Gordon Doherty - Viper of the North

Finally, they reached the recruit training area. Pavo stepped over the form of a prone and panting youngster who had crawled to the eastern edge of the training field to spit blood into the earth. He looked over the latest spluttering and red-faced intake; boys scraped from the border farms and undesirables drawn from the cities. ‘Were we ever this poor?’ He cocked an eyebrow.

‘You were,’ Sura fired back, then grinned. ‘Ach, relax,’ he continued, pointing to the hulking figure standing in the midst of the recruits, ‘Centurion Quadratus will have this lot fighting like lions in no time!’

Right on cue, the Gaulish centurion smashed his wooden training sword on his shield boss and roared. ‘Enough for today — I can’t take any more of your pansy fighting! Fall into line, you pussies! Faster!’ Then one rotund recruit went over on his ankle and crumpled to the earth with a high-pitched squeal. Quadratus shook his head and rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. ‘In the name of Mithras! Fall out!’

Pavo could not help but crack a smile, remembering his own time as a recruit.

Finally, the recruits jostled back towards the fort in some semblance of order. Quadratus walked over to Pavo and Sura, still shaking his head.

‘Even you two were less shit than that lot,’ he mused absent-mindedly, his eyes hanging on the last of them as they entered the fort.

Sura frowned in indignation, but the big man continued.

‘And I missed out on all these sorties over the river because apparently I’m well placed to train the recruits . I’ll bloody well place my foot right up their ars. . ’

Pavo leaned forward and coughed, jolting Quadratus back to them.

‘Mithras! Have you been swimming in ale?’ Quadratus recoiled at the stale stench from Pavo.

‘Trouble in town sir, I broke up a fight between drunks.’

‘They don’t have anything better to do than sup ale before noon?’ Quadratus mused, then cocked an eyebrow, folded his bottom lip and tilted his head from side to side as if considering the logic.

‘Er. . sir, you wanted us for something?’ Pavo asked.

Quadratus looked at them blankly for a moment, then clicked his fingers. ‘Aye, I did,’ he nodded up to the banks of the Danubius and grinned. ‘You’ll like this. Come on,’ he beckoned them forward up the dirt path that wound over to the banks.

They headed towards a bobbing timber structure that straddled the river. The pontoon bridge had been pulled together from the remaining husk of the Classis Moesica , the rotting hulls of the triremes roped together and boarded over. At the near end of the bridge, a sturdy castrum had been erected, the timber construction serving as both a bridgehead and a fortlet. The bridge itself seemed impossibly long, the power of the river’s current bending it into a gentle crescent. All this to provide a means of rapid Roman response to the trouble in Fritigern’s lands. The price of truce , Pavo mused.

As if reading his thoughts, Quadratus nodded north-west, over the river. ‘Let’s hope Tribunus Gallus and the lads can nip these uprisings in the bud.’

Gallus. Pavo’s heart warmed at the mention of the tribunus’ name. True, the leader of the legion was cold and utterly resolute, and Pavo had feared and hated the man in equal measure in his early days as a recruit. But time had served to show him that the tribunus’ iron heart was but a necessary veneer. And what a fine leader of the XI Claudia he was. Indeed, if there was any one soldier he would bet on to walk into Hades and better the demons that lay in wait there, it was Gallus. Over a week ago, the tribunus had headed north with a strong vexillatio, intent on tracking down the lead band of these Gothic rebels, leaving Quadratus in charge at the fort. Pavo’s gaze grew distant as he issued a prayer that they would return safely.

Then he was shaken back to the present with a thick crack of rope, then a hissing followed by a stark series of thuds.

‘Did I really just see that?’ Sura frowned, elbowing Pavo.

Up ahead, by the castrum, a cluster of four legionaries were fussing over some contraption beside which sat an empty cart, lopsided with one wheel buckled. As they approached it, he frowned: it looked like a mutated ballista — it had the frame of a bolt-thrower but it was bristling with four missiles instead of just one. Three lengths of rope, each as thick as his forearm, were coiled at each edge of the device. The legionaries pulled at winches, stretching this rope taut along the slider. Then they slipped four massive iron-headed bolts in place between the ropes and the bow-shaped iron front-piece.

‘Ah, ladies! Glad you could join us at last!’ The short, bald Optio Avitus grinned as he spun round from the device.

‘Ladies?’ Quadratus cocked an eyebrow.

At this, Avitus’ face fell and he quickly saluted. ‘Ready for inspection, sir!’

Pavo suppressed a grin. Avitus had never quite adjusted from the days when he had shared a contubernium with Quadratus, Pavo and the other veterans. They had shared a tent, rations, reward and punishment together. And the banter. . he cocked an eyebrow as some of the stories and pranks flitted through his mind. . the banter had been brutal.

But then Quadratus’ grimace melted into a grin. ‘Ready for inspection? Aye, whatever. Let this pair of pussies see this beauty do her thing,’ he tapped a finger on the front-piece of the device from which the four missile heads poked.

Avitus nodded and grinned at Pavo and Sura. ‘Who needs comitatenses legions when you have one of these?’ He lifted a hand and addressed the four who manned the device. ‘Ready? Loose!’

Pavo flinched as the device jolted like an angered bull. Then, with a whoosh, all four of the ballista bolts ripped through the air in a low trajectory. They sped across the broad waters of the river before smashing into a felled spruce on the far side, frost and splinters spraying up as the missile heads burst from the other side of the trunk. The four bolts quivered as if pleading to be set free in flight again, and Pavo gawped at the dark crack that ran the length of the tree.

‘Told you you’d like it,’ Quadratus muttered smugly. ‘Athanaric can line up his mighty cavalry over there for us. Yes. . that’d do just nicely.’

Pavo walked around the device. He noted that it was set on the ground on thick stilts; the nearby cart had probably been used to haul the hefty piece of equipment from the fortress before collapsing on its axles.

‘Static artillery,’ Avitus said, reading his thoughts, ‘I wouldn’t fancy hauling one of those on a sortie! The smith and the carpenter at the fort reckon they might be able to develop an axle and wheel that’ll carry this bugger more than a few hundred feet. . but they’ve been saying that for weeks.’

‘Shame. Still though, are there any more of them?’

Avitus lifted his helmet and scratched his bald head in mock bewilderment. ‘Son, when was the last time you saw a new pair of boots issued, never mind a piece of artillery?’

Pavo glanced down at his boots; split at the shin and with soles worn to almost nothing. He shrugged. ‘So where did this one come from?’

Avitus glanced at Quadratus, who nodded. ‘Thrift and, er, swift thinking,’ he replied.

Avitus continued; ‘Aye, let’s just say we, er, salvaged what we could before the vultures took everything we had east, with the comitatenses. This fine device you see is hand-crafted from timber hewn from the warehouse shelves and iron smelted from a set of mail vests that. . went missing.’

Pavo grinned. ‘Nice work. . ’ his words tailed off and the ground started to shake, he spun in the direction of the fortress. The decurion from the training field led his turma of thirty equites at a trot towards the bridge. The riders were carrying the ruby and gold shields of the XI Claudia, holding hasta spears vertical and wearing mail shirts and intercisa helmets, their ruby cloaks fluttering in their wake. Behind them marched a column of fifty legionaries.