lungs felt as if they were on fire and white-hot pain lanced through battered ribs. He blinked and shielded his eyes from the fire.

‘Do not try to stand, sir,’ the voice spoke again.

‘Dexion?’ he croaked, seeing the primus pilus, face smeared with dirt and sweat, crouching by his side and hugging a blanket to his shoulders. Only now his surroundings became apparent. The all-surrounding fire was but a small campfire crackling away beside him within a ring of stones, sporting a silvery eel on a spit and some soggy hardtack toasting on twigs. They were sheltered in a cove by the side of a calm brook, and the firelight and a clear, starry night illuminated the outline of the craggy ravine high upstream. On the other side of the stream and hugging the edges of the cove was the ubiquitous, thick pine forest. Gallus saw his outer clothes and Dexion’s resting atop a frame of twigs near the fire. Memories of the plummet into the ravine rushed back to him.

‘How long have I been unconscious?’ he asked, alarm overcoming him as he noticed the absence of his swordbelt.

‘Since yesterday,’ Dexion replied, throwing down the scabbard and belt. ‘And it will be a few days at least before you can wield that again, or wear your armour,’ he said, nodding to the neat pile of Gallus’ mail shirt and helm inside the cove.

‘A whole day has passed?’ Gallus frowned. A fiery pain flared in his side again and he touched a hand to his aching ribs.

‘They are not broken, just bruised. I checked,’ Dexion said. ‘The fall nearly knocked me unconscious too but, er. . ’ his face grew somewhat ashen, ‘. . you sort of broke my fall.’

Gallus snorted dryly at this, then winced, clutching a hand to his wounds, before drawing his swordbelt closer and looking askance at the fire — a beacon in lands like these. ‘But the Quadi, they are hunters, they must know to look downriver for us?’

Dexion shook his head. ‘They are gone. I trekked back up the side of the ravine — keeping myself out of sight, of course,’ he said, gesturing to his dirt-smeared features. ‘I heard them arguing before that cur, Birgir, ordered them to abandon the search. We’re alone out here.’

Gallus cocked an eyebrow. ‘Alone, apart from the many other brigands and barbarians who seem to be roaming these lands with impunity.’

Dexion sighed and sat beside Gallus and handed him a water skin. ‘Geridus had a point — this stretch of the highway is no more under imperial control than the distant frozen northlands.’

Gallus took a long and welcome pull on the water skin. The cool brook water seemed to soothe his fiery airways and calm his groaning belly. ‘It is worse than the Comes described. What else was there to protect those travelling the Via Militaris but the fire-blackened watchtowers and empty forts we passed on our ride? And it is thought to be like this all the way to Singidunum in Pannonia. . what chance do we stand of making it to. . ’ he stopped, looking to Dexion. ‘You know we are not turning back, don’t you?’

Dexion shrugged, lifting a twig from the fire and taking a piece of toasted hardtack from the end. ‘I suspected you might say that. And why should we? To return without having passed word to Emperor Gratian, eight men lighter. . that would serve nobody. In any case, we are more than half way into the troubled stretch — closer to the upper Danubius than to Trajan’s Gate. To go back might be more dangerous than to proceed. And I promised Pavo we would return safely.’

Gallus accepted a chunk of the toasted hardtack and chewed upon it, nodding in appreciation. ‘Then our thinking is attuned. Though now we are on foot, and I fear the journey will be grim in either direction.’

Dexion’s tawny-gold eyes glazed over and the firelight danced in them. ‘So be it.’

As Dexion tended to the eel, turning it in the flames, Gallus’ mind flitted with thoughts. This journey was his and his alone. At the end of the journey waited his prize: vengeance. . and then? Were he to be struck down having meted justice then Olivia’s words would prove true; eternity in that foggy netherworld would be his reward. But did Dexion deserve to be tangled in this deadly quest? Yet what can I do — continue on alone and send this man back through the treacherous route we have just endured, alone? he reasoned.

Gallus closed his eyes and saw the grey, marching ranks in the blackness of his mind. The shades that would never leave him. How many hundreds, thousands, now? I’m sorry, he mouthed, resting his forehead in his palms, imagining the eight brave equites joining the endless procession, trying as best he could to fend off the forming image of Dexion along with them.

‘Those riders died on the edge of Quadi blades,’ Dexion said.

Gallus looked up, somewhat shocked that the primus pilus had read his thoughts. But he saw that Dexion was absently carving the meat from the eel, his gaze distant and their deliberations having coincided.

‘As would we had you not tossed us from that precipice,’ Gallus added. ‘It takes a brave man to do what you did. You saw what happened to the rider who fell and landed on the rocks, didn’t you?’

‘Aye, I will not forget either,’ Dexion said, handing him a thick cut of eel flesh. ‘But at that moment, I had two choices: die meekly and have my head taken to some Quadi chieftain’s hall to be displayed like a trophy. . or jump. Jump and probably be dashed on the rocks, but maybe, just maybe, to land in the water and not drown or crack my head on the bed of the ravine.’

Gallus nodded, chewing on the eel meat — tough but instantly innervating.

‘In the end, that sliver of possibility won. We’re alive. Those men did not die in vain, for we might still achieve the two things you set out to,’ Dexion continued.

Gallus stopped chewing, a sense of guilt and selfishness overcoming him. Vengeance? Justice?

‘To take word to the Western Emperor and see Thracia relieved by Gratian’s armies. . and to return to the XI Claudia and to my brother. The last one may well be selfish, I know, but-’

‘Pavo has endured a troubled life,’ Gallus said. The words were instinctive and surprised him. ‘There is nothing selfish in wanting to be near to and protect those you love.’ He felt his ravenous appetite wane after only a few mouthfuls of meat, and took to swigging water instead. At that moment, he longed to be back in the misty netherworld, with them in his arms.

The fire crackled and they said nothing.

‘Will you return to Olivia’s side, sir?’ Dexion said at last.

Gallus switched his gaze upon Dexion like a brand. ‘What did you say?’

Dexion’s face paled. ‘I. . your wife? You spoke her name in your sleep, over and over. I assume she is the one you would want to protect, to be beside?’

‘Then you must have heard incorrectly, Primus Pilus,’ Gallus snapped, tossed the remaining scrap of eel meat into the flames then pushed himself to his feet. His body was riven with spasms of pain and at once he wanted nothing more than to crumple back to the earth, but Dexion’s words taunted him.

I assume she is the one you would want to protect, to be beside?

‘Sir, I didn’t mean to overstep the mark,’ Dexion pleaded.

‘Tomorrow will be a hard march, but my wounds won’t slow me,’ Gallus said, gazing around the night sky, then unhooking his now-dry and smoky-scented cloak from the fireside and sweeping it around his shoulders like a blanket. ‘It would be prudent to get as much rest as we can before then.’

He uncorked his water skin and emptied the contents over the fire. With a hiss, the flames were doused, the gentle orange light was extinguished and the cove fell into blackness.

They rose at dawn the next day to find the cove dusted with a thick frost. Pools near the brook were frozen and the air had a fierce bite to it. After a light breakfast of hardtack and salted meat and very little conversation, they set off and stayed clear of the Via Militaris — instead moving along the forested lands hugging its southern edge. In here at least they were as veiled as any other cur hiding in the undergrowth in this troubled territory. Indeed, they actually observed two more Quadi bands using the Roman road as if it was their own.

‘Geridus talked of Sarmatian riders in these parts — allies, he called them. They seem to be as absent as the legions,’ Dexion mused, more to himself than to Gallus.

Gallus realised it was one of the few things the man had said all day. He felt a prickle of embarrassment on his neck as he realised how much his hasty rebuke the previous evening had cowed the man. As if to add salt to his discomfiture, his bruised ribs flared with pain. ‘They are thought to be in the north, nearer the River Danubius,’ he replied as clearly as he could without sounding snappy. But his primus pilus’ point was a strong one: they had so far tried and failed to rouse reinforcements to despatch back to Trajan’s Gate: most forts they had passed were deserted, ruined, or with only skeleton garrisons. And then there was Sardica. He could not help but emit a low growl as he remembered the fraught and brief exchange with the Governor of that city.

‘Then this place is little more than a Quadi kingdom; a sea of tribesmen with precious few islands of imperial authority,’ Dexion surmised. ‘Much like the situation in Thracia with the Goths.’

‘The Goths number hundreds of thousands. The Quadi are few and will scatter like rats when Gratian brings his army east along this path. They are merely taking advantage of the empire’s plight in other areas: as the armies are drawn to the areas of trouble — in Thracia, Persia or the Rhenus — the regions they leave behind are at the mercy of such banditry. It has always been this way. Believe me, I have seen it often enough.’

They marched on into the afternoon, noting that the clear morning sky was gradually being swallowed by ominous grey clouds. A short while later, the forest thinned and the sky unleashed a ferocious icy deluge upon them. The chill rain soaked them in moments despite the protective canopy of forest, then it turned to sleet, stinging them and numbing their extremities. The wind picked up too, sparring with them like a fist-fighter, denying their efforts to press on. Before the light had faded, both men struggled to control chattering teeth and the sleet grew blinding, driving at them.

‘We need to stop, sir,’ Dexion implored him. Clasping one hand to keep his cloak around him and the other pointing to a sheltered dip in the forest floor — the hole left behind when a giant pine had toppled and brought its roots up with it.

‘We can only be a few days from the Danubius. There, surely, Roman rule will be enforced. There, we will find riders to take word to Emperor Gratian. There, we will find reinforcements that we can send back to Trajan’s Gate. We march until darkness is upon us,’ Gallus snapped. Only as he said this did he notice the light was already slipping away.

‘Sir, tomorrow we can march at pace, but only if we find warmth and shelter for tonight.’ Dexion’s face was drawn and weary, and his eyes seemed to search Gallus. ‘If anything it will hasten our journey and. . ’ his words faltered.

Gallus saw the passing fear on Dexion’s face and felt his stubborn, icy resolve thaw. ‘Aye, wise words, Primus Pilus. Let us gather kindling before the light fails.’