Legionary: Viper of the North (16 page)

Salvian gave a subtle nod of affirmation.

Tarquitius wore a tormented expression of bagged-up fear and desperate ambition. ‘I was born for this,’ he proclaimed, his shrill tone filling the corridor.

As the Gothic warrior led them from the stallhouse, Gallus walked beside Felix. ‘I’m more concerned about that overfed snake than the Goths right at this moment,’ he whispered, the creaking boards disguising his words.

Pavo’s ears were still ringing and his vision was little more than a pool of murky shapes. He felt hands grapple at him, lifting him to standing. He groaned, swaying on the spot, squinting at his surroundings: he was in some kind of stony basin. A ring of blurry shapes writhed and it seemed as if a thousand harpies were screeching all around him. Then, one voice cut through the din, barking in a jagged Gothic tongue, then repeated the message in broken Greek.

‘And facing mighty Adalwolf, crusher of skulls, drinker of blood, grinder of bones, is . . . ’

Pavo almost spluttered out in dry laughter. As his vision began to clear, he wondered what poor sod was being pitted against such a creature. Then he wondered what the dark mass right in front of him was. Then he realised it was a man. A giant of a man whose bald head seemed to be fused to his shoulders without the need of a neck, and his expression was one of indulgent rage. He was clad in an iron scale vest over a woollen tunic and he carried a weighty longsword in each hand, the veins in his tree trunk arms bulging as if trying to escape from the skin. His eyes were trained on Pavo and his face was split with a predatory grin. Pavo had a distinct feeling that this was Adalwolf.

Oh, bugger!

‘ . . . the brave but foolish Roman warrior, who comes to storm our village with two men by his side. Ready yourself, Roman; meet your fate with the honour your people talk of as if it belongs to them alone.’

His senses sharpened by this, Pavo blinked at the warrior, then shot glances all around: they were inside Istrita and in some crude stone-ringed gravel pit with a large timber cage at the far edge. A triple tier of timber benches encircled the pit and formed an arena, the seats packed with baying, snarling Goths – the whites of their eyes and their teeth glinting like hungry wolves in the torchlight. All of them were warriors – no women, elderly or children in sight. He glanced up at the Goth who had announced the bout. The stocky man was sitting on a timber chair, erected on stilts about the height of two men above the other benches of the arena.

Pavo made to roar at the speaker, when unseen hands pressed a spatha hilt into one hand and a round, wooden Gothic shield into the other. Then his helmet was pressed onto his head. He spun round to see the two Gothic warriors who had armed him, scuttling away, climbing out of the pit to their seats.

‘Pavo, duck!’ A hoarse voice called out from his side.

‘Sura?’ Pavo swayed around to the direction of the voice. Blinking, he saw his friend, bound at the wrist with Crito, the pair kneeling at the edge of the pit. Sura’s face was filled with horror. Then a fist that felt like a jagged rock hammered into Pavo’s cheekbone. His helmet flew from his head and his vision filled with white light once more and he flailed backwards, until he slammed into the pit wall. A roar of delight poured from the crowd at this.

Shocked back to his senses, Pavo twisted round to behold the giant who had almost shattered his cheekbone. It was only now that he noticed the corpses of Adalwolf’s previous opponents – Fritigern’s Goths by the look of it – lying in bloody streaks around the arena, entrails dangling from gaping sword wounds. He glanced back up at the big warrior and the bloodied blades in his hands and felt his gut turn over.

The giant lunged for him, swinging one of his swords. Pavo ducked, the blow swiping through the air, skimming his scalp. A chorus of frustrated groans rang out at this.

Pavo rolled away from the lumbering giant, who followed him, cackling, spinning each of his swords as if they were kindling.

‘Gut him!’ One young Gothic warrior screamed, pointing a finger at Pavo, his face contorted in anger. Pavo glanced to him and then back to his opponent, his mind reeling. If he was to fight, there was a good chance he would be killed by this monster. If he was to fight and win, the Goths would kill him anyway. If he was to refuse to fight, he would be killed. This fine array of choices did little to still his thundering heart.

He ducked under another sword swipe and crashed back against the timber cage by the side of the arena. Hands shot out through the slats, grasping at him. Caught, panic welled in his heart as the giant rushed for him, then a voice hissed from the cage. ‘They are coming, Roman, they are coming!’

Pavo shrugged free just as the giant’s sword swing smashed into the cage, and he scrambled back to see hundreds of faces in the gloom within the barred enclosure; warriors, women, children and elderly alike – the populace of the village, he concluded. One man pressed his face against the cage from inside, his eyes wide with fear and his shattered nose oozing blood. ‘They are coming,’ he repeated.

Pavo frowned. Then a hiss of iron cut through the air and he snapped to his senses, leaping back as the giant’s blade scythed down on the spot where he had stood. Then he pulled his shield before him. As the giant closed in, Pavo snarled at the man seated on the elevated chair. ‘You’re a fool if you think this will go unpunished.’

‘And who would punish us, Roman?’ The man roared. ‘The fools still loyal to Fritigern?’ He pointed to the cage. ‘Or perhaps the fifty Romans cowering down the track in the thicket? I don’t think so. If they move a step closer to my walls, then my archers will puncture their hearts! And if they stay outside, then they will not see the morning . . . ’

Pavo roared in frustration, then he braced as Adalwolf swung both of the longswords round to smash them into either side of his shield. Pavo’s arms shuddered from the impact and the shield splintered on both sides. One more smash like that and the shield would be gone. Then, as the giant heaved his weapons up and round to repeat the move, Pavo saw the opportunity; Adalwolf’s chest was exposed. To slide his spatha up under one of the scales would be a death blow, but it would be the death of the three Romans as well. He had to keep the fight going, to gain time to think, so instead he lunged forward, punching his shield boss into the man’s breast. The giant’s swing was checked by the strike and he staggered backwards, retching, spitting bile into the gravel.

But Adalwolf was stilled for only a moment. Pavo lifted his spatha to parry a downward slash, then the follow-up slash with the second sword, both strikes by the heavy weapons jarring his shoulders, numbing his arms. He staggered round to the man’s flank and threw a jab at the binding in his scale vest, just above the kidneys. The strike was weak and Pavo fell back with a yelp, clutching the torn skin on his knuckles.

‘No more running, Roman,’ Adalwolf purred, ‘stand and fight. I will tear out your throat, then those of your friends.’

The giant’s words were gleeful, and Pavo’s blood ran cold. He braced himself, trying his best to shut out the hundreds of snarling faces all around them. His yell of pain had honed their thirst for blood. Then, for an instant, he froze, realising that even the wall guard had turned to look in on the village, absorbed by the spectacle. He thought of Habitus and the others outside, and prayed they would spot this, prayed they would disobey his orders. Then the giant came at him, roaring.

The warrior’s arms and blades were a blur such was the speed and power of the attack, and Pavo could only parry instinctively. With every strike, he realised he was being driven back. First at a stalk, then at a stagger, now he was practically running backwards. The shrill roar of the crowd grew deafening, then he heard skin tear and felt a searing pain across his neck, numbly realising he had suffered a cut across the throat. A cold terror gripped him; if it was arterial then he had moments at most.

Better to go out fighting,
he resolved with a grimace. He let his fear swirl into anger, then lunged forward, punching through the sword-swipes of the giant, spatha tip aimed for the man’s heart.

But all he heard was the scream of iron as his sword spun from his hand and up into the night sky. Silence fell on the arena. Then, as one, the crowd erupted in a cacophony of laughter. Pavo’s vision began to spot over – he was spent and weaponless. The throat wound was superficial, but it mattered little now. Adalwolf stepped forward, placing the edge of each of his swords by either side of Pavo’s neck, lining them up carefully, readying to swing them together. Through a grin, he hissed; ‘I will keep your head, Roman, to remind me of this day.’

Pavo stared through the giant, numbly, and his eyes started to close. Then something flashed in the night sky, catching the moonlight, silently streaking towards them. Pavo and Adalwolf started, turning to it. Pavo recognised the missile at the last moment, and ducked back. With a meaty punch and a dry cracking of bones, the plumbata burst through the giant’s throat, severing his spine and twisting his head to an unnatural angle.

Pavo stepped back, his face spattered in blood and gristle. Adalwolf’s body toppled away, the double longswords still clutched in his hands. There was a hiatus of barely a heartbeat as the crowd looked on, stunned, while their mightiest warrior’s corpse spasmed in a pool of its own blood. Pavo looked to the timber watchtowers: where the Gothic sentries had dropped their guard for only moments, slumped corpses now lay, impaled by Roman spears and plumbatae. Dark shapes were dropping over the wall and into the village. The fifty had heard his prayers and pounced on the Goths’ moment of lapsed concentration.

Then the rebel leader stood, eyes wide, scanning the timber walls. ‘To arms, we are under attack! The wall guard have been . . . ’ his words were cut off as Sura and Crito, still bound, clambered up onto the arena benches and then rushed at the foot of the chair to barge it back until it rocked and toppled into the crowd. Then there was a hissing and the sky glinted once more, this time with an organised volley of some fifty plumbatae. Chaos erupted as the missiles hit home, striking down the Gothic warriors.

‘The legions are coming!’ One warrior cried out.

The rebel leader scrambled from the toppled chair and slapped him, then barked and yelled in a vain attempt to rally his men. ‘Stay your fear, for the Viper has risen!’ He roared. ‘And by dawn tomorrow, this plain will be alive with his northern allies!’

Pavo frowned momentarily, blood pounding in his ears. Then, two Gothic spearmen rushed for him and he was jolted from his thoughts. He wrenched the pair of longswords from Adalwolf’s corpse, and hacked the tip from one assailant’s spear, then punched a sword through the chest of the other. He spun to parry the dagger that the first man thrust at his back, then sliced the man’s hand off at the wrist. He twisted round looking for his next opponent, but already, the Goths were outnumbered, the legionaries slicing through the remainder who fought on.

At this, the rebel leader cried out to the last few around him. ‘Fight on, you fools, the Viper will come for us . . . ’

His words ended with a cry as Crito barged forward and punched his spatha into his shoulder, pushing down until the artery was severed and black blood leapt high from the wound. The rebel leader toppled to the ground, gurgling his last. Crito cackled, eyeing the draining corpse, then sidling over to Pavo. ‘Well whoever the Viper is, he won’t be coming for this one!’

And with that, the battle was over. Amongst the scattered bodies, Pavo spotted those in legionary armour, entrails strewn on the ground, white bone showing. But he remained calm. Upon first joining the legion, the veterans had described it as ‘the soldier’s skin’, the ability to detach from all emotion in the face of such brutality. All men in the ranks developed this after a few bloody encounters. He looked at the scars that lined his forearm; now he would have to explain it to some of the recruits.

‘What now?’ Sura panted, wiping his sword on the tunic of a Gothic corpse.