Phoenix Rising

by Jason K. Lewis

  The door rattled.

  Conlan shifted his weight minutely, barely able to hold his anticipation. His stomach growled now at the thought of food.

  It opened wide. Shocking brilliant light surrounded the silhouette of a man in the doorway, a silhouette that slowly resolved into the form of the proctor, Danus Villius.

  Villius looked down on Conlan, his expression seemingly a mixture of guilt and empathy. “Cohort Commander.” Villius’s tone, in contrast to his expression, was strictly formal, brusque even. “General Martius will see you now.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Martius

  THE SUN DRIFTED LOW in the west, the sky reddening as the afternoon transitioned to evening. Martius sat on a plain veranda overlooking the ornamental pool in the central courtyard of his townhouse.

  His wife, Ellasand, and his two sons, Ursus and Accipiter, sat upstairs on the balcony of the east wing. Ellasand looked to be reading, happily absorbed in her favourite pastime. The boys were fixated on a game board in front of them, no doubt playing ‘steal the king’ as usual, obsessively dedicated to besting each other, as ever.

  With the exception his southern estate and villa, the courtyard of the town house in Adarna was Martius’s favourite spot on earth. So many good memories permeated the house that they blended into one long continuum of contentment and safety.

  Directly in front of him, down three steps from the veranda, the ground down to the pool was split into vegetable patches and small stands of dwarf fruit trees. He was proud of this place. There was, of course, no need for a man in his position to do any gardening, but he did it for the sheer relaxation. There was something hypnotic and medicinal, he found, in getting his hands dirty and nurturing plants to bear fruit or yield sustenance. For most of his life, he had studied the arts of death but in this place he repaid the earth for his sins, often spending hours pruning tomatoes or setting seeds. It was a tranquil penance, one he longed for often when out on campaign.

  The other side of the garden belonged to Ellasand. It stood awash with colour, the result of her dedication to the blooming flowers and shrubs she nurtured. Truth be told, Ellasand believed more in delegation and often enlisted the aid of servants or freedmen in completing the grand design for her half of the courtyard. A design which, Martius found, constantly morphed and refreshed. Barely a month went by in Ellasand’s garden without a major change being instigated.

  Horticulture had become a form of friendly competition over the years, as if Ellasand was trying to outdo Martius’s efforts, to eclipse his garden with the beauty of her own.

  Hearing footsteps approach, Martius turned to see his servant, Darcus, escorting Turbis, Villius and the troubled young officer, Conlan, towards his table.

  The boy looks nervous, he noted, although at twenty-five he doubted many would call Conlan a boy. He has much to learn about life, but there is iron in him; he may have potential if he can control his recklessness.

  Martius doubted that Conlan knew how close he had come to execution for his protestations during the decimation. If the Emperor – who grew keener every day on martial punishment – had been present, Conlan would probably be dead.

  He recalled seeing Conlan on the battlefield for the first time. Standing, exhausted, the young officer had clutched the standard of the Third like a magical talisman. The men Conlan had fought with – the men he had led on the battlefield – reported he had shown outstanding courage and bravery, leading the group after his legion father, Yovas, had perished.

  Conlan’s actions had probably delayed the Wicklanders’ attack on the rest of the army. That, along with the presence of the ‘others’ – the mysterious knights in white armour – had been enough to allow time for the cavalry to be gathered. He may have as much to do with winning the battle as you did, Martius reminded himself.

  Conlan did not attempt to hide his contempt as he approached. His lips quivered, face crimson with rage. He even reached down with his right hand for a sword that was not there.

  Martius chided himself for meeting this unpredictable man in his home, but it was the only place he could think of where it would be safe to speak openly. A quick survey of the area revealed several garden implements – all potential weapons – a few paces away in the vegetable garden. He had no fear for himself, but Conlan was a hardened soldier in his prime, a danger to any man. He looked up again at the balcony overlooking them. Ella caught his eye and waved lazily. He waved back in response and observed whilst he did that his boys were still engrossed in their competition, fixated on the board between them.

  Good. Stay where you are, stay safe.

  “Turbis, Villius.” He stood slowly, and motioned for the men to be seated at the table, one either side of him. It would be best if Conlan sat opposite. “Please, come, sit. I have pomegranate juice, fresh from the orchard, Cohort Commander.” He looked Conlan in the eyes, sensing confusion and maybe a tinge of fear. “Forgive me; your given name is Conlan, yes?” If his name was anything to go by, Conlan was a descendant of the northern hill tribes, who, completely at odds with Adarnan traditions, rarely used their family or clan name.

  Conlan stood stiffly beside the table for a long moment before sitting at last, but only after his seniors had settled. “Yes, sir,” his voice cracked as he spoke. “Conlan Danson, sir.”

  “You are of the hill tribes, yes?”

  “My father was a legionary, his father was a clansman from the hills, and my mother was a baker’s daughter from Adarna.” His tone was terse.

  Martius smiled to put the man at ease. “It is often the way these days. The Empire has absorbed so many nations.” Be careful; you must sound like a pompous snob to him. “And so many different peoples have intertwined. We are all citizens though. That is the great thing about our nation. Our equality.” He cringed inwardly as he spoke. You’re out of touch; it’s been a long time since you could pretend to be one of the people – if you ever could at all.

  Conlan leaned forward. “Actually, sir…” His eyes blazed with intensity. “I was wondering. If there is so much equality in the Empire, why are the majority of the senate and senior officers of pure Adarnan blood?”

  Thankfully, Darcus chose the moment to interrupt gently; his giant frame moved to stand beside Conlan, perhaps to remind the man that he was outflanked. “Will you require anything else, sir?” he asked, his voice low and sonorous.

  “Well, Darcus, I have to say that I think the vegetable patch needs tending. Would you be so kind as to get a couple of lads and clear up?” Martius replied.

  Darcus paused momentarily, then, with a sideways look at Conlan, he nodded gently. “Of course, sir.” He raised an arm and two more housemen, both bearing legion tattoos on their biceps, appeared from the shadows of a nearby room. All three moved into the garden and stood, tools in hand, staring towards Martius. None made any effort to tend the vegetables.

  Darcus my old friend, you’d already prepared for trouble. Darcus had always been faithful, even as a legionary; always ready as ever to defend the house of Felix. But not a very good gardener, by the looks of it.

  Martius sipped his pomegranate juice. It had been a good year for the orchards; the juice was sweet yet mildly astringent. “You are right to question the order of the Empire,” he said, viewing Conlan over his goblet. “There is much in what you say that is true. Myself and Villius here are both from noble houses.”

  Villius nodded earnestly and looked around the table. “Yes, it’s true.”

  “But General Turbis,” Martius gestured with his goblet, “is no more a blue blood than you are.”

  “And proud of it.” Turbis puffed his chest out and cast an amiable wink towards Conlan. “I came up through the ranks. Never knew my father, died when I was young. Mother was a bloody good seamstress. Nothing wrong with being common is there, boy?”

  “No, sir, there isn’t,” Conlan said respectfully. “But he,” as he said the words he nodded towards Martius without making eye contact, “just murde
red fifty-one of my good... and common brothers.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Villius replied, voice firm and defensive. “It wasn’t General Martius.”

  “Then who was it?” Conlan snapped. “It looked like he ordered it from where I was standing.”

  Martius took another sip from his goblet, then swilled the contents slowly around. The juice was particularly bright and red this year. “It was ordered by the Emperor. I had no choice.” This boy has no sense of self-preservation. He is released from the Hole, has no idea of his fate, and yet he is happy to argue with his superiors.

  Conlan sat back in his chair. “But you still gave the order.”

  “Had no choice, boy,” Turbis grumbled. “He couldn’t disobey the Emperor. No one can.”

  “But…”

  “Conlan.” Martius put his drink aside, and fixed Conlan with a stare. “I had no choice. I did not agree with the decision. I argued as much as I dared with him, but he would not be moved. Believe me, no one wanted to save the Twelfth more than I did.”

  “Why would you care about the Twelfth?” Conlan shook his head. “Why would you care about any of us?”

  Martius dropped his gaze. He cursed himself for showing weakness but he would not take the blame for the destruction of the Twelfth. “I cared about them because they were mine.”

  Conlan frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  For Martius the pain was too fresh. Villius broke the silence. “General Martius began his career with the Twelfth,” he said. “He was legion father to them in the end.”

  Conlan appeared to deflate. The fire extinguished from his eyes, his ire with it. He raised his right hand to his ear and tugged absently at the lobe. “The Emperor made you decimate your own legion? He made you destroy their standard? They will never march again!” Conlan’s voice trembled. “For the gods’ sake, why would he do that?”

  He is reckless and seems to be set on suicide through lack of self-awareness, but he has a strong will. Perhaps strong enough to question anything he felt was wrong. If he could learn some discipline, Conlan might become a useful ally.

  “We live in a complicated world,” replied Martius. “We are only human, and as such we are ruled by our own emotions, fickle and thoughtless just like the gods in whose image we are made.”

  “Martius is a threat and the Emperor wants to hurt him,” Turbis interjected. “The Emperor doesn’t like him.”

  Martius stifled a smile. “Well, that is another way of putting it my friend, yes.”

  Conlan reached forward, grasped the jug in the centre of the table and slowly poured himself a drink. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  He seemed to have found his nerve. Either that or he did not care about his fate.

  “I thought you’d brought me here to sentence me, or demote me, or have me flogged or... shamed out of the service. What am I doing here?”

  “Well,” Martius said. “I always like to get acquainted with a new legion father.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Conlan

  CONLAN REELED. LEGION FATHER? The words echoed through his mind, and he doubted the events of the last few weeks, doubted his very sanity. Am I still in the Hole? Or have I been driven mad by the isolation? He looked at Martius, sitting calm and relaxed across the table. The man had a thin-lipped smile on his face, his eyes glinting onyx in the sunlight, aloof and unreadable.

  “Well,” said Martius. “Are you going to say anything?”

  “Legion father?” Conlan croaked, his throat resisting reality as much as his mind.

  Martius’s smile broadened and he raised an eyebrow. “You were voted in by the men three days ago. It was a landslide victory.”

  “How?” Conlan replied. The words slowly sank in. Voted in? He had not long been centre branch leader, never mind his promotion to cohort commander, a post that he had undertaken, for the most part, in the Hole.

  Turbis snorted loudly. “It’s a vote boy, eh?” He reached over and patted Conlan’s shoulder.

  Conlan had expected, at the very least, to be dishonourably discharged, to face the prospect of seeking civilian work, or worse, joining a mercenary band in some far flung state, the Farisian Empire, perhaps. But this? Surely it was a joke. He did not know what to think of Felix Martius. He wondered if the general was truly an honourable man, or if this was just an elaborate game, such as he had heard the nobility were wont to play with the lower classes.

  Martius reached forward, picked up the jug from the middle of the table and topped up everyone’s drinks in silence. The sound of the liquid echoed like laughter in Conlan’s ears. The gods were fickle, he had heard. If so, they must be laughing at his fate.

  He nodded his thanks and took a sip of the pomegranate juice. After the campaign rations and water he had consumed for the last ten days, it tasted like nectar. His stomach grumbled loudly, an insistent reminder that he had not eaten for many hours.

  Martius smiled at him, face open and unguarded for the first time. “Darcus, lads.” He gestured to the three servants who still stood in the vegetable patch. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to get us some food? I believe our guest must be famished.”

  Darcus, a huge gangly man with a badly mangled nose and crooked teeth looked questioningly at his master. “Sir?” he replied, voice deep and sonorous.

  “It’s alright, Darcus. We are in no danger.” Martius gestured again with his hand. The big man nodded and led the others in the direction of the largest chimney in the house, which looked to Conlan, to be attached to the kitchen.

  “So I am to be the father of the Third, then?” Conlan said, absently watching the servants’ backs as they departed. He thought it strange that had not seen any slaves in the house.

  “You are.” Martius nodded. “The Phoenix Third is yours. The remaining nine hundred have been joined by the remnant of the disbanded Twelfth. Your legion is just under half strength, but the men are strong and we are already filling the ranks with new recruits.” He paused, looking into the middle distance over Conlan’s head. “The boys from the Twelfth really swung it for you, I think. Rumour has it they all voted for you… Your outburst may have gotten you into trouble, but it also bought you many friends. That and the fact you were the only cohort commander in the Third they knew anything of.” Martius fixed Conlan with a stare. “You will look after those boys, Father Conlan, the Twelfth have a long and illustrious history and I will not see it completely destroyed. There is a reason I had them protect the right flank at Sothlind. They are fine soldiers. Treat them well and they will follow you to the ends of the Earth.”

  Conlan nodded. His outburst should have cost him his career, and possibly his life, but instead it had bought him a legion of his own. A pang of guilt tugged at him for distrusting the primus general. There was true compassion in Martius’s voice as he spoke of the Twelfth. Conlan could only guess at the depth of his loss.

  “I will do my best to honour their loyalty, sir.”

  “Good. Make sure you do,” Martius replied. “I like you, Conlan, but you need to know that you cannot be so blatant in challenging authority. Your outburst left me no choice but to punish you. You do not know how lucky you are to be alive. If the Emperor had been present… You will find that I value constructive criticism in those I command, but you must not challenge me in public. I am always happy to be questioned privately. Do you think you can work with this arrangement?”

  Conlan flushed. He had doubted – no hated – a man who clearly did not deserve it. “I understand, General. It will not happen again. I am yours to command.”

  The three servants returned, laden with bread, cold meat, cheese and fruit.

  “Good,” said Felix Martius. “We have much to discuss, I have a special task for you. Villius will fill you in on the details while we eat.”

  “Do we have wine, Martius?” Turbis asked. “All this juice is unsettling my stomach.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Conlan

  AF
TER TWO DAYS, IT still had not sunk in. Legion father. The ultimate accolade for any rank and file legionary; and now it was his. The Third Legion, his beloved Third, dropped into his lap like a child’s gift on Empire Day, with General Martius playing the part of indulgent father.

  Conlan still could not reconcile himself with the thought of being one of the most senior frontline officers in the Empire. Legion fathers were undoubtedly those most respected by the rank and file; in many respects, the whole legionary system revolved around loyalty to them above all else but the Empire itself.

  “You are certainly quiet.” Martius’s voice was soft. “I will give you that.”

  Conlan turned towards the general, not knowing whether to idolise or hate the man beside him. “I am sorry, sir.” He took a deep breath. The air in Veteran’s Park was the clearest in the city, benefiting from a steady, reliable, breeze that blew up the Harlax River which bisected Adarna. To the east lay the bustling hub of the city proper; to the west, on the other side of the river lay the richer suburbs that had sprung up as the city grew. “I am still in shock, I think.” Two days ago, I was in the Hole. Two days ago, I hated you for what I thought you had done. The decimation had been on the orders of the despotic Emperor, Mucinas Ravenas, but he still, to some small degree, begrudged Martius his forgiveness, and wondered if the general could have done more to stop the horror of the decimation.

  Martius laid a hand on Conlan’s shoulder; his grip was firm and friendly. “I know. It is quite understandable. You have gone through much in the last few weeks.” He swept a hand to encompass the whole area. “The Empire has been through much over the last few weeks. It is not surprising that you are... a little worse for wear.” He released his grip and patted Conlan gently on the back. “For my part, I am sorry for what you have had to endure.”