‘Fool,’ Baptista spat.
‘Forget him; look, we’re not done yet,’ Pavo jabbed a finger out to the cluster of legionaries under the XI Claudia banner, a short distance away. Gallus was there, as were Zosimus, Felix, Quadratus and Carbo plus some fifty others. They hacked and parried furiously, coated in blood. ‘If we can get to them . . . ’
The keening of a Persian war horn drowned out his words. At once, the clibanarii withdrew from the fray, leaving just these islands of hardy legionaries in a sea of bloody sand and corpses. The battle din quelled.
Pavo panted, watching as the iron riders returned to their position in Persian centre. The cataphractii and archer cavalry had spilled round the flanks and now stood poised like pincers. Bows nocked, lances levelled. Watching, waiting. The rumbling war drums fell silent and every legionary’s breath seemed to still with them. An eerie calm settled over the gory scene.
‘What are they waiting for?’ Sura panted, running his gaze over the Savaran noose.
Beside them, Baptista growled, clutching his Chi-Rho; ‘You will soon see. I pray to God that it will be over swiftly.’ He met the eyes of both Pavo and Sura. ‘Know this: we could never be friends, but you make fine comrades on the battlefield.’
‘Aye,’ Pavo replied, ‘at the last, I am glad of you by my side.’
Baptista nodded briskly, then closed his eyes and muttered in prayer.
Pavo and Sura peered ahead, over the line of clibanarii. There seemed to be some activity there, shrouded behind the wall of dust. Suddenly, the calm was shattered as the earth rumbled under them once more. This time it was ferocious, as if titans were now running towards them. The clibanarii parted, and the dust behind them swirled and swished rapidly, a shaft of midday sunlight piercing it and silhouetting a dozen hulking shapes. Then a dozen nightmarish, trumpeting roars rang out, shaking Pavo to his bones.
‘God of the Light, no!’ he gasped as the war elephants thundered into view. Their trunks swiped in fury. Their tusks were coated in bronze, the tips sharpened and serrated. Their colossal limbs crashed on the dust underfoot like falling rocks, and they came at a great pace that belied their size. The archers packed into the howdah cabins strapped to their backs grinned zealously as they leant out to take aim with their nocked bows. The wild-eyed, eager mahout seated on the lead beast’s neck yelled some jagged command, driving the creature onwards.
Pavo glanced across to Gallus and the cluster of men around the XI Claudia banner. The iron tribunus had nothing, and could only gawp at these giant creatures.
‘We’re dead,’ Sura whispered, as if stealing Pavo’s thoughts.
Instinctively, a few legionaries nearby broke away, scrambling back. Pavo stared up at the nearest creature, its enraged features encircled by a halo of sunlight. A pair of arrows thudded down into the dust before him and then the beast lifted its huge foot. The shadow of the beast fell over him and finally his resolve cracked. He, Sura and the rest of his cluster scrambled back too.
‘Sir!’ Sextus yelped behind him, one hand outstretched having stumbled to his knees.
Pavo reached out to Sextus, when an elephant foot came crashing down upon the young legionary, crushing him like bracken. Then the swinging trunk bashed into Pavo’s breast, knocking the breath from him, cracking a rib and hurling him over the heads of the rest of his men. He landed on his back and rolled through the dust. Winded, he retched and spat, then scrambled up to see the mahout smash his iron-tipped cane on the beast’s head. This maddened the creature, provoking it into swishing its head, bringing one bronze-coated tusk up and through Baptista’s flank, ripping the side of his torso away. The blood of the mutilated Flavia Firma optio showered those who fled and his lifeless corpse toppled to the dust. Sura cried out as an arrow hissed down, slashing past the side of his face with a spray of blood, then another punched into his calf, knocking him to the ground beside Pavo. Nearby he saw Gallus, Carbo and the others scrambling back likewise until they were together in a panting, panicked cluster. The war elephants rounded on them as if herding cattle, then slowed, obeying the barking commands and thrashing canes of the mahouts. The circle of great beasts glowered down upon the surviving legionaries – less than thirty all told. Pavo squinted up as the howdah archers stretched their bows once more, each taking aim for a volley that would finish them all and end the quest for the scroll.
Pavo grappled his phalera medallion and thought of Father.
But the onslaught ceased with a single strike on the war drum. The archers’ arms slackened and their gleeful grins grew sour. Silence fell over the plain bar a few snorts, whinnies and shuffles of the Persian mounts. The dust settled and the baking heat of early afternoon seared their skins.
Carbo pushed up next to Pavo, his every breath rasping, his skin and hair caked in blood.
‘What’s happening?’ Pavo whispered.
‘The victor wants to inspect his conquered subjects,’ Carbo replied. He nodded to a space behind the circle of elephants.
There, the drafsh standard draped with the golden lion banner bobbed into view. A clutch of wing-helmed riders carried the staff.
‘Pushtigban,’ Carbo whispered, ‘the cream of the Savaran. They serve as the bodyguard of the shahanshah and his underlings.’
‘The king of kings?’ Pavo gasped. ‘Shapur is here?’
Carbo shook his head, his gaze never leaving the golden lion banner. ‘No, I fear that someone far more dangerous leads this wing of the Savaran today. Someone starved of power. The Persian Empire has long been plagued by such souls.’ He nodded to the banner. ‘That is the symbol of the House of Aspaphet. The noble line of the Persis Satrapy. And if my fears are correct, then that,’ he nodded to the rider emerging from the clutch of pushtigban, ‘is Spahbad Tamur.’
Two hooded, torch-wielding magi flanked this lone rider. The Sacred Fire dancing atop the torches cast the rider in a brilliant light. His fine, fawn skin glistened with sweat and he wore his shock of dark hair scraped back into a tail of curls that jostled at his shoulders. Beads of sweat darted from his forehead, dancing over his broad, broken nose and the scar welt on the bridge. He was broad as a bull and clad in a bronze scale vest. Over his heart he wore a gilded plate embossed with the image of a lion like the one on the banner, just like that on Yabet’s purse. He cast his baleful gaze over the clutch of weary and scarred legionaries, then it snagged on the tattered banners they clutched. Suddenly, he threw his head back and let a lungful of booming laughter ring out long and loud.
‘It seems that Ahura Mazda indeed watches over us,’ he said in jagged Greek, glaring at the IV Scythica banner. ‘Not only have we succeeded in drawing out this Roman legion from their border fort, but in the same blow,’ he continued, stabbing two fingers at the XI Claudia and XVI Flavia Firma banners, ‘we have also foiled the Roman Emperor’s expedition!’
Pavo’s brow knitted and he whispered to those beside him. ‘They knew of the mission for the scroll?’
‘From the start, it seems,’ Gallus spat, hearing his words.
Pavo’s mind flashed over the last few months. They had fended off the Cretan pirates, the dark hand of Yabet the guide and the camel raiders. All paid for by the coin of some foe – his eyes shot back up to the gold lion banner. Finally, where coin had failed, cold, hard Persian steel had cut this mission apart.
‘I know what you sought,’ Tamur continued, wagging a finger as if having heard Pavo’s thoughts. ‘I know only too well. But what you shall find will be very different, proud Romans, very different indeed.’ Tamur clapped his hands together. At this, the wretched paighan infantry were barged forward as if they were prisoners. Pavo saw the glistening, raw flesh under the shackles they wore on their ankles, chaining them together. ‘Yes, you shall have much time to think over your foolish mission,’ Tamur chuckled. ‘I know a fine place for meditation.’
‘It is time at last . . . ’ Carbo muttered, his burnt skin blanching. ‘Time to face the past,’ he muttered, his head jerking and his
lips trembling.
‘Carbo?’ Pavo whispered, confused.
‘Shackle them to the paighan,’ Tamur continued. ‘Let them suffer with those wretches as they march to their fate.’
Eager-looking Median spearmen leapt upon the order, stalking forward with bundled chains and grappling legionaries all around Pavo. He saw Sura struggle, he heard Gallus snarl, then he felt hands wrench at his ankles. Two spearmen were fitting shackles to his shins. Then one stopped, looking up, his gaze snagging on Pavo’s phalera medallion. The man grinned, then reached up to lift it, turning it over in his hands, eyes glinting with its reflection. With a wrench of the wrist, he snapped the leather strap, pulling the piece free.
‘No!’ Pavo yelled, barging the other man back and swiping out to retrieve the medallion. But the spearman backed away, clutching the phalera tightly. The next thing Pavo saw was the ham-like fist of the nearest Persian spearman swinging up and crunching into his nose. White lights filled his head and he toppled to the ground. When he tried to rise again, a spear butt crashed into the nape of his neck and he crumpled.
In the darkness, he heard Tamur’s words as if from miles away.
‘Kill every second Roman – the rest will be less trouble that way.’
Blackness fell upon him like a rock.
Chapter 12
The darkness seemed infinite at first; the darkness of death, Pavo was certain. But the furious heat seemed incongruous. And he seemed to be swaying in this black netherworld, swaying to a rhythm of dull and distant crunching boots on dust, spliced by the sharp crack of a whip on raw skin. He longed to see his surroundings, be it Hades or otherwise, but there was nothing.
The burning on his skin abated for a short while, and he heard the distant lapping of waves and the splashing of oars, together with the faraway shrieking of gulls and the jabbering of foreign voices. Finally, the heat of the sun dropped away and there was shade. Not the shade of night, but something else. A stifling, airless shade. He was descending, he realised. Was this the journey to Hades?
It was then that a nightmare came to him. But not the nightmare of the dunes. Now he beheld some vast, vile creature buried in the dust, only its fangless maw visible like a gaping chasm in the ground. He saw nothing but the shadow that filled the depths of the maw, and heard nothing but tortured moans from within the creature’s seven bellies. The maw flexed and chewed as if eager for its next meal. He tried to turn, but could not. He tried to slow his progress, digging his heels into the dust, clawing out, but the maw clamped onto his flesh and drew him down into the darkness of its gut.
In the belly of this beast, he heard nothing but the endless, pained cries of men. But there was something else, something splicing the wickedness; the occasional words of a soothing voice. When the voice spoke, he felt the lip of some vessel at his lips, and liquid trickling into his throat.
One eyelid cracked open, blurry and crusted. The strip of light this cast into his eyes sent shockwaves through his head. He heard himself roar in pain as if miles distant and felt his hands clamp onto his head as if they belonged to someone else. Slowly, his other senses came back to him. He was lying down on some hard surface, dressed only in a loincloth. A constant clink-clink of iron echoed all around. Rasping, rattling coughs came and went, nearby and faraway. The cracking of whips brought forth weak cries. He tried to fill his lungs, but his nostrils stung and the foul air seemed to steal his breath away until he broke down into a coughing fit. His tongue was shrivelled and utterly dry, and a film of something coated it. He felt the urge to retch but did not have the energy. He reached for his eyes with a trembling hand, and rubbed at them gently. Gradually, the blinding strip of light became less painful.
‘That’s it,’ a foreign voice said, ‘let your body waken at its own pace.’
Pavo’s heart jolted. ‘Who’s there?’ he yelped, instinctively trying to sit bolt upright. The effort sent a white-hot pain racing through his ribs and he clutched his midriff with a cry. This in turn sent another wave of vice-like agony through his head.
‘Your rib is still not healed, I see,’ the voice continued. ‘And your head is bound to hurt for some time.’
Pavo drew his bleary gaze around, but he could see nothing other than dull shapes. He touched a hand to his ribs. They had been bandaged with a strip of filthy cloth. ‘You did this?’ He frowned.
‘I am no healer, but I did what I could,’ the voice replied in a wistful tone.
Pavo winced with every burning breath that pressed his lungs against his ribs. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes until he could make out the blurry outline of his surroundings. He was in a small alcove gouged into slate-blue rock. The space was cordoned off by iron bars. The ceiling, floor and walls were jagged and dancing with the shadows cast by distant torchlight from beyond the bars. He was sitting upon a rocky shelf on one side of the cell, while the blurry figure who had spoken sat on the shelf opposite, legs crossed, head bowed.
Pavo eyed the figure nervously, then shuffled towards the bars, clasping them and straining to focus his eyes on what lay outside. He noticed a fine, white powder coating his hands. Indeed, every inch of his skin seemed to be clad in the stuff, with only beads of sweat breaking through the film. The blurriness was fading and he beheld what lay beyond the bars.
A vast, underground cavern yawned before him. The cavern walls were encrusted with glistening, jagged white crystals, some as big as towers, glinting like stars in the night sky. Pillars of this shimmering crystal climbed from the floor of the cavern and huge spikes of it hung from the ceiling. Torches crackled, fixed to the cavern walls here and there, illuminating the cave in an eerie half-light reflected all around by the crystals. Where there was no crystal, a network of walkways had been gouged into the dark-blue and russet-veined rock of the cavern walls, leading to myriad cells like this one. Timber ladders rested here and there, linking the walkways to the cavern floor. The air in the place rippled in a haze of foul heat and everything was coated in the fine white powder.
Is this Hades? he wondered. ‘Where am I?’ he muttered to himself.
‘The home of Ahriman, the realm of the lie,’ the figure replied. ‘Just a few of the monikers this place goes by. Though every man sent down here has his own name for it.’
Pavo frowned, then saw that the cavern seemed to writhe. Men, he realised, rubbing his eyes again until his vision sharpened completely. Men clustered around the crystal face like larvae, caked in a crust of the white dust and sweat. They were dressed only in filthy loincloths and some had rags of cloth tied over their noses and mouths. Their backs were hunched and bleeding from whip wounds and their ankles were raw from their shackles. Some worked at the crystal face with pickaxes and chisels, swinging their tools into the crystal, shattering it and bringing showers of powder and chunks tumbling to the ground around them. Others trudged to and fro, heads bowed, crystal-laden baskets strapped to their backs. These men formed a train, like ants, filing towards the middle of the cavern.
There at the centre of the cavern floor was a dark, circular hole. Directly above, the ceiling bore a matching hole. Through this broad shaft something moved vertically, like some giant, slithering serpent. A pulley, he realised, tirelessly hauling basket-loads of this crystal up to some chamber above and lowering empty baskets back down into the darkness of another chamber below. Watching over these wretches were dark figures in baked leather armour and caps, whips and spears clasped in their hands, faces wrapped in cloth revealing only glowering eyes.
Realisation dawned on him as he crumbled some of the white powder between thumb and forefinger. Finally, he looked up to the far side of the cell and the shadowy figure.
‘I am in the salt mines of Dalaki, am I not?’ he said. The words sounded distant and even then he refused to believe them. His eyes darted around the cavern outside. Father? But every hunched and rasping soul he saw seemed racked with illness, few over thirty years old. A chill finger of reality traced his skin.
‘Dalaki? That
is another name for this place, yes,’ the figure replied. ‘While the Persian nobles and citizens of nearby Bishapur bathe in sunlight and dine on fresh bread and dates, we know only foul air, torchlight and scraps.’
Pavo’s thoughts churned. He had seen the dot on Gallus’ map representing the Dalaki mines. Thirty miles or more east of the Persian Gulf, deep in the belly of the Persis Satrapy, many weeks’ march from the oasis and his last memories. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘Three days,’ the figure said. ‘When they dumped you in here they said you had been feverish and muttering for some weeks before that as well.’ At last, he stood up from the stony shelf and approached Pavo. The flickering torchlight revealed an emaciated figure of average height, dressed in a filthy rag of a loincloth. He had surely seen his fortieth year, Pavo guessed. His skin was sallow but caked in the white powder, as was his thick moustache – twisted to points at either end under a broad nose. His short, thick black hair and dark, age-lined eyes instantly announced him as a Persian. He had the broad shoulders of a man who was once a warrior, but his ribs jutted and his belly was puckered, and the thick red lines of whip wounds coiled over his shoulders from his back. ‘I am Khaled,’ he announced. He held a filthy clay cup in his hand, offering it to Pavo. ‘Here, drink this. It is briny and hot, but it is all they give us.’
Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire Page 17