“Set him down.” Racker’s voice was steady. “Let me look.”
They eased Yaro onto the stretcher, the Thirty-Seventh’s surgeon elbowing them out of the way as he bent over the leg still impaled with the stake, which Agrippa held upright.
“Get it out of me, Racker,” Yaro said between his teeth. “It hurts.”
Racker exhaled and then straightened, confirming what Agrippa already knew. Even still, it felt like a vise closing around his chest. Like someone had carved out his guts with a dull knife. Because this was his fault.
“Not good, is it?” Yaro was shaking, his lips blue. “Am I done?”
“You’re done,” Racker confirmed. “As soon as I pull the stake out, it’s over.” Then he stepped back, his eyes meeting Agrippa’s. “A few minutes, maybe. Say what needs saying.”
The medics lowered the stretcher to the ground, a crowd of men—all Thirty-Seventh—forming around them.
“Agrippa.” Yaro’s voice was shaky. “I can’t see.”
Allowing Quintus to take over supporting his leg, Agrippa moved to his friend’s head, taking hold of his hand and gripping it tight. “I’m here. We’re all here.”
Marcus knelt in the mud on the opposite side, taking Yaro’s other hand. “Thank you for your service, brother,” he said. “The Thirty-Seventh will not forget your name.”
“Thank you, sir,” Yaro whispered. “It’s been an honor, sir.”
Marcus rose, and a heartbeat later, the sound of thousands of fists striking chests in salute filled the air. But Agrippa didn’t let go of his friend’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Yaro’s eyes stared blindly at the sky. “Should’ve seen it. Shouldn’t have stepped.”
It is my fault, Agrippa wanted to scream. It wasn’t the Bardenese—it was Carmo. And it was meant to be me.
Except it was better for Yaro to die believing it had come at the hands of the enemy. Better to die not knowing they’d been stabbed in the back by those who were supposed to be their comrades. Their teachers.
“Pull it out, Agrippa,” Yaro whispered. “It hurts.”
He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to be the one to end it. But neither did he want his friend to suffer any longer, and to make someone else bear the burden would be cowardice.
“Please.”
“All right.” Allowing Miki to take Yaro’s hand, he moved to where Quintus still held his leg, the stake slick with blood. “Keep it steady.”
Gripping the stake with both hands, Agrippa took a deep breath. “It was an honor to fight with you at my side. And an honor to call you friend.”
Then he jerked out the stake.
Blood sprayed and Yaro gasped once before smiling. “Likewise, brother.”
And then he went still, the spark of life fading from his eyes.
No one spoke. Not a word, the whole camp at a standstill. Then Hostus’s voice cut the air. “I want a full report on how this came to pass within the hour.”
Agrippa vaguely heard Marcus say, “Yes, sir,” but the words were drowned out by the roaring pulse of his rising fury.
Twisting on his heels, he threw the stake to the ground and pulled out his blade. “You know exactly how this came to pass, you backstabbing sack of shit. And you,” he pointed at Carmo, who stood behind Hostus. “I’m going to slit your fucking throat!”
Then he lunged toward them.
11
Marcus
“I’m going to slit your fucking throat!”
Shock ran through Marcus, because for all Agrippa ran his mouth and cursed like a sailor, he never, ever lost control of his temper.
But the Agrippa lunging toward Hostus, weapon in hand, was thoroughly out of control.
Instinct had him stepping into Agrippa’s path, but the primus sidestepped him and Marcus barely managed to catch hold of his wrist. He heaved, throwing his weight backward and pulling Agrippa nearly off his feet.
Face flushed with fury, Agrippa jerked free, but then Felix slammed into him, tackling him to the ground. “Stay down!”
But Agrippa didn’t listen, grappling with Felix in the dirt until Quintus and Miki threw themselves into the fray and the three of them finally managed to pin Agrippa down. But none of them thought to clamp a hand over his mouth.
“It was the Twenty-Ninth that set the trap!” he shouted, eyes full of fury. “Not the rebels! It was Carmo’s band of ass-lickers that killed Yaro!”
Unease ran through Marcus, because if the bad blood between the legions had escalated to murder…
Hostus huffed out a breath of disgust. “Baseless accusations. Control your man, Marcus. And while you’re at it, have him whipped within an inch of his life for this outrage.”
“You’re a lying prick, Hostus!” Agrippa was still struggling and Marcus could see the promise of murder in his eyes. “Your dog doesn’t do anything without your say!”
He wasn’t wrong. But if Agrippa didn’t shut his mouth, it wouldn’t be the lash. It would be the gallows. “Enough!”
Agrippa’s gaze moved to Marcus, full of outrage. “Sir—”
“Another word passes your lips and I’ll have you gagged,” Marcus said, and when Agrippa’s teeth clicked shut, he turned to Hostus, seeing that Grypus had emerged from his pavilion at some point and was looking on. “I’ll have a full report to you, sir. And my apologies for my man’s actions. It won’t happen again.”
“You think apologies are enough, Marcus? Your man didn’t just insult me, he insulted the honor of the Twenty-Ninth. Thirty lashes, and Carmo will do it else you’re likely to use feathers and call it good enough. You haven’t the stomach for proper discipline.”
Thirty lashes at Carmo’s hand would maim Agrippa for life, if it didn’t kill him.
“With respect, sir,” Marcus replied, “I will not punish a man who spoke out of grief and whose actions were forestalled before damage could be done.”
“And if I make it an order?”
Fear rose in his stomach, but Marcus swallowed it down. “Then it will be me you punish for insubordination.”
Hundreds of Thirty-Seventh surrounded them. Thousands. And Marcus felt them all stiffen, readying themselves to fight. Willing to go head to head with the Twenty-Ninth if Marcus gave them the order.
From the look in Hostus’s eyes, he felt it, too. And while the older legatus was no coward, neither was he stupid. Sighing, he looked over his shoulder at Grypus. “You see, Proconsul? It is as I told you. The Thirty-Seventh conduct themselves like children. It’s worth considering when you send your recommendation to the commandant and to the Senate as to whether their apron strings should be cut. I’d suggest at least another year under my care.”
How many of us will survive another year?
“You raise an excellent point, Legatus,” Grypus answered. “And having witnessed these events, I will most certainly take it under advisement.”
Hostus turned back to Marcus, his emerald eyes glittering. “I’ll let it slide this time, Marcus. But I want that report in an hour. And get that body out of my camp before it starts to stink.”
I hate you. “Yes, sir.” Marcus saluted sharply, waiting until Hostus and Carmo had disappeared back into the command tent before barking, “Disperse.”
His men obediently backed away, returning to tasks or leisure or sleep without argument. But when he turned, Agrippa was still pinned to the ground, the rest of his patrol standing silently around Yaro’s body. “Get him cleaned up and buried,” he said to them, then to Felix, “Let him up.”
Agrippa scrambled to his feet, scowling.
“What happened?”
“Went on patrol of the area assigned to us. Passed Carmo’s boys coming back in, who said it was all clear. They were dirty…dirtier than normal, but I…” Agrippa scrubbed a bloody hand over his hair, looking away. “I didn’t think much of it.”
“Agrippa, if you made these accusations because of dirt—”
“Not just the dirt.” His tone
was flat. “We caught sight of smoke and went to investigate. Everything about it felt off. Was too close to camp for the rebels and…” He shook his head. “Fire was built in a hollow. Usual rebel propaganda written on rocks, though half of it was spelled wrong. We were moving in, and that was when I noticed the fire was made from redwood.”
Marcus’s hands balled into fists, because the Bardenese never burned redwood. They worshipped the trees and forests, believing that they were the spirits of their ancestors. And though the Empire was doing its best to stamp out the pagan practices, on that, the Bardenese refused to bend. The rebels most of all.
“But I was too late.” Agrippa’s eyes glittered with unshed tears and he scrubbed at them. “Yaro stepped on a pit trap and fell. We got him out, but…” His throat moved as he swallowed. “Would’ve taken hours to make that trap, Marcus. Redwood and bad spelling aside, the rebels wouldn’t have been able to do it without being caught by a patrol. It was the Twenty-Ninth. And they did it because—”
“You shamed Carmo.”
“Yeah.” Agrippa’s voice was soft. “Yaro had nothing to do with that, but he’s the one who’s dead. Should’ve been me.”
“Should’ve been neither of you.” Marcus didn’t even try to keep the anger from his voice because Carmo was going to get away with it. Hostus was going to get away with it, like he did everything else. And there was no escaping him.
“Want me to go see if I can find any proof?” Felix asked. “Might be one of them forgot a shovel. Or a weapon. Something identifiable as legion gear.”
Marcus gave a slight shake of his head. “What good is proof when the culprit is judge and jury? We know they did it and they know we know. All we can do now is keep our heads down and have the men watch their backs until we’re free of the Twenty-Ninth.”
“When? In a year?” Agrippa spit into the mud. “In a year, half the Thirty-Seventh will be murdered and in graves if Hostus has his way, which it looks like that bastard Grypus is going to give him.”
A problem you just made a hundred times worse, Marcus considered saying but bit his tongue. He’d have reacted no differently if it had been Felix instead of Yaro dead on the ground. “What would you have me do, Agrippa?”
“Don’t you dare ask me that.” The primus’s eyes flared with anger. “You wanted the job, Marcus. You wanted command. You had Felix and Gibzen beat me half to death and then made me swear never to look higher than the role you set me, so you don’t get to ask me what to do. You’re legatus, so figure it the fuck out before your entire legion ends up dead.”
Not once had Agrippa ever brought up what had happened at Lescendor, which had made it easy to believe the other young man had chosen loyalty, not been forced into it. But his words suggested something different.
“Watch yourself,” Felix snapped. “And maybe show a bit of gratitude. If not for Marcus, you’d be having your back opened with a bullwhip right now.”
“Sycophant.”
Felix’s hand balled into a fist, but Marcus gave him a shove. “Enough. Our infighting only serves Hostus’s claims that we still require his minding. I’ll hear solutions or I’ll hear silence.”
Agrippa and Felix continued to glower at each other, and it was Quintus who answered, a knife appearing in his hand only to disappear a heartbeat later. “Eye for an eye?”
Everyone went quiet, their eyes on Marcus. Waiting.
It was painfully tempting to give the order. To send Quintus to put down Hostus as revenge. For while Carmo was a cudgel, the Thirty-Seventh’s most infamous assassin was a knife in the dark. But killing Hostus wouldn’t free them from the Twenty-Ninth and even if Hostus’s men had no proof, they’d know who was behind the murder. And it would be war. “No.”
“So the plan is to do nothing?” Agrippa demanded. “That’s the direction you’re leading us?”
Marcus’s skin crawled and he turned to see Grypus standing at the entrance of his pavilion, sipping wine while he watched them. Wielding power like a pagan god, able to spare their lives or destroy them with a word. “No,” he said softly. “But when I give the command, nothing might seem good by comparison.”
12
Agrippa
He and Miki and Quintus dug the grave themselves. Backbreaking labor in the cold, rocky ground, but Agrippa had relished the pain in his palms, in his back, in his shoulders, because it distracted him from the pain in his heart.
His men, all ninety-eight of them, had come out of camp to say their goodbyes as they lowered Yaro into the ground. As they covered him with frozen earth. As he marked the spot with a wooden stake carved with his name and number.
As he abandoned his best friend to rot in this hostile land that would gladly see them all dead beside him.
“Aren’t you supposed to go see that girl?” Miki asked.
They were back in their shared tent, Agrippa silently going through Yaro’s belongings while Quintus and Miki played cards. His gear had gone back into the armory to be used as required, and all that remained was the tiny pile of items that had been in his belt pouch and bag. Some coins. A pair of dice, which Agrippa knew were weighted. A necklace with a copper medallion that had belonged to Yaro’s mother, and which he’d managed to hide through all their years of schooling at Lescendor.
Holding it up, he said, “Bastard swallowed it. That’s how he got it in.” Boys were stripped of everything when they were delivered to legion training, nothing of the past allowed to follow them through the gates. “But because he could never shit like a normal person, it took him a week to get it back.”
His friends laughed, Yaro’s infamously slow bowels the subject of much comedy among the Thirty-Seventh. But then Miki repeated, “Well? Are you going? She said she wouldn’t wait.”
It was because of Silvara that he’d picked the fight with Carmo. And it was the fight with Carmo that had gotten Yaro killed. “No.”
“You should,” Miki said. “He’d have wanted you to go.”
“It’s true.” Quintus flopped back on his bedroll. “He lived for you getting the girl. Probably because he never did, the ugly bastard. Reason he hung onto that necklace was to remember the last woman who kissed him without requiring payment in advance.”
Agrippa huffed out a laugh.
“Nothing on him matched,” Quintus continued, digging a flask out of his bedroll and taking a mouthful. “Giant nose and a tiny chin and that mole…”
“Racker offered to remove it, you know?”
Quintus sat upright. “Did he really?”
“Yeah, when he was in with the broken leg.”
“Why didn’t he say yes? Would have been a significant improvement.”
Flopping back on his own bedroll, Agrippa closed his eyes. “He told Racker that he’d break his hands if he took the mole because it was the mole that made him the ugliest member of the Thirty-Seventh and he wasn’t giving up that honor without a fight.”
“Well, shit.”
“I’m not surprised,” Miki said. “He was as loyal as they came, so of course he’d be loyal to a mole.”
Lifting the flask, Quintus said, “To Yaro.”
“To Yaro,” Agrippa repeated, and knew this would be the last time they’d talk about him. Taking a large mouthful of the awful moonshine, he closed his eyes against the burn then handed it to Miki.
“Go see the girl,” Miki said after he drank. “You can still make it in time.”
“Gates are shut.”
Even without looking, Agrippa could feel his friends roll their eyes and Quintus said, “How fortunate, then, that the Thirty-Seventh is once again stuck freezing their asses off standing atop our walls.”
“I don’t want to incur any debts.”
“You are being rutting difficult.” Quintus gave him a kick in the side. “Servius is back with supplies. Go tell him to give you what you need and that it will be even between us.”
“Then I’ll owe you.”
“You won’t,” Quintus answered. “We c
ould use a few uninterrupted hours. Listening to you snore really puts a damper on the mood.”
Lack of privacy was a big downside of shared tents, although Agrippa and Yaro had always made an effort to give the pair time alone when they could. “Fine, fine.” Belting on his weapons and pulling on his cloak, Agrippa shoved the necklace into his belt pouch and stepped out into the quiet camp.
Dozens of fires burned, young men playing cards or dice or just staring into the flames, though most acknowledged him as he passed. Keeping his head cocked, he waited for the inevitable boom of Servius’s laugh, and was rewarded after a few minutes, following the sound of chatter to a fire.
Felix and several other Thirty-Seventh were sitting around a bonfire-sized blaze, while Servius stood, obviously telling them a story of some sort. But the largest member of the Thirty-Seventh paused at sight of him then shouted, “Agrippa! Have you come to liven up our party?”
“You’ll have to do without me,” he said. “I’m here to collect on the favor you owe my boy Quintus.”
The others all whistled, because while nearly every man in the legion owed Servius, the big legionnaire rarely found himself the one owing. Blowing out an aggrieved breath, Servius said, “Yeah, all right. Let’s go, then.”
The storehouses were under guard, but not one protested as they walked in, Servius’s role making him the master and commander of all the legions’ supplies, especially given that his counterpart in the Twenty-Ninth was passed out drunk more days than not.
Retrieving a small sack, Servius handed it to him. “Fill it with whatever you want, then.”
Agrippa lifted an eyebrow. “Anything? Just what did Quintus do for you?”
“Was telling you part of his deal?”
Agrippa briefly considered lying in order to get the sordid details, but then shook his head.
“Then it’s none of your rutting business.” Servius crossed his arms. “Get on with it. I want to get back to my fire.”
Tarnished Empire (Dark Shores) Page 9