Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome

by Edward Crichton

  All except a pair of Roman Praetorians, an asshole, and my darling sister, that is.

  They were way behind schedule now, and I couldn’t imagine what was keeping them. Then again, it were the reasons I couldn’t imagine that worried me. Maybe we’d read everything completely wrong. Perhaps Remus was in fact trying to save the world from the tyranny of Romulus, in his own warped way, and we were wrong to place our trust in Romulus. It was completely possible he’d torn our rescue team to shreds just for appearing before him.

  I clenched my eyes shut and tossed the thought from my mind like a crumpled piece of paper with a bad idea written on it. Everything was fine. There were dozens of things that could delay them, the least of which being that their job required them to navigate an ancient prison system that had to be about as confusing as a labyrinth. Which meant it was completely possible that an actual Minotaur was done there, stalking them, maybe even eating them…

  “What’s wrong, Jacob?” Helena asked.

  Her voice jerked me awake, and I turned to look at her. “Hmm, what?”

  “Your hands,” she said, nodding at them.

  It was then that I noticed them shaking, causing the binoculars to rattle in my grip.

  I set it down and squeezed my hands into fists, clenching them tightly, holding them like that for as long as I could before it grew uncomfortable. When I opened my hands, the trembling was gone, and I let out a long breath of relief.

  I turned back to Helena. “Sorry.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me, her face fully of worry. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Fine. My mind was wandering.”

  A tiny smile grew on her face. “Well, at least that hasn’t changed.”

  I smirked, but it wasn’t a particularly joyful look. “I guess you’re right, but trust me, I’m fine. Frosty.”

  She didn’t answer as she continued to look at me, and I knew that while she wanted to trust me, it must be difficult now. I looked away awkwardly, and pressed the PTT button on my radio.

  “Ground Team-Actual, status.”

  “Bored,” came the reply immediately.

  “Just give me a sitrep.”

  “Still waiting on Rescue-1. No sign of the Wizard either. They’re about to sacrifice a cow, but I moved us out of the splash zone. Over.”

  I sent him a double click and nothing more. There wasn’t anything else to say. In fact, I was slightly jealous that he could be bored right now. Bored would be nice. I’d take bored over frustrated and anxious in any situation. Bored meant relaxed. Bored meant…

  My radio crackled to life again.

  “Uh, check that, Sniper-1,” came Santino’s voice in my ear again. “Something’s… happening on stage.”

  I reached for my binoculars and slammed them against my eyes, zeroing in on the wedding platform. In the course of a minute, the scene had shifted from tranquility to chaos, all because a single individual the size of a tiny house had gone completely out of control. Remus was stumbling like a drunken fool, spinning in wide, uncontrolled circles, his feet splintering floorboards as he stomped and strutted around the platform like Ric Flair in a wrestling ring. His arms flailed wildly, but powerfully, and one young woman who must have been one of Agrippina’s personal servants, flew through the air and into the crowd below when she was struck by one of his frenzied swings.

  The scene lasted only a few seconds more before Remus, in one last violent convulsion, flopped onto his back. The impact threw those on the platform to the ground around him, some falling from the stage like the poor woman earlier. He’d hit like an earthquake going off beneath their feet, and I felt my jaw drop at what I was seeing.

  I clicked my PTT button. “What happened?”

  “No idea,” Santino reported. “Everything was going fine until he and Agrippina drank some wine. Then… that happened!”

  “Wait,” I said, “he drank wine and then went into a fit?”

  “Yeah, but they drank from the same cup. He couldn’t have been poisoned.”

  “Agrippina would spend years poisoning herself in miniscule doses to build up an immunity just so that she could pull a stunt like this,” I said, wondering if she would actually try to poison Remus, and for what purpose. I stared through my binoculars, trying to make sense of what was happening as I gauged the crowd reaction.

  A panic was setting in, slow to build but about ready to boil over. An entire crowd of thousands was growing restless, each and every one of them trying to look over each other for a better view, yelling at people in their immediate vicinity and acting otherwise unruly and very mob-like. These people didn’t even know Remus, but they were obviously in love with him, and a riot was likely unless more Praetorians showed up to quell the anger.

  It seemed as though Agrippina had done our job for us. Perhaps she had atoned for some of what…

  “Look, Jacob!” Helena exclaimed, and I could hear her rifle rattle as she repositioned it against her shoulder.

  I wasn’t sure where she wanted me to look at, but the view through my binoculars drifted to where Remus had fallen. The first thing I saw was Agrippina, her hands covering her mouth, but the expression on her face wasn’t of concern, but sheer, outright fear. And the reason for why was growing clearer by the second as Remus slowly rose to his feet. His skin was paler than normal and his body seemed weak, but rise he did, and the expression on his face was not happy.

  I saw his mouth moving with intense vigor, and I understood immediately that he was yelling. There was no way I could hear him from this great distance so I didn’t even try to understand. Instead, I focused on Agrippina’s tiny form as she backed away, her mouth moving just as quickly, but to no effect. Remus no longer seemed interested in a wedding, his face ablaze with fury, and I knew their planned nuptial was about to turn into a coup.

  “What should I do?” Helena asked.

  “Well… I guess you could just kill her now.”

  “I’ve got no shot,” Helena retorted.

  I grumbled under my breath, taking notice through my binoculars of the dozens upon dozens of Praetorians entering the venue, many taking up defensive stations before Agrippina, spears and shields at the ready. Even more streamed into the surrounding area, hundreds upon hundreds more.

  “Sniper-1, Ground Team-Actual,” came Santino’s voice in my ear. “This is turning into a real charlie foxtrot. Please advise, over.”

  “Standby,” I commed as I turned to Helena. “What do you think?”

  “He’s going to kill her, Jacob.”

  “So?”

  She turned to me, fire in her eyes. “I can’t let him kill her. I can’t. I have to do it. I have…”

  “Helena, calm down,” I said, recognizing the anger she felt right now. “We’ll wait for Romulus. Then you can kill her all you…”

  Helena’s nose flared for just a second before she snapped her eyes back behind her scope, and I swore under my breath, knowing what she was about to do. I trained my binoculars down range, quickly taking in the sight of Remus throwing Praetorians left and right in an attempt to get at Agrippina. There was no stopping him, and there was no stopping Helena either. She fired without any further prompting. I kept my eyes glued open as I waited for the bullet to reach its target, but then Remus jumped to the side and the bullet rocketed past him to smash into the floorboards, missing him completely.

  But despite his apparent clairvoyant insight into self-preservation, he didn’t seem to understand exactly what had happened, directing his head in every direction as he searched for his assailant, Agrippina’s Praetorians continuing to jab at him. But then his head whirled around completely and I saw him look right at me, from hundreds of meters away. It didn’t seem possible that he could sense our exact position, but he was clearly looking directly at us.

  Not at me, actually, but at Helena.

  That wasn’t part of the plan.

  “Aw, shi…” I started to whisper but my simple expletive was cut short when Remus le
apt off the venue’s platform, dropping thirty feet to the ground, and landed with an enormous crash. He knelt there, momentarily stunned, before he picked up his head and started sprinting directly toward Helena and I. He plowed through the mesmerized crowd, sending the bodies of men, women, and children flying in all directions as he tossed or kicked them aside. I lost sight of him almost immediately when he entered a denser area of the city, obscured by a thousand buildings.

  I keyed my radio.

  “Eagle Eye, do you have a visual?”

  “Intermittent, Sniper-1. Target is heading in your direction. Be advised, target will advance on main roadway in five seconds. You should have eyes on.”

  I sent Cuyler a double click and adjusted my binoculars so that I could see the main thoroughfare that led directly to our position atop the Viminal Hill. Not a second later, Remus emerged onto the road and continued to barrel his way toward us, not caring who or what got in his way. He was a living wrecking ball, crashing through vendor stalls, pack animals, and humans alike.

  Helena opened up on him again, sending round after round at him with her DSR-1 sniper rifle. Slowed by the bolt action on her rifle that required her to chamber a fresh round manually after every pull of the trigger, the interruptive action at least allowed her time to settle herself and aim more carefully between each successive shot. But, as amazing as she was with a precision rifle, not a round had struck Remus, each one impacting the road around his body, missing him by inches.

  She fired five bullets quickly, ejected her spent magazine, and calmly smacked home a fresh one filled with another five rounds. I didn’t bother watching her as she worked, knowing innately how she operated, and waited as she took careful aim again and fired. It was another miss, as Remus sidestepped to the right, but then he was forced to pull up abruptly when another shot came at him from the right – from Cuyler.

  Helena noticed too, and processed the information immediately.

  “Tell Cuyler to replicate that shot,” she ordered me. “Then have him do it again exactly two seconds later.”

  “Eagle Eye,” I commed, not even bothering to answer her. “Repeat exact shot on target when ready, then repeat again exactly two seconds later, howcopy?”

  “Copy,” came the reply, followed by the first shot Helena had requested, followed two seconds later by the same one again. Helena fired at the same time as well.

  She’d guessed right. However Remus was able to predict where to jump when fired on, he only seemed capable of dodging one thing at a time. When he pulled up short to dodge Cuyler’s shot, he was caught in the crossfire and took a hit from Helena. However, he was still able to lean enough to the left so that Helena’s round only grazed the side of his chest instead of taking him square in his center mass. It hit him hard, but the bullet seemed to have literally lodged itself in his skin. It had torn open a small, bloody trench along the side of Remus’ chest, underneath his armpit, but a normal human would have founded that entire flank blasted to shreds, but in Remus’ case, the bullet had simply skimmed along the surface before coming to a stop, much like how a crashed aircraft would plow into the soft dirt of the Earth before finally stopping.

  Remus reached up a hand to cover the wound, his face full of rage, but then another shot came in from Cuyler, taking him unprepared again and in the left arm. This one too penetrated flesh but also didn’t come out the other end as it would on a normal individual. I was too far to see the wound in detail, nor at the right angle, but something told me the bullet had simply lodged itself in the muscle tissue of his biceps again. The wound, if one could even call it that, was likely superficial, and had probably inflicted only slightly more damage to Remus than had he been shot with an extremely powerful paintball.

  Even so, he was staggered, and Helena and Cuyler took full advantage, raining shot after shot at him as he advanced. Almost all of them missed, but a few struck home, taking him in the abdomen, his left thigh, and right shin. It was then that I almost thought we had him contained, but then he looked right at me again and smiled. He seemed to pick up speed, if that was even possible, completely undeterred by the wounds he’d sustained and quickened his pace to the point where I could no longer track him.

  He was only a hundred meters away.

  “We should bug out,” I told Helena, but she wasn’t listening as she rose to her feet so that she could angle her rifle downward to continue shooting.

  Desperately, I looked through my binoculars and sighted Remus almost at the base of our hill now. Even if we egressed immediately, there was no way we could outrun him. I wasn’t even sure, snipers though we were, if we could hide from him. He’d probably smell us out. I lowered my binoculars, easily able to see him with the naked eye as he started to climb the hill, and reached for my pistol with my right hand and my combat knife with my left.

  This entire operation had gone belly up so quickly I almost wasn’t sure I understood what I was experiencing. All I could think to do was wait for Remus to reach us so that we could make our last stand. I watched as death incarnate approached, and found myself as terrified as a puppy dog that knew he was in for a beating. Not because I knew we were going to die, but because we were going to die having failed, the red orb nowhere to be found.

  I took aim with my pistol and fired. I fired and fired and fired, expending the magazine in seconds. He was so much closer now, but with the flawless discipline of a seasoned operator, I deftly reloaded and continued to fire. He didn’t even bother trying to dodge most of my less powerful rounds, absorbing them as easily as one would a spitball. By the time I expended my second magazine, he was nearly upon us, and I didn’t even have time to look at Helena one last time as I lifted my knife to intercept his leaping form. I braced myself, balancing myself carefully on my one good leg, and readied myself to receive him, fruitless though it may be.

  But just as he was about to clear the window I stood behind and tackle me to the floorboards, he disappeared. Through the window, I’d seen him loom close and large one second, but in the next, he was gone. I’d grown familiar recently with acts of disappearance, but this one seemed different than all the others. He hadn’t simply vanished, but looked as though he’d been shot off his trajectory by a missile hitting him from the side.

  I glanced at Helena but she seemed equally at a loss. She lowered her rifle to the ground and rushed to her window as I did the same. Together, we looked to the left and saw Remus engaged with another individual wielding a long, thick chain as a weapon. Further investigation wasn’t even necessary. Seven hundred years after their last scuffle – or about – a battle between twin brothers Romulus and Remus was ready to begin anew, and, like the first time, the fate of Rome and the future of western society most likely hung in the balance.

  ***

  “Now where the hell did he go?!” Archer shouted as we ran side by side through the streets of Rome, Gaius and Marcus in front of us.

  I didn’t answer. I certainly didn’t have any idea. I was more focused on breathing at the moment. I was paying dearly for my sedentary lifestyle as I tried to keep up with Archer, Gaius, and Marcus, all three of whom ran so effortlessly that they probably could have ran all day and night without needing to rest. Luckily, I saw Gaius and Marcus skid to a halt on their sandaled feet so that they could peak around buildings, so I took a moment to lean over as I held myself up by my knees, sucking in gulps of air.

  “Really have to work on my cardio…” I mumbled, looking up at Archer, who had his binoculars to his eyes, looking forward. I tracked his gaze but didn’t see much, just a hill a few hundred meters in the distance. “Where are we, Paul?”

  He glanced down at me oddly, maybe surprised that I’d used his first name – which had been a slip I hadn’t even been aware of until I’d said it. I gave him a slight smile, and he recovered quickly and handed me his binoculars, pointing toward the hill with his other hand that now held his radio.

  “Southwest of the Viminal Hill,” he reported. “Didn’t you st
udy the maps?”

  I smiled innocently. “Oops.”

  “Amateur,” he said with a smile as he brought his hand to his mouth so that he could speak into his radio. “Sniper-1, Rescue-Actual. We’re south of your position. Package Alpha out in the open but out of contact. Please advise.”

  “Advance to the base of the hill and hang a starboard, Sailor. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  Archer looked down at me and took back his binoculars. Gaius and Marcus were already running to the base of the hill.

  “Ready?” He asked.

  “No,” I said, although my breathing was certainly under control now.

  “Not time for no,” Archer pointed out. “Let’s go.”

  He took off running and I followed, trying to ignore the burning sensation in my legs and the stabbing pain in my side as I sprinted the few hundred meters to the base of the hill. I immediately turned right and followed the road as it angled upward, giving me a better view of the surrounding area. We ran up the incline for a few seconds until we reached its peak, but as soon as I reached it, I had to pull up short before I ran headlong into Gaius again. Unlike last time, I managed to avoid smashing my nose against his armor, nor did he turn to face me, his eyes too transfixed on what was occurring only a short distance away.

  I looked and my eyes widened. Romulus and Remus were engaged in ruthless unarmed combat, that is, except for the chain Romulus held. But to call it combat was giving it too much credit. Instead, I should have simply called it a blur. They were moving so fast that they seemed little more than a tumbling ball of motion as they crashed into stalls, buildings, monuments, and people alike. The only thing distinguishing them was that Remus was fully clothed in white garments while Romulus was still practically naked. This thought did more to elevate my heart rate than all the running I’d done today, but then the pair crashed into a building and disappeared, and my heart rate slowed again. Nothing could stop them as they traveled south toward what I thought was the Esquiline Hill – I really should have studied those maps– destroying everything they encountered and seriously harming or outright killing any of the thousands of spectators who got in their way.