by James Gawley
Primus watched him go, almost embarrassed at the rush of gratitude he felt. He dug out a handful of oats for his horse, and stroked her mane as she ate. He didn’t know much about Commander Fulcer, but he would bet that there were no legendary senators in Fulcer’s family history. Yet the commander was utterly self-assured… and totally confident in Primus. What was more, he’d put into words something Primus had always believed: there’s something to be said for winning it for yourself.
Primus smiled a little, and scratched the mare behind her ears. A real man wears red. He decided that even if he were invited to become extrordinarii, he would decline. The Dead Men were where he belonged. Having made the resolution, he immediately felt better. He looked around at the others, talking in groups. No one glanced his way, but for once Primus was not bothered by that. He composed himself to wait patiently for the legate to return.
He felt the impact before he heard the sound. The air itself seemed to punch him in the chest, and Primus sucked in a painful breath–then came the thunder. The sound nearly deafened him, and Primus clapped his hands over his ears too late. The earth leapt beneath his feet, and his horse took a few shambling steps sideways, crashing into Primus and nearly knocking him over. He gripped the saddle-cinch to steady himself and the animal shied away from him, on the edge of panic. Primus reached a hand to soothe it. Then the sky grew dark, and a shadow fell over them. Primus looked up to see a black cloud spreading over the west end of the camp. As he watched, stones began to rain down, slapping into the dirt all around him.
Primus yanked on his helmet and secured it, then regained his bridle and tried to calm his horse. The others were doing the same. A stone pinged off of his helmet and Primus was grateful for the protection. The mare whinnied as another stone slashed her flank, parting the hide so that blood ran down her leg. It lasted but a moment or two more, then the falling rocks petered out, and smoke rolled across the camp. Covering his mouth with the edge of his cloak, Primus quickly realized that it was not wood smoke but dust, fine particles of stone blown so thick that they blotted out the light. He squinted, his eyes tearing up against the grit that stung them. There was a stench to the air, a damp mildew smell that reminded Primus of the stone quarry at the citadel.
He could see only a few feet in front of his face. Men were coughing, horses neighing, and there was shouting in the distance. Primus sensed running feet passing by on the road. He focused on calming his animal, and gradually the air began to clear, so that the other scouts became shadows in the grey light, then silhouettes, until eventually Primus could see normally, though the air was still grayed by hanging dust.
Soldiers were emerging from the barracks, perhaps fifty of them. They formed up swiftly in the yard, and a captain strode among them, shouting out his orders. Some he sent to the mine, to assess the situation. Others ran to the walls, to guard against possible attack. And some few went to the slave quarters, to keep the labor penned inside. Primus called out to the soldiers as they ran past on their assignments, but no one answered him. He caught the eye of Furio. The older man shook his head. “We were ordered to wait,” Furio said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “So we wait.”
Primus craned his neck, looking as far down the road as he could see. In truth there was little to look at. Neither the general nor the legate were anywhere in sight. Men were scrambling up the ladders to the guard towers. Others traversed the wall-walks, looking out over the palisade for danger. But none of them shouted the alarm. Primus was tempted to climb into the saddle to get a better view, but he wasn’t sure how bad his horse’s cut was. He was trying to clean the animal’s wound with a wet rag when a man came racing up to the barracks-yard on foot, his face almost black with stone-dust. He was wearing legion armor and boots, but his cloak was gone.
“We need help at the mine,” he said the moment he reached them. Primus handed him his water skin, and the man drank gratefully. When he wiped his mouth, he cleared a streak of dust from his face.
“What’s happened?” Primus asked.
“The tunnel collapsed,” the soldier caught his breath. “The buttressing went, I think. The tunnel mouth came down, and some of our men are trapped inside. I need help to dig them out. I need all of you. We have shovels up at the mine, just come with me. Come now.”
But the scouts did not move. “Whence come these orders?” Furio asked.
The soldier gaped at him. “You say orders?”
“General Seneca commanded me to stay right here. Do your orders come from him?”
“No. No, damn you. I’m asking you for help. My brothers are trapped in that hole. I can’t take men off the walls, there’s so few of us left. We can’t use the slaves, because there’s not enough men to control them anymore. You’re the only ones in camp with nothing to do.”
Furio shook his head slowly. “I have a task.”
The soldier stared at him for a long moment. “But we can hear them, inside. They’re banging on the water pipes to let us know they’re alive.” When Furio merely folded his arms, the soldier’s lip curled into a sneer. He spat in the dust at Furio’s feet. “Coward. All of you, cowards. I hope you die upside-down on a cross.” The scout just looked at him.
“Is Commander Fulcer up at the mine?” Primus asked quietly. It was a moment before the soldier broke off glaring at Furio to answer him. “Is the commander alright?”
“The commander. No, he was inside the mine when it happened. He’s trapped in there with the rest of them.”
Primus caught the warning look that Furio shot him. But he did not hesitate. “I’ll go.”
“Just you?” The soldier looked around at the others. Some of the extrordinarii looked hesitant. A few looked shamed. But none moved. Furio strode forward and grasped Primus by the arm."
"Prove to me you’re not as stupid as the rest of the hatchet-swingers.”
The soldier spoke quietly. “It’ll be dark in there. The torches will have gone out with the collapse. There’s air, but not forever.”
Primus thought of the blistered burns on Fulcer’s neck. He tried to save them, even though they were only slaves. He pulled free of Furio’s grip. “Tell my father I’m sorry.”
His poor mare crab-footed to get away as he gripped the saddle horn, but Primus hauled himself up anyway and she took his weight. He reached down to help the soldier up into the saddle behind him. “You’ll know where to find me.”
Furio said nothing. His face was unreadable as Primus tapped his horse’s flanks. The poor beast set out at a halting trot, bearing them toward the west gate.
“Is there anyone else we can rally?” Primus asked. “Perhaps a small number of slaves could be controlled...” But even as he spoke, he saw a group of soldiers struggling to contain a slave-barracks by the gate. Two of the men stood outside the barracks’ doorway, mercilessly cutting down the slaves who tried to rush past them. Two more soldiers stood behind the first pair, spears ready to impale any bondsman who managed to escape their swords. Yet the slaves kept coming. It looked like they were being pushed out from behind.
“Ride on,” the soldier urged Primus. “They don’t need our help.”
Primus needed no encouragement. He had no urge to join in that butchery. He pressed his injured mount for more speed, and they passed through the gates. Outside the walls the path continued straight and comparatively level; on either side the mountain rose, forming a narrow valley with the camp at its mouth. There were bodies of Woade here as well, stacked like cordwood as the others had been.
“My name’s Cusca,” said the man sharing Primus’ saddle.
“Primus Seneca.”
“Seneca?”
“The general is my father.”
“Huh. I thought that might be you. Word spreads fast in a camp like ours. You’ll want to take this cart path.”
Primus tried to focus on his surroundings instead of thinking of Furio and the others. The track they followed was much narrower than the ancient highway, but it too was p
aved with cobblestones. Likely the general had built this detour when they dug the mine. Primus wondered what would happen when his father came back to the scouts and found him gone. Would he send them off on their mysterious assignment? Or would he have them drag Primus away from the mine and take him along? Primus couldn’t decide which would be worse. He wanted to believe that his father would understand his decision. He didn’t think it likely.
The climb was steep, and eventually they were forced to dismount and lead the horse, or else risk crippling it. The dust grew thicker as they climbed, both in the air and coating the stunted trees that clung to the hillside. Eventually they reached what must have been the mine’s entrance, until that morning. A rockslide had buried whatever there had been. The path disappeared beneath the scree, but a metal pipe as thick as Primus’ leg emerged from the rubble and turned uphill to meet a giant cistern, which in turn was fed by a stone aqueduct that came down from somewhere farther up the mountain. A second pipe had connected the cistern to a sifting station, a long wooden trough that slanted slowly downward and emptied into a large wooden box. The cistern had been cracked by the rockslide, and the rubble that covered the mine entrance was dark with moisture.
There were half a dozen men there already, considerably higher up the slope than the mine entrance must have been. They were trying to dig their way down, but they were forced to move carefully, scooping the debris into buckets to be hauled away. Only two men were digging; the others laboriously hauled away the filled buckets.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked Cusca.
“There’s none of us is officers, if that’s what you mean. We’re volunteers, you might say.”
Primus watched a little longer before he climbed partway up the rockslide. “Gentlemen,” he said in his loudest voice. “Pay attention, please. You and you,” he indicated two of the bucket-haulers, “I saw an overturned ore cart a little way down the path. Empty it, and bring it up here. We’ll hitch it to my mare; that should let us move the debris much quicker.”
All the men stopped and stared at Primus. “Who are you?” one of the bucket-men demanded.
“Legionnaire Primus Seneca, of the Dead Men.”
The bucket-man snorted. “Don’t see no crest on your helmet, boy.”
Primus climbed a bit higher up the slope. “I am no ‘boy.’ I am a Dead Man. And I don’t need a crest because I’m not here to make you march around or fill in the latrines. I’m here to help you save your friends. Now go and get the cart.”
For a moment no one moved. The two bucket-carriers Primus had called out looked at each other. Then one of the diggers spoke: “There’s a broken bit of harness down by the sifting station. It’s meant for mules, but we might make it work.”
Primus nodded. “Good. That’s you and me, then. Cusca, take his place on the hill.”
Primus followed the digger to the sifting trough, and resisted the urge to look back and see if the others did as he asked. He heard two of them stomp off down the path.
Once they began, Primus did not think about anything but the needs of the moment. They worked quickly, but the sun had already dipped behind the mountain when Primus led the mare down the cart path, a load of debris rolling along behind her. She had not liked the harness in place of her saddle, and she had tried to bite Primus as he grasped her bridle to lead her down. He kept his temper and coaxed her along until she settled into the task. A small part of him knew it was a crime to hitch a warhorse to an ore-cart–an injured warhorse at that–but he knew suddenly that he would work a hundred horses to death if it might save Fulcer from the mine. He wondered at himself, surprised by his own depth of feeling. At the bottom of the slope, where the detour met the highway, Primus stopped the mare. As he worked the cart’s rear panel free of its grooves, he asked himself where his sudden loyalty came from.
It was something about the way Fulcer treated him, Primus decided. Titus took an interest in him, and Lepus had been kind, in his teasing way. But Fulcer talked to him straight across, almost as though he were a veteran. He was a friend, even if they’d just met. Primus gave the cart panel a final jerk, and rubble spilled out onto the road. He set the wood aside, took up a short-handled shovel, and began scooping the rest of the debris out of the cart and flinging it beside the road. Before long he stopped to strip his armor off so he could move freely.
Five of the others were working shovels now, up at the mine entrance; the other two worked the buckets, using water from the cracked cistern to keep the rubble from sliding into their hole. The work went quickly, spurred on by the ringing of the broken water pipe as the men inside banged against it. Primus had used a shovel to pound on the water pipe in response, but he didn’t know if the trapped men received his message. He wished he could tell Fulcer that he was out there, coming to help. He wished he was certain Fulcer was alive.
A group of men were coming up the road from camp on foot. In the dying light, Primus made out three uniforms; the rest, an even dozen, wore ragged tunics belted with rope. He guessed that someone had judged it safe to use a small gang of slaves to do the digging. He wondered if they’d try to send him back to camp now, to rejoin his unit. He knew he would refuse. Primus straightened up from his work, and dragged an arm across his forehead. He lowered the blade of his shovel to the cobblestones.
The soldiers were walking out in front of the slave-gang, their backs to their charges. Primus frowned. “Salvete, brothers. We could use your help.”
The soldiers stopped, and the slaves straggled to a stop behind them. One of the legionnaires smiled, and it was an evil sight. He was missing many teeth, along with one eye. His companion had a coarse black beard streaked with white. “Not here to help you, little Seneca,” the bearded one said. He lifted off his iron helm, and tucked it beneath one arm. His head was bald, and white scars stood out against his scalp.
This can’t be, Primus thought. Instinctively he took a step back. For the first time, Primus saw the orange glow against the eastern sky. The trees along the path were all tinged with it. Fire. The camp was on fire. The bald man grinned wider as he watched Primus’ face. There was blood on his armor, and a hole in the chest where something had stabbed clean through. “What have you done?”
Varro threw back his head and laughed. “Justice, little Seneca. We’ve done justice.”
If any man enslaves a single citizen, he has enslaved the entire State. His fate will be the fate of all tyrants. He will burn.
–Gnaeus Seneca
The Twelve Tables of Law
FIRE
“You should have stayed with the others, boy.” Varro’s smile was cruel. The front of his armor was still wet with someone’s blood and Primus could see his tunic through a fist-sized hole in the cuirass just above the heart. His men fanned out around Primus, their eyes on the shovel that he gripped like a sword. “I knew you were in camp but I never thought you’d be stupid enough to come out here alone.” He laughed, and Primus felt a hundred fingers crawling over his skin. “Fortune loves me.”
Varro had come with over a dozen men. Most had already started up the frozen hillside toward the mine. The others surrounded Primus, who turned slowly in place trying to keep them all in view. They were slaves: lean to the point of gauntness with greasy rags on their shoulders and a sickly paleness to their skin. Hands knotted by toil gripped the gleaming weapons of legionnaires. Primus told himself that if he were wearing armor, with his weapon in his hand, he would not be so afraid.
“Whatever you’ve done, the legion will find you,” he told Varro. “You’ll die on a cross no matter what you do to me.”
“The legion is gone, boy. They’ve marched for the coast by now. There’s no one to threaten me. And no one to save you.” Varro's men had surrounded Primus but they made no move to attack. They just stared at him with an ugly hunger in their eyes.
“What are you talking about? Gone?”“Don’t play stupid with me. I know why you’re here. Or... maybe they haven’t told you?” Varro smi
led at Primus’ expression. “Don’t tell me. You’re here risking your life and you’ve got no idea what for.”
“I know my duty.”
“But you don’t, do you? That’s my point. Let me level the field: you’re here for the coin, boy. You lot are meant to take the money to the coast.”
Primus hesitated. Their mission was to buy grain with silver from the mine? Could that be all there was to this errand? “You’re lying. Scouts don’t fetch groceries.”
“Groceries? There’s a dozen chests of gold in that stronghouse. Marius isn’t buying bread. He’s buying ships. There’s an armada floating in Traitor Bay–my man on the coast told me months ago. Now you’re here to make the final payment.” He laughed. “Looks like you’ve spent your last winter in the forest, boy. The trouble is, you haven’t got the coin. The gold in that stronghouse belongs to me.”
Primus chewed his lip. No one at the citadel had any idea the invasion was coming. It would have been on every tongue from morning to nightfall. But Varro seemed so sure....
At the citadel it was not much of a secret that Varro had ways of getting things from the coast. Half the men spent their pay on his wine and smoke. An armada would be hard to hide from a man with connections like that. He glanced up sharply at Varro. “You did it, didn’t you. The mine collapse–you made that happen. You knew we were coming and you had to slow us down. My father wanted us gone quickly. He knew you would try to take the gold. You sacrificed hundreds of lives so you’d have your chance at plunder.”
“Plunder? I broke my back for that coin, and so did these men. Your father snatched it from us. He’s been stealing away my future for as long as you’ve been walking.”