"Erik! Erik! Wake the fuck up! You are burning this place down!"
Erik snapped out of his trance drenched in sweat and shivering.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"The roof is already on fire, we have to get out of here."
After looking at Kiril for a few seconds he remembered his fate and his story.
Mila, his love, had absorbed the loose power of the dying Moon Goddess and disappeared into the sky leaving him and Kiril behind in the arena.
With her disappearance, the breach in time also closed and they were stuck in Ancient Rome.
"Hurry up! The fire will attract attention and... soldiers," said Kiril pulling his hood down to cover as much as possible of his face.
Unlike him, that looked tanned and Mediterranean, fitting somehow in the picture, Kiril, with his silver blond hair, blue eyes and white skin was sticking out like a sore thumb.
"Damn it," cursed Erik while they were making their way through the narrow Roman streets.
It had been twenty-four hours already since they were stuck there, without their powers and without a possibility to return to their life and time 2010 years in the future.
They barely made it out of the arena without being caught. It would have meant certain death, as they looked like wizards or demons with their modern clothes.
"Tavern?" asked Erik.
"No. Too dangerous and too loud. I need to think."
"Woods it is then," said Erik resigned and took the route to the left, outside the city.
He had lived almost a hundred thirteen years, and witnessed the effects war and progress had on society but the daily life in the ancient era was still something he had to get used to. They both had to, concluded Erik, observing Kiril cursing while they were climbing the slopes of the Palatin in the dark.
The situation seemed like yet another jest of fate, as they were stuck there with one another. His relationship with Kiril was complicated, to say the least, as a default.
Tired, Erik laid down on the grass, tucked his torn jacket under his head and looked at the sky. It was a full moon night and neither of them was turning.
Their werewolf power seemed to be stuck in the twenty-first century.
"Do you think she is out there somewhere?" asked Kiril.
Erik didn't answer, he was also surprised by the question. He hoped indeed that Mila was somewhere out there and would eventually return to him but there was no evidence that would ever happen.
He generally would have wanted nothing to do with any god. If he would have been born human he would have chosen to be an atheist, but as his very nature as a wolf was visibly linked to a deity, that was no suitable option.
"What do you think?" he asked Kiril in the end.
"That I cannot sense her anymore, and neither can I hear your child. So it's not likely she is anywhere close."
Erik was not good at dealing with bad news. Normally he would have punched Kiril to provoke him to fight so that he could feel anger instead of sadness, but that was not the place nor the time.
"Shut up, we need to sleep. Tomorrow we go to town and search for Lucius," said Erik preferring to focus on the immediate reality than on the pain in his soul.
"Why?"
"We need to start somewhere. Or do you have a better idea? I should just fucking kill you, Kiril. Everything is your fault after all."
"You are naive to think that Erik. Not that I care about your opinion but everything would have gone down similar, with or without me. And without me, Lucius' soul would still be in your body, you ungrateful prick. But maybe it would have been better in some way. I would still be in the future, a powerful Alpha. We would enslave humankind but who cares. And Mila would still be alive, as my paramour."
That was not the best choice of words or facts because Erik couldn't hold his anger back anymore and jumped up to punch him in the face. Everything was a frenzy of anger, pain, and bloodlust.
Erik felt he was stronger than Kiril, as Kiril still didn't heal completely after the last fight. He had been too proud to ask and Erik had been too angry to offer to heal him, before it turned out none of them had any power left.
He could kill him right there, his supposed arch-enemy, but as much as he resented him, his chances of getting back to the future and finding Mila were better with than without him.
He sighed and extended his hand.
"Stand up..." said Erik looking away reluctantly.
Kiril slapped his hand away and laid on his back.
"You seem to still have your power since you set unconsciously that stable on fire, but it is sealed somewhere and the same should be valid for mine. However, as hard as I try I cannot channel anything.
Why do you think Lucius could or would help us?"
"I don't think anything, but we need someone with strong magic to be able to breach space and time for us. What other options do we have?"
"Here and now, I have no fucking idea. And I didn't practice Latin for ages," huffed Kiril.
"Excetra, flagitium hominis, malus nequamque/ malicious, disgraceful man, horrible jerk. Should I continue with the refresher, they all fit you," said Erik mockingly.
"In malam crocem, Erik. As in, fuck off asshole."
It was strange how sleep came that night as they laid there, angry, hungry and hopeless on the hard red soil of the Roman hills.
Everything ached when Erik woke up in the morning, reminding him of his days as a soldier.
Anima Mundis had splintered into pieces after Lucius was sent to hell, which also meant they had no weapon whatsoever. Unfortunately, they didn't have claws and fangs either. Again being human was really, really inconvenient.
"Kiril, wake up, I hear footsteps," whispered Erik and stood up slowly.
It was too late, they were already surrounded by soldiers.
"Nos sumus Centuriae Quintae Macedoniae, deditionem, barbaros aut fures!/ We are Centuria Quinta Macedonica, surrender, barbarians or thieves!"
Erik and Kiril were up, back to back cursing each in their own language.
"Centurie, meaning a hundred fucking men. Fight or flight?" asked Erik eyeing Kiril.
"We cannot flee, they are everywhere. Try not to die, Erik."
A hundred men, a hundred armed, trained Roman soldiers. As wolves, they would have finished them without breaking a sweat. Kiril was a good fighter; he had seen him. He had even been foolish and brave enough to face Lucius in open battle. Bur now, as humans, it was likely they would not survive.
There was not much time to weigh out chances between clicking spears and swords. Apparently, agility and stamina were still good, as good as they could be for a human.
Ferociously they tried to fight and make their way through the little army. The Roman legions were famous even in modern warfare. For a split second the scene reminded Erik of the German army in The Second World War.
They were strong and after half an hour there were still more than half left. Meanwhile, they managed to subtract some weapons from the opponents and were at least not unarmed anymore.
"Surprise, erratic behavior, that is their weakness," said Erik looking at Kiril that was eyeing desperate the amounts of soldiers left.
Exhausted, Kiril leaped for another attack. Erik couldn't help to admiring his technique, but it was still a wrong step. One of the spears of the soldiers punctured his ribs and he jumped back grabbing the bleeding wound.
"Fuck..." muttered Erik just to turn around and find a blade pointed at his face.
"Ligabis eos!/ Tie them up," said a man that seemed to be the leader. He had two bleeding wounds on his body and was visibly angry.
A noose on the neck was certainly not a good feeling, but it looked like death was going to wait a bit longer, as they forcefully marched into Rome tied up and hurt.
"Where do you think they bring us?" whispered Erik.
"To a dungeon probably. What do you think, smartass?"
"Clausus, barbaron!/ Shut up, barbarian!" said one of the soldiers that were riding in front of them holding the ropes that were tied around their wrists and necks.
The remark earned Kiril a whiplash. Erik would have smiled in satisfaction but the situation was wiping the potential smile off his face.
They reached what looked like the house of a nobleman: big, two-stories high, seemingly luxurious and full of slaves.
The captain of the soldiers entered the building and came out a few minutes later together with a man in his early fourties, dressed in a toga, and a slightly younger woman, that seemed to be his wife or concubine.
The woman's eyes were glued to Kiril. She whispered something to the man and the man eyed him as well.
"Alter est melior pugnator./The other one is a better fighter," said the captain.
"Bene ergo accipiemus utrumque./Good, then we will take both," he said gesturing to the soldiers to lead them inside.
Both men were looking circumspect at what was happening.
"Fuck me, we were just sold as slaves..."
said Kiril.
"Worse, as gladiators," whispered Erik, his jaw popping open as they entered and he noticed that the house they were lead into was actually a ludus, a training place for gladiators.
They were put into a rather large cell where eight other men were sitting, lying, or standing.
On the other side of the bars was an arena where around twenty men were training and staining with blood its yellow sands. The setting sun waa making the weapons glow and Erik's eyes hurt. It was going to be a wild ride.
"Oh, the stench and this magnificent company..." whispered Kiril more to himself looking at the brutish expressions of the men.
"Septentrionalis homo, quid negligitis?/Northman, what are you staring at? " said one of them, eyeing Kiril.
Erik was amazed that the man could speak decent latina vulgaris. Most gladiators were supposed to be war prisoners from different parts of the empire that didn't speak anything but their own, foreign, forgotten language.
"Ita tu, cana coma, semel tantum vidi Septentrionalem, sed non erat tam candidus quam tu./ Yes you, with the white hair. I only saw once a northman but he was not quite as white as you."
Kiril didn't say anything, just looked away condescendingly.
"You shouldn't go pissing alone at night. It seems he has a crush on you," whispered Erik, smirking slightly.
"Ah, shut up and think about something useful; we need to get out of here."
The man was not giving in. He came closer and looked up to Kiril, as he was a good head shorter.
"Esne bonus pugnator, Septentrionalis homo?/Are you a good fighter, Northman?" he insisted.
"Insanus est, nollem nimis familiarem esse. Aures et nares hominum mordax necat, antequam mortui sunt. Hoc est quomodo faciunt eam aquilonem/ He is mad. I would not get too close to him. He bites off the ears and noses of the men he kills... before they are dead. That is how they do it up north," whispered Erik in the man's ear, thinking Kiril owed him one more.
Thoughts about debt crept into Erik's mind. Kiril had brought him back with the price of his life. Sure, he was motivated by revenge but he fought and made sacrifices that were hard to imagine, and as much as he liked to play it down, if he felt the same tug of the mate bond, losing Mila pained him also deeply.
"Tu... linguam Romanorum loqueris, alienam tamen sonas, et duas vestes quas geris, diversa sunt et ... Northman es etiam? Non tamquam unum./ You... you speak the language of the Romans, still you sound foreign, and the clothes you two are wearing, they are different too... Are you a Northman too? You do not look like one."
"Solus pater, mater Romana fuit/ Only my father, my mother was Roman... of sort," answered Erik.
"Mater tua barbaris enutrita? Mulier aliena./ Your mother bred with the savages? Strange woman."
"Mhm..." answered Erik hoping to end the conversation.
"Marcus ego sum, et tu? et truculenti?/I am Marcus, and you? And the savage?"
"Erik et nomen ejus Kiril, custos septentrionis./ Erik and his name is Kiril, warden of the north."
Erik was making fun of Kiril and the situation but at the end of that day, they went to sleep back to back, both contemplating the fact that their former nemesis was now the only person they could trust.