Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire (21 page)

As the scout dragged him away by the hair, he heard the archimagus talking, as if addressing the fire itself.

‘The mercenaries have failed me, but my spahbad will not! Ride well, Tamur, and crush those who dare to enter our lands.’

Four days of marching through the dunes saw the legionary column transformed beyond recognition. The banners were stowed on the ever-more burdened camels. Now, to a man, the legionaries wore no helmets, just linen rags tied around their heads and thick smears of kohl on their noses and cheeks. Many had slit their tunics from collar to breastbone to allow a fraction more airflow. They had marched from imperial lands carrying their spears high and proud, now they used them as crooks, to haul their weary limbs up the endless banks of burning sand.

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!’