Wild Dragon of Rome 34 (Patreon)

Once the main fighting force left, following the injured wolf, I approached the meadow even faster, though still making sure to stay concealed. Just because the remaining opposition looked weak didn’t mean I wanted to neglect an ambush.

A Scipio family teaching. Never give up an advantage unless it was an absolute necessity. A sneak attack might not be glorious, but turning my back to such a beautiful advantage was never a good idea. Even when my heart beat wildly, fury rushing through my veins, begging for me to show my absolute dominance.

I took a deep breath to suppress them as I arrived at the edge of the meadow, making sure to approach from the upwind so as not to alert the wolves, happy with my new abilities. The lack of emotional stability was annoying, but the ability to sneak into a tamed pack of wolves was an incredible reward.

However, even as I took the perfect position, I chose to watch as the two of them dismounted their wolves and approached the priestess with their weapon drawn rather than intervening directly, trying to catch the gaze of the priestess without alerting the fighters.

It was not a risk I took happily, but one important detail forced me. I was going to ask her for help with magic, complicated, dangerous magic where she could damage me seriously by omitting some important details. The last thing I wanted was to kill someone she didn’t want dead, and create a pointless grudge.

The real challenge was to catch her gaze without alerting the others. Luckily, the warriors were focused on her rather than their surroundings, and didn’t notice me even as I tried to catch her attention.

While I was trying to catch her attention, I finally managed to get a good look at the priestess. The first thing I noticed was her clothes. Badly damaged, carrying a lot of mud and blood stains, but none of those stains were older than a day. It told the story of an intense chase.

 Underneath, her skin was flawless — at least from what I could see from all that caked blood and mud — revealing that she had either possessed some self-healing ability, or her unfortunate mount had some really interesting abilities. The former was more likely, but the latter was not impossible either.

She only had a dagger as a weapon, which looked more ceremonial than functional. She had it raised against the approaching warriors, who chuckled in amusement at first. Then, the priestess turned the dagger to herself, pressing it against her throat and delivering what was clearly a threat, which stopped the warriors immediately.

One advantage of my sharper eyesight, I could read the details of her expression like she was standing next to me. She was determined to kill herself rather than get captured. I decided it was a safe bet that she would find a few murders acceptable for her continued freedom. While it wasn’t certain, nothing in the life was.

I took another deep breath before I moved forward in a silent yet deadly dash, wielding my new spear. I first focused on the two that were riding wolves. Trying to attack someone mounted from the ground was supposed to be difficult, but not when one could casually jump ten feet vertically. I didn’t even bother stepping on the wolves. Two stabs, one to the back of the neck of the warrior, the other to the wolf.

The first one was gone.

Even as I moved, I watched the redhead from the corner of my eye. She froze in shock at my appearance. However, despite her intense shock, she waved her hand, casting a spell. Three lines of mana moved, touching the wolves.

The wolves looked dazed.

I could feel that whatever hold she had was much weaker than what she had over her previous ride, a mere string compared to the chains that controlled her. I could sense them weakening in real-time. But, it didn’t matter.

It gave me the chance to ignore the beasts as I moved between the three remaining warriors, taking them down before they could even realize what happened. It helped that the two who were close to her decided to take her down first rather than turning toward me. After dealing with the last mounted warrior, I dashed toward them, my speed allowing me to catch them at the back.

She pointed to the wolves and said something. “Sorry, lady, but I don’t understand you. Any chance you can speak Latin.”

“Y-you’re a Roman,” she gasped. Her speech was accented, yet clear, showing some proficiency. However, her hatred was clear.

“Britannian, actually,” I corrected, which was truth only in the most technical sense. But considering the tense situation, I wasn’t willing to explain her situation in any more detail. “But first, what do you want me to do with the wolves.”

She looked at me suspiciously, but still spoke. “Kill them. They are about to get free.”

I nodded before I turned my attention to them, bequeathing death to them. Three quick stabs later, we were the only ones still alive. “Now, let’s get out of here,” I said as I walked toward her.

“And you think I’ll come with you,” she said, which I could see more of a probing question than rejection. Good, she was smart enough to realize that the worst thing I could do was to turn back and leave her to her freedom. She was already swaying in exhaustion, tethering on the edge of collapse. There was only so much distance she could cover on foot in her condition, and covering her tracks against her fellow tribals was pretty much impossible.

“We both know that it’s your only option,” I said. “Luckily for you, I need the help of someone competent in shapeshifting to help me, so you actually have something to trade,” I said as I showed the scales on my arm.

It was a bit more direct than I preferred, but showing her that I actually needed her help was the best way to make her trust my intention. It showed her that, even if she came with me, she had some leverage. It gave her another reason to follow a mysterious man deeper into the forest, along with her desperation.

“You’re a changer,” she said. She looked like she wanted to speak more, but instead, she swayed badly. She had pushed herself to the limit during her escape, and now that the threat was gone, her body was extracting the price.

I covered the distance between us with one large step, and caught her before falling. Of course, even as I helped her to stand, I kept my focus on her to make sure it wasn’t a trap — more on her magic than her ugly ceremonial dagger.

It was not a trap. She just collapsed in my arms, barely holding on. I lifted her in a bridal hold, and started running. “Where are we going,” she said.

“To my camp,” I said, but I moved in the opposite direction, directly to the Rhine, running as fast as I could in the forest. I wanted to lay a false trail to them, and what better distraction than to make them think that, once I had saved the priestess, I went back to the other side.

She asked nothing about the camp or the occasional changes of direction. She just closed her eyes, trying her best to recover. However, a minute later, she opened her eyes. “Maybe you should pace yourself,” she suggested.

“Don’t worry about it. My stamina is not that bad,” I replied even as I continued to run, nowhere near my limit. I didn’t push myself to the limit, as I still wanted to pay attention to my surroundings. The last thing I wanted was to stumble upon a beast's nest.

Or worse, a team of patrolling legionnaires.

However, while I didn’t want to stumble on such a disaster, I still skirted close to a couple beast colonies I had detected on the way, hoping that they would react badly to a team of wolf riders. A fight would have been preferable, but I would settle for the beasts retreating in panic. The chaos of their movement should be enough to cover up my tracks further.

“By the way, I still don’t know your name,” I commented as I ran through the forest with the ease of a wild animal.

She opened her eyes, giving me a frustrated glare, but that didn’t prevent her from speaking. “Astrid,” she said.

“And I’m Marcus,” I said.

“No last name. I thought Romans loved those,” she said.

“Not all Romans,” I said, which was another deflection. She looked curious. Luckily, she was too exhausted to confront me about it. I didn’t want to lie to her about it — for practical reasons, as any lie would destroy the minimal trust she had in me — but also I didn’t want to give her my last name.

Even in exile, the Scipio Family was famous. Or, from the perspective of the enemies of Rome, infamous. While the greatest achievements of our family had happened in the south, particularly in Hispania and North Africa, that didn’t mean a lack of presence on other borders. A history of blood and glory … until, of course, they decided to back the wrong horse one too many times during the civil wars.

Then, we arrived at the riverside, where there was no one on either side. For good reason. There was no passage nearby, and the Rhine raged wildly, threatening to drown any that dared to step in.

However, I was confident in my newly acquired strength. I just needed to convince my unwitting companion that a quick dip into one of the most dangerous rivers of the whole continent was a good idea.