Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (53 page)

“I'm listening,” I said.

“Your uncle wants me to leave a trail so the Viridians can find us if the Sertorians take you and I off course. I've put some radioactive discharge and a pinprick of a hole in the skirmisher's fuel line. Caninus is a gifted tracker; he could follow a trail like that blindfolded. The Golden Wolves will be right behind us, Accala. Ready for when we need them, but they won't lift a finger to help us unless Aulus is secured. So I'm going to ask you one last time. Will you hold off on attacking the Hawks? At least for now? Work with me, we'll cut your ambrosia, and as soon as you've got a fix on your brother we'll alert your uncle. How's that sound?”

“Better,” I replied.

“So we have an understanding?”

I gave her a slight smile. “Understood. It's the ambrosia. I don't know what I was thinking. I came on too strong again, didn't I?”

“You sure did.”

Julia returned to working on the chariot. She had made the same mistake as Crassus and forgotten that you should never try to saddle and ride a wolf unless you're prepared to get bitten. She might have weakened the control the Sertorians had over me via the bracelet, but I had no doubt she could still make it deliver a full strength charge with the codes in her possession. Julia wasn't offering freedom. She was just switching control of the lead from the Sertorians to herself. I headed over to where the Blood Hawks were gathering. Licinus would be dispensing ambrosia, and I needed to secure my share. The more I got, the stronger I'd be when the time came to strike. Barbata slipped her arm about my waist as I approached.

“I do hope you and your grease monkey aren't letting your personal relationship interfere with your professional duties.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” I replied, but I pulled away, pretending to be embarrassed.

She pulled me to her and kissed me on the mouth. Only when I stopped resisting did she release me. “You belong to Crassus, but he belongs to me. Always remember, I helped shape that body of yours. I know how to give it pleasure, how to take away its pains.”

I checked my anger for the second time that morning, but this time it was because I became absorbed in watching Mania remove her casket from the lockbox aboard the chariot. She brought it to the team, removing one small, thin phial at a time from within.

Each team member was given a phial except me. As Mania closed the casket, I moved toward her to demand my share, but Licinus stepped into my path, cutting me off.

“You're on a tight leash for now,” he explained. “Continue performing to my satisfaction, and you'll get a dose when we camp tonight. Fail me, and I'll let you spend the night without a drop. You haven't felt anything yet when it comes to withdrawal, trust me. It'll twist your bones and muscles, you'll be curled up in excruciating pain like an old crone.” He gazed at me with sadistic pleasure. I took a step back and bowed my head in submission. He planned to dangle the ambrosia in front of me like a carrot. There was a slight tremble in my hands, but it wouldn't affect my performance. Thanks to Crassus, I had more ambrosia in me than Licinus thought. I could wait. It would be worth it to see the look on his face when I took his head.

Julia's words came back to me: that I should save Aulus, deny the Sertorians the ambrosia before anything else. All of it made sense per se, but Uncle's orders were issued from a distance—he couldn't see how things played out in the field—and Julia was clouded by a fog of uncertainty. She couldn't see that it needn't be one or the other. She didn't have the clarity and perspective that the ambrosia granted. I could see it all play out, clear as day. Kill my enemies
and
save my brother. Mania, little Mania, guardian of the ambrosia. Even before I lifted a finger to help Crassus, I'd need to claim her treasure as my own. I would grow strong while the Sertorians were weakened. Even if I killed all the others, what wouldn't Crassus do for his share? He'd lead me to Aulus no problem at all. My revenge would be a meal I had to taste, to savor, to relish. Nothing would quench my appetite except Sertorian blood. We were heading into the underworld, like Orpheus into the halls of Hades, and the Sertorians wouldn't be coming out.

*   *   *

J
ULIUS
G
EMMINUS GATHERED TOGETHER
all the teams. Everyone's eyes were on Marcus, who was sporting the immunity amulet the Calpurnians had won. I'd have to watch out for him. The ambrosia might make me hard to kill, but while the amulet was in play no arena weapon could break its field and harm him. The games editor's winged head announced that there had been a few minor rule revisions to accommodate the sudden change of course—rules that had been approved by the emperor and the proconsuls of each house. One was that our immunes would not be following us into the cavern network, but every team was permitted to take as many collegia immunes on the chariot with us as there were vacant slots created by deceased contestants. I looked to Julia at once. I needed her, and we'd fared better than every other team—our complement was as it had been at the start of the tournament. We had only one slot vacant. She couldn't be left behind. But I didn't have to worry. Licinus summoned her to climb up and take a place in the middle of the chariot, before the pole. I sought out Julia, trying to find out what she made of this, but her face was impassive. It could be a boon, putting her on the chariot—she was the best immune, after all—but I couldn't shake the feeling that Licinus had something in mind, that he had chosen her in the hope of controlling me. If so, he'd guessed wrong. Julia loaded up her additional supplies and camp equipment, as the other important change was that we would make our own camp in the alien tunnels, no secure energy bubble to protect us. We'd have to be on guard night and day from attack both human and barbarian.

As we started off, the rest of the team was bursting with energy, positively glowing—the same quality Julia noticed in me earlier—but I had to put on a brave face. I was already starting to feel the effects of last night's ambrosia wearing off. Even through my helmet's visor I could feel the glare of the sun on the ice clawing at my optic nerves. Even when it was beautiful, there was nothing soft on this world—not the terrain, the weather, the wildlife, and certainly not the light. I would welcome the darkness of the caves.

The tundra gave way to closely packed crystalline outcroppings and we had to wind our way through them to reach the hills. The wind had sculpted them over time to look like spiky waves, curling clusters of frozen lizard backs. As Castor and Pollux expertly navigated our path through them, I let my eyes wander over the approaching hilltops. No sign of my silent Hyperborean observer, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was out there, watching me. As I sought to stalk and kill the Sertorians, did the giant Hyperborean bull chief wait ahead to do the same to me?

Julius Gemminus had performed some on-the-fly modifications while we slept. There were twice as many roving spherae, decked out with high-powered lights and new equipment to enable them to record for protracted periods in subterranean environments. He'd also moved a barrier of force field generators above and around the foothills—there had to be five hundred if there was one—forcing us to dive into the hives.

The foothills of the mountains rose up on either side of us, and the last of the tundra's flat terrain vanished away to rougher, less navigable landscape. The hills spilled out from the crest of the mountains for a dozen miles like billowing robes. The ice that formed them had a milky, waxy look to it, as if they might melt if a big enough flame could be brought to bear on them. We drove in from the northwest, enough of an angle to see that running down the back of the largest peaks of the mountain range before us was a wide glacier, angled toward the valley beyond. As we drew closer, it became apparent that the problem was not going to be how to enter the home of the Hyperboreans but rather which one of the hundreds of circular entrances we would choose as a starting point.

The Viridian team rushed ahead, and a cluster of camera orbs came flying into position to transmit the next stage of the tournament as we hurtled toward the alien hives. The flying referee traveled between the two teams, reminding them to hold from combat until the signal was given, then Julius Gemminus appeared again.

“Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull,” he boomed. “To show the world that he was chosen of the gods.”

The Minotaur and labyrinth. The thought of my fleeing the Hyperborean who sought to kill me sprang instantly to mind. They were all out to get me, the Sertorians, Marcus, Julia, but the Hyperborean was the only one I was really afraid of.

“When it was granted,” Gemminus continued, “duty demanded that he sacrifice the bull to honor Poseidon, but he could not give up such a potent symbol of power and sacrificed another bull in its stead. To punish Minos for breaking the pact between men and the gods, Venus made Minos' wife fall deeply in love with the bull. Their offspring was the monstrous Minotaur—wild and ferocious, a symbol of disgrace in place of one of honor. Minos had a gigantic labyrinth built to hide the creature, sending men into it each year as a sacrifice to try to atone for his crime against Poseidon.

“We've mapped out the tunnels and the routes out of them, so you won't have too much trouble navigating to the exits on the other side of the mountains. Your main obstacle will be the Hyperboreans, who seek to guard their homes as you charge through them. That and the Hyperborean bull chief, the largest and most powerful warrior who lives within the tunnels of this mountain. It is he who dared raise his hand against the might of Rome! He shall be our minotaur. Escape him and his warriors if you wish to survive the deadly ice maze. What sport! The emperor has personally requested the tunnel hunt format for this round, so the team to kill the bull chief and bring his head out the other side as a trophy will receive a special gift from the emperor himself.”

The chariots sounded their traditional hunting horns.

A projection of a hawk and a wolf appeared beside Julius Gemminus and then raced towards the tunnel entrances each faction was meant to take.

“Before you turn on each other, make sure you teach these arrogant beasts a lesson!”

XXVIII

I
T WAS ONLY WHEN
we were right upon them that we realized that the entrances were not lateral pathways, not straight roads, but suddenly dipped down, cascading into darkness deep below. A quick side glance showed me the Caninines were streaming into another tunnel about a hundred yards to the northeast, and I managed to cling to the central pole of the chariot just in time before we fell into the darkness. We plummeted down, the lights from our vehicle arcing ahead, revealing shining walls of ice. There was a water flow beneath us, running in from rivulet streams that seeped through the walls themselves. A sphera that came too close, wanting to record the action, nearly knocked me off the standing platform of the chariot.

As the ground leveled, we sped along a high-ceilinged ice tube. At intervals, other tunnels branched off to either side. Silvery and shining, the walls cast a warped reflection of my black-armored body. The way ahead was just wide enough to accommodate one chariot. So we traveled in a train, one Talonite chariot behind the other with ours taking the lead.

“Accala! Barbata! Scout ahead!” Licinus ordered, giving the signal to mount the desultore skirmishers. I jumped into the saddle, pulled the lever on the dash, and disconnected from the main body of the chariot.

“I'm your babysitter,” I heard Barbata say into my helmet's speaker as she pulled up beside me. “Stay close.”

The long tunnel we were speeding down opened into a large cavern. The walls were of polished smooth crystal, fashioned somehow by the Hyperboreans, maybe with their ice-pick arms. Deposits of limestone and agate formed a natural basin in the center, which was filled with another smooth crystal formation, this one in the shape of a vast shining bowl about fifty feet in diameter. It looked like a reservoir, but it was drained of any water it might once have held. Leading off from the cavern were at least a dozen new tunnel entrances I could take. There were larger tunnels cut into the position of compass points, eight in total, and then smaller ones fitted in between them. My guess was the smaller ones were for the Hyperboreans to travel through; the large ones had concave bases and looked like water conduits.

Could they be a means of transporting ichor?

The humming song had made its appearance as the want for ambrosia started up. No directional pull, just the sound at the back of my skull. Before it was time to strike at the Blood Hawks, I needed to get my hands on some more ambrosia, no matter the cost, or I'd be left debilitated by withdrawal pain and unable to put my plan into action.

At the speed we were traveling, I didn't have time for a considered choice, and clear thinking was becoming increasingly difficult, so I just chose tunnels intuitively. Barbata followed my lead without complaint. The destination felt a long way off, and I was thankful for it. So much to do before freeing Aulus.

We entered another tunnel, which led to the next cavernous node and another choice. I took one tunnel after another, passing through miles of the network. Like Ariadne dancing her way through the labyrinth. That was the old version of the story. That the labyrinth was her ritual dancing space before it was converted into the maze for the monster. That was how she knew to give Theseus the ball of string to take along with him, that was how she performed her dance. Except my string was a song, a series of humming notes, and right then it was all but useless to me.

Some of the tunnels seemed to slope upward, but all of my choices took us on a downward path. I wasn't sure why he was letting me run ahead, but I supposed I must be heading in the right direction, toward their mining operations, because Licinus never corrected my choice of route. Although every cavern had the same massive empty bowl formation at its center, the rock formations were growing in size as we descended, stalagmites and stalactites of milky crystal growing from floor and ceiling giving the spaces an ominous feeling, like we were riding through the mouths of giants that might snap their jaws shut at any moment and devour us.