Free The Mongoliad: Book Two (The Foreworld Saga) by Mark Teppo

riders had caught his attention.
    The squad leader raised his hand, open palm directed at the horsemen, and his men-at-arms slapped their bracers against their leather jerkins. The sound broke the cacophony of the market, as the market-goers instinctively pulled back. A bubble opened up around the soldiers and the foreign horsemen, and a hush fell over the square.
    “What is your business in Rome?” the squad leader asked, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two newcomers. He stoodin front of the youth’s horse, feet planted apart, looking like a dun-colored boulder.
    The young man said something in a foreign tongue, pointing at the priest, who was swaying in his saddle, his focus elsewhere. Ocyrhoe stepped behind a vendor’s cart, out of the priest’s line of sight. She didn’t think he was looking for her, but she was still spooked by that prior moment of clairvoyant connection. She wanted to slip away into the crowd and vanish. But she stayed, dropping to a squat so that she could still see what was going on from beneath the cart.
    When the squad leader repeated his question, his men punctuated it by loosening their swords in their scabbards. The rattle of metal made the foreigner talk more rapidly, his strange words tripping over one another like the chorus of a child’s chant. Ocyrhoe picked out the one familiar word before the soldiers, but finally it dawned on them too: “Peter,” he was saying. “St. Peter.”
    “St. Peter. The basilica? Do you wish to see a priest?” the squad leader asked. “There are many priests—many churches—in Rome.”
    Ocyrhoe crept forward to get a better angle. She couldn’t see the young foreigner’s face—but she could see the reaction of the soldiers as the boy held something up. In unison, their eyes widened and their brows furrowed.
    “St. Peter,” he repeated and pointed at the priest on the other horse. Ocyrhoe saw he was holding a ring. He hadn’t understood the squad leader’s words, but the gist of the man’s question had been plain. Likewise, the visual aid of the ring and the swaying priest were enough to make his response clear.
    The priest gasped like a fish, finding a moment of lucidity, but his voice was so ragged and strained that Ocyrhoe could barely hear it. “The Pope,” the priest rasped. “I have urgent news for His Eminence.”
    “What news?” the squad leader demanded.
    The priest shook his head, lapsing into the babbling cant of his scripture. “
Quod perierat requiram
,” he sighed. “
Et...et quod abjectum erat reducam, et quod confractum fuerat alligabo, et quod infirmum fuerat consolidabo, et quod pingue et forte custodiam...
”
    The squad leader crossed himself, then stepped closer to them, gesturing for the ring. The young stranger leaned back in his saddle, the metal ring clutched desperately in his hand. The squad leader grimaced as he closed his own hand and raised his fist toward his men, who quickly responded with another noisy rattle of their swords. Instantly terrified, the youth tossed the ring to the leader.
    The squad leader caught the ring and brought it close to his face so he could squint at it. Without turning his head, he called to his men, and one of the taller ones leaped forward. A hushed conversation followed. Ocyrhoe strained to catch their words, then took a few steps forward, just in time to see the leader drop the ring into the open hand of the tall soldier, who saluted, spun around, and trotted off through the crowd.
    The foreigner had spotted the transfer too, and he cried out in protest. The priest was so startled by the sound he fell off his horse and landed with a thump on the stone paving and dirt. As the crowd surged forward, the youth pulled hard on the reins of his own horse and leaned forward, signaling—
accidentally?
wondered Ocyrhoe—the animal to rear up and paw at the air. One hoof struck the squad leader with a glancing blow to the head. The soldier flinched and ducked, crying out