The sun was low on the horizon when we first spotted the island, and it took us another hour to find a cove that we could make landfall on. It was like many others that filled the sea that divided Britannia from Hibernia, high, craggy cliffs with thin forests of low, wind-swept trees. The beach itself was rocky and filled with boulders that could have shattered our small boat into pieces, but it was a risk we had to take. We had hoped to have made it all the way to Hibernia, but the winter winds had shifted blowing us off course. There were storm clouds to the north, black, bilious things that did not bode well. We took the beach, cursing the lack of a quay as we plunged our boots into the churning waves and pulled ashore. We complained, but we were grateful to be off that cold, black sea. I longed for the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean where the dolphin frolicked, and fish schooled, and massive flocks of seabirds dotted the shores. Here, there was barely even a beach, and the fish were as dark as the water. Even the birds hung in the sky like portents of doom.
“Hail Caesar!” The voice came from the ridge above and though it was a welcome sentiment and tongue it set us all on guard. Our hands went to our swords as the broken figure came out of the mist that draped the wood beyond the shoreline. He came shuffling down the bank. His face was tattooed with a stylized bird that embraced his right check and eye. He was dressed in the way we would have expected, in the roughly made woolen fabric that all the locals wore, but what surprised us was the buckle that he wore in the middle of his chest to secure the crude cloak to his person. It bore the eagle insignia of the Legio IX Hispania, our own regiment!
Lucius, our commander returned his hail and while he and I went to meet with this stranger the rest of the crew dragged the boat further ashore. There were thirty of us, a full complement with tents, armaments and enough food for two weeks, assuming we didn’t forage off the land or from allied farmsteads. Lucius introduced both I and himself, and then demanded the same from the stranger.
“Once I was Quintus Petreius Quietus, Petri to my friends. I served under Agricola when he reached the River Taus and later when he explored Hibernia.” His voice was rough with years and his beard had gone gray. The skin on his hands had turned the dull bronze that comes from tanning leather.
“Agricola’s expedition to Hibernia is more than twenty-five years past,” noted Lucius. “What are you doing here centurion?” He gave him respect even though he might not have deserved it.
“I haven’t been a centurion in a long time,” he sounded a little sad. “Come with me, I’ll explain all, and why you must leave here as soon as possible.” Lucius looked at me and sought silent confirmation that I had heard the dire tone in the man’s voice. Of course, I had, even the men on the ship had heard it. I suspected that the rest of the legion in their barracks on the far shore may have pricked up their ears and wondered why they suddenly had such an ominous feeling.
The path we followed was well-worn and it led us over a small rise and through the wood. The trail was wide enough for a cart, and to the side we spied a clearing where several small roughly hewn fishing boats were stored along with several dozen large fishing nets. Beyond this we reached the crest of the ridge and the sound of waves, and the wind died down. There was a clearing below, maybe a centuria in size, and filled as it were with what one would have expected of a village so far from civilization. There were no streets, only dirt trails some wider than others that ran between what I generously would categorize as buildings that radiated out from a central hall. To one side a pen held a large flock of sheep, and between the buildings goats roamed freely, as did brightly colored chickens. Scattered throughout were several large firepits, all of which were in the process of being lit.
We thought we would go down further and take stock of the locals, but Petri didn’t take the trail down into the village. Instead, we followed the ridge and came upon a small hut and an even smaller fire surrounded with benches cut from the trunks of trees. He bade us to sit and then offered us fresh water which we gladly accepted.
“You will forgive the Kallakberii, it is not their intent to be rude, they simply cannot afford to be hospitable, it is not in their nature.” He pulled out a small clay jug, “Mead?” We declined but he took a long swig of his own. “Whatever you need of this place, you will ask it of me. I have all authority to deal with … visitors.”
“I would not consider us visitors,” Lucius snorted. “The new governor wishes to expand his territory. The north seems too barren and too filled with Picts and other barbarians. Agricola himself said that Hibernia could be taken easily. We are here as scouts for the legion, to find allies and establish fortifications from which to conquer.”
Petri shook his head. “The Kallakberii are unsuitable as allies. They are farmers and fishermen, not soldiers. You’ll have to sail on in the morning. The mainland is only a day away if the wind is right.”
Again, Lucius snorted. “I’m not so sure of that. This is a good-sized island, and the beach may be rocky but could easily be made suitable to receive war galleys. If the people are—as you say—then they will make excellent auxiliaries. There is no shame in supplying the legions of Rome with food, comfort and skilled labor.” He laughed boisterously and playfully slapped me on my thigh. I smiled back but kept an eye on our host who seemed dejected by such talk.
“You will not find this to be a suitable place for your base Commander Lucius. Nor will it be one that you can barter with or raid. The people will not serve you, not at sword point, not for coin, not even as slaves.” He took another mouthful of mead from the jug. “If you do not heed my warning, if you do not leave as soon as possible the only thing you will find here is death.”
There was an uncomfortable silence that lasted longer than it should have. It was only broken when Lucius scowled, “And who is it that will kill us? You old man? The villagers below? They’re savages. What are their numbers? What could this island possible support, two maybe three hundred? We may be only thirty, but we are Roman legionnaires. We could conquer this entire island in two days, maybe less.”
Petri lowered his eyed and stared into the fire. “I will not argue with you. I served, I know the tactics and strengths you hold. I have no doubt that you could force yourselves on these people, take their lands and crops and livestock. You could enslave them easily and build your port and fort. But none of that would matter, you will all fall to the beast that stalks this land in the dead of winter.”
Lucius shook his head with a smile. “Another day, another monster. Do you know how many times I have heard about a monster that haunts the land and defends the local tribe? Do you know how many priests dressed in cloaks and skulls I have killed?”
“You mock me, and with good cause. I and my fellow centurions were much like you, we were warned, and we scoffed as well. But they are all dead, killed by the beast ten years past, and only I have survived. Survived to tell my tale and warn others so that they would leave the Kallakberii in peace.”
Lucius grabbed the jug from our reluctant host and took a long drink from it, the excess running down his chin. “Fine, tell us your story old man, but be warned, we’ve heard too many tales of giant wolves and cave bears to be easily amused.”
I nodded my agreement and this time when I was offered the jug, I took my own draught from its thick and heady brew. What good is a campfire story without a drink to go with it?
Petri took a deep breath and spoke solemnly. “It was during the return from Agrippa’s exploratory campaign to Hibernia that a summer storm came up and the fleet struggled to stay together. The mast of our ship was shattered and the section that fell killed three centurions almost immediately as it shattered the hull. We took on water fast. A few of us made it to other vessels, but I saw many others dragged beneath the waters by their armor. Only I and four others survived by clinging to wreckage, to make it here to this island.”
“The locals nurtured us back to health, but that took us into autumn and by the time our quartet was well enough to set about building a boat to rejoin our comrades the air was already growing cold, and our time had to be spent working with the Kallakberii laying in supplies for the winter. We smoked fish, brined vegetables and reinforced the pens for the sheep. Marius used stones to build a pen for rabbits. The winter wasn’t particularly mild, nor was it harsh. We made it through, and no man woman or child starved, and the Gathoga never came out of the cave. That is what they call the beast that stalks this place, Gathoga. According to legend it only appears during times of severe stress such as winter famine.”
“I warned you not to waste my time Petri,” snapped Lucius, “I’ve killed too many druids, and their grove gods too listen to this nonsense.”
“The Kallakberii do not worship Gathoga, indeed they dread his coming. The locals claim to be descendant from the goddess Kallak, from whom their tribal name derives. I myself can make no claim to the patronage of Kallak, but my fellow Marcus, who was more educated in the ways of the gods and their worship, suggested that she was one of the three-thousand children of Oceanus and Tethys. Kallak is not a kind deity, she may not be cruel, she may not be demanding, but she is not kind. Her children—her worshippers—are not blessed with great size, or strength, or beauty, or intelligence. They are a mediocre race, with few heroes. Only Gathoga defends them, and only when things are desperate.”
“And you’ve seen this daemon?” Snorted Lucius.
Petri nodded solemnly. “I wish I hadn’t. It was in our seventeenth year here. We had all taken wives and they had born children. This marking on my face, it identifies me not only as a member of this tribe, but of a particular family. I, my wife and my child all bore the same design. It was the winter after my daughter turned sixteen, after her face was tattooed, two years after my wife had drowned, that Gathoga appeared. That year the harvest had been poor and the fishing bad and the winter had lasted longer than normal. Spring had not come, and food was short. We had taken to boiling bark and grass into a thin soup to fill our bellies, it didn’t help much. Have you ever eaten seabird? It is a foul, oily meat, and the first few times we ate it we vomited violently. Later, we learned how to dry it and then add it to the soup. We even ate the bones, boiled and crushed up, for all the good that did. After weeks of this, even the seabirds were gone. To feed our family—to feed our village—Seda, that is my daughter’s name, and I set out daily, hunting the small game and feral livestock that might have survived the winter. To bring home a squirrel or two, or even a rabbit was considered a good day’s hunt. One morning, we came across the tracks of a large deer and after hours of tracking it I caught a tawny glimpse through the snow-laden boughs of a tree. It was a magnificent creature, one that any hunter would have been proud to take as a trophy so as to mount the ten-pointed skull above his door. I was so hungry I didn’t care about the glory, only about the meat that would fill my belly and that of my daughter and the rest of the village.
Careful, slow and patient I aimed and easily put an arrow in its rump. It didn’t even make a sound it just ran leaving a trail of hot, thick blood. Exhilarated I ran after it, almost blind in my pursuit. I followed the beast for more than half the day, finding it blood out and panting beneath a fallen beech tree. I slit its throat and let the blood run over my hands to warm them. Then I gutted it, and it was only after I had eaten half the liver that I noticed Seda wasn’t with me, and then I realized that she hadn’t been with me for a long time. I dressed the animal and hauled it back to the village. I had expected her to be there, but she wasn’t, and none had seen her.
We ate some and then I and my fellow legionnaires marched back into the forest, with night falling, in search of my warrior daughter. We found her weapons not far from where I had first shot the buck. We followed her trail, and oddly enough it led to where I had gutted the beast and left the entrails. Much of what I had left behind had been eaten by crows, but something larger had been at the offal as well. Two trails of blood led away from the slaughter site, one was mine, the other seemed to be that of an animal dragging what it could away, and the trail of Seda seemed to follow this second blood line. It was an hour later that we reached the shoreline and lost the trail. We found her boots and her clothes, tattered and bloody as if they had been torn off her by something large and predatory. We brought them back to the village and asked about bears or wolves, but the Kallakberii just shook their heads and said she was with Gathoga now. As if that explained everything, as if my child had meant nothing. The locals even refused to mourn her passing, I was left to suffer comforted only by my fellow legionnaires, but not for long.”
“It was a week later that we lost Marcus. He had been out hunting, his wife had asked him not to go. To go fishing instead, to take the boat and head toward the coast for a week or two. He refused, and his wife cried as he walked into the forest. We did find his body, torn to shreds, the ravens pecking at his eyes and entrails. The villagers cried as they buried what was left of him, but when I called for warriors to stand with me and hunt down the beast Gathoga none of the locals would stand with me. Instead, they invoked Kallak and said that Gathoga was her will, her way of protecting them. It didn’t make any sense, at least not then.”
“Sulla was taken two days later. The beast came into his own house and took him while we all slept. It knew how to get in. It knew our defenses, the layout of our homes, the bed that Sulla slept in. It came and went, and we never saw it, only the bits that it left behind, and the blood that led into the forest. Callus went after it. He donned his armor, his galea with its faded red crest, and took up his aged scutum, strapped on his pugio and marched down the trail, a pilium in one hand and his gladius in the other. He wanted me to go with him, but in my grief, I refused. I never saw Callus again, not him, not his armor, not his weapons. It was as if he had been swallowed up by the ground, as if Pluto had come up and taken him, wiped him off the face of the earth itself.”
“Quintus went mad with fear, he fled into the hills, into the caves, he thought that would protect him, that the caves would be a defensible position. He never once considered that they might actually be home to the beast he was trying to hide from. The villagers found him spread thin across the hills, an ear here, an eye there, his intestines wrapped through the forest like twine. We gathered what we could and set it to burn on a funeral pyre.”
“The next morning the weather broke. Spring came and the waters around the island were suddenly thick with fish. We caught more than we could eat and reveled in our sudden good fortune. We had survived the winter where others had not. But the losses I had suffered through that winter had broken me. Things were never the same between myself and the Kallakberii. I became an outsider living among them, obsessed with only one thing—the creature called Gathoga.”
“You learned its secrets, its weaknesses. You learned enough how to kill it!” Lucius was suddenly ecstatic.
Petri shook his head, “I learned enough that I didn’t need to, that I didn’t want to. After the winter passed the creature became more docile—or at least less aggressive—it stayed well away from the village. It built a den, multiple dens actually, and rarely used the same one once a week. It took to hibernating for long periods of time, through summer and winter, it emerged only to feed. I learned it wasn’t strictly a carnivore. It only killed on rare occasions. It prefers fish. It can run faster than anything else I’ve ever seen, and swim like a porpoise. It is larger than a bear, but its skin is like that of a rhinoceros or elephant. The claws on its feet are as long as daggers. It has a tail, spiked along its length, its primarily used for swimming, but it can be a formidable weapon on its own. And it’s smart, incredibly smart. Smarter than a dog, smarter than a cat. Smarter than some legionnaires. It may be the deadliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He paused then, and Lucius took the opportunity to laugh heartily, “A good tale old man, a very good tale, but my men and I aren’t afraid of legends and tall tales. Don’t worry, we don’t intend on being here that long, and if we do decide to come back it’ll be to build a fort and house a garrison. That means money and food and civilization for these savages. It’ll be the best thing that ever happened to them.”
Petri shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but Lucius wouldn’t let him say a word. “You’ll show us where we can camp for the night, and then in the morning you’ll go over our charts with us, show us where the settlements on the mainland are. You do this, and we’ll be gone in a few days, and I’ll try to forget that this place ever existed.”
I couldn’t tell if Lucius was telling the truth or just telling Petri what he wanted to hear. Not that it mattered, things didn’t exactly work out the way he had planned.
The winter storm that had blown us of course and forced us to take shelter finally overtook us. It lashed us with freezing winds and icy torrents with a ferocious strength that our tents were no match for. The villagers took pity on us and allowed us to occupy their halls and homes. It might be worth saying that when Lucius asked for this favor his hand was on his sword. On the third day the storm finally blew itself out and legionnaires and villagers alike crawled out like worms soaked and desperate for the sun. It didn’t take long for us to learn that our ship had been destroyed by fallen trees, and that much of our foodstuffs which had been stored within or in our tents, had been lost to the rain. In short, we were suddenly low on supplies and stranded on an island where we were not at all welcome.
It was Petri who took stock of our situation, though I think Lucius was aware of it instinctually. The village had not been well-provisioned for the winter. There was enough food to get them through, but not enough for the thirty mouths who had suddenly joined them, not for thirty extra mouths that belonged to hungry legionnaires. Petri immediately set us all to half rations and set the best hunters and fishers to their tasks. He also set himself and a few others to the job of repairing our ship. It would never be a warship again, but it could be made seaworthy, at least somewhat. If Gathoga came, this might be our only way to escape its wrath.
Lucius had a different perspective. He refused to let the men work on the ship, and instead seized control of the largest and most well-built lodge and set his men to work inside. I as a mere scribe, was not allowed access, and the men would not speak of what they were doing. But, from the vast quantities of stone and dirt that were being moved and the number of thin branches and stout poles that were being harvested and shaped, I began to have an inkling of what was going on. They worked for more than a week, and afterward Lucius moved himself and all the other legionnaires into their new barracks. It had been reinforced both inside and out, and the entrances had been reduced to a single large gate at the front. This was comprised of two doors built from logs a foot wide each and barred in place by similarly large pieces of timber. The whole enterprise had made the Kallakberii moody. We should have been helping lay in supplies, but instead we had become an occupying force consuming more than our fair share of resources, driving the whole community towards lean times far sooner than they expected.
It was by my count, the ninety-seventh day after our arrival on the island that the first soldier, a man named Valen, turned up missing. They found his helmet on the trail to village midden. There was a trail of blood that went on for a hundred yards, and then it stopped. Lucius had the men search for hours, but to no avail. Gathoga had finally come for those who did not belong on the island, and Valen was just the beginning. Over the next two days we would lose three more comrades, all without anyone seeing anything, without any screams, with little to no evidence that they ever even existed. Lucius demanded explanations from the Kallakberii, but they didn’t speak our language. They couldn’t understand us, let alone answer any of our questions. No matter how badly we beat them or threatened their children. Only Petri was responsive to our demands, but he just kept telling us the same thing, that Gathoga had come, and he would kill us all.
He said this as he hung from the center of the barracks hall, strung up by a rope, his mouth little more than a bruise, the skin around his eye beaten until it was nearly the same color as his tattoo. His blood had pooled up on the roughly hewn wooden floor. Lucius spit in his face, “Let it come.” He walked away a look of anger masking the fear that seethed in his breast. “Let your monster come for us, we are legionnaires of Rome, and we fear nothing.” A low cheer went up around the great room, but I could see the older more experienced soldiers, and in their eyes was worry and trepidation.
It was hours later that the attack came. It came by night, when all but the sentries were asleep. The guard outside screamed, and we all bolted upright from our blankets grabbing our weapons. Even I, who was not trained as much as would have liked to be, grabbed my dagger and assumed a defensive position. As I did there came from the other side of the gate a terrible clattering sound. This was followed by a muffled scream and then the easily recognizable sound of an armored body being thrown against the front gate. The creature roared, and it was a sound unlike any I had ever heard before. There was something of a lion about it, but also the screeching calls of a carrion bird, and the low grumble of a bear. It snuffled at the gate and then pushed on it.
The doors flexed slightly, and Lucius ordered six men to reinforce it with extra poles. As they did this he turned to the rest of the men and ordered them into position. I expected them to form up in the center of the room, but instead they took up stations along the walls. Their shields up, their spears raised. Seconds later the primary bar to the door snapped and threw splinters across the room. The only thing holding the door shut were the extra poles and the six men that held them. Even from across the room I could see the terror in their eyes. They had dug their boots into the ground and found footing where the dirt floor had been replaced with hewn logs. A piece of the gate broke away and from out of the dark a massive paw reached in and tried to claw at whatever was keeping it out. Lucius nodded to a nearby soldier and his spear was suddenly in the air and then instantly buried in the flesh of the creature’s arm. It screamed in rage and its flailing tore the door open wider. Lucius ordered the men to ready themselves and then with an almost serene sense of calm he ordered the gatekeepers to let the beast in.
The six dropped their beams and dashed for cover but the beast burst in with an explosive rage. The one side of the gate came free of its hinges and caught half of the fleeing men in the back. They stumbled and disappeared beneath its weight as the beast came in. It was larger than I had thought possible. Larger than a rhino, but smaller than an elephant. It crushed the fallen gate and the men beneath it with its weight, snapping beam and bone and weapon as if they were twigs. With its undamaged claw it swung out at one of the gatekeepers that had managed to avoid the debris and with a single swipe it took half his head off. He fell, blood gurgling from what was left of his mouth, his brains spilling across the floor.
I had expected our forces to attack, but Lucius ordered them to hold their positions and they listened to him, almost hugging the wall. They stood there cowering behind their shields, but the spears at the ready. The only person that wasn’t along the edge was Petri. He was still hanging there in the center of the room, beaten and bleeding, but even in his daze he could see the creature as it took cautious steps into the lodge. “Get out,” he whispered through shattered teeth. The beast paused and snorted angrily but then took another step. Petri struggled against his bonds. “Stop,” he yelled, “don’t come any closer,” there was desperation in his voice. But the beast wasn’t having any of it. Cautiously, angrily, it padded into the center of the room ignoring Petri’s pleas.
It was only when the creature was mere feet away from the hanging figure that Lucius found voice and gave the order “NOW!”
All around the room the shields dropped, and spears were turned and plunged down into the floor. I could hear ropes and bindings snapping as a hidden network of supports and cabling was suddenly cut. In an instant the supports for the floor fell away and the thin wooden façade fell away, and with it the creature as well. It did not go down without fighting. It swung out as its rear feet dropped away. With its one paw, the spear still sticking out of it, it swatted at Petri and tore him and the ropes that bound him down from the ceiling. Together they fell into the pit, the pit Lucius had dug over the course of weeks and filled with wooden spikes. Gathoga screamed in agony as it was pierced in a dozen places by spikes as thick as my arm. Blood spurted in great founts as the thing flailed in agony.
I could see Lucius smile as his plan came to fruition and he gave the order for his soldiers to attack. The legionnaires marched forward and with practiced precision launched their spears into the suffering monstrosity. It was a slaughter. In moments the thing was covered in blood and gore. In a great heave it collapsed, and its breast ceased to heave with breath. We stood there surrounding the pit watching the blood pool around the dead demon and the man who had warned us about it. I don’t know where it began but from somewhere a cheer of success welled up and filled the room and echoed out into the night.
An hour later we were outside. Great bonfires had been lit, and the Kallakberii had been roused and gathered. From inside the hall Lucius came and with him he carried the head of Gathoga. There in the light, we could see the horns and the tusks, the fangs and the terrible black eyes surrounded by scales. It was the first good look at the thing I had gotten, and I saw something, something that I doubt Lucius had seen. It was there under the blood and gore, a splash of color. That I dashed forward to see more of, but before I could Lucius roared and threw his trophy into the roaring flames.
“Your demon is dead,” he pronounced as if they could understand him, “you are free now, and safe!”
But all around us the Kallakberii simply lowered their tattooed faces and shuffled home in a kind of despair. That didn’t matter, Lucius had defeated the beast, and that was cause for joy. The wine flowed, and the formerly meager rations were turned into a celebratory feast. For the first time in long months the legionnaires were happy.
It didn’t last. I knew it wouldn’t, for no one else had seen what I had seen.
A week later three villagers failed to return from the forest. Their clothes and boots were found in bloody tatters scattered in various places around the island. We demanded explanations from our hosts, but they still couldn’t understand our language, and we couldn’t understand theirs, but we could make out one word, a word that Lucius could do nothing but deny.
“Gathoga is dead,” screamed the maddened commander, “I killed him myself, I showed you his head!”
But the locals just shook their heads and muttered that sad chant that seemed to doom us all “Gathoga! Gathoga! Gathoga!”
That was five days ago. Lucius fell this morning. He was standing by the bonfire watching the sun rise. A shape, Gathoga swam out of the dying darkness of the forest and cut him across the middle. He clutched his belly and then fell to the ground, his innards spilling out in loops thick with blood. I wish I could say he died instantly, but he didn’t. In fact, he died slowly. He lingered in agony for a very long time.
We took the ship, the six of us who were left, and rowed as best we could away from the island, away from the Kallakberii and their damned guardian demons. They watched as we drifted away—not the Kallakberii—the Gathoga, all three of them. They climbed the rocks around the beach and roared as we put more and more distance between us and them. We raised our swords in false bravado and cursed at them, those terrible monsters. They roared back at us and then did the unthinkable. One by one, sleek and silent they slipped into the water and began swimming toward us, faster than any animal I had ever seen.
We rowed, we put our backs into it, and strain our legs and arms. We screamed at each other and urged each other on to row for our lives. The first one leapt out of the water like a fish, like a shark or whale, and it took one of our number with it when it went back into the water. They came at us like that for an hour. Flying out of the black waters and tearing at us like raptors after vermin in a field. They whittled away at us one by one, taking us down into the sea, and leaving nothing behind.
I’m all alone now and I set this our story, the story of our death to paper so that whoever finds this ship and this record will know the truth. Of the Goddess Kallak, I can tell you nothing, but of her children—the Kallakberii—and the Gathoga, their guardians, I can tell you this. For only I know the truth, only I saw it there in the firelight—the markings across the face of the monster—the Gathoga. The same kind of markings borne by those three monstrosities that have slaughtered the last of my friends. They aren’t just markings though.
That thing that Lucius killed, the first Gathoga, it had the same tattoo that old Petri had on his face. Gods help us, it was his own daughter, that monstrous chimera was Petri’s own daughter. And we slaughtered her right in front of her own father.
They’ve crawled aboard the ship. The planks creak under their weight. They’re coming for me. Pawing at the door, scratching at it. Looking for a way in. I suppose it’s what I deserve, it’s what we all deserved.