381 AD: The Gothic War draws to a brutal climax, and the victor's name will be written in blood...
381 AD: The Gothic War draws to a brutal climax, and the victor's name will be written in blood...
The great struggle between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Gothic Horde rumbles into its fifth year. It seems that there can be no end to the conflict, for although the Goths are masters of the land, they cannot topple the last of the imperial cities. But heralds bring news that might change it all: Emperor Gratian readies to lead his Western legions into the fray, to turn matters on their head, to crush the horde and save the East!
The men of the XI Claudia legion long for their homeland’s salvation, but Tribunus Pavo knows these hopes drip with danger. For he and his soldiers are Gratian’s quarry as much as any Goth. The road ahead will be fraught with broken oaths, enemy blades... and tides of blood.
Excerpt
Prologue
Jan 1st 381 AD
A glacial wind screamed along the frozen banks of the River Danubius. The waters – grey like the bruised sky – foamed and churned, ragged chunks of ice bucking and clashing like warring galleys. At a section where the currents fell calm, the ice had gathered, uniting to form a broad, frozen rib that stretched from bank to bank.
From the thickly-forested north, a whinny split the air, and the sound of hooves rose like a speeding drumbeat. With a puff of falling frost, a lone Hun rider burst from the treeline and sharply reined in his stocky mount. Zolt was a warrior of many years with a face that was more scar than skin, bald but with a ring of thin hair that hung to his shoulder blades and a threadlike moustache. He walked his horse to the river shallows, eyeing the ice bridge with suspicion. Tentatively, he heeled the steed forward. Clop…clop, went the hooves as the animal stepped gingerly out onto the wintry walkway, snorting and nickering. An eerie crackling sounded all around, shooting off in every direction. He slowed for a moment, stricken with terror… but the ice held. Rolling his shoulders, he sucked in a breath and guided his horse on, his eyes widening and his lips peeling back in glee as he reached the southern banks. He sped on up the short stretch of scarp there, frost flicking from his mount’s hooves, before riding onto the plain. There, he circled, eyes switching across the land: white, deserted, just the low moan of the winter wind. He twisted in the saddle and shouted back to the northern banks in a throaty, strange voice: ‘Tengri the Sky God has shown us the way. The bridge is good. The door to the empire lies open!’
The northern woods shook, frost and dead pine needles toppling in a shower, before a thunder rose and Zolt’s band spilled into view. Seven hundred Hun riders, wrapped in grey-brown furs and goatskins, backs laden with quivers, bows, ropes, axes and spears, their horses small but hardy and muscular. ‘Whoop!’ they cried as they milled and jostled at the northern end of the ice bridge, eager to join their leader on the other side. They began crossing in a column, two abreast, chattering and laughing amongst themselves, some swishing their swords in the air as if lacerating invisible victims. The cries faded for a moment when the bridge groaned and crackled in protest… but the ice again held good. The first of them reached the end of the bridge and climbed up onto the southern banks to gather around Zolt.
‘Tengri has laid out great treasures for us,’ said Zolt. ‘See the rising smoke there?’ he pointed to the pale wisps rising from the south, about a mile away. ‘It is a farm or a settlement of some kind.’ The riders around him rumbled with excitement. For nearly five years the growing Hunnic bands on the north side of the river had watched the goings-on in the empire, locked out by this angry and unbridged artery of water. There had been shambolic and disastrous attempts to craft boats, but skittish horses and poor craftsmanship had seen each effort fail. Zolt himself had spent entire days gazing over at the pasture and croplands – and that was nothing compared to the greater treasures rumoured to lie further south. His clan’s kam had regaled them with tales of the towering spires of marble, terraced orchards and golden palaces that lay beyond the eye’s reach. But then he recalled the old storyteller’s voice, throaty and crackly, falling low as he warned of the steel-clad sentinels who guarded these lands and their riches: the legions.
‘No longer,’ Zolt whispered, his lips quirking at one side. He had witnessed the chaos that had unfolded after the Goths had been allowed to cross the river, five years ago on a now long-gone bridge of boats. Hundreds of thousands of them – lost prey for the Huns. At first, it had all gone quiet. Then, he had noticed a slow thinning of the dutiful Roman watchmen on the stone turrets that dotted these southern banks, hearing cries from others summoning them away. Gradual at first, then a sudden and complete withdrawal. The kam had translated for those who did not know the Roman tongue: fire and steel sing across Roman Thracia, he had said, the Goths are in revolt! Soon, the great stone turrets and forts were empty, the parapets bare. The hinterland too – devoid of imperial soldiers, wagons and mule trains taking wheat and wine between the distant cities. The war with the Goths had been like a tornado, sucking everyone and everything towards the heart of the Roman lands, far from this now-forgotten border. The memories faded and his eyes once again beheld the faint smoke column. Had some brave Roman or Goth dared to make a home here again?
‘Whatever structures we find there, we will raze. We will take the people’s heads and rope them to our saddles, fill our bags with their precious things.’ As his men cheered, he pulled on a baked leather helm with a trailing soft leather aventail, the V-shaped browband giving his already baleful face the look of a hungry predator. One hundred and fifty of his men had crossed the bridge now. Enough, he thought, eager to act, to urge his horse on across the frost-veined ground and lead the charge, the rest can catch up. He dipped his head, filled his lungs and shaped his lips to roar them onwards.
But the flat-faced rider beside him decided to snatch his thunder. ‘Forward, for Tengri the Sky Go-’
The ‘o’ in god drew out into an ‘aww?’ as Flat-face saw something blur up from the south – near the smoke column – and hurtle up through the grey sky. Zolt and the rest of the riders stared up too, muttering in awe… then rising in a clamour of fright as the strange object began to dip, speeding down towards them. Flat-face’s mouth was still open in astonishment when the smooth ball of granite – half as big as his head – punched through his face like a fist through a watermelon. Blood, skull and brain showered all behind him in the heartbeat before the rock then plunged on down and into the ice-bridge’s southern end. Flat-face’s headless body swayed and listed in the saddle as his horse bolted ahead onto the hallowed southern plain, taking the sagging corpse on its final journey. Zolt and the rest of the riders gawped at the sight, then jolted at the stark crack that rang out behind them. Zolt twisted in his saddle to stare at the two jagged lines shooting from each side of the hole where the rock had smashed through the ice. More than one hundred riders were on the bridge and each of them halted, grasped by fear. ‘Move, move… mo-’ Zolt stammered.
His cries were drowned out by what sounded like a groan from a waking giant, as the bridge shifted and tilted violently. Showers of frost and freezing water sprayed up. Horses and men fell and slid as huge sheets of ice rose like the fins of river monsters. With gouts of foaming water and hefty splashes, Hun horsemen plunged into the icy currents, thrashing, most never having washed let alone learned to swim. A fraction of them sped and leapt over onto the southern banks in a flurry of spinning hooves as the icy crossing dissolved into the raging torrents. But more than eighty were carried off downriver, flailing and screaming or blue-faced and staring, shocked through with the cold. More than four hundred riders stared from the northern banks.
Zolt stared back at them, then at the shard bridgeheads, and finally at the one hundred and seventy or so riders stranded with him here on strange lands. His heart thundered with indignation. The riders wheeled in a circle around him, panicked, beseeching him for direction. Zolt’s head snapped round to the south, to the smoke column and the unseen demon’s mouth that had spat out that rock.
‘Leave none alive,’ he shrieked, kicking his horse on to lead the others in a headlong gallop through the frost. They screamed as one as they rode, lassos whirling overhead, leather aventails and hair flailing, bows drawn and nocked, eyes fixed on the low rise obscuring the source of the smoke.
Up, up over the rise they pelted… and then saw the iron line of nearly one hundred and fifty men crouched on one knee just beyond the crest, spears pointing like a set of fangs, ruby-red shields arrayed like a wall, sinister eyes shadowed under the rims of their silvery helms. The Hun horses screamed and whinnied, many running onto the lances, bellies tearing, ribs cracking. Some riders were thrown over the legionary blockade, skidding and rolling through the frost some way behind. Zolt pulled up just in time, loosing his bow into the eye of one Roman, his mount kicking a second in the head. He flicked his lasso to loop it around the neck of a third, and yanked tight to break the man’s neck, but in the instant before he claimed that third life, a Roman spatha slashed through the lasso rope. The sudden release of tension caused Zolt to topple from his mount and roll through the frost, backwards down the rise. The absence of the saddle under him was like a missing limb. Shame! the kam’s voice screamed in his head. We sleep, eat, fight and die on horseback!
Every time he tumbled over he saw, stalking towards him, a Roman officer with a fin-topped helm and a vest of iron mail, his crimson cloak billowing behind him. He had the look of eagles about him, dark-eyed, pointed and gaunt. Neither young nor old – some twenty-five summers, no match for me! thought Zolt. The Roman swung his spatha once in his grip. Zolt rose and drew his sickle and a dagger in his other hand for good measure. He crouched and weaved like an acrobat as all around him the rest of his men tangled with the other legionaries. He flashed his sickle towards his opponent’s flank, only for the officer to dodge spryly – suffering just a slash across the hand. He then went for the Roman’s other side, only for the officer to block. Zolt staggered back, surprised by the strength of the wolf-lean man. He had little time to dwell on such matters, however, as the Roman followed up to swing an elbow into his nose. An explosion of sparks and light filled his head. When the daze lifted, he realised he was on his back. The fin-helmed officer stood over him, sword held blade-down over his chest, the red cloak fluttering in the wintry wind, blood trickling from the slashed hand.
‘Do it,’ Zolt said in a strained hiss of broken Greek. ‘The rest of my clan and the thousand others of the steppe will avenge me when they pour across the next ice bridge. They’ll pluck your head and parade it high on their spears.’
He half-expected some kind of instant riposte, but the Roman officer stared at him… no, through him. Those hazel eyes were lost, elsewhere. ‘Then they had best be quick, rider,’ the Roman said at last in a low burr, ‘for I am but a walking shade.’ With that, he brought the sword down, piercing through armour and ribs, slicing Zolt’s heart in two.
Professional Reviews
An excellent addition to the series
I have known the author for a few years now. Well, I know him in the online sense of the word, and have enjoyed reading his books so much that I even used his name for a character in a book I wrote (and killed him off in a very dramatic fashion) :-) . It is a somewhat sad fact that often when an author has written a series that spans this many volumes, the content loses some of it's vitality; it's level of excellence begins to dwindle. It pains me to say this because it may cause Mr. Doherty's head to swell to an uncomfortable size, but The Blood Road is in no way an example of lost vitality or excellence lost. In fact, I think this actually surpasses his other work, as hard as that it is to imagine.
The Gothic War comes to a head as peace offerings are sabotaged and the XI Claudia is in the thick of the action. So too are Emperor Gratian's special hunter/killer squad of heavies. Gratian has a score to settle with our hero, Pavo, and will stop at nothing to have his revenge. The Blood Road, a mixture of political intrigue, war time maneuverings and battles, and legionary cohesiveness and loyalty, is a taut, thrilling ride taking the reader on unexpected treks and paths as Pavo and the XI Claudia struggle to survive the Goths and the Romans who seek to destroy them. A page turning delight awaits you, my peeps and fellow travelers, so sit back and enjoy a thrilling romp through the Thracian countryside. 5 stars
Dramatic, action-packed, gripping
The Blood Road is the seventh book in the author’s Legionary series focussing on the exploits of Tribunus Pavo and his XI Claudia legion. I haven’t read any of the earlier books in the series but this certainly didn’t affect my enjoyment of The Blood Road – quite the contrary. The references to past events sprinkled throughout the book made me keen to catch up on the complete series at some point. [Sigh, wish-list increases by six…]
The dramatic prologue of The Blood Road gives a fantastic sense of the exciting story to come and sets the scene for the turbulent times in which the book is set. The Goths fear the Huns, the Romans of the Eastern Empire under Theodosius fear the Goths and the Romans of the Western Empire under Gratian fear both. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in which position relies on showing strength and ruthlessly cowing (or removing) all internal opposition – if possible, in the most excruciatingly violent way. However, all sides feature the competing forces of ‘hawks’, who advocate war and the total destruction of the enemy, and ‘doves’, who argue for overtures to be made for peace.
Stuck right in the middle of all this mayhem is Pavo. He is haunted by strange, ominous, vision-like dreams depicting a path of terrible suffering – the ‘blood road’ of the title – that he must endure in order to achieve a higher objective. It transpires that achieving that objective will necessitate him leading his XI Claudia legion into danger such as they have never faced before and testing their loyalty to the limit. Okay, so our hero does seem to have extraordinary physical resilience, an amazing ability to escape from seemingly impossible situations and the luck of the devil when it comes to close calls and precarious (often literally) situations. But surely this is what you expect from a battle-hardened veteran of many arduous campaigns and bloody battles. And it makes for great fun wondering just how Pavo’s going to extricate himself from this one, and the next one, and the next one…
Historical fiction fans of all varieties will find plenty to enjoy in The Blood Road. For those who like theirs enlivened by lots of action, the book features a host of skilfully described, exciting, heart-thumping and visceral battle scenes. Those who crave a good helping of historical detail along with a compelling story will enjoy the author’s obviously detailed research into Roman military structures, equipment and tactics. (Thanks to the helpful glossary, I now know my spatha from my pugio.)
There are some great descriptions that bring to life the period and the atmosphere within the embattled cities of the Eastern Empire. ‘It was dog-hot, and the city streets writhed with bodies, pushing and jostling down the main way, converging from the hilly wards, spilling from alleys and finally congregating in a sweating, babbling swarm around the flagged concourse of the Hippodrome. Hawkers and hagglers cried to all and sundry, offering tiny, stale loaves baked with last week’s grain, pots of thin stew and vases of cheap wine.’
Finally, readers looking for colourful characters, especially of the ‘boo hiss’ variety, will have their wish granted. There’s Emperor Gratian, Pavo’s sworn enemy, who likes nothing better than thinking up cruel, and ideally prolonged, ways to put his enemies to death. And there are his sinister agents, of which I will say no more for fear of spoilers except to say – are you absolutely sure that shadow in the doorway is just a shadow? As Pavo confides, “I sense them everywhere: in my barracks, on every street corner, in every shadow.”
Eager followers of the series will be delighted to know that the concluding chapter of The Blood Road sets up the possibility of further instalments. I received a review copy courtesy of the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.
Based on the memoirs of a Pearl Harbor survivor. Letters from two pen pals take the reader on a journey into the past, a past where nightmares came true, and when hatred reigned.
