The Scourge of Thracia

Chapter 22

Five days had passed at Trajan’s Gate since the sighting of the Hun scouts. On the first day, Terra Mater made a determined attempt to hinder the legionaries’ last-gasp efforts to bolster the pass, casting upon them a vicious wintry storm. The skies had erupted, pelting the Romans with sleet as they tried to finish their work on the fortifications. By the third day, the temperature had fallen and they had awoken to find the land encrusted with ice and a gentle snow drifting down from the skies in ominous silence. The snow was endless and by the fourth day, the valley was blanketed in white. Today, a stinging, easterly blizzard that alternated between snow, hail and sleet had raged ceaselessly until now, early afternoon. More, thunderbolts streaked across the heavens every so often, casting an odd, eerie light down on the pass. Still, legionaries wrapped in their thickest, warmest garb struggled to and fro up and down the steep southern valley side, carrying timber into the thickets up there. Quadratus’ century was digging at snowdrifts on the Via Militaris and sharing hushed words, one of them jogging eastwards, away from the wall to plant short posts in the ground with coloured ribbons every few hundred paces.

Pavo padded from the fort to crouch on the edge of the northern spur, eyeing their progress while blowing into his numb hands. The snow was falling thicker than ever. ‘Enough of the bloody stuff to hamper our efforts, yet not enough to render the valley impassable,’ he muttered, pulling his thick woollen cloak round to shield himself from the driving blizzard.

‘Aye, but for a moment in the Persian sands,’ Sura said, coming to observe by his side, his eyes like slits as he peered into the storm. His optio’s face was blue and his words somewhat slurred, such was the cold. ‘Though I pity those poor bastards need it more than we do,’ he nodded through the grey of the blizzard, to the lookout posts down at the eastern end of the valley. The basic timber roofs on stilts that had been erected as shelters were now barely humps in the snow.

Pavo spat snow from his lips and looked to the activity on and around the timber wall. He prayed to Mithras that he had followed Geridus’ advice correctly. The old Comes had helped develop his ideas, and had a fair few wiles of his own stored away too.

‘They’ll have time to finish?’ Sura asked.

Pavo shook his head. ‘They can only do what they can. Farnobius will decide when it is time to finish.’

Zosimus stomped through the white to stand with them, his shoulders heaped with snow and his stubbled scalp frosted likewise. ‘Come on, you couple of shirkers,’ he said with a tense laugh, his eyes scanning the whiteout at the eastern end of the pass. ‘Enough of the talking and more of the-’ he stopped, his neck craning, eyes widening, jaw stiffening.

Pavo and Sura looked with him.

Pavo’s heart thundered.

At the eastern end of the valley, Simplex peered from the northern lookout post and into the snow-filled pass and beyond, certain the blizzard was toying with him. All day he had noticed shadows emerging then slinking back into the wall of white. This was another such, surely? He turned to his comrade with the buccina clutched in frozen hands.

‘Give the word, Simplex,’ Quietus said through chattering teeth, behind him.

Simplex looked back, seeing that his comrade’s face was riddled in indecision like a reflection of his own thoughts. ‘I don’t know, I can’t see, I can’t be sure.’

‘Aye,’ the other replied, ‘but then what was it Centurion Zosimus said? Better to be wrong than dead, wasn’t it?’

Simplex took one further look into the driving snow. The blizzard swirled then dropped for a moment. He set eyes upon a flock of hardy and well-camouflaged mountain sheep, ambling across the rugged land east of the valley. ‘Bloody sheep,’ he turned to grin at Quietus. As he did so, something shot past his ear and instantly, his frozen features were splashed with something wet, hot and coppery. Blinking the mess from his eyes, he frowned as he saw Quietus drop the buccina then clutch at something jutting from his throat. A shaft, feathers. Blood pumping from the spot where it was lodged in his windpipe, spotting the snow underfoot red. Quietus dropped to his knees, then slumped onto his side, lifeless, the tip of the arrow shaft jutting from the back of his neck.

Now the snow blossomed with crimson. Simplex had never seen blood in such quantity. He had never seen any combat in his short time in the legions — missing the fall of the Great Northern Camp as he had, much to his eternal shame, fled. Prior to enlisting with the XI Claudia, his greatest act of violence had been to help butcher a lamb for the midwinter feast of Natalis Invicti. His breath came and went in gasps, and it was only when he heard the soft padding of feet from down in the valley that he swung back to the east again. The flock of sheep had dispersed, and the pack of stealthy Gothic archers they had concealed were flooding forward, wrapped in pale grey hides and cloaks. Their arrows punched into the snow all around him. He ducked down behind his fallen comrade, pretending he was dead. As he did so, he saw that Quietus’ buccina was but a pace away. A thought crossed his mind then. He could remain here, unmoving. He might live if he did so, just as he had survived the fall of the Great Northern Camp. A hot tear spilled across his cheek as he realised this was not an option, and he recalled Centurion Pavo’s stirring words in their last few weeks of training.

It’s not about the man, it’s about the legion. You and your brothers are one. If you die to save your brothers, then you live on in their hearts and you will bask in Mithras’ glory.

He reached out and grabbed the buccina, put it to his lips, then sat up and emptied his lungs into it. Once, twice, thrice.

Gothic curses sounded and a shower of arrows thumped into his chest. His vision dimmed and he fell back, blood from one ruined lung leaking into the other. His dying thought helped him to face the blackness.

Fight well, brothers. Live on.

The buccina cry echoed around the pass. All work around Trajan’s Gate ceased. Every man stood tall and stared to the east.

Pavo looked to Zosimus, to Quadratus down in the pass, then finally to Sura.

‘First Cohort, First century. . form up!’ Zosimus cried, sweeping his ham-like hands as if to gather his youthful recruits from their places in the wall-works. They duly dropped the logs they carried, threw down shovels and pick-axes and hurried behind the protection of the timber stockade and then on up the scree path towards the fort plateau.

Quadratus followed this with a cry of his own from down on the valley floor: ‘Third Cohort, First century — to arms!’ The Sardicans hurried through the drifts, snow spraying up in their wake, Rectus and Libo urging them on.

‘Second Cohort, First century,’ Pavo cried, ‘with me!’ He waved Trupo, Cornix and the rest of the younger legionaries with him to the fort. What followed was a flurry of clanking iron, banging heads, curses and snatched breaths. Herenus and his slingers helped to dispense weaponry to the legionaries, whilst the century of sagittarii strapped two and sometimes three quivers to their backs with shaking hands. Men helped their comrades into their mail shirts, buckled on swordbelts and helms, hoisted shields and spears, then filed back out into the blizzard across the fort plateau like an iron stream, snow flicking up from their every footstep. Herenus and his slingers ran only to the edge of the fort spur, where they would have a good sight of whatever enemy was approaching down this valley, and a handful of his men took up position around the two ballistae mounted there. The sagittarii hurried down the scree path from the fort spur first, then raced across the timber wall battlement and formed up on the bulge on the southern valley side. The three centuries of legionaries followed their path, spilling across the walkway of the timber stockade, but remaining on that wooden battlement and turning their shields and spears to the east. A wall topped with Claudian ruby red and sharpened steel. The eagle standard jutted proudest, the bull banner rapping in the icy gale.

‘That’s it, just as we trained for. You know your positions, shields up and together, show them nothing but your speartips and fiery eyes,’ Pavo cried as he took his place to the right of his century — on the centre of the timber wall’s parapet, with Zosimus’ century on his left and Quadratus’ century on his right. Sura barged into position by his side and the pair shared a well-practiced grunt of acknowledgement, shoulders and shields interlocked.

He glanced to his friend, saw the dark look in those usually impish eyes, and recalled Sura’s heartfelt words on their return from Persia.

We won’t die as old men, Pavo.

The pair shoved a little closer together, then peered into the blizzard. The brow of Pavo’s helm shielded his eyes from the stinging snow. For a moment, he gazed down the Succi Valley, and saw only unbroken white. A fork of lightning shuddered across the sky, part-veiled by the roiling blizzard, and its pallid light betrayed nothing. He could hear only the panting and whispered prayers of men and their cloaks rapping in the merciless squall. A false alarm?

Then an inchoate, grey shape took form amidst the wall of white. It came and went like a reluctant shade at first — like the infernal shadow-man from Pavo’s dreams — before spilling into reality, spreading and dominating the width of the valley floor: a mass of warriors marching from the white infinity to the ghostly echoes of cursing men and whinnying warhorses, drifting in and out of earshot over the snowstorm. Then came the crunch-crunch of boots and hooves in snow, and the poor light glinted on the panoply of sharpened, flesh-ripping steel they carried.

With the certainty of a cock crowing at first light, Pavo felt his gut flip over, his mouth drain of moisture and his bladder swell. At least five thousand men, he realised — Taifali riders, Huns and Gothic spearmen — against the five centuries of the XI Claudia. His mind screamed at him, pleaded with him, to turn away, to flee, and to let another force come and be the salvation of this pass. But with a gnash of his teeth, the weakness was gone.

‘By Mithras, there are thousands of them. They’ll cut us apart!’ Trupo stammered, barely heard over the growing Gothic din.

Pavo leapt upon the comment, swatting it away as if it had escaped his own lips. ‘They’ll be lucky to get close enough,’ he snarled.

A chatter of nervous, almost disbelieving laughter spilled from the men of his century at this. And it seemed to scatter the spell of fear from Trupo, who nodded at the rebuke, then adopted a trembling grimace, knuckles white on his spear shaft. And it was the same in each direction Pavo looked: to his right, big Quadratus’ face was bent with the anticipation of battle, and the mad-eyed Libo bore a feral grin almost matched by the lantern-jawed Rectus. To his left, his own century and the hulking Zosimus’ snarled, muttering to themselves, some of their faces tear-streaked, some eyes looking skywards as if for a final blessing. By his side, Sura glowered ahead, lips taut and twitching to betray clenched teeth. ‘The whoreson has dared to face us,’ he said with a growl.

Pavo frowned, then followed Sura’s gaze as the Goths broke out in a cry. An assured, throaty chant.

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

The chant grew fierce as one colossal mounted figure emerged from the grey.

He felt a steely hand pass across his heart at that moment. His brow dipped and he thought only of Felicia. This dog of a reiks would pay. Then his mind flashed with images of the absent Tribunus Gallus. The iron wolf was absent maybe, but also very much by his side — mantras and lessons from his years under Gallus’ tutelage sparked in his thoughts and would serve him well today. He thought of Father and Dexion, imagining them with him too, steadfast, mocking the odds before them. Avitus, Brutus, Felix, Habitus, Noster, Sextus. . the armies of the dead that Gallus had talked of stood with him too. At that moment, he avowed to live through this, to be reunited with Gallus and Dexion again.

As the Goths approached, the timber stockade trembled from the vibrations. He sensed some of the men of his century back away from the edge of the timber stockade, just a half step or so. This brought back flashes of his first ever battle. He wished he could tell them the fear would ease over time, but the truth was that the fear never left, it just became a dark and familiar presence. ‘Pull together!’ he roared. ‘Shoulder to shoulder — not a sliver of a gap between your shields.’ A surge of vigour overcame him. ‘This is your wall, built by your hand. Now stand. . your. . ground!’ he snarled.

He heard Zosimus and Quadratus utter similar commands and felt a surge of elation as the legionaries along the walltop erupted in a surge of noise. Spathas clattered against Roman shields. The buccinas sounded over and over in competition with the Gothic din. The baritone chorus of men with fire in their blood swamped the Gothic commotion for that precious moment, and Pavo was sure that — just for a moment — their advance slowed.

Suddenly, the Roman war-song faded and the Gothic advance did too, coming to a sudden halt just a few hundred paces shy of the pass defences. The valley was eerily quiet with just the blizzard daring to whistle. Then the Gothic ranks rustled and the giant horseman rode through the sea of spearmen, archers and cavalry.

Pavo beheld Farnobius with a flinty glare.

The Reiks took to riding his silver stallion along the Gothic front like an emperor, his savage axe held aloft. His chest bulged like a bull’s and his jaw jutted with hubris, the black trident beard jostling with every stride and the nose Pavo had shattered shuddering like a lightning bolt between his inky-black eyes. He took to rallying his masses with some Gothic homily, and this roused rhythmic cheers from them, each one causing the ground to tremble. It was then that Pavo noticed the giant’s headwear.

‘Hold on, is that-’ Sura started.

‘Barzimeres’ helm. Aye, it is,’ Pavo confirmed.

‘Wonder what happened to the rest of the useless bastard?’ Sura mused.

Farnobius’ sermon ended, then he swung his mount round to face the Roman defences and walked it forward a few paces, snow flicking up with every stride. His grin was devoid of mirth and more like that of a ravenous predator, and half of his face was plastered in snow.

‘Brave Romans, you have come to the sacrifice, I see? It would have been easier to send a herd of lambs.’ His Goths broke out in a raucous laughter at this.

Pavo remained unblinking, the needling rhetoric glancing from him like a wayward arrow from his helm.

‘There are a few hours of light left, but I feel no need for my men to make camp, for this tumbledown stockade of yours will be shattered by dusk.’ He cast a hand to the west. ‘But I am no brute. I understand that every fibre of your being longs to stay far from the ends of our swords. So I offer you these next few moments to run. Go, scatter into the hills like wild sheep. Spare me the trouble of taking your heads.’ He drew his grim axe and deftly flicked it over in his grip, the blade flashing in the poor light.

Not a single legionary moved. But Pavo sensed their spirit being sapped by these words. He heard one set of teeth chattering, and felt the pulsing heartbeats of the others through their pressed-together stance. When a pair of spears were passed forward from the midst of the Gothic ranks, Pavo squinted at the shapeless masses atop them, then recoiled at the grey-blue, staring and lifeless heads fixed on the lances. Governor Urbicus of Trimontium, he realised, seeing the black hair and flashes of grey at the temples of one head. The other, almost black with decay, sported a brown tuft beard hanging below a gawping mouth. Barzimeres, Pavo realised.

‘Well we’re finding out what became of him, piece by piece,’ Sura muttered dryly.

‘What is bravery, courage anyway?’ Farnobius continued, planting the butts of these two spears in the ground and allowing snow to settle on the cold, rotting heads. ‘Is it not what Roman generals talk of while they stand far behind the battle lines drinking wine and gorging on goose livers?’

Still, not a legionary moved, but now Pavo felt their stance change: they were not leaning forward and putting their weight behind the shields as before, but shrinking, pulling back. His brief and fierce homily to the legionaries felt like hours ago. What more could he offer? He glanced to Zosimus and up to Quadratus on the walls. Both men were likewise searching for some riposte. When it came, it was from none of the three centurions.

‘You talk of courage, Goth?’ the voice cried in a throaty burr, then a wineskin hurtled overhead from the fort spur and splashed down on the no-man’s land between the Goths and the timber wall, bursting in a shower of crimson, stark against the snow. ‘Then let me offer you some liquid courage. With Mithras as my witness. . you will need it!’

All heads in the Roman defences switched round to see the tall, broad figure that strode from the spur then down the scree path before emerging onto the timber stockade. Like a guiding father, Geridus strode along the rear of the legionaries lined up there, patting their shoulders firmly, offering whispered words of encouragement. The hulking warrior moved stiffly, but walked without aid. His giant frame was encased in his bronze cuirass and he wore his red-plumed helm, the dust at last cleaned from the fine armour. The garb transformed him, accentuated his huge shoulders, the shade of the helm’s brow adding a fire to his eyes, and the bushy grey beard perfectly framing a scornful half-smile. ‘Stand firm, legionaries,’ Geridus boomed as he came to the centre of the walltop, near Pavo. ‘This defile has never fallen and today it shall be no different. As Master of the Passes, I say it is so and so it shall be.’ Then he beheld Farnobius with the look of an impatient father and flicked one finger at the burst wineskin that lay before the reiks. ‘Drink up, brave Goth.’

One legionary burst out in a nervous chuckle and, moments later, raucous laughter was pouring from the lips of the XI Claudia. In this bitter cold, Pavo felt a spike of warmth, hope, hubris perhaps, but a welcome sensation nonetheless. The manner of it seemed to slap the confidence from Farnobius, who bristled, his head twitching and his lips muttering as if to some unseen companion. He backed away to his lines, axe pointed at Geridus like an accusing finger then flicked to the spiked heads. ‘Your head will be next, old man.’

The siren-song of the blizzard ebbed for a moment as Farnobius wheeled round to face his horde. Pavo felt the men by his side ease their stance just a fraction. ‘Be ready. . this is it!’

Then, the storm whipped up in a frenzy like never before, driving at them, shrieking like a storm of shades, blinding, stinging. As if Farnobius had conjured this wrath, he swung round to face the Romans, his mount rearing up as it turned, his arm swinging his axe forward like a standard and his lungs casting forth a demonic howl. ‘Destroy them!’

The Gothic war horns blared in a frenzy and the horde surged forward, churning through the snow. A sea of jostling infantry led the advance at a jog, carrying tall ladders. A thousand, Pavo reckoned. Enough to swamp the walls. Some four thousand more mad-eyed horsemen cantered behind them: the pack of Huns and swathes of Taifali riders. Enough to send terror rampaging through any man’s veins. But Pavo knew that a cool head was paramount. He saw how the advancing pack of Gothic infantry raced past the short staff wedged in the ground with a red ribbon tied to it, then twisted his head towards Geridus.

‘Red, sir,’ he growled.

Geridus nodded in silence, then flicked a finger to the buccinators. These trumpeters sounded one short, shrill note and immediately the men up on the edge of the fort spur burst into action.

‘Ballistae, loose!’ a call came from up there. A cacophonous bucking of wood and a whoosh sounded. Like a pair of swooping eagles, the ballista bolts shot down upon the Gothic advance and wrought great gashes in their ranks. Men running towards the Roman wall were suddenly cast back at three times the speed, their shields shattered and reduced to kindling, their chests run through by the bolts and their hurled bodies serving to break the limbs and the spirits of those behind, showering all nearby in blood and chunks of flesh. Pavo saw a few slow, their thoughts doubtless pondering the merits of staying back out of the range of the bolt-throwers. Their hesitation was not left to seed, however, as Reiks Farnobius berated them from his safe vantage point behind. ‘Onwards, you dogs!’

Now Geridus’ eyes narrowed as the Goths ran past the staff with the blue ribbon.

‘Blue!’ Zosimus called out.

Geridus nodded to buccinators again. Two notes sounded. This time the slingers on the spur and the archers on the opposite bulge rippled to attention. ‘Loose!’ Herenus howled from the fort spur and the sagittarii centurion echoed from the southern valley side. The creaking of bowstrings and whirring of slings was followed by a flurry of twangs and a chorus of hissing overhead. This storm of missiles rained down on each side of the Gothic advance. Roman arrows quivered in shields or pierced thighs and necks and cast up blood to fleck the blizzard in red. A swathe of spearmen sank to their knees or were punched back from the advance. The shot, however, was even fiercer. Defying the storm, it seemed that not one of the lead spheres missed its target. Goths stumbled as they ran, dark holes appearing in their faces or foreheads where the shot had ripped through them, blood pumping from the wounds and ending the battle for them. Sixty felled, Pavo reckoned. A fine volley, but not nearly enough.

His eyes widened as he saw the Gothic response. Behind the Gothic spearmen, a forest of arms rose, clutching self-bows. Twang. . hiss. The volley was thick, matching the stinging snow in number. ‘Shields!’ he cried in unison with Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura.

The ruby shields of the XI Claudia rippled up even higher, tilted back a fraction. A merciless rattle of iron thumping into wood rang out. The sound of tearing flesh and snatched screams marked out those who had been too slow or had fallen prey to a stray arrow. Pavo glanced along the line, seeing a few gaps appear where his men had been felled: some lay crumpled over the sharpened tips of the wall, others had been punched back from the battlements and lay broken down on the snow behind the stockade. One swayed where he stood, an arrow jutting from his eye socket and a soup of blood and brains pumping from the wound and down his face before he toppled from the line, face-first into the pass.

‘Again,’ the ballistae crewmen roared, sensing the need for a retort. Thrum. . whoosh!

One screaming Goth lost in battle-fury ran ahead of his comrades, only to be silenced as a bolt took him in the face, scattered his head like a ripe watermelon and left his headless body to run on a few steps before it stumbled and fell, convulsing as dark blood spurted from the neck. The bolt flew on, untroubled by this, to rip the arm from another Goth then pin the man behind to the ground. The other bolt hurtled through the groin of a spearman, then that of another and another again behind him. All three screamed, clutching the soaking, bloody mess that remained of their pelvis and genitals, before collapsing, rendered unconscious by the pain.

Another volley of Gothic arrows, another drum of iron on Roman shields, another clutch of precious legionaries down. The thick, unbroken line on the battlements was now peppered with gaps. And, Pavo realised, there were no fresh cohorts held in reserve. Just this jumble of men, freezing, scared. . but together, he affirmed. They were standing firm. The ghosts of the Great Northern Camp and the fraught encounter on the riverbank were being faced.

And Farnobius’ horde were only seventy paces away, Pavo realised, seeing that the Goths were almost at the staff with the rapping green ribbon, readying their ladders to assault the wall. ‘Plumbatae!’ he cried. That’s it, he thought as the three centuries rippled and hoisted their lead-weighted darts, let’s make this look real. ‘Loose!’ he cried.

The Goths thundered onwards, all attention on their shields and avoiding the imminent rain of Roman darts.

That’s it, just a little further. .

‘Hoist the ladders!’ Vulso roared as the Roman plumbata hail thinned and he and his fellow freedmen from the mines loped onwards. His flat nose wrinkled as he squinted ahead. Just fifty or so paces to the wall. Forty. . thirty.

‘There’s hardly any of ‘em,’ Dama, his mean-eyed comrade from the mines roared with glee as he saw the line of legionaries atop the stockade. ‘We’re goin’ to gut ‘em, take their heads. . take their purses.’

‘And that’ll just be the start of it,’ Vulso agreed, his voice trilling as they ran. ‘Think of the riches we’ll have when we break this wa-’

Vulso’s voice seemed to be sucked from his lungs as the world under his feet fell away. He barely had time to scream before the sharpened stake in the shallow pit he had fallen into pierced his groin and burst from his ribs. It was as if his blood had turned to fire. Agony blinded him. All around he heard swiftly muted screams, the thick cracking of bone and the wet splash of bodies being torn apart and innards leaping free. He grabbed at the writhing sensation below his torn ribs, and felt what he thought was some kind of serpent speeding past him, until he realised it was a loop of stinking, steaming blue-grey intestine escaping from his belly.

The flashing white before his eyes faded just a fraction, and as blackness closed in, he saw Dama beside him, eyes rolled up into his skull, the spike he had landed upon having pierced his jaw and burst from the top of his head.

He felt a surge of pain like he had never before known and assumed it was death approaching. But it was not. Pinned here, he would suffer for some time.

Pavo gawped at the advancing Gothic line as they plummeted into the band of snow-covered lilia pits, planted just days ago across the width of the Via Militaris. One moment Farnobius’ infantry had been running forward and the next it was as if some vast, unseen butcher’s blade had swept away their legs and hauled them down. Wet punching sounds of perforated flesh, cracking ribs and cartilage, and the animal screams of broken men filled the pass, and a sudden waft of raw guts swept across the legionaries on the wall. The Gothic advance had come to a sudden and gruesome halt. Men behind the front blundered onwards, unaware, only to stumble or trample over their impaled comrades. Pavo took no delight in the awful scenes, but when he looked up and saw Farnobius, still safely mounted further back, his face twisted into a savage grimace. Come forward, you bastard!

‘Now, lad, now!’ Geridus barked, clasping his shoulders and shaking him from his thoughts.

Pavo set down his spear, snatched up the pole with the golden cloth and swished it from side to side overhead. Three sharp buccina blasts accompanied this signal. Gradually, the chaos around the band of lilia pits ebbed as a thunder filled the air. Pavo’s eyes again pinned Farnobius, revelling in the flash of confusion on the giant’s face. The thunder grew raucous and then, suddenly, from the southern valley side on the Gothic flank, twelve horseless and driverless wagons burst from the skeletal, snow-coated ash woods there and hurtled down the steep sides. Then a pack of blazing arrows shot from the woods, thwacking into the wagons and igniting their resin-soaked timbers. At once they erupted into balls of orange fury. Some wagons toppled and careened onwards, slewing wildly towards the valley floor and sending out offshoots of the blazing timbers they were packed with.

‘Back. . back!’ Farnobius cried, his face uplit in orange as he saw that he was within the jaws of this snare. Pavo leaned from the timber wall, one fist clenched, willing the blazing wagons to crush the cur. But the giant reiks surged clear. Yet the wave of Gothic infantry snared upon and before the band of lilia pits were not so fortunate. The wagons crashed over the stricken, crushing heads and chests and setting light to those nearby. The all-white pass was suddenly a vision of wintry fire, screaming Goths running to and fro, the ladders dropped, shattered or ablaze. The ghostly, riderless wagons finally came to a halt only after the survivors of this first Gothic attack wave took flight, hurrying back up the pass to Farnobius’ side.

Pavo felt the tension ebb and his clenched fist fell limp. His head lolled in failure.

‘It was a fine ruse, lad — an anvil of spikes and a hammer of blazing wagons — one I would have been proud to think of myself,’ Geridus shook him by the shoulders, ‘and we lost only a handful of men. Now get your head up. The day is but young.’

But when Pavo did look up, he noticed the fleeing wave of Goths. Some carried Gothic spears. A few had Gothic features, but the vast majority were darker-skinned. Men of Greece and Macedonia. ‘They’re our men,’ he realised.

‘Brigands, thieves, no doubt,’ Geridus dismissed them with a swipe of his hand. ‘After a pretty coin or two.’

But Pavo saw how the untouched, unused four thousand or so with Farnobius behind the mess of the burning wagons were true warriors. The Germanic Taifali with their tall, powerful mounts and their dark-blue howling wolf shields. The dense pack of Gothic spearmen and the pocket of vicious Huns. ‘We’ve thinned his weakest men and no more.’

‘No, we’ve repelled them,’ Sura interrupted now, ‘look.’

Pavo and all others atop the stockade peered into the driving snow. Just as they had emerged from the snow, now they faded into grey again. Farnobius was waving them back. Away from the pass?

Farnobius’ chest rose and fell as swathes of the beggars he had taken from the mines — taken from the mines, armed and fed — washed past him, clutching wounds, staggering, coming to a halt at the side of his horde. He longed for one of the survivors to dare to flee on past the horde and away from the valley, vowing that he would ride any such down and split their skull.

A frozen waste, aflame and soaked with blood, Vitheric’s weak voice asked, was this the prize you sought when you pressed your hands to my throat and held me under the waters of the Danubius?

He realised his hands were trembling and his head jerked violently.

‘What now, Reiks Farnobius?’ Egil asked, eyeing him gingerly. ‘We could still return to Trimontium. It is unlikely the Romans have taken any measures of control since we left.’

Farnobius’ eyes snapped round on Egil. He wondered if this diffident noble secretly sneered at him behind those steady words. Egil and Humbert had beseeched him to remain in Trimontium over the winter. But they were wrong. Victory had to be taken here today, at any cost. He glowered over the incongruous vision of the pass before him: the heat haze above the black and blazing wagons, the swirling, thick blizzard around it and the brown timber wall beyond that filled the defile and barred the route west. Just a thin band of iron fin-topped helms watched on from that stockade, part hidden behind bright, ruby-red shields.

You have the numbers, but they have the high ground, Vitheric said. So how might a pack of wolves bring down an eagle?

Farnobius’ eyes darted, wondering if any others could hear the dead boy’s voice as clearly as he could. But all around him gazed back at him either blankly or with looks of concern. How might a pack of wolves seek to bring down an eagle? Was the shade of Vitheric toying with him? Farnobius’ chest rose and fell rapidly as panic began to set in. Then it came to him. He looked to Egil and Humbert with a creeping smile.

‘Sometimes, to defeat an eagle, you must shake it from its lofty perch.’

As Egil and Humbert shared a confused glance, Farnobius turned away from them and looked over his horde, seeking out the few who would bring him victory.

Over an hour had passed since the Goths’ retreat back up the pass. The flames of the wagons had now died, leaving a black scar across the snow before the timber stockade. The legionaries remained in position atop the battlements, teeth chattering in the cold, eyes fixed on the ghostly shadows of the storm. Zosimus, Quadratus Geridus, Pavo and Sura had gathered at the middle of the battlements.

‘They’re finished, surely,’ Quadratus insisted, pointing down into the pass where the Goths’ broken and burnt ladders lay near the band of lilia pits. ‘They’re not coming over this wall now.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Pavo countered.

‘Perhaps they’re simply fashioning new ladders?’ Sura mused.

‘No,’ Zosimus said with distrusting eyes, ‘they’re up to something. They want us to wait here, watching the east, freezing, guessing.’

‘It is safest to adopt a position of distrust,’ Geridus agreed. ‘We should stay vigilant.’

Pavo noticed the timber walkway shudder ever so slightly. He frowned, seeing that not a man on the parapet had moved. He was about to dismiss it when he saw a build-up of snow slip from one of the sharpened palisade tips. But there was certainly no thaw underway. Then he felt the shudder again. Suddenly, he remembered Saturninus’ words on that frantic day when the Great Northern Camp had been overrun: The Shipka Pass has fallen. The Hun horsemen came around the impassable mountains and sliced into our rear! His eyes widened as he turned to look over his shoulder, down behind the timber wall where the Roman spears and quivers were stocked. His eyes traced further up the pass and locked onto a swirling current of snow.

‘Turn!’ he cried.

The others with him started at the cry. Pavo heard only their babbling replies as he saw the dark horsemen emerge from the snow and race for the rear of the Roman wall. Nearly one hundred Huns bore feral snarls on their faces and whirled looped ropes like slings above their heads.

Geridus swung round and gasped at the sight of them. ‘What the — how. . no cavalry can ride around this pass! It cannot be!’

‘These are no ordinary horsemen, sir,’ Pavo cried. ‘They can ride rugged hill trails like no othe-’

His words were cut off as the lassos licked out, leaping up to the wall, wrenching unsuspecting legionaries down by the neck. Panic erupted as many of them thought thousands were bearing down on their rear.

‘Slingers!’ Pavo bellowed to Herenus and his men. Only now they saw what was happening, and loaded their slings with fumbling hands. ‘Sagittarii!’ he echoed to the archers.

But the Huns were at work. Now they looped their ropes around the buttressing beams and up and over the sharpened picket tips. Like a colony of ants at work, they wheeled away, using the strength of their ponies to set the timbers to groaning, bending, then, with a sickening shredding noise, the stockade shifted violently under Pavo’s feet. A heartbeat later, the whole thing moaned, then sagged back, the picket-stakes that were hauled back dragging others with them. Legionaries half-climbed, half-fell down the ladders. Many were thrown down by the violent lurches of the structure. Pavo slid and scrabbled as those with him slipped away. Suddenly, he was falling. A moment later and with an almighty crash, he found himself buried in snow. For a nightmarish moment, he could not dig himself free, but when he did, he saw the nightmare was truly upon him: the wall had fallen. It lay broken, men scattered behind it, while the Huns raced back off into the grey at the western end of the valley — though many of those hardy steppe riders lay writhing in the snow, peppered with belated Roman arrows and slingshot.

‘Up, up!’ Zosimus screamed, helping legionaries from where they had fallen, haranguing those not rising fast enough.

Pavo helped Cornix to his feet then swung to the rumbling from the eastern end of the valley. Beyond the ruin of the wall, the lilia pits and the blackened wagons, the grey, ethereal mass of Farnobius’ horde had returned. It was darkening, coming forward. Racing forward.

‘Retreat to the fort!’ Geridus cried, wincing as he hobbled on his weary legs, one ankle seemingly injured.

Slowly at first, then quickened by the sight of the onrushing horde, the legionaries rushed to the scree path, the sagittarii hurrying down from the southern shoulder of the pass to join them. Pavo was near the back of the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder as he readied to step onto the scree path. Farnobius’ Goths came at a charge, leaping over the lilia pits, scrambling over the collapsed wall. And the giant reiks came too now, waving his Taifali cavalry with him at a gallop. He glanced up at the steep and difficult path up to the fort plateau, then back to the horde, ever closer.

‘We don’t have time,’ he cried.

‘What?’ Sura gasped, turning with him to see the reality. Now the Goths were swinging round to face the northern valley side, forming a narrow front and readying to drive up the scree path in pursuit.

‘Go, go!’ Zosimus urged the legionaries further up the path, then leapt back down beside the pair. A moment later, Quadratus was with them too. ‘Not one of these whoresons gets through us, aye?’ the big Gaul said.

‘Aye,’ they growled in reply. A handful of legionaries followed suit and added to this line — enough to blockade the narrow uphill path and add a thin second rank. Squashing together and forming a shield wall, they backed up the path slowly, feet crunching in the gritty snow, presenting their spears downwards to the foremost Goths — Screaming tribesmen with bloodshot eyes and the wet redness at the back of their throats glinting.

‘Brace!’ Pavo yelled.

The Gothic charge seemed heedless of the slight high ground the Romans enjoyed and slammed into the narrow front. The battering of colliding shields rang out along with the wild song of sparring iron. Pavo felt the breath leap from his lungs as a great weight surged onto his shield — a stocky Goth had clambered up and over it. Pavo thrust his spear up, tearing the foe’s belly and enduring a shower of guts as a reward, then lifted his shield arm just in time to block two well-aimed spear thrusts. What followed was a blur of thrusting spears and Gothic longswords clanging against Legionary spathas and helms as they defended like lions, stepping back up the scree path. Pavo’s limbs grew numb and his breath came in rasps as he parried a Gothic blade then lanced another opponent through the ribs. He lost sight of their progress up the path, knowing only that to blink or look over his shoulder would be fatal. All he heard from the plateau behind and above was some odd grinding noise — like metal and wood working together. In the corner of his eye, he saw only comrades falling — the men in the second rank rushing to take their place. Then came a moment when he sensed the strength leave him. His next parry was weak, and the Gothic blade battered from his helm and another scored across the bridge of his nose and cheek. He felt Sura and Zosimus by his side stagger and stumble too. Moments later, he felt the ground even out underfoot and realised they had stumbled up and onto the fort plateau. They were just paces from the fort gates and respite, but without the narrowness of the path to protect their flanks, their narrow front buckled and Goths swarmed to envelop them. Pavo saw Farnobius riding up the path, face alight with glee, axe raised. He heard that odd metallic-wooden clunking noise once more — this time growing into a titanic groan, as if rushing for him — then a cry sounded from behind them.

‘Down!’ a burring voice cried.

He swung to the shout, then saw a colossal shape rushing for him: like a great eagle’s claws — open and razor-sharp, every steely talon as tall as a man. Instinctively, he ducked under this nightmarish apparition, his comrades doing likewise. But the Goths all around them, blinded in their quest for blood, were not so swift. With a swoosh that split the blizzard, the talons ripped through the nearest of them. Blood showered Pavo as his mind raced to understand what was happening while more Goths staggered back in fear of the awful talons. Every hair on Pavo’s neck stood rigid as he looked up from where he was crouched and saw a vast horizontal timber beam, swinging out from the fort’s southern gate tower. From it dangled thick ropes and on the end of these, the vicious claws. Up on the gate tower he saw the outline of Geridus, framed by a streak of lightning and hurling curses into the storm as he and a handful of his men operated this merciless device, swinging the claw arm to and fro over the scattering Goths. Then, when the claw was hovering over a tight pack of Goths, the ropes slackened. The claw plunged down upon them and at once, like a tendon, the ropes snapped taut, lashing the four talons together.

Four men were caught in the device’s grasp. One was snared right on the ends of the talons and run through in four different directions. The claw was lifted up and a soup of this Goth’s bowels, blood and bladder sprayed down on the others nearby.

Pavo gawped at this: so this was the Comes’ ethereal friend — a merciless war-machine? He barely felt the hands that hoisted him and the others back from the devastation, hauling him inside the fort. Only when the fort gate was slammed shut did the spell break.

Farnobius backed his stallion away from the ferocious claw as it swung to and fro. The device had cut down mere handfuls of his men, but the sight of it was enough to drive his men back. Not one of his warriors had even approached the fort gate because of it. He licked his lips, judging the flight of the claw, eyeing the ropes. ‘Have the men bring the Roman ladders up from their toppled timber wall.’

‘Reiks?’ Egil said, his voice laced with fear and his eyes tracing the claw’s path.

‘Do as I say. And you can stay down there — this place is only fit for warriors,’ Farnobius growled as he drew his axe from his back, then walked his stallion forward onto the plateau.

Ever forward, invincible king, Vitheric’s voice urged him. Nobody can slay you.

Moments passed and Pavo remained sitting where he had slumped inside the fort. He wondered if the chaos outside the closed fort gates was real. In here, he could only hear dull roars of the storm and foreign voices outside. In here he was sheltered from the stinging blizzard, a strong warmth came over his skin as feeling began to return. Then he saw the staggering, gasping, momentarily lost men of his century around him, dotted around the inside of the fort. He saw Zosimus and Quadratus rise, and rose with them, knowing there was to be no respite. ‘On your feet!’ he bellowed.

He led them up the stony staircase on the inside of the fort’s southern wall, up onto the battlements. As soon as he ascended onto that lofty parapet, the blizzard was back, swishing, sparring and thicker than ever. Pavo shielded his eyes from the squall and peered all around. These newly repaired battlements were well-stocked with javelins and spears. Geridus’ archers and Herenus’ slingers were already lined up and loosing what remaining missiles they had down onto the Goths on the plateau. He ushered his men into place and Zosimus and Quadratus did likewise with their centuries. ‘Together, shields up, spears level, as before!’ he barked to them, then sped over to the southern gate tower, flitting up the few steps onto the rounded parapet here. Now he saw the great claw for what it was: a massive beam anchored by an immense load of iron and fixed to a pivoting iron-strapped timber floor.

‘See?’ Geridus said, spinning to him and grinning maniacally. ‘Farnobius came here to feast, but just a dash of terror is enough to turn any meal sour.’ The old Comes showed no sign of his old affliction, his beard was caked in snow and his face was almost blue with the chill.

The claw opened again, snatching up a Goth then swinging and releasing him at pace against the fort walls, where his brains were dashed out against the stonework. The rest of the Gothic spearmen were darting to and fro, like sheep escaping a wolf. Pavo glanced back along the walls. They had lost maybe sixty men in the melee so far. More than two centuries-worth of legionaries, plus one of slingers and one of archers remained. That number might hold this fort for some time, especially as the Goths had no means of gaining entry. And with this mighty claw. .

He craned over the roof’s edge, ducking back momentarily as a Gothic arrow skated off the battlement beside him, then he froze, seeing Farnobius edge forward. The giant was flanked by a host of his spearmen who held up their shields as he slid from his stallion, watching the swinging claw and tossing his axe over and over in his grasp.

‘Sir. . ’ Pavo started, then Farnobius roared, leaping forward and up, swiping his axe blade across the ropes that suspended the claw. With a thick snapping, the tendons were severed. The claw dangled by one, fraying rope, then this unravelled and the great iron talons thumped onto the plateau.

‘Ah,’ Geridus yelled over the gale, ‘then the fun is over.’

Pavo barely heard this, seeing the Goths who now raced unbounded up the scree path and onto the plateau carrying the Roman ladders that had fallen with the timber stockade. ‘Mithras, no!’

Geridus stepped back from the shattered claw, his eyes widening as he saw the ladder-tops swinging up against the fort’s southern wall.

Clack-clack-clack, they sounded as they made contact with the parapet.

Wordlessly, the aged Comes drew his gem-hilted spatha from its scabbard. ‘It is time to whet my blade once more, it seems,’ he said at last in a stony burr.

Pavo barged from the gate tower and back into place with his century on the southern walls. The Goths were already scurrying up the rungs of their ladders like a plague of ants, their long, blonde locks flowing from their stolen Roman helms, daggers clutched between their teeth and longswords held in white fists. A hail of arrows from below screened the climbing Goths. This volley plunged most densely into the sagittarii, and thirteen of these precious archers groaned, clutching the shafts embedded in their chests and throats, before slumping where they stood or toppling out over the fort walls, bronze helms falling off and red cloaks billowing.

‘Get these ladders away from the walls. Come on!’ Pavo roared, taking up his spear then pressing the butt against the top rung of the ladder and pushing, waving Trupo and Sura to his aid.

‘Push!’ he groaned, grasping the ladder top and shoving it back from the wall. The ladder wavered there, almost vertical, the battle of weight undecided, until Cornix and two other legionaries jabbed their spear butts at it too. Now, the ladder creaked upright, then toppled over, taking Pavo’s spear with it, out into the Gothic mass with a chorus of screaming. Men fell from the ladder or leapt clear, but those on the highest rungs were dashed on the snowy ground, necks broken by the weight of their armour. One fell on the nest of his comrades’ spears and another landed before a Taifali horseman, starting the warrior’s mount and causing it to rear up and thrash its hooves at his head, staving in his skull.

A great cheer rose up from the men on the walls and Pavo felt the fiery grip of hope. Along the wall, two more ladders tumbled, felling or injuring the climbers and disrupting the sea of warriors beneath — one of the ladders toppling right over the edge of the plateau and skating down the valley side in a flurry of thrown up snow and bodies. But moments later. . clack!

Another ladder was swung into place and this time the Goths were wise to the Roman ploy. They sent men up in even greater haste to add weight to the ladder. Pavo, Sura, Trupo, Cornix and four others pushed with all they had. The ladder lifted from the wall and the arms of each Roman trembled, breaths held in their lungs as they sought the final push. Pavo felt his head swim as the Goth swaying there near the topmost rung gawped, hair swooshing in the gale, sure the ladder was about to fall like the others. Then he grinned as more comrades added to the weight of the ladder and the strength of the legionaries began to fade.

‘Back!’ Pavo cried, seeing that the ploy was spent as the ladder thwacked back into place against the battlements. The legionaries took one half-step back from the parapet. ‘Plumbatae!’ he bellowed, hearing Quadratus and Zosimus cry in unison.

The legionaries each unclipped one of their three lead-weighted darts form the rear of their shields, then hoisted them.

‘Loose!’

As one, they took a step forward and hurled the darts over the wall at the upcoming Goths and the masses at the feet of the ladders. The volley was like a swarm of iron raptors. The darts flew true and battered down on Gothic skulls, shields and shoulders. Blood and matter spurted into the whipping blizzard.

‘Again,’ Pavo shouted. Another volley, another precious few moments stolen.

‘Again!’ Zosimus finished, marshalling the third volley.

The last of the plumbatae rained down. Gothic screams danced on the storm. Hundreds of them had fallen. Had this been a battle of even numbers then it would already have been won. Instead, they had merely dented Farnobius’ horde. Indeed, the ladders bent and shuddered with more climbers almost as soon as the final volley was spent.

‘Ready,’ Pavo rallied the recruits as he drew his spatha. ‘Now you grip your spear and you do not let go. If a face appears above the edge of the wall — run it through.’

The recruits within earshot nodded frantically, their faces drained of colour.

Pavo saw that the ghosts of the Great Northern Camp still haunted them. At once, Gallus’ words came to him, and spilled from his lips in a throaty cry; ‘Face the past, face the nightmares. Strike them down!’ he yelled. ‘For the Claudia!’

‘For the Claudia!’ the legionaries echoed in a visceral cry of defiance.

An instant later, he was shoulder to shoulder with Sura and Cornix, the blood pounding in his ears, watching the empty ladder top, hearing the breathing of the warrior ascending, smelling the reek of blood on his clothes. A grinning head appeared: rotten teeth framed in an unkempt blonde beard, eyes aflame with bloodlust. Before Pavo could even draw his spatha back to strike, Cornix thrust his spear forward with the roar of a veteran. The tip punched into the Goth’s eyes and lodged in his brain.

‘Ha!’ Cornix roared in victory. Blood spouted from the eye socket and, still locked in a grin, the Goth fell back from the ladder lifelessly, taking Cornix’ spear with him.

Suddenly, the lad’s confidence drained, his spear-hand swiping out at the disappearing weapon. ‘I’m sorry sir, I-’

‘Eyes on the ladder!’ Pavo spat.

The next man to come over the ladder top did so like a gazelle, leaping rather than climbing. He landed on the battlements and sent his longsword sweeping out to clear a space. Pavo ducked under the swipe, which knocked Cornix’ spatha-jab aside, sent Sura tumbling onto his back and sliced open the throat of the next nearest legionary. This heartbeat of disruption allowed two more Goths to climb onto the walls. They formed a bridgehead of sorts, splitting the solid line of legionaries on the battlement, parting Pavo from his century and slashing wildly to allow more comrades still to scale the ladder.

‘Close the line!’ he bawled. But the Goths were not for moving. He saw it was the nimble one — the first one to make it onto the battlements — who was their leader, with the others gathering behind him. This warrior’s hatchet face was fixed on Pavo as he brought his sword sweeping down, cleaving the legionary, Auxentius, through the shoulder. The legionary line was fragmenting. Then Hatchet-face came for Pavo. Pavo threw up his spatha to block then hoisted his shield to catch the man’s next blow, which felt like a bull charging into his shoulder. Splinters flew from his shield and he staggered towards the wall’s edge, his back wrapping over the parapet. Teetering there, he felt Hatchet-face try to grab his ankles and help him over the edge. Pavo booted his foe in the mouth, sending him back in a shower of blood and teeth, but the action sent Pavo sliding over the parapet — in some way fortunate, given that a Gothic sword clashed down on the spot where he had been, sending snow and sparks leaping from the stonework. Not convinced by this spot of luck, Pavo flailed, fingers grasping for something to stop his fall, then clasped onto the parapet edge, body and legs dangling down over the fort wall with thousands of Goths gathered below. Then Hatchet-face appeared over him, leaning out. ‘You might as well let go, Roman,’ he hissed in a jagged Gothic twang. ‘It will be less painful.’ He drew a dagger from his belt and rested it on Pavo’s fingertips. ‘I will make a trinket of your fingers — an offering to Allfather Wodin.’ With that, his grin sharpened and he tensed his shoulders to chop down.

Pavo roared in defiance. A sickening crunch of steel splitting bone filled his head, coppery blood spattered over his face, and he waited on that nauseous, weightless sensation of falling. But there was no such thing. And no pain in his fingers. He looked up, blinking and spluttering through the streamlet of dark lifeblood that gushed from Hatchet-face’s mouth and chest. His eyes fixed on the tip of a spatha blade protruding from the Goth’s breastbone, then he frowned at the look of shock on his lifeless face. The Goth’s body slumped forward, the dead weight crushing Pavo’s fingertips. He roared, feeling the corpse’s body armour pinch what remaining strength he had to hang on.

In the next heartbeat, his grip failed him. The weightlessness ensued. But at the same time, a bloodied hand wrenched Hatchet-face’s corpse back by the hair and hauled it back, then a hulking figure shot out a hand, grasping Pavo’s at the last, before wrenching him back onto the roof.

‘Ach, it is a good thing you are the lean type,’ Geridus groaned, wincing as he staggered back breathlessly from the parapet then shaking Hatchet-face’s blood from his blade.

‘Sir, we have but moments, the walls are almost overru-’ Pavo stopped, seeing the walls were already overrun. Legionaries and Goths fought like wolves all around him and the Gothic numbers would soon tell.

‘Aye, aye,’ he growled, ‘so let us employ our final gambit.’

Pavo frowned, hoisting his shield as a Goth swiped at him then cutting down with his spatha to shatter the man’s arm. ‘What gambit?’

‘To the gatehouse,’ Geridus roared over the beset parapet. ‘To the gatehouse!’ he repeated.

Word spread. It was fraught, but first Herenus and his slingers, then the sagittarii, then the legionary centuries who fought a defensive action, backed along the battlements towards the gatehouse. Men fell too rapidly, legionaries spinning away from Gothic swords, faces or necks torn. Pavo heard the echo of the southern gate tower’s enclosed stairwell behind him. Moments later, they were inside. The Goths did not follow, instead pressing on to wash around the battlements, assuming the Romans were in flight and the fort was theirs to ransack. As he and his legionaries sped down the winding, barely lit stairs, he scoured the darkness, confused, sure Geridus had lost his mind. Were they to spill into the innards of the fort then all was lost, for there was nowhere left to defend within. And to spill outside. . he shuddered at the thought of dying in the midst of Farnobius’ masses out there.

He saw the dim outline of an opened doorway at the foot of the stairwell — a small opening meant for guards to enter or leave by. Here, Geridus waited, shepherding the legionaries out one by one but at haste, whispering to them, directing them.

Pavo froze. ‘You’re leading us out onto the plateau?’

Geridus waved the rest outside, then led Pavo as the last man. They were veiled by the blizzard and the curve of the southern gate tower from the mass of Goths around the fort’s southern wall. The Comes held out a hand, pointing to the dark, descending tunnel that led to the brook on the valley floor. ‘Down into the pass,’ Geridus whispered.

‘And then?’ Pavo replied, his gaze darting to the edge of the Gothic mass, swarming only paces away around the southern wall in eagerness to swamp the newly taken battlements and as yet unseeing of the Roman escape. ‘If we leave this fort then Trajan’s Gate has fallen. We have failed.’

Geridus offered him a dry grin as he heard from up above the victory cries of the many Goths now pouring over the fort’s southern wall. ‘If we leave this fort then it is not before time. For the walls can both stave off an attacking foe. . or destroy them.’

Pavo saw how he nodded to the juniper grove. Lightning struck across the sky and for the briefest of moments, he saw shapes within the trees: the six sagittarii that the Comes had held back. They read Frigeridus’ signal and began to drop from view, one by one, each of them leaping down into some hole the ground. ‘What the?’ He gasped. Then all that had happened in these last weeks flashed before him, the memories swirling like the blizzard, before one leapt out at him: the ghostly tink-tink of tools they had heard at night. At last he realised that all along, it had been coming from underground. Under the fort. ‘Sapping tunnels?’ he whispered. ‘You’re going to bring the walls down?’

‘I let your men patch up the stonework, but only so much,’ Geridus said. ‘The walls depend upon the wooden beams within the sapping tunnels — beams smeared with pig fat. When my men set light to them the timber will buckle. . and no mortar will keep the walls upright,’ he said, then peered into the grove. Moments later, the six men came scrambling back into view, climbing out of the sapping mine along with thick clouds of stinking smoke. ‘It is done,’ the first said as they burst from the grove and over to Geridus.

‘Then we have little time, come,’ Geridus urged Pavo and the six archers onwards with him, down the winding tunnel that led to the pass floor. The howl of the storm and battle fell away as Pavo half-stepped, half-slid down the precarious descent of ancient stairs, only stopping when he came out into the storm again, his boots splashing through the frozen crust and icy waters of the brook in the valley floor. Here, he found the beleaguered survivors of the XI Claudia along with the slingers and archers — a few hundred men all told. Stained with smoke and blood, running nearly doubled over, some supporting one another, panting. They backed away, westwards up the pass, turning frequently and anxiously at the fort up on the spur. The fulcrum of Trajan’s Gate was overrun. The walls were packed with Gothic infantrymen and many of Farnobius’ riders, dismounted and eager for a share of the spoils. All but a band of some five hundred of his Taifali riders had remained at the foot of the scree path, looking up at the spur and the fort no doubt in envy of their comrades who danced on the tower-tops, roaring victory songs into the storm.

A heartbeat later, a chorus of shredding timber sounded and the fort shook visibly and grey dust billowed into the blizzard. The victory cries ebbed. Gothic heads twisted one way and then the other in confusion. A moment later, another chorus of bucking and the crash of crumbling stone. Now the Gothic song fell silent as huge chunks of masonry toppled from the walls. The whooshing of the storm alone filled the pass. Pavo was sure he could discern Reiks Farnobius up there on the edge of the plateau, backing away from the fort walls, sensing something was wrong.

Then, with a roar that defied the storm or any battle cry, the great grey walls rushed for the ground. Sudden screams were short-lived, and in a moment, all that remained of the fortress was a heap of rubble and a churning dark cloud of dust.

Pavo gazed at the black, swirling stain in the storm, transfixed.

‘Mithras,’ Sura whispered, falling back into the snow. ‘We have stopped them?’

The possibility almost burrowed into Pavo’s heart, almost sowed a seed of hope. Almost. Then his eyes widened as the remaining black veil of dust was whipped away by the blizzard. ‘It’s not over,’ he said with a hoarse whisper.

‘Eh?’ Zosimus grunted, squinting, his face etched with bemusement at what he had just witnessed.

‘It’s not over,’ Pavo repeated, his eyes locked on the trickle of horsemen fleeing down the scree path, coming to the pack of five hundred Taifali and Greuthingi riders there. ‘They’ve seen us. He’s seen us!’

Pavo heard the wails that broke out as he set eyes upon the form of Farnobius, coated in grey dust at the head of some five hundred riders as they wheeled away from the scree path and on at a gallop towards the XI Claudia. The giant reiks issued some animal battle cry and held his axe aloft, strong as ever.

‘Together! One more time!’ Pavo roared, he and Sura waving quivering legionaries up to stand with him.

‘Together!’ Zosimus and Quadratus echoed.

They stumbled back from the Gothic charge, forming a rudimentary line. Yet their number was nowhere near enough to block this wider section of the pass. With their flanks exposed, Pavo realised, they would not be winning this battle. But I’ll take that dog down with me, he vowed, seeing that Farnobius was coming for him — the reiks remembering him from the raid on the Gothic camp and the battle on the banks of the Tonsus. He saw the wild-eyes and clouding breath of Farnobius’ stallion, the gleaming edge of the reiks’ hoisted axe and the foul, blood-streaked grin on the cur’s face.

His fingers itched for a spear, but his spatha was all he had left. His lips longed to give the order for a plumbatae volley, but all the weighted darts were gone. He yearned to hear the whirring of slings or bows, but that moment had long since passed. Lightning tore across the heavens, casting Farnobius’ features in a demonic light and the ground shuddered violently as the Gothic charge came to within ten strides, seven, three. .

‘To the last man, brothers!’ Pavo roared as horsemen punched into the Roman line, shattering it. Legionaries were chopped down, battered back and trampled. He could only duck under Farnobius’ chopping axe blade, and his swipe in riposte to hamstring the reiks’ beast missed and the chance was gone as Farnobius ploughed on into the legionary mass.

Pavo swung round, seeing Cornix spin away from the next swipe of the axe, his face scored from jaw to forehead. Sura’s spatha was battered from his grip with the next attack and then a fellow legionary was cleaved through from shoulder to lung. The giant reiks then chopped his axe down on one sagittarius’ head — crumpling helm and skull and bringing an explosion of blood and brains from the man’s mouth. All around, blood fountained where spear met throat or longsword tore across face. Severed hands, still clutching spatha or shield, flew into the air where the bearer had been overly brave in his swing. One of Farnobius’ riders attacked Pavo next. Pavo feinted one way then leapt up to plunge his spatha up under this one’s ribs, the blade sinking deep into the man’s chest cavity. As this rider slid from the saddle, Pavo swung round to face the melee of Gothic horsemen and Roman legionaries. It was not hard to find Farnobius. The reiks had scored a trail of devastation, broken Roman bodies strewn in the reddened snow around him as he forged on through the skirmish. It was only a thick clang of iron that halted his progress. Geridus’ gem-hilted spatha had stayed Farnobius’ axe, both weapons tremoring, both men’s arms shaking. The two giants were matched in size but Farnobius had youth and health on his side, and the high ground of his saddle. But Geridus swung out of the deadlock, ducking away from the axe’s edge, grappling Farnobius’ shin and pulling him from the stallion. The giant reiks fell with a roar, the bronze winged helm rolling from his head. But he was on his feet in seconds. Pavo hurried through the melee towards the encounter as Farnobius lashed at Geridus, driving the aged Comes back with a rapid succession of blows from his axe, sparks flying from every parry of Geridus’ sword. The vigour of youth triumphed, and Geridus stumbled in a rut of packed snow, falling, bringing his sword up to block the shower of blows Farnobius rained upon him.

‘Die, old man,’ the reiks roared. ‘My speartip grows cold without your head to adorn it!’

Geridus’ reply came as a wheeze and Pavo saw that the Comes was on the brink. Gallus’ words once again streaked through his mind at that moment in a blaze of fury.

Face the past, face the nightmares. Strike them down!

He lunged through the last few strides towards the pair, then leapt, bringing his spatha up and then chopping it down on Farnobius’ shoulder. The strike tore the reiks’ mail shirt and gouged at his flesh. He swung round with an animal roar, eyes set on Pavo. With Geridus floored and gasping for breath and every Claudian comrade locked in a desperate battle around him, Pavo realised he was alone.

‘You!’ Farnobius hissed, his hand momentarily flicking up to touch his broken nose. ‘You will die on this cursed pass, Roman,’ the reiks snarled, then lunged forward. The wound was bleeding only lightly and the reiks was no slower or weaker for it, Pavo realised, as the axe swept out at neck height. He bent back, the blade skimming the collar of his mail vest. He tried to stab out at Farnobius’ flank in the moment of the reiks’ follow through, but the colossus was too fast, parrying like lightning. ‘You are destined to die on this blade,’ Farnobius taunted him.

Pavo’s top lip tremored and he leapt forward with a roar, crashing his spatha down at the reiks once, twice and again. The giant staggered back, laughing partly in shock, touching a hand to the red streak across his chest, under the new tear in the mail there. ‘That is the second time you have bloodied me today, boy, and the last.’

He feinted to rush for Pavo’s left, then, belying his size, switched to the right, bringing his axe round for Pavo’s ribs. Pavo could only throw himself forward to avoid the blow. He rolled through the snow, then righted himself, twisting and seeing — for a precious instant — that Farnobius’ guard was down. He brought his spatha round with what strength he had left, then felt the dull clang of the flat smashing against the reiks’ temple. The giant staggered, a confident grin appearing then fading. Then he toppled onto his back, his eyes rolling in his head. Pavo hurried to stand over him, resting the tip of his spatha on Farnobius’ throat. Farnobius blinked, then realised his situation. He shot a glance to the nearest Gothic riders, and Pavo looked with him: two nobles, by the looks of it.

‘Egil, Humbert?’ Farnobius roared. But they offered only stony glances then turned away and fought elsewhere. At this, the reiks cupped his fingers over his ears and shrieked, as if trying to block out some tormenting voice in his head.

‘Do it, then,’ Farnobius said, turning his gaze back to Pavo. ‘At least my death will come in victory, for my riders have all but overrun this pass. Why do you hesitate?’ he spat, the skin of his neck growing taut against the blade.

Pavo felt a stinging hatred in his chest. ‘Do you even remember her?’

‘Her?’

‘Felicia. She would have been my wife. She would have borne my children. You cut her down like a butcher, at the Great Northern Camp.’

Farnobius’ face wrinkled in confusion, then a light in his eyes told Pavo he had remembered. ‘At the River Tonsus when you broke my nose? The girl with the amber hair? I remember. I was at her tent. I was the first of my people to reach there.’ Then the giant’s face wrinkled in confusion. ‘She was dead already, Roman.’

Pavo blinked. ‘What?’

‘I would have enjoyed taking her head, yes, but when I came to her she and the others with her were already dead. They lay there, throats slit. I assumed they had chosen to end their own pitiful lives. But no, those wounds had been inflicted by another.’

Pavo shook his head. ‘No. . no!’ He staggered back, the spatha trembling. All around him, the weight and strength of the Gothic horsemen was telling, and legionaries were falling in sprays of blood.

He barely noticed Farnobius rising, eyes trained on Pavo, hand reaching out for the axe.

Felicia? Pavo mouthed. How can I avenge you now?

Farnobius stalked towards Pavo, lifting his axe.

Just then, the storm winds faded to nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was as if they were paying respect to the legionaries on the cusp of death. The snow fell gently, drifting in the sudden hush. Suddenly, Farnobius froze and looked to the west. Pavo did too. It was as if both had sensed the odd crackle in the air that comes before a lightning storm.

Then came the thunder.

A din like a rolling deluge, pouring from the west. Further up the western end of the pass the greyness swam and swished then spat forth a fury of shadows. Horsemen. A hundred. A thousand. More than twice that number. They poured from the west like demons, rushing for the skirmish. Pavo saw their long, flowing blonde locks, their fair skin and heard their jagged war cries. His spirit all but guttered and died at that moment. There was no point in running.

The Goths and legionaries all around halted in their combat stances like Farnobius, looking to the onrushing riders in puzzlement.

Pavo looked to Geridus. ‘This is no wile of mine, lad,’ the old Comes panted.

‘Gothic cavalry?’ Quadratus panted nearby.

It was Geridus’ hoarse cry that answered. ‘No. . the Sarmatian riders.’

Pavo heard the words and tried to understand’ Allies? After so long alone at this wretched pass? They wore bronze scale vests, tall pointed helms and they carried long, weighty lances but no shields. He saw the stony determination on their faces, their lances trained on the melee. Then he braced as they ploughed into the fray like a harvester’s sickle, ripping man and horse to pieces in puffing clouds of crimson. Their weapons found only Gothic flesh, and Pavo and Farnobius shared one last glance. The giant reiks’ head twitched and he mouthed his last words into the ether to some invisible other. Forgive me, Vitheric. A heartbeat later, the giant reiks was ripped from view, trampled under a fury of hooves. Flesh, blood and bone were cast up in all directions.

Pavo gazed absently into the mizzle of red that filled the air around him as the Sarmatians ended the gruelling conflict, wheeling and cutting around him. When the red mist faded, he heard cries of joy from the shattered men of the XI Claudia. Cornix fell to his knees, shaking, muttering a prayer over and over. Others laughed hysterically before one of them stopped and crumpled to the ground, cradling his knees to his chest, shaking and then sobbing. One retched and vomited. He saw Libo shower a group of surrendered Goths with a volley of curses, Rectus holding him back from adding to the verbal assault with a physical one. He looked to Geridus, Zosimus and Quadratus then finally Sura, each man plastered with crimson gore. Like him, none of these men showed the slightest hint of emotion. The soldier’s skin was thick, after all these years. He closed his eyes and fought back the tears.

The storm had left the valley by late afternoon. It had the good grace to blanket the countless corpses in white before it left. Pavo had staggered up to the spur, eyed the tumbled remains of the fort, then helped gather the bodies of Roman and Goth alike. Exhausted, he then sat cross-legged at the edge of the plateau, looking up at the sapphire sky and the black band in the east that heralded the coming clear winter night, bringing with it a scattering of stars. Down below, the few hundred Goths who had been taken prisoner sat on the snow, hands bound, watched by Trupo, Cornix and the remainder of his century together with a band of the fierce Sarmatian riders.

He noticed Zosimus and Quadratus near them, talking with the Sarmatian leader — a fellow with a thick, blonde beard and nearly snow-white skin. Their breaths puffed in the air as they spoke, and Pavo wondered what they might have to say. The Sarmatians had long been in a treaty of alliance with the empire, yet they had come only after so many had died. Of the three legionary centuries who had held the pass, just over half remained. Herenus and his slingers had suffered only a handful of casualties, but the sagittarii numbered just eleven now. Yet the dead here was but a speck compared to the loss suffered across Thracia in the wake of Farnobius’ rampage.

‘We did all we could,’ a voice said.

He looked up to see Sura, who sat next to him, offering him a grubby wine skin.

Pavo took a pull on it and handed it back. ‘Aye, we did. But what if one day our best efforts are not enough?’

Sura’s eyes searched his. ‘As long as we don’t stop trying. That’s what matters,’ he said, his usually impish face sober and earnest.

Pavo smiled wearily at this, looking over his bloodied, dirt-encrusted hands, still shaking from the trauma of battle. His thoughts started to turn to the great, dark, unanswered question: Dexion, Gallus?

‘I sensed them coming, you know,’ Sura said, sitting a little straighter, the familiar mischievous lilt in his voice.

‘Eh?’ Pavo frowned, his thoughts scattering.

Sura jabbed a thumb over his shoulder up the pass to the west. ‘The Sarmatians. I heard them coming before anyone else.’

Pavo cocked an eyebrow, eyeing Sura askance. Then he relaxed, realising the trick had worked — the dark thoughts were gone. You can read me like no other, friend, he thought.

Sura was in full flow now: ‘Back in Adrianople, they used to call me the bat, I could hear people speaking through three foot thick stone wa-’

A ham-like hand stuffed a lump of bread in Sura’s mouth. ‘Chew that, it’ll help with the cold. . though it will only temporarily stem the horseshit that tumbles from your lips,’ Geridus said. ‘Now, you’re needed — get down there and help with the prisoners.’

Sura made to protest, then found the bread a welcome alternative to voicing his ludicrous stories. He got up and left the spur.

Pavo looked up at Geridus. ‘Without the claw or the toppling of the fort, the battle would have been over long before the Sarmatians got here,’ he said. ‘Farnobius’ men would have spilled on through the pass.’ He looked over his shoulder to the broken heap of rubble that remained of the fort. ‘Why did you keep the claw hidden?’

‘I knew what devastation it could wreak, how it could crush the lives from so many men. It was the same with the tunnels. It. . it. . ’ Geridus’ face lengthened and he shrugged. ‘It is like when a man knows there is a dark side to his personality. He hides it, pretends it does not exist. Sometimes though, it must be embraced and brought to the fore to fight off a greater evil.’ He shook his head and gazed into the middle-distance. Pavo recognised that look — the same one Gallus wore after every battle, as if beset with guilt for those who had fallen under his command.

Geridus forced a smile and swept a hand through the air. ‘In any case the claw was but one layer of redoubt. Without the lilia pits and the burning wagons, it would have been over far sooner,’ Geridus countered with a knowing nod, sitting where Sura had been. ‘Without each of you tenacious whoresons, it might never have been. Each man played a part in this day. Each is a hero,’ Geridus countered.

Pavo glanced over the thousands of lumps in the snow — shards of iron, bone or raw flesh poking through. ‘Yet to forge a hundred heroes, a thousand good men must die, it seems.’

‘Talk like that’ll see you in the Senate House, lad.’

‘Never. My place is here,’ Pavo smiled.

‘Here?’ Geridus cocked an eyebrow and glanced around the bleak pass.

‘Not here. I mean. . wherever they are,’ he nodded to the ragged men of the XI Claudia down in the pass, seeing Sura bantering with Libo as he joined them, cupping his hands to his ears and no doubt regaling them with his ‘Bat of Adrianople’ nonsense. ‘The pass is secured and so Emperor Gratian can come east. Emperor Valens will come west from Antioch also. They will unite in the plains of Thracia, face Fritigern’s horde and the Gothic War will be brought to an end. I will do all I can to bring my legion up to strength so we can help in that effort.’

He noticed Geridus shifting a little uneasily. Was it something he had said?

The Comes sighed deeply, then met his eye with a dark look. ‘Put your faith not in emperors, but in your gods and your comrades,’ he said at last.

Pavo frowned at this. The old man’s scars ran deep indeed, it seemed. He looked to lighten the mood. ‘And what about you, now your reputation is restored? No man can deny your bravery or cunning. You are truly the Master of the Passes. This sly dog, Maurus, perhaps Emperor Gratian will no longer see him as fit to replace you anymore?’

Geridus laughed in that deep, baritone burr that echoed along the pass. ‘Lad, Maurus is welcome to come and take this place off my hands — stinking in the summer and freezing in the winter. If there’s one thing you and your lot taught me more than anything else, it’s that it matters not what hot-headed curs out there say or think about you. It’s about here,’ he tapped his breastbone. ‘I know who I am, I am no longer trapped in that fog of illness my enemies threw me into. In there I was searching for a way out instead of looking for myself. And it was my mistake to let my guard down in the first place.’ He stood, groaning again. ‘So no, my military days are over. A villa in southern Greece, now that would be quite something,’ he said with a sparkle in his eye and a grin. ‘Bread, dates and chilled spring water brought to me by busty maids. . aye, I’m sure they could teach me a thing or two.’ He made to leave the plateau, but stopped, weighing his words carefully and offering Pavo one last piece of advice, batting his fist to his breastbone. ‘Remember, lad: gods and comrades.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Pavo nodded.

Pavo watched the big man go down the scree path, then felt his thoughts return to the dark question. He glanced west again, seeing in his mind’s eye Gallus the iron wolf, and Dexion, the last of his blood. So long and not a word from them.

Just then, Pavo felt the twilight chill bite at him. He stood, swept his cloak a little tighter and descended from the plateau. As he came to the men of the XI Claudia, he saw Zosimus and Quadratus locked in conversation — savoury, for once. As he approached, he noticed how the light from the nearby cooking fires cast long shadows of the two across the churned, stained snow. The shadows danced and jostled with the flickering blaze. Pavo’s eyes darkened as he thought of the dream. While so many men had fallen, the shadow-man of the Augusteum had stayed with him. Every night, the scene had replayed in his troubled mind.

Show yourself or be gone, Pavo mouthed.

‘Here he is,’ Quadratus said edgily as he saw Pavo approaching.

Zosimus looked round too, his face perplexed as he scratched at his anvil jaw.

‘Sir?’ Pavo said, a sudden sense of dread stirring in his gut.

Zosimus seemed to be weighing his words carefully. ‘It. . it seems that the Sarmatians’ arrival was no coincidence.’ He nodded to the wing of scale-vested riders, now tending their mounts and preparing cooking fires of their own. ‘They were despatched here at haste.’

‘By one of our own,’ Quadratus added, then corrected himself. ‘Two of our own, actually.’

Pavo dared not speak the words, but yearned for the two centurions to say them.

‘Tribunus Gallus and Primus Pilus Dexion sent them here,’ Zosimus finished.

Pavo felt these words echo round his mind and wash through his veins like an elixir. ‘They. . they are well?’

‘Aye, the iron tribunus and the tenacious dog that is your brother — you thought a winter journey across half an empire was beyond them?’ Quadratus chuckled.

‘The Sarmatians saw them to a Cursus Publicus waystation and on their way to Emperor Gratian. They’ll be arriving at his court any day now.’

Pavo swung to the western horizon. The fading daylight was fighting against the night, but out there lay hope. The XI Claudia would be strong again and Gallus would march at their head. Dexion would serve with them, bonding blood with brotherhood. Emperor Gratian and Emperor Valens would unite and the Gothic war would be brought to an end. Thracia could be saved.

The bitter winter’s night could not fend off his elation. The weary but hearty laughter from the XI Claudia nearby strengthened his resolve. Only the echoing words of Geridus could temper his burgeoning hope.

Put your faith not in emperors, but in your gods and your comrades.