Legionary: Viper of the North (39 page)

But then Gallus frowned as Ivo slowed. He noticed the giant warrior glancing up to the battlements to give an almost imperceptible nod to someone up there. Gallus followed his line of sight and frowned; only Comes Lupicinus and the wall guard stood there. Then he saw a figure emerge behind them; almost wraith-like, face in shadows under a dark-green hood. His blood iced.

A shout rang out from the battlements and Lupicinus and the wall guard broke out in some kind of scuffle. Above the crenellations, only limbs and flailing fists could be seen. As one, the legionary cohort, the Gothic mass, Fritigern and Ivo looked to the fracas in bemusement. Then, in a flash, an arm rose above the scuffle and a plumbata dart was hurled from the walls. Straight at Fritigern.

A collective gasp rang out as Fritigern shuddered in his saddle and the weighted dart punched into the ground behind him, dripping with blood. Gallus’ eyes snapped from the dart to the Gothic Iudex, who was touching fingers to his cheek, gashed wide open to the bone, sinews of flesh dangling and dripping with blood. Fritigern’s eyes were bulging.

The coin had fallen.

In the surreal hiatus that followed, Gallus backed away, lost for words. He turned to the cohort and motioned for them to back out of the Gothic swell.

Ivo leapt on the moment. ‘The plumed Roman on the walls has tried to kill our leader again, bold and unashamed, here before you all. The Romans are no allies! To arms!’ He roared. ‘Spill a gallon of their blood for every drop of Iudex Fritigern’s that has been shed today.’ He smashed his longsword onto his shield boss and orchestrated a roar from the Gothic armies.

Fritigern drew his longsword from his scabbard and held it high above his head.

‘Back, back!’ Gallus urged his men back along the narrow corridor in the Gothic ranks.

‘Death to the empire!’ Fritigern boomed swiping his sword down, the point aimed at a wide-eyed Lupicinus on the battlements. ‘To the walls! Bring me his heart!’

As one, the horde roared until the earth shook, then swarmed forward with a cacophony of battle cries. The ladders were raised up and clunked into place against the battlements and at once spearmen scurried up their rungs, eager for blood.

Gallus glanced in every direction. The narrow corridor in the Gothic ranks vanished as warriors rushed to slay the XI Claudia cohort.

‘Shields!’ He cried.

With a wooden clunk the legionaries were little more than intercisa helmets, spears, eyes and snarls behind a shield wall. Pavo felt the air being forced from his lungs as the Romans pressed together. There was no time for a plumbatae volley as the noose snapped tight, Gothic spearmen falling upon the Roman square with a smash of iron and a chorus of screams. Some Gothic warriors skated over the shield wall and into the midst of the cohort, such was their fervour. Some ran at the Roman spears unshielded, grappling the spear shafts, wrenching legionaries from the lines and onto the ground where they were hacked into little more than bone and gristle in a heartbeat.

Pavo’s shoulder jarred as the Goths smashed against his shield. Then he punched out with his spear, the tip plunging into one Goth’s eye socket, showering his face with hot blood, exploded eye and grey matter. Blinking the gore from his eyes, he saw that the charge had knocked some legionaries around him from their feet and into the square; the Roman square was bent out of shape and was collapsing.

When his spear was torn from his grasp, Pavo butted his shield out again and again, smashing bones of those who attacked him. Then he ripped his spatha from its scabbard and parried furiously.

A few paces from the square, one red-haired brute wielded a two-headed axe, swinging it round his head, teeth clenched in a manic grin. Then, beside him, a hand clawed at his knee. He looked down to see Sura being dragged out of the square by two Goths, his friend’s face agape with terror. The Goths dropped Sura before the axe-giant then backed off as the giant hefted his weapon, readying for a swing at Sura’s skull.

Pavo pushed free of the disintegrating Roman square. He pulled his shield round like a scythe to clear a path before him, then headbutted one eager opponent who rushed at him. The fin of his intercisa helmet pierced the Goth’s forehead dead centre, a neat triangular hole framed by white bone was quickly filled in by spouting blood. As the giant swung his axe for Sura, Pavo leapt forward, hacking his spatha down at the axe shaft. With only inches to spare the shaft was sheared and the axe head clunked onto the ground. Sura was left, face drained of blood, staring at the irate snarl of the bearer.

‘With me!’ Pavo roared, heaving his friend up by the forearm, then roaring as the giant ripped a dagger down his bicep and thigh. Fuelled by rage, he thrust his spatha forward, stabbing the giant in the gut.

With that, they tried to fall back. But the rest of the cohort had disintegrated into pockets of legionaries. So the pair circled, back to back, hacking at the Gothic swell. Every direction Pavo looked there were more and more spear shafts and longswords coming for them.

‘To the last!’ Sura snarled, kicking out at one Goth’s gut.

Then there was a jagged Gothic cry from Marcianople. ‘We have the walls!’ At this, a war horn moaned across the plain, and a cheer rang out.

Pavo blinked in disbelief as the swell around them eased, many warriors turning, rushing past them.

‘The city’s defences are breached. They’re going for the ladders!’ Sura spluttered. Then, as if to underline Marcianople’s fate, a sharp crack of timber rang out as a battering ram shattered the city gates.

Pavo parried at the thick pocket of eighty or more Goths who remained, set on finishing the Roman cohort. A white-hot, fiery pain shot through his bleeding bicep as he swiped his spatha around him, panting. ‘But there are still too many of them, Sura!’

Then, the pair were sprayed with hot blood and a Gothic head bounced past them.

‘Have that, you
whoresons!
’ A familiar voice rang out.

Tribunus Gallus had pushed through to the pair. With him were big Zosimus, Quadratus, Felix and Avitus, fighting in a tight pack. Crito and a smattering of others were close by.

At this, the Goths nearby backed off, uncertain, glances darting to the pack of hardy Romans and to the rest of their horde, swarming into the city. One turned and ran to the walls, then another. In moments, they were streaming for Marcianople, leaving the bloodied remnant of the Roman cohort behind. At last, the frenzy of battle eased.

Pavo’s blood iced as he beheld the city; it looked like some grotesque anthill, the few pieces of stonework not covered by ladders and clambering, red-armoured warriors were spattered with blood or draped with broken Roman corpses. A garrison legionary was hurled from the battlements and fell, thrashing and screaming, then landed head-first with a bony crunch on the ground. Black plumes of smoke belched out over the walls and a chorus of screaming rent the air. He felt shame at his failure to save those poor souls inside the walls.

‘Come on, you pair of bloody idiots!’ Zosimus roared at him and Sura. ‘Marcianople is lost. Make for the north!’

He turned to run with the pack of survivors, when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed that one mail-shirted figure instead ran towards the city, for the rear of the Gothic line, sword aloft. His heart froze. ‘Crito!’

Before he could think it over, he was off and after the grizzled veteran.

He heard Sura yelping behind him. ‘Pavo? Pavo! Oh for f . . . ’

He caught up with Crito just as the veteran was about to take on four Goths on his own. He clasped a hand to the man’s shoulder. ‘What are you doing?’ He roared. ‘Didn’t you hear the order? The city has fallen!’

Crito’s face was twisted in a snarl and soaked with tears as he shrugged Pavo away. ‘I can’t leave them!’ He bellowed, sinking his spatha into the neck of one Goth, who roared in pain then greyed and crumpled as his lifeblood fountained from him.

Pavo parried a strike from another nimble-footed warrior. Then Sura joined them just in time to finish the Goth off with a slash across the belly, emptying the man’s grey-red, steaming pile of guts onto the plain. ‘Who? Everyone in those walls is dead, if not right now then before noon they will be.’

‘My wife, my little girl!’ He roared, lunging wildly into another pack of three Goths who came at them. With a flurry of hacking, Crito felled two of them, but then leapt back with a yell as his helmet toppled to the ground, a scarlet stump left where his ear had been. But Crito rushed back into the fray immediately, roaring as he drove his spatha through the Goth’s chest, before twisting his head this way and that to look for the next opponent.

Pavo pulled the veteran back and pointed to the walls. ‘Crito, they are gone. Listen.’

Crito glared at him, but then his face fell as he heard it: the terrible wailing inside the walls had stopped. Now there were only Gothic roars of victory, and all but a few Gothic stragglers had poured inside the city.

‘You can only help them now by living on to remember them, to honour their memory.’

Crito slumped at this. ‘I should have defended them. I should have been inside the city.’

Pavo pushed Crito back towards the rest of the fleeing cohort and nodded for Sura to watch their backs. ‘Every one of us did all we could, you can’t blame yourself. If you had been inside the city then you would have died too.’

Crito’s face was expressionless momentarily, then a scowl grew upon it. ‘No!’ He spat, tears dropping from his snarling expression. ‘If you and the rest of them had not run we could have saved them. They’re dead because of you, you whoreson!’ He thrust the palm of one hand at Pavo, catching him on the spliced flesh of his bicep. ‘You may as well have slain them yourself!’

Pavo winced, but bit back the battle-fuelled urge to retaliate. ‘Then you can hate me for it, but please, come with us.’

Crito spat at Pavo’s feet, then turned and jogged off to catch up with the cohort.

Pavo and Sura followed him.

Behind them, the city suddenly fell silent. Glancing back, Pavo heard the whinnying of horses, a whip being cracked, and then a voice cried out in unearthly pain. Then a dull, fleshy clunk ended the cry abruptly and a euphoric Gothic roar rang out.

Lupicinus gawped down from the battlements; the plumbata was still quivering in the earth behind Fritigern. A dreadful realisation crept over his skin as Fritigern looked up to the battlements, stunned, touching a hand to the gash on his cheek.

Lupicinus backed away from the iudex’s glare, then spun to the fleeing, green cloaked figure who had appeared from nowhere like a shade to throw the dart. ‘After him!’ He roared. But the figure fled like a leopard, barging legionaries from his path. Lupicinus raced along the battlements after him, hurdling the stumbling soldiers left in the stranger’s wake, eyes trained on the green cloak.
So this Viper is more than just a myth!