Storm Warrior

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The howling of dogs in the distance told him his Roman keepers had found his trail again. Rhys spat out a curse, along with some blood, and forced himself to keep going.

The site of Isca Silurum, the fort that housed the Second Augusta Legion, was a broad, flat plain in a bend of the River Usk. It was less than a day’s easy march southward to the ocean, but Rhys had headed north and west to the interior. North and west toward his tribal lands. North and west to the hills, to the rough and rocky terrain that might discourage the many search parties and their savage dogs.

So far, the rugged ground had only slowed them down. After three days, it had become obvious—the Romans were determined not to let their favorite gladiator go.

He was determined to remain free.

The landscape was beginning to look familiar as he left the southern lands behind him, lands that belonged to another tribe overrun by the Romans. After three decades of war, the remaining sons of their once-proud leaders had been rounded up and sent to Rome, not as prisoners but as students. Education and assimilation were devastatingly effective at controlling a conquered people. Rhys knew that the young men would return to their homes every bit as Roman as their overlords. For all he knew, the same thing was happening in his own tribe and clan, perhaps in his own village.

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