“I don’t know what he’s saying,” Temi told me. “It’s not English.”
I knelt at his head. “It’s Latin.” I didn’t know if that made perfect sense or blew my other theory out of the water. If some American geneticists were engineering super warriors for who knew what purposes, why wouldn’t they teach their soldiers English? Who was even around to teach Latin any more, especially the verbal form?
“He keeps saying the same thing over and over,” Temi said. “What does it mean?”
“I am my own… man? No, erus is master. Lord.”
The centurion turned his head toward Simon, gasped, and tried to sit up. Rubble tumbled down the pile. He spit out another sentence, then coughs overtook him. Blood sprayed from his mouth and he flopped back down. He tried one more time to speak, but failed. The rigidity left his body, and his eyes rolled upward, unfocused.
I rubbed a hand down my face, blinking a few times. All of this was too strange, too upsetting. Why’d we ever get involved?
“Uh,” Simon said.
He’d turned toward the tunnels the monster had used to leave the chamber. Two familiar figures were standing there, one holding the curved sword, its silver glow illuminating the air around him more effectively than a flashlight. Jakatra. Eleriss stood at his side, staring at us in disbelief.
I realized the Roman hadn’t been looking at Simon when he spat out those last words.
“What did he say?” Temi whispered. She must have realized the same thing.
I responded in a whisper of my own, not wanting our black-clad friends to overhear. “Don’t let them enslave you.”
CHAPTER 25
I hadn’t needed to worry about whispering. Eleriss and Jakatra were busy pointing at us and arguing with each other in their own language.
“I don’t suppose you know what they’re saying?” Temi murmured.
I was still waiting for the final verdict on the language, but I ventured, “If I had to guess? ‘How did those idiots get down here?’”
I stepped away from the Roman to join Simon in facing Eleriss and Jakatra. A few minutes ago, I would have been relieved to see them. After hearing the soldier’s last words, I was less certain that their appearance was a good thing. What if they were the mad scientists behind everything?
The argument ended, and Jakatra strode toward us. His gaze flicked toward Temi-she’d come up to stand at our backs-but it returned to Simon, as if he were in charge. Jakatra stopped two paces from him and extended a hand, one long finger pointing between Simon’s eyes. The fact that he held his big sword in his other hand made the gesture all the more threatening. I fingered the grip of my bullwhip, though I didn’t fancy the idea of skirmishing with him again.
“You will leave now,” Jakatra said.
“We came to warn you about the creature,” I said. “It dropped in through the ceiling back there. It’s here now. Close.”
Jakatra glanced at the destroyed alcoves. “Obviously.”
“Has it attacked you? What does it want?”
“This is none of your concern. It’s-”
“Jakatra,” Eleriss whispered. He had his own weapon out, the serrated dagger, and he’d turned to face one of the dark side passages.
Jakatra sniffed the air, and he too spun in that direction. I hadn’t heard a thing yet, but their reactions told me enough. I grabbed an arrow out of my quiver and readied the bow. Rock scraped rock behind us. I whirled, expecting to see the creature charging from that direction, but it was Temi, pulling the spear out of the first alcove.
“Good idea,” Simon muttered and grabbed a katana out of the ninja’s stash.
I eyed the centurion’s sword for a second, but decided it’d be better to stick with a weapon I knew how to use. Jakatra waited in a combat stance, the sword raised to shoulder level, blade pointed forward, ready to strike.
I had no more time to think about it. A black shape charged out of the shadows of the nearest tunnel. Though Eleriss was the closest person, it blasted straight toward Jakatra.
I might have had time to loose an arrow, but I hesitated, afraid it’d turn toward me if I annoyed it, and in that split second it crossed the chamber. It had to weigh five times as much as Jakatra. A sane person would have run. He waited like a statue. At the last instant, he leaped to the side, the sword whipping around so fast it blurred.
His blow would have decapitated a lion or tiger. The sword bit into the creature’s hide, but only an inch deep. It was enough to make the creature lurch backward, a startled snarl escaping its lips.
Jakatra followed, taking several more swipes with the glowing blade. The creature batted at it with its paws, but its strikes seemed slow in comparison. Or maybe it was that Jakatra was so fast-his movements were hard to follow. One moment he was in the predator’s face, slashing at its eyes, and the next he’d hopped over its lunging reach, landing on its shoulder to run down its back, stabbing and cutting every step of the way.
During a rare moment when there were a few feet of space between Jakatra and the creature, Temi threw her spear. It struck one of the sleek black haunches and bounced off. The creature didn’t notice; it merely lunged at Jakatra.
Feeling I should be attempting to help as well, I loosed an arrow the next time the combatants were separated. It struck the creature’s shoulder, but also bounced off. Again, if it noticed, it wasn’t apparent.
“Stop throwing your worthless weapons at it,” Jakatra said. “They cannot damage it.”
I flushed. I’d understood that but had thought we might at least distract it. But if he didn’t want help…
I met Eleriss’s eyes on the other side of the fight, and his expression was surprisingly sympathetic. Maybe he’d heard similar commands from his comrade. He remained in a ready position, his dagger at the ready, but it didn’t appear to have any special properties, not like the sword.
Jakatra lunged in, feinting a frontal assault only to duck under a swiping paw to slash his sword at the side of the beast’s ribcage, if it had a ribcage.
The creature howled, a high-pitched noise that reminded me more of a siren than an animal’s cry. It sounded like frustration rather than pain. Jakatra didn’t have its strength or bulk or armored hide, but the predator couldn’t land a blow on him. I was reminded again that whatever he was, he wasn’t entirely human.
Jakatra eluded a lunging attack and leaped straight up, somersaulting over the monster’s head before landing on its back. He’d twisted in midair, then slammed the sword down onto the creature’s neck, right below its skull. It should have been a killing blow, and indeed another high-pitched yowl burst forth from its mouth, but it reared and shook him off. Jakatra was flung several feet, and I raised the bow, fearing the monster would charge him when he landed.
But the creature howled again, then whirled and loped toward the nearest tunnel. Jakatra ran after it, stabbing it once more with the blade and drawing another cry. The monster only ran faster and soon outdistanced him.
Eleriss called out, his tone one of urgency and command. Jakatra slowed to a trot and stopped before he could disappear into the tunnel after the creature. He spewed a few sentences full of clipped words back at Eleriss, who merely shrugged and waved for him to return.
Something black had fallen to the ground during the fight. It took me a moment to realize it was Jakatra’s wool cap-he’d lost it somewhere amidst the somersaults and being hurled off the creature’s back. He had a ponytail of dark blond hair-we’d known that-and he also had-I stared-a pair of pointed ears. The bottom halves were as normal as any person’s, but the tops… yes, they were distinctly pointed.
“Do you see…?” I whispered.
“I see,” Simon whispered back.
“What are they?” Temi breathed.
Jakatra stalked over, grabbed his cap, and stuffed it into his pocket. He looked more defiant than mortified that his… unique cranial features had been revealed.