Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (12 page)

The teachers at the Academy were the best; they made the strong stronger, but they didn't coddle the weak. Academy classes were competitive and demanding. With a month's absence, my ranking had fallen from first place to last. My teachers pushed me for two weeks, to see if I'd reclaim my former level of academic and martial performance, and then left me to fail. The strange thing was that I didn't
want
to give up, but it was as if an invisible barrier stood between me and success. I couldn't see the point to fighting drills or studying. No arrow would hit the bull's-eye, no essay was judged passable, no rhetoric I composed was deemed sufficiently moving. Everything I tried my hand at turned out stale and plain. Even the miniature fruit trees I cultivated on my balcony stopped flowering.

One day after javelin practice, when everyone else had gone, Crassus found me sitting against the wall of the Academy's gymnasium, staring out the window. Even though we'd been in the same classes together for three years, we'd never spoken before.

“Your discus is a magnificent weapon. It soars like a hawk. May I see it?”

“No. Go away.”

“Although I am a Sertorian, I have the utmost respect for House Viridian. Yours is a noble and ancient family with a strong bloodline.”

He moved to stand in front of me, blocking my view. His cologne had a musky, overpowering scent. “You want to see some lines of blood? Now, that I can help with,” I said, turning Orbis this way and that so my discus caught the light.

“Very well, lady. I shall come to the point. You have a problem. The word is that you're about to be expelled. You will become a disgrace to your family, and your future marriage prospects will be severely marred. I also have a problem that needs solving. I think we can help one another.”

“You're assuming I want to solve my problem,” I said.

“Of course you do. You're not the type to throw down your arms and surrender.”

“You don't know a thing about me, but I know everything I need to about you. You're a Sertorian, a vulture,” I told him, staring unblinkingly into his dark eyes. “I despise all of your kind more than words can say. Go away now and take your javelin with you, or I'll shove it in the most unpleasant place you can imagine.”

That made him laugh. “I've heard worse from your Viridian friends during my time here. They naturally despise my genetic superiority, but you, they think you're crazy, that you're on your way to the asylum if you don't kill yourself first.”

“Maybe I'll kill you instead.”

“I think we have more in common than you'd like to believe. You don't sleep, do you? You are plagued by nightmares. I suffer in the same way.”

“What do you dream of? Little children escaping before you can kill them?”

He considered my flippant question more carefully than it deserved before deciding that he would provide a truthful answer.

“Sometimes I dream of spiders, of long needles inside my body that someone else uses to control me. I wake up screaming, my whole body aching.”

His frank confession caught me off guard. I didn't know what to say.

“I sense a restless spirit in you that matches my own,” he continued. “We are ambitious by nature, you and I, even if you can't see it right now. My father sent me here because the Roman Academy has the best economics course in the galaxy. He fosters the delusion that one day I will be a merchant and take over his slave business, but I only wish to indulge my passion for the arena. At home I'm a ranked bestiarii.”

“That's the sport where you kill barbarians who can't fight back?”

“Ah, you do not understand. We fight monsters, barbarians, anything that provides sport, but they have a fair and equal chance to kill us as well and earn their freedom. The Sertorian gladiatorial circuit is one of the most ruthless in the empire, but it is through that conflict that we prove human superiority over other species.”

“And Sertorian superiority over the other houses.”

“Naturally. My people prize the exercise of superior strength and power. The arena gives us a pathway to rise up the ranks. In order to follow this path, I must kill and supplant everyone who stands between me and the position I seek in the public service. When my first opponent is dead, they will offer me his heart to eat and smear his blood across my face. We call it the Blooding of the Hawk. If I continue to triumph, I continue to rise. Even the proconsul's position is open to be challenged. Now here's my problem. In order to reach the upper echelons of society, I must master all three arena skills—chariot racing, beast fighting, and gladiator combat. My initiation match takes place on my homeworld next month, but my father has me stuck here in Rome studying, and my regular training routine has been disrupted. I've lost the edge in gladiator fighting. I need a training partner who can challenge me, and you're the only person at the Academy who fits the bill. Or at least you were. I need you to get back to your former standard and quick.”

“Go to gladiator school,” I said.

“I have. The professionals there practice only with their regular training partners, and I wouldn't pull a hair for the amateurs, but you, you have real potential.”

“You don't need a training partner. Just shoot your opponent in the back or plant a bomb. That's the Sertorian way, isn't it? Win at all costs.”

“You're not wrong,” he agreed, “but when it comes to the initiation, such methods are frowned upon. We're not as ancient as House Viridian, but we do have our traditions, and since you've mentioned bombing, and remember that you brought it up, not I, let me just say that that is precisely the reason I think you will help me. You see, I can give you the name of the man responsible for the bombing of Olympus Decimus.”

“His name is Proconsul Aquilinus Sertorius Macula, and one day I will take his head with my discus.”

“You must not say such things. The proconsul is a man of peace, a visionary who seeks to create a bright future for all Romans. No, it was not he who launched the attack but rather a man with no respect for history or culture. An uneducated but ambitious centurion seeking to advance in the same circles as I. It was this man who not only devised and executed the plan, it was his hand that pushed the button, his ship that released the first bomb.”

I was on my feet, the edge of my discus at his throat. “The name. Tell me.”

Until that time the Sertorian proconsul had been the focus of my anger, but he'd always seemed too difficult a target. Proconsuls are distant, overarching figures, heavily guarded family heads only one step removed from the emperor. Since my own uncle Quintus had become a proconsul, I'd hardly seen him. Frustrated, I'd been scanning the vox populi, seeking information on the squadron commander who dropped the bombs, but it, along with everything to do with the attack on Olympus Decimus, was classified, a tightly held Sertorian secret.

Crassus stepped back and warded Orbis away with his javelin, using the pointed tip to hook my weapon and flick it out of my hand. It flew across the gymnasium and ended up embedded in the stone wall, quivering in place. “I will tell you … if you can beat me.”

Until that moment I hadn't realized just how far my standards had dropped. Before I could reengage, Crassus said, “Come, let's see some spirit,” and pulled me close, kissing me on the mouth. I wrenched myself out of his grasp and hit him with a right cross.

“Not bad,” he said, licking his bloody lip. “More.”

The kiss burned on my lips like acid, like poison, and in response to it I felt the fire from my nightmares burning inside of me, fueling my action. This Sertorian would die for his impudence, and after him I'd kill the rest of them, every gods-be-damned Sertorian who stood between me and the man who killed my mother and brother.

The moment I recovered Orbis, Crassus' javelin thrust at me again, and I warded it away and attacked. Again and again we clashed, but each time he beat me until I lay exhausted on the floor. I was out of shape. Shamed, I watched him walk away.

“Again,” I called out. I wanted that name. Burned for it.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “And every day after that.”

“You will tell no one of this,” I said.

“Not a soul. It would be as bad for me as for you. Imagine, a Sertorian having to seek out a Viridian for assistance?”

“If I help you and you don't have a name for me, or if your story turns out to be false, then it will be you I come for.”

“Lady, I am a Sertorian and I am a gentleman. My word is my bond.”

As we fought, I absorbed his skills, becoming increasingly better with each session until the day I disarmed him and left him with something to remember me by—a long cut across his upper chest.

On my last session with Crassus, as he left for his match on Sertorius Primus, he said something in passing: “You fought well and learned quickly. You'd make an excellent gladiator. A shame you're not Sertorian. Our women fight at will wherever they wish.”

It was like a door had been opened in my mind. Crassus was using the arena to get what he wanted, so why couldn't I?

For all the aid Marcus had given me, it was Gaius Sertorius Crassus who gave me direction and fire as well as the fighting edge to catch Marcus' attention in the first place. And when he left, he gave me the name—Licinus Sertorius Malleolus—a first-spear centurion recently promoted to the rank of tribune and personal adviser to the Sertorian proconsul. He had led the Black Peregrine squadron as they conducted the bombing run. That name became my watchword. It gave me focus. Licinus was a famous competitor in the Sertorian arena circuit and even continued to fight in death matches in his spare time for enjoyment. The video I was able to obtain showed a masterful and merciless opponent. I made it my goal to improve my fighting skills each day so that when the time came, I would be able to steal his life.

Crassus went on to easily win his first arena match. How could I have known that he'd rise through the Sertorian ranks so quickly? The power he held in House Sertorian as propaganda minister was partly thanks to my decision to help him train. If only I'd turned him down, he might have failed in his arena challenge and been killed. At the time, I wanted what he offered so badly, a means to focus myself, a lifeline, that I helped him. To my shame, I had colluded with the enemy. Crassus had gone on to become not only an arena legend but also one of House Sertorian's greatest assets.

His first order of business on attaining the rank of propaganda minister was to publish false reports bearing my mother's name, blaming House Viridian for trying to steal land on Olympus Decimus legally purchased by the Sertorians. He plastered her image everywhere, ran her name through the mud, accusing her of being a Viridian spy, of instigating the Sertorian attack in the first place. That's how he made my list, by slandering her good name, for adding insult to injury. He had to pay for that in blood.

Your revenge can still be realized.
It was a cruel joke, another attempt to rub salt into my wounds. The justice I sought, the retribution I deserved, was surely lost, but how dare he insult me again?

I stared into the shadows of the ruined temple. The privacy of the place left me with a dark peace, a deep satisfaction. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that it was the place where I'd been closest to happiness.

The dagger seemed to take on a weight far greater than its mass would suggest. Was that a sign? Wouldn't it be easier for everyone if I just ended things once and for all? My left palm weighed the dagger; the right, Crassus' card. A thin trickle of blood flowed down my left wrist. I must have cut myself as I handled the knife and not even realized. Turning my hand over I found the source of the blood—a thin wound in my palm. Red blood fell onto the flagstones beneath me like an offering. Small drops, liquid grains, one after another like sands falling into the bottom of an hourglass. The old stones received my blood, mixing with the dust and grime. My wounded hand closed about the dagger. One quick, fearless thrust and it would be over.

But I hesitated, thinking of the souls of my mother and brother, unavenged. Nothing mattered, only that before I die, I correct at least one injustice. Crassus was strong. I had no doubt that as I plunged my dagger into him, he'd strike back, taking me with him. Well, I would drag his soul, kicking and screaming in my wake, all the way down to Hades—a much nobler death than mere suicide. Although he was the least offensive of the men on my list, his death would still serve to offer some small consolation to the shades of the dead.

VII

D
RENCHED BY RAIN, MY
hair matted with sweat and blood from my arena fight, I stood at the armored front door of Crassus' town house and waited to be permitted entry. The street was inlaid with crystalline bands of light that cast the building in an eerie cyan tinge.

My plan was perfect. After the day I'd had, no blame would fall on my family for my breaking the armistice. Crassus' murder would be dismissed as the act of a woman driven mad with hysteria.

What was taking so long? My cloak, the night, and the rain helped conceal my identity, but the longer I stood there, the greater the risk I'd be identified, and I didn't want anything to interfere with my plan.

His house was a double-story villa with a sloped terra-cotta-tiled roof, in the most expensive part of the Palatine, and surprisingly, it hadn't been remodeled in ruby and onyx to suit the latest Sertorian fashion. The place reflected an owner with a commitment to Roman culture and history, a man of style and sophistication.

Finally the door was opened by a tall human servant, looking down at me like I was a lice-ridden mutt. “No beggars,” he said and went to close the door, but I shoved Crassus' card at him and his demenor instantly transformed. “Come in, lady. Please accept my apology. Come in out of the rain. Let me take your cloak.”