The Iron Gates

It was a point of no small pride to Apolodorus of Damascus that the breaching of the Iron Gates was down to his handiwork. This was apparent to almost everyone he met.

'It is a gorge, your Highness, in a range of mountains. As you can well see. Precipitous, match anything an army has ever crossed. Hannibal had his Alps, Lucullus Armenia. I…'

'Remarkable,' Arya murmured-again, in attic Greek. 'Remarkable.'

To account for local sensibilities, she wore a dress. Roman dresses were, as a rule, not built for riding; but she refused a litter, and found that she could do with the walk. She raised twirled her parasol on her shoulder. 'The bridge is your work of course?'

(Besides, her horse was several hands taller than the Roman steeds. She had no desire to show up her hosts.)

'The largest of its type the world has ever known. All this by an army in the field!'

'How extraordinary.' And, Arya was forced to admit-it was. Elven armies, as they had found out to their cost, didn't go in for this sort of thing; and when Dwarves discussed engineering, it was usually something their grandparents had built in the age of the riders. Whereas this… leviathan was no less than a kilometre long, built on twenty stone and earthen arches to cross the Danube.

'By an army. In hostile country.' Apollodorus laughed with delight. 'The central arches were no mean feat, madam, but all were sorted in the end. A lot of digging. By Hephaetsos, a lot of digging. And, as you can see over there…' he pointed to the other side.

Arya's elven eyes travelled. The other end of the bridge. The wooden-walled fortification, keeping watch. The mountainside. Some road around it? No…

'The road leads up the side of the mountain, carved by the effort of three thousand soldiers, in order to enable our armies to march on the enemy capital. It will force them to wholly and absolutely shift their entire defensive posture!' Apollodorus' thumb, she noticed, twitched with excitement. His whole body seemed to. 'An absolute! Victory! Supplies the whole army on the offensive!'

'This also by legionaries?'

'Indeed.' He laughed. 'Half the army spends its entire time in service digging anyway. Aquaeducts. That sort of thing. No shortage of skilled labour. Just needs-needs direction!'

'Remarkable.' Arya made a mental note. 'Your gods must smile upon this… work.'

'Oh, I suppose so. But that was logic. Hand and brain. Aristotle. That sort of thing.'

She favoured him with a smile. 'Do tell me more, Apollodorus. The exploration of cultures fascinates me greatly…'

At this, Apollodorus-with the help of any passing soldier he could pluck away from their business (and he seemed to have no end of acquaintances)-was more than willing to oblige her.

When one considered the term barbarian, she learned, one was inclined to see it as a shirtless madman living in a mud hut in the depths of a forest, spending their lives fighting, drinking and thieving. With the Dacians, those conceptions were not-strictly-true. (But with the Germans, of course, it was another matter. Damn the Germans!)

The Dacians, now, they had cities. Those cities had walls, built by Roman engineers, and paid for by mighty gold mines. They had armies that were, to a degree, organised. And those armies had, some years ago, defeated the Roman forces sent against them. Defeated decisively.

And they had allies. Enough allies to pose a threat. So the Army was going in to quash it.

'And these… Dragons which accompany them?'

'But a figure of speech, your highness.' Apollodorus laughed. 'Their cavalry standards are called Dragons. There is no literal dragon to be found, no, not in all the world.'

Arya, as she continued to make her way up the side of the mountain, expressed the view that she was very glad to hear it.

Trajan's Army was on the march. Eleven legions in total, of which eight would be undertaking the offensive; and at the forefront, as in every operation, were the exploratores. The light, scout cavalry, who scoured the ground ahead, checked for ambushes, and ensured that everything would be running smoothly.

It was one of these, Pulcher found, who had had the crossbow bolt in them; and so it was with them that he sent his escort to ride. 'It could be a coincidence, of course,' he explained.

Damon raised a very laconic eyebrow. 'When has it ever been, sir?' he asked, as he fed a carrot to his horse.

'Exactly, trooper. Exactly.'

'So, I suppose you have authorisation for this, sir?' Alexandros asked. 'Sending us ahead.'

'As your commanding officer, I may at times undertake to ride with the vanguard, and assess the state of the country. For the potential return of the XXIII. So it is only natural that my escort be permitted to assess it first.' Pulcher gave him a very pointed look.

'Point taken, sir.' Alexandros continued to polish his helmet.

'And whatever they find, they had best report back to me, and to high command.'

'So, why aren't you telling the Emperor now?'

'Because if I was to tell him of the possibility that an imperial agent had arrived in the area, he probably would not believe me. Even if he did, he could not conceive of it being enough of a factor to halt his advance. He could not conceive of the damage one mage could do to an unprotected army. None could.'

'If it was a mage, sir, they wouldn't use a crossbow would they?'

'Perhaps.' Pulcher frowned. 'And there's…'

'What?'

Pulcher laughed. 'Nothing. I could be jumping at shadows. Get your men mounted up Alexandros, and get them moving!'

To be honest, he thought, as he watched his men ride out, it was that very-very Roman streak in him that perceived the world in terms of a challenge. That loved to prove oneself against adversary, and to overcome it. The sentiment that drew thousands of people to watch gladiators. He'd been used, on Vroengard, to an independent command. Even back in Aberon, with only Flaccus watching over him, it had chafed. And now-

Any excuse to hare off on an adventurous whim and Save The Day. Not Senatorial material. Control yourself, old boy. It could be nothing. What would Gnaepia say?

So he took a slave aside, had them see to his camp (now, THAT was something he could get used to), and rode over to the Emperor's staff. It would be a long day's riding.

And so it proved to be.

On the other side of the ridge were more hills, more mountains, and more endless, tangled forest. Exploratores were deployed well forward, accompanied by cavalry units, and they constantly did battle with the endless, circling Dragons of horse. Little ambushes, little raids. Men found hanged, mutilated.

The Roman response? To find the nearest village to the column of march, and simply burn it to the ground. Enslave the survivors.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

'The first major settlement we will encounter,' said the Emperor one night, 'is Tapae. Fortress town. Gold mines. Damn good wine, too.'

Smoke continued to rise, from some place or other. Too many consonants for most of the officers to remember the name.

'Are we getting there in good time?' one of the Legates asked.

'Quick as you can expect in this country. I've dispatched another Legion to defend our supply lines. But all in all-yes.' Trajan accepted a goblet, and began to drink. 'Very good. Local? Thought so-'

'Might not the locals be angered by this… display?' Arya wanted to know.

'Hmm?'

'Burning their homes. Enslaving them.'

'Probably. But if that teaches their partisans to stop sheltering their troops, and their damned King Decebalus not to betray us, so much the better. Anger's good, as long as it's tempered by respect. Besides, from what I hear, they'll fetch good prices. We need some profit from this venture.' Trajan laughed.

Arya said no more that meeting. She was ushered out, and offered wine. She drank.

'What do we know of the Dacians?' Pulcher wanted to know.

'Their exact position? Little. But we can guess. Their full strength, on paper, with all auxiliaries and allies called up, is around 200,000. That's over three times our own, even if our entire army was deployed in the same position. But the real question is how much of that they can deploy together, in one spot? They aren't total primitives, but they don't have our roads.' The Emperor made a nod to Apollodorus, who accepted it gratefully. 'They cannot support all 200,000 of their warriors in one army, together, in the same place. Tapae's probably as good a place as any. The town's a fortress, they've got supplies stashed up there, and if the country's anything like the rest of ours-'

'It is, your majesty,' said a tall, willowy looking fellow in the corner of the tent. (A deserter, paid good gold to betray his kin.) 'Mountains, trees, caves.' He spat on the ground. 'Killing country.'

'Thank you, Blaikisa. As I said, a good place to make a stand. They'll have, lets see, something like one hundred thousand there, tops. Possibly more, but those won't be good troops.' Trajan clapped his hands. 'And there, we shall beat them.'

'You seem very certain, sir,' Pulcher said.

'I'm never sure of anything. But my army's good, we've got better logistics than they have, and their leader's an… an optimist. He's fought us to a standstill before. He believes he can do it again. A clever man wouldn't, but Decelabalus, now, he isn't a clever man. Just a brave one.'

'Our reconnaissance still hasn't found the main army for sure, sir,' said the Legate of the cavalry. 'Just patrols.'

'It'sgoing to be at Tapae, because after Tapae's their capital. And they don't want me encamped in Tapae over winter. Keep pushing, and they'll put something in our way. That's how it works. Now, Legate, your cavalry…'

Pulcher felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned, to find one of Trajan's freedmen gesturing at him to come outside.

It was Damon, filthy and obviously sore from hard riding, and making the most of Arya's wine. 'Fetch a cushion, would you?' Pulcher asked the freedman, before turning to them. 'Any news?'

'We found something, sir,' Damon said. A cushion was brought over, which he collapsed onto with a sigh of pleasure, right on the ground.

'Found what? Report, man-'

'You need to see this, sir,' Damon said. 'You need to see this…'

But in a moment. Not until he'd gotten his breath back.

What 'it' was, that night, Pulcher found with his full escort. It was a evening, but the sun was starting to set over the mountains.

'When did you find this?' he asked.

'Few hours ago, sir.'

'What is-'

A standing stone. Right in the middle of the Dacian mountains, in the middle of the path. There were pines all around. By some quirk of fate, it was in a vale, such that the pines seemed to stretch on forever.

There were no bird calls here. No animal tracks, save for their own horses.

Nothing.

Except…

Pulcher shivered. 'That symbol on the stone. Was it there this morning?'

Alexandros squinted at it, gestured for a torch.

'Not that I saw,' he said.

It was a dragon. Coloured in blood.

And, beneath it, was slumped a body. It lookedmore like a sack than anything else. Brown tunic, shrunken, lifeless. Bloodstained.

'Spear wounds,' Damon said. 'Only recently killed.' He sniffed. 'And that's incense.'

'What in the gods' name-'

The air, Pulcher found, was starting to get very cold, and the army-although less than an hour's ride distant-started to feel a very long way away.

'Lets get out of here,' he said. 'We've found it. Lets go.'

'There's… something here.'

Arya. No one had even noticed that she was with them, and yet-

Their horses wickered, uneasily.

Decision time. 'Ride,' Pulcher said. 'Back to the army. Battle order.' He tugged at Arya's bridle. 'With us. Go.'

'Something… someone…'

She then turned, and slumped in the saddle.

Pulcher sighed. 'Damon, get her horse tied to ours'. Lets go.'

He did it himself, trying to ignore how his hands were shaking, how he fumbled the know, how his men were staring out into the dark like it was a living thing-

Something growled-

-'Bugler!'

The trumpet ran, and the Romans rode like hell.

Rode till their horses were lathered with sweat but, at least, they were in camp. With the army. Safe. And making a full report to the Emperor.

The next day, the skies grew dark. Grey clouds, that occasionally spat with rain.

'Interesting,' Trajan said, upon hearing Pulcher's report. He did not sound it. 'Bad omens?' He sighed. 'Time for another sacrifice. I wish I didn't have to wear a toga, but I suppose you've got to to get Mars to notice. They're just so formal, Gods.'

'Was not Domitian a god, sir?'

'He just said he was a god. And he was damned formal. Damn fool.' Trajan grunted. 'But that, ah, that reminds me of something. Last war.' He turned, and yelled for the deserter. 'Move your damned bones here! Good to have you with us, help yourself to almonds. Now, we've just heard something…'

Pulcher described what he had seen. The man paled.

'Spear wounds?' he asked again. Pulcher nodded. 'Then,' he said, 'they have spoken to Zalmoxis. But why?'

'Zalmoxis?' Pulcher asked.

'Of course!' Trajan smacked his fist into his palm. 'The Dacians, every so often they send a message to Zalmoxis, their supreme God. They send it by human sacrifice, is that right?'

The Dacian frowned. 'The man is chosen by lot, and is killed. He is told, he is informed of what the Dacian people wish to tell their God. He is cast into the air, and falls upon spears. If he dies, then the message is sent. If he lives, he is a sinful man, and is killed.'

'Is the message sent then?' Trajan asked, genuinely curious.

The Dacian shrugged. 'Perhaps. But it is strange.'

'Strange?'

'This is the wrong year for it, the sacrifice should be… the year after this year. And why is it not done in a proper temple, on hallowed ground?'

'The stone isn't?'

'Zalmoxis is… a young God. So perhaps it could be so. Perhaps not.' The Dacian stared hard into his proffered goblet.

'You seem troubled.'

'What could have…' the Dacian lapsed into Greek 'what could have prompted this sacrifice?'

'What indeed?' Trajan rose to his feet. 'Well, I'll call a halt this lunchtime, we'll make some sacrifices of our own. Now…'

'Well,' Pulcher said, 'it strikes me that the Dragon is its own answer. It was daubed on the stone. Therefore…'

'They think they're going to win this one.' Trajan snorted. 'Course they do, otherwise they wouldn't be fighting. We heard the same sort of talk in the Last War. We even saw the same sacrifice. But that was Domitian's War. Not mine. Now, next on the order of business…'

The army marched on, deeper into the forests. Now, it sang no songs. The area beyond the roads was an endless wall of trees and grey rainfall. Under the pressure, the roads began to turn into mud, into treacherous tracks that bogged carts and consumed hours of time.

And casualties amongst the exploratores were rising.

They called a halt, as Trajan said, to make their sacrifices, and they did so. The sheep were killed, and the omens were looked upon. The priests, dutifully, found them favourable. But the rain fell, and their blood merged with the mud.

(It was also noted that no one-no one-could find the standing stone again. Perhaps it was just so deep in the forest that it could not be found. Perhaps.)

'What's killing these patrols?' Pulcher wanted to know, as he passed the hospital.

The doctors could not tell him. They had a lot of captives, a lot of disappearances. Nothing more. But they were encountering fevers. Sicknesses. Flux.

Five days passed. Five days at a virtual crawl, their scouts getting sniped at all the way. And they began to find Wolves.

As the Dacian cavalry were under the dragon standard, it so followed that their foot formed under Wolves. Rural tribesmen, with javelins and short swords, who dodged and cast through the trees; warriors with falxes, capable of cutting a man's helmet in two; and mercenaries, tribal levies, allies from the Roxolani, the Sarmatians, the Karpathes, every martial race for miles around.

'Excellent. Two days from Tapae, too. I was right all along.'

His Legate of the cavalry slapped his thigh. 'A proper fight? Beats this damned mud.'

'That too. Your horse have done well. Send forward our auxiliary infantry, we'll need to drive these damned skirmishers back.' Trajan grinned. 'We have them!'

The next day, fewer supply trains started to reach the army. For now, of course, they were in good country. Closer to Tapae, they could scavenge, forage. It was not life threatening. But it was ominous. Even Roman engineering, it seemed, was insufficient to everything that it could be called upon to do.

'I know it's not your fault Apollodorus,' Trajan said to his apologetic Syrian, 'but get on that mule of yours' and tell me what's going on. Alright? Good man.' He clapped him on the arm. 'The gods grant us adversity. We'll overcome it. That's how it works.'

'It shouldn't happen!' Apollodorus was almost in tears as Pulcher led him to his steed. 'My artifices were perfect!'

'It's a long way old boy,' Pulcher said soothingly, 'I'm sure it was just a temporary delay. A minor setback. We've seen how the carts with the army have been losing wheels, let alone further back.'

He sneezed. This rain was getting to them all.

'But why has no word been sent? No riders? Something is wrong, Gnaeus, something is very, very wrong.'

He had a point.

'You have an escort? Good. I'll attach some of mine, just to keep you safe.'

'And to put your eyes in, you mean.' Apollodorus grinned. 'I don't know what game you've been playing in that fairytale kingdom of yours', Gnaeus, but I'm pretty sure it isn't His Majesty's alone.'

Pulcher didn't know what to say to that, so he watched as the Syrian mounted up, accepted his guards, and rode Westward, into the dark.

The next day, scouts had reached Tapae. They found the enemy drawn up, behind fieldworks and in full battle array, wolves and dragons to the fore. They were singing, some sort of hymn.

(Still no reports of that standing stone.)

The day after that, the Roman army would arrive.

A battle is when two armies clash, prompted by two commanders who believe they can win.

And only one of them, Pulcher reflected, as he sat shivering under canvas, is right.

It goes without saying, before we even add the Inheritance Cycle, that this is a somewhat fictionalised account of the Dacian Wars. Certain aspects have been changed, or had their places and chronologies switched around, for a cooler story. And I haven't done that much research about them, so there's also sheer inaccuracy.