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

by Edward Crichton

  I turned, expecting them to still be alive and advancing on me, but I found each of them sprawled out on the ground. Half were dead, while most of the rest were writhing in the throes of death, but one was on his feet, clutching a wound at his shoulder, his face awash in confusion at what I had just done to him. The two of us locked eyes for only a second, before he sprinted toward me, his spear hefted over his good shoulder. I lifted my pistol into a firing position near my waist and fired at the man like a cowboy in a shootout. The bullet clipped him in the neck, nicking his jugular and causing a weak spray of arterial blood to gush from the wound. I was lucky enough to avoid being sprayed as the man fell to the ground steps away, one hand clutching his neck the other grasping for me.

  Whether he was continuing his assault or seeking aide I didn’t know.

  “Why did you attack us??” I growled in Latin.

  The man gurgled with blood in his mouth, and I couldn’t tell if he could even understand me. I glared at him and deftly reloaded my pistol without a thought toward the action. Once I had a full magazine in place I aimed for the man’s forehead, intending to put him out of his misery.

  Our eyes never parted, and I saw understanding dawn in his own. He’d seen my pistol in action twice now, and knew that it had the capability of putting him out of his torment.

  But I didn’t fire.

  I simply held the pistol there, my mind and body in conflict over what to do. My instincts told me to end his pain or call for a medic, but my mind told me to let him suffer. I waited there in silent internal debate for what seemed like an hour before I finally returned my weapon to its thigh holster and urged Felix back toward the ambush. I could hear the man pleading incoherently below me, his intentions as clear is if he’d been politely asking me to pass the salt, but I didn’t look back.

  I now found myself alone, our attackers apparently thinking a simple seven man element of spearmen able to handle me, but my Romans were already engaged in close quarters combat with an uncountable number of barbarian Britons. They were surrounded but holding easily, although there seemed an endless stream of attackers behind those already engaged.

  I smiled and felt Penelope already in my right hand, my left holding Felix’s reins. I gave him a solid kick and he bolted forward again, obediently obeying my command. Like I’d been instructed to do all those years ago, I kept my feet firmly planted in his flanks for stability as we took off, leaving the lone Briton at my feet to die slowly in a puddle of his own blood.

  But instead of riding toward the legionnaires’ immediate aid, I guided Felix into a thicker portion of the twisting trees to swoop behind our attackers to my right, only to find the area empty. I was alone again within the forest of bare, ugly trees, but I took my time searching the woods, creeping Felix along with the sounds of battle off to my left. I wasn’t in a hurry, knowing the legionnaires could hold the line all day if need be, but there was the chance that a leadership element may still lurk in the rear with hidden reinforcements. That could be a problem if left unchecked, but I again found nothing, just the remnants of a former human presence in the form of broken branches, random garbage, footprints in the snow, and smoldering campfires.

  Had they been waiting for us?

  A loud bang to my left shifted my attention back to the battle. It had been the first rifle shot I’d heard throughout the engagement, and I wondered why I hadn’t heard any before, and what this one in particular meant. I figured I’d find out soon enough as I kicked Felix back into a trot and toward the battle, but I didn’t have far to go, and it didn’t take long before I arrived to find…

  Nothing.

  I jerked my head left and right as I pulled Felix to a halt, searching for the legionnaires but saw no one. I kicked Felix into gear again and the two of us galloped a hundred meters in the direction I thought we’d come from. We crested a small hill that had blocked my line of sight, but found nothing in that direction either. Neither the Romans, enemy Britons, nor my former friends were anywhere in sight. My eyes furrowed in confusion and I turned my head around to look in the opposite direction, but again found myself alone.

  I decided to send Felix back to where we’d started.

  Still nothing.

  I scratched my head and scanned the ground, unable to locate any form of evidence to suggest I wasn’t alone here. There were no bodies or weaponry, nor blood or footsteps. A thought sparked in my mind and I immediately patted my body down, but my suspicion that I’d somehow time traveled to an earlier point in history came up as empty as my pockets. I searched my backpack and the pair of saddle bags straddling Felix but they too did not contain the orb.

  I let out a confused grunt, Felix echoing the sound almost exactly.

  I reached down and patted his neck. “You have anything to do with this, big guy?”

  He neighed and shook his head as though actually responding to my question with a resounding negative.

  I wheeled him around again and urged him toward the scene where I’d been ambushed by the spearmen. As we grew closer, their bodies seemed to shimmer into existence, looking almost like they were being beamed in by the U.S.S. Enterprise. Six were sprawled out in a semicircle right where I’d dropped them a dozen meters away, but the seventh appeared just in front of me. I glanced down at him – the one I’d shot in the neck – noting that he seemed just as dead as the rest. I half expected him to open his eyes and speak to me like something out of a demonic exorcism or zombie movie, but he remained quite dead and motionless.

  A noise from behind me spun me around again, but the setting sun washed out my vision as it kissed the horizon, and a figure materialized upon the path before me, silhouetted by the setting sun behind it. The figure’s details were shrouded in darkness, but I could tell that the figure was a man and that he wore robes that gave his body little shape, along with some kind of triangular hat atop his head. The first thought that came to mind was that of a KKK clansman but something about that didn’t seem to fit the theme of what was going on here.

  I started to kick Felix toward him when I was distracted by a voice from behind me.

  “Jacob…”

  The voice was feminine and familiar, so I wheeled around again, only to find myself plunged into the deep darkness of night. The suddenness of how dark it had just become didn’t make any sense, since I’d thought the sun had only just set, but I then realized this darkness wasn’t the result of nightfall. I knew this because there were in fact no stars in the sky, nor could I see the moon, and not because they were concealed behind a thick layer of clouds. The sky was jet black and smooth, completely without light and depth, although snow still fell lightly around me in thick flakes.

  I looked back down, and in the same moment, the path before me was illuminated by an unknown light source, like a spotlight from the rafters of a film studio.

  Just then, the shape of a woman appeared out of the darkness, clad in a formfitting, but not tight, white dress. She materialized too far away for me to immediately recognize her, but as she strutted toward me, details began to emerge. When she finally moved to stand beside Felix, I saw blond hair and sharp features that revealed the woman to be none other than Agrippina.

  I drew my pistol from its leg sheath and without thinking, fired a bullet through Agrippina’s forehead, but the apparition merely smiled at me as the neat little hole in her skull knitted itself back together as bloodlessly as Wiley E. Coyote plugging a hole in his stomach after he’d accidently shot himself with an ACME cannon.

  Now fear started to settle in, but Agrippina didn’t seem threatening, nor was she coming on to me with her usual shtick of seduction. Instead, she simply smiled at me and the hand she placed on my thigh just sat there instead of acting in an inappropriate manner. It was more like a gesture of comfort than anything, and my fears evaporated, only to be replaced with confusion again.

  Her smile was entrancing, as were her bright blue eyes that looked up at me like a happy puppy dog’s, and I felt like I could
sit there and stare at her for the rest of my life, an idea that seemed a peacefully oblivious way to spend eternity.

  But my trance was interrupted when Agrippina reached up with her hand that wasn’t already on my leg. She extended it toward the back of my neck and gently pulled me toward her. At first I thought she was bringing me in for a kiss, but then the hand that had just been upon my leg came up to cover my eyes, and I was pitched into darkness again.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want from me?”

  “From you, Jacob?” The spectral form of Agrippina asked. “Nothing. And everything.”

  A burst of clarity overcame me, and I asked, “What’s happening to me?”

  “Nothing that cannot be reversed.”

  “Why me?”

  “It is no fault of your own, Jacob.”

  “Then what…”

  “Continue your journey, Jacob.”

  “But…”

  “Hunter?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Hunter??”

  “What?”

  “Wake up, Jacob!”

  More confused than ever, I realized that my eyes were closed.

  Carefully, I opened them to discover that I was no longer atop Felix and that Agrippina had disappeared. My head felt heavy as I determined that I was lying on my back, half buried in a snow drift, and that I was staring up at the trees above me. Looming over me were the faces of Wang, Boudicca, Vincent, and another female figure that I didn’t immediately recognize.

  I had to blink away the fuzziness in my vision before I finally identified the fourth figure as Helena, her eyes confirming her identity well before anything else, but then I understood why she’d been so hard to identify earlier: she’d cut her hair, and it wasn’t just a trim.

  She’d grown her lush hair out over the past five years to the point where it had extended well past her waist. She’d always kept it tucked in behind her MOLLE vest to keep it out of the way during combat, but it had been one of her most alluring features when she let it out, something she apparently wouldn’t need to worry about doing for years.

  Not only had she cut it so short that even my own brown wavy locks seemed longer now, but that it looked like someone had gone at it with a knife, pulling at random strands and then just cutting it off with no thought to style or evenness. Only a few inches long at its longest, it stuck out or laid flat in a series of patchwork clumps of varying lengths.

  I processed all of this in a second, and found that it was all I could focus on.

  “Your hair…”

  She didn’t say anything, but at least the look in her eyes suggested she was, for the moment, concerned and not angry.

  “How do you feel?”

  This question came from Wang, and I shifted my head left to look at him. I stretched my neck carefully so that my face tipped upwards, and wiggled my fingers, trying to determine an honest answer for the medic.

  “Bit cold, but functional,” I admitted, just as surprised as he looked. “What happened?”

  “We were ambushed,” Vincent answered.

  “Oh, thank God,” I mumbled, dropping my head back to the ground.

  “Hunter?” Vincent asked slowly.

  I lifted my head up again. “Long story. Thought I was going crazy there for a second.”

  Wang, Vincent, and Helena traded nervous glances and I looked between them in turn. They ignored me so I decided to sit up, an action I struggled with until Boudicca reached out and assisted me with her strong arms. I nodded my thanks but returned my attention to Helena. She was staring at me now, her eyes full of sadness and concern, with large dark bags beneath them. I looked closer and noticed for the first time that age lines were beginning to take shape at the corners of her eyes as well, blemishes that really stood out against her otherwise clear complexion.

  After a moment of silence, she turned away and dropped her head. She sat there for a few seconds as though deciding something of great importance, but it wasn’t long before she finally rose to her feet. She struggled for half a second and my first thought was that she was experiencing one of her old pain attacks, but then she straightened, and I could see the real source of her struggles.

  Her stomach was enormous, standing out clearly against her otherwise slender but strong frame. I was amazed at how much she’d grown recently, almost to the point of disbelief.

  When she noticed my attention, she looked down at me again, almost reluctantly. I met her eyes and reached a hand up toward her stomach, and for the briefest of seconds she seemed ready to grab my hand with her own and guide it, but with a suddenness almost too quick to comprehend, she whirled around and retreated.

  I watched her go, noticing that without being able to see her stomach and without her long hair, I couldn’t recognize her at all as she walked away. I turned back to the remaining trio of people at my side, to find Wang and Vincent staring awkwardly at the ground. Boudicca had her eyes locked on mine with a look that lacked any understanding at all.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  Vincent and Wang ended their inspection of the ground and raised their heads. They glanced at each other to see who would respond, but Vincent placed a hand on Wang’s shoulder and took the lead.

  “What do you remember?” He asked.

  I shook my head as I tried to piece together what had happened. “I called for a scouting party to locate tonight’s camp location, but they were shot to pieces. Felix got spooked and took off, saving me I think.” I paused, trying to remember the rest of it. “It all gets a little fuzzy after that.”

  Vincent nodded. “That’s how it started. We were then attacked on both sides by a considerably larger force. Casualties were sustained and…”

  “Is Felix all right??” I asked, my sudden concern hitting me like a freight train.

  Vincent blinked. “He’s… fine. Just an arrow to his rump. It’s been removed.”

  “Whew,” I said. “Close one.”

  Vincent traded glances with Wang again before continuing. “We sustained nearly two hundred casualties. All legionnaires. Stryker took a sword to the arm, but it’s just a flesh wound.”

  I nodded. “That’s it? Not too bad then.”

  Vincent shook his head. “How can you say that? What’s happened to…”

  “Let’s focus, Vincent,” I interrupted. “What happened to me?”

  He glared at me but I barely noticed. “This is how we found you… an hour ago.” I blinked at the announcement of how much time had gone by, but didn’t say anything, so Vincent continued. “There are corpses over there that suggest you were attacked, and we also found a spent pistol magazine on the ground and shell casings, but nobody saw what happened.”

  I checked my arms and legs for fresh cuts in my combat fatigues but besides the few that I hadn’t yet been able to patch up, I couldn’t find any new ones.

  I turned to Wang. “Was I poisoned?”

  He shook his head. “Not likely. Unless you ingested it somehow. Are you certain your head doesn’t hurt?

  I reached up to grip the back of my skull. “Feels fine.”

  “Then I’m at a loss. Maybe you fainted.”

  “I didn’t faint!” I shouted, and Wang held up his hands defensively.

  “Did you experience anything while unconscious?” Vincent asked knowingly, but none too kindly.

  I considered telling him that I had seen something, although my memory of what exactly it had been was already fading, but he hadn’t asked nicely.

  “Not a thing,” I replied.

  He shook his head, stood abruptly, and left without another word, leaving Wang, Boudicca, and I alone. Boudicca lifted me to my feet, help that I accepted gratefully.

  “Anything else to report?” I asked.

  Wang pointed off toward a cluster of legionnaires that also contained Archer, Brewster, and Santino. “We captured a few of the blokes and are in the middle of questioning them. They aren’t saying much and seem a bit dodgy, but t
here doesn’t seem anything special about them. Just a band of local warriors defending their territory, or so they say.”

  “All right,” I said, taking a step toward them. “Let’s see if I can speed up the process a little.”

  Wang shot his hand out and gripped my arm, stopping me in my tracks. “Hold it, Hunter. Are you sure you’re all right? I’m debating keeping you under medical supervision.”

  I didn’t try to throw his hand off, knowing it would be a futile effort.

  “I’m fine. Why don’t you take Boudicca here out to lunch or something?”

  The comment, spoken purposefully in Latin, had the desired effect, surprising Wang long enough for him to loosen his grip on my arm so that I could slip away. I took off with an amused jaunt in my step, hearing Boudicca behind me mention how she would be happy to hunt some game for the two of them to share. I had no idea where she would find any in this desolate chunk of Britain, but she was more than welcome to knock herself out trying.

  The first thing I did before joining the interrogation was find Felix, who wasn’t too far away and seemed in pretty good shape despite the bandage on his rump. I gave him a pat and reached into my saddle bag to retrieve one of the last few carrots I had that hadn’t rotted away by now. Luckily, the cold kept them pretty well preserved and it wasn’t like Felix was picky about his carrots.

  I scratched behind his ear as I finagled Penelope out of the safety strap that attached her to the makeshift saddle I had equipped Felix with. It was a simple task, and in quick order I was fully armed and heading toward the circle of interrogators.

  I was steps away when Santino noticed my approach, his naturally acute situational awareness ensuring no one could ever sneak up on him. He stood beside Archer, the two of them holding stalwart stances as they watched a pair of legionnaires work the interrogation. Archer turned as well when he noticed Santino’s shifted attention, and both of them took a step to intercept me. Santino stuck out an arm and placed it against my chest.