Leviathan(29)

Connor sat up. “What did you say?”

Anticipating skepticism, Thor nodded curtly. “Yes. It was known to breathe fire,” he added.

A silence passed, Connor seeing in his mind the steel plate melted into shreds beyond the wiring. He thought about confiding it. Decided to wait.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. “Go on.”

“Historically,” Thor continued without hesitation, “the largest and most powerful of all the leviathans was the Heraldic Dragon. But the entire species of leviathan was apparently a family of closely related creatures, some more powerful than others. The lesser leviathans were known as wyverns, amphepteres, or guivres. And the prehistoric plesiosaur may have also been incorrectly included in the species, but the plesiosaur was not a true leviathan. It was simply an ocean creature which, by all the evidence, survives to this day. The rest of the leviathans, however, were smaller and weaker images of the Heraldic Dragon. But the Heraldic Dragon was the greatest of all leviathans. It was unchallenged in size and strength and was said to have defeated entire armies in battle.”

“Just how big was this thing?” Connor asked.

“It is unknown. Apparently the size of Heraldic Dragons could vary. Many of the largest dragons were observed in England, India, and North Africa. In the ancient world, Africa was infamous for large leviathans. And during the height of the Roman Empire, when Rome controlled North Africa, there was even a Roman Legion that engaged a leviathan in battle.”

“When?” Connor asked. He had a need for specifics.

Thor didn't hesitate. “In A.D. 67 the Roman historian Octavus Livy wrote that he personally witnessed a savage and bloody battle between a single leviathan and the Eighth Roman Legion, led by General Scipio Regulus. The battle occurred in what is now Libya and lasted for almost a week. Livy wrote that over three thousand Roman soldiers were killed in the encounter.”

Connor stared a moment. “That's incredible. The Romans were disciplined fighters.” He paused again. “What started the battle?”

“Livy writes that the leviathan attacked the Legion without warning,” Thor answered. “There was no reason, no provocation. Apparently, Leviathan was a beast of unnatural hostility. That agrees with other historical accounts of its temperament. But once the battle was engaged, it was a battle to the death. Livy recorded that the Legion fought effectively against it, but the leviathan was heavily armored and couldn't be wounded. Eventually, recognizing a complete defeat of his six thousand men at hand, General Regulus ordered a desperate retreat. The surviving Roman soldiers then built siege engines, like catapults, for hurling heavy stones. Afterwards, they attacked the leviathan again and eventually cornered it in a small canyon, where they crushed it with repeated blows.”

“So leviathans were prone to attack people?” Connor asked, uneasy.

“Apparently, yes,” Thor replied, brooding. He had become more Icelandic as he continued, darker and more somber. “In the eleventh century it was recorded by Byliny, a respected Ukrainian historian, that a leviathan had terrorized the steppes of Western Russia for decades. It was called Gorynych and was supposedly responsible for slaughtering a large number of villagers. It was finally killed after a savage, month-long battle with a legendary Ukrainian hunter named Dobrynja, who hunted the beast down and killed it to avenge his brother's death.”

“Just one man?” Connor broke in. “A single man killed a leviathan?”

Thor shook his head. “I believe, from the oldest and most accurate description of the beast, that what Dobrynja slew was a wyvern and not the biblical Leviathan or mythical dragon.” A pause. “It was obviously not a creature equal to the size of the leviathan that attacked the Roman Army in North Africa. That leviathan was almost certainly the heraldic dragon, and no single man who ever lived could defeat such a beast in combat.”

A pause to gather his thoughts and Thor went on, “But other battles between foreign armies and the leviathans, or heraldic dragons, are recorded in the historical documents of India, En-gland, France, China, Japan, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Africa as late as the eighth century. They were recorded by dispassionate historians who had virtually no contact with one another and sought only to leave an accurate record of their times. All of the descriptions of heraldic dragons agree in general, but some commentators noted unusual aspects of the creatures that others did not.”

Connor's brow hardened, concentrated. “Like what?”

Thoughtful, Thor seemed to search his memory. “In Historia Natural is, written in 1701, it's recorded that a powerful heraldic dragon was killed on Vatican Hill in 1669 during a savage fight with the entire Army of Rome. It was a bloody engagement because the Romans, no matter how hard pressed, could not very well retreat from their own city and retain their pride. They were forced to stand their ground to the last man. It is recorded that the brutal conflict lasted an entire day and reportedly reduced the standing militia of Rome to a skeletal crew. And upon the creature's slow and bloody death, it was examined by the Regulaus-Cassium, prefect of the city. Overall, the surviving description, also recorded by numerous scholars, fits the biblical Leviathan or the heraldic dragon. But the leviathan slain on Vatican Hill was also recorded to have had webbed feet.”