“Your commander,” Cade said, his Latin broken and stilted, “he did not seem … happy to see us.”
Marius lifted a finger to his lips.
“Not here,” he said. “We will speak on the way.”
Cade’s eyes widened. Marius had answered in English.
CHAPTER
14
The grass was sticky-damp against their legs as they trudged through the grasslands, but Cade was grateful that their way had already been trampled by the Romans on their journey to the fort.
Their path was a clear swath through the purple sea, and Cade wondered how Marius would have navigated the landscape without it. They had walked for a good half hour by now, but Marius had not stopped for one minute, seemingly eager to get as far from the fort as possible before continuing their conversation.
They had hardly introduced themselves before Marius had outpaced them, his skinny legs belying a wiry strength and stamina that they could not match.
Trix and Yoshi, especially, were struggling to keep up, for both had superficial yet painful cuts to their legs. And Cade’s own wrist was pulsing with every beat of his heart, where a spear had somehow slipped through the hinge of his armor.
“Marius,” Cade called, this time in English. “We’ve got to slow down. Some of us are wounded.”
At those words, the Roman held up a hand, halting the procession.
“Come,” he said, sidling off their path and into the grasses. “We rest here, away from any that follow.”
He lifted each foot with care as he walked, taking long steps and carefully threading through the grass so as not to disturb it unduly. Cade mirrored his movements, and soon the group was seated amid the grass, close together and off the beaten path.
“I am sure you have many questions,” Marius said before Cade could open his mouth. “But first, I must ask you to answer mine. Who are you, and how did you come to know Quintus?”
To Cade’s surprise, he could almost detect a slight French accent among the more typical Latin one that he had first heard in New Rome.
Cade paused, struggling to encompass their past year in as few words as possible.
“We come from a time far beyond your own,” Cade said. “Brought by the gods to replace you as contenders. I assume you were with Quintus’s legion?”
Marius nodded.
“We have successfully won two rounds in defense,” Cade continued, “but now we’ve been forced to attack. The eight of us were sent on our own.”
This time, Marius snorted. “Of course. We suffer, and the new gods laugh.”
Cade wondered whether to tell Marius of the true identity of these so-called new gods, but thought better of it.
“How do you know English?” Cade asked.
“A man named Louis Le Prince,” Marius replied. “He lived with us in this place for years, before he died from a sickness. From him, we learned the wonders of your future … and it was I who was tasked to learn it from him.”
So that explained the accent—Le Prince had been born in France.
“Not all of the wonders,” Cade said. “We come from beyond Le Prince’s time, by more than a century.”
Marius shrugged. “The world does not change so quickly.”
Cade begged to differ, but now was not the time for a history lesson. “What happened to you? How are you still alive?” he asked.
Now it was Marius’s turn to pause.
“We came here with thousands of men,” he said. “Even I did not know how many. In truth, I do not know the specifics of our mission here, for I am but a centurion, and our leader does not divulge his plans.”
“The … legatus?” Amber asked.
“Yes, Atticus Publius. A worse leader I have never known … but I stray from the path of your question. Our task was to attack the headquarters of our enemy, and leave none alive inside.”
“Those Grays we were fighting?” Scott interrupted.
“Yes … we call them the Tritons.”
Marius stood a little higher as he said their name, peering out across the grasslands. Satisfied, he resumed his seat.
“Our legion joined those who had been here on Acies before us. I did not know the leaders, for they led us but for a few days before their death. We had been given a year to defeat these … Grays … but it was our commanders’ decision to attack as soon as we arrived, for we did not know the land—what to eat, what to drink.”
He spat to the side, as if disgusted by this decision, though Cade wondered if he would have done any different. Feeding several thousand men by living off an alien land seemed a daunting prospect.
“We sent scouts to discover their headquarters and attacked as soon as we found it. Apparently a surprise attack was to be better than a siege. But, as we charged … bright lights flashed … and our men who were struck by them turned to dust before my very eyes. It was as if Medusa herself stared out from their fortress. Yet our leaders refused to retreat, sending them on into the moving light. Halfway through the battle the lights stopped, but our men could only pound at their front gates as arrows rained from above. Only those in the baggage train at the back survived.”
He wiped at his eyes.
“Only the weakest, the sick, and the injured were in the baggage train. And with it the most incompetent of their commanders … Atticus. It is he who has led us all this time since. Who let the timer expire, and thus let our Codex abandon us. Now, we only fight to survive. I had thought we would never see another human soul again. Yet here you are.”
“So … if we attack again, there will be another flash of light?” Amber asked. Cade could only guess it was a futuristic weapon of some sort.
Marius shook his head. “We believe that they used all their … ammunition … in our first attack. Since then, we have never seen these lights again, even when we ambushed one of their patrols in front of their gates to try to draw them out. They appear to have been reduced to our level once more—it is the only reason we have been able to survive. They have attacked us many times, yet we prevailed. They are poor fighters.”
It was some relief to hear Marius say that.
“Do you think if you were to attack them now, with all your men, you could win?” Scott asked.
Marius shrugged.
“If they met us in open battle, perhaps. There are less than a thousand of them, as far as we can guess, and two hundred of us. But their fort is impenetrable. Our catapults could not pierce its shell when we attacked, though we have not tried since.”
With those words, he stood, and motioned for them to follow, even as Cade sat stunned. All that time … fighting for survival.
“Come,” Marius instructed. “We have a long way to travel yet.”
CHAPTER
15
They arrived at sunset. Early enough for Cade to see the sorry place that the Romans had come to call home.
It was a simple wooden fort. Most likely of earthly origin, for Cade had yet to see any trees on their long journey there. He doubted the half-rotten logs that made up the wall of the fort were from this world.
“Codex,” Cade whispered. “What is this place?”
He did not see the Codex fly off, nor the blue flash as it scanned the fort, but he did hear the quiet reply in his ear.
“Remnant is Fort Caroline, built by several hundred French explorers attempting to colonize Florida in 1564. The settlers were massacred and the fort taken by Spanish conquistadors in 1565, only for the same to happen to them by avenging French soldiers in 1568. The Spanish retook the fort a final time, but later abandoned it. The fort, which was rebuilt three times in the various battles for control of Florida, has never been seen since.”
By the time the Codex finished its long explanation, Cade and his friends had followed Marius to a drawbridge that slowly creaked down over a narrow moat filled with stagnant water.
The fort was triangular in shape, with three bulwarks at each corner. These, in turn, had rusted cannons set in their walls,
and sentries in Roman armor patrolled the battlements, their helmets shining bright against the setting sun.
“Marius!” bellowed a soldier in Latin. “What news of the smoke?”
“Jupiter smiles upon us!” Marius replied. “A new headquarters, a stone fort … and new friends!”
By now more men had gathered on the battlements—their faces dirty, and almost as skinny as the Grays had been.
Still, their wide grins were welcoming enough, a stark contrast to Atticus’s greeting. At least the rank and file were happy about their arrival.
As the drawbridge thudded to the ground, the men gathered behind it rushed out to greet them.
“Halt!” Marius yelled. “All men but the sentries are to form up in the courtyard immediately.”
The crowd dispersed, much to Cade’s relief.
“Come,” Marius said. “We will bring you food and water. We shall have to work through the night if we are to be ready to leave by morning.”
Across the bridge, log cabins scattered the grounds, with a larger and grander one at the camp’s very center. Marius motioned for them to enter.
“Make yourselves comfortable. I shall instruct the men.”
Despite Marius’s orders to assemble, the men were staring at Amber, Grace, Bea, and Trix. It was then that Cade noted that there was not a single woman present. From the uncomfortable looks of the girls, they had noticed this too.
“Come on,” Amber said.
The inside of the lodge was single story, the walls painted orange by a crackling hearth built into one of the walls. Beams of daylight sliced through the gloom, where shooting slits and broken slats perforated the old shell of the building.
It was a relief to sit on the old logs by the fire, but somehow they had little to say as they stared into the flames. Their long walk had given Cade plenty of time to think, but he hadn’t expected to find this.
Yes, there were soldiers. But the state of them and their camp had shocked him. These men were on their last legs. Two hundred of them against a thousand Grays? It was impossible.
As his mind drifted, Cade saw bundles of purple grass piled like straw beside the fire. Curious, he threw in a handful, and was surprised to see it smolder and feed the flame slowly and steadily, rather than burn up in a flash as he had expected.
Some time later, Marius came back. He sighed and sat heavily beside them, before glancing up at their apparent fascination with the burning grass.
“A godsend,” he said. “Or a curse, depending on how you look at it. The … Grays, you called them … they use this grass for everything. They pulp it and glue it to use as wood. They burn it for fuel, as we do. It is surprisingly versatile, though, sadly, we cannot eat it. We have ranged far and wide on this plain, and there is but grass, and the creatures that live here.”
“Before you go further, can you tell us how you know Quintus?” Cade asked. “Will he be … okay? With Atticus?”
Marius sighed deeply and stared into the flames.
“I knew Quintus when he was a legionary. I looked out for him where I could. We didn’t speak much, for I was his superior. But we were friends, of a sorts. As for Atticus. Who can say? If the boy answers his questions, he will be safe. If not…”
He let his words trail off, and a man stumbled into the lodge, bowing to the new arrivals with reverence.
“Centurion, are your guests hungry?” the man asked in Latin.
Marius slapped his head and turned to Cade and his friends. “Of course, I am so rude. Please, some food?”
The new arrival barked an order in Latin, and another man entered, carrying wooden bowls on a platter.
“I … thank you,” Cade mumbled as a bowl was handed to each of them.
His stomach turned as he saw what was within.
Insects. Or something very much like them. Stag beetles, if he had to make a close approximation, but with eight legs, and far more eyes—now sunken cavities after cooking—than even the most nightmarish of spiders.
They had been charred and roasted, such that he could not tell their original color. The meal sat in a pool of its own juices, and Cade struggled to find a single thing appetizing about it.
“I’m not sure if I can keep this down,” Bea said, her voice queasy.
She looked up at Marius, who smiled back.
“It’s better if you think of it as a crab,” he said, cracking a leg free and slurping at the white meat within. “It’s almost all we have eaten since we arrived, beyond some parsnips we have managed to grow.”
Amber threw Cade a glance, motioning at the sack of jerky they had brought with them.
“Here,” she said. “Try this.”
Marius took the bag and withdrew a morsel of the dried jerky. For a moment he stared at it as if it were a jewel.
He lay it on his tongue reverently and bit down, his eyes closed in apparent ecstasy. He chewed slowly, only gulping down when he had extracted the last bit of flavor from the food.
Marius proffered the sack back to Amber, but she held up her hands.
“It’s all yours,” she said, glaring at Scott as he groaned softly.
Cade took hold of an insectile leg and pulled it free with a soft crack. He held it up, then sucked the meat into his mouth.
To his surprise, it was bland and rubbery—like unseasoned tofu.
“Thank you,” he said as the starving Marius stuffed a handful of jerky into his mouth. “For everything. We won’t forget this.”
CHAPTER
16
Cade woke to the sound of deep voices calling to one another outside. It was strange to be in the presence of so many. He had become used to the soft voices of his companions, and the lazy mornings that had made up the last few months.
They had slept around the fire, exhausted by the battle and their walk, though not before a medic had bandaged their wounds. Now, the others preferred to rest inside, but as Marius’s voice barked orders at the men, Cade’s curiosity outweighed his tiredness. Quintus had been a Roman, true, and Cade had spent many an hour learning the reality of Roman history from him. But now he could actually see a legionary camp in action.
Disappointingly, when Cade emerged from the cabin, he found no camp at all. Rather, a dismantled shell, with the very palisade and surrounding cabins reduced to a few scattered logs.
The sun had hardly risen, and the sky was a wan dark blue that put Cade on edge. The area remained a hive of activity, men running to and fro, loading tools and supplies onto rickety wagons, alongside the piles of logs that had once made up the small fort. There were no animals in the traces, and instead the soldiers themselves were harnessed to the front.
“Good, you’re awake.”
It was Marius, his eyes shadowed after what must have been a sleepless night.
“You work fast,” Cade said.
Marius grinned. “The men were eager to leave. And once the walls come down we are open to attack. Fear is the greatest enemy of idle hands.”
He waved away the look of worry on Cade’s face. “I have scouts watching for the enemy. That is one benefit of this flat, cursed land. No surprises.”
Cade relaxed, if only slightly. There was no telling what technology the Grays had at their disposal. They may have put up with the Romans in their land thus far, perhaps reserving their soldiers and resources for whatever challenge their equivalent of Abaddon had in store for them.
But this was now part of the game. And with the slaughter of their patrol—one tenth of their entire army no less, if Marius’s guess at their numbers was accurate—they would be making moves soon.
“Should I tell the others to come out, so you can take their wood too?” Cade asked.
“We cannot take everything here,” Marius said, scratching the shadow of stubble on his chin. “There are only six wagons—all we could salvage after we lost our first battle. A waste to leave all this wood. Perhaps we will return.”
Cade saw that it was not just the cabin that remained. The can
nons set in the walls had also been abandoned, left in the dirt where the gun platforms had once been.
“You aren’t seriously leaving the cannons too?” Cade asked, pointing at the rusted hulks and the iron balls scattered beside them.
Marius chuckled. “Our friend Louis told us what they were,” he said. “But we have never been able to use them. No … powder, I think he called it.”
Cade sighed. Of course. Gunpowder had existed in the time of the Romans, but had only been used in east Asia. They would have little idea of how to make it. Then again, even if they had known, they would have had a slim chance at best of gathering the ingredients in this alien world.
“What will you do when we move to the new fort?” Cade asked. “Now that my friends and I are here, things must be different.”
Marius laughed. “Ask Atticus,” he said. “The man tells us nothing of his plans. Long we have asked to attack once more, to end this eternal waiting. But instead he still tries to draw them out. Over the years, we have ambushed their patrols, whittled down their numbers. But look at us.”
He gestured to his own, skinny body.
“We waste away, living off a barren land of grass and vermin. Our men sicken and die, our weapons rust. It cannot continue.”
“It won’t,” Cade said, his words more confident than he felt. “We only have five days to defeat the Grays.”
“And what happens if you fail?” Marius asked.
Cade hesitated. “Our world will be destroyed. Earth. I know everyone you left behind is long dead, but … would you still fight for it?”
Marius bit his lip. “I had not thought of it. We came here because the gods told us to, and our commanders ordered us the same. Now, our men want this to end. But five days … there is little time to prepare.”
Then he shrugged. “What we want is not the question. It is Atticus you must convince.”
Cade shuddered. The man he had met at Jomsborg had not seemed like a man who could be easily swayed, nor one who had particularly welcomed their arrival. Even now, he would be interrogating Quintus.
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