Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire (43 page)

Sura gawped. ‘We must be sure – check!’

Habitus, Sura and Falco hurried round as Pavo unravelled the scroll.

The writing was faint and completely faded in parts around the edges.

The River Euphrates is to be the border between our two great empires. Like brothers overlooking east and west, neither shall allow their armies to trespass upon the other’s territory. Any such encroachment will incur the wrath of the many bold and noble kingdoms and republics that encircle our borders.

Pavo glanced up, shaking his head. ‘It’s real, it’s just as we hoped!’

Falco gripped his son’s arm, his lips stained with black blood. ‘It can stave off war with Persia?’

‘Yes, it states it plainly, it . . . ’ he fell silent as he read the last line in the treaty, just above the flaking wax seals of Jovian and Shapur.

While Flavius Jovianus Augustus remains at Rome’s helm, this treaty will remain sacrosanct.

His heartbeat slowed and a nausea swam in his veins, as if he had just taken a blow to the guts.

‘ . . . it’s useless,’ he muttered, dropping his hands by his side. ‘Jovian did enough to protect himself and no more.’

Sura wrung his fingers through his locks, backing away. ‘We’ve come all the way from the empire, through scalding desert, through months of torture in those mines, and now into the heart of the palace to find this, a useless sheaf of paper?’

Pavo reached out a hand to console Sura. But he froze as he heard footsteps scraping at the entrance to the chamber.

‘Useless for Rome, perhaps. But invaluable to me,’ a voice rasped.

A winter-cold fear gripped Pavo. He and the group backed away as the hunched, blue-robed figure of Archimagus Ramak moved through the arched entrance, stepping between the artefacts dotted around the chamber. His fingers were steepled and his eyes hungry, peering along his sharp nose. ‘That scroll has been like a demon, preying upon my dreams, stifling my ambitions. Always, it taunted me with the possibility of its existence,’ Ramak continued, approaching. ‘When I heard from my spies in Antioch that Emperor Valens was to send an expedition to Persia to retrieve it, I feared the worst. And for a moment, when I watched you find it and begin to read its contents, I was sure I would have to slay you and burn the scroll, in order to smooth the coming invasion of Roman Syria.’ He produced a silk cloth from his sleeve and patted it to his bald crown, blotting away the beads of sweat there. His tongue poked out to dampen his lips. ‘Now, I realise the scroll is no threat to my ambitions. It never was. Jovian is long dead. Roman Syria can be taken without reprisal. I need no longer burn the scroll.’ He lifted a hand and stretched out a single, bony finger that seemed to lance into Pavo’s heart. ‘But you must die. All of you. Perhaps I will skin you and mount your hides alongside this one?’ he grinned, nodding at Valerian’s remains. He clapped his hands. At that moment, six pushtigban entered the chamber, fanning out behind Ramak, then marching in front of him in a phalanx, picking their way around the displays in the chamber towards Pavo.

Pavo tucked the scroll into his robe. As he backed away from the approaching six, he grappled at one small stucco bust of a Persian noble and hurled it at the nearest warrior. The piece smacked against the man’s forehead with a dull thud. The bust hit the floor and the warrior swayed where he stood, his helm caved in, blood gushing from his eye sockets and nostrils before he toppled to the floor. At this, the rest of the warriors growled, suddenly enraged, then rushed forward.

Pavo staggered back, knowing his sword could not compete against the lengthy pushtigban spears. In moments, he and his comrades were cornered by the leftmost archway overlooking the courtyard and the city. Habitus used his spear as best he could, jabbing out at them, swiping to keep them back.

Pavo glanced all around him. There was only one way out of this, he realised, peering out of the archway and the fifty foot drop to the courtyard below. He felt the silken curtains trace on his skin and a glimmer of hope sparkled in his mind. He saw Sura’s eyes glint too as if sharing the thought. With a yank, the pair tore the curtain from its pole, then hurriedly tied the top to a marble sculpture of a scale-clad Persian warrior. Pavo tugged on the curtain twice and it held firm. He grappled Falco around the waist and pulled him close. ‘Hold on tight,’ he demanded, stepping up onto the ledge of the archway. Sura grasped the curtain too.

‘Strike them down!’ Ramak seethed.

‘Habitus, come on!’ Pavo cried, but the reply only came in the form of Habitus’ bloody gurgle – a pair of pushtigban spears punching through his chest and bursting from his back. Habitus crumpled and the pushtigban surged over his corpse, spears raised to strike.

‘Jump!’ Sura cried, barging he, Pavo and Falco from the ledge.

With a whoosh of air in his ears, Pavo realised two things. Firstly, he was falling. Secondly, he had given no thought to the length of the curtain. If it was too long, they would be dashed on the courtyard slabs. He braced as the slabs rushed up at them, waiting on the shattering impact. At the last, the curtain jolted rigid and they dangled, feet from the ground. They slid from the curtain and staggered back, pushtigban spears clattering down around them only inches away. Ramak curled his fingers around the ledge above and glared down upon them. ‘Spearmen!’ he roared. His cry seemed to echo across the plateau and all over Bishapur. At once, the rustle of iron and thundering footsteps seemed to come at them from every direction.

Pavo wrenched Falco to his feet and darted past the fountain towards the palm cluster and the lip of the acropolis where they had ascended. ‘Stay with me, Father!’ he cried as Falco foundered, coughing, blood snaking from his lips.

‘Pavo!’ Sura cried.

Pavo skidded to a halt just in time as a trio of Median spearmen burst into view by the cluster of palms. He swung round only to see Ramak and the pushtigban haring towards them from the palace. He looked this way and that, seeing that the only way clear was across the acropolis, towards the blue-domed Fire Temple. ‘This way!’

They hurried from the pursuing pack of warriors and rushed through a shady orchard, startling one Median spearman who had clearly not heard Ramak’s cry. The mail-shirted spearman dropped the bright orange fruit he was munching upon, wiped his moustache clean then grappled at his spear and grimaced. Pavo ducked under the spear thrust, pulling Falco down with him. Sura followed them, throwing a sharp jab into the man’s cheek, sending him staggering, dazed.

Branches thwacked against their skin as they pushed onwards, then they burst out into the sunlight again. The three stumbled on towards the temple. Ramak and the pursuing pack were only paces behind. Pavo took his father’s arm, leading him forward to the lip of the acropolis beside the temple. ‘Brace yourself, Father, it will be a steep descent, but . . . ’ He froze, seeing more Median spearmen climbing the scree-strewn slopes towards them, fanned out all around this end of the acropolis.

‘We’re trapped!’ Sura said it first.

Pavo backed towards the temple now, readying to fight, but there were more than thirty men in all coming for them. With no other option presenting itself, he hauled Falco inside the temple’s eastern entrance. Their footsteps echoed along a broad, vaulted corridor. An orange light glowed at the end of the corridor, and its reflection danced on the whitewashed ceiling and sparkled on the black-slabbed floor. As they approached this light, a dryer, fiercer heat than ever before swirled around them. At last, they spilled into the temple’s central chamber. A circular pit dominated this square room and the flames that danced within it licked high in the air, as if trying to reach the gilt ceiling and the relief of the winged Faravahar there.

‘We’re in the temple?’ Falco said. ‘This is the beating heart of Ramak’s realm.’ He trembled with weakness, his teeth stained with black blood.

‘Father, you need to stand back,’ Pavo winced, glancing to each of the four passageways leading to this central chamber, shadows jostling in the slivers of daylight. ‘Stay back and we’ll protect you.’

‘Nonsense,’ Falco squared his jaw. ‘I have waited over fifteen years to fight that whoreson, Ramak.’

‘Father, you’re all I have, please, stand back!’ Pavo pleaded.

At this, Falco frowned, shaking his head. ‘You mean the crone didn’t tell you?’

‘Father?’ Pavo frowned.

Falco pulled the strip of well-worn leather from his wrist and tied it hurriedly onto Pavo’s. ‘Before I met your mother, I . . . ’

A storm of footsteps echoed down each corridor, cutting him off. But then the footsteps stopped. A lone, rasping voice echoed into the chamber; ‘You cannot escape.’

Pavo’s eyes darted as the words seemed to dance around him. The shadows of the Persian warriors in each passageway were still. The only movement came from the southern corridor. The three backed away from this corridor, until they reached the edge of the fire pit and felt the flames sting their skin.

‘Now you will burn along with your scroll. Rome, the lie, will burn to fuel the destiny of the House of Aspaphet, the truth . . . my destiny.’ The echoing words grew closer until Ramak emerged into the chamber, flanked by two pushtigban. ‘I urge you to cast yourselves into the flames, Romans,’ he gestured to the fire pit, ‘before my guards seize you. Else you will see that I have many long and memorable ways of introducing non-believers to the Sacred Fire.’ As he said this, he sidled round the edge of the room to a rack where a variety of fire-charred irons hung. Some like swords, others hooked, some spiked. He eyed them and then looked over Falco. ‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘I put out your eyes a long, long time ago then sent you to the mines. Perhaps this time I will have to cripple you too. Though that might be a waste of effort, for you have but hours to live anyway,’ he mused, seeing the dark blood dripping from Falco’s lips.

Pavo wrapped an arm around the shivering Falco, helping him to stand tall. Father’s body was growing cold. The realisation tore Pavo’s heart in half. ‘You might see today as some kind of victory, Archimagus. Aye, the scroll poses you no threat. But look at what stands before you; Roman legionaries, like a dagger in the heart of your realm. If a dogged few can do this, then think what the empire’s many legions might achieve.’

Ramak halted in his stride and glared at Pavo, then threw his head back and boomed with laughter that filled the domed chamber. ‘Your legions in Syria are weak and scattered. Most have been forced to rush west to fight the Goths. I know this.’ He spread out his arms as if savouring the moment. ‘I know all of this.’ A serene expression hung on his face momentarily, then a shadow from the fire transformed it into a searing scowl. ‘Seize them!’

In a flash, the pushtigban had their spears at Pavo and Sura’s throats. Pavo braced, sword raised, ready to hack at the spear tip, but Falco squeezed his arm.

‘Do not, Pavo!’ Falco croaked weakly. Then he whispered in Pavo’s ear. ‘I will be with you, Son. Always.’

Pavo hesitated, frowning, his gaze hanging on father’s sightless expression as the pushtigban disarmed Sura and Pavo then hauled them away from the fire pit and Falco. ‘Father?’ he called weakly, seeing a look of finality wash across Falco’s haggard features. The pushtigban kicked at the back of Pavo’s knees and he and Sura slumped to kneeling.

‘The old man will die first,’ Ramak purred, stepping over to Falco at the edge of the fire pit, eyeing him like a butcher examining a lamb. ‘His eyes are already gone and we will have little pleasure in his torture. The other two can watch him burn before their torture begins.’

Pavo’s heart pounded on his ribs as he saw Ramak’s face contort with a grin.

The archimagus drew a dagger from his belt and thrust it into Falco’s midriff. The blade sunk deep and black blood washed from the wound.

Pavo heard his own cry as if from a hundred miles distant.
No!
He lurched up from kneeling, but a spear-point in his back winded him and dropped him to his knees again. He reached out, lips moving wordlessly as Ramak butted his palms into Falco’s chest. Falco swayed, losing his balance and falling back towards the flames. The light of the Sacred Fire danced in Ramak’s eyes as he watched, grinning. ‘Burn in the realm of Ahriman, Roman dog.’

‘
Father!
’ Pavo cried until he thought his heart would burst.

At the last, Falco shot out a hand and grappled Ramak’s collar, halting his fall.

Ramak yelped, choking. The pushtigban seemed frozen in indecision at this. Falco’s hair and the back of his robe had already caught light, but he hauled himself up just a fraction, and pressed his face to Ramak’s. ‘It is time for you to face the god whose name you have darkened for so long, cur!’ he hissed, then tore something from his robe. It glinted in the firelight as he brought it arcing round and across Ramak’s throat. The buckled bronze phalera tore across the archimagus’ neck, sending a dark spray of blood across the temple floor. Then, as one, Falco and Ramak toppled back into the fire pit. The flames consumed the pair. Ramak’s screams were shrill and lasting. Falco made not a sound.

The pushtigban scrambled forward to the edge of the fire pit to see their archimagus’ blazing form thrashing and reaching out as if still in belief that he could be saved.

Pavo felt his next actions as if they were part of a dream. He rushed forward and shoulder-charged one pushtigban into the pit. The man plummeted under the weight of his armour, his gruff cries seemingly never-ending as the fire cooked him alive. The last pushtigban backed away, spear flicking from Pavo to Sura and back again. Pavo grappled one of the timber stools nearby and held it up as a form of shield. The spearman jabbed at them confidently, his legs bracing as if readying to spring. Then, like an apparition from a nightmare, the first pushtigban hauled himself from the pit, his body ablaze and his armour glowing hot. His hoarse cries were inhuman, his face ruined by the flames. He threw himself around the chamber, clawing out at the drapes and timbers, inadvertently setting light to each. At the last, he stumbled towards his comrade, arms outstretched, his step slowing. The last pushtigban backed away, eyes bulging in terror at the mutilated creature. Backed against the wall, the last warrior thrust his spear into the burning man’s gut. The burning man wailed in agony, then wrapped his hands around the other’s throat and crushed the life from his killer. The two toppled to the floor, still and silent.