Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (58 page)

Barbata scuttled off down the tunnel to the right, and as I went to follow her, movement flashed to my left.

“Accala!”

Julia stepped out in front of me, blocking the way.

“You couldn't help yourself, could you?” she said.

“Get out of my way. Barbata's escaping, and I'm not done with her.”

“Where is your brother? You've totally lost it. You're placing the mission in jeopardy.”

“Mania here tells me that I'm heading right to my brother,” I said enthusiastically, holding up the small woman's head. “I know what I'm doing. Now get out of the way.”

“Where are you going? I don't believe you're trying to find Aulus.”

“No. He's in another direction. Father down and to the northwest.”

“Then where?”

“As far as I can tell, right into a trap the Blood Hawks have set up for me.”

“You did exactly what I warned you not to do. You put revenge ahead of duty,” Julia said, indicating Mania's head.

“It was my call to make, and I made it.”

“Is the ambrosia in that bag on your shoulder? Put it down and don't take any more. You can't see yourself. If you keep going down this track, you'll play right into their hands. You need to start listening to me and right now. It's not too late to put things right. We'll hole up until the ambrosia level decreases and then find the path to your brother.”

“Get the hell out of my way. I really am losing patience with you.”

“Or what? You'll do to me what you did to Mania? I counted you a friend, an ally, at least.”

“And I'll count you a friend if you get out of my way. Now.”

“Put the ambrosia down.”

“Or you're going to supersede me? I'd suggest you don't try it.”

Julia held up a small item. I anticipated a weapon, but instead she showed me something I didn't expect to see on this world. It was the cameo from my bedroom back in Rome. The scene of my mother and little brother running in the wheat fields.

It startled me and in that instant I saw through the projection to the shining tunnel wall behind. My focus changed and in the wall's shining reflection I saw myself. My hair was disheveled, my skin the palest white, eyes wide, unblinking and bright. My body was so wired that all I could think of when I saw myself was a spider, like the arachnoraptors, all edges and nightmare sharpness. I didn't look human. Then I was looking at my mother and brother again, laughing and carefree. Them at their best, before the bombs fell. I turned away, unable to watch.

“Turn it off.”

“Remember what you're fighting for,” Julia said. “It's not just your brother. It's every Viridian on every ruined world struggling for survival. You're fighting for the freedom of the empire.”

“I told you to turn it off. I won't say it again.”

She obeyed. “You're right. I'm sorry, Julia. It's been so hard to think clearly. The noise in my head…” I held out a hand to her and looked in her eyes pleadingly. “Please, help me.”

She reached out, and I grasped her hand and pulled her forward sharply, head-butting her forehead, sending her flying backward to the ground. I walked past and she called out my name. I had hoped the hit would knock her out cold, but Julia was tougher than she looked. Glancing back, I saw she'd managed to struggle to her feet. She tapped her armilla. She must have hit me with the maximum setting because I felt it even with the ambrosia's insulating effect. Julia had disabled the Sertorian bracelet codes, but kept her own in place as insurance. The shock dropped me to my knees. It would have killed me outright if not for the ambrosia.

Enough. Orbis flew from my hand, and a moment later Julia lost part of hers, the little finger of her right hand. I turned and walked away, leaving Julia scrambling about after her digit as she cursed my name.

A part of me wanted to tell her I was sorry and give her some ambrosia to help her heal, but Julia had brought this on herself, and I couldn't let anything slow me down. The taste of Mania's ambrosia-infused blood lingered on my lips and I had a taste for more.

XXXI

A
S
I
HEADED DOWN
toward the marker on my armilla, the structure of the tunnel network began to change. There were additions to the wall, black-and-red machinery belonging to House Sertorian. The farther I went, the more prominent they became—pipes and cables, transmitters and bolsters, structural equipment, all integrated with the alien environment. I knew I was on the right track. After some time I came to a vast cavern, the entrance to which was a reinforced arch.

Sertorian mining equipment filled the cavern entrance—drills, laser cutters, pneumatic blasters, and other large machines I didn't recognize. They had their own light sources that filled the cavern with a sickly cyan glow. A large clear vat with a pumping device atop it filled the space, a central pipe ran down from it into the ice below, but the vat was dry of the ambrosia it was designed to steal.

Moving past the large machines, I got my first proper look at what was the largest cavern I'd yet encountered on this world. Hyperborean bodies were everywhere, most in the upper reaches of the arching cavernous vault where the Sertorians had excavated. The scaffolding and mining equipment lay abandoned. Dozens of steel taps hammered into each Hyperborean body connected them to thin hoses, which ran across the cavern to a large central pump.

These Hyperboreans were the same as the ones I'd seen in the tunnel wall days ago when I fought the barbarian uprising. The Sertorians had discovered them, trapped, dying at the hands of the black poison, and were milking them for the precious substance that had formed inside their bodies. As quietly as I could, I walked slowly through the vast cavern. A glint of movement in the rocks above caught my eye. My heart skipped a beat. For a second I thought my enemies had the drop on me, but it was only more of the worker barbarians. They were silently following me. It was the ambrosia. I'd fed them Mania's body, and now they wanted more. That could be arranged.

I continued moving quietly around a giant drill head mounted on a hover engine. There. Fifty yards ahead, beside a shallow basin much wider than all the ones that had come before, Licinus waited for me. And he didn't look too disheveled, either. Either he'd killed Crassus with a minimal amount of effort, or Crassus hadn't yet struck. Licinus stood in the center of the cavern, the place farthest from cover. Was he planning to draw me out into the open, where I'd have no objects to ricochet Orbis off of? He hadn't seen me yet, which gave me the advantage. Ducking behind the head of one of the large drills, I swallowed another phial of ambrosia. Mania's ponytail was held in place with a thick leather band. I took it and slid it over my right palm, tucking three more phials between the band and my palm so that they were fixed in place and out of sight.

“Come, Mock Wolf,” Licinus called out. “I can hear you over there. Come. Stop cowering behind shadows. Step out into the light, and let's play this round out to its conclusion.”

I tucked the bag with the casket in one of the compartments built into the side of the machine and then stepped out from behind the drill, holding up Mania's head.

“Poor Mania,” he said without emotion.

“Save some pity for Barbata,” I said. “You should see what I did to her face. It's a work of art.”

I put Mania on the ground beside me so she could enjoy the show. Her disembodied head looked older somehow, her white hair disheveled, her skin pale and lackluster.

“No pity. Only shame that any Sertorian should fall to the likes of you.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “You're about to find out what it feels like firsthand. I'm going to eat your beating heart, and after we've won the tournament, I'm going stick your living head on a pike in front of the Wolf's Den.”

“I expected you to rebel, but I didn't anticipate the level of vindictiveness and originality your rebellion would take. I expected something much more low key, not this glorious panorama of betrayal and violence. You certainly played Gaius Crassus for a fool.”

“I played you all for fools,” I said.

“I think not. You are a stunning example of what can be accomplished with a combination of ambrosia and Sertorian know-how. You're our little prototype, nothing more. When this is done, Crassus won't have any claim over you. You'll be turned to your true purpose, heading up my pet project. I've been aching to break you. Wait till you see what we've got planned, I can't wait to see the look on your face.”

“I'll remind you of what you said when I add you to my collection of heads,” I said.

Licinus advanced at a leisurely pace along the cavern, around the smooth central basin, his steel eyes gazing at me with confidence. His war chain snaked lazily out toward me, and I warded the tip away with Orbis and started to advance, matching his pace. The chain rippled, sending waves of steel at me, each crest of the whip topped with a sharp spike or hook. For each one that I knocked aside, another came behind it to try to catch or spear me. To and fro, war chain and discus engaged in deadly conversation. I kept advancing slowly, no rush, heedless of his weapon as it cut my face, my neck, my shoulders. The fresh phial of ambrosia was working wonders, the hot ants doing their clever trick, knitting me back together as Licinus was pulling me apart. Licinus was too good at defending against distance weapons. I had to close the gap in order to do some damage. Deliberately catching one of the long barbs on Orbis' inner ring, I folded the disc over, drawing in the chain. Now I reeled in the chain as I moved forward, shortening the length with each turn, winding it about my arms. Licinus lost his veneer of calm and yelled in frustration as he pulled, unable to free his weapon. The spikes pierced my forearms, but now only three feet separated us. He wrapped the last loose length of chain about his right fist and punched the spikes toward my face. I sidestepped and, thinking he had me on the back foot, he threw the last loop about my shoulders and pulled tight, drawing me in close. He thought he had me all nicely tied up, like a spider spinning thread about its prey, but I had enough mobility to raise my left hand at the elbow and smash the concealed phials against his middle back. He didn't look to see what I'd done, instead taking the opportunity to try to head-butt me in the face.

With the war chain wrapped about me, I threw myself backward and to the side. My falling body weight unbalanced Licinus, forcing him to step up against the lip of the basin, now behind him. All through our encounter I'd been edging him toward the shining bowl in the center of the cavern. He smiled. He thought I'd miscalculated. He knew I didn't have the strength to push him into the basin, but if I'd guessed right, I wouldn't need it.

The hands of the Hyperborean workers grabbed at his ankles. Just like with Mania, the fresh ambrosia on Licinus' back was irresistible. Licinus' eyes widened with surprise as he was unbalanced and pulled down into the basin. I was pulled along after him by the war chain, but I desperately unrolled myself, untangling my body, heedless of the chunks of flesh the chain took as its toll and then, before the last of it vanished over the edge, I grasped it and jerked with all my strength, ripping the chain free of Licinus' grasp.

I was bleeding black blood from dozens of wounds. I regained my feet and came to stand at the edge of the basin. The Hyperborean workers hesitated as if they were going to come for me as well, but they decided against it and refocused on Licinus. He was back on his feet, kicking and punching, shattering the fragile barbarians with powerful blows.

“Get your claws off me! Damned vultures,” he spat.

He lacked Crassus' air of magnificence, but watching him at work, I had no doubt that he was the most proficient fighter I'd ever seen. If we had stood toe to toe with no ambrosia, I doubt I could have bested him. But the last thing I cared about right now was a fair fight. I had left honor behind long ago. Now all that mattered was blood for blood. The workers decided there was no easy food here and retreated from the basin, scuttling back up to the shadows of the walls behind us.

If I had any sense I'd have done it quickly. I should have sent Orbis down into the basin and taken Licinus' head in one fell swoop. But I'd wanted this for so long, I'd dreamed of this moment. I had to savor it. I wanted to wring satisfaction from him body and soul.

I picked up his heavy war chain and walked back twenty feet or so, dropping it to the cavern floor. Then I turned and waited for my enemy. Julia had used my cameo to project the scene of Aulus and my mother, and instead of settling the fire, it had stoked it to a new intensity. All I could think about was the bombs falling on this world. Of my mother burning. Missiles plummeting from the heavens. The hubris, the arrogance of the Sertorians. They thought no one would ever call them to account for their misdeeds.

“Tell you what,” I called out to Licinus as he cleared the lip of the basin and headed toward me on level ground. “I'll give you the same deal as the barbarians on
Incitatus.
If you can make it past me, you can go free.”

“Foolish wolf,” he said as he started to advance. He was expecting me to cut him down with Orbis. Instead, I sent my discus sailing up toward the high roof of the cavern. The stalactites were set low enough for me to see them and I was hoping they were as fragile as they looked. I was expecting one or two to fall and was delighted when Orbis nearly brought down the house. Perhaps it was the effect of the nuclear fallout. The structures were much weaker than they appeared. A shower of deadly ice spines began to rain down, some as thin as javelins, others the width of the war chariot. Licinus ran a desperate zigzag maze, trying to avoid bring speared by the crashing spires. I didn't want the fun to be over too quickly, so I sent Orbis out again. He ricocheted off an icicle and took off Licinus' right foot at the ankle. The Sertorian fell to the ground and a stalactite pierced his back and spine, driving him face-first into the ground, impaled.