Page 44 of Scorched Earth

“How many jumps?”

“Six.” He shook his head. “No, seven.”

Austornic was staring at him, a peculiar expression on his face. Like he wasn’t entirely certain Marcus was quite real. “You should be dead.”

He should. Had been fairly certain that he’d been about to breathe his last. And yet… “Maybe it’s coming.”

Everything that had happened in those first days had been a blur, except for Zaide. The old man’s face was burned on his memory, his mind picking away at it, unable to let it go. Zaide, the Gamdeshian. Just as Ashok was Gamdeshian.

Not caring that he wore only undergarments, Marcus bolted across the room.

“Sir?”

Ignoring Austornic, he shoved open the doors. Zaide’s ancient face dominated his mind’s eye, the old man’s dark eyes too clever by far. Marcus had long suspected that Urcon, the tyrant who’d terrorized Arinoquia, had been nothing more than Ashok’s puppet. But no one had seen someone of the corrupted’s description in Urcon’s company, which meant he’d used agents.

“Sir?” Austornic was calling after him, the guards who’d been outside the door following him, but Marcus paid them no mind. The stone was cold beneath his bare feet as he stumbled down the hallway, his head throbbing. Pushing open the fortress doors, he nearly fell down the steps as the bright sunlight stabbed into his eyes.

“Sir?” Hands caught his elbows, steadying him, but Marcus brushed them aside. “Where did Titus go?”

“Toward the mess tent, sir.”

Marcus broke into a run.

If Zaide was Ashok’s agent, it meant he was a witness to all of Titus’sdealings with the corrupted. A witness that Titus had a vested interest in silencing.

A commotion was coming from the mess tent, hundreds of men standing outside, the delineation between the two legions clearly visible.

As were the weapons in their hands.

It would seem that news of Titus’s apparent duplicity had spread.

Shoving into the tent full of shouting men, Marcus elbowed his way through the ranks to the front where food was served, mutters of his name rising on a swell. When he finally broke into the open space, he found Titus with his naked blade pressed to Zaide’s throat.

“Stand down.” Marcus injected force into his tone despite feeling ready to pass out. But he couldn’t allow Titus to kill this man.

This witness.

Titus ignored him. “Who are you working for?” he growled at the old man. “Who killed my men?”

“I work for you!” Zaide pleaded, the silver rings decorating his ears glittering in the light as he shook his head. “It was your own men who found him passed out in the brush, master. You know this, for it was they who carried him into Galinha.”

“Liar!”

Seeing Titus’s intent, Marcus lunged, catching hold of his arm and hauling him back before he could kill the one man who could bear witness to his crimes. The one man whose testimony would allow Marcus to put Titus on the gallows.

“This is not how we’re doing this, Titus,” he snapped. “Stand down, or I’ll have you restrained. Either way, I’m not allowing you to use him as your scapegoat.”

“Scapegoat?”

“You knew I came from Bardeen.”

“No, I did not.” Sweat was running down Titus’s forehead, his usually unflappable composure fracturing around the edges. “Obviously I regret not taking you at your word, Marcus, but everyone thought you’d run off with Teriana.Everyone.Every man here knows you’re a good liar, every man here knows that you can put on a show, and I thought that’s all it was. That things had gone sour with Teriana, and you were doing whatever it took to get your old life back.” His jaw worked back and forth, and he added, “I’ve worked hard to make progress on our mission, and I didn’t want all of it to go to waste. Didn’t want to go back to setting up house in Arinoquia with no mind to achieving the goals set to us, which I knew would be whatyou’d do. So if the Thirty-Seventh chose not to believe your bullshit and put an end to you, well… I wasn’t going to shed any tears.” He squared his shoulders. “But I didn’t lie. And I sure as shit didn’t kill my own men to cover that lie. My only fault is trusting this vermin.”

Wrenching out of Marcus’s grip, Titus leveled his gladius at Zaide. “I will have the truth from you.”

“I am but an old man,” the Gamdeshian pleaded, then reached out to catch hold of Marcus’s wrist as though he’d protect him. “I helped you, master. Nursed you back to health.”

Marcus tried to pull his arm free, but the man was shockingly strong; the bones of his wrist ground beneath the old Gamdeshian’s grip. “Get your hands off me.”