Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (80 page)

“No!” I barred the way to Crassus.

Now we had come to the test. I had to convince my uncle that we must rejoin him, that I was loyal and obedient, but at the same time keep things focused in the right direction and establish some authority to ensure the mission was carried out successfully. Crassus was important, not just to my own sense of self but also to this quest and its outcome. I was certain of it. I trusted Lumen and the queen's advice to keep Crassus.

“I take full responsibility for his conduct. I'm convinced he will be a useful asset.”

“We all saw what transpired with Aquilinus. That was very brave,” Quintus said, looking at my charred hand. “And you've created space, kept the enemy's teeth from our throat. We have time to mount a response now. But as for Crassus Sertorius…” he said, looking at the black-armored warrior.

Just then, Nervo signaled the alarm. Enemy war chariots were on approach, three miles behind us on the road.

“They must have pushed on through the night to deny us a lead,” Carbo said.

“Maybe the bad weather cost them some men,” I speculated.

Nervo used the telescopic lenses in his helmet to survey the teams. “The Talonites are reduced to six team members riding two chariots—the remnants of the non-Sertorian teams before all hell broke loose beneath the mountain,” the charioteer said. “They're fresh as daisies. I'd bet they slept in comfortable tents and then turned the cameras off while they were ferried to the road by shuttle.”

“Aquilinus can't help but cheat,” Marcus said.

“The good news is the Blood Eagles look to have exited the field again,” Nervo continued. “Aquilinus isn't using them, at least for now.”

Thank the gods for that.

“We lost too much time waiting for Accala,” Carbo said.

“No use crying over spilt milk,” Uncle Quintus barked. “Accala's with us now. My Trojan horse has come home, haven't you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then that's that, at least for now,” my uncle said. “And you, Sertorian. You follow Accala's lead. Right now I'm not certain it's a bad thing having you close at hand. Perhaps Aquilinus will give something up to have you back, but if I see you take one step out of turn, you're gone. And by gone I mean I'll slit your throat myself. Understand?”

“I would expect nothing less,” Crassus replied.

“Good. Let's move out. We'll resolve the matter of the Sertorian later. Remember, this isn't a game anymore. Make no mistake, this is the final battle of the war for possession of the empire. Aquilinus will be throwing everything he's got at us and more, but while we are in possession of this little gem,” he said, pointing to Lumen, “we have a fighting chance. So stick together, guard the barbarian, and stay alive!”

And we were away again.

“I told you your uncle betrayed you, and I did not lie,” Crassus said to me in a low whisper.

“If you want to repay me for saving your life, I suggest you shut your trap,” I hissed. I didn't intend to make the mistake of trusting this poison-mouthed Sertorian. He clearly couldn't help himself from spreading lies and mischief, and I didn't intend to let him get away with even that much. Just the same, I didn't like the way my uncle talked about Lumen, the little gem he was in possession of, but Uncle Quintus didn't know Lumen, how else should he treat him?

Now we were a part of a team of eleven. Now we really did have a fighting chance. Marcus was beside me in his black armor, and Carbo headed up our team. My uncle and Nervo followed in the second chariot. I couldn't get used to seeing the Viridians in female breastplates, but they were still my countrymen, and the issue of their sex mattered to them, not me. All that mattered was that once more I served beneath the banner of the golden wolf, its head howling at the moon as it flickered in the wind. Just like that, I was a Viridian again, competing in the arena. Just like that, I was home. Fighting with the green and gold flying overhead, I could accomplish anything.

XLIII

A
S WE HEADED TOWARD
the shining clouds ahead that marked our first challenge of the new tournament, I couldn't help sneaking glances at the strange modifications that the Viridian team had undergone.

“It's gene therapy,” my uncle said when he noticed my curiosity. “They've been given slow-release estrogen capsules that lodge in the lining of the stomach. The amount gradually increases until the transformation is complete. They're losing muscle mass, getting weaker by the day”—he sighed—“but I must work with the tools before me.”

“You might be surprised,” Marcus said. “I've learned that women can be unexpectedly resourceful.”

“It's an unfortunate turn of events,” my uncle said quietly, “but one that we shall remedy when we emerge victorious from Aquilinus' circus.”

It didn't even occur to him that he was insulting all women with his comments. In his mind, women were second-class citizens and always would be.

This was the first day of Aquilinus' new games, and we were all anxious to see whether he'd keep his word and make the games an even contest or simply continue to torture the contestants for entertainment.

“Work together and we survive,” my uncle ordered. “We'll resolve any differences if we live out the day.”

As we approached, the course's holographic decorations were projected from the Rota Fortuna above—the Grecian columns, the static clouds. Energy shields appeared on either side of the highway, directing our path. A cargo carrier descended, engines roaring as it dropped, hovering over the road ahead.

“On guard,” Carbo said in a husky, feminine voice as the bay doors opened.

The carrier dropped a dozen large oblong orbs with pointed protuberances at either end onto the road. They hit and started spinning on a horizontal axis. Tops. They were giant spinning tops. They careened back and forth and when they struck the energy shields to either side of the highway sparks flew and the tops were sent shooting back onto the road at unpredictable angles, creating a dangerous obstacle course that we would have to navigate in order to escape to the road beyond.

“Slow on approach,” Carbo ordered, “but don't dally. Remember the enemy is closing on our rear and I wager they won't have to suffer these obstacles.”

Twenty yards out we were able to discern bodies strapped to the spinning orbs, one on each sphere, their arms and legs outstretched. They were naked—young and old, male and female.

Their identities were unknown, not because of the fast movement of the tops, but because each victim wore a hood over his or her face. Each spinning orb projected into the air above it a static holographic projection of a face with a plaque beneath it bearing a name.

“My sister. That's my sister's face,” Tiberius Flavius Ambustus said.

“Yes it is.” It was Julius Gemminus that spoke, his head flitting above us.

“She's in Galatia Smaragdus, safe with her mother,” Tiberius said.

“I'm afraid to say that your mother has been raped and killed, and that your sister is most certainly a captive of Emperor Aquilinus' agents. These piteous souls strapped to the tops are mere props, Caninine audience members randomly selected from Avis Accipitridae and the Rota Fortuna—noble senators, prominent traders, the wealthy and powerful who were unable to accept the new emperor's ascension. They serve a valuable purpose today, though; they're stand-ins for your loved ones. Right now, live across the empire, those most dear to your little hearts have been seized. They stand by, their lives on the line if you choose to continue.”

Titus Flavius Cursor proclaimed that they had his father; Carbo, his uncle; Nervo, his sister. My uncle spotted his wife, the prominent socialite Livia Viridius Publia. The rest remained silent, but I could see in their faces that Aquilinus knew their weak spots, had selected the people they would most hate to lose. I quickly scanned every projected face, terrified that I might find my father among them. But his face was absent along with any other I cared for. Each player had a top assigned to him except for Julia, Crassus, and me.

“Marcus?” I asked. “Do you recognize…”

“My nephew. My sister's boy,” he said darkly.

This is what the empire could look forward to if Aquilinus won here. Endless suffering.

Julius Gemminus looked grim. “Do you bow now, or will you proceed and condemn those you love to die the most horrible of deaths?” he asked.

In answer, my uncle ordered the charge forward. Aquilinus' voice came booming from the clouds. “Was it Cicero who said that no man ever changed unless he be whipped to it? Well now, let's find out what it takes to make these Caninines see the light!”

Poetry filled the sky in fiery letters:

When in this vain essay of words she sees Latinus fixed against her, and the serpent's maddening poison is sunk deep in her vitals and runs through and through her, then indeed, stung by infinite horrors, hapless and frenzied, she rages wildly through the endless city. As whilom a top flying under the twisted whipcord, which boys busy at their play drive circling wide round an empty hall, runs before the lash and spins in wide gyrations; the witless ungrown band hang wondering over it and admire the whirling boxwood; the strokes lend it life: with pace no slacker is she borne midway through towns and valiant nations.

It was from Virgil's
Aeneid.
A quote from
Aeneid
was the first thing I had thought of when I saw Aquilinus. It was all that programming aboard
Incitatus.
He fancied himself the new Aeneas, the founder of a new Rome, and wanted everyone else to think so too.

As we drove through the course, the two Talonite chariots reached us, but they seemed to be avoiding a direct attack. Instead they butted our chariot into the careening orbs. We struck against them again and again, and each time a face faded from the projection above, a life stolen by Aquilinus' game.

“My daughter!” I heard Tiberius Flavius Ambustus cry out. His sister's face was gone, replaced by a curly-haired girl.

“He's trying to break us,” Carbo called out when we were midway through. “Expect no mercy, for he will grant none. Hold firm.”

But the Flavian threw himself to his knees and begged for mercy, calling out that he would submit to Aquilinus' rule if he spared his daughter. Carbo's lasso whipped about the man, pulling him forward like a trussed-up boar. Before anyone could speak, the Viridian team leader's curved sword swung like a pendulum and took Tiberius' head off at the neck. “There's no mercy from Aquilinus!” he called out. “I'll kill any man or woman who is stupid enough to think otherwise! No one must break!”

When we finally reached the exit, I challenged Aquilinus, screaming at the sky for dramatic effect, knowing he was watching me along with trillions of my fellow citizens.

“You said you'd reinstate the tournament. These are only more of your game show contests, cheap deaths meant to break us, not real challenges. Where is the threat to the Talonites? What are their stakes? Where is the blood sport the arena demands?”

A lightning bolt shot down from the sky at the ground, forcing us to turn and move on. We sped along the road, still constrained by purple-tinged energy shields, the Talonites racing behind us.

“The audience isn't buying it,” Julia announced. She was studying her armilla, observing trends on the vox populi. “Aquilinus' approval rating is falling as ours grows.”

“We're paying a great price,” my uncle spoke as we raced along, “but we're making progress. Aquilinus has made a tactical error. He has assumed that greed and fear are enough to steer the empire, but he's forgotten the citizens. He's shooting himself in the foot and can't even see it!”

“And more,” Julia said. “Every few minutes, the vox populi is flickering out of existence. Aquilinus is trying to take it down.”

“Can he?” I asked.

“No way. The second Aquilinus' people destroy the network, millions of anonymous Vulcaneum engineers are restoring backed-up versions.”

“Like the ancient Hydra,” I said. “Chop off one head and another reappears.”

“Exactly,” Julia said.

It was a dark day but a short one. The temper of every Caninine was frayed. I felt guilty. None of my loved ones had been killed. Had Aquilinus arranged it that way on purpose? To turn my new teammates against me?

We followed the road to the campsite Julius Gemminus had demarcated. My uncle called out for guarantees of safety once night fell but the cherubic face would provide none.

“My role is to give the emperor's divine imagination form. I cannot guarantee where his vision will lead, I can only act.”

We set up camp in sight of this world's highest peak, Nova Olympus, the crown of the crescent mountains that encircled the ruins of Lupus Civitas, which lay out of sight. The peak pierced a ring of thin white clouds about three-quarters of the way up its height before terminating in the upper atmosphere.

There,
Lumen said.
My mother.
Again his words conveyed a sense of overlapping images—my own mother, the goddess Minerva, the mountain ahead, a great jewel shining with ichor. There was no single word that could convey the meaning it had to him.

It looked so near, as if I could reach out and touch it, but the mountain was massive, dwarfing everything about it, and Carbo estimated that it would still be another two, maybe even three hundred miles before we would be able to catch a glimpse of whatever remained of the spires and towers of the old city's ruins.

“The other mountains fan out about the peak like low wings, forming a wide crescent,” my uncle said. “A mile or two before that lie the ruins of Lupus Civitas.”

“We don't have to climb that, do we?” Julia asked me.

I asked Lumen, and he assured me we only had to reach the base of the mountain to send him to safety.