Apollonia, Libya
When the battered ship finally limped her way into the harbor at Apollonia, the surviving crew members made her fast and staggered ashore. They had meant to put in at Leptis Magna, but the storm had driven them too far off course. They were well past the port when the storm had finally cleared, and the captain had made the decision to press on for Apollonia.
The harbor was practically deserted, all but a Roman trireme drifting out at anchor. Unlike the bustling trade markets of Carthage and Portus, full of people and wares, Apollonia was a ragged outpost. Jurian stared out at the crystal blue waters, gently lapping against the sea wall that protected the little harbor. From this vantage, the place was lovely—all deep greens and blues and white sand. But when he turned and looked at Apollonia itself, he shuddered. The port city looked like it had been broken by some giant hand and left to crumble into the sea.
Beside him, Eva drew a deep breath, and he glanced down at her. There was something sad and almost wistful in her gaze, but the grim shadow that had always lurked deep in her eyes had faded.
“I didn’t know,” she murmured. “I’d heard rumors…but I didn’t know the city had fallen to such ruin.”
“You haven’t been here before?” he asked, frowning. “But how did you get to Rome? You must have sailed from here.”
She blushed and turned away. “It was night when I came through. I was…attending to my mistress. I didn’t see.”
“Ah,” Jurian said, eyeing her skeptically.
She darted a glance at him and, seeing his expression, gave him a dazzling grin that caught him utterly off-guard. He scrubbed a hand through his thick hair, and caught her stifling a laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Just mind you don’t burn yourself.”
He gave her a mock glare and her laughter bubbled over, a low musical sound, like a spring of deep water. Jurian realized with a start that it was the first time he had heard her laugh. She was so different from Mari, and yet…somehow similar. Somehow familiar.
Menas joined Jurian and Eva at that moment, hefting his small sack of coins and scowling.
“Captain charged me double what he should have,” he mumbled. “I think he faults us for the storm…and he certainly faults us for making him put in at this port.”
Their business settled, they hefted their packs and headed into the city. Eva stumbled more than once on the broken ground. What used to be paved streets had crumbled into near oblivion, their stones cracked and scattered. Buildings crouched in half-toppled mounds, and what remained of their stone walls bulged suspiciously, as though just the movement would dissolve them into heaps. There wasn’t a soul to be seen.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Menas grumbled. “Something’s not right in this place.”
Eva shifted her small pack, frowning. “This land is plagued with earth tremors. It’s part of the god’s curse on our land, they say. And trade hasn’t been what it used to be in recent years. We have nothing to offer Rome…and so Rome passes us by.”
“You seem to know a lot for a slave,” Menas said.
“My mistress…she speaks to me sometimes.”
“That’s not forbidden?” Jurian asked, frowning at her.
Eva shrugged. “She’s lonely, I think. She needs someone to trust. Someone she can speak to and unburden her heart.”
They continued in silence, past more ramshackle buildings than Jurian could count and past great fissures in the earth that reeked with a foul steam. In the central agora stood a massive stone fountain. Its central pillar was carved with the forms of dolphins and griffins—a tribute to the god for whom the port city was named. It was the only thing in the city that seemed untouched by the destruction around them.
But when Eva saw it, she stumbled forward with a cry.
“No!” she gasped. “No, no!”
She dropped her pack beside the fountain and plunged her hand into the basin.
Jurian and Menas ran to catch up with her. “What is it?” Jurian asked. “What’s wrong?”
Eva stared up at him, her face stricken with terror and grief. The basin was dry and filled with dust.
“Please…” she whispered, but not to him. Her eyes seemed to stare straight through him. “Don’t let me be too late…”
“Too late for what?” Jurian asked.
“We have to hurry,” she said. “There’s no time.”
They moved through the empty agora and came to the massive, crumbled temple of Jupiter. Its columns had tumbled into what had been the nave, and a pile of rubble taller than Menas marked all that was left of the roof.
On the stone steps before what had been the door sat the only other living person they had seen since they left the harbor. He was a ragged man, bones jutting out everywhere, his feet withered and bare. His eyes, cloudy and bleared, stared vacantly across the square.
Mari would want me to do something for him, Jurian thought. He fumbled in the pouch at his waist and drew out the three last coins from Mari’s bag. As he stepped forward to place them in one of the man’s upturned hands, the man cried out.
“Which of you carries the sword?” he croaked.
Jurian recoiled. “What sword?”
“The sword from over sea and under stone.”
Jurian and Menas exchanged glances.
“That would be…me, I guess,” Jurian said.
The man’s hand snaked out and caught Jurian by the wrist, his grip stronger than Jurian would have imagined.
“The dragon god waits for you,” he said, lifting his other hand and pointing south. “Through fire and blood the sword must pass, then make its journey over a sea like glass…bring it to rest in house of stone, until the orphan boy takes crown and throne. Rome from Rome will pass away, and Rome from Rome will rise.”
The man dropped Jurian’s wrist, his eyes once more fixed across the square. Jurian dropped the coins into the man’s other hand and backed away.
“What does that mean?” Eva whispered.
Jurian shook his head and pointed south. “It means we have business with a dragon,” he said.
As they left the shattered port behind them and headed south into the wilds between Apollonia and Cyrene, Menas began to grumble. Jurian’s anxiety grew, and he kept glancing back over his shoulder and around at the barren and parched landscape. The grasses were like straw, crunching under their feet and pricking their legs. Small stands of short, shaggy trees pocked the flat expanse of the sea plain, and the shadows beneath them seemed somehow darker than shade should be.
In the last light of the evening, Jurian called a halt under the cover of one of these pockets of shelter.
“Not right, not right,” Menas mumbled. “Evil, that’s what it is.” He made the signum across his forehead. “Can you feel it, Jurian? It’s thick as wool in this place.”
“Why are we stopping, Jurian?” Eva demanded as he shrugged off his pack.
Menas leaned his sarcina against a tree trunk and set about gathering dried wood for a small fire. Eva stubbornly refused to set down her own things, Jurian noticed, as he fished in his pack for his flint.
“Jurian,” she said again. “We have to go! We’re so close…we can make it tonight. Please, we have to try!”
“I won’t risk that tonight,” he said. “We don’t know what lies ahead. I’d rather not face it in the dark if I can help it. This land is too uneven to cross without a light anyway.”
“You don’t understand!” Eva cried. “There’s nothing but darkness…it won’t matter. But if you don’t get me home in time…” Her voice trailed off. “Please?”
“I’m sorry, Eva,” Jurian said firmly. “We stop for tonight. We’ll get you there in the morning.”
Eva dropped her pack and sank down, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them.
Jurian and Menas made a small fire, and they gnawed a few strips of dried meat and a handful of nuts. Eva refused to eat, but sat huddled with her head on her knees at the edge of the firelight. Jurian watched her thoughtfully, crunching an almond.
“I have this feeling,” he said softly to Menas, “like we’re being followed.”
“It's this cursed place,” he said. “There’s something here. All around us. I haven’t felt the like since…” His voice trailed off and he held his hands out to the fire.
Jurian nodded slowly. Menas didn’t have to elaborate. He remembered the giant’s story all too well, and his skin prickled. They sat a long while in silence, until the fire burned low. Finally, Menas stirred and jerked a head towards Jurian’s pack.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll watch tonight.”
Jurian gratefully rolled himself in his cloak. With one last glance at Eva, who seemed to be asleep, Jurian closed his eyes.
He woke to the sound of shouts and wild bellows.
At first he thought their camp was being attacked by a feral beast. He thrashed out of his cloak and drew his seax, tumbling into a crouch and facing what was left of the fire.
His heart jumped into his throat.
Menas was on his knees. Four Legion soldiers held his arms pinioned behind him, and a fifth stood over him, smiling triumphantly. Jurian watched in horror as the man brought his knee up into Menas’ face. Menas leaned over and spit blood into the dirt.
With their attention on Menas, somehow, miraculously, the soldiers seemed not to have seen Jurian. He edged quietly into the deep shadow under the tree just behind him, catching the pole of Menas’ sarcina just before he sent it crashing over into the undergrowth.
He scanned the little camp desperately, but couldn’t spot Eva anywhere. She had disappeared, probably when the fight started. A thin sigh of relief escaped him—at least she hadn’t been caught. Still, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to blame her for cowardice or praise her for quick thinking. She knew these hills; maybe she was going for help.
He wormed his way around the tree, testing the grip on his seax, calculating the angle of his attack.
“Menas, you are under arrest for treason,” the captain said. “It is the will of the divine Diocletian that you stand trial for your crime.” He twisted his fingers into Menas’ hair, jerking his face up. “Otherwise,” he said, “I’d kill you right here, right now. Desertion is punishable by death.” He dropped Menas’ head again and stepped back, folding his arms across his chest. “Bind his arms and legs. Make sure the beast is secure.”
Jurian shifted his position to get better purchase for his attack, but at that same moment Menas lifted his head. His eyes locked with Jurian’s, and he mouthed a single word.
“Run.”