Legion Of The Undead_Rise and Fall

by Michael Whitehead

  The tails of the chained horses were aflame instantly and the horses jerked and ran at the gate to escape their pain. The men in the gate were caught in a rush of burning horse flesh that they were helpless to withstand. Titus saw one man caught between the flanks of one mount and the stone wall of the inn, his head was crushed like an overripe fruit in the horse’s panic.

  The second effect of the thrashing horses was the wall at the rear of the inn collapsing, as they had planned it would. A cloud of dust and rubble added to the confusion. Before Titus could see the green fields beyond the walls, he held out the reigns of the second horse to Sergius but the younger man shook his head.

  “Sir, one more moment and we can win this fight completely. Wait for me outside the walls if you can, if you can’t, may the Gods bless you.” Without a look back the cavalryman was off into the buildings. Titus was left alone holding the reins of a horse with chaos all around him. The two men on the roof were losing their fight and the attackers were heading toward the courtyard, climbing down off the roof.

  Titus took one more look toward the door where the young man who had saved his life had gone, with a heavy heart he decided he could wait no longer. He kicked his horse toward the break in the wall and led the second horse out. As he reached the breach he saw Sergius sprinting toward him out of the door. Following him were the undead that had been trapped, he had released them.

  Titus released the reigns as Sergius reached the horse. The younger man mounted the beast in one fluid movement that came from years of riding. The two men were through the opening in the wall as the attackers reached the courtyard. Those coming through the gates had been battered by the fleeing horses and had sustained injuries. Those from the roof had been in a fight that had left them winded and breathless. So when the Risen fell on them in superior numbers, they were easy prey for the starving undead monsters.

  Titus and Sergius moved away from the inn and turned to look at the carnage. The two remaining defenders were both dead on the roof, cut down to protect the man they called emperor. The fight in the courtyard was a massacre as men fell to the undead in a bloody tumult of torn flesh and spilling blood. The two men looked at each other before kicking their horses into motion. They moved in a wide arc, weary of an ambush as they made their escape. As they joined the road they looked back toward the inn and saw the remaining members of the cavalry unit caught in a fight with the Risen as they spilled from the building. Sergius turned to his emperor who nodded at his unasked question. The two men rode away from the carnage in search of the legion that would mean safety.

  Chapter Four

  Darkness formed a suffocating shroud around Regulus as he found himself standing on a narrow animal path. It was the kind of track that boar or deer might make in the thick forest. The night was silent, no night hunters stalked prey in the undergrowth. Ground mist hid his feet from him but he knew he was barefoot from the feel of the pine needles on the ground. Without knowing how, he knew that none of this was real, he wasn’t really there.

  For the first time in weeks the wound that he had sustained during the fall of Mutina no longer pained him. Despite the fact that his life had been saved by Doctor Chin, he had been in an agony of splitting headaches and nausea ever since. The loss of the pain only added to the feeling that none of this was truly happening.

  He started up the path, feeling the ground beneath his feet and the cold night around him. The fog closed in on him as he walked. The trees around him dripped a dark liquid from the tips of their branches, Regulus looked closer and realized it was blood. A shock of disgust gripped him as he stared, fascinated.

  A voice behind him broke the silence of the night and Regulus whipped around to see where it had come from. A unit of Roman legionaries was making its way up the path towards him. Each man clutched the tunic of the man in front as they made their way through the now opaque fog. The centurion in the lead actually walked with his arm stretched out in front of him.

  Regulus stepped out in front of the unit, holding up a hand to signal peace. The centurion looked straight at him and then past him, eyes darting in the grey darkness close to panic.

  “Fuck that,” the centurion said, obviously vocalising an internal debate.

  Regulus waved his hand in front of the man’s face as he passed within arm's reach. There was no reaction and Regulus had to assume that the centurion could not see him. It fitted with the feeling that he wasn’t really in this place but merely observing events.

  The unit passed him without the slightest sign that they saw him and carried on along the vague animal track. Regulus turned back to the blood that dripped from the trees and was sure that the unit could not see this either. He watched the back of the last man disappear into the fog and began up the trail to catch them. Whatever the reason he was here, he was sure it had something to do with the men who had just passed him.

  For a time Regulus followed the unit, the men obviously getting more disorientated as the fog thickened around them. It was almost impossible to see the trees that surrounded them now. Had the man in front stepped off a cliff, the legionaries behind may not have noticed until they were trying to walk on thin air themselves.

  A sense of dread started to seed itself in Regulus’ stomach. An uneasy sense of impending doom. The very air felt like a sucking creature that drew the air out of his lungs.

  The centurion in front of the group stopped and Regulus saw that they had entered a clearing. A small, broken down hut sat in the middle, a sense of malevolence surrounding it. Everything about the building screamed death and damnation to Regulus but the men didn’t seem to feel more than a sense of unease. Regulus wanted to shout at the men. He wanted to tell them to, “Get out! Run! Leave this place!” But they moved around the clearing staring at the hut with no sense of urgency at all.

  In his state of near panic, Regulus realised the centurion had said something to his troops. He concentrated his will on the men in front of him, wanting to see whatever it was that he was here to witness.

  “Build a fire if you can. I can’t see the smoke giving us away in this stuff and if any scouts are out, well, fuck it, let them join us. Just do it quietly, yes?” the centurion said to his men and the unit broke off to collect fire wood.

  Regulus turned back to the hut, his sense of fear so strong that it was making him feel like he might vomit. Blood soaked out of the gaps between the mouldy wooden boards. It pooled on the ground but none of the men saw it, or if they did, they didn’t comment. The walls of the hut seemed to breathe in and out as he watched. Animal skins that hung from hooks on the walls turned their heads to him and growled. He stepped back in fear before realising they were just dead and rotting remnants after all.

  “Why are you here, child?” a voice asked so close to his ear that he whirled round to see who had spoken. It was the voice of an old man but there was nobody behind him.

  “Who are you?” he asked. When he spoke no sound emitted from his mouth but he heard the words clearly in his head.

  “You desecrate this holy place with your presence,” the voice said. Its words caused a buzzing in his ears that made him want to reach into his head and scratch the inside of his skull.

  The centurion and one of his men were breaking the door of the cottage in order to look inside. Regulus tried to follow them but found his feet would not move. It suddenly felt very important to see what was happening inside the building.

  “I didn’t come here by choice,” Regulus said. “What is happening here?” He motioned to the backs of the two soldiers as they entered the festering hut. The doorway seemed to pulse as they passed through it.

  “The trespassers have been punished,” the ancient voice buzzed at him.

  Regulus didn’t know what that meant but he kept talking in his head while trying hard to move and see what was happening behind the bleeding walls. “What is this place? It isn’t what it seems, is it?’

  The voice laughed, long and loud in his head, it hurt until he
thought he might cry out, then it was gone. “Nothing is ever quite as it seems, child. Tell me before I am forced to kill you! Why are you here?” The vibration in his head reached unbearable levels as the voice shouted. Regulus put his hands to his ears and shouted to block out the voice but he knew it would do no good, the voice had nothing to do with his ears.

  “I don’t know how I came here, or why,” he said, truthfully.

  The legionary who was standing guard in the clearing moved as he saw one of his friends came out of the fog towards him. He raised a hand to greet the newcomer but Regulus could see there was something wrong. The movement of the man was all too familiar with its jerking and twitching. Regulus tried to shout out a warning but no sound came from his lips.

  The figure stepped out of the fog and latched onto the legionaries throat. Blood gushed from a torn wound and the two fell to the ground in what looked to be a lover's embrace. A second Risen in Roman uniform stepped into the clearing and joined the feast. The victim screamed as his flesh was torn away.

  The centurion crashed out of the hut and drew his gladius. He attacked the Risen with a ferocity that Regulus had rarely seen on any battle field. He stabbed at the Risen and then realised it was doing no good. His stabbing turned to hacking swings and soon both Risen lay dead on the ground.

  “Do you like what you see, Roman?” the voice asked.

  “What is this? Is this where it all started?” Regulus asked. He could hear a hint of panic in his voice but he couldn’t help it.

  The voice began to laugh again. Regulus fell to his knees with the effort of keeping his sanity. “You are privileged, child. Not many men get to see the end of a civilisation.”

  Regulus turned back to the clearing and saw the man who had been in the hut with the centurion dragged away into the fog by grasping hands. His senior officer was so intent on what was happening around him that he didn’t notice the man being taken. On the ground, the victim of the Risen died.

  “Why did you do this?” Regulus asked. His mind was swimming from the sights he had witnessed and the buzzing, growling voice in his head.

  “The Ancient Ones do as they please, Roman. They will not answer to the likes of you. They act because they wish to act. Your human mind cannot understand why they do what they do.”

  Regulus began to laugh. In front of him, no more than an arm's length from his face, the centurion turned to face his death. The man from the ground had Risen and was reaching forward to grasp the centurion. He sank his teeth deep into the flesh of his face and tore away his cheek and forehead. There was a ripping, sucking sound as the flesh parted and the centurion met his fate with no more than a sigh.

  “Why do you laugh?” the voice asked in his head.

  “Because I have just realised something that you don’t want me to know,” Regulus said as he watched the final Roman soldier die. The voice did not answer but Regulus felt the unasked question hanging in the air.

  “You don’t know how this happened and you don’t know why. You’re as powerless as I am,” the fourteen year old Roman archer said into the darkness.

  “Don’t come back here,” the voice said but the buzzing had ceased. The voice was of a weak, old man.

  Regulus laughed once more and the forest began to change. It faded around him and became his room in Rome. For a second the blood that had dripped from the walls of the hut sweated from the walls of the room. He lay and concentrated until everything returned to normal and then stepped out of his bed.

  He knew he hadn’t been dreaming, the memories were too real. The wound on his scalp still buzzed and itched, just as the voice had made his whole head feel. He stepped toward the open window and looked out on the city. From behind him he felt warm, soft arms reach around and grip him in a hug.

  “Can’t sleep?” Lucia asked him in a whisper.

  “Strange dreams,” Regulus answered, unwilling to tell her anything until he had thought about what had happened.

  Lucia lay her head on his back and held it there. Regulus felt the warmth of her breath across his shoulders. After a while she turned him to face her. “I can help you sleep, if you want me to.” She reached down to brush her hand against his naked manhood. Regulus smiled in the dark and lifted her onto the bed. The darkness hid their innocence, as their youth made them eager.

  Chapter Five

  The sound of iron-nailed sandals was loud on the marble floor. The step was regular and sure, unmistakably military. As the man passed guards each one in turn came to attention and saluted. The lamps on the walls had not long been lit and they cast weak shadows in the remaining daylight. The man marched into the eye sight of his emperor and came to attention. The emperor motioned for him to sit down before he gave his report.

  “Ostia is a ghost town as you requested, sir,” Praetorian Prefect Ursus said to Emperor Otho. “In fact, you could call it an undead town, sir,” he continued with a slight smile on his face.

  “Very good, Ursus. I have seen the refugees entering Rome, they look so grateful to be in a well defended city. They don’t even seem to realise we kept some of them behind. How many do you think we have now?” Otho asked him. He stretched out on the sofa, the warm rays of the evening sun warming his face. The balcony on which he sat was the last one to see the sun before it disappeared below the hills at night. Ursus sat with his back to the view and Otho wondered at a man who could ignore all that beauty.

  “Upwards of ten thousand, sir. That’s including the ones we already had after the siege. We’ve already turned the new ones so that they can be ready to move at a moments notice. Titus won’t know what’s hit him. The cages are vast. If it wasn’t for the inherent risk of danger to you, I would love for you to see what your subjects have built in your name. It is impressive,” Ursus answered with genuine enthusiasm. Maybe, Otho mused, men saw beauty in different ways.

  “Excellent. I can only assume that the lack of rumours mean the people of Ostia have no idea anything is amiss. It’s amazing what you can do to people if you make them think you are helping them. A little gratitude from desperate people can be as good as a blindfold. What of the transportation?”

  “I had my doubts at first, sir. I heard the word tunnel and wondered at the idea of digging one from Ostia to Rome in the time we have. It should have taken years. There was one engineer who came up with a solution and I have to say it’s excellent. They are building a trench instead and covering over the top with planks. I’ve walked along it. It’s wide enough for about twenty men to walk abreast and tall enough to run along it without ducking. The slaves that dug it have all been turned after the work was completed.”

  “I think I would like to see this trench before it is used. It sounds very impressive indeed. What about the tunnels under the city? What precautions have you made to ensure the Risen use the correct route?” Otho asked.

  “We have simply boarded up each turn to make sure they use only the passages we need them to. There are a couple of points where it gets a little narrow but we are working on widening them. From everything we’ve seen, the Risen follow each other like cattle. If we can get the first of them to follow our route the rest will follow like water down a pipe,” Ursus said with pride in his voice. The scheme had taken many hours of planning and thousands of man hours of labour but it was finally close enough to completion for this report to be made.

  “Tell me, Ursus. What ingenious scheme have you devised to make sure the Risen make the journey down the tunnel?” Otho asked, greatly enjoying the talk of Titus’ demise.

  “We have kept back a couple of hundred slaves, sir. We will chain them up so that each one can be seen from the last. The Risen should just follow the line of food along the trench, under the city and out behind Titus’ army as they stand outside the Gates begging to be let in.” Ursus waited for Otho’s reaction and began to laugh in unison with his emperor.

  “You’ve done well, Ursus. Now tell me, how are the city defences looking?” Otho motioned with a hand gesture
for a slave to fill the two silver goblets on the table and a young woman carried over an ornate jug.

  Ursus took his goblet and held it up in silent salute to his emperor, Otho responded in kind. The Prefect took a mouthful of wine and set his goblet down on the ornate white table between the two men.

  “The defences are as good as they are going to get, sir. We have heavy weapons in every spot on the wall that will take them. The Gates are all but impenetrable. The ground outside the walls has been difficult to prepare with the number of Risen that are out there. We see this as an advantage, however. I find it hard to see how trenches and spikes could hinder the traitor's army, as well as a few thousand Risen.”

  Otho raised his head to see the last faint line of orange stretched across the dusky purple sky as the sun set behind the shoulder of his second in command. The end of another day in which he sat on the most powerful seat in the world.

  “How are the defences at the wall holding out against the Risen?” Otho asked, shaking himself out of his reverie.

  “They are finding it harder every day to defend against the creatures. I can’t lie, it’s becoming a constant battle. Not all of them can reach the top of the walls and the men are doing a good job of destroying those that can. It’s the numbers that are the problem. We are finding it harder to spread the men enough to cover the whole wall and still remain effective in the fight against the monsters. We’ve had downward pointing spikes built into parts of the wall but the work is getting impossible. We lost three builders today and four yesterday.” Ursus paused to take another drink and give Otho time to reply.

  "The loss of men like builders doesn’t bother me Ursus. There must be a thousand in the city. Employ three for every one you have now.”

  “Yes, sir. Other than that, it is just a case of man power and constant vigilance. It is wearing on the men. They are working with very little rest.”