‘Across the dunes,’ Pavo finished for him.
Father gasped. ‘Before the sandstorm would pick up.’
‘And bury us both, deep below Persian sands,’ Pavo finished again.
A shiver crawled over Pavo as he and Father saw the reality of the nightmare. Pavo glanced up the main shaft. Nothing, not a glimmer of light. The nightmare had won.
‘How did you end up down in this chamber, Father? What did you do to poison the guards against you so?’
Falco let out a weak sigh. ‘We were betrayed.’
Pavo’s brow wrinkled. ‘Betrayed? By whom?’
‘It matters little now. You should not have come here, Pavo,’ Falco whispered.
From above, as if confirming Falco’s warning, a chorus of shouts broke out. Then came a scuffling of feet, rushing towards the shaft.
Pavo shot a glance to Sura. Sura stared back.
‘They’ve found the guard’s body,’ they said in unison.
A grinding of cane on rock sounded, growing closer and closer until the bottom of a ladder thudded down nearby. Pavo shepherded Father back from the ladder, Sura and the other slaves stepping away with him.
‘By the gods,’ Arius’ jaw fell agape. ‘They’re coming for us! They will not be satiated with the flexing of their whips.’
‘Then it is time,’ Falco growled as the group backed up against the ring of stalagmites, ‘we must go to the passageway.’ He jabbed a finger downwards as he said this.
‘The passageway?’ Arius’ face visibly paled. ‘No, death awaits us there, surely?’
‘What is life down here, but a slow, lingering death? You are one of the bravest I have ever fought alongside, Arius, yet you have forgotten your valour in this place. Now come!’ Falco hissed, backing away from the cane ladder, pulling Pavo with him. The ladder before them bent and creaked as a troop of yet unseen figures descended in haste.
Pavo stumbled backwards, following Falco and the others to the edge of the stalagmite ring. Here a narrow pathway wound through the jagged debris.
‘Tread carefully,’ Falco said, stooping to lift a knotted cane resting against the first of the stalagmites, then using it to tap his way through the tight corridor between the forest of stone.
The serrated ground felt like blunted blades in the soles of Pavo’s feet. Soon the jagged ground was replaced by the dry crunching of bones and wet slipping of putrid gristle underfoot as they passed over the pit of corpses amidst the stalagmite ring. The stench of death was rife here. The path was erratic, and every few footsteps saw someone slide or stumble, but after a few hundred feet, the stalagmites became shorter, blunter and free of the corpses of dead slaves. After that, the ground levelled out and a small cave lay ahead. Pavo heard the murmur of those pursuing them and made to hurry ahead, but Falco pulled him back from his next footstep.
‘Slowly, Son,’ he hissed. He stretched out to tap his cane on the white, circular bed of salt powder where Pavo’s foot hovered, then stooped to pick up a small rock.
Pavo frowned as Falco lobbed the rock onto the salt bed. The rock sat still for a moment, then the salt there puckered under its weight and a heartbeat later it was sucked under – gone, as if never there. Pavo nodded, then turned to Sura. ‘Slowly. Follow my father’s step.’
As they picked their way around the salt beds dotted over the floor. He peered into the darkness ahead and saw that the cave they were in tapered away and descended slightly as they continued along the path, the walls closing in swiftly and the ceiling growing ever-lower until it was only a little more than head height.
‘Where are we going?’ Sura hissed.
‘I fear you would not follow me if I were to tell you,’ Falco replied.
Just then, angry tones echoed behind them, from within the ring of spikes, by the wheel. ‘Find them!’ Gorzam roared.
Falco and Arius upped the pace, leading their comrades, with Pavo and Sura bringing up the rear. They hurried on until the cave became a mere passageway. The salt crystals studding the walls afforded the faintest hint of light and helped steer them round the deadly salt pits on the floor of the narrowing passageway. And there was something else – pools of black, glistening liquid. Then Pavo saw something sparkling up ahead. A solid wall of salt crystal blocking the corridor. A dead end.
‘Father?’ he gasped. Behind them, the footsteps of Gorzam’s party echoed ever closer.
Falco seemingly ignored him and tapped forward with his cane until he reached the dead end. The other slaves went with him, reaching out to feel the salt face there. They came to one large crystal – about the size of a man – resting against the dead end and took to prodding and poking at it.
Sura gawped at this, then at Pavo, then back down the passageway to the jumble of dark shapes approaching. One to the rear carried a torch, and the light from it was blinding, illuminating the corridor in a heartbeat.
Gorzam led the charge, leaping over and weaving round the salt beds, his pitted features twisted in rage, his spear clasped as though he was trying to strangle it. Twelve guards came with him, each wearing the same look of blood lust. Running along with them like a dog was Bashu. The man was pointing, repeating over and over;
‘The Roman, I saw him come down here. I told you!’ he spat, his cold gaze fixed on Pavo. ‘Now give me my place in the first chamber!’
Gorzam slowed and the twelve guards fanned out across the corridor as they approached, forming a wall of spears. Pavo and Sura took a step back then halted, feeling the edge of a salt pit at their heels. Pavo pulled the sharpened rock from the waist of his loincloth, holding it up in defiance. Sura stooped to pick up a jagged boulder and hefted it, ready to throw.
Gorzam swiped an arm at the corridor-end. ‘Kill them. Kill them all!’
The twelve rushed forward. Sura and Pavo pushed up shoulder-to-shoulder. The spear tips rushed in towards them like the fangs of a predator. Two of the guards loosed their spears and the shafts whipped past Pavo and Sura, piercing the frail bodies of two of Falco’s comrades, spattering the dead end of the corridor in blood. The other guards raced for Pavo and Sura. Pavo and Sura let loose a roar that had graced many a battlefield. Then a punch of iron piercing flesh echoed through the passageway.
Pavo felt the hot blood spatter on his face. He blinked, glancing at Gorzam and the guards, halted only paces away. The two guards at either end swayed and crumpled to the ground, pickaxes embedded in their backs. The rest had stopped in confusion, glancing to Pavo and Sura, their stricken comrades and then over their shoulders.
‘That’s what happens when you take a legionary’s spatha away,’ a familiar voice cried.
Pavo squinted to see the shapes rushing for Gorzam’s rear. Felix, Zosimus, Quadratus, then Habitus, Rufus, Noster and two other slaves, all bearing pickaxes. Each man bore the wild glare of a wounded war hound.
‘At them!’ Felix cried, sweeping his hand forward as if commanding a cohort. They raised their pickaxes and rushed for the guard line.
Gorzam barked at his guards, nine of them turning to meet the oncoming charge. The two parties crashed together, pickaxes and fists swinging, spears jabbing and tearing, blood splattering across the corridor walls and polyglot cries filling the passageway.
Meanwhile, Gorzam and one other guard stalked forward to deal with Pavo and Sura, Bashu sticking close to them. Gorzam thundered forward to plunge his spear at Pavo’s midriff. Pavo jinked clear of the first jab, the blade only scoring the flesh on his abdomen.
‘Ah, this will take some skill,’ Gorzam rasped. ‘I only want to wound you, you see. I want you to suffer, Roman – as I promised you when I killed that dog, Khaled. I’ll strip every inch of your skin then bury you up to your neck in salt to cure the wounds. Then you will truly know the meaning of suffering.’
Pavo dipped his brow and fixed his gaze on the guard leader, then lunged forward. The big guard stumbled back in shock. But Pavo’s wild swipe with the sharpened rock was easily parried by a swing of Gorzam’s spear.
The shaft thwacked into Pavo’s wrist with a crack of bone. The makeshift blade flew from his grip into the salt pit behind him, disappearing in moments. Pavo staggered back, clutching his wrist. Then Gorzam ducked and swept his spear shaft round to smash it against Pavo’s ankles. The pain was blinding and he toppled to the ground. Gorzam lined up his spear over Pavo’s heart. ‘Or perhaps I should just finish you now, to have the pleasure of seeing the light dim in your eyes . . . just as I did when I threw that dog Khaled down the shaft. He was still alive, you know, just before I dropped him.’
Pavo’s heart thundered against his ribs and his breath came and went in short, snatched gasps through gritted teeth.
‘No,’ Gorzam mused, tracing the spear tip to Pavo’s groin. ‘A deep wound to the thigh and you’ll bleed until you’re weak as a lamb.’ His face lit up in anticipation as he thrust the spear down. Then he frowned as the weapon clunked upon something.
Pavo frowned too. He had felt the tearing agony of sword and spear wounds before. But there was nothing. Just a dull pain.
Gorzam lifted his spear, glowering at the tip, then at Pavo. The phalera medallion slid from Pavo’s loincloth, battered and bent where it had taken the force of the blow. Pavo snatched up and gawped at the piece, then gasped as Gorzam roared and hefted the spear to strike down for a killer blow. Pavo rolled to one side, the spear tip punching down, scoring his back. He tried to stand, but felt the ground slide away under him. Panic gripped his heart; he had rolled onto a salt pit. He was sinking. The salt sucked him down. He was waist deep, then it was up to his chest. He looked up and saw Gorzam watching on gleefully, his laughter filling the passageway.
Pavo knew he had but a heartbeat. His eyes latched onto the butt of Gorzam’s spear resting by the edge of the pit. He stretched every sinew and reached out to grasp the shaft, hauling at it with all his might. Gorzam growled, shaking the spear, but Pavo clung on and prised himself clear of the salt pit. As he felt his legs pull clear, he then drew himself up and thrust his knee up and into Gorzam’s guts. The big guard staggered, winded. Pavo wasted no time, shouldering him in the chest, sending him flailing, then toppling into one of the glistening black pools. Gorzam thrashed to get to the edge of the pool, his skin slick with the viscous liquid. Pavo backed away, glancing around for a weapon.
Falco, hearing the splashing, called back from the end of the corridor where he and his comrades chipped and battered at the salt crystal. ‘Put light to it – the black oil!’
Pavo frowned, then saw Gorzam’s dropped torch only feet away. He stooped and lifted it, then tossed it into the black pool.
Gorzam’s eyes bulged in panic. He cried out in terror, then the torch set light to the oil with a ferocious roar and an angry inferno. At once, the corridor shone like a beacon, orange fury leaping from the pool.
Pavo staggered back, staring at the thrashing, screaming figure in the midst of the flames. He spat on the ground. ‘Your last few moments are for my father, for Khaled and for all the others who have suffered under your yoke.’ Gorzam’s roars died away and his form sunk under the blazing surface.
Pavo spun to find Sura wrestling with the other guard to gain control of the spear. He stooped to pick up Gorzam’s spear then lunged forward, punching the tip into the guard’s gut, driving the gurgling foe away from Sura and then on until the man crunched against the corridor wall.
‘A weapon, for pity’s sake!’ Sura yelled.
Pavo threw him the second guard’s spear, then the pair rushed to the fray between Felix, the XI Claudia men and the remaining guards. Six guards remained, fighting like jackals with Felix, Zosimus, Quadratus, Noster and Habitus. Rufus and the two slaves who had come with them lay in bloody heaps on the corridor floor.
Pavo rushed to aid Noster, who was being beaten back by the furious spear jabs of one guard. But before he could reach the pair, the guard plunged his spear through Noster’s throat. The young legionary gurgled and gawped at his killer, then he sunk to his knees and the life was gone from him. Pavo charged for the guard but the man spun to block. Their spear shafts clashed and the pair growled, noses inches apart. The guard kicked out at Pavo’s knee. Pavo stumbled back, then ducked to one side to avoid the follow up jab but the guard managed to kick out again, snapping Pavo’s spear. At a disadvantage, Pavo backed away, then stumbled on a rock and fell. As he righted himself, he scooped up a handful of salt and hurled it at the man’s face. The guard staggered back, waving his spear this way and that, blinded. Pavo grappled the splintered half of his own spear and rushed for the man, lancing him through the ribs, the tip bursting from the man’s other side. The cracking of bone was accompanied by a thick splash of blood and organs spilling from the wound.
Before the man had toppled to the ground, Pavo spun to find his next opponent. But it was over. The other guards lay still and silent. Felix was bleeding from a wound to the abdomen, but Quadratus and Zosimus were standing like a pair of twin oaks as usual – sweating, cut and bruised, but alive. Habitus had made it too, doubled over and retching.
Bashu was the only one of Gorzam’s party remaining. Now he was trapped between the panting legionaries and the end of the corridor, scrabbling to and fro like a trapped rat, his face contorted in fear. Quadratus strode over to him, lifting a spear to his neck.
‘I am one of you, a slave!’ Bashu nodded hurriedly, a sickly grin belying the fear in his eyes, his hands dropping by his sides.
Pavo beheld his cowering form. For just a moment, pity snaked into his heart. Then he saw the glinting dagger blade the man held just behind his back.
‘No, you are a traitor,’ Pavo replied stonily, then booted Bashu in the chest, toppling him into the salt pit. Bashu wailed. In moments, the salt had spilled over his arms and legs. He thrashed, and this only served to pull him down all the faster. In a heartbeat, he was up to his neck. His silver eyes bulged in panic. The man’s roar of terror was abruptly cut short as the salt spilled into his mouth and then swamped his head. His outstretched, trembling hand was the last part of him to disappear. The salt pit had fed and was still again.
Silence filled the passageway as all eyes looked over the scene.
‘You two,’ Felix said weakly at last, forking two fingers at Pavo and Sura, clutching his wound with the other hand, ‘better bloody well have a plan.’
Pavo looked back blankly.
‘He doesn’t have a bloody plan,’ Quadratus snorted in disbelief.
‘I don’t. But my father does,’ he motioned to Falco. He and the other slaves from the wheel were still chipping and battering at the salt face blocking the end of the corridor.
‘Your father?’ Zosimus uttered in confusion.
But Pavo ignored this and strode over to Falco. The aged men were struggling to break through the crystal. ‘Father, what is this?’ he asked. Then he heard it. Just as he had heard it with Khaled. The sound of running water. But this was different, not just a faint hiss, this sounded like a rumbling torrent. Furious, endless, desperate to be unleashed.
Falco clasped his forearm. ‘This mine is man-made. But around it weaves a honeycomb of natural caverns and springs. Behind this crystal, an underground river rages. We have speculated for years as to whether it leads even deeper underground, to the darkest dominions? Or, perhaps,’ he pointed upwards, ‘to freedom?’
Pavo’s eyes darted. ‘Has anyone ever seen this river?’
Falco shrugged, gesturing to his empty eye sockets and to his blind companions. ‘Well that would be hard, down here. But no, we have talked about breaking down this wall for years. Every time we have hesitated. It could simply drown us and flood the mines.’ He cocked his head to one side wryly. ‘Though that option has its own merits.’
Just then, another babble of voices and footsteps sounded from the other end of the seventh chamber, at the main shaft and the stalagmite ring. Habitus staggered up to the open end of the corridor, then came rushing back. ‘More guards, thirty at least!’
‘We have no choice – we must
break through that crystal,’ Arius said, his face drawn with fear.
Pavo’s eyes widened and he grasped Falco by the shoulders. ‘Stand back, have your men stand back too.’
Falco frowned, then ushered his aged comrades back from the boulder.
Pavo called on Zosimus. ‘Sir!’
Zosimus frowned, then batted Quadratus on the arm. The pair came over and eyed the salt face. Their eyebrows rose in unison as they heard the rushing water.
‘A swim or a fight?’ Zosimus mused, looking from the rock to the far end of the corridor and the approaching footsteps.
‘Ach, I’ve had a fight already,’ Quadratus shrugged, smoothing his salt-encrusted moustache, ‘And I need a good wash.’
The pair of them hefted their pick axes, throwing others to Felix, Habitus, Pavo and Sura. They went at the salt face like men possessed. Shards of crystal flew in all directions, powder blinding them, coating their skin. The rushing of water grew louder and louder, as did the thundering footsteps of the guards. Pavo glanced back to see the thirty approaching shapes at the open end of the tapering corridor, their spears glinting in the light of the torches they carried. Then a splash of something icy cold around his ankles jolted him back to the salt face. He looked down to see foaming water washing from a growing fissure, spilling out across the corridor floor. The fissure in the salt face was narrow – about the width of a blade. He hefted his pickaxe to strike again, when Falco called from the corner of the corridor end where he and his comrades huddled.
‘No, no more! Get back – over here!’
Pavo frowned, then heard a dull, ominous crack run through the salt face. He, Sura and the others shared a tacit agreement, dropping their pickaxes and rushing over to the corner with Falco and his men.
‘Be ready,’ Falco cried. ‘As soon as the water comes, get your backs against the wall and hold on tight!’ The guards were now only a handful of paces away, and they snarled and cursed in Parsi, some hurling their spears forward, the lances clattering against the corridor end, inches from Pavo.
Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire Page 25