‘Fuck, we’re in range!’ Sabinus yelled, turning to go. Another stone whistled just over their heads causing Magnus to look up; he instantly jumped on Sitalces, pushing the huge Thracian over; a rock slammed into the ground that he had been standing on an instant before and went bouncing off, narrowly missing the provisions horse that Artebudz was leading.
‘I’d forgotten how easily you went down, my friend,’ Magnus quipped as he hauled himself to his feet.
‘I suppose you think that makes us even, Roman,’ Sitalces grinned, ‘but I’d say that’s two falls I owe you for.’
They raced for their mounts as the others began to pull away. As Magnus flung his leg over his horse’s back it let out a shrill cry and buckled underneath him. Its hindquarters were a mash of torn flesh and splintered bone. A bloodied rock, twice the size of a man’s fist, rolled on the ground.
‘Take this one,’ Artebudz called back, offering Magnus the lead of the provisions horse. Another plume of water burst from the river. Magnus did not need a second invitation; pulling the priest’s horse behind him, he sprinted forward and threw himself over the fresh mount, kicked it into action and accelerated after his comrades, leaving his wounded horse thrashing and screeching, helpless behind him.
Vespasian looked over his shoulder to make sure his friend was following; another two shots slammed into the ground, kicking up tufts of grass and showers of earth as Magnus wove between them. Spray from a series of eruptions close to the bank filled the air with a fine mist, soaking their hair and clothes and producing small rainbows that arched in front of them as they pressed their mounts forward at full gallop.
The shots started to fall short as the ships’ exhausted rowers, freemen with rights, not slaves to be whipped to the point of death, slowed their stroke, unable to sustain for a moment longer the relentless beat of ramming speed without fouling their oars. Vespasian eased his horse back into a canter, which they maintained for a further mile. The river had begun its turn northwards and they left its bank so as to pass to the south of Axiopolis. To their right the Getae were just over a mile away.
‘They’ve changed direction,’ Sitalces called out over the hoofbeats.
‘What?’ Vespasian shouted.
‘The Getae, they’ve changed direction; they’ve veered to their left,’ Sitalces called back. ‘They seem to be heading for the curve in the river, they’ll pass behind us.’
‘That’s the first good news I’ve heard today,’ Magnus said, trying to ease a particularly lumpy bag of salted pork out from under his bruised backside.
They had reached the apex of the curve. Looking north, up the river, Vespasian gasped as he understood the reason for the Getae’s change of course. The river, over five hundred paces wide at this point, was flecked with scores of coloured sails. The Getic fleet had left the safety of its home ports to the north of Scythia Minor, as yet unconquered by the legions of Rome, and had sailed south in an attempt to rescue the stranded raiding party.
‘Shit, our boys in the squadron can’t see them, they’re hidden by the bend,’ Vespasian exclaimed as they all slowed to take in the magnificent sight.
‘What do you mean, “our boys”?’ Magnus grumbled. ‘The bastards were shooting at us just now.’
‘There’s fuck-all that we can do about it,’ Sabinus said. ‘If we try to warn the squadron they’ll just start shooting at us again, so let the navy-boys sort out their own problems.’ Sabinus, like most Romans who had served in the legions, had nothing but contempt for the navy, which they considered a poor relation to the army.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Vespasian agreed. ‘Let’s get out of here whilst we still can.’
They passed to the south of Axiopolis, heading southeast, and started to climb the ridge of hills that forced the Danuvius north, away from its easterly route. At the summit they paused and looked back, with a bird’s-eye view, on the events unfolding below.
The Getic war band had arrived at the river’s edge and had opened fire on the surprised Roman squadron. Patches of river were obscured by fast-moving clouds — volleys of Getic arrows — which swarmed on to the decks of the Roman ships, felling artillerymen and marines as well as causing havoc amongst the unprotected rowers in the biremes. Despite their losses they returned fire, still oblivious to the presence of the Getic fleet half a mile from them around the bend in the river. Vespasian watched as scores of horsemen were felled by the lethal ballista shots; but they kept pumping volley after volley of arrows into the three closest ships, which were now unable to manoeuvre owing to severe casualties amongst the rowers. Disembodied shouts and screams floated up on the wind that was gradually gaining in strength. The two triremes and the five remaining biremes turned to face the Getae cavalry on the shore and, firing as they went, rowed to the rescue of the stricken ships, leaving them broadside on to the leading triremes of the Getic fleet as they rounded the bend. On sighting the Romans they accelerated to attack-speed, their whistled beats cutting through the air. The ballistae on the walls of Axiopolis opened fire at them as they passed beneath it; white explosions peppered the water around the fleet but they came on undeterred at the Romans who, caught between manoeuvres, failed to turn to face them.
The flutes’ whistles accelerated into the almost constant screech of ramming speed and the lead Getic ships surged forward into the Roman squadron. Two caught a trireme broadside, crashing into it fore and aft, whilst another shipped its larboard oars as it skimmed up the side of a bireme, breaking its oars like twigs and catapulting rowers out of their seats, their backs broken and the skulls smashed. The sounds of cracking wood drowned the flutes as the two Getic vessels reversed stroke in order to wrench themselves free of the crippled Roman ship. The second wave of the Getic fleet crunched into the hapless squadron and Vespasian turned his horse.
‘I think I’ve seen enough of that to know I wouldn’t want to be involved in a sea battle,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘There’ll be some good lads crossing the Styx today,’ Magnus muttered as he followed, pulling the priest’s horse after him, ‘and all because Poppaeus wants to silence one man.’
‘Or, conversely, because we want to keep him alive,’ Sabinus pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it though, the timing of a man’s death is down to the will of Mithras and there’s bugger all to do about it.’
Not wanting to get into a theological debate with his brother, Vespasian kicked his horse into a canter and started to make his way down the hill to the plain that rolled all the way to the Euxine Sea and the port of Tomi.
Vespasian and his comrades were chilled to the bone by the time they reached the town gates, two hours after dusk. The wind had strengthened to gale force, dispersing the clouds, and the temperature had plummeted under the clear, starry sky. The sight of a military tribune’s uniform was enough to persuade the surly gatekeepers to open up after curfew and they passed through into a wide thoroughfare, dimly lit by the moon, which led directly to the port, the town’s main reason for its existence. The buildings on either side were mean and shabby and the whole town had an air of neglect about it; it had seen better days.
‘What a miserable shit-hole,’ Magnus opined as a few ragged beggars peered at them out of a gloomy side street.
‘That’s why it’s used as a place of exile,’ Sabinus said. ‘The poet Publius Ovidius Naso lived out the last years of his life here, the poor bastard.’
‘It once was a great Odrysian port,’ Sitalces said mournfully, ‘until you Romans conquered the northern part of Thracia and turned it into the province of Moesia; then it went into decline as you have no need for a port here and we now use the ports in what’s left of our kingdom.’
‘How do the inhabitants survive then?’ Artebudz asked.
‘They still do some trade with the Bosporan kingdom in the north and the kingdom of Colchis in the east, but that’s about it; so it’s mainly fishing and piracy, not that they’d admit to the last, of course.’
‘I thought that Pompey Magnus cleared the seas of pirates,’ Vespasian pointed out. ‘Not the Euxine,’ Drenis said, spitting on the ground. ‘He only cared about protecting your precious trade and grain routes in your sea. A lot of the pirate crews just moved north to the Euxine.’
‘There’re still some in the Mare Aegeum,’ Sabinus informed them. ‘There’re plenty of places to hide amongst all those islands. On the way here my ship was chased by pirates as we sailed around the southern tip of Achaea; if it hadn’t been for some fine archery they’d have got us, but they lost their enthusiasm after we brought ten or twelve of them down including the captain, a nasty-looking, ginger-haired brute; he could have been one of your lot, Sitalces. Mind you, not all pirates are bad; the Cilician pirates brought the Lord Mithras to the Empire about the time of the Spartacus slave revolt.’
‘Who’d have thought it, Mithraic pirates.’ Vespasian laughed. ‘I suppose they make light of heavy weather.’
‘Don’t laugh, little brother,’ Sabinus cut in seriously. ‘The Lord Mithras shines his light on all men equally,
