Legionary: Viper of the North (Legionary 2)

by Doherty, Gordon

  ‘Now,’ Valens continued, ‘you should also be aware of the other threat; the reason Fritigern pushed south in the first place. It is the Huns; they have moved on Gutthiuda.’

  ‘The dark riders?’ Traianus’ skin froze. He had heard of their trail of devastation in their inexorable advance westwards from the distant and windswept eastern steppes. But many believed they were still well north and east of the Gothic heartlands. ‘Then they have moved south with great haste, it seems?’

  ‘Indeed. Yet they are not the immediate danger.’ Valens tapped a finger on the campaign map. ‘In all my years, the one thing that has kept our borders safe has been the political fractures in the land of the Thervingi Goths. The rival iudexes have quarrelled and switched allegiance swiftly and often, like leaves dancing in a storm. But now, the arrival of the Huns seems to have forged them together, Traianus.’ Valens looked up. ‘That is my grave concern. It is not just Iudex Fritigern and his standing army, or some beefed-up mercenary rabble that has breached our borders. This is almost the entire Thervingi nation, mobilised as one, all the minor iudexes of eastern Gutthiuda following under Fritigern’s banner. It seems that only Athanaric’s lot have remained north of the river, holed up in the Carpates. I fear it will only be a matter of time before the outlying Gothic tribes, the Greuthingi included, flock south to join under Fritigern’s banner. If the tribes unite in such number, the empire will face an unprecedented threat.’

  Traianus’ skin crawled.

  ‘Traianus?’ Valens asked, frowning at his magister militum’s suddenly ghostly pallor.

  But Traianus heard his emperor’s words like a faraway echo, while the words of the one-eyed warrior from that distant day on the wharf rang in his head, as if the giant was hissing them into his ear right now.

  This is only the beginning, you dogs. The day will come when the Viper will rise again. On that day, the tribes will be united. And on that day, Roman blood will flow like the Mother River.

  Chapter 14

  The first morning of April brought with it a bitter chill and a fresh snowfall across the plain of Durostorum, as if winter was determined not to be usurped by the overdue spring. A full month had passed since the arrival of Fritigern and his people and still more Goths had spilled onto the plain in that time, further stretching the meagre grain supplies. Amongst the sea of tents, the number of shapeless bumps in the snow had grown steadily as Gothic elderly and children perished from hunger and exposure. And as their families succumbed to the conditions, the warriors were growing ever more restless. Then, in these last few days, factions of them had called for Fritigern to break free of the camp and march south in search of food.

  In the poor light afforded by the snowfall, Gallus stood at the northern end of the Gothic camp near a rudimentary goat pen. He eyed the corpse of a Gothic warrior – this one had certainly not succumbed to starvation. The body was half in the pen and half out, entrails stretched out across the snow, and all around him were the bodies of slaughtered goats. The stench was overpowering.

  ‘And they took the last of our grain!’ The old Gothic woman pleaded, cupping her hands together, her eyes wet with tears for her slain son. ‘And they were not driven to it from hunger. No, they carried the sacks to the riverbank then slit them, letting the grain fall and ruin in the waters. They want us to starve!’

  Gallus sighed, his eyes tracing the trail of grain-speckled hoofprints in the snow to the riverbank and then to where they dissolved into the snowdrifts. Like shade riders. Absurdly fitting, he realised, clenching his teeth. He had now lost count of the number of attacks that had happened like this over the last few weeks, in the dead of night. He looked to the woman. ‘So tell me again, you say it was them?’

  The woman nodded, choking back a sob. ‘Yes, the Viper’s riders! They mask their faces then strike in a pack, like wolves. Then they disappear into the night.’

  At that moment, her elderly husband came from a nearby tent to stand by her. His expression was different; his eyes were darting and his lips thin, his demeanour agitated. ‘That’s enough, Oda, we cannot change what has happened.’

  Gallus’ eyes narrowed.

  The Gothic woman turned to her husband, frowning, annoyed. ‘Erwin! How can you be so . . . calm!’ With that she broke down in a fit of sobbing, covering her face with her hands. Her husband held her to his chest as she shuddered with grief.

  Gallus caught another furtive glance from Erwin the Goth. This man had something to say, he was sure of it. Then a wracking sob from Oda split the air.

  Now was not the time.

  He sighed and handed the old man a linen wrap. The bread loaf inside was the last one to have been fired in the fort ovens. ‘Fill your bellies. Your son would not want you to suffer. Perhaps we can talk later though?’

  The man closed his eyes, nodding as he took the offering. Then Gallus turned to walk away.

  ‘Tribunus,’ Erwin called after him.

  Gallus turned. The old man’s brow was now wrinkled, and there were no more snatched glances, his gaze locked on Gallus.

  ‘I am old now, but I . . . ’ he paused, his gaze drifting into the dancing snowflakes, ‘ . . . I remember the atrocities the Viper committed. These night-slayings brought it all back to me. And then this,’ he gestured to his dead son’s torn body. ‘Fritigern may scoff at the idea of the Viper being at large amongst his people, but the threat is very real.’

  ‘You have something to tell me, old man?’ Gallus’ breath stilled and all his senses were primed.

  Erwin’s jaw stiffened as he looked to his dead son and then back to Gallus. ‘Perhaps, Tribunus.’ Then the old man clenched one fist, hugging his wife closer, his eyes moistening. ‘But first, and for Wodin’s and Mithras’ sake, put an end to the equally foul behaviour of your legionaries!’

  Gallus bit back on an instinctive response, for the man made a very valid point. Reports had been rife of Lupicinus’ men abusing their authority while policing the Goths; beatings, extortion and threats, all going unpunished as Lupicinus looked to demonstrate his authority over Gallus. Then, three days ago, the wife of a Gothic noble had been raped in front of her children by a comitatenses legionary named Ursus. The few hundred extra Claudia legionaries – the vexillationes that had escaped the turmoil in Gutthiuda and returned to the fort in these last weeks – would have to be put to work in policing Lupicinus’ men as well as the Goths, it seemed. He nodded sincerely to Erwin. ‘They are not my men, but I will do all I can.’

  ‘Then perhaps we will speak again,’ Erwin said, his gaze dark as he turned and ushered his wife into their tent.

  ‘Perhaps?’ Gallus replied even though he was alone in the swirling snow. ‘Most certainly, I would say.’

  With that, he turned and strode from the pen to pick his way through the sea of tents on the snow-packed track that led back to the fort. His mind spun with thoughts of the Viper, of Lupicinus and his unruly centuries, of the Huns lurking north of the river. To add to these woes, imperial communications had fallen silent; Mithras alone knew how many or how few legionaries remained in the other limitanei forts up and down the river. Worse, there was still no word or sighting of the messenger, Ennius, despatched over a month ago to gather orders from the emperor. Without intervention from Valens, this situation could only get darker.

  These troubles were plentiful enough to fill the minds of ten men, he mused, but it was the unseen presence of the Viper and his men that threatened to tip the balance and shatter the truce with Fritigern. The Viper’s riders seemed bent on driving the Goths to starvation. But they won’t suffer starvation for long, he realised, they will rise up. This is what the Viper seeks!

  He looked up, and his gaze fell upon Salvian. The ambassador shivered under his cloak, blowing into his hands for warmth as he waited, holding the reins of his and Gallus’ stallions. The man could easily have washed his hands of this affair and rode south to Constantinople, or to the port cities where a ferry would have taken him home, no doubt to
a luxurious villa in the capital. Instead, he had remained in the frozen north, and Gallus was glad of his company.

  Gallus took the reins and gave Salvian a nod. ‘It appears that the Viper was at large again. Or at least his riders were.’

  Salvian’s brow furrowed and he cast his eyes over the snow-capped timber watchtowers that had been constructed to demarcate the Gothic camp; the legionaries stationed in them had a clear sight of most of the plain, in daylight at least. ‘Then these riders must be within the Gothic camp, they must be,’ he spoke through chattering teeth.

  Gallus cast a quick glance back to the tent circle of Erwin and Oda. ‘Perhaps we should appeal to Fritigern to question suspects?’

  Salvian turned to him and pinned him with a sober gaze. ‘Unless you have something solid to put forward to Fritigern, any speculative arrests are liable to spark trouble. The Goths want to break from this camp and rampage south in search of food. The iudex is inches from crumbling to their will.’ Salvian mused over his own words and then nodded. ‘You need proof, Tribunus.’

  ‘Then it is simple,’ Gallus replied, ‘we will find proof.’

  Thundering through the moonlit forest, east of Durostorum, Ennius and his stallion had both passed the stage of exhaustion, the mount frothing at the mouth.

  The two week journey had been frantic, and the world had changed around him day by day. The air had turned cool and fresh on the ride to Trapezus. Then, on the galley to Tomis, it had grown bitter. Then, the white-cloaked land that he disembarked onto felt like another realm entirely from Antioch and the Persian front. At first he had been grateful of the cold as it soothed his chafed skin and weary limbs. Now, though, even his thick woollen cloak could not fend off the violent shivering.

  But he was only a few miles away from the end of his journey. He longed to see the XI Claudia fort, to hand over the scroll. He could hear the praise ringing in his ears already, taste the ale in the inn, feel the warm comfort of his bunk. And then there was his promotion. His wife would be overjoyed and maybe, at last, they could afford to buy a small landholding where their two baby girls could grow up and his father could live out his days in comfort.

  Inspired, he lifted the scroll from his cloak and kissed it, then clutched it tight in his grip and leaned flat on the saddle, heeling the beast. ‘Come on, boy, not long to go now. Ya!’

  Focused on the last rise before he would break clear of the forest and onto the plain of Durostorum, he did not notice the figure lurking in the shadows by the trackside, hands cupped to the mouth.

  Ennius heard a shrill bird call and frowned; it was the first note of birdsong he had heard since returning to this snowy land. He glanced over his shoulder.

  Nothing.

  He turned back to set his sights on home, when two dark figures darted from the trees ahead, a rope held across the track between them. Ennius’ eyes bulged and a scream caught in his throat as the two pulled the rope taut, lifting it so it caught Ennius around the chest and pulled him from his saddle. A sharp crack rang out as he tumbled, head over heels across the snow and bracken of the forest floor.

  Then everything came to a standstill. Groggily, Ennius saw his panicked stallion gallop off into the distance. He struggled to sit up and glanced around; the two figures were nowhere to be seen. He saw the scroll beside him and gratefully snatched it up from the ground. He made to stand then buckled and collapsed again with a scream as white hot agony coursed through his left leg: a shard of pure white bone jutted from the shin, poking through his leather boot, and the lower shin and foot hung at an absurd angle. He twisted away and vomited.

  Then footsteps crunched through the snow, right behind him.

  Retching the last of the bile from his belly, Ennius looked up. Two Gothic spearmen grinned like sharks, their topknotted locks billowing in the chill breeze, features illuminated in the moonlight. Ennius clawed at the dirt, pulling himself away despite the agony of his leg. But then he froze, hearing the gentle clop of hooves just behind him.

  He twisted round to see a figure, in a dark-green cloak and hood, face in shadow, mounted on a black stallion. One of the Gothic spearmen plucked the scroll from Ennius’ hand as he gawped at the dark rider.

  ‘This is what you wanted, Master?’ The spearman asked, holding up the scroll.

  ‘Indeed,’ the dark rider replied, pulling another, identically sealed scroll from his cloak. Then the shadows within the hood turned to behold Ennius. ‘Orders will reach the legionary fort, rider. Just not the ones you have carried all this way,’ he unfurled the original scroll, nodding as he read the contents. ‘No, this scroll will be little more than ashes in a matter of moments, as will you, Roman. As will your empire, before too long.’ With that, the figure raised one hand and extended a finger, then swiped it down.

  Ennius gawped, fear stiffening him at once. Then he twisted back to the two spearmen just in time to see the nearest of them draw a longsword to hold it two-handed, then swing the blade towards his neck.

  The forest echoed with Ennius the rider’s scream until it was abruptly cut short.

  Moonlight illuminated the plain as Senator Tarquitius made his way from the fort back to his rented room in Durostorum.

  ‘What have I done?’ He raked frozen fingers over his bald pate, muttering to himself as he crunched through the carpet of snow, past the crackling torches and fires of the nearby Gothic camp. Then, on seeing a family of emaciated Goths walking towards him on their way to the camp, eyeing him nervously, he straightened up and cleared his throat to stride in his best senatorial fashion. But as soon as he had passed them, his shoulders slumped again and he rubbed at his temples.

  He had been used, like a puppet, like a stepping stone. Again. Power had been dangled before him, like a carrot before a donkey, to lead him into this mess. All the expense, all the effort, all the lickspittle behaviour he had employed – all to ascend the ladder of imperial power. Yet it had all blinded him to the reality; he was the die in another’s hand. And if this Viper’s desires were to be realised, then there would be no empire. For the first time in so long he wanted to confide in someone, but he no longer knew who he could trust. And there were few if any who trusted him.

  The men of the legion barely disguised their contempt for him, and Salvian, his protégé, had seemingly sided with them. Then there was Pavo. His ex-slave glared at him like a demon every time their paths crossed. But I cannot tell him what he wants to know, he affirmed, remembering the Viper’s threat. You should continue to deny the legionary this knowledge, Senator, for without it, it seems you would be truly worthless to me, and I would have little reason to keep you alive.

  And then there were the Goths. Every one of the towering warriors who cast him a cold look could well be one of the Viper’s riders. Rumour had been rife that those very riders were secreted within the Gothic camp, and were the ones behind the numerous midnight slayings of noble Goths and ruination of what little grain supply they had. Perhaps, he gulped, looking around the plain, he might be their next target.

  A chill wind whipped up, blowing snow over him.

  ‘Why do you mock me,’ he shook a fist at the night sky, then wondered at which deity he cursed. Wealth and power had been his gods since his earliest days as a politician, and both had served to humiliate him. He felt a fresh wave of despair creep over him, then pursed his lips and balled his fists. ‘Bury your self-pity, you fool,’ he affirmed, ‘it will bring you little providence.’

  ‘Speaking to shades, Senator?’ A voice spoke from the darkness, startling him.

  He spun to scour the shadow under a lone snow-cloaked oak. There stood a dark figure beside a pair of tethered geldings. His nightmares rushed in for him as he remembered the green-cloaked apparition in Athanaric’s feasting hall. The Viper?

  The figure stepped forward, and he heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing not a green cloak but a scale vest. It was Fritigern’s aide. ‘Ivo! What are you doing here?’

  The giant warrior stepped forward,
bronze hoops sparkling in his earlobe, the milky matter in his ruined eye glistening in the moonlight. ‘I have come to summon you.’

  Tarquitius frowned. ‘Fritigern wants to see me, at this time?’

  The big warrior shook his head, a cool grin splitting his face. ‘No, my true master has deemed it time to call upon you. He is nearby.’

  Tarquitius scowled as Ivo carefully removed the two leather greaves on his arms. Then an icy horror raked across his skin as he set eyes upon the blue ink snake stigmas that coiled around the giant’s forearms.

  The Viper’s words hissed in his mind.

  When you see my mark, you will obey.

  Pavo and Sura walked the snowy track through the Gothic camp on the first of their night patrol circuits. Their brief from Gallus was simple; to catch the Viper’s riders at large and to ensure that no innocent Goth was harmed. However, the passing Goths who carried firewood between the tents saw them as intruders rather than protectors, casting them steely glares and uttering low growls.