Thunder of the Gods Read Free

to face these fuckers like men?!’
    The soldiers roared back at him, waving their spears and shields. He nodded to the tribune, slapping the younger man on the shoulder.
    ‘Good enough. Right then, get yourself away, Tribune, before the trap closes on you as well as us.’
    Varus nodded mutely, saluting the centurion and then turning away, pushing his way through the soldiers and hurrying to the mare. Mounting, he looked over the square to find that the Parthian archers had reined in their horses just outside bow shot of the Romans, pausing to order their ranks and ready themselves for the battle. The cohort was still turned inward, their attention fixed on the first spear as he paced around inside the square, exhorting his men to sell their lives dearly. The tribune shook his head, raising a hand to his face to wipe away the tears trickling down his cheeks, then turned the horse to the west and spurred it away at a canter, back down the road that led past Osrhoene’s capital Edessa, and on towards the legion fortress at Zeugma. Reaching a rise in the road he reined the mare in, turning in the saddle to look back at the battle that was unfolding across the arid plain. The legionaries had turned to face their enemy, their shields raised in defence against the steady rain of arrows that the horse archers were now dropping into their ranks, each man trotting his mount forward, loosing a shot and then reversing his course to ride back a few dozen paces while another archer took his turn. A score and more dead and wounded soldiers had already been dragged into the shelter of the square’s raised shields, struck by arrows that had found the inevitable gaps in their defences, or whose shields had failed to stop the plummeting missiles.
    His gaze shifted back across the plain behind the bowmen, to where a force of armoured horsemen gleaming with the sun’s reflected light stood beside horses bearing coats of the same shining metal scales, patiently waiting while the Romans stood beneath the iron rain that was slowly, inevitably, picking apart their formation. The time would come, he knew, when the defenders would be too weak to resist the final killing blow that would fall upon them from behind the archers. Horns would sound, and the bowmen would ride away to either side, making room for the
cataphracts
to sweep into the attack. He briefly considered riding away, at the same time knowing all too well that he could never break the promise he’d made to the centurion. Dry-eyed now, his emotions wrung out by the slaughter playing out before him, he raised a hand to salute the single figure still standing at the cohort’s heart.
    ‘I won’t turn away from you, First Spear, not unless they chase me away. I’ll watch you and your men die, and I’ll take your story back to the legion. I will find my own path to glory, when the time is right. And I will see you again. In Hades.’

1
     
February AD 185
     
    ‘You’re confident that’s our landfall, Navarchus?’
    The hard-faced offquestion with a look of disbelief and a curt nod, his voice harsh from years of barking commands at his crew before his promotion from ship’s trierarchus to commander of the fleet.
    ‘Yes, Procurator. Completely confident.’
    The equestrian official turned back to the soldier standing alongside him, his grey-flecked hair ruffled by the wind as he raised a hand and pointed out over the ship’s bow.
    ‘As I said, there it is, Legatus. Seleucia.’
    Legatus Gaius Rutilius Scaurus stared out over the warship’s prow as it sliced through the ocean under the urging of the massive vessel’s banked oars, looking past the massive bolt thrower that dominated the vessel’s bow, raising a hand to shield his grey eyes from the winter sun’s glare. A line of mountains was just visible on the eastern horizon, seemingly rising from the sea to block their course, their bases almost invisible in the sea’s haze.
    ‘The gateway to the east. Well done,