The Wolves of the North wor-5

by Harry Sidebottom

  The sky was the purple of a bruise that goes down to the bone. No one had placed their boot upon the hide that day. But the crowd was not diminished. It had about it a curious, unfulfilled demeanour.

  Ballista had read in Lucian of the sitting on the hide. But Lucian had been writing of the Scythians of at least two centuries earlier. Had the ceremony survived on the Steppe, surviving changes of peoples, somehow hibernating and waiting for the Heruli to adopt it? Or had Naulobates himself also read of it? Certainly, he and his son Andonnoballus had read many books. Had Naulobates also read Lucian, and decided the long-dead, maybe fictional ceremony would fit very well into his God-given reforms? It was too simple merely to think how literature reflected life; to judge how accurately a book captured reality. It could all go the other way. Things in books could alter the real lives of individuals and peoples.

  A stir in the crowd broke the path of Ballista’s thoughts. ‘He is come,’ someone nearby said, ‘the Iron One.’ A thickset figure emerged.

  Hisarna, son of Aoric, King of the Urugundi, scooped up a little morsel of meat from the stew and chewed it. He unsheathed his father’s famous sword Iron and placed his right boot upon the hide. In his melodious and gentle voice, he pledged ten thousand Gothic warriors.

  Between Hisarna and Naulobates passed the look of men whose deep-laid plan has come to fruition, unspoilt by neither gods nor men.

  XXVI

  The Steppe was dry by late July, the grass yellowing and beginning to wither. The passage of nearly twenty thousand men and over forty thousand horses could not be hidden or disguised. The dust rose up around them like thick smoke, as if one of the great cities of the imperium, Ephesus or Antioch, was burning. The wind arched it high across the southern sky. There was no way the Alani could fail to know they were coming. Even if the gods struck blind every spy and scout they possessed, the noise of the army carried several miles downwind, and a man with any fieldcraft could put his ear to the ground and feel the reverberations further away still.

  The army of the Heruli and their allies was spread over miles of grassland. They rode in four units: a vanguard under Uligagus and three parallel columns under Aruth, Artemidorus and Naulobates himself. All the Heruli and the Agathyrsi had a couple of spare ponies. Some of the Nervii and Eutes also had remounts, but very few of the warriors from the sedentary tribes along the Rha river and none of the bandits were so well equipped.

  The strategy of the horde, lengthily and furiously argued over in the assembly, in the result could not be simpler. They would ride south-west to the Tanais, follow the river when it bent to the west and, at about the point the Roman embassy had disembarked, join with the levies of Hisarna, King of the Urugundi. The united force would march south to the Hypanis river and on to the Croucasis mountains. As they went, they would spread out and round up the herds of the Alani and burn their tents. Somewhere between the Tanais and the Croucasis, the Alani must turn and fight.

  Ballista and his familia rode behind Naulobates. It had not been an invitation that countenanced refusal. Ballista had tied a silk scarf around his face. The dust still clogged his mouth and nostrils, gritted his eyes. Riding in his mailshirt, the sweat coursed down his body. The straps and weight of his armour chafed. The heat, dust and discomfort did not lighten his mood. He had no wish to be here.

  Once Hisarna had appeared at the ceremony of the sitting on the hide, it was obvious the Roman mission had failed. A few days later, when granted an audience, Ballista had requested Naulobates’ permission to return to the imperium. For a time the First-Brother had regarded him with those unnerving grey eyes, before saying he was disappointed Ballista had not put his right boot on the hide. Nevertheless, Naulobates considered the Romans should remain to witness the war which had been caused by their presence. Besides, Naulobates had added enigmatically, at some point he wished to discuss with Ballista the old days, the days of their grandfathers. The prospect of discussing Starkad with any Herul, let alone Naulobates, was not encouraging.

  Ballista very much wished not to have any part of this expedition. The whole thing seemed ill-conceived. The Alani would know Naulobates and Hisarna were coming. The majority of the Urugundi warriors would be on foot. When the Heruli joined with them, the combined army would move slowly. If he were Safrax, the King of the Alani, he would move his herds up into inaccessible glens in the Croucasis, and block or set ambushes in the passes through the foothills that led to them. The latter should not demand many men, leaving the majority of the Alani cavalry free to harass the invaders or, more boldly, to counter-strike at their dependants. And, of course, there were said to be some thirty thousand Alani warriors. If they could catch either the Heruli or the Urugundi before they met on the lower Tanais, the Alani would outnumber them by at least three to two.

  On the fourth evening, they made camp with the Tanais on their right. At this point, the river still ran south. It was broad here, riffling over wide bars of sand and shingle. After they had seen to the horses and eaten, there was little to do. There was no baggage train to worry about. All the horde, even the First-Brother, did without tents and slept on the ground. Drunkenness, gambling and fighting among the horde were banned on pain of death. Given the well-known inventiveness of Naulobates with capital punishment, the prohibitions had proved highly effective — only about a dozen men so far had had to be staked out, disembowelled or otherwise killed.

  As the heat drained out of the day, Ballista went down through the wide band of trees to the river to swim. Maximus and Calgacus did not stir, but Tarchon insisted on accompanying him. Remember the boy Wulfstan, the Suanian said. Ballista would rather have been alone, but did not argue. Sometimes Tarchon respected the desire for silence.

  Skeins of geese and ducks were over the river. The water held that strange luminescence which rivers can keep after the sun has gone down. Ballista stripped off his mail and clothes and walked naked into the river. He waded out, relishing the chill, clean bite of it on his skin. When it was deep enough, he swam a few strokes. He dived under the surface and came up blowing and wringing the water out of his long hair. After a time, he climbed out and dried himself with a towel Tarchon had brought. He got dressed, but could not be bothered to put his war shirt back on.

  They sat side by side in silence. Ballista savoured the smell of the water and the vegetation, and listened to the wildfowl. Their sounds often reminded him of his youth. He thought of his father and mother. What an age they must be now. They had seemed old when he left, but in reality his mother could only have been about the age he was now, perhaps younger. Would he ever return and see them? He thought, far less fondly, of one of his half-brothers. Morcar would not welcome his return. For the first time in months, possibly years, he thought of a girl called Kadlin.

  It was good here down by the river. By this time of year out on the Steppe at night the nightingales no longer sang, and the quails and corncrakes no longer called. If you were away from the noise of a horde of men and beasts, there was nothing but the ceaseless sighing of the wind. It was as if the sun had burnt the joy, if not the life, out of the plains. Ballista very much wanted to get away from the sea of grass.

  Ballista fiddled with the straps of his mail. In the old days, if there had been even an outside chance of a threat, he would have put it straight back on. Years before, a centurion had told him — it was back in Novae on the Danube, when the Goths were outside the walls — that almost all soldiers became fatalistic, if they lived long enough. At first it was a good thing; they could look beyond preserving their own hides. But then they stopped taking basic precautions; became a danger to themselves and others. The centurion had claimed there were two ways of thinking behind it. Having run repeated dangers, some soldiers thought their luck had run out, there was no point in caring, because they were as good as dead, no matter what. Others fell under the delusion that nothing could touch them, certainly not kill them.

  Ballista had no intimations of immortality. Equally, he saw no reas
on he should die here, rather than in any of the other bad places in which circumstances had placed him. He thought of his sons, the two best reasons to fight his way back. And he had Maximus and Calgacus with him. He loved the two men and knew it to be reciprocated. There was no reason the three of them would not get out of this, as they had of so much else.

  When they did get out, perhaps he might be allowed to retire to his estate in Sicily. The mission had failed — far from attacking the Urugundi, the Heruli were their closest ally again — but there was war on the Steppe. While it lasted, it should prevent the tribes raiding the imperium. Unless other tribes intervened, it should free Odenathus to fight the Persians, and Gallienus to march against Postumus in Gaul. That must have been why Gallienus had sent him here. Perhaps the emperor would let him retire at last. It would be good to live in peace. When they were home, he would free Rebecca and the boy Simon. It would please old Calgacus. The things that would please Maximus were all too easy to imagine.

  As he stood to get into the mailshirt, he heard the urgent triple rhythm of a horse being ridden fast. A challenge was called by a sentry, and the correct password given. The rider asked and was given directions to Naulobates. Ballista struggled into his war gear, and with Tarchon walked back up into the camp.

  Few had found sleep easy after the news the scout brought had spread through the horde. Ballista had slept for a couple of hours. It was strange, being in the camp of an army going into battle the next morning but having no duties and not being involved in anxious last-moment counsels. Yet he still felt bone-tired, and his eyes were scratchy with fatigue.

  Ballista had a good view. With his familia, and those that remained of the trained fighting men of the Roman embassy — just nine riders including himself — he had been summoned to attend Naulobates. There were other dignitaries present: the gudja, as ever shadowed by the aged haliurunna, two nobles of the Taifali from the west, and three chiefs of the Anthropophagi from somewhere far in the north.

  Naulobates had taken station on a low fold in the ground to the rear of his army. Ballista sat on one of the big Sarmatian horses and surveyed the battlefield. Visibility was improving. The sun was up, and burning off the last of the low river mist. Below and immediately to his front was Naulobates’ own unit, acting as a reserve. These were the elite, all Heruli, many of them Rosomoni. The five thousand were strung out, side by side, and just two deep. Each man was backed by at least four tethered remounts. Ballista’s view was of lots of standards stirring above a sea of swishing horse tails.

  The main army was about two bow shots beyond, divided into three more units of about five thousand each. To the right, their flank on the belt of trees by the Tanais, were the warriors of the tribes from the Rha. The various bandit chiefs were with them, and the whole was stiffened by the nomad Eutes. The Herul Aruth was in command. In the centre stood the rest of the Heruli under Uligagus. The left was held by the Agathyrsi and the Nervii. They were led by Artemidorus. These units were more compact, arrayed five deep in a formation Naulobates had referred to as ‘the thorn bushes’.

  The Alani were about four bow shots from the main line of Naulobates’ force. Their disposition mirrored that of the Heruli: three units backed by a reserve. Ballista could just discern the small, indistinct shapes of their leaders riding about in front, but the groups of warriors were nothing but motionless dark blocks on the tawny Steppe.

  As a professional, Ballista ran his eye over the whole. Naulobates had done well enough. The Herul had expected to be outnumbered. He had anchored one wing on the tree line by the riverbank and kept back a reserve to deal with any outflanking; either across the river or, more probably, around the other wing on the open Steppe. Gathering all the remounts behind the reserve might trick the Alani into thinking they were additional troops. Yet the plan was essentially defensive, containing no bold moves. There was nothing unexpected to unsettle or panic the enemy. It relied entirely on the fighting qualities of the warriors.

  Ballista studied the enemy. At this distance, it was impossible to judge numbers accurately. Yet there did not appear to be more Alani on the field than Heruli. Of course, enemy numbers were often overestimated. Safrax might have left a force to screen the advance of the Urugundi, or he may have left a sizable body of warriors guarding their flocks. Yet it could be something else. At the battle of the Caspian Gates the previous year, Safrax had detached a force to lie in ambush. Naulobates had issued strict orders against any of his men leaving the line today. If they obeyed, any concealed Alani should not pose a problem. But there remained the danger that Safrax had sent some of his warriors on a wide flank march, sweeping out of sight around the Heruli.

  If the Heruli were defeated, most of the broken men would stream away to the north and north-east, running back to their herds or settlements. Ballista looked down to the river in the west. From the previous night, he thought he could get his horse to swim the Tanais, even if he were still wearing armour. All those with him were good horsemen, except Tarchon. They could help the Suanian across then ride hard for Lake Maeotis. It would mean leaving the members of the mission still in Naulobates’ camp to their fate. Yet, as far as he knew, the Herul had no reason not to release the eunuch Amantius, three members of staff, two freedmen and a couple of slaves. One thing was certain, Ballista himself had no intention of falling into the hands of the Alani king he had defeated, or Safrax’s dependant, Saurmag, the prince whom he had driven out of Suania.

  Movement caught Ballista’s eye from the Alani. In the raking light, elongated shadows were flitting about in front of their line. The dark blocks of warriors appeared to shift and sway. The wind from the north swept the sounds away. There was something eerie about alien pre-battle rituals which were too far away to be made out with any clarity, and which seemed to be conducted in complete silence.

  Naulobates called the high-ranking Heruli on the hillock around him. Among them were Andonnoballus and Pharas. Together they trotted forward down the incline. The First-Brother would ride the lines, calling out the things he considered would put heart into his men.

  Ballista and the other diplomatic visitors stayed where they were on the low hill. Ballista noticed that several in his party were looking uncertainly at the triad of chiefs from the distant north. Indeed, all three struck one as oddly unremarkable for a cannibal.

  A high, uncanny howling came from the left of the Heruli battle line. It mixed with the wind fretting through the standards. Some of the Nervii had dismounted. They were throwing off their clothes and dancing, bare steel flashing in their hands. They danced wildly, drawing down from the high god the power of his favoured predator, the grey wolf. Soon they would be slathering, bestial, ready to rend and tear. It put Ballista in mind of home. As a young man he had watched his father dance as one of the Allfather’s wolf warriors before the shieldwall of the Angles.

  All along the line the tribes followed their own practices; the blue-dyed and tattooed Agathyrsi, the red Heruli, the Eutes, Rogas, Goltescythae and the others. Ballista knew as well as anyone that men need all the help they can get to stand close to the steel. He pulled the dagger on his right hip an inch or so from its sheath, and commenced his own private ritual.

  He watched Naulobates and his men turn to come back. He could hear the enemy war drums now. The Alani were moving forward, like the shadows of clouds, as if the surface of the Steppe itself had started to shift.

  Andonnoballus reined in next to Ballista. ‘If the reserve fight, you should fight. I would have you back in favour with my… with the First-Brother.’

  ‘I do not see we have a choice,’ Ballista said.

  He could see individual Alani: the barrels of their ponies, the riders themselves a smudge, the animals’ legs flickering through the dust.

  Naulobates raised himself on the pommel of his saddle, looked this way and that, weighing things up. Satisfied, he drew his sword and flourished it above his head. The deep war drum of the Heruli beat. The standard with the three w
olves and the arrow dipped to the fore. In front, hundreds of banners nodded in acknowledgement. The yip-yip-yip of the red warriors rose from the ranks. The three divisions of the front line walked forward, moved into a slow canter.

  The Alani were closing fast. Padded and muffled, the riders looked top heavy on the little nomad ponies. Guiding with their legs, they drew their bows.

  The air filled with the arrows of both sides. Thirty thousand horse archers were shooting as fast as possible. The shafts fell across the Steppe like squalls of rain. Men and horses went down.

  Just when Ballista thought to see and hear the shock of collision, the front ranks of both sides wheeled and raced back, shooting all the time over the quarters of their ponies. The second did the same, then those following. A deadly gap of forty or fifty paces was established. Warriors rode up shooting, spun their mounts, rode away still shooting and turned back again. Advance-retreat, advance-retreat; it had the skill of some long-practised, deadly ritual or dance.

  It was not long before the dust largely obscured the scene. All Ballista could see was the rear of the Heruli formations, where warriors swung around to re-enter the fray, the many, many standards jerking and swaying above the melee, and the gusts of flighting arrows.

  While the warriors twisted and jinked, the fight was stationary. Ballista dropped to the ground to take the weight from his horse’s back. It might need all its stamina later. He wished he had his own charger with him. But Pale Horse was many hundreds of miles away, safe on a friend’s estate outside Ephesus.