The Blood Road (Legionary 7): Legionary, no. 7

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Centurion!’ Pavo cried, seeing the leader of the Third Cohort fall. He took a step back to help, only to see hundreds of Julia Alpina legionaries and the slavering dogs piling in towards the stricken man. The dogs pounced upon him with a collective snarl. When they backed away, pulling strips of meat with their teeth, poor Cornix’ body was a mass of wounds: his chest was ripped open, flesh hanging in bloody strips. His left arm was almost severed and his face had been mauled. The only blessing was that the life had almost certainly left him before the dogs had fallen upon him.

  ‘Coward!’ the closing legionaries yelled at the centurion’s corpse, one spitting on it.

  ‘He’s a Roman. He’s a hero, you bastards!’ Pavo roared back at them, memories of young Cornix standing with him at the Succi Pass, at Adrianople, then as a centurion at the Scupi Ridge, Sirmium, Thessalonica. Grief and fury boiled within him, but the sight of the Julia Alpina soldiers surging towards the cave entrance pressed a cork over it all. Sura hauled him inside. ‘Block the entrance!’ he yelled to his legion: men in states of half dress, few fully-awake let alone ready to fight.

  Pulcher and Sura slammed a shoulder each against a hulking rock near the entrance. It shook and swayed but would not budge. Libo and Pavo, Opis and Durio joined in, and the rock teetered and crashed forward, breaking where it landed and sending up a storm of dust. It was a crude barricade, blocking only the bottom two-thirds of the entrance, but it meant a man could only enter by scrambling in through the top third on his belly.

  ‘That cave will be your tomb, Tribunus Pavo,’ Vitalianus sang through the tight opening.

  Pavo backed away from the fallen rock as a tink-tink of spears and chisels rang out. First a few then dozens. The stone shifted and shuddered, cracks spidering across its surface.

  ‘They’ll be through in moments,’ Sura croaked, backing away.

  ‘Then grab a weapon… and move!’ Pavo hissed, turning on his heel towards the blackness at the rear of the cave. The men sped along with him, ducking as the cave ceiling grew lower and lower. At last they were on their hands and knees, coughing, scrambling, cursing as sharp rock scraped the skin from hands. The ceiling soon rose again and the sound of rushing water danced around this rear cavern. A silvery ribbon of water churned along the floor of this smaller cave, the stream running towards a wide opening. Beyond lay the night sky, speckled with stars and falling snow. The cave brook rumbled towards this opening then vanished. A churn of water sounded from far below, where the brook toppled into the River Tonsus. This waterfall had been a second source of drinking water for him and his men, and the high opening a perfect lookout point. Now, it was their only hope of escape.

  ‘Right, into the drink! It’s that or…’ Pavo said, flicking his head back down the tapering cave, where a thick, stark crack of rock rang out behind them. ‘They’re through the rock barricade… go!’ he yelled, shoving Durio into the stream. Durio staggered, slipped under the current’s strength then sped out over the edge with a shrill cry. A thick plonk sounded a few heartbeats later, down in the Tonsus. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ Pavo ushered more, scores at a time. ‘Swim to the far banks. Gather there.’ Hundreds leapt down into the river – and soon there was just over a century’s-worth of men still trying to come through from the main cave.

  He, Sura, Libo and Pulcher turned to help the next crawling Claudia man through the low section. The legionary’s face widened in relief as he saw his comrades waiting to help him through. When Pulcher offered a helping hand, the legionary reached out to clasp it… only for the man to be yanked back violently. His eyes grew moon-wide and he was gone. A punch of steel plunging into flesh and a wet scream sounded from back there, followed by many more cries and the slashing sounds of butchery. ‘Kill them… kill them all!’ Vitalianus sang over it all. After a time, the din faded.

  ‘They’ve slaughtered them,’ Pulcher croaked, staring at the low opening.

  Pavo’s soul froze. He, Libo and Pulcher stared at one another. A moment later, another hand clawed out from the low passage… a hand with a staring eye ring on it. Sura took a step towards it, raised a leg and stamped down on the man’s hands. The Speculator screamed and the crack of breaking knuckles rang out just as many more enemy hands appeared.

  ‘Move!’ Sura roared, stretching his arms out to scoop Pavo, Pulcher and Libo away from the clawing hands. Together, the four splashed into the shallow stream waters and came to the edge of the falls. In the darkness, the drop looked infinite. Together, they leapt into the void.

  Pavo – legs kicking, arms flailing through the flurry of falling snow – saw the black, roiling surface of the River Tonsus rush up towards him, the silvery veins of its powerful currents flashing like blades, the thrashing forms of his comrades dotted all across the river’s breadth. And then, with a hard slap, he was under. Darkness, Silence, perishing cold all around him, burning breath within, the muted scraping of his boots bumping against the shale riverbed… and then a rush of bubbles and churning torrents as he kicked himself to the surface again, breaking free of the icy waters. Gasping for breath, he swung his arms forward, fighting against the strength of the Tonsus. He saw men fade and sink underneath, and grabbed Rectus by the collar – the lame medicus about to go the same way. The swollen river washed them all a good half mile downstream, before Pavo slung out a hand and felt his palm crunch down on an ice-encrusted root. He levered himself onto the banks then hauled Rectus up too. He hacked and spat out a half-lungful of river water, then sank to one knee, fatigue bringing spots to the edges of his vision as the falling snow gathered quickly on his head and shoulders.

  He glanced back across the river and up at the waterfall spouting from the back end of the dell: a black, shapeless mass. A grave for more than one hundred Claudians. For a moment, Pavo was frozen with horror at what had happened. It was only the sounds of splashing and voices around him that broke the horrible trance. He swung his head around to see the remainder of his men, five hundred at a push, clinging to the banks or clambering onto them. They clustered around him, shivering, shaking, believing he could save them. Before he could even open his mouth, the night air was ripped asunder by another long, baleful hooowl.

  His flesh crept as he realised it had come not from up there in the dell on the far side of the river, but here, on this side – coming through the beech trees just west. He turned to see the blackness of night and deathly silent snowfall in that direction.

  ‘They’re here too?’ Trupo croaked. ‘We have to hurry – north or south?’

  Pavo rose to his feet. ‘No. No more running for any of you. There is no sense in us all running together. They want me, so let them chase me. Each of you, head south. Find a new place to shelter. Break up into smaller groups if needs be. I will speed north, and I will make an almighty noise in doing so – to bring them all onto my trail.’

  ‘Mithras’ balls you will,’ Sura said, stepping from the circle. ‘At least, not alone. As I told you before.’

  Pavo gave him a steely look and the barest of nods. The tacit language of soldiers, of brothers. ‘The rest of you, go, save yourselves. We will come together again, when the time is right.’

  Libo scowled at him with his good eye. ‘How will we know when?’

  ‘I’ll find a way to let you know.’

  Hooowl, barely an arrowshot away.

  No man said another thing. Libo tossed Pavo a ration pack, Sura grabbed a bag of tools for making fire and camp and strapped a shield to his back. With a parting salute, the men of the Claudia forged south and darted off in myriad directions through the snow, while Pavo and Sura went north, upriver.

  Breath coming in rasps, Pavo cupped his hands around his mouth and made false calls back over his shoulder. ‘Here, this way. Men of the Claudia, go north!’

  He heard the growling and slavering of the Molossian hounds, the snarling commands of the handlers and the thunder of cavalry hooves. The sound seemed to hover for a moment, just where they had parted on the river’s edge. Then…
it began to fade, heading southwards.

  No, Pavo mouthed.

  With a hiss, Sura pulled Pavo’s sword from its scabbard and held it aloft, before bringing his own against it. A dull and reverberating clang of steel sailed downriver. The howling and hooves halted again… before steadily and rapidly growing in volume, coming back north.

  ‘That should do it,’ Sura mused.

  Pavo’s eyes bulged as he saw the silvery spiked collars of the hounds and the glinting armour of the riders emerge from the night, coming for them, only two hundred strides away. A Speculator led the horsemen.

  The pair turned and bolted, snow flicking up in their wake. They sped downhill into a dip, where the drifts were thigh-high, stealing the power of their strides, all while the sound of the Molossian paws and riders’ hooves grew louder and closer. Just as Pavo began to wade free of the snow’s depths, a muted growl changed into one sharp and clear, as the leading dog leapt into view and pounced into the dip. The beast’s paws thudded on his back. Even before he thumped into the snow, the creature’s jaws clamped onto his hip, the fangs breaking flesh. With a yell, he thrashed, half-turning onto his side, hands stretching round the creature’s neck. The hound was strong and in a feverishly excited about its catch, its neck like concrete and the spikes tearing at Pavo’s hands as he tried to get a good hold.

  Sura came skidding back down the dip in a shower of snow and swung a boot at the dog. With a dull thump of leather meeting iron plate, Sura roared and fell back, clutching his foot. The dog – feeling no pain but somewhat confused at the foolish attempt to attack it – released its death grip on Pavo. Pavo saw the dog’s slavering tongue loll from its rubbery lips for a moment, its jaws widening to gnash into his flesh once again. He remembered one of big Zosimus’ random tales just at that moment – how he had once fended off a grey wolf with nothing other than his belt.

  Pavo tore off his belt and lashed it around the creature’s muzzle, tightening it and seizing the hound in a death grip of his own. The hound yowled and shook its head violently, trying to back away. Pavo held on, his shoulders jolting in their sockets. The growling of more dogs grew and grew, coming up behind the brow of the dip as the first had done. Voices too, to go with the rumbling hooves: ‘We have them,’ one roared. ‘Loose a few arrows into the dip ahead.’

  A thrum sliced through the night air, and a half-dozen shafts pattered down into the snow… and one into the hind leg of the Molossian. The hound ripped away from Pavo’s belt with a pained howl, and turned to bolt back towards its masters.

  ‘Come on!’ Sura rasped, helping Pavo up, the two stumbling up out of the dip. The snowfall turned as thick as a white drape as they crashed on through the clawing, skeletal branches of the beech woods, hearing the sounds of the pursuers spread out behind them like jaws. Pavo’s legs flicked out before him numbly, his strength gone, a cold shock from the hound bite setting in.

  ‘We can’t outrun them,’ Sura gasped. ‘We’re finis-’

  His words fell short as they burst from the beech woods and onto the top of a long, steady downwards slope, twisting and winding away into the night. Unblemished snow. Pavo looked at the leather straps on Sura’s shoulders, Sura read his thoughts and, unbuckling the shield from his back, threw it face down to the ground.

  ‘You can be the ballast, I’ll push,’ he said.

  Pavo sat on the mid-section of the shield, his knees tucked up to his chest, his heels braced against the slight concave lip, fingers wrapped around the leather shield strap like a rider would hold reins. Sura planted his palms on Pavo’s back and pushed with all his weight. The shield slipped forward slowly, and Sura picked up into a run, the shield skimming along until it was as fast as Sura could go.

  ‘Now,’ Pavo yelled.

  Sura leapt onto the back half of the shield, tucking his legs around Pavo, holding onto his waist. For a moment, the wall of noise following them grew sharp and hideously close, and the groan of bows and a thrum of loosed arrows sounded again, the rumble of hooves growing into a charge…

  …and then the shield-sleigh hurtled off at full speed.

  Pavo heard the wind of the ride roar past his ears, the gentle pitter-patter of landing arrows and angry curses behind them falling away. The slope rushed up at them from the blackness of night at a ferocious speed, and the pebble-sized snowflakes whacked against his face like sling bullets.

  When an ugly, dark outcrop of rock shot out of the darkness directly ahead, he tugged gently on the leather shield strap to guide them right of it, then left to avoid a stand of oak. With a puff, they hit a snow drift, the shield pitching into the air for a breath or two in a shower of white, before whumping back down and onto an even steeper drop, speeding on in a breakneck glissade.

  ‘Pavo, I have a terrible feeling that we’ve been in these parts before – in the summer, on patrol,’ Sura screamed in his ear.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And we trekked down this slope when it was just dust and grass… then we made camp early – with a good two hours of light left in the day.’

  Pavo’s mind spun back to the sorties of the Claudia in the short spell when General Sebastianus had been directing them. He remembered the pleasant shade of the beech woods – a relief from the baking Thracian summer – and, as Sura had said, making camp early… because they reached the edge of a bluff than ran for miles along the edge of a deep ravine.

  His eyes bulged as he saw the slope madly rushing up at them, new sections sliding out of the night and into view… and then there was nothing: just a black void. A ravine…

  The deep ravine.

  ‘Roll!’ he cried, tipping his weight to one side and letting go of the shield strap. The pair bowled through deep snow, flailing, out of control, clawing at the white with every turn, sure that the next would pitch them over the edge of the bluff. Pavo felt his back jar against a rock hidden in the snow, halting him abruptly. He shot out a hand to grab Sura by the arm, halting him too. Both sat upright, watching as the shield-sleigh zoomed out into the black void with a shower of white, silently plummeting into the ravine below. A dull crack sounded after a few breaths, as the shield ended its days in the legions.

  In the once again still and silent snowfall, Pavo and Sura stared at one another.

  ‘I can’t hear them,’ Sura whispered.

  Pavo realised it was true: not a sound to be heard, bar the hooting of an owl and the rummaging of a vole under the white-coated skeleton of a honeysuckle bush. ‘We were too fast for them, but they’ll follow the trail easily enough,’ he realised, looking at the stark and deep furrow in the snow marking the shield’s path.

  Let them,’ said Sura, nodding towards the death drop. He snapped a small branch from the base of the honeysuckle, taking care not to disturb any of the settled snow on the upper branches, then used his boot to push snow over the parts they had rolled through, before brushing the branch over the top. It was a clumsy way to disguise that last section of their trail, but in moments, the thick fall covered it in smooth white. They backed along the bluff edge like this, filling and brushing over their footsteps. They made it about a half-mile from the point where the shield had gone over the edge before they heard a distant yapping and barking and a rumble of voices.

  Pavo crouched and peered backwards, seeing the distant glow of the search party’s torches, descending the slope towards the ravine’s edge. Vitalianus was there now, staring into the void, while the others bickered or offered him advice.

  ‘As far as they’re concerned, we’re dead,’ Sura whispered, a wry smile spreading over his face. ‘Plunged to our doom. Smashed to pieces on the ravine bed like ripe pomegranates. Heads exploded everywhere. Bodies burst likes sacks of-’

  Pavo raised a hand. ‘You paint a wonderful picture.’

  They waited until the searchers’ lights bobbed away back up the slope and faded completely, then set about finding shelter. The wind picked up as they trekked, and they found themselves on a long and barren stretch of upland, with
not even a hill or a nook in which to take refuge – as far as they could see anyway. Soon, the driving snow blinded them and forced them to tilt their heads against it, further reducing their chances of finding shelter. The drifts were almost waist-deep in places and the blizzard-wind was like a constant scourge of icy whips, cutting right to the bone. First, Pavo likened it to the dream of the blood road, and for a time he welcomed the hardship, imagining every step through these snows as a great stride down that road of the dream. Then he remembered the early days of legionary training, the stark warnings by the men who had trained him. A blizzard and death usually hunt in company, big Quadratus had once advised him. Legionaries are expected to be tougher than hide, but no man can survive a winter storm in the open – no matter how thick his woollen trousers are or how many layers he wears under his cloak.

  He looked over his own garb and then at Sura’s. Both wore just tunics and cloaks, still damp and semi-frozen from their second plunge of the day into the Tonsus. Pavo felt his head ache then grow numb. His body spasmed every few steps with violent shivers, and the only sensation of heat was the hound bite on his hip – burning like fire. The only grace was that half of the night was gone.

  ‘Can we make it until dawn?’ he asked Sura.

  ‘Not farrr, third hill and Neorion barr-rr-rracks just over the-there,’ Sura mumbled, pointing into the night.

  Pavo felt a streak of the cold touch his heart. You’ll shiver, you’ll stumble, you’ll trip over your words and lose your mind. Make camp, take shelter… or you’ll die like a dog. He looked all around, seeing just this infernal heath in every direction, blanketed in white – as high as hills in places.

  He placed a hand on Sura’s shoulder. ‘Sit, Brother,’ he said, unclasping his cloak and wrapping it around Sura’s shoulders, then taking the small leather tool pack Sura carried and finding a short pole and an earth-shifting basket. He paced around planting the pole into the snow, testing the depth. Waist high… and then a spot where the pole sank down deeper than the height of a man. He tossed the pole aside and squatted here, digging fervently with the earth-shifting basket. The effort almost combatted the cold, although his feet and hands were absolutely devoid of sensation. Half an hour passed, and the snow-cave was ready – long and wide enough for two to lie, and high enough to sit cross-legged. He climbed out of the small entrance hole and looped his hands under Sura’s shoulders, dragging him over and lowering him in, propping him in a sitting position against one wall. Next, he rose to his haunches and packed a light layer of snow over the entrance hole – sealing off the wrath of the storm. At last, the roaring of the blizzard fell away and so too did the cutting wind that carried it.