More crawlers surrounded the Recon, surfacing from below the Great Blight. As Askal flew closer, Makara swerved wildly in an attempt to break free. The turret swiveled around, facing front and lighting up the night. Several of the crawlers in front of the Recon fell to the fungus. The Recon jerked as it sped over the leg of one of the downed crawlers.
The Recon had made it halfway to the walls of Oasis. As Askal swooped low once more, the crawlers were ready. They leaped, snapping at his body. A few bites landed on his right hind leg. I felt the pain, searing and hot. Askal shrieked as he beat his wings madly to escape the crawlers’ snapping jowls.
I cannot fight anymore, he thought.
But they are going to die.
There is nothing more I can do, little human.
The crawlers closed in on the Recon from behind, frighteningly close.
That was when a long line of fiery explosions lit the night, trailing north to south along the edge of the Great Blight. The Recon had just blazed past it, and it surged ahead from the force of the blast. Behind, crawlers shrieked as they were roasted alive. The explosives must have been set up by Oasis as a defensive measure.
Oasis and Ohlan had just saved the lives of my friends.
The stream of crawlers edged around the fires, like the flow of a river wrapping around a rock. The Recon had exited the Great Blight and now sped along the desert floor. The gates of the settlement were wide open, ready to receive the vehicle.
Askal turned from the fireworks below, heading east, deeper into the Great Blight. His wound was deep and painful. I felt blood dripping from it. I felt weakness spread from that limb, permeating the rest of Askal’s body.
Would he make it?
Home is not far, Askal said.
How far?
Not far.
As the Great Blight passed below, my vision faded.
Chapter 6
When I awoke it was still dark. I checked my watch to find that it was 07:12.
I wrapped myself deeper in my blanket and closed my eyes. I wasn’t getting up until I had to.
Anna stirred in the cot next to mine. Ashton snored on the far side of the tent.
“Anna?”
“Hmm.”
“It’s cold.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. You probably need to come over here.”
She lay quiet for a moment, her eyes closed. “Not while the old man is here.”
“Huh?”
Aston stirred and sat up, his long white hair and beard unkempt. He smacked his lips a couple times.
“Where the hell are we?”
Before we could answer, Ashton seemed to remember.
“Aw, hell.” He cleared his throat of phlegm, and spat.
Anna chuckled. “After that, I’m probably not going back to bed.”
As Anna removed herself from her blankets, I sat up. My clothes were dirty after the sweat and dust of the camp. I smelled of smoke. A layer of grime had accumulated on my tongue.
I reached for my canteen, finding it mostly empty. I chugged what remained of the water.
“I need a refill,” I said. “If anyone wants to come with me.”
“Hold your horses,” Ashton said, throwing his blankets off. “Let the old man get his bearings.”
A few minutes later, we had our boots on and were as ready as we were ever going to be. It had not been a good sleep, but we had to take it because it was the sleep we were getting.
That was when I remembered my dream.
“They’re in Oasis,” I said.
Both Anna and Ashton look at me.
“You saw this?” Ashton asked. “In a dream?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how I keep dreaming…”
I told them about what I had seen from Askal’s point of view, how the Recon sped away over the Great Blight, making for the walls of Oasis as it was chased down by hundreds of crawlers. I ended my story with the line of explosions outside Oasis, and Askal getting hurt.
“Will he be alright?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know…” I said. “And I don’t know if the others will be alright, in Oasis. That town must be under siege by now, and who knows what a man like Ohlan is capable of?”
We sat on our cots quietly for another moment, thinking.
“So, what are we going to do about it?” Anna asked.
“We have to get in there and rescue them,” I said. “Once we have the ship.”
“I know that,” Anna said. “But when do we do it, and without pissing off Augustus?”
“Small chance of that,” Ashton said. “We can’t leave them there, no matter what he says.” He looked toward the tent flap. “But we shouldn’t be discussing this here. Right now, let’s just focus on staying on Augustus’s good side. We don’t have that spaceship, yet.”
Ashton was right. At his nod, I opened the tent flap to reveal the slate-red sky. Long clouds hung low and wispy above the camp.
Two Praetorians still guarded the tent, different from the ones that had been guarding last night. If they had heard us speaking, they gave no sign.
Down the straight dirt path, Maxillo walked toward us. It looked as if he had already been heading this way.
“You can find breakfast and coffee by the fire,” he said. “The Emperor wants you by his tent in one hour.”
First, we took our turns at the latrine, after which we headed to the fire, where we found the same two legionaries from yesterday — Carlos and Horacio. They tended a large pot stewing over the fire. Eight other men were already lined up with wooden bowls and spoons. Even if they looked a bit tired, their backs were straight and their eyes alert.
Horacio, the short man who only spoke Spanish, addressed the men in line, gesturing toward us. The men gave a cheer as Horacio lifted the pot, letting out steam that smelled of sweet corn and pork.
Carlos translated. “He says: for breakfast today, these three are part of our siglo. Century. He says you are special guests of the Emperor and he wants them to eat with the best. El primer cohorte.”
“El primer cohorte?” I asked.
“The First Cohort,” Ashton said. “The most skilled fighters in Augustus’s army, besides the Praetorians.”
The men waited, not yet going for the food.
“They are waiting for you,” Carlos said.
I nodded my thanks to the men. Horacio handed me a wooden bowl and spoon. His cheeks were grizzled, where yesterday they had been clean-shaven. Dark circles underlined his brown eyes. I wondered at Horacio’s story. He seemed to be a little younger than Carlos, so maybe he was only on his fifth or sixth campaign. He seemed to be second-in-command of this group, of which I counted ten. I remembered Julian telling me, while in Nova Roma, that the legions were subdivided in sets of one hundred, called centuries. These centuries were further divided into ten groups of ten. Decades, maybe. These decades seemed to cook, eat, and share tents. They might have even fought next to each other in battle.
Augustus based everything off the Roman Empire for a reason; if it worked for the Romans, so he supposed it would work for him.
I held out my bowl, and Horacio filled it to the brim with corn porridge. There were bits of pork, left over from last night, along with chopped onion, tomato, and jalapeño. The wooden bowl was hot in my hands. I walked from the coals, setting my bowl on the ground for the moment. I went to refill my canteen at a cask not far from the fire. I filled my canteen, along with Anna’s and Ashton’s.
I sat back down and took a long drink of cold water. The fire warmed me in front while the morning air cooled me at my back.
Horacio approached, handing me a clay cup filled with steaming liquid. I smelt the aroma of coffee. I accepted the cup.