“Sir!” Marcus shouted, drawing and lofting his gladius in a single motion. He didn’t stop to see if Octavian caught it. He charged the second Cane, who had produced a slender wooden tube. As Marcus approached, the Cane lifted the tube to his mouth and exhaled, and a little flash of color and steel flew out the end. Marcus ducked his head and felt the missile ping against the good Aleran steel of his helmet. Then he called out to his earth fury as he barreled into the would-be assassin.

The Cane was viciously strong, but inexperienced. The two of them went to the ground hard, and instead of immediately attempting to escape, the Cane started thrashing his limbs in a useless attempt to sink claws or fangs into Marcus. There was no time to capture the opponent. He had to remove the gold-furred Cane from the fight and go to Octavian’s aid. Marcus seized one of the Cane’s wrists in a bone-pulverizing grip, then slammed his other fist down onto the Cane’s head, shattering his foe’s skull with the power of the fury-enhanced strike.

Marcus looked back up to see the captain break the Cane’s crude stone blade with a swift move of his gladius and go on to deliver four lightning-fast slashes to the armored Cane. Any two of them would probably have been fatal, but the captain was nothing if not thorough. He struck until he was sure the attacker was completely incapacitated, and whirled toward Marcus and the second Cane, sword lifted in his hand to strike.

The two men faced one another as the armored Cane toppled slowly and limply to the ground behind the captain, and Marcus had a startling realization: Octavian’s reasoning had been identical to his own. He had struck to dispatch his opponent swiftly and immediately so that he could go to the other man’s aid.

Octavian’s eyes scanned Marcus and the Cane with the broken head. Then he turned back to his own dead opponent, scowling. “Crows,” he growled. “Bloody crows.”

The sentries burst in. Without hesitation, they both plunged swords into the Cane Marcus had downed. Like captain, like legionare, Marcus supposed. When they approached the second downed Cane, the captain waved a hand at them. “Finished.” He looked up. “Marcus. Are you hurt?”

“I’ll manage,” Marcus said, panting. He was in shape enough to keep pace with the Legion, but he had been on a ship for months, and there had been no real way to remain in proper Legion condition.

And face it. You’re getting old.

Octavian wiped Marcus’s gladius clean of blood on the dark fur of the dead Cane, then offered the weapon back to him, hilt first. Marcus nodded his thanks, inspected the weapon for stains or damage, found it serviceable, and slid it back into its sheath.