TWENTY-THREE: ANCIENT PURPOSE

  A foot kicked Cassius awake, nothing more than a gentle brush against his shoulder as he was startled awake. Late afternoon light made a dizzying aurora that pressed against Cassius’ eyes like a hot press, pain lanced through his head as he groaned and clutched at his skull.

  “Still sensitive?” Vira asked.

  “It is. Though not as bad as it was,” Cassius said. While the bright light had hurt, it had been nothing compared to the pain he had endured right before he’d fallen asleep. Slowly he cracked his eyes open, keeping his gaze locked on the ground. He was pleased when the world wasn’t as blurry, even if it still wasn’t the normal clarity he had.

  “Rest helped. I will be fine in a day,” Cassius declared, keeping his eyes squinted as he looked up to the noblewoman. She squatted on her haunches, suspiciously clean from their run.

  “You found water?” Cassius guessed. Vira smiled widely, showing off her clean, straight, white teeth.

  “That and more. Our hunters have decided that they won’t risk leaving the forest in the daylight. Everyone else is asleep and resting. Let me show you what we found and you can take next watch while I rest,” Vira said as she rose, offering him a hand. Cassius took it, feeling her abnormal strength as he was pulled upright.

  Cassius looked down the slope of the hill toward the forest and was pleased that he could see clearly the entirety of the hill. The trees seemed to meld to one another still, but it was a marked improvement.

  “Eyes good enough to stand watch?” Vira asked.

  “Yes, I can stand watch. Show me what you found.”

  Vira nodded as she turned away from the ramparts surrounded by stakes and went further into the old warcamp. Now that his mind wasn’t splitting under the weight of an anvil, Cassius could see the skeleton of a full camp that the legions practiced.

  The full array of stakes, mounded hills on the corners of the square for watchtowers, how the earth had been hardpacked by stomping feet. Purple grass now burst free of the earth, but he could still feel the rigidity of it underneath his boots.

  If this was modeled off a legion camp, then the supplies should be near the heart, not far from where the commander normally was positioned. Cassius was proven right when Vira moved in the right direction, stepping past the duo of sleeping Agricola bannermen and toward a dug in square.

  It wasn’t deep, hardly three feet, but whatever tarps or skins had been used to cover it had long eroded to time, leaving only a pair of poles rising from the same side of the square. Remnants of the camp were more visible here, including a wide barrel made of white wood covered in dense burned runes. Cassius’ stomach flipped as he saw the runes, similar enough to what the summoner used that he feared they’d found the wrong camp.

  “Relax. It is similar to what they used, but it is dungeon script.” Vira spoke over her shoulder without looking at him and preempted his question before he could voice it.

  “Valeria had a negative reaction to the runes, but that is no fault of yours. Legionnaires are rarely taught dungeon script,” Vira said. She hopped down into the square and opened the barrel. Cassius stood above her and it gave a clear view of the water that was level with where the lid had been.

  “An unending barrel. They are a reward in several dungeons near the sea or anywhere where there is little clean drinking water,” Vira explained as she dunked her canteen into it, filling it in moments.

  “I must admit my ignorance. This is not something anyone taught me,” Cassius said as he slowly lowered himself into the pit and hovered over the barrel. The water looked regular, like any other pool of clean, not bloodied water. Thirst and trust drove him as he grabbed his own empty canteens and filled them, little bubbles rising to the top as water rushed in.

  “Dungeons are…strange. All of them are owned by the first strata, my own mother controls four of them. You enter them and are placed against a series of foes or challenges, where you are rewarded for how you perform,” Vira said haltingly.

  “You’ve been in one?” Cassius asked as he drank deeply from his canteen. The water was cool euphoria upon his tongue. It was a challenge to bite back a groan of pleasure, a force of will greater than nearly anything he’d ever needed to take the canteen from his own lips. He would colic if he drank too fast.

  “Yes. After our ascent into adulthood, most nobles used dungeons to level. They are safer than finding random monsters on the borders. They aren’t dangerless though, several of the Triticum have fallen in our own dungeons.”

  Cassius stared at her, dumbfounded as he thought of all the nobles he’d seen in her party. All of them had seemed strong, but they reached the same level of blessing as a legionnaire in a short time. Not having to hope for an encounter with a wild beast fresh from the wilds beyond the Shifting Wall. A kernel of ugly anger boiled in his gut as he thought of all of the scarred legionnaires he’d seen.

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  “On occasion the dungeon monsters will have skill shards, but they are more rare than in the wilds. There is a rumor that if you let the dungeon rest, the rewards are greater. I give some credence to this as the histories show that the first people who tamed a dungeon were richly rewarded,” Vira continued to babble on, oblivious to the anger that radiated through Cassius.

  “The skills are generally weak though, what you’d already see in a class shaped by a skill stone. Not like a wild shard at all,” Vira said. Cassius realized the woman was near delirious in her exhaustion, just speaking to help herself stay awake. A bit of the anger left him as he drank again, letting the water chill the heat in his gut.

  “Go and rest. I shall take watch,” Cassius promised. Vira turned to look at him and he saw now how bloodshot her eyes were, the black rings that highlighted the emerald orbs, how pale and bloodless her face was. She was teetering on the edge of collapse, but had kept herself going while he slept.

  “Thank you, Cassius. I shall do that,” Vira intoned solemnly. She sank to her knees before falling on her side, arms curled under her head. In a scant few heartbeats she was fast asleep, oblivious to the world around her.

  “Let us see where Valeria is,” Cassius said to himself. He refilled his water canteens first, sipping on one as he climbed out of the supply room and looked about. It took him only a moment to think where a veteran would sleep, before his feet found himself moving toward another dug in ditch not far away. Close to the center of the camp, and importantly the water, while being easy to reach the ramparts in case of attack.

  She was passed out where the quartermaster’s tent would have been, her cape pulled over herself as she used her pack as a sleeping pad. The quiet rise of her chest was the only sign she was alive. Shield, spear, and gladius were in arms reach, stacked on top of each other with her shield facing the dirt.

  Cassius left her as he walked the ramparts, looking down the hill and toward the forest. There was still no movement from the edges of the trees. Either their pursuers had given up on the chase, or they had pushed Cassius and the others to where they wanted them. Back and forth he swept the ramparts, continuously drinking and stopping to pull hardtack out of his bag, chewing on it with copious amount of water to help wash it down as the day continued to wane.

  Standing at the top of the hill under the heavy weight of sun and armor was enough to bake a man, the scant few shadows welcome haven as Cassius waited on the others to wake. As the hours trickled by he found his eyes responding better, the edge of the woods becoming defined rather than a wall of brown and green.

  “Patrolling?” Valeria asked, her voice startling Cassius out of his own mindless reverie. He whirled around to see her with her full battle kit ready as she stood on the rampart with him, looking between the stakes and down toward the lines of the woods.

  “What’s on the other side of the hill?” she asked.

  “More hills. Nothing as tall as this one though,” Cassius said. All of the hills that ringed the far side of their hill were hardly more than nolls, lumps of earth with grass pressed to them.

  “Did you look at where the commander’s tent should be?” Valeria asked, not looking away from the trees as they stood side by side.

  “No. Did you ?”

  “I did. While the others were busy searching for water and Vira was helping you down. First thing I did.” Valeria fell silent and Cassius could tell she had more to say, but waited on his prodding to reveal what she’d discovered.

  “What was it that you found?” He finally cracked after a half minute of silence.

  “An old legion superbia. It was covered in dirt, but it was right where it would be if the superbia was cut free from its pole and fell,” Valeria said. Cassius winced at the imager.

  Aside from the iron standard each legion used, the heavy tapestries of the individual cohorts that formed a legion were the most sacred items to the cohort. No matter which tribune, general, or even consul commanded them, those intricate tapestries were theirs. To have one abandoned in the dirt rankled at the beat in pride he had for his own legion.

  “Whose is it?” Cassius asked. Returning the fallen superbia would be the least they could do. Valeria turned to look over her shoulder at the sleeping nobles before shrugging off her pack and reaching inside.

  What she drew out was dirty rags, hardly anything left of it, but she held it with reverence as she unfolded it to show him. Cassius felt his breath hitch as he stared at the image of a small bird, its white head had turned yellow from age and its body was missing a leg, but Cassius knew it as well as any legionnaire could. It was the same standard that flew over the camps outside of the capital.

  “Legio Primus.” Cassius whispered.

  “The Lost Legion,” Valeria confirmed. It was the legion that had marched out with the First Consul on her ill fated expedition beyond the wall.

  “It would have had to have been them, no other legion has ever crossed the wall,” Cassius said slowly. That had been something else they’d been taught thoroughly at the camps.

  “This isn’t a cohort camp. It’s much too small. A century, maybe two centuries, could have been positioned here.” Valeria’s face was set in iron and Cassius could feel she had thought of something he hadn’t.

  “What bothers you?” Cassius asked as she again failed to say anything without his prompting.

  “They died here. No legionnaire would leave their post without taking their superbia.”

  “I see no signs of battle. No skeletons or torn apart earth. It is like they all got up and vanished,” Cassius said, turning to look at the remnants of the camp. Every one of the large stakes was in position, only the weathering of time had weakened the area.

  “I can feel it. They fell here or close by. Night comes and with it, they’ll have the courage to brave the open. Are you ready?” Valeria asked. Cassius nodded at her without confidence. If there was something that had the strength to kill a century, or two, of the legendary legio primus, then there was nothing they could do.