Chapter 29 Trajan #2
I snatched the keys on the belt of one of them who’d been guarding the entrance, and we hurried up the steps.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said, busily unlocking the steel door.
“I didn’t either.”
“How did you know you could?” The lock clicked and I pulled the heavy door open.
“I just felt it. The magic feels different now. More than it was somehow.”
We didn’t have time to analyze it now. I took her hand and marched ahead through the corridor.
The cell blocks all had occupants as we passed them, torches burning bright in sconces along the stone walls.
But I didn’t recognize any of them. Caesar had been busy rounding up suspected traitors since my last visit here, it seemed.
As we approached the stairwell that led down into the depths of the prison, I heard two guards chatting before I saw them. They stopped talking suddenly, hearing us coming.
“Who the hell let you in here?”
The speaker took two steps toward me before I raised my sword. The guards came at us fast, swinging their blades. The second I sliced through one guard’s sleeve to his skin, Lela spoke one word loudly over the clanging of swords.
“Come!”
Without my heightened eyesight, I wouldn’t have seen it, but a stream of blood swam through the air, hitting Lela’s upright palm. Just like before. I kicked the guard in the chest, sending him sprawling to the stone floor, while Lela touched a drop of his blood to her tongue.
The second came at me too fast to raise my sword. I ducked his swing and punched him in the mouth, sending him falling back to the wall.
“Be calm,” Lela said softly. “Stop fighting.”
The guard on the floor, his face contorted in rage, suddenly went slack. He sat with his back to the stone wall, panting and staring in wonder at her.
“Now close your eyes and rest. Forget we were here.”
Before the guard had obeyed her command, she raised her other palm to the second guard, who’d pushed off the wall and was coming at me again.
This time, she didn’t say anything at all, but I saw with morbid fascination as three drops of blood sifted through the air from his mouth, landing directly on her palm.
She tasted one drop then ordered the second guard to drop his sword and go to sleep like his comrade.
“By the time we’re through,” I said, panting, “all of the guards in the city will be asleep.”
“We could only wish,” she said, smiling.
I hurried down the staircase to the bottom dungeon cell, where only the worst of Caesar’s criminals were kept. A rumbling growl met us as we approached then abruptly stopped.
“I can’t believe you came back,” said Alaric with his thick accent, once again in the shadows.
I stepped close to the bars. “I keep my promises.”
He emerged from the dark toward the torchlight. He remained in the same half-clothed state, his long black hair matted with filth. The German king smiled.
“I did not think you would,” he replied. “You do recall I was once your enemy in battle, yes? This is a peculiar way of fighting your enemy.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I said. “Or haven’t you heard that before?”
“I am not a philosopher. I’m a warrior.”
“Good. Because we need warriors,” I said sternly, gripping one of the bars of the cell. “If we free you, you will ally your army with ours. That was your promise.”
“Do you even have an army?” asked the haughty man. “It’s come to my knowledge that you are no longer in charge of a legion. What I actually believe is that you want to steal mine. That’s the way of all Romans.”
“And how do you expect to defeat the Roman Empire simply by killing the emperor?”
“I will slaughter all of his men,” he boasted.
“How will you know who are his men?” I asked.
He scoffed. “The nobility all look the same. Wear the same clothes.”
“So you plan to kill all of the patricians of Rome? Even the innocents.”
He opened his mouth to snap back another retort, but Lela made a sound of frustration.
“Juno above,” she snapped. “We don’t have time for the two of you to piss in the wind.
We must leave. You agreed to ally your army in exchange for freedom, did you not?
” she demanded of the German. “Or would you prefer to stay here and be burned in the arena by dragon fire, which is what the emperor has planned for you.”
He stepped closer, his mouth tightening into a thin line. “Dragon fire can’t hurt me.”
I exchanged a look with Lela. He may be a dragon, but all dragons could be burned. This German had too much bravado.
“And yes,” he finally agreed, “I did make that oath, witch.”
“Good. It’s settled. Open the door, Trajan.”
I bristled even as I fumbled with the keys to find the right one on the ring to open the door.
My dragon sensed the presence of a threat.
This German had all the looks of a wild barbarian.
Even bruised from maltreatment, he appeared dangerous, and my dragon didn’t like him walking up the steps and through the open cell door.
Lela dug into the satchel she carried around her waist and pulled out a cloak, handing it over to the Visigoth.
“If you betray us after we set you free,” she said, “I’ll kill you myself with my blood magic.”
He took the long black cloak and swung it over his shoulders, tying it at the neck. “Do not worry yourself, sorceress. I honor my oaths. And I do not want to die by your blood magic. I will die in battle as true warriors should.”
“We need to move quickly,” I growled. “We’re heading directly to the docks. Don’t fall behind.”
With that, we hurried up the steps and past the sleeping guards, marching quickly down the corridor and out into the night.
The barbarian slowed, observing the other fallen guards, then muttered, “Witchcraft.”
Then we rushed into the shadows, heading down Capitoline Hill back the way we had come.