Legionary: Gods & Emperors

Prologue

Prologue:
Antioch
April 3rd 378AD

Three scale-clad legions filed along the narrow, dusty gorge road. Mount Silpius and Mount Staurinus - each precipitous, burnt-gold and dotted with hardy shrubs - loomed over the path like watching titans, casting them in shade and sparing them from the heat of the fierce morning sun. The rumble of their boots and jostling armour echoed through the ravine as they went, every pair of eyes flicking anxiously to the steep, sun-bleached bluffs either side of them, every mind recalling the many tales of brigandage in these parts - legions crushed under falling rocks or showered with missiles and the corpses robbed of purses and armour. But on they went, eager to set eyes upon their destination: the mighty Iron Gate, eastern entrance to the imperial city of Antioch.

Emperor Valens rode at the head of the column, a light veil of sweat beading on his sun-darkened, age-lined features and his snow-white locks discoloured by golden dust thrown up from the ride. The path widened and the shade slipped away, the intense sun glowering down on them all once more. His cobalt eyes narrowed as they rounded a bend in the canyon, then he saw it at last: the fortified, shimmering limestone gateway up ahead. Its thick towers and iron-strapped gates stood like a mighty dam, blocking the route through this baked valley, while the sturdy curtain walls either side followed the rise of the mountains, claiming the high ground as part of the city. The men saw it too, and a murmur of excited voices sounded behind him.

A refrain of cornua on the gatehouse heralded his approach, the G-shaped horns glinting in the sun. He shuffled to sit straight in the saddle, his purple cloak falling back from the white steel shoulders of his scale jacket. This was it, he realised: after months of summoning his forces, the time to act was upon him.

He glanced back over his men. These were the last three regiments of his Praesental Army to be drawn from their posts around Roman Syria and gathered here at Antioch. All other available units had already congregated within the city's walls or in the sprawling camp on the plains outside the northern walls; twenty seven thousand men all told. A vast flotilla of ships moored in the River Orontes waited to take them across the sea to their destination: the troubled Diocese of Thracia... and the Gothic War that raged there. Over the last few weeks he had witnessed the optimism and bravado of those already convened. They talked of the Gothic War as a minor trouble, a foregone glory. Yet not one of them bore Valens' iron burden.

Every soul in the East lives or dies on your word. Every life rests in your hands.

He dipped his head a fraction, pinching the top of his nose between thumb and forefinger. Six thousand men would be left behind to garrison the desert forts and cities of the Persian frontier - just six legions to protect Rome's most easterly territories against the Sassanid Empire. But the Sassanids were not his greatest fear. No, for while the Shahanshah and his armies made war much like the Romans, the Goths awaiting him across the sea were different. Savage, dogged, proud . . . fighting for their very existence. His mind raced over the flurry of correspondence that had come from Thracia in these last months: the mountain strongholds had fallen, the legions had been driven back into the cities... now some one hundred thousand Goths roamed Thracia under Iudex Fritigern's command. The war to come would not be one of empires seeking glory. This would be a contest of survival. A feral game where precious life would be dashed in swathes.

Or, he reasoned, might there yet be parley?

Fritigern was a shrewd and at times ruthless leader, but one of the few Gothic noblemen who understood the meaning of nobility. An Arian Christian like Valens, Fritigern had sought treaty with the empire when he had first led his Goths across the Danubius and into Roman lands. His horde was to farm Roman lands and serve in the imperial legions, but that hope had crumbled in a mire of treachery and recklessness. Nearly two years of war had ensued, with the Goths seizing the Thracian countryside, penning the Roman citizens and the tattered remains of that land's legions inside the major cities. The war had grown like a boil, and was now throbbing, ready to burst. It had to end, and like most wars, that likely meant one thing: a battle that would vanquish one side or the other. Yet he had received word, albeit indirectly, that the Gothic Iudex still yearned for treaty instead of battle. How much faith could he place in such anecdotal reports? Especially when he had despatched messengers to the Gothic Iudex in hope of instigating such talks himself - only for those couriers to seemingly vanish on their travels. Was parley a fanciful aspiration? Perhaps, he mused, but it would only be prudent to advance on Thracia armed with both regiments and rhetoric.