The First Legion

The First Legion

Prologue

The creaking of wood and rope resonated against the rudimentary forts side. The Legion had set camp the previous night on top of the craggy mountain, the legionaries having to lug the felled trees from the valley a good kilometre away. Now some of that timber was supporting the native Horkind as he was stretched on the rack. The man like beast hollered out into the night in excruciating pain, and due to the camps elevation the painful echo swept over the camp several times. Centurion Lorenus turned and wrapped his scarlet cloak closer around him and tried to shut out the beasts intermittent hollering and whimpering. He tried in vain to make out details on the hills and mountains that surrounded his legions’ own temporary home. The night was too dark for that, the clouds high above obscuring what light the moon shed, and what was left visible was the hulking outline of high peaks and the lower sudden limestone crags that abutted the nearest hill.
Another hollering roar erupted behind him from the wrack. Centurion Lorenus tried to blot out the noise with thoughts of home. Illistad, the glorious pinnacle of human civilisation, a city of a million souls, the centre of the world. As it had been. Now though, it was the city of a million cowered souls, the last remnant of human civilisation that had once spread for hundreds of leagues in every direction, from the blue azure shores of Alan Ulterior all the way north to the endless mountain range of Riva Citerior , all of it ruled for two hundred years under the Pax Illistad . Now the Pax Illistad held over a couple of hundred square kilometres and that with a tenuous grip. The Chaotic Wars had seen it shrivel and shrink after defeat and defeat and concession following bribe until the Illistad Senate had nothing left. There were no longer the enormous armies to send off the beat down the barbarous Horkind nation, there was no longer the will for the people to unite in attack or even defense, there was nothing left but a sense of utter desolation. Complete defeat was certain. And now he and this so called First Legion of Illistad were sent out to secure the northern approaches. The Senate, the bumbling old fools of Illistad, had succumbed to the upstart Consul Gaius Valerius and let him create his legion. But no-one had wanted to join. Oh a handful of veterans from the Last King’s army had joined, but only the misfits who couldn’t work in the City. Consul Valerius had therefore imposed a Criminal Enlistment policy – a legion, 5400 men, nearly all convicts and criminals, from petty thieves to hardened lifelong brigands were banded together with a few months of training, and sent out as Illistad’s, and mankind’s, last hope of survival.
They had to close the northern approach through the Riva Mountains. The Legion had to get to the far side of the Caratas Gap before winter set in. Otherwise the Horkind would have ten kilometres of downhill fighting – more an avalanche than an army. As far as Centurion Lorenus could see, it was a suicidal mission. If the Legion managed to cross the Gap before winter, then they would be in Horkind land and would have to survive the winter there with no retreat. And then, and only then, would they be able to fulfil their purpose – to defend the pass for the summer whilst Consul Gaius Valerius assembled another Legion.
‘Centurion, Centurion Lorenus!’ a voice shouted accompanied by the crashing of heavy feet on the fort wall.
Centurion Lorenus waited until the man had stopped by his side.
‘Speak Legionary’
‘The Horkind! The Horkind has told us where the army is!’ The flustered legionary nearly stumbling over his own tongue in an effort to get this information out.
‘And?’
‘Two days from the Gap.’ The Legionary paused to let this sink in. ‘Two days from Caratus Gap and they march without sleep’.
Lorenus tilted his head to one side and continued to stare out over the dark barren wilderness. Two days from the Gap, but two days up the near sheer northern face of Caratus Gorge. The Legion was three days with the steady gradient of the southern face. Three days, but a whole camp to pack.
‘Tell the Legate what you have found. Omit nothing’ he said with a small smile. If the news was bad, he’d be happy to see the arrogant bastard Legate take a knock.


…


Gaius Valerius was a thin man of average height. He had thick curly blonde hair. On it today rested the laurel crown given to him by the senate a few years previously. His face was stoically devoid of expression, his stare fixed on the statue that stood on the other side of the antechamber. King Sertorius erected in marble ten feet high, with a shield and a sword raised in a victorious salute. King Sertorius had been The Last King of Illistad – or at least the last King to descend directly from the first King of Illistad, the fabled Methodor. After Sertorius had come Manas “The Beast Lover” – a nickname that the people had given for its openly derogatory meaning and also to assimilate into it his endless paying off of the Horkind which had bankrupted the City and its people, bringing them to this terrible position. Manas had been a fool, but an easily persuaded fool who had given the people a voice, a voice now represented by the City Elders, the Senate who sat through the antechamber in the auditorium waiting to summon Consul Gaius Valerius and tell him whether he would maintain his position for another year.
He would have taken such a vote as a mere formality, having brought some sort of peace to Illistad – the first it had seen for over a hundred years.