The Incan Legions

Stefan Downey Najdecki

Writing Workshop

 

My hair sprayed back in the wind, even if my crewed-cut didn’t allow much hair to spray in the first place. Above me, the tattered canvas canopy on the truck flapped in the same pattern as my short hair. I watched it flap wildly as we sped over the bumps and potholes in the crude and hastily made road.  The chill hit my face as a gush of wind blew into the transport, men around me shivered, but many more were asleep, which I found hard to believe, what with the loud engine humming just a few feet away.

 

I pulled my poncho, a gift from the natives, up against my neck to shield it from the cold wind. My Centurion stiffened as the chill settled he awoken from a apparent deep slumber.  Our Centurion, our commander, was a man not much older than us in age but he seemed to be harder than us Greenies.  The rumors spreading around our legion told us a vary of views, some said he was a manic who killed for fun, others told that his legion was killed and he was the only man alive to tell the tale.  Being a curious Legionnaire I mustered the strength to ask him, clearing my throat in a loud fashion.

            “Sir. Do I have the right to speak freely?” The Centurion stared at me, his eyes hollow in the moonlit of the truck.

            “Do you have the right to speak freely? What a stupid question boy, you are a citizen of the Roman Empire, a Republic founded for the citizen by the citizen.  But then again are you a slave, my soldier, one of the many pledged by their owners.  To answer your question yes, freedom to speak freely soldier,” the Centurion muttered an ending to a sentence which I hardly heard, “sounds like something out of a bloody movie.”

            “Do you know any of the legends and stories about you?” on my comment he smirked, it made him look in a round about way, more human.

            “Yes. I do know the fabrications about my past and I enjoy them.” His tone of voice changed to a little child opening a new present, “Have you heard the one where I killed my whole legion, with a,” My Centurion started chuckling, “with an axe. For Zeus’ sake what do you legionaries drink at night to think these kinds of things u, eh?”

              “Well I didn’t think them up so don’t blame me.  What’s it like? I mean what the front is like. I think I speak for all the men sleeping around me; we’re a bit anxious about tomorrow. We were stuck on boats training for this war for 6 tiresome weeks and we step of the ships to go straight to the enemy’s teeth.”

            “I would think yourself lucky, legionnaire, I got dropped above Hades battlefield, without even getting to tell my wife I loved her.” His fingers felt a photo on his helmet strap, some girl holding the Centurion.  “It’s protocol for you boys not to know my name and address me as ‘Centurion’ and ‘Sir’ but that just annoys me, call me Hades, after the battlefield.”  Hades’ face lit up as the truck rolled into the camp on the outskirts of the infamous ‘Mars’ Battlefield named in honor of the God of War.

 

The canvas skin of the tent was frozen solid in the mourning, after a short night’s sleep and a quick briefing.  My Tent Party, or TP, of 8 men assembled outside the tent, as nervous as boys on their first date with a new girl.  Hades rounded up to my Tent Party, gave me a quick smile then he proceeded with his routine speech.

            “Boys, Men, Soldiers.  Today is your first day of battle and you last hours of innocence and ignorance.  Our Cohort has been ordered to take an Incan set of trenches along the west side of the battlefield; the Incan’s send re-enforcements to their main line through these trench and tunnel systems.  We are to take them out.  We will me moving out in,” Hades glanced at his watch, “30 minutes.  On the field, look out for your Centurion, me, and your Party Leader, Biggs.” The Centurion pointed to the man next to me, the quite one. “Good Luck, Boys.”

 

Hades walked off leaving us to talk amongst ourselves.  In the time before the battle the men slowly quieted, we checked our guns, again and again.  The time had come for us to leave, we stood up and our feet dragged our bodies without even asking our minds if they could.  As we walked the sound of gunfire came closer, like a room growing smaller.  My hands started to sweat, I couldn’t grip my rifle.  I went on, step by step. 

 

The men broke into a jog, no order was given, it just seemed right to jog to war.  My TP spread off the track into the forest.  We moved fast, keeping quite.  I was in the lead, my legs bringing me closer to the enemy.  I rounded a tree and I tripped over a wire.  The explosion killed me evidently, I lay there my torso charred, my eyes white.  I was clearly dead.

 

On that day my Cohort took the western trench system and soon the ‘Mars’ Battlefield fell to the Roman Empire.  I was the first death that day.  As I drifted in between this world and that I heard the last words I would ever hear.

            “War is cruel. War is Evil. War is horrible.”

And with those word I passed away.