The Ranger had his pack shouldered and rifle slung. He looked back to make sure Byrus was following. That’s when he saw the men rushing toward them along the lip of the ledge. There were a half dozen stripped to tunics and girdles and sprinting with swords in their hands. They were close enough for Jimbo to see the fierce look in their eyes. He knew that look. The killing look.
He sighted and fired past Byrus, knocking down the lead runner. Byrus turned in time to see a second man drop into the wash, spilling entrails as he fell from a double tap to the abdomen. The little man freed one of the javelins and flung it in an overhanded throw with the athletic ease of an Olympian. The point of the spear took a swordsman high in the chest. The other three were closing the gap, swords held low for the jabbing motion that made the gladius feared the world over.
“Get the fuck out of the way, Bruce!” Jimbo ran forward and shouldered Byrus aside. He sprayed the three remaining Romans with a burst of automatic fire and brought them down in a stumbling heap.
“Fuck me!” Jimbo muttered and yanked Bryce along with him into a run. He let the M4 drop onto its sling and pulled the pump shotgun clear of the sheath on his back. He could hear more movement through the trees above them. Jimbo trained the shotgun toward the sound as he ran and pumped double-ought and flechette rounds into the brush. A shriek rose from the foliage.
Caesar’s boys may have not known anything about non-linear warfare but they damned sure understood the value of throwing out a screen of flankers. The bastard down there leading them was no dumbass. He hissed to Byrus, and they both turned sharply to move into the woods and away from the gully where they could be trapped against the ledge.
Jimbo gave Byrus a shove to send the man ahead then turned and sent some suppression fire uphill at his invisible pursuers. He knew it wouldn’t stop them but it might make the Romans half-step it, and that’s all the edge he was looking for. He made to follow Byrus, running flat out and expecting a slinger’s stone to the skull or an Assyrian arrow in the back at any second. Nothing came after them but shouts. The fuckers were moving to ring them in, drive them toward the wash, and close the noose.
The Pima resheathed the shotgun and brought up the M4 to load a fresh round into the grenade launcher on the run. He snapped it closed and spun just long enough to loose a lateral trajectory shot back through the trees. It was a pure bonehead, backyard Rambo bullshit move. The grenade could strike a tree and bounce back at him. He heard the clonk, clonk, clonk of the steel round striking wood as it rebounded through the woods behind him. He collided with Byrus throwing them both flat. The ground shook under them. A storm of wood shards flew overhead in a ballistic sleet of deadly daggers. A black cloud of vaporized earth bloomed behind them. Clots of dirt rained down. Jimbo saw a length of timber taller than himself fly into the woods end over end. He pulled Byrus to his feet, and they ran at an angle up the incline and away from the animal screams rising at their backs.
He’d hurt them. That was the plan. He set the Romans back on their ass and took them away from the direction his friends were traveling.
Now for the second part of the plan, get himself clear and not wind up on a cross. He was not Spartacus and had no plans to be. He ran easy, leaping fallen trees and ducking low branches. The little surfer dude kept up with him step for step carrying that bundle of javelins on his shoulder like it was weightless. Jimbo’s burden seemed lightened as well, the heavy bandoliers of grenades swinging from his shoulder, the scabbard of the scrounged gladius slapping his thigh as he ran. They were nothing at all. He just went mano a mano with the baddest motherfuckers of the ancient world and came out on top.
He knew that it was an adrenalin high and he’d pay for this elation when the crash came on him and the ammo started to feel like it weighed a ton. But he was in the moment, and he never wanted it to end. Running with a good buddy after a good fight, and nobody in the world would ever know they had been here or care about this nameless battleground. It was all he wanted. It made his life up until this day seem small, even though he knew he’d done some pretty awesome stuff in his life. But this just seemed so goddamned real. It was all about right here and right now.
God help him, he was loving it.
A crashing sound in the brush before him and two beefy legionnaires appeared sweating before him. He and Byrus had let themselves get ringed in, a cherry-ass mistake. Jimbo raised his M-4 high to take the downward stroke from a gladius. Sparks flew. The second Roman rushed in with a pilum held low in his fists. The wicked point was aimed for his guts.
Jimbo stomped a booted foot down into the knee of the swordsman and heard a popping sound before the guy dropped screaming to the ground. He turned to the spearman too late. The squared-off business end of the javelin took him hard in the lower ribs. The armor spread the impact. The point glided over the Kevlar and the spearman followed the momentum of his attack, colliding with the Pima. They fell to the ground together.
Byrus reached them to drive his gladius hard onto the back of the spearman. Jimbo threw the shuddering man off him, wiping
