by Ellis Knox
Avitus tried to puzzle that out on his own, for Julian was obviously wrapped in his own thoughts, walking in long strides. His master had blamed himself for too many things—for the long retreat, for the Legion’s many losses, for his failure at Oppidum, for his failure with Valens, even for the Horde getting across the Great River. Now he was taking this onto his shoulders, too.
Avitus adjusted the heavy pack. This would not do. He did not need a Julian full of self-doubt. He needed his master to be confident, even arrogant. That was the Julian who really had escaped from many a tight spot. That was the Julian who knew how to fight on the docks and the back alleys, who dared to gamble with the highest stakes, who never flinched. Because the road was only going to get rockier.
Julian moved more slowly after the cherry grove, as if he were carrying a new burden. The sun bore down cruelly and both men sweat under its heat, but Julian looked pale instead of flushed. There was little enough to eat that night, but Julian ate only a portion of it. Avitus fretted helplessly. He tried to see to Julian’s hurts, but his master swatted him away. Soon after, Julian fell asleep.
Groaning woke Avitus. The Scythian turned over and groaned himself. He had never kept up his invisibility as long as he had back on the battlefield, and the effort had cost him. Weariness sat on his chest like a stone. He opened an eye and saw the sky was beginning to lighten in pre-dawn. He tried to go back to sleep but Julian kept making noise. Muttering, he sat up.
Avitus had wadded up an officer’s cape as a makeshift pillow. In the half-light he saw Julian’s head had lolled off it and was at an uncomfortable angle. He moved Julian’s head then snatched his hand back with a gasp.
Julian’s flesh was hot. Avitus leaned closer. His master’s breath was rapid, shallow, like a sick dog.
“Water,” Avitus muttered, “and food.” The bleeding had finally stopped, but infection was now an enemy. He stood.
“No travel today, master,” he said quietly.
Julian groaned, then spoke without opening his eyes. “Can’t stop. Get … river. Ghobellensi … can’t swim.” The wheezing giggle that followed alarmed Avitus.
“I have to go, master. You must stay.” He fought back a wave of despair. “I’ll be back. You stay here. Say it back to me.”
Julian whispered. “You come back. I stay.”
“Good.”
“Tired, Avi.”
“I know.” He turned away, ignoring the tears that started in his eyes. “I’m going to find food.”
He walked away quickly, trying to persuade himself he was not making a mistake.
“A farm,” he told himself. “You’re no woodland forager. Find a farm.”
He scanned the countryside, just beginning to appear as the eastern sky blushed red. Westward lay the broad plains of Thrace. Farms would be there, but there also were goblins. South, then.
He was back before mid-day. He had found a farm in the next valley. No people were there, but he found food, water, wine, and best of all, a donkey. He loaded the beast with bread, dried meats, water bags, wine skins, fruits, and some vegetables with which he bribed the donkey into returning at a good clip. The fear that Julian would awaken and wander away haunted him, but once he reached the stand of trees, he saw that Julian had scarcely moved.
Avitus hobbled the donkey, unloaded his treasures, and tended to his master. He produced a cloth, dampened it with water, wiped away the sweat from Julian’s face and neck. He talked as he did so, as much to keep despair at bay as to say anything meaningful. At intervals he tried, with little success, to get his master to eat or at least to drink. He settled for squeezing drops from the rag onto Julian’s lips.
Cleaning the wounds took more than an hour. He carefully peeled away armor and clothes, revealing a number of lesser wounds on chest and arms. He quickly went through the cloths. All were blood-stained by the time he rolled Julian over to tend to his back. There he found the culprit—a long gash that ran from shoulder to hip, not deep but the flesh was swollen and inflamed. When he touched the wound, Julian flinched and cried out. It took Avitus most of an hour to get the thing properly cleaned. He made better progress once Julian passed out.
At the end of the ordeal, Avitus indulged in meat and wine accompanied by hard cheese and an apricot. He gave a generous helping of grain to the donkey, along with part of an apple. The beast seemed grateful. At least he stayed quiet.
The fever held Julian for another full day. The first night, he was restless and raving. He cried out for his soldiers, for a drink, for Avitus, for Inglena. Once he called for his father, then broke into a long string of curses.
Avitus got little sleep.
The next day was an unbroken misery of worry and tending and more worry. When he was not inspecting and cleaning wounds, he was trying to keep Julian cool. There was nothing to be done about the heat, but he kept urging his master to drink water. The rest of the time, he watched for goblins.
He saw outrunners twice—dark bands moving like herd animals in the valley, but they did not come near. In the distance, in the direction of Hadrianopolis, the sky was still tinged rust red.
The second night, Julian quieted and Avitus slept.
The sun awakened him. Feeling direct rays on his face, he instantly knew the hour was late. His eyes opened and he scrambled to his feet, disoriented, looking around wildly.
“Morning, little bird.”
There sat Julian, leaning against a tree. His face was still pale as washed linen, but his eyes were clear and his voice strong.
“Do we have anything to eat?” Julian asked. “I may starve.”
They ate. Julian wanted to get going.
“We have to get to the City,” he said, “before the Horde does. But after he ate some more, and drank some watered wine, he fell asleep again.
Avitus took the time to get everything packed, and loaded onto the donkey. Julian woke again in the early afternoon.
“Your color is better,” Avitus said, seeing Julian’s eyes open.
“I hurt all over.” Julian adjusted himself, yelped in pain, but got carefully to his feet. “I think my hair hurts.”
Avitus let a quick smile visit his lips. “I have the donkey ready,” he said.
“Donkey?” Julian looked around and spotted the animal. “Well done, Avi. What’s its name?”
“I did not name her,” Avitus replied.
“No?”
“We’ve not had good fortune with our named animals.”
Julian winced at that.
“Sorry,” Avitus said.
“Don’t be,” Julian said. “If not naming her keeps the beast alive, then all to the good.”
They set out. Julian was sometimes coherent, but for much of the day he did little more than wander. Something would catch his eye and he would declare it was Marcus, or Inglena, or the Legion’s standard, and veer in that direction. Avitus would grab the donkey by the lead, and Julian would follow meekly.
Goblins were strangely absent. In one of his more lucid moments, Julian supposed that Hadrianopolis had drawn the entire Horde to itself.
“They loot, Avi,” Julian said. They had halted under the canopy of a tall elm tree, seated on dry stubble of grass next to the enormous tree trunk. The day was well gone; the air lay heavy with old, dry smells. Julian continued after a moment.
“Animals don’t loot.”
“They feast, though,” Julian said. He lay on his stomach. “Wild dogs will gather at a corpse.”
Avitus winced at the words. “True, but then the goblins would still be at the battlefield, devouring corpses.”
“Maybe they are.”
“I hope so,” Avitus said. “That is, I don’t hope … but it would slow them.” He stumbled to a stop, overwhelmed by memories of the battlefield.
Julian did not answer. He was climbing laboriously to his feet.
“Perhaps they are doing both,” Avitus said. “The gods know there are enough of them.”
Julian was drifting
away again. He stood, squinting into the far distance.
“Is that the Gniva?” He took a step. “I saw a flash of red.”
“We need to get to the City, do you remember, master?” Avitus stood up as well. “We should find a place before nightfall.”
“There. I saw it again! Did you see it?” Julian’s eyes were too bright.
“I was looking the other way,” Avitus said. He sighed. “Let’s go, then. Our way lies south in any event.”
They passed from the elm’s shade into the golden heat of the August sun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
A Thousand Wounds
Inglena walked alongside Thrasimund. No warriors rode now. The hundred or so horses that still lived were used to carry supplies or to bear the wounded. So, the Therving warriors walked, most of them leading their own war horse as it bore packs or pulled carts.
Rixen walked among them. Few struck up a friendly conversation, but all Thervings ate together and camped together. Battle had not killed all prejudice, but it had ended Exile for good. The People were united. What remained of them.
As they had for the past several days, since the battle, the three leaders ate the mid-day meal together. By nightfall, everyone was too tired even to think, so they consulted at mid-day. Today, Marcus arrived with a change in plans.
“We have to move down to the Via Hadriana,” he announced, “the main road.”
Thrasimund looked up, his mouth still full, his question smothered by bread.
Marcus nodded in reply. “Risky, I know, but we gamble no matter what.” He was keenly aware he spoke in the same way Julian would have. He winced slightly; every memory of Julian or Ennius stabbed at him like a knife. He glanced at Inglena.
“The Horde,” she said.
“Scattered,” Marcus said. “Your scouts report the same as mine. The goblins are looting the countryside, not marching. At most, we would face outrunners.”
No one mentioned that they might just as likely face the Gniva and the hobs.
“All the reports come from behind,” Thrasimund said slowly.
“Exactly!” Marcus said, seizing on any positive note. “Hadrianopolis held them up for two days, at least, maybe longer.”
Inglena and Thrasimund both nodded. They had all seen the smoke that rose high. It hung even now in the still air, an ugly smudge above the horizon to the north.
“We are ahead of them now,” Marcus continued, “but not for long if we stay up here. We can’t make enough speed on these goat trails.”
“We are safer up here,” Thrasimund said, “where we can pull back among the trees.”
“I do not think so,” Inglena said. Her eyes were clouded, but her voice was clear. “Every day, we risk being found. Our true hope is to get to the Roman city with its walls.”
“Before the Horde does,” Marcus added.
“Yes.”
Thrasimund sighed. “I know you are right. I wish there was another way, but every choice is an evil one.”
“Not evil, Chief. Every choice is a gamble. We will win this one, because we must.”
He stood. The others joined him and together they looked out across the spreading plains of Thrace.
“More farms down there,” Thrasimund said, as if trying to find reasons to like the plan. “More to eat.”
“And we’ll make better time. A paved road for our carts, smooth ground for our feet. We’ll stay ahead of the goblins, reach Constantinople ahead of them. They’ll never take the City.”
Any reply Thrasimund or Inglena might have given was choked down by misgivings. The Great River was supposed to stop the Horde. The Imperial army was supposed to stop the Horde.
The Legion worked its way out of the uplands, where there were only pine forests and shepherd huts, down to the Via Hadriana, the main road from Hadrianopolis to Constantinople. This country was rich in farmland, watered by the spring run-off from the mountains and by summer storms that rolled in from the Euxine Sea. The land was a patchwork of green and gold, orchards and wheat fields, meadows and dry grass. Through this ran the Via Hadriana, arrow straight, wide enough for two carts, with graveled paths on either side—a Roman Road, brutally simple. A military road.
All were cheered by the easy going, though all watched the horizon for dust clouds that might signal goblins. That day they marched until dusk.
Marcus could not sleep that night. Scouts reported goblins closer than he had expected. Alone in his small tent he went over his arguments time and again. Each time he reached the same conclusion, and each time he was not comforted.
He left his tent, left the confines of the make-shift castra, and tried to walk off his worries. He paced across a fallow field under the night sky, a sky finally free of the terrible red dust of Hadrianopolis. And there she was, as if he had called to her. Black hair in the black night, highlights like fallen stars. She saw him and smiled, moon-bright. He went to her and she took his hand.
“You should be asleep,” she said, still smiling.
“I’m glad I’m with you,” he said. Her skin was cool and smooth, but her touch was steady as oak.
“Too many worries,” she said.
“Old ones and new ones. Scouts report outrunner bands less than a day away.”
“Mine report the same.” She squeezed his hand. “Raiding villages … it may slow them down.”
“We’re slowed too, even with the road. The horses are tired. People fall sick. The carts break down.” Why, he wondered, do I seem determined to say the worst?
“We bleed from a thousand wounds,” Inglena said. “But tomorrow we go on, yes?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
She put her arms around him. He lay his head on her shoulder.
“Have I made a mistake?” he whispered.
“You chose,” she said, “as you must do. That is what it means to lead. Julian told me this.”
He pulled back to look at her. A half moon let down pale light that landed like a butterfly on her face.
“When I look at you,” he said, “all my doubts vanish. When you speak, I hear the strength of the earth itself.”
She laughed merrily and gathered him in again. She whispered, her lips at his ear.
“My Roman is a poet.”
The next day, the carts did not break, the horses ate well, and the men of the Legion sang marching songs.
Even better, a group of thirty soldiers found them. A few stragglers had joined the Legion over the previous days, no more than a dozen. The new arrivals were from Hadrianopolis, from the Imperial camp, left there for one reason or another. Their arrival brought some hope there might be others. They would be found more readily, down here on the road.
At mid-day, scouts reported goblins, but they were still a day away. Marcus dared to hope for a while, until that night when Inglena said her men had seen packs even closer.
“It is a race now,” Marcus said.
“We will heal and go faster,” she said. “We will win the race.”
“A thousand wounds,” he said.
“We will heal them all.”
“Yes.”
The next day, the carts did not break, the horses ate well, and the men of the Legion sang their marching songs a little louder. But the scouts reported goblins in greater numbers, ever closer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Beneath the Willow
The heat bore down on Avitus unrelenting, so hot it almost hurt to have anything touch him. At night it withdrew a little, like a wolf from a campfire, but it returned as the sun cleared the eastern horizon, seeping out from the ground itself as if heat had become part of the landscape. Human beings do not belong here, he thought as he and Julian trudged under the scalded sky, this can only be home to lizards and dark spiders.
Despite his gloom, the evidence of habitation was everywhere—farms, all abandoned, flocks wandering without shepherds, now and then a villa atop a hill, and the empty Roman road which they followed at a distance, but dared not walk.
They kept it in sight, but stayed among trees as much as possible. The road ran from Hadrianopolis to Constantinople, paved with stone, turning only when necessary and only just enough—a road for war. It had been built with packed and cleared paths on either side, wide enough for a legion to march in column, wide enough for its supply wagons.
But there ought to have been people. Shepherds should be attending the flocks, retrieving strays with the aid of quick dogs. Farmers should be in their fields, ready with scythe and rake, dark faces darker yet under the shadow of wide-brimmed hats. The road should bustle with dog carts and wagons carrying the wealth of the towns into the countryside, and carrying the bounty of the farms back to the city. This would all be laid out in a score of colors—yellow hats and yellow hay, brown carts and brown dogs, green trees, white and gray smocks trimmed with green or blue or yellow; there would even be the occasional red cloak—but there was none of these. Only black moved in the distance, dark masses of goblins pouring across the landscape in swirls and pools and streams, like some kind of black milk thrown over the countryside.
Late in the day, they came to a small valley. Poplar trees stood in an untidy row ending at a huge weeping willow and a low, stone building. The westering sun lit up the whole valley in brilliant colors.
“A farm?” Avitus wondered.
“Maybe there will be food,” Julian replied.
He was stronger, day by day. The fever did not return, and the wounds, as ugly as some were, showed no sign of infection.
“And water,” Avitus said, running his tongue over dry lips. “Or wine.”
“Wine would be good.”
“I’ll be happy with a little quiet, without goblins,” Avitus said, but when Julian shuddered in response, he said no more.
Avitus pulled at the donkey’s lead and they descended into the valley. A shoulder of one hill blocked their view for a time. A jay’s harsh call sounded from somewhere below. The trail they were following wound lazily downward and the hill shielded them from the sun low in the west, giving a little relief from the heat. The scent of dust became tinged with something else. Smoke, maybe. A hare stared at them from just outside its burrow. Its ears twitched and it disappeared in a blink. A dog, somewhere close ahead, let loose with a flurry of quick, angry barks, then screams mingled with snarls. The donkey jerked away in fear.