Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

We inched onwards.

I stayed with my old century that night. In the darkness we heard wolves. On one mountain we saw flame. Not a lot of it. A single dwelling was the guess.

‘You should check in with Hook-nose,’ Octavius warned me. ‘I know he loves you, but he’ll be forgetting your face. Officers have short memories.’

Varo chewed through a mouth of biscuit. ‘He’s right.’

And so the next morning I pulled myself into the saddle, and rode Balius to the headquarters group that was placed between my old cohort and the First. I had ridden as a child but I was long out of practice, and so our pace was a gentle meander beside the long line of sullen troops, each man fighting his own battle with boredom. I saw a few look at me. I saw a few talk. Some even waved. I was known now, I realized. Known as the man who had saved the legion’s eagle.

The headquarters group was easy enough to find. Recognizing that the progress of his legion would need to be painstaking, Hook-nose had taken to setting up in a tented position twice a day, rather than being constantly on the move. It made him easier to find for his dispatch riders, and I saw one of these wiry men rein in his beast now, before throwing himself nimbly from its back. A slave came forward to take the reins, and the man ran in the direction of our legion command.

I pressed my heels into Balius’s flank – such haste could only mean the enemy.

I brought my horse to a stop next to the dispatch rider’s own. I wanted his news, but I did not want to face the legate and risk being held in headquarters or sent on some other task. Sure enough, the rider soon reappeared – he would be taking orders back in the direction that he’d come.

‘Comrade, what’s happening?’ I asked.

There was white foam on his lips, and dirt on his face – he’d had a hard ride. ‘Sixth Cohort came across a fortified village.’

Marcus. ‘Did they attack?’

‘They were preparing to when I left.’

Without thinking, I offered a prayer for my friend. ‘You’re going back?’

The man nodded.

‘I’ll come with you.’

The cavalryman looked at me, and didn’t see a horseman. ‘It’s a tough ride…’

It didn’t matter. ‘Lead the way,’ I said evenly. ‘My brother’s up there.’

Poor Balius. He suffered on that climb. On the narrow paths of dirt and rock. The trail was steep and angry, but there was no time for me to see to my horse. Instead I had to look to my own survival. We were but two men, and the rocky outcrops that littered the heights begged for ambushes to be laid. I could only pray that the Sixth had been diligent in sweeping the heights. I tried not to think about how easy it would be for the enemy to slip back in; these mountains were their homes.

I didn’t need the dispatch rider to tell me that we were getting close. Three black smudges over the ridge did that. I took confidence from the sight. If buildings were burning, it meant that our men had made it inside the fortified village. Still, there would be a butcher’s bill to pay for that accomplishment. What would I do if Marcus were among the dead? I had always known that my greatest friend could become a casualty of war, but until the dispatch rider had confirmed that Marcus’s cohort was going into a fight I hadn’t known . It had just been a rumour of fear before. Now its talons were deep in my guts.

What would I do if he were dead? Maybe just ride on into the mountains until I found a rebel polite enough to kill me, too. I didn’t want to leave Varo, Octavius and, if he still lived, Brutus, but life without Marcus seemed so… pointless.

‘There they are!’ the dispatch rider announced.

We came over the lip of the ridge. There was a century of the cohort here; sentries had been posted as the other men rested on the ground, their faces haggard from almost a week of crossing such terrain. ‘The fight’s over?’ I asked, knowing that the men would be kitted up and prepared to move as a reserve if it wasn’t.

‘Yeah,’ one of the sentries answered me. ‘Was over pretty quick. You going up there?’

‘I am.’

‘We haven’t had word on the casualties, yet. Do you mind sending word back? We’ve all got mates up there.’

I promised that I would; then I rode onwards. I passed another century. Then another. Neither was the unit of my friend. Two centuries had made the attack, I was told. Marcus must be among them.

The fortified village loomed ahead. It sat on a summit, man-made walls of stone filling the spaces where nature had provided bastions of rock. It would have been formidable to bandits and brigands, but to Roman soldiers it had fallen quickly, and now three of the six buildings inside were ablaze.

My heart stuck in my throat. Before the wall, I saw that seven bodies had been lined up beside each other. Roman soldiers. The butcher’s bill.

Balius was exhausted, but I pushed him on. In my haste to get from the saddle I half fell, and then I was over to the bodies, scanning them, moving from face to face. Some were young. Some were old.

None were Marcus.

‘Oi,’ a comrade of the dead accosted me. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ There was a spade in his hand. Part of the burial party. I had no doubt he’d use the tool on me if I gave the wrong answer.

‘I’m looking for my friend.’

He softened. ‘Name?’

‘Marcus. He’s an optio.’

‘Not dead,’ the man confirmed, and I felt a weight rise from my shoulders. ‘This is everyone.’

I looked at the fallen. Most had wounds to their faces, necks and shoulders. Killed as they had stormed the wall. ‘A hard fight?’

The soldier scraped his spade along the dirt, and looked at the dead. ‘Hard enough.’

I went in search of Marcus.

I found my friend. His arms were red with blood.

‘Corvus?’ There was no surprise in his tone. He was numb. Numb from combat. I had experienced it myself, and now I bore witness to it in my brother.

‘I came as soon as I heard. I’m sorry, Marcus. I wanted to fight with you.’

He smiled, then. ‘I finally got blooded. It was a long wait.’

‘You killed?’

‘Two, I think.’

I looked around me. The enemy dead lay out in the dirt. Two dozen of them. Maybe more.

They weren’t all men.

‘Any survivors?’

‘Of theirs?’ Marcus shook his head. ‘A couple. We told them what would happen if they tried to stand. Did they think they could hold back a cohort?’

I wondered at that. What would have happened if they had surrendered? Likely they would have been accused of supporting the rebels. Maybe the men would have been killed, and their women and children enslaved, or worse.

I heard evidence of that now. Screams from one of the huts that was not ablaze. A woman’s screams. Then a second voice. She sounded younger.

Marcus saw me looking. ‘This is war, I suppose. The men are entitled to the spoils.’

I nodded. What Marcus said was a law as old as time. Still, the screams scratched at the inside of my skull. I was glad of the distraction when a centurion walked over to us, his face almost totally swathed in bandage. ‘I’ve got to go back to the rear and get this fucking thing sewn up,’ he swore. ‘I’m taking the walking wounded with me, and two sections as stretcher-bearers and escort. The rest of the century is yours until I get back, Marcus. All right?’

Marcus delivered a salute as though he was talking to the Emperor himself. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Look after my men,’ the centurion said, and I could see that it pained him to be leaving. ‘Who’s this?’ he then asked.

‘My brother from Iader, sir. Corvus.’

‘Corvus?’ His one visible eye opened wider. ‘The man who saved the eagle? It’s an honour to meet you, standard-bearer.’