Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (67 page)

As the rage spewed from his lips like the saliva
flying from his mouth, something inside my mind clicked.  There was something in his words that confirmed a suspicion I’d had all along that he knew more than he was letting on. 
You’re responsible for my very existence
.  These words did not imply that I had simply altered who he was, but that I had created him.

With this
turn of phrase, I felt something else in me, the return of an old feeling I hadn’t felt in quite a while: good old fashioned anger.  Not the darkness fueled kind as a result of the orb and its manipulative power, but the kind I’d felt when an eighth grader stole my milk carton, or when the girl I’d wanted to date chose to go out with another guy, or when I got a B on a test, or when I failed in any other endeavor.  It wasn’t the kind of anger that made me want to exact revenge in a cruel, vengeful manner, but the kind that drove me to better myself and work harder.

It gave me a surge of energy, and I tore my arm free from Archer’s grip and smashed both
of my hands into his chest, pushing him so hard that he fell to the ground and slid backward in the snow.  I looked down at him, but the anger was already fading, having done exactly what it had needed to do.

“I told you’d I’d help you, Archer,” I said quite calmly, “and I will.  If not for you, then at least for Artie.  I just need time to process everything Merlin told me, so
would you kindly fuck off for now?”

He stared at me angrily as he
scrambled to his feet, but I was no longer intimidated by him, and while I still had to get the bottom of his subterfuge, that too could wait for another day.

“Merlin?”

The question came from behind me, and I turned and saw Vincent standing there with a smug grin on his face.  I glanced back at Archer, but he was already rushing off toward the center of Agrippina’s camp, so I turned back to Vincent and returned his smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said.  “You’re just so
damn smart, aren’t you, Vincent?  Thanks for letting me in on that one, by the way.  I really could have used the heads up.”

“What was he like?”  He asked, taking a small step forward excitedly.

“Great,” I replied.  “He was just great, but seriously, if you don’t mind, I just laid out Archer for not letting me see Helena.  Don’t make me do the same to you.”

The words were serious, but it was the last thing I wanted to do, and I was certain Vincent understood that from my tone alone.

“Jacob the last thing I want to do is to keep you from seeing her,” he said, which I took as my cue to finally enter her tent, “but Galba is at the gate and he’s demanding to see you.  I don’t think he’s willing to wait long.”

I wheeled around and took a
quick step toward him.  “Vincent you have to stall him.  I can’t do anything right now without seeing her first.  I just can’t.  Stall him!”

“I don’t know if I…”

“I’ll help you.”  This voice came from behind Vincent, and I immediately identified it as Agrippina’s.  I looked over his shoulder and saw her standing well away from the two of us, her heavy cloaks wrapped tightly around her shoulders.  She looked as somber and respectful as I’d ever seen her before, with her arms overlapping each other but encased in the sleeves of her robes.  She flicked her eyes away, almost embarrassedly, as she continued.  “He’s here for me as much as for you, Jacob, so I’ll go with Vincent and talk to him.  I’m sure we can provide you with a few extra minutes.”

I narrowed my eyes.  “You’d do that?”

“Consider it a part of our continued reconciliation.”

“I guess
I will,” I admitted, unable to think otherwise.  “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” she said.  “Now come, Vincent.  Let us go talk with the old curmudgeon.”

He nodded over his shoulder at her but then looked back at me.  “Take your time, Jacob.  Galba may feel overwhelmed, but he’s still a good man.  I wouldn’t think him capable of outright murder.”

I clapped him on the shoulder.  “Thanks, Vincent.”

He placed his hand atop my own.  “You are most welcome, my friend.  Now go see her.”

***

I entered the tent slowly, cautiously, not wanting to disturb the delicate balance that had been achieved here between Wang and Helena in my absence.  I felt as though my very presence alone would be enough to disrupt whatever tenuous agreement the Fates had concocted to keep Helena and our baby alive through all this.  I knew such superstition was silly, but the idea of the Fates as living, breathing creatures described as they were in mythology didn’t seem so farfetched anymore, and the idea of fate, destiny, and predetermination didn’t seem so alien either.  Perhaps we all really were being controlled by some supreme being or force, and I didn’t necessarily mean God or any god for that matter, but something far more malicious and completely real in the physical sense.

T
hen again, I certainly wasn’t about to rule out
God
either at this point, but a lack of control and free will replaced with Divine Providence wasn’t something I wanted to think about as I cleared the tent’s entrance and saw Helena, which was when every thought in my mind evaporated. 

She
rested on her back atop a raised platform, her upper body angled upwards like it would on a medical bed in any hospital.  Wang must have crafted some kind of cushioned wedge to place beneath her as she lay motionless, a blanket draped across her legs and bulbous baby bump, with her hands laying at her sides but above the sheet.  She looked comfortable, almost peaceful, perhaps even just enjoying a deep sleep, but as I grew closer I could see the light sheen of perspiration across her forehead and how her skin was just the tiniest bit paler.  Her skin always seemed perpetually sun kissed, even in the dead of winter, so I didn’t for a moment suspect her current complexion was from a lack of sunlight.

Something was wrong.

I tip-toed closer, doing everything I could to remain silent, but by the time I was a step away from her bed, Helena’s eyes snapped open and she turned weakly to look at me. Her eyes widened in surprise, but then they closed again and she looked away for a few moments before returning to me.  They opened again and she looked at me more clearly now in recognition, and lifted a hand toward me.

Emotion overwhelme
d me, and I leapt at her, grabbing her hand in both of mine.  I lifted it and kissed it over and over in greeting and she smiled frailly at me.

“Are you really here
?”  She whispered.

“It’s me, Helena,” I assured.  “I’m back.  I promise.”

Her eyes squinted in painful sadness and she looked away again.  “What happened to you, Jacob?  Why did you leave us for so long?”

“It wasn’t exactly my idea,” I told her, “a
nd I had no idea so much time had passed.”

She looked back at me
with a bit of her patented anger in her eyes, as a few tears fell from them.  “You were gone for so long.  I… I didn’t know what happened to you.  I was afraid…”

I lifted her hand to my cheek and tried to calm her down.  “It’
s okay, Helena.  I’m here now.”

I smiled for her benefit but it was a difficult expression to form. 
From my perspective, I’d only been gone a few hours, but I’d been gone over a month from Helena’s.  Ever since our first operation in Ancient Rome, when Caligula had sent a small team to assassinate a rival general, Helena and I had never been apart for more than a few days at a time, and such lengthy moments of separation had been very few and very long in between.  A year ago, I’d thought our constant close proximity had drained some of the love from our relationship, but I’d later realized it had actually been the most intense bonding experience a couple could possibly go through.  We’d been our own version of Bonnie and Clyde, with a little Santino thrown in I supposed, only our time together had been far more intense and impactful.

I couldn’t even imagine how devastated she had been in that moment when Santino, Agrippina,
Boudicca and all the rest had returned after I’d disappeared.  What had gone through her mind and her heart when Vincent or Santino had reported my absence?  What had she thought when she was told I’d simply disappeared?  How had she handled it when morning after morning she’d awakened alone and with no news of where I was or if I was even still alive?  We’d been aloof from each other for quite some time since I’d obtained the blue orb, but that had been different, and I’d always been just a short walk away.  But day after day, week after week had gone by without an inkling of where I’d been or what had happened to me.

The stress…

The sadness…

How
had she handled it?  The answer was: as well as any person, but even her strength wasn’t infinite.

And it was all my fault.

The fault is mine.  Mine, and mine alone

Merlin’s admission floated int
o my mind, a reassuring reminder that steadied me.  I had to remember what I’d learned in my time with him.  Placing blame is a slippery slope.  It was easy when confronted with no other option than to place that blame, but placing it is never that easy of a task.  Like the creation of all the timelines, the very essence that made up the Multiverse, it was options, choices, events, and decisions crafted by billions of individuals that dictated the course of the future.  Everything affected everything, from the beginning of time to the present, to the distant future.  But even a being like Merlin found it difficult to accept this notion.  Even he placed blame for what had happened to me and my friends on himself and no one else.  Like my inadvertent action that brought us to Ancient Rome, it was his own innocent but wrongful action that had led to the series of events that put me in that situation.

Perhaps I was thinking too much about it, as Merlin advised I shouldn’t. 

Had Merlin thrown the orb at my face, the result of such an action being our arrival here in Ancient Rome, then he would have been directly responsible for us being here.  Blame should be placed.  But he didn’t, and I hadn’t mindfully abandoned Helena for over a month either.

I
may have been to blame, but the fault wasn’t mine.

I took solace
in these thoughts as I leaned down and kissed Helena on her forehead, her nose, and then finally her mouth, a kiss that I allowed to linger far longer than I’d intended.  When I finally pulled away, Helena looked up at me with a smile, and I could already see life finding its way back into her cold eyes.  Maybe I was, again, thinking too much into it, but I had to take strength wherever I could.

We gazed
at each other for a long time, Galba’s presence drifting in the back of my mind, but I pushed it even deeper.  He could wait until the fall of Rome for all I cared.  This is the only place I wanted to be, but the spell was broken when Helena shifted her position on the bed to find a more comfortable one.  I helped her by placing another pillow behind her head.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice a little stronger now.  She went silent again for a few seconds, but then asked, “Where did you go, Jacob?  What happened?
  Why did you grow a beard?”

I chuckled.  “I want to tell
you, Helena, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I could try,” she suggested
, taking a long, hard gulp before continuing, “but is it going to be a long story?  Another one of your epic rants?”

My smile grew wider.  “Oh, yeah.  Probably the longest I’ll ever tell.”

She smiled back at me.  “Then you’d better get started, Lieutenant.  This will probably be the only opportunity you’ll ever have to rant to your heart’s desires and have me actually want to hear about it.”

I leaned
in and kissed her again, drinking in every second.

I pulle
d away from her. “I don’t think I could love you more than I do right now.”

“Oh, I think I
can find a way,” she said with a small wink, “but you’d better get started.  I’m already losing patience.”

“Same old Helena,” I said and settled in beside her to tell her everything I could about my time with Merlin.  I was excited for this, knowing that once I’d told her I’d have to
tell all the rest of them again, and I was certain this was going to be my greatest lecture yet.  I…

“Jacob?”

I looked down at Helena, but she didn’t look like she’d just said anything.  In fact, her mouth was closed and she was looking around me toward the tent’s entrance.  I grimaced, having momentarily forgotten about Galba completely, realizing the interruption couldn’t be about anything else.

I turned and saw Santino poking his head through the tent.

“What?”  I asked.

“Sorry to interrupt,”
he said, “but Ol’ Triple Chin is pretty grumpy.  He told me to tell you that if he doesn’t see you in the next three minutes, he’ll kill Agrippina.  I mentioned that I didn’t think you’d care very much, but then I saw his flabby neck jiggling and I knew he was pretty serious.  I think he means business.”

I
looked at Helena.  “What do you think?  Should I let him just kill her?”

“My vote’s for yes,” Santino offered helpfully from behind me.

Helena smiled.  “I really can’t think of anyone who should kill her more… besides me of course.”

I bobbed my head in a
mused agreement, and my smile grew, but before I could say anything Helena sighed and continued her thoughts.

“
Then again, she hasn’t done anything threatening toward us since you disappeared.  I guess it doesn’t seem right.”

I nodded in agreement but with
a smirk.  “Besides, you
really
want to be the one to kill her…”

“You’re goddamned right I do.”

I chuckled at her comment and heard Santino laughing behind me as well.

It felt like old times just now, when the three of us had been on the run in the wilderness of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.  We’d had some good times
then, and they’d been some of the best years of my life, all because I’d had Santino and Helena there, especially Helena.

I picked up her hand and kissed her fingers.  “God, I love you.”

She reached up with her other hand, a movement that seemed strong and deliberate despite her weakness.  “I know you do, Jacob.  And I love you too.  So very much.”

I smiled but
felt a swell of emotion in my chest, knowing I had to leave her.

“Will you be all right if I leave again for a few minutes?”  I asked.

“Of course,” she answered.  “Just don’t go getting yourself killed out there, Lieutenant.  I’ve just started liking you again.  Just… try to hurry back this time.”

I grinned and leaned down for another wonderful, loving kiss.

I didn’t want to pull away, but I forced myself to, and looked down at Helena.  We held our eyes on each other, but we were interrupted by the sound of forced sniffles from behind us.

“I think I’m going to cry…” Santino whispered around fake sobs.

I rolled my eyes, taking my entire head with them.  I leaned down, gave Helena one last kiss, and then thrust myself from the bed as she smiled at Santino’s comment.

“No, I think you should stay, Hunter,
really,” Santino said as I marched toward him.  “I think the power of true love is all we need to get us through this, really I do.  Just wait.  A powerful rainbow is about to burst from Helena’s chest and hit Galba in the face like a leprechaun swinging a pot of gold, and then he’s going to fall in love with Agrippina and everything will be just fine.  He’ll go back to Rome and find Vespasian and the three of them will love and love and love each other, together, and rule Rome jointly with compassion and care… just like those damn bears from that cartoon!  It’ll be great.  Pure magic!  The three of them will have great sex too, although Agrippina and Vespasian will force Galba to wear a bag over his head just to get through the process, but that’s okay because it won’t matter, because they’ll be… in love!  True love!  Only through the power of lov…”

Just as he was about to finish
, I reached a hand out toward the exit and covered his mouth with it, pushing him out of the tent in the same movement.  He fell to the ground with a thud, but continued professing how only through the power of love could we overcome all our struggles.  I tried to tune him out as I turned back to Helena.

She blew me a kiss, saying
, “Go fix the universe.”

I
reached up and tipped an imaginary hat at her.  “Yes, ma’am.

***

Santino was already running by the time I left the tent, so I did what I could to keep up.  My month long absence from reality had done much to impair my former level of physical fitness, and I felt weak and slow as I ran, but I managed to catch up just before we reached the camp’s northern most entrance.

“So how angry is he?”  I asked.

“Pissed.”

“Do you think he’d really kill Agrippina?”

“Probably, but I’m hardly the guy to ask.”

That much
at least was true, but I decided to shut up and conserve my energy as we ran through the gate and out into the field beyond the camp, where thousands of legionnaires sprang into view.  Illuminated by just as many torches and fires, each of them stood comfortably near their trench system, some upon the ramparts, the rest arrayed on the field of battle, ready to advance.  It was an awesome sight, and a claustrophobic one, contained as we were by the might of a Roman army.

I looked at Santino out of the corner of my eye, and he looked back at me.

“Not used to being on this end, are we?”  I asked.

“They’ve been here over a week,” he replied.  “
I’ve gotten pretty used to it.”

“Right,” I said as I spotted Galba and Agrippina
with their gathered retinues, which included Vincent, Bordeaux, Archer, Stryker, a number of Agrippina’s Praetorians, and Galba’s first file Fabius.  All except Fabius were seated atop horses, arrayed in a pair of half circles disjoined from each other.  As we grew closer I could see Galba’s fat and completely unhandsome face, easily discernible from all the hard, stoic Roman faces that surrounded him.

Santino and I slowed to a trot as we grew even closer, but
just before we arrived, Santino picked up speed again and charged forward.  A few of Galba’s Romans moved to draw their swords nervously but Galba held up a hand to keep them calm.  Seconds later, Santino slid on an apparently icy bit of ground with his hands out wide like an old timey dancer, looking up at Galba with a wide, open mouth show smile, his spirit fingers wiggling wildly.

“Heeeeeeere’s, Hunter,” he said in English, but then grew serious
and hooked a thumb at me and switched to Latin.  “But seriously, I brought, Hunter.”

Agrippina and Vincent rolled their eyes but Galba appeared amused.
He turned to the empress for a moment and smiled at her. “As much as I despise these people, this one at least entertains me.”

Santino beamed at the compliment and
took a bow, while Agrippina simply frowned and shook her head at the display.  No one’s attention seemed on me at the moment, which was good since I was drawing in gulps of air like I’d just sprinted a marathon, so I took the opportunity to move around behind my gathered forces to stand between Agrippina and Vincent.

Finally, Galba seemed to take notice of
me and shifted his head around.  “So, you have completed your ritual then?”

I nodded slowly, curious as to how he knew the details of what I had been doing.  I was completely
out of the loop here.  I hadn’t even known that Galba was aware I’d been gone at all, and not simply hiding in the camp.  It seemed best to be upfront with him and tell him what I knew he wanted to hear.

“
Yeah,” I confirmed, “but more importantly, I learned how to send us home.  We can leave and you’ll never see us again.”

Heads perked up at the announcement
, and each of my friends seemed quite interested in further information.

“Then go,” Galba said,
twitching his jowls away from the camp.  “Go and I will forget you ever existed.  All I need is Agrippina so I can settle this with Vespasian.”

“What’s your problem with
Vespasian anyway?”  I asked.  “What did he do?”

“You
are my problem, Hunter!”  He bellowed.  “You have caused great strife since arriving here five years ago, but your decisions since coming to Britain have completely compromised the strategic situation our forces face in this theatre of war.  Why I let you wander into the hinterlands of Britain, I do not know, but I am finished with you.  And I blame Vespasian for placing so much trust in you, and since I already had no faith in Agrippina, I have taken it upon myself to deal with all three of you.”

My heart sunk at his words
, but I only grew more frustrated than upset.  “Making a power grab then, is it?”  I asked.  “Not content with the life you have?  What do you want?  More authority?  More power?  A throne to sit upon?”

He stared down at me from
atop his horse, a serviceable pedestal if I’d ever seen one, but his eyes hid the anger I knew must have been seething deep within him.  Despite his unappealing appearance, he certainly exuded the confidence needed to make a good leader of men.  It was why he’d always been such a good general, but good generalship didn’t always make for good leadership in the civilian sector.

Just
ask Ulysses S. Grant.

Great
general, good guy, poor president.

I wondered if Galba would be different.

Did I even need to care anymore?

Along with everything e
lse I’d learned from Merlin, I now knew I wasn’t actually destroying or altering timelines at all.  Just creating new ones, so who was I to alter this timeline’s natural progression, influenced by me or not?  But I couldn’t just abandon Vespasian either.  He was too good of a man, and had a proven track record.  Also, he’d had faith in me when it seemed like no one else had.  I couldn’t just abandon him to Galba, who was less power hungry and more afraid of his empire crumbling around him.  He thought himself in the right, and perhaps he was, but I wasn’t too keen on the options he may leave me with when I told him I couldn’t go home quite yet.

“So is that it, then?”  I asked when he didn’t answer.  “
Are you staging a coup?  What are you going to do if you we don’t just turn ourselves over to you?  Storm our gates and slaughter us?”

“I am not so stupid as to send
fifty
thousand
men against you and your ilk, Hunter,” he said, thrusting his finger at me.  “But I will starve you out if I have to.”

“Ju
st like that?  After everything we’ve been through and everything we’ve told you?”  I took a painful step forward, pointing over my shoulder toward our camp.  “Helena is
this
close to giving birth to my son, Galba.  If you think for even a second that I’ll just roll over and let you starve us out, you’re delusional.  There isn’t anywhere you can hide even remotely close to this camp.  I can have you killed as easily as stepping on a bug right now if I wanted to, and you know it’s true.”

I took a deep breath and calmed myself, not wanting to let my anger take control or overplay my hand.
  Galba, for his part, at least looked uncomfortable at my words, and risked a look in the camp’s direction.

“But I don’t want to,” I continued
, returning my arm to my side.  “You’re a good man, Galba, and a real leader, but you’ve overstepped yourself.  How could you just ignore everything we’ve told you?  You’re risking your very future here!”

“I risk it
,” Galba said evenly, “because of exactly what you once said to me.  I make my own destiny, and so does Rome.  We need not your presence here, and I’ve come to do what I should have done five years ago.”

I nodded and kept nodding, unable to find the words I needed to sway Galba’s mind.

Luckily, I wasn’t alone in this.

“You are delusional, Galba,” Agrippina chimed in.  “You know nothing about
what is needed to rule an empire.  I have come to accept the errors I’ve committed in the past, and have sworn to better myself, but what I cannot do is simply hand over the power of Rome to an upstart general who sees himself as the next Julius Caesar!”

“Silence yourself, woman,” Galba snapped, “before I end your life here and now.  Your crimes go far beyond simple reconciliation and an admission to better oneself.  You have more blood on your hands than even Hunter here.”