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Authors: James Douglas
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beside him, Max Dornberger clawed his way up to the place of the dream and Paul reached for the recorder as he resumed his saga.
The fifty remaining men of the Second Cohort stumbled blinking from the darkness into the light
.
We emerged into a narrow, steep-sided valley in the centre of the mountains, accessible only by the tunnels we had just negotiated. On the far side, carved from the living rock, lay a wondrous sight. Soaring columns of red sandstone flanked the doorway of a great temple
.
The valley stretched for a mile from left to right, a bleak, boulder-strewn fissure that looked as if it might have been cut by a giant axe. No living thing, man nor beast, was in sight, and I ordered my legionaries to draw swords and advance in line to secure the temple. It was the work of moments to cross the hundred and fifty paces that separated the cave mouth and the building and soon we were standing in its shadow on a flag-stoned court. In scale and magnificence, the temple would count as one of the wonders of the world, and was as out of place in this barren wilderness as a gladiator in the House of the Vestals. Intricate carvings of gods and kings covered the walls, which were cut by niches for statues of the queen who had ordered its construction and of strange, half-human, half-animal creatures; men with the heads of dogs, crocodiles, snakes and hawks. And, in the centre of the lintel, a single staring eye. Clearly the eye was Dido’s symbol, or that of the god whose will ruled here, for it also adorned the great altar, cut from a single block of stone, which stood in front of the temple steps. The polished surface was stained with the blood of the last sacrifice, but there was worse to come. ‘Mars save us.’ I heard the whisper from the soldier to my right and saw him make the sign against evil. I could not help following him as I realized what I was seeing. In a shallow bowl carved into the top of the altar lay the body of a child, its belly slit the way an augur might slit a chicken to read from its entrails. In the same instant we froze as a tall figure in a green robe appeared at the top of the stairs screaming insults in a stumbling, heavily accented Latin
.
‘
None who enter the sacred valley may ever leave it. A curse upon the red scourge that defiles this place.’ Spittle shot from his lips as he raised a shaking finger and pointed it at my face. ‘A curse upon the seeker. A curse upon the betrayer.’ The finger swung to Bassus, who drew back as if he expected to be struck down by a lightning bolt. ‘I call upon the all-seeing eye to destroy the usurpers.’ This last in a rising shriek which ended in an unmistakable rumbling from our rear that told me that somehow the tunnel entrance had been blocked. I felt the men at my back shifting uneasily and saw the triumph in the priest’s eyes
.
‘
Steady,’ I commanded. ‘You are soldiers of Rome, not some leaderless rabble. Do not be taken in by a charlatan’s tricks. What has been done can be undone. These people must be supplied from somewhere. They cannot trap us without trapping themselves.’ As I spoke I marched to where the priest waited with a look of perplexed savagery, which I wiped from his face with the hilt of my sword, splashing blood across the stones and snapping his front teeth at the root. He went down with a howl and I hauled him to his feet with my sword point in his ribs, forcing him in front of me into the shadow of the great pillared entrance
.
‘
Torches!
’
Ten men followed me inside, while the rest deployed to protect the temple against any threat from without. The torches flared, and for a wonderful moment we were blinded by the light reflected from a million golden surfaces and awed by the riches confronting us. But we had no time to dwell on this magnificence. Uttering a cry in some foul language, the priest slipped from my grasp , and we were attacked from all sides. In that first second I was tempted to form the
The fifty remaining men of the Second Cohort stumbled blinking from the darkness into the light
.
We emerged into a narrow, steep-sided valley in the centre of the mountains, accessible only by the tunnels we had just negotiated. On the far side, carved from the living rock, lay a wondrous sight. Soaring columns of red sandstone flanked the doorway of a great temple
.
The valley stretched for a mile from left to right, a bleak, boulder-strewn fissure that looked as if it might have been cut by a giant axe. No living thing, man nor beast, was in sight, and I ordered my legionaries to draw swords and advance in line to secure the temple. It was the work of moments to cross the hundred and fifty paces that separated the cave mouth and the building and soon we were standing in its shadow on a flag-stoned court. In scale and magnificence, the temple would count as one of the wonders of the world, and was as out of place in this barren wilderness as a gladiator in the House of the Vestals. Intricate carvings of gods and kings covered the walls, which were cut by niches for statues of the queen who had ordered its construction and of strange, half-human, half-animal creatures; men with the heads of dogs, crocodiles, snakes and hawks. And, in the centre of the lintel, a single staring eye. Clearly the eye was Dido’s symbol, or that of the god whose will ruled here, for it also adorned the great altar, cut from a single block of stone, which stood in front of the temple steps. The polished surface was stained with the blood of the last sacrifice, but there was worse to come. ‘Mars save us.’ I heard the whisper from the soldier to my right and saw him make the sign against evil. I could not help following him as I realized what I was seeing. In a shallow bowl carved into the top of the altar lay the body of a child, its belly slit the way an augur might slit a chicken to read from its entrails. In the same instant we froze as a tall figure in a green robe appeared at the top of the stairs screaming insults in a stumbling, heavily accented Latin
.
‘
None who enter the sacred valley may ever leave it. A curse upon the red scourge that defiles this place.’ Spittle shot from his lips as he raised a shaking finger and pointed it at my face. ‘A curse upon the seeker. A curse upon the betrayer.’ The finger swung to Bassus, who drew back as if he expected to be struck down by a lightning bolt. ‘I call upon the all-seeing eye to destroy the usurpers.’ This last in a rising shriek which ended in an unmistakable rumbling from our rear that told me that somehow the tunnel entrance had been blocked. I felt the men at my back shifting uneasily and saw the triumph in the priest’s eyes
.
‘
Steady,’ I commanded. ‘You are soldiers of Rome, not some leaderless rabble. Do not be taken in by a charlatan’s tricks. What has been done can be undone. These people must be supplied from somewhere. They cannot trap us without trapping themselves.’ As I spoke I marched to where the priest waited with a look of perplexed savagery, which I wiped from his face with the hilt of my sword, splashing blood across the stones and snapping his front teeth at the root. He went down with a howl and I hauled him to his feet with my sword point in his ribs, forcing him in front of me into the shadow of the great pillared entrance
.
‘
Torches!
’
Ten men followed me inside, while the rest deployed to protect the temple against any threat from without. The torches flared, and for a wonderful moment we were blinded by the light reflected from a million golden surfaces and awed by the riches confronting us. But we had no time to dwell on this magnificence. Uttering a cry in some foul language, the priest slipped from my grasp , and we were attacked from all sides. In that first second I was tempted to form the
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