Page 18 of Firebird (The Fire That Binds #1)

XVII

JULIAN

We’d been encamped near Singidium, the Roman town that had been burned to the ground, for two weeks. During the day, I joined my men in learning our surroundings and trying to track down the marauders. At night, I told stories of my childhood to Malina. I told her of how I’d broken my arm the first time my father put me on a horse and how my mother would scold me for stealing sweet-cakes from the kitchen. And with every story, she seemed to soften further toward me.

I’d managed to keep my hands to myself, though that was a feat all its own. She’d pushed me away once when I’d tried to calm her in the street that day when we heard the Dacian singer, and the rejection had cut deeply. I wouldn’t risk that again. So I spent the days with my men, and my quiet nights closed in my tent with Malina. It had been peaceful and perfect, until the last week when my attention became focused on these barbarians we couldn’t seem to capture.

They were a strange enemy. The first week, we’d thought they’d fled the territory altogether. They’d done their damage and left the moment Romans were sighted in the area. That had been wrong. My men had discovered signs of them camping in glens and woods nearby.

Frustrated, I joined Trajan and some of my men in half-skin to seek their whereabouts. While it was almost unheard-of for me to scout with them, my men didn’t argue, knowing my frustration at our lack of progress was mounting.

We flew over a nearby gorge, and I smelled them, a foreign scent of human sweat where there was no village or town. We flew down into the ravine, finding nothing more than an abandoned fire, still smoldering, near a cave entrance. There was no sign of them in the cave either, which we spent a full day searching.

Two mornings ago, we spotted three of them running below us near a misty riverbed that ran down from the hills. We swooped down only to have them vanish in the foggy foothills of the mountain. Even my own heightened senses as the strongest dragon among them couldn’t find and capture these damned barbarians. Their constant evasion was maddening.

Whatever means they were using to elude us was extraordinary. And then, last night, a party of warriors whooped and bellowed in the dead of night, waking the entire camp. I led a troop of us into the woods toward the sounds. We found only recently warm fire pits in the ground and no barbarian warriors at all.

We’d had enemies that fled when Roman soldiers moved in to attack before. But this was different. There were signs of large parties camping in the vicinity. Never in the same place twice and never maneuvering farther away. Rather, they seemed to be simply circling our perimeter, but refused to face us. To compound it all, they escaped us like ghosts.

We were accustomed to victory. Easy victory, for the most part. Or at least an enemy we could see and fight. The longer these barbarians eluded us, the more desperate we all began to feel. It was like they were toying with us.

But then, early this afternoon, the barbarians had finally shown themselves and not fled. One of my deathriders flying above had spotted a horde of them in the woodlands north of the burned town, Singidium. Our encampment was only a few leagues south.

I hadn’t ordered the deathriders to do their usual job of corralling them with fire because we couldn’t even see the entirety of our enemy. I didn’t want to divide them. I wanted to be sure we had all of them surrounded so that we could be done with them all at once. There weren’t that many of them. A thousand, maybe two. We could easily surround them all and end this little rebellion quickly enough.

“This is unusual.” Trajan stopped beside me in half-skin, lashing his tail and staring down into the dense woodlands where part of a legion had gone in to circle around our enemy.

They hadn’t fled. We could hear them moving around and see shadows flitting just out of reach. But our heightened senses told us they were still there, at the center of the woods. We simply had to completely surround them, then attack.

I’d marched down the hill, needing a closer look when my men entered the woods without any resistance at all. Not even an arrow shot from the cover of shadows. Yet, we knew they were in there.

The other half of the legion had divided and were moving in flank formations from the sides of the woodland. The slate-gray sky promised a storm, darkening the landscape. But that was no matter for my soldiers in half-skin .

“What kind of enemy runs from their opponent?” Trajan’s speech was thick and deep, but easily understood. “Cowards.”

“Their boldness in attacking the villages doesn’t speak of cowardice.” I walked down the small incline that led into the woods, Trajan alongside me. “And yet, why are they hiding?”

“Perhaps they were only bold when there were no Roman soldiers to defend the towns.”

“Perhaps.” I stopped at the mouth of the woodland, listening to my men move stealthily through the trees, no sounds of swords clashing or the snarling battle cries. “Something is off here.”

“What are they doing?” Trajan’s frustration was evident.

“Either they’re cowards like you say, on the run.”

“Or?”

“Or this is part of their plan. They’re luring us into the woods.”

Trajan looked in all directions, then behind us. “You should return to the top of the hill, Legatus.”

I glanced back at the soldier in half-skin holding the standard of the golden dragon where I’d left him. From here, the entirety of the woods would know the Roman soldiers were descending upon them.

That was always our way, announcing boldly that we were setting upon our enemy. The enemy was here, and yet they weren’t. Something was wrong.

“Order the men to retreat,” I told Trajan.

“General?” His deep scowl on his half-dragon face pulled his snout into a snarl. “Retreat?”

“We’ll use deathriders and burn them out.” Even though I wasn’t sure our enemy was wholly nestled in these woods, my instincts told me it would be better to keep to the higher ground. Something was definitely off.

Trajan didn’t hesitate. He marched into the tree line, calling the orders to retreat.

Suddenly, the entire woods erupted in screams and fire. Streams of flame launched across the pine boughs, igniting the trees into a conflagration. Confusion halted my men. I could see several dozen below the line of fire, staring up and around them for the enemy while nets flew through the air and trapped them.

“Prefect!” I called to Salvo, one of my officers not far into the woods, his green wings spread wide, illuminated by flames licking around him and the men. “Retreat!”

“Back, Legatus!” Trajan shouted before he flared his giant midnight-blue wings and flew into the melee.

I couldn’t, running forward to help Salvo, who had heard my call for retreat but not before inhaling too much smoke. He coughed and stumbled to the ground, crawling from the din of cries and crackling fire.

“Hold on to me!” I reached him, hefted him up with one arm around my shoulder, his wings a dragging weight as I half carried him quickly into the grass where he could breathe the open air.

I looked back to see a purple-winged soldier still in half-skin taking flight to escape the inferno, though it blazed through the treetops and forced him back to ground. A massive wave of fire billowed across the tops, creating an impenetrable roof of flame, while I could see nets still falling from the trees. Thick black smoke billowed and clouded the interior until I could see no one at all.

“Fucking hell!”

My soldiers couldn’t fly out of the blaze without injury, even those who weren’t trapped by the nets, and most of my men were in the center of the woodlands now surrounded entirely by a wall of flame. Their half-skin scales wouldn’t protect them in that intense of a blaze.

Suddenly, dragons—dozens, then hundreds—burst through the burning branches toward the open sky, their wings smoking, leaving trails of embers and ash. The men had shifted completely into dragon form, the only way to break through the fire wall. And still, some of their wings and tails were on fire as they fled from certain death. But I had human soldiers trapped in there as well.

The entire woodland had been engulfed in seconds. Many of my men were already at the center, still seeking our enemy. They wouldn’t have been able to get out fast enough. As I had predicted—too late—it had been a trap. I’d given the order to seek them out, giving up the higher ground to root them out. My impatience had killed my own men.

“Legatus!” a strange voice called from behind me.

I turned to see the standard bearer up the hill, holding the staff of the golden dragon that was now in flames. A giant of a man stood behind him, a sword thrust through the back of the standard bearer, the blade sticking out of his belly. It was the gigantic stranger who’d called me and then spoke again.

“This is the future of Rome,” he spoke in accented Latin. Germanic. He held the burning standard high in his left hand, the symbol of our might and dominance, and shoved the bearer to the ground with his right, sending him rolling away.

The barbarian was naked but for a leather skirt and boots, his entire face and body coated in black war paint. His dark hair blew wildly around his shoulders, but it was his eyes that held me still—bright and feral and mocking.

Without hesitance, I charged up the hill, my bones stretching against my skin, bursting through my uniform as I broke into half-skin. The throbbing pain of horns, tail, and wings sprouting free from my body was only a split second before I launched myself at the barbarian.

He laughed when I tumbled him to the ground, then snarled when I slashed him with my claws, barely missing his face, catching his upper chest when he twisted away.

We were both on our feet, facing each other and circling.

“You aren’t ghosts, then,” I growled. “You bleed well enough.”

“Yes,” said the barbarian, his size impressive for a human. As tall and wide as me in human form. “We have bled quite enough for the likes of you, General .”

Animosity dripped from his tongue.

“Who are you?”

He stopped circling and planted his feet wide, completely fearless even while I stood several feet taller than him in half-skin.

“You will know soon enough.” He tilted his head, his grip tightening on the bloody blade in his hand. The one he’d used to kill my standard bearer. “All the world will know who we are when we are ready.”

Faster than was humanly possible, he streaked toward me. I swiped at his throat this time, but he ducked unnaturally fast and dragged the serrated edge of his blade across my abdomen and side. Roaring at the sharp pain, I twisted to defend against his next attack.

But he was already at the woods’ edge along the outer ring of fire, staring back at me, thick plumes of smoke billowing behind him. In that single moment, it wasn’t the pain in my abdomen or the cries of my men or the roaring inferno screaming toward the sky that catapulted my pulse and sent a chill down my spine. It was the otherworldly flicker of gold flaring bright in his eyes before he vanished into the smoke.

“General!” Salvo was flying up the hill in half-skin, eyes wide, having recovered from the smoke.

That’s when I finally noticed the trail of warm blood gushing from between my clawed fingers where I’d pressed them to my abdomen. Looking down, I saw that the giant’s knife had cut me deep, opening a wide gash nearly to the side of my hip. Blood streamed down one leg, pouring into the ground at my feet. Searing pain pulsed from the wound, more than it should.

“General.” Salvo caught me as I fell to one knee, the quick blood loss pulling me into darkness.