Rune Warrior

by Frank Morin

  “Time to wake up, Sarah because your nightmares are no longer a dream.”

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Let them hate me, provided they respect my conduct and do not interfere with my next life.

  ~Tiberius, the third life of Julius Caesar

  Gregorios was a general in a losing battle.

  The Via della Conciliazione was only half a mile long, straight, and unbroken between the Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s Basilica. At a brisk walk, Spartacus could have covered the entire distance in five minutes.

  Eight minutes had passed since Gregorios ordered Tomas to take that hill, and Spartacus’ force was approaching St. Peter’s Square, despite everything they’d done to slow him down.

  Gregorios stood atop a troop transport at the edge of the Piazza Papa Pio the Twelfth, the widening of the road just before it emptied into the huge expanse of St. Peter’s Square. He was turned toward the distant Castel, watching the street fight rage, wondering what more they could do.

  While Harriett organized Yurak forces to oppose Spartacus’ half-century, Gregorios had sent Bastien with every able-bodied soldier from the Tenth to help. They’d scrambled to get ahead of Spartacus, losing precious ground in the process, because Spartacus’ men spread across the entire street, and no one could get around them. Security forces had tried blocking the road with trucks, but the heka vaulted over them. They tried incendiary grenades and mortars, but the heka walked right through them.

  Unlike earlier efforts, the higher-powered web deflected all kinetic energy and heat. Bullets no longer knocked them back, and searing heat caused no visible impact. It was simply the most complete web Gregorios had ever seen. It must be consuming scores of souls, and his forces struggled to compete against that much raw power.

  He’d gleaned important hints about the extent of the web as he witnessed the frustrating losing battle. The rune web acted as a comprehensive protective barrier around Spartacus’ little army when the men moved as a tight formation, which they preferred. The barrier was like a bubble that moved with them. Harriett and Bastien had thrown one of the tiny Italian cars, and it had bounced off the invisible barrier inches above Spartacus’ head, not rolling to the ground until after all the soldiers had passed beneath it.

  However, when the heka were forced to jump barriers and vehicles, sometimes they broke formation. That was the moment that left them partially vulnerable. Still protected from bullets and direct harm, they were not completely impervious.

  Harriett and her hard-fighting soldiers had managed to hold their ground for a full minute by blocking the road with tight-packed trucks, forcing the heka to jump or climb over. When they did so, enhanced fighters met them, jumping to intercept them in midair, or beating them back with anything they could find. Harriett used motorcycles, then snapped off a light pole and used it like a giant baseball bat. She’d always been good at that game.

  Several of the heka had been isolated, tied, and dragged away. For a moment, Gregorios had thought they could defeat the well-shielded army even before Tomas knocked down the shield.

  Spartacus would not be so easily thwarted.

  His men, who had not bothered firing their weapons much, unleashed a fierce volley, cutting down several opposing soldiers. They’d thrown several grenades, forcing Harriett and her men to retreat. Then they jumped the blockade in unison, and the barrier around that unified front had driven everyone back.

  Gregorios was trying to get another round of trucks into position, but the local commanders of the polizia and carabinieri were making that difficult. They had brought in too many of their own men, blocking the streets and making communication difficult. The top commander had refused to believe what he was seeing and kept trying to order ineffectual sniper fire.

  Gregorios finally resorted to punching the man unconscious and ordering shocked subordinates to listen. At the sight of his blazing purple eyes, they stopped arguing.

  They had scrambled to evacuate the basilica and the nearby square, but thousands of curious onlookers and worried faithful packed the police barriers along surrounding streets. Reporters were everywhere. Men and women with cameras swarmed every available viewpoint, and several news helicopters hovered overhead. Gregorios had called for them to be ordered away, but either they hadn’t gotten the call yet, or they were ignoring it.

  Worse, the local commanders were joining reporters in peppering him with questions about the protective barrier Spartacus enjoyed, as well as the superhuman abilities Gregorios’ own forces were exhibiting.

  “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a battle?” Gregorios shouted finally. “We can discuss those things later. Now get me some more trucks!”

  “Bene, signore,” the commander of a special-forces unit said. “The trucks are coming. But if we knew how to do what your men do, we could help more.”

  “I said later,” Gregorios growled. Reports of casualties were making him grumpy. The wounded would recover, or would receive new battle suits. He hated that he was forced to take the distant command, overseeing the effort instead of standing with his men.

  For centuries the facetakers, hunters, and even the heka had all lived in the shadows, ignored by most of the world. No longer. The full magnitude of the heka threat was being broadcast around the world, as well as the capabilities of his own forces. Even if they contained Spartacus and destroyed Paul, that public awareness might end up proving their worst danger.

  Every time the general population had learned about them throughout history, they had reacted with fear, which usually meant rioting. The greatest strength of the council was in keeping the knowledge of facetakers from the world. Everything they had built so carefully for so long was at risk. No doubt Paul planned that as part of Spartacus’ mission.

  Now Spartacus’ half-century had nearly broken out of the western end of the street into the piazza where Gregorios stood. Once they broke through, containment would prove more difficult.

  Or it might be the break they’d been waiting for. Harriett had left the front lines under the control of unit commanders and was frantically preparing a couple of surprises. If they could give her enough time, she could stop Spartacus despite the infuriating web.

  “What’s your status?” he asked Harriett.

  “Not good,” she reported breathlessly. “A trailer overturned en route. Ten minutes to get a replacement.”

  “We don’t have it.”

  “I know,” she snapped. “Switching to alternate measures, but still need a few minutes.”

  “We cannot hold them much longer,” Bastien reported. “Where are those hunters when we need them?”

  “No idea,” Gregorios said. Reuben and his men had left the Castel via a sally port in the rear gate, and no one had seen them since. That cowardice infuriated Gregorios more than all Reuben’s juvenile posturing.

  He waved one of the unit commanders of the Tenth over. “Have you heard back from Quentin?”

  The man nodded. “He just checked in. He’s back at Suntara and is working on the item you requested. He said a new batch will take fifteen minutes.”

  That was far too long, but Gregorios just told the man to urge Quentin to hurry. Quentin’s special formula might be needed if they lost the fight. It was a final trump card, and he was woefully short on those at the moment.

  Only then did he notice a dense bank of fog rolling up the Via della Conciliazione, rapidly overtaking Spartacus’ forces. The Tiber River was nearby, but there was no way that fog was natural. It rose to the tops of the buildings on both sides of the street and engulfed everything. It consumed the main fighting line and rolled into the piazza. The fog was thick, clinging to his skin with tangible weight.

  “Where did that fog come from?” he demanded.

  “Say again.” Harriett’s voice crackled with static.

  Gregorios cursed. He’d seen a weaker version of a similar event once when Baladeva had tried to help Cleopatra defeat Caesar as Octavian. Gregorios had personal
ly destroyed that rune web.

  He ran west toward St. Peter’s Square to escape the front edge of the fog.

  “I said we have a problem,” he repeated. “Heavy fog moving in. Definitely a heka spell. It appears to interrupt communications.”

  “Not good,” Harriett said. “I can see it now.”

  “What impact will that have on suppressing measures?” Gregorios asked.

  “It won’t help,” Harriett replied, her voice tense.

  “Do what you can.”

  Gregorios ran faster to keep ahead of the leading edge of fog, which was accelerating.

  “Tomas, what’s your status?” he asked after switching channels.

  “We’ve breached the perimeter,” Tomas reported. “Preparing to destroy the web.”

  “Hurry. The situation is spiraling out of control here.”

  “Twenty seconds. Out.”

  Gregorios paused at the edge of St. Peter’s Square. People streamed out of the piazza, driven by the strange fog and fear of Spartacus’ forces advancing through the mist. Carabinieri snipers were already positioned atop the two semi-circular colonnades around the square, and troops were pouring into the southern expanse, even though Gregorios had told them to stay back. Several APCs with roof-mounted machine guns rolled into the square with the troops.

  This was their city, and St. Peter’s was a treasured icon and they weren’t going to surrender it without a fight.

  “What a waste of time,” he muttered, then lifted the command headset he’d taken from the carabinieri commander to his lips. “Stand down. You’re not helping.”

  A new voice squawked out of the handset. “Remove yourself from this channel. You are not authorized to give orders.”

  Gregorios sighed and dropped the command headset into a pocket. Their fate was in their own hands. He applauded their intentions, but they were just going to get hurt.

  He faced the approaching fog, preparing to allow it to roll over him, then to return to the front lines and personally take over bolstering the defenses.

  His earpiece crackled with static. He couldn’t make out the words, but he caught a heightened sense of urgency. At the same time, gunfire chattered from the fog, followed by a series of explosions.

  Then a troop transport vehicle they’d used in the barrier effort roared out of the fog. Spartacus stood on the passenger side step while one of his men drove. Behind him poured the rest of his men. Somehow they’d broken through the containment effort.

  As the truck rumbled past, Spartacus saluted Gregorios with his staff, then turned toward the square.

  Gregorios cursed and trotted into the square, but kept his distance. The snipers and Italian ground forces opened fire on the advancing heka, and the ricochets became an imminent threat.

  If Tomas could get that web down now, Spartacus’ little army would be slaughtered.

  Gregorios slowly counted to twenty as he took shelter in the right-hand colonnade that ringed St. Peter’s Square. His forces would be moving to pursue, and the fight was about to get ugly.

  “Prepare,” he shouted. “The web’s about to come down.” He didn’t know who could hear him through the fog, but he lifted his rifle on its tactical sling.

  “Time to change the tide, Spartacus.”

  He reached twenty just before the fog rolled over Spartacus, who was marching through the hail of gunfire.

  The web did not go down.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Let the Romans come. My armies grow stronger every day, enhanced by the hunters, who see nothing but their hatred of Shahrokh. With their help and the secret rune web my heka corps has devised, I will destroy Julius and remove his soulmask to fuel my own glory.

  ~Vercingetorix, Gallic chieftain, 52 A.D.

  Tomas crouched beside the doorway to the room holding the heka web. Anaru knelt on the ground beside him, and was frowning at him.

  “You just lied to Gregorios during a critical encounter,” Anaru accused.

  “I did not,” Tomas protested.

  “You said twenty seconds.” He pounded a hand on the invisible but unyielding barrier blocking the door. “But we can’t get into the room.”

  Tomas grinned. “Trust me.”

  He extracted Quentin’s specialty grenade and added. “Get the other troops back around the corner. When this blows, our enhancements will be temporarily knocked out. I don’t want it affecting the rest of the team.”

  Anaru frowned at the blocky grenade. “What is that thing?”

  “Our ticket into the room. You and I are going to blow it. How fast can you throw grenades?”

  Anaru grinned and hefted a belt full of the explosives. “Faster than you.”

  Tomas pulled the pin of the rune-killer grenade and dropped it outside the door. He retreated a dozen feet and closed his eyes.

  The grenade went off with a sharp report, and the blast wave struck like a severe gust of wind. That wind caught hold of his many enhancements and sucked them dry.

  Even though he’d been expecting it, Tomas still gasped and sagged with weariness. He felt as weak and uncoordinated as he had while wearing Carl’s body.

  The months he’d spent in that disguise had reminded him how to function without his enhancements, though. So he snapped open his eyes and rushed the doorway, which was full of blue-white lightning.

  That web was strong enough, that the grenade, placed so far from its heart probably wouldn’t knock the entire operation out. He only needed it to interrupt the barrier for a few seconds.

  The barrier was down.

  He slid into the doorway on his knees, two grenades in hand, pins already removed, and threw them far into the room. Anaru arrived on his heels, and they pulled pins and tossed grenades with frantic speed, then rolled to the side before the first grenades exploded.

  He only spared a single glance at the surprised heka in the room. They hadn’t even been manning the machine gun, confident in the power of their barrier. Two of them were lunging toward it, but they were eternally too late.

  The grenades began to explode, concussive blasts overlapping into a continuous roar that shook the entire tunnel complex. Smoke and debris exploded out the doorway, and Tomas coughed through his sleeve. With his enhancements working, Tomas would barely have noticed the smoke.

  He glanced at Anaru, who was pressed against the other side of the door and shouted, “Eight!”

  Anaru grinned. “Nine.”

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “I’ve got the pins to prove it.” Anaru tapped his thick chest. “You can’t keep up with the Maori, Captain.”

  Tomas was tempted to throw another grenade to even the score, but Anaru would do the same. Anaru had accepted his demotion to second with remarkable grace, so Tomas decided he was being silly to worry about the tiny loss.

  “Drinks are on me tonight,” he said.

  After the last of the grenades exploded, Tomas peeked around the doorway. Dense smoke hung in listless clouds, and the room stank of gunpowder, splintered wood, and the sickening stench of burning soulmasks. It was like burned rubber mixed with bleach, and the smell stung even in the doorway.

  The machine gun nest was simply gone. Blood and gore splattered the room, all that was left of most of the enchanters, although a couple lay groaning on the floor. Tomas was amazed they survived. Perhaps they’d been protected by additional layers of shielding.

  The tables holding the extensive rune web had been shattered, with dispossessed souls fallen into glittering piles of rubble. He noted silvery runes still glowing on some of them. Vestiges of the web might have survived. He lacked the expertise to try extracting any of those soulmasks from the web and salvaging their lives. Time was too short to even try.

  Tomas pointed at the two surviving enchanters, who were stirring. “Bind them. They’re needed for questioning.”

  The heka were disoriented, their protection gone, and Anaru’s team bound them in seconds. They dragged the new prisoners out into th
e hall while Tomas placed a large satchel charge atop the piles of soulmasks.

  He saluted those unknown souls sacrificed in the heka web, then retreated out of the room and led his men down the hall. They stopped on the far side of the still-sealed steel door they’d passed earlier.

  When Anaru triggered the explosive charge, it exploded with a concussive blast that sent heated air screaming past, as if seeking an escape from the devastation. The entire underground complex shook from the force of the blast. The wall outside the web room collapsed into the hall, triggering a small avalanche of stone. For a moment it looked like the avalanche might spread, and Tomas shared a worried look with Anaru. They hadn’t fought their way through the heka defenses only to get buried alive.

  After several tense seconds, during which time they all retreated farther down the hall, the shaking subsided and the terrifying groaning of stone above their heads settled. Tomas blew out a breath.

  He tapped his earpiece and spoke into his throat mike. “Rune web is down. Repeat, the web has been disabled.”

  He heard only static.

  Tomas was about to try again when the locked steel door burst open. Paul stepped into the corridor, his hat gone, his chest bare.

  Tomas reached for the rune-killing grenade before remembering it was gone. His heart sank at the sight of the Cui Dashi, standing just feet away.

  Blazing on the hairless skin of his chest was a large, complex rune that illuminated the entire area with silver light. Tomas had no rounon gift, but he’d studied enough runes over the decades. That one was unique. He recognized components of the lesser master rune Paul had acquired from the assassination of Julius Caesar, as well as pieces of the master rune from Berlin that Sarah had shown him.

  That could only mean he’d acquired the last master rune too.

  Paul had been sleeping in a chair only feet away, and Tomas had failed to locate him.

  Tomas refused to consider the possibility that Paul had left Sarah hurt, and brought his rifle to bear, knowing he was too late.