Eagles of Dacia Read online

  Two men lay inside, one face up, the other face down. For a moment he assumed they were dead, but then he realised that at least one of them was groaning. Swiftly, he dropped and examined the groaning one. He appeared intact, though his head was badly bruised and one eye welded shut. Rufinus lifted him with some difficulty in the tent’s confines and struggled out into the cold with him. The man’s head lolled in battered confusion, and Rufinus collared a man rushing past. ‘Get this one to a capsarius.’

  Leaving the man with his charge, he ducked back into the tent and crossed to the other body, which lay face down. A suspicion crept over him at the man’s shape and as he tested the limbs and then turned the body over, his notion was confirmed. It was Daizus. The optio’s bruising from the fight had almost gone, but now he had a fresh, huge contusion above the left temple and blood smeared his face.

  Rufinus felt the neck and found a gentle throb there. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that. The optio’s accidental death in a landslide would have made things a lot easier. Wicked ideas assailed him for a single moment and then, sighing, he lifted the optio with difficulty and staggered with him out of the tent.

  Two legionaries from his century, one with a nasty gash on his shoulder, were there suddenly, helping him with the optio. He left his second in command with the two men and hurried off to the next tent, seeking further survivors.

  It took more than an hour in total, working in freezing sleet and howling winds, wet earth beneath the fingernails, splinters everywhere, cuts and abrasions from the fallen material. Finally, the trees were dismembered and removed to the riverside, the tents freed from the worst of the fallen earth and rubble. Rufinus’ initial panic began to subside a little. Miraculously, the epicentre of the fall had been largely clear of men, for the ground there was too rocky to drive in tent pegs, and so a true catastrophe had been averted by pure luck. Rufinus vowed an altar to Fortuna when he was finally settled somewhere, in thanks.

  A head count, repeated three times to be certain due to the appalling conditions of night-time weather, revealed the damage. Fourteen men dead or irreparably injured, eight of them men of his century. Another thirty three men injured but expected to pull through fully, twenty in total that would need moving carefully. It was not perfect by any means, but it could have been so much worse, and Rufinus was relieved beyond measure that the damage was as minor as it was.

  The medicus and his staff had set up near the river for the presence of good clean water, and their tent, hastily erected, was a scene of horror. Rufinus passed by and winced at the sound of sawing and screaming. He found Cassius in conversation with the tribune and another centurion nearby.

  ‘We can’t just leave them,’ Cassius was saying.

  Tribune Celer shook his head. ‘I’m not pleased with the idea of leaving twenty men to die, Centurion. But we cannot afford the delay that would be caused by tailoring our journey to the requirements of the injured. We are expected to do our duty and overwhelm these pockets of resistance, rendezvousing with the legion at Apulum at our earliest convenience. That was the governor’s precise phrase, Cassius. At our earliest convenience. I will not delay unduly.’

  Rufinus frowned. ‘Can we not take the wounded in one of the carts, sir? That’s standard procedure.’

  Celer rounded on him. ‘I am well aware of standard procedures, Rufinus. I am not entirely new to this career, you know? But if we take the wounded with us, their very presence – the need to move them gently and seek the smoothest path, the regular pauses for the attention of medics and so on – will slow us by days. Not even one day, but days. I cannot accept that.’

  ‘But to leave them to their own devices, sir,’ began Cassius.

  ‘Enough!’

  ‘Sir, can we spare two carts and a capsarius? And perhaps four men?’

  Tribune Celer frowned. ‘I might contemplate it. What do you propose?’

  ‘Where is the nearest safe place?’ Rufinus asked Cassius.

  ‘Normally I would say Ulpia Traiana, but that’s one of the places we’re headed to deal with. The safest Roman installation from here would probably be all the way back to the ruined fort below the pass.’

  Rufinus huffed. ‘There’s the village we passed through. They seemed friendly.’

  ‘What are you planning, Centurion,’ the tribune repeated.

  ‘Twenty men will fit comfortably in two carts. With a capsarius to look after them and a small escort of four men they could make it back to that village by nightfall tomorrow if they push hard. They can convalesce there until they are mobile and then make for either Drobeta or Apulum. That way they have the chance of recovery and re-joining the unit, and yet they do not slow down our advance.’

  Celer nodded slowly as he considered it.

  ‘I don’t particularly like losing a capsarius, especially after this, which has starkly illustrated how important they are. But neither do I particularly wish to lose twenty men unnecessarily. Your plan is approved, Centurion Rufinus. Make it happen.’

  Rufinus saluted and turned. As he moved away to find the medicus and discuss it, Cassius fell in alongside him. ‘Good job. They should be comfortable at the village.’

  ‘We’ll have to make sure they have coin with them. The villagers will be very helpful to paying guests, I suspect.’

  And then, Rufinus could lead his men on and into war finally.

  Outside the medical tent, he found the men of his century sitting and nursing their various injuries. Three of them looked up and nodded an appreciative greeting, and Rufinus recognised the relieved face of the man with the new cup and the dislocated arm. Daizus was there too. The man looked up at Ruifinus, his gaze full of spite and hate.

  Should have hit him with a rock and left him there, Rufinus thought sourly. The optio was clearly less than thrilled with being indebted to his centurion. Still, there would be plenty of opportunities in the coming days for Sarmatian raiders to relieve Rufinus of his ongoing problem.

  VII – First blood

  Since the cohort had passed over the high point of Vulcan’s Pass and traversed a gentle descent onto the plateau of central Dacia the scenery had changed, for sure. Rolling hills filled the next morning, giving way to a flat, grassy plain which then began to climb again into hills once more. The weather changed with the terrain, too. The snow continued into the hills but then began to falter and fade, giving way to crisp cold and blue skies, which accompanied them across the flat land, the grey clouds and threat of blizzard greeting them once more at the next hills.

  The passage through the forested peaks was a nervous one for the whole column. The fact that they were approaching the first real trouble they could face sat heavy upon every brow, leaving the legionaries, both veteran and new, with the constant fear that every side valley or village or crest of a hill could hide a howling, slavering enemy. Given the additional constant threat of new snow and the fact that they still watched every slope nervously for falling trees, it was a tense journey for all.

  In the event, all they had actually encountered were dour natives who regarded them with passing interest at best as they went on with their lives. The hills gradually increased in height and gradient over the next day until Rufinus was beginning to think of them as mountains, and started to wonder how long it would be before travel by carriage was no longer viable. Fortunately, this place for which they were bound had been important since long before Rome arrived, and so there were good routes through the hills, worn flat by centuries of traders and locals.

  They reached their first goal in the middle of the second afternoon. They had climbed high enough again now that they had passed the snow line, and the trees formed black skeletal fingers pointing up to the white-grey sky in a thick forested mist, patches of white and slushy brown around the ground. The land seemed to be warming and the snow melting away, but for now it was still cold and wintry up here as the cohort climbed the great trade road to the fortress.

  Sarmizegetusa was Dacian, and
yet in some ways it was Roman. It was certainly impressive. Rufinus had seen fortifications constructed by trans-Danuvian natives before, during the wars against the Chatti and the Marcomanni – great turf banks, sometimes with timber palisades, sometimes with good stone revetting. Some had good towers and crenulations. Gates were well fortified and the terrain used to its best effect.

  Even seen from a distance through the trees as they approached, Sarmizegetusa forced him to reconsider how he’d naturally lumped the Dacians in with other tribes he had encountered. They were not the same.

  The great fortress-town that had once been the capital under the Dacian kings rose on a roughly rectangular prominence that sloped down from north to south, creating a high city and a low city within the walls. Rufinus had been told a little of the history of the place by Cassius on the journey, and could see that history written into the architecture. Rome had made its mark since taking control of the province. Some of the buildings within the walls, just visible thanks to the slope within, showed signs of Roman styling, and a bath house lay outside the southern gate. There was Roman work in the walls, clearly, where they had extended the original native square on the hill to enclose the lower slopes. But Rufinus could see the walls on the higher section and they were, he had to admit, every bit the match of the Roman work, and possibly more powerful still. High and thick, the walls were constructed of huge stone blocks that were perfectly flush-fitted together. Towers rose at intervals around the circuit, and these were not the rough towers of the Marcomanni. These were great square, roofed edifices of that same stonework, with apertures for missiles.

  Trajan and his armies had laid this place low in his first campaign, sweeping it clean of life. The Dacians had rebuilt it after the emperor and his men left, and when they returned for their second war of conquest a few years later, the Romans had been merciless. The Fourth Flavia had been stationed here for a short while – it was they who had extended the circuit of walls, added building and put the imperial stamp on the former capital. Then, finally, they had pulled out and moved south and the Dacians had reoccupied their territory, putting their own mark on the Roman work.

  The occupants had then been peaceful subjects of Rome until the Sarmatians came and drove them out, a year or more ago. The cohort had encountered those same ousted Dacians in the valley below, where they were living like refugees in temporary villages. Rufinus had not been sure what to expect of them. He doubted they would welcome the cohort, even if the Roman presence represented the only chance for them to reclaim their lives. In fact, the Dacian exiles had seemed too miserable and impoverished to care. Many of them had lost loved ones to the Sarmatian raiders. Others cursed former friends and neighbours who had thrown in their lot with the invaders. None of them seemed overly impressed to see the Thirteenth Gemina put in an appearance

  As they now moved onto a wide terrace below the city’s eastern walls, Rufinus noted with interest great geometric shapes in the grass, formed of stone and timber, yet not rising above ground level. Gutters and channels ran between them, as well as overgrown paved paths, carving through the slush and the snow. Off at the edge, where the black shapes of trees crowded in, the snow burning off created a white mist among the woodlands that was truly an eerie sight.

  ‘What is this place?’ Rufinus murmured to Cassius as the centuries fell into formation across the strange site, the wagons and carriage struggling up the road and groaning onto the flat ground behind them, the veteran rear-guard still a quarter of a mile back down the slope.

  ‘It was their most sacred district. Sort of the equivalent of the Capitol in Rome, I guess. Temples and altars and so on.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘Lucius Appius Maximus happened to it,’ Cassius replied darkly.

  ‘I’ve not heard of him.’

  Cassius nodded. ‘He’s a well-known character in these parts. He was one of Trajan’s generals. He claimed to have found evidence here that the Dacians were sacrificing children the way the Carthaginians did, and in response he completely razed the whole complex. All their temples and altars were swept away and the capital given a new Roman face.’

  ‘Children,’ Rufinus breathed, his gaze playing across the site, picturing the horrors it had witnessed.

  ‘It’s all rubbish, of course,’ Cassius replied. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing here outside Appius Maximus’ words. When you get to know the Dacians you’ll discover that they’re actually pretty civilised. I do not for a moment believe that such a thing went on. It was just Appius finding an excuse to obliterate that of which he did not approve.’

  Rufinus nodded again, though his imagination was still furnishing him with horrific images.

  Tribune Celer, sitting astride his horse close by, had clearly caught their conversation.

  ‘Do not let yourself be fooled, Centurion. You have a soft spot for the Dacians, but these are a different people, on whom we have stamped the trappings of civilisation. The rough, barbaric Dacians Appius Maximus found were probably quite capable of such abhorrent acts. Remember that the Sarmatians that serve among the auxilia in parts of the empire have become civilised through necessity, but remember the atrocities for which they are known. We shall no doubt see them in the city above. I for one laud my ancestor Appius Maximus for stamping out the Dacians’ child-murder here, and I would do the very same myself.’

  Rufinus had failed to connect the two names, and felt a flush of embarrassment as Celer sighed and straightened in the saddle. ‘Come,’ the tribune called, gesturing to the two of them and the other centurions. The optios took control of the men, keeping them prepared and in formation, while the six centurions joined Celer and his staff and then moved up toward the fortress. A perfect paved road, wide and smooth, led up from the destroyed temple region to the east gate of the fortress.

  ‘While I open negotiations,’ the tribune said quietly, ‘study the enemy and the fortress itself close up. Learn what you can.’ Passing between the tall, narrow, dark boles of the trees to either side of the road and the enveloping white fog they contained, the Romans followed the climbing, curving road.

  Rufinus felt a touch of bile rise into his mouth as they turned the corner. The great walls were worthy of study, of course, as were the figures moving atop them, above the firmly closed gate. But the sight that really gripped him and turned his stomach were the heads.

  A score or more spears had been driven into the ground outside the gate, making a grisly approach to the fortress, for each held a mouldering head, some almost down to the bone already. If Rufinus had been unsure as to who the heads were, the Sarmatian occupiers had made it clear by leaving the native pointed hats on a few of the victims, nailed on, Rufinus noted with distaste, hoping they’d already been dead when that happened. Dozens of sightless eyes stared at them. He tore his gaze from the heads and concentrated on the fortress-town.

  The walls would be a tough proposition for sure. The height of five men, with towers here and there that provided a good range for arrows. Along the parapet they could see the head and shoulders of warriors in glinting armour with intricately-designed helmets or wild hair, long spears held tall.

  The Roman party came to a halt, unpleasantly right in the midst of the heads and Celer, atop his white steed, motioned to his signaller, who blew three short blasts on his horn.

  ‘I am Appius Iulius Celer, Tribune of the Thirteenth Gemina Legion. Who is your leader?’

  There was an extended pause, and Rufinus wondered if they perhaps had not understood. There was no reason to expect them to have a good command of Latin, after all. Finally, three figures arrived at the central section of the walls, above the gate.

  ‘I am Ouaras,’ said the central of the three figures in thickly-accented Latin. ‘I am Iazyges king in this place.’

  Rufinus examined the king and those either side of him with fascination. All three had yellow or red-gold hair and were tall and muscular. One was clad in a coat of bronze scales, another in a ch
ain shirt, while the king himself was tunic’d and wrapped in a leather jerkin of some kind. They wore their hair long and wild, not braided as many tribes tended, and two of them had great impressive beards pulled down by beads tied into the bottom, though the third figure – the one in the chain shirt – had shorter hair and no beard, for she was a woman, yet dressed for war. In an oddly inopportune moment, Rufinus found himself picturing Senova dressed for war, and the image was unsettlingly attractive. The surprising sight of a female warrior seemed to be fascinating the others too, though Celer cleared his throat and concentrated on the task in hand.

  ‘I have no wish to waste good Roman lives,’ he said, loudly and slowly. ‘You are raiders and invaders. You have dismembered, killed and burned, stealing, torturing and raping your way into Dacia, and while most of your people retreated back across the border in the face of legions’ retaliation, you few resist still. By all the rights of the civilised world I should condemn you to death here and now. However, I give you this offer, and only once. Take your people and leave. Travel west until you pass the last Roman mile marker and into your own land of hovels. If you do this, I will not be forced to butcher every last one of you.’

  Ouaras leaned on the stone parapet.

  ‘Invade, you say? Raid? No. Settle, it is called in Roman tongue. Our town, now.’

  Celer swept out a hand, indicating the grisly poles to either side of them. ‘I suspect the locals do not see it that way. And these are not from when you first came here. These are a month old at most. Who are they? Townsfolk who tried to take back their city? Traders you took a dislike to?’