Highlander - Donna Lettow [39]
He sheathed his sword angrily. “Cowards!” he roared, frustrated beyond belief. “Cowards!” But in his heart he knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t their cowardice that angered him, but their nobility. In his four hundred years in the service of Rome, never before had he seen such determination, and it ate away at him. Damn them for flaunting their dignity in his face.
Constantine moved farther into the living quarters of the villa. Here the paint could barely be seen on the soot-blackened walls and the tiled floor was covered in ash. “It’s the same throughout the complex, sir,” the Centurion reported from the doorway behind him.
Constantine crouched down and picked up a handful of broken, charred pottery shards. “They couldn’t take it with them, but they made sure we couldn’t have it. What kind of people are these, Marius?”
Before the Centurion could answer, Constantine suddenly knew there was another Immortal on Masada. The sensation surprised him with its unexpectedness, and the Centurion could note the sudden change in Constantine’s face as he looked up. “Are you unwell, sir?”
Constantine quickly schooled his expression and stood up. “Bring in the Second Cohort,” he ordered. “Initiate a room-by-room search of the fortress. Every storehouse, every cistern, inch by inch. I want a complete accounting. Start at the northern palace.” He started to leave the room through a door to the south. The Centurion called to him.
“You should take a guard.”
“Why, Marius? In case the dead rise up and come for their revenge?” Constantine laughed a bitter laugh. “Let them come.” He dismissed the Centurion and strode purposefully out of the villa through the southern porch.
He pulled his gladius again and proceeded cautiously, tracking the sensation south along the outer wall of the fortress. Within earshot of an entire Roman legion was not the optimum place for a Quickening, but he wanted answers, and this was the only indication of life on the entire cursed rock. He hoped it wouldn’t have to come to taking a head.
At 150 paces from the villa, he found an entrance into the wall surrounding the complex. Sword first, he entered the dimly lit stone corridor. Oil lamps stood in niches along the wall, but most had long run out of oil, and only a few still sputtered. The Immortal was closer now, he could tell, possibly within only a few feet. Constantine set himself and drove his hobnailed sandal into a wooden door, forcing it from its hinges. He planted himself in the doorway and announced, “Mihi Nomen est Marcus Constantinius.“
Two bloodied bodies lay on the floor. One, a Jewish gray-beard. The other, veiled, unmistakably a woman. And near her, cringing against the wall, wild eyes wide, a Jewish youth trying in vain to shake away the lightning flashing in his brain. He looked up and with effort focused his eyes on Constantine, suddenly aware that the Roman was the source of his pain.
“I am Marcus Constantine,” Constantine announced again, waiting for the answering challenge. Avram dived for the bloodstained iron knife lying on the floor and Constantine raised his sword, on the defensive. “I don’t want to fight you.” The youth’s information would be more valuable to Constantine than his head.
Avram screamed something incomprehensible to Constantine and, before Constantine could stop him, plunged the knife into his own chest. The Jew fell to the ground, dead once more, and Constantine realized that the young man had no idea of his own Immortality. Like it or not, Constantine had just inherited another student.
It was only a few seconds after Avram revived, chest still burning with fire, that he realized his hands were bound be-hind him. He thrashed about on the floor, then on his knees, desperate to free himself.
“It’s for your own good, boy,” Constantine explained gently. He had removed his helmet and his shining