Eagle in Exile

by Alan Smale

  Off in the distance he saw men and women running up the riverbank.

  Following them, closing the distance rapidly, were two turmae of the IV Gallorum Equitata.

  Marcellinus had been wrong. There would be no escape from Ocatan after all, even for the defenseless.

  “Can you see Hurit?” he said.

  “From here? No.”

  They needed Mahkah or Dustu, whose eyes never faltered however great the distance. But now Marcellinus saw one of the tiny running figures stop and turn to face the horsemen, standing still while the others continued to run. And as she braced herself, sword held out, he recognized her fighting stance.

  “Get in the river,” he said, willing her to move. “Get into the Mizipi. Go. Go.”

  The horses were walking now; obviously, the ground beneath them was treacherous. And indeed some of the other Ocatani were diving into the Mizipi now, wading in as best they could and then throwing themselves bodily into the waters.

  And still the lone figure stood between the fleeing people of Ocatan and the relentless horsemen of Roma.

  “Jove, Hurit. Please, damn you, you’ve done enough.”

  The first horseman was upon her. The decurion of the leading turma lifted himself in the saddle and swung his spatha in a blur of movement. Hurit parried, jumped back, darted left, slashed again.

  The horse stopped, backed up, moved forward. The decurion hacked at her. Hurit lunged and again danced out of range, trying to move around the horse to attack the decurion from his left side.

  The horse reared. Hurit jumped back. The decurion leaned forward and thrust his sword down.

  “Shit,” Marcellinus said.

  The other riders were past the decurion now, running down the rest of the Ocatani. The decurion’s horse was back at a canter as he hurried after them, leaning forward in the saddle, clutching at himself.

  Was he injured? Behind him, was that a body in the mud?

  “I can’t see her,” Marcellinus said. “Can you see? Is she dead? Anapetu?”

  Anapetu had walked away to the north, still clutching her injured shoulder, looking not toward the Mizipi but up into the sky, saying words Marcellinus could not hear.

  He did not need her to tell him. The decurion was alive, although perhaps wounded. And Marcellinus couldn’t see a swimmer in the water near where Hurit had been.

  Hurit was dead.

  His heart felt leaden. His vision swam. He could no longer even see the Mizipi.

  Pulling his pugio from his belt, brushing at his eyes, Marcellinus leaned forward and studied the arrow in his thigh.

  At least Roman steel arrowheads went through cleanly.

  —

  They had the healing white salve in the Longhouse of the Temple Mound and plenty of weapons. And a Roman pilum worked well as a crutch.

  Iniwa lived on top of his Temple Mound, and his longhouse was sturdy and lined with ramparts. A surprising number of Ocatani had survived; Marcellinus and Anapetu shared the mound top with perhaps two hundred other warriors and citizens.

  Unfortunately, they had almost no food and very little water.

  Summoned at last, Marcellinus hobbled into the longhouse, a single great hall with walls lined with chert figures, bare earth floors, and ladders leading up to the battlements above. In the hall’s center stood Iniwa, now wearing the full regalia of his office, his face covered with a complicated pattern of war paint in red and blue and black. The war chief of Ocatan had dressed up to die.

  “What happens outside, Wanageeska?”

  “The Romans are unloading supplies. Digging in their defenses, building up an earthen rampart and ditch beyond the walls. Some are going house to house, looking for people hiding. I hope they don’t know to check the grain stores under the floor. Those they find, they have…” Marcellinus swallowed. “They are already forcing your people, captured Ocatani, to rebuild the areas of the palisade that were smashed or burned. The women they have kept aside in a separate pen for…later on.”

  “Slaves,” Iniwa said. “My people are slaves.”

  “The Romans need to secure Ocatan by nightfall,” Marcellinus said. “They have enough men to make the town theirs and defend it against any counterattack.”

  “But we are still here.”

  “Not for long.”

  Iniwa stared at him balefully. “How will your people come for us?”

  “They may storm the Temple Mound in the late afternoon. March up its slopes with Roman steel, keeping formation, shields up. An overwhelming number of legionaries, fully armored, would march right over us and kill us all. Or they may surround the mound and wait for you to come out and die in battle, or to starve and die, or kill yourselves. It depends on the whim of their Praetor.” Marcellinus took a deep breath. “For now, we are guarded by the traitors of the Shappa Ta’atani. If we attack now, we may take some of them to hell with us, but the end result would be the same. Death. Unless.”

  “Unless what? Speak.”

  “Unless you surrender,” Marcellinus said.

  Iniwa stared at him, not blinking. “You say so?”

  “Yes. Surrender, Iniwa. Yield the field. Lay down your weapons. No one could have done more than you, but it is over now. Enough Ocatani have already died. Your people up here have fought well, and they deserve to live.”

  “Leave our weapons on the sacred mound? Walk down and kneel to be butchered?”

  “Yield freely and they will not slaughter you,” Marcellinus said.

  “And then all will be well?” Iniwa said sarcastically.

  “Of course not, mighty chief. They will enslave you. If you are fortunate, you may be able to bargain to fight for Roma instead of against them, especially if you bring strong warriors they can use. Such things do happen. We can try to find out.”

  Iniwa still had not blinked as far as Marcellinus could see. He wondered if the chief was in some kind of fugue state or merely thinking intensely.

  “Find out?”

  “I can walk down under a white flag of parley, either alone or with you by my side, and we can talk with Roma.”

  Iniwa stood slowly, his face less than a foot from Marcellinus’s. “You would parley now? When you refused before?”

  “Then, the assault had begun. Their Praetor would not have stopped it to talk to me. Now the town is theirs. They—”

  The chief kicked away the pilum that Marcellinus was leaning on. Marcellinus fell hard onto the earthen floor, clutching his thigh and trying not to cry out. Iniwa grabbed the Roman spear up and whirled it around.

  Marcellinus found himself flat on his back with the steel point of the pilum jabbing painfully into his abdomen. He forced himself to relax, lowering his injured leg to the ground. “Iniwa, mighty chief—”

  “We will not grovel to Roma! We are strong! We are Ocatan!”

  “You are defeated,” Marcellinus said. “It is over.”

  Iniwa shoved the spear forward an inch. Marcellinus cried out, sucking in his stomach. “Iniwa, wait.”

  “You speak of the treachery of Shappa Ta’atan. What of the treachery of the Wanageeska?”

  “I am no—”

  “Twice a traitor! Once to your own people and now to me. You seek to buy the gratitude of Roma by giving me and my people to them?”

  “No,” said Marcellinus. “You, the Romans may spare. Me, they will likely kill as soon as the day is done.”

  Iniwa bent over and stared into Marcellinus’s eyes. Now it was Marcellinus who forced himself not to blink.

  “You lie,” said the chief.

  “No. I am sure of it.”

  Iniwa stood, spun the pilum again in his hands, and thrust its blunt haft into Marcellinus’s stomach, driving the wind out of him. Marcellinus doubled up and rolled, retching. The chief tossed the spear aside. “It does not matter. Ocatan will not beg. Ocatan will die well. We will kill Romans and Shappa Ta’atani until we are called to the gods, in honor. You?” Iniwa looked down at him contemptuously. “You will
do anything to live, say anything. I am all-done with you.”

  The war chief of Ocatan strode from the room without another word.

  —

  By the time Marcellinus had regained his breath, fetched his pilum crutch from the corner of the room, and staggered back out into the fresh air, the Ocatani were massing for their last charge with Iniwa at their head. Down in the plaza the Shappa Ta’atani had risen to their feet, weapons at the ready. Again Son of the Sun stood in front of his men with his hands on his hips and stared up at them.

  Farther back, Roman legionaries stepped away from their labors and wiped sweat from their brows. Some picked up their swords; others merely folded their arms and watched with interest as if they were at the gladiatorial games.

  In a way, they were. This would be a last battle of Hesperian against Hesperian, the remains of the once-proud Ocatani warriors against five times that number of Shappa Ta’atani. The outcome was not in doubt.

  The Ocatani braves went over the edge of the mound roaring, with their spears and axes and maces and swords held high. None carried shields. They knew they would not live to see the sunset.

  It was hard to watch, but Marcellinus forced himself, sinking down onto the grass with his head in his hands.

  They fought valiantly, the last warriors of Ocatan. Iniwa met Son of the Sun head-on at the bottom of the mound, trading blow for blow for what seemed like half an hour before Son of the Sun cut him down, hacked his head from his shoulders, and mounted it on his spear.

  Most of Iniwa’s warriors were dead by that time. The Shappa Ta’atani lost maybe two dozen men.

  The Romans watched cheerfully as the Shappa Ta’atani scalped the warriors of Ocatan and collected the best of their weapons, and then two centuries of the First Cohort of the Sixth Ferrata began to assemble in the plaza.

  “It ends,” said Anapetu. Sometime during the battle the Raven clan chief had come to sit by his side.

  Marcellinus could not meet her eye. “If they had surrendered…”

  “There is no surrender for us.”

  Marcellinus glanced around the mound top. Maybe twenty men and women remained with them. Six were warriors too wounded to fight, the rest ordinary townspeople, beaten, shocked, defeated. “We should save the Romans the trouble. Go down and surrender.”

  “No, Gaius Wanageeska.” Anapetu drew her pugio.

  “What? No!” Marcellinus reached out to grab her wrist.

  She met his eye calmly. “My sisters are already dead. Leotie, Dowanhowee, perhaps the children, too. And what do you think will happen to me when the Romans take me? You see the pen they have put the women in. Why would I want to live for that?”

  “Anapetu, you cannot.”

  Marcellinus still had her right hand imprisoned. She passed the pugio into her left hand and held it out to him, hilt first. “Then you must.”

  Aghast, he said: “I will not kill you, Anapetu. I can’t.”

  “I would prefer it,” Anapetu looked deep into his soul. “Gaius. Please?”

  He sat, frozen.

  Down in the plaza the Roman centuries had fallen into formation, two squares each ten ranks deep. Marcellinus heard the barked command, and the troops of Roma marched toward the base of the Temple Mound.

  “Please, my friend,” she said. “Honor me. For your Romans will not.”

  Marcellinus took the pugio and stared again into her face.

  “You cannot disobey me,” Anapetu said almost lightly. “I am your clan chief.”

  “Don’t look at Roma,” he said. “Look out at the river, the great Mizipi. Turn toward the sun. Feel it on your face.”

  As she turned into the light, he placed his hand on her cheek and kissed her forehead.

  —

  Marcellinus barely heard the legionaries arrive on the mound top. By that time he was one of only eight alive on the Temple Mound, the others having taken their own lives rather than be captured. He looked up only when he felt heat on his back; the Romans had set the longhouse on fire and were watching the blaze carefully in case warriors burst out of it. None did. All the warriors were dead or enslaved.

  Anapetu lay in his lap. Marcellinus had covered her face with her raven cloak. Occasionally it billowed, almost as if her spirit were trying to fly away. Her blood soaked his legs.

  The point of a gladius jabbed him in the ribs. He looked up to see a Roman legionary, shiny in steel, his helmet red-plumed. He looked a second time and saw a boy hardly older than Tahtay, clear-faced and clean-shaven but wearing a look of contempt and disgust so profound that the sneer was almost etched into his cheeks.

  “Up, redskin,” said the soldier. “Drop your filthy squaw.”

  Behind him they were rounding up the three living women at gladius point, taking them away separately. Marcellinus’s gorge rose.

  If he threw himself on the soldiers, they would kill him in an instant. Half of Marcellinus wanted that: to take them to hell and for all this to be over.

  But he had sworn oaths. To do all in his power to prevent war even though he was in the middle of one. To protect Tahtay. And not to kill Romans, especially in cold blood.

  He could not help Cahokia once he was dead.

  And these were just boys Tahtay’s age, trying to be men.

  In Latin, Marcellinus said: “This was a great woman. She died well, just as the other dead men and women of Ocatan you see before you died well. You will treat them with respect and let their people bury them with honor.”

  The legionary’s mouth dropped open.

  Marcellinus laid Anapetu’s body down and struggled to push himself up onto his feet. He did not reach out for the spear to support himself. This boy would cut him down the moment he touched a weapon.

  Nausea still wreathed him, but he felt as if he were a hundred miles away from his body.

  “Lads?” The legionary beckoned. Three more soldiers hurried over.

  Marcellinus looked at each in turn. Had he ever been as young as these men? Had his armor ever gleamed so brightly?

  “I am Gaius Publius Marcellinus, late of the 33rd Hesperian Legion. I will see your commanding officer, and I will see him now.”

  They knew his name. The first soldier took a step back, stunned.

  Marcellinus swayed on his injured leg, looked down at Anapetu again, swallowed. “I am Gaius Publius—”

  The second soldier smashed him in the mouth with the butt of his gladius. Marcellinus fell across Anapetu and tried to push himself off her to show her some respect in death.

  Then the legionaries started kicking him.

  It took him much too long to lose consciousness.

  Racked with pain, he awoke several times to a blood-red haze and a deathly pounding in his head, as if he were still being beaten. The first time, Marcellinus threw up and disappeared back into the blackness without even knowing where he was. Later, he opened his eyes to find himself lying out in the sun in his own filth. Pain was everywhere, in his legs and arms and chest and head, above him and below him and stretching out into the distance.

  Perhaps he should have gone with Anapetu. Maybe he would have found Hurit there.

  He blinked painfully, and it was dark, nighttime, and he was rocking back and forth very slowly. On a boat?

  He blinked again, found himself in the act of eating some kind of gruel, and coughed.

  The next time he awoke, he was bent over a mule, arms and legs tied, or perhaps just broken so extensively that he was incapable of moving them. He could not tell, did not really think about it, just inhaled the stink of the mule and tried to straighten his neck. His ribs hurt.

  —

  Water, dashed into his face. Kimimela must be awakening him petulantly for another long day pulling the Concordia up the Mizipi.

  Consciousness returned, along with anger. He flexed his fingers, found himself unbound, hard ground beneath him.

  Marcellinus rolled over and sat up.

  A soldier was inspecting him, a man perhaps ten year
s older than the four who had beaten him senseless. The man was out of armor, wearing an unadorned tunic, a sagum cloak, and sandals. They sat in a forest glade, with soldiers lining the perimeter. There were two bonfires. Marcellinus could smell the mules but couldn’t see them. Or perhaps he just stank of mule himself.

  Marcellinus glanced down. He still wore his Cahokian tunic, which was now ragged, sweat-stained, and blood-soiled.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “I?” The soldier took a drink from his water skin and examined him more closely. “Ah. Fully lucid this time, I see. The earlier times you raved terribly. I am Lucius Agrippa.”

  The man’s patrician attitude shone through every pore, and Marcellinus caught the scents of wine and rose water. Not a common soldier, then, despite his youth and clothing.

  Marcellinus’s head ached, but at least there was no nausea this time. His thigh burned like hell, and he was bruised everywhere, but no limbs seemed broken.

  He looked up to find a soldier sitting before him in an unadorned tunic. Marcellinus blinked. “I’m sorry. Again?”

  “Lucius Agrippa. And you are Gaius Marcellinus.”

  “Yes.”

  Agrippa’s lip curled. “Turned native, I see.”

  Marcellinus saw a water skin lying next to him. He picked it up and put it to his lips, half expecting Agrippa to knock it out of his hands. It didn’t happen. He tasted water and swallowed carefully.

  “Marcellinus, who lost the 33rd.”

  “The same.”

  “Who stood with the Ocatani against us.”

  “Trying to prevent a massacre.”

  “Well, so much for that. And I hear you also stand with Cahokia.”

  Marcellinus looked around again. “Where are we?”

  “On our way to the 27th.”

  “The 27th Legion?”

  “No, man, the 27th of Maius. For Jupiter’s sake, try to get your wits about you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And so…?”

  “What?”

  “You stand with Cahokia,” Agrippa said with exaggerated patience. “You are a traitor to Roma.”