Free Exiles of Arcadia: Legionnaire by James Gawley Page A

auguries that morning. The hierophant dropped the scroll into the hammered bronze bowl where it sputtered, giving forth a thick and acrid smoke. The acolyte was watching this and wringing his hands. Somnia lay on the floor nearby, struggling to rise.
    Primus went swiftly to Somnia, one hand over his mouth against the smoke. The acolyte attempted to bar his way but Primus shouldered him aside. He fluttered ineffectually around Primus, tugging at the back of his tunic. “You must not be here,” he fretted. “You must leave, right now. You’ll draw the whole camp down on us!”
    A part of Primus wanted to obey the little man. But he knelt beside Somnia instead. Her lip was split, and blood was smeared across her chin. “What happened? Did he do this to you?” Primus looked up at the hierophant, ready to savage him with his bare hands. But the priest was ignoring them, chanting rhythmically in some strange tongue as he fed his sacred scrolls into the fire.
    Somnia shook her head, pushing herself up from the floor. “He’s not himself.” She let him help her, putting one arm across his shoulders as he lifted her to her feet. But when he tried to steer her toward the door, she twisted away from him.
    “Get out of here, now. You shouldn’t have come. I told you to go back to your barracks!” She pushed at him. Primus took a step back, but he did not turn to go.  
    “I came back to help you. I came back because I knew you were hurt.”
    She only pushed at him harder. Her other hand she held close to her chest, as if her wrist pained her. “You can’t help me. You’re going to ruin us all if you don’t get out .” She coughed into her hand, and Primus saw blood on her fingers. She bent over against the smoke, and her hair fell away from her neck. Primus was suddenly entranced by the sight of smooth white skin above her collar. She limped back to the hierophant, and as he watched her go, Primus heard again the buzzing voices at the edge of consciousness. He looked to the brazier, knowing it was the source of the strange fog that suddenly gripped him. It’s a little bit like dreaming, Somnia had said. But that wasn’t it at all. He watched the flames dancing in the brazier, consuming the reed-paper scrolls, hissing out black smoke. Suddenly he realized what the hierophant was chanting: they were the same words that buzzed in his ears, the strange whispers in the corners of his mind.
    Primus stepped closer to the brazier. The voices grew clearer as he listened to the hierophant. The speech was harsh and guttural–a rockslide of words. Almost he could grasp the meaning, like a snatch of remembered music. Someone gripped his arm, and Primus looked down at Somnia. She was speaking to him. She looked frightened, but he could not understand her. It was as though his ears were stoppered with wax. He patted her hand, and peeled her grip off of him. He came to stand beside the hierophant, and watched the scrolls unfurl as flames consumed them.  
    Only words, he thought. Scrolls were meaningless when you could hear the gods themselves. He looked up into the rough-hewn face of Jupiter. In the light of the flames he saw that the eyes were empty, simple pits in a face of stone. A shiver went through him. No god animated this statue. The chanting voices carried on, relentless.
    Primus realized that the hierophant was watching him. Clammy sweat stood out on the priest’s sharp cheekbones, and wild terror seized his dark eyes. He leaned close to Primus. His breath smelled rank, even above the pungent smoke. “Just a rock,” he said, tipping his head toward the statue. “Nothing but empty promises.” He drew another scroll from his case and raised it to the brazier. “No one to save you from what’s coming.”
    The chanting in his ears crested like a wave, and Primus’ dread turned to terror. He sank to his knees. He heard his name, distantly, and turned his head. Somnia was standing over him. In her hand she held the rod