For all his spirits at seeing the new soldiers on the way, Volumnius was troubled. The overfly had given him sight of the telltale dust cloud that meant infantry on the move; the Thirteenth Velite Cohor was right on schedule in its crossing into the Stygios, two days early in fact, and the poor wretches were making good time. As an Optio of the Praetorian Guard, Volumnius knew enough of strategy to know that the Velites were in Stygios as shock troops to protect the mines. He knew that when the Varati struck, the Regulars would be leaves in the wind, and his own Spartus legions would be hard-pressed to meet the barely-slowed assault. The Varati were killers, but there could not be many on the way just yet. War in Stygios had only just begun, though the contested mining country had been bloodied many times in the past; in a few days it would be bloodied as never before. The Optio sent a private prayer to the lares for the forty souls and more that would be sacrificed to preserve it.

"The rest is over. Double-time! Move!" Hades' spitting image never wasted words with his men. They were Velites. Half-trained and untried as they were, they were a tough breed, a roughly even mixture of mongrels and plebeians, criminals and freemen, some bearing wings and others histories. Dante didn't bother himself with those details; he understood the assignment. As Optio, those forty lives were his responsibility, and much as he hated to admit it, he'd risk both his gray-feathered wings for their skins. Any of them. Nonetheless, he understood. It would be a massacre. So far as the Optio could tell, Aidoneus would welcome them all before the month was out. Their lives would be on his head; he was the reason the Thirteenth had been given such a suicidal post. As the autumn breeze bit into the column, that weighed heavily. They continued to march.

"Optio?" Titus, of course, would have questions now. A middle-class scholar, he'd expressed to the dark Empyrean commander all his childhood dreams of enlisting; all the books he'd read on warfare; all the theories of combat he'd ever filled his Empyre-born head with. With his dearth of practical experience, it didn't do much good. Titus was useful because he could read. That was a valuable commodity among Velites.

"No, Titus, you won't be second this time. I'm trusting you to bear the aquila." The wiry scholar's chagrin was hugely evident, but he marched on in step with the rest, proud at least of that responsibility. Varro Baram would be serving as second-in-command. The mongrel had enough experience to be Optio himself, but that simply didn't happen in the Empyre. Varro could be relied on, and none of the others were ready, though Julius was shaping up. They had their formations down, and their hand-to-hand technique was improving, but never in history were drills enough to prepare a soldier for the battlefield. Julius had never been big, but he had a good head on his shoulders, and he was dedicated even if he kept to himself. In any other circumstance, that would have been the kind of soldier Dante would rather have had a unit full of. As it was, some stupid brutes would have been helpful. Fingering the white feather tied to a lock of hair behind his ear, he wondered--worried--about the Praefect's well-being. Elidi, keep safe--I'll need your prayers now more than ever, Oriane Tritonides.

Stupid brutes. That was certainly on Calpurnia's mind. She was surrounded by them, and she couldn't help disparaging the men no matter how long she'd spent training with them. Distracted as she was: things were certainly not going as planned. Calpurnia Persephone Adario, joiner's daughter, had found her life boring a year ago. It had seemed quite logical to enlist briefly with the Velites, find a change of scene and a little excitement, and then, once satisfied, to quietly discharge herself and go home. She'd had no way of knowing war would spring up. Then, determined as she was in everything, she forced herself to succeed despite the Optio's ironclad stricture. It was easier under the identity she'd joined up under; the men didn't harass her in the barracks because they all knew her as Julius, the Optio's toady, and, more importantly, as Julius, a young man. It wasn't that she'd crafted a great deception; they were all louts, dull as wood. The battle, at least, would be an adventure. And afterwards she could go home. "Julius" adjusted her cuirass as it began to chafe, then the sword-belt, and steeled herself for further miles of marching.

At night, they could see the fires of the Varati columns, and by day the black blur on the horizon grew steadily larger with the ominously constant rate of an ugly tide on the rise. The foothill terrain was rough and broken in many places; the enemy had endless foxholes and hiding places to entrench themselves in. But that wouldn't be their line of action; the Varati had come south on the warpath, and they were in Stygios to conquer. They would attack soon, as soon as the lines drew a little closer. That much was obvious. So Dante surmised, shading his eyes against the rising sun to his right, tendrils of blood-red streaking the eastern sky above him. Spartus was hanging back at the fortifications just south over the rise, waiting to sweep in once the vanguard was slowed. Slowed. Forty untried regulars against hundreds of well-armed masters of combat, trained from birth. The sort of men who'd catch you as a child if you were bad. Dante knew his men could hear it in their heads, the Empyreans among them at any rate: "The Varati will get you if you don't go to bed." "Eat your vegetables, or I'll let the Varati come." "They drink blood." "They eat children." "At night, they turn into dragons under a full moon, you know."

It was a load of bilge. The dark Empyrean knew so, from more than knowing Varati personally; he knew because the same had been said of him. Nonetheless, they were the enemy, and as he barked the order to form ranks, he steeled himself for carnage.

The Optio had been too slow to prepare. A desperate invocation echoed in his skull: Liora! For you! Before the moment died, the ridge blackened with the first wave of the northlanders as they rushed in tight formations for his own feeble defenses, and his shortbow came out in one smooth motion while he shouted, at the top of his lungs, the orders that were his obligation.

"First rank, set pila magna! Rear ranks, nock bows! Second rank, FIRE!" Whistling arrows found targets all across the enemy line, the Varati lines too thick and broad for even misfires to stray too far, but they kept coming, not slowing, not stopping, ten in the place of every fallen man, the hills alive with them.

"Third rank, fire! Fourth, fire!" His arrows were running out, the casualties of their deadly accuracy inconsequential, and his orders took on a desperate note. All along the earthworks, the Velites were running low on ammunition. Quirinus, let Spartus come! The ridgeline would prevent the legions' sight, though they were likely launching their first assault even now. The fastest of the opposition were already closing the distance across the tawny dust of the flat.

"Loose everything you have! FIRE AT WILL!" Now the hornets of their salvation flowed like wine, sheeting out toward the vanguard, but they still could not quell that midnight flood. The Thirteenth had few bolts left, and now the fire of arbalists began to pock the earth before their feet. Titus went down instantly as a spiked projectile struck his head, and the third pentus began to freeze in horror. Still, their Optio screamed his commands, snatching up the aquila of the Cohor before it hit the smoking earth.

"Three ranks! Lower pila magna!" Another man went down, screaming as his leg was crushed by arbalist fire, and the soldiers changed formation just as the initial rush of the Varati infantry struck their set spears, a few perishing, a few getting through to be cut down by the rear ranks, most finding enough time to execute lethal scimitar slashes before they fell. Five were dead now, two wounded, the Empyreal commander keeping track in his head as long as he could, driving his own pilum into a massive opponent with all the effect of a biting mosquito. He was dragged to the side just as the other's axe swept where his head had been, and his second stab dispatched the threat.

Julius let go his arm and slid back into the ranks before his thanks found breath, for there was no time: the ebon wave came again to slam into the first rank, ripping them apart. Clitus and Caius vanished into the press, crushed by the assault, and even as Dante shouted a retreat, the Velite line was breached and split asunder, two penti on the right rent into rags. The remaining troops formed the phalanx he'd drilled into them from day one, older than the traditional maniple, more appropriate for the terrain, and backpedaled only a few steps before they were attacked from three sides at once, Optio at the center flailing until his pilum snapped.

Even in madness do miracles occur. The pila of the Spartus legions tore into the Varati between withering sheets of archers' deadly rain, and their numbers were halved on the right flank. Spartus' glorious charge had arrived perhaps too late; the physically superior Varati began to shoot wingsoldiers down even as they fell back, and just as it seemed they would withdraw, fresh masses joined them from nowhere, pushing the Praetorians to the ridge again, keeping them cut off from the Velites, beating them backward as the reinforcements poured in on both sides. Their flank had swallowed the Thirteenth, pushed them to the western edge of the battlefield, consumed them; as Dante vaulted over one man and plunged his blade into another's belly, surrounded by chaos and screams, nostrils full of the sweet stench of bloodletting, he gave his remaining knot of some two dozen one implicit order:

"SURVIVE!" But they could not, the onslaught splitting them into pieces, each individual swallowed up. A wide slash decapitated Strato's assailant, the mongrel ducking and weaving with his gladius, and Varro's face pushed from the landslide of bodies fleetingly, bathed in crimson. Julius fell, clubbed, and the Optio had enough time to drag the Ceterion to him before his next parry and riposte bit deep into thigh of another leeringly dark mass. Leap. Vault. Scream. Block. It became mechanical, senses dying from overload, the eagle standard lost in the rush. "THE THIRTEENTH!" His roar was titanic, and answering yells were few but mighty even in the hellish cacophony of metal and flesh. The darkling lord of Haven's Gardens became a whirlwind with his blade, striking blindly, and then all exploded into red and orange and was swallowed into black.

I wonder whose lare I am. It was a reasonable thing to wonder upon waking, considering, but as Dante's brown eyes opened, it was Julius trickling water over his face. Despite the agony of rising, the Optio managed to sit up and groan.

"Easy, sir." The Ceterion's voice was less deep and stilted than usual, but pained as his own. "You took quite a hit."

"I'll manage, Julius." Another grunt brought the darkling to his knees, and then he stood. Not upon earthworks, not in a fortified tent. On the battlefield still, a flat, once tawny stretch that had gone black with bodies, both Varati and Praetorian. Somewhere in there was buried the Thirteenth Cohor. His eyes despaired, pinions sagging in defeat; his voice was cracked and ragged when it came again. "We're the--" It became a croaking plea. "Any others, Julius?"

"Optio..." His concern was evident, face now exposed from under his lost helmet, but he finally nodded in understanding of that terrible need to know. "Gaius has a head-cut--he went into the gullies there--" and he pointed, "to find water. We found Strato--he--he lost his left arm." That compulsive swallowing was obviously just enough defense to keep from vomiting at the horror. "We're still looking."

A further miracle reared its head above the gray and carrion as a huge, armored body moved and slipped aside to admit a weak and drawn Varro that strained to shove his way to air. Stumbling to assist, the pair pulled him free, trembling and stinking of death. Varro, though, was alive. His face said that he knew how unique that was: all else was lost. As they looked to the southern border of the foothills, they could see Varati campfires begin to glow as twilight approached. Spartus had drawn back in hope of reinforcement. The assault was slowed, but far from stopped, and the three were entirely cut off from their Praetorian compatriots. They could only stare, for what seemed an eternity, until that, too, was shattered.

"Optio!" It was harsh and muffled, but it was Galarin Devetta, the longshoreman recruited right off Haven's docks: the one with the least stake in this insane war. He and Dardanius Optis limped along together, picking a path free of corpses, making their way to the little group. They, at least, were alive, both crusted with drying blood, one of Dardanius' white wings dragging in its clearly broken state. Devetta's salute was weak but true, causing the others to blink and duplicate the gesture, eyes hardening even as they gleamed. They knotted together in their cleared oasis of sanity, as at-attention as they could be in their battered conditions, and held firm.

"You were like a great crow, Optio, screaming and whirling and floating over their heads, swooping and stabbing..." In Dardanius' voice, there was a respect Dante had never heard. For once his darkness wasn't offensive to the other Velite. It was--"a flag, sir, a great gray flag for us to struggle toward." It wasn't enough, though. Because thirty-three Thirteeners were cooling cadavers somewhere on that field. They all knew. Silence reigned for a moment, only broken as Gaius came over the rise, grim and pale.

"Gaius Silenus Philippus, Optio. Reporting for duty." Weary, but crisp as it had ever been drilled. "I found no water, but I have Strato out there on a piece of log I did find--we'll have to carry him until he's conscious." No water. That made Dante's throat burn all the more in the dust, but it slowly dawned on him: they were all looking at him, expectant. Even half-dead and mortified, they were awaiting orders. Sorting emotions too unfamiliar to name, he let his gaze drift among the staunch survivors: The longshoreman Devetta, cut in the side, cuirass ruined, but standing yet; Varro Baram, tired, older than any of them, unwounded only outside his head and scarred immeasurably beneath those weary eyes; Gaius, head bandaged, straight and steadfast even in his weakness; Dardanius already kneeling to bind up his crushed ribs, but awaiting command nonetheless; Julius, loyalty glittering in his eyes, aged so far since the day before, shoulder-length, ash-blond hair stirring in the light breeze--Julius, different than he'd been, and his face knowing it and knowing Dante knew. Not his face. Her face. She felt that scrutiny. That heat of watching.

"Calpurnia Persephone Adario, Corvus, reporting for duty." A little water stood out in those gray-green eyes while the exposed woman awaited further punishment than the day had already dealt. Where had that come from? Corvus? The Crow? For the moment, it could not be allowed to matter.

"You pulled my feathers from the fire, Adario." It was as close to a pardon as she'd get from him. He was too tired to berate; the deception would have to pass. "Check your wing. Looks strained." That was that. She turned, flexed it, and began to help Dardanius bind up his own wing before she was finished wincing. It was Varro in the end who spoke up.

"Your orders, Corvus?" There it was again--but it was a badge to be proud of. They had pride in it, and so must he. So Dante raised his disheveled head, putting his last strength into his voice.

"Spartus is cut off from us. We can't all overfly the enemy, and that's suicide anyway. We need to get Optis, Galarin, and Strato to a healer immediately. We've been pushed too far into the hills to head for the eastern outposts." For the length of the pause they were all silent.

"We go west. To Parnassus. We leave the wounded in the first secure village or town, and return with healers from the other battle line. Get Strato--we march immediately."

They all nodded, all saluted as well as they were able. Then they all moved.

Acting Centurion Volumnius Andronicus stared out across the hill country, the enemy's fires like a field of ill-intentioned stars in the darkness of evening, and sorrowed. He'd known what would happen, but to see an entire unit cut down, to watch the unprotected Velites enveloped and destroyed, was something that would haunt him for some time to come. Reinforcements were on the way; Stygios was marked in the stars, it seemed, to be a long and terrible part of the warfront. Hand shaking a little, he lowered his stylus and finished his report.

Velite Cohor XIII obliterated. Unable to recover bodies. All presumed killed in action. Send further personnel support immediately.

~Acting Centurion Andronicus

FIN  

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