“I’d watch out if I were you when we get back to the fort. He’ll be aiming to bite you after that comment. He still does what’s asked of him.” Luke patted Cicero’s neck fondly.
“Aye, he’s a smart beast, no doubt, but it’s getting harder for him. He’s not immortal.”
Lucius caught the pointed look his friend directed at him. He sighed and stroked the horse’s neck. “You’re probably right, Pisakar. He’s probably as stubborn as I am.”
“That he is, my friend, but it’s time for him to rest and enjoy his days. I have a feeling we have some tough campaigning in our future, and I’m not sure the old bastard has another one in him. He’ll soldier on until he drops, but why not let him enjoy some time getting fat on easy grass? He’s done his duty; let him muster out.”
The two men rode in silence, the only sound the beating hooves of their horses and the detachment of guards riding behind them at a discreet distance. Pisakar was right. Lucius had kept Cicero around longer than was standard for the war ponies his legion and its cavalry units maintained. Cicero was one of the smartest and most cantankerous horses he’d ever ridden in the two centuries he’d commanded his legion. The old bastard had been his friend and steadfast companion since the herd master selected him to be Lucius’s prime mount nearly a decade earlier.
“He should have been retired years ago,” Pisakar added.
“You could say the same of me.”
Pisakar laughed; the deep rumbling sound always made Lucius smile. “You should have been dead almost two hundred years ago, my friend. But that’s what happens when you put yourself in the way of the gods; they find a way to use you beyond your time.”
Again, Pisakar was right. At nearly 245-years-old, Lucius had outlived everyone he knew and would probably bury all his current friends. Talk of his age did nothing to improve the mood the dark, lonely German forest inspired.
In contrast, the village of camp followers and the families of the legionnaires he commanded bustled with activity, laughter and yells filling the air as they rode through. While the men of the Roman legions couldn’t marry during their time under the eagle, nothing prevented them from having a companion outside the legion. Some men even started families who followed them from post to post until they mustered out and could sign the marriage contract.
The glint of sun off steel caught his eye as a young man in armor wearing the black of Lucius’s legion stepped out of a small hut, a woman following him. She pulled him back into her arms, laughing when he bumped into her, nearly knocking her down before wrapping his arms around her for a passionate kiss. Lucius sighed, letting his eyes linger on the young couple.
Over the two plus centuries serving under the eagle, he’d had his share of dalliances, but he’d never committed to anyone knowing his contract with the empire would probably never end. As his legion moved around the empire, if he met someone, he’d eventually have to move on when the empire’s need to fight foreign enemies, living or undead, arrived.
Once they crested the last hill before their fort, Pisakar raised his arm and signaled to the guards behind them. Spurring their horses forward, they closed ranks around the leader of their legion and his second-in-command, one of them racing forward to alert the fort to their general’s return.
Lucius straightened in his saddle. “Legatus Pisakar, inform our guest I’ll meet with him first thing in the morning after I’ve broken my fast. I think I’ll spend some time in the baths tonight. Have food and wine prepared for after. You can join me and update me on what’s been going on while I was gone.”
“Aye, Centurio Ferrata.” Pisakar saluted and, when they passed through the gates of their fortress, split off from their detachment to carry out his orders.
After dismounting, Lucius handed Cicero’s reins to his groom. The Sarmatian was one of the few people Lucius’s gelding didn’t try to bite or kick, probably because he was always slipping the pony treats.
“How did the old brute do, Centurio?” Marcellus asked.
“He grumbled a lot, but he responded.”
Marcellus laughed. “So the usual?”
Lucius nodded. “Give him some extra grain tonight and mix in some honey and apples.”
“Yes, Centurio.” Marcellus led Cicero off to be groomed and rubbed down before his evening meal.
Lucius took his time with his breakfast the next morning. He knew the Imperator’s emissary was waiting, but he enjoyed the pettiness of forcing him to cool his heels after he’d passed up meeting with him the previous evening.
“Anything else, sir?” his valet asked.
“No. I’ve kept him waiting long enough.” Lucius stood and walked toward his armor stand.
His valet lifted the lorica off the stand and held it open for Lucius. As he settled the segmented armor on Lucius’s shoulders, Lucius wondered what the man who’d set himself at the top of the empire wanted of him after all this time. Flavius Valerius Constantius had risen to power under his father’s auspices when Diocletian selected him to be one of his four co-rulers after dividing the empire in half for two co-emperors with two successors under them.
When his father died, his father’s legions declared Constantius his successor and emperor of the west. Through several civil wars, Constantius had eliminated his co-emperors and competitors to perch himself and his family atop the empire’s power structure, going so far as to establish a new capital in the east and naming it after himself—Constantinopolis. In all that time, Constantius had never called on Lucius and his Black Legion to join him nor sent so much as an emissary or letter acknowledging the existence of the elite legion charged with protecting the empire from the demons of the night—the drinkers of blood.
While it never put Lucius in the difficult position of denying the Imperator his direct support, he was still insulted at the lack of regard. He’d watched the borders of the empire for over two centuries, protecting Roma and her people from enemies both human and undead.
“I think the bear cloak, sir,” the valet said after cinching the front of the armor closed.
“It’s not that cold.”
“No, but it’s most impressive, especially with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus’s seal on it.”
Lucius nodded. With its bear hair running down the shoulders and upper back, the black cloak added more bulk to his already sizable appearance. While he hadn’t grown as tall as his father—who was tall even for a Gaul—Lucius was six feet tall and broad.
Settling the cloak over his gladius, he took his helmet from the valet. Like Lucius, the armor, helmet, and gladius were antiques. He had a matching spatha, the longer sword standard for Constantius’s modernized infantry, but he preferred the continuity the old weapon added to his appearance. He was the Centurio Immortalis; he needed to look the part.
When he approached the camp’s headquarters, the legionnaires on guard duty snapped to attention, saluting crisply as he passed. Pisakar had selected some of the most decorated of the Black Legion to further display the Legion’s prowess. Pisakar was the best second he’d ever worked with and a trusted friend. He always took care of the more bureaucratic or ceremonial details Lucius had grown disinterested with over time. Of all the Legionary commanders in the Empire, Lucius was probably the least formal, reverting to his “barbarian” upbringing as a Belgic Gaul growing up in the territory of the Nervii tribe some eight-and-a-half centuries after the founding of Roma.
Pisakar met him inside the door. “The new Imperator thinks he knows you and can woo you.”
He always referred to the emperor as “new,” refusing to acknowledge his nearly thirty-year reign until he paid proper respect to the Black Legion as emperors since its founding under Traianus and Hadrianus had.
Lucius saw what Pisakar meant as soon as he stepped through the door. A man with graying blond hair abruptly stood, saluting Lucius.
“Princeps Primus Centurio, Sir!” the man shouted along with his salute.
Lucius, before sitting behind his desk, gave the Imperator’s emissary a once over. He was taller than Lucius and lean. The man had the bearing of a German. At some point, his nose had been broken and set poorly; it jutted off to the side about halfway down. Like Lucius, he favored the old-style segmented lorica. Few used it today; it had fallen out of favor over half a century ago. He held a helmet under his left arm, the crest of a Centurion running transverse. Constantius had sent a Centurion instead of a higher leader or diplomat. Something about his face tugged at Lucius’s memory.
“Sit, Centurio.”
