Devil's Sea

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Falco felt the aches of old wounds aggravated by sleeping on the cold, hard ground. He slid out from under the thin blanket and stood. It was still dark, about a half hour before dawn, the most dangerous time for an army in the field. He stretched his arms over his head, then slipped on his gladiator’s lorica segmentata, trying tight the laces that held the metal together in the front. He drew his sword, wiping down the metal with a cloth to make sure no moisture remained on the blade.

Putting his helmet on, he began to make a circuit of the camp along the interior of the hasty perimeter. He checked on the guards, making sure they were alert. Then he detailed a water party and made sure those in charge of breakfast were at work. By the time he made it back to the center, General Cassius and Kaia were also up, and the first hint of dawn was in the east.

“The word has spread about the barbarians behind us,” Falco told Cassius. There was no such thing as a secret in a legion.

“And the mood?” Cassius asked.

“Most are more worried about the black wall than the barbarians,” Falco said.

“I want a cohort ready to move in an hour,” Cassius said.

“Already taken care of,” Falco said.

Breakfast was eaten in silence, the men chewing on dried meat and stale bread. Falco ate nothing, his usual preparation for combat. He’d seen men with food in their gut suffer a wound in the stomach and knew the odds of survival were better with nothing inside.

He glanced over at Kaia. The priestess also was not eating. She met his gaze. Falco was startled; he caught something in her eyes, something that reminded him of Drusilla. It was gone so quickly he wasn’t sure if he had really seen it.

“Let’s go.” Cassius was buckling his helmet. He paused, his eyes shifting between the two. “Do you—”

Falco stood. “I’m ready.”

Kaia checked the knife in her belt. “I am also.”

Cassius nodded. Without another word, he headed for the gap in the north side of the square camp where the cohort was drawn up. Cassius took the lead, Falco a half step behind to the right, Kaia the same distance back to the left. They moved forward, toward the wall.

They negotiated through the swampy ground, but despite their best efforts, everyone was soaked to mid-thigh and exhausted by the time they reached the quarter-mile-wide stretch of dry ground between the swamp and the black wall.

Cassius had the cohort draw up in battle formation, facing the darkness. Falco could pick up the fear among the men, but it was like the buzzing of a fly in the midst of the almost overwhelming negative aura of the gate. Even during the siege and sack of Jerusalem, he had never felt such darkness in his soul.

Cassius turned to Liberalius. “I need a volunteer to go with Centurion Falco.”

Liberalius’s face was pale, a line of sweat trickling down either side of it. “I would be honored to accompany the centurion.”

“Very good,” Cassius said. “I will have part of the cohort patrol around the perimeter of this wall.”

Falco had the Naga staff. He walked forward toward the black wall, Cassius, Liberalius, and Kaia close behind. He could not tell what the wall was made of, and he halted less than a pace from it. He extended the staff, and the metal tip went into the black, disappearing. He quickly pulled it back out: the metal was unchanged.

“I think—” he begun, but he couldn’t complete the sentence before Kaia walked past into the black and disappeared.

“I’ll be right here,” Cassius said. “How long should I wait?”

Falco shrugged. “That is up to you, sir, I would not recommend sending anyone in after us.”

“All right.”

Falco stepped forward. The moment he made contact with the darkness, his skin rebelled, almost causing him to stop, to retreat, but he pressed on. He staggered, fell to his knees, and was on his feet again immediately. There was the same ground beneath his feet, but the air was hazy, full of a thick, brownish gray mist. He could see Kaia standing still about ten feet in front of him. His sword was out of his scabbard, and he was beginning to strike at the figure that suddenly appeared to his left, when he realized it was Liberalius. Falco kept the sword in his hand as he moved up next to Kaia. They could barely see forty feet in front of them. Behind, the black wall stretched as far as they could see left and right and up.

“Where to?” Falco asked.

Kaia pointed directly ahead. “Can’t you feel it?”

Falco focused his mind. The place was oppressive, but there was something even darker in front of them, a darkness so complete that Falco knew that if he went there, he would never return to the world of light.

“It matches your soul,” Kaia said.

Before Falco could reply, she set off, walking briskly. Falco hurried to keep up. The land was going up. The grass and scant vegetation was brown, dying. There was no sign of anything living. The land had been swept clean of all life, or it had had enough sense to leave as soon as the gate appeared. Falco paused and kicked the dirt with his sandal. There weren’t even any ants apparent. He looked over his shoulder. Liberalius was rooted in place, a stricken look on his face.

“Kaia,” Falco was surprised to find he had hissed the name, as if afraid of being overheard. The priestess halted. Falco went back to the tribune.

“What is wrong?”

Liberalius shook his head. “I cannot continue. There is pain”—he tapped the side of his head—“here. Unbearable.” A trickle of blood marked the tribune’s face below his nose.

“Come,” Falco tried to guide him forward, but the tribune fell to his knees, agony on his face.

“I cannot.”

Falco glanced up the slope. Kaia was waiting impatiently. “Go back to Cassius,” he told the tribune. “Tell him what you have seen.”

Liberalius weakly nodded. Falco helped him to his feet and propelled him toward the black wall. He watched as Liberalius staggered downslope and then into the wall, blinking out of sight as he passed through.

Falco hurried back to Kaia. He could feel the pain that had stopped Liberalius battering at his mind, but he was able to keep it sufficiently at bay so that he could continue.

They crested the rise and halted. The ground ahead sloped down.

“It’s down there,” Kaia said.

“What is?”

“The way through.”

“To where?”

“Where the Shadow comes from,” Kaia said. She began walking down, and Falco followed. They covered a half-mile, the ground continuing to go down slightly, until Falco estimated they must be below the level of the river. That was confirmed when a flow of water cut in from the right, angling in the direction they were going.

Falco knelt next to the water and cupped his hands, taking a drink. The water ran through a fold in the ground, but not in an established track, which made him think this stream was a recent addition to the landscape. Kaia was following the left side of the water and he quickly caught up to her.

“Look,” Kaia pointed.

A boulder was split in two where the ground continued to drop. The landscape was warped, as if a giant’s fist had pounded the ground. The few trees that grew were canted outward, as if from a high wind coming out of the center of wherever they were headed.

They continued in silence, each concentrating on holding at bay the pain and darkness that beat upon their minds like an unceasing storm. Even the sound of the water running to their right was muted. Glancing over his shoulder, Falco could no longer see the top of the rise. His hands wrapped tighter around the Naga staff.

The patrol Cassius had sent riding the perimeter of the black wall returned from the opposite direction with the report that the darkness was shaped like a triangle, each side the same length.

Another patrol arrived from the camp, reporting that a scout had come from the south. The barbarian horde was on the move, less than a day’s march away. Cassius looked up at the sun, noting how far it had already risen in the sky. He turned to Liberalius, who had recovered somewhat from the gate’s effect but still appeared to be ill.

“Bring the rest of the legion here. Then I want an embankment built at the edge of the swamp. If they attack us, I want their formation broken by the swamp. Do you understand?”

“Yes, General.” Liberalius’s skin was pale, and he seemed ill, but Cassius had neither the time nor patience to be concerned about the tribune’s health right now.

Hands clasped behind his back, Cassius turned back toward the gate to wait.

Kaia halted so suddenly that Falco almost bumped into her. Through the haze, they could make out a triangle of black floating a foot above the ground twenty feet ahead. Each side was about ten feet long, and it was eight feet from top to bottom.

“That is it,” Kaia said.

Falco said nothing. When Kaia made to move forward, he reached out with one arm and blocked her way. When she turned to him with a question on her lips, he indicated for her to be quiet. The hair on the back of his neck was on end, his nerves tingling. He crouched, the Naga staff in the ready position, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for the cause of his unease.

A white figure flashed out of the black triangle. It spotted them as Falco sprang. The Valkyrie was raising its clawed hands when he shoved the tip of the spear into its chest. The blade cut through the white, going in half a foot.

The Valkyrie screamed, the sound shattering the eerie silence. Black gas rushed out of the hole as Falco pulled the staff back. The Valkyrie collapsed at their feet. They barely had time to register this when a second one came out of the black triangle. This one was more prepared, parrying Falco’s thrust with its right-hand claw, then thrusting with the left.

Falco’s instincts, honed in hundreds of fights to the death, were in top form as he ducked under the strike. He rolled, slashing down with the edge of the Naga staff, the blade cutting through the left arm, severing it from the body. Black gas issued forth, and another scream pierced their ears.

With its remaining hand, it reached down and grasped the body of its immobile comrade, lifting it into the air. It retreated as Falco struck again. The Valkyrie shoved the body between them, allowing it to take the blow. Falco growled, striking once more, piercing the first Valkyrie, but this time there was no black gas. The two disappeared into the portal. Falco took two steps back from the black triangle, Naga staff at the ready. Kaia was to his right rear, her dagger held ready.

“They’ll be back,” Falco said.

“No,” Kaia said, and at first Falco thought, she was disagreeing with him. But her eyes were on the black triangle. She stepped forward. “We must go in. We must go to them. We cannot wait.”

“Agreed,” Falco said. But he paused. “Do you feel it?”

“It gives off death,” Kaia said, meaning the portal.

“Yes.”

“You will not return,” Kaia said.

“I know.” Falco shrugged. “I do not matter.”

‘This is your fate.”

A half smile creased Falco’s hard face. “A brilliant prophecy.” He walked forward toward the dark triangle and stepped into it.

Liberalius had brought the legion forward in good order but then collapsed upon completing the task. Cassius stood over the young tribune as the legion surgeon examined him for several minutes. There were now red lesions on the man’s face and he was vomiting.

“What is wrong?” Cassius asked when the surgeon stood and took him out of earshot.

“I have never seen anything like it,” the surgeon said. “It is as if he is being destroyed from both the inside and out at the same time, but by what, I have no idea.”

Cassius looked at the black wall and realized he was trapped between it and the oncoming barbarians.