about?â
Terry and Vickie exchanged silent glances. Preacher leaned close to their faces.
âYouâd best one of you open up. I donât abide sneak-thieves. Nor those who abuse a bodyâs hospitality. Turns out youâre guilty of both. I promise it will go easier if you do. Youââhe nodded to Terryââyou said I was famous. Then you must know that if I am who I said I was, anâ you crossed me, I would squeeze the life out of both of you and never blink an eye. I could skin you alive, anâ not feel a pang.â He loomed over Vickie. âI could eat your liver.â
Vickie turned deathly pale, and her lips trembled. âOh, noâno. Please! â
âThen youâd best be tellinâ me whatâs true and whatâs not.â
Terry mopped at the single tear that ran down his soft cheek. âWeâwe were abandoned by our parents moreân a year ago. They hated us, said we were even more violence prone and bloodthirsty than they themselves. There werenât no other mean fellers. We been out here ever since. Weâve lived since by takinâ things from unsuspecting travelers we come upon who were dumb enough to take us in.â
âLike me.â Preacher prodded, his anger not entirely quenched.
âNo, not like you,â Terry hastened to correct. âYouâre different altogether. Not like them at all. IâI kinda like you, anâ Iâm sorry we tried to rob you.â
âIf I hadnât whupped you, would you be sayinâ that?â
Terry looked at Preacher in naked horror, and his face dissolved. âYouâyouâre right. Weâre both awful, ugly kids.â He buried his face in his hands and sobbed wretchedly, no longer a would-be killer, only a small boy alone and frightened.
Uncertain as to what to do, Preacher decided to hog-tie them for the rest of the night and take them along with him to Trout Creek Pass. Surely someone at the trading post would be able and willing to take charge of them.
* * *
Pacing the polished granite floor caused the purple stripe on the hem of the tall manâs toga to ripple like a following sea. Through the window, beyond his broad shoulders, the western peaks of the Ferris Range gave off a rose glow from the rising sun opposite them. The newborn orb struck highlights from the rings that adorned six of his eight fingers and the gold and silver ornaments on his bare forearms. Anger gave his long, narrow face a scarlet hue that clashed with his sandy blond hair. He reached the limit of the large, airy room and turned back. Before he spoke he drove a fist into an open palm.
âFive men have failed to return and no one says anything about it? Why was I not told of this at once?â he demanded of the other man in the atrium.
âThe centurion of the guard did not consider it an important event, First Citizen.â
The sandy-haired man shook his head sadly as he examined the other. He saw a burly man, with wide-set legs, thick and muscular, protected by shiny brass greaves. A barrel chest, encased in the brass cuirass of a Roman officer, rode above a trim waist and was topped by a full neck and large, broad-faced head. The horsehair-crested helmet tucked under one huge arm seemed a part of him. His white and red kilt was skirted by brass-studded leather strips. On his feet, the plain, brown leather marching sandals. Taken together these factors made him every inch the mighty general of the Legions of Nova Roma that he was. Yet, he allowed laxness and mistakes to weaken those powerful forces.
Any newly made corporal would have known to see that such vital information be relayed upward. The First Citizen sighed before he spoke. âGaius Septimus, I chose you as my constant companion and commander of my legions because you are awfully good at what you do. The years you spent with the barbarian army before leaving their ranks forâahâa freer life are
Learning to Kill: Stories