“Now that we speak of Atticus … tell me,” Marius began, his voice lowered all of a sudden. “Atticus asked if you have the … Codex. Is there such a thing?”
Cade hesitated, and Marius moved closed still.
“Our commanders kept it hidden from us. Even Atticus has never seen it. It is said to be an Oracle. One that could answer any question, and allowed them to commune with the new gods. Was it a lie, to convince us to follow?”
Cade stepped back, his heart suddenly pumping. The Codex was their only advantage over the Romans. The only thing that set them apart as contenders. In truth, it was the only bargaining chip they had against Atticus.
Yet, as Marius stared at him with desperate eyes, Cade found it hard to lie to him. The man had shown them nothing but kindness.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Cade said, unable to come to a decision either way. “We should get going.”
Marius sighed, then nodded curtly.
“Gather your friends,” he said. “It is time to leave.”
CHAPTER
17
The silhouette of Jomsborg was a welcome sight. The march had been even more arduous than their last—for they took their turn in helping the Romans pulling the old carts full of wood and equipment.
Every minute felt fraught with danger, despite Marius’s assurances that there were scouts in the vicinity. So when they trundled through the gates, Cade fell to his knees with relief.
Still, he scanned the surroundings, hoping to catch a glimpse of Quintus. He could only hope his friend had managed to fend off any questions from Atticus. For once, their fate was in someone else’s hands, yet that made Cade no less uneasy.
But there was no sign of Quintus. The camp had been lit up in anticipation of the coming night, rusted embrasures and sconces filled with bundles of the hardy purple grass.
Men patrolled the walls, dangling slings from their arms, and beyond the fortified town, pyres of grass were lit to illuminate any approach from the enemy.
The century of Roman soldiers they had left behind had been busy too. Men knelt in the sand, tying together bundles of purple grass, while others thatched the roofs of crumbling longhouses, the spear hafts of the dead Grays forming the structure the grass was tied to.
The newly arrived Romans cheered at the sight of the camp, but their voices fell silent when Atticus strode out from the shadows. His face was grim, mouth drawn tight.
“Bring them to me,” he barked, pointing at Cade and the others.
There was a moment of silence. For a brief second, Cade caught Marius’s gaze, before the man lowered his eyes and rough hands took hold of his arms.
He did not resist—he knew he could never overpower these men. And beyond these walls … was only death. No, this was all part of the game. He and his fellow contenders were the players, and these Romans were the pieces. He had to learn how to play them.
The longhouse they were shoved into was smoky, lit by flickering torchlight.
But Cade was more concerned with the sight of Quintus, tied to a frame made of spears, his body naked but for a loincloth. His flesh was a mess of red welts, and Cade forced himself to choke back a cry.
They had not kept Quintus for interrogation. They had kept him back for torture.
Cade was pushed to his knees in front of Quintus, the others falling to the floor beside him. Atticus strode in front of them, a knotted rope in his hand.
“Your boy here refuses to speak,” the legatus said in Latin. “But I know he can. What secret are you hiding?”
The Codex whispered the translation in Cade’s ear.
“Marius!” Atticus bellowed.
Marius’s footsteps thudded closer to Cade. “Yes, Legatus.”
“Ask this boy where the Codex is. Ask him where the flying ball that speaks is.”
Marius crouched beside Cade. “The Codex,” he whispered. “Now is the time to speak.”
His words were urgent, but Cade hardly registered them. Instead, he looked to Quintus.
The boy’s face was taut with pain, his body drenched in sweat. Yet, despite his obvious discomfort and exhaustion, Quintus’s eyes were bright—he knew exactly what was going on.
A soft shake of his head was all the answer Cade needed.
“We have no Codex. No ball,” Cade replied in halting Latin.
Atticus raised a brow, surprised. “At least one of them speaks,” he snarled. “How are you here? Have you not communed with the gods?”
Cade breathed deeply, biting his lip and lifting his eyes as if thinking of the Latin words. In the walk back, he’d had time to consider what he would say to Marius. Now, he would say it to Atticus instead.
Without the Codex, they were expendable. They needed Atticus to need them as much as they needed him.
“Our commander stays in the keep—our home. He controls the Codex,” Cade said, stuttering awkwardly with the Latin.
He spoke as loudly and clearly as he could. This was for the soldiers who held the contenders down to hear, and the men who would be eavesdropping outside. If this was to be his opportunity to speak, then he would have to make it count.
“We are from the future. Even farther than Louis Le Prince. We are here to help you.”
He could hear the soft murmuring of the men inside, and the rustle of men pressing their ears to the walls of the log house.
“We brought you this castle. We brought you a victory. We brought out the … Tritons … for you to kill. Why do you act as if we are your enemy?”
The murmuring grew louder, such that Atticus was forced to raise his hand for silence. “Your commander sent only eight fighters to help us,” he said. “Some help you are.”
Cade brought one foot forward, shifting from kneeling into taking a single knee. There was no move to push him down again.
“We are few, yes,” Cade said. “But we could not leave the keep with nobody to defend it. If we fail … the world ends.”
Atticus scoffed. “The same lie our own commanders told us. Leading us to our deaths on a foolhardy assault. I keep my men alive. I care not for this game.”
“But if you win, here, you go back to the keep. Win again, and you go back to…”
He struggled with the Latin word for planet, but Marius finished it for him.
“Home,” Marius said simply.
“Yes,” Cade said.
Atticus laughed. “We have been fighting the Tritons for years. How do eight pathetic fighters make any difference at all? This fort is only good for defense. The catapults on the roof are broken, and the ones we used during that first battle did no more than dent their doors.”
Cade had no answer for that. Or at least, not one he believed. “We have knowledge. Knowledge from the future.”
Atticus brought his face close to Cade’s. “If you can break open their fort, or bring the Tritons into open battle, come talk to me. Otherwise, stay out of sight.”
“But we have only five days!” Cade shouted. “Five days, or we are here forever. All of us.”
Atticus froze. “What did you say?”
“If we don’t kill the Tritons in five days, the gods will abandon us here. This is your only chance to escape.”
His words rang out, leaving the longhouse deathly quiet. Any murmuring in the background had stopped.
Atticus stared at him, a look of shock stamped across his face. Then, it turned into a rictus of anger.
“Lies!” he snarled, gripping Cade’s chin in his hand and shoving him back in disgust. “The same lies our dead leaders told us, to rush us into a battle we could not win.”
He turned to the men, and Cade managed a quick glance over his shoulder. At least fifty legionaries had filed into the longhouse. Enough to spread the word throughout the entire camp.
“This boy is here for his own reasons, and he will say anything to get what he wants,” Atticus barked. “He has no Codex. No proof of what he and his friends are doing here. Any soldier who speaks to any of them will be
whipped.”
Atticus nodded to the guards, and they began to cut Quintus down from the frame.
“Get them out of my sight,” he snarled. “We’re done here.”
CHAPTER
18
They sat in the ruined shell of a longhouse on the periphery of the camp. Quintus lay on a makeshift bed made from their sleds—these, at least, the Romans had not touched.
The young legionary seemed almost annoyed at their attentions, refusing to lie still despite the red welts peppering his body. He wanted the situation resolved, and quickly.
“The legion must know the truth,” he croaked. “They must know the timer is running out.”
“Why didn’t we tell them about the Codex?” Grace asked. “Surely that is proof enough?”
Cade shook his head. “If we revealed the Codex, we wouldn’t be here right now. Atticus wants it for himself.”
“Can he even do that?” Yoshi asked. “Force us to transfer the Codex to him?”
“If he couldn’t, he could force us to ask it questions,” Cade said. “Or declare himself a contender again, or kill us all so it attaches to him.”
“So why not just give it to him?” Amber asked. “Would that be so bad?”
“Yes,” Quintus groaned. “The man is a … fool.”
“I think the soldiers are convinced already,” Cade said. “We have no reason to lie. But it changes nothing.”
“Why?” Grace asked.
“Because attacking the Grays’ fortress is suicide,” Cade said. “Even if the Romans agreed to fight with us, we would never break through. We need to present a solution and the Codex to the Romans at the same time. Proof, and a way forward. One doesn’t work without the other.”
Scott sighed and rubbed his eyes. “So … we have two options. Bring the Grays out into open battle … or find a way into their stronghold.”
“Well, we won’t get them to come out of there,” Bea said. “They will have a timer, just like we do. I bet that patrol only attacked Jomsborg because they weren’t aware a new round had begun. The Grays at their HQ will have withdrawn all their patrols by now. They just have to wait us out.”
Cade closed his eyes, letting the conversation wash over him. Bea was right. Even if the Grays could be tempted out into the open, whatever skeleton crew left to guard their home would still be able to hold off the Romans in the impregnable fort. They had to kill each and every Gray inside, not just defeat the army that was sent out.
“There is a solution,” Cade said, speaking his thoughts out loud.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Uh … are you going to enlighten us?” Grace asked.
Cade shrugged.
“I didn’t say I knew what it was. I just know for a fact that there is one.”
Scott put an arm around his shoulders. “I think you’ve finally cracked, buddy. Quintus, shift over. I think Cade needs to lie down.”
Cade laughed, though with a hint of bitterness. “That’s not what I mean. Abaddon sent these Romans here to attack an impregnable fortress. He would have known their catapults would do nothing to the gates. He would have known the Grays had a weapon capable of destroying an entire army. But he sent the Romans here anyway. And not with just a week, but months.”
“So?” Trix asked.
“So, he wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t have a way to win. Every round, he agrees the rules of the game with the other pantheon member that rules the game. How long the timer is, what resources he can send here, all of that.”
“And?” Yoshi said.
“He wouldn’t send us here if there was no solution. Every time we’ve gone into battle, there’ve been resources available to us. Weapons, armor … if we’re smart enough to find them.”
“Unless he doesn’t want us to win,” Scott said. “Maybe he wants us to lose, so he can wipe Earth out and start again. Just like he did with Mars before it.”
Cade scratched his fledgling beard. “He could do that anytime he wanted. Leave us with nothing. Instead, he left us with this fort, and the Romans. Those two things on their own are not enough though. So there must be something else.”
“Well, what did he give the Romans?” Amber asked. “There’s Fort Caroline. Maybe that had the tools they needed.”
Cade nodded slowly. “Fort Caroline may just have been a base for them. But … why such a small fort? Why not Jomsborg? There were thousands of Romans at the beginning. Maybe Abaddon knew that most of the army would be blown away, but he couldn’t be sure they would attack immediately.”
It was like his mind was scratching around the edges of a grand realization, but it just wouldn’t come.
“They had cannons,” Cade said slowly. “But they were rusty, with no gunpowder. There was a moat … but that doesn’t seem important. Wood, yes, but that’s not exactly a game changer.”
He buried his head in his hands. “Think, Cade,” he whispered to himself.
“What if there is more?” Quintus asked.
The boy had been his usual silent self, his eyes darting from one speaker to the next, reading their lips, listening keenly to their words. As usual, they were speaking louder when in his presence.
“More?” Cade asked.
“Yes. We received Jomsborg, and the Romans, and Fort Caroline. What if I know about one other thing?”
Cade’s eyes widened. “They told you about somewhere else?”
Quintus shook his head, then flashed him a smile. “There is … good … in my silent ears,” he said slowly. “I can see a man’s lips move and know what they speak.”
Cade’s eyes widened. “What did they say?”
Quintus bit his lip thoughtfully. “They spoke of another place. One where they took shelter when the rains came. A place that was not Fort Caroline. They said Jomsborg is much better than the other home the gods offered them.”
Cade leaned closer. “Did they say where it was? Or anything else?”
Quintus shook his head. “They spoke of the smell there. It smelled of death, so they said. A cruel joke from the gods.”
Scott threw up his hands. “Oh great. Let’s go wandering around an alien land, seeking out the place that smells like death, so we can see if it’s a clue to how to break into a place thousands of trained soldiers couldn’t.”
Cade allowed himself a thin smile. “You got a better idea?”
* * *
They packed their sleds immediately—sleep could wait. Their water jars were refilled surreptitiously from the Roman wagons, which were still waiting to be unpacked as the soldiers celebrated their new home.
They could not leave just yet though. It was all well and good to seek out the second Roman base. But without at least a direction to head in, they had no hope of finding it in time.
Now, it was up to Quintus, who had told them more about Marius. His friendship with the centurion was one that had spanned years. It was Marius who had championed the young legionary’s right to fight in the Ninth Legion, despite his hearing impediment. He who had shielded the boy from the worst of the bullying, and ensured Quintus was fed when his food was taken from him.
So they could do nothing but wait by the gate entrance as Quintus slunk between the campfires scattered across the harbor’s dry basin, seeking out his old friend.
He was gone for quite some time, and they could do nothing but endure the curious glances from passing Romans. In a way, Atticus’s proclamation protected them from further investigation—none wanted to incur the despotic leader’s wrath.
Quintus returned breathless, his eyes ringed with dark circles. But though his face was haggard, a smile was stamped across it.
“Marius could not speak to me. He ignored me when I asked him to show me the other place. But I walked away and watched. He drew this, and threw it behind him.”
He passed a rag to Cade, who held it up to the red light of the rising moon.
It was rough, scratched into the fabric with charcoal. Jomsborg, at i
ts center, marked by a square with crenellations at its top.
There was Fort Caroline, a spike-topped circle to indicate the palisade around it. And a third object, a strange, jagged triangle, directly above the conquistador’s fort.
By luck or Abaddon’s twisted logic, their journey was a straight line, one that would return them to Fort Caroline. They would have a place to rest up, and would be able to investigate both locations further.
But there were disadvantages too. The Grays might well be holed up in their fort, but it was possible they would have sent scouts out to investigate what the Romans were up to. No doubt they would have discovered the location of Fort Caroline.
If there were scouts out there, they would be watching it. Perhaps even patrolling the route between the fort and Jomsborg.
Their only advantage was speed … and the cover of night.
CHAPTER
19
Quintus was hardly able to walk by the time they reached Fort Caroline, with the chirrups and calls of the local fauna announcing the arrival of the sun.
They had trekked through the night, watching the horizon for approaching Grays. But none had come. Still, the Grays could arrive at any moment, and as they staggered into the log cabin, the last structure remaining there, they left Quintus to sleep in a makeshift cot on one of their sleds. He only took the time to gulp down some water and jerky before he was out like a light.
“We can’t stay here,” Cade said as Quintus snored softly. “We’re better off stopping at the—”
“—place that smells of death?” Scott interjected.
“Can you give me a break?” Cade snapped.
Scott froze, surprised by Cade’s reaction.
“Hey,” Grace said, giving Scott a gentle nudge. “Give the plan a chance. Has Cade ever let us down? He’s a player.”
“You can say that again,” Amber said, flashing Cade a smile. She swatted him playfully.
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