The Legions of Fire

by David Drake

  Alphena shouted, “Wau!” and jumped backward. When she was five years old and playing in the garden of the family villa in the Sabine Hills, a large grasshopper had lighted on the back of her neck. That was the only time she could remember having been equally startled.

  The Cyclops stepped toward her. Despite his size, he moved gracefully. In vegetation as thick as that around her, Alphena was sure that the monster’s weight and strength would allow him to catch her in a few strides if she turned and ran.

  She had been startled, not frightened. She drew her sword. Well, she was frightened too, but she was going to fight.

  The Cyclops’s eye was red and bloodshot around a black iris; each lash was as thick as a tiger’s bristle. It focused on the rainbow beauty of Alphena’s sword. She waggled the blade, wondering if it was long enough to reach the creature’s body if he stretched out a hand for her neck.

  With a bellow like a bullock in the jaws of a bear, the Cyclops spun and leaped back the way he had come. He was looking over his shoulder toward Alphena—or at least toward her sword—so he collided with the fruit tree instead of vanishing through the hanging leaves which had hidden his presence. The tree was six inches thick where his shoulder struck it, but the trunk cracked and a split ran down it almost to the roots.

  The impact jolted the Cyclops to his right and half turned his massive body. He didn’t lose his footing, however. Pivoting like a dancer, he crashed through the screen of saplings and into the forest beyond. Alphena heard the sound of smashing vegetation and the Cyclops’s cries of wild terror.

  She straightened from the crouch she’d dropped into when the monster came at her. She was gasping for breath, though the only effort she’d expended was to draw a sword that seemed as light as a willow withy.

  Alphena looked at the blade, shimmering more like a piece of jewelry than a weapon. It was so highly polished that she had difficulty seeing the metal. The reflections from its rounded surface seemed to be brighter than the light filtering through the treetops which woke them.

  Is it magical? The Cyclops had certainly seemed to be afraid of something more than a sharp point in the hand of a girl. Maybe that was what Deriades had meant when he’d given her this weapon in particular.

  Alphena had her breath back. She started to sheathe the sword again, but her hand was trembling with reaction. There hadn’t been fighting to burn the emotions out of her. She didn’t want to stab herself in the thigh, and besides … well, after the surprise she’d just survived, keeping the sword in her hand didn’t seem like such a bad idea. It didn’t weigh much, after all.

  The giant had proved when he appeared that he could slip through the forest without leaving a trail, but in the panic of his flight he was tearing a path that a blind man could follow. Some of the more supple trees had merely been pushed down and were springing up again, but anything more than an inch in diameter had been either snapped off or torn out and cast aside.

  Alphena eyed the pig track she’d been following, then looked at the gap the Cyclops had made. In a way it seemed foolish to go in the same direction as a monster she’d been only too glad to see the back of, but he hadn’t been willing to face her sword before, so there was every reason to expect he’d flee again if they met. Besides, she was tired of having to almost swim through the foliage. She set off on the Cyclops’s trail.

  That curved slightly to the left, through an understory of small hardwoods. Many of the saplings had been pulled out of the soft ground. Tiny movements—Alphena saw colors rather than shapes—shifted about the dying trees. She thought of Dryope, then remembered Persica. Yes, of course! Persica!

  In anger she squeezed the sword hilt harder—but Persica had been a jealous bitch, not a monster. Alphena had met plenty of girls who behaved as badly as Persica, but she wouldn’t think of killing them. Well, she wouldn’t really have killed them, though she might have said something like that.

  When the sphinx poised to rip Alphena’s throat out, she had gotten a better understanding of what killing meant—and of death.

  She might have the servants cane Persica when she got back, though. Or bruise the bark of the peach tree, if they couldn’t find Persica in the garden.

  Right now Alphena was feeling sorry for the flecks of light hovering around the uprooted trees, just as she would for kittens she found drowned in the gutter. She hadn’t been responsible, except that she’d frightened a monster that was otherwise prepared to eat her alive. She wasn’t so sorry that she would die to save sprites, if they were what she was seeing.

  The trampled path jerked to the right as though the Cyclops had run into a stone wall and caromed off. Alphena paused in surprise, then used her left arm to part the line of sedges which the giant had been tall enough to look over. She kept a tight grip on her sword.

  Beyond was a clearing surrounded by palms whose fronds sprang from squat, coarse trunks like earthenware tubs. On the grass was a pair of small boards tied together along one edge: a notebook. It looked very like the notebook her brother always carried.

  “Varus!” Alphena called, filled with sudden hope. I’m not alone!

  She sprang into the clearing and snatched up the notebook. The boards were plain wood and blank on both sides. They could have been written on with a brush of ink, but her brother normally used a stylus on a wax coating.

  A pair of wraiths larger than a man stepped from the palm fronds. The creatures’ surface had a liquescent slickness, as though they were made of pink mucus. They made no sound.

  Alphena dropped the notebook and stepped backward, keeping her eyes on the wraiths. A third creature grasped her from behind; its grip was cold and clammy, like that of a giant toad.

  Alphena spun. The wraith was inhumanly strong, but she could twist her forearm enough to slash through the creature’s thigh. The edge met no more resistance than a cobweb would have given it, but the limb flowed together unchanged behind the stroke. The dank paws didn’t slacken their hold.

  The first two glided across the clearing, as silent as slime molds. Alphena again cut the creature holding her, but the wound—this time across its chest—closed like water over the gleaming blade. A wraith held Alphena’s wrist and plucked the sword from her with its free paw. It stepped aside while the others stretched her arms out to either side.

  As if they’re about to crucify me. And perhaps they were.

  Alphena kicked, but she couldn’t reach the creatures holding her. It wouldn’t have mattered if her blows had landed.

  A man stepped into view, smiling. He was in his late fifties, but he looked as fit as someone half his age. He had iron gray hair and a full beard that gave his features an archaic aspect.

  He wore a toga with a broad purple stripe. He was a senator of Carce.

  “Help me!” Alphena cried.

  He laughed. “Oh, indeed, I’ll help you, Lady Alphena,” he said in a deep, melodious voice. “I’ll make you a queen, just as I promised. Have you forgotten?”

  “I don’t know you, sir,” Alphena said, hoping desperately that she’d managed to control the tremble that wanted to get out through her throat.

  “You will, Alphena,” said the man. “I’m Spurius Cassius, and you are the queen who will rule the Underworld at my side!”

  HEDIA EYED THE FAUN with the detached interest she gave any well-set-up man. Any well-set-up male, she supposed she should say, but in regard to Maron she thought that was a distinction without a difference.

  The faun’s truculence faded as he felt—and obviously understood—her gaze. He stood a good six inches over six feet, even taller than the new German doorkeeper; his chest was a broad wedge tapering from his collarbone to a waist that looked narrow only by contrast to his shoulders and massive thighs.

  That those thighs were shaggy, or that the two hinted bumps in Maron’s curly hair might be the tips of horns, really weren’t important. As he grinned back at Hedia’s inspection, the pink tip of his phallus began to extend from its sheath. That might be
come important … though not now.

  Hedia unwrapped the bandage of crimson silk which she had worn wrapped around the back of her own cloth-of-gold girdle. “Maron,” she said, “you are to take me to my daughter. Is that correct?”

  “To take you to the girl,” the faun said. He spoke in a nasal tenor. “To protect you from harm, and to take you to the passage by which you will depart this place for the waking world from which you came. By a will stronger than my own, I am compelled to do these things.”

  Hedia nodded and tossed him the red cloth. “This is the sash Alphena—my daughter—wore last night,” she said. “I am told”—Anna had told her—“that you will need some object of the girl’s in order to locate her. This should do for the purpose.”

  Maron turned the garment over in his hands, examining it from all angles. Then to Hedia’s surprise, he lifted the silk to his nose and snuffled it.

  Like a beast! she thought; and of course that was true.

  He tossed the sash onto an ordinary-looking bush whose leaves immediately writhed upward to nuzzle the cloth. Hedia frowned and reflexively reached for it. The faun noticed her movement and said, “Did you want it back? Take it, then.”

  “No, there’s no need,” Hedia said, irritated with herself. She’d brought the garment for her guide’s use; if he was done with it, then he was right to throw it away. She didn’t like the thought of leaving anything in this place, however.

  She smiled without humor. That was probably because she was afraid that she would end her days here also. Well, she’d known the risks when she decided to do whatever was necessary to bring Alphena back.

  Maron lifted his nose high and this time sniffed the air itself. The hairs on the tips of his pointed ears twitched minusculely; perhaps he was aware of currents in what seemed to Hedia to be dead calm.

  “All right,” he said, dropping back into his normal posture with his split hooves flat on the turf. His legs had springy angles at knee and ankle, quite unlike those of a man standing upright. “She’s some hours away if we travel at my speed—or a few days, if we don’t go any faster than you can run.”

  Instead of bridling at the challenge, Hedia gave the faun a superior smile and drawled, “I don’t suppose you’re suggesting that I send you off to rescue my daughter by yourself, dear boy. Why don’t you just tell me what you do have in mind?”

  Maron snorted angrily; his ears snapped sideways and then back to vertical. Calming himself, he said, “I’ll carry you. On my back—you don’t look like you weigh very much. If you dare.”

  Again Hedia smiled faintly. “Yes, if you’re capable of that, it would be the best way,” she said.

  She suspected that she weighed more than the faun thought she did. She kept herself very fit, though without the silly masculine trappings that Alphena affected, and muscle was a good deal heavier than fat. Still, men like Maron would burst their hearts with the effort before they’d fail to make good on a boast to an attractive woman.

  “Here, then,” the faun said, turning his back to her and squatting. He curled his arms at his sides, though he still held the sturdy wooden club in his right hand.

  Actually, the woman doesn’t have to be terribly pretty for most men, Hedia thought, smiling more broadly. Just interested, or possibly interested; and I am.

  She put her hand’s on Maron’s shoulders and stepped through his arms, then hiked her skirts up to clamp his waist between her thighs. He rose without noticeable effort and immediately started off through a wall of cowslips the size of wine bowls.

  The faun’s pace was more like a canter than the pounding trot which Hedia had feared. She didn’t especially like riding, but she’d done a certain amount of it during her first marriage. Calpurnius Musca, a cousin of Latus, had managed her husband’s villa in the Campania. Musca liked to ride, so he’d taught her when she visited the estate.

  Musca had been one of the most rabidly hostile members of the family after Latus died. Well, he knew better than most that she hadn’t been faithful to her husband. Musca wasn’t the only man she’d met who had the knack of limiting his vision to the part of a situation that suited him.

  Hedia held close to Maron as he paced along. A saddle rubbing between her legs had been interesting; the faun’s back was … more interesting. The play of his muscles was like physical lute music, each movement distinct and perfect. It felt like wires shifting under the skin. He must not carry any fat at all….

  She could look only to the side unless she wanted to risk being slapped in the face by a passing limb, so she pressed one cheek or the other alternately to the faun’s back. They were loping by a thorn tree when she turned her head to the right.

  What’s the bright foliage? she thought. The colors—thousands of tiny figures, winged like butterflies but wearing clothing—flew from the tree in enormous waves, dipping and spiraling in the light.

  “What was that!” Hedia blurted.

  “Ah, don’t worry about them,” the faun growled. “They can’t hurt you.”

  For an instant she thought that the strain of running had deepened his voice. Then he added, “The wolf who’s following us, he’d gobble you down bones and all if I let him, though.”

  Maron angled slightly to the right, taking them through brush that clawed Hedia’s legs. She would have cried out if she hadn’t been so worried about the wolf.

  The faun burst through the spiky brush and stopped. They were in a grassy clearing bounded by four huge oaks. The trees’ foliage was thick, but that shouldn’t have shaded out all the undergrowth.

  “Wait here,” Maron said, dropping his club and shifting to grip her hip-bones from behind. Without further explanation, he pitched Hedia up and forward. Ten feet in the air, she fell across a broad limb which thrust out horizontally from the trunk.

  Hedia yelped, but she managed to clamber onto the limb and sit normally. She looked down to object, but instead remained silent. Maron wouldn’t pay any attention, and she didn’t want him to now. The wolf had followed them into the clearing.

  It was the size of a pony with pure white fur. It looked up at Hedia, then toward the faun. Its tongue lolled from its long jaws as though it were laughing.

  “Go on your way, halfling,” the wolf said in a rumble from deep in its throat. For all its seeming assurance, the beast’s posture showed it was as ready to dodge as to rush in. “I’m not interested in you this time.”

  “You’re far from your snowfields, wolf,” said the faun. He’d picked up his club and was tossing it from hand to hand as he hunched forward, facing his opponent. “This is my world. I’m not going to be chased out of it by a furball from the north.”

  The wolf paced the edge of the clearing, then twisted like a snake to go back the other way when he’d covered a quarter of the arc. His shaggy head always faced Maron. The faun sidled, keeping himself between the beast and Hedia on the tree limb.

  “Is a woman so important to you, halfling?” the wolf said. His words were losing definition, breaking into a saw-toothed growl. “I suggest you masturbate while you still have your male member to do it with. Otherwise I’ll swallow it down like a sausage before I tear your liver out.”

  “I’m under a compulsion, puppy,” the faun said, his voice lilting. “But that wouldn’t matter, you see, because I’d run you back to your snow wastes regardless. The cold hides your stink, so you should stay—”

  This time the wolf only half turned. In midmotion, it leaped for Maron. Its mouth opened in a terrible snarl.

  Maron’s club took the wolf at the base of the jaw, snapping its head up and to the right. The beast twisted in the air.

  Maron stepped forward, both legs off the ground and scissoring. As the wolf slammed to the ground, the faun’s hooves sliced pairs of parallel gouges across its left shoulder and the left side of its muzzle.

  The wolf rolled to its feet as part of the same motion that had sent it tumbling. Blood matted the fur of its shoulder and mixed with the froth it sprayed when i
t shook its head. Hedia would have sworn its eyes glowed with internal light.

  Maron screamed and leaped the twenty feet separating him from the wolf. It sprang to meet him in the air. Their bodies crashed together. Maron managed to avoid the wolf’s jaws, but the beast’s greater weight drove him back and put him on the bottom as they thumped to the ground still linked.

  The wolf twisted down, jaws open to finish the fight. Maron forced his club into them. The wolf worried the wood, jerking its head side to side. Of a sudden it hopped sideways, spitting out splinters. Something pink clung to its belly.

  Maron was on his feet again, his mouth in a snarl and his arms spread like those of a wrestler waiting the next fall. The fur of both legs was bloody from hoof to knee. The dangling pinkness was a coil of the wolf’s intestine.

  The beast growled, then looked back and nuzzled its belly. Maron screamed and grabbed a young tree growing at the edge of the clearing. Most of the undergrowth was autumn olive, a brittle shrub whose stems spread from a common base, but this was an oak sapling sprung from one of the four giants.

  The wolf growled like sliding rocks. It crouched low, then yelped and bounced onto its toes. More intestine had spilled through the hole the faun’s hooves had sliced. Dirt and dead leaves clung to the glistening surface.

  Maron’s legs were spread and his hands were linked around the sapling’s trunk. He can’t tear that out of the ground! Hedia thought.

  Maron gave another high-pitched cry. He sounded more like a cat than a man, let alone a goat. His back muscles stood out like waves on a frozen pond. The sapling came up, scattering dirt in all directions. The taproot had broken a foot below the ground.

  Maron brandished his new club. The wolf turned and shambled back through the undergrowth. Crackling brush and the beast’s pitiable yowls continued for some while.

  The faun knelt, using the sapling as a pole to support him. Hedia considered for a moment, then turned on the bough and let herself fall to arm’s length. She held there for a moment until her legs had begun to swing back, then dropped to the ground. She wasn’t a rope dancer, but more than one man had commented on how supple she was.