Eagles of Dacia Read online

  PRAETORIAN III

  ***

  Eagles of Dacia

  by S. J. A. Turney

  For Alun

  Greatly appreciated, greatly missed

  I would like to thank those people instrumental in bringing Praetorian: Eagles of Dacia to publication and making it what it is: Jenny for her initial editing and Sallyanne Sweeney, my agent for a tremendous amount of work on the manuscript and support in general. Also to Leo Bacica for helping grow my fascination with Dacia enough to push me into sending Rufinus there. Ciprian Dobra for guiding me around Alba Iulia and supplying me with in-depth information that has seriously added to the tale. Last but not least, my wife Tracey for managing to get me to and round Romania without disaster and keeping me on track throughout.

  Cover design by Dave Slaney.

  All internal maps are copyright the author of this work.

  Published in this format 2017 by Mulcahy Books

  Copyright - S.J.A. Turney

  First Edition

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Also by S. J. A. Turney:

  The Praetorian Series

  The Great Game (2015)

  The Price of Treason (2015)

  The Damned Emperors (as Simon Turney)

  Caligula (March 2018)

  The Marius' Mules Series

  Marius’ Mules I: The Invasion of Gaul (2009)

  Marius’ Mules II: The Belgae (2010)

  Marius’ Mules III: Gallia Invicta (2011)

  Marius’ Mules IV: Conspiracy of Eagles (2012)

  Marius’ Mules V: Hades’ Gate (2013)

  Marius’ Mules VI: Caesar’s Vow (2014)

  Marius’ Mules: Prelude to War (2014)

  Marius’ Mules VII: The Great Revolt (2014)

  Marius’ Mules VIII: Sons of Taranis (2015)

  Marius’ Mules IX: Pax Gallica (2016)

  Marius’ Mules X: Fields of Mars (2017)

  The Ottoman Cycle

  The Thief's Tale (2013)

  The Priest's Tale (2013)

  The Assassin’s Tale (2014)

  The Pasha’s Tale (2015)

  Tales of the Empire

  Interregnum (2009)

  Ironroot (2010)

  Dark Empress (2011)

  Insurgency (2016)

  Invasion (2017)

  Jade Empire (2018)

  Roman Adventures (for children)

  Crocodile Legion (2016)

  Pirate Legion (2017)

  1

  Short story compilations & contributions:

  Tales of Ancient Rome vol. 1 - S.J.A. Turney (2011)

  Tortured Hearts vol 1 - Various (2012)

  Tortured Hearts vol 2 - Various (2012)

  Temporal Tales - Various (2013)

  A Year of Ravens - Various (2015)

  A Song of War – Various (2016)

  For more information visit http://www.sjaturney.co.uk/

  or http://www.facebook.com/SJATurney

  or follow Simon on Twitter @SJATurney

  Simon is represented by Mulcahy Associates of London.

  MAP OF DACIA

  I – The road

  Rufinus sighed and looked about with weary, dark-ringed eyes. A month, they had been given for the journey, and it had seemed ample time over that first leg with Gordianus and his entourage, as far as the thriving city of Aquileia. Then they had moved out of Italia and into the wilder lands of Noricum and Pannonia, and Rufinus had realised how complacent he had been with timing. He had ridden such distances, even many of these same roads, during the campaigns of the old emperor, but the judging of both distance and timing had proved to be much different when travelling with a woman in a carriage. How did civilians ever get anywhere?

  Thank the gods for good Roman roads. The wooded hills east of Aquileia that rose and fell like ripples in the blanket of the world were hard enough work and he could scarce imagine what it would have been like across rough turf and shale without the road. But the constant struggle up the slopes with plodding beasts that stank worse with each passing day, and the muscle-rending effort of holding the brake pole steady as they descended each far side had left Rufinus feeling as though he had been soundly beaten with sticks at the end of every day. Of course, he had muttered complaints over the woman’s need for the carriage, but only quietly and to himself. He knew better than to protest to Senova. She had a way of making you feel guilty and small without you realising they had said anything.

  Gone was the servile and meek Senova he remembered at the imperial villa all those years ago. This Senova was a force of nature, headstrong and opinionated. She exasperated him, and the one real argument they had endured, somewhere in the hills above Neviodunum, had ended with him loudly and fervently wishing she was still that slave he’d first met. It had taken a week to heal that particularly idiotic wound. And the truth was that he didn’t miss the old Senova. This Senova was wonderful. Infuriating, but wonderful. Even her Latin had changed, her halted misunderstandings and weird Northern accent all-but gone, replaced by the rather haughty tone taught by her tutor at Pompeianus’ villa.

  And so they had pressed on, down into the Pannonian basin, through bustling Siscia and across the damp flat ground to Aquae Balissae, then over more hills. More arm strain. More stinking beasts. More complaints, though even quieter now. Down once more onto the plains of the Iazyges and into the metropolis of Sirmium – a barbarian shit hole that had been given Roman civic buildings, faced with marble and fresh paint, and expected to look like Rome. It failed. And it smelled much like the beasts that pulled the carriage.

  Rufinus had been glad to get out of the place until he discovered what lay between there and Singidunum. They had endured twenty three days of hills, woodland and plains, and on this, the twenty fourth: marshes. The Savus River they had been following for days split into multiple channels as it meandered on to join the great Danuvius. And each of those unnamed channels repeatedly broke and flooded, leaving a great flat wetland that oozed and hummed and stank. Almost as much as Sirmium. The great Roman highway cut through the Savus marshes like a pilum through the air, one long causeway that stood proud above the murk and reeds most of the time, occasionally sinking beneath the mire where repairs were clearly long overdue. Rufinus quickly became used to the new land’s symphony.

  Each terrain had its own melody, always played along to the percussion of the carriage. The marsh was a new and interesting one, albeit somewhat unwelcome. Creak, groan, squeak. Creak, groan, squeak – the wheels kept their rhythm, with the clonks and thuds of the various arcane mechanisms that gave the carriage its vaunted suspension – a facet of the vehicle that Rufinus could not feel making any difference. And with the creak, groan, squeak, and the clonk and thud were the snorting of the beasts and the occasional nickering of Atalanta, who clopped along patiently at the rear, tethered to the carriage.

  And behind all that: the melody of the marsh. The beating of a million tiny wings and the occasional battering of greater ones as sparrowhawks swept over the flat landscape and occasionally great powerful ospreys, hunting fish in the pools. The calls of those birds and many others sawing out across the land. The scuttling of marshland animals, including the fearless small lizards that bathed in the sun on the stones at the roadside, unblinking as the strange entourage passed by. Water buffalo grunted and groane
d, slopping and sploshing through the marshes. And more disturbing was the sound of the wetlands itself: a sort of background buzzing hum with occasional plops and gurgles. Not appealing noises at all.

  ‘How far is Singidunum now?’ Senova asked from the carriage behind him, nestled somewhere inside surrounded by a thousand cushions. Rufinus scratched his head and wafted away the insects as he frowned at the road ahead. It was hard to judge distances in this godawful land. Guesswork was the only answer. The man at the gates of Sirmium had said two days across the Savus marshes, and the sun was sliding down the sky now, so…

  ‘About this time tomorrow,’ he replied over his shoulder.

  Theoretically, there was a small private hostelry that doubled as a state mansio halfway between the two towns at a place called Bassiana. He’d been keeping his eyes open for it, though the view was more than a little restricted. The marshes may, by their very nature, be utterly flat, and in theory his vantage point atop the carriage seat on the causeway should grant him a good view. In practice, the entire Savus Marsh was a maze of high reeds, knots of trees, shrubs and lumps of land that looked like small hills until you prodded them with a foot and they bobbed off across the water, disturbing things that lived underneath and looked like they should inhabit nightmares rather than swamps.

  Bassiana was not the only settlement on the road, of course. A forty mile stretch of road inevitably passed through other ‘towns’. Each had been less impressive and murkier than the last, and of the various small conglomerations of huts, only Fossae had been built up enough to be said to have a centre.

  Something bit Rufinus on the back of the neck and in a panicked moment as he swatted and rubbed and flailed at his skin, he let go of the reins and the dumb animals at the end of them started to veer off towards the rippling pool at the side of the road, perhaps fancying a drink. Rufinus yanked on the reins and brought them back into a straight line, still twitching at his neck, worrying what it had been. Some insects carried plagues. He’d heard that more than once from medici and capsarii in the field. When Rufinus had been a young boy the legions had been devastated by just such a plague brought back from Parthia.

  He reached down and fished his wineskin from his belt, unstoppering it and taking a small sip, feeling the guilt wash over him on two separate counts. Firstly, of course, he had sworn never to indulge in drink again after those dark days when he had suffered in the grip of dependency, first on poppy juice, and then on wine. He had soon come to believe that he could manage it and stay sober, though he never allowed himself more than one cup in a day, just in case.

  But there was also the guilt over the libation.

  Senova had asked him to use the small portion of wine he had left as a libation in the small temple of Mercury at Sirmium. Rufinus had refused. He had seen and smelled the stuff they seemed to drink in the town, and had instead bought a small flask of local muck and poured that to seek the favour of Mercury on their journey. He was sure Mercury couldn’t possibly actually taste all the many thousands of libations he received every day, so it probably didn’t matter. And that way Rufinus could savour the last of his Surrentine in peace. But now the wine tasted sour with the knowledge that he had denied Senova and fed cheap shit to a god.

  Another sip made it feel a little better, mind. He went for a third, but remembered himself and lowered it.

  ‘Do you intend to hit every pot hole between Rome and Dacia, Gnaeus?’

  What happened to that slave girl again?

  ‘Driving this thing is not as easy as it looks. There’s not a lot of road to weave about on.’ Not true, really. There was room for two vehicles to pass in most places, but he was damned if he was going to own up to the fact that he had been experimenting recently, using bumps and pot holes to test whether the suspension in the vehicle actually existed at all.

  ‘You woke Acheron.’

  Rufinus made a noncommittal grumbling noise, trying not to voice his feelings over his faithful hound’s current attitude. Far from trotting alongside and keeping him company, the great black Sarmatian hunter lay curled up, snug in blankets and cushions inside the carriage with Senova. Pampered animal. Rufinus was starting to suspect that Acheron would have trouble hunting an apple the way he was softening up under the woman’s ministrations.

  His attention was drawn to the road ahead. Two travellers on foot, heavy cloaks wrapped around them to keep out the damp and the insects, had emerged from somewhere at the side of the road and walked toward the carriage. His senses alert as always, he watched the two men carefully – both were middle-aged and scruffy in local drab clothes and with walking sticks. They nodded a greeting as they approached and one murmured a ‘good day’ in a thick Pannonian accent, and then they were past and moving on toward Sirmium. Rufinus let his guard drop again. Perhaps he was over-cautious, but life in these past few years had taught him never to underestimate a situation. The men had moved on, and so had Rufinus’s carriage. And now he could see from whence the pair had emerged.

  Off to the left of the road was a pleasant green space, surrounded by neatly-tended trees. At the centre stood a large altar in a ring of low stones. The grass had been trampled flat by the feet of travellers worshipping at the shrine.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What’s good?’ called Senova from inside the vehicle. Gods but that woman had excellent hearing.

  ‘There’s a small shrine coming up. I’ve still got some of the Surrentine left. Perhaps I can seek the favour of a more local god?’

  ‘So your wine is too precious for your own gods but expendable on a Pannonian one?’

  There was no point in answering that. That way further arguments lay. ‘I’m going to pull in and stop. You coming out?’

  He could sense her shaking her head inside. ‘I would rather avoid being bitten to death by insects, thank you, Gnaeus.’

  His lip curled in irritation as he reached up to rub that latest bite on the back of his neck. It felt huge. He wondered if it was bleeding. Maybe it was a bat or something? Did you get flying wolves? Still grumbling about women, dogs, flies, and women again, Rufinus pulled the vehicle off the side of the road and onto the lush green grass of the shrine site. Insects still hung in the air as they did everywhere in this benighted region, but they were fewer here. The surrounding trees on three sides cut out the sight of the marsh and made it seem more peaceful and normal here, though the reeds and pools were still visible on the far side of the road.

  ‘Send Acheron out. He could do with the exercise.’

  Senova’s reply was muffled but sounded faintly sarcastic, yet a moment later the carriage door swung open, the net-like curtains Senova had hung to keep out the insects flapping as the dog lazily dropped to the grass and began to pad around and stretch. Rufinus clambered down and crouched and rose a few times, loosening up his knees. Rolling his shoulders, he strode over to the altar. The depression in the surface was stained from past libations, and small offerings lay around the edge, gifted by hopeful travellers. Rufinus bent and peered at the altar’s front.

  Adsullata. Never heard of her. Must be a local swamp deity or something. Still, she was clearly worshipped and her blessing sought in this place, and Rufinus knew better than to ignore local custom in such matters. With a sigh, he straightened, brought up his wineskin and poured the remaining contents into the dish at the surface. Holding up his hands in ritual form, he cleared his throat.

  ‘Divine… err… Divine. err… Adus… Adsullata,’ he remembered suddenly. ‘Grant us your protection and blessing on this crossing of your delightful swamp.’

  He paused. It seemed weak, but what else was there to say?

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ called a gravelly voice, and Rufinus turned instantly, his hands dropping. Three men had emerged from the trees at the edge of the shrine. All three had gleaming, if pitted, blades unsheathed.

  Damn it. His senses had not been playing him up after all. There was danger. He took a step to his right and was not at all surpr
ised to see the two travellers in cloaks coming back along the road toward him, walking sticks discarded and replaced with blades. To complete the situation two more emerged from the trees at the far side.

  ‘“Something stupid” like fight for my life, you mean?’ Rufinus said quietly, his hands dancing along his belt. He had his pugio dagger there and small knife he used for eating, but his sword was in the carriage. Can’t sit on a driver’s seat with any level of comfort if you have a sword at your side. Poorly-armed and seriously outnumbered. Damn it.

  ‘We’re going to see who and what are in the wagon, lad. And we’re going to take it and them. If you leave us to it, we might let you live. But you might get thumped a bit. Titus here likes thumping legionaries, since he got kicked out of the Fourth Flavia Felix. Not so felix for a man caught napping on duty, eh Titus?’

  The indicated thug sneered. ‘Might make it a quick death for you, though,’ he said.

  Rufinus began to plot and calculate. Senova must be able to hear what was happening. With luck she had burrowed down under the seats and gone into hiding. Acheron was standing close to the carriage, snarling, drool dripping to the turf. Seven men. Two on the road, with Acheron and the carriage between them and him. Three off to the left. Two to the right.

  Appraisal time. The two he’d met on the road were nothing unusual, he remembered. Not especially big or lithe-looking. The apparent leader was mouthy enough, but he had let the two with him step out slightly ahead, so he would clearly be happy to let his men do the fighting. He was like a legionary legate: directing and controlling. One man with him was not too worrisome. He was Titus, the bulky ex-legionary. He looked big and scarred, but a man who fell asleep on duty was a careless and lazy one no matter how big he looked. The other one with them though could be trouble. He was shorter and narrower but moved with sinuous grace, like a dancer.