Authors: Donna Gillespie
“Damn them to Hades!” Lucius Antonius was surprised at his impassioned response. It is this country, he thought. It provokes outbreaks of unbridled superstition in even the most rational of men.
He found himself wondering fleetingly if the Chattians had put some curse on his camp. The soldiers quartered at Novaesium had taken the oath at once—if not joyfully, at least without incident. “These superstitious children will interpret this to mean the state is headless. And the increase in pay? Did you announce it?”
Rufinus nodded curtly. “They were in too fine and mettlesome a mood. ‘We will not be bought by a murderer’ was the reply.”
“I could enrich the donative from my own purse,” Antonius said meditatively. “No. I’ll not toss a bribe to a gang of mutinous wretches. Nemesis take them. Those prisoners go out tonight,
whether the men come to reason or not.” Were the transfer delayed longer, given the hazards of the two-month journey to Rome, the captives might not arrive until after Domitian’s celebratory games.
“I’ll see to it. I know we took every precaution, but I cannot rid myself of the feeling that the battle-hag’s caught our scent again.”
“This
time,
I think not. Only Bassus, you and I know tonight’s the night. Anyhow the
ganna
has not been heard from since the raid on Mogon. My guess is she’s living well on the wine and loot.” Antonius leaned forward with a frown of distaste. “Rufinus, what is that about your neck?”
Rufinus tucked the silver talisman into his tunic, angry with himself for forgetting and leaving it visible. On it was depicted an upraised hand beneath a horned moon. All his men would be wearing them tonight as a charm against the witchery of that she-creature prowling the forests called Aurinia, who incited her followers to mad feats of valor.
“You set a poor example, my man,” the Governor said irritably. “You told me once you believe in only what you touch, hear and see. She’s just a woman, Rufinus. She eats, she sleeps, she bleeds, and if she misbehaves tonight, she dies. She’s turned you into a superstitious scullery maid.”
Rufinus flushed. “By your leave, my men expect
me to wear this,” he said with forced evenness. “And come, you must
admit she’s had more than human luck. We think we have her trapped, and a storm comes up, or the ballista specialists go berserk and start firing on our own men, or she just escapes from a place from which there is no escape. Is it prudent to have the men frightened out of their wits before the night has even begun? Why not
employ every advantage?”
Antonius thought he had a rational explanation for at least one incident Rufinus mentioned. It was his theory that ballista fire turned against the Romans on that day had come from the
savages,
bizarre as that seemed. In the confusion of battle such things were difficult to determine, but he believed his men when they insisted they had not fired. He had seen one of the bolts the camp physician recovered from the skull of a slain man and it was from a small catapult called a
scorpion,
an
older type they had not used in the field that day. But Antonius had never dared put this notion forth to anyone, for fear he would be taken for a madman. The thought that the barbarians might turn the weapons of civilization on him frightened him more than the supernatural.
Antonius made an elegant dismissive gesture. “Do what you must then, Rufinus. But get those prisoners out of here
tonight.”
Rufinus’ two centuries set out as the midnight bell was struck in the moon-washed gloom of the parade ground. The one hundred Chattian prisoners, Theudobald among them, were bound with cord and placed in ten mule-drawn carts. Rufinus ordered Bassus, a junior Centurion, to ride at the head of this company of one hundred and sixty soldiers; he posted himself at the rear. Savages preferred to strike from behind—and being savages, Rufinus was fond of observing, they never seemed to realize their enemies detected this habit. Rufinus’ and Bassus’ men were to take the captives as far as Argentoratum, a more southerly fortress on the Rhine, where a fresh escort would take them on the next leg of their journey.
None spoke; all were attuned to the rustlings of the brooding pines at the roadside. The deep forest teemed with malign life. Frogs made their anxious music, joined at odd intervals by hollow owl cries floating out onto the night. Unseen wings flapped; secret cloven hooves crackled leaves. Pungent smells and rotting smells rose up from the earth. The full moon traveling briskly through a troubled, cloud-ridden sky was no friend to them; it was the bald eye of ravening nature, tracking them, illuminating them for their enemies. This land was not theirs, no matter how successfully they seemed to have stemmed the barbarian tide; every man of them sensed the spirits of this place detested them.
For long the only sound among the men was the occasional muted clink of steel on steel, the patient tramp of heavy booted feet on cobbles. To Rufinus the forms of the men in the semidark were grotesque, unhuman—with their cumbersome shields they appeared to be a line of outsized beetles reared ridiculously on hind legs. When they had covered a half mile, a soldier alongside the first cart suddenly fell out of step; he had caught sight of what he thought a hoofprint, unnaturally large, in the mud at the roadside.
“The witch-woman,” he said in a covered voice. “She was here.”
“Ganna,”
the men repeated softly up the line, touching the talismans at their throats.
“Ganna Aurinia.”
Rufinus shouted out in his harshest voice, “The next man to fall out of line will feel the vine-stick!” The words carried easily on the chill, clear night air.
Theudobald languished in the lead wagon, his muscles slack from age and long confinement, his mind on little; he felt his soul had shriveled to that of a creeping thing. He had been taken captive the summer after the death of Baldemar, and had had no news of his kin for four years. Lassitude and madness took him alternately; often he dreamed vividly of Baldemar’s ghost, begging his brother to join him in death. But the sight and smell of the forest was awakening painfully a renewed desire to live. The moon, unseen for so long, was to him a sorrowing mother shedding cool, honeyed light in a vain attempt to comfort. Would the moon still live above in the place they were taking him?
Rufinus increased the men’s pace. By dawn, he judged, they would be out of danger.
They approached the first milestone and the statue of Domitian loomed, towering twelve feet high, glowing blue-white in the moonlight. To Rufinus it was as ludicrous as it was grand; one of Domitian’s muscular arms was paternally extended, indicating nothing. The Emperor seemed a stiff and silly giant standing in blind opposition to nature.
Here we so clearly do not belong, Rufinus thought. Perhaps the rebels in the camp speak the truth: We’ve outraged the spirits of this place by setting the image of a brother-killer over her. And the punishments of nature’s gods are brutal and swift.
He did not like the way his horse suddenly began to fight the reins in a nervous sweat, its head unnaturally high, cantering at the speed of a walk. He squinted at the towering black mass of trees and saw nothing.
Where were the frogs?
Suddenly they were silent.
All at once he heard a slow, swishing sound, as if some monstrous serpent threaded its way through the trees. Clouds snuffed out the moon, dropping all into greater darkness. Rufinus shouted the order to halt.
But his shout went unheard, overwhelmed by an unearthly hum swelling up from the trees, rising into a penetrating ululation that threatened to bore through skulls. It was as if they had roused some Olympian nest of hornets.
We are done
, Rufinus thought, knowing this was the
barritus,
the ritual cry of Chattian tribesmen rousing their god of war.
Rufinus signaled to his trumpeter, who blew two piercing blasts. The men swiftly closed ranks and locked their shields together. Rufinus leapt from his mount and took a place at the extreme end of the first rank; he believed a centurion should fight closely beside his men.
From the cavernous dark beneath the trees, a single writhing knot of flame appeared. It flared, then separated into many, scattered like a string of stars across the somber void, as others lit their torches from the first.
Then came a crackling, tearing sound. Hundreds of warriors broke through the brush, and this dark horror surged toward them. It was as though a sluice-gate had opened.
They spilled down the short slope in a rude wedge formation, its apex aimed at the center of the legionaries’ line.
The legionaries drew back their heavy javelins with perfect precision, as if every arm were controlled by one mind. The powerfully thrown missiles tore into the horde, toppling many, but those behind vaulted over the fallen and surged on unchecked. The second round of javelins did greater damage, some passing through more than one body, or pinning the attackers to trees. The warriors collided with one another and fell; some were trampled to death, while others were forced to throw down their shields and rush naked of protection onto the Roman swords, for the legionaries’ javelins could not be pulled out of the thick wood of the native shields. There was one triumphant moment when Rufinus thought disaster averted.
But then came the unaccountable, the horrible. Another shrill, rattling war-hum was raised—from the opposite side of the road. Rufinus was astonished. Savages never held men in reserve; they seemed incapable of it. Like excited children, they could not restrain their headlong rush. But even more remarkable was that they waited until both
javelins each legionary soldier normally carried had been spent before they sent this second wave. Never had he known barbarians to show such intelligence.
He knew for certain then they were attacked by the blood-drinking Fury his men called Aurinia. Her strategies often seemed a crude mimicry of Roman tactics.
He shouted out the command for the diamond formation, which he judged best for repelling an attack from all sides. But the first battle-horde had badly disorganized his front line. Now he felt the bony hand of death closing round his throat. Not only their numbers but also the night was on the barbarians’ side. The Chattian warriors—with the whites of their eyes gleaming in the moonlight, skins flapping from their shoulders, axes raised, the heads of freshly killed mountain cats on their belts—were themselves a spawn of darkness; night masked them in demonic mystery, paralyzing his men with fright.
The Roman lines were cleaved in half.
Rufinus felt a blow like the kick of a horse, and a hot burst of pain in his shoulder. He was knocked back, then he sank to his knees, a native spear embedded deep in his flesh. Bassus saw him fall and moved to cover him.
Rufinus could do little now but watch from the ground. Bassus felled one warrior, then two, gutting them with the stabbing point of his sword. But elsewhere all was not going well; the horde numbered over five hundred, Rufinus guessed, and more kept coming from the forest as if nature in her fury vomited them up. It was as though a roaring flood swept his soldiers off. To his shame, Rufinus realized that here and there his men were beginning to break and run. But the majority stood their ground, knowing they faced certain slaughter.
And then he saw her—the
ganna
who bore arms.
She rode the familiar pale stallion. With her loosened hair streaming down, she was a barbarous sight that caused fresh moans of dismay from his men. She galloped around the front of the line, her horse nearly striking him with a forehoof as he lay immobilized beside the still gamely struggling Bassus. Then she pulled the gray stallion to a halt, sheathed her sword, and took up a coiled length of rope. He cried out unheard as he realized what she was doing.
She flung the looped end of the hemp rope around the statue of Domitian. It fell to the statue’s shoulders, stopped by the upraised right arm; with a tug she drew it tight. Then she wheeled the horse about and urged it to a gallop. The phantom horse struck at air with its forelegs; they were a single wild creature as the beast bolted forward, neck tightly bowed. The rope pulled taut.
The statue’s ill-fitting head toppled first, raising thunder in the earth. Slowly at first, then with a whistling rush, the headless stone body crashed down. The massive image splintered one of the wagons, emptied already of its prisoners. Then came an instant of deep silence as everyone stared in numbed surprise.
To the Romans it seemed abandoned nature passed sentence on Domitian, their posturing god-on-earth. The sight of the dread
ganna
galloping into their disintegrating line took the last of the legionaries’ courage. Rufinus thought he saw Death as a maiden; there was something fatal and sweet in her aspect—she was an avenging dove emanating a potent innocence, a raging nymph with blood-matted hair. She might have been a Fate in youthful incarnation, cutting threads of lives with that rising and falling sword.
Then all was a confusion of moon-shadows and eerie light darting down upraised blades. The legionaries who had made a stand broke and fled or were cut down. Then Bassus was struck fatally and could cover him no more.
The spear that pierced Rufinus’ side entered painlessly—but he knew at once this blow was mortal. Pain and fear floated off; they were of no service to him now. As life left him, he saw Aurinia again—or was it a dying vision? Her face was transformed into Fate as Destroyer, a hag with green flesh, lolling tongue and snakes for hair, leading him down to her sunless caverns.