Eagles of Dacia Read online

  The other two men were both big and heavy, overhanging brows and muscled arms like sacks full of melons. They would be big and dangerous, but slow.

  Rufinus toyed with the idea of lying about the carriage, claiming it was empty and that he was returning it to Singidunum, but that was pointless. They would still want to search it for valuables, and they might well have heard him talking to Senova anyway.

  ‘Listen, lads,’ he said equitably as he spread his arms in a peaceful gesture, ‘I’m not looking for trouble, but trust me, if you are, you’ve found it. I’m no green recruit, and Acheron there has killed more men than the bloody flux. If you just step back, we’ll move on and no one need get hurt.’

  ‘Piss off, little legionary,’ snorted Titus.

  Ah well. It had been worth a try. Rufinus mapped it out again. Acheron could handle the two on the road. Leader would wait. So Rufinus was facing four. He had to even the numbers quickly. The two big mono-browed thugs first. They were big and slow. Don’t waste time killing them. Just drop them out of the fight as quick as you can. Then move to the left. Draw the dancer to him. Get him between Rufinus and Titus so there was only one opponent at a time. With luck he could work this. He hoped Adsullata was watching and appreciated his sacrifice of the good wine.

  ‘Take him, lads.’

  Rufinus glanced off to the side. Acheron was snarling and looking this way and that between the various enemies. Rufinus pointed off toward the road. ‘Kill.’ A simple command, and one Acheron knew only too well. The great hound launched himself off toward the two men approaching on the road, snarling and slavering, muscles bunching as he ran. One of the men shouted a curse and turned, running. The other braced himself, raising his sword. Acheron hit him like a runaway wagon smashing into a straw dummy and Rufinus counted that particular fight as over before it began.

  Turning his attention to his current predicament, he ripped the two blades from his belt. A pugio less than a foot long and a three inch eating blade. Could be better. He was even tempted to use his fists, they being his preferred weapon in many circumstances. But he needed to be quick and brutal. The two heavily-built men were closing on him, little more than a foot apart. Both wore native-style trousers with a thick woollen tunic over the top. No armour. Both men held their blades up before their torsos, ready to lunge with or swipe. Neither were prepared for the sort of fight Rufinus intended to give them. He reversed his grip on both knives, holding them blade-down.

  Moving toward them he ducked left, then right. Predictably, the two men followed his movements, their blades staying ready to foil any coming strike. Good. Keep expecting it. Left. Right. Left. Right.

  Spin.

  Suddenly he was close enough for them to go for him. Their blades moved slowly, confusion mounting as their target whirled, putting his back to them, inviting the coming blows. But as the swords lanced out hungrily, already Rufinus was dropping into a crouch. Both his hands lashed out and back, stabbing with each blade, perfectly heighted and angled. He felt them strike and winced at the sheer violence of what he’d just felt. The pugio had been precisely on-target and had slammed into the tiny gap between knee-cap and femur, slamming down inside the joint, crippling permanently with one well-placed blow. The other, smaller knife was not large and strong enough to achieve the same goal and glanced off the patella, sliding down the inside of the knee and drawing blood. But Rufinus’ backup plan was already there and he simply twisted his hand and altered the knife’s trajectory. The blade sliced through the tendon behind the knee and Rufinus heard it snap.

  He was back on his feet before the two men hit the ground, howling their agony and clutching at their ruined legs. Briefly he glanced over at the road. Acheron’s first victim was nothing more than a twitching heap of meat and the great black hound was already diving at the man who had run. Four down. Three left. That was more like it.

  He grinned at the trio.

  ‘Regretting things yet?’

  ‘Piss on you,’ replied Titus the failed soldier.

  ‘Oh, and for the record, I’m not a legionary. I’m a praetorian. And a veteran of Aurelius’ Marcomanni battle. And I’m not letting you have our carriage.’

  The lithe one was shifting slightly, and Titus was coming toward him too. With a certain dismay, he noticed the boss moving for the carriage. Perhaps he should shout a warning for Senova? But then perhaps the man would not look inside and instead try to deal with Acheron, in which case drawing attention to a lady within might be a mistake. Damn.

  Back to his original plan, he danced left and then a little more and a little more so that the thin one was between him and Titus. The man’s sword was at hip height, ready to strike or parry high or low as required. This one was worth his salt. Wasted on simple banditry. He bunched his muscles, ready to react. He had limited time, but still would much prefer to let his opponent strike first and display any weakness or bad habits. He was rewarded finally as the man lashed out, snakelike and quick. The blade almost reached Rufinus, but he leaned back slightly. His retaliation blow was deftly parried and Rufinus noted instinctively a slight turn of the head to the right as he did so. As the man straightened again, Rufinus caught his eyes and affirmed his suspicion. The man was partially sighted in his right eye, a milky film slightly discolouring the blue iris. Testing, probing, Rufinus took a half-step left. Sure enough the man turned slightly to adjust.

  He was so busy probing the man’s capabilities he almost came to grief there and then as the thug slashed out and Rufinus had to drop to the side at the last moment to avoid a vicious cut. His response was quick and yet carefully planned. Both hands shot out, but he made sure to move the right fractionally before the left and a little higher, dominating the man’s field of vision. The brigand fell for the move, swiping down to block the pugio in the right hand as the left came round, sweeping in at his blind side and stabbing into his middle. The blade sank into the deep soft tissue and Rufinus felt a moment of elation before the knife was torn from his left hand. Even in sudden pain, the man had reacted, slamming his arm against his side and trapping the knife.

  Hissing his pain, the man lashed out and Rufinus was not far enough back to entirely avoid the strike. He leaned away but the sword carved a long red line across the back of his right hand. His fingers felt like they were burning suddenly and the pugio fell from his grip.

  Rufinus threw himself forward, realising that he was suddenly in real danger of losing this fight. He hit the man full in the chest and the two went down painfully in a tangle, onto the turf. The man’s hand hit the ground and sprang open reflexively, his sword falling away.

  Rufinus reared up and began to punch the thin brigand. Nothing subtle or sporting – just repeated blows to the head, determined to put him out. In mere heartbeats he had pulverised the man’s face, mashing it into an unrecognisable tableau of blood and torn flesh. He leaned back, suddenly aware that he was open to attack and that Titus was now on him. He could see the big ex-legionary already lunging, his wicked blade coming for Rufinus’ life. Prone, unarmed and unprepared. Bollocks. What a way to go.

  And suddenly the man was no longer there, the sword seeking Rufinus’ end gone with him. All the young praetorian saw was a blur of black, a smell of foul breath and blood, and a sound like a bow saw cutting through hardwood which he realised with a start had come from Acheron’s mouth as it closed on the sword arm. Rufinus lurched up, staggering, to see Acheron standing over the body of Titus. Having mangled his arm with one bite, he was now at work on the neck. Titus was dead, though still moving, his eyes rolling, his voice soundless through a torn throat as he screamed silently for a quick end. Acheron gave it to him, though the manner of it still made Rufinus wince.

  With a start, he turned, remembering the one remaining danger. He was just in time to see the brigand leader fall. The man had pulled aside the carriage curtains and spotted Senova, but even as a victorious and malicious grin spread across his face, she hit him in it with the pommel of Rufinus’ st
ill-sheathed sword. He staggered back with a broken nose and blood pouring down his face, blinking in surprise, and Senova swung the reversed sword like a club, the hilt smashing into his head and felling him instantly.

  Rufinus stared as he ran toward her. The leader was starting to rise again groggily as Rufinus closed on the carriage and he stooped, grabbing the man by the hair and smashing his face into the carriage wheel. There was a satisfying crack and the bandit leader fell unconscious. Rufinus frowned, looking past him at the blood smeared wheel.

  ‘Ah. I think I see how this suspension thing works now.’

  Senova was rolling her eyes as he straightened. ‘Have you finished playing with your friends now?’

  ‘Damn it, Senova, this was serious. Dangerous.’

  ‘That’s why I grabbed your sword, Gnaeus.’

  ‘Next time, try taking the scabbard off and using the pointy bit.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ she replied in an infuriating tone, and disappeared back inside. Rufinus looked around at the bodies. Gods, but he was getting good at this. Perhaps it was not a talent to be proud of, like a poet or a sculptor, and certainly his father would not approve of such base violence. But he was good at it, and because he was so good at it, he was still alive.

  ‘Who were they?’ Senova asked. Rufinus looked around, watching with distaste as Acheron made certain they were all dead in his own special way.

  ‘No one special. Just bandits. At least one of them’s an ex-legionary from the Fourth at Singidunum. Probably the others are deserters and retirees too.’ He bent over one of the bodies and noted a tattoo on an upper arm. A lion above a ‘IIII’. Yes. Another ex-soldier from the Fourth.

  ‘Are you wounded?’ Senova called. ‘I saw blood on your hand. Yours or theirs?’

  Rufinus shrugged. ‘Just a scratch. A big one, but still a scratch. It’ll heal in a day or two.’

  ‘Go and see the legionary surgeons when we get to Singidunum.’

  ‘Senova, it’s just a scratch. No harm.’

  ‘That much blood is not a scratch. And even a scratch can get infected anyway. When we get there, you go and see the medicus.’

  He sighed. There was no point in arguing right now. Mind, he had to admit that it did sting rather badly. Maybe she was right, but he couldn’t tell her that. She was insufferable enough already. While she went about whatever business occupied her in the carriage and Acheron made sure he wouldn’t need an evening feed tonight. Rufinus went through the belongings of the bandits. It was distasteful work, but they had no need for anything now, and whatever they had up for grabs was Rufinus’ by right of conquest.

  A quarter of an hour later, with two more irritating insect bites and a hand rapidly going numb, Rufinus was the proud owner of ten blades that had seen better days and needed a good polish, a few coins, some salted pork rations and a set of dice, one of which always came up a five. The rest was all unusable or undesirable, or both.

  He spent an unpleasant half hour then dragging the bodies across the road to the pool and throwing them in. Three of them floated on the surface, while the other four sank, and Rufinus frowned at them. One day he would have to ask a medicus why that happened, though he suspected it might lead to a number of strange and awkward questions in return. Also, he noted with interest, of the three that floated, two had rolled facedown, while the lithe one with the milky eye was face up still. Weird. There was something strange about this place. But at least Adsullata seemed to have heard his prayer, and he had removed the corpses from her shrine glade so as not to offend her. There was little he could do about all the blood, but someone in Sirmium had told him it rained at least every fourth day around here, so it would soon wash away.

  ‘Time to move on,’ he announced loudly as he returned to the carriage.

  What in Hades am I getting myself into? Rufinus asked himself, and not for the first time. Dacia was the very edge of empire, every bit as much as those dark northern forests where he’d fought the Marcomanni. Dacia was supposed to be a civilised province, and yet it had only been part of the empire for eighty years. There might even be people still alive who remembered Trajan’s armies coming, intent on conquest. It was said to be a rugged land of mountains and forests, peopled by rebellious barbarians who resented Roman rule and with a climate as confused as the population. And now supposedly a Sarmatian incursion to add into the mix.

  And here, where he was now, was Pannonia, a land that had been Roman for near ten generations. And even this place was a marshy shit hole with drab barbarian towns and roads in need of repair and plagued by bandits. How much worse could Dacia be?

  With a sigh and an imperious command from the lady in the carriage, Rufinus climbed up once more and settled in the seat. ‘Off we go, then. To Singidunum.’

  II – The Moesian Governor

  In the event, Singidunum had proved something of a relief after Sirmium. It felt less barbaric, perhaps due to the efforts of the Fourth Flavia Felix based on the hill above the town. A well-presented forum had offered them quality goods and a sizeable bath house of recent construction helped soothe away the weariness of the journey. Rufinus delayed there longer than he had intended, in order to report the deaths of a number of deserters and ex-legionaries-turned-brigand in the marshes. The centurion to whom he spoke brushed the details aside, uncaring of men who had shown themselves insufficient for his legion. He did probe as to who Rufinus was, given his impressive survival of the attack, though he lost interest on the discovery that his visitor was a praetorian. Never the most popular unit among the provincial armies.

  They set out again on the twenty sixth day, following the great Danuvius River that formed a thousand miles of border for the empire. Dacia, Rufinus kept thinking as he looked across that great wide flow. The only province that lay beyond that river. What lurked for him there?

  Still, their first proper port of call – their immediate destination – was not in Dacia at all, but in Moesia. The seat of the governor of Upper Moesia: Viminacium, two days’ journey from Singidunum. There, they were to rendezvous with the armies of Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. And they should be there with two or three days to spare of the month they were given. That, at least, was a relief. Rufinus had his own ideas about what sort of reception an itinerant praetorian was going to receive, and if he’d been late too…

  He had enquired of Pompeianus – who always knew everything about everyone in Rufinus’ considered opinion – as to the nature of the two commanders he was to meet. Pompeianus was acquainted with both, which came as no surprise. Albinus, it seemed, was currently serving as the governor of what Pompeianus called ‘the three Dacias’, based at Apulum and with direct command over the Thirteenth Gemina. Niger commanded the Fourth Macedonica at Potaissa and was therefore officially under Albinus’ command.

  ‘But what of the men?’ Rufinus had probed. Pompeianus had snorted derisively. ‘They are politicians and soldiers. That means that by nature they are untrustworthy and hard. Oh, I’m generalising. Niger seems decent enough, and he’s clearly good at his job. He cleared Gaul of bandits last year, in conjunction with Albinus as governor, funnily enough. Albinus has achieved slightly higher office. He always seems to be one rung further up the ladder. But again, his record shows him to be eminently competent and I’ve heard nothing untoward about him. Neither has been implicated in any of the manoeuvrings of the court over the past decade, and neither has been dragged through legal proceedings.’

  So that was that. All Rufinus had to work with. That and the fact that the frumentarius Vibius Cestius was a friend of Niger’s. That, at least, stood the legate in good stead for Rufinus. It suggested a trustworthiness, since Cestius appeared to be a good judge of character.

  Why the two most powerful men in Dacia were gathered in the capital of Moesia, three days march from the nearest feasible military crossing, was beyond Rufinus. But then he was a soldier, not a general.

  They arrived at Viminacium near the close of their twenty eighth day. The
sun slid down into a watery sky that had threatened rain all day yet failed to deliver, sinking into the low lands behind them while ahead, somewhere beyond that flat plain through which the Danuvius roared, lay the Carpates, the mountains that more or less defined Dacia.

  Viminacium was a huge place, hemmed in by waterways and lying on a low rise. The fortress of the Seventh Claudia stood at the high southern point, with the walled town stretching northwards below it, alongside a small local river as it flowed into the Danuvius. Yet another area of unpleasant marsh lands lay between it and the Danuvius, though the lesser river carried craft from the main flow to the town’s harbour.

  Vehicles and their animals being banned from the town’s streets on all but market days, they were forced to skirt the walls to its northern side and leave the carriage at a livery outside the gate there. Having paid his fee – higher than he had expected in the provinces – and received a chitty in return, Rufinus transferred the important gear to Atalanta’s saddle bags and they moved into the place on foot.

  The wealth and size of Viminacium surprised them as they passed through the grand gate and into a well-appointed Roman town, though the reason for its grandeur became clearer at the dock-side nearby. Ships unloading not only grain, but ingots of copper, iron, gold, lead and silver from the Dardanian Mountains were watched carefully by members of the Seventh Claudia.

  Rufinus, Senova and Acheron meandered through the town, aware that they were well within time, and it would serve him well to gain some level of familiarity with the place, even if they were to be here only a short while. But as they moved through the streets, taking in the forum, the great baths, temples to the gods of half a dozen different cultures and a vast market, two things struck Rufinus. Firstly, he had seen no evidence of any troops other than the Seventh Gemina, and secondly the attitude in the town did not reflect that he had seen in other settlements that played host to visiting legions. Something odd was going on here, and Rufinus already suspected that the legions of the Dacian legates were not here after all.