Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘They slew him? Out in the desert?’ Pavo heard his words as if they were spoken by another.

  ‘No,’ Sura replied, ‘he was with us all the way here – through the rest of the desert, across the Persian Gulf and out to this living nightmare. He and I carried you, you know. The Savaran seemed amused that we would want to add to our burden and they let us; we kept you watered and fed you honey when they gave it to us. Then, when we reached the entrance to the mines,’ he jabbed a finger upwards to the disc of light, ‘Tamur took Gallus and Carbo away. To stand them before his master in Bishapur. Archimagus . . . ’ Sura started, frowning as he tried to remember the name.

  ‘Archimagus Ramak,’ Pavo finished for him, bitterly.

  ‘Aye,’ Sura frowned in confusion. ‘They were to be executed, Pavo. And that was weeks ago.’

  Pavo’s gaze fell away. His joy at seeing Sura faded. The iron tribunus of the XI Claudia had fallen at last. He felt numbness creep over his heart. It was a sensation he had not experienced since he was a boy. That day when the dead-eyed legionary brought father’s funeral payout to him. To Pavo, Gallus had been aloof, cold, never a friend like Sura. Never a friend . . . no, he had been so much more.

  ‘Pavo . . . ’ Sura grasped him by the shoulder, shaking him from his thoughts. ‘Pavo!’

  Pavo looked up, seeing the alarm in his friend’s face. Sura’s gaze was fixed over his shoulder. Footsteps thundered up behind him. Pavo spun just in time to see Gorzam’s twisted scowl. The whip lashed down upon him and tore at his arm.

  ‘Get back to your post!’ he roared, the brief effects of the poppy extract clearly wearing off.

  Pavo scrambled back, panting in agony, seeing Sura being bundled back down the ladder by another guard. He hobbled away from Gorzam’s follow-up lash, cupping his bicep, torn by the barbs. He crouched and hurried back through the tunnel, his breath coming and going in rasps through gritted teeth. Anger like never before boiled in his veins.

  Chapter 13

  Gallus crouched by Olivia and held her hand as she slept. She squeezed his fingers and then turned over with a sleepy, contented sigh, wrapping one arm around little Marcus. Gallus smiled at this, pulling the blanket up to cover their shoulders. For a blessed moment, his troubles were absent. Then a log snapped in the campfire and he jolted, swinging round to scour the darkness. A chill autumnal breeze searched under his robe and brought the cypress trees to life, but this clearing by the roadside in Northern Italy was deserted. The road itself was utterly empty too, Mediolanum but a distant glow to the west and the port city of Aquileia lost in the blackness off to the east. So they were alone, he thought. Regardless, his eyes fell upon the axe and sharpened pole resting against the wagon.

  He stood, picked up the axe and strode around the wagon to make sure. The vehicle was heaped with barley and leeks as always. Working another man’s land and taking the crop surplus to market had been the extent of his troubles until just a few weeks ago – troubles he would gladly take in exchange for those he endured now.

  Having circled the wagon, he reached for the skin of wine tucked under the driver’s berth, then took a long pull upon it followed swiftly by another. It was unwatered and as potent as he had hoped, warming him and drowning his fears. He had taken to drinking it like this in these last weeks, knowing his thoughts would otherwise drive him to madness.

  ‘Will they come for me tonight?’ he whispered, gazing up at the waning moon. ‘What they asked me to do – no man could do and live with himself afterwards. Would you not have chosen as I did?’

  The moon stared back, cold and silent.

  The Speculatores would be far more unforgiving. He slumped by the wagon and took another draw on the wine, gazing long and hard into the guttering campfire. He made to take another mouthful of wine, then realised the skin was empty. Just then, Olivia’s weak, sleepy moan stirred him.

  He looked at her and little Marcus. As a farming family, they had little in the way of riches, but they had each other and needed little else. This affirmation seemed to render the darkness less of a threat. He felt these maudlin thoughts sting behind his eyes and realised the wine was playing with his emotions. And a long journey to Aquileia lay ahead tomorrow. He cast his eyes once more around the deserted countryside and shook his head with a stifled chuckle.

  ‘Sleep, man, there is no one coming for you tonight.’

  He crept over to lie behind Olivia, wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled into her sleep-warmed neck. A contented smile spread across her delicate features at this, and the sight was enough to lull him closer and closer to sleep. Blessedly, he fell into a dreamless slumber.

  But a curious sensation crept through the blackness of sleep. He was being watched. He sat up with a start. All was silent. The trees were still.

  Olivia stirred by his side.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she whimpered, scooping Marcus to her breast.

  ‘Your choices were foolish, Gallus!’ a voice spat.

  Gallus’ heart hammered until it seemed it would burst from his chest. The wine fog clung to his mind as he glanced around. The land was empty . . . until he saw shapes emerging from the trees – two speculatores wrapped in dark-red robes and veils that masked all but their bloodthirsty glares. A clutch of six gnarled, tousle-haired barbarians flanked them. Quadi, he realised – ferocious bastards. They carried swords and clubs.

  Gallus shielded Olivia and Marcus as the barbarians approached like preying wolves. His hands shot out to the ground beside him, searching for his weapons. Then he remembered leaving them by the wagon. ‘You fool!’ he cursed himself.

  He turned and leapt towards the wagon, only to see another barbarian step from behind it, swinging his club around. The weapon smashed into his skull and he crumpled to the ground, his head filled with a swirl of bright lights and blackness. Warm blood trickled from his ears and nose, and he realised he could not move. Olivia’s scream tore the night asunder, and Marcus wailed in panic.

  ‘He’s done for,’ one speculatore hissed.

  ‘Aye,’ the other one purred, ‘now let’s see if the farmer’s wife wants to play . . . ’

  The screaming of his wife and child that followed raked at his soul until it fell numb. Long after they stopped, the echoes remained in Gallus’ mind. He heard the two speculatores handing coins to the Quadi. Then they dispersed, spitting gobbets of phlegm upon him.

  Eventually, daylight came and his vision with it. But still he could not move. He heard the crunch of another wagon approaching. Soon, someone unfamiliar crouched over him. A weary-faced old traveller. The traveller held water to his lips, and two boys with the man helped Gallus sit upright. His head cleared then, and his eyes focused on two shapes laid out on the grass by the blackened remains of the campfire, utterly still. One tall and the other tiny.

  ‘No . . . ’ Gallus cried, shaking free of the traveller’s grip. He fell forward, onto his knees, reaching out with a trembling hand. ‘No!’

  Gallus sat bolt upright, hands outstretched. But the shades of his dead family faded, and he realised he had awoken from one nightmare into another. This stifling-hot pit in the heart of Bishapur had been his lot for over five weeks now. The pit had a stony floor and walls, and his bones ached from sleeping on such a surface. A raised iron grating capped the cramped space, through which the midday Persian sun glared, rendering the pit furnace-like. Shadows flitted by the grating every so often, and a jagged babble of voices spilled in from every direction.

  Then, from behind him, something shuffled.

  Gallus started, almost forgetting he was not alone.

  He twisted round. Carbo lay, curled up at the other side of the pit in a fit of troubled sleep. His head twitched and his lips trembled, then he muttered something in Parsi, again and again.

  This had startled Gallus in their first days in this pit, but now he was used to hearing this Roman soldier speaking the tongue of the enemy. But in the five weeks they had been kept in this miserable hole, he had pi
cked up only the basics of the language himself – yes, no and the like, but not enough to follow conversation. ‘What is your secret, Centurion?’ he grumbled under his breath.

  Suddenly, Carbo’s mutterings changed to Greek. ‘Forgive me . . . ’

  Gallus frowned. This was new, yet the tone seemed hauntingly familiar from his own nightmares.

  Then Carbo sat bolt upright, reaching out as Gallus had done only moments ago. ‘I should have waited on you. Forgive me!’

  ‘Centurion?’ Gallus said.

  For a moment, Carbo’s bulging eyes continued to stare at some ethereal torment, his lined face slick with sweat, his chest rising and falling at haste. Then he blinked, seeing Gallus, seeing the pit walls. ‘Tribunus,’ he frowned, at once donning a fragile mask of non-expression. ‘Is it time?’

  Gallus eyed him furtively for a moment and then stood. The pit was tall enough only to allow him to stand with a crooked neck. The raised grating allowed him to see out across their surroundings; the hole was in the heart of a market square at the foot of an acropolis. His eyes were at ankle-level of the many passers-by. Persian men and women glowered down at him, their noses wrinkling in distaste. They hauled back their inquisitive children and hissed or mouthed curses at the Roman prisoners. But there were no spearmen nearby and none approaching, it seemed. ‘No, we have some time yet.’

  Over the course of these last weeks, the market square around them had been transformed. An arc of timber seating had been set into the northern slopes of the acropolis, sweating workers labouring over the final sections. He glanced up, past the seating, to the twin structures studding the acropolis plateau. The blue-domed Fire Temple and the high-vaulted palace resembled vultures perched upon a rock, eyeing their prey. Then he noticed two figures descending from the plateau. One a powerful and broad-shouldered warrior, the other his antithesis – hunched and peering, with a pallid bald crown and painfully taut features. Tamur and his master, Ramak. The curs who had sent his men into the mines and denied him the honour of sharing their fate.

  We have another purpose for you, Roman, Tamur had barked, before he and Carbo had been hauled to this sweltering pit. Carbo had been vociferous in his protests, demanding to instead be sent back into the mines, then weeping when his pleas went unheard. Another layer in the riddle of the centurion’s past life, it seemed.

  They had been led into Bishapur, tethered behind Tamur’s mount like captured enemy kings. Gathered crowds lauded the spahbad like a hero. Gallus was certain that he and Carbo were to die that day – executed before the masses, no doubt. And if it had been up to Tamur alone that would surely have been the case. But they were led to this market square where a crowd waited, and the lone figure of Ramak stood on a raised platform. One look in this man’s eyes and Gallus realised that their deaths would be anything but swift.

  Ahura Mazda, the Sacred Fire burns brightly today as you bless us with this portent, the Archimagus had said, arms outstretched, his words directed to the skies. A Persian guard hissed a translation of the Parsi into Gallus’ ear. These soldiers of Rome marched from their dark realm to challenge your noble truth. Instead, it is their lie that will meet its end. Ramak had then turned his gaze across the gathered people. The Jashan of Shahrevar will be upon us in less than two moons. On that day of the Festival of Iron, these Romans will fight their last. And as they fall to their knees, I will reveal to you Ahura Mazda’s will for the people of Persis, and the House of Aspaphet.

  Then, to the thunderous cheering of the thousands gathered to watch, he and Carbo had been thrown into this pit. The days since had followed a simple routine. They would wake to the infernal heat, then at mid-morning they would be taken to the gymnasium. To prepare for what was to come. Gallus looked over the network of fresh bruises and cuts on his skin, then glanced at the sun, wondering how much longer they had before they came for them today.

  A thud-thud of boots approached, and the shadows of two Median spearman blotted out the sunlight, answering the question.

  ‘It is time for you to bleed once more,’ one spearman grinned as the other unlocked the grating.

  The populace muttered in distrust, sharp curses rising here and there as Gallus and Carbo were marched at spearpoint around the base of the acropolis to the gymnasium. They halted in the shade of a palm cluster before the pale-pink walls and timber gates of the compound, hearing the clash-clash of swords from within and knowing what was to come. Then the gates creaked open.

  The enclosed courtyard inside was cast half in shade, the other half baking in sunlight. A pair of feeble-looking, dark-skinned men stood, back-to-back, naked and wielding only spears. Circling them were three warriors armoured in bronze scale vests and ornate, gem-studded helms decorated with broad, gilt wings. Pushtigban wearing antique armour, Gallus realised. They seemed to have foregone the masks worn by their kind only to allow them to cast baleful looks at their victims. Two of them swished curved sabres deftly, and the leader carried a hammer, spiked at one end.

  Gallus scanned the gymnasium floor, spotting a severed ear and spatterings of dried blood. And there was something new; a stone block clad in dried matter. Gallus looked from the spike hammer to the battered, bloodstained stone. The gouges in the stone were distinctly shaped just like the spike.

  ‘Ah, it seems we are early,’ the Median spearman behind Gallus hissed. ‘Ah well, you can relax and witness the fate of these two criminals.’

  One of the two criminals threw down his spear, fell to his knees and held out his hands for mercy. Gallus followed the man’s gaze and saw the two figures watching the bout from chairs in the shade. His blood cooled. Tamur seemed uncertain how to respond to the call for mercy. A word in his ear from Ramak saw him wave away the criminal’s pleas.

  The nearest of the pushtigban strolled over to the criminal. The begging man held out his hands as if reaching out to the warrior for help. The pushtigban reached out slowly, then his hand shot out like a snake and grappled both of the beggar’s wrists like a shackle. Then the pushtigban swept his shamshir round to cut through the beggar’s forearms. The wretch fell back, mouth agape in silent agony as he thrashed. Lifeblood pumped from his stumps as he scrambled on all fours in an attempt to right himself. Gallus saw Ramak sit forward, his golden eyes sparkling at the spectacle. Eventually the maimed criminal slowed and groaned like some tormented animal, his strength leaving him. The pushtigban stalked over, lined up his serrated blade over the back of the man’s neck, then swiped his head from his shoulders.

  The other criminal watched all of this in a frozen panic. His legs trembled violently and he gripped his spear to his chest in white knuckles. The pushtigban warriors moved over to surround the man.

  ‘Fight,’ one said, ‘or you will suffer more than your friend. Much more.’

  The man nodded jerkily, shivering as he forced himself to level his spear. At this, the pushtigban’s faces split into broad grins. Like wolves, two of them leapt upon the man, swiping their spears down. The man used his spear like a staff, parrying the strikes. But in moments, the shaft was in splinters, and he was on his knees, pleading as his friend had done moments ago. ‘I fought, I did as you asked!’

  In spite of his words, the lead pushtigban with the spiked hammer grabbed a tuft of the criminal’s hair, then dragged him towards the bloodstained stone block. The pushtigban pushed the man’s head onto the block, side-on, then aligned the hammer to the man’s temple, lifted it back then roared as he swung it down with gusto. A sharp crack rang out, along with the wet splatter of the wretch’s brains bursting from the opposite temple and showering the filthy stone. At once, the body fell limp. Ramak rose to his feet in delight. Tamur looked through the bout, his brow knitted and his lips pursed as if his mind was elsewhere.

  Gallus stared through the spectacle. Nearby slaves rushed to clear the gymnasium floor and another pair hurried out to offer Gallus and Carbo a tray of food each. A heap of nuts and dates, a pot of honey, bread and a leg of chicken, with a cup of honey-swee
tened water to wash it down. Gallus eyed the delicious fare as though it was maggot-infested.

  ‘Eat,’ the spearman behind them grunted. ‘You will get nothing else until tomorrow.’

  ‘Eat? Like a prize pig? To ensure your festival blood games are a fine spectacle?’ Gallus spat over his shoulder.

  ‘Eat!’ the man yelled this time, prodding his spear tip into Gallus’ spine.

  Gallus lifted the chicken and tore a chunk off. He nodded for Carbo to follow suit. He threw down the sweetened water, then looked to the four figures jogging onto the gymnasium floor. Swordsmen. They wore white trousers and mail shirts and they were fawn-skinned with dark black hair and thick moustaches. They tossed two wooden swords to Gallus and Carbo. The spearmen behind them nudged them forward, forcing them to pick the weapons up. As they stalked onto the sandy courtyard, the leader of the three pushtigban from the previous bout shouted over. He weighed his spike hammer in his grip and grinned at Gallus.

  ‘I look forward to the Festival, for I have yet to crush a Roman skull.’

  Gallus held the man’s gaze until he and his two comrades wandered off into the shade. A cry from Carbo and a whoosh of air by his ear snapped him from the trance. He spun and threw up his wooden sword to parry the chopping blow of the nearest swordsman. Splinters flew from the blow. At once, all thoughts dissolved and he leapt forward in riposte.

  Tamur disguised a scowl as the bout carried on before him. The thought came to him again: the thing the aged warrior in his ranks had told him as they brought the captured Romans back through the desert. I fought alongside your father. Cyrus was iron-willed and noble. But something changed in him in his last years. He became embittered. He was not himself. Some said it was as if he had been possessed by a demon.

  Just then, Ramak shot to his feet, applauding a stealthy lunge from one swordsman.

  Tamur looked to the archimagus, then thought of the news he had heard that morning. Two new gunds of cataphractii had been commissioned. Two thousand riders that would be recruited using silver from the House of Aspaphet. Yet he as ruler of these lands had given no such order. A question stung on his chest and demanded to be asked. ‘Tell me again how it was agreed to raise the new cavalry division?’