Chapter Fourteen
Sam
Thirty minutes isn’t much time to prepare but it’s also just enough time to panic. Or maybe that’s just me, I think, looking at my brothers and Hildi as we wait in the changing room.
“Any idea on how this will go down?” Clinton asks.
“I do,” Hildi says. “I owed the Shaman for some gambling debts a few years ago. I paid them off by working the back. Including handling the Legion.”
“What do you know about them?” Dylan asks. “I’ve only read about them in texts, as part of the greater mythology surrounding Camulus, the God of War. I’ve never seen them in person before.”
“The Shaman doesn’t use them for standard battles in the ring. He’s more likely to send them to other realms looking for fighters to come to Earth. Where do you think he gets so many participants?”
Damien removes his rings and tapes his knuckles. “They’re all in his debt, like us.”
“Exactly. The Legion are different. They were tossed out of the Immortal army for refusing to continue their barbaric ways. The Shaman snapped up their contract and they’ve been in his service ever since.”
“So they refused to stoop to Camulus’ brutality. Isn’t that a good thing?” I ask.
Hildi snorts. “They were part of an elite death squad. They had no civility. No moral code. They wreaked havoc and mayhem for centuries.”
“Sounds like the kind of soldiers the Morrigan would love to get her hands on,” Clinton says, standing and lacing his boots. “Too bad we’ll get them first.”
“Tell us anything you know,” I say to Hildi and Dylan. We have ten minutes and I’d like to be as prepared as possible.
“The mythology states that Camulus traveled the world to find the strongest fighters for the Legion. Each were known for their heroic last stands—something that probably caught Camulus’ attention. Most he collected on the battlefield, moments after their death. He granted them immortality and a spot in his special army. These soldiers cut a swath through the world with a particular kind of mayhem, but as we talked about, six men refused to continue and were released from Camulus.”
“Who are they?” Clinton asks. From the set of his jaw I can tell he wants to know everything he can about his opponents.
Hildi sits on the bench next to the lockers. “They’re a mixed lot. The one thing they have in common is a taste for blood. But to get it started, there’s Miya. He’s a Japanese swordsman who won his first duel at the age of twelve.”
“So he was a prodigy,” Clinton says.
“His opponent was a well-trained Samurai with a blade. Miya had a sharpened stick.”
Damien winces. “Ouch.”
“Then,” she says, “there’s Agis. He was known as the God of Death due to his refusal to die although severely injured. He kept fighting and allowed his army to get through.”
“What army did he lead?” I ask.
Dylan looks at me. “The Spartans. For over a decade.”
“Total badass, then,” Damien says. Everyone nods.
“Next up, we have Roland.”
“That’s a wuss name,” Clinton snorts.
Hildi rolls her eyes. “He was one of the twelve peers of Charlemagne, who we all know was a ball-busting general.”
“So we have a Japanese sword-fighter, a Spartan, and an all-warrior,” Clinton says in a strained voice. “Perfect. What’s next?”
“Marshal, a famous knight known for sprees of murder and theft. On his deathbed, it was said that he bested over five hundred knights during his career, and took large swaths of land for his king,” Hildi replies. “That just leaves Armin, a German strongman that was basically unstoppable and destroyed everything in his path, and Rupert, the child prince who ran away and joined the army at age fourteen. He was so good, people believed he had supernatural abilities.”
“Did he?” I ask. I wouldn’t put it past any of these men to have demon blood.
She shakes her head. “Not until he died.”
“Great. How do we plan on defeating them?” I ask. “Because we have to defeat them. Not just for Morgan, but I don’t want to work for that bastard out there for another fifty years.”
Clinton stands just as the warning buzzer sounds from the ring. “We’ll beat them like we’ve beaten every other opponent tossed our way. One at a time.”