Eastward, Chapter 5 of Fire
The Rest of the Story: While you can read the whole of Fire here in Acrobat format, the preceding chapters are in convenient HTML format here.
This is where Gaius moves to the forefront, and I start to follow up on the war I accidentally started.
Chapter 5
Eastward
Gaius coughed in the dust kicked up by his horse’s hooves. Spitting grit from his mouth, he glared at the offending landscape. The dirt track, so different from the smooth pavement of most of the Empire’s roads, wound its way through hills hardly worthy of the name. Tall, brown grass covered the hills, fitfully rippling when the wind blew. The dead grass cracked as often as it bent, rendering the wave-like motion short-lived.
“Doesn’t this place ever get rain?” he asked his brother. Marcus rode beside him, looking preoccupied. Probably thinking responsible thoughts, Gaius mused.
“Sure it does, just not much,” Marcus replied, pausing to swat at a large black fly. Flies and gnats were the only life they had seen since yesterday, when a murder of crows and a bedraggled rabbit had crossed their path. “I usually manage not to be here during the season when it rains.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, aside from the fact that I don’t want to be here during the winter rains, the passes are closed during that time of year, so Publius doesn’t need me.”
“I meant, why does this place only get rain during certain seasons?”
“Oh, that. According to the Philosophers, it has something to do with the mountains to the east and how the prevailing winds change over the seasons.”
“The mountains? What do you mean?” Now Gaius swatted at the fly, as Marcus had successfully driven it in his direction.
“I mean that the mountains form a barrier that the clouds can’t get over.”
“If that’s the case, it should be a swamp on the other side.”
“Well, it does get plenty of rain. The forests on the far side of the mountains are greener than anything on this side.”
“And yet the Kawyr still want to come west. Why?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Maybe we should just let them have this god-forsaken place.”
“It’s not that easy, brother. We can’t just give away parts of the Empire, not even a ‘god-forsaken’ province like Ciskainia. Aside from setting a bad precedent, Novar citizens live here. Not many, true, but some find this land more to their liking than the rest of the Empire.”
Gaius was about to comment on the questionable sanity of such citizens when he noticed that Marcus was looking over his shoulder. Following his brother’s gaze, he had to shield his eyes against the late afternoon sun to see the dust cloud marking a sizeable group following them up the road. Marcus nodded in that direction. “Probably our escort. I suppose we shouldn’t have abandoned them this morning.”
Marcus spoke lightly, but Gaius knew that he had not been at all happy about leaving them. Marcus never let something as trite as the desire for a few hours of freedom get the better of his good sense. They were, after all, Imperial princes with a responsibility to the Empire. Though the calm politics of the day made assassination unlikely, it would be a fine thing for the Empire to lose them to bandits. Gaius didn’t believe that his brother would have any qualms about risking his life in battle, which he would see as nothing less than fulfilling his duty, but he didn’t have an ounce of recklessness in him. Gaius had had to cajole Marcus into leaving before most of their escort was awake, and then the older brother had come only because he knew his heedless sibling would go alone otherwise.
While Gaius was glad they had gotten out, he was not looking forward to their encounter with Brutus when he caught up. The scarred centurion led their escort, and while Gaius and Marcus outranked him, Brutus had taken advantage of their father’s insistence on who gave the orders until they reached the military outpost. He wasn’t exactly hostile towards them, but he had been a soldier longer than either of them had lived, and he thought that a couple of young princes could use an extra dose of discipline. It had not been a fun trip. Gaius had decided to get away at the first opportunity, and he still hoped to escape Brutus’s wrath.
“Hey, Marcus, how close is the fort?”
“Not close enough. We couldn’t make it before dark.”
“We don’t have to make it before dark, just before Brutus. Once we’re there, he can’t do anything to us.”
Marcus grinned unexpectedly, “Well, it’s worth a try.” Giving his horse a kick, he drove the gelding up to a trot, Gaius coming close behind. Responsible or not, it looked like Marcus had no desire to meet up with Brutus in a foul mood.
They were leading their horses in the moonlight by the time they reached the fort. Marcus refused to risk injuring the horses just to avoid Brutus’s punishment, so they had been walking them since sunset. Gaius had not complained. He may not have shared his brother’s blithe attitude toward Brutus’s discipline, but he did genuinely care for his horse.
The South Kainin Fort had evolved along the same lines as most Novar outposts. Starting out as a fortified camp for two legions, it had gradually become more and more permanent. Stone walls replaced earthen ramparts as brick barracks replaced tents. The only truly new elements were the towers on either side of each of the four gates which faced in the cardinal directions. Small brick homes and shops, as well as the occasional tavern, formed an army town on the north side. Soldiers needed someplace to spend their time and their pay, and while the Novar military strongly discouraged its legionaries from marrying, a few had families who stayed in the town. The main road avoided this town, ending at the western gate and beginning again at the eastern gate. The thoroughfare running straight through the fort had storage buildings on one side and the officers’ quarters and the forum on the other. Gaius and Marcus could see this road through the grilled metal gate as they waited outside.
“Who goes there?” called a soldier on the inside of the gate. He looked bored, tired, and sweaty beneath his banded armor. Though they could only see this one soldier, both brothers knew that archers watched from the tower.
“Marcus and Gaius Principius,” Gaius replied.
The guard started, and then relaxed with a grin. “You almost had me, but shouldn’t a pair of Imperial princes have an escort? Who are you really?”
Marcus smiled at that, and Gaius had to as well. The guard had it right, they should have an escort. He tried again, “We really are Marcus and Gaius Principius. Now could you please let us in? I’m sure Publius Aurelius will want to see us.”
“Calling the proconsul by name isn’t going to convince me you’re who you claim,” the soldier said, starting to become angry. Gaius figured the young man was new to the legions, likely on his first tour. “If you aren’t going to tell me who you are, you can come back tomorrow, when the gate’s open.”
That wouldn’t do at all. Whatever lead they had on Brutus, he would catch up to them long before morning. Gaius tried to keep his temper, “Perhaps you should call your centurion. He’ll probably recognize us.” He hoped so. He had no way of telling the century to which young soldier belonged.
The soldier appeared to consider that option. Legionaries learned soon after signing up that when in doubt, you can always pass responsibility to someone higher up. “The centurion won’t like me waking him up for a couple of jokers,” he balked.
“Look at it this way,” Marcus interrupted just as Gaius opened his mouth to dress down this stubborn guard. “If we’re not who we say we are, you can arrest us for impersonating Imperial princes. That’s a very serious crime, you know.”
“All right, we’ll see what the centurion has to say. You wait here.” He whistled to the unseen bowmen in the towers and strode off.
“Just how serious a crime is it to impersonate an Imperial prince?” Gaius asked his brother.
“I don’t know. I doubt anyone’s ever bothered.” Marcus looked him up and down. “Why anyone would ever pretend to be you is beyond me.”
“Like you’re any great prize,” Gaius snorted. If he looked anything like his brother right now, it shouldn’t surprise him that the guard didn’t believe them. Marcus wore nothing more elaborate than a simple white tunic long since gone brown with dirt. Likewise, the leather leggings he wore while riding were covered in the road’s dust, and his riding boots were scuffed and discolored as well. Dirt would have turned his face completely brown except for the furrows traced through it by runnels of sweat, and his hair had the wild disarray usually associated with madmen. In the flickering light from the gate’s torches, the effect was quite horrific.
It took nearly a quarter of an hour for the guard to return, followed by his stocky centurion. The scar which his salt-and-pepper beard tried to hide accentuated his scowl. He had dressed in a simple tunic which appeared to be on backwards. Likely he had only donned it after deciding that it was impolite to come to the gate naked. He carried the wooden cane that marked his rank as if looking to strike someone with it, its primary purpose.
“So where’s Brutus?” he asked. “He decide he was sick of you two and desert? After burying you alive, from the looks of it.”
“Oh, I’m sure Brutus is trying to catch up even as we speak, Victrinus,” Gaius said. “So if you’d be so kind as to let us in...”
“Ha! So you ditched him.” Victrinus’s grin looked even worse than his scowl. “I can’t say I blame you. The man hasn’t got an ounce of humor in him. Still, your father did put you in his care, so I should probably just leave you out there for him to find. After you finished digging latrines for him, you might finally make a decent pair of soldiers.”
“Victrinus, please.” It was not dignified for an Imperial prince to beg, but Gaius thought he could hear hoofbeats coming up the road.
“Oh, all right. Open the gate,” he called.
The soldier had seemed shocked at the easy camaraderie between the brothers and his centurion, but he hurried to comply. Once he had the gate open, he came up to Gaius looking very nervous, “S-sirs, I’m very sorry. I-I had no idea...”
Gaius probably would have said something sarcastic, but Marcus spoke first, “That’s okay, soldier. You were just doing your job. What’s your name?”
“P-paulus, sir. I mean, Servius Maximus Paulus.”
Marcus smiled. “Victrinus, you have a good soldier here.”
Victrinus looked at the younger man, who did not meet his eye, then winked at Marcus. “He’s young, but he’s learning. As long as he learns when to act on his own and when to come to me, he’ll live long enough to make centurion.”
The young man turned red, though whether from the compliment or the mild rebuke, Gaius couldn’t tell.
“What’s up with Paulus?” Gaius asked once they made it out of earshot. “I thought you had only veterans in your century.”
“Paulus is a veteran. He served four years in northern Ciskainia, then transferred down here just this year.”
“Really? He seems too young for that.”
“I think he may have joined a couple of years earlier than was strictly legal,” Victrinus replied. “He’s a native of Ciskainia, so he takes the defense of his homeland personally. Paulus really is a good soldier, even if he does sometimes act his age. I’m serious about him becoming a centurion. If he re-enlists, I’ll definitely recommend him.”
“Is Publius still awake?” Marcus changed the subject. “We should see him.”
“The proconsul’s always awake--he’s not getting enough sleep. Perhaps you can convince him to get some rest...”
“We’ll see what we can do,... Mother,” Gaius said the last under his breath.
Hooves and boots both echoed off the paved thoroughfare as Victrinus led them to the headquarters of the fort, a large brick building, consisting mainly of offices used by scribes and accountants, where the proconsul held court on the second floor. Light shined from one of the windows there, where Publius must be, since only he would still be working this late. Victrinus led them through the darkened, narrow corridor and up the stairs, where he rapped on one of the doors.
“What is it?” came from inside. Victrinus opened his mouth to respond, but didn’t get a word out before the irritated voice continued, “If you’re going to interrupt me, hurry up and come in.”
Victrinus opened the door, pointed Gaius and Marcus in, then made his escape. Publius sat at his desk, reading through reports while eating honeyed biscuits with his off-hand. He seemed not to notice that the reports were starting to become rather sticky. He glanced up at Gaius and Marcus. “Ah, you’re finally here.” He paused to eat another biscuit. “Sorry for being irritable, but... well, things here are irritating.”
“Were you waiting for us?” Marcus asked.
“More or less. I have one more tribune who’s late, but he can’t get here before the end of the month, so we’re going to have to march without him.”
“March where?” Gaius asked.
“To the Austral Pass, of course. Something’s happening on the other side of the mountains, and I’m not going to wait until the Kawyr come knocking on our gates to find out what. If they get through the mountains in force, this fort is not going to stop them from going wherever they want. We need to plug the pass.”
“Why the southern pass?” asked Marcus.
“Because the two legions guarding the northern passes report that the further north they go, the less the Kawyr seem affected. In the South, the villages are moving.”
“Are they gathering in the South?” Marcus pursued.
“The villages are moving north, but who knows where their warriors are? Once we reach the pass, we can send a cohort further in to find out more.”
“You want to send a full five hundred men?” Gaius blurted. “There’s no way you could hide that. Shouldn’t you send a smaller patrol?”
Publius had started shaking his head before Gaius finished. “I’d use a small patrol in the foothills on the other side, but not in the forest. You can’t hide from the Kawyr no matter what you do, my boy. Smaller patrols vanish. Larger ones make bigger targets, but they’re harder to take down. If you move quickly, you can reach some of their villages and see what you find there. Oh, they’ll be gone before you arrive, but if you’re fast enough, they won’t have time to clean up after themselves, and they might leave some clues behind.”
Gaius just couldn’t see how the Kawyr could know about everything that came through their land. By all reports, it wasn’t that densely populated. Marcus, on the other hand, had simply nodded at Publius’s words.
“So who will lead this patrol?” Gaius asked instead.
“You will,” Publius replied.
“Me?” Unlike his brother, who had served in Ciskainia since he joined the army, Gaius had risen through the ranks in Novitia. He’d only come east last year, when the office of tribune became open here. He’d never even gone on a patrol past the mountains before, much less led one. He thought he could handle it, but he hadn’t thought that Publius believed he could.
“Victrinus will go with you. You and Marcus are the only tribunes I trust to bend your stiff necks and listen to a more experienced centurion. Any of the others would do exactly the opposite just to prove that he wasn’t taking some Plebeian’s advice.” Publius looked at Gaius more closely, biscuit halfway to his mouth. “I can trust you to listen to Victrinus, can’t I?”
“I suppose,” Gaius mumbled.
“You can do better than that. You know something about the Kawyr by now, but you have little firsthand experience. I don’t want you getting people killed, yourself included, because you think you know better than Victrinus.”
“Sir, I have the utmost respect for Victrinus. I know that he understands the Kawyr better than I do, and I don’t intend to get anyone killed.”
“Marcus, what do you think?”
Marcus was watching Publius and Gaius in turn. “I think my brother can handle it, sir. He can be very stubborn, but he’s smart enough to know when to back down. He also respects Victrinus, which makes all the difference. We both do.”
“Publius, if you don’t trust me, you should send Marcus,” Gaius said, chafing under Publius’s doubts.
“I need Marcus with me, and you could use the experience. You understand well enough, I think. You’re in charge, my boy, but I expect you to listen to Victrinus and--”
“Of course, Proconsul,” Gaius cut off Publius before he could add “and do as he says.” He was to be a figurehead, then. The idea of only nominally leading the patrol was both irritating and reassuring. He thought he could do it, but he had never led a patrol beyond the pass before, and he feared that his lack of experience could get people killed. For that reason, Gaius was thankful for Victrinus’s presence. He did not like the fact that he would practically be taking orders from him, but that did relieve him of some of the terrifying responsibility for other people’s lives.
“Good. Now get some sleep. We need to get ready tomorrow so we can leave the day after.”
The army traveled at a good clip, making an average of fifteen miles each day. This greatly surpassed the usual daily march of ten miles for a full four legion army. Each soldier could travel such a distance in a few hours, but the army would remain strung out between the two camp sites for a full day. With only two legions, each man marched for six hours and the army travelled further. Of course, the longer journey made the men less eager to set up the fortified camp every night, but they managed it with a minimum of grumbling. Victrinus assured Gaius that they would travel even faster once their small force of five hundred reached the other side of the mountains.
For Gaius, the trip to the Austral Pass resembled his journey to the South Kainin Fort, except that there was a larger number of soldiers and consequently more dust. The jagged Kainin mountains grew steadily ahead of them, while in the land below lay little water, few trees, and fewer people. The respectable town which had grown up near the fort was an anomaly, a boisterous contrast to the scattered farming communities they had passed since then. As a few houses and an extended family or two did not warrant visiting, Gaius wished he had had a chance to spend some time in the fort’s town, if for no other reason than a change of company. Nearly a month had passed since he had spoken to anyone other than a soldier or one of the army’s slaves. Usually he could have enjoyed the comradery of the legionaries. While the new recruits tended to gawk at the Imperial princes, the veterans knew them and spoke almost as to equals. He had often enjoyed games of dice and conversations around campfires, sipping the bitter wine distributed to the troops. These days every man he spoke to offered unsolicited advice about the Kawyr and patrols in their land, and before long Gaius grew sick of hearing it. Much of it was unbelievable, and many of the stories contradictory. How could a Kawyr be aware of everything within a twenty mile radius? Did they see like owls at night, or did darkness completely debilitate them? It seemed unlikely that they could fly or burrow through the ground as if it were water, much less both. Gaius knew for a fact that they weren’t unbeatable in combat, but he almost believed the men who said they never missed with their longbows. The veterans certainly believed it, though only a few of even them had actually seen a Kawyr. Victrinus had seen plenty of Kawyr, and he seemed determined to fill in the gaps in Gaius’s education. He lectured at length on the ghost-like Kawyr and their invisible villages until the tribune called him on his exaggerations, when he admitted that the Novari had learned the signs to look for in order to find the hidden villages and that while Novar outposts in the foothills couldn’t keep track of the Kawyr scouts, they could spot large groups of Kawyr moving along the elevated roads. Gaius soon started to avoid Victrinus and his lectures.
Still, Gaius would have enjoyed the journey if not for some unexpected travelling companions. A dozen Domini had joined the legions, the first time he had seen the black-robed creatures travel with the Novar army. According to Publius, they had shown up a few days before Marcus and Gaius had, asked Publius whether he was traveling to the pass, and then told him that they would be coming with him. No one had the courage to ask the Domini why they were coming. While most of the troops simply pretended not to see them, Gaius had to force himself not to glare. Thoughts of Victor flashed through his head every time he saw the black-robed strangers. He had no idea what those monsters had done to his brother. Afraid that he might do something suicidally stupid if he had to speak to one of them, Gaius did his best to avoid them. If his father could do nothing for Victor, what could he hope to accomplish? Remembering the long, impassioned arguments with his father only stoked his anger. The elder Marcus Principius’s calmness and lack of overt grief had infuriated him. Gaius hoped his attitude stemmed from powerlessness, not indifference.
As tense as the trip had made him, Gaius was almost sorry to see it end when they reached the Austral Pass on the seventh day. After a long climb through the foothills, encountering more rocks and less dust, they had spent the last day in a narrow gorge before reaching this point. The sweltering heat of the lowlands had given way to the colder air of the heights, and occasional patches of snow appeared to remind them of what lay ahead, where the snow-covered peaks of the Kainin mountains marked the edge of the Novar Empire. Travelling through the mountain range was dangerous and slow in all but a handful of passes, the southernmost of which they were sealing off. During the winter, the snow closed off even the best passes. Nearly a foot remained even now in early spring. During the summer, permanent fortifications, which the Novari had built from stones hewn from the mountains, ensured the border’s security. A wall, twenty feet high and ten wide, stretched across the entire mile-long width of the pass, with a tower every hundred yards, and a solid wooden gate, backed by an iron portcullis which provided the sole entry point. A smallish fortress behind the wall provided a base camp for its defenders and a fall-back position should it fail. No sooner had the men begun to move in than Publius informed Gaius that he and his cohort would have a day to rest up before they began their patrol.
Gaius could not decide whether he felt more excitement or fear. While he enjoyed the perks of leadership, he had never enjoyed the responsibilities, and nothing frightened him as much as having other people’s lives depend on him. For that reason, at least, he appreciated Victrinus’s presence, though there remained plenty of reasons to resent it. Though he awoke early the next day, he soon learned that Victrinus already had preparations well in hand. With nothing else to do, he tried to chat with the men who would be going with him. Most of them seemed as high strung as he, however, and he soon found himself walking about alone, trying not to think about what lay ahead.
Inside the camp, thousands of soldiers had churned the snow into an ugly gray slush to match the ugly gray buildings. Abandoning the small shelter of the fort, Gaius wandered outside where at least some patches of snow resembled the pristine whiteness described by poets. He trudged through undisturbed drifts of it to the eastern side of the fort, ignoring the cold and damp which seeped through his clothes. Though still early in the afternoon, light and warmth were in short supply. Deciding that he didn’t care, he leaned against the fort’s wall and watched the skies dim behind the barrier meant to stop the Kawyr. Marcus found him there, still watching and wondering what really lay to the east.
“Frightened?” his brother asked.
“Nah. It’s just a patrol,” Gaius lied. “What’s there to be scared of?”
“Plenty. I’m always terrified when I lead a patrol into their land.”
Gaius turned to look at his brother. “You, Marcus? I’ve never seen you frightened.”
“It’s important not to show it. Your men will look to you for encouragement. When everything comes apart, the commander’s self-assurance is the only thing that can hold them together.”
“I’m not even the real commander. All I’m supposed to do is listen to Victrinus and do what he says.” He hoped he didn’t sound too bitter. “I’m a figurehead at best.”
“That, Gaius, is sometimes what a commander most needs to be.” Marcus smiled. “It’s just as important as clever strategies and superb tactics.”
“What about Publius?” Gaius asked.
“Publius... is a special case.”
Gaius snorted. “He’s not much of a figurehead. He looks like he should be entertaining guests at a dinner party, not leading troops into battle.”
“That’s why he surrounds himself with men who do look like soldiers. They know he’s a superb general, and their confidence in him inspires their troops. That image is one he cultivates carefully, by the way. Partly because he knows that he can’t look like a great warrior, and would appear foolish if he tried. Partly because it irritates the politicians back home.”
“So you don’t think I should imitate Publius?”
“No--he’s probably not the best role model. You certainly don’t have enough of a reputation that you can get away with it. Besides, even though Publius doesn’t look soldierly, he never acts cowardly or indecisive. That much you can imitate. You need to look like the ideal Novar general: bold, decisive, confident. You should never seem frightened, or uncertain, or helpless, even when you feel all of those things.”
“Sounds hard. What if men die?”
“There’s no ‘if’ there. Men will die, they always do on patrols into the Kawyr lands. Grieve them, but not too much. Your first duty is to the living, to bring them home.”
Gaius looked at the pass, shrouded in darkness as the sun set behind them. “I’ll try.”
Only a few days had passed before Gaius wished he had flat out refused Publius’s commission. He had even begun to miss the sun and dust on the other side of the Kainin mountains. In the west lay the dusty plains sweltering under the sun. In the east lived an immense forest drowning in rain. The nearly continuous rainfall did little to relieve the heat and much to exacerbate the humidity. Horses and soldiers churned up a rich black mud, occasionally revealing a hard red clay just a few inches beneath. Even though he rode, mud had spattered Gaius from his head to his damp feet. Most of the soldiers were even more miserable, and nothing was clean these days. Gaius had hoped at first that the trees would keep the rain off, but instead they ensured that though the rain may stop, water would continue to drip from above. Even when the sun was shining, the leafy canopy kept the ground in shadow. He could only see the tops of a few small, young trees, while a solid roof of green hid the sky. Some massive onyas, as Victrinus said the Kawyr called them, stretched even higher, leaving only their thick trunks visible. Gaius could just make out colorful flowers and ferns which somehow seemed to be growing high up on the trees. Few plants grew closer to the ground, just some mushrooms which speckled the massive roots and some vines which seemed to be reaching downward, winding around the trunks of massive trees as if to uproot them. The lack of underbrush made it possible for the cohort to travel quickly despite the mud.
Just as few plants lived on the ground, most of the animals seemed to live above in the canopy. A shiver running along the branches would announce a diverse flock of birds taking flight, driving insects and other prey before them. The cacophony of clashing calls at least had a few pleasing notes among them. The Howlers were another matter. The first time Gaius had heard their wails, almost human but unmistakably other, he had been convinced not only of the truth of the Kairnin legends about spirits whose voices caused madness, but that the banshees were coming for them. Even after Victrinus had assured him that the hunting pack sought something other than them, the sound caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. Gaius had forced himself to laugh at his own embarrassment, wondering why he had never noticed how condescending Victrinus could be before. None of the men had ever actually seen a Howler, but the accepted legend described them as small, grotesque men covered in hair, whose razor sharp claws neatly eviscerated their prey. No one knew what they actually hunted in the trees, but some thought it was the Kawyr. Surprisingly, no one cheered the Howlers.
A few creatures lived below, however, and some of these were not waiting for Kawyr. A huge cat had mauled one of the horses before the soldiers drove it off. They had to put down the horse and leave it behind, where the cat undoubtedly feasted on it later. That no one had seen the cat before it had leapt from an overhanging limb alarmed the newer recruits, and they began to keep their eyes above rather than on the ground. That did not help one of them avoid a large snake which lowered itself from above to wrap around him. Rather than biting, it had tightened almost gently around his chest, intent on preventing any indrawn breath. Fortunately, his metal armor confused the snake’s instincts, as it took some time to kill the snake and disentangle him from it. The young soldier had emerged pale and breathless but alive. His armor, on the other hand, was crushed beyond repair.
Despite these adventures, the small force had travelled more quickly than any army with which Gaius had ridden. They made nearly twenty miles each day, and still managed to raise a fortified camp out of the muck every night. That speed seemed even more incredible considering the twisting course they followed. Gaius decided not to ask why it seemed more convoluted than strictly necessary. He was tired of having his senior centurion explain everything to him. Rather than travelling in normal marching order, with the officers in the front and the baggage train in the back, the men marched in a tight hollow square, with supplies and all the mounted men, including officers, in the center. As the trees did not offer enough space for the army to pass between them, the force divided around the trees like a river around islands. The young tribune had followed Victrinus’s advice to keep things as compact and easy to defend as possible. He seemed to be taking a lot of advice from Victrinus lately. The centurion was always respectful, even humble, in offering his suggestions, but Gaius knew better than to refuse them. He recognized good advice, but it galled, especially when Victrinus would correct his own orders, or even praise him when he somehow managed to get it right. Even that wasn’t as bad as when he would patronizingly let Gaius have his way in some small matter.
The force contained six hundred men and fewer than thirty non-combatants. Six centuries, each with eighty men, made up the main body, while two turmae of thirty-three horsemen each rode in the middle. The rest were mostly officers and the few slaves they brought with them, along with a trio of Philosophers, an engineer and two physicians. Then there was the Dominus. The man had not spoken more than a word or two since he had unexpectedly ridden out with them. He should have faded into the background from the way he kept to himself, but all eyes would drift in his direction whenever he came near. Gaius did his best to avoid him, especially after what happened on the third day from the pass.
The reason for keeping such a tight formation became apparent that day, when they encountered their first Kawyr raid. As soon as the arrows started to pour from above, Victrinus’s shouted orders had the soldiers crouching behind their large shields, protecting themselves and the officers who hid behind them. Gaius had crouched behind the shield wall next to the mud spattered centurion, who looked ridiculous squatting in the mud in his silvered armor and sideways crested helm. “Shouldn’t we order a charge?” he had yelled, thinking a flight of javelins followed by onrushing armored men would break up any company of bowmen.
“Yeah, we could try it,” Victrinus had said, looking skyward. Gaius had belatedly realized then that the arrows were coming from above, among the branches of one of the trees. “If we wanted to chase them out we’d have to chop down the tree. Of course, if we tried that, they’d just have a nice straight shot at us. They’d probably move to another tree before we got halfway through, anyway. Most likely they’ll retreat when they see they’re not doing much harm.” Indeed, although the initial assault had killed several men, the continuing fire could not penetrate the shield wall. Their weaving course had not taken them directly under the tree from which the Kawyr had staged the assault, so the height advantage did not give the Kawyr enough of an angle. Victrinus had then shouted another order, and the Novar bowmen, safely behind the infantry’s shields, fired their own arrows into the tree. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and take down some. If not, we’ll have to try to burn them out. We have fire arrows for that purpose.”
“Allow me.” Both centurion and tribune had wheeled in their squatted position when they heard the voice directly behind them. Neither had known the Dominus was standing there, fully erect as if daring the Kawyr to shoot at him. He never said or did anything more that they saw, but they had no other explanation for the conflagration which had suddenly engulfed the tree. The screams which broke out among the branches were echoed by the Novar legionaries. Gaius could vividly remember the bright flames wrapped around every limb of the tree, the wash of heat he felt even from his distant vantage point, and the dark shapes which plummeted to the ground. Some of those shapes had been branches, others had once been Kawyr. Several hours had passed before they could come close enough to tell which was which. Gaius had never seen a Dominus do something like that before. He had always heard that they had power, and he supposed he had believed it. Witnessing it firsthand shook him badly, though. Victor’s disappearance had sharpened his distrust and fear of the Domini into loathing. Never before had he felt anything akin to awe toward them, however. He hated them even more for being so untouchable.
They had buried human and Kawyr both in the shadow of the smoking, miraculously still living, tree. No other tree had been touched by the magical fire. Surprisingly, Victrinus had recommended taking the time to bury the Kawyr, rather than pressing to cover more ground as usual. “We killed these Kawyr unnaturally,” he had said, casting his eyes in the direction of the Dominus. “We need to show that we aren’t monsters.”
“Show who? The Kawyr?” Gaius had asked. “Do you think they’re still watching?”
“Probably, but it’s not them we need to convince.” The centurion had gestured to the nearby men, still staring in horror at what the Dominus had done. Few stared openly at the Dominus himself, who didn’t seem to care one way or another. He watched as they buried the bodies, little more than bones with a few strips of blackened flesh. “It’s ourselves,” Victrinus had finished unnecessarily.
They reached the Kawyr village on the fifth day.
They had stopped early the night before and camped six miles from the village. In the morning, the infantry remained in camp while the horsemen rode out to inspect the village. Victrinus summarized his reasons for both decisions succinctly, “So we can retreat quickly, and so we have somewhere to retreat to.” Gaius found this peculiar considering the centurion’s insistence that Kawyr had abandoned the settlement. “Most of the villagers will have left,” Victrinus explained. “But it doesn’t take that many to set up an ambush. Be careful.”
Gaius had never seen a Kawyr village before, and for a while he didn’t see this one. The patrol reined up in front of what looked like a large hill. Only gradually did he come to realize that it was not a natural formation. “That’s what we would call a basilica,” Victrinus told him. “It’s a meeting hall, where they conduct the village’s business.”
Though Victrinus had told him that the Kawyr hid their villages, Gaius still looked at the odd building in bewilderment. At first glance, it appeared nothing more than a large hillock. Only after a close inspection did Gaius realize that though covered with the dark soil, the building was made of hardened red clay. Cleverly disguised openings let in light, and Gaius spent several minutes looking for the door. Even with one building evident, he could not locate the rest of the village.
Pointing upward, Victrinus continued his commentary. “Like the animals, the Kawyr live above. This building and a few like it are on the ground mainly because the canopy can’t be support them.”
Gaius had already heard that they Kawyr lived in the trees, but he hadn’t completely believed it. Deciding that he’d rather avoid the lecture, he left Victrinus investigating the meeting hall and accompanied one of the other veterans in his explorations. With his help, he managed to locate a means to reach the higher levels, where the buttressing roots of one tree gave way to branches all twisted together to form a subtle ramp. He broke through the canopy into the brilliant sunlight and another world entirely. Where the shadowed regions below tended towards shades of brown with a roof of green, here colors thrived. Enormous blue butterflies roosted on red and white flowers which, though rooted on the trees, were not part of them. The blue creatures flickered in and out of sight behind the drab undersides of their wings. Large, narrow-bodied green and blue insects, several inches long with huge translucent wings, fluttered among the heights as well. From some of the trees hung drooping bunches of yellow and red flowers, among which emerald and ruby hummingbirds darted, greedily seeking nectar. Large red birds with yellow and blue banded wings flew above the trees, crying out to one another in voices sounded more human and less otherworldly than the terrifying Howlers.
Here he also found a village he could see, carved into living trees. “Carved” wasn’t the right word, as nothing about the trees indicated that they had been cut in any way. Rather, they appeared to have simply grown to accommodate the Kawyr. While no home approached the size of the townhouse he had lived in since a teenager, they could support families more comfortably than Novaro’s tenements. Pathways of braided branches and thick vines led from building to building, but Gaius didn’t want to trust his weight to a bridge he could barely make out from the trees. The limb to which the ramp had brought him was just wide enough that he could stand on it easily. He turned his attention to the home which shared it with him.
A split in the trunk marked the point where the house began. Many limbs radiated out from that point, splitting again and again to form the floor. At the edges, branches twisted upwards, among which vines grew to make a loose but sturdy wall. Above, the tree closed again, numerous large leaves overlapping to form a solid roof. An irregularly shaped window, seeming almost accidental, opened into the home, where he could see inner walls also made of branches interwoven with vines. Just outside the window grew a very odd plant. Its numerous small roots clung to a branch coming off the limb on which Gaius stood, while large leaves stemmed from a central base, stretching straight up to the height of his waist. The leaves overlapped to form a narrow bowl containing several gallons of water surrounded by stalks topped with small, wilting white flowers. A swarm of mosquitoes flew around the plant, avoiding the flowers and their lingering potency. Looking up, Gaius could see a clear opening to the sky above the water-bowl plant.
When he entered the home, brushing aside a curtain of dying purple flowers, he immediately discovered that vines also contributed to the flooring. When Gaius stepped off one of limbs, the floor gave way slightly beneath him. While he thought it could hold his weight, the effect was disconcerting, and he did his best not to step anywhere but on the branches. He wandered from room to room, trying to figure out the use for each. The dwelling was larger than he had first realized, with several rooms on each of the two levels. He found some familiar items in his searching. The earthenware pottery could have belonged to any Novar home. Strands of some odd material had been twisted and knotted to form hammocks which hung in several rooms. Thin sheets of the same material and blankets of fur draped over them. He saw numerous instruments of carefully polished bone and wood, but only a few made of metal.
He was still exploring the elevated home when he encountered the Dominus doing the same. The Dominus addressed him even as he turned to escape. “This house has been abandoned for weeks, long before we came here. They didn’t leave on account of us.”
“How do you know that?” Gaius asked over his shoulder. They had come for this sort of information, so he doubted Publius would care whether he liked the source.
“Magic,” the Dominus replied easily. “Although there are other signs.”
“Like?” Gaius asked impatiently.
“Look at this home. It is shaped from a living tree, not hacked and carved like we would, but guided--”
“I didn’t realize that the Kawyr lived in such harmony with nature.”
“Harmony? I suppose you can say that, if you believe that master and slave live in harmony. My point, though, is that the tree no longer has guidance, and it’s begun to show.”
Now that the Dominus mentioned it, Gaius could see what meant. In most places the walls were well-defined, but in spots vines and branches spilled into the home. The dense, formerly impenetrable roof now had small holes which were growing larger. A few leaves, still green but wilting, lay on the floor. Gaius had little idea how long it would have taken to reach this state, but he knew that no home which could change so much overnight would be habitable. He also remembered the water in the large plant outside which had become a nesting ground for mosquitoes. If the Kawyr planned to use it as drinking water now, they’d have to strain out the insects.
“So how long ago did they leave? And why?”
“Why is harder to discern. My magic cannot read minds. It can only tell what passed here, and that is... difficult.”
Gaius decided that if the Dominus could not give him any real information, he wouldn’t bother asking. Besides, could he really trust the information he got from one of them? He was trying to remember the location of the door when he saw something through the window.
Not far outside the home lay one of those few openings in the forest where green plants could thrive near the ground, illumined by the sunlight which the cloud-gathering sky let through for the moment. Hundreds of men were skirting the uncharacteristic undergrowth, moving around the edge of the clearing. Those on foot wore mismatched leather armor and carried varied weapons, but weapons which seemed to be of high quality. About a fourth wore light mail covered in colorful tabards and rode ponies which maneuvered around the plants and trees with ease. The large force was headed straight for the village, several wagons in tow.
The oddest thing about these men, however, was that they were green.
The Dominus followed his gaze out the window, and when he spoke Gaius could hear a definite note of satisfaction. “Those, young tribune, would be Orcs. It seems that they’re back.”
This chapter is 7,647 words long, the longest one in Fire, bringing the portion of the story that's been posted on the blog to 29,386 words. Fire is 90,110 words in all.
This is where Gaius moves to the forefront, and I start to follow up on the war I accidentally started.
Eastward
Gaius coughed in the dust kicked up by his horse’s hooves. Spitting grit from his mouth, he glared at the offending landscape. The dirt track, so different from the smooth pavement of most of the Empire’s roads, wound its way through hills hardly worthy of the name. Tall, brown grass covered the hills, fitfully rippling when the wind blew. The dead grass cracked as often as it bent, rendering the wave-like motion short-lived.
“Doesn’t this place ever get rain?” he asked his brother. Marcus rode beside him, looking preoccupied. Probably thinking responsible thoughts, Gaius mused.
“Sure it does, just not much,” Marcus replied, pausing to swat at a large black fly. Flies and gnats were the only life they had seen since yesterday, when a murder of crows and a bedraggled rabbit had crossed their path. “I usually manage not to be here during the season when it rains.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, aside from the fact that I don’t want to be here during the winter rains, the passes are closed during that time of year, so Publius doesn’t need me.”
“I meant, why does this place only get rain during certain seasons?”
“Oh, that. According to the Philosophers, it has something to do with the mountains to the east and how the prevailing winds change over the seasons.”
“The mountains? What do you mean?” Now Gaius swatted at the fly, as Marcus had successfully driven it in his direction.
“I mean that the mountains form a barrier that the clouds can’t get over.”
“If that’s the case, it should be a swamp on the other side.”
“Well, it does get plenty of rain. The forests on the far side of the mountains are greener than anything on this side.”
“And yet the Kawyr still want to come west. Why?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Maybe we should just let them have this god-forsaken place.”
“It’s not that easy, brother. We can’t just give away parts of the Empire, not even a ‘god-forsaken’ province like Ciskainia. Aside from setting a bad precedent, Novar citizens live here. Not many, true, but some find this land more to their liking than the rest of the Empire.”
Gaius was about to comment on the questionable sanity of such citizens when he noticed that Marcus was looking over his shoulder. Following his brother’s gaze, he had to shield his eyes against the late afternoon sun to see the dust cloud marking a sizeable group following them up the road. Marcus nodded in that direction. “Probably our escort. I suppose we shouldn’t have abandoned them this morning.”
Marcus spoke lightly, but Gaius knew that he had not been at all happy about leaving them. Marcus never let something as trite as the desire for a few hours of freedom get the better of his good sense. They were, after all, Imperial princes with a responsibility to the Empire. Though the calm politics of the day made assassination unlikely, it would be a fine thing for the Empire to lose them to bandits. Gaius didn’t believe that his brother would have any qualms about risking his life in battle, which he would see as nothing less than fulfilling his duty, but he didn’t have an ounce of recklessness in him. Gaius had had to cajole Marcus into leaving before most of their escort was awake, and then the older brother had come only because he knew his heedless sibling would go alone otherwise.
While Gaius was glad they had gotten out, he was not looking forward to their encounter with Brutus when he caught up. The scarred centurion led their escort, and while Gaius and Marcus outranked him, Brutus had taken advantage of their father’s insistence on who gave the orders until they reached the military outpost. He wasn’t exactly hostile towards them, but he had been a soldier longer than either of them had lived, and he thought that a couple of young princes could use an extra dose of discipline. It had not been a fun trip. Gaius had decided to get away at the first opportunity, and he still hoped to escape Brutus’s wrath.
“Hey, Marcus, how close is the fort?”
“Not close enough. We couldn’t make it before dark.”
“We don’t have to make it before dark, just before Brutus. Once we’re there, he can’t do anything to us.”
Marcus grinned unexpectedly, “Well, it’s worth a try.” Giving his horse a kick, he drove the gelding up to a trot, Gaius coming close behind. Responsible or not, it looked like Marcus had no desire to meet up with Brutus in a foul mood.
They were leading their horses in the moonlight by the time they reached the fort. Marcus refused to risk injuring the horses just to avoid Brutus’s punishment, so they had been walking them since sunset. Gaius had not complained. He may not have shared his brother’s blithe attitude toward Brutus’s discipline, but he did genuinely care for his horse.
The South Kainin Fort had evolved along the same lines as most Novar outposts. Starting out as a fortified camp for two legions, it had gradually become more and more permanent. Stone walls replaced earthen ramparts as brick barracks replaced tents. The only truly new elements were the towers on either side of each of the four gates which faced in the cardinal directions. Small brick homes and shops, as well as the occasional tavern, formed an army town on the north side. Soldiers needed someplace to spend their time and their pay, and while the Novar military strongly discouraged its legionaries from marrying, a few had families who stayed in the town. The main road avoided this town, ending at the western gate and beginning again at the eastern gate. The thoroughfare running straight through the fort had storage buildings on one side and the officers’ quarters and the forum on the other. Gaius and Marcus could see this road through the grilled metal gate as they waited outside.
“Who goes there?” called a soldier on the inside of the gate. He looked bored, tired, and sweaty beneath his banded armor. Though they could only see this one soldier, both brothers knew that archers watched from the tower.
“Marcus and Gaius Principius,” Gaius replied.
The guard started, and then relaxed with a grin. “You almost had me, but shouldn’t a pair of Imperial princes have an escort? Who are you really?”
Marcus smiled at that, and Gaius had to as well. The guard had it right, they should have an escort. He tried again, “We really are Marcus and Gaius Principius. Now could you please let us in? I’m sure Publius Aurelius will want to see us.”
“Calling the proconsul by name isn’t going to convince me you’re who you claim,” the soldier said, starting to become angry. Gaius figured the young man was new to the legions, likely on his first tour. “If you aren’t going to tell me who you are, you can come back tomorrow, when the gate’s open.”
That wouldn’t do at all. Whatever lead they had on Brutus, he would catch up to them long before morning. Gaius tried to keep his temper, “Perhaps you should call your centurion. He’ll probably recognize us.” He hoped so. He had no way of telling the century to which young soldier belonged.
The soldier appeared to consider that option. Legionaries learned soon after signing up that when in doubt, you can always pass responsibility to someone higher up. “The centurion won’t like me waking him up for a couple of jokers,” he balked.
“Look at it this way,” Marcus interrupted just as Gaius opened his mouth to dress down this stubborn guard. “If we’re not who we say we are, you can arrest us for impersonating Imperial princes. That’s a very serious crime, you know.”
“All right, we’ll see what the centurion has to say. You wait here.” He whistled to the unseen bowmen in the towers and strode off.
“Just how serious a crime is it to impersonate an Imperial prince?” Gaius asked his brother.
“I don’t know. I doubt anyone’s ever bothered.” Marcus looked him up and down. “Why anyone would ever pretend to be you is beyond me.”
“Like you’re any great prize,” Gaius snorted. If he looked anything like his brother right now, it shouldn’t surprise him that the guard didn’t believe them. Marcus wore nothing more elaborate than a simple white tunic long since gone brown with dirt. Likewise, the leather leggings he wore while riding were covered in the road’s dust, and his riding boots were scuffed and discolored as well. Dirt would have turned his face completely brown except for the furrows traced through it by runnels of sweat, and his hair had the wild disarray usually associated with madmen. In the flickering light from the gate’s torches, the effect was quite horrific.
It took nearly a quarter of an hour for the guard to return, followed by his stocky centurion. The scar which his salt-and-pepper beard tried to hide accentuated his scowl. He had dressed in a simple tunic which appeared to be on backwards. Likely he had only donned it after deciding that it was impolite to come to the gate naked. He carried the wooden cane that marked his rank as if looking to strike someone with it, its primary purpose.
“So where’s Brutus?” he asked. “He decide he was sick of you two and desert? After burying you alive, from the looks of it.”
“Oh, I’m sure Brutus is trying to catch up even as we speak, Victrinus,” Gaius said. “So if you’d be so kind as to let us in...”
“Ha! So you ditched him.” Victrinus’s grin looked even worse than his scowl. “I can’t say I blame you. The man hasn’t got an ounce of humor in him. Still, your father did put you in his care, so I should probably just leave you out there for him to find. After you finished digging latrines for him, you might finally make a decent pair of soldiers.”
“Victrinus, please.” It was not dignified for an Imperial prince to beg, but Gaius thought he could hear hoofbeats coming up the road.
“Oh, all right. Open the gate,” he called.
The soldier had seemed shocked at the easy camaraderie between the brothers and his centurion, but he hurried to comply. Once he had the gate open, he came up to Gaius looking very nervous, “S-sirs, I’m very sorry. I-I had no idea...”
Gaius probably would have said something sarcastic, but Marcus spoke first, “That’s okay, soldier. You were just doing your job. What’s your name?”
“P-paulus, sir. I mean, Servius Maximus Paulus.”
Marcus smiled. “Victrinus, you have a good soldier here.”
Victrinus looked at the younger man, who did not meet his eye, then winked at Marcus. “He’s young, but he’s learning. As long as he learns when to act on his own and when to come to me, he’ll live long enough to make centurion.”
The young man turned red, though whether from the compliment or the mild rebuke, Gaius couldn’t tell.
“What’s up with Paulus?” Gaius asked once they made it out of earshot. “I thought you had only veterans in your century.”
“Paulus is a veteran. He served four years in northern Ciskainia, then transferred down here just this year.”
“Really? He seems too young for that.”
“I think he may have joined a couple of years earlier than was strictly legal,” Victrinus replied. “He’s a native of Ciskainia, so he takes the defense of his homeland personally. Paulus really is a good soldier, even if he does sometimes act his age. I’m serious about him becoming a centurion. If he re-enlists, I’ll definitely recommend him.”
“Is Publius still awake?” Marcus changed the subject. “We should see him.”
“The proconsul’s always awake--he’s not getting enough sleep. Perhaps you can convince him to get some rest...”
“We’ll see what we can do,... Mother,” Gaius said the last under his breath.
Hooves and boots both echoed off the paved thoroughfare as Victrinus led them to the headquarters of the fort, a large brick building, consisting mainly of offices used by scribes and accountants, where the proconsul held court on the second floor. Light shined from one of the windows there, where Publius must be, since only he would still be working this late. Victrinus led them through the darkened, narrow corridor and up the stairs, where he rapped on one of the doors.
“What is it?” came from inside. Victrinus opened his mouth to respond, but didn’t get a word out before the irritated voice continued, “If you’re going to interrupt me, hurry up and come in.”
Victrinus opened the door, pointed Gaius and Marcus in, then made his escape. Publius sat at his desk, reading through reports while eating honeyed biscuits with his off-hand. He seemed not to notice that the reports were starting to become rather sticky. He glanced up at Gaius and Marcus. “Ah, you’re finally here.” He paused to eat another biscuit. “Sorry for being irritable, but... well, things here are irritating.”
“Were you waiting for us?” Marcus asked.
“More or less. I have one more tribune who’s late, but he can’t get here before the end of the month, so we’re going to have to march without him.”
“March where?” Gaius asked.
“To the Austral Pass, of course. Something’s happening on the other side of the mountains, and I’m not going to wait until the Kawyr come knocking on our gates to find out what. If they get through the mountains in force, this fort is not going to stop them from going wherever they want. We need to plug the pass.”
“Why the southern pass?” asked Marcus.
“Because the two legions guarding the northern passes report that the further north they go, the less the Kawyr seem affected. In the South, the villages are moving.”
“Are they gathering in the South?” Marcus pursued.
“The villages are moving north, but who knows where their warriors are? Once we reach the pass, we can send a cohort further in to find out more.”
“You want to send a full five hundred men?” Gaius blurted. “There’s no way you could hide that. Shouldn’t you send a smaller patrol?”
Publius had started shaking his head before Gaius finished. “I’d use a small patrol in the foothills on the other side, but not in the forest. You can’t hide from the Kawyr no matter what you do, my boy. Smaller patrols vanish. Larger ones make bigger targets, but they’re harder to take down. If you move quickly, you can reach some of their villages and see what you find there. Oh, they’ll be gone before you arrive, but if you’re fast enough, they won’t have time to clean up after themselves, and they might leave some clues behind.”
Gaius just couldn’t see how the Kawyr could know about everything that came through their land. By all reports, it wasn’t that densely populated. Marcus, on the other hand, had simply nodded at Publius’s words.
“So who will lead this patrol?” Gaius asked instead.
“You will,” Publius replied.
“Me?” Unlike his brother, who had served in Ciskainia since he joined the army, Gaius had risen through the ranks in Novitia. He’d only come east last year, when the office of tribune became open here. He’d never even gone on a patrol past the mountains before, much less led one. He thought he could handle it, but he hadn’t thought that Publius believed he could.
“Victrinus will go with you. You and Marcus are the only tribunes I trust to bend your stiff necks and listen to a more experienced centurion. Any of the others would do exactly the opposite just to prove that he wasn’t taking some Plebeian’s advice.” Publius looked at Gaius more closely, biscuit halfway to his mouth. “I can trust you to listen to Victrinus, can’t I?”
“I suppose,” Gaius mumbled.
“You can do better than that. You know something about the Kawyr by now, but you have little firsthand experience. I don’t want you getting people killed, yourself included, because you think you know better than Victrinus.”
“Sir, I have the utmost respect for Victrinus. I know that he understands the Kawyr better than I do, and I don’t intend to get anyone killed.”
“Marcus, what do you think?”
Marcus was watching Publius and Gaius in turn. “I think my brother can handle it, sir. He can be very stubborn, but he’s smart enough to know when to back down. He also respects Victrinus, which makes all the difference. We both do.”
“Publius, if you don’t trust me, you should send Marcus,” Gaius said, chafing under Publius’s doubts.
“I need Marcus with me, and you could use the experience. You understand well enough, I think. You’re in charge, my boy, but I expect you to listen to Victrinus and--”
“Of course, Proconsul,” Gaius cut off Publius before he could add “and do as he says.” He was to be a figurehead, then. The idea of only nominally leading the patrol was both irritating and reassuring. He thought he could do it, but he had never led a patrol beyond the pass before, and he feared that his lack of experience could get people killed. For that reason, Gaius was thankful for Victrinus’s presence. He did not like the fact that he would practically be taking orders from him, but that did relieve him of some of the terrifying responsibility for other people’s lives.
“Good. Now get some sleep. We need to get ready tomorrow so we can leave the day after.”
The army traveled at a good clip, making an average of fifteen miles each day. This greatly surpassed the usual daily march of ten miles for a full four legion army. Each soldier could travel such a distance in a few hours, but the army would remain strung out between the two camp sites for a full day. With only two legions, each man marched for six hours and the army travelled further. Of course, the longer journey made the men less eager to set up the fortified camp every night, but they managed it with a minimum of grumbling. Victrinus assured Gaius that they would travel even faster once their small force of five hundred reached the other side of the mountains.
For Gaius, the trip to the Austral Pass resembled his journey to the South Kainin Fort, except that there was a larger number of soldiers and consequently more dust. The jagged Kainin mountains grew steadily ahead of them, while in the land below lay little water, few trees, and fewer people. The respectable town which had grown up near the fort was an anomaly, a boisterous contrast to the scattered farming communities they had passed since then. As a few houses and an extended family or two did not warrant visiting, Gaius wished he had had a chance to spend some time in the fort’s town, if for no other reason than a change of company. Nearly a month had passed since he had spoken to anyone other than a soldier or one of the army’s slaves. Usually he could have enjoyed the comradery of the legionaries. While the new recruits tended to gawk at the Imperial princes, the veterans knew them and spoke almost as to equals. He had often enjoyed games of dice and conversations around campfires, sipping the bitter wine distributed to the troops. These days every man he spoke to offered unsolicited advice about the Kawyr and patrols in their land, and before long Gaius grew sick of hearing it. Much of it was unbelievable, and many of the stories contradictory. How could a Kawyr be aware of everything within a twenty mile radius? Did they see like owls at night, or did darkness completely debilitate them? It seemed unlikely that they could fly or burrow through the ground as if it were water, much less both. Gaius knew for a fact that they weren’t unbeatable in combat, but he almost believed the men who said they never missed with their longbows. The veterans certainly believed it, though only a few of even them had actually seen a Kawyr. Victrinus had seen plenty of Kawyr, and he seemed determined to fill in the gaps in Gaius’s education. He lectured at length on the ghost-like Kawyr and their invisible villages until the tribune called him on his exaggerations, when he admitted that the Novari had learned the signs to look for in order to find the hidden villages and that while Novar outposts in the foothills couldn’t keep track of the Kawyr scouts, they could spot large groups of Kawyr moving along the elevated roads. Gaius soon started to avoid Victrinus and his lectures.
Still, Gaius would have enjoyed the journey if not for some unexpected travelling companions. A dozen Domini had joined the legions, the first time he had seen the black-robed creatures travel with the Novar army. According to Publius, they had shown up a few days before Marcus and Gaius had, asked Publius whether he was traveling to the pass, and then told him that they would be coming with him. No one had the courage to ask the Domini why they were coming. While most of the troops simply pretended not to see them, Gaius had to force himself not to glare. Thoughts of Victor flashed through his head every time he saw the black-robed strangers. He had no idea what those monsters had done to his brother. Afraid that he might do something suicidally stupid if he had to speak to one of them, Gaius did his best to avoid them. If his father could do nothing for Victor, what could he hope to accomplish? Remembering the long, impassioned arguments with his father only stoked his anger. The elder Marcus Principius’s calmness and lack of overt grief had infuriated him. Gaius hoped his attitude stemmed from powerlessness, not indifference.
As tense as the trip had made him, Gaius was almost sorry to see it end when they reached the Austral Pass on the seventh day. After a long climb through the foothills, encountering more rocks and less dust, they had spent the last day in a narrow gorge before reaching this point. The sweltering heat of the lowlands had given way to the colder air of the heights, and occasional patches of snow appeared to remind them of what lay ahead, where the snow-covered peaks of the Kainin mountains marked the edge of the Novar Empire. Travelling through the mountain range was dangerous and slow in all but a handful of passes, the southernmost of which they were sealing off. During the winter, the snow closed off even the best passes. Nearly a foot remained even now in early spring. During the summer, permanent fortifications, which the Novari had built from stones hewn from the mountains, ensured the border’s security. A wall, twenty feet high and ten wide, stretched across the entire mile-long width of the pass, with a tower every hundred yards, and a solid wooden gate, backed by an iron portcullis which provided the sole entry point. A smallish fortress behind the wall provided a base camp for its defenders and a fall-back position should it fail. No sooner had the men begun to move in than Publius informed Gaius that he and his cohort would have a day to rest up before they began their patrol.
Gaius could not decide whether he felt more excitement or fear. While he enjoyed the perks of leadership, he had never enjoyed the responsibilities, and nothing frightened him as much as having other people’s lives depend on him. For that reason, at least, he appreciated Victrinus’s presence, though there remained plenty of reasons to resent it. Though he awoke early the next day, he soon learned that Victrinus already had preparations well in hand. With nothing else to do, he tried to chat with the men who would be going with him. Most of them seemed as high strung as he, however, and he soon found himself walking about alone, trying not to think about what lay ahead.
Inside the camp, thousands of soldiers had churned the snow into an ugly gray slush to match the ugly gray buildings. Abandoning the small shelter of the fort, Gaius wandered outside where at least some patches of snow resembled the pristine whiteness described by poets. He trudged through undisturbed drifts of it to the eastern side of the fort, ignoring the cold and damp which seeped through his clothes. Though still early in the afternoon, light and warmth were in short supply. Deciding that he didn’t care, he leaned against the fort’s wall and watched the skies dim behind the barrier meant to stop the Kawyr. Marcus found him there, still watching and wondering what really lay to the east.
“Frightened?” his brother asked.
“Nah. It’s just a patrol,” Gaius lied. “What’s there to be scared of?”
“Plenty. I’m always terrified when I lead a patrol into their land.”
Gaius turned to look at his brother. “You, Marcus? I’ve never seen you frightened.”
“It’s important not to show it. Your men will look to you for encouragement. When everything comes apart, the commander’s self-assurance is the only thing that can hold them together.”
“I’m not even the real commander. All I’m supposed to do is listen to Victrinus and do what he says.” He hoped he didn’t sound too bitter. “I’m a figurehead at best.”
“That, Gaius, is sometimes what a commander most needs to be.” Marcus smiled. “It’s just as important as clever strategies and superb tactics.”
“What about Publius?” Gaius asked.
“Publius... is a special case.”
Gaius snorted. “He’s not much of a figurehead. He looks like he should be entertaining guests at a dinner party, not leading troops into battle.”
“That’s why he surrounds himself with men who do look like soldiers. They know he’s a superb general, and their confidence in him inspires their troops. That image is one he cultivates carefully, by the way. Partly because he knows that he can’t look like a great warrior, and would appear foolish if he tried. Partly because it irritates the politicians back home.”
“So you don’t think I should imitate Publius?”
“No--he’s probably not the best role model. You certainly don’t have enough of a reputation that you can get away with it. Besides, even though Publius doesn’t look soldierly, he never acts cowardly or indecisive. That much you can imitate. You need to look like the ideal Novar general: bold, decisive, confident. You should never seem frightened, or uncertain, or helpless, even when you feel all of those things.”
“Sounds hard. What if men die?”
“There’s no ‘if’ there. Men will die, they always do on patrols into the Kawyr lands. Grieve them, but not too much. Your first duty is to the living, to bring them home.”
Gaius looked at the pass, shrouded in darkness as the sun set behind them. “I’ll try.”
Only a few days had passed before Gaius wished he had flat out refused Publius’s commission. He had even begun to miss the sun and dust on the other side of the Kainin mountains. In the west lay the dusty plains sweltering under the sun. In the east lived an immense forest drowning in rain. The nearly continuous rainfall did little to relieve the heat and much to exacerbate the humidity. Horses and soldiers churned up a rich black mud, occasionally revealing a hard red clay just a few inches beneath. Even though he rode, mud had spattered Gaius from his head to his damp feet. Most of the soldiers were even more miserable, and nothing was clean these days. Gaius had hoped at first that the trees would keep the rain off, but instead they ensured that though the rain may stop, water would continue to drip from above. Even when the sun was shining, the leafy canopy kept the ground in shadow. He could only see the tops of a few small, young trees, while a solid roof of green hid the sky. Some massive onyas, as Victrinus said the Kawyr called them, stretched even higher, leaving only their thick trunks visible. Gaius could just make out colorful flowers and ferns which somehow seemed to be growing high up on the trees. Few plants grew closer to the ground, just some mushrooms which speckled the massive roots and some vines which seemed to be reaching downward, winding around the trunks of massive trees as if to uproot them. The lack of underbrush made it possible for the cohort to travel quickly despite the mud.
Just as few plants lived on the ground, most of the animals seemed to live above in the canopy. A shiver running along the branches would announce a diverse flock of birds taking flight, driving insects and other prey before them. The cacophony of clashing calls at least had a few pleasing notes among them. The Howlers were another matter. The first time Gaius had heard their wails, almost human but unmistakably other, he had been convinced not only of the truth of the Kairnin legends about spirits whose voices caused madness, but that the banshees were coming for them. Even after Victrinus had assured him that the hunting pack sought something other than them, the sound caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. Gaius had forced himself to laugh at his own embarrassment, wondering why he had never noticed how condescending Victrinus could be before. None of the men had ever actually seen a Howler, but the accepted legend described them as small, grotesque men covered in hair, whose razor sharp claws neatly eviscerated their prey. No one knew what they actually hunted in the trees, but some thought it was the Kawyr. Surprisingly, no one cheered the Howlers.
A few creatures lived below, however, and some of these were not waiting for Kawyr. A huge cat had mauled one of the horses before the soldiers drove it off. They had to put down the horse and leave it behind, where the cat undoubtedly feasted on it later. That no one had seen the cat before it had leapt from an overhanging limb alarmed the newer recruits, and they began to keep their eyes above rather than on the ground. That did not help one of them avoid a large snake which lowered itself from above to wrap around him. Rather than biting, it had tightened almost gently around his chest, intent on preventing any indrawn breath. Fortunately, his metal armor confused the snake’s instincts, as it took some time to kill the snake and disentangle him from it. The young soldier had emerged pale and breathless but alive. His armor, on the other hand, was crushed beyond repair.
Despite these adventures, the small force had travelled more quickly than any army with which Gaius had ridden. They made nearly twenty miles each day, and still managed to raise a fortified camp out of the muck every night. That speed seemed even more incredible considering the twisting course they followed. Gaius decided not to ask why it seemed more convoluted than strictly necessary. He was tired of having his senior centurion explain everything to him. Rather than travelling in normal marching order, with the officers in the front and the baggage train in the back, the men marched in a tight hollow square, with supplies and all the mounted men, including officers, in the center. As the trees did not offer enough space for the army to pass between them, the force divided around the trees like a river around islands. The young tribune had followed Victrinus’s advice to keep things as compact and easy to defend as possible. He seemed to be taking a lot of advice from Victrinus lately. The centurion was always respectful, even humble, in offering his suggestions, but Gaius knew better than to refuse them. He recognized good advice, but it galled, especially when Victrinus would correct his own orders, or even praise him when he somehow managed to get it right. Even that wasn’t as bad as when he would patronizingly let Gaius have his way in some small matter.
The force contained six hundred men and fewer than thirty non-combatants. Six centuries, each with eighty men, made up the main body, while two turmae of thirty-three horsemen each rode in the middle. The rest were mostly officers and the few slaves they brought with them, along with a trio of Philosophers, an engineer and two physicians. Then there was the Dominus. The man had not spoken more than a word or two since he had unexpectedly ridden out with them. He should have faded into the background from the way he kept to himself, but all eyes would drift in his direction whenever he came near. Gaius did his best to avoid him, especially after what happened on the third day from the pass.
The reason for keeping such a tight formation became apparent that day, when they encountered their first Kawyr raid. As soon as the arrows started to pour from above, Victrinus’s shouted orders had the soldiers crouching behind their large shields, protecting themselves and the officers who hid behind them. Gaius had crouched behind the shield wall next to the mud spattered centurion, who looked ridiculous squatting in the mud in his silvered armor and sideways crested helm. “Shouldn’t we order a charge?” he had yelled, thinking a flight of javelins followed by onrushing armored men would break up any company of bowmen.
“Yeah, we could try it,” Victrinus had said, looking skyward. Gaius had belatedly realized then that the arrows were coming from above, among the branches of one of the trees. “If we wanted to chase them out we’d have to chop down the tree. Of course, if we tried that, they’d just have a nice straight shot at us. They’d probably move to another tree before we got halfway through, anyway. Most likely they’ll retreat when they see they’re not doing much harm.” Indeed, although the initial assault had killed several men, the continuing fire could not penetrate the shield wall. Their weaving course had not taken them directly under the tree from which the Kawyr had staged the assault, so the height advantage did not give the Kawyr enough of an angle. Victrinus had then shouted another order, and the Novar bowmen, safely behind the infantry’s shields, fired their own arrows into the tree. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and take down some. If not, we’ll have to try to burn them out. We have fire arrows for that purpose.”
“Allow me.” Both centurion and tribune had wheeled in their squatted position when they heard the voice directly behind them. Neither had known the Dominus was standing there, fully erect as if daring the Kawyr to shoot at him. He never said or did anything more that they saw, but they had no other explanation for the conflagration which had suddenly engulfed the tree. The screams which broke out among the branches were echoed by the Novar legionaries. Gaius could vividly remember the bright flames wrapped around every limb of the tree, the wash of heat he felt even from his distant vantage point, and the dark shapes which plummeted to the ground. Some of those shapes had been branches, others had once been Kawyr. Several hours had passed before they could come close enough to tell which was which. Gaius had never seen a Dominus do something like that before. He had always heard that they had power, and he supposed he had believed it. Witnessing it firsthand shook him badly, though. Victor’s disappearance had sharpened his distrust and fear of the Domini into loathing. Never before had he felt anything akin to awe toward them, however. He hated them even more for being so untouchable.
They had buried human and Kawyr both in the shadow of the smoking, miraculously still living, tree. No other tree had been touched by the magical fire. Surprisingly, Victrinus had recommended taking the time to bury the Kawyr, rather than pressing to cover more ground as usual. “We killed these Kawyr unnaturally,” he had said, casting his eyes in the direction of the Dominus. “We need to show that we aren’t monsters.”
“Show who? The Kawyr?” Gaius had asked. “Do you think they’re still watching?”
“Probably, but it’s not them we need to convince.” The centurion had gestured to the nearby men, still staring in horror at what the Dominus had done. Few stared openly at the Dominus himself, who didn’t seem to care one way or another. He watched as they buried the bodies, little more than bones with a few strips of blackened flesh. “It’s ourselves,” Victrinus had finished unnecessarily.
They reached the Kawyr village on the fifth day.
They had stopped early the night before and camped six miles from the village. In the morning, the infantry remained in camp while the horsemen rode out to inspect the village. Victrinus summarized his reasons for both decisions succinctly, “So we can retreat quickly, and so we have somewhere to retreat to.” Gaius found this peculiar considering the centurion’s insistence that Kawyr had abandoned the settlement. “Most of the villagers will have left,” Victrinus explained. “But it doesn’t take that many to set up an ambush. Be careful.”
Gaius had never seen a Kawyr village before, and for a while he didn’t see this one. The patrol reined up in front of what looked like a large hill. Only gradually did he come to realize that it was not a natural formation. “That’s what we would call a basilica,” Victrinus told him. “It’s a meeting hall, where they conduct the village’s business.”
Though Victrinus had told him that the Kawyr hid their villages, Gaius still looked at the odd building in bewilderment. At first glance, it appeared nothing more than a large hillock. Only after a close inspection did Gaius realize that though covered with the dark soil, the building was made of hardened red clay. Cleverly disguised openings let in light, and Gaius spent several minutes looking for the door. Even with one building evident, he could not locate the rest of the village.
Pointing upward, Victrinus continued his commentary. “Like the animals, the Kawyr live above. This building and a few like it are on the ground mainly because the canopy can’t be support them.”
Gaius had already heard that they Kawyr lived in the trees, but he hadn’t completely believed it. Deciding that he’d rather avoid the lecture, he left Victrinus investigating the meeting hall and accompanied one of the other veterans in his explorations. With his help, he managed to locate a means to reach the higher levels, where the buttressing roots of one tree gave way to branches all twisted together to form a subtle ramp. He broke through the canopy into the brilliant sunlight and another world entirely. Where the shadowed regions below tended towards shades of brown with a roof of green, here colors thrived. Enormous blue butterflies roosted on red and white flowers which, though rooted on the trees, were not part of them. The blue creatures flickered in and out of sight behind the drab undersides of their wings. Large, narrow-bodied green and blue insects, several inches long with huge translucent wings, fluttered among the heights as well. From some of the trees hung drooping bunches of yellow and red flowers, among which emerald and ruby hummingbirds darted, greedily seeking nectar. Large red birds with yellow and blue banded wings flew above the trees, crying out to one another in voices sounded more human and less otherworldly than the terrifying Howlers.
Here he also found a village he could see, carved into living trees. “Carved” wasn’t the right word, as nothing about the trees indicated that they had been cut in any way. Rather, they appeared to have simply grown to accommodate the Kawyr. While no home approached the size of the townhouse he had lived in since a teenager, they could support families more comfortably than Novaro’s tenements. Pathways of braided branches and thick vines led from building to building, but Gaius didn’t want to trust his weight to a bridge he could barely make out from the trees. The limb to which the ramp had brought him was just wide enough that he could stand on it easily. He turned his attention to the home which shared it with him.
A split in the trunk marked the point where the house began. Many limbs radiated out from that point, splitting again and again to form the floor. At the edges, branches twisted upwards, among which vines grew to make a loose but sturdy wall. Above, the tree closed again, numerous large leaves overlapping to form a solid roof. An irregularly shaped window, seeming almost accidental, opened into the home, where he could see inner walls also made of branches interwoven with vines. Just outside the window grew a very odd plant. Its numerous small roots clung to a branch coming off the limb on which Gaius stood, while large leaves stemmed from a central base, stretching straight up to the height of his waist. The leaves overlapped to form a narrow bowl containing several gallons of water surrounded by stalks topped with small, wilting white flowers. A swarm of mosquitoes flew around the plant, avoiding the flowers and their lingering potency. Looking up, Gaius could see a clear opening to the sky above the water-bowl plant.
When he entered the home, brushing aside a curtain of dying purple flowers, he immediately discovered that vines also contributed to the flooring. When Gaius stepped off one of limbs, the floor gave way slightly beneath him. While he thought it could hold his weight, the effect was disconcerting, and he did his best not to step anywhere but on the branches. He wandered from room to room, trying to figure out the use for each. The dwelling was larger than he had first realized, with several rooms on each of the two levels. He found some familiar items in his searching. The earthenware pottery could have belonged to any Novar home. Strands of some odd material had been twisted and knotted to form hammocks which hung in several rooms. Thin sheets of the same material and blankets of fur draped over them. He saw numerous instruments of carefully polished bone and wood, but only a few made of metal.
He was still exploring the elevated home when he encountered the Dominus doing the same. The Dominus addressed him even as he turned to escape. “This house has been abandoned for weeks, long before we came here. They didn’t leave on account of us.”
“How do you know that?” Gaius asked over his shoulder. They had come for this sort of information, so he doubted Publius would care whether he liked the source.
“Magic,” the Dominus replied easily. “Although there are other signs.”
“Like?” Gaius asked impatiently.
“Look at this home. It is shaped from a living tree, not hacked and carved like we would, but guided--”
“I didn’t realize that the Kawyr lived in such harmony with nature.”
“Harmony? I suppose you can say that, if you believe that master and slave live in harmony. My point, though, is that the tree no longer has guidance, and it’s begun to show.”
Now that the Dominus mentioned it, Gaius could see what meant. In most places the walls were well-defined, but in spots vines and branches spilled into the home. The dense, formerly impenetrable roof now had small holes which were growing larger. A few leaves, still green but wilting, lay on the floor. Gaius had little idea how long it would have taken to reach this state, but he knew that no home which could change so much overnight would be habitable. He also remembered the water in the large plant outside which had become a nesting ground for mosquitoes. If the Kawyr planned to use it as drinking water now, they’d have to strain out the insects.
“So how long ago did they leave? And why?”
“Why is harder to discern. My magic cannot read minds. It can only tell what passed here, and that is... difficult.”
Gaius decided that if the Dominus could not give him any real information, he wouldn’t bother asking. Besides, could he really trust the information he got from one of them? He was trying to remember the location of the door when he saw something through the window.
Not far outside the home lay one of those few openings in the forest where green plants could thrive near the ground, illumined by the sunlight which the cloud-gathering sky let through for the moment. Hundreds of men were skirting the uncharacteristic undergrowth, moving around the edge of the clearing. Those on foot wore mismatched leather armor and carried varied weapons, but weapons which seemed to be of high quality. About a fourth wore light mail covered in colorful tabards and rode ponies which maneuvered around the plants and trees with ease. The large force was headed straight for the village, several wagons in tow.
The oddest thing about these men, however, was that they were green.
The Dominus followed his gaze out the window, and when he spoke Gaius could hear a definite note of satisfaction. “Those, young tribune, would be Orcs. It seems that they’re back.”
This chapter is 7,647 words long, the longest one in Fire, bringing the portion of the story that's been posted on the blog to 29,386 words. Fire is 90,110 words in all.
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