Gordon Doherty - The Scourge of Thracia

Gallus watched as Farnobius stalked over to the cowering Roman — who scrambled back until almost in the flames. The giant Goth reached down and grasped at the Roman’s hair, then wrenched him round like a recalcitrant pet to face the fire. Like a harvester cutting wheat, he hove the sickle across the Roman’s throat. Gouts of blood leapt from the wound, lashing Farnobius and spraying onto the fire. The Roman’s head tilted back, like the lid of a chest, scraps of skin peeling away until it was attached to the body only by the vertebrae. With the heel of his boot, Farnobius kicked at the man’s back, the body twisting and coming away, toppling into the flames, the head remaining in his grip. Then he turned to the crowd and held his trophy aloft, roaring to them. They roared thunderously in reply.

‘ Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! Far-no-bi-us! ’

Gallus saw how the moonlight danced in this Farnobius’ eyes, betraying a bestial bloodlust, his face streaked with the Roman’s blood. The giant swung round, basking in the adoration, though Gallus noticed every so often how the reiks’ face twitched, as if bothered by an invisible hornet. Then he noticed now how many of the crowd were wearing not just the robes of men preparing for a night of rest, but arms and armour, and he heard the whinnying of horses from unseen stables somewhere in the camp. And in the northern half of the camp, where the majority of Fritigern’s Thervingi seemingly resided, he saw glinting silver. They’re mobilising? His flesh crept and his eyes fell back to the bonfire as he realised what was happening. A sacrificial throat cutting was the marker the Goths laid down before. . before they went to war. The next attack on the passes was imminent. And what might the coming of the Huns mean for the defenders there? His mind flashed with all manner of dark possibilities.

‘Sir,’ Zosimus said with an urgent tone. ‘They’re not finished.’

Gallus’ minds snapped back to the present as Alatheus’ next words rang out: ‘Bring the next of them!’ he cried. Duly, Farnobius and the spearmen who had dragged the two Romans to the fire stalked off towards a small tent nearby the fire to collect fresh victims.

‘We have to get back to the blockade,’ Bato insisted.

‘And what about our men down there?’ Zosimus growled, pointing towards the tent.

Gallus glanced around his men, and saw Pavo’s haunted expression, fixed on the fire. Do not let emotion cloud your judgement, a voice snarled inside him. For the first time in years, he ignored it.

‘There is much we do not know about this horde and their intentions,’ he said. ‘I’d wager whoever is left in that tent knows a damn sight more than we do. We must try to free them.’

The intensity of the sacrificial bonfire seemed to dull the light elsewhere in the camp, and for that, Pavo could only mouth a prayer to Mithras. The great cheer at the death of the next Roman had caught the attention of the Gothic sentries around the southern edge of the camp. They clustered together, craning to see the executions, leaving a stretch of forty strides unguarded. This allowed he, Sura, Bato and Sarrius to steal inside, faces smeared in dirt. Picking their way through the sea of tents, the mesh of guy-ropes and shadows, they made their way towards the prisoner tent. A stench of horse-sweat, dung and foul stews wafted around them.

‘Down!’ Sura hissed.

At once, all four crouched or lay in the shadow of the nearest tent. A pair of scale-clad Thervingi sentries strolled past them, their necks stretched and their eyes straining to see the bonfire as the screams of the next victim rang out. Pavo felt his gut turn over at the cries. What if that was my brother? They stole across to a lengthy wagon — within sight of the prison tent — and crouched.

‘Look,’ Pavo hissed, pointing to the flap of the prison tent. Two men stood guard there.

‘Huns,’ Sura growled. One had a misshapen skull, elongated at the crown with lank dark hair hanging like curtains from his oversized forehead. He was tearing at something with his teeth. The moonlight flashed over it: a raw cut of red meat, blood staining his foul teeth and dribbling down his chin. The other swigged at some milky substance from a skin. The stench of their food was even fouler than the reek of their filthy-looking hides.

‘Raw horse meat and fermented mare’s milk,’ Pavo whispered. ‘Makes a mouthful of year-old hard tack sound delicious.’

‘How do we do this?’ Bato asked behind them, failing to keep the tremor of fear from his voice. ‘The tent’s well-guarded. They’ll see us coming at them.’

Pavo’s eyes darted. ‘Yes, they will. So you give yourselves up.’

Bato gawped in horror at the suggestion. ‘Sir?’

Octar the Hun dug at his teeth with a dirty fingernail. The sinew of meat was bothersome to say the least. ‘Damned horse should have been tender,’ he chuckled to his fellow sentry, ‘I rode her with great care, after all.’

But his kinsman did not reply, instead levelling his spear, gawping into the darkness beside a nearby wagon. Octar frowned, then beheld the two dirt-encrusted shapes emerging from the shadows there. In a heartbeat, he had his bow from his back, drawn taut, the arrowhead trained on the rightmost Roman’s chest. But the pair were weaponless and had their hands raised in supplication.

Octar glanced inside the prison tent, sure none of those inside had escaped, then back to the pair. ‘Who are you? What are you doi-’ his words ended with a gasp as a white-hot pain shot through his back and tore through to his front. He glanced down to see the tip of a Roman spatha jutting from his breastbone. A moment later, it was ripped away. A heartbeat after that, he toppled to the ground and in the blackness that enshrouded him he searched for Tengri, the Sky God of the Steppe.

Pavo shook the worst of the blood from his blade and hurriedly sheathed it, Sura doing the same after despatching the other Hun. Bato and Sarrius gawped, faces dotted with Hun bloodspray.

‘Take up your swords again,’ he hissed to them. ‘Stand watch and if anyone approaches, anyone at all, whistle.’ With that, he nodded to Sura and the pair ducked inside the tent, dragging the Hun corpses with them.

As soon as they entered, a wailing broke out from the shadows inside: ‘I can smell blood,’ one high-pitched voice trilled. Pavo strained to see anything in the utter darkness — anything other than silhouetted shapes scurrying to the rear of the tent.

‘We’re Roman,’ he hissed. ‘Keep the noise down or we’re all dead.’

The wailing stopped abruptly. Gasps of astonishment replaced them, quickly followed by a flurry of questions. Pavo ignored the questions, spoken with the refined accents of ambassadors. As his eyes began to adjust, he counted six shapes: five cowering at the rear of the tent, and another sitting, tied to the centre pole. This one was silent. The rest returned to their wailing.

‘Shut up!’ Sura growled.

When they did, they heard only the nearby babble of the fireside crowd, and something else. The faint, broken noise of dry, panicked lips trying to whistle. Bato. A moment later, he and Sarrius tumbled inside, their faces agape. ‘They’re coming!’

Pavo and Sura gawped at each other’s silhouettes. ‘Bollocks!’ they hissed in unison.

‘Stay back,’ Pavo whispered to the ambassadors, now petrified into silence. He and Sura levelled their swords and took up position just inside the tent entrance.

‘They’ll burn the tent and all of us in it,’ a voice spoke.

Pavo flicked a sour glance round, then realised it was the one tied to the tent pole. ‘Then what else can we do?’

‘We have moments with which to get a head start. Use them!’ the voice replied. ‘Cut me loose!’