Page 29 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

“Don’t you find it strange,” he said to fill the silence, “that we never heard another word about him? He was never intended for a quiet life, would have risen to the top of any situation he found himself in, but not a whisper.”

“Because he’s probably dead.” Gibzen’s tone was frigid. “That girl likely got sick of his yapping and cut his throat. What difference does it make, anyway? You’re better off without him. He was always arguing with you. Never falling to command.”

“When he argued, he was usually right,” Marcus muttered, picking up the razor. “He always got the job done.”

Gibzen snorted. “Agrippa always did his level best to make you look bad because he never got over that you came out on top, and he didn’t. I hope that prick’s dead and I hope he died hard.”

As Gibzen spoke, the coldness in his voice turned to venom.

The two had never gotten along, but Marcus hadn’t realized Gibzen held a grudge that seemed to go beyond the animosity earned by Agrippa’s desertion.

Which possibly explained why not a single legionnaire who had served in Agrippa’s hundred remained under Gibzen’s command, all of them either dead or under the leadership of other centurions.

As he soaped his face, Marcus briefly considered pressing the primus, but what was the point of digging into the past with so many other problems facing him in the present?

Not the least of which was the traitor in their midst. Gibzen had ever been loyal, in his fashion, and his hatred for those who were not had been well proven. Plus who better to track the culprit down than his own personal bloodhound?

Lifting the razor to his cheek, Marcus debated how to approach this as he scraped the blade over his skin.

Only to hiss as his unsteady hands betrayed him.

“Let me help you with that, sir.” Gibzen circled the pool to kneel behind Marcus. “Can’t have you walking around looking like you shaved drunk.”

“It’s fine. I’ll—”

Gibzen pulled the blade from his grip. “Agrippa wasn’t loyal. Nothing matters more than loyalty.”

Marcus didn’t answer, his attention all for the blade Gibzen was expertly scraping along his skin. Swallowing carefully, he finally said, “I’ve reason to believe that someone in the Thirty-Seventh betrayed the location of your men when they were escorting Teriana back from Galinha.”

Gibzen’s hand paused. “Why do you think that?”

“Because Ashok told Teriana as much. He had Cel dragons newly minted with Cassius’s face that the traitor had given him as compensation.”

“ Traitor .” There was anger in Gibzen’s voice.

“Yes. Never mind that the idiot got your men killed, his actions caused a change in strategy that nearly resulted in the Thirty-Seventh being caught between two armies. I thought it was Titus, but before he died, he denied it. Said he’d brought the gold but the only thing he’d used it for was paying one of my men to spy. He wasn’t a traitor.”

Gibzen scraped the blade up the side of Marcus’s throat. “You sure Titus wasn’t lying?”

Marcus closed his eyes, remembering the look in Titus’s dying eyes. “Yes. He was guilty of many things, but not this.”

“Did Ashok give Teriana a description of the individual?”

“No.” Marcus held his breath as the blade passed over his jugular. “Only that whoever it was held a grudge against my relationship with her and desired things to go back to normal. Ashok thought we all looked the same.”

Gibzen huffed out a breath. “So it could be anyone? You have no idea who the man might be?”

“Unfortunately not.” Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus watched as Gibzen wiped clean the razor, then set it on the tray. “But I want you to find him for me. I can’t have a traitor in my legion.”

“Want me to kill him?”

Marcus shook his head. Climbing out of the bath, he wrapped a length of toweling around his waist. “No. I want him brought to me because this is personal.”

“Yeah.”

Hand resting on the hilt of his gladius, Gibzen walked to the door and opened it, nodding at the men standing guard outside before taking the lead down the hallway. Marcus followed, legs feeling like lead, every inch of him aching, and he watched with dull eyes as Gibzen checked his room.

“Head hurt?” Gibzen asked.

“Everything hurts.”

A flash of emotion played through the primus’s eyes, and he dug into his belt pouch, then held out a vial.

Marcus took it. Recognizing the etchings, he said, “You shouldn’t have this.”

Gibzen shrugged. “Racker’s cheap with it, especially with my men. I only give it to them when they’re really hurting.”

A flicker of irritation passed through Marcus that the surgeon would deny men in need out of personal spite between him and Gibzen. “I’ll talk to him about that.”

“Nah. You take it, then we’ll all be on the right side of the rules.”

Staring at the vial, Marcus slowly nodded.

“Get some sleep, sir,” Gibzen said, opening the door to where the rest of his men stood. “We’ll watch your back.”

The others murmured their agreement, and Marcus nodded at them, wishing they all stood outside his familiar tent and not a room in a fortress that felt far too much like Celendor for him ever to be comfortable.

As he set the vial down on the table, his eyes skipped over a rack holding his old armor, which Amarin must have squirreled away, though the weapons with it were all new.

Turning down the lamp on the table, he crawled onto the cot and shoved the pillow onto the floor.

Faint light from the fires and torches in the camp filtered in through the window above, which was little more than an arrow slit—Rastag was too engrained in warfare to have been swayed by the need for beauty.

Go to sleep, he told himself, squeezing his eyes shut. You need to rest. You need to be able to think clearly.

Except in the silence, the problems reared even as his skull ached.

One hundred and twenty-four of the Thirty-Seventh are dead.

I paid one of your men to spy on Teriana for me.

Why did you bother telling me that you loved me?

Six months.

It was the last problem that took over, finally shoving aside all else with its terrifying magnitude. Six months to find paths, and his only good lead was a terminus in Gamdesh. Six months to capture a major port city from the most powerful nation in the West.

Six months.

If he failed, one hundred of Teriana’s people would head to the gallows for each month that passed.

You’ll figure it out, he told himself. This is what you do. This is what you are best at. This is who you are.

Just get some sleep!

His panic refused to listen, refused to grant him respite, and with an exhale of frustration, Marcus sat up and set his feet on the floor.

You don’t need it.

Yet the vial was suddenly in his hand, though he didn’t remember crossing the room. The glass was etched with a familiar symbol, the liquid within holding the power to drive away both pain and consciousness with a few drops.

Marcus warred with himself, but it was a short battle. With shaking hands, he opened it and measured three drops onto his tongue, then tucked the bottle where it wouldn’t be immediately found, between the mattress and the cot.

The light above blurred, his vision splitting into two, then three. He lay back down and pulled the blanket over his legs as blackness poured into the room, filling his eyes, and dragging him down, down, down until the world fell away.