Birth of an Order

Quintus Tullius was exhausted. His thighs were chafed raw, his entire body ached and he had neither slept nor eaten much in the last three days. Nevertheless, he held his head high and sat erect on his horse despite what the effort cost him. General Varus was determined to bring the Merethaimi army to battle, and every man in his three legions knew he would march them straight into Hell itself before he'd give up the pursuit.

Miserable as he was, Quintus couldn't feel sorry for himself. At least he was on horseback. Varus was driving the men mercilessly; yesterday, Quintus heard they'd marched almost 22 miles overland. That was nothing special for a legion travelling along a well-constructed road, but here, in the hilly roadless wilds of the Ippolese borderlands, it was a brutal pace.

And yet, Varus had little choice. The elf king’s army was half cavalry, and its infantry consisted mostly of long-legged archers. For the last month, the cursed elves had marched circles around Varus's three legions, maddening the general with their tantalizing proximity. Twice, King Everbright had even drawn up his forces as if to offer battle, only to melt away silently in the deep of the night.

Quintus smiled wryly as he recalled the curses that had echoed throughout the camp when the general emerged from his tent only to discover that the enemy had again disappeared. That was three mornings ago, and it seemed as if they'd been rushing headlong in mad pursuit ever since. Quintus didn't even want to think about how many miles behind them trailed their supply wagons and the artillery; it would be half-burned polentus and no meat again tonight. Even the most desperate camp followers had been left in their dust for more than two days.

His horse staggered wearily over the top of a steep rise, and as he surveyed the long lines of troops below, he felt an unexpected burst of energy at the sight of two Vezian outriders galloping towards the head of the first column, directly toward the general's eagle. With luck, they'd have news of the enemy's precise whereabouts, not far off, he hoped. He wheeled his horse about and made his way carefully back down the slope he'd just climbed, looking for his legatus, who, as was his wont, was riding with the legion's rearguard.

“Sir, a party of scouts returns! They ride hard!”

The legatus, Flavius Mamercus, was a stout old soldier, bitter and cynical from more than thirty years on the campaign trail. He received the welcome news with little more than a scowl. A plebian, he was as apolitical a man as had ever marched a mile with sandals, shield and sword. Quintus, whose patrician family had seen better days, was at first grieviously disappointed when he learned that he'd been assigned to the man as a tribune of the VII – serving a Flavian would do nothing for him in the circles that mattered back in Æmor – but he'd since learned that if Flavius Mamercus could do him no political favors, he was a treasure trove of martial experience.

“Did they come from the east or west?” Flavius asked. He nodded thoughtfully at the answer. “Demmed demonspawn ran into the horse Varus sent off two days ago. If they declined the engagement, they'll head for the ford at that little village. What's it called?”

“Rovina,” Quintus answered immediately. Mamercus expected his tribunes to read their maps and read them well. So, he was surprised when, without warning, the legate frowned and spat contemptuously.

“Varus is a demmed fool. Lad, you'd better pray the elf king is stupid enough to tie himself down with Tertio's horse, because mark my words, we're in for it if he doesn't.”

We are? Quintus didn’t understand the legate’s reasoning, but before he had the chance to ask Mamercus to explain himself, a horn sounded, signaling that they would make camp for the night. He saluted quickly and rode off, for as the senior tribune, it was his duty to see to the disposal of the legion's ten cohorts as they prepared their nightly fortifications. The legate's words worried him, though, as the plan was to catch the elf king between here and the great river Angusa. A fast and treacherous river, Angusa could only be forded in two places. Rovina was one of them, and Tertio's five hundred mounted spears stood between Everbright and the other ford.

Two hours later, in the general's command tent, Quintus learned precisely why Mamercus was looking even more sour than usual. The grizzled legate was jabbing a sausage-like finger at the map that had been unrolled in the center of the tent.

“They turned away from Tertio here. They’re marching north now, towards Rovina, here.”

“Exactly as I hoped,” General Varus answered, his deep voice rich with anticipation. He was a tall, handsome man from one of Æmor's richest families, if not its most respected. At forty-three, he was already a curator and rumor held him to be a serious candidate for one of the three Consulships next year. And Varus, along with every officer in the camp, knew that returning to the city with an elf king in tow would suffice to ensure that the rumor became reality.

“You see, Flavius Mamercus, your pessimism was misplaced and our gamble is paying off in most handsome returns. The elf made his fatal mistake in fleeing from our horse, because the advantage now lies with us. We outnumber him four-to-one, and regardless of whether he tries to hold the pass against us or runs for the river, he is lost. In the mountains, he cannot bring his horse to bear and the greater part of his army is therefore useless. We are too close for him to risk the river crossing, so, he will have to stand and fight with the river at his back or lose the greater part of his army. And so, finally, we have him!”

“Or does he have us?” muttered Mamercus dourly. “Blasted blighters always got tricks up their sleeves. Turn us all into glass.”

“Legend and lore, old sourpuss.” The legate of the Xth legion was another up-and-comer, a mere equestrian, not a senator, but one known to be a rising star of the popolares. His name was Maurus Gallus and he was Varus's strongest supporter. “Their mages can't do much more than throw fire at us, they might as well be made of wood and twine. I'd fear them more if they had twenty onagers instead. Although 'tis true, unless we can wait to bring up the artillery, we shall have to advance naked in the face of their archers as well as that accursed magery.”

“Fire holds no fear for a man behind a shield.” Varus snorted. “Everbright has not been running from us for the last four weeks out of confidence. He is a coward. A bolder man would have smashed through Tertio and used the southern ford, but of course, he is no man! Now he is caught between iron and water, too proud to flee and save himself. They say he has lived more than five hundred years; I say it is time to put an end to him!”

Quintus saw Mamercus roll his eyes as his fellow officers cheered their commander's bold words. That did not, however, stop him from adding his own voice to the acclamation. For who could stand against the might of the Amorran legions when God himself marched with them against the evil spawned of demon loins?

Still, he knew a sliver of doubt when, as he left the general's tent and began to make his way through the thousands of small fires lighting up the night, he saw a stocky silhouette facing the looming darkness of the mountains. He waited silently as the veteran legate cursed under his breath, then turned around to lay a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“We'll reach the pass by noon, lad. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you as we go through. That's where I'd hit us, was I the elf. The first will march in the rear with the horse; I want the sixth in the middle with you, and I'll give you twenty extra horse. The eighth will take the fore, and I'll give them to Brutus. If anyone can extricate them from this whoreson's chamber pot, it's him.”

“You truly think the elf will try to ambush us?” Quintus couldn't see the legate's face in the night's shadow, but the grim tone of his voice was unmistakable.

“If he doesn't, he's a bigger fool than Varus. Now, you've the makings of a good soldier, Quintus Tullius, don’t forget that. When all Hell breaks loose, take a deep breath, look around you and remember that telling your men to do something, anything, is always better than doing nothing.”

The legate squeezed his shoulder once and walked away into the night. Quintus shook his head and smiled after the crotchety old man, and yet he could not quite shake the discomfiting notion that no one who had seen the tail end of five centuries was likely to be a fool.

General Varus might not have had the benefit of his opponent’s five hundred years' experience, but neither was he a military novice. Well aware of the potential danger posed by the pass through which his army needed to cross, marked by wooded ridges on either side, he sent two turmai of thirty riders to sweep the ridges on either side before the great column began to march through. The sun had reached its zenith by the time the eighth of the VII passed the giant boulder that marked the start of the pass, which Quintus learned was called Ardus Wald.

Soon after, the sixth cohort marched in, and Quintus considered that the forward elements of the X legion were likely clear through to the other side. It seemed that Flavius Mamercus's fears were misplaced, as on either ridge he could see an Ippolese horseman stationed in a position of overwatch. He was wondering if Varus might push on to Rovina tonight, and had just reluctantly resigned himself to another long day's march when Marius, the cohort's centurion, pointed at something high in the clear sky above them.

“That's a bloody big bird there.”

Quintus leaned back in his saddle and shaded his eyes. It was large, sure enough, but it soared so high that Quintus could not determine its size. It was clearly a raptor of some kind, however, as it soared effortlessly on the mountain winds.

“Must be an eagle. Too big for a hawk.”

Quintus shrugged and returned his attention to the men marching in front of him. But when Marius inhaled sharply, he glanced back at the centurion, then back up at the great wash of blew. What he saw bid fair to take his breath away too.

For he suddenly realized that the great bird was higher up than he’d thought, and much larger too. Worse, he saw that someone rode upon its back. War eagle! He watched, frozen with awe, as the tiny rider raised an arm, and a moment later, there was a flash of purple lightning followed by a thunderclap ripped through the empty sky.

The earth responded with a thunder of its own. There was a terrible rumbling on every side, and battle-hardened soldiers shrieked in terror as the ground shook beneath their feet. Quintus was thrown from his horse as the animal panicked, and terrible screams began erupting from the column behind and before him.

Stunned, he pushed himself up from the rocky ground and drew his sword. It was a useless gesture, perhaps even stupid, and yet it gave him sense of purpose. What had Mamercus told him? Take a deep breath and look around you.

He looked around and saw that if all Hell had not broken loose, certainly its close cousin had been unleashed. Arrows were hissing from the heights above, and he stared in disbelief as the Ippolese horseman who had been guarding the north ridge knocked arrow to bow and loosed it into the chaotic midst of his cohort before melting back into the trees. Treachery!

Or perhaps not. Think... think! Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong, for the Ippolese were no more horse archers than were the Amorran legions. They were lancers. Elf magic, then? As if to confirm his thought, a massive green fireball was hurled down from the heights and whizzed just over his head to explode harmlessly behind him. Or perhaps not so harmlessly. Someone was screaming and he smelled the stink of burning flesh. He saw a man on a horse and scrambled towards him. It was Marius.

The centurion had somehow managed to keep the men in a semblance of order. They had their shields out and Marius was cursing like a demon-possessed madman as he ordered each contubernium into a series of eight-man tetsudos. Praise the Immaculate for centurions, Quintus thought as he scrambled towards the man.

“You're alive, sir!” Marius shouted. “I saw you go down and I feared the worst! But sir, we can't stay here, sir! What do we do, sir?”

Quintus blinked dumbly at the veteran centurion. What do we do? You're asking me? The realization that the men were looking to him for direction hit him like a physical blow. Wounded men were screaming on every side, and whether he looked to the front of the pass or the rear, he could see arrows and fireballs smashing into the helpless mass of men. They seemed to come from nowhere. Something, anything, is better than nothing. He could almost hear the old legate's voice echoing through his mind.

“Give me your horse,” he shouted. “Tell the men to seek what cover they can find and stay in turtle-formation until I see if we can go forward or if we have to retreat. The slopes are too steep, we can't attack.”

“Sir,” Marius thumped his chest and slid from his horse. Quintus caught up the reins and leaped into the saddle. Urging the beast forward with some difficulty, he pushed his way out from amidst the Eighth, and, as soon as he was clear, dug in his heels and galloped madly forward along the rock wall.

He leaned as low over the horse's neck as he could as he rode past the confused and noisome swarm of trapped and frightened soldiers. He saw the fifth's centurion was leading a group of ten or twelve men up the steep northern slope, but a fireball flew from the woods on the south ridge and burned the man alive along with the two soldiers nearest him. The survivors, shouting with fear and horror, tumbled down the slope and fled back to the meager shelter of the trapped column. Quintus fought off the sudden urge to vomit. You don’t have time for that, he told himself.

He was just reaching the third cohort when he saw Brutus, the veteran primus pilus, riding towards him. At the sight of Quintus, the centurion brought up his horse and slid from its back before his mount had even stopped.

“Down, Quintus Tullius, get down!”

Quintus quickly complied, just in time, as an arrow split the horsehair plume on his helm. “Can we go forward?”

“No, it’s blocked! Their mages brought down a landslide on top of the XIIth's rearguard. Curse the Hellspawn! We have to back out of the pass. I don't think they have many archers up there on the heights, but we can't see them. No one’s spotted a single one yet! It's not just the trees, I think it's a sorcery of some kind.”

His borrowed mount suddenly screamed horribly and reared, nearly pulling Quintus off his feet before he remembered to let go of the reins. Despair threatened to overpower him as the horse ran off, an arrow protruding from its flank.

“That's Marcus's mare, is he dead?”

“No, I left him in command of my cohort. You've the horn, why haven't you sounded the retreat?”

The centurion grinned unexpectedly, exposing worn, yellow teeth. “Not yet, lad. Who's to say we can retreat? Think, Quintus Tullius, if they've the mages for one landslide, odds are they cut us off from behind as well. If those rocks they dropped on the XII's rear were the last bit, then why are they hitting us here?”

Quintus groaned. Brutus was surely right. In fact, Flavius Mamercus was quite possibly buried under an avalanche of stone already. Still, they could assume nothing; it was their duty to see if the legate survived and had orders for them.

“Give me your horse, then. I'll go.”

Brutus laughed and shook his head. The centurion almost seemed to be enjoying the madness engulfing them on every side. “No, lad, you've done for two already, you're bad luck. Take the horn instead; if you don't get orders in a quarter-hour, blow the retreat. We can't take much more of this before we break, and then we're all dead.”

Quintus accepted the horn and slung it around his neck. Brutus didn't salute, the older man simply slapped him on the shoulder before remounting and riding off. Quintus nodded, trying to find courage within his heart, and for a moment he almost believed they might survive this disaster. But his heart quailed when he saw an arrow take the primus pilus in the side before he had ridden twenty paces. Brutus swayed, but did not fall as he continued riding, although the way in which he slumped in the saddle made Quintus think that the tough centurion might have received his death wound. God Almighty, fifteen thousand men, trapped by the mountains and beset from above, was it possible they were all going to die here? But he was too young, far too young to die. Surely, it was impossible!

He raised the horn to his lips, then lowered it. Too soon. Brutus was wounded, not dead. He might yet make his way through. Once the retreat was sounded, what little discipline remained would disappear as the legion dissolved into a mob of five thousand frightened, desperate men.

“Where's Licius Julius,” he shouted to a pair of soldier's crouching back to back behind their shields?” The youngest of the tribunes had been with the third.

“Dead!” one shouted, pointing to a charred mass of bones and half-molten iron. “They got him and the centurion at the same time!” Fewer fireballs were now arcing down from the heights, but those that did were larger and aimed more selectively at the iron-shielded tetsudos protecting small groups of men gathered together for protection. The deadly hail of arrows continued, too, finding even the smallest gaps in a soldier's armor. It was a loser's choice between fire and fletched arrow, and death either way.

Quintus was suddenly possessed of an irrational anger. He shook his fist and shouted at the cloudless sky, not at the enemy but at his faithless god. “Where are you now, Immaculate One? Are you with us no more? Have you abandoned us to the grave? Will you leave your servants to die, blind and helpless, at the hands of your enemies? Just give us a chance, Lord, at least give us the eyes to see those who strike us down!”

He blinked. As if in answer to his cry, his vision suddenly went awry. Strange colors filled it as the entire sky seemed to warp and swell above him. Half-expecting to be struck down by lightning for his near-blasphemous diatribe, he wondered if perhaps he was already dead, smitten by the fist of a vengeful Divine. But no, he looked at his hands, they were cracked and calloused as always.

He glanced up at the southern ridge and saw, to his amazement, a strange purple glow emanating from the woods. There was something in the middle of it, and when it moved, he realized that it was an arm. An arm belonging to one of their wizards, he realized, as a fireball appeared in the air in front of the hand, then plunged towards the Amorrans below.

Close to the eerie glow, perhaps twenty paces, he noticed a pair of arrows flying out from the trees. They seemed to come from nowhere; he wondered if perhaps Brutus was right and the elf mage was cloaking the archers with a spell of invisibility. Were such things possible? Quintus fell to his knees in sudden and grateful awe. “Oh, Lord Almighty, thank you, thank you, oh mighty God!” If only they had their artillery with them, he realized, they could strike back. And the elven mage was out of range for pilum, but slings, now, that was another matter.

“Velites, to me!” he roared in a voice that carried over the shouts and cries of the wounded. Five Caslani emerged reluctantly from the makeshift shelter of their dead horses and sprinted towards him. “Do you see that tree, there, with the crooked branch? Count ten trees to the right and give me five volleys. I don't care if you don't see anything, just give me five unless I tell you to stop!”

“Sir,” they saluted despite their obvious bewilderment and began to load stone pellets into their slings while still crouching as close to the ground as possible. “What's the use,” grumbled one of them in his rough Ippolese accent.

“Because I can see through the bastard's spells,” Quintus snarled. “Now give me those volleys or I'll strangle you with your own bloody sling!” The recalcitrant man's eyes narrowed, and although his companions betrayed similar skepticism in varying degrees, all five obediently began whirling the thin leather straps over their heads. “There we go!” Quintus cried as he heard the snap of leather and saw the wizard's glowing arm suddenly disappear, shattered, he hoped, by one of the small missiles. The purple glow remained.

“That's it, that's it,” he shouted. “That's it, don't stop! Don't stop!” The Caslani, inspired by his enthusiasm, stood taller and slung their deadly slings with the fury born of a release from helplessness. Quintus could not see if any stones struck home, but after the third volley, the purple glow abruptly disappeared and a roar, half-frightened and half-angry, went up from the nearby soldiers behind him as ten archers appeared out of nowhere on the ridge above them. A flurry of spears were launched, uselessly, at now-visible enemy, but a dozen more Caslani rose up and joined the first group of slingers in driving the archers back into the woods before a hail of stones.

Quintus looked back over his shoulder and saw that the archers on the northern ridge were now visible too, although only he could see the two unearthly-colored glows in among them, one red and one green. This time, he was able pick out one mage clearly as the elf lifted his hand, pointed, and caused another lethal fireball to explode within the Amorran ranks. But Quintus quickly indicated both locations to the slingers, and by the fifth volley, the wizards were gone, presumably in retreat, leaving more archers visible to the naked eye. He was surprised at how few there seemed to be; from the number of dead and wounded lying about he would have guessed three times as many.

He could still hear shouts and explosions to the east and west, and it occurred to him that without the terrible magic fire to drive them back, this cohort could easily take the ridge, then sweep through the woods clearing the heights. Off to his right, he saw the southern slope even had a small gully that would offer them a modicum of protection from the archers as they climbed. He smiled, and, for the first time since the battle began, drew his sword.

“Take heart, men of Æmor, take heart,” he cried to those nearby. “The wizards are gone! Their spell is broken! Follow me or die!”

Once again, he raised the horn, but it was the charge he sounded. The Caslanis cheered and sent up another storm of stones, one of which caught an unlucky archer squarely in the forehead. The unconscious elf collapsed and tumbled from the ridge to the savage roars of the angry soldiers. Before Quintus could even begin to make his way towards the slope, the elf had been dispatched and two dozen men were swarming up the gully. The archers on the northern side began directing their volleys into the backs of the climbers, but the Amorrans were well-armored and the Caslani below were quick to turn about and drive back the elves with a series of furious volleys. Five or six men fell, stricken, but the raging iron tide rose inexorably up the slope, heedless of the elven arrows.

The shouting above him and ring of metal on metal spurred Quintus on, but by the time he reached the top, the only elves that remained were dead. Most had run away, but nine lay motionless on ground splattered by their strange blue blood. Two of the nine were unarmed, mages, by the look of their robes, and the soldiers gave those bodies a wide berth. It was said that devils came to claim those who wielded unclean powers when they died, and even the most hard-bitten legionary in the cohort was leery of such things. The men cheered at the sight of him standing in their midst, horn in hand. But then they fell silent, and he realized they were waiting for orders. His orders. But this time, the thought did not daunt him, this time, he knew what needed to be done.

That first lot, he sent west with orders to clear the heights and find Flavius Mamercus, if possible. As more of the cohort clambered over the top, he directed the next group to the east, then sent more to the west. Every twenty men, he changed directions. He counted more than three hundred forty; the Third had been bled, to be sure, but it hadn't lost quite as many as he feared. But when he saw the first Caslani begin to reach the heights – they'd stayed behind to cover the infantry's ascent - Quintus stopped them.

“Stay below!” he shouted at the slingers still climbing. It looked as if only twenty or so of the cohort's forty lightly armored missileers had survived, including three of those first five, but they would suffice. “Stay in the pass, all of you from him on, go west and tell the Fourth they can escape this way.”

“And the rest of us?” asked the slinger standing beside him. Quintus recognized him as the first man to join him earlier. No coward, this one. Quintus grinned at him and brandished the horn.

“We'll climb back down and run east to spread the word, friend. As far as we can. Are you with me?”

The slinger grinned and thumped his chest. His face was bloody, his armor was nothing but the indifferent protection of leather and he didn't even wear a sword. But he was game, even so. “To Hell or to Elebrion, sir!”

The baths were an almost unbelievable luxury following more than nine months in the field. When he closed his eyes and sipped at his glass of chilled wine, he could easily almost imagine that he, too, had died on the rocky field of slaughter and was now in paradise.

The retreat had been nightmarish, as the elves kept up their barrage of arrows and balefire from the southern ridge until the last soldier had been extricated from the deathtrap. Flavius Mamercus had survived the rockslide intended to seal them to their fate – as the primus pilus correctly guessed, the canny elves had used their cursed sorcery to unleash avalanches fore and aft – only to take his death wound from an arrow that found its way to his unarmoured armpit.

“I knew you were a soldier, boy!” he coughed up blood as Quintus kneeled next to him. Reaching out, he placed the wooden rod of command in the younger man's hand. “Knew it from the start. You saved the legion, now you must get them home.”

“But what about the Xth and XIIth?” he'd asked the dying legate.

“Not your concern, just get the lads home. Æmor may have need of them once word of this disaster gets out.”

Flavius Mamercus died that night, in the rude encampment the survivors constructed a half-day’s march from the pass. But it was an orderly retreat, not a rout, and that evening, Brutus, the tough old veteran who'd somehow survived his wound, presented Quintus with a crown woven of grass before the assembled legion. Of the 5,240 men of the VIIth who'd marched from their winter quarters last spring, they counted 4,195 survivors; almost a quarter were wounded. The eighth, ninth and tenth cohorts had taken the worst of it, but by the grace of Immaculatus, the fifth, sixth and seventh were mostly unscathed.

A month later, Quintus handed the VII's rod over to a hard-faced general at the bridge that marked the city limits, who glared at him as if he were personally responsible for the Amorran defeat. Quintus only smiled to himself; no doubt the man's demeanor would be rather different had he known about the grass crown. Eager to get back to Æmor and break the news to his father, Quintus had taken his leave of the men and ridden ahead of the marching legion, but as always, bad news had flown on crow's wings.

The ultimate fate of the other two legions was still unknown, but common wisdom, always optimistic in Æmor, currently held it that General Varus had escaped the elven trap on the other side, and, in his fury, chased King Everbright across the border. As to that, Quintus was not so sure, but he held his tongue. Nor had he told anyone except the primus pilus, Marius, and his fellow tribunes about the miraculous ability to see the elven mages that had saved them all.

The clamor of the great city was startling after months in the wilderness, even months spent in the close vicinity of twenty thousand men. The women, in particular, drove him nearly to distraction with their flowery perfumes that somehow managed to penetrate the stink of his long-unwashed body. As he rode past the Archalean baths, he suddenly decided that he couldn't possibly go to his father looking – and more to the point, smelling – like a peasant who hadn't bathed since the new year.

The attendants were taken aback by his jangling armor, but they showed no hesitation to take his coin and one of the slave boys even offered to clean and polish it for him. Quintus had gratefully accepted the service, and even more gratefully accepted the flagon of chilled wine offered to him. The warm water was even better than a woman, he thought with satisfaction. Laying back against the side of the pool, he placed his head in one of the rests and closed his eyes. He lay there, gently rocking with the water's movement, at peace with the world.

Or so he thought. He was more than a little startled when his arms were seized roughly by two strong pairs of hands and he was dragged violently from the pool. His wine glass shattered on the ceramic tile and the dark wine poured into the water like blood as he was left sprawled naked on the cold tile. He rolled over and gasped as he saw that the men standing behind those accosting him bore the bound axes of Amorran authority. But what could the lictors want with him?

“Quintus Tullius, you are summoned, by order of the Urban Praetor.” The head lictor was a tall man, and his cold grey eyes were hard. “Put your toga on, sir, my orders are to bring you to the Praetor at once!”

“Am I under arrest?”

“My orders are to bring you to Gaius Aufinius.”

“Why?”

“My orders are to bring you to Gaius Aufinius.”

Clearly, the lictor was not inclined to be forthcoming. So be it. Quintus couldn't put on his toga; he didn't have one. But the wide-eyed slaveboy brought him his armor, still uncleaned, and, with some distaste, Quintus slid his stinking tunic over his head, followed by his armor. He did not attempt to strap and buckle it, though, for the lictors had the authority to unbind those axes and behead him if they so chose, and Quintus had no intention of providing them with an excuse. There must be some mistake! Varus had surely returned. But was the news for good or ill?

The lictors, impassive, gave nothing away, but Quintus soon knew the truth from the long faces and unfriendly glances of the senators they passed even as the lictors marched him up the steps of the Rostrum. Whatever fate had befallen the two legions was not good.

“Quintus Tullius, son of Gaius Tullius Balbus.” The praetor called out his name in a deep, sonorous voice, and it echoed ominously across the open square. Not many people were about at the moment, but those few who were turned their heads. “Tribune of the VIIth Legion, in service to the late Legatus Flavius Mamercus.”

“Yes, Gaius Aufinius,” Quintus answered, his voice breaking a little. His uncertainty as to whether he was under arrest or not was making him nervous. He could feel the sweat beginning to form under his arms already, and cleared his throat. “That is me.”

The praetor nodded acknowledgement, barely glancing at him before turning to the group of twelve or so men standing together to Quintus's left. Quintus had not noticed them at first, but as soon as he saw them he realized he was in serious trouble. Some of Æmor's leading popolares were in the midst of that group, and to a man, they were allies of Lucius Valerius, whose head, Quintus assumed, was very likely adorning a lance belonging to King Caerwyn Everbright.

“Who lays the charges?”

“I do,” answered a tall man with a red beard and a purple stripe on his toga. He was a curator, and worse, a Lucian, the cousin of Lucius Varus.

“Then speak, Lucius Ahenobarbus.”

“I accuse Quintus Tullius of treachery! I accuse Quintus Tullius of cowardice in the face of the enemy! I accuse Quintus Tullius of fleeing the battlefield!” The man's voice was a loud one, a deep professional speaker's bass that projected throughout the square and beyond, and curious onlookers began to enter the square. “I accuse Quintus Tullius of sorcery, of complicity in the murder of his legate, Flavius Mamercus, and in the betrayal of the legions of Æmor!”

Quintus blinked, struck dumb by the outlandish monstrosity of the accusations against him. Had there been treachery? It was possible. They had surely stuck their necks in the noose at the pass. But what could it possibly have to do with him? He was no commander, he was only a lowly tribune!”

“How say you, Quintus Tullius?” The praetor sounded almost bored and he did not even bother to look at Quintus.

“Innocent! I am innocent!” he shouted. He stared wildly about the crowd gathering beneath him. “I have done no wrong!”

“Then you have nothing to fear,” said the praetor, but in such an off-handed, unconcerned manner that Quintus suddenly felt almost as frightened as he had at Ardus Wald.

“I am no traitor,” he shouted. “Not a month ago, I was given the grass crown by the centurion Brutus, first spear of the Seventh!”

“Liar!” The cry rose from the group of men behind his accuser and they quickly drowned out his protests. Neither the praetor nor the lictors saw fit to quiet them until one of the lictors moved behind Quintus and placed an exposed tip of his sharp axe at the base of Quintus's neck. “You will not speak unless spoken to, Quintus Tullius, or I shall behead you right here. This is not about you, so just play along and we'll see that you don't come to any harm.”

Silenced by the threat of the sharp metal, Quintus was forced to stand and listen to the lies concocted by the popolares. He was to be a scapegoat, he realized as he listened to the so-called witnesses tell vicious fictions about how he had met secretly with the elf king, how he had arranged for his legion to enter the pass last and how before the ambush had triggered, he had climbed to the safety of hills. The accusations were submitted by affadavits signed by eyewitnesses from all three legions, forged, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Their purpose, he realized as his fear mounted with every lie, each grander than the last, must be to salvage the reputation of the late Lucius Varus. His allies might mourn his loss, but even more they must fear the repercussions of his failure. But why him? He was merely a tribune and he could produce hundreds of witnesses to attest to his innocence!

Because Flavius Mamercus was dead, he realized, as his blood ran cold. The accusations grew ever more absurd, and despite his fear, Quintus almost began to get bored. At this rate, they'd be accusing him of fathering himself by raping his mother before nightfall. The theory, garbled as it was, appeared to be that Quintus practiced sorcery in secret and hoped that the evil elves would install him as a puppet Amorran sorceror-king. It was wildly ridiculous, but when the long list of lies finally came to an end, the praetor had only two questions for him.

“Is it true, Quintus Tullius, that you are a sorceror?”

“No!”

“Is it true, Quintus Tullius, that you can see auras of magic?”

Immaculatus, they knew! But how?

The praetor still refused to look at him, and Quintus realized that the man was avoiding his eyes because enough of a conscience remained to him that he dared not meet the gaze of one he was about to murder. Quintus's first instinct was to deny the charge, but he knew that they must have a witness in hand... yes, there, waiting in anticipation behind a fruitseller’s stand was Nicander, one of the tribunes from the VII. He must have been one of Varus’s spies, curse it, and if Quintus perjured himself now, his word would be worthless to defend himself against the other charges.

He took a deep breath and looked down at the crowd. “Yes, but -”

The crowd, larger now, audibly gasped. A buzzing of voices broke out just as the axe blade jabbed deeper into his skin and the voice in his ear snarled for silence. Alarmed, he complied, and that mistake sealed his doom, for no one could hear his explanations after the crowd erupted a moment later. It was responding to the praetor loudly banging the heel of his staff against the marble in indication of a verdict.

“Condemned out of his own mouth! I pronounce you guilty, Quintus Tullius, of sorcery, treachery and blasphemy! You shall be gagged, bound and thrown from the Rock of Tarvas! May the Immaculate One have mercy on your soul.”

When Quintus opened his mouth to protest the outrage, the lictor behind him slipped in a gag and drew it tight. Despairingly, he thrashed away from the man, but four of the man’s fellows were quick to seize him. Quintus could not believe it! Had he survived Aldus Wald only to be murdered by his fellow Amorrans? The crowd was going wild, some were jeering at him, others, more rational, were shouting at the praetor.

“To the rock!” the senator boomed in his deep, carrying voice, and Quintus knew that he was dead. Oh, the shame that this would bring his father! Immaculatus, why did you not let me die with honor at the pass? Did you bring me back here for this?'

I did not scorn a criminal's death. The voice flickered through his panicked mind, sounding almost amused. Be at peace. Be at peace? Are you mad? I'm getting murdered here! Quintus would have shaken his fist at the sky again if he could have only gotten it free. The lictors were wrapping him with thick ceremonial cords, the sort executioners used to strangle their victims; he noticed that the praetor had already disappeared. Off to collect his thirty pieces of silver, no doubt. Quintus hoped that the craven man, too, would be dead with tomorrow's dawn.

But as the lictors carried him down the steps, he could hear some sort of commotion ahead of him. “Stop,” he heard a commanding voice thunder over the crowd, and to his surprise, his would-be executioners stopped. He craned his neck around, trying to see what was happening, but as they were holding him barely above waist-level, he could see nothing but legs, togas and the occasional sword.

“Put him down... on his feet,” the voice ordered, qualifying the command just in time as Quintus felt the lictors' hold on him relax. When they rotated him about and stood him upright, Quintus was surprised to see that this potential rescuer wore the royal blue cape of the Lazuli, the princely cadre of sixty-six archpriests who stood below no living man save the Sanctiff himself. Better yet, it was Julius Albus, a man Quintus knew to be an acquaintance of his father's. “Get that out of his mouth.

Quintus retched and coughed so hard he doubled over. Still, he felt tremendously relieved, at least until he realized that Albus was not looking at him. Nor did the Lazulus show any signs of ordering him released. His heart sank again when he heard Albus tell Ahenobarbus and the head lictor that the verdict was void, not due to its irregularities, but because the Sanctiff was claiming prior right of trial.

“The civil authority is subject to the Church authority where matters of sorcery and blasphemy are involved. Crimes of treason and the like are of no account when compared with the greater danger posed by mortal sins against the law of the Most Sanctified Church of the Immaculate One.”

When one of the lictors seemed disposed to argue, Albus gestured and twelve Redeemed, ex-gladiators all, silently flanked him, six to a side. They belonged to the Church’s most fanatical order and each of them were scarred and hard, for all that they now served the Lamb instead of the Wolf. The lictor quickly closed his mouth and even the curator decided that he was not inclined to argue the issue. A second gesture, and Quintus was again swept up from the ground, no more gently than before.

As the Redeemed carried him off towards the great alabaster building that housed the White Throne, Quintus found himself wondering if perhaps it wouldn't have been better if they'd simply hurled him from the heights. From what he'd seen at the pass, a quick death on the rocks was likely rather better than a slow and painful one by earth, water and fire.

But once around the corner and out of sight of the crowd, the Lazulus ordered Quintus unbound. An armed Redeemed remained on either side of him, each holding an arm, but in a manner that suggested that they were primarily intending to help him keep his balance after his rough treatment. The walk to the Sanctiff's palace was not far, and by the time they entered it, Quintus was starting to hope that he might even survive these bizarre machinations. The only thing that worried him was that Albus had not spoken so much as a single word to him.

The Lazulus stopped before a tall pair of arched doors, nodding to the guards posted there. Then he turned towards Quintus and for the first time his expression showed familiarity. “I cannot say that you have nothing to fear Quintus Tullius, for I do not know the truth of the matter. But I will tell you this; the Sanctiff takes little note of the Senate and its political intrigues. So there may be hope for you. But if you have entangled yourself in the black arts, rest assured that there will be no saving you.”

Quintus nodded. “I understand. But if I may ask you for a favor?”

“You may ask….”

“Please tell my father that I am here. Otherwise, I fear he will think me dead. And please give him my word that I have never soiled my soul with sorcery nor my honor with cowardice.”

Albus nodded his acquiescence without expression. “I will do so.”

“Thank you, Julius Albus,” Quintus bowed deeply, and when the Lazulus departed, he allowed the waiting guards to escort him through the doors and down the long corridor to the cell that awaited him. He smiled upon entering it; for all that it was a prison, and a sparse one at that, it was the height of opulence compared to what he’d known of late.

Locked in his windowless cell, he might have lost track of the time were it not for the faint sound of the priests singing the evening Vespers every night. By his reckoning, it was five days before he was visited by anyone but the silent father who brought him a simple, but healthy meal of bread, wine and fruit three times a day. Lacking anything for entertaiment, Quintus found himself musing uncharacteristically on the utter pointlessness of Æmor’s war with the wood elves. Even if Varus had been a wiser general, even if Everbright had not proved to be so cunning, what would have been the benefit?

Treasure? The Amorran treasury was full, at least as far as he knew. Fame? Æmor’s legions had been victorious so many times that only the historians could count the number of triumphs that had been celebrated, let alone who had won the glory. Power? Quintus was no merchant, but he found it difficult to see how possession of the Merithaim elvenwoods would bestow the city with any additional strategic advantage against her foes. The legions much preferred the more straightforward fighting that took place on the plains and hills than the chaos that so often prevailed in the wilder hinterlands.

About the time that he was expecting his last meal on the fifth day, he was surprised to see Julius Albus standing at the open door of his cell. But this time, his blue cloak was pinned with a gold broach and he was not accompanied by uncouth ex-gladiators, but six Sanctal Guards resplendent in silver and scarlet.

“Come with us, Quintus Tullius,” he ordered. Something in his eyes warned Quintus to hold his tongue and reserve his questions for later. He obediently followed the Lazulus, and as he did so, the Guards fell into position on either side of him, though they did not lay hands on him or on their weapons.

At the end of a walk which took him through enough turns to leave him thoroughly confused, they came to a small wooden door, unmarked. Albus held up a hand and entered, then returned and bid him follow. It was, Quintus learned, a side entrance to the great chamber in which the Sanctiff was enthroned.

It was not, however, the sight of the small elderly man in a light blue robe that caught his attention and took his breath away. Nor was it the huge alabaster throne on which he sat, carved from a single piece of ivory which was purported to have once been the jawbone of Leviathan. No, it was the welcome, if unexpected sight of six men standing in chains before that throne that caused his heart to leap within his breast.

Gaius Aufinius, the Urban Praetor, was there, and next to him was Ahenobarbus, the red-bearded cousin of the late general. Nicander, too, was there, along with another of his accusers and a broad-shouldered man that might have been one of the lictors. Aufinius seemed to shrink at the sight of him, though his eyes turned to the Sanctiff when the old priest raised his hand and pointed to a man standing near the back of the wall.

Quintus nearly fainted with relief at the sight of Brutus, still clad in his battered, battle-stained armor. Never had he seen a more welcome sight than the centurion’s ugly, weathered face. And accompanying him were at least ten men of the legion, including two tribunes and several centurions.

“Publius Junius, we have already heard your testimony and that of your men. Now, is the man who has just been brought before us the man of whom you spoke?”

Brutus glanced over and met Quintus’s eyes. He looked as determined and ready to fight as he had in the mountain pass, but he half-smiled and nodded his head briefly in acknowledgment of Quintus before answering.

“He is, your Holiness.”

“What is his name?”

“Quintus Tullius, son of Gaius Tullius Barbus, senior tribune of the VII legion, your Holiness.”

“Thank you, Publius Junius.” The Sanctiff turned to the look at the six men, and for the first time, Quintus understood that it was not him who was on trial, but his former accusers. His would-be murderers. Then the Sanctiff cleared his throat, and in a loud voice that echoed through the chamber, pronounced his judgment.

“Let it be known that these men are oathbreakers, false witnesses and are guilty of attempted murder under the color of Amorran law. They have offended not only the dignity of the city of Æmor and its citizens, but also that of its Most Holy and Immaculate Church. I hereby remand them to the justice of the Curia and may God have mercy on their souls, for they shall find none here in Æmor.”

“It is written,” said a clerk from the side of the room, scribbling furiously. He passed the parchment to a young man seated next to him, who added no more than a line with a quilled pen.

“It is signed,” he said, passing it to the third man at the table. The last clerk dipped a great stamp in wax that was heated above a small brazier beside him, and slammed it down upon the parchment.

“It is sealed.”

Quintus looked at the doomed men. No influence would save them now, not even if all three Consuls spoke for them in concert. Ahenobarbus had turned white under his beard and a mixture of horror and fear filled the faces of the others, though they remained silent. Aufinius alone remained composed; he looked more thoughtful than afraid. Nicander looked as if he might be sick, as Quintus watched, he swayed on his feet and nearly fell.

It would be better if he held silent. And yet, how could he allow a man, a fellow soldier, to go to his grave for nothing more than speaking the truth? Oh, but the temptation was great indeed. Then he saw a tear roll down Nicander’s cheek, and he knew he could not hold his tongue, not if he wished to live with himself.

“Your Holiness!” He stepped forward and in a flash, two swords were pointing at him, arresting his progress. “May I speak?”

The Sanctiff regarded him with an air of curiousity, then nodded.

“I do not believe Marcus Longinus, the tribune there, bears any guilt in the matter. He spoke truly when he told them that I could see the spellcasters, so he did not perjure himself, as did the others. He has committed no crime."

The white eyebrows of His Holiness, the Sanctified Castimonius II, seemed to rise of their own accord as a brief, disbelieving murmur swelled throughout the room, then hushed as quickly as it had arisen. The Sanctiff, staring hard at Quintus, pushed himself slowly from his throne, then made his way down the seven steps from the dais upon which it sat. He walked, somewhat stiffly, and approached Quintus; though his shoulders were hunched and his head barely came to Quintus’s chest, the young officer could feel power radiating from the man like the heat of the mountain sun. His eyes burned like flaming emeralds, seeming to see right through to the depths of a man’s soul.

“You are no sorceror, my son?”

“No, your Holiness.”

“And yet you could see the works of the evil ones?”

“Yes, your Holiness.”

The Sanctiff peered into his face, but the green eyes no longer burned, instead, they seemed to be unsettled. “You had only to keep your counsel, and yet you elected to speak in order to defend your fellow. Your accuser. Most interesting. Is it possible that you have an explanation for this… seeming dichotomy?”

“Yes, your Holiness.” Quintus swallowed hard. “I believe I could see them because we were being slaughtered and I… called out to the Immaculate One. In… in anger, your Holiness. I am sorry.”

He steeled himself, preparing to be denounced, but was instead surprised to see a flicker of amusment suddenly appear on the old man’s face. It was gone in a flash, but it had unmistakably been there, if only for a moment.

“The best prayers come from the heart, my son. It would seem that yours was answered.”

Then the Sanctiff did the very last thing that Quintus, or anyone else in the great chamber, expected. He clumsily kneeled down in front of the young officer and drew Quintus’s hand to his forehead.

“Bless me, your Holiness. Bless you me, my son.”

The young priest frowned as his elder finished the story he had been telling. “That's it? But, I always thought Saint Tullius was a mighty warrior?”

The older priest smiled. He was a big man, built like an oak, and his skin was nearly as wrinkled and sun-hardened as bark. “He was a mighty warrior, merely not in the particular martial sense that you are thinking. After Aldus Wald, Saint Tullius never took the field again, Horatio. Nor did he join the priesthood, although his second son did join our order after it was founded by Gnaus Gallus with the blessing of His Holiness. And yet, are we not as surely his children as those who sprang from his loins? Now, are you ready to try again?”

“Yes, brother.”

The older man nodded to a small figure standing in the shadow of a tree. It was a goblin, and a scrawny example of the type at that. But the young priest couldn’t help trembling a little as he stepped out and advanced towards it, holding his shield as if he was hoping to hide his entire body behind it. For the goblin was no ordinary subumus, but a battlemage, a captured prisoner given special dispensation to practice his unholy magic here so that Michaeline warrior-priests might learn how to defeat it with their immaculate faith.

“Remember, we are not given a spirit of fear, lad,” his instructor called, even as he raised a finger.

The goblin pointed both of its long-fingered hands at the armor-clad young man and said something in his guttural, inhuman tongue. They began to glow, and a moment later, two flashes of purple fire leaped from his hand towards his target.

As they did, the young man shouted something unintelligible, but there was a noticeable tremor in his voice. The fiery bolts slammed into the shield and sent it flying into the air as the lad tumbled onto his back. His shield landed in front of the elder Michaeline, showing two fresh scorch marks on the much abused metal. The big warrior-priest sighed, shook his head, and went to help the shaken youth back to his feet.

“I don’t know if you’re watching these days, but if you are, I suspect this one may need your help, Quintus Tullius,” he muttered to the blue skies.

FINIS