Place: Unknown 

Date: Unknown 

Year: Unknown 

Heat. It was almost all Cade could think about. The red moon and its smaller, pale satellite had sunk below the horizon hours ago. But a sun, white and hot as Earth's

own, had risen to replace them, turning the flat plane of white into a glaring, dry desert, and leaving the horizon shimmer- ing with heat.

They were traveling blind, trudging endlessly in what Cade hoped was the right direction, aided only by the glimmering thing he might have seen, but what could well have been a mirage or his own, desperate imagination. Their only bearings were their footprints trailing in a straight line, point- ing away from the outcrop of rocks.

Stranger still was the sight of two outcrops, identical in size and shape, beside their own. Cade assumed there could be other people there, facing the exact same situation that they had.

It had been too hot to discuss investigating it. Only to acknowledge it and continue on.

"Is something out there, or am I seeing things?" Eric croaked, pointing with his uninjured arm. "The gleam?"

Cade looked up and squinted at the horizon once more. The view danced and shifted in front of his eyes, and before long he had to close them and shade his face.

"I don't see anything," Cade replied, forcing each word through his parched throat.

"Maybe we should turn back?" Scott rasped. "Get one last drink in before we die. I'd prefer a Coke, but beggars can't be choosers."

"No," Eric said, stumbling past Cade. "It's there. I know it's there."

Cade didn't look up. He followed Eric's footsteps, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. It was more than likely a mirage, but there was no turning back. He'd rather die fast in the heat and have had a chance than slowly waste away in the shade.

Left. Right. Over and over, he stumbled forward, refusing to let his gaze stray to where they were headed. Not even when Scott let out a hoarse cry, and Eric turned his walk into a run. If he didn't look, it still might be real.

But something strange happened. The crystal-white ground had suddenly ended, and now he was walking on soil. Soil and dried grass.

Left.

Right.

Then a shout of surprise from Eric. Cade finally looked up, wincing at the self-inflicted crick in his neck. And gaped. A corpse sat on the ground, hunched over like a monk in prayer. 

It was practically a skeleton, though the skin still clung to its bones. It was a desiccated mummy, preserved by the arid heat of the desert. Scraps of red cloth hung from its body in a shroud, and a metal disk dangled from its neck on a leather braid, twisting in the faint breeze. It barely shone now, for the sun was beyond it, but it was the only reflective surface he could see.

Cade had never seen a dead body before, and he choked back a gasp of horror. Bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it back with some difficulty. He didn't want the others to see him puke his guts out.

"Who the hell is that?" Scott groaned.
"That's a good question," a voice called out.
Cade spun, elated to hear a new voice. The smile died on his lips before it had even begun.

Three new arrivals were toiling across the salt flats behind them, and they were the last people he wanted to see. Finch, Jim, and Gobbler.

Overheated and fatigued, Cade couldn't think, could only watch as the boys trudged closer. Of the three, only Finch appeared injured, with blood staining his uniform. Had they survived the same trials with the vipers?

"We followed you," Finch rasped, stopping a few feet away. "If you know what's going on, you'd better tell us."

Cade swallowed, trying to moisten his throat, but Finch continued before he could reply.

"Eric, Scott," Finch said, nodding his head at Eric with a modicum of respect. He ignored Cade and Yoshi and walked over to the corpse. 

"Wait—" Cade began, but Finch snatched the metal disk from the fraying leather thong and peered at it.

"Gibberish," he growled, closing his fingers.

Cade's curiosity almost outweighed his fear of the boy. Almost.

"Well, now that we're all here, we'd better make a plan," Scott said loudly. "Unless we want to end up like our new friend here."

"We need to keep going," Yoshi said.

"Great idea," Finch said, clapping his hands slowly. "Think of that one all by yourself?"

Gobbler sniggered, but Yoshi didn't seem fazed. He simply stared at them with his dark eyes.

"So, you know what's going on?" Finch asked, directing his question to Eric.

Eric ignored him.

"Maybe these men did," Yoshi said, pointing ahead. More bodies, these ones half covered in salt and sand. Cade had almost missed them.

Cade took a few steps closer, giving Finch and his crew a wide berth. Jim may have been a party boy, but Finch and Gobbler were prone to acts of violence.

Now that he looked around him, he could see that there were many more corpses, at least a dozen. But these looked different from the previous one. They wore faded, patterned pants and had been better preserved, perhaps due to the sand that half covered them. Cade felt his gorge rise at the sight of them for a second time, and once more he resisted the urge to throw up.

They were all emaciated, bearded, and hollow-eyed, but he could still see the dried blood from the wounds that had killed them. Not claw marks, at least not as far as he could tell, but instead what looked like stab wounds to their torsos. In fact, he saw what might have been an arrow sticking from one's shoulder, but he didn't want to get closer to check.

Still, even taking in all these details, the strangest part was their skin. They were pale, with a hint of yellowing from desiccation, but all were tattooed with strange whorls of blue, seemingly from their faces to their toes.

"Weird-looking bunch," Finch said, stepping over the body. "Come on, boys."

He swaggered on with a confidence that Cade thought had to be an act. Cade fell back with Eric, Scott, and Yoshi.

"You have a better plan?" Scott asked Eric with genuine interest. "You got us this far."

Eric gazed after the trio ahead of them.
"Better to stick together."
They caught up with the others, and as they moved away

from the corpses, Cade took note of the ground. The area surrounding them was uneven, and made entirely of soil, scattered only with sand and salt. There were the remains of what had once been grass beneath his feet, roasted to a yellow crisp by the hot sun. Nothing like that should be able to grow here.

Stranger still, the area seemed to be formed in a perfect square, as if someone had built a giant soccer field in the middle of the desert. Had someone teleported a giant hunk of earth and dropped it on top of the salt flat? Just like he had been dropped on the ledge?

As they walked back onto the salt, more bodies appeared, these ones lined up in a row. They resembled the first—dressed in ragged red cloth and with no beards. If anything, it would appear that two opposing forces had done battle here—the blue-skins against the red-cloths. And the red-cloths had won.

"Well, that's not a good sign," Scott groaned.

"Somebody put all those bodies there," Cade said. "Laid them out. And look at the ground—it's all torn up." He could see footprints in the salt, like a cheap sandal might leave. "There were people here, a lot of them."

"Hey, check this out," Eric called

Cade walked around the bodies, and his heart leaped at the sight ahead. Among what looked like a pile of trash—bits of wood, scraps of cloth and other detritus—were pots. Or vases. Whatever they were, they could be a sign of the one thing they needed most. Water.

They stumbled toward the pile like zombies, mesmerized by the sight. Cade lifted one of the vases by the handles on both sides and heard the slosh of liquid within.

"It's a freaking miracle," Scott yelled hoarsely, picking up one for himself. The top had been plugged by a cork, but Scott tore it out with his teeth and tipped the pot back, drinking its contents without so much as a sniff to check it.

He gulped for a few more seconds, then came up for air with a gasp.

"Too good to be true," he said, bringing it back up to his lips. The others rushed to collect their own, and Cade was thankful that there were more than enough to go around.

The next few minutes were spent in silence but for the  groans of relief and the guzzling of water. Cade could feel the life returning to his body with every mouthful. But with each sip, he couldn't help feeling uneasy.

It was too good to be true. Who would leave water here, in the middle of this desert, among rows of bodies?

This had been planned. The water, certainly. Maybe even the disk around that corpse's neck. It was like a test . . . a puzzle. And they were the guinea pigs.

If this was a puzzle, then Cade knew that every detail mattered.

He looked at the jug in his hands. It was a faded rust color, like the terra-cotta pots his mother used for plants. But older, like the containers he'd seen in museum trips his historian father had dragged him on. He'd learned there that they were called amphorae. The drinking vessels of the ancient world.

"What did the disk say?" Cade asked, his curiosity finally outweighing his fear of Finch. It could be a key piece to this puzzle, and he needed to see it.

Finch held his gaze for a moment, then shrugged. He tossed it over, smiling as it fell short and Cade had to scramble in the salt to get it.

Cade picked it up and stared down at the markings there. It was rough, the letters and numbers made up of holes punched through rather than genuine engraving. But the alphanumerics were clear as day, and they shocked Cade to his core. He stared, his mouth flapping open. It was the last thing he had expected to see.

"Maybe not so useless after all," Finch said, his piercing blue eyes boring into Cade's face. "Spit it out."

 Cade let the token fall to the ground, trying to wrap his head around it. It had to be a trick. This all had to be a trick.

"I said spit it out," Finch snapped.

"It says . . . Legio I X," Cade said, spelling out the last two letters. "Then Hispana."

Finch stared at him blankly. Only Scott had any reaction at all, furrowing his brows as if trying to remember something.

"So?" he asked.

"It says he was a Roman soldier," Cade said, hardly able to believe his own words. "From the Ninth Legion."