This s the first segment of my Authors Without Borders story Flight of the Eagle, which tells the story of Gaius Valerius Verrens adventures in Dacia and the Roman east during the campaigns of the Emperor Domitian. I'll post another part of the story here and on my personal Facebook page every weekday for about the next three or four weeks.

FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE 1

In the dream, Fuscus spoke to him, but not the Fuscus he had known, fat and jovial and with a wit as sharp as the point of a gladius. This Fuscus had flesh the colour of week old ashes and his pale lips were drawn back from teeth bared in a snarl, or more likely a grimace of agony. Valerius held Fuscus’s severed head in his hand. He knew he was dreaming, but the weight of the head was comfortingly familiar, because this was not the first time he had carried the late governor of Moesia’s skull. His memory drifted idly to another dreamlike day, his feet tethered beneath the belly of a Dacian pony and his fingers twisted in the dark curls Fuscus of which had been so proud. The warriors of King Decebalus’s bodyguard had laughed as they passed among the rotting, naked corpses carpeting the field of sorrow at Tapae, all that remained of the mighty Fifth Legion Alaudae. Cornelius Fuscus had led them, under protest, at the direct command of his Emperor, to ambush and defeat beyond the Danuvius, and, dishonoured by the loss of the legion’s eagle, fought to the last when he could have fled. Gaius Valerius Verrens had fought at his side.

For a few moments he struggled to understand what Fuscus was trying to tell him. The mangled lips moved, but the sound was faint as a distant whisper and the words blurred together. He might have been talking a different language and not the polished, aristocratic Latin of a former Prefect of the Praetorian Guard.
Then, as if a curtain had been drawn back, it came to him. ‘Flee, Valerius,’ the gaping mouth screamed. ‘Flee for your life and that of your family. His is a hatred that will never die. He will never stop hounding you.’
He.

Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus Augustus. Emperor of Rome. Master and God. Pontifex Maximus. Murderer. Torturer. Betrayer. Enemy unto death.

Domitian.

‘Lord?’ The dream faded to be replaced by a moment of confusion. A callused hand shook his shoulder. ‘Lord, we must be moving at dawn. They cannot be far behind.’
He opened his eyes to find a shadowy figure stooped over him silhouetted by stars that glittered sharply in the inky sky. Other shadows bustled around the tethered horses down by the stream. A little dell surrounded by trees, he remembered, reached by rocky ground and far enough from the road to feel secure. No fire, of course, the flames would invite a spear between the shoulders. With a jolt of fear he realised something was missing.
‘Tabitha?’
‘The lady is preparing our food lord.’ The voice took on a disapproving tone.
‘At least she won’t poison us, Shabolz. Unlike one of your stews.’
His words brought a bark of laughter from Shabolz, the man who had carried him from the field of Mons Graupius when Gnaeus Julius Agricola would have left him for dead. The man who had vowed to serve him unto death. They’d been on cold rations for a week or more and would break their fast with stale bread, hard cheese and perhaps a few dried out olives. Tall and slim with close-cropped sandy hair, serious gray eyes and handsome regular features, the Pannonian cavalryman had barely changed since the day they’d met at Valerius’s villa outside Rome seven years earlier. A warrior born to the saddle, he was all that was left of Valerius’s bodyguard. Shabolz walked off chuckling and Valerius’s spirits rose. For all their peril he could not have been favoured with better companions.