I spat on the ground. The girl’s screams were her own. Damn it, Corvus, the girls screams are her own.
The wheel of death spun in my mind, but where else could I take it? I would not voice my concerns out loud. Who did such a thing? And even if I could find some kindly soul to listen – some soft touch amongst the hard steel of the legion – then perhaps that someone would take pity on me, thinking me full of sorrow and timid mourning.
They would be wrong.
I was full of anger. Brimming with it like a boiling cauldron. The thought of the dead didn’t make me want to curl up and join them. It made me want to punch, bite, strike and kill.
‘Brother?’ Marcus. Quiet, but awake.
‘Over here.’
He joined me in my place amongst the rocks. The night was as black as pitch. No moon. ‘They could march their army by our noses and we’d never see them.’
‘Smell them though. Hear them.’
My brother knew what it meant when I was terse. He stayed quiet.
‘You should go back to sleep,’ I said.
‘I’ll keep you company.’
We stood in silence until the black night bled to grey, and death and dawn came to the mountains.
The cloud hung like grey wool about the peak. Visibility was low. Dawn had yet to grow to day. It was time to move out.
For the first time I saw the four women. They were kicked out of the hut. None had clothing. None made any protest. Their spirit had fled in the night. They were empty vessels, now. Ghost ships adrift in the current of war.
‘We can’t take them with us,’ Marcus told his men. ‘You’ve had your fun, lads.’
I couldn’t see the features of the men as they heard those words. I don’t know if they mistook the order, or proceeded on their own initiative. I just saw four shapes shoved on to their knees. Heard the sound of blades sawing into flesh. The crunch as the steel grazed against spine. I heard the gags as the women writhed on the floor, and the curse of a soldier as pumping blood shot over his feet. ‘Give me some bastard warning next time!’ he growled at his comrades.
Unburdened, the century fell into loose ranks on the trail. The mountain was no parade square, but there was safety in formation, and Marcus would hold to one as much as was possible.
‘Prepare to move…’ he told his men, the order passed from mouth to mouth, muted by tactics and tiredness.
‘I’ll catch up with you,’ I told him.
Concerned with command, he didn’t question my decision.
The century moved off. My mount Balius had been taken back to legion HQ by the dispatch rider. I stayed behind alone. I shouldn’t have. If there were rebels waiting in the shadows, drawn by the screams, then I would not be able to outpace them. Not weighed down in a legionary’s war gear.
But instead of leaving, I stood alone in the silence. There were no sounds of choking, now. The women had leaked their lives away before the last pair of sandals had marched by their heads.
When the light of dawn was long enough, I looked at them. Three were face down in the stained dirt. The fourth was on her back, her hands on her neck. Between her legs was as bloody as her opened throat. Her rape had been violent. Her death, more so.
All about me on the peak was silent stillness. There was a finality in the air. A judgement on the value of life. The mountain didn’t cry for its children. Not a single stir, or accusation. Not even so much as a breeze.
I looked down. The dirt was dark red beside the child.
The sun had risen before I walked away.
‘What’s wrong?’ Marcus asked. I had caught up with the group before the sun had burned the haze from the mountains. Now, it felt as though a torch was being held in our faces as the century took a pause for breath and water. ‘The heat?’ It wasn’t the heat. ‘Corvus. Speak to me. I’m your brother.’
I could see that my silence was causing him pain. It was the only reason I opened my mouth. ‘Those women today,’ I shared begrudgingly, ‘every time I see something like that, it just…’ I wanted to hit something, then. Kill someone. I forced myself to finish. ‘It just reminds me.’
My greatest friend. As he had done so many times before, Marcus put a hand on my shoulder. His patient look righted my ship. A ship that was heading for the rocks of self-destruction. He was the only one who knew exactly what I was being reminded of. ‘You’ll want to hit me for what I’m about to say,’ he promised. ‘You’ve hit me when I’ve said it before.’
Maybe I would, but I could see that he’d take that punch without complaint. He’d still be there for me. Like all brothers, we had bloodied each other’s noses before. ‘Just fucking say it,’ I growled. Did I want to hear it?
‘You have to let her go.’
Yes.
But how? Better to ask the sun to rise in the west and set in the east than to ask a man to forgive, and forget.
‘Fuck off, Marcus,’ I growled, though my words were weaker than my anger.
Did he just fucking smile?
‘Brother, listen. Look, and listen. We have what we always wanted!’ he said, gesturing at his century. ‘We’re soldiers, brother! Soldiers at war!’
I snorted, and shook my head. I loved this bastard, but he was wrong. So wrong. I wanted to embrace him for that foolishness, but I couldn’t do such a thing in front of his command. Instead I tapped the sword on my hip. ‘This is what you always wanted, Marcus,’ I told him. ‘You.’
I had wanted her. Nothing but her.
Maybe I would have told him that again, if I hadn’t heard the sentry’s calclass="underline" ‘Runners coming in!’
The two lithe men were soaked in sweat. One spoke, bringing breathless word from the main body of the cohort: ‘You’re ordered to clear a ravine that runs to the west, sir. The scouts saw movement there. I’m to show you the way, and he’ll take word back to the cohort commander that you got the order, sir.’
Marcus looked the two men over. ‘What century are you?’
‘Fourth.’
‘Anyone know these two?’ he asked of his own command. Only when a handful confirmed that they did was Marcus satisfied as to their identity. He would not be drawn into a trap by the enemy posing as our own runners.
‘You’re a cunning bastard,’ I told him as the scouts led off.
‘You can go back to the main cohort if you want?’ he offered, ignoring the compliment. ‘The runner can lead you. This is likely to be a wild goose chase, brother. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done this kind of thing since we started in Siscia, and we’ve never found a thing.’
I shook my head. ‘If you do find something, then I want to be beside you when it happens.’
Marcus smiled. He knew that I wanted to protect him.
I smiled back. I wanted to kill.
The floor of the ravine was a narrow, malicious bastard that caused a man to stumble over half-buried rock as soon as he raised his eyes from the dirt. The sides of the pass were no more than a hundred yards apart, and rose sharply upwards from the rock-strewn ground. Here and there, copses of hardy trees had grown in tight fists, and it was in such an area that one of the cohort’s scouts had seen movement. ‘Sun shining off metal,’ he’d said.
‘Which copse was it?’ Marcus had asked the runner.
‘They didn’t tell me, sir.’
And so we searched them all, at least at first. A few footprints were found in the dust, and a keen-eyed soldier spotted the hind leg bone of a hare which had been exposed to flame, though we saw nothing of a fire, or the men who had lit it. Instead we found steeper ravine walls, and slow progress.