Read Online Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) by Gordon Doherty - Free Book Online
Authors: Gordon Doherty
Tags: Historical fiction
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silent.
‘At ease,’ Gallus said under his breath, raising one hand a fraction. Reluctantly, the four lowered and sheathed their weapons. ‘I feel we could quarrel with this type all day if we so desired.’ He cast a sour look around the drunken rabble in every direction. ‘Mithras knows there are enough of them. Come on,’ he waved to his men, ‘we should head for the centre of the camp. We may find some answers there.’
Near the mid-point of the camp, he spotted a jutting frame of timber with a windlass mounted upon it.
‘Artillery work?’ Pavo suggested, squinting and craning to get a better view over the passing clusters of men.
‘Not quite,’ Gallus sighed, seeing that it was in fact a screw press, surrounded by countless barrels of grapes and amphorae of wine – doubtless the source of the vile, cheap stench in the air.
He heard the tink-tink of hammers once again, much louder and closer this time, and felt the wave of heat that could only come from a nearby smith’s furnace. ‘At last,’ he growled to his four. ‘Someone both sober and with a purpose.’ But when they reached the smith’s workshop – a small area covered with a sheltering timber roof – there were no new or mended weapons or armour to be seen. Instead, the fleshy smith was working on a curved sheet of bronze, tap-tapping away at it on the round end of his anvil. Gallus frowned, seeing the ripples in the bronze taking the shape of a torso, then noticing a broken stone cast a few feet away.
‘You spend your time fashioning an intricate chestplate?’ he said. ‘There are tens of thousands of Goths not a day’s march beyond those mountains,’ he thrust a rigid arm out, one finger extended to the Haemus Mountains. ‘Who gave you permission to waste your furnace and materials so?’
The smith looked up, startled, sweeping his long, grey rain-soaked hair from his eyes. He grinned. ‘I was ordered to, by the Master of the Camp.’
Gallus felt this was a modicum of progress. ‘The Magister Equitum, Saturninus?’
The smith scratched his beard and shook his head with a look of incredulity. ‘Saturninus? No, he has been engaged at the Shipka Pass for months now.’
Gallus frowned and shot a glance to the north, his eyes narrowing on the mountains. The Shipka Pass was the centre-most of the five rocky corridors blockaded to keep Fritigern’s Gothic alliance from flooding into Thracia. The centre-most and the most difficult to hold.
‘So your leader is absent. Then who is in command of this . . . camp? ’ he spat the last word like a knot of gristle.
But the smith did not answer. Instead he looked up and past Gallus’ shoulder and a sickly grin split his face. He clasped the bronze cuirass using wet rags and held it up. ‘Your new armour is nearly complete, my lord.’
Gallus heard a wet, sucking thud-thud of hooves approaching behind him, then felt the hot breath of a horse on his neck. He turned and looked up, slowly and with growing dread. Before him, saddled upon a black stallion mired fetlock-deep in mud, was a barrel-chested officer wearing a bronze scale vest and a white cloak. His face was round and ruddy with a thick brown tuft beard trimmed carefully to grow out to a point that disguised what Gallus suspected was a rather weak chin. His sunken eyes were further shadowed under a bronze helmet with a jutting brow band, a lengthy neck guard and two delicately crafted bronze wings, one welded onto each side just above the ears – clearly a recent addition and the work of the cloying blacksmith.
Gallus hesitated before speaking. The man wore no clear indication of rank – no stripes on his tunic sleeve and no obvious clue as to his unit.
A tense silence ensued. Those nearby gathered to watch.
‘Tribunus Barzimeres,’ the rider said at last, eyeing Gallus askance. ‘Leader of the Cornutii, heroes of the Milvian Bridge, and of the Scutarii, the finest chargers in Thracia.’ His tone was bumptious to say the
‘At ease,’ Gallus said under his breath, raising one hand a fraction. Reluctantly, the four lowered and sheathed their weapons. ‘I feel we could quarrel with this type all day if we so desired.’ He cast a sour look around the drunken rabble in every direction. ‘Mithras knows there are enough of them. Come on,’ he waved to his men, ‘we should head for the centre of the camp. We may find some answers there.’
Near the mid-point of the camp, he spotted a jutting frame of timber with a windlass mounted upon it.
‘Artillery work?’ Pavo suggested, squinting and craning to get a better view over the passing clusters of men.
‘Not quite,’ Gallus sighed, seeing that it was in fact a screw press, surrounded by countless barrels of grapes and amphorae of wine – doubtless the source of the vile, cheap stench in the air.
He heard the tink-tink of hammers once again, much louder and closer this time, and felt the wave of heat that could only come from a nearby smith’s furnace. ‘At last,’ he growled to his four. ‘Someone both sober and with a purpose.’ But when they reached the smith’s workshop – a small area covered with a sheltering timber roof – there were no new or mended weapons or armour to be seen. Instead, the fleshy smith was working on a curved sheet of bronze, tap-tapping away at it on the round end of his anvil. Gallus frowned, seeing the ripples in the bronze taking the shape of a torso, then noticing a broken stone cast a few feet away.
‘You spend your time fashioning an intricate chestplate?’ he said. ‘There are tens of thousands of Goths not a day’s march beyond those mountains,’ he thrust a rigid arm out, one finger extended to the Haemus Mountains. ‘Who gave you permission to waste your furnace and materials so?’
The smith looked up, startled, sweeping his long, grey rain-soaked hair from his eyes. He grinned. ‘I was ordered to, by the Master of the Camp.’
Gallus felt this was a modicum of progress. ‘The Magister Equitum, Saturninus?’
The smith scratched his beard and shook his head with a look of incredulity. ‘Saturninus? No, he has been engaged at the Shipka Pass for months now.’
Gallus frowned and shot a glance to the north, his eyes narrowing on the mountains. The Shipka Pass was the centre-most of the five rocky corridors blockaded to keep Fritigern’s Gothic alliance from flooding into Thracia. The centre-most and the most difficult to hold.
‘So your leader is absent. Then who is in command of this . . . camp? ’ he spat the last word like a knot of gristle.
But the smith did not answer. Instead he looked up and past Gallus’ shoulder and a sickly grin split his face. He clasped the bronze cuirass using wet rags and held it up. ‘Your new armour is nearly complete, my lord.’
Gallus heard a wet, sucking thud-thud of hooves approaching behind him, then felt the hot breath of a horse on his neck. He turned and looked up, slowly and with growing dread. Before him, saddled upon a black stallion mired fetlock-deep in mud, was a barrel-chested officer wearing a bronze scale vest and a white cloak. His face was round and ruddy with a thick brown tuft beard trimmed carefully to grow out to a point that disguised what Gallus suspected was a rather weak chin. His sunken eyes were further shadowed under a bronze helmet with a jutting brow band, a lengthy neck guard and two delicately crafted bronze wings, one welded onto each side just above the ears – clearly a recent addition and the work of the cloying blacksmith.
Gallus hesitated before speaking. The man wore no clear indication of rank – no stripes on his tunic sleeve and no obvious clue as to his unit.
A tense silence ensued. Those nearby gathered to watch.
‘Tribunus Barzimeres,’ the rider said at last, eyeing Gallus askance. ‘Leader of the Cornutii, heroes of the Milvian Bridge, and of the Scutarii, the finest chargers in Thracia.’ His tone was bumptious to say the
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