‘That is a question with many answers. I was born in Rome, but spent much of my life in Caledonia, as a slinger in the Ninth Legion. We were under attack by the Caledonii when I appeared here. That was almost a year ago.’
Caledonia. That’s what the Romans had called Scotland. Cade furrowed his brows, racking his brain for a question in Latin – why hadn’t he paid more attention in class? Quintus shrugged and kept talking, seemingly glad to have the opportunity to talk to someone.
‘Suddenly, I found myself in a desert. Strange though it seems, my legion and I were transported along with the battlefield we were fighting upon, which was scattered with the bodies of the dead.’
Cade’s eyes widened. So that was where the bodies had come from, and the strange square of land in the middle of the salt flats.
‘Stranger still, there were others waiting for us there. Other Romans, who had been there for many years. Soldiers from my future, and soldiers from our past.’
More revelations, though somehow they didn’t surprise Cade. That answered why there were coins from so many time periods. Or how, anyway.
‘I was taken to a fort into the mountainside,’ Quintus went on. ‘Built by the first Romans to be brought here, from the earliest days of our republic, when the legions rescued from the shores of Africa were lost in the great storm.’
Cade knew who he must have been speaking of – the famed lost army of the First Punic War. Retreating from a failed invasion of Africa, the Romans had loaded their army on to their fleet, and a storm had destroyed it utterly on the voyage back to Italy. To think that perhaps tens of thousands of drowning men had been plucked from a seething sea and left here, on another world …
‘But those first men were long dead of old age, and had been replaced by other Romans to continue their vigil. It was these latest Romans who greeted us, out in the desert. They were our ancestors, who survived the battles of Carrhae and Teutoburg Forest; and our progeny, those who fought in the revolt of Bar Kokhba and others who were abandoned on the island of Britannia, when our great empire fell.’
Cade could hardly believe it. It was as if someone had been watching over the world, snatching people up like game pieces on a board – with a particular penchant for Romans. And all transported here, replenishing the fort’s garrison with fresh troops each generation. Quintus’s legion must have been the most recent batch.
He recognised the battles and events that Quintus had mentioned. Of all the people in the world, he, a history scholar, was sitting here with this relic from the past. If anything, this confirmed his theory. He had been chosen for a reason – it was too much of a coincidence.
‘What next?’ was all Cade could think to say, watching as Quintus’s eyes followed the movement of his lips.
‘In truth, I do not know much – few have the patience to talk to one such as I. I do know that my legion and I had been summoned to do battle with a great foe, as had other legions before me. The weakest of us were left to defend the battlements, while the rest of the men left for battle. We were told they would return in a few weeks, then they marched into the desert and out of sight.’
Quintus looked sombre now, a faraway look in his eyes.
‘They never came back. We waited for almost a month, and then the game began again. The gods informed us we were contenders, as the Romans before us had been. But how could we survive it when all those thousands of men had left and not returned? I was one of the first to leave. The others must have left soon after.’
Cade swallowed. Thousands of men, gone. What fresh horrors awaited that could do such a thing? But a word stood out among the rest.
‘Gods?’ he asked.
‘The new gods. The ones who make us play this game.’
His pulse quickened. Now the answers as to who had brought them here were coming to the light. But gods? Every theory he’d had involved science. The supernatural had never crossed his mind. Could it be that this was the result of the occult, or some dark magic?
And yet – the Codex, the forcefields. Those didn’t feel magical. They were technology.
But one thing at a time. He needed to know more about what they might be up against if they went back to the Keep. He certainly didn’t want to live here, scratching out an existence, eating lizards and getting chased by raptors. And it seemed Quintus knew of no better alternative, or he would have left Hueitapalan by now.
‘Game?’ Cade asked. He wished his Latin were better; he could have asked more complex questions. It seemed that Quintus would be doing most of the talking.
‘The game we must play, if we wish to return home and for Earth to stay safe. In truth, I regret my leaving.’
Now Cade was even more confused. ‘Safe?’
‘Action prohibited. Parameters readjusted.’
Cade turned to the Codex. ‘I think you mistranslated that one.’
‘I’m sorry, Cade. Your Strategos has removed my ability to translate until the qualifying round is completed.’
Strategos? What on earth – or wherever they were – was a Strategos?
Quintus was talking again, but Cade shook his head. Quintus tried one more time, but Cade pointed at his ear and the Codex and then shook his head again. Quintus hung his head in disappointment, then busied himself with tidying away the amphora and poultice bowl, leaving Cade to fume.
‘What is a Strategos?’ Cade demanded.
‘Answer prohibited.’
‘Dammit,’ Cade cursed, burying his head in his hands. ‘Just when we were getting somewhere.’
After a few moments, he tried again. Something about one of Quintus’s answers gnawed at him.
‘Why should we play this game at all?’ Cade asked. ‘What happens if we win?’
The Codex was silent for a moment, seemingly considering its answer. As if now there was somebody deciding on what it could – and couldn’t – say. The Strategos. Or perhaps … one of Quintus’s gods.
‘Winning the qualifying round will result in prohibitions being lifted and access to higher Codex functions,’ the Codex said. ‘Contenders will also gain access to the leaderboard and the right to represent Earth.’
None of that made any sense to Cade.
‘How do we win?’ Cade asked. He should have asked more about the qualifying round a long time ago, with more specific questions. But with everything that had happened, it had seemed like the least of his worries.
‘Contenders must defend their home base from attack. Complete loss of life or uncontested occupation of the home base will constitute a loss and movement down the leaderboard.’
‘Where is the home base?’
‘It is in this location.’
The Codex projected the map into the air, making Quintus jump. The boy shrank away from it, hiding behind the altar and gazing at it with wide eyes. It seemed the young legionary hadn’t seen the Codex project something before, even if the floating object itself did not surprise him.
Cade looked at the map and saw a dot where the Keep was, flashing bright red. So they had needed to defend that place all along. He wondered if the Keep had been built for that very purpose.
‘And what’s the leaderboard?’ he asked.
‘Answer prohibited.’
‘What will we be defending against?’
‘Answer prohibited.’
Cade groaned. ‘Can you at least tell me what happens if we lose?’ he asked. ‘Or if we don’t play at all?’
The Codex answered in its bored voice. And yet each word sounded like a death knell in Cade’s ears.
‘Planet Earth will be destroyed.’
TWENTY-SIX
Cade awoke to sunlight streaming through the holes in the roof. For a moment he lay there, comfortable for what felt like the first time in an eternity, his only disturbance the dull throb of pain from the bites in his legs and the screech of birds and other creatures greeting the dawn. No longer thirsty or hungry, he took a moment to enjoy the feeling. But before he could, the Codex’s words f
rom the night before came rushing back to haunt him.
He had spent the better part of an hour questioning the Codex on this, but it had shut down communication. The Strategos, whatever it was, seemed to have decided that Cade had learned enough for that day.
What will happen if we don’t complete the qualifying round?
The end of the world, apparently. Was that even possible? Considering everything he had seen so far, anything was possible. Dinosaurs no longer extinct, yet somehow in the same unevolved form, millions of years later. Romans from centuries ago, all from different time periods, together at once. But what time period was it? Were they still in the modern day, or had Cade been taken to the past?
Or maybe transported to the future?
And yet there was little evidence of things being brought backwards in time from his future – unless the Codex and the forcefields were some form of advanced manmade technology from the year 3000.
It was a mystery that would need to wait for another day. One thing he knew for sure – whoever had created this place, they had the power to destroy the Earth. For all he knew, they could teleport it, bit by bit, into the sun.
He pictured his parents burned away in an instant. The thought of them gone, just like that, filled him with such despair. And the children. Everyone. Every species on the planet, from the smallest bacteria to the whales beneath the oceans.
But worst of all, the future of humanity was at stake. Two hundred thousand years of human achievement, and all its unrealised potential thereafter, gone in a flash. Unthinkable. Yet here he was, lazing in the dappled sunlight.
Resolved, Cade rolled from his place on the altar, only to find himself alone, unless he counted the Codex.
03:09:12:51
03:09:12:50
03:09:12:49
No sign of Quintus.
‘Quintus?’ Cade called.
He kicked himself. The boy was quite deaf – shouting was futile.
Groaning, Cade approached one of the amphorae in the corner and, after making sure it wasn’t the one full of ants, took a deep swig. That done, he stuffed his mouth with the last of the jerky, grimacing as the gamey taste coated his tongue. It had tasted so good when he’d been starving the night before.
For a moment he considered taking the sword, propped in its scabbard against the wall. He decided against it. If he couldn’t find Quintus he’d come back and wait for him.
Quintus had pushed a paving stone in the way of the entrance, most likely to keep out scavenging dinosaurs, but Cade managed to scrape it aside and squeeze through. In the light of day, the passageway was far less foreboding, with sunshine pushing its way through chinks in the stone.
There was little sign of Quintus, but from the footprints in the dirt and dust that coated the floor, he could tell the path the young legionary usually took. With nowhere else to go, Cade followed it. To his surprise, his legs did not hurt as much as he thought they would have, though they itched something terrible now they’d began to scab over, and he could feel the ant heads scratching on the inside of his pant legs.
Eventually, Cade found himself standing in the entrance to the cave, an array of buildings laid out before him. It seemed that the small, green bipedal dinosaurs known as compies were everywhere – he could see them hopping and skipping around, chasing the bugs and mice that must live in the many nooks and crannies of the structures.
The compies were not the only inhabitants. Pterosaurs gathered on the tops of the ziggurats that surrounded him, looking much like a flock of seagulls on a rocky beach. The colours that adorned each body were extraordinary, and would not have been out of place at a tropical bird’s treehouse. Only these ‘birds’ were featherless, with bat-like wings and strange, bony protuberances on their heads. Many had toothed mouths instead of beaks, and all seemed to sport dangerous talons.
Interestingly, he could see scores of nests high up, many of them spilling from the mouths of the Mayan gargoyles that adorned the temple tops. They sounded like a pack of seagulls too, squawking and screeching at one another, making the entire city of Hueitapalan echo with a cacophony of noise. It grated on Cade’s already frazzled nerves, and he wondered if Quintus could hear it at all.
They varied in size, many no larger than sparrows, others so large that he had to look twice to be sure he was seeing straight. All seemed to roost together, refusing to differentiate by species. Even the few that appeared as gigantic as giraffes had the company of their smaller cousins, and Cade stared as they splayed their wings like monstrous statues, warming up in the morning sun. He quickened his pace then, fearing they might swoop down and snatch him up like Sinbad and the roc.
It was then that he spotted Quintus, crouched behind a large pillar in the very centre of the plaza. For a moment, Cade thought he was hunting, for he was very still, his head barely poking out from the great pillar’s edge, the sling dangling at the ready from his hand.
But these were no compies Quintus was watching. Cade’s heart leaped to his throat, stifling a shout of joy.
At the very edge of the jungle, skirting the border of the city … were people.
People!
They wore plate armour and chainmail, and each carried some form of axe or sword. The figures were too far away to identify, but already Cade’s mind was drifting to chivalrous knights of medieval England. Men who could understand him. Who could help him win the qualifying round.
Already Cade’s legs were moving, unbidden, and now he turned his shambling into a run, stitches be damned.
‘Hey,’ he yelled out, wincing at his raw throat.
But the noise from the pterosaurs drowned him out. The men had disappeared behind a smaller pyramid, and Cade felt the irrational fear that he’d lost them. Breaking into a sprint, he tore past Quintus, and heard him call out.
He was likely warning him of the pterosaurs, but it was time to throw caution to the wind. He could not believe his luck.
Hell, they might even be contenders too!
Gasping for breath, Cade rounded the pyramid only to see the men disappearing into the trees. He followed, tearing through the branches like a wild animal, careless of the thorns and twigs that caught on his clothing.
He stumbled into a clearing, where the vegetation was knee high. To his surprise, the men were waiting for him, their weapons held ready, bodies crouched for action. There were four of them, but all wore helmets that obscured their faces.
The closest bellowed foreign words from behind his face-plate, brandishing his sword.
Cade staggered to a stop, holding his hands up.
He smiled at them, trying to show he wasn’t a threat. After a few moments, the nearest of them pulled off his helmet.
His dark hair was cut short, and what little remained was slicked back with sweat. It was no wonder – the day was swelteringly hot, even this early in the morning.
The man returned his smile and muttered some calming words in a foreign language.
Cade took a step closer and the man beckoned him with a mailed hand.
‘Thank God I found you gu—’ Cade began.
He never saw the fist coming.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Pain. It felt like it would split Cade’s head in two, yet still he forced his eyes open. To his surprise, the world had turned dark. For a single panicked moment he thought he had gone blind, but then he saw the stars in the sky, just visible beyond the dense foliage of the canopy.
‘He’s awake,’ came a soft voice.
A girl’s face swam into view, lit by a flickering flame somewhere to his left. A heart-shaped, freckled face, with eyebrows furrowed. Her lips parted, pink tongue poked out in concentration, and Cade felt a cool cloth bathing his brow.
‘Easy does it,’ the girl said, and Cade felt a hand beneath his neck, helping him to sit up.
The world spun, but he managed to stay upright, taking in his surroundings.
He was in a cage. A wooden one, it seemed, made of stakes lashed with rope. Beyon
d it, Cade could see the armoured men hunkered around a fire, with a rudimentary palisade encircling the entire campsite.
And surrounding him … were four schoolgirls.
There was no other way to describe them. Each wore a chequered skirt, knee-high socks and a buttoned blouse, though their clothes were almost as dirty and ragged as his own.
The one who had helped him sit gave him an appraising look. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, making her furrowed brow all the more evident. Her brown eyes spoke of part-Asian descent, and they narrowed with suspicion as she looked at him.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
A British accent. It was refined too, the sort of accent he imagined the Queen speaking with.
‘How long have I been out?’ Cade groaned.
‘They brought you in this morning,’ the girl said, her voice impatient. Cade peered at the men again, and she snapped her fingers to get his attention.
‘Who are you?’ she repeated.
Cade shook his head, then regretted it as his skull lanced with pain. He reached up tentatively to touch his forehead, and found an egg-sized lump there.
‘Cade,’ he said. ‘My name is Cade.’
She looked at him expectantly.
‘Is that it?’ she said.
‘I could ask you the same question,’ Cade said. ‘Who are you?’
The girl rolled her eyes. ‘I’m Amber,’ she said, ‘and that’s—’
‘Grace,’ the girl behind her said quickly.
Grace had dark skin, with high cheekbones and braided cornrows. He could tell she was tall, even when she was sitting down. Now that Cade looked, her blouse was spattered red. None of them appeared injured, though. He wondered absently whose blood it was.
‘I’m Bea,’ said another girl.
‘And Trix,’ the other chimed in.
The pair were identical twins, and Cade found it hard to imagine parents intentionally saddling them with those names. Both were short girls with elfin faces and blonde tresses, though their hair was streaked with dirt.
‘Now we’re all acquainted,’ Amber said, exasperated, ‘maybe you can tell us what you know.’
Contender: The Chosen: Book 1 Page 14
