Celtic Fire (3 page)

Aulus floated above the melee, wringing his hands.

Barbarian shrieks mingled with curses and grunts as the battle wore on. Another Roman fell and the orb tightened. By Pollux! What the Celts lacked in armor, they made up for in fury. Lucius’s men were holding, but it was clear they couldn’t stand against the barbarians much longer.

The horses shied, causing Marcus and Demetrius to struggle with the reins. Worse, the orb was being forced toward a thatch of willows. The circle would break. Lucius swore under his breath and fought with renewed energy, the scent of blood in his nostrils and the sting of sweat in his eyes.

He ignored the ghost hovering above his left shoulder.

A Roman shout went up. Lucius swiveled his head and was greeted by the sight of Roman helmets at the bend in the road. Swords raised, the rear company charged into the fray.

“Break!” Lucius shouted. His men separated. Half joined the reinforcements in surrounding the largest group of barbarians, while the rest rushed the remaining wild men into the swamp. Lucius angled Marcus and Demetrius into a tight copse.

“It will soon be over,” he told the terrified boy.

Marcus looked up at him and nodded. Then his shoulders stiffened and his eyes grew wide, fixed on a point above Lucius’s head. A choking sound emerged from his throat. Too late, Lucius looked up to see a barbarian poised on the branch above.

He managed to deflect the Celt’s sword, though he staggered under the impact of the attacker’s leap. He tossed the man onto his back in the mud. He was a mere youth, with wild red hair and a beard not yet fully grown. Lucius lifted his sword, prepared to dispatch the young warrior to whatever barbarian god he held sacred.

Pain erupted in his hand, causing the sword to spin out of his grasp. By Pollux! An arrow had bitten the flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Where in Hades had it come from?

He had no time to speculate, for the young Celt had used the distraction to regain his feet. The Celt’s sword glanced off the edge of Lucius’s curved shield. Lucius slammed the shield down on the barbarian, groping for his battle dagger with his free hand.

A second arrow whizzed by his right ear. He stumbled. The Celt youth danced away. The unseen archer’s third projectile struck Lucius on the back and glanced off his armor. The next grazed his forearm, drawing blood. Lucius uttered an oath as his dagger slipped from his grasp. The youth leveled his sword at Lucius’s bare legs. Lucius parried the blade with his shield and lunged for his fallen sword.

A dart hit his right buttock, sending him face-first into the mud.
Merda!
He recovered quickly, jerking the arrow from his flesh. At the corner of his vision, a flash of color disappeared behind the silver-green curtain of a willow frond.

The barbarian war horn shrilled. The signal must have been a retreat, for after a moment’s hesitation, the Celt warrior raced for cover. Lucius barely noticed the youth’s departure. Sparing a glance toward Marcus and Demetrius, he snatched up his sword and plunged into the forest, vowing to take down the hidden archer.

He paused in the shadows, listening. Long moments passed, measured by the angry rush of blood in his ears. At last the archer showed himself, scrambling toward a tree to his right. Lucius lunged toward the movement and swung. His blade glanced off the tree’s trunk, jerked, and hit flesh. The archer went down with a cry. Lucius raised his weapon for the killing blow.

The barbarian twisted to one side and stared up at him, eyes wide. Lucius’s arm wavered. This enemy was even younger than the last, not yet old enough for battle paint. Dirt smeared his face and checkered tunic. His hands clutched his wounded leg.

The boy’s soft cries brought to mind a kitten, not a warrior.

Lucius sheathed his sword and propped his shield against a gnarled trunk. The young Celt had showed courage and a steady hand on the bow. If the gash on his leg was not deep, he could be sold as a slave, perhaps to be trained as a gladiator. He dragged the boy into a shaft of sunlight and knelt to inspect the wound.

His gaze caught instead on the archer’s face. Thick, coppery lashes fringed golden eyes, flecked with blue. Wisps of russet hair framed a delicate sweep of cheekbones and a perfectly formed nose. Lucius’s gaze drifted lower, taking in moist red lips and a firm pointed chin.

The boy’s chest heaved.

Lucius drew in a sharp breath.
By Jupiter’s mighty rod …

He grasped the neckline of the barbarian’s tunic and ripped the garment apart, exposing bare flesh. His hand closed on one small, pink-tipped breast.

He swore.

A girl. He’d been shot in the ass by a girl.

She barked a word and bucked, knocking his arm away. In the brief moment before he gathered his wits, she scrambled backward, clutching the edges of her torn tunic with one hand.

Lucius sat back on his heels, stunned. The girl snarled another imprecation and this time the words she hurled at him were in his own language.

“Roman dog! Pig! Defiler!” She jumped to her feet, golden eyes savage, a doe facing the wolf’s teeth. A thick coppery braid fell over one shoulder.

Lucius rose slowly, his gaze never wavering from the incredible vision before him. Had he believed in such creatures, he would have thought the Celt girl a forest nymph.

His loins tightened.

He moved closer. The nymph sprang back, her full weight coming down on her wounded leg. She cried out as she crumpled to the ground.

Lucius darted forward. Never before had he lifted a sword against a woman, but now a dark trail of the barbarian archer’s blood stained the forest floor. The wound needed tending, and quickly. He scooped her into his arms. Her small fists pummeled his breastplate.

“Quies,”
he said. “Quiet, little one. I’m not going to hurt you.” She struck one more time; then her eyes rolled upward and she went limp.

He emerged from the forest into a scene of carnage punctuated by soft moans and angry curses. Too many Romans lay sprawled in the dirt. Others crouched by the road, cradling their wounds. Demetrius knelt beside one soldier, binding his arm. Marcus hunkered at the physician’s side, pale but steady, assisting as well as he could. The supply wagons, which had avoided the worst of the battle, creaked to a halt on the road.

Out of habit, Lucius’s gaze sought Aulus, but his ghostly brother was nowhere to be seen. He came to an abrupt halt, wrenched his head around, and looked to the rear. Nothing. By the gods! The specter had haunted Lucius night and day for more than half a year.

Now, inexplicably, it was gone.

He frowned. At what point in the battle had the ghost disappeared? Lucius couldn’t say.

The centurion, bloodied but unhurt, hailed him. Lucius strode toward the officer. The man dropped a startled glance at the woman in his commander’s arms.

“Losses?” Lucius asked.

The centurion recovered his composure quickly. “Fifteen dead, sir, or nearly so. Twenty-two injured.”

“Unload the foodstuffs onto the road and gather the wounded into the wagons. The slave price of any Celt you salvage is yours.” His gaze dropped. Even unconscious, the barbarian archer looked more alive than Lucius had felt in a very long while. His arms tightened on his prize.

“This one is mine.”

Tendrils of warmth caressed Rhiannon’s body, stroking her limbs with the tenderness of a mother comforting her new babe. Had summer come so soon? She snuggled deeper into her blanket and grasped at a dream, but the pleasant fragments scattered, laying wide a path for the pain. The sensation drove forward like a sliver of winter ice, growing sharper the nearer it came. It sliced into her leg.

Her spine arched. A strong hand pushed her back into soft cushions. Not her own straw pallet. Where, then?

A low, rich voice spoke a single word.
“Quies.”

She opened her eyes. A face wavered in the dim light. She blinked and the vision stilled.

A man with features that surely belonged to some dark god. A wide brow, harsh cheekbones, and somber eyes. Streaks of grime marred his bronze skin. A proud nose crooked to the side—had it once been broken? Black curls clung to a high forehead. Full, sensual lips pursed in a grim line.

The strong angle of his jaw fascinated Rhiannon most.

She had never known a grown man to be beardless. Hesitantly, she lifted one finger and touched his naked skin. The bare chin conspired with the unruly curls to present an illusion of youth, yet this was no boy. A few strands of silver were visible in his dark mane. Fine wrinkles crimped the corners of his eyes.

Those eyes gleamed rich and brown, the color of stones washed by a stream, but soft, like the summer coat of an otter. Some emotion stirred deep in her breast. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. She’d seen this man before; she was sure of it. But how? She didn’t know him. Her gaze drifted lower to the glint of metal at his chest.

Roman armor, dark with stains that looked like blood.

Terror crashed through the fog in her brain. With it came the memory of the battle. She’d followed the men, but had arrived too late to prevent Owein’s mad attack on the Roman commander. She’d aided her brother with her bow, only to have the Roman’s sword fall on her. She flung herself back, but there was no escape. One strong palm caught her shoulder, the other her stomach.

“Quies,”
he said again.

She kicked and pain shot through her leg. “Filth!” she snarled in the Roman’s own tongue, glad for the first time that Madog had taught her the foul language. “Take your hands from me.” She tore at his face.

The Roman swore. Catching her wrists in his hands, he pinned them on either side of her head and shifted his torso over her. The sharp edges of his armor cut into her breast. She lay beneath him, chest heaving, caught like a mountain hare in a trap. The thought enraged her. Dear Briga, if only her arrow had pierced his neck instead of his arse! She writhed, cursing, but his hold was sure and his body as steady as an oak.

Her captor looked down at her, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. The dog dared to mock her? She gathered what moisture she could on her tongue and spat in his face.

His smile vanished into an oath to some Roman god. He hauled her wrists over her head and held them with one hand. He used the other to wipe the spittle from his cheek. His dark eyes never left her face.

“Hurry,” he said.

Rhiannon understood, but couldn’t guess his meaning. Hurry? How, when she lay trapped? Then a second man’s voice emerged from behind the Roman and she realized her captor’s command had not been meant for her.

Hands grasped her wounded leg, bringing a spike of pain so vivid that lights burst in her vision. She gasped, trying to catch enough air to breathe. The Roman barked another word and swung his head to the side.

The sudden movement sent the room spinning.

Lucius gazed at the barbarian woman’s pale face, a stark contrast to the wild flame of her hair. He’d thought her a girl, but now, as he examined his prize more closely, he saw her figure was that of a woman. A sylvan nymph, born of fire and mist.

“She’s fainted,” he said, as if Demetrius didn’t have eyes and ears of his own.

“So I see,” the old Greek replied. With professional precision, he tore the woman’s checkered tunic from waist to hem, completing the rip from the neckline Lucius had begun.

Her breasts were small and exquisite, her navel a gentle dip in the curve of her belly. Lucius’s gaze touched the coppery thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, but didn’t linger. At the moment, the ugly gash on her leg was a much more compelling sight.

Demetrius dipped a length of linen into the basin of warm water and wine at his elbow. “Thank the gods she’s quiet at last. Now, perhaps, I can attend to my labor in peace.” He wiped the cloth over the wound, clearing the worst of the blood.

Lucius stood, his gaze probing the shadows at the corners of the chamber. Aulus hadn’t reappeared after the battle. Where in Hades had he gone? The irony of Lucius’s reaction didn’t escape him. For half a year he’d sought to banish his brother’s ghost. Now, perversely, Aulus’s absence left him wary.

He rubbed the pounding pulse in his right temple. “Will she live?” he asked, trying not to care.

The physician shrugged without looking up from his task. “She seems strong enough and the cut is not deep.” He drew apart the edges of the wound. A trickle of fresh blood stained his hands.

“Stitch it and be done, then.”

“The wound must be cleared of debris, else it will corrupt. As well you know.” Demetrius’s grizzled eyebrows arched above his hawklike nose as he probed the gash with his fingers.

More blood oozed, streaking over the nymph’s pale skin like veins through marble. Lucius was no stranger to battle injuries, but to see such a wound on a woman …

He looked away.

Demetrius caught the movement and snickered. “The mighty warrior grows faint?”

Lucius glared at him. “I’ve seen far worse.”

“No doubt.” Demetrius threaded a thin strand of sinew through the eye of a bronze needle. “Be of some use to me, boy. Bring that hand lamp closer.”

Lucius obeyed without hesitation. He’d been taking orders from the ancient scholar since childhood. Old habits died hard.

Demetrius pulled the edges of the wound together and made one careful stitch, then another. “I’m glad you sharpened your sword before hacking at her,” he said in a conversational tone. “A ragged edge would have been much harder to close.”

Lucius gripped the lamp and refused to take the bait.

“She spoke in the Roman tongue,” Demetrius continued.

“That’s not surprising. Many
Brittunculi
do. Her clan must have dealings in the fort village.”

“The barbarians provide grain one day, a spear in the back the next.”

“It’s the way of things on the frontier. Assyria was no different.”

Demetrius finished stitching the wound. He put the needle aside and took up a strip of linen. “Raise her leg, Luc, so I may bind it.”

Lucius set the hand lamp near the basin of water and slid his hands under the nymph’s leg. Her ankle nestled in his left palm, his right hand caressed her thigh. Carefully, so as not to disturb the new stitches, he lifted the wounded limb.