Gordon Doherty - The Scourge of Thracia

The gentle words sunk into Pavo’s chest like a cold blade. He felt Gallus’ hand rest on his shoulder, but heard little else of what he said.

When evening came, a clear night sky stretched over the northern end of the Haemus Mountains and the broad plains of Moesia beyond. The scent of woodsmoke from the vast Gothic camp lent a cloying edge to the air.

Gallus and his cadre, nestled in a rocky nook a hundred feet or so up the last of the Haemus slopes, glanced down over the sea of Gothic tents on the plain and then up to the night sky, cursing the waning but still bright moon and its army of stars for illuminating the hills so. Apart from this pocket of shade they were hidden in, the mountainside almost glistened silvery-blue.

He looked back to the Gothic camp. It dwarfed the Roman camp by the Tonsus — possibly seven or eight times as big — and it was most probably in better order too, with great herds of warhorses tethered within timber corrals, and each of the factions within the Gothic horde occupying an island of well-spaced tents. They used no palisade to demarcate the edge of the camp, but tall, blonde-locked and leather-armoured warriors stood every thirty paces or so around the vast perimeter and torches on high poles cast light out onto the plain around the camp. Every sentry held a spear, longsword and shield, with a self-bow and quiver cast over their backs.

‘How are we supposed to find the embassy? The place is so bloody big,’ Zosimus muttered by Gallus’ side, squinting to the far side of the camp, which was just a blur of torchlight and shadows.

‘That’s where Fritigern is, I’d guess,’ Sura said, peering at the large tent near the centre of the camp. Outside it, a tall spear was dug into the ground, a strip of sapphire blue cloth — the colours of the Thervingi — hanging from its shaft.

‘Might be, but that doesn’t mean that’s where the embassy will be. How close are we supposed to get?’ Quadratus whispered. ‘Does Saturninus expect us to reconnoitre the entire camp?’

‘We must do what we can,’ Gallus said. ‘But if we have nothing to go on, then. . ’ his words faded as he noticed Pavo, eyes fixed on the camp, scouring every inch of it, clinging onto the last slivers of hope. ‘We will stay here until we have something to report back with, and there must be someth-’ he stopped, the breath catching in his lungs. One of the campfires down below near the southern edge of the camp grew brighter and brighter still, the flames licking up into the sky as men threw fresh wood upon it. All heads switched to this.

The bonfire cast an eerie orange light on a thick ring of onlookers. Tall, stony-faced Gothic warriors — thousands of them. ‘Thervingi. . Greuthingi and Taifali from Germania too,’ Pavo whispered.

‘Aye, but this is no all-Goth affair,’ Sura added, his voice taut with tension. ‘Look!’

Gallus followed the line of the young legionary’s outstretched finger. He squinted, his mind disbelieving, his eyes insisting. Stocky, short warriors dressed in skins and furs, made inimitable by the three crude scars carved into each cheek, their jet-black, sleek locks and the odd, asymmetric bows they wore slung over their backs. No!

‘ Huns? ’ Zosimus gasped, his eyes darting as he discerned hundreds of them dotted in the crowd of onlookers. ‘When did they cross the river? The Goths are supposed to be at war with the bloody Huns!’

‘Yet both are at war with the empire,’ Pavo added dryly.

‘The Shipka fort is not prepared for Huns,’ Bato, one of the two V Macedonica legionaries whispered. This scarred veteran had the eyes of a frightened boy.

Sarrius, his V Macedonica comrade muttered a series of panicked curses under his breath. ‘The dark horsemen of the north.’

Gallus sensed their panic spread like a chill, and the fear intensified when the ring of onlookers around the fire suddenly parted. The hulking leader of the Gothic Alliance, Iudex Fritigern, strode through the gap. Gallus’ eyes narrowed: the big Iudex was as imposing as ever, despite his advancing years. Fur-lined shoulders, flowing red-grey locks and beard and a weather-beaten face that spoke of all he had endured alongside his people in these last years. Flanking him were two others that Gallus recognised from the blood-haze memories of Ad Salices — one tall and wiry with long, white hair, the other short and stocky, slit-eyed and bald. Alatheus, Saphrax, he realised, the two reiks who led the Greuthingi Goths and their mostly cavalry armies — the fierce mounted wing that complemented Fritigern’s infantry masses. He noticed that this pair walked with their heads held high while Fritigern, their leader, seemed hunched, head bowing ever so slightly as he approached the fire. Behind the three leaders, two men were being dragged by Gothic spearmen. Two Romans.

‘Mithras, no!’ Sura hissed.

Pavo instinctively lurched forward, eyes straining.

Gallus’ blood chilled as the firelight fell on the pair. A prune-faced, middle-aged man wearing a dirty white Roman tunic and trousers and a younger man in the scale vest, boots and cloak of an eques rider. He glanced to Bato, who nodded hurriedly: ‘That’s them — two of them anyway. The senior ambassador and one of the escort cavalrymen.’

The pair writhed and struggled like flies caught in a web. ‘Let me go you bastards! ’ the eques rider cried as he was dragged to the fire. ‘Give me a sword and fight me at least! Let me die like a sold-’

Alatheus stepped forward, then lifted a sparkling sickle and boomed over the man’s visceral pleas. ‘Allfather Wodin, hear our song of war for you. Fire our hearts with courage, for what is to come. The fire of victory we offer you in return. Let the Roman burn! ’ he threw his hands up in the air, conjuring a mighty cheer that seemed to shake the rock where Gallus crouched.

At once, the two Goths holding the Roman rider pinned him to the ground and two more ran over with a spit and a length of rope. Moments later, they lifted the rider and trussed him to the spit like a boar, then carried him over and into the flames, resting the spit ends horizontally across two sets of supporting poles. The fire devoured him in moments, sweeping over his cloak and hair, his skin blistering and his armour glowing. His shrieking searched every part of Gallus’ being, the scene bringing back the dark memories. The rider’s thrashing form was engulfed in orange, and soon he fell still, with the popping and cracking of splitting flesh and flaring fat the only noise. The stench of burnt meat wafted up the hillside and the watching legionaries recoiled.

Gallus noticed that while the watching crowd cheered as if this was some kind of victory, Fritigern was alone in watching the ceremony in solemn silence. The Iudex and his Thervingi Goths were Christian, he mused, so perhaps such sacrifice was distasteful to him? Or maybe he has greater troubles? he thought, his eyes narrowing on the contrasting, haughty postures of Alatheus and Saphrax.

‘Next, Allfather Wodin, turn our bones to steel and our blood to wine. For this, we give you the blood and bone of Rome,’ Alatheus continued, then stabbed a finger at the prune-face Roman. ‘Bring him!’

The wrinkled man fell to his knees, shaking visibly, his hands pawing helplessly in the air before him as if trying to waken himself from this nightmare. But the watching crowd were heedless of his suffering. Gallus watched as Alatheus strode around the terrified old man, swiping his sickle this way and that like a torturer.

Get on with it you whoreson, Gallus mouthed, seeing the utter terror in the old Roman’s eyes.

But Alatheus handed the sickle to another: a bull-shouldered colossus of a man with raven-dark flowing locks scooped up into a topknot and a jutting trident beard. He was bare chested, with spiralling blue tattoos etched on his muscular torso, and a weighty battle axe was strapped to his back. ‘Reiks Farnobius, Champion of the Greuthingi, Taker of Heads, will honour Wodin tonight.’