While Perennius struggled with his gauntlets, Calvus ran a slim finger from the point of Sabellia’s jaw, up the reddening bruise, to the bloody patch on the Gallic woman’s cheekbone. “Nothing broken,” the traveller said softly. “Minor concussion, perhaps. Nothing too serious.” Then she said, “You did recognize him then? I didn’t think you would. Could. He’ll be all right, too.”
Perennius back-trailed her eyes from his own face to that of the supine Gaul at whom she had glanced before speaking. Sacrovir was snoring. There was a smear of mucus with no sign of blood in it over the Gaul’s moustache. “Him?” the agent said. He was puzzled, but the matter was not important enough to spend time on now.
Perennius began to stand up. He was angry that the motion required him to put down his left hand for support.
“From Rome, you mean? No, I didn’t see any of them. He must be the Sacrovir that Ursinus talked about. When he died.” In the same flat voice, the agent said, “I’m going to see Gaius now. The Sun has received the soul of a brave man.”
“It’ll be faster,” said Calvus as the agent began to stumble down the trail, “if I lower you.” She extended an arm and nodded downwards.
Perennius swallowed, then angrily stripped off his gauntlets. He flung them to the ground. The remainder of his padded armor was hellishly hot and confining, but it would take longer than the agent cared to spend to remove it. He looked at his protege fifty feet below. Gaius moved only when the wind blew the trees against which he rested. “Calvus,” he said. He extended his hand, stubby and tendon-roped and strong. “Swear to me that what we’re doing is going to save the Empire if we succeed. Swear that.”
Calvus took the agent’s hand in her own, slim and stronger yet than that of the agent. She knelt and found a hold in the roots of an olive tree. Perennius swung out, dangling over the slope in her grasp. “That isn’t true, Aulus Perennius,” she said. “I can’t – ”
“Easy, I’ve got a foothold,” Perennius said.
Calvus released the agent’s hand with the same care with which she chose her words. “The Empire is doomed, gone,” she said. “We have a chance to save humanity from these – others. But not in your day, Aulus Perennius. Not for fifteen thousand years.”
Perennius made a sound in his throat. His face was deep in the tilted crevice which now supported him. Calvus could not see his expression. When Perennius looked back up at the woman, it was only to say, “All right, I can hold your foot till you’ve got a hold. Come down.”
Calvus scrambled to obey. The agent said, “That isn’t good enough, you know? I can’t care about hum – there, sure, put your weight on it. I can’t care about humanity. That’s the pirates who raped Bella, that’s a kid from Gaul who fights for gray things with arms like worms. That’s not worth dying for, Calvus. That’s not worth me bringing Gaius to be killed.”
“Do you need my hand here?” Calvus asked. The lower end of the crevice was ten feet above the next switchback.
“No, I – ” Perennius said. His hand gripped a spike-leafed shrub. The stem crackled when he put his weight on it. The agent felt Calvus’ fingers link around his ankle, ready to support him if he started to slide. “That’s all right,” he said. Stiffly but under control, Perennius descended half the distance. When his hobnails missed their bite, he skidded the remainder of the way. Calvus was with him in a series of quick, spider-like clutchings.
“You weren’t supposed to follow me,” the agent said. He was breathing hard as he eyed the last stage down to the trail. They would be a hundred feet west of Gaius, where he lay in the track the allosaurus had flailed in the vegetation. “You could’ve gotten killed.” The agent looked at Calvus. His face was still but not calm. “Could’ve gotten Bella killed.”
The tall woman nodded. “The allosaurus crossed the ford and picked up your track an hour after you had ridden out. Sabellia said we could either draw it away from you … or if it ignored us, we were safe anyway. She rode, I walked.” Calvus attempted a smile. “The last distance, I ran, Aulus Perennius. And then I couldn’t find any way to help you.”