“Shouldn’t we retire, Caesar?” I heard another thump of an arrow. “We’re within range, one lucky shot—” And the Imperial idiot wasn’t wearing his helmet. His bare head gleamed under the harsh sun like a burnished silver coin.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The Emperor waved my fears away. “Seleucia! Tell me.”

Trajan wore armor like a common soldier on campaign, but someone else on the walls of Hatra must have recognized that magnificent gray head. Halfway through my report on the sacked city of Seleucia, I heard the thrum of an arrow much closer. A hoarse gurgle sounded, and the cavalry officer on the horse beside Trajan’s, who had been fanning himself with one sweaty hand and complaining about the flies, was trying to talk around the shaft in his throat. He pitched over, and I saw blood drip down on the sand.

No time to yell. I lunged forward, grabbed Trajan’s arm, and in one ferocious yank tugged the Emperor of Rome out of his saddle. A streak of fire shot through my shoulder, but I paid it no heed as Trajan came tumbling down on the ground. I hurled him flat and flung myself over him, and then I could hear shouts and stamping hooves as Praetorians rallied around us. Someone pulled me up, three guards surrounded their Emperor with protectively drawn swords and hastened him back toward the lines, and in the middle of it all, Trajan was laughing. I took a step after him and felt a bolt of pain in my right shoulder. Looking down, I saw that I had an arrow in my shoulder just at the edge of my breastplate. “Wonderful,” I snarled. Three and a half years in Parthia, in and out of the hottest fighting in the region with never a wound, and now I’d been winged on my first day in Hatra. I gritted my teeth and yanked the arrow out. Blood began to spurt down my arm. Shield practice was going to be great fun tomorrow.

“Vercingetorix!” I heard someone call, and looked up to see my Emperor. No more deep lines around his mouth; he was grinning like a boy. “That was a well-timed tackle of yours, I must thank you—”

“Sir!” I cut him off in my harshest centurion’s growl. I took a deep breath, trying to control myself as the Emperor blinked and his officers stared at me in surprise. Do not shout at the Emperor of Rome, I told myself, and then I bellowed, “HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU TO WEAR YOUR BLOODY HELMET?”