Gordon Doherty - Viper of the North

Gallus sought his next words carefully; the peace talks with Athanaric were due to take place as soon as an ambassadorial party could be summoned and briefed. Dux Vergilius had advised Gallus that, when the time came, he and his vexillatio would be escorting the party into Athanaric’s dominion, to Dardarus, the fortified citadel in the heart of the Carpates. He thought better of discussing this now, instead reaching into his pack to pull a piece of hardtack from it.

‘Eat, it will fight the cold from your bones,’ he said, crunching into the biscuit and gesturing to his most trusted man to do likewise.

‘Agreed,’ Felix grinned wryly. Then he lifted his soured wineskin to his lips, ‘and a little of this will warm the blood too!’ With that, Felix gulped down a mouthful of soured wine and rummaged in his pack.

Gallus folded the map. Then he stopped, his eyes narrowing, touching a hand to the frozen ground. He felt it again, the tremors of approaching riders. He looked up; Felix stared back, wide eyed, the wine-skin hovering at his lips.

‘Mount!’ Gallus roared.

Felix threw down the wine sack, then the pair leapt onto their horses just as a pack of some hundred Gothic riders burst over the northern horizon and swept down towards the settlement.

It was them: the rebels. They rode in silence at first, braided locks billowing, lying flat over their saddles. Then as they approached the settlement they sat upright, punching their spears in the air, throwing out a trilling battle cry. At this, the Gothic farmers dropped their buckets, tools and bundles and ran for the stallhouses, screaming. One elderly villager’s cry was cut short with the swing of a longsword, a crimson spray puffing up and over the rebel who had slain him. Then the rest of the riders ploughed into the slower of the fleeing villagers, hacking, slicing and stabbing.

Gallus heeled his fawn stallion round to the south. He lifted his spatha, waving the iron blade towards a seemingly deserted patch of plain some two hundred feet south of the farm settlement. ‘First century, forward!’

Then, like an iron asp, the one hundred and sixty men of the first cohort, first century rose from the tall grass. They had been decked out in the precious remainder of unblemished armour: mail vests over fresh white, purple-edged woollen tunics — with their linen spares underneath to fend off the chill — and woollen, ruby cloaks. They carried freshly painted ruby and gold shields and spathas, spears and plumbatae — the lead weighted darts clipped in to the rear of their shields. The iron fins of their helmets split the tall grass like a school of sharks as they marched forward.

‘And let them know who we are!’ Gallus cried. As he and Felix heeled their mounts into a canter and then a gallop around the flank of the approaching riders, his skin rippled with pride as he heard the baritone roar of the legionaries, backed by the smashing of sword hilts on shield bosses.

‘They know all right!’ Felix cackled.

Gallus looked over to see the hundred Gothic riders’ charge faltering, more than half having halted altogether, heads looking this way and that at this unexpected appearance of the legion. ‘Ya!’ he roared, squeezing his heels into his stallion’s flanks.

‘They’re turning, sir, they’re turning around!’ Felix bellowed over the chill rush of air and hoofbeats.

‘Then let’s make sure they turn in to the valley!’ Gallus cried back.

As the first century marched on at a jog, Gallus and Felix galloped round to the north until they were within a few hundred paces of the rebel Goths. Here, just as Gallus had hoped, the rebel riders had reached a forking in the flat land ahead; one path led to the northeast and the forests, the other led into the winding valleys that hugged the base of the Carpates. And if Athanaric has anything to do with this, then they’ll stay close to his beloved mountains. As the Goths veered left and into the valley, his eyes narrowed. It was time to find out who these rogues were.

He turned to Felix. ‘You think he will be ready for them?’

Felix nodded. ‘Zosimus? Aye, ready and eager, as always.’

Gallus turned back to the valley. ‘Then send up the fire signal.’

A felled spruce trunk was balanced precariously on the eastern ridge of the valley. Behind it, Centurion Zosimus lay prone in the frozen grass. He shivered as he chewed on a strip of salt beef, then rubbed at his anvil of a jaw, numb from the cold, then wrinkled his battered nose as he watched the mouth of the pass.

Still nothing .

The forty men of his century lying alongside him had remained quiet in this frozen wilderness, but he could sense their frustration growing. He glanced across to the opposite ridge and the spruce trunk balanced there; the other forty of his century behind it were no doubt grumbling unchecked over there.

Then his optio, Paulus, broke the silence. ‘If the tribunus is wrong about this, sir, we could be waiting here all day in the frozen grass,’ he mused, squinting up at the winter morning sun, scratching at his bearded chin.

‘The tribunus is never wrong,’ Zosimus cast his optio a dark look. He waited until Paulus’ features paled, then grinned; ‘or so he would have you believe.’

Paulus reflected his centurion’s grin.

Zosimus sighed. ‘Look, I know how you’re all feeling: I can barely feel my own arse anymore, but here, pass this around,’ Zosimus lifted up his wineskin, then fell silent, realising it was already empty. His face fell into a scowl once more as he threw it down, then muttered; ‘I just hope Fritigern appreciates all we’re doing for him. Marching around a bloody frozen Hades to catch the men his lot should be dealing with. . ’

His words trailed off when an orange streak sped into the sky from the plains beyond. Then his eyes grew wide as they fell from the fiery missile to the cluster of Gothic riders who had raced into the valley, blonde locks billowing in their wake.

‘Ready yourselves,’ he batted a hand across Paulus’ chest, scowled along the forty who lined the ridge with him, then waved the other hand at those on the opposite ridge. He grappled at the felled spruce trunk that lay before them, his fingers blue and numb as he searched for purchase. Then, as he and his men took the weight of the timber, he hissed to them; ‘Push!’

The Gothic riders raced along the valley floor at pace, and the log seemed determined not to crest the ridge of the valley. He growled, his trunk-like arms shuddering and his boots gouging frozen earth from the ground until, finally, the weight of the log was gone. He and his men rushed onto the lip to see the logs from either edge hurtling down the valley sides, converging on the path of the rebel riders.

The Gothic riders noticed when they had only moments to react. Some leapt clear of the logs, some mounts reared up and their riders fell to the ground, others pulled up short and hurled their riders forward. Those caught in the path of the colliding logs were shattered like kindling; pained whinnying, screaming and the snapping of man and animal bones echoed through the valley.

Before they could reform, Zosimus swept his sword over his head, racing down the hillside at the head of his men.

‘Charge!’ He roared.

‘Yes. . yes!’ Gallus growled, the bitter chill rushing past him as he sped forward at a gallop into the valley. His eyes were fixed on the form of Centurion Zosimus; the big Thracian was leading his century like a lion, silhouetted in the morning sun. The screaming of iron upon iron rang out and the stench of spilled guts was rife.

He flexed his fingers and gripped on his spatha hilt again and again, casting an eye back over his shoulder to see that the hundred and sixty of the first century were not far behind. The jaws of the trap were swinging shut. The truth lay within his grasp.