Empire of the Eagle

19

Signals and the blaze of torches warned the guards posted on the walls of the city of the travelers' approach. Even the fields were guarded by farmers who bore themselves like fighting men, Quintus saw the next day. Only sparse green showed in the dusty soil, somewhat darker near the channels that carried the thin streams of water that made any growth at all possible this close to desolation.

Kashgar, or Su-le as the Ch'in called it, was twice walled: by tall, thin poplars that cast columns of meager shadow on the marching, weary men, and by its actual fortifications—walls as high as forty feet. The walls were whitewashed, and glistened in the sun and they ended in guard platforms and square towers. Quintus could see the poles to which torches or signals could be attached. Knowing how such towers could be stocked, he began to count them. The sum was a city's strength.

A flurry of lights winked from the walls. Scrapings and stampings of feet warned those outside that weapons had been trained on the approaching men. Notwithstanding that soldiers and officers of Su-le—including Li Liang-li—rode with them, the garrison had turned out. Quintus peered past the high, neat walls. He could see piles of wood—a rare treasure in these parts unless you counted brushwood. No doubt it was kept for night signals.

"Fully stocked, I'd wager," Rufus muttered approvingly as they rode toward the gates. The place indeed looked as self-contained as any garrison city in which they had ever been stationed.

"Lucilius is the gambler, not me," the tribune replied. "I wouldn't throw my silver away on a sure thing— assuming we ever see a paymaster again."

That subject touched too close to home. Ch'in was supposed to be the Land of Gold, but they had seen precious little gold, silver, copper, or even brass. Even a Roman slave usually had some coin about him. But prisoners ... like slaves, prisoners were property: Their status may have shifted, but not by all that much.

"Rough land to farm," the centurion commented, moving away from the sore subject. They had ridden past fields reclaimed from the waste with painstaking care and backbreaking labor, cultivated by strong men and women whose every move seemed as deliberate as it had been taught on the drill field. Wrest the food from the land, green from the ochre and ashen. Husband the water. Make the land—if it couldn't be made to bloom— feed its people. Preserve it against raiders and enemies and whatever demons now stalked it. Even the eldest of the farmers bore himself like a soldier.

"Not where I'd choose to claim my land and mule," Rufus said. "What about you, sir?"

The haze of the river valley Quintus had called home for too short a time rose in his imagination. Even when his family's fortune was at its lowest, that land had held a wealth of water and soil that the sere fields of Kashgar could never hope to reach. This was poor land, but it was home to the soldierly men and sturdy women who worked it. They had land of their own and a future they could count on—a fortune far beyond the reach of the Romans.

Unless, of course, the Black Naacals conquered.

Hot wind fanned Quintus's face. He started. That had felt as if he stood too close to a fire. He had been expecting the damp, Tuscan breezes. They might bear flux and fever, but at that moment, he would have welcomed the dampness against his parched skin and run the risk of illness. The hot winds here ruffled the trappings of his horse and flicked a glint or two from the matted gold of Lucilius's hair, darkened almost to the color of less noble Romans. It was all the gold Lucilius could count on, he often said. Just as well he couldn't gamble it away with older men, or he'd have been bald by now.

Once again, the patrician tribune rode as close as he could to the Ch'in officers. His eyes followed the young underofficer from the capital. Lucilius is a man for women, Quintus reminded himself. That one's another like himself—another noble with his fortune to make by impressing bigger nobles.

He noted that Lucilius's Parthian was improving. He wondered, however, if the young Ch'in aristocrat would risk a chance of impressing Li Liang-li long enough to speak to any of the Romans. Aha! Now Lucilius managed to meet his eye, nodded; but the other man turned his head away. Quintus suppressed a crack-lipped smile: That was as fine a snub as he had seen in all his days of clienthood. Lucilius flushed, that is, he flushed as much as you could tell from the clean patches in the pale mask of dust and grit that was his face.

Let him try again. Let him know what it feels like. And then, please all the gods, let him succeed. The equivalent of a patrician tribune would be a formidable ally, especially if they were sent on eastward to the capital of Ch'ang-an. Some of them, he was sure, would indeed be sent in just the same way as Crassus and the other proconsuls pillaged the eastern provinces for exotic goods and noble hostages. But who would be among them? Lucilius, if he had his way. Arsaces, perhaps: He was useful with beasts and could be serviceable during the march as well as a translator. Himself? He was only commander by default. Perhaps it was time to turn command over to Lucilius, if he could accomplish anything with it. And then, perhaps, Quintus could stay here with those of the Romans who were not sent on ahead. He might even get to work this stubborn land.

In a way, it would be little different from the fates of his brother Legionaries at Merv—save that here, perhaps, they would have at least a chance at a kind of freedom. And land. Certainly, it was dry, but there was water here. Otherwise, there would be no fields and no poplars. What a cohort or so of Romans, working together, might build ... aqueducts soaring in the Italian hills flickered in his mind's eye. His head felt as if his brains were boiling under his turban. And beneath his tunic gathered the familiar power of his talisman.

Danger here? Or was it forgetfulness? Folly to dream of land and a future, even as bleak and isolated a one as Su-le, for himself and his followers. Draupadi rode past, and the talisman heated again. Oh gods, she would be sent on, and he could not let her go alone. Not after what he had vowed.

The Ch'in guards closed in around here. A look from Ssu-ma Chao was all the apology he was going to get: the Ch'in officer was a man with two masters to obey now.

The gates of Kashgar opened to engulf them. For an instant, the walls' shadow swallowed them—an instant of blessed coolness and darkness. Then they passed through the stockade into the town itself. Above them on the walls, guards stood prepared.

"Alert," Rufus commented. "Maybe too much so?"

The Ch'in soldiers did have the too-tense look of men who constantly await attack: from what direction or enemy they do not know. You could see that in Li Liang-li: arrogant, high-handed, still ready to jump at shadows with deadly force. Men did that—from the merest recruit to proconsuls in their glory—when they were afraid. And judging from what Quintus had seen, this was a town, a region, a land that had right to be afraid.

Harness jingled amid the cries of sullen, weary beasts that scented water and an end to toil not far ahead. For the first time in months, the clamor of a town enveloped them. Food that was not dried or seared over a dung fire—Quintus's mouth watered. Best not think of it; after all, prisoners' rations might not bear thinking on. And he had no money. Certainly he had none for extra food. And—a more painful thought—he had no coin for even the type of gift that a client, back in Rome, was able to buy for a woman.

A camel snaked out her neck. The foul-breathed jaws snapped. Quintus recognized that beast, as he would have known what it bore if he had seen it in Hades. The Eagle. Relax, he told himself. You are worn out. The gates are shut, and even if that camel breaks loose, it's not going anywhere.

Clearly, the soldiers on the wall agreed that for now, the threat was past. They relaxed minutely, no longer considering themselves to be under immediate danger of attack. One or two men who seemed to be off-duty pointed and laughed at the angry beast, which was plunging and snapping in a very determined attempt to live down to camels' reputation for terrible dispositions.

Except that in all the time the beast had been part of the caravan, it had never once spit on or lunged at any of its drivers. That was one reason it had been selected to bear the Eagle sent on before. It had even been the subject of some jokes, though its driver had been much envied. Now it moaned, snapped, and tried to break free, lashing out at the men who dodged and attempted to restrain it. One man went sprawling. He rolled fast, seeking to dodge the beast.

"If that were a dog, I'd swear it was mad," Rufus commented. "About time they brought it under control."

Some of the others thought that way, too. Arsaces was a horseman, but even as he approached the maddened camel, hands out, a man in a mottled robe brought a staff down on the Persian's back. A moment later, he rolled beneath the camel's feet. Even in the noise of the square, Quintus heard the snap of bone. Arsaces's face was bloody and scraped. His neck hung twisted at an impossible angle.

My sword! Damn, I knew this was folly!

Where had Arsaces's damned mount gotten itself to? Ah, there! When Quintus swerved to try to seek out the man who had struck the guide down, he had vanished into the crowd. Get the sword, in case he comes back. But a soldier with a drawn sword barred his way.

How did you avenge a comrade on a camel? A Persian, Arsaces was, but he had served the Legions well, with a loyalty exceeding anything they might have expected from a man of the East. Hard to believe that energy was stilled. What folly had prompted Quintus to go unarmed?

Again, the beast plunged and twisted. Its pack started to slip to one side as the girths of its packsaddle weakened. There was that murderer once more! His staff cracked down, this time on the camel's back. Again, the beast lunged. Its saddle jolted farther to the side. Straps snapped, and it fell. So carefully wrapped was the Eagle that Quintus could not hear the clang of metal striking earth. The staff lashed out again, a final blow. With a grunt, as if all the air in its body had been forced from its lungs at once, the beast collapsed on top of Arsaces.

Now the thief and killer in a mottled robe boldly snatched for the roll of fabric that was the Eagle of Rome.

"Get him!"

"Shoot!"

"Kill that thief!"

The man in desert robes had snatched up the pack and hauled it across his back. He swung about, desperately seeking a road of escape. Perhaps he might have made it, had the Romans not been there, had the thing he sought to steal been anything but a Legion's Eagle. But if the Romans' way was blocked, so was his.

The thief's eyes were black, yet they shone strangely in sockets blackened against the sun. His face—Quintus had seen that elegance of feature before, and that supple length of limb—on Draupadi. This ragged, murderous thief looked enough like her to be close kin.

Ssu-ma Chao beckoned his men aside. After all, it wasn't as if the Romans were going anywhere out of town, either. Might as well let them take out the thief. He held his staff out before him.

This murderer had the Eagle, and their way to him was clear!

Quintus hurled himself forward, even as Draupadi cried his name—his or Arjuna's—he no longer cared. All he knew was that no one, no one at all, must be allowed to kill a comrade and steal a pack, least of all when it held the Eagle of the Legion.

He shouted in sheer rage. The man in the shabby robes could escape! Now he was heading toward the gates, but they were shut, blocked by the Ch'in as well as the Romans. Quintus moved into the thief's path. He raised his staff.

"For all the gods' sake! Give me a sword!" he cried. The idea that he might be perceived as begging the Ch'in for the order they should keep in one of their frontier cities enraged him. "Get him!"

"Men of Ta'Chin!" Ssu-ma Chao shouted. Drawing his own sword, he tossed it at Quintus. It glinted as it flew, catching the flash of the hot sun; the Roman caught it in time to bring it up against the thief's staff.

The staff hit the borrowed blade with a ring of two blades clashing. The force of that clash rocked Quintus. Heat flowed up the sword he held into its hilt, from its hilt up his arm, into his body. Flames shot from the sword, wreathing about his enemy. The man swung his staff so that it whistled with the force that sent it passing through the air. Once more came the ring of metal against metal.

Though that weapon had looked to be wood, surely it was fashioned from something harder by far. From the slight hollowness in the ring as his blade clashed against the staff, Quintus sensed that it was past its breaking point. Sweat glued the hilt to his hand.

Another blow. Quintus felt the shock throughout arm and shoulder. His blade rang and then snapped, leaving him holding the hilt and about a foot of less-than-deadly metal. The next blow of that staff....

But no blow ever came. From the talisman he wore, warmth flooded out across his chest. Warmth as heady as wine filled him. Quintus saw his enemy's eyes go wide, as those black eyes stared at him. The rising warmth leached away pain and weariness for the Roman, while the broken blade in his hand glowed.

Then the light flooded out from the hilt he still clutched. For an instant, Quintus could see the bones of his hand and arm through his skin. He felt heat, but no burning.

His eyes met those of the thief, dark eyes, almost ophidian with their look of alien hate. Light flashed from the fragment of the blade still clinging to the hilt to engulf his enemy. The man screamed as that point of radiance touched him. Where it touched, his flesh crisped. Still, he held Quintus with that hate-filled, other stare, though his face contorted in mortal agony and even fear. Then the eyes blanked, and held nothing at all.

Behind him, Quintus heard men shouting. The flames spread, to engulf the man's robes and dart over to the Eagle he bore on his back. Its wrappings caught fire, and the bundle fell. As the standard rolled free of the charring cloth, every bronze feather on the Eagle glowed.

The fire had all but consumed the thief. However, for a moment, he stood. He was only bones, but still he stood holding that staff. Then that strange weapon dropped with a clang. Defenseless, the skeleton disintegrated and flaked into ash as if the bones had been of tremendous age.

Quintus dropped the broken blade that had, suddenly, cooled. He staggered over to kneel by the Eagle. It was important, just as it had been at Carrhae, that the Legion's standard not lie on the ground. Struggling to his feet with it held close, he planted it upright and leaned against the staff. He was as tired as if he had suffered through a full battle.

The hot sun of Kashgar beat down upon his head. Where had the turban he had worn since the beginning of this fatal trek gone to? He would need it: the gods knew that he would never find another proper Roman helmet.

Draupadi came to him, the dusty roll in her slender hands. She brushed the dust from it and held it out to him. She showed no fear, no revulsion at having seen one man crushed and another man—or perhaps a Black Naacal or one of their agents—burned. But then, she had been the wife of the greatest warrior of one age. And before that—it was too hard to think of what she had been before that. More than anything, Quintus wished to be clean. A plunge in the Tiber, cold from the spring melts—ahhh, that would be better than Elysium.

Draupadi stepped closer, and Quintus rested his arm across her shoulders, appreciating the strength he had found in her supple frame. For a moment, he stood balanced between his Eagle and the lady, as strength from both seemed to flood into him, restoring his soul, if not his worn body.

Gradually, he became aware, as he stood thus holding a lady he had treasured from the first, that the other Romans and Ch'in were staring. Quintus colored. His father had never shown such caring for his mother in public. Even her epitaph, like her mother's before her: "She stayed at home and tended her wool," reflected her worth as a wife and worker, not woman. But this is my beloved, Quintus said deep within himself as he tightened his arm about her. It was an un-Roman thought: It was far older than Rome. Draupadi knew his mind, and smiled.

A veil of windborne dust, rattled the thirsty poplars and obscured the faces—appalled, afraid, or calculating—that surrounded him. Mouths worked. Gradually, Quintus heard the shouted concerns and questions that might just as well be commands. The thin dust—mixed over with the powdery ash of his dead enemy—briefly filmed their hands. He brushed it from Draupadi's hair, the black of a mountain stream running free at night. But even before he touched that, the long locks gleamed. He glanced down at his hand. It shone too.

Only moments before, he had been smeared with dust, his entire body coated with the white powder of salt and sweat dried on his skin by the desert heat. Now, he was as clean and shining as if he marched in triumph behind a victorious proconsul. Overhead, the Eagle glowed, drawing all eyes.

Draupadi leaned a hand on the staff that upheld the Eagle and the proud motto of Rome's Republic: The Senate and the People of Rome. "It is truly a mighty weapon that you have here," she whispered.

So it was: As much as anything else, it was a sign of Rome and its power. Where the Eagle flew, respect followed, even in this most recent captivity. Draupadi knew his mind, just as she had days before; but she shook her head. "Are you not to seek Pasupata, more powerful than Arjuna's bow? Long and long Arjuna searched in the mountains. He sought out strange teachers. And then he returned. Still, unless a man be fit to wield what weapons he has found, they will turn upon him."

The sun beat down upon the Eagle to cast a sort of glory about them.

Then Li Liang-li approached. Several paces away, he stopped and snapped a few words at his second in command. The young man frowned. Quintus could guess the order he was so reluctant to obey. The garrison commander meant to claim the Eagle. Quintus's Eagle. His Legion's talisman, and the symbol of Rome—just after he had won it back.

Ch'in soldiers circled him, their faces set. Many of those men had journeyed with him. Would they hesitate to kill a man they had fought beside? If they did, Quintus was certain that other men from the garrison would move in. Lucilius too pushed forward, to be brought up short— if respectfully—by Rufus. He gestured furiously at the centurion to let him through.

"You have to give it up again," he hissed at Quintus. "That commander would think nothing of killing us all."

"And are our lives worth so much without our honor?" Quintus asked. The patrician's face was drawn. With fear? Was he asking a favor, actually begging one from a former client of his gens?

Come and take it. He did not dare speak the words, but they must have been revealed on his face. Gently, he began to push Draupadi from him. She moved her hand from the Eagle. Some of the warmth filtering through the two of them abated. She nodded, and edged back into the press of onlookers and soldiers. With one fragment of his awareness, Quintus saw her talking to Ganesha as he stood near the men who had come to bear off Arsaces's body. Farewell, old friend. It did not feel strange any more to call the Persian "friend." But calling him "brother" would have hurt, so he did not even try.

If Quintus surrendered the Eagle, it was Carrhae all over again. It was watching The Surena receive the submission of Legionaries and proconsul. Then, Quintus had fought for the Eagles and nearly died of a blow as he tried to save one. Giving back this Eagle he had won would kill him, he thought. He could feel its power working within him. Let them try to take it. They could not do so unless he chose.

Or, unless he died. Death before dishonor, perhaps; but his grandsire had bowed as a client for Quintus's sake and suffered no loss of dishonor in Quintus's eyes. And he—he had men who looked to him, and he had Draupadi. He had given up his dreams of home. Did he have to give up this last token of it?

Fool, and look you what Draupadi and Ganesha have given up!

"Quintus ... comrade..." Lucilius, trying again. Don't try too hard, tribune. Your heart may burst with the effort. Why shouldn't it? Mine is breaking right about now.

He snarled at the patrician, who went white under his weathering. Still think you have things to lose? You don't know the half of it.

"Wait."

Ssu-ma Chao stepped forward. "If this humble one may be permitted..." First, he spoke in Ch'in to his commander, then translated it into Parthian. The self-abasement sounded strange in a language suited far better for brittle court intrigues—or caravan oaths.

The garrison commander barked something, and the young city man stepped back, hands at his side, relief writ large on his brow. He returned to his superior and stood waiting. Only the look in his eye boded very ill for Quintus. He would not forget how he had lost face before the rabble and his own commander.

"Comrade," Ssu-ma Chao's use of the word, unlike Lucilius's, did not make Quintus wish his dry mouth would allow him to spit. "I gave you and your men your weapons back. We have fought together. I gave you my word—my ancestors take witness—that I will strive to have you treated well. And I repeat my word to you: You will be treated with all respect. Surely this does not require more blood?"

Oh, but it does, it does. But not this way, Quintus thought. Dying in a fine frenzy, dying with honor—he could understand that. But here was an enemy turned ally, offering him essentially the lives of his men.

Quintus glanced up at the Eagle. Light winked off the wrought bronze of its deadly beak. Then the light faded. The dust-laden wind swept through the square, stinging his eyes.

"Comrade," Quintus said warmly. "You are no servant of the dark. Guard this with all honor. Fortune grant that we may claim again our own."

Gently, he handed over the Eagle to the Ch'in officer, who took it and held it aloft in salute.