The Legions of the Mist

by Damion Hunter

  Aurelius Rufus, enclosed in his own private world within his tent, wrestled also with the demon of Things As They Are, counting the Legion over in his mind, its strengths (and there were some) and its weaknesses (too many) and the best disposition of both. He thought wistfully of the Victrix detachment and then put them from his mind. If they arrived in time, he would bless the Fates, and if they didn’t, there was little use bemoaning their absence. He only hoped young Vortrix was passing the night equally unpleasantly. He sighed and rose to make a final tour of the mist-shrouded camp, not so much for inspection as for the peace of his own mind, soothed by the soft anonymity of the fog.

  Helmetless, with his cloak pulled over his forehead against the damp, he made his way through the camp, startling the life out of a very young picket and then discomfiting him further with a short lecture on ‘What If I Were a Pict?’

  Somewhere a pair of voices, their origin muffled by the fog, were raised in song, and the Legate paused to listen. One, a clear true tenor, rang sweetly on the night air, while the second, enthusiastic if occasionally off-key, stumbled along behind. Decurion Lucullus and Centurion Corvus, unless he missed his mark, and he thought he recognized the tune:

  But the General’s wife she’s happy,

  When he plays his instrument!

  The voices finished up triumphantly, and the Legate chuckled. He’d heard the song before, though not since he’d become a general… an irreverent ballad about a great man’s faithful wife who devoted herself to music (and the music master) while her husband was off at war. Aurelius Rufus grinned and made his way toward the cavalry lines. The gods send him more men like those two and he’d make something out of this legion of vipers yet. He approached the camp fire and was about to cough tactfully when the two seated figures leapt to their feet, swords half drawn.

  ‘I am friendly enough,’ the Legate said drily, and the two swords slid back home in their scabbards.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Justin said. ‘You’re as quiet as a Pict.’

  ‘A rare compliment. May I join you?’

  ‘Aye, gladly.’ Owen dusted off a convenient rock with the tail of his cloak and bowed to the commander. ‘Pray have a seat on the chair of state.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the Legate said gravely and lowered himself onto the rock. ‘You make a cheerful noise. I was drawn by it.’

  The other two regarded each other with horror.

  ‘I used to be quite fond of that song,’ he continued, ‘in the days when I used to sing it myself.’

  ‘Ah, then you might know a few we haven’t heard, sir.’ Owen looked interested.

  ‘You’ve a fine voice, Decurion, and I’m told you know more unrepeatable songs than any man in the Legion. I doubt I could outdo you.’

  ‘Ah, but there might be one or two I’ve missed, sir,’ Owen said. ‘I’d like fine to learn a new one.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The Legate cleared his throat and hummed softly to himself for a moment. ‘It may be that I can recall one or two from before your time, Decurion.’

  The Decurion of Number Nine Troop, limping by with a jar of salve to nurse his saddle sores in the privacy of his tent, was thus treated to the sight of the Legion’s commander, huddled in a sodden cloak by the fire, his voice raised in praise of a young lady with the unlikely nickname of the Spotted Mare:

  Oh, Zoe’s thighs are snowy white,

  Her breast like the soft sea foam,

  But she can’t compare with the Spotted Mare,

  The fastest ride in Rome!

  The song ended with a long-drawn whinny, composite of lust and longing, and his two listeners joined in with enthusiasm.

  ‘Now that’s a fine song, sir, a fine song.’ Owen whistled the melody over once to himself to fix it in his mind. ‘The lads’ll like that, they will.’

  ‘Mind you don’t tell them where you got it,’ the Legate said. ‘Tell me, do you always carry on in this fashion? You’re the one who began the singing on the march yesterday, I think.’

  ‘Ah, the British are always one for a song, sir, or so my mother tells me.’

  ‘Perhaps we should send you out like Orpheus, to charm the Picts into submission,’ the Legate said, pulling his cloak closer around him. ‘It might work as well as anything else.’

  ‘Hades, are we that far gone?’

  ‘Not if the Victrix detachment catches up.’ He looked old and grey, huddled there in the firelight, and the other two fell silent.

  * * *

  Three mornings later, the Legion marched out of the Corstopitum supply depot, taking with it every available man of the frontier forts, including the sheepish garrison of Castra Exploratorum, which had been unable to prevent the High King’s clans from slipping past them in twos and threes to take the war trail north.

  There was still no sign of the promised reinforcements, but as they pushed north of Corstopitum, another presence made itself felt, subtly, insidiously, and with nerve-wracking persistence. They never saw the allied war band, but it was obvious that skirmishers had ventured this far south: obvious in the patrols which didn’t come back, in the supply wagons cut off from the tail of the column in the mist, in the scattered mules and cut throats of their drivers, in the howling that came down from the nearby hills at night that might be a wolf, and wasn’t.

  There had been no signal from the north since the first news of the massing war band, and no answers to theirs. What they might find at Trimontium was something no one cared to dwell on.

  When they came within first sight of the fort, the Legate called a halt and looked long and hard at the red sandstone walls, ominously silent in the afternoon sun. Finally, he turned back to the Legion, waiting still well out of sight, and the trumpets sang out rest-at-arms. A small knot of scouts detached themselves from the column and melted into the surrounding woods.

  They sat as they had marched, in formation, breastplates loosened but not removed, and arms at the ready. The centurions paced along the line, quelling comment and ordering here a breastplate back on and there a pilum brought back within easy reach.

  ‘Are we going to sit here til the little painted devils catch up to us, or are we maybe waiting for reinforcements from fairyland?’

  ‘To hear the Britons tell it, the woods are full of ’em, about a foot high. Maybe they’ll throw in on our side!’

  ‘It doesn’t pay to mock the people of the otherworld,’ a young centurion said sternly. ‘Especially not in their own country. Now put your helmet on and pipe down.’

  A young messenger from the Legate’s staff halted in front of Justin’s men, saluted the cohort standard, and murmured something in the commander’s ear. Justin nodded, turned the cohort over to his nervous second, and followed the boy.

  ‘Over here, Centurion Corvus,’ the Legate said. ‘Follow me, and keep low.’ He wriggled through the underbrush with a surprising agility (although Justin had long since ceased to underrate the new Legate of the Ninth), with Justin belly-down behind him. Aurelius Rufus held up a hand as he neared the crest of a ridge, and Justin slid into place beside him. Before them was Trimontium, silent and barren. Not even a bird moved in the still air. ‘You’ve been in Britain longer than I have, Centurion,’ the Legate said softly, ‘and I rate your intelligence rather high. Now what would you say was inside there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Justin said after a moment. ‘It might be full of Britons, of course, lying low and sharpening their spears til we come up and knock on the door. But if the whole war band is this far south, they’ve made an incredible forced march, and I rather doubt they’ve done that, for the same reason we haven’t.’

  ‘Very good, Centurion. Go on.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t much of a garrison, sir, frankly, and it wouldn’t be hard to take, with a lot less than a whole war band.’

  ‘So you warned me. Do you think that’s what happened? They are in the Selgovae’s territory, after all.’ Aurelius Rufus lay flat along the grass and pulled a straggling branch gently aside for a better
view.

  ‘It’s possible. Except…’ Justin’s face was grim. ‘I don’t see any signs of smoke… or ravens.’

  ‘Then what does that leave us? They wouldn’t clean up the bodies if they weren’t planning to set up housekeeping inside themselves. They’d leave them as a warning, as nastily displayed as possible.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re asking me, sir,’ Justin said with more candor than tact. ‘You know as well as I do what the only other possibility is.’

  ‘Let us just say that it is not one I feel like giving voice to at the moment,’ the Legate said tiredly.

  ‘No more do I, sir.’ Justin narrowed his eyes and looked long at the silent walls of Trimontium. ‘Well, at all events, we’ll know when the scouts report… assuming they make it back.’

  The Legate gave a grunt that might have passed for laughter in other circumstances. ‘Very well, Centurion Cassandra, come along back before the whole damn column disappears under our noses.’ He began inching backward through the heather.

  They rejoined the column and Justin took over again from his second, who regarded him apprehensively. The cohort by this time was badly out of formation, and discarded helmets were strewn on the ground. ‘I… they’re extremely difficult today, sir,’ the second said.

  ‘Not nearly so difficult as I’m going to be –’ Justin raised his voice, and pitched it to carry ‘– if this line doesn’t dress itself up now!’ He caught the nearest man to him across the shoulders with his vine staff and stood above him, eyes blazing, as he looked about to retaliate.

  ‘You may have tried that number with Centurion Martius,’ Justin informed him grimly, ‘but you’ll find it won’t work with me. Now get into your armor and get back to your place!’ He turned on his heel and strode down the line without waiting to see whether his order was obeyed. The legionary shrugged and settled his helmet on his head.

  Midway down the line Justin halted again where three legionaries were gathered about a fourth who was lying flat on the ground. He knelt down and looked at him. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I dunno, sir. He just keeled over, like.’

  Justin ran a hand over the man’s brow. It was clammy to the touch. ‘Get him down the line to the surgeon!’ The man on the ground twitched and lay still again. ‘No, never mind. Clear the way!’ Justin picked him up, armor and all, and shouldered his way through the gathering throng. His cohort parted before him, and stood gaping after.

  As a deadweight, the man was heavy, and Justin was panting by the time he reached the hospital carts, but he laid him down as gently as he could. ‘I’ve a patient for you,’ he said as Flavius came up. ‘He passed out in line –’ He broke off as a stirring began at the head of the column. ‘Do what you can,’ he said, and took to his heels.

  The scouts had come in – all but one, and him they never found – and they stood in an uncomfortable semicircle around the Legate.

  ‘Cease shifting from foot to foot like a centipede and let me have it!’ He glowered at them.

  There was a pause and finally their decurion spoke up. ‘Nothing, sir. There is nothing… inside. Yon fort is empty as a swallow’s nest in the snow.’

  ‘What do you mean, empty? There are no dead?’

  ‘Not unless they buried them in the road and paved it over,’ the scout said. ‘No living, no dead, not even freshly turned ground. Man, we were in it!’

  ‘All right, dismissed. Decurion, you stay.’ The Legate surveyed the men gathered around him. ‘Galba, you… Corvus, Albinus, Geta, Lepidus, stay here. The rest of you get back to your men and get them ready to march.’

  * * *

  And so, after a short and dreadful briefing which came as no surprise to the five who stayed, the Legion marched out, brave in the afternoon sun. They broke the gates of Trimontium, grimly bolted on the inside, and took up their quarters in the barren fort. No salute met them, no sentry challenged, and inside the rats were already growing bold in the granary and the deserted mess hall. The waters in the bathhouse lay still and stagnant, a faint green shimmer of algae beginning to form on the sides of the pools.

  There was no hiding what had happened, and an uneasy stirring ran through the lines as soon as the first cohort had turned through the unguarded gates. Trimontium’s garrison, wherever they were, had cut themselves finally, irrevocably from Rome. ‘The gods help them,’ Justin thought, ‘if Rome ever finds them.’

  He settled his men in a barracks that showed traces of their predecessors’ hasty exit: broken bits of harness, forgotten cloaks and helmet crests, and a pathetic horseshoe nailed above a doorway for luck… a sad mosaic of abandoned loyalties.

  Then he turned his back on the grim remains of Empire and made his stumbling way through the muddy streets to the little temple where a short summer ago he had made prayer with Licinius against today. The Mithraeum also was empty and barren, and the wind had blown drifts of dirt and rubbish into the corners.

  ‘Mithras, Unconquered Sun, Redeemer,’ Justin began, the litany spilling from his lips unbidden, ‘Grant us thy aid and intercession –’

  A harsh, sobbing breath shook him, and he fell to his knees before the twin altars of the Bull Slayer, the formal invocation abandoned and his plea wrenched straight from the heart.

  ‘Mithras, Lord of Armies…’ Justin fought to keep the words in order, and the lost garrison of Trimontium rose up and mocked him as he spoke. ‘Read us the lesson we need to learn…’ he pulled his dagger from its sheath – ‘but deliver us from the pit of Ahriman.’ He stabbed savagely with the dagger at his thumb and felt the force that seemed to turned it toward his heart. The point sunk into his hand and bit deep, deeper than he had intended, and he stood before the altar with his blood falling like a fountain on the grey stone.

  He staunched it at last with the tail end of his cloak, and rubbed the scarlet pool into the grey stone of the altar.

  ‘Take now the Sacrifice, freely given –’ The face of the Bull Slayer seemed to look on him in pity, and Justin fought the visions that rose unbidden before him… Vortrix, seeming to look straight at him… then Gwytha, warm and welcoming, the curtain of her hair hanging about her face, his heart’s companion, who should have been his life’s companion… and always somehow between her and him, the Legion, scarlet and bronze, shining behind a mist that enveloped everything.

  The diffused light of the Mithraeum’s one small window gave a hazy, shimmering quality to the face of the god, turned in sadness from the bull beneath him. Somewhere outside a cloud ran past the sun and the light intensified. It seemed to Justin, kneeling before him, that the face of the god wavered and took form again, and two living eyes, burning and terrible in their sorrow, looked back at him. The sanctuary was suffused with a soft glow that he dared not see too well, and he put his head down on his hands on the altar’s edge and wept… for himself, for his Legion, and for what he had seen in the face of the god.

  * * *

  That night, when the mist came down again, one full century of the Fourth Cohort went over the wall in a panicked, headlong flight between one sentry’s passing and the next. In the morning they were simply gone, and no one knew where, although the choices weren’t great.

  The next night, a day’s half-quick march to the north, double pickets were posted, and young Albinus looked near to a breakdown. Flavius, whose ears were generally pricked like a fox’s for news, came round with a cup of something and handed it to Albinus.

  ‘Here, lad, drink this. It is said to be soothing. I quote from the Book of Medicines Licinius is working on,’ he added. ‘No, it won’t knock you out, but it will give you a somewhat different perspective on life for a few hours. And the gods know we could all use one.’

  Albinus tossed off the draught and handed the junior surgeon back his cup. ‘When I was posted here,’ he said desolately, ‘I thought it was a promotion – two full cohorts up, and that doesn’t happen often – I thought it was for my abilities… I had done well… but I was wrong. I was sent
here to rot because someone thought it was all I was fit for… and he was right.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong there.’ Flavius laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘You were sent here because you were needed… desperately. Though it’s bitter payment for being a good officer, I grant you.’

  ‘But my cohort – a whole century gone “unlawful absent.”’ On the far hill a wolf that wasn’t a wolf bayed at the rising moon, and from the opposite hill another answered. ‘My fault,’ Albinus whispered, ‘my fault…’ and they both realized that he spoke not of his missing century’s desertion, but of its probable fate.

  They found them on the next day’s march, as they were meant to. From their torn shoe leather and the strands of heather caught in their cloaks and armor, it was obvious that they had been driven hard, probably turned from their flight to the south, and harried northward until they had turned at bay and been cut down like rabbits. Also obvious was the fact that they had not died in the middle of the main north road, but had been flung there as a grisly message for the column that followed them. Eighty men, twisted and stiffened into unnatural shapes, blocking the roadway in a deadly barricade.

  On the Legate’s order, they halted long enough to dispose of the bodies in proper fashion, the least reliable cohorts being delegated the task of stacking the bodies of the Legion’s late deserters. Two hours later, a cloud of black, greasy smoke rising to the sky behind them, the Legion marched out again. Behind them in the late afternoon light, a spine-tingling howl from the hillside followed like a pursuing demon.

  The next ‘unlawful absents’ were from Favonius’s cohort, and they weren’t legionaries but junior centurions, panic-stricken and desperate… and they never found them.

  After that, all the long, ghastly way to Inchtuthil, they dropped off one by one. Some went ‘unlawful absent,’ and their fellows testified as such; some were found a good two miles ahead of where they had vanished, their throats cut and sundry other grisly operations performed upon them; some cried out and fell in the middle of the marching column, a little barbed arrow between their shoulders; and some merely gave up and sat down by the road, to die if they could, or be killed if they couldn’t.