A Hunter and His Legion (The Praetorian Series Book 3)

by Edward Crichton

  “It’s a shame we don’t have the whole legion with us,” I commented. “They could have built us a bridge in a less than a week to get over there.”

  “The boats they’re making will be done in a day or two,” Wang countered.

  “True, but I have an odd feeling that whenever we leave Anglesey, there’ll be something symbolic about burning a bridge behind us, both literal and figurative.”

  I turned and left Wang to ponder on my comment and whatever the fuck it was that bothered him, allowing him to wallow in his own musings. It seemed well past time for someone else to do it, and I took immense pleasure at the thought that both Wang and Vincent were finally in positions to actually worry about something.

  I didn’t care that Vincent had created a life here in Ancient Rome, one that he had abandoned to aid me. It didn’t matter to me that he too must have had a lot on his mind because he had left his young son, Brian Wilson Glabrio, with no one else but his mother and maybe Titus if he had arrived in the Middle East by now with Madrina.

  It was about fucking time, and I let that hateful elation alleviate some of the pressure I felt in my chest, as it seemed to do. The act gave me a slight buzz, or a mellow high, and I considered letting myself take pleasure in everyone else’s displeasures more often, realizing there certainly was something to all this schadenfreude.

  I strolled back to the freshly erected legion camp, this one a little bit more defensible and permanent than all the ones they’d built since leaving Camulodunum. Despite Anglesey’s small size, we might be there for a while, and while it would have been nice to bring the entire reconnaissance force with us, Vincent felt it might also antagonize the natives. I’d agreed, so they would be left here to guard our exit strategy while Gaius, Marcus, every single time traveler, and a century or two of Romans would cross the narrow straight that separated us from yet another piece of the puzzle.

  And I could barely contain my excitement.

  ***

  We’d made the short journey across the narrow straight earlier this morning, two days after arriving on the shore that separated us from the mysterious island beyond. Dozens of slender but sturdy boats had carried us all, with me at the spear point of our party, and I had almost felt like standing up and propping my foot up on the prow of my boat to emulate the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River. It had seemed like an appropriate thing to do at the time, especially since the landscape mimicked the environmental conditions depicted in that painting almost perfectly, but Wang had been all too right about how rough the water was.

  The crossing had only taken minutes, but I had nearly been jostled from the boat a handful of times, and three legionnaires had in fact been pitched into the frigid waters. They’d been able to swim shore, and would be fine, but were lucky Wang had been there to treat them for mild hypothermia.

  So far, that had been the only mishap of the day, and our stroll across the Isle of Mona had been uneventful, even relaxing. We’d landed near the southernmost tip of the island and had been traveling up its western coast for over seven hours, a trip that seemed more like a hike with friends rather than a precision legion march, but that image was tarnished by the lack of amiability amongst the entire group.

  Everyone seemed to be on edge.

  While the legionnaires were always tense and ready to encounter an enemy force, my time traveling companions seemed nervous, and their body language told the tale quite unmistakably. Santino, Cuyler, Helena, and Artie hiked about as far away as they could from me while still maintaining a safe distance in case of attack. Since Helena had abandoned me that night after the barbarian attack, I hadn’t once thought about approaching her or seeing how she was doing. She seemed almost an alien entity to me over the past few days, and search in my heart as I did, I couldn’t find a reason to go talk to her. I just didn’t care and I felt the same about Artie.

  I did miss Santino. He seemed too serious these days, and I found his new formed friendship with Stryker annoying. Cuyler’s overprotection of Helena and Artie was also disturbing, and while Wang and Vincent also walked together, usually in companionable silence, they often conversed in hushed tones. I didn’t like them keeping secrets from me, especially if it was information crucial to the successful completion of our quest, but I also wasn’t sure I trusted them anymore. The oddest pairing, perhaps, was Brewster and Bordeaux, more for the extreme size differential between them than anything else, and I wondered if Bordeaux was trying to sneak a little action in with her on the side.

  New time travelers and old had come together in recent days, and had formed deep bonds of camaraderie I hadn’t yet experienced, but I was fine with that. I didn’t need any more relationships that would only get in the way of doing what needed doing.

  Only Archer marched anywhere near my position at the forefront of our group, and he watched me like a hawk. Every time I glanced at him, I had no need to seek his attention for it was already on me, and we would simply stare at one another until I was forced to turn away before I tripped over a root or stepped in a deep patch of snow.

  To hell with him.

  All of them.

  The Romans, at least, had been happy to follow my orders. They didn’t know where we were going, or why, but were proud that they had been chosen by their legate to follow him into unknown territory. In their minds, those left behind were simply not worthy of the task, something those who remained would also consider, driving them to prove otherwise in the future.

  I couldn’t understand why the rest of my companions didn’t think the same way.

  It didn’t matter. Once we were home, I would consider accepting each and every one of their apologies. Maybe then they’d recognize how hard I had worked and how much I had suffered for all for them.

  Maybe then I’d get the respect I deserved.

  But until then, I still had more work to do.

  I bounced my backpack against my back to lessen the load momentarily as I walked. It was heavier than normal, since I’d decided to pack my small footlocker for whatever reason, but it hadn’t yet become a burden, so I simply readjusted the pack’s straps and pushed on across the barren island.

  A frozen landscape of desolate, flat, and lifeless terrain relieved by sporadic patches of empty trees were our constant traveling companions, along with the view of the coastline to the west and north. The Isle of Mona was just as vacant as I expected it to be, but there was something particularly isolating about this place that seemed as level and endless as a Kansas plain in January. Even the sight of wild animals had eluded us, offering the illusion that we were entirely isolated upon this empty chunk of land surrounded by ocean. Perhaps they were simply hibernating for the winter, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow they were purposefully avoiding us. We’d brought enough food to last more than a week, so the lack of large game wasn’t particularly disconcerting, but there was something off-putting about it nonetheless.

  A lesser man may have been deterred by it, but I simply pushed forward, one step in front of the other. While I hadn’t a clue where I was going, if the island was as small as Wang had described, I didn’t think it mattered. If I had to explore every single nook and cranny for what I was looking for, whatever that was, I would.

  But for now, it was time for a break.

  I turned to Archer, who again was already looking right at me, just as I assumed he would be. I pointed off into the distance to a small area of trees down the shallow hill we were currently marching on. The wooded area seemed no bigger than half a football field, but it seemed as good a place to rest as any other.

  “Time for a break,” I told him. “Let everyone know where we’re going.”

  He responded neither physically nor verbally. Instead, all he did was cease his forward movement and continue staring at me as I veered off toward the tree line. I watched him until I could no longer see him in my peripheral vision, but before I lost sight of him completely, the others had caught up to him and
he pointed to the trees and said something.

  Just before I lost sight of them all, I couldn’t help but notice that the distance between the rest of my group and I was greater than it had ever been in the past five years. I hadn’t been this far apart from another living, breathing soul in as long as I could remember. I wanted to stop and let them catch up, but something was forcing me forward, driving me into further seclusion on this already isolating island, like it was purposefully trying to keep me away from my friends.

  And I let it.

  ***

  It was early in the evening when I called for the break.

  We’d been hiking since morning, and while we could have kept marching straight through until nightfall, I didn’t see any reason to rush our trek across the island. If for some reason we encountered a hostile indigenous population, I wanted us energized and ready to receive it.

  The day remained unusually sunny, but frigid, so Santino had built a fire for us to huddle around, while the Romans stood scattered around our perimeter or sat resting. There wasn’t much room to gather around our small fire, so my team was forced to place themselves in close proximity to me for the first time in days. And they didn’t seem particularly companionable right now because of it, each and every one of them basically keeping to themselves while Brewster distributed some of the packed food.

  Like kindergarteners, we sat there passing the small packages to the next person beside us until everyone had their own. I was somewhere in the middle of the line, squeezed in between Vincent and Archer, and took a moment to inspect the small box held in my hands. We’d run out of our emergency Meals-Ready-to-Eat long ago, but Archer’s team had brought hundreds of prepackaged packs of food along with them as well, but this was the first time we’d had the need to consume them.

  I’d always found the MREs issued to us in the military to be quite tasty, with at least one exception. After eighty years of trial and error, military food scientists – or who-the-fuck-ever – had managed to prepare a number of palatable and mostly nutritional meals that kept active service men and women energized when in the field. Whether they were necessarily healthy was anyone’s guess, but they’d served their purpose.

  Sadly, those delicatessens were long gone, and I didn’t know what in the name of God Archer’s team had brought with them, but the only thing comparable to them that I could think of were K-rations.

  World War II era K-rations.

  I turned the box over in my hand before opening it, looking at the ridiculously retro color palette and font that screamed something out of the 1950s, making me once again try to imagine what their world had looked like. I failed completely, even with the images from Brewster’s textbook in my mind to help, but unfortunately, the textbook would never be able to help me again, since I’d pitched it into the water during our boat ride to Anglesey, and I hadn’t even thought twice about it.

  I glanced at Vincent beside me, who also had yet to open his box of mystery food. He seemed just as reluctant as I was, and I could see that Wang, Santino, Bordeaux, and Helena were likewise skeptical about consuming such fare.

  I glanced at Vincent. “Ever had one of these before?”

  He looked at me, but seemed unenthusiastic about his answer. He stared with wide, open eyes before taking a quick breath while shaking his head. “I’m not that old, Hunter,” he said, turning back to regard the K-ration before returning his eyes to mine again. “But back when I was with the Swiss military thirty years ago they didn’t have much better…”

  I grimaced and looked away, and saw Stryker sloppily shoving some kind of sausage covered in a thick, dark sauce into his mouth. Gnawing on it like a cow, he noticed my attention and gave me a sympathetic shrug.

  “You get used to them,” he said before swallowing.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to,” I heard Santino say as he opened a small, round can and hovered it below his nose. It wrinkled in disgust and Helena beside him slapped a hand over her mouth and suppressed a gag reflex as she turned away from him. He noticed her disproval and stuck the can closer to her face, but she recoiled again and smacked it out of his hand, sending it flying through the air.

  “Hey!” He whined. “I was gonna eat that!”

  He stood and went scrambling for his lost meal, finding it a few feet behind him in the snow. He retrieved it and returned to his spot, looked at it reluctantly, and sighed. He reached back into the box container and retrieved a set of plastic silverware, and then suddenly his eyes bugged open in surprise and I heard a sharp intake of breath come from him. At first I thought he’d noticed something dangerous on the perimeter, but then I saw him hold up an eating utensil in one hand and point a finger at it with the other.

  He turned to me and opened his mouth to speak, but then he paused and seemed to think better of it, and turned to Stryker instead. “TJ! Look! A spork! I fucking love sporks!”

  He then reached behind Helena, who ignored him, and grabbed Brewster’s shoulder and shook her, causing her to spill her small cup of steaming coffee into her lap. She yelped and batted at her pants, but Santino hardly noticed as he continued to shake her.

  “See Brewster!” He exclaimed. “It’s like a fork and a spoon all at the same time. See!” Santino plunged the spork into his meal and pulled it out with a piece of meat on the tip and juice pooled in the spoon part. “Oh man, I never thought I’d ever see a spork again!”

  Archer glanced at me while Stryker and Cuyler too shared a look as Santino continued to hold up his spork triumphantly. Everyone from my timeline simply ignored him, knowing there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Archer and his troops, however, hadn’t quite gotten used to him and his antics even after all this time. Living with Santino was an experience, and it wasn’t something someone could get used to in a matter of months.

  Understanding Santino took a lifetime.

  “He’s fine,” Helena managed around yet another gag, noticing their attention.

  Archer didn’t seem so convinced, but he went back to his meal anyway.

  I, too, decided to open my K-ration and retrieve the hidden wonders within. I found a small can of… something – it was unlabeled – but there were also a number of unwrapped crackers, some sweet others salty, a cheese spread package, a small bar of chocolate, coffee powder, lemon beverage powder, a mini pack of cigarettes, matches, floss, and a few other goodies. I didn’t know if the contents I’d just discovered would have been historically accurate fare for American GIs in World War II, but I had to imagine it was close.

  I turned to Archer. “I can’t believe they still put cigarettes in these things.”

  “What do you mean still,” he asked. “They only just developed these rations a few years ago.”

  Only a few years ago… I mouthed silently, but shook my head to dislodge the thought, thinking of another instead. “But you guys don’t even smoke.”

  He nodded as he chewed one of his crackers. “Most of us in the Special Forces don’t. We spend too much time behind enemy lines to rely on supply lines to fulfill nicotine addictions, but front line troops had grown addicted to them before these rations were even a thought in someone’s mind. Generations of fighting will do that to even the most health conscious of us.”

  I winced, hating it when I heard tidbits like that.

  “I see,” I said quietly as I fiddled with the canned entree.

  Once I managed to tear the metal lid from the container like a can of tuna, I finally glanced inside but nearly threw up at what I saw. Within was a gelatinous patty of meat floating lazily in a fatty, viscous fluid that reeked of bad body odor.

  I turned back to Archer again. “What the fuck is this?”

  He peeked over the rim of my can and laughed. “Tough luck, Hunter.” He turned to look at Cuyler sitting off to his right, and jerked his head at me. “He got the beef patty substitute.”

  Cuyler laughed, perhaps for the first time since I’d met him, as did all the rest of Archer’s team. Archer shook hi
s head as his chuckles subsided, and went back to his meal, ignoring my discomfort, and I looked back at the beef patty substitute in disgust. Even the fucking god of prepackaged military food seemed out to get me. As if my old nemesis the beef patty hadn’t been bad enough, whatever deceitful, vengeful asshole who controlled such an industry had decided to provide me now with beef patty fucking substitute.

  There was no way…

  To my left, Vincent glanced over and pointed his spork at it. “Are you going to eat that?”

  I thrust it at him as quickly as I could. “Knock yourself out.”

  He accepted it thankfully, and dug in. I looked at him like I would a man eating human feces. It was like watching a train wreck, and I just couldn’t bring myself to look away. I held a hand over my mouth, but inadvertently caught Helena’s eye. It was the first time I’d seen those glowing green eyes in days, and I was mildly surprised that when she noticed my attention, she simply smirked and shook her head, obviously amused that the “plight of the dreaded meat patty” continued, but her look didn’t linger long as she went back to her meal.

  She grimaced with every bite, and I had to smile as well.

  I felt pretty good in that moment.

  But happiness grown from good things didn’t last long anymore.

  Life just didn’t let it.

  When I looked away from Helena, I randomly saw four individuals to my left standing behind Bordeaux, Wang, Stryker, and Santino. Three males and one female. I made eye contact with one of the males, noted his presence and appearance, but then looked away, thinking nothing of him. A moment passed when something clicked in my mind and I shot them another look, but before my mind caught up with my suspicions, Brewster, Cuyler, and Archer were already rolling away to acquire their weapons and take up better firing positions. I rose to my feet as well, my mind still playing catch up to my actions, and the four time travelers with their backs to these newcomers seemed confused at our behavior. I was almost fully upright when all four strangers held up their hands innocently and the woman spoke.