Free Legionary by Gordon Doherty Page B

panic, he swallowed his rage. ‘We’re in the middle of something big here. It was and still is our prerogative to get back to friendly territory to report this.’ He looked to the north; the Gothic horde was moving off, thankfully oblivious to the goings-on above them. He then looked to the east.
    ‘We bury our men first, and then we move on to the eastern coast without delay. A small detachment can scout the last fort on the way. The boys we left behind on the shore will be bringing the
Aquila
round to the eastern neck of the peninsula tomorrow night to the agreed rendezvous point. Then we can go home!’ The legionaries shivered, nodding in approval.
    Just then Felix padded up to the hilltop. ‘Sir, Zosimus, he’s alive! He just let himself fall to dodge the blade. He’s cracked some ribs and his shoulder, but he’ll mend!’ The legionaries let out a roar of approval.
    ‘Let’s get the fat bastard onto a stretcher then; I’ll take the first shift on carrying him. To the coast and the
Aquila!
Who’s with me?’ The legionaries broke the driving blizzard with a chorus of support.
    Gallus held his steady gaze until the last of his men had turned away and only then let his face fall. The coast and the
Aquila
were so very far from here.

Chapter 11
    Father stood before him, but not the father he remembered from the earlier times he had been here; he looked different. This time he was standing in the eye of a sandstorm, stock still and wearing only tattered robes, his hair was unkempt and white and he held out one hand while the desert raged around him. Pavo had felt himself being drawn closer and closer still, feeling the sand grains whip against his skin and the wind roar in his ears. The noise grew deafening until he came close enough to make out Father’s features. Then he recoiled; there was something wrong with his eyes, they were shaded, dark. Then Father looked up, directly at him, his dark and hollow sockets staring. Pavo woke, sat bolt upright in his cot and gasped for breath while the legion slept around him in the silent barracks.
    He shivered at the still vivid image — the dream had haunted his sleep for years. Father had always been calling him, but each time, he seemed darker, angrier. He frowned, running his fingers across his bristled scalp then feeling for the bronze phalera on the end of the leather thong around his neck.
    Taking a deep breath, he glanced around the barracks to ground himself. They had been at the fort for just a fortnight, but the bitterness of life under a slave master in Constantinople seemed an age ago, long replaced by the toil under a different master in the form of Centurion Brutus. Cruel as Brutus was, it was his job. But it was the altogether more sinister threat from Spurius and his club-fisted friend Festus who seemed more direct replacements for Fronto, he mused, rubbing the dark-blue bruises the pair had left on his ribs the previous day.The other recruits would have been ambivalent about their agenda, he was sure, had it not been for Spurius’ muscle, but they too had sided with the angry young Greek when push came to shove. All except Sura, Pavo mused as the Thracian snored, sleeping soundly as usual despite the pummellings he had taken from Festus.
For what,
Pavo wondered, thinking back to their oath outside the fort on that first day they met,
for a half-cocked pact made in jest when he barely knew me?
    Sunlight crept under the doorway. Pavo forced deep, slow breaths into his lungs as the orangey tendrils slithered towards his bunk. A modicum of calm was descending on him when a powerful, ripping fart echoed around the barracks, followed by the pained coughing of the poor sod who had taken the brunt of its aroma. No amount of deep breathing would make today any easier; a quick march was on the agenda; twenty miles of treacherous terrain — bog, forest and hills — carrying the full burden of legionary armour, rations and camping gear. All that on a stomach of