Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4)

by Gordon Doherty

  He gazed down over the mountain’s lower northern face and conjured fantasies of a different life, his eyes coming to a turquoise rock pool and birch glade just by the section of winding path where the mountain merged with the foothills. This tranquil sight always seemed to calm him. Today though, there was something different. He frowned, squinting, noticing a lone figure crouched by the edge of the pool, scooping and drinking water. Odd, he thought, noticing that the figure wore not the rags of a sentry or robes of a messenger or merchant, but some kind of armour. Legionaries, here? The last he had heard, the legions were all tucked away inside the walled cities while the Goths dominated the plains of central Thracia.

  When the figure stood, Acuelo was somewhat taken aback, for he rose and rose, taller than any man he had ever seen. His raven-dark hair was knotted at the nape of his neck and he sported a trident beard. Yes, he wore a mail shirt, but he was no legionary. He placed a fancy bronze helm on his head – adorned with what looked like wings above each ear. The giant looked up then, and seemed to meet Acuelo’s eye, before waving an arm, as if beckoning something, someone, up from the lower section of the path.

  Acuelo’s heart thudded and he felt the wintry wind chill him now, and a tingle of chest pain returned. A blonde-haired warrior hurried past the giant at the rock pool and on up the hill track towards this ledge. Acuelo tensed: the baked leather armour, the fair skin and hair, the scarred wooden shield. Now there was no doubt. Reports indicated that the Goths had made the heart of the Thracian plain their own, but that the cities and the mountains were safe. The reports were wrong. He gawped as another Goth jogged into view after the first, ushered by the giant beside the rock pool, who then joined them in loping up the mountainside. Then another approached, followed by a steady stream of them. They bounded up the mountainside path like insects, all the while shooting glances to the ledge. To Acuelo.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed more streams of the Gothic warriors, flooding up the path on the eastern mountain face towards the mine entrance there. Suddenly, a distant clash of iron from the sentry camp snatched his attention: hundreds of these Goths were pouring around it, climbing over the wall like ants. The screams of the handful of sentries in there carried in the breeze. ‘No!’ he wailed, thinking of his family.

  Perhaps it was the years that had passed since his last military service that suspended him in disbelief. A hurled Gothic spear clattering down just a pace from him soon remedied that. He staggered back from the ledge and into the hot breath of the mines, a nascent cry of alarm building in his throat, only to hear that the quarrelling voices within from before had grown. Gothic voices. They were in the mine already, he realised. Echoing, jagged cries and the clang of iron weapons.

  ‘To arms!’ he cried, lifting his spear and looking on down the tunnel for his fellow sentries. He saw the young, lean lad he had left in charge stepping backwards out of another cavern, his lance falling to the ground. Suddenly a spear tip burst through the lad’s back. The spear tip was wrenched clear, the lad fell, and in his place stood Vulso and Dama, free of the mine wall, shackles hewn. Vulso turned his stolen spear on Acuelo, while Dama picked up the dead young sentry’s lance.

  ‘What . . . how?’ Acuelo stammered, seeing many other prisoners rushing to and fro, freed and carrying weapons, falling upon sentries like packs of wolves. Then he saw Goths darting around, hacking at the shackles of certain prisoners.

  Vulso held up his hewn chains. ‘It seems that our wishes have come true sooner than we could have hoped, Acuelo. Now, I had best make this quick, else your wife might be entirely spoiled by the time I get to her . . . ’

  Acuelo felt a dull pop as Vulso thrust the spear into his breastbone, then drove ahead, running him backwards, out onto the ledge, before snapping the spear back. The action caused Acuelo to swing round, swaying, his feet on the brink of the ledge, hot blood pumping from his ruptured heart, bitter winter air sweeping around him. He saw that the sentry camp down below was now ablaze and the screaming from there had stopped. He whispered a weak prayer of thanks to Pluto that his family was most probably already dead and would suffer no more. With his last few moments of clarity, he also noticed that distant Abdera was being overrun by these raiders too. The stables were ablaze and the sky was stained with smoke. Then the final race has been run at last, he thought with an unexpected sense of relief, before he toppled forward over the ledge and plummeted, the life having left him before his body crunched and buckled on its way down the ragged mountainside.

  Farnobius stalked through the mines, dragging his axe along a wall of ore, trailing a spray of sparks behind him. His army of Gothic spearmen flooded along the tunnels with him, as did the miners they had freed. Unchain just the strong, young ones, he had told his men.

  These mines would bring him wagon-loads of gold but, more importantly, extra men. His horde was strong, with two thousand Taifali riders and nearly two thousand Gothic spearmen under Egil and Humbert, not to mention nearly a hundred of the most loyal Huns. But these men could not be squandered. No, he needed dogs of war, men who could be thrown at the enemy without a second thought.

  He came to a vast cavern within the mines, strode up to a shelf of bedrock and swung round to face the prisoners and spearmen following in his wake.

  ‘Romans! I am Reiks Farnobius, true Lord of the Greuthingi . . . and soon, I will be master of this land,’ he boomed. His words reached every corner of the mine. The gathered miners listened, wide-eyed, more pushing into the cavern, jostling to get a better view of their saviour. ‘You were consigned to these mines by masters who saw fit for you to work and die here. They gave you no choice. Today, I come here and offer you a choice. Join me, fight with me against those who condemned you . . . or defy me . . . and die.’

  The last word echoed through the mines and the Greuthingi flanking him and dotted all around the cavern levelled their spears. The prisoners flinched at this. He saw a pair of them – one with a flat nose and the other with devious, dark eyes. ‘Your answer?’ he said, pinning these two with his glare.

  ‘We are not soldiers,’ Vulso said warily.

  ‘We are thieves,’ Dama added.

  ‘And murderers,’ another prisoner, still in chains, spat. ‘That one raped an old woman then killed her. That’s not the act of a mere thief.’

  Vulso shot the prisoner a sour look.

  Farnobius wondered at the type of men he might harvest from this exercise. Dogs of war and no more, he reaffirmed, then intensified his glower on the flat-nosed one. ‘Make your choice. Gold, rapine and glory await you should you choose wisely.’

  Vulso and Dama shared a glance, their angst melting away as they considered the booty to be had, then both nodded. ‘We choose to serve you, Reiks.’

  Hundreds of voices echoed this, and Farnobius grinned as he sensed his horde’s mood swelling. The Greuthingi started the familiar chant, then the prisoners caught on and joined in.

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

  Later, Farnobius stood amongst the smouldering ruins of the sentry camp at the foot of the mountains. He glowered at the single handcart before him. It held just a few chunks of gold-streaked ore.

  So very, very little, the voice of Vitheric’s shade said without a hint of mockery, yet the words scourged Farnobius’ hopes.

  ‘It is all they could find,’ Egil, the minor Greuthingi noble, insisted.

  ‘I promised them wagons of gold,’ Farnobius growled, detecting the eyes of his men darting over the takings from the mine and remembering his promise to them just a week ago at the ruined wagons.

  ‘These mines are all but spent, Reiks Farnobius,’ Humbert, Egil’s comrade, shrugged.

  Farnobius was irked by the way Humbert said this, his voice loud and clear as if to announce the failure to the horde. This reminded him starkly of Alatheus and Saphrax, the asps who had used and humiliated him for years.

  ‘There is but a fraction of what you hoped to find,’ Humbert continued.


  Farnobius’ top lip twitched and his axe-arm tensed. Another word and your head will spin free . . .

  Then the sibilant tone of the dead boy-king spoke again; You would grant him such a swift death? Then you must truly respect this one.

  Farnobius’ head twitched violently as he shook the voice away, and his fingers tightened on his axe.

  ‘I did, however, find these,’ Humbert added, holding up a pile of scrolls then nodding to the charred remains of a timber building, ‘in there. Maps, messages,’ he said, unfurling a few and pinning them open on the edge of the hand cart with daggers.

  Farnobius’ ire faded and the axe-arm slackened as he followed Humbert’s finger, tracing across the map.

  ‘This seems to show the gold stores of the empire.’ Humbert tapped upon Abdera, where a golden dot represented these mines and another at Constantinople seemingly represented the treasury and mint where the mined gold ended up. ‘Thracia’s gold stores are well and truly secured behind the walled cities,’ he concluded, tapping similar gold dots at Adrianople and Athenae.

  ‘You offer me nothing I do not already know,’ Farnobius sighed.

  Humbert offered a weak smile and pointed to one of the scrolls he had unfurled. ‘No, there is more. This message describes the situation to the west, beyond Thracia – in the Dioceses of Dacia and Pannonia and all the provinces encompassed by those lands.’

  Farnobius frowned, looking over the foreign writing on the scroll and then to the area west of Thracia. Many of the cities here and all the way to the waters of the Mare Adriaticum were dotted with gold. ‘More gold hidden behind well-manned walls?’ he said, exasperated.

  Humbert shook his head, his grin growing as he traced a section of the writing. ‘Unlike here, the garrisons of the western cities are weak, some even non-existent. The western legions are concentrated elsewhere.’

  A shiver of excitement ran up Farnobius’ spine. Glory, riches, a kingdom that can be carved out in my name.

  But the echoing voice of Vitheric was quick to counter; A kingdom of glory built upon the rotting foundations of a small, trusting boy’s corpse.

  His head twitched again and he issued a low growl as his eyes traced back over the map, seeking out the route from Thracia to those western lands. His efforts were foiled by the etchings of mountains forming a wall between east and west, then his gaze snagged on the one winding valley passage that cut through these heights. Under it was scrawled a faded name. The Succi Pass. At its narrowest point was a tiny drawing of what looked like some minor stone fortification. Here was inscribed the text Trajan’s Gate. Nothing else was marked on the map. No other barriers apart from this one. His thin smile returned in earnest.

  He swung round to his watching horde, holding the scroll aloft. ‘Today, we have seized a great treasure. A map that will take us to the gold stores of the West. A land barely defended. A land that can be ours. Tomorrow, we set off to the West, to Trajan’s Gate and the spoils that await us beyond!’

  Muted chatter broke out. For a moment, he doubted whether they would accept this: a scroll when they had been promised tangible bounty. Then the chatter spilled into a refrain of cheering. The chant started then, and he basked in the glorious clamour.

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

  He thought nothing of the dogs, Alatheus and Saphrax. He heard nothing from the persistent shade of the boy-king whose life he had taken in the shallows of the Danubius. The moment was his. The day was his. Then something moved in the corner of his eye to spoil it. A lone figure was scrambling down the mountainside, behind his horde. It was a Roman in a red military tunic, his skin and hair blackened with dirt and smoke. Farnobius silently beckoned the nearest of his foot archers. The Goth handed him a self-bow and an arrow. Farnobius nocked, winked and drew to his cheek, then loosed. The arrow sailed through the air and punched into the dirt where the Roman had been standing just a moment ago. Now the cur was in flight, rushing and vaulting onto a riderless horse – a piebald mare. A moment later, the Roman had heeled the beast into a gallop, haring north-west.

  Might your kingdom of glory be toppled by just one rider? Vitheric asked. Mine was stolen from me by the strangling hands of just one man . . .

  Farnobius gazed into the ether, lost in the truth of the words.

  A Hun rider trotted over beside him. The stench of the man gave him away and shook Farnobius from his trance. It was Veda the scout, the one who had found the secret path around the Shipka Pass. The rat-faced rider wore a wolf-skin on his head like a crown, the fangs marking his forehead and the pelt hanging down his back. His keen eyes followed the Roman rider’s path. ‘Shall I kill him?’ Veda asked, nocking his bow.

  Farnobius’ brow knitted. The escaping dog might have heard of his planned route west. Should word reach those lands, his rapine might not be as smooth as he had hoped. ‘Do it.’

  Veda’s asymmetric compound bow stretched, then relaxed again, the arrow unloosed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Farnobius growled.

  ‘He is too far away, Master. It would be a waste of an arrow. But I can hunt him, if you wish? Just as my people hunt antelope on the steppe.’

  Farnobius’ chest prickled. He grabbed Veda’s collar and hauled the rodent-faced man closer. ‘Catch him, kill him . . . ’ he growled, his smashed nose wrinkling and his head twitching violently, then eyed the Hun’s wolf pelt. ‘ . . . and bring me his skin!’

  Chapter 14

  Veda raced after the fleeing Roman through daylight and black night. For seven days the chase continued, his sturdy steppe pony never quite swift enough to match the Roman piebald’s pace, but strong enough to ride on and regain lost ground while the Roman beast had to rest. And this morning, the chase would end, he vowed.

  He clung to his galloping pony’s neck and basked in the chill late-October wind whipping across his face and furring the wolf skin on his head. White cloud streaked the blue heavens as if cast there by Tengri the Sky God himself, the tall grass before him stretched for miles and if he ignored the snow-clad Haemus Mountains to the north, he could almost imagine that he was on the great steppe once more – the home he and his people had left behind to seek bounty in Roman lands as allies with the Goths. For that moment, he was home, almost heedless of the vital task Reiks Farnobius had set him.

  Then something wrenched him from his reverie. An assault on the senses. He slowed, sitting tall on the saddle, his nose shooting skywards like a hound on the scent. His eyes fixed on the weak pall of smoke rising from a depression in the tall grass, barely a quarter of a mile ahead. He slowed his pony to a canter as he approached the small patch of flattened grass. He could smell it now: woodsmoke. And he could hear the crackling of kindling and snorting and shuffling of a tired mount. His rodent-features bent into a chill grin, and he slipped from the saddle and crept towards the source of the noise. Parting the tall grass like curtains, he beheld the filthy, shaking Roman, crouching, back turned, heaping more grass and twigs onto the feeble fire he had kindled. The man was shivering uncontrollably, dressed only in a light tunic, and his chestnut mare lay on its belly, still lathered with sweat from the relentless flight.

  A swift beast and a skilful rider, aye, mused Veda, but you thought that when the horizon was between me and you, you were safe. That was your mistake.

  Veda’s brow dipped, his eyes sparkling and fixed on the Roman’s neck as he silently drew a sickle from his belt. Then he leapt like a preying cat.

  It was only the startled whinny of the exhausted mare that foiled his strike. The Roman swung round, throwing out an arm that caught the sickle blade as Veda descended. The blade slashed the edge of the Roman’s wrist and chipped bone, while the Roman’s fist crashed into Veda’s jaw. A burst of white light exploded behind Veda’s eyes and he rolled through the grass. An instant later though, he was back on his feet, only to see the Roman speeding off into the swaying, shoulder-high grass like a panicked deer, trying in vain to call back his bolting mare.
>
  Veda noticed the dark rivulets of blood staining the grass and marking the Roman’s path. He touched his fingers to the blood, then brought them up to his nostrils, sniffing then grinning once more.

  Run for your life, Roman. It’ll make the kill all the sweeter, he mused as he leapt back upon his steppe pony and heeled her on in pursuit. Just like the great hunt in the steppes, he enthused, I can toy with this dog. Circle him, herd him, pin him into a corner . . . then peel the skin from his body. First, perhaps I should deal with his fleetness of foot . . .

  He drew his composite bow, nocked, drew with thumb, forefinger and middle finger, then loosed. The arrow whizzed through the air and thwacked into the Roman’s shoulder. Blood puffed and the Roman dropped into the grass and disappeared from sight.

  ‘No!’ Veda growled, angered that he might have killed his prey all too quickly. Then, when the Roman re-emerged, clutching his wounded shoulder and running – but with far less alacrity this time – Veda’s rictus returned. Chuckling, he took a swig of fermented mare’s milk and sighed in contentment, then trotted after the Roman.

  He was gaining on the fleeing man easily, and took to eyeing the land ahead: foothills and rugged highland. He watched as the Roman burst from the edge of the sea of grass, then loped on into those hills. The man was weakening from his wounds, Veda noted with relish, seeing him scramble and fall as he tried to ascend a steep, craggy bank, leaving smears of blood from his wounds as he did so. Still, the dog managed to reach the top of this hill. Veda kicked his mount on in pursuit. At the crest, he halted, seeing the Roman flailing down the far side and then stumbling onwards along the floor of a great, steep-sided valley. And what a valley: it was as if a great plough had been dragged, undeterred, through the mountainous terrain. Then his eyes fell upon the broad stripe of dilapidated grey flagstones that ran up the heart of this valley. The Roman Road, Veda realised.