Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (42 page)

“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 there 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 situati
onal 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.

“Whoa, wait a second, Hunter,” he said.  “Where do you think you’re going with that?”

He asked his question with a finger directed toward Penelope.

I shrugged.  “
The interrogation’s taken long enough. We need to get moving.”

Arche
r shook his head.  “Let them do their jobs, Hunter.  We’re already setting up camp a half mile from here so there’s no rush.”

I looked between the two men in disbelief.  “What are you two
, best buddies all of a sudden?”  I looked at Santino accusingly.  “You abandoning me so quickly, bestie?  Some friend you turned out to be.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Santino accused
, his voice steady.

“Excuse me?”

“You fucking heard me, Hunter,” Santino said, jabbing a finger into my chest.  “No one else has the balls to say it, but you’re nuts.  Wigging the fuck out.  You’d better take a cold shower one of these days because you’re on a downward spiral toward crazy tow…”

I whacked his arm with one of my own, dislodging his hand from my chest.

“Quit you’re fucking whining, Santino,” I said.  “Now let me through.”

I pushed past him swiftly, the two of them too slow to stop me.  With another step I was through the circle of legionnaires who loomed over their captives threateningly
, while two of their comrades did the actual questioning.  One noticed me as I stepped through the perimeter and moved out of the way, making a show of bowing to my authority and command – quick thinking that elevated the good cop/bad cop charade he might have been going for.

I reached down and grabbed the nearest captive by his animal skin top, hauling him to his feet.  He was a very large man but I was drawing on a strength fueled by
determination and energies beyond my understanding.  I pulled him up as easily as picking up a feather and thrust my nose into his face as I pressed him against a tree.

“We gave you no cause to attack us, so why?”

The man showed no fear but shook his head nonetheless.  I turned to the legionnaire who had been the chief interrogator.

“Translate,” I ordered.

He did so but still the man refused to answer.  I dropped him back to the ground and looked around.  Beside the fallen man were four other individuals, two of them female who looked as fierce and capable as the men.  Neither were as strikingly attractive from the head up as Boudicca, nor as impressive physically from the neck down either, but they certainly appeared to be able fighters in their own right.  The one directly beside the man I’d initially questioned seemed to shift closer to him almost inadvertently, and I also noticed she happened to be the prettier of the two as well.

I flicked my head in her direction but kept my eyes on the man.  “Is this
one yours?”

The legionnaire translated.

The man didn’t answer but his face provided all the answers I needed.  I frowned at the man. “You leave me no choice then.”

The legionnaire was in the midst of translating as I drew Penelope, aimed her at the woman’s forehead and –

“Jacob, no!”  Santino cried.

–
squeezed the trigger.

By the time his words registered in my mind, my finger had already tightened
, but all that emanated from Penelope was a slight “clicking” noise – the kind associated with a misfire.  I looked at my rifle questioningly, not understanding what exactly had happened.  Since Penelope had never misfired before I wasn’t quite sure how to react.  I ejected the bullet from the rifle’s ejection port and caught it clumsily.  I looked at it curiously but couldn’t find a flaw in its craftsmanship.  It was possible it had gotten exceptionally wet and was rendered useless or was just a simple dud.  I dropped it into a pocket and released the magazine from its well and blew on the lead bullet before slapping the magazine back into place, all the while our hapless prisoners watched in confusion.

I aimed
at the woman again and squeezed the trigger, but again nothing happened.

I ejected
the magazine and slapped home a fresh one, but still the rifle did not fire.  Frustration was beginning to grow in me like a weed, clawing its way from my chest and into my mind like a vengeful spirit.  Over and over and over, I pulled the trigger only to have nothing happen, leaving nothing more than a series of bullet shaped holes in the snow beside me.

What
had just happened was more than impossible.

There was
simply no way that many bullets could just misfire without cause.

It was a miracle.

Unless the problem was with Penelope.

I looked at her
and slapped in yet another fresh magazine but it too failed to fire.  Round after round after round would not ignite, and a thought in the back of my mind convinced me my pistol would do no better.

Deep in my chest, where all this time I’d subconsciously contain
ed all my negativity, something snapped.  It wasn’t a bone or an artery or a valve, but something in there broke open, and I could no longer contain the swell of emotion that I’d been carrying with me for years.

With the maniac clumsiness of someone who’d comp
letely lost control, I struggled to unclip Penelope from the sling around my neck, but when I did, I gripped my rifle by the barrel, and flung it over my head at the nearest tree like a Viking hurling an ax.  It hit with such force that I was sure it would snap in half, but it stubbornly remained intact.  Perhaps a little scratched and dented but little more.

Its durability only made things worse.

I scrambled toward it, only dimly aware of the surprised expressions on the faces of all those around me, and retrieved it, only one thing to say coming to mind before I summarily bashed it against the trunk of the tree over and over and over again.

“
Et tu
?”

With the words spoken, the evisceration began, and I had no plans of stopping until
my rifle was crushed to a fine powder in my hands.  Finally, the silence among the men was broken by the sound of Santino yelling for the legionnaires to get out of his way.  They apparently had no problem with it now because seconds later, Santino’s powerful grip was pulling on my shoulder.  The suddenness of the motion caused me to drop the rifle and it fell at the base of the tree in a clatter of pieces and parts, joining all the rest that had already broken free.

“What have you done, Jacob?”  Santino asked with a tone that sugges
ted I had just murdered my own mother instead of a worthless piece of junk well past its prime.

The two of us looked down at the mangled mess that had once been my beloved rifle, but the sight of it only served to lift a heavy weight
from my shoulders.  Its broken presence beneath my feet seemed to alleviate every bit of tension I’d ever felt, replacing those dark emotions with a freshness, satisfaction, and with the soothing reminder that similar acts in the future would make me feel the same.  The death of Penelope and the joy I’d felt at it symbolized the solidification of my focus on the orb and its secrets. I no longer needed a thing from my former life, just the resolve and determination to continue onward.

“What have you done?”  Santino whispered
again, but I was hardly listening as I turned back to the original man I’d questioned.

“Why did you attack us?”  The question came out calmly and evenly despite the sweat gleaming on my forehead and my chest heaving after my earlier exertion.

The man seemed terrified now, maybe wondering what I would do to him considering what I’d just done to an inanimate fucking object, perhaps wondering if I’d start torturing him now instead of killing him outright.

His answer came slowly
in his ancient, guttural language, and I waited for the legionnaire to translate, which he did cautiously.

“He says we attacked them first.”

“Ridiculous,” I said, the legionnaire translating.  “You’re the first locals we’ve encountered in weeks.  We were just moving through.”

The man responded totteringly, and even though I couldn’t understand him, it wasn’t hard to detect that he was repeating the same few lines over and over.