‘You and Sura did a top job, Pavo,’ Felix said, resting on a crutch beside him. ‘Don’t punish yourself for what happens next. It’s a miracle we’ve made it this far.’
‘It all counts for nothing though, doesn’t it? If we get back there to find another pile of corpses and the Huns have gone, then what? They’ll fall upon our borders before long while we’re scratching our heads, hundreds of miles away.’
‘The papyrus-thin frontiers? Yep, I’m with you,’ the optio sighed. ‘But take heart, Centurion Gallus is no mug, and he trusts in us. So he’ll have held out…will be holding out till the very last.’ Felix rested a hand on his shoulder before hobbling off.
Pavo turned away from the spray at last, his eyes red and his nose running. The boat was packed with idle legionaries while the oars remained retracted and the crew scrambled up and down the rigging. His gaze fell on Spurius, sitting on the deck, throwing dice with the seven of the I Dacia contingent who had survived the mission to the emperor. Spurius had been quiet since his last-minute intervention at the palace gates, quiet but contented. Maybe this was the real Spurius, he mused?
‘Funny how things turn out, eh?’ Sura spoke quietly having sidled up next to him.
‘Makes you wonder who you can really trust in the end. Nothing is as it seems.’
‘Think you could be friends?’
‘I don’t think Spurius ever really has friends – he’s a loner. I think he tolerates people rather than likes them.’
‘Well I’m glad he tolerates us now – no more looking over our shoulders.’
‘When one problem is solved, Sura, I usually find another one pretty quickly,’ Pavo sighed. ‘And we’ve got a pretty big one to deal with when we land.’
‘Aye, and there’s another one,’ Sura nodded to the solitary white-cloaked figure of Bishop Evagrius, sentinel-like at the stern. ‘You think he’s really tangled in this?’
‘It stinks, Sura. But Valens knew what he was doing in sending him here. Either he’ll inspire the legions with divine inspiration, or he’ll destroy himself. You know the saying give ‘em enough rope?’
Tribunus Vitus of the XII Fulminata stalked towards them. ‘Not long now, lads,’ he mused, craning his neck at the sun overhead.
‘We’ll be there by mid-afternoon – if the gods are smiling upon us.’
Pavo shot another glance at the bishop and smirked wryly at the tribunus’ choice of words.
Chapter 72
Gallus wheezed through the dust coating him and the men on the wall. Each gargantuan boulder now ground the shattered battlements into a spray of rubble, and crimson smears along its length told of those caught under a direct hit.
‘They’re prising us open like a shellfish!’ Gallus hissed as another rock crunched down. Barely any defensible battlement remained, and only a few more hits would surely rent open a clear path into the fort. Of the defiant two hundred who had filed up onto the battlements this morning, a further seventy had been slain, and morale had dropped like one of those rocks.
‘Horsa’s nearly at ‘em, sir!’ Quadratus yelled from the timber watchtower. ‘Amalric’s just a few strides behind.’
‘Ride like the gods,’ Gallus whispered under his breath. Horsa would he would be the decoy while Amalric, weaving behind him, would hope to slip in close enough to the catapults to spring his surprise attack. They had slipped out of the side gate of the fort and dropped into a dip running around the eastern edge of the plateau. From there they had rode around the dip, obscured from Hun eyes, taking them almost up to the flank of the Hun line on the north edge of the plateau. They would be bursting into the enemy line of sight in moments. The centurion gripped the cracked crenellation in front of him, willing them on.
‘Amalric’s nearly in behind ‘em, sir!’ Quadratus cried again.
The straggle of the XI Claudia roared in support all at once as Horsa burst up to be level with the enemy. Like a porcupine, the Hun line bristled in surprise. Horsa whooped, spun his sword over his head, and galloped across the Hun front. The Huns, seeing a single rider, visibly relaxed, a detachment being sent out to slay him while the rest turned back to the fort. Just as they dropped their guard, Amalric burst out onto the plateau behind their front line, strides from the artillery.
‘He’s there!’ Avitus yelled.
The I Dacia artillerymen scrambled back in shock, crying out to the Hun spearmen, standing oblivious only paces away. But Amalric thundered forward, bringing a glowing ball of flames spinning above his head in a sling. The blazing pitch sack roared until he released it to zip across the air like a comet towards the rightmost catapult. The sack exploded in a fury of flames against the timber device. The Hun cavalry pitched forward to meet the solitary threat, but not before Amalric had unleashed the second, third and fourth sacks onto the remaining catapults.
‘They’ve done it!’ Gallus roared as the fifth catapult exploded in orange. ‘Now get our artillery trained on those riders!’ he pointed at the wave of nearly a thousand haring after Horsa and Amalric like a swarm of wasps – now in range. ‘This is the last free shot we get at them, lads. Fire at will! Take ‘em down!’
The men roared as a stone zipped through the air and ploughed right through the flank of the swarm. Gallus joined them, roaring until his lungs were spent, smashing his sword against his shield.
The roar subsided, and then died. Horsa and Amalric weaved across the plateau only to be blocked as they approached the fort by a detachment of Hun riders. Gallus watched as they wheeled round and then slipped towards the northeastern edge of the plateau and out of sight, down the hillside. Gods be with you, he mouthed.
The rest of the Huns, realizing they now had only one option left – to crush the pathetic remnant of the XI Claudia under weight of numbers – rumbled forward towards the shattered fort. He turned to the thin smattering of filthy and exhausted men.
‘This is it, lads. This is it!’
Chapter 73
The two equites heeled their mounts into a gallop back over the lush grassy ridge, waving the all clear vigorously. Pavo’s heart pounded with anticipation.
‘We’re almost there!’ Sura cried, slapping his friend across the back. ‘One more ridge and we’re there!’ He yelled to Tribunus Vitus.
‘Forward!’ Vitus yelled in turn over his shoulder, waving the thick, shimmering column forward. He jabbed a hand at the aquilifer, who waved the purple flag on the end of the silver standard of the XII Fulminata. The equites read it at once and wheeled round to join the legionary column.
‘Well, we’ve not encountered any of their scouts yet. You said they were wrapped around the hill?’ Vitus quizzed.
‘Well, they were two days ago,’ Pavo frowned.
‘Excellent,’ Vitus rubbed his hands together. ‘A nice narrow line to smash into the back of!’
Pavo thought better of reminding the tribunus over the Hun number. A narrow line it was most definitely not. Then something flashed on the horizon – his eyes locked onto it, something dancing just above the ridge top. A topknot, then an eyepatch.
‘Horsa!’ He yelled. ‘And Amalric?’ The prince bobbed into view, dust billowing behind them.
‘They’re in a bloody hurry?’ Vitus mused. Then his eyes widened. ‘Form up to repel a cavalry charge!’
The XII Fulminata, leading the relief column, rippled into a wall of shields and plumbatae. Pavo fell back in line, realisation dawning on him as he watched; Horsa and Amalric bounded from the ridge top, thumping down onto the grass as a dark wave of arrows arced over them. ‘Sir, send the cavalry out to the flanks – I know what’s going to happen here.’
Vitus rubbed his chin momentarily. ‘Parthian shot? Hit and run.’
Pavo nodded vigorously.
‘Equites, out wide,’ Vitus cried, ‘ready to pinch anything that comes over that hill!’
The cavalry raced out as he ordered, just as a wall of dark riders exploded over the ridge, only twenty paces at most behind the fleeing Horsa
and Amalric.
Pavo gulped as the riders came and came – his mind flitted with flashbacks of their descent onto the ill-prepared XI Claudia just days before.
‘It’s just a detachment,’ Sura gasped, reading his thoughts. ‘Look, they’re tailing off!’
‘Then we’ve got to cut them off,’ Vitus barked, then turned to the legionary holding the silver eagle standard and the trio carrying bronze horns. ‘Aquilifer, buccinators – get my cavalry round the back of them – pen them in and destroy them. I don’t want a single one of them getting back to their main force – let’s keep surprise in our armoury.’
‘I’m trying, sir!’ The aquilifer roared as the Hun detachment wheeled around fully, breaking from the pursuit of Horsa and haring back in the direction they had come from.
‘Damn it! If they bring their full cavalry force onto us on open ground…this could be a disaster!’
Pavo felt his spirit crash. If the Huns slipped away they would be chasing shadows again. Then, on the horizon, something rippled, just ahead of the Hun detachment. ‘Sir – look!’
All across the grassy ridge, a harvest of spears rose up, held firm by blonde-haired warriors. The Hun riders reared up, throwing their flight into chaos, as the equites thundered into their rear.
‘What in the name of – who are they?’ Vitus spluttered, straining his eyes in the cloudy gloom at the spectre-like line of spearmen. Horsa and Amalric rode to the rear of the newcomers, exchanged some barked words and then wheeled around, whooping, punching the air in delight.
‘Goths, sir? I think they’re Goths?’ Pavo gasped.
Amalric leant from the saddle as Horsa galloped up to the Roman front line and Vitus. ‘My brothers are here, under Fritigern’s banner – here to avenge their kin!’ He pointed to the flapping orange flag they held.
‘One of our boats escaped, fishermen of my people, they crossed the sea to get word to our cousins! We thought them lost to the Huns!’ Amalric blurted, his eyes sparkled with tears.
As one, the Roman lines erupted in a roar of delight, while at the ridge, the Hun thousand were crushed in the Roman-Goth vice, speartips and plumbatae felling them swiftly.
‘Who’d have thought it, lads?’ Vitus mused, gazing at Horsa as he wheeled back to enter the fray. ‘Saved by Goths!’ His laughter filled the plain.
In the murmur of excitement, nobody noticed the white cloaked and hooded figure of Bishop Evagrius pushing through the crowd, past the flank of the army and up to the ridge.
Chapter 74
Gallus waved the remaining clutch – barely thirty – of the XI Claudia back from the walls, screaming through the thick smog of battle. The auxiliaries loosed one final volley of rubble onto the Huns as they washed over the crippled battlements and into the courtyard like a black torrent.
‘Fall back – now!’ He rasped again, knocking a rock from the hand of one young legionary and shoving him towards the tiny bunker-room they had set up in the sleeping area.
Arrows spattered against his mail vest, one punctured his shoulder and another ripped across his neck in the tiny unprotected sliver between his intercisa helmet and his vest. The last to leave the rubble-heap of the walls, his skin crawled at the whirring of lassos that grew like a giant swarm of dragonflies behind him. One legionary scudded along the ground, away from the bunker, his ankles trussed in a lasso and his face contorted in a pained scream. Gallus grappled the soldier’s wrist as he slipped past and clung on, but the Hun at the other end used his mount’s power to yank the lad back, before another rode up and speared the legionary in the face. Gallus staggered back on his palms, eyes wide at the sea of riders all now thundering towards him. He turned, scrambled to his feet and ran.
He ducked under a spear thrust from his left and leapt over a sword swipe at his knees, before hammering his fist out to his right, delivering a crunching jab into the nose of another would-be killer. He swivelled, dodging another swoosh of a spear tip, all the time trying to keep one eye on the tiny doorway to the bunker.
‘Cover me!’ He roared.
‘Sir – duck!’ A familiar voice cried in reply. Gallus leapt forward and down underneath the plumbata volley from the men at the bunker entrance, his palms skinning as he skidded forward and into the bunker doorway, pulling himself round and into the corridor inside just in time to miss a volley of spears, which clattered on the doorframe, sending a cloud of mortar up in his wake.
Wincing at the grinding from a broken rib, Gallus scrambled to his feet. ‘Get that doorway sealed!’
Inside the hall, Zosimus and Quadratus leapt to action as he ran past them; grappling on two hefty timber stakes supporting the ceiling they had weakened earlier, the two legionaries heaved them backwards, tearing the support away. Three Hun horsemen had bolted inside, eyes red with the promise of blood, when the corridor roared with collapsing masonry like a furious earthquake, filling up the entrance with solid rock and burying the Huns.
The noise died, and the hall was thick with dust and a shattered group of Legionaries. Gallus made a quick head count; nineteen men left. Zosimus, Quadratus and Avitus still stood – brothers to the last.
An eerie quiet rippled around them, while from outside, the dull roar of the Huns continued unabated. Gallus’ heart slowed. He saw the face of Olivia in his mind’s eye. ‘How long?’ He asked his optios. As he finished, a metallic clank shook the building, and the rubble blockade shifted visibly. A ram. The Romans eyed one another as the noise came again, and again.
Avitus, shining with sweat, looked to his centurion. ‘Moments, sir. If we’re lucky.’
Chapter 75
All around the foot of the hill, tents lay empty and fires doused, as the full force of the Hun horde coursed up the hillside, crushing in on the doomed fort. Outside the command tent, Balamber stood in dialogue with Wulfric, surrounded by a handful of Hun nobles and I Dacia centurions.
Balamber glared upon the Gothic tribunus. ‘A sea of blood has been let from my horde! Crushing this legion was supposed to be easy. A two day siege on a hill fort was not part of the plan, tribunus.’
Wulfric grimaced at the Hun noble’s tone, before replying. ‘And the blood of the I Dacia has been spilled equally freely. It is both of our armies who failed to stop their retreat to this fortress.’
‘And it was your precious soldiers who dishonoured themselves and decided to turn back to the empire they had betrayed in the first place,’ Balamber snarled. ‘But what more could I expect from traitors?’
Wulfric gritted his teeth together. ‘A handful of impressionable recruits lacked faith in our master plan and saw a chance to save their necks.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘In any case, a rabble of inexperienced legionaries would never have made it back to the heart of the empire – our sponsor in this affair has gilded our path to victory.’
‘Ah, yes, your holy bishop? Well, when this legion is ground into the dust and we descend upon the empire, I shall have to have an audience with the man. Well, we still number, what, some twelve thousand – plenty to finish the job in hand. But we will need to raise further manpower after this – maybe the bishop will spend more generously this time to guarantee our success.’
‘Perhaps. And I trust you will be able to raise more manpower from your homelands, Noble Balamber? Your people will still be happy to let their sons march under your command?’ Wulfric replied.
Balamber stepped forward, toe to toe with the Gothic tribunus. ‘You speak with hidden venom, Tribunus Wulfric,’ Balamber sneered, his moustache twitching, teeth bared.
Wulfric shot him a stony gaze. ‘You are but a pawn in this game, cheap manpower for the slaughter.’
With a roar, Balamber lunged at him, clawing for his throat. Wulfric leapt back, whipping his spatha free. Wulfric’s centurions followed suit while Balamber’s nobles stretched their bows at point blank range. He held the Hun leader’s stare. Both men’s eyes sparkled with fury. The air around them seemed to crackle with tension, until something caught Wulfri
c’s attention from the corner of his eye. Something that didn’t look right. Not right at all.
He turned round to the hillside; the vast throng of the Hun and I Dacia army swelled up its sides, focusing on the tiny heap of rubble at the top; then he glanced to the opposite valley-side and froze: there stood a white-cloaked figure, fervently waving a purple rag on a staff.
‘What do we have here?’ Balamber cooed in curiosity. The nobles relaxed their bowstrings and the centurions lowered their swords.
The purple rag fluttered in the breeze, displaying a grubby Chi-Rho emblem. Wulfric’s jaw fell. ‘You wanted an audience with the bishop?’ He scooped a hand to the figure.
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