Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire (32 page)

‘Into line!’ a prune-faced guard snarled.

Pavo backed away from the lash, bunching up with Khaled into the mass of sweating, terrified slaves.

‘We have achieved nothing today,’ Pavo whispered bitterly.

‘But we live on for tomorrow,’ Khaled replied.

Both men’s gazes were upon Gorzam as he stood tall and shook his head, blinking and steadying himself.

Sat alone by the main shaft, Gorzam’s breath came and went in fiery grunts and his head throbbed. Never had he been so humiliated, he thought, sucking hungrily on a fresh water skin and eyeing the polluted one with a low growl. The slaves were back at work and no culprit had been identified. But those responsible would be found, for he was the shahanshah of the mines. He ruled this dominion like a god. His lot on the world above was too meagre to bear – a filthy home, no woman to cook for him since his wife had vanished. ‘I should have beat her even harder,’ his shoulders jostled in a gruff, dry chuckle. He made to take another swig of water when a voice hissed by his side.

‘I know who did this to you,’ it said.

He turned to behold the shadowy figure stacking cane baskets by the pulleys. It was the cretin who had long informed him of the other slaves’ misdemeanours. The man dropped his gaze as soon as Gorzam met it.

‘Tell me,’ Gorzam demanded.

‘You will give me freedom, as we have discussed before.’

Gorzam bristled at this. He stood, towering over this figure, his shoulders broadening. ‘I have never promised you freedom. I might see to it that you are raised to the first chamber – the air is breathable there. But if you do not tell me who did this to me, I will throw you into the shaft without hesitation. Or worse, I will tell the other slaves that the traitor is still amongst them, Bashu.’

Pavo and Khaled hobbled into their cell and the bars clanked shut behind them. The shift that immediately followed their foiled escape plan had seemed to last for days. Now they would be afforded just a few hours of rest before the next shift began.

Pavo winced as he lay back on the stone shelf and tried to let his muscles relax. But his thoughts quickly jabbered with all that had gone wrong. He clasped his hands over his face and fought to clear his mind. They did not speak for some time, neither man sleeping, nor able to summon any words. What was there to say?

Eventually, Khaled slid from his cot and began scraping the bristles of his beard from his jaw with a sharpened slat of rock and a sprinkle of water from his cup. ‘Tell me, Roman; what did your friend – the big one with the squashed nose – mean when he spoke of a scroll?’

Pavo frowned. He had barely noticed Zosimus referring to it in jest up in the first chamber. Instinctively, his lips tightened and he thought carefully about his answer. Then his shoulders slumped and he shook his head. ‘It matters little now, for we are all going to live out our days in this place. My comrades and I were sent here, all the way from Roman Syria, to seek out a scroll. It is thought to contain some agreement between your empire and mine – one that might stave off war between our armies.’

Khaled said nothing, but his grin spoke a thousand words.

Pavo sat up. ‘Khaled?’

‘You speak of Jovian’s lost scroll. There were a few in here in years past who spoke of such a thing.’ He looked up, bemused. ‘The scroll is real?’

Pavo leant forward. ‘It is, or it was . . . it may no longer exist, but the mere possibility that it does brought us across the desert. Khaled, please, tell me what you know.’

Khaled shrugged, smoothing at his roughly shaven jaw with one hand, then twirling the ends of his moustache. ‘I know very little, only what you have already told me. There was a slave, long ago, who claimed to have held it in his hands.’

Pavo latched onto this, remembering Gallus’ description of the man who had hidden in the mountains with the scroll. ‘Where is he?’

‘He died many years past,’ Khaled replied, the words flattening Pavo’s nascent hope. ‘But he passed his knowledge of the scroll on before he died, to a group who worked with him.’

Pavo’s hopes picked up once more. ‘What happened to this group?’

Khaled’s face darkened and he shook his head.

‘Dead?’

Khaled fixed him with his gaze. ‘Worse. They were consigned to the seventh chamber, right at the foot of the mine. They say it is so far underground that the light from the top of the shaft cannot even penetrate into the darkness there.’

‘How long ago?’

‘The passage of time is difficult to record in this place. But I would guess that it was about a year after I came here.’

‘Twelve years ago?’ Pavo’s heart leadened. ‘Then surely they have perished down there?’

Khaled’s face grew weary. ‘Aye, I am almost certain they have by now. A year in those depths must feel like a lifetime . . . ’

As Khaled spoke of the seventh chamber, Pavo sought a grain of hope. Their chances of escape were gone. An ember of possibility that the scroll might be found had been extinguished too. He shook his head and pulled the phalera medallion from the waist of his loincloth. His fanciful hopes of finding some trace of Father were further away than anything else, he realised, absently tracing a finger over the engraving.

Legio II Parthica.

He heard Khaled’s words as if from a faraway place; ‘Some Persians can survive in the dry, stale air down there for that length of time, perhaps, but not Romans. No, they have surely perished in that deepest chamber. Indeed, we consider any souls sent down there as dead men.’

The breath froze in Pavo’s lungs. One word rang over and over in his thoughts.
Romans?
‘They were Roman? The men sent to the seventh chamber?’

Khaled looked up, eyebrows raised, then nodded. ‘Yes. This place was once worked by many of your kind. Not so many recently. It was a surprise when you and your comrades arrived.’

Pavo slid off the stone shelf and knelt before Khaled. ‘But they were Romans?’

‘Aye,’ Khaled nodded, then jabbed a finger to the phalera, ‘some wore trinkets just like yours.’

An intense shiver danced across Pavo’s skin. ‘Khaled, I need you to think back,’ he said holding up the phalera. ‘The engraving on this – did the Romans you speak of have the same markings, exactly the same?’

Khaled curled his bottom lip and nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sure of it.’

‘Romans in the seventh chamber know the whereabouts of the scroll? Legionaries of the II Parthica . . . ’ Pavo staggered back, his head swimming, his eyes combing the floor of the cell as if to organise his jumbled thoughts. A bewildered laugh toppled from his lips.

Khaled smoothed the ends of his moustache. ‘Remember, this was some twelve years ago. These men are likely to be nothing but bones now. Do not trouble yourself with thoughts of their fate . . . ’

‘My father may well have been one of them,’ he cut Khaled off.

Khaled’s eyes widened. ‘Your father? The one you speak of in your nightmares.’ He nodded in realisation. ‘Of course.’

‘So you realise that I must go down there. When my legion set out to the east, I promised myself I would find my Father or honour his bones.’

A long silence passed, then a sorrowful smile crept across Khaled’s face and he laid his hands on Pavo’s shoulders. ‘I understand, friend. Just as I long to be reunited with my loved ones, you feel you must do this.’

‘It is not a feeling, nor a compulsion of some sort.’ He fixed Khaled with an unblinking gaze. ‘It is a certainty. I am going down there.’

Tears appeared in Khaled’s eyes. ‘I once had your fire in me, lad. Many years past.’ He blinked the glassiness away and came closer to Pavo. ‘If you are to do this, then know that you are not alone. I will do all I can to aid you . . . ’ his words trailed off and he gawped over Pavo’s shoulder, to the cell gates.

An icy chill danced across Pavo’s skin as the iron bars groaned open. He hurriedly tucked the phalera into his loincloth then spun to see Gorzam, trembling with rage. A second guard fumbled with the keys to the cell whilst another figure stood behind the pair. Bashu failed to meet their gaze.

‘It was them?’ Gorzam seethed.

Bashu nodded. ‘Aye, it was them who poisoned you. I saw them put the concoction in your water – they threatened to kill me if I told you this.’

Pavo scrambled to the back of the cell and Khaled joined him. ‘Bashu? No . . . ’

Gorzam stomped in and raised his whip. Khaled’s cries were drowned out by the thrashing of the barbed tails, the ripping of flesh and the thick blood-spray that coated all in the cell. As Khaled cowered, Pavo tried to grapple him and pull him clear of the next lash, but Gorzam was unstoppable, and the barbs gouged at Pavo’s arm, sending him staggering back. As Khaled took the brunt of the next blow, the second guard pinned Pavo back with his spear tip. ‘Move . . . die,’ he grunted in broken Greek.

Pavo winced at every blow, hearing Khaled’s cries grow fainter with each. Eventually, the lash carried on to utter silence. Pavo was wet with Khaled’s blood and Gorzam wore a dripping, crimson mask. After an eternity, the whipping stopped. Gorzam panted, resting his hands on his knees. Pavo saw Khaled’s staring eyes, the light in them dimming. He reached out for his friend, but Gorzam booted him away.

The giant glared at Pavo. ‘I will be back to take the skin from your back later. And then every day after that. I plan to keep you alive for a few weeks. I want to see how long a man can live with the flesh ripped clear of his bones.’ He nodded to the second guard and stabbed a finger at the mutilated, flayed mass that was Khaled. ‘Come; let us haul this dog to the shaft.’ They lifted the still body and then with a clanging of the cell door, they were gone.

Pavo stared at the spot where Khaled had been moments ago. The flesh on his arm where he had been struck was raw, ripped to the bone. Fresh barbs, he realised, sickened. He found himself praying hurriedly to Mithras that Khaled was already dead and would not have to suffer being thrown down the main shaft. ‘I pray you meet with your family soon, friend,’ he sobbed, a chill settling on his heart.

He wiped at his tears, then lifted the phalera once more, glancing from it to the cell floor and the thought of what might lie deep below.

The seventh chamber beckoned him. Nothing would stop him.

Nothing.

Chapter 15

The gymnasium echoed with the scraping of feet on sand. Gallus and Carbo circled, back-to-back, their eyes tracking the three pushtigban who stalked around them. The three wore their full bronze armour and the hammer-wielder directed the other two with clipped commands. Gallus and Carbo faced them wearing just loincloths, helms, spathas and small, circular wooden shields. Nothing more.

Gallus glanced over to the shaded area at one side of the training court. There, Ramak and Tamur watched on. As always, Tamur seemed encouraged by some rhetoric Ramak was whispering in his ear, fists clenched as if strangling some invisible enemy. After six weeks of imprisonment, the Festival of Iron was just over a week away. The arena at the foot of the acropolis was nearly complete. Now it seemed that the archimagus and the spahbad wanted to rehearse the glorious slaughter of their Roman prisoners. The pushtigban grinned eagerly – as if in hope that this could be more than a rehearsal.