Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (73 page)

“I’m so sorry, Jacob,” she said, and I knew she meant it.  The two of us were in this together now, and I could feel the empathy in her flowing through the orb and into me.  She’d once spoken of a connection between us, and I felt it now more than ever.

In an odd way, I felt happy just then.

I nodded solemnly and Agrippina put a hand against my chest and helped me turn around, but we only managed one step before we had to pull up short.

Santino stood there blocking our path.

And h
e wore a face I’d never seen on him before.

It wasn’t sad or angry, frustrated or thoughtful.  It wasn’t even annoyed or condescending, all faces I’d seen on him before, although
the last few only rarely.  No, the face he wore was completely different from all of those, and I had to dig deep in my memory to recognize it.  When I did, the feeling I felt was one I hadn’t experienced in maybe twenty years, because the look Santino wore was the same my mother would show me in those moments when she was completely disappointed in me.  Those were the worst looks, and seeing it on Santino’s normally joyful face cut me deep.

“Let me go, John,” I said qui
etly with Agrippina on my arm, but his eyes never left mine, not even to investigate the fact that Agrippina was present.  He simply drilled into me with that look of disappointment that never wavered.  I glanced down at Agrippina, then back at Santino.  “Are… are you going to kill me?”

And there was no doubt
that he could.  At this range, there wasn’t an orb in this plane of existence or any other powerful enough to give me a fighting chance against him.

“You’re my best friend, Jacob,” Santino said evenly, his eyes steady.  “I could never kill
my best friend.”  He paused.  “But a mindless zombie controlled by an evil orb he knew was dangerous to begin with is the kind of bug I could squash over and over and over again.”

The orb worked extra hard to keep the fear from distracting me
, and it seemed like it was a battle it would soon lose, but then Santino cried out in pain and fell over.  I didn’t understand exactly what had happened, but then I saw Agrippina’s arm protruding from her body holding a knife.  It wasn’t large, but it was sharp, and it had Santino’s blood on it.

“What have you…”  I started to speak, but then my words left me.

With the threat of Santino gone, the fear rescinded and the orb took over again.  Even so, I looked at Agrippina in disbelief as Santino writhed on the ground from the intense pain of an abdominal stab wound.

“He would have stopped
us, Jacob,” Agrippina said steadily.  “It doesn’t matter if the path before you is a dark one, what matters is the destination.  This is the only way to keep Helena safe and get her home.  We have to go to Rome, and we couldn’t do that with him in our way.”

“Of course…” I said
, trailing off as Agrippina led us away from Santino’s fallen body.

I looked down at him, his body growing limper as he fought the pain, but when he was out of sight, I looked away, wondering what it was I had been so concerned about a moment before.

Agrippina helped me atop Felix and I held out a hand to help her atop her own horse.  She smiled at me in thanks, and I returned it, feeling excited at the prospect of a new adventure with a beautiful woman and the idea of returning to the Eternal City of Rome.

Finally, a grand
adventure worth writing about.

Agrippina reach
ed a hand out and rubbed my forearm.  Her touch distracted me and I looked at her again, noticing that her beautiful smile hadn’t left her.  It filled my heart with drive and determination, knowing that my partner in crime and I would get the job done in a way I never could before.

The red orb was waiting
.

When Agrippina realized I’d pulled myself from my trance, she patted my arm lightly and motioned for me to lead the way.  I lifted a hand to my
forehead and nodded with my imaginary cowboy hat.  “Yes, ma’am.”

And with that
, I kicked Felix into a trot.  Agrippina caught up, and the two of us rode with our three supply horses in train behind us.  We rode toward the eastern gate and I was finally able to take notice of the fact that dawn was finally upon us.  The sun hadn’t yet breached the horizon, but it was close, and there was easily enough light to survey the camp by.  I barely took notice of the Romans around me, healthy or wounded, but the sight of a pair of bodies on the ground caught my eye.  I couldn’t quite make out who they were, but I noticed a few of my friends running toward them while a third figure was already kneeling beside one of the fallen two.

Agrippina and I were far enough away that recognition was difficult, but picking my sister out of a crowd was easy.  I tipped my imaginary hat in her direction as we rode further away, but the only look she offered
me in return was distraught, one with fear and sadness in those distant eyes.  Tears streamed down her cheeks so clearly that I was half tempted to turn back, and it was then that I noticed she held one of the bodies in her lap, his head resting comfortably on one of her legs.  I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive, but the sight of it combined with the final look of complete defeat on Artie’s face before she disappeared behind rows of tents haunted me.

And then Agrippina spoke.  “
A beautiful morning, is it not, Jacob.”

I looked to the sky, noting its early morning blue enshrined by the deep yellows and oranges given off by the sun’s
imminent arrival.  I could just see it beginning its rise, but there was something about this sunrise that confused me.  I’d always taken such joy out of witnessing the daily event, using it as a way to revitalize fatigued muscles or focus a frazzled mind.  Witnessing one was a yearly tradition I’d had for decades, but as the sun continued its ascent, I felt none of those effects now.  Instead, all it offered was a hollow emptiness, not unlike something I’d felt not all that long ago when… something had happened.

I couldn’t remember.

“Looks like we can use the sun as our guide for now,” Agrippina continued, her long golden locks as beautiful but empty as the sun we rode toward, swaying alluringly in the breeze as we passed Galba’s trench system.  I stared at her for a moment, finding strength in her image, but when I turned back to the rising sun ahead of me, I felt nothing again.

I decided to ignore it, realizing it was probably a fault of the sun’s
and not my own.  Instead, I thought of nothing more but the unbridled potential of finding the red orb and pairing it with my blue one.  That alone filled me with enough motivation to ride into the very heart of the sun if I had to.

I reached into my cargo poc
ket and removed my glacier glasses, lowered them over my eyes, and smiled, trying to conjure the appropriate imagery in my mind of Agrippina and I riding into the sunrise, our destinies laid out before us, ours for the taking.  All I’d needed was a little bit of a push, just as Agrippina had said, and now I had it.  I let out a long sigh, letting years of pent up emotion fall from my shoulders in sheets. 

I
settled myself atop Felix in preparation for a long journey, and even found myself singing to myself as we rode.  “
Round, round, get around, I get around, yeah
.”  The lyrics came easily, and I found myself smiling at the appropriateness of my chosen song.  “
Get around, round, round I get around.  I get around…
”

“What is that song, Jacob?”  Agrippina asked
innocently.

“
What
I Get Around
?  It’s a great song by the Beach Boys.  Some guy I knew used to love them.”

“
Who was he?”  She asked.

“I… I can’t remember,” I answered.  “Still,
they’re a good group.  They have plenty of hits.”

“Perhaps you can teach me a few,” Agrippina suggested with a sweet smile.
  “We’ll have plenty of time together in the coming weeks.”

I nodded pleasantly.  “Sure, I’d like that.”

Her smile tightened and she turned back toward the rising sun.  I turned as well and continued to sing, knowing that it was finally time to get around to doing what I should have done from the very beginning:

F
ix the universe.

Author’s Note

Well, this was a tough one to write.

Very tough.

I first thought the story up for this book years ago, back when I’d just finished
The Last Roman
and was beginning
To Crown a Caesar
.  I had an idea about introducing Arthurian legend (in a way) and I knew it was time for all of the things Hunter felt responsible for to finally have some kind of repercussion.  His descent into madness, if you will, was preordained for the guy the moment he first made contact with the orb.  It’d screwed up just about everybody else, so why not him?

Unfortunately,
the pregnancy storyline was also one I’d thought up years ago, and knew just had to be included… little did I know that when I finally picked up this book again to complete earlier this year, that my wife and I would be expecting our first child.  It made writing that final chapter almost impossible.  When I came up with the idea, I didn’t really understand how devastating such a thing could be, but I do now.  Boy do I understand, and I almost wanted to rewrite the whole damn book by the time I was finished.

But I couldn’t do that.

Whether everyone will agree with the course I took will be up to their own personal opinion, but the story is heading in a very specific direction, and I could think of no more low a moment for Hunter to go through than that.  I wasn’t trying to be malicious.  It’s just the way I saw the story going as I setup book four: the final book.

Believe me, I wish I hadn’t.

But if you’re still with me this far (and if you’re reading this book when this book is still considered “new”), I’d like to finish my little note by asking for patience for the last book in the
Praetorian
Series.  I intend to take some time off when my son is born this November and focus on my family, however, once my wife’s maternity leave is up, primary care is going to fall squarely on my shoulders.

Yep, that means stay at home dad status for the most part, which means my writing is seriously going to slow.  I wish that wasn’t the case, but my family comes f
irst, so while I will still write when I can, my output will suffer.  I managed to publish four books within the last fifteen months, sure, but that’s only because I’d already two written, and parts of this one were already written as well.

I no longer have that luxury.

The
Starfarer
sequel, which is actually next on my to-do-list, and the final
Praetorian
book, are all empty Word documents right now (although their stories are in my head). So it’s going to take some time, and I just wanted to give everyone a head’s up.

But back to Hunter, for a moment.

I don’t know exactly where his “story” is going to end.

However, I know
exactly
how his
“Praetorian”
story is going to end.  The
Praetorian
Series will definitely end with four books, which will provide a conclusive finale to the events chronicled in this series, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m done with the universe.  Some of you more observant readers may have already picked up on what I mean by that, or suspect where I’m going with it, but all I really mean is that certain things may live on in future books (and no, that isn’t any kind of hint either).

But patience will be required.

I hope you enjoyed the book, high points and low points both.  Feel free to send me an email with your thoughts, positive or negative, and please leave a review as well (positive ones more welcomed than negative ones, of course).  And if you email, I’ll be sure to email back as quickly as I can, baby throw up or not!

Until next time, Faithful Readers.

Ed Crichton

September, 2013

Author’s Note (Revised)

Here’s the magic of online self-publishing at its finest: the ability to revise a book within hours, not months.

While nothing in
A Hunter and His Legion
itself has been changed, my ideas and plans for future writings have.  After having just read the above Author’s Note, some of you may be a bit upset that you have to wait so long for Book IV, but you’re in luck, because I’ve recently come to the decision that I will be putting Starfarer on the back burner for now, and will instead continue with the
Praetorian
Series, finishing it at four books.  Since I try to treat writing as a 9-5 job, which it more or less is, that doesn’t mean I work like an automaton, pumping out work just to churn out content and make bank.