Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire

by Gordon Doherty

  Pavo stabbed his spear butt into one dune as he approached the crest, then afforded barely a glance at the thousand more dunes that lay beyond. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, his rasping breaths mingling with those of the men around him. He wondered if the muddy pool they had come across yesterday had been a blessing or a curse, for the tepid, grainy water they had drank from it served only to prolong this agony. Some men had fallen ill from drinking it, vomiting through the bitterly cold night. They were gaunt, burnt and trembling. None had fallen, yet. But Pavo knew that sixteen days more of this lay ahead before they reached the waters of the Gulf. The desert would have its victims before then, of that he was sure.

  He realised his vision was narrowing. He recognised this moment from the countless battles of his time in the legions – the moment when the last drops of energy were ebbing. He blinked and shook his head, clutching the phalera, seeking out the will to go on.

  He half-staggered, half-slid down the far side of the dune. The sand kicked up by his clumsy descent clung to his lips and nostrils as he came to a halt at the bottom of the dune, on his knees. He coughed weakly and waved away Sura’s offer of a hand, propping himself up using his spear shaft.

  ‘Come on,’ he croaked to the swaying, trembling men of the century behind him. ‘Every dune we pass is one more enemy defeated.’

  Suddenly, the sand before him puckered. A black, shiny scorpion burst into view, no bigger than his thumb. The creature scurried up the dune then plunged back under the sand near the tip.

  Centurion Quadratus gasped from a few paces behind. ‘Maybe we should follow that little bastard – perhaps he knows the way to water?’

  A weak, croaking chuckle toppled from Pavo’s chest at this, in spite of his fatigue. Sura joined in and soon the rest of the column did too. Pavo saw Gallus with Carbo, up ahead. The iron tribunus turned his head a fraction at the sound of laughter. A cocked eyebrow was the closest the man came to showing his approval.

  Zosimus fired back at Quadratus. ‘Water? Who needs water?’ he held his hands out and looked up as if enjoying the sun. ‘It could be worse than this . . . a night sleeping under Quadratus’ bunk . . . death by farting!’

  Now the column broke out in an even louder chorus of desperate laughter. The noise echoed out over the countless miles of dunes all around them. Even Baptista and his men joined in. At the last, it seemed, adversity had bound them together in some small way.

  Pavo trudged on, trying to focus on memories of Felicia, trying to draw inspiration from the phalera around his neck. His gaze hung on the sand before him as they marched over dune after dune, until the sun began to fall. Now the blinding light dulled to a tired orange and the dunes cast long shadows across the land.

  Just then, an unexpected faint breeze picked up. Pavo’s skin chilled despite the dry heat. He drew his gaze up and around. The dunes were a dark red now, and the south-eastern horizon was a deep blue speckled with the first stars. But there was something else. A murky shape swirled there, between sand and sky. A colossal, writhing mass – as if the dusk had come to life in a fury.

  ‘What in Hades?’ Felix croaked, mopping the sweat from his brow and squinting at this billowing mass.

  ‘What is that?’ Sura added.

  All around, the staggering ranks came to a halt atop the lip of one lengthy dune, gawping at the mass. The breeze picked up and lifted the linen rags on their heads. Few thought of the comfort the breeze provided as the shape grew broader and broader, until it was as wide as the horizon itself and stretched high into the sky.

  Pavo gawped, seeing dune after dune swallowed up as the thrashing mass came for them at speed. A single sand grain carried by the breeze stung against the burnt skin of his face. He touched a hand to his cheek, then looked up at the approaching dark wall. A howling pierced the air; a gale that brought with it a spray of sand. Pavo’s mind flashed with those haunting images; the nightmare of Father, the storm that always consumed him.

  He looked across the lip of the dune to see Carbo, wide-eyed likewise, his linen headscarf whipping in the sudden squall. ‘It is a sandstorm – take shelter!’ the centurion cried out. No sooner had he uttered the cry than the wall of swirling, darting sand raced across the last few dunes like a predator, the roar growing deafening. The ferocious wind cut through the next nearest dune and threw up sands at the gawping legionaries.

  Baptista cried out, wide-eyed; ‘God have merc - ’

  The roaring gale consumed his words utterly.

  It seemed to suck the air from Pavo’s lungs, battering him. White lights flashed in his field of vision as the sand stung at his eyeballs and raked at his skin. He caught only flashes of those around him. Sura, staggering, blinded, trying to wrap his linen scarf over his face in vain. Quadratus, chasing one fleeing camel and clawing at the packs on its back. Gallus crying out to his men, his words for once defeated by the roar of the sandstorm.

  Fingers grappled Pavo’s arm. He spun round, shielding his eyes. Through the cracks in his fingers he made out Zosimus, bawling something at him from only inches away. The few words he made out sounded weak and distant.

  ‘ . . . the tent! . . . Quadratus . . . .the tent!’

  Pavo blinked and looked this way and that. He saw that Quadratus had hauled a tent pack from one of the camels. The big Gaul was flailing at the flat goatskin in an attempt to unravel and provide some kind of cloak that they could shelter under. But the skin was flapping in a fury as if eager to soar off with the gale. Zosimus beckoned him then dipped his head and fought his way through the storm’s ire. Pavo followed. The three used their weight to peg down three corners of the goatskin, and they cried out to Sura to come and secure the fourth. Meanwhile, Gallus and Carbo tried their best to bring the rest of the men together, ready to cram as many as possible under this desperate shelter.

  Sura staggered through the tumult and leapt to throw himself onto the goatskin, but before he landed, the storm picked up and showed all its strength. As if being snatched away by a god, the goatskin was gone, sucked up into the air. In that instant, the faces around Pavo disappeared too and the sand grew thick as stone. Every inch of flesh burned under the bombardment of the burning grains and then the squall blew him from his feet. When he tried to stand, he was blown back, one step, then another, then he found himself staggering away. He fell down the side of another dune, tumbling round and round. When he stood, panic raced through his veins as he realised he had completely lost his bearings. How far had he strayed? Eyes shut tight from the blinding sand, he covered his mouth to suck in a breath, coughing as the sand coated his mouth. He roared with all the force he could muster;

  ‘XI Claudia!’

  Nothing but the storm roared back.

  Then he trod on something. Something solid. He fell again and saw the staring, dead features of a Flavia Firma legionary. The man was buried up to his chest, his mouth open in a scream, lips blue from the sand that had packed his mouth and asphyxiated him.

  Pavo gawped; the nightmare was upon him. He spun in every direction, lifting the collar of his tunic to shield his nose and mouth.

  ‘XI Claudia!’

  A wall of sand threw him from his feet again. He clawed to stand once more, but the sand piled up around him impossibly. In moments, he was waist deep in it. A heartbeat later, it spilled around his chest.

  As the sand piled up around his neck, he remembered Father’s words from the dream.

  ‘Beware, Pavo!’

  The words echoed in his mind as darkness overcame him.

  Chapter 11

  The following day, the desert was still and serene. The dunes lay in a tidy weave as if having been groomed by a giant’s comb. A vulture soared on the mid-morning zephyrs, its eyes trained on the slightest movement below. There would be plenty of bounty to be had following the previous night’s storm. Then its gaze snapped round on something. It dropped from the zephyr and circled lower and lower. There, it saw it; a scrawny lizard atop one dune. A fine morning
meal. But then the vulture saw that the lizard was digging at the sand and something buried there – something stringy. There was a faint tinge of blood in the air – was this the raw meat of some cadaver? A far more attractive meal than a lizard. The vulture plunged and screeched. The terrified lizard darted under the sand at once.

  The vulture began pecking at the stringy morsel, then it became infuriated when the tendril would not pull free of the sand. It wrenched and wrenched until, at last, the sand shifted to reveal some shining metal disc attached to the string. The vulture strutted over to the disc and cocked its head this way and that, noticing the fleshy outline of a neck, a jaw, a face, all coated in sand. It trained its gaze on an eyelid and thought of the juicy eyeball underneath. It raised its beak to peck through the eyelid.

  Pavo felt something padding up his chest then come to a halt, just over his face. The sensation stirred him from the blackness. He sat up with a gasp, casting off the veil of sand, and swiped out, feeling some feathery mass beat at him before disappearing. His lungs burned as if he had not taken a breath in days. He could see and hear nothing but blackness and the thumping of his heart. He clawed at his eyes, stinging and full of sand. He dug the sand from his ears and at last he could hear again, the terrified screeching of a vulture fading into the distance. He scrambled forward onto all fours, spitting, coughing and retching. His limbs trembled as he stood upright and he could feel the deadly heat of day scorching every inch of his skin, then the furious thirst that seemed to have shrivelled his insides demanded his attention. He rubbed at his eyes again. It hurt so badly that he cried out, but he could see something after this; a blur of gold and azure.

  ‘Pavo!’ a voice called out. ‘Pavo!’

  Pavo swung round to see a blurry shape approaching.

  ‘Pavo, you’re alive!’ he felt a set of arms grapple his shoulders.

  ‘Sura?’ he croaked.

  ‘Sit down!’ another voice cried out.

  ‘Zosimus, sir? What happe - ’ he started, then something wet splashed across his face.

  ‘Just sit.’ A pair of hands pushed him down.

  He gagged and spat, then realised the sand had been washed from his eyes. He blinked away the remaining blurriness and saw Zosimus and Sura before him. The pair were dressed in their torn, sand-encrusted tunics and looked as dreadful as he felt. Zosimus held out the rest of the water skin. ‘Drink!’

  Pavo took it. ‘Water, how?’

  Felix scrambled up to the lip of the dune beside him and tipped the skin up. ‘You drink, we’ll talk.’

  Pavo nodded and savoured the liquid that washed across his parched tongue then toppled down his throat. It was hot and polluted with sand, but it instantly brought moisture to his eyes and part-quenched his thirst. He gasped in relief, then his breath stilled when he saw a bump in the sand nearby. An arm poked from it, still and lifeless, with a splatter of dried blood nearby where the vultures had been tearing at the dead legionary’s tendrils. Further away, the tortured features of a fallen camel poked from the dune, its eyes lost to the carrion birds and the sockets crawling with insects. All around him were many such bumps and sights.

  ‘Is there nobody else . . . ’ Pavo uttered.

  But then he saw it. In the shade of a nearby dune stood a cluster of haggard, familiar faces. The surviving men of the XI Claudia and the XVI Flavia Firma. There were many missing, it seemed, less than seventy left overall. Less than fifteen of the camel caravan had survived too. But there was something else. A tent with a pair of armoured legionaries standing by it. They were not of the vexillatio. They carried dark-green shields each bearing the image of a golden capricorn and a Christian Chi-Rho.

  ‘We found them this morning when the storm died. Or rather, they found us,’ Felix shrugged. ‘They’re from the IV Scythica, just three of them – a tribunus and two legionaries. Gallus is trying to make sense of the tribunus’ ramblings.’

  Pavo squinted to see Gallus and Carbo talking to some wild-eyed man in mail armour by the tent flap. The man’s thin, wispy hair was coated in sweat and sand and pointing in every direction at once. He gripped his plumed helm underarm, his knuckles white and his face etched with terror.

  Felix sighed and shook his head at the sight. ‘In the meantime, they have given over their surplus rations to us – it seems there is a spring a days’ march from here and they had a few skins to spare.’

  Pavo nodded, then took another gulp of water. He looked around him, frowning. ‘Last night,’ he spoke quietly, ‘I thought the sands had claimed me.’

  ‘And we thought we had found the last of the survivors some time ago, Pavo,’ Sura added. ‘We thought you were dead. If it wasn’t for that bastard of a vulture, we’d never have spotted you.’

  Zosimus scratched his anvil jaw and defied his chapped, broken and utterly exhausted state to crack a grin. ‘Aye, so thank Mithras and that winged whoreson that you are still breathing. Else I would have had to promote the biggest smart-arse in Adrianople to optio,’ he jabbed a thumb at Sura.

  The four grinned at this.

  Felix offered Pavo a hand and wrenched him to his feet. ‘Come on, we need to be ready to move onwards. The water we have will not last for long.’

  They staggered down the dune and over to the gathering of legionaries. As they approached, Pavo overheard the wild-eyed IV Scythica Tribunus’ words.

  ‘I . . . I, we,’ he scratched at his scalp and his lips flapped. ‘We decided to reconnoitre . . . ’

  ‘Reconnaissance? Perhaps things are done differently in these parts, Tribunus Ovidius,’ Gallus spat, ‘but I have never seen a tribunus, leader of a legion, perform such a task.’ The pair of legionaries with Ovidius shared a furtive glance at this, and the tribunus’ top lip began to tic. Gallus saw it. Pavo saw it.

  ‘You are in no position to question me, Tribunus Gallus,’ Ovidius blurted out. ‘The rest of my legion follow a short distance behind.’

  Gallus eyed the tribunus with a glare that might even have chilled the infernal sun. ‘Then we can march south-east to meet with them. And you’re coming with us.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand, you can’t go that way!’ Ovidius wailed. At this, he snatched his spatha from his belt and held it out, waving it at those nearby as he backed away. ‘You can’t make me go back. They are out there, they will be the death of us – all of us!’ He turned as if to run to the north, only to be stopped by Quadratus’ ham-like fist crashing into his cheek. The big Gaul caught Ovidius as he slumped. ‘Bloody idiot,’ he grumbled.

  Gallus sighed in disgust, then turned to the two legionaries who had come with Ovidius, fixing them with a winter-cold glare. ‘You will carry your tribunus until he wakes. I trust you will not follow his example?’

  They both nodded hurriedly.

  He clicked his fingers and turned to address the men of the XI Claudia. But he paused, seeing Pavo standing there, still alive despite the sandstorm. Pavo threw up an arm in salute. A faint narrowing of the eyes was all Gallus offered in return. That and the barest upwards flicker at the corners of his lips.

  ‘A spring lies to the south-east. A spring and a legion that is in dire trouble. Take on what water you can and be ready to move out before noon!’

  Pavo’s breath came and went in rasps as he approached the top of the latest dune. His mind taunted him with images of the thousand more dunes that would stretch out beyond it. But hoarse cries of delight rang out from the men of the vexillatio who got there just before him. Hope surged in his heart. He renewed his efforts and hauled himself atop the sandy ridge.

  The dunes were no more. A flat, sandy plain stretched out ahead. Dead in the centre, only a few hundred feet away, was an ethereal green mass. Another mirage? He rubbed his eyes and blinked. Once, twice, again. No, this was real. Date palms, long grass, thick green foliage and a shimmering, clear pool, the weakest of breezes feathering its surface. The oasis was the size of a small arena at best. Some underground spring had pierced through the desert floor to fill t
he pool and turn the arid dust around it into a shady, fertile haven.

  The vexillatio poured forward, Pavo with them. They found strength where previously they had none. They threw down their spears then hurtled through the palms to splash into the pool. Pavo fell to his knees, panting, the coolness of the water soothing his body, sharpening his thoughts at once. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Baptista kneeling likewise, scooping water over his long, tousled locks then clasping his hands in prayer. Zosimus, Quadratus and the others of the XI Claudia, meanwhile, offered a swift salute to Mithras, before ducking under the surface, bursting free and then drinking handful after handful of the springwater. Pavo cupped and drank likewise. The first few mouthfuls were unfamiliar to his dry, cracked throat and mouth. Then he felt the coolness in his belly and at once, his eyes watered and he felt hope in his heart once more. As he drank, he cast his eye up and over the green fronds of the palms. Bunches of ripe, yellow-orange dates bulged under the leaves. Here they could fill their bellies and rest. Here, everything was possible once more.

  ‘Silence!’ Gallus interrupted his thoughts. All those around him stopped splashing and chattering.

  Pavo looked up. The tribunus strode round the edge of the pool, having yet to slake his own thirst. He crept round to the far side, then crouched, peering through the palm trunks. Pavo followed his gaze, and saw it too. Beyond the oasis, on the plain, a flickering column of iron moved – like some giant serpent. Pavo blinked, rising from the pool to stand tall, an odd shiver dancing across him as the hot desert breeze touched his wet skin. His spear arm clenched, and he cursed himself for having thrown down his weapon in haste. He moved his hand to his spatha hilt, watching as the iron column grew closer.

  But, at the last, he saw the eagle standard this army carried. A green capricorn banner hung below the eagle – just like that etched on the shields of Ovidius’ two men. This was the IV Scythica. Over one thousand limitanei legionaries. Over one thousand spears, spathas, shields and bobbing intercisa helms. The sight was a welcome one. They were marching towards the oasis at haste – so hastily in fact that some men stumbled and others marched well out of line.