Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (61 page)

“We warned you that your brother would be killed if you betrayed us, and yet you couldn't help yourself. How fitting, that it should be your weapon that kills him now.” Aquilinus said.

My throat was still wounded, but I had to make the words come. I had to plead for my brother's life.

“Don't,” I said, my words accompanied by a spray of blood from my mouth, blood still pumping from my throat. “I'll take you to the ichor, but only if you spare him.”

“His purpose was to lure you here and then to play the final part in breaking your spirit. Mania has profiled you well. While your brother lives, you have hope. That's what we reignited in you at the start of all this—hope that would lead you to endure all the glorious humiliations we heaped upon you, and having done this, it is this blow, the coup de grâce, that will truly put you on the path that you've always been destined to walk. Or in this case crawl,” he said as he crouched down over Aulus' body like a great fleshy spider.

“Please…”

“You're our hound, you'll sniff out what we need. This one we don't need, except to shape you,” he said, and in one smooth movement, he swung down with Orbis and sliced through the right jugular of Aulus' neck.

I screamed and railed against the leash but couldn't break free. My brother's body shook in spasms as the blood pumped from him. Aquilinus threw Orbis into the darkness and walked past me.

“Give her some lead so she can see,” Aquilinus said. “She won't go anywhere.”

The collar pressure and lead slackened and I half crawled to my brother's body as fast as I could, pressed my hand over the wound in his throat, trying to seal it up, to stop the vital blood from pumping out. Suddenly, his eyes flickered and opened, staring blankly up at me. I looked into the dark pools of his irises and pressed as hard as I could on his neck, but each heartbeat drove the blood flow through the gaps of my tightly pressed fingers and out over my arm in a torrent. I screamed, begging for him not to die, to live, for it not to end like this. And they let me be, let me sit, hunched over him until the light faded from his eyes, shrinking to pinpoints and then vanishing until only blank darkness remained. I fell into it, plummeting down into the abyss of darkness in his eyes until I was lost and didn't know which way was up. I couldn't see, only feel. There was a sharp rock beneath my hand. My fingers closed about it. I was going to do what I should have done in the temple of the Furies back in Rome. They'd abused me to the point where my body was bleeding and broken, crying out for ambrosia. One swift strike might be enough to kill me, to make a sacrifice of myself. To ease Aulus' path into the underworld. I drove up with it, but before the edge could hit home, Licinus' chain bound about my wrist, the spikes digging into tendons, forcing my hand open so that the rock fell to the ground.

“None of that, none of that,” Aquilinus tut-tutted like a disappointed schoolmaster. “Your most important work is still ahead of you.

“Calculate the best point at which to intersect with the Dioscurii and our chariot,” Aquilinus ordered Licinus. “In the meantime, let's give Accala some exercise and see what she can do.”

The lack of ambrosia hit me like a tidal wave. The cold ran over my body like a thousand tiny needles, burning the skin that touched the icy floor. A thunderbolt struck inside my skull. I fell to the ground, clawing at my face, my nails digging into the three canyons Barbata had carved into it, because that pain was so much more welcome than the deep pain as the ambrosia craving returned. My eyes were burning. I should claw them out.

Mania forced me forward to the first intersection of tunnels. One led to the left, one to the right.

“Which way, bitch?” Mania snapped. “We'll give you a drop or two if you show us the right way.”

The song was a distant buzzing, but I couldn't discern a clear direction. The pain was too great, it was turning me inside out.

A boot shoved me onto my back, limbs flailing out of control.

“Here you are, Mock Hawk.” Aquilinus stood over me, shaking a shining phial of black liquid between his thumb and forefinger. There was only a quarter dose in it, but every fiber of my being wanted it. Needed it.

“This will make you feel better, won't it?” he said, dangling it close to my face. I wanted to curse at him, to tell him to go to hell, but my hand reached out for it just the same. He pulled it away.

“You must learn to use manners. Ask nicely and it's yours. It'll take all the pain away, let you focus on the task at hand. You can forget about everything if I let you have enough. Now tell me, what's the magic word?”

“Please…” The word crawled out of my mouth, desperate and shaking.

“Which way?” he asked. “Try hard.”

“Left,” I said. “The way is left.”

“There, that wasn't so hard now, was it? Good dog.” He smiled and poured a few drops of ambrosia onto the ground and I hurriedly lapped it up.

“Just enough to keep you going, not enough to disrupt your abilities. Lead on!”

They'd known all along. All along. Despite my sudden realization, the thought that I'd pleased the Proconsul Aquilinus sent an involuntary tingle of excitement through my body. He was in Crassus' body, but when I looked at him he appeared surrounded by a halo of light. He was so bright, so grand. I'd met him only once, but now I saw that all the training aboard the ship wasn't meant to make me respond to Licinus or the others; it was to recognize the importance of this man, to respond to his presence, his voice, his commands. I was weak. Defeated. I had nothing left with which to resist him. Nothing.

“Now, then,” Licinus said, “take us to the ichor, or your little friend will be next.”

My head was pushed to the side so I could see Julia, who was being pulled along by Barbata, still caught up in the gladiator's net.

“Licinus, can you help motivate our hound?” Aquilinus asked.

Licinus drew a knife from his belt and reached in through Barbata's net to take Julia's mutilated hand.

“Now, here's a new game,” Licinus said to me. “I suggest we run with your idea of dismemberment. You've made a good start, so here's what we're going to do with your redheaded lover. For each hour that goes by that we don't find the Hyperborean ichor store, I'm going to ask Barbata to cut off one more of her fingers. Sadly, she won't be receiving any ambrosia to repair the damage. We'll know we're on the right track when we find the workers who are running away with our precious substance.”

Julia said nothing. I didn't think I would care what they did to her, but I could see the accusation in her eyes. This was my fault, my failure. I tried to speak, but it was like I had shards of glass in my trachea.

“What's that, dog?” Licinus asked. Mania kicked me in the ribs, taking out her frustration on me. My humiliation hadn't yet satisfied her.

“Don't hurt her,” I managed to say. “The Vulcaneum will come for you. All of the collegia will turn against you. They have guild assassins.”

“Fuck the Vulcaneum,” Aquilinus boasted. “I'll break the union of collegia as I've broken the noble houses. Those who follow will live, those who resist will have their bones thrown into the mix when the monuments to my greatness are being built. Now let's get a move on, dog. If you want to spare your friend's life, you'll lead me to the one thing that will secure my ascension to the imperial throne.”

I crawled to the left, taking them where they wanted to go. The pain was vanishing already, the ambrosia doing its work. The humming song was far away but clear. I felt drawn like the needle of a compass, like iron drawn to a magnet. There was nothing left of me but the desire to avoid pain and embrace the numbness ambrosia offered. I couldn't kill myself, they wouldn't allow it, and so I embraced movement. I couldn't stop, because then I'd have to think, face my shame. I let Mania drive me down into the tunnels, taking turn after turn. I welcomed the increasing pain of my knees and wrists scraping along the hard, frozen ground. The humming song was growing ever louder, like a drumroll before an amphitheater finale.

XXXIII

T
IME PASSED AND
J
ULIA
lost three more fingers on her right hand. Each time a digit was cut away, I saw the pain register on her face, but she did not scream out. She was braver than I ever gave her credit for. The ambrosia withdrawal began to overwhelm me. The cold gripped my legs and arms. Tired, I breathed out through my mouth and the air formed small icicles on my lips that cut me when I closed my mouth. I looked longingly up at Aquilinus. I couldn't hate myself any more than I already did, so I embraced desperation. Aulus was dead. Pride, humiliation—none of it mattered a damn now. Let the empire crumble. Everything was in vain. Aquilinus smiled at my submission. He took another quarter dose and poured a tiny drizzle onto the toe of his boot.

“A dog has no shame,” I heard Barbata say as I leaned forward and started licking it up. The Sertorian laughter burned me more than any wound. I deserved this. A Sertorian's lapdog. The lowliest slave of the enemies I hated the most. This was where my choices had led me, and I couldn't see any way out. No strategy to turn things around, no way to protect Julia but to obey.

I guided them as quickly as I could, but it still cost Julia her thumb.

The Dioscurii eventually met up with us riding the chariot. One of the desultore skirmishers had been rejoined, but it was one taken from the Viridian chariot, the one I rode up over the lip with Marcus. I was grateful for the chariot because speed might spare Julia more suffering.

“What news of the Viridians?” Aquilinus asked.

Castor told him that when they left, the Wolves were still trapped in the bowl down to their last five, including Marcus, holding off the barbarians. Marcus. I promised I'd return and help them. Now we were so far away, so deep in the hive that they could never find us.

Julia was taken to the rear of the craft with Barbata and I was pressed to the front behind Castor and Pollux so I could continue to serve my role as guide.

As the Sertorians drove me through the tunnels, I communicated directions as quickly as I could to Castor, who checked them against the navigation algorithms he'd been plotting since we entered the hives, and then transmitted them to his brother.

The way started heading up again, and Aquilinus was displeased, believing the right course must be deeper still into the earth. He threatened me, first to disfigure Julia more and then to withhold ambrosia until I begged and swore to all the gods that I was leading them the right way. He seemed satisfied only when the next cavern we entered contained a small glowing pool of ichor in the central basin. And the next one after that slightly more, and so on. Streams of Hyperborean workers filed in and out of the basins, collecting ichor, storing it in the compartments of their bodies, then moved on. They ignored us. Perhaps they were drawn by the same buzzing song.

The light-radiating tunnels were fragile and there were signs of cave-ins. Dust fell on us from the places the natural rock blended with the alien pathways. I knew at once that the removal of the ichor was weakening the entire hive structure. As we drew closer to the mother lode of ichor Aquilinus sought, the tunnels became rich with it, giving off their own glow, some of them so bright that the chariot's beams became unnecessary, as the shining white liquid flowed in channels along the tunnel walls.

“I think we're very close, aren't we?” Licinus said. “But it's that time again, and we're not there yet. Off at the wrist please.”

I assured him that we were close, begged him to hold off, but my suffering was his delight. Julia lost what was left of her right hand to Barbata's long knife, and Licinus used a burning element on the chariot to cauterize the stump. Unable to deny them their pleasure any longer, she cried out. Even in the half-light I could see her skin, blanched and bloodless with shock. They were going to kill her, but not before they stole away her hope. She was an immune first, a fixer, a builder. How could she do that without her hands?

“Next we start on the left hand. Better get a move on,” Licinus barked at me with satisfaction.

And I did. That was my only thought now. To save Julia's one good hand, to spare her any more suffering. I should have listened to her. Gods, if only I had listened to her.

After a mile or so of following an upward curve, the tunnel merged into a fifty-foot-wide walkway filled with hundreds of worker Hyperboreans marching along silently in an orderly queue, five deep, their ichor-laden bodies glowing even more strongly than the light contained within the walls that surrounded them. They seemed unaware of us, and Licinus ordered Pollux to cruise slowly alongside the line. No more questions were put to me or torments delivered unto Julia. Licinus was pleased to have found the nonviolent workers, mindlessly carrying their small bundles of ichor in their bellies deep into the mountain.

“Move on,” Aquilinus said. “This is it, I can feel it.”

Before long, we approached a massive archway leading to a powerful radiant light source. Aquilinus seemed happy now to leave the operations of the team to Licinus. He was here as an observer, stepping into the scene only to pursue his interest in the ichor. If these Hyperboreans turned on us, we'd be dead in moments, though they didn't seem to have the slightest violent inclination, entirely focused on their mission, and it seemed Licinus was also troubled.

“If this is the Hyperborean storehouse, I can't believe they'd leave it undefended,” Licinus said grimly.

The orderly march of the Hyperboreans was almost reverential, and the surrounding structure of the hives was changing too. The perfect symmetry we'd encountered, the smooth walls of the tunnels, the design of the ichor wells in the caverns, could all be the result of some primitive organism—a beehive, as Mania said—but the walkway now before us had clearly been created by a higher order of intelligence. Circular beams lined the walkway. Thick and round like the bones of giants or dragons, the simple beams were impossibly large, the width of the chariot and hundreds of feet long, elegantly curved, and connected together by oversized joints. They were covered in thin engraved designs that stretched along in pleasing geometric arcs. Along the grooves ran a substance of sparkling liquid diamond. Perhaps there was such a sheer volume of ichor in that place that it generated heat, because the cold had vanished. The air was a little warm, heavy with water, and there was a faint, sweet smell that reminded me of fresh-cut grass. The curves on the giant beams intersected, creating small circular wells where the substance gathered before streaming on its way. The entire effect was beautiful, like a great Saturnalia decoration or some deep undersea jellyfish with flickering lights.