Legionary (27 page)

Menes remained perfectly calm. ‘By serving you, I also serve my master.’

‘Don’t test me, Menes,’ Wulfric growled. Then a cry from the crow’s nest cut him short.

‘Ship to port!’

Wulfric craned over the stern. The darkness betrayed the dim outline of a white sail. A Chi-Rho symbol emblazoned on the linen.

‘You see, tribunus?’ Menes spoke softly. ‘My master has all matters in hand.’

Throughout the afternoon, the newly acquired pirate vessel looped around the sea, picking up the remains of the Classis Moesica fleet along the way. They stopped every time they came across a stricken vessel to rig up those that were still vaguely seaworthy, and to take on board the crew of the vessels that were fatally crippled.

By evening, the sun dipped lazily into the water, casting a tired red glow across the surface; the remains of the Classis Moesica were reformed. Tribunus Nerva stood with Gallus, surveying the rag-tag collection of ships trailing in their wake. Thirty-four of the forty had been found and only twelve were anywhere close to full working order. A quick roll call on all ships had been taken; nearly four hundred men missing, most of them auxiliaries and legionaries. One in ten lost before they had even landed.

Pavo and Sura were sitting near the prow of the vessel. Still blackened and bruised, the two watched their commanding officers muttering; Nerva groaned and shook his head wearily over and again as they despaired over the remaining capabilities of the legion.

‘Makes me nervous to see him like that,’ Pavo muttered.

‘Nerva?’ Sura replied. ‘They say he’s a bulldog on the battlefield, but he’s hardly the role model off it, eh? Mind you, I think Mithras himself would be shitting himself about now. Look at the state of us!’

‘But it’s rubbing off on the others,’ he nodded to the huddle of recruits, their heads down, firing glances at the tribunus. Anxiety had gripped them all after the pirate captain’s last words had spread around the centuries, but this was embarrassing. ‘Gallus has kept his cool, at least.’

‘The ice king? Course he has. I don’t think he’s ever felt emotion.’

They fell quiet and Pavo picked at his cold, hard salted meat ration as he spoke, flicking a string of gristle over the side. A bird swooped, catching the morsel before it hit the water. Sura and Pavo looked up, and then at each other.

‘Was that a…’ Sura started.

‘A falcon!’ Pavo yelped.

‘Land ho!’ the legionary in the crow’s nest cried.

Night had well and truly fallen. Amalric and his men threw themselves through the undergrowth, blind and desperate. Having disposed of their exhausted horses the previous day, the eight men that remained of King Tudoric’s Gothic army were now soaked in cold sweat and caked in filth as they fled like rabbits.

Barbed plants whipped across Amalric’s face and his bare and flayed feet stung on the coarse rubble as the exhausted scramble continued after two days. Over a hundred of the dark riders raced up and down the hilly terrain, combing the area relentlessly. Of the original twenty Goths who had escaped the massacre in the blizzard, the dark riders had picked off five of them. Then, the Gothic mounts had tired and the fifteen had continued on foot, and the dark riders had slain seven more since then. The leader of the dark riders, who appeared frantic in his desire to exterminate what was surely an insignificant number of stragglers, wore the severed heads of each man caught around a loop in his belt — their stunned expressions staring out at the world they had just left.

Amalric heard yet another chorus of thundering hooves behind him. He dropped to his belly, into the freezing mud, and gritted his chattering teeth. The rider galloped past him. He was safe once more, for at least another few moments. Then he heard it — the feint crashing of waves, distant but unmistakable. This was it then, the coast — nowhere left to run. Death would have him soon enough.

Another bloodcurdling scream split the air. He spun onto his back to see the dull shape of one of his men impaled on the end of a spear like a fish, hoisted up from his hiding place by the stocky rider who cried in delight at his kill.

To the south it was, then. He made out the form of a grassy ridge through the blackness. Over there would be the clear, open beaches of Bosporus. He vowed to kiss the sands of his beloved homeland before they skewered him, and then leapt from prone to break into a sprint. He roared in defiance as he heard the Hun riders sweep round to lock onto him as he bolted for the ridge.

‘Come on then, you dogs!’ He boomed, turning to face them while still stepping backwards up to the lip of the ridge. ‘Valhalla awaits me!’

Then he spun to continue his run, but stopped dead in his tracks at the sight on the beach that spread out before him.

Gallus again set his eyes on the dark and murky coastline, trying desperately to distinguish the shore from the water. Only the moon and the generous sprinkling of stars betrayed gloomy outcrops of rock and shimmering grass. Then something on the almost ethereal caught Gallus’ eye; movement, he was sure of it!

Clamping his arm onto Nerva’s shoulder, he pointed to the movement. He strived to catch anything at all that would indicate their position, when suddenly, below the area of movement, he saw it, the unmistakable froth of a lapping wave.

‘Fire arrows!’ He bellowed. The Cretan archers on the sibling galley, standing by crackling braziers, lifted their bows and let loose a volley. The sky glowed. And the smooth beach was revealed. ‘Shore ahead! Prepare for landing,’ he roared.

The calm of the night was rudely interrupted by the grinding arrival of the Classis Moesica as first the pirate flagship and then over thirty more vessels crunched onto the shingle.

When the ship finally ground to a halt, Nerva strode to the prow again, over to Gallus, who instantly stood to attention and saluted his tribunus, awaiting orders.

‘First century, form a perimeter for disembarking,’ Nerva boomed.

Despite their exhaustion, the bruised, dirtied and damp legionaries scrambled to collect their equipment before thudding, one by one, onto the wet sand, forming a line a short distance up the beach. This seemed a lot easier than the recon, Gallus mused. Maybe it was the presence of the tribunus, or maybe it was because they were all desperate to get off this creaking hulk.

‘Excellent. You’ve got them well drilled.’ Nerva said quietly to Gallus. Then, reverting to the booming tone of a tribunus, he cried over to Horsa; ‘Captain, form up with a hundred of your riders and perform close proximity reconnaissance.’ He turned back to Gallus. ‘Let’s see what we find out there before we get our heads down,’ he grinned.

Gallus returned a stern nod. The tribunus was back to his enthusiastic best. Gallus wanted to believe they were in control, but his gut screamed danger.

Pavo straightened himself as the first century formed up. He eyed the line either side of him; Zosimus bore the expression of a confused animal growing steadily angrier as he fidgeted in a tiny mail vest which would be lucky to fit Avitus. Coincidentally, Avitus held the end of the line wearing what looked like a mail tent on his diminutive frame. He looked ahead to see Sura with the clutch of foederati who stood around Horsa; the captain led his detachment into a gallop and then disappeared over the grassy ridge at the top of the beach.

One by one, the ships of the fleet fanned out across the beach and the legion formed up on dry land. The auxiliaries, severely thinned from the storm, took their place on the wings, with the foederati outside them again. Nerva strode to the front to address them. He stopped and took a breath to speak out, when a spine-chilling cry pierced the air from behind the grassy ridge at the top of the beach.

The clomping sound of a solitary set of hooves raced towards the Roman line. The darkness worked its icy magic on the imaginations of the Romans, who instinctively braced in the direction of the noise. Pavo watched the shape emerge from the pitch.
Horsa!
But the Goth’s face was wrinkled.

‘Riders! Hundreds of them, we’re engaged and we need infantry backup!’ he cried. With that, he wheeled around and disappeared back into the darkness like a ghost.

Nerva’s brow furrowed and he glanced to his left, where the archer auxiliaries stood. ‘I want light on the field. Now!’ He yelled. Then turning back to the centre of the Roman line, he continued. ‘First cohort, advance — double line. Second and third, keep our perimeter around the ships.’

Pavo tightened his grip on his shield as Gallus underlined the order with a cry to advance. The first and second centuries formed the first line, with the third, fourth and fifth making up a generous second line. As they set forward, a rush of flaming arrows flew over their heads, and at last their surroundings were apparent. The crest of a small rolling hillock lay ahead where the sand and shingle petered out, and at its foot a mass of foederati were locked in battle with a large band of horsemen. The foederati were being pulled in every direction as their enemies swooped around and through them like birds of prey. They hacked and moved, never stopping to fight in one place. Pavo was transfixed on the shadowy riders as the century jogged forward. Soon the technique of their foes became clear. They made battle by sweeping into a victim with a large, curved slashing blade, only to continue on to safety before drawing an unusual composite bow, and firing off several arrows, on the move, hands free of the reins, while turning their horses to prepare for the next sweep into the fray. They would alternate this with lassoing their foes with a loop of rope, bringing them down and dragging them away from their group. Pavo felt a powerful chill as he watched another body being trundled through the brush like this, screaming and helpless, only to be encircled by the riders and butchered. He saw the dim glimmer of Sura’s mail vest, fighting by Horsa, and mouthed a prayer to Mithras for his friend.

‘Foederati, take the wings!’ Gallus bellowed over his shoulder, seeing the number of riders they had to contend with.

When they were only paces from engagement, Pavo saw the rest of the foederati emerge from the wings like pincers to wrap around the battle. The foreign riders saw the jaws of the trap just as they snapped shut, but it was too late, the Roman circle advanced for the kill.

The riders fell back from the foederati, instinctively nocking their bows at the advance. In the split second before they fired, Gallus barked. ‘Shields!’

Pavo ducked with the approaching line of the first century as they rippled into a wall of iron, and a chorus of rattling followed as the hail of arrows clattered against the shields, a peppering of gurgling cries and thuds marked out the handful that were too slow. As the first volley fell silent, Gallus, wary of the more eager men who may not have expected a double or triple volley of arrows immediately barked; ‘Stay down!’ Again, the arrows rained on the shields of the first — no cries this time, though. After the third volley, Gallus held his breath to the count of three to be sure, before screaming the advance. As one, the first century bristled up from its shield wall, and rolled forward in a perfect line. In the meantime, the foederati were powering into the flanks and rear of the riders.

The riders dropped their bows, whipping their swords free. They gathered into a pack and their momentum soared as they fell away from the foederati and towards the Roman line. Their leader urged them on, motioning to break through the infantry ahead of them.

Pavo gawped at the grimacing rider who galloped for him. Only his eyes sparkled in his shadowy frame, and then the raging symmetric scars on his cheeks flashed in the latest illumination of arrows. His straggly black hair and moustache whipped up as he cried, lifting his sword. Pavo was sure he could feel the horse’s breath on his face when the order finally came.

‘Split!’ Gallus cried.

Like a trap door, the century drifted into widespread files, dampening the impact of the riders and sending them into the depth of the ranks. Pavo ducked from the sword swing of the rider, the tip of the blade glancing from his helmet. As the rider shot past, he crouched and hacked at the horse’s legs. With a whinny of agony, the beast crumpled to the ground. Pavo shivered as the creature thrashed in pain, the rider crushed under its weight.

‘Close!’ Gallus roared.

As quickly as they had opened, the files closed in again like a flytrap, snaring the riders with their weapons. The few who broke free at the other end ran straight into the wall of the second line. They wheeled round, racing for the narrowing corridor of escape between the first and second centuries and the rest.

‘Take them down!’ Nerva cried, bringing the line of the legion forward with a swipe of his sword overhead. With a smash, the Roman lines crashed into the flanks of the fleeing riders. Such was the impact that some horses leapt up and over the crush, leaping free altogether to gallop into the night. Those trapped in the pincers were quickly despatched, and in moments, the smash of iron on iron was replaced with a growing roar of victory. Pavo noticed Gallus still wore a frown.

‘Prisoners?’ Gallus bawled to Horsa.

‘No prisoners,’ Horsa gasped, gulping down the cool night air. His skin glistened with sweat and blood. ‘A group of them at their front escaped, less than ten of them.’ Wincing, and clutching a gash in his midriff, he paused for a moment. ‘I’ve sent a detachment of fifty after them.’

‘Again!’ Nerva muttered. ‘We’re being starved of intelligence.’

‘Those riders,’ Gallus started, turning to Nerva, who wore the same dark look. ‘They are the same dogs who shadowed us on the reconnaissance, sir.’

‘I assumed so,’ Nerva replied coolly. ‘We need more information; we need to understand our situation. Our fleet is not even close to being seaworthy, if we are attacked, we cannot retreat to sea, and we don’t know of anything other than our immediate surroundings on land…’ Nerva screwed his eyes up and sighed, rubbing the furrows on his brow.