The Fire Islands Read online

  LEGIONNAIRE

  THE FIRE ISLANDS

  By Gilbert M. Stack

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2017 by Gilbert M. Stack

  Cover Copyright 2017 by Shirley Burnett

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  I want to thank Mike Duncan for his inspirational podcast, The History of Rome, Glen Cook for his novels about the Black Company, and anyone who’s ever wondered why High Fantasy has to be set in the Middle Ages. I hope you enjoy reading Legionnaire as much as I reveled in writing it.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Lots of Aquilans Get Found Gutted in the Alleys

  Chapter Two: It Can Also Lead to Terrible Trouble

  Chapter Three: He Is of the Ancient Line of Mokupani’s Darkest Kings

  Chapter Four: This Really Is My Area of Expertise

  Chapter Five: You Really Should Have Stayed Away from His Wife

  Chapter Six: Until You Kill Kekipi

  Chapter Seven: Why Do You Keep Helping Us?

  Chapter Eight: Make War!

  Chapter Nine: Let’s See What We Can Do to Restore a Measure of Surprise

  Chapter Ten: They Are All Within My Trap

  Chapter Eleven: Swords!

  Chapter Twelve: Legionnaires Run Toward Battle

  Chapter Thirteen: It’s Time to Prove You’re Worthy of the Legion

  Chapter Fourteen: Let’s Get Out of Here

  Chapter Fifteen: He’d Lost Nearly Half His Men

  Chapter Sixteen: Kekipi Will Have Your Bones

  Chapter Seventeen: This Is the End

  Epilogue: This Is Politics

  About Gilbert M. Stack

  Other Works by Gilbert M. Stack

  Contact Gilbert M. Stack

  It was in the Fire Islands that the actions of Marcus Venandus first brought him to the attention of the Senate, although their reaction to his heroism was not to their credit…

  Seneca Liberus

  Chapter One

  Lots of Aquilans Get Found Gutted in the Alleys

  “Kekipi coming!” the nearly naked old brown man shrieked at Marcus Venandus. He was so close to the Lesser Tribune that Marcus could smell his fetid breath and see the decayed nubs of his blackened teeth.

  “Stand back from the Tribune!” Black Vigil Severus Lupus growled with a glare so furious that the old man stumbled backward away from him.

  “Easy, Severus,” Marcus gently admonished the Black Vigil. “He’s too old to hurt anyone and he’s obviously a little mad.” That was an increasingly common problem these days. There were scores of crazies in the streets of Mokupani—largest of the small towns and villages scattered throughout the archipelago that the Aquilans called the Fire Islands. They’d conquered the region more than forty years ago for their pearls, gold and sugar—and a few of the primitives who lived here had never ceased to dream of the day that the legions of Aquila would be driven out again.

  The old man rewarded Marcus for his tolerance by spitting at his back before shouting again in his poorly mastered Aquilan speech. “Kekipi coming! He push you into the sea. He push all you into the sea. The sun will go black and the dead will rise and break all you white bones! He coming! Kekipi coming!”

  Marcus ignored the insult as the third member of the group, Green Vigil Janus, ventured into the conversation. “Round up another thousand with breath as bad as his and his dream might just come true.” He glanced sideways at the other men to see how they responded to his jest.

  “He did smell quite ripe,” the older man agreed. He had gray in his hair, a scar on his clean-shaven cheek, and the rugged demeanor that any forty-eight year old vigil had to acquire if he were to survive three decades in the legions. “Seems like there’s more like him every day. This Kekipi is getting all the natives riled up.”

  “Not most of them,” Marcus corrected him. “Most Kanakan are decent people just trying to get along. They remember the bad old days. They don’t want this Kekipi causing trouble any more than we do.”

  There was a slight quaver in Janus’ voice when he responded. The Green Vigil was fresh out of the lycee on his first assignment in the legions—thirty years younger than the Black Vigil and five years younger than Marcus—and it showed at times like this. “They say he can raise an army of the dead and he—”

  “They say that about all of them,” Severus snapped. “But there hasn’t been one witchdoctor who could do anything even close to that since we finished taking these islands forty years ago.”

  “He does have the people riled up,” Marcus noted. Like the younger Janus, he was a graduate of the lycee, and his appointment to this backwater was evidence that the father he despised was out of favor again with the Senate back in Aquila. Everyone in the Fire Islands was out of favor back home, but most were here for their own sins—not their parent’s.

  “I think that’s the building up ahead,” Severus announced.

  “Yes, that’s it,” Janus agreed. “It’s a pawn shop and there was a dice game in the back room. I won nearly forty denari but a gang of six or seven Kanaka led by the servant of the man who owns this place attacked me after I left and stole all the money.”

  “We’ve heard the story before,” Severus reminded him.

  The younger vigil ignored him. “I don’t mind losing the money so much, but they took the pin and the lady that gave it to me said her husband has asked after it and if I don’t get it back she’s going to be humiliated.”

  “Precisely why I don’t woo married women,” Marcus observed, but when the younger man’s shoulders drooped he couldn’t help bolstering his spirits. He clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Janus. If your pin is here, we’ll get it back.”

  “You just keep your mouth shut,” Severus told him. “Let the Tribune do the talking.”

  Without waiting for his least experienced officer to agree, Marcus passed through the strings of beads that covered the entranceway to the little hovel, doing little more than keeping out some of the less insistent flies.

  A smarmy little Aquilan immediately leapt to his feet, his eyes taking in the three thin bands—green, red and black—that composed Marcus’ sash of rank. The green band was twice as thick as the red and black bands, to denote that he was a Lesser Tribune in charge of one hand of legionnaires—one hundred men at full strength which a hand never was.

  “Welcome, Great Tribune!” the rat-faced little man greeted him, instinctively raising Marcus’ rank two levels as a sign of respect. “How may I help you today?”

  Behind Marcus, Severus put his hand on young Janus’ shoulder and prevented him from stepping into the hovel behind the Tribune.

  “You’re Brictius?” Marcus asked, affecting the snobbish tones that most patricians of Aquila used when addressing men of the lower orders.

  “Yes, yes, Great Tribune,” the man came around from behind a table so he could fawn more obsequiously in front of Marcus. “You are seeking me? You wish to pawn something, perhaps? Or dare I hope…”

  “I’m looking for a token of admiration I might give to a lady who has caught my attention,” Marcus told him. “Something small, I think. Not so grand as a ring, but perhaps a broach or a hairpin? I am told that you have acquired such items for other officers of my acquaintance.”

  Brictius nearly ho
pped in delight that Marcus was here to buy rather than pawn. “Oh, yes, Great Tribune. I have many elegant fancies quite suitable for attracting the attention of even the noblest of young women.”

  He turned and the subservience instantly dropped from his voice. “Kimo! Kimo, you lazy rat! Stop napping and get in here and bring the box of small treasures.”

  From the back room of the hovel, a scurry of movement could be heard, punctuated quite suddenly by the sound of a blow or a muffled scream. “Watch where you’re going, you cur!” an Aquilan voice snapped.

  Moments later, a wiry little brown-skinned Kanaka came running into the room carrying a stout oaken box that had obviously come from the mainland.

  “That’s him!” Janus shouted from behind the beads at the entrance to the hovel. Before Severus could stop him, the inexperienced young officer stormed into the room. “That’s the man who robbed me!”

  Kimo, the wiry Kanaka, froze for a moment then dropped the chest and darted toward the entrance to the back room.

  Fortunately, Marcus’ reflexes were faster than the little man’s. He shot forward like a thrown pilum and grasped a handful of the Kanakan’s long greasy hair, then yanked him off his feet so that he fell to the dirt floor in front of Severus as he stepped in behind Janus.

  “Sorry about that, Tribune,” Severus said. “This young idiot,” his eyes indicated Janus, “just can’t keep his mouth shut.”

  When Kimo tried to jump to his feet, Severus nonchalantly kicked the legs out from under him and stomped on the man’s hand.

  “Alright, Janus, put the box on that table and let’s see if your little trinket is in it,” Marcus ordered.

  The young vigil’s movement toward his box of treasures jolted the storeowner, Brictius, back to life. “No, no, no!” he shouted even as he moved to get between his box and Janus. “I’ve paid you people! I’m protected.”

  Even as he spoke, chairs moved in the back room, followed by the heavy tread of legionnaires. Unlike, Marcus and his officers, these men had removed their breastplates in the heat but there were still five of them crowding into the tiny front room of the hovel.

  “What seems to be the problem here?” one of the men asked in a voice that suggested there better not be a problem. He had a broken nose that had never properly healed and pockmarks on his face that suggested childhood diseases.

  “And you are?” Marcus’ voice cracked like an officer inspecting his men, but the old legionnaire did not jump to attention. Had he been wearing his uniform, he was old enough to be approaching the black band of his hand, but Marcus guessed he was still only one of the experienced reds.

  “What seems to be the problem?” the man asked again.

  “Those are the men I was gambling with,” Janus exclaimed.

  “You’re protecting this…establishment?” Marcus asked.

  The soldier looked him up and down before answering. “You looking for a cut?”

  Marcus suppressed a sigh. “You’re all under arrest. Step outside with the Black Vigil and—”

  “You’re Marcus Venandus,” the legionnaire observed. “Not too popular a man. I’d be careful if I were you.”

  Behind the man, the other four legionnaires tried to spread out, but there really wasn’t room for them to use their numbers properly.

  “Crime is terrible in this part of town,” their leader continued. “Lots of Aquilans get found gutted in the alleys.”

  Severus pulled young Janus behind him and stepped up beside Marcus.

  “Your fellow tribunes will probably thank us if you three are—”

  Marcus kicked the man in the balls, drew his knife because there really wasn’t room to wield a gladius properly, stepped in and gutted the speaker before anyone else—except Severus—could begin to react.

  Severus didn’t bother with a weapon. He stomped on the instep of a legionnaire and tossed the injured man into one of the others. Then he twisted about, grabbed the next man by his long hair—there was a reason regulations required it cut short—and drove his face down as his knee came up to break the nose even more severely than the first man’s had been.

  Marcus stepped over his downed opponent and stuck his blade into the shoulder of a second. This incapacitated the arm and effectively removed the man from the fight. To be double sure, Marcus yanked hard on the other arm so that he fell at the feet of young Janus.

  The remaining two men were just disentangling themselves from each other when Marcus and Severus converged upon them. They dropped them both unconscious to the floor a moment later and returned their attention to Brictius.

  “Dealing in stolen goods,” Marcus observed, “is a flogging offense. If one of the items was stolen from a patrician, it becomes a crucifying offense.”

  “I stole nothing!” Brictius gibbered. “I deal only in pawns.” He gestured frantically at the box. “Take it all! Take it all!”

  Janus scooted forward and retrieved the oaken box. Brictius frantically produced a key. Inside they could see an impressive array of small pieces of jewelry—rings, bracelets, necklaces and, yes, broaches and hairpins.

  “There it is,” Janus whispered before pulling a small hairpin out of the box with an elegant blue sapphire adorning one end. The pin was one of what was doubtless once a set which women used to hold their hair up off their necks in the terrible muggy heat of Mokupani.

  “There is also the matter of forty denari,” Severus reminded everyone as he glanced over the jewelry in the box.

  “Forty?” Janus repeated. “It was one hundred fort—”

  “Don’t!” Marcus cut him off. “We’ll recover your stolen property but we are legionnaires, not brigands.”

  He stared at the Green Vigil until the young man dropped his gaze and then turned back to the storekeeper. “Your man also stole forty denari from Janus here.”

  Brictius scurried to secure his cash box. As he did, Marcus helped himself to three small items from the oaken box.

  Janus started to say something foolish but Severus put a warning hand upon his shoulder and shut him up.

  When the shop owner finished paying the Green Vigil, Marcus lifted his own purse, felt the weight and then tossed it to the man. “For my own purchases, you understand?”

  The shopkeeper immediately pulled open the strings and poured the silver coins into his hands. He was not delighted by what he saw there, but neither did he look angry or forlorn. It was a fair price.

  Marcus gestured for Severus and Janus to gather up the disgraced legionnaires, then hesitated for a final warning at the door. “The next time I find stolen goods in your store, Shopkeeper, I will have you flogged.”

  He waited for the man to nod in acknowledgement then followed his men back to the castrum.

  Chapter Two

  It Can Also Lead to Terrible Trouble

  “Five men down, Lesser Tribune,” Great Tribune Xanthus Aurelius thundered.

  Marcus said nothing. His immediate superior, Tribune Festus Migellus, turned and glowered at him to show his solidarity with the Great Tribune. In truth, Marcus had always had a hot and cold relationship with Festus. There was no denying that Festus enjoyed having one of his hands win all the legion competitions on the rare occasions when Praetor Castor found the vigor to test his legion’s level of fitness, yet Festus was a lazy and indolent man who had never appreciated having an officer who believed that even here in the far off Fire Islands, regulation standards of discipline and training must be maintained. “Answer the Great Tribune!” Festus demanded.

  “My apologies, Sir,” Marcus said without sincerity, “it was my understanding that the Great Tribune had made a statement, not asked a question.”

  “You’ve put five of my men on sick call,” Xanthus Aurelius repeated himself. “And one of them will probably die as his wounds corrupt in this Sol forsaken place.”

  “I could have killed them all for attempting to assassinate officers of the legion,” Marcus observed. “If the ring leader survives his gut wound,
I recommend crucifixion as a warning to the other legionnaires. The remaining men can be let off with a severe flogging, but discipline must be maintained.”

  “Crucifixion!” snapped the fourth man in the room, Tribune Gaius Livius. He was here in attendance because all of the injured legionnaires belonged to hands that reported to his Lesser Tribunes. “Albus was the backbone of one of my red bands—just a couple of years from joining the black. And you want me to crucify him?”

  Marcus kept a mask of complete sincerity on his face. “I’m sorry for you, Tribune. If that pathetic excuse for a legionnaire—and I’m talking about his fighting skills now, not the moral laxity that led him to engage in an illegal protection scheme, attempt to bribe an officer, and then attempt to assassinate him when said officer refused his bribe. If that pathetic excuse for a legionnaire was one of your best, then your Lesser Tribunes have permitted the standard of your hands to drop to truly humiliating levels.” He turned to his own tribune in part to deflect the coming outrage. “You would never permit such a deplorable lowering of standards in your own hands, would you, Tribune Festus?”

  Caught by surprise by Marcus’ small maneuver, Festus sputtered. “Well, no, of course not. The fighting standard must be maintained, I always say. But that’s not—”

  “Of course it is, Sir,” Marcus risked the reprimand for interrupting a superior officer to forcibly make his point. “Albus had four men with him to my two, and yet we are alive and uninjured while he and his co-conspirators are in custody. They didn’t even manage to injure us when we apprehended them.”

  “Some might say that that is because you took the legionnaire’s by surprise,” Great Tribune Xanthus suggested as he tried to turn Marcus’ victory against him.

  “A legionnaire that lets himself be surprised after threatening an officer is not someone deserving to be in any hand,” Marcus retorted.