Legion of the Undead

by Michael Whitehead

  Vespas turned back to Vitus and told him to report what he had seen. They walked as they talked. Vitus started slowly, explaining in detail what he had witnessed.

  He told Vespas about the legionary, and how they had thought him drunk at first. He then told of the man's wounds. Vespas listened calmly up until this point, but a look of incredulity crossed his face as Vitus described the injuries the legionary had carried. Vitus explained that the thing had tried to bite him and the strength of its attack. He told how it had driven itself onto his sword without any effect at all. Finally, he explained how Antonius had saved his life by tackling the creature and almost splitting its head in two.

  Vespas was quiet for a few seconds, then he asked, “And you all saw this happen the same way?”

  Antonius and Regulus had been quiet up until this point but both answered him with a yes.

  “You think this thing had risen from the dead?” Vespas was talking as if he was in shock.

  “Yes sir. I don’t see how to explain it any other way. His injuries should have killed him instantly. He’d had his face torn off! I looked into his eyes, sir. They weren’t human, fuck me, they weren’t even animal.” Vitus thought back to what he’d just said, “Sorry, sir.”

  “I have no idea how to tell the general something like this. I guess we wait until after the battle at least.”

  There was a thunder of hooves as the Roman cavalry swept from the right flank and crashed into the smaller unit of Germani horses. The death cries of mounts and men added to the already huge noise of the battle. The archers had stopped their part, for now, and were stood in loose formation, at ease, watching the killing as it happened in front of them.

  The legions were steadily pushing forward. The center of the Germani line was bowing inward with the sheer number of legionaries confronting them. The discipline and training of the legions stopped them from forcing the advantage and losing unit cohesion.

  A field of dead lay behind the Roman lines. Some bodies had been crushed under foot as rank after rank had stepped on and over them. Many lay dismembered, with limbs scattered like forgotten pieces of meat. Very few survived on the killing floor, those that had not died as they had fallen had been killed by the passing ranks. Men eager to join the battle would bloody their swords on fallen warriors, as much to ensure they would not be attacked from the floor as anything else.

  Vitus saw units of war dogs being lead around the flanks of the lines. Huge black and tan beasts with wide grinning mouths that fronted jaws of massive power. The handlers held chains and had to restrain the dogs from attacking until they were near their intended targets.

  As the dogs drew close to the clash between cavalry units the Roman horses disengaged. The hounds were unleashed, barrelling across the open ground to bite and jump at the Germani horses. Riders were dragged to the ground as their mount’s legs were broken by massive powerful jaws. Dogs died as they were kicked by the Germani warhorses but still the remaining dogs fought on.

  In front of him Vitus watched men killing men. He saw a Germani warrior drive his blade up and under the chin of a legionary. The Roman died instantly, but had his revenge as the Germani blade caught and the warrior was cut down in turn while trying to free his weapon.

  Legionary tactics meant that each man fought the man to the right of him. Each man had to trust his neighbour to protect him from the enemy directly in front of him. It took discipline and courage. Vitus watched as, over and over, Germani and Romans fell to the ground dead or dying. The Roman lines stepped steadily forward, driving the thinning Germani lines towards their own useless defensive structures.

  Vitus watched as a man stood up from the field of dead. He twitched and jerked as he did. Almost immediately he was joined by a dozen more. They rose from among the dead and headed straight to the rear of the Roman lines.

  He saw the same movement, the same dead expressions on the faces of the men in front of him, as had seen earlier on the legionary who had tried to kill him. The dead were standing up all over the battlefield and attacking the legions in front of them.

  At first the legionaries at the rear of the Roman lines didn’t seem to react. They were used to feeling the crush of fellow soldiers and thought nothing of it. That was until the men behind them sank their teeth into exposed flesh.

  The dead fought with a frenzy. They bit and flailed at the rear ranks, and as those men began to fall they climbed over the press of men and landed in the heart of the legions. Men died without the room to bring their swords up and defend themselves. Hundreds of the dead attacked, and still more were rising.

  Vitus turned to Vespas who stood frozen for a split second.

  “Sir, it’s as I told you, the dead are coming back to life.” He shouted.

  “Archers, defend yourselves.”

  It was all Vespas could think to shout. Nothing in his training had prepared him for the dead standing up on the battlefield and attacking the legions.

  The auxiliaries started to loose arrows into the growing crowd of the dead. Many were struck multiple times with no effect. The first wave of dead was now so thick that the later risers turned in the opposite direction and started to head towards the archery units. Vitus braced himself for attack.

  A booming voice from his right shouted, “Aim for the heads. It’s the only way they will go down.” Vitus recognised Antonius’ voice.

  The front ranks of the legions took time to realise that the men behind them were being massacred. They continued to fight the Germani until the enemy began to disengage and step backward. They could see what was happening behind and above the Roman lines.

  Dead men clambered over the Roman ranks, biting and killing as they fell into the spaces between the men. The battle turned. Germani warriors stopped fighting the legions and pointed over their shoulders shouting. In places the front ranks turned and were joined by enemy warriors as they defended themselves against the dead, risen to kill them.

  Lines broke down and men died in their hundreds. Soon isolated groups of living men of both sides stood back to back fending off creatures that were once their brothers. Monsters in Roman armour threw themselves at legionaries who had fought beside them just moments before.

  Vitus drew his bow and loosed arrow after arrow. Picking individual targets. Some fell with the missiles in their skulls, while others kept coming forward pierced many times. The helmets that the warriors of both side wore protected the vulnerable heads from all but the most precise shot. It seemed like an age before the Cornu sounded the retreat.

  Vespas shouted from Vitus’ left, “Draw your swords and fall back in good order. Do not sell yourselves cheap boys, if you have to run, then you run. Do what you need to do to stay alive.”

  The first dead man reached Vitus an instant after he drew his gladius. A Germani warrior with an arm missing from below the elbow and blood dripping from his mouth. He swung at it with a wide arc. The blade cleaved a chunk of skull with a glancing blow. The dead warrior went down, crumpling instantly.

  Vitus sensed the men around him backing away as the dead came at them. The archers loose formation allowed more room to use their blades than the legionaries had been afforded, crushed in the ranks.

  They backed up a low, shallow slope that gave Vitus a view of what was happening below them. Mixed groups of men were fighting their way free from the confusion. Many of the dead had stopped their attack to feast on the men that had already fallen. It thinned their numbers, and gave the living a chance to fight their way free.

  Antonius bodily picked up one of the creatures to Vitus’ left, he raised it above his head while the thing writhed in an attempt to bite him. He threw it at a group of three oncoming dead. They were scattered with the force of the impact. Antonius roared his defiance, and the men around him joined his battle cry.

  Vitus kicked out at a dead legionary with an arrow sticking out of his cheek. As his foot made contact the dead thing opened its mouth and Vitus saw the arrow tip cutting into its tongue.
The kick sent the dead man flailing backwards, ruining the charge of two more who came behind it.

  The exodus up the slope seemed to be working. The number of dead coming after them was growing fewer as the seconds passed. More legionaries were catching up to them, helping wounded comrades, and even enemies along with them. The battle between the living factions had been forgotten in the fight against the dead.

  Men still fell to the new enemy. Vitus saw an archer dragged away into a crowd of snarling monsters, screaming as he fell. Another slipped to his right. It was an instant before Vitus realised it was Vespas who had gone down. Regulus broke ranks without thought. He took one of the monsters up and under the chin as it reached for Vespas. Vitus rushed in to help, he backhanded his sword across the face of another creature. Regulus pulled Vespas to his feet, and the three men ran back to the retreating lines.

  It was this run that broke the fleeing Roman lines. Men turned and ran but they had done enough. The pursuing creatures were falling behind.

  Their run lead them into a thicket of forest that lay between themselves and the camp. Vitus thanked the gods that the defensive wall would still be standing. Breaking camp meant that the legion could move quickly after a battle if needed, but time and effort would not have been wasted in removing the palisade walls. It gave them a place of relative safety to which they could head.

  After the noise of the battle the quiet in the forest was almost deafening. Vitus could actually hear a ringing in his ears from the lack of noise. He turned to check that they were not being pursued and saw that they seemed to be alone. He motioned to the other men to stop.

  Vespas, Regulus and Antonius were panting hard after the exertion of the last few minutes. They stood with their hands on their knees and breathed deep.

  “Is anyone hurt?” Vitus asked as he paced about trying to catch his breath. His chest burned with the effort.

  All three men shook their heads. Relief washed over Vitus. He turned to Vespas, “I thought you were gone there for a second, sir.”

  Vespas looked at Regulus and back to Vitus. “I would have been if you two hadn’t been so quick off the mark. I owe you my life boys.” He took each of them in the legionary grip. “I think one of the bastards bit me, but I don’t think it’s deep. The medicus should be able to strap it up when we get back to base.” He looked down at his calf and saw a small round set of teeth marks no bigger than the bite of a puppy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  By the time the four men reached the edge of the forest, the shock of what they had been through was beginning to sink in. Vitus was shaking from adrenaline and he felt a tingling sensation on his face. Antonius was sullen and silent, he walked along looking at his feet. Vespas had a sheen of sweat on his face and was beginning to limp. Vitus looked at the bite mark on the centurion’s leg. It looked redder than it had done half an hour ago.

  Only Regulus was speaking. He seemed to be talking to himself, and to the rest of them at the same time. He kept asking questions whether he was answered or not. It wasn’t his usual excited babble, more a stream of thoughts that he had to voice. Once, Antonius had told him to shut up but the lad had continued as if he hadn’t heard.

  “It can’t be real can it? I mean, the dead don’t just get up and start fighting, do they? Is it some sort of magic do you think? I wonder if head wounds are the only way to kill them. Well, I say kill them, I mean they're already dead aren’t? We can’t really say they're alive either though. I mean really they're the dead that got up and fought. The fighting dead?” He stopped talking as Antonius grabbed two handfuls of his tunic and lifted him to eye level.

  “I’m telling you. If you don’t shut the fuck up I will end you. I think we’ve all been through enough don’t you? We all saw what happened, and I think we all need a little quiet don’t you?”

  He put Regulus down and must have felt a little abashed at the way he had treated the boy. He straightened out his Regulus’ tunic for him before he turned away.

  Regulus looked shocked for a moment, then continued. “The Risen! That's the name for them. I mean we have to call them something don’t we? We can’t just call them the dead can we? That would just get confusing.” He looked around and saw everyone glaring at him.

  “Sorry, my mum always said I talk when I’m anxious. I see what she means now.”

  The group continued out onto the open grass plain in silence.

  The camp came into view not long after they left the forest. The dark palisade walls stood out against the golden grassland around it. The sky had brightened to a bright, cold, early spring day. It wouldn’t be long before summer was making itself known, and they would all remember fondly the days where work didn’t make everything they wore stick to them with sweat.

  The four of them were coming towards the camp at an angle to the main road. They could see small groups of men making their way towards the gate. A centurion had gathered roughly two hundred legionaries into a wall across the road with their backs to the fort. It gave the retreating men a line of safety so that the gates could remain open.

  Many of the groups had injured men among them, from the battle or from the fight with the dead, it was hard to tell. Some of the groups contained Germani warriors. Men who had stood side by side with the legions, as they fought the dead. Standing by men they had moments before been trying to kill. For the time being, all enmity forgotten.

  As he watched the retreating groups, Vitus heard a noise behind him. It was a growling, slathering noise that came from nothing human. They all turned drawing their blades. Three of the war dogs from the legion handlers stood, hackles raised, and obviously dead. They dribbled blood from their jowls and paced slowly forward.

  “I can’t take anymore of this shit.” Vitus heard Antonius say. The men spread them themselves wide in order to make themselves a harder target. The dogs paced backward and forward. They didn’t seem to be driven by the mindless hunger that their human counterparts were. They were far more considered and cautious than the dead the legions had just fought.

  All at once, as if on cue the dogs attacked. The first launched itself at Regulus, it was all massive front paws and snarling teeth as it leapt. The second two came in low at Vespas and Vitus.

  Antonius threw himself at the first animal as it launched itself at Regulus. He stabbed his sword through its ribcage so hard that the point penetrated through and out the other side. He lifted the sword hilt and drove the tip of the blade into the ground, pinning the thrashing animal where it fell.

  Regulus, who had gone down on one knee as the animal came in, slid forward and drove his blade at the top of the dogs head. The skull bone was so thick that the blade slid across the skull splitting the skin but leaving the dog jerking and convulsing to get out of the trap it was in.

  Vitus had the room to side step as the second dog attacked him. He swung his gladius at its hind legs, and saw the dog collapse to one side as it went by. The animal still managed to twist with ferocious speed, and come back at him almost as quickly.

  Vitus stepped forward and brought his blade down across the back of the dog's neck. The head was almost severed but hung limply by a flap of skin beneath its throat. The head continued to snarl as it staggered, unable to find its prey without the proper use of its eyes. Thick black viscous fluid drained from the open throat. Vitus stepped in and stabbed down into the dangling head stopping the dog's movement permanently.

  The dog that attacked Vespas almost bowled him off his feet. It came in so low and fast that he barely had time to get out of the way. He was still reeling backwards as the dog turned and ran at him again. At the last second it braced its back legs and threw itself as his chest. Instinct brought the blade of his sword up and into the dog's skull from underneath. The impact knocked Vespas onto his back, but the dog was still before it hit the floor.

  The trapped dog still thrashed in a frenzy, impaled on Antonius’ sword. Regulus was having trouble picking his spot with the dog’s head twisting and flailin
g as fast as it was.

  Antonius stepped forward with his hand out for the Gladius. Regulus shrugged and handed it over, hilt first. Antonius stepped hard on the dog's neck, stilling the movement of its head. He placed the tip of the blade into the dog's ear and leaned his weight onto the hilt. The dog stopped its thrashing and lay still.

  Antonius turned to the other three men. ‘I have had the worst day of my life, and I can’t take anymore. Can we please get to the camp and find a drink before anything else forces me kill to it?”

  None of the three men facing him wanted to argue with the big man, and so they set off towards the camp cleaning their blades as they went.

  On entering the camp the same optio that had opened the gate to let them out stopped them, a slate in his hand.

  “I have to take all names as they enter camp. We need a definite head count.” The optio didn't seem at all in the mood to continue the discussion from yesterday.

  “Where are the medici?” Vitus asked after giving his name. The optio pointed to an open patch of ground covered with dozens of wounded men. Legionaries were hurriedly erecting tents into which they would move the injured men. A medicus moved among the men assessing those in most need and treating those he could.

  Vitus turned to Vespas. “It looks like you're in for a long wait, sir.”

  Vespas waved a hand at the scene around him, “I'm not wasting the time of these men. I have a small bite not a real injury. I'll bind it myself.”

  Vitus looked at the centurion’s leg. “Sir, I'll be honest. Your leg is starting to look really bad, and you don't look so good either.”

  The bite mark on Vespas’ leg was turning yellow around the edges, and Vitus could see a black pus-like substance gathering in the teeth marks. There were also dark red veins running away from the wound that looked ominous.

  “I’ll be fine,” the centurion replied. “It looks like it needs a poultice I grant you, but I’ve dealt with worse than this.” Vespas took Vitus’ wrist in the legionary grip and said, “You saved my life today. I won’t forget it.” With that said he walked away to find his kit and tent.