Gordon Doherty - The Scourge of Thracia

Four men were caught in the device’s grasp. One was snared right on the ends of the talons and run through in four different directions. The claw was lifted up and a soup of this Goth’s bowels, blood and bladder sprayed down on the others nearby.

Pavo gawped at this: so this was the Comes’ ethereal friend — a merciless war-machine? He barely felt the hands that hoisted him and the others back from the devastation, hauling him inside the fort. Only when the fort gate was slammed shut did the spell break.

Farnobius backed his stallion away from the ferocious claw as it swung to and fro. The device had cut down mere handfuls of his men, but the sight of it was enough to drive his men back. Not one of his warriors had even approached the fort gate because of it. He licked his lips, judging the flight of the claw, eyeing the ropes. ‘Have the men bring the Roman ladders up from their toppled timber wall.’

‘Reiks?’ Egil said, his voice laced with fear and his eyes tracing the claw’s path.

‘Do as I say. And you can stay down there — this place is only fit for warriors,’ Farnobius growled as he drew his axe from his back, then walked his stallion forward onto the plateau.

Ever forward, invincible king, Vitheric’s voice urged him. Nobody can slay you.

Moments passed and Pavo remained sitting where he had slumped inside the fort. He wondered if the chaos outside the closed fort gates was real. In here, he could only hear dull roars of the storm and foreign voices outside. In here he was sheltered from the stinging blizzard, a strong warmth came over his skin as feeling began to return. Then he saw the staggering, gasping, momentarily lost men of his century around him, dotted around the inside of the fort. He saw Zosimus and Quadratus rise, and rose with them, knowing there was to be no respite. ‘On your feet!’ he bellowed.

He led them up the stony staircase on the inside of the fort’s southern wall, up onto the battlements. As soon as he ascended onto that lofty parapet, the blizzard was back, swishing, sparring and thicker than ever. Pavo shielded his eyes from the squall and peered all around. These newly repaired battlements were well-stocked with javelins and spears. Geridus’ archers and Herenus’ slingers were already lined up and loosing what remaining missiles they had down onto the Goths on the plateau. He ushered his men into place and Zosimus and Quadratus did likewise with their centuries. ‘Together, shields up, spears level, as before!’ he barked to them, then sped over to the southern gate tower, flitting up the few steps onto the rounded parapet here. Now he saw the great claw for what it was: a massive beam anchored by an immense load of iron and fixed to a pivoting iron-strapped timber floor.

‘See?’ Geridus said, spinning to him and grinning maniacally. ‘Farnobius came here to feast, but just a dash of terror is enough to turn any meal sour.’ The old Comes showed no sign of his old affliction, his beard was caked in snow and his face was almost blue with the chill.

The claw opened again, snatching up a Goth then swinging and releasing him at pace against the fort walls, where his brains were dashed out against the stonework. The rest of the Gothic spearmen were darting to and fro, like sheep escaping a wolf. Pavo glanced back along the walls. They had lost maybe sixty men in the melee so far. More than two centuries-worth of legionaries, plus one of slingers and one of archers remained. That number might hold this fort for some time, especially as the Goths had no means of gaining entry. And with this mighty claw. .

He craned over the roof’s edge, ducking back momentarily as a Gothic arrow skated off the battlement beside him, then he froze, seeing Farnobius edge forward. The giant was flanked by a host of his spearmen who held up their shields as he slid from his stallion, watching the swinging claw and tossing his axe over and over in his grasp.

‘Sir. . ’ Pavo started, then Farnobius roared, leaping forward and up, swiping his axe blade across the ropes that suspended the claw. With a thick snapping, the tendons were severed. The claw dangled by one, fraying rope, then this unravelled and the great iron talons thumped onto the plateau.

‘Ah,’ Geridus yelled over the gale, ‘then the fun is over.’

Pavo barely heard this, seeing the Goths who now raced unbounded up the scree path and onto the plateau carrying the Roman ladders that had fallen with the timber stockade. ‘Mithras, no!’

Geridus stepped back from the shattered claw, his eyes widening as he saw the ladder-tops swinging up against the fort’s southern wall.

Clack-clack-clack , they sounded as they made contact with the parapet.

Wordlessly, the aged Comes drew his gem-hilted spatha from its scabbard. ‘It is time to whet my blade once more, it seems,’ he said at last in a stony burr.

Pavo barged from the gate tower and back into place with his century on the southern walls. The Goths were already scurrying up the rungs of their ladders like a plague of ants, their long, blonde locks flowing from their stolen Roman helms, daggers clutched between their teeth and longswords held in white fists. A hail of arrows from below screened the climbing Goths. This volley plunged most densely into the sagittarii, and thirteen of these precious archers groaned, clutching the shafts embedded in their chests and throats, before slumping where they stood or toppling out over the fort walls, bronze helms falling off and red cloaks billowing.

‘Get these ladders away from the walls. Come on!’ Pavo roared, taking up his spear then pressing the butt against the top rung of the ladder and pushing, waving Trupo and Sura to his aid.

‘Push!’ he groaned, grasping the ladder top and shoving it back from the wall. The ladder wavered there, almost vertical, the battle of weight undecided, until Cornix and two other legionaries jabbed their spear butts at it too. Now, the ladder creaked upright, then toppled over, taking Pavo’s spear with it, out into the Gothic mass with a chorus of screaming. Men fell from the ladder or leapt clear, but those on the highest rungs were dashed on the snowy ground, necks broken by the weight of their armour. One fell on the nest of his comrades’ spears and another landed before a Taifali horseman, starting the warrior’s mount and causing it to rear up and thrash its hooves at his head, staving in his skull.

A great cheer rose up from the men on the walls and Pavo felt the fiery grip of hope. Along the wall, two more ladders tumbled, felling or injuring the climbers and disrupting the sea of warriors beneath — one of the ladders toppling right over the edge of the plateau and skating down the valley side in a flurry of thrown up snow and bodies. But moments later. . clack!

Another ladder was swung into place and this time the Goths were wise to the Roman ploy. They sent men up in even greater haste to add weight to the ladder. Pavo, Sura, Trupo, Cornix and four others pushed with all they had. The ladder lifted from the wall and the arms of each Roman trembled, breaths held in their lungs as they sought the final push. Pavo felt his head swim as the Goth swaying there near the topmost rung gawped, hair swooshing in the gale, sure the ladder was about to fall like the others. Then he grinned as more comrades added to the weight of the ladder and the strength of the legionaries began to fade.

‘Back!’ Pavo cried, seeing that the ploy was spent as the ladder thwacked back into place against the battlements. The legionaries took one half-step back from the parapet. ‘Plumbatae!’ he bellowed, hearing Quadratus and Zosimus cry in unison.

The legionaries each unclipped one of their three lead-weighted darts form the rear of their shields, then hoisted them.