Legionary: Land of the Sacred Fire (46 page)

‘After that?’ Quadratus asked, stretching and cricking his neck to either side.

Gallus turned and strode away from the fire, casting back over his shoulder; ‘After that, we pray that the gods will spirit us home.’

Pavo woke refreshed from a deep and dreamless sleep. It was still dark, but he could see the blackness of the eastern horizon was tinged with a shade of dark-blue. He sat up and scratched at his scalp. The nightmares of Father had not come to him, and he felt an odd sadness at their absence. He thought again of Father’s last half-sentence.

Before I met your mother, I . . .

He smoothed at the leather bracelet again and cocked a half-smile. ‘I can only imagine, Father.’

At that moment, a flock of nightjars swooped overhead, emitting a gentle, soothing trill. At the same time, the dark-blue in the east split with a sliver of orange-pink dawn light. His heart warmed at the sight, and he recalled the embrace he had shared with Father.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he stood and stretched. Oddly, while Quadratus, Zosimus and Sura lay near him, Gallus was nowhere to be seen. He stripped off his filthy robe to wade into the shallows of the river, bracing at the chill. A glance all around the flatland offered no sign of threat. Perhaps the situation at Bishapur had spiralled out of control after they had left. Perhaps there would be nobody out looking for them. This glow of optimism lifted his heart further. He plunged under the waters and ran his fingers through his locks, rising and feeling human once more. He blinked the water from his eyes, wiped droplets from his lips and saw the other three stirring. Quadratus was last to rise, sitting bolt upright, lifting one leg and emitting a high-pitched and tortured chorus of farts, grinning as he saw Zosimus’ and Sura’s faces wrinkle in disgust. Pavo waded from the river, towelling himself with his ragged robe, patting his face dry. Then he stopped, blinking.

Something was moving on the eastern horizon.

No . . . the entire eastern horizon was moving. Even closer were a pair of riders. Persian scouts. They circled on their mounts, pointing at Pavo, then wheeled around and melted back into the crawling horizon.

‘Sir,’ Pavo spoke hoarsely, then cleared his throat. ‘Sir!’ he cried this time, head snapping this way and that to locate Gallus.

A crunching of rocks sounded from further up the riverbank, and Gallus appeared over the top of one tall, jutting rock, before sliding down its face. The look on the tribunus’ face told him two things: he had not slept at all and he had seen exactly what was coming for them.

‘On your horses – move!’ Gallus cried.

Tamur lofted the golden lion standard in the air, the veins in his arms bulging at the weight. ‘Onwards, to crush the lie!’ he bellowed. The reply came like a guttural roar of giants as more than ten thousand warriors echoed their spahbad’s rallying call. The Savaran riders swept across the land like a plague of locusts, kicking up a wall of dust in their wake. On the river adjacent to their route, sturdy rafts carried the Median spearmen and some two thousand wretched, chained paighan downriver with them.

At the mouth of the Gulf, the fleet of the Persis Satrapy would be waiting to take Tamur and his army across the Persian Gulf. Upriver, they could then strike out across the desert and fall upon Roman Syria like a plague. Perhaps then the blackened ruin of his palace would seem insignificant. He shuddered with rage as he remembered the last thing he had seen before mounting to leave and lead the Savaran; his treasure vault, wrenched open and emptied by the people who were supposed to fear and respect him. The image brought flickering fire to his every thought. While his agents back in the city would deal with the perpetrators, he would have the pleasure of dealing with the five Romans who had started the blaze. They would suffer like dogs. They would plead for the relief of death.

‘Noble Spahbad Tamur,’ a voice spoke beside him.

He swung his scowl round to see his pushtigban-salar, the leader of his bodyguard.

The man lifted his gilt iron facemask to reveal narrow eyes and an eager grin. ‘The Romans have been sighted.’

‘As I knew they would,’ Tamur replied flatly.

‘We will be upon them within the hour. They are headed for the coast.’

‘Excellent,’ he purred. ‘This will serve as a fine exercise in battlefield formations. Have our ranks form an arc – we will herd these five towards the shores like cattle. And have the paighan on the rafts disembark nearer the coast then join our right flank.’

‘A fine plan, Noble Spahbad,’ the pushtigban-salar nodded as he backed away then kicked his mount into a trot to convey the order.

Tamur sneered at the sycophantic dog as he departed. The man’s family had long coveted the seat of the House of Aspaphet. When Tamur was a boy, he remembered the cur and his father’s frequent visits to the palace, their brazen attempts to dictate policy. Only Ramak’s presence by Tamur’s side had staved off their push for power. But Ramak was gone. Not for the first time since the archimagus’ death, Tamur felt an odd curdling of hubris and self-doubt. While he relished this new found autonomy, he also longed to have another to consult, another to prompt him. Sibilant voices whispered in his head and he snatched at each, wondering if they were his own thoughts or those of Ramak, nestled in his mind like some demon. He closed his eyes and grappled on his reins until his knuckles whitened and his hands shook. The voices fell silent, and he saw what he had to do.

The narrow-eyed pushtigban-salar would not return home from this campaign, he affirmed with a half-grin. The man’s death would be a fine treat. First though, the Roman dogs would serve as a pleasant appetiser. He squinted ahead, seeing the tiny dust plume of the five Roman riders fleeing in vain for the western horizon. When the plume disappeared over the distant grassy sandbanks, Tamur’s eyes narrowed. ‘There is nowhere left to run now, Roman dogs . . . ’

The blood pounded in Pavo’s ears as his mare galloped over the grassy sandbanks and down onto the soft, white-sand shores of the Persian Gulf. Waves crashed rhythmically onto the shore, throwing up a wall of foaming white surf, and hazy turquoise waters stretched out beyond. Overhead, gulls and cormorants shrieked as they swooped and circled. The hot, early morning air was spiced with a salty tang. He slowed by the water’s edge, the others stopping beside him. Wordlessly, they gazed out across the waves. Then they glanced just a mile or so up the shoreline to the north, where the Euphrates estuary flowed into the Gulf. There, through the haze of heat and salt-spray, they saw a mass of ships bobbing on the waves, sails billowing. The Persian fleet, Pavo guessed. The Savaran were coming for them from the east, and this fleet would ensnare them from the north. He glanced to the south: only open, sandy flats for miles – nowhere to hide.

Zosimus said it first; ‘We’re trapped.’

‘No,’ Gallus said flatly as he heeled his mount into the shallows. His lips were cracked and his skin glistened with sweat and salt spray. He trotted back and forth through the waterline, nostrils flared, spatha drawn, his battered intercisa glinting in the sun, the plume and the ragged robe he wore fluttering in the sea breeze – like a battered remnant of Rome in this far-flung land. Finally, his gaze seemed to narrow upon the approaching fleet.

‘Sir, we can’t win this one,’ Quadratus said gravely.

‘The five of us? No, we can’t,’ Gallus cocked an eyebrow, heeling his mount round to face them. ‘But we’re not alone.’

‘Sir?’ Pavo said. Then, when Gallus pointed to the fleet, he understood.

The fleet was close enough now to discern. The ships were not Persian. Twelve triremes. Each of the white sails bore a silver Chi-Rho emblem. The decks were awash with armoured men and a figure on the foremost vessel carried a silver eagle banner.

The triremes crunched onto the shore, and a chorus of splashing and drumming boots followed. In moments, the shallows were thick with dark-blue shields emblazoned with silver Chi-Rhos, gleaming intercisa helms and spear tips. First one cohort, then another two. The XVI Flavia Firma – the rest of Carbo’s legion. Some fifteen hundred men. With them was a pack of some three hundred
funditores –
Armenian slingers dressed in tunics with small bull-hide shields strapped to their biceps and axes dangling from their belts. Like a wave of steel, they splashed forward from the shallows, then onto the sand, rushing to form up.

Gallus dismounted, slapping his exhausted mount on the flanks to send it cantering from the beach. Then he sought out the red-bearded officer to the right of the first cohort. ‘Tribunus Varius of the XVI Flavia Firma!’ the man saluted as he approached.

‘Tribunus Gallus of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ Gallus barked in reply.

‘It
is
you,’ Varius’ face widened in disbelief and he clasped Gallus’ shoulders. ‘The last of the emperor’s vexillatio?’

Gallus frowned. ‘Aye,’ he replied guardedly. ‘What do you know of my men and I?’

Varius held his gaze with an earnest look. ‘A messenger came to Antioch, bringing news of your enslavement.’

‘A messenger?’ Gallus’ eyes narrowed.

Varius nodded. ‘A desert warrior. A Maratocupreni chieftain. A woman.’

‘Izodora?’ Pavo gasped from nearby.

‘Aye,’ Varius replied, ‘A beauty with a tongue like a whip! She spoke to Emperor Valens like a scolding mother. But he listened, he hung on her every word. He heard of your capture and his shoulders slumped, but then his eyes sparkled when he realised you had been taken alive to the Satrapy of Persis. After that he sent his advisors from the room and they talked alone. Afterwards, when she had gone, his eyes were red-rimmed and his face sullen. It was then that he came to me. I assumed it was to finalise my orders to take my men to Thracia with the last of the few legions stationed in Syria – even the barely-trained city garrisons are being loaded onto ships and sent west. But no, he told me that I was instead to take my legion east, to patrol these waters, to seek you out. He insisted that while there was hope that you and your men still lived, then there was hope for the empire’s eastern frontier. His advisors argued that it was folly not to send us to Thracia. But the emperor was adamant.
Think of those who call this land home,
he glared at them,
those who cannot simply turn and flee to some country villa in Anatolia or Africa!
Their protests soon fell silent,’ Varius grinned dryly, then his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper; ‘Tell me you found Jovian’s scroll, Tribunus.’