Free Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion by Edward Crichton

higher I.Q. than Santino and Wang put together,” I said, receiving asinine smiles from them both.  “And like you said a few days ago, I’d just go off explaining it with movie refer…”
    “Shh!”  Santino interrupted with a finger over his lips.
    “Oh come on, John, you know I didn’t mean anything by…”
    “ Shh! ”  Santino repeated more insistently this time.
    D efense mechanisms kicked in at Santino’s insistence, as they did in everyone else who knew him.  The only time Santino was ever really worth listening to was when he sensed something was wrong, and I could tell he wasn’t goofing around right now.
    I scanned the courtyard but found nothing amiss, while Helena reached for her bag and what I assumed was a pistol hidden within.  I swore under my breath for not bringing my own but felt assured by the fact that enough of us had, but there didn’t really seem anything wrong in the vicinity to justify Santino’s sudden plea for silence.  I looked at him sitting opposite me in our circle, noticing that he seemed as alert as ever despite my lack of understanding.  He rose to his feet with great caution and stared unblinkingly over my right shoulder, at an area of the park that was nothing more than an open field filled with dirt, some scrub grass, and a scattering of trees.  There was nothing there, and I started to wonder if Santino was getting paranoid in his old age.
    Much like I was.
    “What’s wrong?”  Archer asked, and for once I didn’t have a problem with his question.
    In r esponse, Santino snapped up his left hand and held it in a halting gesture.  He had his pointer finger extended toward the sky but then slowly lowered it so that he was tracking it right to left.  I kept my eyes on his finger, waiting for more information.
    “There!” Santino yelled, lowering his left hand and drawing his pistol with his right in one sm ooth motion.  The gun lifted so effortlessly that even my trained eye had trouble keeping up with what was happening.  I tore my eyes away from Santino and finally saw what had spooked him.  A few dozen meters away were Agrippina’s ninjas, wrapped in their dark clothing and armed with swords, knives, bows, and arrows.
    I dropped to a knee, giving Helena a clear line of fire in their direction and keeping my ears away from her gun.  Taking cover, I saw Wang, Stryker, and Archer go for their weapons at about the same time as Santino and Helena started firing.  Artie dove to the ground and crawled toward my position, and I wrapped an arm around her protectively and kept her body as close to the ground as possible.
    “Stay down !” I yelled at her and she nodded vigorously.
    I lifted my head and saw ninjas nocking arrows to bows and releasing them in our direction.  I pushed Artie closer to the fountain for cover and pressed myself against it as well, relying on my f riends to handle the situation.
    Helena dropped beside me and continued firing.
    As I kept myself out of the way, I felt a pain in the back of my head like an intense headache pounding away at my skull.  My first thought was that I’d been hit by arrow, but that didn’t make much sense.  Instead of thinking about it, I squeezed my eyes and cringed at the pain, raising a hand to my temple in the hopes that it would somehow help, but it didn’t.  The pain inexplicably increased and stars burst into my vision as the back of my head impacted the marble fountain when I fell to the ground.
    I barely took notice of the arrows falling around us by the dozen.
    I hadn’t heard the screams from someone hit by one just yet, but my head hurt so badly that I wasn’t sure such a sound would even register.  It seemed ready to explode at the slightest touch, but then someone tugged at my sleeve and yelled for me to crawl away, but I could barely comprehend the spoken words let alone comply with them.  All I could do was fight off the pain in my skull and hope that it went away on its own.
    I turned