by Scott Bury
“The Empire could not hold it because Commodus was a weak, pagan fool!” Valgus snarled. No one said anything after that for a long while.
As the light was failing, when Javor was beginning to wonder about finding a camp, they came to Zdravko’s village. They smelled it first: death. Atop a low hill were the remains of a wooden palisade, smashed into twigs. Within its perimeter, horror: bodies of men, women, children, chicken, cattle, pigs; worse, dismembered limbs and heads and shapeless masses of flesh scattered among broken timbers and thatch. Rats and worse creatures scuttled under the carnage, stealing carrion. Vultures strutted and picked at dead flesh, scattering when the legionnaires came close.
Javor leaned as far as he could to the side to vomit hard. He could hear several legionnaires doing the same. He did not dare think whether Danisa’s remains were mixed into the carnage.
“Enough!” cried Valgus, and led them away from the village. They found a clearing in the forest away from the smell of the village and made a camp.
Night fell quickly. Photius surprised Javor by telling him the equinox was near. That doesn’t explain why it’s so chilly, he thought. Meridius told the men to take special measures to stay warm through the night.
The legionnaires had little tents, and a number of men set up a big leather tent for Valgus. He ordered them to set a two-man tent for Photius and Javor, and another for Zdravko and Volos. Then he ordered the four to join him in his big tent, where a folding table had been set up with benches for all of them. A soldier served them warm wine and tough cakes.
Valgus had spread out a parchment on the table. It was the first map that Javor had ever seen. Valgus asked Volos, through Zdravko, to describe where the dragon’s supposed lair was, but the man couldn’t point to it on Valgus’ map. He just made vague references to a high, steep, forbidding mountain and a land devoid of life. Valgus scowled. Then he described his strategy. Javor could not concentrate on the Legate’s voice. He thought of the dragon, its huge mouth, its multiple rows of sharp teeth, its red eye, its deep, dark, shadowed and fascinating eye …and he thought of Danisa, running across the courtyard with his dagger. Was she trying to bring it to me? Why do I have so many doubts about her?
“And the main thing, is Janus, here, has to be in position to deliver the killing blow,” brought him out of his reverie. “Janus, what do you need?”
“Huh?” he blinked. “Oh, just keep its attention until I get close enough,” he babbled. What am I doing? I can’t kill a dragon!
“Good. Then we’re set. All right, men, I suggest a good night’s sleep. We’ll need to be rested for the trials we face tomorrow. Pray God looks on our venture with favour.”
But Javor could not sleep. I’m not going to survive tomorrow.
Beside him, Photius snored peacefully. Photius says they’re the most powerful beings on earth. What can I do, even with great-grandfather’s knife? It will be ready for me now. It’s seen me. It knows about the dagger.
Haven’t I done enough?
He was woken by cries of struggle and outrage from the Romans. He burst out of the tiny tent, fumbling for a sword. There were legionnaires running all around the camp, shouting and slashing with their short swords. Something rustled in the bushes, then was quiet. The Romans kept yelling, however, pointing into the dark.
“What happened? Is anyone hurt?” Meridius bellowed. Two soldiers helped to a head-count; all were accounted for. “Then what happened?”
“The food!” someone shouted, pointing to empty packs. The soldiers gathered around, babbling, aghast. “They’ve taken all the food!”
Valgus came striding up then, looking diminished without his uniform, dressed only in a nightshirt. “What happened?” he growled.
Meridius saluted. “The provisions, lord. Someone or something snuck into the camp and took all our provisions.”
Valgus looked disgusted. “Is anything left?”
“No, lord.”
“Did you not put anything in bear-barrels and hang them in trees?”
“Yes, sir, and those are empty, too.”
Valgus shook his head. “Who was on watch?”
“We had ten in a perimeter, lord.”
Valgus sucked in his breath and looked, if anything, even more disgusted. “Double the guard. Pack up as much as you can. At first light, send a team of five men, fully armed, to find some water. Another team to shoot some rabbits or something.” And he stomped back to his tent.
No one slept after that. Javor dressed, arranged his sword beside him and slumped against a tree. He dozed on and off, waking with a start every time an owl hooted or a guard walked past. Finally, the darkness began to turn to a dim grey day.
The soldiers decamped quickly; no one grumbled about having no breakfast. They watered their horses, drank water themselves, put on their armour and jumped into their saddles. Once again, Antonio helped Javor up and gave him his broken yet warm smile. “Thank you,” said Javor, mystified at the soldier’s attention. Antonio went to help Zdravko and Volos.
Valgus called the two refugees to the front of their column as they rode up the mountain. “Which way do we go?” Volos wasn’t sure, but he directed them uphill to the northeast. Javor felt that Volos was so afraid of the Legate that he just guessed.
They rode through the morning and Javor became aware of his empty stomach. But no one else complained. The cataphracti rode in near silence, occasionally warning one another about something on the path or a low-hanging branch. Meridius rode up and down the column, keeping the men and horses in line. Other than that, the only sounds were the soft clopping of hooves on the earth, creaking of leather and clink of metal.
Valgus hung back to ride beside Javor. “How do you feel, Janus?”
“Lousy. Hungry. Scared. And my butt hurts from this damned horse.”
“Is your sword-arm good? Any aches? Will you be ready when we find the dragon?”
“I don’t know. Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose. How do you feel?”
Valgus’ face took on a look as if he saw something far away, or as if he was remembering something long past. “I feel strong, yet hopeless.”
“Hopeless? Why?”
“I am sorry for you, young Janus. But I had no choice but to pull you on this suicide mission. Still, I do have some hope, some feeling that you may yet survive this adventure.”
Javor felt horrified, more than he had even at Zdravko’s murdered village. “If it’s a suicide mission, why are you going?”
“As I said, I have no choice. We cannot let this monster go unpunished for attacking a fort of the Roman Empire. It seems to be my fate. The monster came for me once before, and I defied it, defied my fate. So now I go to meet it once and for all, and to determine whether I shall kill it, or it, me.”
“Do you not have a wife or a family that you might leave behind?”
“That is not the soldier’s luxury, to put his family’s fate before the Empire’s,” Valgus explained, looking gently at Javor. “But no, my family died in a pestilence that passed through Constantinople ten years ago. Even today, I ask myself, ‘why was I spared?’ I can only answer that it was all part of my fate.”
They were a little apart from the other riders, so Javor took a chance on a question that had been nagging him for some time. “Are you a Christian? Don’t worry about answering—I am not.”
“I was, once,” Valgus sighed, looking at the overcast sky. “But when my wife and daughters died, even after I prayed … I began to doubt. And the monsters in this region—it seems the older religions make more sense here. But now, I wonder if there are any gods at all, or just men and beasts and chaos. I don’t see that there is any order in the universe now.”
Valgus seemed to be in a confessional mood. “When I came here, I exceeded my orders. We were supposed to investigate and repel bands of Avars from the region beyond the border of the Danuvius, the area north of Trajan’s Bridge. We were supposed to punish barbarians and re-establish order and set up a
camp across the river.
“But Belisarius had re-conquered so much of the Western lands that had been lost to the barbarians. I committed the sin of hubris, Janus. I thought, I dreamed of driving the barbarians back and re-establishing ancient Roman Dacia. I dreamed of a … a renaissance of the Empire. I dreamed—fool that I am—that…”
“With 500 men?”
“I dreamed that by pushing into this area and succeeding, I would be given more troops, that my example would lead others to join in the drive to reclaim civilization in all the Roman lands. I dreamed that news of my success would reach the Emperor’s ears.
“I failed. It was a vain hope, I see that now. It was a fantasy I concocted to glorify my own fate. It brought me to this accursed land. I was wounded in my first foray here. And I have wasted the last year in my pain and vanity.” He sighed again.
The legate’s confession inspired Javor. “I’ve been on a mission like this before,” he said, and at Valgus’ encouragement told him about his parents’ murder. “It was by a—well, you’ll probably laugh, but then, you’ve faced a dragon, so—it was a monster. I don’t know what else to call it. Man-shaped, but much bigger. Like two men. It killed people in my village, including my parents, and I killed it with my great-grandfather’s dagger.” He didn’t tell him about the amulet, though.
“That long, wonderful knife you carry? The one weapon that can pierce a dragon’s hide?”
“Yes. My great-grandfather was in the Emperor’s army, in the Persian wars. He brought the dagger back from the Caucasus. That’s what my mother said, anyway. So I went looking for it. Photius came with me.”
“Has he known you long, then?”
“No, he showed up just before the monster…”
“Has that never struck you as suspiciously coincidental?” Javor’s Greek was not sophisticated enough to understand that question, so Valgus asked what happened.
“Well, we climbed up a mountain, kind of like we’re doing now, and we found a cave. And inside we surprised the monster. It grabbed me but my knife killed it.”
Valgus looked closely at Javor, and he had the feeling the Legate knew that he was leaving something very important out of the story. “That’s where I got the armour and helmet and … some other things.” Valgus nodded.
“Treasure, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, the cave was full of jewels and coins. We took some, Photius and I. But we didn’t have time to take much. The cave collapsed and we barely got out of it. Then my people told me to leave the village. They thought I was dangerous.”
“You are, Janus. You are a very dangerous man. And a very valuable one.”
The Legate’s words sent a thrill through Javor. He couldn’t help smiling. He replayed those words in his head for some time as the horses’ hooves clopped on the soil. The horse in front of them chose that moment to defecate, and Javor’s horse stepped in the shit.
Javor made up his mind. “Legate Valgus? One other thing. My name is not Janus. It’s Javor.”
The Legate smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t have a Roman name. Very well, Javor. It’s a pleasure to meet the real man.”
The clouds were even lower and darker than the day before. Behind the mountains, lightning flickered inside the clouds and thunder rumbled over the rocks.
The mountains swept in a great curve from the southwest to the northeast. Surprisingly gentle, forest-covered slopes suddenly reared straight up as sheer grey rocky cliffs, their tops like jagged, broken grey teeth. Javor could barely tell the difference between the sky and the mountain.
They followed a deer-path into a flat area strewn with boulders. On their right, a rocky slope fell away to a breath-taking view of rivers and hills and the wide plain to the south; on their left, the forest opened into a wide meadow of high grass and prickly weeds until the forest took over again and climbed the steep sides of the mountain, ending at the sudden, sheer grey cliffs.
Javor felt his amulet trembling. Shouts came from the rear of the column, then screams. All eyes turned back, and Meridius charged to the rear, yelling a battle-cry, spear lowered in front of him, his horse’s hooves thundering. Javor kicked his horse into action to follow. How do I get this horse to go where I want? But the horse seemed to know.
He could see the last two horses in the column were riderless; beyond them, high yellow grass waved and parted and he could see flashes of red and silver. Meridius charged into the grass, reined in his horse and jumped off in one fluid motion. Yelling, he launched his spear, but it dug into the ground impotently beside the twisting, struggling, squirming body of a legionnaire as he was dragged to the tree line. Meridius drew his sword and ran forward, slashing at the ground beside one of the legionnaires.
Javor’s horse reached the clearing and skidded to a stop, and Javor flew forward, falling to the ground flat on his face. He heard himself make a “whoof” sound and his chest felt crushed. He struggled to draw in a breath and managed to stand up. Panting, he drew his dagger and ran toward Meridius just in time to see the downed legionnaire disappear into the trees. All at once, the screaming stopped, and the amulet stopped shaking. The legionnaires, and whatever had dragged them away, had disappeared into the trees. Javor peered into them, but the shadows were thick, impenetrable. No sound came from the dark forest, not the smallest bird’s chirp.
The field was suddenly crowded with horses and shouting men. Legionnaires jumped from their mounts and swept the grass with their swords. Three started hacking at the trees. “Hold!” Meridius shouted.
Valgus came up on his beautiful white horse. “Stop. They’re gone. There is no use sending live men after the dead. Regroup!” The legionnaires obeyed, but they, and Javor, kept looking into the trees for their fellows. Several had tears on their faces.
They clustered closer together, now, as they continued on the deer-track. Meridius rode up and down the column, keeping the men close together. The legionnaires tried to look in all directions at once, sweat on their brows. Several crossed themselves.
The open field ended and the column moved into the forest; the trees closed around them on both sides. Javor’s amulet started to vibrate again. Meridius now had to stay in the middle of the column, almost sitting backward to keep an eye on his men.
But when he looked forward, sharp eyes looking as deeply as possible into the forest, they all heard a choked cry. Javor turned in time to see the rear-most legionnaire fall off his horse.
Meridius tried to turn his horse. The rear legionnaire screamed and they all saw his body being pulled into the forest, but they couldn’t see what was taking him. The soldiers just in front of him shouted and drew their swords, but it was too late. Meridius arrived, dismounted and stooped to peer into the forest, then shook his head. He ordered the men back into their saddles and pushed his way slowly to the front of the column.
“Aculeo is gone, now. That’s three, unopposed,” he reported.
Valgus nodded. “Let’s keep moving.”
But they had barely started to move when it happened again: a strangled cry, the clash of falling armour, thrashing of a body being pulled into the forest to disappear. “Celsus!” the second-rear-most man called, but it was no use.
Now the men at the rear tried to crowd forward, terrified to be the last man in the column. They drew swords and brandished spears, casting their eyes back and forth as they rode forward as quickly as they could safely.
Photius dismounted and walked to the back of the column, his staff glowing white at the tip. He stood behind the last horse, spread his arms wide and chanted in a loud voice. At his spell’s climax, white light flashed from his staff, spreading over the last six men and their mounts and to the trees. But the spell didn’t penetrate the cover of the forest. And Javor’s amulet did not stop vibrating.
“Thank you,” said Valgus as Photius remounted. They continued in double-file.
Javor was just beginning to breathe a little more easily despite the continuous shaking of his amulet when they heard t
wo more screams in quick succession. Javor spun and saw two empty saddles right in the middle of the column: two partners, riding side-by-side, had each been dragged on opposite sides of the forest. Their screams were cut off suddenly.
Valgus opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the standard-bearer beside him was pulled from his saddle without uttering a sound. The standard clattered to the ground and Valgus vaulted from his own saddle. “Catullus!” He slashed at something no one else could see, and Catullus fell limply to the ground. Valgus jumped to the edge of the trees and would have gone into them, but Photius grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Valgus looked all around, furious, then sheathed his sword and flung Catullus’ body over his horse. How strong is he?
In one motion, Valgus picked up the fallen standard, jumped on his own horse and yelled “Ride! Legion, forward!” He kneed his stallion and the animal leaped forward into a full gallop.
Together, the column raced along the path. Javor clung to his horse’s mane as tightly as he could, but as mud and water sprayed onto his face he felt himself slipping sideways until a strong arm pulled him upright: Antonio again.
Three times, they heard screams; three times, legionnaires at random points in the column fell to the side. But the column dared not break stride and flew along the path. Horses stumbled, but righted themselves. Men gripped their saddle horns and prayed for salvation. Javor heard nothing but thundering hooves and jangling steel, and the amulet was vibrating so hard it felt like it was on fire.
Up ahead, he could see light as the path came to some kind of clearing, but at that moment, something cold and damp clutched around his neck and yanked him from the saddle. He fell to the ground in a tangle of leather and steel, landing hard on his side. From the side he could see a blur of horses’ and men’s legs and flashes of steel. The wet grip around his neck tightened, but he couldn’t see what it was. He groped for his sword or knife or something.