Drystan by David Pilling

Author:David Pilling [Pilling, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

17.

Cotyaeum, Phrygia Epictetus

Both armies were set out like thousands of chess pieces. The broad plain they stood on, flat and featureless, served for a board.

I am one of many pawns, thought Medraut.

He was positioned on the extreme left flank of the Roman army, though it was Roman in name only. Most of the troops were Gothic foederati. Eight thousand horse and foot, sent by the Emperor Anastasius to chastise the troublesome Isaurians and drive them back into their mountains.

Those mountains loomed to the west under massive blue skies. Shreds of white cloud hovered over the distant peak. This rocky and inhospitable terrain was the gateway to Isauria, now officially a rebellious province. The Eastern Empire had fallen into civil war.

The war promised to be a long and gruelling one. Even if Rome won here, and defeated the Isaurians in open battle, the province itself would still have to be reduced. There were any number of fortified outposts and little towns hidden away up in the hills. It was the unenviable task of the Roman generals to conquer them all.

A cold wind rippled across the plain. Thousands of colourful pennons fluttered in the breeze. It was almost spring, yet winter clung stubbornly to the high places of Anatolia.

Medraut had been on campaign for months, and could not remember what it was like to be truly warm. Even inside his coat of ring-mail, with a leather tunic and woollen under-shirt beneath it, he shivered.

Perhaps it was fear of death. And of failure. He glanced over his shoulder at his men. Ten light auxilia, spear-armed Gothic troopers mounted on swift ponies. He was a decanus now, a junior officer in charge of ten men. His superiors saw great potential in him, or so they claimed.

The men looked steady enough. Bearded, hard-eyed faces stared back at him from under ridged helmets. They were young, none older than twenty, anxious to prove themselves.

“Remember your orders,” Medraut barked at them for the tenth time that morning, “keep to the left, and follow my lead. Advance and retire on my signal. Otho, do you hear me?”

Otho, a red-bearded trooper with startling green eyes, gave a nod. “Good.,” Medraut finished lamely, “If I fall, you take command.”

He coughed to hide his embarrassment, and turned back to study the enemy. Doubtless his men thought he was an old mother hen, forever clucking over them, and laughed at him behind his back. Let them. They were raw, full of the arrogance and swagger of untried youth. When the real fighting started, they might appreciate his experience.

The Isaurian host filled the western half of the plain. Medraut was both impressed and appalled by their courage. Led by Longinus of Cardala, a former senior imperial official deprived of his rank by Anastasius, they had come down from their mountains and attacked the towns and cities of nearby provinces. For weeks they plundered, burned and looted at will. The skies of north-west Anatolia were still bruised by the smoke of their conquests.

Faced with

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