Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (76 page)

I needed Julia to get us moving, but she was standing beside me, weapon in hand.

“The transport's dead. Nothing can get it started,” she said quickly. “And I just want to say one more thing for the record before we die—I told you so. I told you this was madness, and if there's any justice you'll spend the rest of eternity as a hell-bound shade with my words ringing in your ears!”

“Back to back!” I ordered, and we stood in the center of the tray with Lumen and Concretus in the middle. I could just make the Caninines out in the distance as they vanished into the hills. It was no consolation that we'd saved them, not if the Sertorians took Lumen now. Lumen's loss equated to the loss of the empire. Please, Minerva. If you do watch over us, then come now. Save us.

Barbata was about to board the tray, trident at the ready. Licinus was grinning from ear to ear. I heard a piercing war cry, and then a chariot collided with the Sertorian craft at high speed, sending it flying across the smooth ice toward the dark abyss alongside the ice bridge. An amber-and-black chariot—Ovidian colors—pulled about alongside us. Crassus! He was yelling, gesturing. “Climb aboard!” He hadn't abandoned us. He'd salvaged the chariot we'd overturned and brought it back into play, even docking onto it the desultore skirmisher he'd stolen from the dead Ovidian. We climbed on and were away.

“No!” The voice boomed like thunder. Aquilinus was raging overhead, driving the Talonites who had been holding back into the fray again and after us.

We were close to the bridge when I saw Marcus. Running right at us. He knew we were his last chance to get clear of the valley. I ordered Crassus to pull up. The Blood Eagles were stuck on the precipice, emergency grapples deployed to stop them falling into the abyss. Even if they came at us on foot, they wouldn't reach us in time. The other Talonites might, but it was a risk I was more than prepared to take for Marcus. As he ran, I could see the ridiculous vegetables attached to my lanista's breastplate. More sick humor from Aquilinus, mocking Saturn, the patron god of the Calpurnians who oversaw the growing of crops.

“Accala!” Marcus called as he leaped aboard, but then he saw Crassus at the helm and drew his sword.

“Go!” I yelled at Crassus. “He's with us, Marcus. You mustn't harm him, as least not now. Will you stand with us?” I asked Marcus, as we rocketed forward to the bridge.

Marcus nodded grimly and took up position on the starboard side. I ordered Julia to take the helm, and Crassus came to stand beside Marcus and me as the Tullian chariot drew alongside, trying to cut in front of us and drive us off target. They had to give us only a solid hit on the side, and at this speed we'd miss the bridge and go careening over the edge of the abyss, but Aquilinus must have ordered them to stop us, not kill us—he couldn't risk Lumen dying—and that gave us an advantage. Marcus and Crassus eyed each other for a split second and then turned and met the incoming assault.

I clashed with an Ovidian swordsman who'd climbed to the rear of the Tullian chariot. He was shaking, fear in his eyes, though he was no novice. He was terrified of me. I deflected his blade and took his sword hand with Orbis' edge. A Tullian halberdier, Arvinus, fell to Marcus; Crassus speared Culleo, a hoplite, through the eyehole of his arch-shaped face guard.

I never thought I'd see such a thing—Crassus and Marcus fighting side by side. And by the gods, did they work well together. Crassus was spearing anyone at mid to long range, and anyone who got past the tip of his javelin he deflected and redirected to Marcus with a short movement. Bulbous fell, quickly followed by two more substitute contestants.

Within seconds, most of the Tullian crew, including all of the substitutions, were dead. The remaining competitors hung back, their faces filled with fear. It was me. They had watched what I did to the Sertorians in the Hyperborean tunnels and thought I was some kind of demon. I was their worst nightmare come back to haunt them, and it gave us a slight advantage. They were not giving it their all. They were in awe of me, more scared of Orbis than they were of Aquilinus' thunderbolts. I wondered if the empirewide audience thought the same.

Our chariot rocketed forward, and we mounted the narrow span of the ice bridge with our pursuers forced into a row behind us. Once we were over the bridge, we could try to lose them in the vast forest of crystal trees. Aquilinus wouldn't be able to spot us from above. It was our best bet.

As Julia drove us forward, we took up position, protecting her from above with our shields from any missile assault. The enormous projection of Aquilinus Jove strode forward, filling up the sky, each step covering a hundred yards. He was livid, scowling. A lightning bolt formed in his vast hand. He was going to do it. He was going to kill us all, even Lumen. A quarter mile and we'd be clear of the bridge. Ten seconds and we could maneuver, thirty seconds and we'd have cover behind the hills, and a minute and we'd be into the trees. Right then, though, we were sitting ducks. Fifty feet. Forty feet.

A blast of ionic energy came streaking in. It sounded like an attack fighter with engines on full burn pulling a fireworks display behind it. Static microcharges, formed in the dry, icy atmosphere, glowed and sizzled in its wake. Prickling sparks covered my exposed skin. The pursuing Tullians had slowed, keeping clear of the blast, but instead of hitting us, the energy beam passed overhead, the heat singeing my hair. We were not the target at all; it struck the ice bridge ahead. The blast threw up a cloud of steam and filled the air with fist-size chunks of ice. I got my shield up in time, but Julia wasn't so lucky. She fell backward, and the rough brick of ice that struck her chest scuttled across the deck to my feet. The chariot started to swerve, and I sprang forward and seized the controls from her, swerving back on course, missing the abyss by inches. We passed through the steam cloud to be met with thirty feet of yawning blackness between the sudden end of the ice bridge and the safety of the opposite side.

“Full stop!” Julia yelled. “Stop or we're done for!”

But there was no stopping, no way back. The only way was forward.

I threw the switches that released the battering tusks, desultore skirmisher, and rear storage modules—survival equipment, food, emergency fuel that we desperately needed. I let it all fly into the abyss behind us. We couldn't carry any extra weight.

“We'll never bridge that gap, not even at full speed,” Marcus yelled.

I jammed the thrust controls forward and opened the throttle, driving the chariot to its limit. Grasping the reins, I pulled them tight and straight, leaning my shoulders into the icy wind that threatened to tear me off the chariot.

“Hang on to something,” I yelled behind me. And then the ground fell away beneath us.

My insides lurched like a rowboat in a sea storm. Time slowed as we sailed out over the dark abyss. The strong wind rushed down the canyon, whipping up snow. It was beautiful. The glittering crystals on the wind-sculpted hills ahead were like an armada of ancient ship sails. Only another ten feet of forward momentum before the chariot descended on an arc that would carry us straight into the cliff wall ahead. We were going to fall short. Remember your training at the Academy, I told myself. The tools of survival were at hand—my mind, my body, and the surrounding environment.

“Accala!” Julia yelled.

“I've got this!”

“Stop!” Aquilinus Jupiter boomed, terrified of losing his prize.

Wait. Wait. At the exact moment the chariot lost its forward thrust and gravity staked its claim, I threw Orbis with all my might, aiming him at the cluster of rocky outcroppings that lay to either side of the path ahead. My discus screeched through the air, embedding himself deeply into one of the boulders. Eyes closed, mind sharp, I held tight to a crystal-clear image: my armor's lapis arms, one finding Orbis and binding to the ring, and of the other arm gripping the chariot's mast. The arms snaked out; I could feel them like an extension of my own body. The right side wrapped around the mast like a leather strap and clung firm. The lapis negra was flexible and strong, the function of the arms was to send out and bring back. I was gambling everything on the armor's potential. Asking it to do something it was probably never designed for, trusting in the same craftsmanship that forged Orbis.

The thick prow of the Ovidian chariot collided with the cliff wall with a jolt and we fell.

I opened my eyes just as the lapis bands pulled tight. We were suspended in the darkness, hanging, the chariot tilted on its side. Thank the gods, Orbis was holding fast to the boulder above us. The hurtling winds found the side of the chariot, and we started to swing like a pendulum, back and forth. Everyone managed to stay in the chariot and secured themselves except for Julia, who was hanging over the edge, one hand gripping the railing.

“Accala!” she protested.

“Hang on a second.”

“That's not funny!” she yelled.

We were nine feet over the edge. We had to get up before Aquilinus could consider throwing another bolt. I visualized the arms drawing together, returning to their original position but without letting go of their anchor points. The chariot shuddered but didn't move. It was too heavy.

Julia's hand can lend you power,
Lumen said.

“Your hand,” I said to Julia. “Reach out and touch my armor.”

She stretched up her ichor hand and I grasped her wrist. She let go of the rail, and I had to use all my strength to pull her ichor hand toward me.

“Power.” That was all I needed to say.

Julia touched the lapis band nearest her. The arms went to work. The chariot groaned in response as it was pulled up the side of the precipice, toward the edge above us.

I held tight to Julia as we were drawn up over the edge of the abyss and back onto solid ground. The chariot came up on its side, depositing us on the ice. We'd made it. As I got to my feet I saw a strange, flickering light covering us. The blast that destroyed the ice bridge had also set the crystalline rocks on either side of the path on fire. Swirling ichor mists ignited to produce hot green and blue flames.

Releasing one arm from the mast, I used the other to pull Orbis from the solid rock where he'd anchored.

“Quickly,” I ordered, “right the chariot. Everyone aboard, make sure you stay close to Lumen, he's our protective talisman.”

The pollution from the explosion had subsided, giving us a clear view of our enemies who had returned to the other side of the abyss. Giant Aquilinus stood behind the Talonites, another lightning bolt held tightly in his holographic hand.

“He's going to fire on us again,” Marcus warned.

“No, he won't risk harming Lumen,” I said.

“We must hurry to cover,” Marcus insisted. “They'll head back to their shuttle and fly after us.”

“Hold a moment. We have work to do here,” I said.

Aquilinus chased after us, moved right through his fighters like a giant ghost. Three projection spherae trailed behind, generating his form. He had no need to worry about falling.

“Quickly, Crassus, check how my post on the vox populi is tracking. Julia, can you take control of the spherae that generate Aquilinus' body? I want to repurpose them to make a broadcast.”

“Maybe, maybe. It's not impossible, as long as you don't get us killed in the next few minutes.” She set to work at once, flipping open the access hatch on the transmission staff and searching through her utility belt for tools and parts.

“Crassus?”

“The poll's quiet. A hesitant billion or so votes in your favor, backing the gods and freedom. Ten billion for Aquilinus, but the upside is that the number of people viewing the poll is rising astronomically. They're not voting but there's an ever-increasing number watching, waiting to see what you're going to do next.”

“Accala, he's almost halfway across,” Marcus warned, his eyes firmly fixed on Aquilinus, who was walking on air over the abyss.

“I see him,” I said. I quickly tapped at the chariot's controls, linking the vehicle's speakers to my armilla. “I'm ready. Julia?”

“Not enough time. I can try for one sphera. That's it.”

“The middle one then,” I said. “Fix it in place.”

She stood up and leveled the transmission staff at Aquilinus.

“I'll do my best,” she said.

The staff glowed and hummed, the point lighting up. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “Even with this hand of mine boosting the signal it won't be enough to…” She stopped midsentence. “It tingles. I can feel it across the surface of my palm, on my fingertips—it's like little vibrating pinpricks. They're points of connection. Some of them relate to the movement of the spherae, some to the incoming and outgoing signals.”

Julia swung her staff and the middle sphera leaped to her command, pulling off its current course to follow the directions she indicated. In response Aquilinus' torso suddenly warped and wobbled uncertainly.

“Hold it over the middle of the canyon,” I ordered, “and set it up to broadcast to the vox populi. I want everyone to see this.”

“You can't be serious,” she said. “Just because I can move it around doesn't mean I've reprogrammed it. I'll need another minute to input the broadcast codes from the staff and set up a direct feed.”

“Hurry then.”

Aquilinus took another step, but Julia locked the middle sphera into position and his torso stayed anchored in place while the other two spherae moved ahead, creating a weird distortion—a giant head and legs warping like melting wax running back to the fixed torso.

Aquilinus paused, and surprise registered on his face, followed by outrage. “You go too far!” he boomed, the sound so loud that the planet itself seemed to respond, ice shelves cracking, wind whipping about. But then he took a step backward so his body regained its proper proportions. The so-called new emperor's whole performance hinged on the claim that he could replace the gods. He couldn't permit the audience to see me manipulate his image at will, so he stopped dead in his tracks, above the dark abyss, just where I wanted him.