Thunder of the Gods

Prologue

September AD 184

‘Well now Tribune, are you still sure you wouldn’t rather be back in Antioch with your young friends?’

Gaius Vibius Varus looked down from his horse at the centurion marching alongside him with a quick smile, easy in his relationship with the older man despite their twenty-year age difference and the social gulf between them.

‘It’s a difficult choice you pose, First Spear. On the one hand, I could be lounging around drinking wine and watching exquisite young ladies oil each other up for my entertainment. On the other, here I am, breathing in the fart-laden dust of five hundred men’s boots.’

He paused for a moment, looking up at the sky and pursing his lips as if in thought. The cohort’s senior centurion grinned up at him, flicking away a vicious-looking fly that was hovering over his head with a practised sweep of his vine stick.

‘You forgot to mention the heat, the insects, the constant moaning of soldiers on the march, the occasional screams of abuse from my more vigorous centurions …’

He winked at the younger man.

‘Which is to say all of them. That and the fact that any “young ladies” you encounter in Nisibis will have bandier legs than most cavalrymen you’ve ever met.’

Varus shrugged.

‘Surprising though it might seem, First Spear, I didn’t actually have whoring on my mind when I persuaded my father to use his influence to get me a tribunate with the Third Gallic.’

The older man, technically his subordinate but very much the master of all he surveyed, and happy enough to indulge a tribune whose apparent disdain for the differences between them was in pleasant contrast to the usual attitudes of sons of the aristocracy towards the soldiers they commanded, snorted gentle derision.

‘Which is quite unlike most of your colleagues, if I might be so bold. Antioch sees a good sight more of you young gentlemen than the fortress at Zeugma ever will, and as for Nisibis …’

Varus barked out a harsh laugh, his mimicry of the legion’s senior tribune uncannily accurate.

‘Only a bloody fool ever makes the march to Nisibis without direct orders, young Vibius Varus! The whole town positively stinks of unwashed Arabs.’

The centurion smirked at the precision of his tribune’s imitation of their mutual superior.

‘And the women! Dear gods, the women are fit for nothing better than servicing the common soldiery!’

The senior centurion shrugged, conceding the point.

‘Tribune Umbrius has something of a point, as it happens. You’ll see the wisdom of his words soon enough, once you’ve spent a few days with nothing more entertaining to fill them than walking the city’s walls and staring out into the emptiness that surrounds the place. You mark my words, young Tribune, you’ll be yearning for the delights of Antioch soon enough …’

He fell silent, his sharp eyes narrowing at the sight of a half-dozen horsemen galloping back down the road that led away into the east.

‘What’s got them moving so fast, I wonder? Trumpeter, sound the halt!’

The long column of soldiers stopped marching at the horn’s signal, their officers watching with calculating expressions as the cohort’s scouts came down their line at a fast trot. The horsemen’s leader jumped down from his mount and saluted the centurion with the look of a hunted man, belatedly turning to repeat the gesture towards Varus. His face was seamed from a lifetime spent in the saddle under desert skies, although he was little more than a decade older than the tribune.

‘What is it Abbas? Did that pretty little mare of yours get stung on the arse?’

The officer’s tone was light, but there was no mistaking the look on his face. The scout pointed down the road to the cohort’s front as he replied, his words a near gabble.

‘Horsemen! More horsemen than I can count!’

The first spear nodded slowly, as if deliberately refusing to allow himself to be infected by the panic that was clearly gripping the man before him.

‘What sort of horsemen?’

The scout gestured again, looking back over his shoulder as if he expected whatever it was he’d seen to come over the horizon at any moment.

‘Archers. Many archers. And cataphracti …’

Varus started at the word, drummed into him years before by his Greek tutor. One of the riders waiting behind him muttered something unintelligible in their own language, clearly keen to be gone, and the scout gestured angrily for silence without turning from the officers, bowing to the centurion before speaking again. His voice was quiet, and to Varus’s ears carried the solemnity of a funeral orator.

‘First Spear, you are a good man. I have enjoyed marching with you, and I will pray to my god for you.’

The centurion reached out a hand, gripping the other man’s arm as he turned to remount.

‘And where do you think you’re fucking going?’

The scout looked down at the hand, then raised his gaze to the Roman’s face.

‘To stay here is to die here, Centurion. I choose to live. And you need word of this to reach the city of the bridge, no?’

The Roman released his grip, nodding slowly at the scout’s logic.

‘How many cataphracti? Could they be local troops or some sort of bandit gang?’

The scout shook his head quickly.

‘So many armoured men, the land shines like polished silver. These are not bandits. There are too many of them.’

He leapt into his horse’s saddle, threw the two men a hasty salute and led his compatriots away at a fast trot.

‘You’re letting them go, First Spear?’

The older man nodded, grinning grimly at Varus’s bemusement.

‘It was either that or I’d have had to order them killed. And he’s right. If these horsemen are what he believes them to be, then the legion at Zeugma needs to know that the treacherous bastards have invaded Osrhoene. If we’re lucky, they’ll have seen our scouts and decided not to pick a fight today. After all, it’s been a long time since the Parthians were any real threat to the frontier-’

A chorus of shouts from the front of the column gave the lie to his hopes, and Varus straightened his body in the saddle to gaze out to the east, over the heads of the stationary column of soldiers, as a solid mass of cavalry began to rise into view from a fold in the landscape. He shook his head in disbelief as the Parthian army continued to emerge into view, hundreds upon hundreds of horsemen with a mass of armoured warriors at their core, whose polished armour made the sun’s reflections from the iron plates almost painful.

‘What can you see lad?’

The younger man was silent for a moment more, until a tap on the shoulder from the centurion’s stick wrenched his attention from the oncoming enemy.

‘It’s like something out of the history books …’

He glanced down at the centurion apologetically.

‘Sorry First Spear, just not what I was expecting to see when I climbed out from under my blanket this morning. We seem to be standing in the way of several thousand rather unfriendly looking cavalry …’

The centurion was already running for the column’s head with his trumpeter hot on his heels, and after a moment’s consideration of the options, the young tribune dismounted, handing the horse’s reins to a soldier, and ran after him.

Stopping alongside the foremost century, the first spear looked out across the mile of flat, dusty ground that lay between his men and a thick line of horsemen who were trotting their mounts towards the Romans.

‘Form square! Deploy to the left on me! Double time!’

He pulled the tribune to one side as the leading century’s men trotted out to the left of the road, leading the cohort’s change of formation from the column of march to a hollow square, nodding in quiet satisfaction as the manoeuvre’s near faultless execution.

‘See that? There are enough horsemen out there to kill the lot of us half a dozen times over, but I give these lads a bit of drill to perform, something they’ve practised a thousand times, and they jump to it like veterans.’

His voice was suddenly gruff, and Varus realised that the older man’s eyes were shining with barely suppressed emotion as he stared at the advancing cavalry, speaking without taking his eyes off the oncoming threat.

‘And now I need you to do something for me that will stick in your throat. Get back on your horse, Tribune, and ride for Zeugma as if your life depended on it!’

He turned to face his superior, raising a hand to forestall the protest that was on the tribune’s lips, his face twisting with anger that set the younger man back an involuntary half pace.

‘No! You may be my superior, but you will fucking well do what you’re told by a subordinate just this one time!’

Shaking his head, he waved his vine stick at the line of soldiers forming behind him.

‘These men and me, we’ve no choice in the matter. If the Parthians have decided that this is our day to fight for our lives, well then that’s just our luck. We can’t outrun them, and we don’t have the weapons to give them back the pain they’ll start heaping on us soon enough. But there’s no reason for you to go throwing your life away alongside us.’

Varus opened his mouth to protest, but the centurion shook his head sadly, his expression choking off the younger man’s retort.

‘You know the worst thing about this for me? It ain’t dying, if it’s my day to die. Every man dies, young ’un, every man. Rich or poor, we’re all dust on the wind sooner or later. It’s just a question of when, and more importantly how. And it ain’t just how we die that matters, but how we’re seen to die. It’s whether my brother officers shake their heads in disgust at the loss of a good cohort …’

His voice hardened.

‘Or if they can nod with pride when they hear how many of these cock-sucking eastern cunts we took with us!’

He pointed back down the road at the man holding onto Varus’s horse.

‘So, Tribune, in a moment you’re going to get back on that beast and ride away, far enough that you can see what happens here without getting an arrow stuck through you. Because the only way we get to die with some self-respect is if you watch us fight it out, right to the end, and then you take the story back to the legion. If you want to throw your life away after that, then by all means take the first chance you get, but not before you’ve given these men the reputation they’ll be earning once those bow-waving tosspots get their shit in a pile and come for us.’

He stared wordlessly at the young officer, holding eye contact until Varus dropped his gaze and looked at his boots for a moment. When he looked up again the centurion was smiling at him, his face split in a taut, humourless grin.

‘I know. This don’t feel honourable to you, does it? Like I say, you’ll have plenty more opportunities to die gloriously, but me and these men – this is our only chance. And you won’t take that from us, not a decent man like you.’

The tribune nodded reluctantly, holding out a hand, but the older man wrapped an arm around him, slapping him on the back.

‘It’s not like I’m at any risk of being demoted for overfamiliar behaviour to a senior officer, is it? Go well, young ’un, and choose your time for glory carefully, eh? Don’t go sending yourself to meet Hades too quickly; make sure you make an exit that’ll make men nod their heads when they hear your name. Now, shall we get these apes into the mood for a fight?’

He turned away with a wink, walking into the square with the tribune at his heels as the last man marched into position and closed the formation.

‘Sixth Cohort, face inward!’

The soldiers pivoted to look into the space enclosed by their ranks, and the centurion took a deep breath before speaking again. ‘You lucky bastards! No bugger on this frontier’s seen any action for thirty years, and now the gods have seen fit to grant us the honour, the sheer fucking privilege of getting the chance to show these Parthian animals the way that real men fight. And better than that, the tribune here is going to watch us make a stand against them, and take an accurate account back to the rest of the legion. Does any man here want him to have to tell them that the Sixth Cohort lacked the balls to give a decent account of itself?’

One of the soldiers in his own first century raised a hand and opened his mouth as if to speak, but the stupid grin plastered across his face raised a titter across the formation, and broke the tension in an instant. The first spear raised a knowing eyebrow, his lips twitching in a slight smile even as he raised his vine stick in admonishment.

‘Yes, there’s always one!’

His expression hardened.

‘I won’t lie to you lads, this is a tough spot. Worse than tough, this is shit so deep that we’re already up to our nuts in it. We either fight these arse punchers to a standstill here and now, or else we go to meet our gods, either with dignity or with our pride in tatters.’

He looked around at them, swelling his chest out and raising his head defiantly.

‘And if it comes to dying, I know which way I’m going! I’ll face whatever’s coming to me and meet it head on. After all, we know what they do to their prisoners, don’t we?’

He looked about him in silence for a moment, then bellowed out a challenge.

‘So, are we going to face these fuckers like men?!’

The soldiers roared back at him, waving their spears and shields. He nodded to the tribune, slapping the younger man on the shoulder.

‘Good enough. Right then, get yourself away, Tribune, before the trap closes on you as well as us.’

Varus nodded mutely, saluting the centurion and then turning away, pushing his way through the soldiers and hurrying to the mare. Mounting, he looked over the square to find that the Parthian archers had reined in their horses just outside bow shot of the Romans, pausing to order their ranks and ready themselves for the battle. The cohort was still turned inward, their attention fixed on the first spear as he paced around inside the square, exhorting his men to sell their lives dearly. The tribune shook his head, raising a hand to his face to wipe away the tears trickling down his cheeks, then turned the horse to the west and spurred it away at a canter, back down the road that led past Osrhoene’s capital Edessa, and on towards the legion fortress at Zeugma. Reaching a rise in the road he reined the mare in, turning in the saddle to look back at the battle that was unfolding across the arid plain. The legionaries had turned to face their enemy, their shields raised in defence against the steady rain of arrows that the horse archers were now dropping into their ranks, each man trotting his mount forward, loosing a shot and then reversing his course to ride back a few dozen paces while another archer took his turn. A score and more dead and wounded soldiers had already been dragged into the shelter of the square’s raised shields, struck by arrows that had found the inevitable gaps in their defences, or whose shields had failed to stop the plummeting missiles.

His gaze shifted back across the plain behind the bowmen, to where a force of armoured horsemen gleaming with the sun’s reflected light stood beside horses bearing coats of the same shining metal scales, patiently waiting while the Romans stood beneath the iron rain that was slowly, inevitably, picking apart their formation. The time would come, he knew, when the defenders would be too weak to resist the final killing blow that would fall upon them from behind the archers. Horns would sound, and the bowmen would ride away to either side, making room for the cataphracts to sweep into the attack. He briefly considered riding away, at the same time knowing all too well that he could never break the promise he’d made to the centurion. Dry-eyed now, his emotions wrung out by the slaughter playing out before him, he raised a hand to salute the single figure still standing at the cohort’s heart.

‘I won’t turn away from you, First Spear, not unless they chase me away. I’ll watch you and your men die, and I’ll take your story back to the legion. I will find my own path to glory, when the time is right. And I will see you again. In Hades.’