“Enough of this,” the Praetorian exclaimed loudly. “I claim this object in the name of the Empress of Rome, Augustina Agrippina.”
The seller huddled his arms against his chest, resting the ball protectively against his body.
“You have no such authority,” he countered.
“Indeed,” the Praetorian said, pulling his sword from his belt. Without pause, he stabbed the dealer through the chest. Reacting out of pain and surprise, the man stumbled backwards, throwing his hands over his head as he fell. The orb flew from his grip and Santino, quick on his feet, reached out and snagged it. Still playing the Greek merchant, he took a few steps back, cradling the spherical object and holding out his free hand in a Heisman-like pose.
“Please, please, we can work something out. Name your price.”
The Praetorian took a step towards him, pointing his sword at Santino’s neck.
“This can end two ways,” the man told Santino. “Both end with your death. All you control is its swiftness.”
Santino didn’t respond verbally, but his body language did his speaking for him. His posture straightened, his fear resided, and he was grinning from ear to ear. The two Romans, including the one holding the sword, shifted on their feet in surprise at how quickly the man before them had suddenly grown a spine.
“You really don’t want to do that,” Santino informed them calmly, already placing the orb in a bag of his own, cocky as ever. “There’s a very pretty lady out there who’s got your number, and I don’t mean that in a good way.”
“What?!” The Praetorian growled, only slightly more lost than I was. He moved forward again, just enough to obscure my shot. “Hand it over, fool!”
Santino sighed and looked at the ground, shaking his head.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, buddy.”
As soon as he finished his warning, he took a quick step to his left. He looked over his shoulder, glanced around and seemed satisfied with his new position. The two Romans looked at each other in confusion. Santino stood there, rocking on his feet, clapping his hands and snapping his fingers impatiently. Looking just as confused as everyone watching him by now, he glanced around again, then at his watch, before he smacked his thigh in realization. He took another step to the left and pointed his finger at the Roman like a pistol, snapping his hand back, mimicking the firing of a “gun.”
Nothing happened.
Santino looked at his hand in confusion. He smacked his wrist with his other hand, and tugged on his thumb, as though he were unjamming it. Apparently satisfied at whatever he had been doing, he took careful aim once again and “fired.” This time the armed Roman’s neck exploded in a stream of arterial blood and gore. Behind him, the other Roman fell backwards as a small crater formed near his left shoulder blade. Both men crumpled dead before they hit the ground.
“What took you so long?” Santino asked, putting his ear piece in place.
“Sorry,” Helena replied. “I didn’t want it to look too easy.”
“Women,” he said. “Always making things more difficult than they really are.”
I ignored their banter as I focused on Helena’s precision shot. She’d angled it perfectly and aimed at one of the few spots on a person’s body that allowed a bullet to penetrate with enough force while still remain intact so that it could successfully kill a second target behind the first. Her suppressor equipped DSR1 hadn’t even made a peep from anyone else’s perspective but her own, and I hoped the superstitious Romans actually thought Santino had shot their friends.
I quickly shifted my aim towards the rooftops. I saw the Romans hesitate for a few seconds, but it wasn’t long before the seasoned warriors drew swords and knocked arrows to bows.
“You might want to start running, 3–3,” I suggested. “You’re about to have incoming.”
I didn’t bother to look and see if he heard me or not. Instead, I rested my crosshairs on the biggest threat I could find, a Roman with his bow loaded and the string pulled back to his ear. I was in the zone now, and I didn’t hesitate, but before I pulled the trigger, his head exploded.
“Tango down,” Helena confirmed.
It still amazed me just how good a shot she was. I gritted my teeth, but smiled.
If she wanted a challenge, fine.
Her bolt action rifle and five round magazines gave me a slight advantage over her. After every shot she had to manually reload another round into the chamber, whereas my semi-automatic SR-25 could fire with each pull of the trigger, and I had twenty rounds to fire before I needed to reload. I moved my reticule to the dead man’s partner and put a round through his chest, ending his life before he even knew his buddy had gone down. The spent casing flew from my rifle’s ejection port into a mesh bag I attached to catch them.
No sense leaving any additional evidence behind.
Four down, twenty to go.
They didn’t stand a chance as Helena and I began to systematically take them apart. Another archer pointed his bow as Santino ran and I shot him in the shoulder, spinning him to the ground. I put another round in his chest to make sure he stayed down. His partner noticed his friend’s death, having no idea what happened to him, the cough of my rifle barely passing beyond my building, and took off running. I tracked him as he ran past five IR patches, so I adjusted my scope instinctually for 550 yards and pulled the trigger as he tried to leap between buildings. The bullet caught him just as he launched himself from the rooftop. He went limp at the impact and lost control over his jump, plummeting between the buildings.
I saw another Roman by himself, 475 yards away, and shot him in the chest.
“Four tangos down,” I communicated to Helena.
“Seven for me,” she reported, much to my annoyance. “But we have another problem. Enemy reinforcements coming in from the west. I count at least fifty.”
I shifted my body so that my rifle faced further to the west and saw just what Helena was describing. Fifty or so armed and dark clad men came running in our direction. There was only one anomaly amongst the group — well two actually. It seemed like Gaius and Marcus had decided to join the fight after all, because I clearly saw two IR strobes pulsating amongst the group as they ran towards Santino, who had finally made it to the rooftops. An arrow flew a foot from his head and I tracked its progress back to the source, removing the man with a shot to the stomach. I also saw one of the Praetorian runners, hot on his heels, only to be taken out by another surgical strike to the neck by Helena.
This was not good. Because of how Agrippina’s ninjas had positioned themselves prior to Helena’s first kill, Santino only had one direction he could run in. The problem was it threw off my ability to continue covering his withdrawal. Luckily, we’d prepared for that potentiality.
I clicked my radio. “I’m bugging out to Hide-3.”
“Copy,” Helena replied, for once too busy to transmit the double clicks.
I got to my feet, tossed the SR-25 into a large bag shaped like a bloated rifle, picked up Penelope, shouldered both rifle and gear bags, and took off from my position, heading southwest. Last night Helena and I located a third hide that we could use if the battle moved too far north into the city as it appeared to be doing now. Tall buildings were about to block my line of sight in a few minutes with Santino running in that direction. Helena’s position to the west, however, was higher off the ground than any other point in the city and allowed her to stay put, but in order for us to maintain an effective field of fire, we had found a third hide on a tower near the coast of the Propontis. It was relegated to the secondary position because its line of sight into the courtyard in front of the Hippodrome was negligible.
I huffed under the weight of my gear but I didn’t stop. I knew where all the big jumps were, having rehearsed the route a number of times last night, so I plowed through the darkness at top speed. The only impediment along the way was a clothes line that held large sheets drying in the summer breeze, an obstruction that was not there last night. When I rounded the corner, I ran headlong into it, entangling myself in the white linens. It only slowed me down for a second, and I was just glad Helena hadn’t seen it.