Legionary(112)

As one, they dropped to their knees and kissed the ground, then leapt once more to their feet. They clipped their iron masks on and fanned out across the gates, facing into the city, spears levelled. Behind them, the western gates swung shut. Those clutching vessels and rushing to leave for the riverbank halted, gawping at the closed gates and the line of soulless iron masks gazing back at them. At once, a wail of despair rang out, pleading for the gates to be reopened.

Tamur ignored this chorus of mewling as he ascended the stairs to the gatehouse. Smoke needled at his eyes and the late-afternoon sun burned on his glistening skin. He reached the battlements and saw that the two Median spearmen there looked terrified as they saluted. Good, he mused, fear is power!

‘The gates are to remain closed. Five Romans are looking to escape from the city . . . ’ he stopped, seeing the taller of the two glance at the other nervously. This was more than just fear. ‘You have something to tell me?’

‘There were a group of riders, Spahbad. Just a short while ago, five of them.’ He pointed a finger to a small dust plume in the west, heading towards the Persian Gulf. ‘We thought they looked different. They trotted out for a few hundred feet and then broke into a gallop.’

Tamur felt his top lip twitch in fury as he gazed out over the western plain. The five had a good start and there were several hours of light left in the day. He rested his fingers on the honeycomb hilt of his shamshir and considered taking the heads from this pair. Their deaths would solve nothing, but might quell his anger a fraction. He turned to gaze back across his burning city, then saw the answer to the east. Just behind Bishapur, a sea of flickering silver moved closer, pouring from the Zagros Mountain roads like a ferocious tide. The Savaran were here. He relaxed his grip on his sword and saw the pair of sentries visibly slump in relief. A chill laugh toppled from his lips as he looked back to the west and the fleeing five.

‘Flee then, Romans. But these lands are vast and your horses will soon tire. The Savaran will be on your heels by morning. The carrion birds will feast on your corpses by noon. And I will be there to watch.’





Chapter 21





The five lay flat in their saddles, galloping in silence across the brushland of the Persis Satrapy. After Carbo’s last act had given them precious moments to escape the arena, they had slipped into the panicked crowds thronging the city streets. They had acquired these mounts from a stable at the acropolis foot, unguarded by anyone bar a deaf and dithering old stable hand with a face like a well-dried prune. He had insisted on giving them several water skins and a sack of food too, seemingly thinking they were Persian scouts. More, he had been intent on leading them to the western gates, all the while muttering about his wife’s mother. They had ridden through the streets with their heads down, and it was like swimming upriver at times, with endless waves of people rushing in the opposite direction, carrying vessels of water from the cistern. But, to their relief, the gates were open to allow streams of people to bring water in from the riverbank. The two guards on the gatehouse did seem to overly scrutinise them, but offered no challenge. At the last, the good-hearted, prune-faced old man had left them outside the gates and wandered back inside.

Pavo hoped the old man would not be punished for his part in helping them escape. A good man who was merely doing his job. A thought had crossed his mind at that moment; for every dark-hearted cur they had encountered in Persian lands, there had been just as many good souls. He thought of Khaled, of Zubin.

They rode hard for a good two hours, staying close to the Shapur River gorge. Apart from this jagged fissure, the dusty plain ahead was featureless, dry, and utterly flat. The faint band of blue that heralded the Persian Gulf seemed to forever slip further away. Worse, the outline of Bishapur still loomed behind them, magnified by the smudges of dark smoke that coiled from it and reached up into the dusk sky like claws.

As tiredness set in, Pavo found his thoughts jumbled and jabbering. His heart ached with every beat as he thought of Father. This was tempered only by the occasional glow of pride as he recalled Father striking the life from Ramak. He ran a hand over his dirt and blood-encrusted beard, then took to smoothing at the worn leather bracelet Father had tied around his wrist. They were free. But Father was gone. Now there was no more guessing, no more doubt. He twisted to look back over his shoulder and wondered at all that burned in that city; Father, the tortured remains of Emperor Valerian, the vile creature, Ramak and, down on the arena floor, Felix. The little Greek had been at the heart of the XI Claudia since the day he had enlisted. Ever since that day, many such men had died, and now so few remained. Habitus, Noster, Sextus and Rufus, just a few of the many that had been lost along the way in this mission. Then there was Carbo. A man who had betrayed his comrades in exchange for freedom, then found that he could not live with his deeds, marching back to the scene of his shame to die. His emotions were tangled over the centurion. On one hand, he had betrayed Father. On the other hand, if Father had been so underhand to secure his own freedom, would Pavo have shunned him for it?