Shadow Legion

by J. E. Gurley

  Gaius studied Marcellus. He fears only that his men will fail him, not the shadow creatures. He is a good man.

  “Then we will break camp late to allow them to sleep in safety after dawn arrives. Perhaps the sun will allay their fear.”

  Marcellus nodded. “As you wish.” Still, he did not leave.

  “There is something else, Tesserarius?” Gaius asked.

  Marcellus lowered his voice. “It is the matter of the Tribune Sevilius. He has broken. His spirit is gone. His men see this, and they have lost all hope. If we do not do something soon, they will be useless as fighting men. I have heard grumbling of desertion.”

  “I will speak to them.” He glanced at Marcellus’ injured arm. “Perhaps you should have the medicus see to your wound.”

  Marcellus grinned. “This? It is nothing, a mere scratch from an overfriendly dark demon. The men see that I ignore it and become less concerned about their own wounds. Besides, the physician was one of the men lost this night. I will stitch it up later. My hands are steadier than were his.”

  As Marcellus walked away, Gaius realized he had chosen his third in command wisely. The old veteran knew more about the minds and habits of the common legionnaire than he ever could. Born patrician, Gaius hadn’t mingled with the lower classes, while Marcellus had fought his way from slave, to gladiator, to soldier. Then, his duty to Rome done, he reenlisted. In his heart, Marcellus remained one of them.

  Heeding Marcellus’ request, Gaius approached the Tribune’s men. In spite of their recent battle against a common foe, they still sat apart from the Castra-Augustus garrison, conversing little among themselves and not at all to the others. As Marcellus had remarked, they no longer resembled Roman soldiers. Discarded armor and unattended weapons lay scattered in a careless manner around their fire. The stink of fear rose from them stronger than the sour odor of sweat on their bodies. They stared at him with dour faces as he approached.

  “Tonight you have met an enemy no Roman has ever faced, and you have driven them off.” That part was not true, but he needed to bolster their spirits. “These creatures seem unstoppable, but we must endure against them. We no longer fight for Rome; we fight for our survival. If you resist one whit below your ability, you will never go home to your families. We may all die in this burned-over land of scorpions and shifting sand, but we must remember who we are. We are Roman Legionnaires.”

  He received no rousing cheer or salutes of honor, but a few looked at him as if ashamed of their forlorn hope and straightened their postures. Others remained undecided, shifting nervously as they sat, their eyes not meeting the gaze of any of their comrades. Fear of the night’s battle still coursed fresh through their veins, fear and doubt. He would have to depend on their sense of self-preservation rather than their sense of duty.

  “You now know or suspect, no Berber killed your comrades. These creatures did. We go now to seek the aid of the Berbers.” This produced a few rumblings from the men. “We have a common enemy. Every extra sword increases our odds of survival.”

  One older soldier, his shoulders covered in scars both old and new, asked, “If we cannot kill these creatures, why do we seek them out?” Others mumbled their agreement.

  “The desert at night is not safe. If we return to Marzuq, they would pick us off a few at a time during the night, as they did your comrades.” His pointed remark struck home. The soldier nodded. Gaius continued, “We must bring the battle to them. We will find a way to defeat them.”

  The old soldier licked his lips and nodded again. “I will follow you, Centurion, but I do not believe we will go home. I do this for my family, for my comrades, not for the glory of Rome.”

  Gaius reached down and clasped the soldier’s shoulder. “What is your name soldier?”

  The soldier looked uncomfortable at the attention. “Antonius Pontius Cossus.”

  “Well, Antonius, that is all I ask of you. If you do not fail me, I will not fail you.”

  He hoped he could keep his promise to them. He had failed his men in Mesopotamia where the enemy was mere flesh and blood. How could he hope to defeat the undead? His only hope lay in the knowledge that they feared the Berber’s amulet, and they feared fire; therefore, though already dead, they were not immune to destruction. They had weaknesses, if only he could discover a means to exploit them.

  “Now, see to your weapons. Join my men. You will depend on one another in the coming battle. We must work as one unit, each man watching the other’s back.”

  Gaius settled down comfortably on his bedroll but did not recline. With his back to the fire, his sword thrust into the sand between his legs, his eyes swept the darkness. Around him in the strangely silent camp, others did the same. However, his mind did not dwell upon the threat posed by the shadows of the night. He focused instead on his looming failure.

  Only thirty days had passed since he had left the city of Leptis Magna, and already he had lost a third of his small force. Was he foolish to seek out his unseen enemy? Less bold leaders would have said so, but Gaius Marcus Linneus had never considered himself timid. Sitting behind a useless vallum, a half-completed stone palisade, waiting for death did not appeal to him. If he must die, let it be with a sword in his hand facing his enemy. His enemy waited in Hamad Rus.

  8

  Gradually, as the first welcomed golden rays of the sun caressed the horizon, men succumbed to fatigue and slept, secure in the knowledge that daylight, even with its deadly heat, was now their ally. Gaius dozed in restless fits but did not sleep, and when the midmorning heat became unbearable, he roused the men and ordered them to break camp. They moaned and grumbled, but he took comfort in their complaints. Soldiers griped as naturally as women bore children. A silent soldier was a soldier afraid.

  He worried about Sevilius. The Tribune had retreated into a world of his own creation. The bizarre events of the previous night and the horrific loss of his aide had been too much for his orderly, straightforward mind to accept. He allowed men to help him onto the back of his horse and remained upright in his saddle, but his cold blue eyes now gazed into places far beyond the sea of sand surrounding him. He rode beside Gaius, with the occasional whiny of Apollo correcting the Tribune’s horse whenever it strayed from the path.

  The Tribune of Marzuq was the least of Gaius’ worries. He had been in command of his new desert legion for less than a week and had only a brief, terrifying glimpse of the enemy. He had already lost nearly a third of his force and had no prisoners or enemy corpses to show for it. If he did not succeed, the desert would save him the indignity of taking his own life.

  Suicide was acceptable to most Romans as a means to escape long illnesses, infamy, or shame, but Gaius had a family to consider. He had refrained from killing himself before meeting Emperor Marcus Aurellius in exchange for a last visit with his family to see to their safety. When the Emperor had publicly offered him a chance at redemption, he eagerly accepted, even though it meant banishment to the wastes of Tripolitania where salvation was unlikely. He knew that if he remained in the desert for much longer, he would never return. The Sahara absorbed life. It did not give it. His Shadow Legion, or as Rashid put it, his Legion of the Damned, would be his last command.

  As they marched, the heat soon became searing, silencing even the grumbling of the men. Gaius couldn’t believe that something as mundane as sand could simultaneously cook one’s body and drain it of the will to continue. He had always enjoyed the feel of damp sand on the bottom of his bare feet during his visits to the beaches of Fiuminico where the Tiber entered the Mare Nostrum. However, here the sand held no trace of moisture. Instead, it drank the moisture from everything it touched, as it sapped life from anything foolish enough to enter its domain.

  They traveled southeast toward Rashid’s village. They didn’t approach close enough to Hamad Rus to see it, but Gaius felt its dark presence beyond the sea of dunes that separated them drawing him like a beckoning Siren. The dead city’s cold, shadowy, malevolent tentacles reached ou
t across the sand to grip his soul in an icy fear that the heat of the sun could not dissipate. He feared no man or no army, but he feared Hamad Rus. If his enemy were ensconced in the cavern-filled bluffs nearby, he would have to ride into the city to meet them in battle. His Roman pride and his last chance at redemption offered no other course of action.

  The three survivors of his ill-fated excursion to Hamad Ras had spread the story of the dread, dead city until the entire company was aware of what they faced. Their gazes continually leapt to the horizon where the city lay, as if, like him, they could sense its presence. Each league distant from it increased their ease.

  Gaius halted the march for only briefs periods of rest. The men ate their meager rations on the go. Though weary from the leagues of hard travel, stumbling up and often falling down treacherously steep dunes, the men seemed eager to complete their journey. At sunset, Gaius ordered torchbearers to flank the column. He didn’t think it would prevent an attack, but the men took heart from their presence and continued marching through the night.

  Marcellus rode up alongside Gaius. His single eye searched Gaius’ face for a moment before speaking. “The darkness steals the men’s courage. If we are attacked, I fear they will scatter.”

  “If they do, they will die. Make them realize this.”

  “I can try,” Marcellus replied, “but standing against a shadowy enemy is not an easy thing to do.” He spoke as if remembering his own experience.

  Gaius hardened his face until it looked as if carved from stone, unyielding, eternal. “Kill the first man to break ranks. Tell them I ordered it.”

  Marcellus nodded, but his stance indicated he didn’t like the command.

  Gaius felt the need to explain his reasoning. “If they run, they will die. With one less pair of watchful eyes and one less sword, the man next to them will die as well. Only if a man knows his comrade is at his side watching his back will he fight, if not for himself, then for his comrades. Deep down they know this. They will understand.”

  Marcellus dropped back to pass along Gaius’ orders. Flavius glanced in his direction, but said nothing.

  “You don’t approve?” Gaius asked.

  “It was necessary.”

  “But do you approve?” Gaius insisted.

  “Yes, I approve. I did not think you had the temerity to set such an example.”

  Gaius laughed at Flavius’ undisguised gibe for allowing the Berber to live. “You do not know me well enough to judge me, Flavius. I did not protest the slaughter of my men in Parthia because I am unwilling to send men to their deaths, but because their deaths were unnecessary. Their lives were wasted. I will spend every man’s life to destroy this enemy we seek, including mine. Not for glory or a way home; that path seems too far beyond reach at this moment, but because I fear for Rome’s safety.”

  “I meant no disrespect to you, Gaius. I have never doubted your courage or your honor. Now, I do not doubt your motivation.”

  “It is good that old soldiers know each other well.”

  As the moon broke free of the surrounding dunes, it cast a soft golden light across the desert sand. Gaius rejoiced inside that it was not red. The desert at night was baleful enough without the added reminder of the blood it had taken. The stars beyond the dunes sparkled like a handful of freshly minted Roman coins flung into the sky. The Via Lactea, like a jug of milk spilled across the sky, appeared brighter and much closer than the familiar bright smear of light over his family’s home in Tarquinii in Northern Italy. He felt as if he could almost reach out his hand, grab a handful of the multicolored specks, and hold their beauty in his fist to remind him of what he had left behind. Its splendor was incongruent to the stark landscape spread beneath its celestial majesty.

  During one brief halt for rest, a commotion in the nearby dunes raised consternation among the men. Swords hissed as they slid from scabbards. The tips of javelins pointed outward like the thorns of a cactus. When a long-eared desert fox, a fennec, strode from behind a dune with the bloody corpse of a hare in its mouth, the men relaxed. Other than the jerboa, the fennec represented the first sign of animal life Gaius had seen since arriving in the desert. He took heart from the desert fox’s manifestation, hoping it a good omen.

  By sunrise, the men were unable to continue. The long, forced march had sapped their strength, and the rising sun had dispelled the fear that kept them moving through the darkness. Though he begrudged the time lost, Gaius informed Marcellus to order a halt. Some of his men helped Sevilius down from his horse. They were respectful of his rank, but refused to make eye contact with him. The Tribune, as silent as a mannequin used for target practice, sat motionless on the sand where they placed him, refusing any food and drinking only a little water fortified with honey for energy and only then when dribbled down his throat.

  Though Gaius had no love for the Tribune, his condition evoked sympathy. If anything of the acerbic Tribune remained within the cold, silent shell, he would undoubtedly abhor the spectacle he made and detest the lack of dignity with which most patricians cloaked themselves. Gaius had seen men so shocked by the carnage of battle that they never recovered. Such an unseen injury left no visible scars but haunted the wounded as surely as a missing limb or eye. He wondered if Sevilius would prefer a quick thrust of a dagger to his heart, rather than a lifetime of drooling idiocy. Gaius knew he would prefer it for himself.

  He quickly ordered the cooks to start fires to prepare a hot breakfast before the men, weary and footsore, fell into a stupor. Soon, the sizzling of meat searing on the hot griddles and the hearty aroma of wheat porridge boiling in large black pots wafted over the camp. Gaius’ stomach rumbled in anticipation when his aide brought him a bowl of porridge filled with bits of seared pork bacon, leeks, and honey. He dug in with gusto, ignoring the slightly gritty texture of the pervasive sand that infiltrated everything. The men hardly spoke, silently wolfing down their porridge and chewing on leathery loaves of bread. Later, with filled bellies and the sun in their faces, they slept.

  Weary as Gaius was, sleep would not come to him. His mind refused to remain quiescent long enough to allow Somnus’, the god of sleep, welcomed visit. In truth, his resistance to sleep took root more in his deep dread of a visit from Morpheus, Somnus’ sinister son, god of dreams and nightmares. Each time he slept, the image of the horrid monster became clearer and more defined. He feared to see it in its entirety lest it send his mind reeling as it had Sevilius’. He rested his body as best he could for a time; then kept busy moving through the camp examining the condition of his men, dismayed at what he saw.

  Their exhaustion marred their faces. Many tended to suppurating blisters on their feet from the searing sand. Others rubbed olive oil onto their sun-broiled skin to ease the sunburn. If attacked now, they were in no condition to fight. Did he push them too hard? Did he push himself too hard? How could a man know his breaking point until he reached it? Once they reached Rashid’s village and recruited help, they would rest before continuing to Hamad Rus.

  Rashid had remained silent since the attack, remaining apart from the others all day and throughout the night, becoming more morose as the next day progressed. The Berber showed no eagerness to reach his village. Gaius wasn’t certain if the Berber prince feared for his people’s safety from the Romans or from the Inyosh. A dark cloud of retrospection at guilt over his lost men sat on Rashid’s shoulders like a heavy mantle. Gaius knew because he had worn that same look many times after a battle, reliving every moment of each conflict, replaying every order he had given, following each thread as it wove itself into the tapestry of the event. He had learned that such scrutiny led only to self-doubt and guilt, neither of which was conducive to the next encounter.

  Flavius lay with his focale thrown over his eyes to block out the sun, his head resting on his saddle, but Gaius doubted the optio’s sleep a restful one. His sword hand jerked as if gripping and flailing at an enemy with his gladius, and his feet twitched in a frenzied dance of parried blows and rapid
attacks. Whatever dream world foe he faced, it could be no worse than the one they faced in the real world.

  Marcellus sat with his back against a rock speaking with Dracus Armis. Gaius regretted that the press of command had not allowed him the time to become better acquainted with his sesquiplecarus. The young lieutenant had thus far shown himself capable and was popular among the troops. Like many young legionnaires, Dracus had not been born in Rome, but in one of the outlying Iberian provinces near Cadiz. Gaius, who had campaigned with Iberian auxilia against Germanic tribes as a young Centurion, recognized the heavy Iberian accent with which the lieutenant pronounced many Latin words. The manner in which the young lieutenant deferred to the older and more experienced Marcellus spoke highly of the veteran’s admiration among his subordinates.

  After a brief discussion, Armis left Marcellus to post sentries atop nearby dunes, something Gaius should have remembered to do. Just because the creatures attack only at night didn’t mean there weren’t other, more human enemies eager to take advantage of the Romans’ perceived weakness.

  Gaius allowed the exhausted men to rest until mid-morning. Any longer, and their fatigued muscles would stiffen, making further travel impossible. The men staggered into roughly formed ranks and began the day’s march with no fanfare or ceremony. They marched as if each step were a challenge, each dune they climbed a mountain. Their eyes remained focused on the man in front of them, never wavering, slowing when he slowed; stopping when he stopped. Even the horses snickered and started at every whisper of the wind, each rattle of armor.

  The blazing sun bore down on them like a relentless torture device, licking every drop of moisture from their beleaguered bodies. Gaius ordered water bearers to travel up and down the ranks with water skins to relieve their thirst. This quickly reduced their water supply, but Rashid had earlier informed him that his village stood on the site of an ancient well along an even older caravan route. Gaius hoped to replenish their dwindling supply there.