Legionary: Viper of the North (48 page)

Pavo looked across to the far side, but the opposite lip was deserted. Traianus and his riders were supposed to be there to complete the trap. ‘Where are they?’ He whispered to Sura.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Sura whispered beside him. ‘I can feel it too.’

Then the sound of hooves grew, echoing through the bowl of the gully. It sounded like every last Thervingi rider was coming towards them. Pavo sunk even lower in the grass, eyes fixed on the entrance corridor as the cool rain soaked his face.

Then, muted gasps were snatched back into mouths as four terrified doe raced into the gully, one with an arrow trembling in its bloodstained flanks. Then a foreign roar filled the air and Roman hearts froze.

‘Ya!’ A jagged voice cried.

The lead rider came into view first; a Goth wearing a red leather tunic with a thick beard and blonde hair flowing loose. Still moving at a gallop, the rider winked as he stretched his bow and then loosed. With a twang, the arrow zipped through the air and ripped into the wounded doe’s throat. The animal fell, hooves thrashing, blood bubbling from the wound.

Three more riders followed the archer into the gully. Ivo was the last to enter, his grey hair scooped back into a topknot, his good eye sweeping around the basin and his bronze earrings and scale vest glinting.

Pavo’s eyes hung on the vest. He frowned. It reminded him of something.
Like the scales of a snake.
Images of the dream came to him again, and he searched for meaning.

‘Four . . . five.’ Sura whispered beside him. ‘There are only five of them!’

They watched as Ivo slid from his horse, taking up the bow from his saddle and training his sights on a terrified fawn that skipped around its mother’s corpse. The grizzled warrior loosed his arrow and then roared, punching the air in delight as the fawn’s body crumpled, its ribs shattered and its heart ruptured by the shaft. The Goths gathered up their kills, then struck up a campfire, before skinning the largest of the deer, splicing it on a spit to roast.

Gallus stared down shufflings of impatience from the legionaries, all the while darting glances to the far side of the gully; still empty. ‘We wait for the magister militum!’ The tribunus hissed.

Ivo circled the campfire, patting his men on the shoulder. Then the giant warrior carved off four slabs of meat from the animal’s haunches, handing a slice to each of them.

‘Taste the flesh, taste its sweetness, its succulence,’ he enthused. ‘Satiate your hunger on it as if it were the very corpse of the empire. For now is the time to reap the rewards for your loyalty.’ As the giant warrior spoke, he slowly untied his arm greaves.

‘This is it,’ Pavo whispered to Sura, eyes fixed on Ivo as the segments of leather armour fell to the ground. There it was, as stark as daylight; upon each of his forearms, a blue, winding snake stigma curled around his flesh.

‘The Viper!’ Sura hissed. The phrase echoed along the line of watching legionaries.

But then Ivo drew his sword and held it aloft. ‘My master and I have drawn the disparate Gothic tribes together, blending them like ore in a furnace.’

My master?
Pavo’s brow wrinkled. He shared an anxious frown with Sura and Gallus.

Down below, the Goths nodded in approval, all apart from the bearded one. Ivo continued; ‘Neither Fritigern, Alatheus, Saphrax nor Athanaric for that matter, is strong enough to seize destiny alone. Thus they will be driven through Roman lands like war dogs. When they have served their purpose, they will be knocked from their thrones by the Viper, my master, the rightful iudex! Then we will be invincible!’

The Goths burst into a joyous roar at this. All apart from the one with the thick beard and flowing hair.

‘I will have no part in this,’ the Goth grunted, standing, throwing his meat into the fire. ‘A united Gothic nation is a fine aspiration, but I am loyal to Iudex Fritigern and Iudex Fritigern alone.’

‘That,’ Ivo twirled his long sword in his hand as if it was a twig, ‘is why I summoned you on this hunt. You will make a fine example.’

At once, the other three Goths shot to standing, ripping their swords from their scabbards.

The bearded Goth backed away. ‘What is this?’

Ivo stepped forward. ‘This is where you choose between Valhalla and heaven!’ Then, with a swing of his knotted arm, he brought the longsword round to hack clean through the bearded Goth’s neck. The head spun onto the ashes of the fire, eyes bulging, lips fluttering soundlessly as the man watched his own body stand, headless and spouting crimson from the stump that used to be his neck. Then the body crumpled to the ground like a felled tree and the head was consumed by flames.

With that, Ivo stabbed his sword into the ground. ‘It is time!’ He held clenched fists to the darkening clouds.

At this, Pavo looked to Gallus. The tribunus cast one last forlorn stare to the far side of the gully, then squared his jaw.

‘Ready yourselves,’ Gallus hissed, ‘surround them and make sure none escape.’

Right on cue, Pavo’s bladder seemed to swell with liquid and his mouth drained of all moisture. He and Sura glanced to one another – affirming that tacit vow that they would protect each other’s flank.

‘Go!’ Gallus hissed, rising from the grass, flicking his spatha up. At once, the gully lip rippled as the thirty legionaries – the last straggle of limitanei resistance – spilled into the crater in a wide line. They sped down the red-earth sides, racing in to the campfire in the centre.

They bit back on their usual battle cry and rushed forward in a mute charge. Pavo’s vision jostled as the form of Ivo and his men grew closer. Then he stepped on a piece of slate that snapped under his weight, and the Goths spun to the source of the noise. The three with Ivo cried out in alarm, snatching up their swords and stumbling back. At this, the Romans broke out in a roar.

In a flash of iron, the Goths were snared – spatha tips hovering at each of their throats. But Ivo did not move or go for his sword, embedded in the earth. Instead, he wore a wretched grin, bent across his face under that arrowhead of a nose. His calm gaze was trained on the approaching Romans.

The one-eyed giant waited for the Roman cry to die to nothing, then spoke with a calm voice; ‘My master and I have been aware of your scouting of us for some time. That is why we lured you here.’

‘Your poisoned words are useless now, Ivo,’ Gallus barked, then nodded to his legionaries. ‘Bind them!’

Pavo grabbed for the lengths of rope on his belt. But then he froze. His gut shrivelled as he heard the creaking of bows all around them. He looked up; the lip of the gully had darkened.

Gothic archers lined the crater; some two hundred of them, faces smeared in woad, earth and root. Their arrows were trained on the legionaries and a dark-green viper banner flitted in the breeze above their heads.

Traianus and the equites were already dead, he realised.

Traianus stilled the breath in his lungs and pressed back against the tree trunk as a band of Gothic archers flitted past the dense thicket. He stroked his mount to soothe her, anxious that a snort or a shuffle would betray his turma’s position. Then his hand flexed near his spatha hilt as he looked ahead in frustration – the lip of the gully they were supposed to be lining right now was so close yet so far.

‘They’re everywhere, hundreds of them - we’re pinned down!’ The decurion hissed behind him.

Then a roar rang out from the gully, accompanied by the iron screeching of spathas being drawn, just as the archers spilled into place around the lip. Traianus’ heart sank. They were too late. He closed his eyes, searching for a plan.

‘We can still break free of this, sir, then ride like Hades to the south,’ the decurion whispered, grappling Traianus’ arm, his grip cold and clammy with terror.

Traianus twisted round to scowl at the decurion, whose face was etched with guilt. ‘Soldier, you do not know the measure of Ivo. Long ago, when I last faced him, he slew my centurion and my contubernium. I have known many soldiers who have killed in great number – but never have I seen a man revel in bloodshed like Ivo did that day. I will not leave those legionaries to die at that man’s hands.’

But the decurion’s face had paled and his mouth hung agape as he gazed past his superior’s shoulder.

Traianus frowned. Then, a crunch of bracken sounded.

Traianus spun to face forwards again, then his blood froze.

He beheld the dark-green cloaked and hooded figure that had materialised, barely an arm’s length from him. Instinctively, he grabbed for his spatha.

But his hand froze as, all around the thicket, Gothic archers dropped down from the trees silently. Like the others, their faces were smeared in dirt, stained with woad and root, and they held arrows nocked to their bows, trained on the equites.

Traianus’ gaze darted all around him, then fell upon the shadows under the green hood. His heart hammered. ‘This cannot be real; I saw you die . . . ’

Then a voice rasped from within the hood. ‘Yes, I remember that day on the wharf well. You fought bravely, Roman . . . ’

Pavo stared numbly at the ground before him. The legionaries around him were equally silent. On Ivo’s word, they would be rent with hundreds of Gothic arrows.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw something move, up on the lip of the gully. Pavo looked up to see that the chosen archers had parted. A clutch of Roman corpses were pushed forward through the gap, throats slit, mail vests and tunics stained crimson, limbs flailing as they tumbled down the gully side. So Traianus’ equites had fought their last. But there was one survivor; one Roman was bundled forward, hands bound, teeth gritted, snarling like a caged animal and shaking with rage as he skidded down the gully side.

Traianus.

But Pavo saw the magister militum and the chosen archers as just a blur, for his gaze snapped onto something else. It was as if the undergrowth had come to life; a dark-green shape rippled, emerging from the green of the forest to step down into the gully. An icy finger traced Pavo’s spine as the hooded and cloaked figure strode across the gully floor. The shadow where a face should have been seemed fixed on them as it approached.

Now there could be no doubt; the Viper was all too real.

Then the figure stopped before them. Ivo and the three Gothic hunters knelt before it.

‘Master,’ Ivo whispered, clutching a hand across his heart.

The green-cloaked figure lifted a finger and then swiped it down. At once, the Gothic archers lining the gully rushed forward to begin binding the hands of the legionaries.