The Last cohort

The rain in Britannia had a spiteful quality, a cold, needling drizzle that had persisted for three days. It seeped through the wool of Marcus Aquila’s cloak, found the gaps in his segmented lorica armour, and chilled him to the bone. He stood on the rampart of a crumbling fort that wasn't on any of their maps, the wooden palisade slick and dark under a leaden sky. Below, in the muddy compound, what was left of the Cohors IX Hispana moved like ghosts. Eighty-seven men. Eighty-seven, from a unit that should have numbered five hundred. They were a skeleton crew of the empire, the ones deemed expendable enough to hold the rearguard while the last proper legions boarded ships at Deva and left this god-forsaken island for good. “See anything, Tesserarius?” a voice grumbled from the ladder. “Just mud and mist, Septimus,” Marcus replied without turning. “Always mud and mist.” Lucius Septimus, a grizzled veteran with a scar running from his temple to his chin, hauled himself onto the platform. He spat over the wall. “The gods have forsaken this place. I tell you, Aquila, it’s not the Saxons or the painted Picts we should fear. It’s the land itself. It wants us gone.” Marcus adjusted his grip on the gladius at his hip. The eagle-headed hilt was cold against his palm. “The land can get in line. We have our orders. Hold this pass for ten days to cover the evacuation. Then we march to the coast. Seven days left.” “If the dispatches are even true,” Septimus muttered darkly. “For all we know, the last ship has sailed.” Marcus shot him a sharp look. “Keep that talk to yourself. Morale is hanging by a thread as it is.” It was. The men were spooked. It wasn’t just the abandonment, the dwindling rations, or the constant, eerie silence from the highlands. It was the stories. Men on watch swore they saw shapes moving in the mist—too large for wolves, too fluid for men. Last night, the sentry at the west gate had been found, his face frozen in a silent scream, no mark on him but a trickle of black blood from his ears. The standard bearer, a superstitious lad from Hispania, claimed the unit’s eagle standard felt heavier, as if the gilded bird was trying to drag itself to the ground. A sudden commotion at the gate drew their attention. The gates groaned open, and a patrol stumbled in, their faces pale beneath their helmets. They were supporting one of their own, a young milites named Caius, who was clutching a bleeding arm. But it wasn't a sword cut. It was a series of deep, ragged gashes, like the work of a beast with claws of iron. Centurion Cassius Valerius was there in an instant, his red cloak a splash of defiant colour in the grey camp. “Report!” The Decanus of the patrol saluted, his breath pluming in the cold air. “Centurion! We encountered a scouting party in the glen to the north. Saxons, we thought. But… they weren’t right.” “Not right how, soldier?” Cassius’s voice was a low growl. “They moved… wrong, sir. Jerky, like puppets. Their eyes were… milky. No fear. No pain. We cut two down, but they just kept coming until we took their heads clean off.” The Decanus swallowed hard. “Then something else came out of the trees. Big. Fast. All shadows and teeth. It took young Flavius before we could even raise a shield. Caius only got scratched when he tried to pull him back.” Marcus and Septimus descended from the rampart, joining the circle around the wounded man. The camp's medicus, an old Greek named Alexios, peeled back the torn leather of Caius’s vambrace. The gashes beneath were an ugly, livid purple, and a faint, foul smell, like old rot, wafted from them. “This is no animal bite,” Alexios murmured, his face grim. “Wights,” a voice whispered from the crowd of gathered soldiers. The word hung in the air, charged with a dread more potent than fear of any Saxon. “Enough!” Cassius barked. “They were men. Druid tricks, most like, to scare us off our ground. Alexios, see to him. The rest of you, back to your posts! Double the watch. Aquila, with me.” Marcus followed the Centurion to the relative privacy of the Praetorium, the commander’s tent. Inside, it was spartan. A cot, a campaign desk, and a single, finely detailed map of Britannia pinned to a board. Cassius poured two cups of sour wine, drinking his in one gulp. “Druid tricks?” Marcus asked quietly, accepting the cup but not drinking. Cassius sighed, the weight of his years and command pressing down on him. “What else can I tell them, Marcus? That the old stories are true? That the Lamia and the Fomorii are stirring because Rome’s light is fading? They’d break before morning.” “You believe it, then,” Marcus said. It wasn’t a question. “I believe that something is hunting us. Something that isn’t Saxon or Pict. The man who was found last night… his soul was sucked out of him. I’ve seen it before, on the German frontier. Old magic.” He pointed a calloused finger at the map. “Our path to the coast runs through the Valley of the Gods. The Silures tribe holds it. Their chieftain, Cynfor, is no friend of Rome, but he’s a practical man. He fears the Saxons more than us. Or he did.” “What are you saying, sir?” “I’m saying we need to move. Now. Tonight. Sitting here, we’re prey in a trap.” Cassius’s eyes were hard. “But we cannot march blind into that valley. I need a scout. A diplomat. Someone with a cool head.” Marcus straightened. “You want me to go.” “I do. Take two men. Fast horses. Ride for the Silures hillfort. Find Princess Morganna. They say she has her father’s ear and a mind sharper than any spear. Offer her a pact. Safe passage for my men in exchange for… for whatever she wants. Information. Weapons. A future alliance against the Saxon tide. Lie if you have to, Aquila. Just get us that safe passage.” It was a suicide mission. To ride into the heart of enemy territory with a handful of men. But Marcus saw the desperate hope in his Centurion’s eyes. He saw the fate of the eighty-six other men resting on this. “I’ll go, sir.” As Marcus turned to leave, Cassius added, his voice low, “And Aquila… find the Druid.” Marcus froze. “Sir?” “The one they call Bran ap Gwynn. The exiles whisper his name. They say he fights the things in the dark with their own fire. If the old world is rising against us, we need a monster who understands monsters. Find him.” An hour later, Marcus was tightening the girth on a sturdy chestnut mare. He had chosen Septimus for his iron will and a young, sharp-eyed scout named Felix. They wore mail under their cloaks, their faces grim. “A fool’s errand,” Septimus grumbled, checking his sword. “The Celts will spit us on pikes before we can say ‘Ave Imperator’.” “Then we’ll make sure our last words are suitably defiant,” Marcus said, forcing a confidence he didn’t feel. He glanced up at the standard, still planted by the gate. The eagle, crusted with dirt and tarnish, seemed to stare back at him with a hollow, knowing eye. The gates creaked open just enough to let them pass. With a final nod to Centurion Valerius, Marcus dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. The three riders plunged into the swirling, rain-lashed mist, leaving the feeble light of the fort behind. The silence of the highlands swallowed them whole, a silence that felt less like an absence of sound and more like a held breath. They had ridden for less than a mile, the trail winding between ancient, moss-covered oaks, when the horses grew skittish. Felix’s mare whinnied and shied, her eyes rolling white. “What is it?” Marcus whispered, drawing his gladius. A figure stepped from behind a giant oak. He was tall and lean, wrapped in a cloak of dark green and grey that made him almost one with the forest. His hair was long and black, tied back, and his face was sharp and intelligent. In his hand, he held a staff of dark wood, intricately carved with symbols that seemed to shift in the dim light. “You seek a path to the Silures, Roman?” the man said, his Latin flawless but accented with the lilt of the Celtic tribes. His eyes, a piercing, unsettling green, swept over them, lingering on Marcus. “You are walking into a snare. The valley ahead is already crawling with the Corrupted.” “Who are you?” Marcus demanded, his sword held steady. The man offered a thin, humourless smile. “My name is Bran ap Gwynn. And if you wish to live to see the dawn, you will listen to me. Your war with the tribes is a child’s squabble. The real war has just begun.” In the deep shadows of the trees behind Bran, something low and massive shifted, its growl a vibration that they felt in their bones.