Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (34 page)

I looked down at my feet, noticing for the first time since I
’d stepped in that they had gone numb.  I hadn’t even noticed the cold when I’d first slipped into the water, but I stepped out and sat on the shore so that I could more easily dry them off.

“You’re risking hypothermia or frostbite if you keep that up,” Wang said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied, as I started the process of tying my left boot, jutting my chin in the direction of the island.  “How big would you say the island is anyway?”

“Not big. 
We could probably walk to the end and back again before the week is out.”

I nodded.  “Good to know
.” I switched to my other foot and looked up at Wang again.  “Anything else you want to tell me about this island?  What is it that’s got you so spooked?”

Wang loo
ked away again but said nothing, and I rolled my eyes at his brooding.

But Wang wasn’t the only guy spooked around here. 
I’d only noticed Vincent’s displeasure at being in the area yesterday, after we’d crossed the vast mountain range that helped conceal the island from the mainland.  I would often catch him and Wang talking together about topics they hadn’t shared with me, and I’d constantly seen Vincent looking over his shoulders or snapping his head around at an odd sound.  Wang too. 

What was it about this island that had them acting like frightened cub scouts telling scary stories around a camp fire? 

I had no idea, and that was part of the problem.  I hated not knowing something when someone else did.  All I knew about the Isle of Mona was that it had been a bastion of Druidic resistance against the Romans that had been wiped out because they’d been so feared.  As for the Druids, I wasn’t quite sure what the big deal was.  While legends tell that they’d once possessed mystical powers to manipulate nature, it was pretty clear that by Roman times – these times – they were nothing more than spiritual, tribal, and economic leaders.

The historian in me remembered
that there was certainly the chance that modern scholars knew far less about Druids than was actual reality, since Druids had been practitioners of an oral tradition, much like the Greeks in Homer’s time, and hadn’t recorded their histories and stories by writing them down, so with their demise came the loss of all their history and tradition as well.

Vincent
had once told me that those in the modern age associated what they thought of as “druids” with a seventeenth or eighteenth century romanticized version of the group, and that version had very little, if anything, to do with their ancient precursors, but it was heavily assumed that they were a very naturalistic society, worshiping gods associated with the Earth and nature.  While it was certainly possible that the Romans, in their lust to eliminate all aspects of Druidic culture, had purposefully omitted the details of their supernatural abilities, I couldn’t yet bring myself to accept the idea that Druids had ever had any power worth censoring at all.

Still… there was the
orb to think about.  Hence the possibility.

Finished with my boots, I held a hand up to Wang so that he could help me up, but he didn’t seem to notice.  I grum
bled and climbed to my feet, and took a step forward to stand beside my quiet companion and looked out at the island.

“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.

I
t 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 tens
e 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. 

N
ew 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 w
as 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.