Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (4 page)

Soaring high above the River Tiber, I passed the Palladium—the atmosphere-scraping statue of Minerva in full armor with her shield raised, lightning spear ready to cast, the great guardian of the city wreathed and decorated to celebrate her festival.

A niggling voice at the back of my mind told me to stop into the temple at the base of the statue and make a sacrifice. I'd missed my chance back at the apartment when Bulla surprised me. But no, Minerva would have to wait. I simply didn't have the time. Roman life was set to a strict calendar of festivals. The Festival of Minerva was drawing to a close, and tomorrow the teams for the Festival of Jupiter's games would depart. My life would be over if I couldn't get back on the team today. How could I live with myself if I stopped to honor Minerva and in doing so missed a vital window to turn things around?

The aerway I was on ran on a counterclockwise route around the outer edge of the city, a longer route but normally quicker unless it was a busy day, and now that the news of the new rounds at the Colosseum had been released, I could already see the traffic starting to bank up, so I prayed for Minerva's help and switched up two lanes to Via Cordia, which would take me right into the heart of the old city.

The downside of my new route, though, was that I had to double back a little, passing the eastern side of the Palatine. It took me right past the imposing ruby-and-onyx compound of House Sertorian. Great black flags whipped about in the wind—the emblem of the crimson hawk at their center, wings and claws outstretched in the moment before it snatched up its prey. The building had a circular base and interlocking layers of smooth, curving arcs that rose up and terminated in sharp points. It was supposed to symbolize the hawk's talons rising up from a drop of divine blood, but to me it best resembled a bruised and bleeding artichoke.

*   *   *

S
HORTLY AFTER
H
OUSE
S
ERTORIAN
joined the Eight and had a powerful voice in the Senate, they started questioning the precise location of the traditional boundary between their new province and ours which neighbored it, insisting we were in possession of a couple of thousand light-years of space that was rightfully theirs, specifically the ice world Olympus Decimus. The world had only one major asset—its ionosphere was filled with supercharged particles that accelerated the speed of transmission signals passing through it. It was a valuable communication hub, but even so, not important enough to go to war over. Everyone was shocked when Aquilinus sent ships into Viridian space, bombed our settlement on Olympus Decimus, and laid claim to the world for House Sertorian.

Our side protested to the Senate immediately (my uncle Quintus had served in the legions with Aquilinus and hated the man with a passion) and began to mobilize to retaliate, but before a ruling could be made, Aquilinus ordered thirty-six simultaneous bombing strikes on key Viridian outposts spread across the border of the contested space. His ruthlessness impressed houses Tullian and Ovidian, and they allied themselves to the Sertorians. Turning their backs on their gods, sacrificing worship of Mithras and Diana in order to follow Proconsul Aquilinus, they joined what became known as the Talonite Axis, a coalition of self-serving greed and ambition that threatened all the ideals that made Rome great.

Aquilinus had judged his combined fleet powerful enough to eliminate our defenses in a single, coordinated assault, but in typical Sertorian fashion, he overestimated his strength and underestimated ours. Uncle Quintus commanded our legions with those of our three allied houses in a counterattack that repelled the Sertorians and secured most of our territory, though not Olympus Decimus. He showed them that Viridians are tough, resourceful. We fight to the end; we don't surrender.

By the end of the first year of fighting, we had the Sertorians on the back foot and were close to total victory, but then Proconsul Aquilinus, as if by some minor miracle, managed to convince one of our allies to abandon us and take up with his axis. The defection of House Arrian was a shock no one saw coming. Arms manufacturer and creator of the force field technology vital to the running of the empire, House Arrian was an ally we couldn't do without. The tide turned, from four houses to three in our favor to four to three against.

*   *   *

P
ASSING BY THE
P
ALATINE
brought me bad luck because when I was right over it, the traffic came to a standstill. The city was gripped with festival fever, and gladiator fans were out in force, clogging the aerway. The streets below were no better, bustling with Sertorians heading in on foot to see the final shake-up of the tournament teams before tomorrow's parade. The clusters of buildings that streamed down from the Palatine were painted with strikingly luminous Ichthyophagi vermilion, a color most people had the good taste to use sparingly, due to the vast numbers of sentient barbarians who had to be killed to produce it, but the Sertorians had laid it on thick, and the streets of the Palatine looked like running sores.

If only I had a bomb of my own that I could drop right now without any repercussions. I'd wipe out the Sertorians and their ugly architecture. It'd even be worth destroying the entire Palatine just to be rid of them once and for all, but that could never be anything more than a fantasy. No Roman could overtly attack another citizen in Rome without violating the ancient and sacred peace of the city and facing execution.

In the distance I could see the sacred hills occupied by our enemies. As our Caninine Alliance occupied three of Rome's seven hills, the Sertorians and their allies held the remaining four—the Tullians, shipbuilders who held the contract to engineer the imperial fleet, on the Quirinal Hill; the Ovidians, renowned for their hunting prowess, possessed the Capitoline Hill; and the Arrians, who occupied the Viminal.

*   *   *

U
NDER THE ASSAULT OF
superior numbers, the Viridian border worlds of Pontus Primus, Lupus Adamas, and Australis Valere all fell quickly and were occupied. The Sertorians even cleaned up the fallout from the bombing of Olympus Decimus and built a new city—Avis Accipitridae—setting up their own communication network in our province. After a year facing defeat after defeat, House Viridian was cash-strapped and underresourced, close to defeat. Just when it seemed there was no hope, the Sertorians made a strategic blunder, and everything changed.

The imperial province Terra Firma encompassed the tens of thousands of light-years of space around Mother Earth and the galactic center—a buffer zone to protect and preserve the cradle of civilization, the hub of the empire. On taking office, proconsuls had to swear to preserve the city of Rome and the sacred boundaries of Terra Firma province.

When the forty-second Sertorian fleet drove the sixteenth Viridian (a combined force formed with House Calpurnian) across the border into Terra Firma, Caesar Numerius Valentinius felt that both houses had overstepped the mark and needed to be reminded who was in charge. Reaching out through his personal Praetorian fleet comprising three hundred ultimare-class dreadnoughts, the emperor annihilated them all. Forty thousand Sertorian and Viridian troops and eight deceres-class war carriers wiped out in less than an hour. That slap on the wrist cost us more dearly than the Sertorians, but it ensured that the proconsuls of both houses paid attention when the emperor declared an armistice. Any house that broke the emperor's peace would face decimation and demotion—the execution of ten percent of their house's total population and exile to the galactic frontier. The emperor also decided upon an ingenious solution to resolve the war once and for all.

*   *   *

I
SPAT OVER THE
side of my chariot to try to ward off the bad luck, hit the throttle again, and started zigzagging in and out of the stationary vehicles to screams of abuse and blaring sirens until there was no room left to maneuver. Using my decoder, I broke through the force fields that demarcated the lanes and rushed into the open air. I'd be pursued and fined by the road safety authority, but I couldn't worry about that. With no traffic to obstruct my path, accompanied by blaring warning sirens the whole way, it was only a matter of minutes before the Colosseum complex came into view.

The ancient arena was surrounded by four circular towers that housed the great training schools of the empire, rising up like horns about the head of a massive beast. Mine was the biggest and the best, the northern tower where the best gladiators of the capital trained—the Ludus Magnus.

Swarms of people who were unable to get a seat were gathered out front watching huge holographic projections of the tryouts taking place inside. I came in over the crowd, passing through a giant hologram of fighting gladiators.

“There! Lupa She-Wolf! Accala!” The people below were calling out, pointing at me. “Take your place back, She-Wolf! Don't let them cheat you!”

Before I entered the arena for the first time, my trainer, Marcus, gave me the name Lupa She-Wolf—the noble Viridian lady turned savage fighter.

“I'd prefer Minerva—the bringer of justice,” I told him.

“It'll be Lupa; it's more theatrical. Besides, you're named Accala for the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus. It suits you.”

This did not please me, but Marcus knew what he was doing—the name had made me a hit with gladiator fans.

The air was thick with black media spherae—floating cameras marked with each house's news station—and I had to navigate around them to land my chariot in a clear space behind the barricade to the athletes' entrance. The moment I hit the ground, it was like I'd kicked over an anthill. Swarms of fans pressed against the barricade, calling out for autographs, yelling support. Some Sertorians in the crowd hurled obscenities at me, but I'd heard much worse in my time in the arena. Buoyed up by the crowd's enthusiasm, I strode confidently into the Ludus Magnus. Having the audience on side meant everything to a gladiator. An eight-foot Tullian barred my way. He'd undergone a treatment to make the skin cling to his bones, giving him the appearance of a human skeleton. I knew him by name—Charon Sextus. Underworld-themed names were popular. I stared up at him and growled, daring him to make the first move. When he didn't, I walked right at him, but he wasn't as stupid as he looked and stepped aside at the last moment. I was tempted to punish him for delaying me, but this man was a second-rater, not worthy of my anger.

I passed the statues of the Twelve that lined the athletes' entrance hall—the greatest gladiators of all time. Every competitor dreamed of approaching their score, the more delusional of actually winning enough matches and glory to find themselves included among that elite group. Caladus, Saturnilos, Scylax, Julius Ovidius, Orosius, Hermes, Toxaris, Varus, Cerberus, Gnaeus Arrius Diocles, Heracles, and Achillia—the only female grand champion. But immortal glory wasn't of interest to me. Justice, bloody and righteous, was my goal, and I would not be denied it.

III

A
SEA OF COLOR
and movement greeted me in the training hall—hundreds of costumed gladiators working out with every kind of traditional weapon—javelins, bows and arrows, spears, shields and gladii, daggers and clubs. Arms devised by conquered species that had, over millennia, been integrated into the Roman arsenal were also popular. Some of them were electrified, others radiating colored energy fields. Many purists used the arms in their ancient forms without any additional power enhancements. The only restriction was that they not fall into the category of advanced weapons—explosives or energy casters like ion pistols. The day board showed that more than six hundred gladiators had submitted their names for consideration in the trials, and the rounds had already been drawn by lot and scheduled. I had my work cut out for me.

I pushed my way through them, House Viridian's Golden Wolves, House Ovidian's Amber Boars, the Silver Sparrows of House Flavian, the Blue Bulls of the Tullians, the Black Ravens of the Calpurnians, the White Rams of the Arrians, and the Sertorians' Blood Hawks.

Even gladiators who didn't have a chance at being selected because they were part of a house who already had a full complement were in attendance, eager to see how the final rounds played out. They all looked impressive enough—feathers, jewels, precious metals, styled helmets and armor laid over the top of sweaty, oiled bodies. Some sported genetic modifications, a tactic used by gladiators of lesser standing to garner attention they couldn't get by way of skill in arms. Sharks' eyes, lions' manes, but gods, the smell. Even with the oil clogging their pores, there was no escaping the distasteful stink of too many male athletes in a confined space.

My first arena match had taken place without my father's permission or knowledge. I bribed a selector to pit me up against a respected Sertorian gladiator named Harpia. It was as close a match as any I'd fought since. The Sertorians were breaking arena records all over the place, but I managed to defeat her by crippling her right knee. As I stood over her, discus in hand, the crowd demanded that she be killed. The referee gave the thumbs-down but I couldn't do it. I hated the Sertorians, but that particular Sertorian hadn't wronged me. I turned and walked from the arena to a cavalcade of boos and jeers. My trainer, Marcus, was furious with me and whipped me with good cause—he'd risked a great deal in training a noble-born woman, and I'd assured him I had what it took to be the best. My father found out when the other senators started snickering during one of his orations. Shamed that his daughter had shunned her noble birth and submitted to the orders of a common lanista, he threatened to banish me from the family if I didn't quit at once. Calling his bluff, I told him that the only way I'd stop would be if he'd use his influence to have me conscripted to the legions so I could go and fight in the war. If he did try to banish me, I swore I'd get illegal gender reassignment surgery and join the legion anonymously. That bought me more time. I convinced my trainer to let me fight again and, once more, I stood over my defeated opponent and refused to deliver the deathblow. That brought more of a wave of confusion than outright hostility. The audience just didn't understand why I wouldn't go through with it, even though that's what they demanded. They were used to getting what they wanted. That should have been the end of my arena career, except word went around that I was a worshipper of Minerva and that I had shown the mercy of the goddess to my fallen opponents. I was not incapable of killing, but I chose not to, even though it broke with tradition and risked my advancement. I'd decided that I would save death for those that deserved it—the men responsible for the murder of my mother and brother—and to do that I had to work my way into the toughest league, the most challenging arena—the Ludi Romani, the emperor's great games. In the strange way popular opinion works, instead of ending my career, my display of mercy made me an overnight hit. After that Marcus didn't mind so much.