Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome (2 page)

Prologue

My last name may have been Hunter, but I’d never connected much with the name’s etymology.  I’d never been much of a hunter, having never once in my life felt like someone who could prey on others.  I’d never even participated in any of the hunting trips my uncle would host when I was a child, but my brother
, Jacob
Hunter
,
had always looked forward to the random phone call that would announce one of my uncle’s expeditions.

Jacob had always been the impertinent one, too impatient, curious, and brash for his own good. He’d always gotten into more trouble than a mere sister could ever hope to bail him out of, but never more so than now.  I wasn’t the military type, but as I watched him ride through the middle of the legion camp with Agrippina by his side, I knew Jacob would no longer be the hunter he always thought he was.

He would be the hunted.

The sun was just beginning to rise off in the distance as I watched Jacob astride his horse. He rode with confidence and precision, a sight I still found odd as one of my fondest memories from childhood was when he’d been bucked off a horse the moment he’d attempted to seat himself – his first and only attempt at mounting a horse, or so I’d thought.  But now he rode with the sureness of a seasoned horseman.

As he rode, I watched as Jacob turned his head around without any obvious reason for why he would, his eyes finding my own quickly.  Even though weren’t far apart, the look he offered me seemed to pass right through me, as though he was peering at a stranger, instead of his sister.  I blinked rapidly as he disappeared behind a row of tents, unable to stop the tears that stung my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

“Artie…”

The word came from my lap, weak and full of pain.  I looked down just in time to see a trio of tears fall from my chin and splash against the hard and scarred but handsome face beneath me.  I nearly jumped at my carelessness and moved to wipe them from his stubbly cheek.

“Oh!  John, I’m sorr…”

“No leave them,” he said, his voice jittery but with the same sarcastic undertone I’d come to adore.  His right hand clutched my own atop his chest and his face was in constant motion as he fought through the pain originating from his stomach wound.  “They feel kinda good actually.”

I continued my efforts to blink away my tears, failed, and wiped my eyes against my shoulder to clear them.  “But, John, we need to…”

“Listen to me, Artie…” he started, but then an outburst of coughs silenced him.  I lifted my head and scanned the area around me, but could find no one to help me.  After a moment, he settled down, and looked back up at me.  “I need… need you to do me a favor…”

“What?”  I demanded of him.  “
What?
”

“Medic…”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“Say medic,” he repeated, then coughed again.

“Medic,” I said, confused.

He smiled at me, but it was clearly forced.  He’d always been so good at smiling that I knew it must have been a struggle for him now.  He lifted his left hand, smeared in blood, and pressed it against my own hand that sat atop his chest, and spoke again.  “Hey… Artie. I could listen to you say medic all day.  It’s too darn cute, but… but I really need you to call… a medic for me.  They don’t just do it… in… the movies…”

Finally, I understood, and lifted my head and yelled out with everything I had in me.  “
Medic!
”

At first I thought no one had heard me.  There were Roman soldiers wandering everywhere around me, but none seemed to care that I was holding a wounded man in my lap.  They’d just participated in a battle, and they’d seen plenty of other wounded men today already.  Out of the corner of my eye, another body on the ground caught my attention, this one unmoving, already dead.  I hadn’t known him nearly as well as I did John, nor had I really understood the nature of his relationship with Jacob, but they’d been close, almost like a father and son. Knowing what Jacob had done to him only added to the overwhelming storm of emotion I felt within me.

I called again, but still no one came.  It wasn’t until I yelled for a third time that a Roman soldier came bounding toward us at full speed with a number of his friends behind him.  I didn’t know who they were, but I recognized their faces from the time I’d spent here with their legion, the
XV Primigenia
.  The first man to arrive appeared much like the others, although he wore lighter armor and instead of weaponry, had a number of purses and pouches draped over his shoulders and wrapped around his waist.

I guessed he was a medic.

“Help him!”  I called out, but then realized I had spoken in English.  I searched my mind for the appropriate Latin word and tried to turn the phrase in my head, but I was too frazzled and had only just recently started picking up the language with any competency.

“
Auxilium!
”

It was the best I could manage, but the Roman medic already knew what to do as he dropped to his knees next to John and summarily pushed me away from him.

The man was very strong, and I found myself sliding on a patch of slick ice beneath me.  I fell back and hit my head, but the soft snow softened the blow.  I laid there in the cold, too confused, emotional, and distraught to move.  I would have lain there for days had I the chance, but a pair of hands gripped me beneath my arms and I was lifted to my feet by the largest man I’d ever known.  Once on my feet, I looked up into the face of my friend, Jeanne Bordeaux, his comforting eyes staring down at me in obvious concern.

“Are you all right, Diana?”  He asked me, his face and voice obviously concerned.

He never called me by my nickname.

“I’m fine,” I answered, lifting a hand to my forehead, “but John… Vincent…”

I started to cry again as I spoke and Jeanne pulled me into a hug.

I let him.

Alex Cuyler and TJ Stryker suddenly arrived out of nowhere and ran to where poor Vincent rested, half covered in snow, and looked at each other in surprise.  They hadn’t been here and hadn’t seen what had happened, and while I’d witnessed the events from a distance, I wasn’t sure I really understood what had happened either.  Carefully, they reached down and picked up the body to move him.

The sight was too much to bear, and I looked away, choosing instead to bury my face in Jeanne’s chest again.  He held the back of my head with a massive paw of a hand, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever pull away from him. Suddenly a new voice interrupted the chaos around me.  It took me by complete surprise, as it was the last voice I would have expected to hear after everything that had recently happened.

“Move!”  The voice yelled.  “Move!  Let me take him!”

I still didn’t understand how it was that I was hearing
that
voice.  Neither did Jeanne, it seemed, as he too shifted his head around to look in its direction.  A tall woman with short dark hair ran to where John lay.  She bent over and picked him up effortlessly, as if he weighed no more than a soft pillow.  He wasn’t particularly tall, just short of six feet, but was as solid as any man I’d ever known and he had to weigh over two hundred pounds.  Yet the woman, who I still couldn’t even believe was here, had picked him up into her arms and was already running off.

I was just about to call out to her, but she was moving so fast that my words would have been lost to her almost immediately. I suspected I knew where she was going, so I tore away from Jeanne’s arms, pushing off the big man, knowing he wouldn’t even sway under the force of my arms.  He was apparently even more stunned than I, as he didn’t move or try to stop me as I followed the woman.

It was a difficult chase, as we were right in the middle of a Roman legion camp that held thousands of soldiers returning from a big battle, many wounded, others healthy and exuberant from their apparent victory.  Every single one of them seemed to get in my way as I ran, and I had to push my way through dozens if not hundreds of men who, although no taller than I was, were far, far stronger and encased in armor and with sharp weapons protruding from sheaths or held in their hands.  It was a perilous journey, snaking my way through and around them, but my concern at John’s condition and seeing his savior healthy and vital kept my feet moving.

Finally, after a heart pounding sprint, I found myself in front of the same tent where the woman in question had spent the last five weeks of her life.  I stopped, unsure of what I would find inside.  I thought to turn around in that moment, but then thoughts of Jacob gave me cause to stop myself.

He would go inside.

He’d gone inside that creepy cottage a month ago, brave as anyone I’d ever known, driven by a desire to help his friends, not knowing what he’d find.  And then he’d disappeared, vanished before our very eyes, and everyone, including myself, had thought the worst.  Everyone except one woman, of course, who’d held firm in her knowledge that he’d return.

The same woman who had carried John inside.

I pushed the flap aside and stepped in.

Immediately upon entrance, I nearly tripped over a man sprawled on the ground. I looked down and noticed that it was James Wang, our medic, who seemed asleep.  I looked up, too concerned with everyone else to be concerned by his wellbeing, and found the woman brushing a hand across John’s forehead

I rushed to their side, hearing the woman speak to John as I grew close.

“How’d you let this happen to yourself, John…” she whispered.

He coughed weakly before forcing another smile.  “I know… getting stabbed is your job.”

The woman smiled at his remark but lost it when she noticed my arrival.  I opened my mouth to speak to her, but she ignored me as she quickly ran across the tent toward the exit.  She leaned over James and shook him by the shoulders.  Her intent was obvious, but shaking an unconscious individual awake didn’t seem the best approach.

I searched the tent, noticing James’ medical kit sitting idly atop another table adjacent to John’s.  I leapt at it, grabbing at it in a frenzied motion, but something else atop the table caught my eye: a small bundle of rags shaped like a small cylinder.  It looked miniscule atop the table that was large enough for Jeanne to rest upon comfortably, but while it seemed like I should have known what those rags contained, I simply couldn’t think of it, so I turned away.

I took James’ bag in a hand and ran to where I’d left him, seeing the woman pulling her hand back, ready to smack him across the face.

“Don’t!”  I yelled, knowing that would only make it worse.

She stopped short and looked at me angrily as I approached.

“Do you have a better…”

“Here,” I said, thrusting the bag at her so that she could hold it open for me.  She took it reluctantly and I went to work digging through its contents, hoping to find what I was looking for.  I removed a number of medical items, knowing James would be upset later because I’d ruined the orderly precision with which he’d packed his bag, but I didn’t care as I came up with my intended item.

Cracking the small package open, and doing my best to stay away from it, I held it under James’ nose and waited for him to recoil from the smelling salts.  Almost immediately, he snapped out of his daze and jerked his head away.

He was disoriented but his eyes indicated he was cognizant.

“What… what happened?”  He asked.

“John’s been stabbed,” I explained.  “He needs your help!”

James’ eyes steadied and focused at the announcement, but we had to help him as he struggled to his feet.  Once he was up, he took his bag from me and shuffled unsteadily toward John, where he immediately began to assess and treat the damage.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch, so I turned my attention to the woman standing at my left.

“What happened?”  I asked her.

There was no reply.

“How are you not still bedridden?”

The words were out of my mouth before I even knew I said them.  I was unable to think straight at the moment, which wasn’t something I was used to.  I’d lived my entire life in a stressful world filled with fear and apprehension, performing a job function that required hyper-diligence and razor-edged focus.  My associations with others had always been blunt, to the point, and pertinent to a particular inquiry.  I didn’t ask questions without thinking about them first, but too much had happened today.  My clarity of mind was gone.

“How are you even walking?”  I tried.

The woman still didn’t turn to me or answer my question, and I began to feel that patented Hunter anger bubbling up inside me.

“
Helena!
”  I yelled.

And finally, my exclamation had the desired the effect.  Helena, the beautiful sniper who had found her way into my brother’s heart, and who had more amazingly allowed Jacob into her own, whirled on me, her bright green eyes blazing. I took a step back, unprepared for her normally lovely face turning such a vehemently angry expression on me.

“What?!”  She demanded.

I almost crumbled completely under the harshness of her voice, but I was too curious to back down now.  Instead, I took a step forward.

“What happened to you, Helena?”  I asked, taking yet another step and reaching out to grip Helena’s arm with my hand.