Legionary: Dark Eagle - The Prologue
Chapter 1
Late October 382 AD
The Syrian Desert
Three dozen Romans padded across the searing wilderness, the air dry as salt and crawling like the breath of an oven across their skin. The first six of the party rode on the backs of camels, and the thirty behind were escort legionaries, trooping two-abreast, their ringmail armour glinting like white flames in the dazzling sun. Every so often the sound of popping corks and glugging water broke the shrill song of nearby insects and croaking desert toads.
The men saddled upon the two foremost camels were dromedarii scouts, draped in white robes, bronze scale jackets and iron helms. With the lands of Sassanid Persia just days ahead, these expert desert watchmen were supposed to be leading the way, alert and vigilant, but one of them was clearly drifting into a heat-induced slumber. He listed backwards in the saddle until the scales of his bronze vest – hot as coals – sizzled against the camel’s hump. The beast grunted and groaned, then shook its great body, throwing the scout. The man woke as he fell, screaming. He threw out a hand to break his fall and instead broke his wrist. With much grumbling and sighing of hot and exhausted men, the column slowed.
Ambassador Sporacius guided his camel carefully around the fallen man then looked back down the column. His chiselled face was streaked with sweat, his deep-set eyes like vaults of wisdom as he scanned the small party before settling on one of the marching men near the back: a low-ranking type, going by his scarred helmet, poor-quality ringmail, tattered boots and the way he marched with his head down – a soldier yet to win confidence.
‘You, Legionary,’ Sporacius called. ‘Help him.’ It was a command that was not his to give, for he was not a military man, but he delivered it assertively, the demand clear but respectful.
The legionary mutely jogged forward, helping the injured dromedarius to his feet. The camel-scout, ashen-faced with pain and embarrassment, cradled the wounded wrist under his opposite armpit and coyly glanced up at Sporacius. ‘I will lead my beast on foot from here on in.’
'Probably for the best,’ Sporacius said, again, with a well-measured tone selected to reprimand but not humiliate. He mopped at his neck and short silver hair with a damp cloth then turned to the legionary who had helped. ‘It’s Urbicus, isn’t it?’
‘Yes sir,’ the legionary muttered in reply.
‘Good work,’ Sporacius said, flicking his head towards the column’s end. ‘Now back to your place.’
‘Yes sir,’ the legionary replied mutedly, his head still dipped.
With that, Sporacius circled his camel again and swished a hand. ‘Onwards.’
As the column crunched ahead once more, Urbicus the legionary held back, shoulders rounded, head dipped. After years of leading men, where eye-contact and a proud stance had been essential, this false name and pretend posture felt strange to Pavo. But it had to be this way. Exile and anonymity.
Only when the rear ranks of marchers – two abreast once again – came by, when every strange face was past him, did he tilt his head up just a little, the shade of his helmet peeling back and the sunlight spreading across his eagle-like face and hazel eyes.
He fell into place alongside the unpartnered legionary at the tail end of the party, who marched with that same head-down posture. This man’s emerald eyes were rolled up a little in their sockets, scrutinising the column, particularly the riders. ‘He was watching you,’ Sura said quietly, the words disguised by the thump and grind of boots on dust and sand. ‘Studying your face when you were helping the fallen scout.’
Pavo followed his oldest friend’s gaze. Behind Sporacius, guiding his camel alongside the remaining dromedarius scout, rode a young officer in a white tunic spotted with two large purple decorative circles and arrow-stripes at each shoulder. He wore a black felt cap from the rim of which short brown curls sprouted, and he sported a thick, curly beard. This was General Stilicho, half-Roman, half-Vandal – and most importantly a military man of growing repute, sent on this sortie to aid and learn from Ambassador Sporacius. He was a few summers younger than Pavo and already he was Emperor Theodosius’ Comes Stabuli – master of the imperial stables – and husband to the emperor’s adopted niece.
‘Not him,’ Sura said. ‘Him.’
Pavo followed Sura’s slight tilt of the head to see the silver-cloaked man riding alongside Stilicho. Trierarchus Ripanus, captain of the vessel that had brought them here to what felt like the edge of the world. Ripanus was staring off to the right of the column, scanning the desert wastes, his pinkish face pinched against the sun’s glare and one arm – bare apart from the leather bracer on the wrist – raised to shield his deep-set eyes from the light. He wore an intercisa helm with a jutting and sharp fin-like ridge similar to Pavo’s and Sura’s, but made distinct by the opals inlaid in the two eye motifs above the brow. ‘He was watching me? Are you sure?’
‘As sure as cock-rot in the island brothels. Do you think he suspects?’
‘No,’ Pavo muttered. ‘We played our part well on his boat. As far as he’s concerned, I’m Urbicus and you’re Mucianus – nothing but a pair of low-ranking swords.’
‘He was smiling when he was watching you… but his eyes weren’t. And what about the thing the oarsman said when we were at sea?’
Pavo chewed his bottom lip and stared at the swaying supply pack of the legionary in front of him as he replayed the memory. One of the rowers on Ripanus’ vessel had been particularly friendly – bringing Pavo water during his bouts of sea-sickness. One night, as the others slept, the fellow had shared wine with him and Sura. Pavo, irked by Sura’s suspicions about Ripanus, had asked the rower what he knew of the captain. The rower had laughed wryly, and answered in a way Pavo had not expected. 'There is a statue of Neptune in the Rhodos docks. One night, years ago, I made love to a beauty of a woman at the foot of the statue. It was one of those moments you know you’ll remember forever. I recall thinking at the time that I’d never forget the statue’s bright red robes and golden trident. Yet the next time I put into port there, the robes were blue and the trident silver. The locals swore to me that nobody had repainted it. It was the same statue, no doubt. But at the same time, it wasn’t.’ He had swigged on his wine a few times before continuing. ‘What do I think of Ripanus? He is a fine captain. Loves his ship and his men as if they are his brothers. I’d row into a storm if Ripanus asked me to.’ He had sucked on his wine again and exhaled contentedly through his nostrils, before holding up a finger and wagging it towards the figure of the trierarchus, sleeping near the helm. ‘But that… is not Ripanus.’ Pavo felt that same shiver now as he had then. ‘He’s wearing Ripanus’ cloak and helmet. Looks very similar… similar, but not the same. Maybe it’s just age; before this voyage I hadn’t seen him in years. I don’t know…’
Something yanked Pavo from the memory. Two small, simultaneous flashes of reflected sunlight, just ahead. He looked up, realising the flashes had come from Ripanus. Yet the captain was still staring out across the desert wastes on the right. But Pavo’s gaze was drawn to the inlaid opals on the man’s helm. Two polished gems, two flashes of light. Had the man just snatched a rearward look at him and Sura? The croaking of insects rose into a shrill, almost deafening sound, and the beat of footsteps seemed to quicken and quicken. He felt his sweat-soaked tunic and his ringmail tighten around his chest like a shroud.
‘You’re probably right,’ Sura exhaled. ‘I’m making too much of it. The heat is cooking my brain. Nobody here knows who we really are,’ he tried to reassure.
Pavo sighed, the tension easing a fraction.
'We are two escort legionaries. The lowest-ranking men on this mission,’ Sura continued as he peered ahead through the silvery heat in search of some sign that they were near their destination. ‘Our job is to stand around in a Persian palace while that lot at the front flap their lips at the new King of Kings.’
Pavo took a few dried tarragon leaves from his purse, popped one onto his tongue and offered Sura the other. The texture and earthy flavour conjured a little saliva into his dry mouth, and the herb was always a good source of energy on a march such as this. As he chewed, he mulled over their role. The Persian King of Kings, Aradashir, was dead. His successor, Shapur III, needed to be persuaded that the recent peace between his empire and that of Eastern Rome was worth preserving – formalising, even. The division of Armenia between the two states had been agreed in principle. Now it was time to thrash out the detail.
‘Right now things are not ideal,’ Sura continued, gesturing to the marching men and animals ahead. ‘The aroma of thirty-four sweaty crotches and six camel arses is,’ he paused to pluck the perfect word out of the air, ‘diabolical! But give it two more days and we’ll be in the cool and shady halls of Ctesiphon. I heard stories from escort soldiers who travelled there before. Apparently the Persian women like us ‘exotic’ westerners… and General Stilicho reckons these talks will last for some time.’
Pavo tried to smile, but it was a feeble attempt.
‘Come on, Pavo,’ Sura continued. ‘Thracia may be a thousand miles behind us, but our homeland is at peace, at long last. The war is over.’
Pavo slid his eyes round to meet Sura’s. ‘But the wrong man won.’
Sura’s lips moved a few times before he fell silent.
There was no argument to counter this, no platitude to lessen the truth of it. The Gothic War was over, but Gratian, Emperor of the West, had claimed it as his victory, securing and reaffirming his position as senior emperor over Theodosius and the still-weakened eastern realm. Gratian, the man complicit in the terrible military disasters that had crippled the Eastern Empire, was now effectively its master. Worse, his agents – the Speculatores – were still crawling all over their distant homeland. They came in many guises – artisans, entertainers, riders, soldiers, friends, beggars – but every one of them was a highly-trained killer. All Speculatores were marked somewhere with that wretched emblem of their secretive school – a single, staring eye.
Checking nobody was watching, Pavo reached into his purse and lifted out a leather strap, from which two lead tags hung, bearing his true name and that of his beloved legion back in Thracia. He traced a finger over the etching, Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, and sighed: ‘Be watchful, Brothers.’
‘The Claudia lads will be well,’ Sura said.
‘Even with their new commander?’ said Pavo, tucking the signaculum tags away again.
‘I only heard about the man chosen to replace you. I don’t know for certain that-’
‘You said he was a Western officer.’ Pavo cut him off.
‘That much is true, but that doesn’t mean-’
‘If he’s from the West then he’s Gratian’s man. Gratian knows that the Claudia lads were behind us in everything we did to defy him,’ Pavo said, staring at the ground before them.
‘Doesn’t mean this new tribunus is a bad man. Gallus came from the Western Empire,’ Sura said quietly. ‘Sebastianus too, and Geridus.’
Pavo tilted his head to one side in agreement. ‘Aye, you are right, and they were golden. I just can’t help but taste danger for our comrades back there.’
Sura spat into the dust. ‘What can we do? We’re supposed to be dead men, Pavo. If we show our faces in the Eastern Empire anytime soon, Gratian’s Speculatores will peel them off, and if we go near the Claudia then they will suffer too. We can’t go back,’ Sura finished.
‘Exactly. We’re at the wrong end of the world, in hiding, in failure.’
‘So why torment yourself? Think of what lies ahead,’ Sura said, then batted the rear of one hand across his chest, his neck suddenly lengthening. ‘Look, we’re almost across the desert.’
Pavo peered ahead to see a shimmer on the horizon – some four miles away. A great river, which from this distance was merely a vague green ribbon, glittering where the sunlight caught the rippling current. ‘The Euphrates,’ he said almost in unison with every other man in the party. Beyond was ancient and fertile Mesopotamia, the heartland and bread basket of Sassanid Persia.
One of the legionaries in front of Pavo and Sura smacked his dry lips at the sight of the broad and flowing fresh water. ‘My drinking skin is warm and flat. Little more than spit left in there. When I get to the river, I’m going to drink myself sick,’ he said with a cackle.
‘Idiot,’ Sura whispered.
The legionary swung round, his bulbous nose scrunched up in anger. ‘You got something to say, tiro?’
Sura balked at the term. ‘A recruit?’
The legionary snorted. ‘Looks like it to me.’
Pavo noticed his friend’s fair skin reddening with ire. ‘One day we’ll be veterans like you two,’ he said before Sura could reply.
‘Wasn’t talking to you,’ the bulbous-nosed one sneered, then jabbed a finger at Sura. ‘This one was whispering about me.’
Mercifully, while Pavo had been talking, Sura had used the few heartbeats of respite to calm himself. ‘Just wanted to offer you some advice, that’s all. The trick with marching in hot lands is to drink water carefully. Small and controlled sips,’ he reasoned with Bulbous-nose in a friendlier tone. ‘Back where I come from, I was famed for my ability to march for days on end with just a single drinking skin. You know what they used to call me? The Camel. The Camel of Adrianople.’
Pavo nudged Sura discreetly, stopping him before he said too much. The legionaries for this escort had been scraped together – some from Thracia, some from the island ports they had stopped at during the voyage to Antioch, and some were already aboard Sporacius’ vessel when Ripanus’ ship had rendezvoused with it in the southern Aegean. None of them really knew more than a few of the others, or their backgrounds. Best it stays that way, Pavo thought.
‘Anyway, we don’t need to stay thirsty till we get to the river,’ the bulbous-nosed one shrugged and pointed, ‘look, a village… and a well!’
All heads in the column rose, dry voices croaking in interest. A short way ahead, and to the right of their route, lay a desert settlement. It was a small and random collection of white-walled houses, lying like dice that had been tossed absently across the dust. Villagers sat on the flat roofs, sheltered under the shade of awnings. One man, painting a clay pot, looked up lazily, then carried on about his business. Bright robes and skirts hung from washing lines stretched between the homes and the few palm trees sprouting here and there. A dog lay in the shade of one building, scratching madly behind its ear. The village centred around a low circular stone well with a windlass and leather bucket positioned over it.
Sporacius saw it too. The ambassador eyed the well and the village for a moment, before raising a hand. ‘Halt here,’ he said. ‘Go, take water in the village. Bring full skins back for us riders too.’
At this, General Stilicho sat upright in his saddle as if hearing a distant rumble of thunder. He heeled his camel round to Sporacius and the two entered into a sudden duel of words, a contest of leadership.
‘The escort is under my command,’ Stilicho snapped.
‘And this is my mission,’ Sporacius spat back.
Regardless, the soldiers were already peeling over towards the village.
‘Us two should stay back and guard the embassy,’ Sura reasoned, watching Stilicho and Sporacius, now left with just Ripanus and a pair of camel scouts to protect them. Still, he couldn’t resist a fond look over at the village and the well, nor a lick at his dry lips.
Just then, Ripanus’ gaze fell upon them, his face pinching with interest at the two men refusing the chance to drink.
‘We can’t afford to stand out,’ Pavo murmured to Sura, elbowing him and shoving him towards the village. ‘Come on.’
The two jogged on to catch up with the other legionaries moving towards the well. Bulbous-nose, now childishly-excited at the prospect of water, turned to backstep so he could talk to Pavo and Sura, his face bent in a grin. ‘Mucianus, isn’t it? You said they call you The Camel?’ he asked. ‘Well back in Thessalonica, they call me the horse.’
Sura feigned deafness.
‘I said they call me the horse,’ Bulbous-nose roared so he would hear this time, grabbing his crotch. ‘Because I’ve got a massive co-’
Thrum…whack!
Wetness, blood.
Bulbous nose halted, statue-still, an arrow tip sticking out of his left eye socket like a pointing finger, the milky liquid of his eye and pinkish-grey chunks of brain gently pattering down on the desert floor between him and Sura. The legionary’s body swayed, then crumpled. Some of the others had slowed, looking around in confusion, some still ambled on towards the well, oblivious to the silent strike.
Stunned, Pavo’s eyes swept like a hawk’s, across the desert village, then snapped onto the one thing that had changed. The man who had been painting a pot was now winking behind a bow, ready to loose another arrow. More, he now saw the similar shapes on the other roofs, and the bandits hiding in the doorways of the houses, betrayed by the blink of their steel blades.
‘Ambush!’ he cried as best as his parched throat would allow. Sura’s shoulder crashed against his, knocking both of them clear of the potter’s next arrow. All at once, his world was a tumbling chaos of dust, whizzing arrows and the punches of steel meeting flesh. Footsteps pounded and a desert battle cry rose as the hidden assailants sprang from the doorways. Pavo righted himself. Where was Sura? Some way behind them he heard the camels grunting in panic, heard Stilicho blaring orders from distance. But there was no imperative here other than survival.
A dusky-skinned bandit bounded towards Pavo, his loose robes flailing, his yellow-tinged eyes mean and his black beard wildly overgrown. The man had all the advantages: surprise, speed, weapon drawn. Pavo frantically grabbed at his shield strap, pulling the scarred, pale-blue screen from his shoulder and swinging it in front of him just as the bandit’s broadsword swished round. The blade sliced into the leather edging and bit into the wood. Pavo grabbed the shield edge with his free hand and pivoted on his heel, the movement yanking the wedged blade from the bandit’s hand. Before completing a full turn, he dropped his free hand to his scabbard and clasped it around his spatha hilt, drawing the legionary sword in one move and chopping it round into the bandit’s neck. The man stumbled away in a fit of grunting and slapping at the lethal wound, dark blood sheeting out between his fingers. At once, Pavo sensed the whirr behind him, swung once more and fell to one knee, bringing his shield up to catch two more arrows.
‘There are scores of them!’ Sura cried from nearby.
Pavo saw his friend, splashed red, working his sword free of another bandit’s body. In every direction, clusters of these mean-eyed robbers closed in. Fourteen of the escort legionaries lay dead or twitching. His heart pounded in his throat as he realised that he, Sura and the other fourteen remaining were trapped. His eyes swung to the potter’s house, closest of the white-walled homes. The archer-bandit up on its roof was dead thanks to a thrown legionary spear and he now hung like a wet drape over the roof’s edge, staining the white walls red. ‘Inside!’ he cried to Sura and the surviving legionaries. He unclipped a plumbata – one of three lead weighted darts secured on the inside of his shield – and hurled it in the general direction of the nearest bandits, causing them to slow and duck. It would buy them a breath of time.
Lunging up from one knee like a sprinter, he charged for the potter’s house, the others converging there with him. Three more legionaries fell as they ran but, in a metallic thunder and a chorus of gasping, the men barrelled into the house – a well of cool shade. Colourful rugs lay on the floor and a scented oil burner glowed. Nobody else inside. An old cane ladder led up to an open square hatch of sunlight.
‘Onto the roof,’ Pavo bawled, waving each man up.
Pavo and Sura’s heads flicked from the bandits outside, coming for the door, to the last of the legionaries speeding up the ladder.
‘Go!’ Pavo demanded of Sura.
‘No, you go!’ Sura barked back.
‘Go… and that’s an order,’ Pavo snarled.
Sura sped on up to the roof, then, just as the bandits spilled inside, Pavo clambered up, feeling a broadsword hack through the cane rung his boot had just left. He scrambled onto the roof and kicked the half-broken ladder down into the house interior, then swept his eyes around the low white mud-brick lip of this roof, ears pricking up at the rising clamour of bandit shouts and curses rising from inside and those gathering around each of the house’s sides. Scores of them? There were more like a hundred, he realised. Against thirteen legionaries. His mind spun like a falling sycamore key, searching through moments in the past, moments like this, in search of a way out. He shot looks in every direction: nothing but pan-flat golden dust and calm blue desert sky… apart from just south of the village where a low set of golden hills rose – but they were too distant to attempt any sort of fighting retreat there.
‘There’s no way out,’ he said quietly. He looked northwards, seeing that Sporacius, Ripanus and the camel scouts had backed well away – rightly, for it would be madness should an ambassador be hurt or killed in a futile attempt to save the men who were supposed to be guarding him. Regardless, Stilicho had dismounted, anguished. The general’s sword was drawn, his chest heaving as he took a few steps towards the scene. Yet he did not approach any further. A soldier right enough, Pavo realised, but not a fool.
His thoughts were scattered by the clack of a new cane ladder swinging up against the lip of the roof beside him. ‘I’ll empty your purse, Roman,’ said a voice in broken Greek. ‘I’ll sell your armour and your clothes.’ The bandit’s fiercely-ugly head appeared over the roof’s edge, his broadsword glinting. ‘I’ll feed your heart to the desert dogs.’
Another ladder clacked into place next to this man, and then another three on the opposite roof edge.
‘Together!’ Pavo roared. The thirteen legionaries backed up against one another, the reverberation of their panicked breaths and pounding hearts binding them at the last like a sheaf of wheat about to be ripped apart by a hundred scythes.
A long, low groan of camels pierced the air over the village. It came not from the few beasts in the north with Ambassador Sporacius, this was a chorus of many, coming from those southern hills. Pavo saw a dark jumble of silhouettes appear at the crest of the low hills then spill down towards the village. More desert warriors – camel riders, coursing between the houses like the waters of a burst dam, coming to help finish the job the bandits had started. He could not see much of them thanks to the sun at their backs, but there were eighty or so. Many of them stretched in their saddles, lifting bent bows into the air.
Thrum… whoosh.
At the same time, the ugly bandit scrambled up onto the roof along with three fellow thugs.
‘Mithras, it has been good fighting alongside you,’ Sura said quietly as he and Pavo braced and watched the storm of arrows and bandits speeding towards them.
Whump, whack, whack!
A mist of blood floated through the hot, late-afternoon air, settling on Pavo, Sura and the others. All of them stared as the ugly bandit shuddered, mid-stride, before crumpling, dead, an arrow quivering between his shoulder blades. The others who had climbed up with him fell too, riddled with shafts. Screams rose from the desert floor around the house, as the camel riders swept around the building like a tornado, swishing and stabbing with spears and curved blades at the men who had ambushed the legionaries. In a blur of noise and stampeding feet, a few dozen of the bandits fled, and half of them were struck down by arrows in the back. As quickly as the desert had exploded into life, the din of battle faded to just the sawing of exhausted breaths.
‘What just happened?’ said one legionary, still pressed tightly beside Pavo and Sura, his sword drawn and trembling.
Pavo lengthened his neck to see over the roof’s edge and stare down at the camel riders. They were now milling slowly, checking that the stricken bandits were all dead and despatching those who were not. He saw that the riders wore light robes like the bandits, but they were also armoured in dark-brown, hardened leather cuirasses, and many wore iron helms, some plumed. A chill breath puffed from the vaults of memory as he realised who they were. ‘Maratocupreni,’ he whispered.
‘Maroto… Marama… what?’ the shaking legionary beside him stammered.
‘It is the Maratocupreni,’ Pavo said, his voice full now. ‘Sheathe your swords.’
When the legionaries did not obey, Pavo’s face bent into an evil scowl like an eagle spotting its prey. ‘Sheathe your fucking weapons, now!’
The men were quick to obey this time. None questioned this man they had up until now considered to be some hopeless recruit.
Pavo gestured to the north, waving to Sporacius and Stilicho to indicate that the danger had passed. They hesitated, but when he repeated the gesture they began to walk cautiously towards the village. Pavo approached one ladder at the roof’s edge and descended. He found himself stepping down onto a carpet of bloody bandit bodies, surrounded by a forest of camel legs. The beasts milled around him, lowing and grumbling, their stink horrific. The fawn-skinned riders glared down at him with hard eyes, underlined with thick stripes of kohl, their mouths cruel, faces framed by their long, charcoal locks. Most telling of all, their bows remained nocked, and their spears and swords were not sheathed. One rider – a man built like a god with a sculpted face, limbs corded with muscles, hair hanging in sweeping, long dark locks to his broad shoulders – ambled over… and raised his bow, the arrow trembling at full draw, trained on Pavo’s chest.
Pavo realised he had made a fatal mistake. These were not the same Maratocupreni he had once known. These men were robbers just like the bandits. They would slaughter the legionaries on the roof and the ambassadorial party unwittingly coming back towards the village. He would die out here, as an anonymous, forgotten fool.
‘Darik, no!’ a voice called out.
Another camel rider broke through. Their leader, Pavo realised as the figure placed a hand on the big warrior’s bow, gently pushing it down. This one sported a helm with a long, trailing plume and a face veil. With a nimble swish of one leg, this lead rider dismounted, landing almost without a sound.
Between the brow of the helm and the top of the face veil, sky-blue, almond-shaped eyes assessed Pavo.
Pavo held this one’s gaze, then realisation tolled within him like a hammer striking a bell. ‘Izo… Izodora?’ he stammered.
The leader unclipped the face veil and lifted off the helmet. Her pursed lips were humourless for a moment, but then they quirked at one side. The barest hint of a greeting.
‘By the Djinns of the Desert, Pavo, you have aged,’ she replied.
Only when the rear ranks of marchers – two abreast once again – came by, when every strange face was past him, did he tilt his head up just a little, the shade of his helmet peeling back and the sunlight spreading across his eagle-like face and hazel eyes.
He fell into place alongside the unpartnered legionary at the tail end of the party, who marched with that same head-down posture. This man’s emerald eyes were rolled up a little in their sockets, scrutinising the column, particularly the riders. ‘He was watching you,’ Sura said quietly, the words disguised by the thump and grind of boots on dust and sand. ‘Studying your face when you were helping the fallen scout.’
Pavo followed his oldest friend’s gaze. Behind Sporacius, guiding his camel alongside the remaining dromedarius scout, rode a young officer in a white tunic spotted with two large purple decorative circles and arrow-stripes at each shoulder. He wore a black felt cap from the rim of which short brown curls sprouted, and he sported a thick, curly beard. This was General Stilicho, half-Roman, half-Vandal – and most importantly a military man of growing repute, sent on this sortie to aid and learn from Ambassador Sporacius. He was a few summers younger than Pavo and already he was Emperor Theodosius’ Comes Stabuli – master of the imperial stables – and husband to the emperor’s adopted niece.
‘Not him,’ Sura said. ‘Him.’
Pavo followed Sura’s slight tilt of the head to see the silver-cloaked man riding alongside Stilicho. Trierarchus Ripanus, captain of the vessel that had brought them here to what felt like the edge of the world. Ripanus was staring off to the right of the column, scanning the desert wastes, his pinkish face pinched against the sun’s glare and one arm – bare apart from the leather bracer on the wrist – raised to shield his deep-set eyes from the light. He wore an intercisa helm with a jutting and sharp fin-like ridge similar to Pavo’s and Sura’s, but made distinct by the opals inlaid in the two eye motifs above the brow. ‘He was watching me? Are you sure?’
‘As sure as cock-rot in the island brothels. Do you think he suspects?’
‘No,’ Pavo muttered. ‘We played our part well on his boat. As far as he’s concerned, I’m Urbicus and you’re Mucianus – nothing but a pair of low-ranking swords.’
‘He was smiling when he was watching you… but his eyes weren’t. And what about the thing the oarsman said when we were at sea?’
Pavo chewed his bottom lip and stared at the swaying supply pack of the legionary in front of him as he replayed the memory. One of the rowers on Ripanus’ vessel had been particularly friendly – bringing Pavo water during his bouts of sea-sickness. One night, as the others slept, the fellow had shared wine with him and Sura. Pavo, irked by Sura’s suspicions about Ripanus, had asked the rower what he knew of the captain. The rower had laughed wryly, and answered in a way Pavo had not expected. 'There is a statue of Neptune in the Rhodos docks. One night, years ago, I made love to a beauty of a woman at the foot of the statue. It was one of those moments you know you’ll remember forever. I recall thinking at the time that I’d never forget the statue’s bright red robes and golden trident. Yet the next time I put into port there, the robes were blue and the trident silver. The locals swore to me that nobody had repainted it. It was the same statue, no doubt. But at the same time, it wasn’t.’ He had swigged on his wine a few times before continuing. ‘What do I think of Ripanus? He is a fine captain. Loves his ship and his men as if they are his brothers. I’d row into a storm if Ripanus asked me to.’ He had sucked on his wine again and exhaled contentedly through his nostrils, before holding up a finger and wagging it towards the figure of the trierarchus, sleeping near the helm. ‘But that… is not Ripanus.’ Pavo felt that same shiver now as he had then. ‘He’s wearing Ripanus’ cloak and helmet. Looks very similar… similar, but not the same. Maybe it’s just age; before this voyage I hadn’t seen him in years. I don’t know…’
Something yanked Pavo from the memory. Two small, simultaneous flashes of reflected sunlight, just ahead. He looked up, realising the flashes had come from Ripanus. Yet the captain was still staring out across the desert wastes on the right. But Pavo’s gaze was drawn to the inlaid opals on the man’s helm. Two polished gems, two flashes of light. Had the man just snatched a rearward look at him and Sura? The croaking of insects rose into a shrill, almost deafening sound, and the beat of footsteps seemed to quicken and quicken. He felt his sweat-soaked tunic and his ringmail tighten around his chest like a shroud.
‘You’re probably right,’ Sura exhaled. ‘I’m making too much of it. The heat is cooking my brain. Nobody here knows who we really are,’ he tried to reassure.
Pavo sighed, the tension easing a fraction.
'We are two escort legionaries. The lowest-ranking men on this mission,’ Sura continued as he peered ahead through the silvery heat in search of some sign that they were near their destination. ‘Our job is to stand around in a Persian palace while that lot at the front flap their lips at the new King of Kings.’
Pavo took a few dried tarragon leaves from his purse, popped one onto his tongue and offered Sura the other. The texture and earthy flavour conjured a little saliva into his dry mouth, and the herb was always a good source of energy on a march such as this. As he chewed, he mulled over their role. The Persian King of Kings, Aradashir, was dead. His successor, Shapur III, needed to be persuaded that the recent peace between his empire and that of Eastern Rome was worth preserving – formalising, even. The division of Armenia between the two states had been agreed in principle. Now it was time to thrash out the detail.
‘Right now things are not ideal,’ Sura continued, gesturing to the marching men and animals ahead. ‘The aroma of thirty-four sweaty crotches and six camel arses is,’ he paused to pluck the perfect word out of the air, ‘diabolical! But give it two more days and we’ll be in the cool and shady halls of Ctesiphon. I heard stories from escort soldiers who travelled there before. Apparently the Persian women like us ‘exotic’ westerners… and General Stilicho reckons these talks will last for some time.’
Pavo tried to smile, but it was a feeble attempt.
‘Come on, Pavo,’ Sura continued. ‘Thracia may be a thousand miles behind us, but our homeland is at peace, at long last. The war is over.’
Pavo slid his eyes round to meet Sura’s. ‘But the wrong man won.’
Sura’s lips moved a few times before he fell silent.
There was no argument to counter this, no platitude to lessen the truth of it. The Gothic War was over, but Gratian, Emperor of the West, had claimed it as his victory, securing and reaffirming his position as senior emperor over Theodosius and the still-weakened eastern realm. Gratian, the man complicit in the terrible military disasters that had crippled the Eastern Empire, was now effectively its master. Worse, his agents – the Speculatores – were still crawling all over their distant homeland. They came in many guises – artisans, entertainers, riders, soldiers, friends, beggars – but every one of them was a highly-trained killer. All Speculatores were marked somewhere with that wretched emblem of their secretive school – a single, staring eye.
Checking nobody was watching, Pavo reached into his purse and lifted out a leather strap, from which two lead tags hung, bearing his true name and that of his beloved legion back in Thracia. He traced a finger over the etching, Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis, and sighed: ‘Be watchful, Brothers.’
‘The Claudia lads will be well,’ Sura said.
‘Even with their new commander?’ said Pavo, tucking the signaculum tags away again.
‘I only heard about the man chosen to replace you. I don’t know for certain that-’
‘You said he was a Western officer.’ Pavo cut him off.
‘That much is true, but that doesn’t mean-’
‘If he’s from the West then he’s Gratian’s man. Gratian knows that the Claudia lads were behind us in everything we did to defy him,’ Pavo said, staring at the ground before them.
‘Doesn’t mean this new tribunus is a bad man. Gallus came from the Western Empire,’ Sura said quietly. ‘Sebastianus too, and Geridus.’
Pavo tilted his head to one side in agreement. ‘Aye, you are right, and they were golden. I just can’t help but taste danger for our comrades back there.’
Sura spat into the dust. ‘What can we do? We’re supposed to be dead men, Pavo. If we show our faces in the Eastern Empire anytime soon, Gratian’s Speculatores will peel them off, and if we go near the Claudia then they will suffer too. We can’t go back,’ Sura finished.
‘Exactly. We’re at the wrong end of the world, in hiding, in failure.’
‘So why torment yourself? Think of what lies ahead,’ Sura said, then batted the rear of one hand across his chest, his neck suddenly lengthening. ‘Look, we’re almost across the desert.’
Pavo peered ahead to see a shimmer on the horizon – some four miles away. A great river, which from this distance was merely a vague green ribbon, glittering where the sunlight caught the rippling current. ‘The Euphrates,’ he said almost in unison with every other man in the party. Beyond was ancient and fertile Mesopotamia, the heartland and bread basket of Sassanid Persia.
One of the legionaries in front of Pavo and Sura smacked his dry lips at the sight of the broad and flowing fresh water. ‘My drinking skin is warm and flat. Little more than spit left in there. When I get to the river, I’m going to drink myself sick,’ he said with a cackle.
‘Idiot,’ Sura whispered.
The legionary swung round, his bulbous nose scrunched up in anger. ‘You got something to say, tiro?’
Sura balked at the term. ‘A recruit?’
The legionary snorted. ‘Looks like it to me.’
Pavo noticed his friend’s fair skin reddening with ire. ‘One day we’ll be veterans like you two,’ he said before Sura could reply.
‘Wasn’t talking to you,’ the bulbous-nosed one sneered, then jabbed a finger at Sura. ‘This one was whispering about me.’
Mercifully, while Pavo had been talking, Sura had used the few heartbeats of respite to calm himself. ‘Just wanted to offer you some advice, that’s all. The trick with marching in hot lands is to drink water carefully. Small and controlled sips,’ he reasoned with Bulbous-nose in a friendlier tone. ‘Back where I come from, I was famed for my ability to march for days on end with just a single drinking skin. You know what they used to call me? The Camel. The Camel of Adrianople.’
Pavo nudged Sura discreetly, stopping him before he said too much. The legionaries for this escort had been scraped together – some from Thracia, some from the island ports they had stopped at during the voyage to Antioch, and some were already aboard Sporacius’ vessel when Ripanus’ ship had rendezvoused with it in the southern Aegean. None of them really knew more than a few of the others, or their backgrounds. Best it stays that way, Pavo thought.
‘Anyway, we don’t need to stay thirsty till we get to the river,’ the bulbous-nosed one shrugged and pointed, ‘look, a village… and a well!’
All heads in the column rose, dry voices croaking in interest. A short way ahead, and to the right of their route, lay a desert settlement. It was a small and random collection of white-walled houses, lying like dice that had been tossed absently across the dust. Villagers sat on the flat roofs, sheltered under the shade of awnings. One man, painting a clay pot, looked up lazily, then carried on about his business. Bright robes and skirts hung from washing lines stretched between the homes and the few palm trees sprouting here and there. A dog lay in the shade of one building, scratching madly behind its ear. The village centred around a low circular stone well with a windlass and leather bucket positioned over it.
Sporacius saw it too. The ambassador eyed the well and the village for a moment, before raising a hand. ‘Halt here,’ he said. ‘Go, take water in the village. Bring full skins back for us riders too.’
At this, General Stilicho sat upright in his saddle as if hearing a distant rumble of thunder. He heeled his camel round to Sporacius and the two entered into a sudden duel of words, a contest of leadership.
‘The escort is under my command,’ Stilicho snapped.
‘And this is my mission,’ Sporacius spat back.
Regardless, the soldiers were already peeling over towards the village.
‘Us two should stay back and guard the embassy,’ Sura reasoned, watching Stilicho and Sporacius, now left with just Ripanus and a pair of camel scouts to protect them. Still, he couldn’t resist a fond look over at the village and the well, nor a lick at his dry lips.
Just then, Ripanus’ gaze fell upon them, his face pinching with interest at the two men refusing the chance to drink.
‘We can’t afford to stand out,’ Pavo murmured to Sura, elbowing him and shoving him towards the village. ‘Come on.’
The two jogged on to catch up with the other legionaries moving towards the well. Bulbous-nose, now childishly-excited at the prospect of water, turned to backstep so he could talk to Pavo and Sura, his face bent in a grin. ‘Mucianus, isn’t it? You said they call you The Camel?’ he asked. ‘Well back in Thessalonica, they call me the horse.’
Sura feigned deafness.
‘I said they call me the horse,’ Bulbous-nose roared so he would hear this time, grabbing his crotch. ‘Because I’ve got a massive co-’
Thrum…whack!
Wetness, blood.
Bulbous nose halted, statue-still, an arrow tip sticking out of his left eye socket like a pointing finger, the milky liquid of his eye and pinkish-grey chunks of brain gently pattering down on the desert floor between him and Sura. The legionary’s body swayed, then crumpled. Some of the others had slowed, looking around in confusion, some still ambled on towards the well, oblivious to the silent strike.
Stunned, Pavo’s eyes swept like a hawk’s, across the desert village, then snapped onto the one thing that had changed. The man who had been painting a pot was now winking behind a bow, ready to loose another arrow. More, he now saw the similar shapes on the other roofs, and the bandits hiding in the doorways of the houses, betrayed by the blink of their steel blades.
‘Ambush!’ he cried as best as his parched throat would allow. Sura’s shoulder crashed against his, knocking both of them clear of the potter’s next arrow. All at once, his world was a tumbling chaos of dust, whizzing arrows and the punches of steel meeting flesh. Footsteps pounded and a desert battle cry rose as the hidden assailants sprang from the doorways. Pavo righted himself. Where was Sura? Some way behind them he heard the camels grunting in panic, heard Stilicho blaring orders from distance. But there was no imperative here other than survival.
A dusky-skinned bandit bounded towards Pavo, his loose robes flailing, his yellow-tinged eyes mean and his black beard wildly overgrown. The man had all the advantages: surprise, speed, weapon drawn. Pavo frantically grabbed at his shield strap, pulling the scarred, pale-blue screen from his shoulder and swinging it in front of him just as the bandit’s broadsword swished round. The blade sliced into the leather edging and bit into the wood. Pavo grabbed the shield edge with his free hand and pivoted on his heel, the movement yanking the wedged blade from the bandit’s hand. Before completing a full turn, he dropped his free hand to his scabbard and clasped it around his spatha hilt, drawing the legionary sword in one move and chopping it round into the bandit’s neck. The man stumbled away in a fit of grunting and slapping at the lethal wound, dark blood sheeting out between his fingers. At once, Pavo sensed the whirr behind him, swung once more and fell to one knee, bringing his shield up to catch two more arrows.
‘There are scores of them!’ Sura cried from nearby.
Pavo saw his friend, splashed red, working his sword free of another bandit’s body. In every direction, clusters of these mean-eyed robbers closed in. Fourteen of the escort legionaries lay dead or twitching. His heart pounded in his throat as he realised that he, Sura and the other fourteen remaining were trapped. His eyes swung to the potter’s house, closest of the white-walled homes. The archer-bandit up on its roof was dead thanks to a thrown legionary spear and he now hung like a wet drape over the roof’s edge, staining the white walls red. ‘Inside!’ he cried to Sura and the surviving legionaries. He unclipped a plumbata – one of three lead weighted darts secured on the inside of his shield – and hurled it in the general direction of the nearest bandits, causing them to slow and duck. It would buy them a breath of time.
Lunging up from one knee like a sprinter, he charged for the potter’s house, the others converging there with him. Three more legionaries fell as they ran but, in a metallic thunder and a chorus of gasping, the men barrelled into the house – a well of cool shade. Colourful rugs lay on the floor and a scented oil burner glowed. Nobody else inside. An old cane ladder led up to an open square hatch of sunlight.
‘Onto the roof,’ Pavo bawled, waving each man up.
Pavo and Sura’s heads flicked from the bandits outside, coming for the door, to the last of the legionaries speeding up the ladder.
‘Go!’ Pavo demanded of Sura.
‘No, you go!’ Sura barked back.
‘Go… and that’s an order,’ Pavo snarled.
Sura sped on up to the roof, then, just as the bandits spilled inside, Pavo clambered up, feeling a broadsword hack through the cane rung his boot had just left. He scrambled onto the roof and kicked the half-broken ladder down into the house interior, then swept his eyes around the low white mud-brick lip of this roof, ears pricking up at the rising clamour of bandit shouts and curses rising from inside and those gathering around each of the house’s sides. Scores of them? There were more like a hundred, he realised. Against thirteen legionaries. His mind spun like a falling sycamore key, searching through moments in the past, moments like this, in search of a way out. He shot looks in every direction: nothing but pan-flat golden dust and calm blue desert sky… apart from just south of the village where a low set of golden hills rose – but they were too distant to attempt any sort of fighting retreat there.
‘There’s no way out,’ he said quietly. He looked northwards, seeing that Sporacius, Ripanus and the camel scouts had backed well away – rightly, for it would be madness should an ambassador be hurt or killed in a futile attempt to save the men who were supposed to be guarding him. Regardless, Stilicho had dismounted, anguished. The general’s sword was drawn, his chest heaving as he took a few steps towards the scene. Yet he did not approach any further. A soldier right enough, Pavo realised, but not a fool.
His thoughts were scattered by the clack of a new cane ladder swinging up against the lip of the roof beside him. ‘I’ll empty your purse, Roman,’ said a voice in broken Greek. ‘I’ll sell your armour and your clothes.’ The bandit’s fiercely-ugly head appeared over the roof’s edge, his broadsword glinting. ‘I’ll feed your heart to the desert dogs.’
Another ladder clacked into place next to this man, and then another three on the opposite roof edge.
‘Together!’ Pavo roared. The thirteen legionaries backed up against one another, the reverberation of their panicked breaths and pounding hearts binding them at the last like a sheaf of wheat about to be ripped apart by a hundred scythes.
A long, low groan of camels pierced the air over the village. It came not from the few beasts in the north with Ambassador Sporacius, this was a chorus of many, coming from those southern hills. Pavo saw a dark jumble of silhouettes appear at the crest of the low hills then spill down towards the village. More desert warriors – camel riders, coursing between the houses like the waters of a burst dam, coming to help finish the job the bandits had started. He could not see much of them thanks to the sun at their backs, but there were eighty or so. Many of them stretched in their saddles, lifting bent bows into the air.
Thrum… whoosh.
At the same time, the ugly bandit scrambled up onto the roof along with three fellow thugs.
‘Mithras, it has been good fighting alongside you,’ Sura said quietly as he and Pavo braced and watched the storm of arrows and bandits speeding towards them.
Whump, whack, whack!
A mist of blood floated through the hot, late-afternoon air, settling on Pavo, Sura and the others. All of them stared as the ugly bandit shuddered, mid-stride, before crumpling, dead, an arrow quivering between his shoulder blades. The others who had climbed up with him fell too, riddled with shafts. Screams rose from the desert floor around the house, as the camel riders swept around the building like a tornado, swishing and stabbing with spears and curved blades at the men who had ambushed the legionaries. In a blur of noise and stampeding feet, a few dozen of the bandits fled, and half of them were struck down by arrows in the back. As quickly as the desert had exploded into life, the din of battle faded to just the sawing of exhausted breaths.
‘What just happened?’ said one legionary, still pressed tightly beside Pavo and Sura, his sword drawn and trembling.
Pavo lengthened his neck to see over the roof’s edge and stare down at the camel riders. They were now milling slowly, checking that the stricken bandits were all dead and despatching those who were not. He saw that the riders wore light robes like the bandits, but they were also armoured in dark-brown, hardened leather cuirasses, and many wore iron helms, some plumed. A chill breath puffed from the vaults of memory as he realised who they were. ‘Maratocupreni,’ he whispered.
‘Maroto… Marama… what?’ the shaking legionary beside him stammered.
‘It is the Maratocupreni,’ Pavo said, his voice full now. ‘Sheathe your swords.’
When the legionaries did not obey, Pavo’s face bent into an evil scowl like an eagle spotting its prey. ‘Sheathe your fucking weapons, now!’
The men were quick to obey this time. None questioned this man they had up until now considered to be some hopeless recruit.
Pavo gestured to the north, waving to Sporacius and Stilicho to indicate that the danger had passed. They hesitated, but when he repeated the gesture they began to walk cautiously towards the village. Pavo approached one ladder at the roof’s edge and descended. He found himself stepping down onto a carpet of bloody bandit bodies, surrounded by a forest of camel legs. The beasts milled around him, lowing and grumbling, their stink horrific. The fawn-skinned riders glared down at him with hard eyes, underlined with thick stripes of kohl, their mouths cruel, faces framed by their long, charcoal locks. Most telling of all, their bows remained nocked, and their spears and swords were not sheathed. One rider – a man built like a god with a sculpted face, limbs corded with muscles, hair hanging in sweeping, long dark locks to his broad shoulders – ambled over… and raised his bow, the arrow trembling at full draw, trained on Pavo’s chest.
Pavo realised he had made a fatal mistake. These were not the same Maratocupreni he had once known. These men were robbers just like the bandits. They would slaughter the legionaries on the roof and the ambassadorial party unwittingly coming back towards the village. He would die out here, as an anonymous, forgotten fool.
‘Darik, no!’ a voice called out.
Another camel rider broke through. Their leader, Pavo realised as the figure placed a hand on the big warrior’s bow, gently pushing it down. This one sported a helm with a long, trailing plume and a face veil. With a nimble swish of one leg, this lead rider dismounted, landing almost without a sound.
Between the brow of the helm and the top of the face veil, sky-blue, almond-shaped eyes assessed Pavo.
Pavo held this one’s gaze, then realisation tolled within him like a hammer striking a bell. ‘Izo… Izodora?’ he stammered.
The leader unclipped the face veil and lifted off the helmet. Her pursed lips were humourless for a moment, but then they quirked at one side. The barest hint of a greeting.
‘By the Djinns of the Desert, Pavo, you have aged,’ she replied.
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Hope you enjoyed the intro! You can pick up a copy of Legionary: Dark Eagle from all good online stores.
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