But it was not these that fascinated him. “Whoa,” Cade said, stumbling toward a catapult resting upon a stone platform. But the ancient piece of siege equipment was no longer workable. The ancient ropes that had once powered it had long since rotted away, and the timber that made up its frame had warped.

Beside it was a pile of perfectly round stones. At the very least, they could drop these on an invader’s head as they rushed through the open harbor entrance.

It was a paltry find, but Cade was not willing to let their good fortune go unnoticed. He held up his hand for a high five. Quintus stared at it blankly.

“Oh…,” Cade said. “Right, I forgot.”

High fives weren’t a thing in Roman times.

Instead, he clapped his friend on the back.

“It’s something,” he said, half to himself.

Quintus perched on the tower’s edge and beckoned Cade to join him. They dangled their legs and stared out over the sunset. Tomorrow they may well die. But for now, he was with his best friend, watching the sun set.

They slept fitfully that night. The beds at the keep, paltry though they were, seemed like heaven compared to these simple mats of sackcloth laid out on the cold, uneven cobbles of Jomsborg’s gatehouse.

To Cade’s dismay, their search had turned up nothing. Only broken furniture that they used to fuel their hungry little fire, its low crackling echoing through the empty shell that was their new shelter.

It was a huge step down from their home at the keep. And as they had settled down for the night, Cade could think of nothing to say to lift their spirits.

So it was no surprise that as the dawn light filtered through the arrow slits of the gatehouse, he saw his friends were all awake as well.

The relief of the end of their desert trek had been replaced by trepidation. A battle was to come. And they might not all survive it.

Yet there was nothing to do but wait. The Codex remained silent, no matter how often they cajoled it.

“So…,” Scott said, stretching. “Who’s up for a bit of dinomeat?”

He reached into the sack he had been using as a pillow and tossed a shred of the stuff to Cade, before stuffing another into his mouth.

Cade looked at the wrinkled, black-singed morsel that was about as tough as leather. He lifted a tentative hand and placed it on his tongue.

To his surprise, it had a pleasant smoky taste, though he had to swig a gulp of water to help chew up the toughened flesh. At the very least, it was edible.

The crew huddled around Scott’s bag, each taking a piece of their own and sighing with relief as their hunger abated. They had not tried the meat the day before, for it was packed deep among the sleds, and had preferred the sweet fruit from the orchards to keep them going.