Read Online Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion by Edward Crichton - Free Book Online Page A

smirked.  “It’s a high school social studies textbook.  One of the better ones, I’m told.”
    I looked from the book and back to her.  “You have got to be kidding me.”
    Brewster shrugged again, but Archer cut off any response from her.
    “Feel free to flip through it at your leisure, Hunter, but not now,” he said.  “World history isn’t the priority here.  Determining where the break in our timelines occurred is.”
    His tone was paternal istic and dismissive, and I felt my anger growing.  Since the moment Archer had arrived, his demeanor had been authoritative and commanding, as though anything we had to say was of little use to him.  He seemed to think his arrival meant we were now all under his command, and that we no longer had any purpose but to help him and his timeline only.
    An attitude like that wasn’t going to get him very far with me.
    “Why don’t you tell us what your present is like,” Vincent suggested.  ”and please, just for clarifications sake, did you leave from the year 2021?”
    Whether it was because of Vincent’s age or calm attitude, Archer’s tone grew more respectful.  “Correct,” he answered, “but as you can already tell from our gear alone, your 2021 and my 2021 are considerably different.”
    “But why, Archer?”  I asked, already paging through the history book, beginning at the end, and flipping to the beginnin g, nothing jumping out at me.  But when I reached the title for the very first chapter my heart nearly skipped a beat.
    I t was labeled: The Dark Ages.
    I looked up at Archer in disbelief.  “Have you ever even heard of the Roman Empire?”
    He glanced at his teammates again, shifting in his seat before answering.
    “Yes,” he said easily, “but what we know of it is very limited, and most of what we do know begins with its fall, which is why that book begins where it does.”
    “But we had a dark age as well ,” I said, frantically flipping pages.  “So much history, knowledge, and technology were lost, and Europe went to shit for centuries, but much of it was preserved by outside forces and the Renaissance also saw a lot of information retained.  Where did your timeline go wrong?”
    I continued leafing through the book, occasionally glancing at Vincent, whose knowledge of history outshone even my own.  Unfortunately, he didn’t seem any more helpful than Brewster’s history book was at the moment.
    Archer shrugged.  “We don’t know, Hunter.  That’s why we’re here.  We need to fix whatever event it was that you screwed up.”
    I glanced up from the book slowly.  “ Is your world really that bad?”
    “ I suppose it depends on who you ask,” Archer replied, “but from where you come from, Hunter, and where the rest of us come from, it is.  Very bad.”
    “You mentioned the Ottoman Empire earlier in the present tense,” Vincent interjected.  “Can you explain?”
    “ The Ottoman Empire is just one of many Islamic empires throughout Eurasia,” he replied.  “They control Anatolia, some of the Middle East and their Eastern European holdings.  Then there is the Moorish Caliphate who controls Africa as far south as the Congo, Spain, and Italy.  Finally the Kingdom of Sauds control most of the Middle East through western Asia.  There are a number of smaller nation-states that comprise the hegemony, but those are the big hitters.  The only thing that has kept them from wiping out America and Great Britain is that they don’t always get along.”
    “When did these Muslim empires begin their invasions of Europe?”  Vincent asked.
    Archer shrugged.  “ None of us are historians, remember?  If you want details, read the book, but if I had to guess, I’d say some time in the fourteenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth centuries, I really don’t know.”
    I whistl ed through my teeth but I still couldn’t buy it completely.
    Not yet.
    “I guess all of this makes sense,” I said.  “Even with a dominant Islamic