chapter thirty-three

─── they let the criminal have a sword, bad idea

          𝔈very cloud had a silver lining, and this one was that the food was incredible. The moment I sat down, wind spirits were whipping around us, placing food in front of people and filling drinks. Someone set a plate of fries and a large cheeseburger with bacon down ahead of me, along with a glass of soda.

I took an apprehensive sip before humming. The taste was familiar, not that I knew how it was familiar, but I knew that it was.

The mess hall seemed especially noisy tonight. Laughter echoed off the walls. War banners rustled from cedar ceiling beams as wind spirits, aurae, blew back and forth, keeping everyone's plates full. The campers dined Roman style, sitting on couches around low tables. Kids were constantly getting up and trading places, spreading rumours about who liked whom and all the other gossip. 

The Fifth Cohort took the place of least honour. Their tables were at the back of the dining hall next to the kitchen. The table I got dragged to was me, Hazel, Frank, Nico and one of the centurions, Dakota.

Dakota was soft spoken and, like everyone seemingly in this camp, sad. He was sipping on a drink, fingers drumming along the side of the couch he was on, and curly black hair attempting to fall into his eyes, which didn't quite line up straight.

"So, welcome to the Andromeda party." Dakota nodded at me, as I hummed.

"Uhh, thanks?" I nodded at him, before turning back to Nico. "We should talk, you know, about where I might have seen you before."

"Sure." Nico said it a little too quickly for me not to be suspicious. "The thing is, I spend most of my time in the Underworld. So, unless I met you there somehow-"

"Ambassador from Pluto, they call him. Reyna's never sure what to do with his guy when he visits." Dakota cut him off, pulling dirt out from under his nails as he spoke. There was a level of bite in his voice, and I reminded myself that this was the legion of the missing Praetor and most likely a close friend. "You should have seen Cress's face when he showed up with Hazel, asking her and Reyna to take her in..."

He laughs, before trailing off as the sadness appears in his eyes again and he goes silent.

"Dakota was really helpful, standing for Hazel." Nico explained, no one dwelling on the sadness of the Centurion.

"She seemed like a good kid. We had a good feeling about her." I wonder if the we is Cressida, who he seems to know on a nickname basis. "Last month she saved me from, uh, you know."

"Oh man!" Frank looked up from his food, turning to me with a grin. "Romy, you should have seen her! That's how Hazel got her stripe. The unicorns decided to stampede-"

"It was nothing." Hazel was bright red, trying to wave them off. 

"Nothing?" Frank protested, waving her off. "Dakota would've been trampled. She stood right in front of them, shooed them away, saved his hide. I've never seen anything like it."

I watched her, tilting my head as I tried to work things out in my mind. So, Nico had taken her to join the legion but spent most of his time in the Underworld. They didn't truly look anything alike.

"Did you and Nico grow up together?" I looked between the children of Pluto, chewing on my fries.

"No," Nico answered for her. "I only found out that Hazel was my sister only recently. She's from New Orleans. There aren't many of us, so we have to stick together. When I found Hazel –"

"You have other siblings?" I knew this answer, I swear I knew this answer. 

"One," Nico admitted. "But she died. I saw her spirit a few times in the Underworld, except that the last time I went down there...She was gone. She used to be in Elysium – like, the Underworld paradise – but she chose to be reborn into a new life. Now I'll never see her again. I was just lucky to find Hazel...in New Orleans, I mean."

"Unless you believe the rumours." Dakota pipes up helpfully. "Not saying that I do."

"Rumours?" 

From across the room, Don the faun yelled, "Hazel!"

He was working his way towards their table, grinning at everybody and sneaking food off plates.

"My favourite girl!" He smelled like a wet goat. He leaned over their couches and checked out our food. "Say, new kid, you going to eat that?"

I frowned, not liking being called kid when I was definitely an adult. "Aren't fauns vegetarian?"

"Not the cheeseburger! The plate!" He sniffed my hair. "Hey...what's that smell?"

I groaned. I'd just washed my hair, surely it couldn't smell already!

"Don!" Hazel snapped quickly. "Don't be rude."

"No, I just-"

The house god Vitellius shimmered into existence, standing half embedded in Frank's couch. "Fauns in the dining hall! What are we coming to? Centurion Dakota, do your duty!"

"Not centurion." Dakota grumbled, "and I'm having dinner."

Don was still sniffing around me as I glared at him. He'd told me my hair smelt. "Hey, you've got an empathy link with a faun!"

I scooted further and further away, still feeling confused. "A what?"

"An empathy link! It's real faint, like somebody's suppressed it, but –"

"I know what!" Nico stood suddenly. "Hazel, how about we give you and Frank time to get Romy oriented? Dakota and I can visit the praetor's table. Don and Vitellius, you come too. We can discuss strategies for the war games."

No one looked thrilled at the prospect.

"Death Boy is right!" Vitellius said. "This legion fights worse than we did in Judea, and that was the first time we lost our eagle. Why, if I were in charge –"

"Could I just eat the silverware first?" Don asked.

"Let's go!" Nico stood and grabbed Don and Vitellius by the ears, which made me laugh. That seemed like something I would do. Vitellius spluttered with outrage as he was dragged off to the praetor's table.

"Ow!" Don protested.

"Come on, Dakota!" Nico called over his shoulder.

The centurion got up reluctantly. 

"What was that about?" I questioned. "And what's wrong with Dakota?"

"He's alright." Frank sighed. "He doesn't really want to be the centurion."

"Why not?"

"He feels like he's stealing the position." Hazel lowered her voice as if someone could overhear her. "You know, this was Cressida's cohort."

The daughter of Jupiter was like an ever present ghost over the soldiers and what they did. I looked over at the praetor's table. Most of the senior officers were in deep conversation with Reyna. Nico and his two captives, Don and Vitellius, stood on the periphery. Dakota was talking to Octavian, shaking his head at whatever the blond man was saying.

"Okay, so tell me," I muttered, looking back at the pair, "why is it bad to be in the Fifth Cohort? You guys seem great."

"It's...complicated. Aside from being Pluto's kid, I want to ride horses." Hazel explained.

"That's why you use a cavalry sword?"

She nodded. "It's stupid, I guess. Wishful thinking. There's only one pegasus at camp – Reyna's. The unicorns are just kept for medicine, because the shavings off their horns cure poisoning and stuff. Anyway, Roman fighting is always done on foot. Cavalry...they kind of look down on that. So they look down on me."

"Their loss." I shrugged. Something about horses was reminding me of one, but I couldn't tell who. All I could tell you was that they had a foul mouth and hated blonds, which seemed a little specific if you asked me. "What about you, Frank?"

"Archery," he muttered. "They don't like that either, unless you're a child of Apollo. Then you've got an excuse. I hope my dad is Apollo, but I don't know. I can't do poetry very well. And I'm not great at singing."

"But you're excellent with the bow – the way you pegged those gorgons? Forget what other people think." Gods, these kids really needed a confidence boost, because who thought of themselves in this way?

Frank's face turned bright red, flushing up to his ears. "Wish I could. They all think I should be a sword fighter because I'm big and bulky. They say I'm too stocky for an archer. Maybe if my dad would ever claim me..."

"You asked about the Fifth." Hazel broke the silence that settled after Frank's statement. "Why it's the worse cohort. That actually started way before us."

She motioned back to the legion standards that were on display.

"See the empty pole in the middle?"

"The eagle," I guessed.

Hazel was stunned. "How'd you know?"

It was like she wasn't listening to the same conversation that I was.

"Vitellius was talking about how the legion lost its eagle a long time ago – the first time, he said. He acted like it was a huge disgrace. I'm guessing that's what's missing. And from the way you and Reyna were talking earlier, I'm guessing your eagle got lost a second time, more recently, and it had something to do with the Fifth Cohort." I shrugged, before turning my brain off. I'd done my mental work for the day.

"You're right." She seemed a little suspicious at that, as I laughed. "That's exactly what happened."

"So what is this eagle, anyway? Why is it a big deal?"

Frank looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "It's the symbol of the whole camp – a big eagle made of gold. It's supposed to protect us in battle and make our enemies afraid. Each legion's eagle gave it all sorts of power, and ours came from Jupiter himself. Supposedly Julius Caesar nicknamed our legion Fulminata because of what the eagle could do."

"I don't like lightning." I think the whole daughter of Neptune thing didn't really mix with lightning bolts.

"Yeah, but it didn't make us invincible. The Twelfth lost it back in the ancient days." Hazel explained. "The eagle was so important...well, archaeologists have never recovered a single eagle from ancient Rome. Each legion guarded theirs to the last man, because it was charged with power from the gods. They'd rather hide it or melt it down than surrender it to an enemy. The Twelfth was lucky the first time. We got our eagle back. But the second time..."

"You guys were there?" I asked.

They both shook their heads.

"I'm almost as new as you." Frank tapped his probatio plate. "Just got here last month. But everyone's heard the story. It's bad luck to even talk about this. There was this huge expedition to Alaska back in the eighties..."

"The prophecy in the temple, the one about the nine demigods and the doors of death?" Hazel continued on from what Frank was saying. "Our first Praetor, the most senior one, was Michael Varus, from the Fifth Cohort. Back then, we were the best in camp. He thought it would bring glory to the legion if he could figure out the prophecy and make it come true – save the world from storm and fire and all that. He talked to the augur, and the augur said the answer was in Alaska. But he warned Michael it wasn't time yet. The prophecy wasn't for him."

"He went anyway." I guessed. "What happened?"

Frank lowered his voice. "Long, gruesome story. Almost the entire Fifth Cohort was wiped out. Most of legion's Imperial gold weapons were lost, along with the eagle. The survivors went crazy or refused to talk about what had attacked them."

Well, that sounded like a bundle of laughs. I made a mental note to never go to Alaska.

"Since the eagle was lost," Frank continued, "the camp has been getting weaker. Quests are more dangerous. Monsters attack the borders more often. Morale is lower. The last month or so, things have been getting much worse, much faster."

"And the Fifth Cohort took the blame," I put the pieces together.

"Everyone thought we were cursed." Hazel sighed. "We've been the outcasts since the Alaska disaster. Then, well everyone knows the story, Cressida moved up through the ranks from the age of 7 or 8. She took over leadership of the Fifth Cohort at 12 and then became Praetor at 15. She was the senior one, well loved, well respected."

"Then she went missing." I added on, as the other two fell silent.

"Yeah." Frank took a deep breath. "I never met her, before my time and all. I heard she was a great leader, everyone who knew her adored her, she grew up in the Fifth Cohort."

"She didn't care that we were the lowest ranked cohort." Hazel continued. "She raised us up, rebuilt our reputation, cared for all of us and then she disappeared. Which brings us back to square one and made us look cursed all over again. I'm sorry that you've got yourself into this, Romy."

"Look, I don't even know where I come from...but I've got a feeling this isn't the first time I've been an underdog." I sent Hazel a smile. "Besides, joining the legion is better than being chased through the wilderness by monsters. I've got myself some new friends. Maybe together we can turn things around for the Fifth Cohort, huh?"

A horn blew at the end of the hall. The officers at the praetor's table got to their feet, everyone going silent.

"The games begin!" Reyna announced. The campers cheered and rushed to collect their equipment from the stacks along the walls.

"So we're the attacking team?" I called over the noise. "Is that good?"

Hazel shrugged. "Good news: we get the elephant. Bad news –"

"Let me guess," I grinned. "The Fifth Cohort always loses."

Frank slapped me on the shoulder. "Sounds about right. Come on, new friend. Let's go chalk up my thirteenth defeat in a row!"

∘☽༓☾∘

I followed the others towards the war games, subtly stretching out my limbs as I looked around me. Everyone, apart from the Fifth Cohort, looked excited. I sighed, before falling in beside Frank, as we formed two lines behind the centurions, Dakota and Gwen.

We marched north, skirting the edge of the city, and headed to the Field of Mars – the largest, flattest part of the valley. The grass was cropped short by all the unicorns, bulls and homeless fauns that grazed here. The earth was pitted with explosion craters and scarred with trenches from past games. At the north end of the field stood their target. The engineers had built a stone fortress with an iron portcullis, guard towers, scorpion ballistae, water cannons and who knew what else.

"They did a good job today," Hazel noted. "That's bad for us."

"You're telling me that fortress was built today?" That whole Rome wasn't built in a day thing was looking like it was fake.

Hazel grinned. "Legionnaires are trained to build. If we had to, we could break down the entire camp and rebuild it somewhere else. Take maybe three or four days, but we could do it."

"Fun." I pulled a face. I didn't particularly feel like building things was my sort of thing, destroying things on the other hand? Now, that I could do. "So you attack a different fort every night?"

"Not every night," Frank said. "We have different training exercises every few days. Sometimes deathball. Sometimes we do chariots and gladiator competitions, sometimes war games. Depends."

Hazel pointed at the fort. "Somewhere inside, the First and Second Cohorts are keeping their banners. Our job is to get inside and capture them without getting slaughtered. We do that, we win."

Something clicked inside of me, and I grinned. "Like capture-the-flag. I think I like capture-the-flag."

Frank laughed. "Yeah, well...it's harder than it sounds. We have to get past those scorpions and water cannons on the walls, fight through the inside of the fortress, find the banners and defeat the guards, all while protecting our own banners and troops from capture. And our cohort is in competition with the other two attacking cohorts. We sort of work together, but not really. The cohort that captures the banners gets all the glory."

I almost tripped again at the weird left, right marching rhythm.

"So why are we practising this, anyway?" I asked. "Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?"

"Teamwork," Hazel said. "Quick thinking. Tactics. Battle skills. You'd be surprised what you can learn in the war games."

"Like who hates you and will stab you in the back." Frank nodded cheerfully.

"Especially that." Hazel agreed.

"You two are so cheerful."

We marched to the centre of the Field of Mars and formed ranks. The Third and Fourth Cohorts assembled as far as possible from the Fifth. The centurions for the attacking side gathered for a conference. In the sky above them, Reyna circled on her pegasus ready to play referee. Half a dozen giant eagles flew in formation behind her – prepared for ambulance airlift duty if necessary. 

The only person not participating in the game was Nico di Angelo who had climbed an observation tower about a hundred yards from the fort and would be watching with binoculars. That seemed a little unfair. I was the one with amnesia, but I was still expected to play.

Frank propped his pilum against his shield and checked my armour. Every strap was correct. Every piece of armour was properly adjusted.

"You did it right." I wasn't too pleased that he sounded so surprised. I knew how to put armour on. "Romy, you must've done war games before."

"Who knows?" I shrugged. I glanced down at Riptide, looking back at everyone else's regulated sword and then back at my own. It looked a little out of place, but oh well.

"We can use real weapons, right?" I checked.

"Yeah." Frank agreed, nodding to some of the other soldiers who had their own swords. "Imperial gold and whatever yours is don't normally hurt us, just bruise. Just watch out for the pilum, those are normal iron so they'll harm mortals, like us."

"And if I get hit with a pilum?"

"We'll heal them." Frank patted my shoulders as I began to grin harder. This sounded like there were no rules and I liked that. "The legion medics are pretty good at what they do."

"No one dies," Hazel said. "Well, not usually. And if they do –"

Frank imitated the voice of Vitellius: "They're wimps! Back in my day, we died all the time, and we liked it!"

Hazel laughed. "Just stay with us, Romy. Chances are we'll get the worst duty and get eliminated early. They'll throw us at the walls first to soften up the defences. Then the Third and Fourth Cohorts will march in and get the honours, if they can even breach the fort."

Horns blew. Dakota and Gwen walked back from the officers' conference, looking grim.

"All right, here's the plan!" Dakota stepped forward after a moment's hesitation. "They're throwing us at the walls first to soften up the defences."

The whole cohort groaned.

"I know, I know," Gwen said. "But maybe this time we'll have some luck!"

The others didn't really look like they believed in luck.

"First line with Dakota," Gwen said. "Lock shields and advance in turtle formation to the main gates. Try to stay in one piece. Draw their fire. Second line –" Gwen turned to our row without much enthusiasm. "You seventeen, from Bobby over, take charge of the elephant and the scaling ladders. Try a flanking attack on the western wall. Maybe we can spread the defenders too thin. Frank, Hazel, Andromeda... well, just do whatever. Show her the ropes. Try to keep her alive." She turned back to the whole cohort. "If anybody gets over the wall first, I'll make sure you get the Mural Crown. Victory for the Fifth!"

The cohort cheered half-heartedly and broke ranks.

"Do whatever?" That seemed simple. "And what's the mural crown?"

"Military medal," Frank said. "Big honour for the first soldier to breach an enemy fort. You'll notice nobody in the Fifth is wearing one. Usually we don't even get into the fort because we're burning or drowning or..." He froze, turning towards me with narrowed eyes. "Water cannons."

"Yeah, I got that from the drowning part."

"The cannons on the walls," Frank said, "they draw water from the aqueduct. There's a pump system – heck, I don't know how they work, but they're under a lot of pressure. If you could control them, like you controlled the river –"

"That's brilliant." Frank beamed, as I scratched at my head.

"I don't know how I did that at the river to be honest. I just thought that I was a Daughter of Neptune so I should be able to do something like that." I shrugged. "I don't know maybe I'll be able to control the cannons from that far away but I'm not sure."

"We can get you closer." Frank pointed to the eastern wall of the fort, far from the first attacks. "The defence there are the weakest. We'll let the others know to draw the attacks and they won't take us seriously. I think we'll be able to sneak up close to the wall."

"Okay." I nodded, before stretching as Frank and Hazel got the others in on their plan. They returned within a couple of minutes, people moving to cover where we'd been as we hurried away.

Frank turned to Hazel. "Can you do that thing again?"

She punched him in the chest, which was about as high as she could reach on him. 

"You said you wouldn't tell anybody!" Hazel muttered under her breath. "Never mind. It's fine. Romy, he's talking about the trenches. The Field of Mars is riddled with tunnels from over the years. Some are collapsed, or buried deep, but a lot of them are still passable. I'm pretty good at finding them and using them. I can even collapse them if I have to."

"I told you Pluto was cool. He's the god of everything under the earth. Hazel can find caves, tunnels, trapdoors –"

"And it was our secret," she grumbled.

Frank was blushing. "Yeah, sorry. But if we can get close –"

"And if I can knock out the water cannons..." I began to grin. This was starting to sound almost fun. Frank checked his quiver. I began to cackle, swinging my sword around. "I like this plan. This sounds fun."

Hazel and Frank sent me slightly concerned looks, before nodding. A horn blew, and everyone was off. Hazel found us a tunnel with no problem and we crept along by the light of Riptide. Above, we could hear the sounds of battle – kids shouting, Hannibal the elephant bellowing with glee, scorpion bolts exploding and water cannons firing. The tunnel shook. Dirt rained down on us.

"There's an opening just ahead," Hazel announced. "We'll come up ten feet from the east wall."

"How can you tell?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I'm not sure about how I know this but I am sure there's opening."

"Could we tunnel straight under the wall?" Frank wondered.

"No," Hazel said. "The engineers were smart. They built the walls on old foundations that go down to bedrock. And don't ask how I know. I just do."

Frank stumbled over something and cursed. I brought my sword around for more light. The thing Frank had tripped on was gleaming silver. He crouched down.

"Don't touch it!" Hazel said.

Frank's hand stopped a few inches from the chunk of metal.

"It's massive," he said. "Silver?"

"Platinum." Hazel sounded scared out of her wits. "It'll go away in a second. Please don't touch it. It's dangerous."

As we watched, the chunk of platinum sank into the ground.

He stared at Hazel. "How did you know?"

Hazel looked petrified.

"I'll explain later," she promised.

Another explosion rocked the tunnel, and we forged ahead. We emerged just where Hazel had predicted. In front of us was the east wall of the fort, the main line of the Fifth Cohort advancing in a turtle formation to the left of us. They were trying to distract the soldiers, attempting to reach the main gates, as the defenders were pelting them with rocks and flaming bolts, blasting craters around their feet. A water cannon discharged and a jet of liquid carved a trench in the dirt right in front of the cohort.

I whistled, my grin growing wider. "That's a lot of pressure, all right."

And I was going to be having a lot of fun.

The Third and Fourth Cohorts were trying to back the Fifth up, launching attacks back, arrows arching over and into the fort but they couldn't do much.

"Let's shake things up." Frank reached in his quiver and pulled out an arrow. The iron tip was shaped like the nose cone of a rocket. An ultrathin gold rope trailed from the fletching. 

"Grappling hook?" I checked.

"It's called a hydra arrow," Frank explained as I hummed. "Can you knock out the water cannons?"

A defender appeared on the wall above us. 

"Hey!" he shouted to his buddies. "Check it out! More victims!"

"Romy," Frank hummed, looking over at me, "now would be good."

More kids came across the battlements to laugh at us. A few ran to the nearest water cannon and swung the barrel towards Frank.

"Ah, Frank, you obviously have yet to learn the power of dramatics," I grinned, before walking towards the wall. "It makes everything so much more fun."

Just as the people on the wall opened up the water canons, I held my hand up, grinning as I heard a mighty eruption.

The cannon exploded leaving the defenders screaming as a watery shockwave flattened them against the battlements. Kids toppled over the walls but were snatched by giant eagles and carried to safety. Then the entire eastern wall shuddered as the explosion backed up through the pipelines. One after another, the water cannons on the battlements exploded.

The scorpions' fires were doused. Defenders scattered in confusion or were tossed through the air, giving the rescue eagles quite a workout. 

At the main gates, the Fifth Cohort forgot about their formation. Mystified, they lowered their shields and stared at the chaos.

"Boom, baby," I grinned again, before waiting for a chuckle. I was pretty sure that I'd done something similar but I couldn't remember with who.

Frank shot his arrow. It streaked upward, carrying its glittering rope. When it reached the top, the metal point fractured into a dozen lines that lashed out and wrapped round anything they could find – parts of the wall, a scorpion, a broken water cannon and a couple of defending campers, who yelped and braced themselves as they were used as anchors. 

From the main rope, handholds extended at two-foot intervals, making a ladder.

"Go!" Frank shouted.

I grinned. "You first, Frank. This is your party."

Frank hesitated. Then he slung his bow on his back and began to climb. He was halfway up before the defenders recovered their senses enough to sound the alarm. Frank glanced back at Fifth Cohort's main group, who seemed a little shocked.

"Well?" Frank shouted. "Attack!"

Gwen was the first to unfreeze. She grinned and repeated the order. A cheer went up from the battlefield. Hannibal the elephant trumpeted with happiness as I scrambled up the ladder behind him, jumping over the top of the wall and dusting my hands off.

This was fun.

Together we cleared the defenders off the walls. Below us the gates broke. Hannibal barrelled into the fort, arrows and rocks bouncing harmlessly off his Kevlar armour. The Fifth Cohort charged in behind the elephant, and the battle went hand-to-hand.

The Third and Fourth Cohorts ran to join the fight, abandoning their long range attacks.

"We can't let them get the banners." Frank said.

"Nope." I agreed with him. "Those are ours."

No more talk was necessary. We moved like a team, as if the three of us had been working together for years. We rushed down the interior steps and into the enemy base.

∘☽༓☾∘

Hiya,

So, long chapter, quite a bit going on here. Nico's still gaslighting people for the shits and giggles, Andi is learning more about everything, Fifth Cohort is depressed, Cress is haunting the narrative and Dakota's here as well, what a guy.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx