Legionary: Viper of the North (49 page)

Pavo’s thoughts spun.

Traianus was barged to his knees before the Viper. ‘It cannot be – I saw Iudex Anzo slain, his throat torn out and his body drained of blood!’ He croaked, squinting up at the shadows under the hood. ‘Who are you?’

At this, a rasping laughter poured from the shadows. Then the Viper carefully took hold of each side of the hood, drawing it back.

Gasps rang out from the legionaries.

Pavo’s breath caught in his throat, and his mind refused to believe what he saw; the fawn locks, the blade-sharp cheekbones and the piercing green eyes. And then the half-mouthed grin. Then the cloak dropped from the figure’s shoulders and fell to the ground. He was bare-chested underneath, with a lean but muscular torso, and a spiralling snake stigma curling round his shoulders, one of which bore an old, gnarled spatha wound.

‘Salvian?’

Salvian’s gaze was baleful, and then he shook his head, ever so slowly. ‘The guise of a Roman ambassador was an expedient facet; one of many I have grown like a skin since my early years. I have been
Peleus the trader, Vetranio the smith, and Leptis the gladiator.’

Pavo frowned; his thoughts grew hazy and the ground beneath his feet seemed to sway. Then he looked to Gallus, whose face had paled. Then he glanced to Traianus; the magister militum stared at Salvian, brow deeply furrowed, eyes haunted.

‘No!’ Traianus uttered. ‘It cannot be . . . ’

‘Cannot be what?’ Gallus gasped, shooting glances to Traianus and then Salvian. ‘What is this?’

‘Tell them, Roman,’ Salvian spoke evenly, his gaze fixed on Traianus.

Traianus cast a distant and defeated gaze. ‘This man is no ambassador and certainly no Roman. He is Draga the Goth, son and heir of Iudex Anzo. He
is
the Viper.’

‘Now you know,’ Draga spoke softly, turning to Pavo.

Pavo felt his heart grow cold. A bitter sorrow stung behind his eyes as he turned back to this man he had, only weeks ago, grieved for as he had done for his father. Then his eyes fell upon the discarded cloak. Suddenly, that dream of the cave came back to him. Where the man he had known as Salvian had been standing, the slippery, lifeless, segmented sheath that had been shed was just that; one of the many skins of the Viper. ‘Draga . . . ’ he muttered, numbly.

Then Gallus erupted. He barged towards the Viper but was hauled back by the Goths binding his wrists. They kicked at his legs, forcing him onto his knees. ‘The forging of the emperor’s message, the slaying of the grain column, the assassination attempt on Fritigern, the murder of the Roman citizens I entrusted to your care,’ Gallus snorted, ‘it was all your doing. And the sortie to and flight from Dardarus, it was all a sham, wasn’t it?’

Draga nodded gently, as if he had just been paid a compliment. ‘Before Dardarus, I was nothing to you and your legion; afterwards, I was at the heart of your every move, trusted like a veteran. I knew that shedding blood with you that day would buy me this trust, just as I knew that you would not pass up on the opportunity to come here today, to snare Ivo.’

Gallus’ top lip wrinkled and betrayed a low growl. ‘So . . . you are in league with Athanaric?’ He spat.

Draga’s grin sharpened and he shook his head. ‘Athanaric was but a die in my hand, Tribunus, just as you were. I harnessed his hatred for Fritigern and ensured he would not stand with his equal against the Huns.’ He stepped forward and rasped; ‘And now Fritigern too is another die in my palm. His armies will fight for my wants, even if they do not realise it. Every day their ranks swell – as does their appetite for conquest!’

Gallus twisted his face away from Draga, his teeth gritted in impotent rage as his hands were bound.

With that, Draga turned and clasped forearms with Ivo and then the pair embraced. ‘I have longed for this day since I pulled myself, weak, freezing and bloodied, from the waters of the Golden Horn. Every day I spent, exiled in their city in the guise of a Roman citizen, witnessing their arrogance, the vileness of their nobility, their heinous crimes of war against my people
,
’ he stopped, wide-eyed, to stab a finger at Traianus, ‘or what would you call your legions’ spilling of oceans of Gothic blood – valorous, glorious . . . expedient?’ The veins in Draga’s neck pulsed against his skin, bringing the snake stigma to life. His teeth were bared like a hungry predator as he spat these last words, trembling with rage; ‘Every time . . . I dreamt of this moment.’

‘And I promised you I would devote myself to realising that dream,’ Ivo replied.

Steadying himself with a few deep breaths, Draga nodded. ‘And it will be even greater than we had imagined.’ He swept a hand across the circle of legionaries. ‘For not only am I on the cusp of scything into the heart of the empire, I now also have the commander of the eastern legions.’ He sneered at Traianus. ‘You are a fool, Magister Militum, for you have wandered into my grasp. Now you will tell me of the legions your emperor has sent from the east. Then they will be swept to their deaths like kindling in a rainstorm.’

Pavo gazed at the ground and felt one of the Gothic archers fumbling to bind his wrists. In his peripheral vision, he saw Ivo and Draga punch the air, rallying their men. At once, the gully was filled with Gothic victory cries and the green viper banner was pumped in the air. Then Pavo’s gaze settled on Ivo’s longsword, still dug into the earth. The phalera on his chest weighed heavily as he realised that all hope was gone. But a thought sparked in his mind;

If all hope was gone, then what was there to lose?

With a roar, Pavo threw his head back, his skull crashing into the archer’s jaw. Then he pulled his hands free of the rope and lunged forward, plucking the sword from the dirt, swinging the blade up towards . . . Salvian?

A gasp rang out from the watching legionaries as the sword tip halted, resting against Draga’s neck. Through gritted teeth, Pavo panted, gaze fixed on the sharp eyes, the half-mouthed smile and the earnest expression. ‘Why?’ He uttered, before Ivo batted the sword from his grasp, pressing a dagger to his throat.

‘No,’ Draga said.

‘Master?’ Ivo twisted round, frowning.

A distant hope sparked in Pavo’s heart. Then Draga’s face curled with an awful half-grin and at once, the hope was gone.

‘Let him live for today. Let them all live. They will be marched like cattle at the head of our people, and their flayed bodies will serve as a portent of what will become of those who resist. Then, perhaps those who do not die of thirst can be slain for our amusement or,’ his eyes glinted as he fixed his gaze on Pavo, ‘perhaps they can serve as our slaves?’

‘Yes, master,’ Ivo grinned.

Pavo heard the words as a distant echo. Then he felt the wind being knocked from his lungs as a spearshaft butted into his back. He crumpled to his knees, spitting bile. This time a group of the Gothic archers set about wrenching thick rope around his wrists and tied him to the chain of the other Romans.

Draga stepped forward and looked to the horizon as a warm wind whipped the spray of rain across the gully. ‘And now we march south, for there is a harvest to be reaped.’ He glared at Pavo and the legionaries with a manic sparkle in his eyes.

‘Yes, the empire will pay for its crimes.’

He grasped the viper banner and held it aloft.

‘The Viper has risen once again. Now Roman blood will flow, and it will flow like the Mother River!’

Chapter 21

The plains of southern Moesia basked in early spring serenity, baking in the warmth of the sun. The land was punctuated with pine thickets and gentle green hillocks, and scented with spring blooms. On the southern horizon, on a sizeable piece of flat ground, a small farming village lay amidst a network of barley fields.

Then, from the Haemus Mountains in the north, a dust plume rose up like a storm cloud as the Goths spilled onto the plain, the land behind them left churned and ruined. Over one hundred thousand men, women and children marched as one, in a mass stretching almost a half-mile across and many miles in length. The Gothic cavalry formed the wings and rearguard of the mass movement, with the chosen archers and spearmen providing a formidable vanguard, whilst the families marched and rode their wagons in the protected centre. At the head of the Gothic march, Traianus and the legionary prisoners were harried along. They were roped together at the wrist, wearing soiled and ripped imperial tunics, their faces caked in dust and burnt from the sun, their lips cracked and bleeding and their feet blistered and swollen. Behind them, Gothic spearmen threw curses, spitting and roaring with laughter as the beleaguered prisoners walked on in silence.

Then one Goth jabbed his spear butt forward and into Traianus’ spine. A joyous Gothic roar filled the air as the magister militum crumpled to his knees, then a fresh hail of spit coated his back.

Traianus bit into his lower lip, knowing fury would do him no good now. Blood spilled from the gash to his knee where he had fallen, seeping into the earth. Just another wound to add to the collection. Ivo and Draga had seen him tortured every night, searing his flesh, twisting the nails from his fingers, salting his wounds. Pain untold. Until, at last, the information they had sought came tumbling from his lips. Now he was being kept alive as some kind of example. He gazed into the dust as the spittle rained down over him. What could he do, other than bleed out in front of his enemy? Then, as if by a divine wind, he was lifted, the rope around his wrists tightening as the men either side of him hauled him up.

Gallus and his veterans wore bitter grimaces on their faces. He looked to them, nodding firmly, eager to hide the fatigue in his limbs. Then they continued at the head of the Gothic migration. As they walked, he wondered at the hardiness of this clutch of XI Claudia legionaries; more pithy and brash than any others he had encountered, either in the border legions or even in the field armies.

But it was from the east that his last hope lay; for that was where he had sent the lone equite, moments before the Viper had captured them.
Ride southeast, hug the coastline and you will find them
. He glanced at the horizon, his eyes narrowing.
Come on, come on, where are you?
He repeated over and over in his head. Then, noticing that a Gothic spearman was watching him closely, he looked down again quickly.

Then a clopping of hooves sounded and two horsemen sidled up to ride with the Roman line. It was Ivo and Fritigern. Traianus stared at Fritigern, ignoring Ivo. The Gothic Iudex stared back, his eyes cold and distant. Traianus recalled the times when Fritigern had been more than a tentative ally. But the man’s mind had been twisted to hatred and a hunger for conquest. And all this by the hand of Draga and Ivo.

Ivo and Fritigern cantered off ahead, shielding their eyes from the sun, looking to the settlement up ahead. Then Draga cantered up to take their place. The Viper turned his glare upon Traianus, but Traianus looked away.

This creature had slipped into the Gothic ranks unnoticed, posing as one of Ivo’s retinue. His hair was tousled and the beginnings of a fawn moustache coated his top lip. The resemblance to Anzo was stark now.

Draga slid from his saddle to lead his horse by its reins and to walk alongside Traianus.

‘I watched you, you know,’ Draga hissed in his ear, ‘ever since that day when you and your men slew my father.’

Traianus stared dead ahead.

‘While I was incarcerated in my Roman guise, I watched your rise to power with interest. I heard tales of your ascension through the ranks, your victories across the Danubius and then your victories in the east,’ Draga shook his head, grinning malevolently. ‘What a bloodthirsty soldier you have been. My hatred of you and everything about your empire has grown every day; from the moment as a boy, when I watched my father slaughtered like a pig, when I pulled myself shaking and lost from the waters of the Golden Horn.’ At this, he wrenched his cloak down at the shoulder to reveal the gnarled scarring of the spatha wound, splitting the snake stigma. ‘In all that time, I have drawn every last drop of knowledge from your libraries, your great thinkers and your strategists . . . I have bled your empire like a
cut
of
meat
. Now I stand, like the pig-slayer, blade in hand, pressed against the empire’s throat.’