The Blood Road (Legionary 7): Legionary, no. 7

by Gordon Doherty

  ‘Here he is,’ Flat-nose enthused, turning to the cloaked one shuffling along the corridor. The wind howled outside, tiles lifting and settling on the roof with a clackity-clack. Viridio’s hooded shadow-face betrayed just a horrible grin of filthy teeth. He held up a hand in a half-salute, the staring eye ring on his finger catching the dim torchlight.

  The pair parted and Viridio stepped up the stairs towards the attic door.

  ‘You’ll have some help tonight,’ Skull-face said, he and Flat-nose following.

  ‘Give me a moment,’ Viridio whispered. ‘I have a way of doing things, an order. I always like to be alone with my victims when they experience the initial wave of pain. Come in after you hear the first of his screams.’

  ‘Very well,’ Skull-face said, disappointed.

  Pavo’s first few steps were cautious, the roar of the fiery archway rising then dying as he passed through it. The splash of his boots on the blood-wet road was barely audible over the cries of the cadaver army through which he now walked. The champions of the rotting throng howled and shrieked, beating fists on their bony chests, snapping their teeth together, dangling looped ropes of shrunken heads as if threatening to add his to the collection. Their weapons gleamed, sharp and polished. Yet for those few strides, nothing happened, and his confidence grew.

  And then the first stone was cast.

  It whacked against his chest, denting the iron plates there, the blow knocking the wind from his lungs, sending him staggering a step to the left. The corpse warriors howled in delight. Before he could right himself, a club came crunching down across his shoulders, sending him flailing forward and onto one knee, splashing down onto the blood-slick tombstones. The pain was unlike anything he had known before. The armour had taken much of the impact but had crumpled too and his upper back spasmed in shock.

  His vision blurred as he looked ahead to the olive tree and the singing maiden: how far? Too far. Miles. No man could do this.

  The crone stood a few paces ahead, invisible to the corpse warriors. She sank to one knee like him, milky eyes wide, face drawn, the hems of her robe stained red. ‘Rise, Pavo… Rise.’

  Pavo saw the mounted cadaver king ahead, gleeful, his minions whirling barbed whips and dreadful serrated blades.

  ‘I… I cannot do this.’

  Her eyes grew hooded, her lips peeling back over her yellow teeth. ‘There is nobody else Pavo. It must be you,’ she growled.

  Wheezing, he planted the Claudia standard onto the flat tombstone before him and used it like a cane, rising. The watching cadaver champions exploded in a song of fury…

  Pavo jolted awake. It took a moment for his vision to settle. Head lolling, he first noticed his body: stripped to his loincloth. Unlike in that twisted dream, he was unmarked, unharmed. Then he felt the weight of the wretched torque around his neck. Instinctively, both hands moved towards it, intent on twisting the damned thing off. But a clank of shackles halted his arms, holding them where they were, pinning his wrists to the walls at shoulder height.

  A lone candle flickered and sputtered on a plate in the corner of the room, whispers of the gale outside sneaking in through cracks in the stonework. He looked towards the door. He had stared at it all afternoon and evening, knowing that this was the first part of Gratian’s elaborate torture – the anticipation of the horrors that were to come. Every creaking footstep of the patrolling Herul in the corridor outside sent involuntary shivers of fear scampering over his bare skin.

  There came the growl of a dog, somewhere along the corridor, then a clap of thunder, then the dull rumble of chatter, close – too close. With a clunk, the handle of the door shifted. Pavo’s heart crashed. One, last, hopeless strain against the shackles… but not even a titan could break free of them. Mithras, give me the strength to endure the coming hardships.

  The door groaned open, and a Speculator shuffled across the room towards Pavo, breathing heavily, his foul teeth inhuman. ‘It promises to be a long night, Tribunus Pavo,’ he said in a sibilant, soughing breath.

  God of the Light, rob my body of feeling…

  ‘Where to begin,’ the Speculator purred. The door clunked shut behind the man, as he halted an arm’s width from Pavo. Too far away to headbutt, and with no strength to lever his legs up and kick out. There was nothing he could do.

  ‘It will be slow. Many, many months of agony. Sheer ago-’

  Pavo snorted up the contents of this throat and sinuses and spat them at the Speculator with all the air in his lungs. The filthy mess splattered into the shadow of the torturer’s hood.

  Silence.

  ‘Well there was no need for that,’ an altogether different voice moaned from the hood.

  Pavo stared. ‘Sura?’

  Sura flicked down his black hood, swiping the phlegm from his face and flicking it away. ‘That’s bloody disgusting, that is.’

  ‘Sura, what the fu-’

  Shhh, Sura gestured, a finger to his lips then a nod to the door. ‘I had to make it sound real, in case they were listening at the door.’ He peeled his lips back in a rictus and rubbed a finger vigorously across his scummy teeth. ‘I watched the comings and goings from this place earlier, after they took you. I followed a messenger to the tent of a filthy-toothed bastard and realised he was one of them. So I smeared date paste on my teeth, stole a black cloak and,’ he flashed his hand at Pavo, ‘found a good use for Scapula’s old ring.’

  Pavo stared at the eye ring, and the eye ring stared back. ‘Sura, you can’t be here. If Gratian even gets wind of an attempt to rescue me, it’ll mean bleak things for the Claudia – even bleaker than he already has planned. That’s the only way he can truly hurt me.’

  ‘Save your energy for the escape,’ Sura said, ignoring him and working free the shackle bolts.

  Soon, his arms swung down to his sides, freed. They felt numb as a corpse but it was a blissful sensation nonetheless. But reality quickly took hold. ‘You do realise this place is guarded on every floor?’ he said as he massaged his hands, the feeling gradually returning, then set about bending the torque free of his neck and setting it down quietly.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Sura said as if placating a fussing mother. ‘I told the pair outside to come in when they heard the first of your screams.’

  ‘Then what? Did you bring weapons?’ he asked.

  Sura patted his cloak, producing two pugios, handing Pavo one.

  Pavo, feeling the strength returning to his arms, took the small but deadly dagger, making a few practice swishes. ‘Right, I’m ready.’

  ‘The thing is, the scream will have to sound real, so…’ Sura positioned himself to execute a groin punch.

  ‘Hold on, why do I have to be the one on the receiving end of-’

  Both of them froze. More voices outside. Dull murmurs. Confusion. Then one mumbled: ‘Viridio? Then who’s in that room?’

  Pavo and Sura stared at one another, aghast. ‘Oh shit!’ they said in unison.

  The attic door burst open as Skull-face, Flat-nose and the real Viridio surged in.

  Hiss, went their swords.

  Sura made a lunge for Skull-face, only for Flat-nose to slash upwards, ripping Sura’s black cloak and scoring deep across his forearm. With a yell, Sura stumbled back. Pavo feinted left then made to strike the right flank of Viridio, but the foul-toothed Speculator slid deftly to one side and grabbed Pavo’s outstretched wrist, twisting it with a death grip. The pugio fell, Pavo winced.

  ‘He can’t run,’ Viridio grunted, ‘if he can’t walk.’

  Pavo could only watch as the Speculator’s blade came speeding down for his hamstrings. He braced for the fiery pain that would rob him of the power of his legs, when a spearpoint exploded through Viridio’s breastbone from behind. Blood showered the room. In the flickering candlelight, he saw Skull-face and Flat-nose spasming likewise. Pavo and Sura backed away as the corpses fell. In their place stood three Heruli. Two sentries, flanking a grim-faced Tribunus Lanzo.

  ‘You understood, wh
en I gave you the dagger?’ Lanzo said in a gravelly burr. ‘It was the only way I could show you I was on your side. Now,’ he waved a hand, ‘come with me.’

  Pavo was certain that this was an elaborate game – a hoax of Gratian’s to feed him with some false hope of escape just to maximise the mental anguish. But as he stumbled out down the attic stairs and onto the upper floor corridor, he saw that most of the sentries were gone. The hearth chamber at the end of the corridor, where Gratian had been with his hunting dog earlier was empty. More, he heard shouts and clopping hooves out on the streets.

  ‘What in Hades is happening? Pavo hissed.

  ‘The palisade up on the western half of the turf wall is ablaze,’ Lanzo said matter-of-factly as he hurried down the flights of stairs, then edged his head out to look around the palace’s night-shaded, peristyled gardens. He threw a drab brown cloak around Pavo, pulling up the hood. Holding his hood in place, he and Sura followed Lanzo out into the city streets, turning into the wind which hit him like the slap of an angry lover. He gazed over the tiled roofs of the city in the direction of the land walls, seeing a flickering glow in the dark sky beyond, hearing the cries of fire fighters.

  ‘It is a night attack, maybe. The horde has returned, perhaps?’ Lanzo mused, then looked back again, this time with a strange expression and a hint of a smile. ‘Or maybe someone was careless with the resin pots the Goths left behind.’

  Pavo strode level with Lanzo, who refused to meet his glare. ‘You are the leader of the West’s chosen legion. Why would you do this for me?’ he asked as they picked up into a jog along the triumphal way.

  ‘The Heruli are certainly no longer the emperor’s chosen legion,’ he snapped. ‘And in the eyes of some, Gratian is no longer the chosen Lord of the West. On this march east, I have come to understand that there is another. A leader in waiting – far more deserving.’

  Up ahead, green-cloaked sentries were posted on the roofs of taverns and shops, watching the streets, occasionally glancing to the events beyond the land walls.

  ‘Alani…’ Lanzo hissed, lifting a hand to slow Pavo and Sura near the centre of a wide crossroads.

  Pavo realised just how many of Gratian’s imperial guardsmen were nearby – as one might gaze into a tank of snakes and see first a few then many. Every patch of his skin tingled with danger. A few heads rolled round to stare at the strange cadre in the middle of the crossroads.

  ‘Lanzo?’ one of the Alani shouted down from the roof of the city granary. The man’s tone was clipped and lacking respect, given Lanzo was a tribunus and the shouter a mere ranker. ‘Your lot are supposed to be watching the emperor’s lodgings, what are you doing out here?’

  ‘There is trouble outside the city,’ Lanzo replied quickly, pointing that way in an attempt to turn the eyes of the Alani watchmen too. But the one who had shouted did not turn to the glow beyond the land walls. Instead, he beheld the cloaked pair beside Lanzo with suspicion.

  ‘Who have you got there?’

  Pavo saw the veins in Lanzo’s neck pulse, saw the tribunus’ throat bulge with a gulp. He shot a look to Sura, who was already eyeing the nearest route of potential escape should the Alani come for them, but at every street corner or alley entrance, more sentries stood, latching onto the shouting one’s words. Both gripped their pugios under their brown cloaks, each knowing that no man with such a small blade could beat an imperial spear guard – let alone dozens of them. What a foolish attempt at escape this was. The city was crawling with Gratian’s men, and the double-layer of wall and earth rampart too was serried with them.

  A clatter of hooves and wheels on flagstones split the building tension. A wagon rolled over the crossroads and halted in front of them, obscuring them from the gaze of the Alani. Pavo’s heart crashed like a drum. The black wagon – the Speculatores vehicle?. A delicate hand tugged back the inky drapes just a little. ‘This is them?’ a voice asked Lanzo from within.

  Lanzo nodded once. A heartbeat later and the cabin door creaked open.

  Pavo eyed the shadowy abyss within. All part of the elaborate game? To further hone his hopes so they were all the more plump and ripe for dashing horribly?

  ‘Trust me,’ Lanzo hissed. ‘Get in.’

  Running footsteps sounded from somewhere behind the wagon. ‘What’s going on here?’ Alani voices called, trilling with their quick step. Pavo eyed Lanzo, eyed the wagon, eyed Sura. No choice, he mouthed, and lurched inside, Sura bundling in behind him.

  He held his hands up in fists in the moments it took for his eyes to acclimatise to the gloom. But as the wagon pulled away, the shouts of the Alani dying behind, he realised this was not the Speculatores’ wagon. Night and fatigue had been playing tricks with his mind. He lowered his fists, seeing a milky-skinned woman sitting on the bench opposite. Her narrow face was sculpted and fragile, her beauty spoiled only by wrought worry lines across her forehead face. She was forty years or more, he guessed by the light threads of silvery hair that glinted in her dark locks – piled atop her head in a thick swirl. Now he saw the second, smaller figure, beside her. ‘Valentinian?’ Pavo stammered, memories of what had happened in Sirmium’s burning halls coming back to him like a boxer’s blow: Gratian torturing his young stepbrother, holding a knife to the lad’s throat. The grim memories crumbled as Pavo realised that this was the Caesar of the West, second only to Gratian. Equal to Gratian, in the eyes of many. ‘Domine,’ he corrected himself, slipping from his seat and onto one knee. Sura followed suit.

  The woman with him rested protective hands on the boy’s shoulders. Motherly hands. Justina, Pavo realised, extending his neck towards her and offering her a bow too. ‘Domina.’

  ‘Do not bow to us,’ Valentinian said, waving them up. ‘If anything, it is I who should bow to you, Pavo and Sura of the Claudia.’

  His voice was so different to that last time their paths had crossed in the smoke, the flames and the screaming. Then it had been weak and light like that of a boy. Now it had depth and presence. He was still a lad but he was bigger, his jaw and shoulders broader, his face more sculpted, his body filling a soldier tunic, cinched at the waist with a leather belt, and the plain bronze circlet on his brow giving him a look of distinction, crying out for all to hear that he was not his stepbrother.

  ‘You saved my life that day in Sirmium, and I have never forgotten it. Such deeds serve as great milestones on my journey through this world. When I was a boy, Merobaudes saved me from my Stepbrother’s killers. He has shielded me ever since, with his body and with the threat of revolt he holds over Gratian. I would do anything to save him if he was in danger. I can only do the same for you.’

  ‘How, Domine?’ Pavo asked. ‘I am Gratian’s prize. He drools over my demise. We will not be allowed to escape this city.’

  Just as he said this, a barked challenge caused the wagon to slow. ‘Who goes there?’ a sentry snarled. ‘Nobody in or out of the gates apart from reinforcements.’

  ‘We’ve reached the land gates,’ Sura whispered, he and Pavo pressing back against the padded bench as if to melt from view.

  Justina parted the curtain by her side and poked her head out again, leaving just enough of a gap for the sentry to see Valentinian, seated by her side. ‘Open the gates, soldier. The Caesar of the West wishes to join the command party tackling the trouble outside.’

  The sentry backed away and the wagon jolted forwards again into a trundle. The rattle of hooves and jangling wagon parts grew louder for a moment as they passed out into the crescent-camp. Pavo and Sura peeled the curtain nearest them back a finger’s width and peeked out. The camp was abuzz with legionaries stumbling from their tents, men stamping out cooking fires and pulling on belts and armour. Atop the western-most section of the semi-circular earth bastion, a wall of flames roared, the recently-repaired palisade and the grass ablaze. Silhouetted figures rushed to and fro up there, cowering from the heat, tossing buckets and troughs of water. One stood tall – a giant, his long thin hair transparent in the fierce ligh
t. ‘More men to the bastion!’ Merobaudes roared, beating a spear on an empty bucket like a drummer. ‘The Goths attack with flaming arrows.’ A horn keened, and then another. A cohort of the Petulantes and one of the Celtae arrowed towards the trouble spot, only to converge on the narrow track between their two blocks of tents at the same time, resulting in men tripping, barging into one another and swearing. Every other legion was on its feet too. Every single pair of eyes was on the fire and the top of the earth wall to the west. Even Gratian was engrossed, Pavo realised, seeing the black outline of the Western Emperor, draped in an ankle-length silk, watching it all on horseback from a safe distance, berating braver men who ran towards the flames around him. More, Pavo realised, Gratian’s back was turned. Only a javelin’s throw away. A stock of javelins glinted in the fiery light, beside a tent by which the wagon was passing. His hand moved instinctively towards the wagon’s door handle.

  ‘No,’ Sura said, clasping a hand over his. ‘Remember what happened in Sirmium? Not this time.’

  ‘Victory tonight comes in the shape of survival, Tribunus Pavo,’ Justina agreed.

  ‘You would not even get the chance to throw a lance at him,’ Valentinian added.

  Pavo saw now not just the lone Gratian, but the ring of Alani dotted near him and further out, watching, ready for the slightest threat. Vitalianus too, lurking in the shadows near the emperor. The wagon rolled on towards the earth gate in the centre section of the bastion. ‘I can’t leave. I won’t leave. My legion will be slaughtered for certain should I escape. Stop the wagon,’ he bawled, standing to hammer a fist against the wooden wall behind Justina and Valentinian so the driver would hear.

  ‘Your legion has a chance too, Tribunus Pavo,’ Valentinian said, hushing him.