‘Do you remember Thebes?’ the colonel asked with a drunken chuckle.
‘The time you broke Nefertiti’s heart? How could I forget? We were only supposed to locate her tomb, and you took it upon yourself to bed the wench before we’d even found the architect, let alone the temple he was building for her!’
‘Nothing compared to that time you wagered Hannibal that he couldn’t ride a troop of elephants over the Alps.’
‘Well, someone had to,’ Selephin said with a knowing smile.
The colonel conceded and raised his bottle to the old pirate. ‘We’ve had some interesting times you and I, but I’ve never quite understood why you took early retirement.’
Selephin reflected over the answer for a few moments. Josh thought he saw a flicker of sadness in the man’s face as he replied.
‘There have been many times when I have asked myself the same question. I am Draconian, always have been, always will be. It is my calling, my reason to live, but when you watch too many of your friends disappear —’ he looked over at the sleeping Caitlin — ‘you begin to question why we do this, and then, when you can’t find a good enough answer any more, you know it is time to stop.’
The colonel nodded. ‘This life does takes its toll, of that there is no doubt. But why here, why this era?’
‘Ah, my friend, we each have our own special milieu, do we not? A favourite century to while away a few hours when time — and the damn clackers — allow. This is mine, aboard my own ship in the middle of a great war. I have no desire to die in my sleep.’
They both drank then to ‘an interesting death’ and sank into quiet contemplation of their own mortality and those they had lost. Josh found himself thinking about Gossy and wondering what it would have been like if he hadn’t died. With his new abilities, it should be a simple exercise to go back and change it, but it was forbidden — the colonel was very clear on that point, and Josh was in enough trouble already.
Selephin’s snigger broke his reverie.
‘Do you remember that time we had to inspire Newton?’ he asked, wrapping air quotes around ‘inspire’.
‘How many apples did you have to drop on him in the end?’
‘Fourteen. He was never the sharpest knife in the drawer.’
48
Dawn
Dawn broke as they stood at the prow, lighting a dark thunderhead of clouds that stretched across the horizon — bruising the sky with the purple shades of storms. Josh could smell the rain on the wind that raced toward them. The sails flapped idly above him, their lines swinging loose, untied from the wooden belaying pins. The ship was deathly silent, ghost-faced men with vicious knives and axes crouched on the deck, their faces painted white to resemble skulls.
This is the real ghost squad, Josh thought.
The colonel surveyed the widening dawn through an archaic leather telescope. Like the others, he too was wearing armour: a sturdy-looking chest plate and bracers as well as a heavy bronze sword that hung from his waist. The colonel had been adamant that Josh and Caitlin were not going to be joining the boarding party, and inwardly Josh was relieved — Caitlin was still fast asleep in the captain’s cabin and he didn’t fancy his chances in a sword fight with the Roman navy.
‘So this device would change the future — I mean the present?’ Josh asked.
‘It would accelerate the advancement of the human race,’ the colonel replied without taking his eyes off the sea.
‘And that’s a bad thing? What if it could help find new treatments — you know, like for MS?’
The colonel sighed and lowered the eyeglass. ‘Invention is a powerful agent of change. Your own millennia is proof that the human race is only just capable of controlling its self-destructive tendencies. Civilisation needs time to mature before it is ready for such technological advances — this is like handing a loaded gun to a six-year-old.’
‘So if we don’t stop this ship?’
‘Rome would conquer the known world in under a century, creating an empire unlike anything we have ever known. Science would develop exponentially based on their new calculus engines and within another three hundred years weapons of extinction-level destruction would have decimated the planet — give or take fifty years or so. Humanity would never make it out of the Middle Ages.’
‘Shit.’
‘Exactly. A time for everything and everything in good time.’
Suddenly a sail broke over the line of the horizon, distorting the edge of the world for a moment. The colonel snapped the telescope up to his eye once more as the first rumble of thunder rolled across the dark seas.
‘Go back to the cabin and don’t come out again until I say. She will fight you every minute she’s locked up in there — so you’ll have your work cut out for you.’
Josh watched the ship try to outrun them for a while. It was obvious from the way she sat so low in the water that she was far too heavy to get away.
He went down the hatch as the grappling hooks and lines sprang across the gap between the two boats. They were so close now that he could make out the faces of the Roman crewmen as they frantically tried to chop through the ropes.
Caitlin was still fast asleep, curled up under the furs that Selephin had given them. Josh watched her for a while. There was a contentment in her sleeping face that he never saw when she was awake. A stillness in the way she breathed that warmed his heart. Her skin was perfect, the faintest sprinkling of freckles brought about by the Greek sun across her cheekbones.
The sound of the two hulls scraping together resonated throughout the ship, and she sat bolt upright.
‘What are you doing?’ she snapped.
‘Nothing,’ he said shyly.
‘Were you watching me while I was asleep?’
‘No. That would be weird.’
She threw off the furs and stood up and stretched. ‘You totally were. Weirdo.’
The conversation was suddenly drowned out by the howls of Selephin’s crew as they began to board the Roman Galley.
‘Shit. Has it started?’ she asked, hurrying to one of the windows. ‘Come on, Josh! We’re missing it!’
‘It’s not safe. The colonel told me to keep you down here,’ he said, moving in front of the door.
‘Did he now? Why do you care?’ she scoffed. ‘Not because I’m a girl? Get real. I can kick your ass any day.’
There were screams from above and sounds of clashing metal as the hand-to-hand combat got underway.
‘There are people getting killed up there! It’s not like you have some kind of magic force field — this IS real, you could die.’
‘And you think I don’t know that?’ She had a steely look in her eyes, and there was a flush of red in her cheeks. ‘I don’t need a protector — you’re not some kind of knight in shining armour. You’re just . . .’
‘Just what exactly?’ He too could feel the anger building as he asked her. It was a question he’d been mulling over for weeks.
‘A complete pain in the backside!’ she declared. ‘You never think things through properly! You just jump in with both feet, and you have that stupid idiotic smile that you think makes everything all right!’
He tried not to smile as she said it.
‘Don’t!’ she said, raising one finger. ‘Do not say a word. Just get the hell out of my way.’
‘I will if you just answer one question,’ he said, wearing his best poker face.
Her eyes glared into his like lasers. ‘What?’
‘Do you ever wonder what happened to us back in the cave?’
‘No,’ she said, averting her eyes.
‘Well, I do. The Draconians wouldn’t tell me anything, but we must have survived! We must have had some kind of life! It took them forty years before they could locate us.’
She turned away from him, and he could feel the tension draining away.
‘Well, I probably saved your butt back then too,’ she said, looking around the room.
‘Yeah. I don’t know
what I would’ve done without you. Probably had to marry the daughter of some Neanderthal chieftain.’
She smirked as she turned back towards him. ‘Unlikely. They died out a long time before the Mesolithic.’
‘Okay, so maybe I shacked up with a polar bear, or something equally large and hairy.’
She smiled knowingly.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘Did the Draconians tell you what happened?’
She tried not to look too smug.
‘They did, didn’t they?’
Her smile grew wider, and her eyes flashed.
‘Tell me!’ He wanted to shake her, hold her, kiss her. His mind was going over all the things they must have got up to in that cave.
‘Maybe. When this is over.’ She backed away from him as he advanced. ‘And only if you behave yourself.’ She knelt on the couch and peered up out of the window again. The sounds of the battle were louder now. ‘It’s a Praetorian ship — Pompey’s elite fighting force — and Rufius and his merry band of pirates are trying to take them out. Don’t you think he needs all the help he can get?’
‘But he gave me an order not to let you out! I need to keep on his good side, remember?’
‘And what if the old fool doesn’t make it? Who’s going to speak up for you then?’ she said stubbornly. ‘I’m sure if Sim were here he’d put the odds at five-to-one against.’
Josh thought back to the events he had seen in the colonel’s lifeline, how close the strzyga attack had been to the point of death. He knew then that this battle might be his last.
Caitlin was rummaging around in one of the wooden chests. ‘You never struck me as the type who would leave a man behind,’ she said taking out a breastplate and a long sword.
‘I’m not. Where did you find —’
‘The colonel isn’t the only resourceful one on this mission. If I remember rightly, didn’t I take down a horde of ugly demon bitches yesterday?’
‘Yeah, okay,’ Josh said, moving away from the door, ‘but won’t I need a weapon too?’
‘Do you even know how to use one?’ she joked, handing him a short sword from one of the chests.
49
The Fight
Blood and rain dripped down through the cracks in the decking as they walked through the deserted lower decks.
Josh’s heart was thumping like a drum inside his chest, his senses heightened, every sound and smell magnified a thousand times — he had never felt so alive.
Caitlin made her way to the ladder and looked up at the small square of thunderous sky that loomed over it. She carefully placed one foot after the other until her head was just below the level of the deck and then peered out. What she saw seemed to drain the colour from her face. When she looked back down at Josh, there was nothing but fear in her eyes. He shook his head as if to say, ‘Don’t go,’ but she ignored him and leapt through the hatch.
He felt a cold shiver run down his spine, then followed her up and out into the fight.
Corpses littered the deck. An indistinguishable mass of limbs and assorted body parts lay scattered across the planks, which were slick with rain, blood and entrails. There was no way to tell how many had been lost from each side.
Through the sheeting rain, Josh caught a glimpse of Caitlin as she disappeared into the centre of the fight. Selephin, the colonel and a small band of what was left of the crew were surrounded by a circle of heavily armed Roman soldiers.
The colonel’s bald head towered over the helmets of the guards. It was covered in blood — he was wielding a large sword like a dervish in wide, deadly arcs, but the Romans were well drilled and held their ground, waiting for him to tire.
Josh could see the old man’s arm wavering a little more with every stroke and knew he was running out of steam.
One of the soldiers spotted Caitlin and turned to engage her. She leapt over a fallen body and struck high with her first blow, knocking him slightly off-balance. As she landed, she went low and sliced his leg with another cut above the knee. He went down quickly, and her sword buried itself into his neck.
Illuminated by a flash of lightning, Josh saw another soldier turn to attack Caitlin while she tried to free her blade. Josh picked up a discarded spear and threw it as hard as he could at the man.
The shaft buried itself in the chest of her attacker, and he crumpled. She turned and nodded her thanks before having to parry the blow from another centurion.
With the fight divided on two fronts, the Roman circle opened and gave Selephin and the colonel the break they needed. They carved their way through the ring of steel, and the fight fractured into a series of one-on-one melees across the deck.
The ship rocked violently as the storm-tossed waves did their best to throw them all into the sea. Josh was soaked to the skin and wiped his eyes free of the stinging salt water. He knew he would do more harm than good with the sword, so he found another spear and managed to take down a soldier who was about to gut one of the crew.
A few minutes later, the last of the Roman guard fell.
The storm calmed to a persistent drizzle, and an eerie silence fell over the survivors. Selephin gathered the remainder of his crew together, and they started dropping the dead unceremoniously overboard. A crewman lay struggling for breath close to where Josh was standing. He knelt down to help him, but Caitlin caught his hand before he made contact.
‘Best not to touch the dying,’ she said, panting with exhaustion. There was blood splattered across her cheek.
‘Why?’ he asked, pulling back his hand.
‘Bad things happen at the end of timelines.’
There was a tremor in her voice that spoke of something terrible. The man’s eyes rolled, he let out a last groan and was gone.
Josh looked out into the sea, realising that the men they’d killed were sinking slowly into the deep. It was an odd feeling to know that he could do it. Taking another life was very different when they were trying to end yours — it was a primitive survival instinct that required no emotion, no remorse — nothing like when Gossy had died. That was a cold, empty place in the pit of his soul, one that had taken years to stop staring into.
Caitlin knelt beside the dead man for a few seconds as if in prayer, then stood up and took off her chest plate.
‘Nice throwing arm you’ve got there,’ she said, tossing the dented armour over the side.
‘Remind me not to pick a fight with you,’ he replied, handing her a water skin that he’d found near one of the dead. It was hard to feel victorious standing amongst so many bodies, ones that had breathing a few minutes before. Selephin’s men seemed to have no qualms about it. They were already helping themselves to the captured wine barrels.
The colonel came over to them. He looked drained. His sword had been left in the body of the last man.
‘You disobeyed me.’
Josh nodded. ‘Guess I did.’
‘I think your training is over.’ He was panting and there was blood running down his arm when he slapped Josh on the shoulder. ‘Well done.’
Caitlin shot Josh a look of concern, but, before they could ask, Selephin swung back over on a rope carrying a polished wooden box. The colonel opened it and showed them all the small bronze astrological clock that lay inside.
‘So that’s what all the fuss was about?’ asked Selephin. ‘What is it?’
‘Analog computer, fourteenth century.’
‘OK, so now that you have your clock, I assume the rest is booty?’ Selephin smiled. His crew had already begun to transfer the contents of the captured ship to their hold.
‘The device must sink with the ship,’ the colonel said, handing back the box, ‘and we’ll follow this back to its maker.’ He held up a small gear wheel. ‘And don’t forget you need to leave enough treasure to look convincing when you scuttle it.’
Selephin was already standing on the gunwale, preparing to swing back over to the other ship.
‘Of course, my friend! Just enough to keep them guessing.’
> The colonel turned to Caitlin and Josh. ‘So you two have earned a break. I’ll follow this one up.’ He pocketed the gear wheel. ‘Go back home and get some rest.’
Caitlin shook her head. ‘Not before we get you to a doctor.’
Josh caught the colonel as he stumbled. He was like a dead weight. Caitlin unbuckled his armour to reveal a large red slash below his ribs. Josh realised it was in the same place as the dagger wound used to summon the strzyga.
Caitlin grimaced. ‘We need to get him to Dr Crooke right now!’
50
Bedlam
[Bishopsgate, London. Date: 11.647]
Doctor Helkiah Crooke was an imposing figure in his long black cloak and humped back. To Josh he looked more like an evil wizard than a physician — especially when his surgery had all the trappings of a medieval torture chamber.
A stern-looking woman dressed in a nun’s habit ushered Caitlin and Josh out of the room, telling them that the colonel’s treatment would take many hours, and banished them to the outer rooms.
Josh was tired and sore. He’d wasted enough time in waiting rooms and had grown to despise them. It seemed that no matter which era you were in, they always had a lingering odour of disease weakly masked by chemicals.
‘Is there a garden or something?’ Josh asked as he paced around, trying not to look at the pale organs that sat in fluid-filled specimen jars on the shelves.
‘There’s a herbarium,’ Caitlin replied. ‘It’s a garden, or we could go back to the chapter house?’
‘No. I just want to get some fresh air.’
The herbarium was set within the main quadrangle of Bethlem hospital, or Bedlam as it was more commonly known. On every side, the old redbrick walls were covered in ivy and climbing roses. It was midday and the sunlight bathed the small garden, which had been divided into four sections, each with a planter full of medicinal herbs. In the centre was a neatly clipped lawn with a small stone fountain surrounded by a circular bench.
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 27