Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (11 page)

The sun was high in the sky; it was almost noon. Every muscle hurt. Raw and drained, I headed south along the Vicus Patricius. Sertorian ships were docked to the north above the Campus Martius, hovering like a flock of vultures over the city. They would depart the following morning, transporting the Blood Hawks to Olympus Decimus, but I wouldn't be around to see it. Father was set on marrying me off at once. He wouldn't budge now that I'd publicly quarreled with him, and life as a good Roman wife, ever obedient to her husband, was unimaginable. The future held nothing for me, and after the tournament, if the Caninine Alliance lost, what would become of my empire? What of House Viridian? Better to commit suicide, an honorable, private death, and join Mother and Aulus in the underworld as a shade before the whole empire went to hell.

After a few blocks, I spotted two men on my tail. Father again, sending agents to manage me. I ran. My injuries cried out as I sped down one street after another. The arena medics had been able to stanch bleeding and accelerate healing, but only with the proviso that we rest and give our bodies the chance for their medicines to take. I welcomed the pain; it stole away my thoughts. Running hard, I weaved my way through the city's ever present crowds, choosing the way without consideration. When I finally came to a stop, I found myself in the Subura, the city's ancient slum. Several emperors had tried to clean it out but all in vain. It was where the collegial guilds and organized crime gangs had their headquarters, the base from which they managed their empirewide interests, and they liked it just as it was, seedy and crime ridden. My mother used to say that every city needed a shadow place, even the great and shining Rome. In the Subura, the darkness of the soul could find expression so that its impact on the sanity and order that must prevail in the light of day was minimized.

The main strip was crowded, lined with bright holographic signs advertising exotic local clubs where every variety of drug and sexual fantasy, human or alien or both, was on offer. Distracted by the flashing signs, I ran right into a pack of Sertorian officers out front of the Baths of Venus. Six in total. They were off duty, there to partake of the gambling halls and brothels. “Watch where you're going,” the lead soldier barked at me, but his expression softened when he saw that beneath the cloak I was a woman. “Forget I said anything, look at those cheekbones. You've got to be a Viridian, don't you? And a pretty little thing you are.” Some of the others started up with wolf whistles. “Come with us, darling, we'll show you a good time.”

Iceni slaves followed behind their Sertorian masters, struggling to keep large chests of luggage from falling off overloaded hover carts. The Iceni were short, slight-bodied aliens with pale white skin and a large single red eye in the center of their foreheads. My appearance had caused their convoy to come to a sudden halt, resulting in the Iceni at the rear bumping into a trunk and sending it clattering to the marble-clad street. The officer at the rear began beating the Iceni immediately, cursing its clumsiness. House Sertorian, the master race at work. When the man realized I was watching him, he smiled and sank his boot into the alien one more time.

“You like this, pretty girl? Does this turn you on?”

“Wouldn't you like to know what it's like to have a Sertorian man?” another asked. “We are genetically enhanced, veritable stallions in the sack!” Then he put his hand on my shoulder. “My friends and I won't take no for an answer.”

Placing my left hand across my body and over his so he couldn't pull it away, I twisted to the side and turned, locking his arm straight and then rolling my right elbow over his. The action twisted his wrist at a bad angle and caused him to hunch over with bent knees. I looked down at him, appreciating the fear in his eyes, before dropping my body weight into the lock, tearing all the tendons in his forearm. He screamed as he dropped to his knees, and I released the hold and sank a kick into his chest, sending him flying back into his comrades.

“I don't know what it's like to have a Sertorian man,” I said, “but I'm betting none of you has had a Viridian woman. I'm going to make sure you all get a taste.” They'd picked the wrong target on the wrong day. I was going to beat those buffoons senseless, really sink my teeth into them. But then the sound of armored boots followed by a warning siren signaled the arrival of a patrol of heavily-armed Praetorian peacekeepers. They were clearing the street of pedestrians, coming for me, shock staves ready to enforce the armistice. It would be only a matter of moments before aerial reinforcements arrived, and there was no escaping their electrified nets. I'd be charged with breaking the armistice and sentenced to death, a fate that I was not ill-disposed to—only, before execution, I'd be paraded before the Senate and Father, and I'd be damned if I gave them the satisfaction. One quick kick to the abdomen of the closest Sertorian to clear a path and then I sprinted hard down the nearest side street, pushing through clusters of people. It started to rain, a sudden summer shower that drenched me as I wound my way through alleys, behind the main streets.

When I stopped to catch my breath, my pursuers were long gone. Soaked through, I wandered toward the oldest part of the Subura. Deadly at night but a ghost town during the day as the seedy elements of the city retired behind the high walls of their town houses. The rain hadn't let up, so there were only a handful of customers braving the weather, and as I drew close they scuttled away down side alleys like cockroaches, heading for the private entrances to their favorite haunts.

The largest billboard in the street was right above me, so large that I was half the size of the perfect Sertorian men and women depicted in it. The scene was a constantly shifting tableau. In a series of scenes the Sertorians traipsed about sporting the latest fashions, engaging in naked orgies, fighting heroically in wars, eating the finest foods and wines. All the scenes were framed by the caption
THE NEW GODS—POWERFUL, VIRILE, ETERNAL
. This was part of that bastard Gaius Sertorius Crassus' propaganda campaign.

The billboard had done its job, caught my attention. As I studied it, a new scene appeared, one created in honor of the coming tournament on Olympus Decimus. The caption read
LUDI ROMANI: THE NEW GODS FIGHT FOR A NEW FUTURE.
The Sertorians styled themselves as new gods, but they didn't believe in the old ones. The genetic streamlining they employed had led them to embrace the delusion that they were the highest point of human evolution, best suited to guide the empire into the future. An even greater folly was that some of their allied houses actually believed it. Next the billboard served up a scene featuring three majestic black-and-red-armored warriors riding a black war chariot ornamented with lines of shining ruby and gold. The driver was styled to resemble the god Apollo. Behind him stood a powerful, handsome man holding a javelin aloft, ready to cast it into the maw of a saw-toothed barbarian that rushed him on all fours. It took me a moment to realize it was Crassus. He'd inserted himself into his own propaganda campaign. Above him in golden letters a caption read
MIGHTY CRASSUS SERTORIUS, SUPREME JAVELINEER, THIRTY VICTORIES AND THREE CROWNS, HEARTTHROB OF YOUNG GIRLS!
Crassus the rising star. I, by comparison, had become a burning meteorite crashing to earth.

The third warrior was a woman of striking appearance, styled after the goddess Minerva but fused with the form of Hecate, the dark goddess of the underworld—dark hair, clad in tight-fitting black armor, with red stripes that reminded me of a spider's web. Her spear was ready to cast at a swarthy-looking Roman, unshaved, long hair tousled to resemble a mane. There was no doubt that the wild man she attacked was supposed to be an exaggeration of an archetypal Viridian—stout nose, strong jaw, wide forehead. This was how the Sertorians saw everyone who didn't share their house's bloodline—human barbarians, positioned higher on the ladder of civilization than the brightest alien but by only one rung.

In the background of the image was Proconsul Aquilinus, the leader of House Sertorian, with chiseled features and a noble, beaklike nose. Aquilinus stretched his arms wide like wings to encompass the scene, radiating a divine light that kept the encroaching barbarian darkness at bay.

Propaganda, lies, deceits that I'd hoped to lay to rest in the Ludi Romani. Lost hopes.

Eventually, I found shelter in the area's historic temple district. It existed to meet the needs of those exiting the vice dens of the Subura. Wandering through the network of narrow streets lined with crumbling ruins, I eventually found myself out front of an ancient shrine to the Furies, the chthonic goddesses of vengeance. It seemed like a small miracle that my wandering had taken me there. I had no thought in mind to visit that place, and yet there I was.

In my early teens I was attracted to quiet, abandoned places, a habit my mother encouraged.
You don't run with the pack, Accala. You like to work things out for yourself, and sometimes that means you're going to get hurt. You need to find places where you can be alone with your thoughts, where you can escape the noise of the city.
But not that place. She didn't like my going there. I suppose that's why I chose to frequent it. No one ever visited that particular temple, not even the poorest and most desperate of the Subura. They thought it was cursed, but for me it was a rare, quiet place in the hustle and bustle of the galaxy's busiest city and, to be honest, there was something exciting about going against my mother's wishes.

Most of the roof was intact, with the exception of a few holes through which the rain fell. The water trickled in, passing through dull light to hit the ancient flagstones. Judging by the shadows, it was late afternoon. How long had I been wandering the streets? Time must have slipped by somehow. Sitting there, soaked through, unmoving in the silence, the temple seemed smaller than I remembered, but the feeling of darkness and peace was the same as I'd experienced as a child. It felt as if I'd found a little pocket of reality cut off from everything, that outside the small stone boundaries of that place, the rest of the galaxy didn't exist at all.

Tapping a small pressure switch on my armilla, a paper-thin translucent dagger slid out. I drew it with my left hand, a floppy blade that I snapped with a flick of my wrist, activating the element that turned it hard. Then I just stared at it for a long time, at its sharp point and razor edge, repeating the names like a mantra—
Proconsul Aquilinus Sertorius Macula, Tribune Licinus Sertorius Malleolus, Consul Gaius Sertorius Crassus.
I'd become a gladiator in order to deliver justice to those three men, and now all hope that the shades of my mother and brother could rest in peace was lost. At some point I realized it was growing dark, and with that came the memory of Crassus' card crumpled in one of my stola's inner pockets. It was made of old-fashioned paper, like the note announcing the death of my loved ones, an expensive gesture now water-stained thanks to the rain. On the front was his name and the address of his town house on the Palatine. On the rear was a short note written in what would have been neat calligraphy if the rain hadn't added its own blots and streaks.

Your house can still be saved. The revenge you seek can still be realized. Come tonight. Tell no one.

Was this some new torment? Now that I'd humiliated myself in the arena, Crassus thought he'd have some additional fun at my expense. Perhaps I was being invited to a Sertorian party where they'd ask me to dance on the stage for their amusement. There was no way I was going to go. The very thought was ridiculous.

*   *   *

G
AIUS
S
ERTORIUS
C
RASSUS AND
I had met at the Academy for Strategic Studies. Before that, junior school tutors reported to my father that I was capable of thoughts and reason beyond my years but my emotions were unbridled, my will strong and defiant, and that unless something was done to curb my stubbornness, only trouble would ensue. To this end, Father, to my delight, enrolled me in
the
elite military school for my collegia juvenum years, where I learned the classics by rote and achieved a comprehensive understanding of the traditional arts and sciences required to be the member of one of the eight great houses. I dropped out of the classes Father enrolled me in, though—protocol, etiquette, and home economics (balancing accounts and managing servants and other tedious torments)—and forged his seal so I could shift all my subjects to warcraft—studying combat, tactics, and strategy; targeting the best military tutors with practical experience. No theoreticians. I received instruction in modern and classic arms and armor and, of course, the combat discus. Father never noticed my educational sleight of hand, or if he did, he was too busy to correct my subject choices or chastise me.

In combat classes, there was only one other as gifted as I, a handsome Sertorian boy. It was before the start of the war and, although our families had feuded for a long time, he was never objectionable in the way the other Sertorians were. He poured all his focus into his studies, and I reluctantly admired him for it, albeit from a distance.

The war began when I was in my last year at the Academy. I stopped attending school. Father went along with it at first; I think he hoped that some time to myself might help me get back on track. I waited for him to comfort me, to help me make sense of Mother and Aulus being ripped from my life so suddenly, but he never came to my chambers, and when I sought him out, he would put me off with talk of the war effort. The more I pushed him to talk, the more distant he became, until finally he even stopped coming to meals. That was until I started completing application forms to join the legion. Then he reappeared as if by magic, arguing about the choices I made in his absence. If I couldn't talk with him about how I felt, I could at least have someone to argue with. When I defied him and put in an application in person, refusing to leave the recruitment office until the legion accepted me, the result was wasted days filling out form after form, each application rejected until Father ran out of patience and dragged me home and demanded I go back to school and complete my studies.