The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 25

CHLODOCHAR HAD CRAWLED up between the Legionnaires once full darkness had fallen, and they were quickly putting together a plan where the German would quietly circle around and kill Dario. Ixillius was about to call out something loudly about respect being earned, to cover Chlodochar's initial withdrawal, when a scream ripped the night apart. The three men were kneeling in triangle formation with their shoulders and feet touching when silence suddenly returned a second later. The dim light from the sliver of the new moon afforded them nothing but the typical forest shadows, highlighted by patches of complete darkness.

        "Movement. By the dead horse," Chlodochar murmured.

        "Shifting shadows. Moving low that direction," Brasus said at the same volume.

        Ixillius lowered his sword a few inches.

        "Wolves," he muttered, seeing one of the lupine forms slide through a patch of moonlight aimed at the dead horse.

        Chlodochar's shoulders relaxed slightly.

        "They'll not bother us with a freshly killed feast already laid out for them."

        "Then why the scream?" Ixillius questioned.

        The darkness pressed in a little closer on the trio as nothing but a few snarls close to the dead horse answered.

                                                                ***

        "I've never killed a man before." Lothar's shoulder was trembling under her hand. Alex remembered quite clearly standing at the top of the stairs, having pushed her third foster dad down them after embedding a pair of sewing scissors in his sternum. Lothar spit on the corpse, then turned away and buried his face in her shoulder. Alex held him for a moment.

        "Come," she quietly broke into his thoughts. "We must get Ixillius and Brasus, and then go back to Max and the mare."

        The boy sniffled and shuddered, the physical feeling of him pulling himself together transferring to Alex's body.

        "I'll get his things. We'll need the supplies," Lothar stated, nodding toward the body, his voice barely shaking.

        "Good man." Alex gave him a final squeeze, which he returned, and then released him.

        Lothar crouched to find the bag he knew Dario had brought and came face to face with the wolf that had followed Alex. The boy rattled off something in German and the beast made the same wolfish shrug at the boy that he had at Alex, turning instead to sniff at the warm dinner he'd helped create.

        "The blood will bring more of them." Lothar nodded at the wolf. "We should leave quickly in case one of them is still hungry when the bones are finished."

        Wary that Dario might have set traps under the snow, Alex and Lothar followed single-file on top of the crisscrossing wolf tracks in the direction that the Legionnaires had been yelling from. Alex went first, but Lothar saw the glint of metal through the trees and tapped her on the arm to draw her attention. Her continuing anger that had started at seeing the two men in chains evaporated under the relief of seeing two swords in the dim moonlight now.

        "Ixillius?" she called quietly and a part of the lump of shadow with metal glints spun upwards as Ixillius shot to his feet.

        "Alex?" he called back. "There are wolves," he added sharply. Alex and Lothar both snorted a single laugh.

        "We know," Alex replied. The lump of shadow the crouched men had been separated into three distinct, standing forms and Alex's steps faltered.