The Legions of the Mist

by Damion Hunter

  Turning off the main street, he dodged past four legionaries emerging from a wine stall to the sound of one of the current marching songs of the Legion, rendered loudly and happily as they wove their way to the bridge:

  Lift a glass to the trumpet’s song,

  The wine that makes the poor man strong!

  We march, we march with the light,

  So drink, my brothers, tonight!

  Most of them appeared to have been taking this advice literally. Behind them came a centurion of the Watch, with an auxiliaryman in each hand. They were raising a song of their own in dreadful cacophany with the quartet in front of them.

  ‘I wish you’d pipe down and sleep it off,’ the Watch officer said irritably.

  ‘Yeah? Me, I wish I had a million sesterces and you had a turd in your pocket.’ The auxiliaryman saluted him and fell down.

  When Justin reached the Head of Neptune, Gwytha was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the lamplight. She smiled when she saw him.

  ‘I thought perhaps you might be coming with the dog.’ She scratched Finn’s ears and he yawned happily. ‘Come in, Centurion. I’ll give you some food. I doubt you got dinner.’

  Justin followed her and sat down gratefully. He had spent the evening talking with his cohort, on the theory that commanders ought to be much in evidence when there was a battle on the way, and he was ravenous. When she brought him a bowl of stew, he devoured it hungrily, wiping the last of it from the bowl with a piece of bread. He sat back and smiled at her, wrapping his long fingers around the stem of his wine cup. ‘That was good. I felt as if I hadn’t eaten in a week.’

  ‘And looked it. What happened? You were healthy enough when you came for the dog this morning.’

  ‘A combination of fatigue and nerves, I suppose. Trying to do two days’ work in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Nerves?’ Gwytha looked surprised, but he thought she was mocking him.

  ‘Not that kind,’ he said defensively. ‘The kind that come from wanting to kick the first person in your path because you can’t kick the one you’d really like to.’

  ‘Well, now you can go out and kick Vortrix, which is what you’ve been wanting to do all along, and teach him better manners.’

  Justin’s fingers tightened around the wine cup. ‘That isn’t true, you know.’

  Gwytha’s face softened. ‘No, I know it isn’t. I’m sorry.’ She sat down opposite him and put her hand out to his. ‘You’ll break the stem if you keep that up.’

  He loosened his fingers and stared at them.

  ‘When do you march?’

  ‘At first light. A relief column went out tonight. We’re lucky it’s full moon.’

  ‘Is it permitted that I wish the Centurion well?’

  He reached out and caught her hand again. ‘Of course. And –’ he stumbled a little over the words, ‘and my thanks for it.’

  ‘The sun and the moon on your path then, Justinius.’

  ‘And on yours, Gwytha,’ he said softly, standing up. He put his hands on her shoulders and stood looking down at her for a moment. ‘I had best get back,’ he said abruptly. ‘I must see to my men.’

  She walked to the door with him. ‘May the gods watch over you, Justinius.’

  He smiled. ‘Don’t worry. They always have.’ And then, partly because the lamplight turned her hair to a misty aureole about her face and partly because he wondered if he could get away with it without catching another clip across the ear, he slipped an arm across her shoulders again and kissed her.

  She didn’t hit him, but she didn’t respond either, merely standing perfectly still until he stepped back. Then, ‘For remembrance sake?’ she asked.

  ‘Not only.’

  ‘So. Valé, Centurion. Rome calls.’ She shut the door behind him.

  Justin stood for a moment in the near daylight of the full moon, and then shook himself and started back for the fort. What in Mithras’s name did he think he was doing, he wondered irritably. He’d known she was no one to play the lover with. And what’s more, he liked her. But he’d never met anyone like her before, and she seemed capable of turning him into a perfect idiot. He put her out of his mind angrily and discovered, to his further annoyance, that it wasn’t difficult. Every time he put anything out of his mind lately, the image of Vortrix came creeping in to fill the gap. There was no reason why the face of a boy with the High King’s circlet on his head should pursue him like some British Nemesis, but somehow Vortrix and Britain were part and parcel of the same problem in his own troubled soul. Which brought up the question of how he could loathe Britain and yet feel something definitely stronger than his usual indifference for two of its people. On which side of liking this obsession with Vortrix lay, he wasn’t sure.

  He shook himself angrily and quickened his pace. As he came in through the gate someone far off in the cavalry barracks was whistling in untroubled anticipation of the morning, and Justin grabbed at the mood and tried to turn it to himself. Across the Via Principia, the wings of the Eagle of the Legion caught the moonlight along their back, but the staff was hidden in shadow so that it looked as if the thing had taken flight, and Justin felt the old, familiar shiver run down his spine as he watched it.

  * * *

  The light was just beginning to show above the horizon when they moved out the next morning, muffled in their cloaks against the dawn chill and stamping their feet in the mist. The officers returned from a last minute briefing in the Principia, and then the great gates were thrown open and the laden cohorts tramped through one by one. At the head of them all was the Eagle bearer in his lionskin hood, holding the golden form aloft above the column, and behind him the strength of the Legion: each man with sword and pilum – the deadly Roman javelin whose head extended down half its length and which could pierce a man at ninety feet – his shield slung across his back, and carrying, besides his weapons and the day’s rations, tools for pitching camp and raising the earthworks. The Roman soldier was an apprentice of all trades.

  Behind and to either side of the Legion marched the Auxiliaries and the cavalry, Spaniards and Gauls mostly, and bright in the war trappings of their homelands. Optios hurried back and forth, shouting orders and last-minute instructions. Licinius, with the baggage train, supervised the loading of the last of his supplies onto the hospital wagons; while Justin, in marching gear, the scarlet fan of his helmet crest discarded, moved out at the head of his cohort and turned back to see the rest fall into line behind. Above them shone their own cohort standard with its number and the sea horse insignia of the Eighth. They went smartly to the sound of trumpets, in the steady twenty-mile-a-day march of the Legions, and as the last cohort passed, the baggage train fell in behind them, the tail end of a winding column of bronze and grey, with the scarlet cloaks of the officers showing like fire against the mist and early sun.

  They raised a cheerful song on the road, the men seeming happier than not to be on the march, and halted before noon just south of Isurium. Justin dropped his kit thankfully. Even with the extra drilling, he had discovered that the winter had left him badly out of shape, but he knew from experience that the protesting muscles would soon toughen up again. They ought to make Cataractonium by early afternoon tomorrow. The relief column which had gone out the night before should be there tonight.

  The sun was getting hot, but when the men had rested and eaten, they set out again. Passing through Isurium, Justin could feel the deadly stillness of the place. The magistrates and the Roman military officials conferred with the Legate as the column passed through. But there were no men of the Brigantes in the tribal capital. An occasional small child appeared at the doorway of a hut to watch them and was pulled sharply in again by its mother. The surrounding farms looked lifeless, and the only figure they saw in the fields as they passed was a woman, back bent to a hoe among the cabbages.

  They halted again for the night, south of Cataractonium, having pushed on much farther than the usual day’s march to get past a thick s
tretch of dense woodland where the risk of ambush was too great to make camp. Even so, the rolling purple swells of the moors were dangerous country when dealing with a people who had pinned their strategy on the quirks of the terrain even before Cassivellaunus had nearly driven the first Caesar mad trying to fight an enemy he couldn’t find. Although the men were tired and they planned to move out again next morning, they threw up some hasty earthworks and posted double pickets. The Eagle and the cohort standards were mounted in the center where the Via Principia ran up to the Legate’s command tent. All Army camps followed the same pattern, and no soldier was ever lost in an unfamiliar camp at night.

  A scout came in to say that the Brigantes had attacked the garrison at Cataractonium again, and they were hard pressed. The relief column had arrived in time to circle to one side and push them back, but if they attacked again before the main body of the Army got there, Cataractonium’s defenses couldn’t hold. Scouts reported signs of the Brigantes massing again, but they practically turned into trees when you looked at them, damn them, and there was no saying.

  When he had seen his men posted and fed, Justin got himself a plate of stew and sat down with it on the camp bed in his tent. After a few minutes Licinius joined him, still in marching kit with his instrument case hanging from his belt.

  ‘How does it go?’ The surgeon sat down beside Justin and began to eat also, stretching his stiff knee out before him.

  ‘Well enough,’ Justin said. ‘The men are a little out of condition and there’ll be some sore muscles in the morning, mine among them. But they’ll work it off on the march.’

  ‘I only wish sore muscles were all I was going to have to deal with,’ Licinius said. ‘This is going to be no easy victory now.’

  ‘What in Mithras’s name do you think I’ve been saying?’ Justin inquired. ‘I was a bit surprised that it came this soon, though. I didn’t think he could be ready this early. Perhaps friend Vortrix has made a mistake and overreached himself.’

  ‘Well, we’ll find out tomorrow,’ Licinius said. ‘I only hope you’re right. We do have one advantage over them, though.’

  Justin laughed. ‘Good. I was hoping we had.’

  ‘I’m serious. The Brigantes have their fields to tend and their sheep to shear, and the women can’t do it alone. It cuts down on their strength, with the men knowing their farms are going to waste while they’re gone.’

  ‘Whereas we’re… uh, professionals, with nothing so mundane to distract us from the business of war. There’s something rather disgustingly civilized about that.’

  Justin looked up as a shadow fell across the tent flap. It was Lepidus, his second in command.

  ‘The watchword for tonight is “Vinovia,” sir,’ he said, his sober young face showing more excitement than Justin had seen in it before.

  ‘Thank you. Tell the men we break camp at first light.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We had best get some sleep,’ Justin said when Lepidus had gone. He stretched out on one side with his shield and sword in easy reach.

  Licinius gathered up his dinner bowl and with a cheerful good night moved off to where Flavius and the orderlies had pitched the hospital tents.

  Justin rolled over and closed his eyes, and a picture of Vortrix dancing on the howling ruin of Vinovia came unbidden to his mind. If they were too late, Cataractonium and its garrison would go the same way.

  * * *

  Justin was awake well before first light and was pacing aimlessly up and down when the sky began to pale. It was clear, and a little soft wind whisked through the heather. It was warm already; the day was going to be hot. Somewhere a cock crowed, and a bugle sounded reveille.

  The men began to sit up, yawning and gathering their gear about them. A legionary who had been hauled in from a night on the town by the Watch, and who had consequently made yesterday’s march with an excruciating hangover, opened one eye to the morning, said ‘Ugh,’ and rolled over again with his cloak about his ears. Lepidus prodded him with his vine staff.

  ‘Come along, then. You’ll feel better when you’ve had some food.’

  The legionary looked as if the mere thought of food was enough to send him straight across the River Styx, but he got to his feet with a baleful glance at his tormentor.

  Justin got a couple of pieces of barley bannock and ate them while he reviewed his men. Camp was broken quickly, and the Legion moved out again, marching in battle order. As they neared Cataractonium, the distant, mournful sound of a war horn broke through the air, and was answered almost immediately by the high sweet note of a Roman trumpet. The Legate gave a quick signal and the Legion and Auxiliaries spread out to their assigned positions. Vortrix was going to try to stop them here, before they could join with the garrison at Cataractonium where they would have a more favorable position. It had been expected, and the battle plan had been worked out the night before with the help of auxiliary scouts who had slipped ahead of the main army to take stock of the countryside.

  As Justin signaled his cohort into position behind the light-armed Auxiliaries, he could hear the drum-like sound that meant a mounted war host on the march, and then suddenly the rise opposite was topped by Vortrix’s war band, headed by the chariot line, strung out along the ridge behind their blue-stained war shields, with the dawn sun glinting off shield boss and spear. They wore little save their weapons and the war paint on their skin, and they looked like a cohort of the demons of Ahriman.

  Justin licked his lips and shifted his grip on his pilum staff. The scouts had reported that the relief column and what was left of the Cataractonium garrison were pinned down in the fort by one wing of the war band. They at least served the purpose there of distracting part of Vortrix’s force, and if they could break through, or if Vortrix was forced to call off the besieging wing to help fight the main army, they could strike to his rear.

  There was a stirring along the British line, and the first wave of war chariots flowed like a stream in storm down the hill at auxiliary troops too light to withstand them. Justin caught sight of Vortrix braced in fighting stance behind a pair of roans driven by a slender man with a beautiful girl’s face. The first rank of Auxiliaries hurled their spears and a number of horses went down under their chariots with a splintering crash, but the rest came charging on, the drivers maneuvering the light wicker frames with ease, sometimes running out, spear in hand, along the ridge pole, to strike as the chariot careened by.

  Any formation which tried to withstand that onslaught would be shattered, but the Legions had long since learned the trick of fighting chariots. The Auxiliaries opened their ranks to let the deadly things pass through, and then closed behind them with an almost audible click. The chariots crashed hard against the main body of the Legion braced to meet them, and sent the first ranks reeling.

  ‘Stand firm!’ The Legion backed a pace and lunged forward, backed and lunged forward, and soon horses began to go down before the short, sharp swords of the foot soldiers. The air was filled with the screaming of the horses and the hot smell of blood as the chariot drivers pulled back to let the foot troops forward. Perhaps a third swung round to harry the Legion’s flanks while the rest, drivers and warriors alike, sent their horses galloping for the rear, and moved up again to fight in the foot ranks.

  Justin gripped his pilum harder and signaled his cohort forward, closing his ears to the sounds around him as the main body of the two armies came together. The sun was bright and already hot, and the air was full of blood as, for Justin, the battle narrowed down to the space of a few feet and the desperate struggle to move forward, with Lepidus to one side of him and the standard-bearer of the Eighth Cohort to the other. He abandoned his pilum and drew his sword when the press became too great to maneuver.

  He raised his shield arm just in time to block a shortened spear thrust and drove the sword in under the shield of the man who had aimed it. The body, bright with blue war paint, crashed down at his feet. To one side, he saw his standard-bearer go do
wn with a feather-decked war spear in his throat. He signaled behind him, and a soldier ran to catch up the sea horse standard and the wolfskin hood of its dead bearer, and the cohort moved forward again behind it. ‘Push ’em back, lads, and take ’em down!’ Justin shouted. ‘We owe ’em a debt now for Vinucius!’

  To the rear, cavalry trumpets sounded the Advance and the horsemen swept down on either side of the cohorts to guard their flanks from the still deadly chariots. If they could press them hard enough, Vortrix would be forced to call in his other wing and free the garrison at Cataractonium to move against his back.

  Ahead, suddenly, Justin could see the High King himself, among his household warriors, the war paint startling against his pale hair. Justin stabbed with a sword that by now was as red as a helmet crest, and gained another foot. But then he was too busy to look up again, fighting for his life with a boy he had seen return from his initiation a month ago at Beltane. He was scarcely aware of killing him and turning to fight a new enemy, an older man with a flowing shock of steel grey hair and the heavy gold arm ring of a chieftain. Either he killed the chieftain or someone else did, Lepidus maybe, fighting at his shoulder, but suddenly he had time to look up in the dusty sunlight and see the young king no more than a yard away, pulling his reddened sword from the body of a legionary.

  Vortrix blinked once as he recognized Justin, and raised his sword again. ‘Salvé, Centurion,’ he panted and lunged for his throat in the same breath.

  Justin parried the first blow and struck back, but the young king blocked his thrust, and they pulled back and circled each other warily like two gladiators in the arena. Something burned brightly behind Vortrix’s eyes as he feinted and leapt. Justin dodged, feeling as he did so the edge of Vortrix’s sword along his ribs where it had sliced through his leather harness tunic on the downstroke. He thrust his blade in under the other’s guard, but was thrown by the surprise of that sudden pain, and Vortrix brought his shield up in time to catch it. Justin saw the flicker in the blue eyes facing him above the bronze shield rim, and saw the blade flashing down again, aimed at the vulnerable spot above his breastplate. He twisted out from under it and struck back with all his strength before Vortrix could recover, sending the king staggering back.