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Chapter XVI
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Beyond Night Epilogue
EPILOGUE“There’s one alive over here,” came the words into the ears of the prone Roman soldier, his body in the mud and brush at the edge of the forest.Hoof beats rang out loud in his ears. The horses and men speaking were very close. The soldier heard a voice command with force. “Turn him over for me and tell them to stop trying to put out the fires of Eboracum. May as well let it all burn down.”“Yes, sir.”“Bloody Picts, they ravaged and burnt it beyond our ability to recover.”Hands flipped the horizontal soldier over. “Yes, he’s breathing, sir. First one we’ve found in the territory.”The hoof beats stopped nearby, but the eyes of the soldier didn’t open. “By the gods, look at him, covered in blood and filth, his shield broken and no sword.”Many hands shook him. “Come on, soldier.”A voice commanded, “State your name and rank, soldier.”Eyes blinked, and the parched mouth opened, but gave no sound.The officer on horseback ordered, “Give him wine. Loosen that tongue u
Beyond Night Coda
CODA“Thereupon, having reformed the army of the Rhine in regal manner, he set out for Britain where he put many things straight and was the first to build a wall, eighty miles in length, by which Romans and barbarians should be divided.”In the year 122 A.D. emperor Hadrian visited the Isle of Britannia and ordered the building of a wall eighty miles long. The stated reason given in Scriptores Historiae Augustae was to separate the Roman empire from the barbarians of the north. That was it. Unlike most frontiers, this wall, with its many forts along it, would tend the border and allow access to only ones they wanted to the empire. While that came as an official reason, defense was the clearer one put to the senate. However, as many observed firsthand, the wall sat in rather strange locations for a good defense, and cavalry units serving in forts there would have no real point, save for patrols.Men of the II Augustus, VI Victrix and XX Valeria Victrix Legions, built the wall over t
Beyond Night Quote
“In their castle beyond nightGather the Gods in Darkness,With darkness to pattern man’s fate.The colors of darkness are no monotonous hue-For the blackness of Evil knows various shades,Full many as Evil has names.”Karl Edward Wagner
Beyond Night Preface
PREFACEBlood across the stone slab, blood flying in the air, August saw nothing righteous in this place of worship.Dismemberment didn’t evoke nightmares in August Arminius, Decurion of the Ninth Roman Legion. As a youth, he’d seen tribal leaders in his Germanic homeland chopped to pieces, either in clan warfare or by the encroaching Roman forces from afar. Once, in Iberia, he witnessed an attempt to pull a man apart using four horses, but that operation came off hitched when one animal failed to run at an equal speed to his kindred. Never, though, had August watched an arm being ripped loose from a living man. Sliced off with a sword at the mid-bicep or chopped crudely free with an axe, yes. The sight of one of his auxiliaries shoved against a standing slab in the stone circle, pinned at the waist by the huge foot of a monstrous shape and then having his sword arm torn out of the socket would stick in August’s mind for all time.August found that he couldn’t blink, couldn’t move,
Beyond Night Chapter I
CHAPTER IGeneral Malitus didn’t care for how his day began. He had been roused from a drunken sleep due to the arrival of a frantic messenger. The rider, sliding down from the frothy horse like he’d been born to perform the act, announced himself from the scouting party, one dispatched ahead of Malitus’ Legion at Eboracum.The General sat on a folding bench and frowned as he listened to the report. The messenger, a young man of barely eighteen by the look of him, wasn’t familiar to Malitus. His breaths came out hurried, and the youth spoke so quick Malitus reprimanded him twice with sharp words. Head still full of wine, the General tried to even out his thoughts. His mouth dry, Malitus reached for some morning wine. His head throbbed as a dire fear swam in the messenger’s eyes beyond the uneasiness of one so low ranked reporting to a General. That fright ran deeper and more primal, Malitus mused, as if the hounds of Tartartus themselves chewed at the puppy’s heels during the long jo
Beyond Night Chapter II
CHAPTER IIAugust’s men and the cavalry detachment, brought up by the General, rose with the sun. Trumpets sounded out as the men were called to assemble and prepare themselves to move out.In a low voice, August noted to Quintus, “Thought the original plan was for us to wait for the rest of the Legion here. The General has decided to move on?”Quintus replied in a quiet voice, “Not far. Just a few miles north to the town of Rutland that lies beyond the empty village.”“It’s the closest town,” Malitus explained, mindful of their talk even if he, Quintus, and August rode at the front of the column of advancing troops. “That druid had to come from somewhere close. The populace there may know something about what happened to your scouts and this empty village. Send a runner back to the Legion and inform them to start their advance.”“Their deaths should not go unavenged,” Quintus added, eying the forest about their road. “Besides, we still need to know what happened to them. If there
Beyond Night Chapter III
CHAPTER IIIAugust dreamt of his youth. The snowy steppes of his home in Germania before the Romans came were a lovely landscape not all could excel in creating. His peoples were toughened by the climate, a thick skin that served him his entire life, not just to the warm humidity of Rome, but on the road across Iberia, Gaul, and now Britannia, where many natives of Italy in the Legion shuddered at the slightest drop in temperature.What interrupted his pleasant dreams wasn’t the cold, although the temperature had fallen during the summer night. The putrid odor in the air made his dream of snowy romps with his childhood friends change to them finding rotten deer. The dream quickly stopped and he awoke, nostrils filled with a stench he couldn’t quite place. He mused at the humor that reality seeped into his imaginings and changed what he dreamed.He heard an unsociable commotion all about his tent. As he rose, Rufus opened his tent with a fast flourish.“Sir, something moves in the n
Beyond Night Chapter IV
CHAPTER IVWhile fear ran amok amongst most of the men secluded in the Fogou, time cured many of their mental ailments. The soldiers kept moving, restless, not wanting to betray fear to their superiors, few as they were, but the feeling of being backed in a corner ran wild. The couple servants shook in primal fear. Rufus, however, held his usual placid demeanor. The soldiers all muttered of taking to the caves below them as an escape, but others wondered what lurked in those tunnels, and the fear returned.The General, who sat against a sack of wheat, wore a tart look, and chided the servants and soldiers to calm down.“They will, in time,” August told him, but didn’t know if that was true. “They’ve seen the manifestation of a hundred childhood tales and fears.”Malitus scowled. “They are soldiers.”“Sir, they aren’t trained to fight those things. The slaves, well, they have not that nerve or ability to fall back.” August gestured at the soldiers. “Even they tremble, trying to for
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