Rune Warrior

by Frank Morin

  The explosion shook the ground, but sounded far less intense than Sarah expected. The shockwave rebounded against her shield wall, which withstood the onslaught. It suffered a severe drain, and sucked more power from the stolen rune web which kept it intact.

  She still recoiled from the fire boiling inches away, even though it was repulsed by her shield, as was the full weight of the shockwave and much of the heat. The air grew warm, but did not sear her skin.

  Rosetta was not so lucky. Robbed of her web, she was left defenseless against the blast, magnified by the backlash off of Sarah’s shield.

  She didn’t even have time to scream.

  The smoke cleared within seconds, but all that remained of Rosetta was the charred sole of one of her boots.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them. Sometimes I wonder when I meet with Shahrokh, am I the sheep, or the shepherd?

  ~Tiberius, the third life of Julius Caesar

  “Take out that surveillance,” Tomas ordered, his voice calm despite the near-roasting.

  Only three seconds passed before Anaru responded. “Target down.”

  Sarah hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from the charred ground and the one tiny remnant of Rosetta. The woman had been heka, a supporter of Paul, and clearly a bad person, but that death had been disgusting. Sarah had wanted to defeat Rosetta, but not incinerate her.

  Anaru’s report filtered through her shocked thoughts. Just like that, another life had ended. They weren’t in the memoryscape where the people they killed were shades of the once-living. Rosetta and the unknown watcher had been living, breathing people.

  Now they were dead.

  Tomas took Sarah’s arm and led her gently south, where she spotted a couple enforcers between the trees. They no longer bothered to hide their rifles, and scanned the ruins of the nearby Palatine Hill with binoculars, looking for additional threats.

  “Are you all right?” Tomas asked, his expression concerned. “That blast didn’t hurt you, did it?”

  “No. Just startled by the suddenness of it.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “You did amazing. I hate getting blown up.”

  She started to respond, but then realized she hadn’t released her shield wall. It was still protecting an empty spot of ground on the Circus field. The rune web she’d stolen from Rosetta still fueled it, but so did another source.

  Sarah frowned and studied the hill to the north. She interrupted Tomas, who was conversing with his men. “Hey, there are more people up on that hill. My cipher is tapping them too.”

  “How many?”

  “I’m not sure, but quite a few. I re-used that cipher we tested by the prison, and I didn’t have time to turn off the directional pointers. They’re aimed at the hill, and it found souls to siphon.”

  “We have no visuals on more targets,” Tomas said. “Or we would have taken them out by now.”

  He scanned the park, now empty of pedestrians who had scattered when the bomb detonated. “We need to move. The police will arrive soon, and we don’t have time to deal with that.”

  As he led her toward a nearby street where they would meet up with one of the mobile support teams, he added, “Rosetta didn’t know about your rune warrior abilities. If not for that trump card, that suicide vest would’ve hurt.”

  “So it was a trap,” Sarah said.

  “Perhaps,” Tomas replied thoughtfully. “The only other possibility was that Spartacus wanted us to find this hideout.”

  Sarah frowned. “Hey, that web just went down, and my access to those souls just got severed.” Her wall fizzled when the fuel source ran dry.

  “They’re on to you,” Tomas said. “Either the enchanter who was running the web realized you subverted it, or felt the soul drain. He’ll retool the web and use it for something else, probably an attempt to protect his people from you. We don’t have much time.”

  As soon as they hopped into the back of a large van and settled into jump seats along the interior walls, Tomas switched frequencies to the central hub and reported in to Gregorios and Eirene. They linked in Harriett, who was in charge of the Yurak forces.

  “It has to be Palatine Hill,” Tomas concluded. “I think we’ve found Paul’s hideout.”

  “John mentioned tunnels,” Eirene said.

  “Someone’s waxing poetic,” Gregorios commented.

  “Why?” Sarah asked.

  “Palatine Hill is where it all started,” Eirene explained. “It’s where the founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, were supposedly raised by a wolf.”

  “They weren’t though, were they?” Sarah asked, hoping for a simple answer for once.

  She should have known better.

  “Not exactly,” Gregorios said. “They were sons of an ambitious mother who made the mistake of betraying a foul-tempered facetaker.”

  “He was a piece of work from everything you’ve told me about him,” Eirene said.

  “You didn’t know him?” Sarah asked.

  “Before my time.”

  “Wow.” It surprised Sarah to think anything might be older than Eirene.

  “He didn’t survive many lives,” Gregorios said. “But he punished that unfaithful lover by transferring her soul to the body of a wolf.”

  “Is that possible?” Sarah asked.

  “Doesn’t usually take,” Gregorios said.

  “Where do you think they get all the stories of werewolves?” Eirene asked.

  “You can’t be serious?” Sarah exclaimed.

  “They’re serious,” Tomas said. “I had to put one down in Russia in 1905. Nasty.”

  “This one took better than most,” Gregorios said. “She survived long enough to raise her boys. Remus wore her pelt for years after she died.”

  “That’s gross.” Sarah said.

  She heard the shrug in Gregorios’ voice. “Good pelts were worth a lot. They were just mortals, but the legends got so twisted, we never bothered eradicating them.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tomas said. “You’re saying Rome was founded by offspring of a facetaker.”

  “I’d say chances were at least fifty percent he fathered them,” Gregorios said.

  “The important thing though,” Eirene interrupted. “Is that Spartacus has history with that hill.”

  “Let me guess, another part of history you wrote out?” Sarah asked.

  “Our historians did tweak the event,” Gregorios admitted. “Julius reigned through several descendants all the way down to Caligula.”

  Eirene grimaced. “One jump too many.”

  “I’ve heard Caligula was crazy,” Sarah said.

  “Advanced mental dissipation,” Gregorios confirmed. “We were going to remove him since he’d become a danger to himself and everything we’d worked so hard to set up, but Spartacus assassinated him again.”

  “This time it worked,” Eirene added. “He died in the Cryptoporticus. Tunnels below his palace. Archaeologists recently discovered part of those tunnels connecting the ruins of his palace on Palatine Hill to the Forum.”

  “Spartacus knows there’s a whole warren of tunnels down there,” Gregorios said. “The world’s forgotten about them.”

  “I’ll send sketches to your teams,” Eirene said. “You’ll have them in five minutes.”

  “Finally, the intel is lining up,” Tomas said. “No wonder we didn’t find them earlier.”

  “Like moles going to ground,” Harriett’s voice was muffled, as if she was speaking around a bite of muffin. It amazed Sarah that she maintained such a pretty, petite figure despite her constant baking. “I’m ordering up the heavy weapons, just in case. Yurak will be ready to rendezvous at the hill by the time you are.”

  “Hold the line,” Gregorios interrupted. “Bastien has an urgent report.”

  Sarah wished there was a window to see where the van was taking them. “It doesn’t really make sense that Spartacus
invited you to a duel right in their backyard.”

  “Maybe his ties to Paul were even looser than we’d hoped,” Tomas said.

  Gregorios came back on the line. “Or it’s all an elaborate ploy, an attempt to disable you and focus our attention on a location they no longer need.”

  “They’re using it,” Tomas said. “Guaranteed.”

  “It’s not all they’re using,” Gregorios said. “Tomas, you and the Tenth have to take out the base in that hill and eradicate all heka presence.”

  “And Yurak?” Harriett asked.

  “You’ve got a new directive,” Gregorios said, his voice grim. “We just learned why Spartacus didn’t meet you down there. He’s already on the move and I need Yurak to intercept. Alter, Bastien and I will rendezvous with you.”

  “Where?” Sarah and Tomas asked in unison.

  “Turn on the news,” Gregorios said.

  While Tomas called for a tablet from one of his men, Sarah fought to conceal her growing dread. She thought back to the message Rosetta had delivered. It seemed Rosetta’s bombing had been but the first surprise attack.

  Eirene piped in. “Sarah, get back to Suntara immediately. If Spartacus is moving openly, Paul will be entering the memoryscape to get that other master rune. You and I have to stop him.”

  New tension sounded in everyone’s voices. Sarah wasn’t a soldier, but even she could tell that the advantage had shifted to Paul. They were splitting their forces and reacting. That wasn’t the best way to win.

  Worse, she was going after Paul in the memoryscape with only Eirene. They’d never stopped him before, but the stakes had never been higher. She wondered if her ciphers could hold him.

  Tomas whistled softly as soon as the news feed came up. “Sarah, you’ve got to see this.”

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar. But in praising Caesar beforetime, I fear I indeed yielded the honor of the nation. Baladeva, my fount of eternal youth, warns that Caesar’s many lives may be fueled by one as evil as Sutekh, may his cursed name be removed from all inscriptions. I will not reign over a nation so spoiled, and I will not be triumphed over.

  ~Cleopatra, 29 B.C.

  Gregorios turned to the flat-panel television embedded in the wall as Bastien selected a local news station. The live video feed came from a helicopter hovering over the Tiber River.

  Eighty men marched in formation across the stone bridge outside the Castel Sant’Angelo. They were dressed like Roman legionnaires, complete with authentic armor and weapons. They also carried assault rifles slung over their shoulders. It looked like a full century, one of the six units of an ancient Roman cohort.

  At the head of the small army marched Spartacus, dressed as a gladiator, carrying an oaken spear. Tomas’ body was easily recognizable.

  Gaping tourists and surprised locals all melted out of the century’s path, offering no resistance as they closed on the Castel.

  The Castel. Several pieces clicked into place.

  Gregorios cursed, and he preferred cursing in Latin. The words carried more weight than the flimsy profanities popular in recent centuries.

  “I assume you have a point,” Eirene broke in finally. She was nice enough to wait until after he’d used a particularly good one.

  Gregorios pointed at the screen. “That’s what Spartacus and John were talking about. It’s not the master rune they’re after.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Sarah said, her voice sounding on the speakers in the room. Gregorios almost cringed. He had forgotten how many people could hear him over the open mike.

  “Well, maybe they still want the master rune,” Gregorios conceded. “But they’re also after another forbidden rune.”

  “They have the forbidden runes,” Alter said as he entered the room from the nearby galley kitchen, a muffin in each hand.

  “Not all of them,” Gregorios said. “Some of the most powerful forbidden runes ever discovered are hidden right here in Rome.”

  “And you didn’t think to share that with us before now?” Eirene asked.

  He shrugged. “I hadn’t made the connection. They’re a well-guarded secret. I only found out about them by chance. Haven’t even thought about them in centuries.”

  Thankfully, no one made a comment about old age and memory loss.

  “I’ve never heard of them,” Alter said.

  “Secret,” Gregorios reminded him.

  “How’d you find out about them?” Eirene asked. He didn’t miss the spark of annoyance that he’d kept the secret from her.

  On the television, a polizia tried to intercept Spartacus. They couldn’t hear what he said, but no doubt he wanted to see permits for the assault rifles.

  Spartacus grabbed the officer by the shirt and hoisted him in the air. As the man grabbed for his sidearm, Spartacus tossed him off the bridge in a show of unusual restraint. In the past, he would’ve just run the man through.

  Enlightened or not, Spartacus still posed a dire threat. Gregorios was more than a little surprised by a flicker of regret at the thought of having to kill the man.

  “When Rome was sacked back in 410, you were so busy defeating Spartacus, you didn’t realize there were other goals for the invasion,” Gregorios explained.

  “How would you know that?” Eirene asked. “You were bronzed and stuck on a wall.”

  “I learned about it later. When Rome was sacked again in A.D. 537, it was nothing but a diversion for a group of heka hunting those runes. Again they failed. But I was here in 1527, the last time Rome was sacked.”

  “That recent?” Sarah asked.

  “That conflict always seemed a bit forced,” Eirene said.

  “It was.” For the younger members of the team he explained. “The army of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth invaded.”

  “Hold on,” Sarah interrupted. “How could Rome be invaded by the Roman Emperor?”

  “It was his army,” Gregorios explained. “But it was redirected by the manipulations of a very clever enchanter. The history books claim the army mutinied from lack of pay, and marched on Rome, looking for loot. That’s partially true, but a group of heka led by that enchanter were embedded in that force. The purpose of the invasion was cover for their assault, with the goal of acquiring those forbidden runes.”

  Harriett exclaimed, “The Swiss Guard!”

  “Exactly.” She was always a quick study, especially after breakfast. “During the invasion, the Swiss Guard protecting the pope made their famous last stand. One hundred and forty-seven of the one hundred and eighty-nine members of the guard died to give the pope time to retreat. The history books leave out the fact that the attackers were enhanced.”

  Eirene caught on. “The other forty guardsmen took Pope Clement the Seventh away.”

  “Yes,” Gregorios confirmed. “They retreated through the Pasetto di Borgo. To the Castel.”

  “I still don’t get how this ties to forbidden runes,” Alter said.

  “That’s where I came in,” Gregorios said. “I intervened and killed the leader of the heka, a man almost as enhanced as Spartacus had been. One of the fallen guard was gravely wounded, but he lingered far longer than he should have. He bore a unique rune, unlike any I’d seen before.”

  “You tortured the truth out of him?” Alter asked, his expression horrified.

  “Eat your muffin and don’t ask stupid questions,” Gregorios growled. “I tried to save his life, but he slipped into delirium. Kept rattling on about his mission.”

  “Protecting the pope,” Sarah suggested.

  “No, protecting the secret. I learned enough that during the confusion of the next few days, I dug through some of the restricted Papal archives.”

  “You infiltrated the Vatican?” Bastien asked. “I am impressed.”

  “Wasn’t so hard back then. Still, it took a while. I persuaded an archivist to help me look. Those stacks are huge.”

  “So you did torture someone,” Alter sa
id.

  “You’re interrupting the story,” Gregorios said. Anything could sound bad if he listened with that attitude. “I discovered the Vatican had acquired the stash of extremely dangerous runes centuries before and had concealed them. They considered the runes religious artifacts. They call them the Manifestation of the Glorious Power of the Almighty God.”

  “Seriously?” Eirene asked.

  “That’s a quote. During that famous last stand, the pope had transferred the runes to the Castel and concealed them somewhere.”

  “Where?” four people asked together.

  Gregorios shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Eirene gave him a disgusted look. “Dear, next time you stumble across a secret this important, do your homework.”

  “I spent months tracking down that much,” he protested. “They hadn’t been pressing enough to spend more time. No one knows about the runes.”

  “Apparently someone does,” Eirene said, turning to the television where Spartacus was marching unhindered through the main gate into the Castel.

  Gregorios punched the intercom. “Quentin, get in here.”

  He arrived a moment later, dressed in combat gear that still somehow made him look more like a dapper gentleman than a combat veteran. Maybe it was the starched white shirt under his flak vest.

  “How are your contacts with the Vatican these days?” Gregorios asked.

  “Reasonably good.”

  Gregorios explained the situation. “Find someone who can track down those runes. I doubt they’ll know what they’re looking for, even if you give them the name. That’s our one chance to actually get a solid lead.”

  “I’ll see what I can dig up,” Quentin said, not sounding optimistic.

  “Even better,” Eirene added. “Warn them of a credible threat from terrorists in the Castel and set up communication channels. Vatican defense forces are small.”

  “Good idea,” Harriett said. “We need to be on-site and allowed through. I don’t want local forces getting in the way.”

  “Excellent,” Quentin said. I’ll arrange preauthorization with defense forces for our units to intervene.”