Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion

by Edward Crichton

  “Ninja-thingy!” Wang shouted with an arm pointed toward one of the windows.

  I followed his finger to see one of Agrippina’s black clad… ninja-things… situated on the windowsill, a bow in his hand. Wang was already leaping over the table toward him, pulling a pistol from his bag in the process, and I wasn’t very far behind him.

  Helena rose to her feet as well, but I pushed her back down. “Stay here! We’ll get him.”

  “I’m coming wi…”

  “Stay here!” I shouted before turning to Archer. “You make sure she stays here. Head back to the group if we’re not back in fifteen minutes.”

  The cocky former friend of mine nodded in deference to my order, probably guessing if something happened to Helena after I’d put him in charge of her, that I really would kill him.

  Without another glance at her, I bounded after Wang, retrieving my bag and the pistol within. I jumped at the window, fully willing to fling myself through it when I finally noticed the precarious drop to the water below.

  I pulled myself short and looked around, craning my head upwards as I heard Wang’s shout, “Grab the rope!”

  As he spoke, a rope fell from the sky and landed in my face. I grabbed at it, found my grip, and pulled myself hand over hand to the roof. I had to climb maybe twenty five feet before I pulled myself over a low ledge and onto a flat surface, panting at the endeavor and feeling pain in my side from my old wound.

  I looked around, squinting into the night but couldn’t see a thing. I checked my bag but remembered I’d left my NVGs behind. Instead I pulled out my radio, plugging the earpiece into my ear.

  “Who’s on overwatch?” I asked into the coms, directing my question to whoever was on duty as our lookout. Whoever it was, I knew he or she would be positioned in one of the tallest buildings in the city, with a complete 360 degree view.

  “Cuyler here.”

  Good. The sniper.

  I didn’t waste any more time. “Where’s Wang?”

  “He’s heading south-southeast of your position, about one hundred and fifty meters ahead of you.”

  I sent him a double click, assuring him I received his information, took a deep breath, and started running along the rooftop for yet another nocturnal, rooftop chase scene. I picked up speed and fought to catch up to Rumella’s assassin.

  Rumella.

  Just another victim I was responsible for, and one who had just told us everything Agrippina needed to jump a step ahead of us.

  “Update,” I requested into the coms.

  “Course correction: east. One hundred ten meters and closing.”

  At least I was learning something about Cuyler through all of this: he was damn efficient.

  I shifted my direction slightly to the left and kept on running, jumping over small gaps in buildings, climbing a few walls, and once I’d left the library’s immediate area and found myself in a residential neighborhood, dodged around and through laundry dangling from ropes strung between structures. After one particular jump, after almost missing the gap completely thanks to an annoyingly hung sheet, I landed roughly on my right ankle and rolled it over, but I fell into the roll, somersaulting myself back to my feet and avoiding more permanent injury. It would hurt, but it’d be fine.

  My left side was another story.

  “Break north,” Cuyler calmly relayed to me. “Seventy five meters.”

  I did as I was told and pivoted to the right once again, finally noticing that I’d been running parallel with the waterway. Now, as I broke north, I was heading straight for it. As I ran, I felt something chitter against an adobe wall next to me, but I ignored it. A second later, I felt the wind along my right cheek breeze past me, but again I ignored it.

  “Missile fire,” Cuyler reported.

  “Yeah, no shit,” I sent back to him.

  I zigzagged a bit to ensure whoever was taking potshots at me never found a clear shot, and I heard the clatter of a few more missed arrows around me, but none came as close as the first two. In a few more seconds I saw Wang ahead of me, hot on the heels of the assassin, the Mediterranean Sea only a dozen buildings away, and wondered where the assassin thought he was going.

  As if on cue, I saw a medium sized ship sail in from the east, slowing as it approached our position inland, and I found the source of the arrow barrage. I aimed my pistol at one of the assassin’s friends aboard the ship, and fired an entire magazine in his direction, but an enormous wall of fire suddenly ignited a few dozen meters in front of me. I skidded to a stop, throwing up a hand to shield my eyes from the blaze, and noticed that the fire was between Wang and the assassin as well, forcing my friend to pull up short before he careened into the flames. I looked west and saw a ninja with a torch, who summarily tossed it aside and ran.

  The wall of fire spread, encompassing many buildings in both directions.

  There was no way we could catch them now. All I could do was wonder if I’d just been responsible for the destruction of the great library by allowing this fire to happen, and I was so mesmerized by it that at first I didn’t feel the sudden prick in my leg. It took me a few seconds, but I finally decided to look down and notice what had caused the bit of pain, only to discover an arrow protruding from my thigh. That’s when it started to hurt, and when the blood started to spurt from it, and my instincts immediately suggested that the femoral must have been nicked. Realization sunk in and I fell to the roof, clutching my leg in pain and fear.

  “Medic!” Cuyler shouted into the com, and Wang turned at the call and rushed in my direction. He arrived ten seconds later and immediately attended to my leg.

  “Wang, it’s my femoral!” I yelled, blinding pain seething through my body. I grabbed my friend’s neck with a bloody hand and pulled him close. “God, there’s so much blood!”

  But Wang didn’t seem nearly as concerned as I was.

  “Hunter, what the bloody Christ are you talking about? You’ll be fine. You were shot with an arrow not bludgeoned with a bloody battle axe. There’s barely any blood at all.”

  I stared at him as my chest rose and fell heavily, near out of breath. When I looked back down, I found nothing like the disaster I’d just witnessed. He was right. Barely any blood at all. The arrow may have been lodged in my leg, but it went clean through muscle and little else. It still hurt, but not nearly as bad as it had seconds ago, and Wang’s neck was also clear of any blood I may have left there from my hand.

  “Just give me a second to patch you up,” he said, but then looked at me. “But just so you know, I’m not telling Helena.”

  I glared at him and tried to steady my breath.

  What was happening to me?

  Just like the scene at the courtyard, both visions had seemed just as real as reality. I’d felt the overwhelming pain in my leg, had felt the blood splatter against my face, and had seen it smear Wang’s neck, but now it was all gone. There was something going on here. Something going on in my head. But I wasn’t even sure if the orb was at fault, since both episodes had occurred after Helena had already hidden it from me, and I hadn’t seen it since.

  What was happening to me?

  I reached for the radio to distract myself. “Update?”

  “They escaped,” Cuyler reported. “I put down six archers targeting you from the boat, but the one who lit the fire only took one in the stomach. He may still be alive.”

  Efficient, professional, and deadly. Six kills in only a few minutes with the confusion of the fire was pretty impressive.

  “Help me up,” I ordered Wang, my sudden brush with death nearly forgotten. While the memory of the pain lingered, I no longer felt any effects from my phantom wound. It was nothing more than a memory now, as though it had happened twenty years ago.

  Wang nodded and bent over to wrap his arm around my back before hauling me up. My leg was on fire, and I quickly found that walking to be painful, but with Wang’s help, we hobbled around the extent of the fire, which was thankfully already burning itself out, an
d found the man who Cuyler had shot through the stomach. Wang let me go and rushed over to him, and gripped the downed man by the arm and flipped him over, pressing his knee into the man’s wound.

  “Where are they going, mate?” He asked the assassin calmly, adding the “mate” in English.

  “I do not know,” the assassin said in immense pain as he tried to push Wang’s knee from his stomach.

  Wang put on his tough guy face and shook the man by his shoulders. “How did you know we were here?”

  The black clad figure slowly removed his face mask before answering, but then his muscles failed him and his head fell to the ground.

  “Oi! Don’t you go dying on me,” Wang ordered. “How did you know we were here??”

  The man came around briefly, offering a bloody smile, but then he collapsed again. Wang checked his pulse, but clearly didn’t find one. He stood up and walked back to me.

  “Well that was cheeky,” he offered.

  I looked at him, deadpanned. “Cheeky? Really?”

  ***

  Once the fires burned themselves out with minimal damage to the area, Wang cased the scene for clues about our attackers. Unfortunately, they had been thorough, and had left nothing behind except their deceased comrade. After finding nothing of use on his body, Wang carried him to the low cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and summarily discarded the body into the water. He then retrieved the few shell casings left over from the discharge of my pistol, cleansing our involvement, and helped me back up and supported me as we hobbled our way to the hideout with the help of Cuyler guiding us in.

  It was over a mile away, and it took us half an hour to reach it, but halfway there, I noticed something move above us. I glanced up to see a man rappelling from the building next door, dressed in the gray and black camouflage our new friends had brought with them. Upon touching down, he tugged on the rope and it fell along with its grappling hook. He wound it up as he made his way toward Wang and me.

  “You all right?” Cuyler asked.

  I shrugged. “Sure. What’s another scar among so many?”

  Cuyler didn’t say anything, but I could tell from his eyes, even in the dim night sky, that he empathized. It spoke a thousand words, and I was surprised he had no other insight or unsolicited advice to offer me – as most of our group always seemed to have in abundance, welcome or not. Instead, he hooked himself beneath my other shoulder and helped Wang support my weight as we traveled the last half mile to our apartment.

  And I found myself unable to not like the guy.

  When we arrived, we found Helena leaning against the doorjamb, her arms crossed against her chest, not looking very happy. I wondered if she’d been listening in on the radio during our chase scene as the three of us passed by her and into the room, none of us having the guts to even look at her. She shut the door behind us and escorted us to the nearest table, at the far end of the room. After setting me down, Cuyler immediately got out of the way while Wang helped me remove my robes and take off my pants so he could inspect the arrow. I also took off my shirt to inspect my wounded side, which thankfully seemed fine.

  I lifted my head and surveyed the room.

  It was a pretty nice sized apartment with a number of connecting bedrooms from which the rest of my team now emerged, taking notice of our return, but I ignored them and focused on Wang. “How’s it look?”

  He replied by squeezing my thigh again, which didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, but then he tugged slightly on the arrow, and that one hurt.

  “Ouch,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Hold still,” Wang ordered as he removed what looked like a cigar cutter from his bag, a device that would slice the arrowhead from the shaft so that it could be pulled clean through.

  With a quick cut, Wang severed the arrowhead and set the cutter down.

  He looked at Helena. “Hold him still.”

  She complied silently, and moved to wrap her arms around me.

  Wang then turned his attention to me. “Bite something, Jacob.”

  I looked around but had to settle with shoving my shirt in my mouth.

  “Ready?” He asked.

  I tried to nod but before I could complete the gesture, Wang pulled the arrow through my leg in one quick movement. It came out painfully and colored in red, but little blood came from the wound itself as Wang went to work cleaning and dressing it.

  “So did you catch him?” Archer asked from his doorway.

  I turned to glare at him, the throbbing pain in my leg fueling my anger, but when I opened my mouth to speak Wang answered for me, his eyes still on his work.

  “Obviously not,” Wang said. “He had a few chaps with him who were ready for us.”

  “We have to move fast now,” I finally said. “It’s only a matter of time before Agrippina learns where we’re going, but we need to get there first. How are we provisioned, Brewster?”

  The petite woman stood there unmoving for a moment as she stared at me, but then snapped out of her daze and ducked back into her room. When she returned, she held a notebook in her hand, already leafing through it, but she didn’t look happy.

  “We don’t have nearly enough supplies to reach Britain,” she said as she ran a finger across a page. “There was very little to purchase in Caesarea thanks to the siege, and I was told Alexandria would have ample food to purchase. I mean, we could leave tomorrow, but we’d be lacking certain… necessities.”

  “Like what?” I asked, jerking my leg as Wang did something to it that hurt.

  “Wheat and salt,” she answered immediately.

  “Are you telling me,” Stryker asked, leaning in his doorframe, “that there is absolutely no wheat or salt in this entire city for us to buy? How’s that possible?”

  “Of course not,” Brewster snapped at him, clearly annoyed by such a question, “but shopping in the quantities we need on such short notice is not easy. I haven’t even been able to contact local dealers yet, and most of what the city already has is owned by people who aren’t in the market to resell it in bulk. We’ll need to wait at least five days for new shipments to arrive that I can buy. Or so I was told. That was well within our original timeframe.”

  “We can’t sail to Britain without ingredients needed to make bread,” Helena advised wisely, knowing a legionnaire’s basic campaign diet was sustained mostly on just that.

  “Goddamn it,” I mumbled, but I couldn’t disagree. “Just see what you can do, Georgia. If you need to pay double to speed up the process, do it.”

  “But…”

  “Just do it! We’re not running a business here.”

  She looked solemn for just a moment before closing her notebook.

  She nodded. “Got it.”

  “Everybody else should get some rest,” Vincent chimed in from his own doorway, “but try to keep yourselves active. We’re going to have a long trip ahead of us.”

  “You heard the man,” Archer said with his arms crossed. “It’s 2100 hours. Everyone should be up and ready for a morning workout by 0600.”

  “That’s not how we operate, Archer,” Helena said. “People keep their own schedules here when they’re not on duty.”

  “Not under my watch, they don’t.”

  “You’re not even wearing a watch,” Santino accused.

  As he spoke, Artie poked her head out from his bedroom to place a hand on his forearm. He jumped at the touch, but got the message and didn’t press the point, but I wasn’t so easily calmed. Santino was driving me nuts with his incessant time spent with Artie, and I hadn’t even known she’d been in there until just now.

  “Hunter’s out of commission,” Archer countered, gesturing in my direction. “Until he can operate at one hundred percent, he shouldn’t be the one giving the orders.”

  “You’re right,” Vincent said, stepping up behind him, “but as fortune would have it, I am already second in command.”

  Archer glanced down at his amputated arm.

&
nbsp; “You? But you…”

  “I what?” Vincent asked with steel in his voice, drilling his eyes into Archer’s and making damn sure that he knew who was in charge.

  Archer stared back at him, and to his credit, didn’t immediately back down, but he was no match for Vincent. He held the older man’s eye for a few more seconds before finally turning away and stalking into one of the corner bedrooms without another word or glance back.

  “He’s going to be trouble,” Helena whispered in my ear.

  I nodded as Vincent lived up to his command position.

  “What are you all staring at?” He asked the gathered group. “Get back to work!”

  Everyone jumped and drifted off at the same time to settle into chairs or couches scattered throughout the room, or to retreat back to their rooms, as Santino and Artie did, although they left the door open, much to my relief. I also noticed Bordeaux help his wife toward a small couch that sat directly in front of a fire we had going. He glanced at me briefly, but made no other gesture.

  I was about to discuss the scene Archer had created when Wang suddenly smacked me on the thigh, just above the bandaged wound, which hurt a lot.

  “And Bob’s your uncle,” he said. “Just try to let this one heal before you go and get yourself another.”

  I groaned, my leg feeling like it was on fire. “You really need to work on your bedside manner.”

  The small medic grinned and moved off to chat with Bordeaux and Madrina, leaving me alone with Helena.

  “So should we just kill him now and get it over with?” Helena asked.

  “Who, Wang? Totally.”

  “No Archer,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Who else?”

  “Well, you could have meant Santino as well. I could kill Santino right about now too…”

  “Stop it,” Helena scolded. “They kept the door open the entire time.”