I nodded in agreement but with a smirk. “Besides, you really want to be the one to kill her…”
“You’re goddamned right I do.”
I chuckled at her comment and heard Santino laughing behind me as well.
It felt like old times just now, when the three of us had been on the run in the wilderness of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. We’d had some good times then, and they’d been some of the best years of my life, all because I’d had Santino and Helena there, especially Helena.
I picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. “God, I love you.”
She reached up with her other hand, a movement that seemed strong and deliberate despite her weakness. “I know you do, Jacob. And I love you too. So very much.”
I smiled but felt a swell of emotion in my chest, knowing I had to leave her.
“Will you be all right if I leave again for a few minutes?” I asked.
“Of course,” she answered. “Just don’t go getting yourself killed out there, Lieutenant. I’ve just started liking you again. Just… try to hurry back this time.”
I grinned and leaned down for another wonderful, loving kiss.
I didn’t want to pull away, but I forced myself to, and looked down at Helena. We held our eyes on each other, but we were interrupted by the sound of forced sniffles from behind us.
“I think I’m going to cry…” Santino whispered around fake sobs.
I rolled my eyes, taking my entire head with them. I leaned down, gave Helena one last kiss, and then thrust myself from the bed as she smiled at Santino’s comment.
“No, I think you should stay, Hunter, really,” Santino said as I marched toward him. “I think the power of true love is all we need to get us through this, really I do. Just wait. A powerful rainbow is about to burst from Helena’s chest and hit Galba in the face like a leprechaun swinging a pot of gold, and then he’s going to fall in love with Agrippina and everything will be just fine. He’ll go back to Rome and find Vespasian and the three of them will love and love and love each other, together, and rule Rome jointly with compassion and care… just like those damn bears from that cartoon! It’ll be great. Pure magic! The three of them will have great sex too, although Agrippina and Vespasian will force Galba to wear a bag over his head just to get through the process, but that’s okay because it won’t matter, because they’ll be… in love! True love! Only through the power of lov…”
Just as he was about to finish, I reached a hand out toward the exit and covered his mouth with it, pushing him out of the tent in the same movement. He fell to the ground with a thud, but continued professing how only through the power of love could we overcome all our struggles. I tried to tune him out as I turned back to Helena.
She blew me a kiss, saying, “Go fix the universe.”
I reached up and tipped an imaginary hat at her. “Yes, ma’am.
***
Santino was already running by the time I left the tent, so I did what I could to keep up. My month long absence from reality had done much to impair my former level of physical fitness, and I felt weak and slow as I ran, but I managed to catch up just before we reached the camp’s northern most entrance.
“So how angry is he?” I asked.
“Pissed.”
“Do you think he’d really kill Agrippina?”
“Probably, but I’m hardly the guy to ask.”
That much at least was true, but I decided to shut up and conserve my energy as we ran through the gate and out into the field beyond the camp, where thousands of legionnaires sprang into view. Illuminated by just as many torches and fires, each of them stood comfortably near their trench system, some upon the ramparts, the rest arrayed on the field of battle, ready to advance. It was an awesome sight, and a claustrophobic one, contained as we were by the might of a Roman army.
I looked at Santino out of the corner of my eye, and he looked back at me.
“Not used to being on this end, are we?” I asked.
“They’ve been here over a week,” he replied. “I’ve gotten pretty used to it.”
“Right,” I said as I spotted Galba and Agrippina with their gathered retinues, which included Vincent, Bordeaux, Archer, Stryker, a number of Agrippina’s Praetorians, and Galba’s first file Fabius. All except Fabius were seated atop horses, arrayed in a pair of half circles disjoined from each other. As we grew closer I could see Galba’s fat and completely unhandsome face, easily discernible from all the hard, stoic Roman faces that surrounded him.
Santino and I slowed to a trot as we grew even closer, but just before we arrived, Santino picked up speed again and charged forward. A few of Galba’s Romans moved to draw their swords nervously but Galba held up a hand to keep them calm. Seconds later, Santino slid on an apparently icy bit of ground with his hands out wide like an old timey dancer, looking up at Galba with a wide, open mouth show smile, his spirit fingers wiggling wildly.
“Heeeeeeere’s, Hunter,” he said in English, but then grew serious and hooked a thumb at me and switched to Latin. “But seriously, I brought, Hunter.”
Agrippina and Vincent rolled their eyes but Galba appeared amused. He turned to the empress for a moment and smiled at her. “As much as I despise these people, this one at least entertains me.”
Santino beamed at the compliment and took a bow, while Agrippina simply frowned and shook her head at the display. No one’s attention seemed on me at the moment, which was good since I was drawing in gulps of air like I’d just sprinted a marathon, so I took the opportunity to move around behind my gathered forces to stand between Agrippina and Vincent.
Finally, Galba seemed to take notice of me and shifted his head around. “So, you have completed your ritual then?”
I nodded slowly, curious as to how he knew the details of what I had been doing. I was completely out of the loop here. I hadn’t even known that Galba was aware I’d been gone at all, and not simply hiding in the camp. It seemed best to be upfront with him and tell him what I knew he wanted to hear.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, “but more importantly, I learned how to send us home. We can leave and you’ll never see us again.”
Heads perked up at the announcement, and each of my friends seemed quite interested in further information.
“Then go,” Galba said, twitching his jowls away from the camp. “Go and I will forget you ever existed. All I need is Agrippina so I can settle this with Vespasian.”
“What’s your problem with Vespasian anyway?” I asked. “What did he do?”
“You are my problem, Hunter!” He bellowed. “You have caused great strife since arriving here five years ago, but your decisions since coming to Britain have completely compromised the strategic situation our forces face in this theatre of war. Why I let you wander into the hinterlands of Britain, I do not know, but I am finished with you. And I blame Vespasian for placing so much trust in you, and since I already had no faith in Agrippina, I have taken it upon myself to deal with all three of you.”
My heart sunk at his words, but I only grew more frustrated than upset. “Making a power grab then, is it?” I asked. “Not content with the life you have? What do you want? More authority? More power? A throne to sit upon?”
He stared down at me from atop his horse, a serviceable pedestal if I’d ever seen one, but his eyes hid the anger I knew must have been seething deep within him. Despite his unappealing appearance, he certainly exuded the confidence needed to make a good leader of men. It was why he’d always been such a good general, but good generalship didn’t always make for good leadership in the civilian sector.
Just ask Ulysses S. Grant.
Great general, good guy, poor president.
I wondered if Galba would be different.
Did I even need to care anymore?
Along with everything else I’d learned from Merlin, I now knew I wasn’t actually destroying or altering timelines at all. Just creating new ones, so who was I to alter this timeline’s natural progression, influ
enced by me or not? But I couldn’t just abandon Vespasian either. He was too good of a man, and had a proven track record. Also, he’d had faith in me when it seemed like no one else had. I couldn’t just abandon him to Galba, who was less power hungry and more afraid of his empire crumbling around him. He thought himself in the right, and perhaps he was, but I wasn’t too keen on the options he may leave me with when I told him I couldn’t go home quite yet.
“So is that it, then?” I asked when he didn’t answer. “Are you staging a coup? What are you going to do if you we don’t just turn ourselves over to you? Storm our gates and slaughter us?”
“I am not so stupid as to send fifty thousand men against you and your ilk, Hunter,” he said, thrusting his finger at me. “But I will starve you out if I have to.”
“Just like that? After everything we’ve been through and everything we’ve told you?” I took a painful step forward, pointing over my shoulder toward our camp. “Helena is this close to giving birth to my son, Galba. If you think for even a second that I’ll just roll over and let you starve us out, you’re delusional. There isn’t anywhere you can hide even remotely close to this camp. I can have you killed as easily as stepping on a bug right now if I wanted to, and you know it’s true.”
I took a deep breath and calmed myself, not wanting to let my anger take control or overplay my hand. Galba, for his part, at least looked uncomfortable at my words, and risked a look in the camp’s direction.
“But I don’t want to,” I continued, returning my arm to my side. “You’re a good man, Galba, and a real leader, but you’ve overstepped yourself. How could you just ignore everything we’ve told you? You’re risking your very future here!”
“I risk it,” Galba said evenly, “because of exactly what you once said to me. I make my own destiny, and so does Rome. We need not your presence here, and I’ve come to do what I should have done five years ago.”
I nodded and kept nodding, unable to find the words I needed to sway Galba’s mind.
Luckily, I wasn’t alone in this.
“You are delusional, Galba,” Agrippina chimed in. “You know nothing about what is needed to rule an empire. I have come to accept the errors I’ve committed in the past, and have sworn to better myself, but what I cannot do is simply hand over the power of Rome to an upstart general who sees himself as the next Julius Caesar!”
“Silence yourself, woman,” Galba snapped, “before I end your life here and now. Your crimes go far beyond simple reconciliation and an admission to better oneself. You have more blood on your hands than even Hunter here.”
I forced myself not to drop my head at his comment.
But it was difficult.
“You don’t have to do this, General,” Vincent said from beside me. “We’ve gathered new information. A new strategy can be formulated. We can help you set your world straight again.”
Galba looked at him not unkindly. “I always found you a sound thinker, Vincent, and Caligula was most fond of your council when he was still alive, as I was as well, but you cannot possibly understand the pressure I am under to regain control of our situation. Rome’s power over its empire hangs by little more than a thread. It is fractured, disjointed, and I need Agrippina to bring it back under control. Vespasian as well.” He settled back in his horse, almost uncomfortably. “And I no longer desire your interference. You need not die here in this uncivilized wilderness, but you can no longer be allowed to meddle. I refuse to allow it.”
I took a breath, unable to foresee a desirable end to this conversation.
Galba no longer cared about the orbs and wouldn’t see our ability to harness them as an advantage he could use. All he wanted was for us to become a non-factor in his world, so that he could retake control of its direction. He no longer wanted to use us, or harness us. All he wanted was to push us into a corner where we couldn’t affect anything.
And I couldn’t blame him.
But we could go home now. All I needed was a little more time and the freedom to go back to Rome. But here was Galba, standing in our way, having just declared war on us. We’d probably beat him in a fight, even with his overwhelming numerical superiority, but there’d be a lot of dead bodies when the dust settled, and some of those bodies could be Santino’s or Vincent’s.
One of those bodies could be Helena’s.
Or my own.
And Galba wasn’t wrong in all this. That truth only made our situation worse. And even more horrible was that I couldn’t think of anything I could say or do to change his mind or keep this from ending in death. Even with my mind as clear as it’s been in months, I couldn’t think of a way out of this. I couldn’t think of a single thing to do.
Except one thing.
I looked at Galba, whose eyes were drilling into my own, and raised my arms. “We surrender, Galba. Give me your word that we won’t be harmed and we’ll step aside. We’ll let you take us back to Rome under guard.”
“What?!” Agrippina exclaimed, clearly surprised.
Galba, however, looked at me evenly but he didn’t seem convinced. “You have rarely offered me a reason to trust you, Hunter. Why should I now?”
I shot an arm out to point at our camp again. “I’ve got a guy over there that could kill you right now if I wanted him to. You know that’s true.”
He sneered at me. “All too well.”
“And yet you’re still alive,” I said. “Just trust me, Galba. You say I can’t imagine the pressure you’re under? Well, you can’t even begin to imagine what I just experienced no more than a few hours ago. Everything is different now. I’m comfortable stepping aside and letting you do what you need to do. Just promise me we won’t be harmed and that when the dust settles, you’ll let us go.”
“What are you…” Agrippina started to say, but I cut her off with an upraised hand.
Galba noticed the gesture and after a moment’s thought, nodded.
“I cannot guarantee your release at a later date, but I can ensure your protection if you come willingly.”
“We will. You have my word.”
“You had best keep it this time, Hunter,” Galba said as he wheeled his horse around. “You have until daybreak to prepare.”
“Yes, sir,” I said to his retreating back as he led his officers back to their lines, but only Fabius offered me a respectful nod before turning to leave.
“He’ll be back…” Santino said in an excessively deep voice.
I smacked him on the arm, and he jumped at the contact as I turned and walked back to camp. Agrippina maneuvered her horse in my direction to fall in step.
“Have you completely lost control of your mind?” She demanded.
“Not this time actually,” I said with a smirk as I strutted back toward the camp, pleased with my cool head and immediate acceptance of my own decision.
“You have sentenced me to death, Hunter!” She exclaimed. “Galba will no doubt try me for treason and have me crucified.”
“Maybe,” I replied, “maybe not.”
“Explain.”
“In a bit,” I said. “Let’s get the band back together again and have a little talk first.”
***
Everyone but Helena was present as I explained everything.
Everything.
Some of them made connections to things they’d known before, while others failed to associate their prior knowledge with anything I’d said at all, and some figured things out for the very first time, while even others came away more confused than before. Some were interested. Some were not. But by the time I was done, everyone wanted to know more.
“How are you going to find the red orb?” Cuyler asked first.
“Why would he give such power to children?” Bordeaux asked.
“Who or what is a Merlin?” Agrippina demanded with crossed arms, clearly the one to understand the least.
“The Multiverse! I knew it!” Artie exclaimed. “I just knew it!”
“It is difficult to believe how
accurate Romulus and Remus’ origin story is to the mythology,” Vincent muttered.
“You can barely control the blue orb. How are you going to work both?” A good point from Stryker.
Gaius and Marcus shared knowing nods, both saying, “I told you gods were real.”
“After all of that and you still can’t help us??” Archer asked, shaking his fist at me.
“Describe the bikini part again,” Santino demanded, and Artie smacked him.
“How could your vision have been so vivid?” Boudicca asked, almost as confused as Agrippina.
“You met Merlin? King Arthur’s Merlin? Mum is never going to believer this…” Wang said, his head shaking side to side.
“How could a pair of balls have that kind of power?” Brewster wondered, a hand cupping her chin.
I barely heard any of these questions as they came at me all at once, followed by a string of more, coming fast and without pause. Everyone spoke over one another and certain people started picking fights with those closest to them who had differing opinions.
Agrippina was arguing with Vincent about what was known to the general public about Romulus and Remus’ origin.
Archer continued to threaten me while Artie tried to placate him with her own explanations, derived from a sharp mind that naturally knew more than I about time travel and alternate realities than mine did.
Wang tried to convince Boudicca that western Britain was superior to eastern Britain, and that it alone had contributed to the mysticism I’d just experienced. Boudicca argued it had only aggravated our problem and was the home of superstitious pansies.
Stryker tried to convince Santino that Agrippina would look far better in a bikini than Artie – right in front of them both, not to mention me – but Santino wasn’t hearing any of it.
Brewster tried to argue with anyone around her, but no one seemed to be listening.
Only Cuyler and Bordeaux kept to themselves, maybe understanding that they couldn’t accomplish anything by speaking over each other. Cuyler seemed a pretty pensive guy anyway, but Bordeaux was perhaps less than enthused about the idea of our apparent newfound ability to go home. He, along with Vincent, had made a home here in antiquity, and was perhaps nervous about what the orbs meant for his ability to remain here with Madrina when this was all over.
Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion Page 49
