Excerpt

Aemilius sat and watched them, feeling numb. He'd stood like a pillar while the strange crew had approached Taurio's pot and dipped their bowls in, making appreciative noises. He had sat down, awkwardly, as the others did so, and now he felt that all of them must surely hear his stomach rumbling.

"Why aren't you eating?" Rivkah snapped.

He felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Because nobody offered? I didn't know how to ask? I don't have a bowl? No answer seemed anything less than bowel-twistingly embarrassing, and he wished he could just go home. But regardless of what he wished, she was still watching him like an annoyed cat would a mouse that had stopped being fun to play with. "Eat. Or you'll be even more useless, if that is possible. Taurio!"

"What do you want, hell-cat?"

"How did you imagine our guest would eat your…" Rivkah made a show of searching for words. "Is this… soup?"

"It is a broth," Taurio sniffed. "And I am already feeding two Romans. You can't expect me to feed three?"

Aemilius saw eyes rolling around the group.

"Give the kid a bowl," Abrax rumbled.

"Pardon me." Taurio rose from his seat and went to the wagon. A moment's rooting, two bursts of clattering and he emerged with a small wooden bowl. "Here you go, spawn of the Empire."

"Uh… thank you?" Aemilius said, taking the bowl and glancing at Abrax.

"He has a problem with Romans," the big man simply said. "The Empire murdered his entire family. But he makes damn good soup."

"Broth. Why do I feed you?"

"Because it makes you feel important," Prasta said. "And if you're at the pots, nobody tells you off for eating too much."

The two fell to bickering as Aemilius sipped his broth, a string of rapidly-traded insults that had a familiar feel to them. Then he remembered his cousins, and the food was suddenly a lot less interesting. He looked up—to find that he was being studied by Abrax.

"Ask," the big man rumbled.

Aemilius looked around and tried to tell himself he wasn't looking for an escape route, but the more everyone looked at him, the harder that became. His heart sped up again, and he could feel the colour rising in his cheeks. Ask? I don't know what to ask! What's the right question? I don't know what to say! "Who… are you? And why did you save me?" When the words had escaped his mouth, he felt stupid and squeaky.

But Abrax smiled, and Aemilius found that it made him relax. "Who are we?" He turned to the group. The bickering had stopped. "Who are we, really?"

"Liars," Prasta said.

"Cowards," Taurio added helpfully.

"Disgraced and discarded." Quintus touched his finger to his forehead.

"Shame," the woman in grey added.

"And trouble. Lots of trouble." Rivkah grinned.

"We are dead and we are gone." Hanno looked serious.

Abrax looked at Aemilius, and even though the sun was at his back, the young man felt cold. "We… do not exist. Rome does not want to know us, and they certainly do not want to believe us. They turned their backs on our brothers and our fathers, and if they knew that we exist they would hunt us and kill us. We… are the Hidden Legion."

It was as if every single mad thing that had happened since last afternoon descended on him at once, and Aemilius made a sound midway between a laugh and a yelp—and once the first laugh had escaped, he found he couldn't stop.

"What is so funny?" the big man said, frowning.

"You're—" he burbled, still chuckling. "Uh, you're—ahaha—fairly few for a legion." Wiping the tears from his eyes, he noticed that the seven watching him were not laughing. "Oh." He blinked. "You're… serious." None of them responded. "The… Hidden Legion? Are you, like, criminals or something?" A few of them exchanged glances.

Rivkah sighed. "Someone explain it. I'm going for another run."

"Please stay, daughter of Abraham," Hanno said. "You might help him understand."

"Only way I'll help him understand anything is with a rock in a sock," she spat, but remained seated.

"Who wants to go?" Taurio said.

"The water, the life of—"

"It is probably best that you don't, old friend. It doesn't always make things more clear," Quintus said. Hanno looked mildly disappointed. "First—let's introduce ourselves. I am Quintus Aurelius, formerly of the Fourth Legion."

"Chucked out for answering a question," Rivkah said with glee. "Rather forcefully. I'm Rivkah. They picked me up from a travelling show."

"She was tumbling above a pit of alligators," the woman in grey said. Her Latin was flawless, and Aemilius immediately found himself wanting to bow. "My name is Livia, and I chose this life."

There were at least two audible chortles from the group. "Like hell you did," Quintus said.

"Princess here—"

Livia made a face at Rivkah, which didn't even slow her down.

"Princess here pissed off her entire family because she didn't want to be a broodmare."

"And she also stabbed a man in a pub fight."

"Only the one?" Livia said, grinning.

"A fatal fascination for the seedy part of town," Taurio said. "A woman after my own heart."

Livia threw him a beaming smile, and for a fleeting moment Aemilius had no trouble imagining her at a banquet with the mighty and the powerful in Rome.

"I am Taurio—I come from the most beautiful part of the known world—"

"Lies!"

"Shut up, string bean. I hail from Gaul, a proud and independent region—"

"—that has been under Roman rule for a hundred years," Prasta countered.

Taurio looked sour. "You just love saying that, don't you?"

"Yes, I do." She turned to him. "Our pot-bellied friend spoke rather too loudly at a town meeting, and—"

"The Empire did what it does," Taurio added, darkly.

"I am Prasta of the Isles, truth-sayer and sooth-singer. I know all stories worth knowing, and all tunes worth playing—"

"—badly—"

"Hush, boar. I joined this fellowship because I believe in their mission."

"And rightly so," Abrax said. "You know who I am, and you have seen what I do. We share a common enemy."

"We all do. I, also, am Hanno the Wise."

"That's debatable," Rivkah interjected.

"As are all things," Hanno replied, unperturbed. "The river flows, and so do I."

There was a silence after his statement, and Aemilius found himself wondering. Was it his turn to speak? When he couldn't wait any longer, he stammered, "And what is your mission? Who is the common enemy? And what is this…" He forced himself to say it: "Hidden Legion?"

Abrax smiled indulgently. "What we are about to tell you is not common knowledge."

"By which he means that you will not be able to tell anyone," Livia added.

"Or we—"

Aemilius interrupted Rivkah. "Or you'll kill me?"

Rivkah made a face at him, but the lack of a snappy comeback gave him, for the briefest of moments, the rush of a small victory.

Abrax continued. "Do you know about Teutoburg?"

Before he knew he was speaking, the words tumbled out of Aemilius and he reflected briefly on the value of having had a history master with a stick. "In the thirty-sixth year of the rule of Augustus Caesar, the traitor Arminius brought together several tribes of barbarians who ambushed Publius Quinctilius Varus as he led three legions to their death in a valley in Germania. This was an important defeat for Augustus, and led to—"

"We know the history," Quintus cut in.

"But you don't," Taurio added. "There's more to it."

Aemilius frowned. "No, there isn't. Varus was an old fool, Arminius was sly and three legions were wiped out."

"Three whole legions?" Abrax prodded gently. "Three entire legions of battle-hardened Roman fighters, who had survived year after year and got all the way into thickest Germania?" He looked at Aemilius, calculating. "Didn't you ever think that sounded a little bit…"

"…suspicious?" Taurio finished.

Aemilius became uncomfortably aware of everyone looking at him, and suddenly he found himself questioning the lesson he had just repeated by rote. "Uh," he offered. "Varus led them through a narrow valley, and they had no time to set up formations…" The more he repeated, the less he believed. "And the barbarians, uh, hid in the forest…" He looked at the seven, who looked back at him, clearly enjoying his squirming. "I guess a lot of things had to go just right for the barbarians," he offered meekly.

"And they didn't," Quintus said.

"There weren't several tribes, for a start," Prasta said. "Just a band of heroic rebels, fighting a much bigger power—"

Taurio coughed, glancing over at Quintus. Prasta checked herself. "Forgive me. Bard's instinct. It's a good story."

Quintus waved dismissively.

"The barbarians were far fewer than anyone cared to say," Abrax continued. "There were just about a thousand of them."

Aemilius scoffed. "That makes no sense. They wiped out the Seventeenth, the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth! That's, what? Eighteen thousand men?" There was no response. They all just… looked at him. Waiting. "All right," Aemilius said, surprised by his own irritation. "Fine. How did they do it, then?"

Abrax spread his arms out, as though to address an audience. "It was a morning just like any other," he began. "Varus met with his commanders, and the orders passed down the chain nice and quick. You can say much about the Roman army—"

"Not if you are a Carthaginian, you can't," Quintus interrupted.

Abrax brushed the comment away. "…but they are efficient, and they never lose their lines."

"But the camp followers—" Aemilius began.

"There were no bloody camp followers," Quintus growled. "Just because that lying old bastard Tacitus said so, everyone believed it. But it was a lie."

"We know," Livia said, soothing. "We know. And the soldiers weren't young and untrained, either."

"Some day you should ask the old bear exactly how he lost his position in the Fourth Legion," Rivkah said, smirking. Livia scowled at her.

"The Seventeenth were tough as old boots. Along with the Eighteenth they had defeated Marcus Antonius and ripped through Gaul. The Nineteenth had been stationed on the Rhine for years, knew the territory and could smell a barbarian at a hundred yards," Quintus said. "Untrained troops, my arse."

"Grant you—it's not that hard to smell a barbarian at a hundred yards," Prasta said. "Taurio has taught us that."

Lounging next to her, Taurio nodded and smiled. "What can I say? My musk is strong."

"And before long, the legions were on the march," Abrax continued. He seemed resigned to telling the story at whatever pace the others would allow. "Tacitus was not entirely wrong…" He gestured for Quintus to be patient. "They did go through a narrow, forested valley—and that is where they got hit. But…"

He paused, relishing his account. Aemilius stared at the big man, waiting.

"They were fine, more or less," he said, with a shrug. "They were well trained, their lines formed almost instantly and they pushed the barbarians back as the Seventeenth charged forward onto open ground."

Again, Aemilius got the sense that he was being observed and evaluated. "So the story of the gaps in the lines was… another lie?" he ventured.

"See? The kid gets it," Quintus said.

Livia nodded. "Correct."

"And Arminius knowing Roman tactics and pre-empting the orders?"

"Also a lie. Think about it for half a moment. It is not as if 'Roman tactics' were a mystery waiting to be solved: you get a couple hundred big lads with heavy shields, line them up and stomp over everything. Does it make sense that Armenius somehow 'figured out' what most of the world has had to deal with for the last two hundred years?"

"No," Aemilius replied. "No, it doesn't." He chewed his lip. "So then what happened?"

Livia glanced at Abrax, who nodded. "They broke through the forest and onto a plain," she said. "Within moments they'd set their formations and prepared for an onslaught—but the barbarians didn't follow."

"They just stood at the tree line," Quintus said, a faraway look in his eye. "Just… watching."

"Waiting," Taurio added.

"Waiting? For what?"

"For hell," Abrax said with finality.

"And hell came to them," Quintus continued. "The ground shook, and trees fell, and all manner of creatures appeared and descended on the legions. An army of monsters. Terror swept the lines, and it took almost no time to slaughter fifteen thousand soldiers."

Livia continued. "When Germanicus went back to rain fire on them, they came to Teutoburg and found piles and piles of bodies, armour and weapons—all Roman. Tacitus noted, but did not write down, that there were no barbarian remains."

"What—none?"

"None to speak of," Quintus said. "Nobody wanted to know. Those who thought this suspicious—I think one or two senators asked about it—were told by 'veterans of the German front' that the barbarians always collected their dead. Which is horseshit. There weren't any to collect. One of them…" He frowned.

"Barbus," Livia offered.

"Barbus, yes, was the father of a commander in the Eighteenth. He protested loudly and demanded to know the truth."

"And," Livia continued, "mysteriously, a tavern erupted into a brawl just as he was passing by. He was the only one who got his head stomped. Died two days later. Nobody knows who did it."

Aemilius shook his head, as if to dislodge the idea. "But—What? This can't be true. Monsters don't exist." Taurio caught his eye and glanced pointedly at the mound where they'd buried the harpies. "I—yes," he added, blushing. "I mean—you obviously know—but… how?"

"What do you mean?" Quintus glared at him.

"How do you know all this?"

"My brother fought in the Seventeenth," Livia said. "He came back under cover of night. My parents hid him in an old woodsman's hut near our house—the shame of it all. He lived for a week, and I sat by his bed as he rambled."

"I was born in Carthage," Abrax said. "Taken in off the street by two wonderful old men who ran a house for those who were lost. They sent five to the legions—three to the Seventeenth, two to the Eighteenth. One came back."

"A legion is six thousand strong," Prasta said. "And every one of those men had connections. Family, friends, lovers."

Livia continued. "The survivors—a horrifyingly small number—came back to Rome, one by one or in small groups. They tried telling their story, but no-one in power would listen. We know that some were killed by those in Rome who did not want to admit that we were not all-powerful." She smiled bitterly. "Eventually the Vestal Virgins stepped in. The priestesses know a good lie when they see one—and they never questioned the truth of Teutoburg. They quietly took them in, nursed them to health, and the Hidden Legion was formed."

"Our aim is to hunt down any and all monsters that threaten the Roman Empire. Monsters whose existence cannot, in these enlightened times, be acknowledged," Abrax said.

"But—there are no monsters!" Aemilius protested.

Hanno smiled. "We are good at what we do."

"But what about me?" Aemilius said, rather more squeakily than he'd liked. "Where do I fit in?"

"A fair question," Taurio said.

"We were told to go get you," Quintus said.

"By whom?"

The old soldier ignored him. "For the last ten years it's been quiet. Just the odd stray creature here and there. But at the turn of the year… something changed."

"More and more sightings. We've been on the road for months," Livia added.

"Something is happening," Abrax said ominously.

"But—why me? You haven't told me why—or who sent you—or what I am supposed to do."

"Stay alive," Rivkah said, making it very clear that she considered it unlikely and unreasonable that he would.

That seemed to be the last word on the subject, because on some unspoken signal, the seven soldiers rose and moved towards the horses and the cart.

Aemilius thought to say something, but gave up. This, it seemed, was as much as he would get out of them, for now. He'd have to think carefully before he asked the next question. It would need to be a canny question, something to lure the information out of them. Set them talking. Make them let important information slip. His father had once, in his cups, told him that he had been named Aemilius because they could trace their bloodline to the Aemilii, one of the Maiores. It was time to live up to the name. Trailing behind them, he very carefully clenched his fist and furrowed his brow in determination. He could not out-fight or out-run his captors—but he could darn well out-smart them.