Legionary

Chapter 79

Pavo slumped back against a rock. It was jagged and gore-spattered, but it felt like a silk cushion as he let his leaden limbs relax. Victory could gild even the harshest of things.

The sun had prised the clouds apart like curtains, bathing the allied army and orchestrating a warm, musty breeze in a dance across the plateau. Looking down at his sword arm, he felt a numb urge to retch at the sight; a sliver of entrails had wrapped itself round his wrist, and a rough paste of bone, gristle and black-blood held it in place. His fingers trembled as he tried to move his shield arm to wipe the mess away. His head lolled back onto the rock and a sigh escaped from his lungs. All around him, the cheers of the allied army gradually hushed and were replaced by an iron rabble as they dug at the rubble-heaped entrance to the bunker. The Hun detachment had been smashed, but not before they had poured inside the bunker. What was left inside there would lift or shatter the air of victory. Suddenly, cries broke out from the bunker and rippled across the ranks. Pavo sat up with a jolt, his eyes pinging wide open.

‘On your feet, Pavo!’ Sura croaked, his grinning face coated in blood and the rubble-dust of the fort. ‘Seems like we did it!’

‘We did it?’

‘We did it! Look…’ Sura tailed off, pointing into the sunlight.

Pavo squinted into the brightness. A shape moved in the glare.

‘Pavo?’ a voice called.

Pavo’s eyes flicked up to the armoured silhouette towering over him, a halo of orange light framing him. For the briefest of moments, his mind played tricks on him; the broad shoulders, the gravel voice — for a heartbeat he was transported back to the dusty tenemented street as a seven-year-old on demob day. He found strength where there was none and struggled to his feet. Then the wolf-like face of Gallus materialised as the figure stepped forward.

‘Sir?’

‘I didn’t think that plan would come off — not for a moment — when I sent you away. The legion, or what’s left of her, owes you lads her life. And the empire…if that horde had been allowed to descend on her, to cross the Danubius…’ Gallus turned and craned his neck to gaze at the sky, the sunlight bathing his face. He looked gaunt, pale and utterly shattered. ‘And what of Felix?’ He added gently. ‘Did my optio fall on the mission?’

‘No chance, sir!’ Felix yelled out. Twenty paces back, Felix hobbled on his crutch. ‘Couldn’t get my spatha dirty today but I bagged myself some of those buggers on the ballistae!’ Horsa and Amalric trotted up behind the optio, saluting Gallus and throwing Pavo and Sura exhausted grins.

A warmth poured into Gallus’ features, bringing a flush of colour to his pallor. Pavo’s brow wrinkled at the sight of his centurion without the cool wolfen glare.

‘You did it — you actually made it all the way to the emperor,’ Gallus shook his head. ‘Either you’re good, very good, or the city lads need a good, solid kick up the arse!’

‘How many left, sir?’ Pavo croaked, licking his cracked and stinging lips.

Gallus’ face fell back to the usual iron expression, like a dark cloud passing over the sun. ‘Thirteen,’ he replied.

Pavo held his gaze. Thirteen men left from the thousands who had set off just a week previously. All those faces from the training ground, all those veterans he had looked up to. All cold and still on the ground. Avitus, Zosimus and a crutch-bearing Quadratus hobbled up to join their centurion. So the few men who made up the core of the legion had survived. Those who had fought and bled to earn the title of veterans would live on. Probably why they were veterans in the first place, he mused.

‘Nice work, lads,’ Zosimus half chirped, half winced, grabbing at the bloody splatter on his ribs. Behind him, the handful of surviving XI Claudia legionaries trudged around the plateau, silent and thoughtful, eyeing the blue sky, some mouthing prayers.

Pavo’s eyes hung on the pale, crimson-streaked legionary corpse only paces in front of him. This was the end Father had met, but today the gods had spared him. He shivered, recalling the darkening nightmare of Father calling to him from the sandstorm.

‘Take heart, Pavo,’ Gallus spoke, ‘That you saved any of us is a miracle,’ he pointed to Zosimus, who was lifting the legionary standard. The filthy and torn red bull rag flapped defiantly as it caught the wind. The allies rasped out an exhausted cheer.

‘But all these men, dead,’ he croaked, his eyes staying on the grey legionary corpse. The myth of the ‘soldier’s skin’ seemed distant now.

‘Loss is something a legionary must relive every day,’ Gallus spoke, his eyes searching the horizon. ‘Every one of those lads who fell today will haunt my dreams, Pavo. I have legions of them now, and it never gets any easier.’

Pavo looked up into his centurion’s eyes. For the briefest of moments, he saw the cold pain inside the man, in behind the stony facade. ‘Will their families be looked after?’ Pavo remembered the day in the street, the funeral payout and the legionary with the dead eyes.

‘I’ll be seeing to that personally,’ Gallus spoke firmly.

‘The legion is bare now, how will we…’

‘We’ll recruit, Pavo, we always do.’ Gallus fixed his eyes on him, and then something odd happened. The centurion’s lips lifted at either side. ‘But I know I can count on the men who survived today to see us through this,’ he smiled.

Pavo felt his skin prickle with pride.

‘Centurion Gallus?’ A voice boomed from behind. Vitus strode over and offered his forearm. Gallus turned to clasp it as the XII Fulminata tribunus bellowed with laughter, still riding on the wave of victory. He gestured down at Pavo and over to Sura. ‘I thought we would be too late — but these lads you sent back to the city were special — they must have had the emperor like putty in their hands!’

Gallus clapped one hand on Pavo’s shoulder and one on Sura’s shoulder. Then he spoke solemnly; ‘Fine representatives for the XI Claudia, sir. This legion doesn’t recognise defeat!’