Muses of Terra (Codex Antonius Book 2) (15 page)

Cordus jerked his head to Marcus and infused his thoughts with a snarl.
No!
 

Marcus put his hands up. “Just a suggestion, no need for murder.”

It’s never going to happen, so don’t suggest it again. I’m trying to focus on my current troubles, remember? Stop talking now.

Marcus gave him an elaborate bow. “As you wish.” And then he disappeared.

There was a time when Cordus was thankful for the Muses and his ability to control them. The Muses gave him knowledge and wisdom no other person—besides an Umbra Ancile—could imagine, while his control enabled him to maintain his humanity.

Now he wondered if his abilities were a curse. Why had Marcus suggested Cordus let the Muses take control? Was that even a choice? Cordus always assumed it was not. But with his maturing body and the appearance of Marcus Antonius, he refused to discount anything. The fact that Marcus could suggest such a thing set off warning bells in Cordus. It made him more fearful than ever that the Muses might try to seize control someday. If that happened, how would Cordus even fight them?

Pulse blasts echoed from the direction of the hospital two blocks away.

Cordus gave his companions a hard look, then ran toward the blasts. He was satisfied to hear their footsteps behind him.

When he came to the block before the hospital, Cordus peeked around the pockmarked wall of a tailor’s shop. The hospital was a small, single-story building that seemed more like a clinic than a true hospital. Two golem bodies lay near the hospital’s front door, while six more golems hid behind two ground cars, sending pulse fire through the open doors. Two fired from behind one car, and four fired from behind the second.

Cordus scanned the rubble and buildings around the hospital, along with the rooftops, but did not see any other golems. He whispered to Aquilina and the Romans, “Six golems with their backs to us. I don’t see any others, but that foot patrol might be here in minutes.”

Aquilina eased her head around the corner. She surveyed the street, then nodded to Cordus. “We can take these if we’re quick.”

“Agreed,” Cordus said. He turned to the others. “Wait to fire until I start, or if they see us first. Ready?”

They all nodded grimly and said, “Sir.”

Cordus peeked around the corner again to ensure the golems weren’t looking in his direction, then broke into a quiet run toward them. He kept his rifle trained on the four golems behind the second car.
 

When he got within thirty paces, he fired. Two golems went down with yellow sprays of golem blood, while the other two fell to blasts from the Romans behind Cordus. The two golems behind the first car fell to more fire from Cordus’s team.

He reached the second car, pulled clips and rifles off the dead golems. Aquilina did the same to the two golems behind the first car. After they gathered the weapons and clips, Cordus shouted from behind the car, “Kaeso, it’s…” He glanced at the Romans. “It’s Titus.”

“Get in here, kid!” Kaeso responded from inside.

Cordus jumped from behind the car and ran to the open doors with Aquilina and the Romans close behind. When he burst through the door, he saw Kaeso to the right standing behind a desk with darkened pulse gouges, his pulse pistol at his side. To the left stood Dariya holding a large metal rod. They both grinned at Cordus.

“Fine timing,” Kaeso said. “I had three pellets left in this thing.”

“I was prepared to meet Ahura Mazda,” Dariya said, holding up the metal rod. “You have thankfully delayed that meeting, Trierarch.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Cordus tossed the scavenged rifles to Kaeso and Dariya, who took them gratefully.

They looked past Cordus to Aquilina and the Romans. Kaeso’s face hardened when he saw Aquilina, and Dariya’s turned equally hard at the Romans.
Seeing their former masters.
I hope they remember the golems are the bigger threat.
Aquilina and the Romans were more concerned with catching their breath from their sprint than noticing any tension.

“How’s Blaesus?” Cordus asked, breaking the tension before his new comrades noticed.

Kaeso eyed Aquilina a second longer, who now noticed Kaeso’s stare, before responding. “He’s stable. Daryush is with him in the back. We found some skin sealant. He’s lost a lot of blood, though, and we couldn’t find any synthetic blood here. We need to get him back to
Vacuna
.”

 
Aquilina shook her head. “They’ll never let us get to the spaceport.”

“What do you suggest?” Kaeso said. “Merchant.”

A blinding white light filled Cordus’s vision, and a nova of pain seared through his head. A terrible ringing filled his ears. He gasped and fell to his knees. From far away, Ulpius said, “What’s wrong with them?”

The light and pain slowly faded, but the ringing continued. Cordus regained control of his senses, for the most part.
 

Kaeso, however, leaned against the wall, doubled over, his hands on his head. Aquilina was on her knees, head bowed, her hands over her eyes. After a moment, they removed their hands from their heads and blinked several times.

Cordus stared at them. “It happened to you, too?” He could barely hear his own words over the continued ringing.

“
What
happened?” Dariya growled.

Before Cordus could speak, Ocella’s voice floated in his ears. It started as a whisper beneath the ringing, then grew louder, but muffled as if she spoke through a blanket.

“…is important that you do what they ask, Kaeso, or they will hurt Cordus. Can you hear me, Kaeso?”

Kaeso stared at the floor with squinted eyes. His lips moved, but made no sound.

“I know,” Ocella said, her voice fading in and out, “but it is the only way. Please…you know how…what they want of…”
 

Cordus noticed Aquilina staring at Kaeso.
She must hear it, too. Now she knows Kaeso was once an Umbra Ancile. She may even know who I am. What will she do about it?

Strong hands reached under Cordus’s arms and lifted him off the ground. Ulpius and Duran held him up and asked him what was happening. Cordus couldn’t focus long on their voices as Ocella’s voice took away his ability to concentrate on anything else.

“…Cordus must not…don’t try to…you are a stubborn…”

The voice and ringing abruptly stopped.

Marcus Antonius popped into existence next to Cordus. For the first time Cordus could remember, there was fear in his eyes.
 

“This is very bad, young Antonius,” he said, as he paced back and forth. “Very bad, indeed.”

What is bad? What just happened?

Marcus leaned close to Cordus and whispered as if he were afraid of being overheard. “Another strain has arrived. They want you.”

Kaeso was upright again and handing Cordus the pulse rifle. Cordus looked at him questioningly, and Kaeso said, “I won’t need it.”

“Was that Ocella?” Cordus asked. “How did she—?”

“Not important.”

Kaeso brushed past Cordus and the Romans and walked through the open doors.

“Kaeso!” Cordus yelled, but Kaeso didn’t turn.

Dariya stood next to Cordus. “What is wrong with you two?”

Cordus ignored her and ran after Kaeso. He stood in the middle of the street, searching the blue sky as if awaiting Sol Invictus to carry him away.

“Kaeso, what’s happening? Was that Ocella?”

“Yes.” He continued staring at the sky, searching for something.

“Where is she? How could she send—?”

“Kid, you’ve always had too many questions.” He gave Cordus a sad grin. “Whether you want it or not, you’re the Centuriae now. Don’t come after me, you hear? And do
not
go to Caesar Nova. It’s too dangerous for you there now. Just get your crew somewhere safe.” He glanced at the hospital. “Maybe Libertus.”

Cordus turned to see Aquilina, Dariya, and the Romans in the doorway staring at them.

He leaned close to Kaeso and whispered, “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Kaeso looked up again. “Neither do I, but it’s the only way to keep you safe.”

“I’m not ready for this.”

“Nobody ever is. Ah…”

Cordus followed Kaeso’s gaze. A white dot streaked across the sky, its head growing larger as he watched. The white dot turned yellow, then red, then black.

A missile suddenly streaked toward the black vessel from the Nascio spaceport. The missile impacted with the vessel in a white ball of light, the explosion taking several seconds to reach Cordus’s ears. But the black vessel flew through it as if flying through a cloud. More missiles flew up from the spaceport, but the vessel blew through them too.

“Like I said,” Kaeso murmured, “do not come after me.”

“What is it?” Cordus asked, staring at the approaching vessel.

“A trade.”

The vessel now hovered silently fifty paces above the street near Cordus and Kaeso. It looked like a glob of black tar wrapped in thin, pulsating blue veins just beneath the surface. The vessel had no windows or engines or any other features common to a spacecraft as he knew it. As it descended, the bottom of the ship undulated and morphed until it formed a flat pad on which the vessel could rest. It touched the ground just as the bottom flattened. A door irised open, and the interior looked the same as the exterior—black with pulsing blue veins.

Kaeso pulled Cordus into a tight embrace. “You’re a born leader. I see it in you. Get them safe.”

Cordus couldn’t speak. All he could do was return Kaeso’s embrace.
 

Kaeso suddenly broke away. “If these bastards are honest, the way back to
Vacuna
will be clear for you.”

He turned and approached the vessel opening. Cordus reached out and grabbed Kaeso’s arm. Kaeso could easily have broken his grip, but the former Ancile stopped, still facing the vessel.

“What. Is. Happening?” Cordus demanded.
 

Kaeso didn’t move for a moment, but then he said, “Ocella is on one of these ships in orbit. My capture was the price of your freedom.” Kaeso turned to Cordus and said gently, “Let me go, kid.”

Cordus let him go. “Will I see you again?”

Kaeso gave him a long, steady look, then turned and strode toward the vessel opening.

“Centuriae!” Dariya cried, rushing down the hospital steps.

Without breaking stride, Kaeso said, “Cordus is your Centuriae now.”

“
You
are my Centuriae,” Dariya said.

She stared at Kaeso desperately. Cordus knew her statement was not meant as an insult to him, but as a reaffirmation to Kaeso that he was the leader she would follow to Hades if he asked her. Cordus felt exactly the same.

Kaeso understood as well. He stopped, gave her a soft grin, and then started toward the ship. He never paused as he stepped through the dark opening and into the blue-veined interior. As soon as he entered, the opening irised shut, and the ship rose straight up into the sky without a sound.

“We cannot just abandon him,” Dariya said next to Cordus.

Cordus watched the vessel disappear into the sky with a speed no human ship could match.
 

“We’re not. Get Blaesus and Daryush. We have to get back to
Vacuna
before the ship in orbit gets away.”

“The Centuriae ordered you not to pursue. I heard him from the steps.”

“He did.”

“You will pursue him anyway?”

He turned to her. “Yes. Do you have a problem with that, Engineer.”

She gave him an savage grin and shook her head. “I do not. Centuriae.” She turned and jogged back up the steps into the hospital.

Duran, Piso, and Gracchus approached Cordus. Duran said in a deep, rich voice, “If it’s all the same to you, sir, we’d like to come with you.”

Cordus looked at each one of them. “Why? This isn’t your fight. I’m probably leading my crew to their deaths.”

Duran said, “You were willing to die with us. Figure we owe you.”

Cordus glanced at Ulpius, who sat on the steps to the hospital staring at Tib’s signet ring in his hand.
 

“I thought Ulpius was your Centurion.”

Duran shook his head. “He and the Liberti spy got thrown in with us a day or two after we was there. He’s from a different cohort, I guess.”

Piso picked at the bandage on his head, and then said, “Sir, we have nothing left here. Our Legion is gone, our families are…” Piso’s voice caught a moment, and then he continued. “None of us know how to pilot a starship, so we can’t leave ourselves. We’d rather die fighting with you than running from golems the rest of our lives.”

Cordus didn’t know what he faced in this strange alien vessel, but he knew a fight would come if he were to rescue Ocella and Kaeso. He would need all the help he could get, especially from proven fighters like the three Romans before him.

Cordus looked past the three Romans and at Aquilina standing near a burned out car. She held her pulse rifle against her shoulder as she watched Cordus. An Umbra Ancile would be a powerful ally. But would she come with him? And could he trust her?

She smiled, and he looked away.

And could I concentrate on the mission when she does
that
? Gods, what is it about this woman?

Aquilina walked to him and said, “I have certain…associates who’d be very interested in what just kidnapped your friend. I may be able to help, even.”

Cordus forced himself to meet her eyes. “How would your associates feel about rescuing two
former
associates?”

Aquilina’s lips twitched in amusement. “With your friends’ experience, the information they can gather regarding this vessel would be quite valuable to my associates.”

Ulpius approached them. “If you two are through with your spy talk, I want to come, too. I got no other way off this dead rock. I know a thing or two about battlefield med, so I could help your wounded friend.”

Cordus looked at them all. “I can’t promise you’ll live through this.”

They all nodded their acceptance.

At the hospital doors, Dariya and Daryush stood on either side of Blaesus with one of his arms around each of their shoulders. Blaesus looked frail, and his skin was whiter than his many togas. Dariya and Daryush half-carried him to the armored car the attacking golems had used.