The Scourge of Thracia

Chapter 18

The first day of November saw winter truly grip the land and brought Gallus and Dexion to a skeletal elm forest, bejewelled with icicles. Gallus’ cloak, helm and dark eyebrows were shrouded in frost, much like Dexion and the silent, deathly-still woods around them. Nothing was to be heard but the monotonous crunch-crunch of their boots on the icy carpet, muffled and muted by the veil of white all around. In the two days of trekking since leaving the cove by the waterfall, there had been no further clashes with the Quadi, both men now adept at melting into the icy glades or lying flat in the undergrowth at the sound of hooves or boots on the nearby road. At first, Gallus had hoped one of these passing patrols might be Roman — tasked with dispersing the belligerent tribesmen. Soon though, he realised that he and Dexion were most probably the only legionaries in the field in this stretch of Pannonia. A spark of hope was needed. The sight of a single Cursus Publicus rider would be enough, proof that the artery of communication between east and west had been reopened. But there was nothing of that sort. Nothing but cold, still, freezing wastes ahead.

Wordlessly, Dexion offered him a piece of salted mutton. He took it and chewed upon it without thought, the salty texture of the meat adding strength to his stride, partially thawing his frozen jaw and bringing moisture to his mouth. Their meagre rations were growing thin. Indeed, he had not bargained on such a long stint without some refuge in a Roman town or village where they could top-up their supplies and take shelter.

When Dexion’s footsteps halted, Gallus blinked, as if shaken from the trance of the march. ‘Primus Pilus?’ he said, slowing.

Dexion’s eyes were lost, darting, one hand cupped to his ear. ‘Can you hear it?’

Gallus frowned, coming to a halt. Without the crunch of the march, the muted sounds of nature came through: the occasional flapping of wings or disturbed branches, the hiss of falling frost or the scampering of a winter hare. Then he heard it: the gentle babble of a river.

‘The Danubius?’ Gallus said at a whisper, waving Dexion with him towards the sound. It was coming from a thick bank of fog, up ahead. He traced the nearby Via Militaris, seeing how it slipped into the wall of mist. If it truly was the river they could hear, then this was where the great road ended, and that was where the fortress-city of Singidunum lay also. Legionary contact. Riders to take them on to Emperor Gratian. Reinforcements to send back to Trajan’s Gate. Our quest is over, he realised.

‘Porridge,’ Dexion said.

Gallus cocked an eyebrow at the odd outburst.

‘In the first barracks or imperial settlement we come to. Grey, tasteless, foul, wheat porridge,’ Dexion expanded. ‘Just so long as it’s hot. And a fire, a roaring fire. Then onwards, to take word to Gratian and maybe we can send men back to Trajan’s Gate. If it is not too late. . ’

Gallus noticed the dark frown that came over his primus pilus’ face. In the mechanical slog of the march and in focusing on little other than survival and the promise of vengeance, he had almost forgotten about this man’s hopes and fears. ‘Pavo and the others will hold that pass,’ he reassured him as they crept through the woods, the river ever closer.

Dexion nodded in silence, as if longing to believe those words. Then the pair fell silent as they entered the bank of freezing fog. Every sound was muted and distorted now. Icy droplets gathered on their faces, soaking and chilling them. He combed the grey, eager to see what he knew must be there. Imperial banners, familiar accents, hope. The dull roar of the river grew and grew and then at last Gallus did spot the ghostly outline of high walls up ahead. He made to hasten forward, only for Dexion to slap an arm across his chest, halting him.

‘Primus Pilus?’ Gallus growled.

But Dexion’s suddenly pallid face and the hand cupped to his ear was answer enough.

Gallus heard it too now: the jagged twang of Germanic voices, shouting gaily through the fog. The chill mist crept across the flesh on his neck as he saw Singidunum’s walls drift in and out of view as the fog bank moved. ‘The Quadi besiege the fortress?’ he whispered to Dexion.

Dexion shook his head, pointing to the battlements. There, dull outlines of men moved like wraiths. They carried axes, resting on their shoulders, and locks of long, billowing or braided hair. ‘The Quadi have taken the fortress!’

They stumbled back into the treeline. Gallus motioned for them to move west, past the fortress-city’s walls and so they picked a little further through the undergrowth, they came to the edge of the Via Militaris just beyond Singidunum where the road’s final stretches ran along the River Danubius’ southern banks. Here, they crept forward, ducking down in the ferns by the roadside, and beheld the extent of the Quadi forces. To their right, the fortress of Singidunum and the dock beneath the city walls were crawling with them. To their left, the westerly road was blockaded by a line of them standing guard, and out in the River Danubius was a small sandbank island, blanketed in fog. The murky outline of a small quadriburgium fortress stood on the apex of this island — a square enclosure with four projecting corner towers — and the Germanic voices echoed over there too.

‘Sir,’ Dexion panted. ‘How in Hades can we go west from here?’

‘We cannot, Primus Pilus. But by Mithras, we will.’

When night fell across the Upper Danubius, it brought still more of the thick fog and a deathly cold with it. Gallus blew into his hands and wished he could return some feeling to his legs too. They had been crouched like this for hours by the side of the Via Militaris, waiting and watching the goings-on at the road blockade, at Singidunum and at the small fort on the river island.

‘That boat is our only chance of breaking to the west,’ Dexion insisted, nodding to the sandbank island and the small fishing boat resting on its shores. ‘We can’t charge the sentries on the westerly road,’ he said, flicking a finger to the cluster of thirty or so fair-haired and bearded Quadi posted there, resting on their spears, axes slung over shoulders and torsos wrapped in furs. ‘And Singidunum’s walls and docks are too well guarded for us to seize a vessel from there,’ he continued, his eyes drifting across the conquered fortress’s walls, eyeing jealously the fine biremes within the harbour.

In between drifting fog clouds, Gallus examined the beached vessel on the sandbank island. Small yet sleek, oars lying inside — a craft designed for rowing upstream. Upstream and to the west. The fog might well screen such a move. ‘There is a small matter of getting across there, Primus Pilus. Have you ever tried to swim the Danubius? She is a savage waterway.’

Dexion’s shoulders slumped a little as if on the cusp of accepting defeat, then his head shot up, eyes locking onto something. ‘We don’t need to swim,’ he hissed, pointing to a jagged shape snagged in the shallows just upstream, in between their hiding place amongst the ferns and the road blockade. ‘A raft?’

‘The remains of some craft, I’d say,’ Dexion mused. ‘But enough to see us over to the island and onto that fishing boat.’

Gallus looked to Dexion askance. ‘I see that a proclivity for unbalanced plans runs in the family blood?’

‘Aye, there is much that Pavo and I have in common,’ Dexion chuckled.

‘You’re right, we have to try,’ Gallus said, sliding off his mail vest and helm, tucking them into his leather bag, then he crumbled some frozen earth in his hands and smeared it across his face, gesturing for Dexion to follow suit. ‘Are you ready?’

The firm words seemed to stir Dexion from his thoughts. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, his face soon little more than white eyes and teeth, his plumed helm tucked away in his own bag.

They watched as the thirty Quadi on the westerly road bantered amongst themselves confidently — complacently, even. The men on the walls of Singidunum were more diligent, however, each of them scouring the land whenever the fog thinned in patches.

Gallus waited until the freezing mist clouded and thickened, passing between them and the walls. ‘Now,’ he hissed when the last sentry up there became obscured in the fog. The pair darted like hares, the ferns shaking in their wake. The Via Militaris seemed to be a thousand paces wide, Gallus thought as he hurried across it, certain the sentries on the westerly road would spot him. But he reached the northern edge of the road and skidded down the embankment to the shallows of the Danubius, grabbing at reeds to slow his descent as best he could. He came to a halt, shin-deep in water, panting. Dexion slid down beside him. The pair waited anxiously, listening. The jagged babble of the sentries on the road seemed different; disturbed, more alert.

‘They saw us, or heard us?’ Dexion whispered, his eyes widening.

Gallus pushed a finger across his lips, pointing up with his other hand. Up there, on the roadside, footsteps crunched past. A few uncertain challenges were barked out in the Quadi tongue. Gallus and Dexion pressed their backs to the Danubius’ banking as tightly as they could, but when Gallus glanced up, he saw that a Quadi warrior had stepped forward from the sentry position to investigate the noise, only feet above them. At once, he recognised him — Birgir, the leader of the band that had almost had them at the waterfall. This flame-haired, deathly-pale, flat-faced warrior wore a bronze helm, that distinctive horn-plated vest and that lethal sica on his back. He looked around the road, then twisted as if to look down the banking into the shallows.

Gallus’ teeth clenched. His hand shot for his spatha hilt and Dexion’s his.

Birgir froze, his hunter’s instinct sharpening his vision and hearing — he could even taste the myriad flavours in the air. Something wasn’t right, something was here, he realised, swinging round to the road’s edge. Something was in the shallows. .

Suddenly, from the reeds down there, a rabbit shot up the banking and across the road. The big warrior’s gaze snagged on its flight then, in one motion, he drew the sica from his back and hurled it. With a wet clunk, the blade halved the rabbit. Birgir grinned, stooping to pick up his prize and dangle it at his watching comrades.

‘We were told to fear the legions, but it seems the Romans send rabbits to admonish us!’

As the rest of the Quadi sentries erupted in laughter, a fresh, even thicker bank of fog drifted over the road, obscuring them for a moment. Birgir grinned as he thought of the fine meal this creature would make. Then he froze again. The hunter’s ear. A faint crackling of reeds. He swung back to the fog-obscured banking and shallows; something was moving down there again.

He silently stooped to put the rabbit corpse on the road then drew his sica again without a sound, bringing it round, ready to strike. The fog thinned. His back and shoulders tensed, the blade ready to fall. But there was nothing. . just a patch of reeds. Birgir stalked away, irked that his instinct had betrayed him.

The current on the Danubius was gentle as they pushed away from the shallows. The makeshift raft — the side of some broken imperial supply cart by the looks of it — drifted silently downstream, water lapping over the surface, thick mist all around. Gallus and Dexion lay belly-down on it, hands in the water in an attempt to steer the raft towards the sandbank island with the distinct disadvantage of being unable to see their destination. The improvised craft seemed to be pulling towards the centre of the river. If they steered too severely, they would slip past the island on this nearside then return to the shallows right by Singidunum’s dock. If they steered too little, they would be drawn out past the sandbank island and into the foaming, churning currents in the centre of the great river.

‘Gently — bring us back in a fraction,’ Gallus whispered to Dexion as they guided the craft. He heard his primus pilus’ teeth chatter as the icy river water took its toll. ‘That’s it. . no more!’ he said, seeing the tip of the sandbank island materialise in the fog. ‘Up,’ he added, carefully shuffling up into a crouch and helping Dexion to do the same. They both stared at the fishing craft on the sandy edge of the island. Should the heavy fog remain, they might be upon it and off upriver in moments. He glanced down to gauge the depth of the water, ready to step out from the raft, when he froze.

‘Mithras, no!’ Dexion gasped.

The fog receded to unveil a line of twelve wraith-like figures on the sandbank before them. The thunder of the Danubius’ current fell away, and Gallus heard nothing but the creaking of drawn Quadi bows, trained on them.

Just behind, they saw two white elm trees some six paces apart. From the upper branches, something dangled. Something that did not make any sense. A mutilated mass of flesh. Gallus stared at it until he recognised it as a shard of a corpse — a leg, one side of a torso, a single arm and a head hanging by a rope tied to the ankle of the leg. The body was riven from groin to shoulder, tendrils, shredded ribs and guts dangling from the massive wound where the rest of the body had been ripped away. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the other half of the corpse, hanging from the opposite treetop by the other ankle, a rag of legionary tunic still clinging to the flesh. Then the workings of the vile execution mechanism became starkly obvious when he saw the lost bark on the trees, where the tips of each had been bent down to ground level then released to tear this poor soul apart.

The Quadi bows creaked, drawn a little more taut. Gallus dropped his swordbelt to the sand, and Dexion followed suit.