Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (32 page)

“Getting what you want at all costs? And you're not my family.”

“No, the Vulcaneum is my family, and as long as I'm looking out for them it means I'm looking out for you. That's the nature of the deal.”

“And the sample?”

“I'll pass it off to a courier the moment we exit the next Janus Cardo. It'll go to Viridian scientists for analysis, and once they've read my report I'd say it's a good bet they'll try to synthesize their own version of ambrosia for use in the tournament. They're gonna have to do something to keep up with the Hawks.”

“That's all I wanted, for the Wolves to have a chance in the games,” I said. “And now I'm done with the stuff. I won't touch another drop.”

“Uh-uh, no. We've all got to keep up appearances, Accala. The Sertorians will get suspicious if you suddenly quit cold turkey. Besides, it'll play hell with your health and you can't afford that right now. You need to be at your best in the arena.”

“But you said yourself, it's helping them break me.”

“It removes inhibitions, helps you cope with stress, gives you an accelerated healing factor. I'm not saying it's a good thing, and I'm not saying it hasn't come at a great cost, but in a way the Sertorians have made you a much more dangerous competitor and that means you just might survive long enough to find your brother. You have to keep taking it, at least for now.”

Yes. The Sertorians had unintentionally turned me into a weapon capable of destroying them. Without the speed and strength the ambrosia bestowed, I wouldn't be able to take them on.

I sat down on Julia's bunk, cradling my head in my hands.

“You're cooperating with the enemy, but it's for the greater good. It's a worthy sacrifice and I'm your backup, here to help you get through this.”

She sat down on the bunk, putting a comforting arm around me. I wanted to push it away but I needed her, needed someone to help me before I sank under the waves.

“You had orders to observe me. To see if I broke under the pressure. What if I did? What then?”

“Best not to ask about what might have been,” she said. “Besides, it didn't work out that way. You're doing very well. They've been throwing everything at you—brainwashing, pumping you full of ambrosia, and now these physical alterations—but you're surviving.”

“I need to speak to my uncle.”

“The second we reach Olympus Decimus, we'll contact him together. I swear it.”

“I don't know what kind of a backup Uncle thinks you'll be,” I grumbled. “You said you couldn't fight.”

“You'd be surprised how much damage a field engineer can do.”

She stroked my hair as she comforted me.

“Hang in there, Accala. You'll find your brother.”

I turned to say something, but when I looked into her pale green eyes the words fell away. Dark red hair, hands marked with grease, dirt beneath her fingernails. Those fingers were short, slightly fat, not at all like Crassus' perfect digits. I couldn't remember seeing anything so beautiful.

“No going back,” she said.

“Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

She was smart, but I forgot that she was a pleb, no classical education drummed into her.

“In the early days of the empire, Julius Caesar led his army across a stream named Rubicon, and in doing so broke the law forbidding a tribune from leading an army out of his province. It put him on a course of conflict with the Senate and Pompey. It was the start of the first civil war for the control of the empire between the noble families.”

“Yeah? How'd that play out?”

“Three years of Roman blood spilled on Roman soil before Caesar was declared victor.”

“Nothing changes, huh? Seven thousand years and the nobles are still at each other's throats. Things will be better once the collegia have some power, just wait and see.”

Julia was kidding herself, but who was I to question the hopes of the collegia if they were willing to back our house?

“Can you help me?” she asked. “I've got a poultice that will heal up the scars, but I can't apply them to my back.” She took her tunic off and the cloth blouse beneath. Her small breasts were round and smooth. She turned and in contrast to the clean curves of her chest were three jagged gashes running diagonally across her back.

“Gods, that must hurt,” I said.

She lay on her bunk and I applied the poultice to the wounds as gently as I could. When I was done I reached out and brushed her hair away from her neck, trailed my fingers along the small freckles that decorated her skin. She sat up on the edge of the bunk, smiling at me, kindly and with compassion, and then gently kissed my lips. Her lips were soft. Amazingly soft. The feeling of human contact, the touch of someone who had my well-being at heart, was overwhelming, and I returned the kiss with force.

“Gently,” she said. “You don't know your own strength.”

She reached over to turn off the privacy cube, then pushed me down onto her bed, and I willingly lost myself in her soft embrace.

*   *   *

S
EX ON THE BUNK
was awkward. Julia winced and cried out on occasion when my hands accidentally brushed the long red welts that marked her back; I apologized and kissed away her tears.

After, I ran my fingers through her red ringlets. Dark red, almost black, like blood from a deep wound.

“You really volunteered for this?” I asked.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I was seven years old when I started clawing my way up the Vulcaneum ladder, salvaging parts from wrecked ships, and trust me, it's not like the noble houses. The collegia are more like a gang—you have to be good and have street smarts to boot to get to the top, no one cares who your mommy or daddy is. Know what my skill was?”

“Fixing things?”

“Nope. Everyone's good at fixing things in the Vulcaneum. You want to survive you have to specialize. I'm good at streamlining. I can identify any system's essential components, bring out the best in it, and cut away the crap. That kind of skill gives you a good eye. I can spot potential not just in machines, but in people as well.”

“What part am I, then?”

“Easy. You're the differential. You transform and convert the power from one part and direct it to another. You're the hub around which things turn, and I'm here to make sure you don't break down. You've got potential, and right now the empire's dying from lack of it. You can serve a function that the system needs and just maybe we can set the whole thing back on track.”

It seemed that Julia had been hiding many things from me, including grand ambitions.

“Your views are not so different from my own,” I said. “But what of your cloud city? Was any of that true?”

“Every word,” she insisted. “I've been as honest with you as I could. As soon as I've sorted things out for the collegia, that's where I'm heading. I don't care for fame or fortune; my kick will come when the big machine of the empire is running smoothly again and the collegia have their due. Then I'll be gone. Get through this in one piece and you can come with me. You'd have to undo whatever the hell it is they've done to your face, though, and gods, that hair—it's pulled back so tight I reckon your scalp could double as a harp.”

I laughed, flooded with relief. Just the thought of coming out of this alive, of there being someplace to go with my brother, created an immediate euphoria, and when the laughter ended, a flood of emotion that I'd kept locked up came pouring out. Maybe it was only a fantasy but it was a welcome one. I wept and Julia held me, stroking my hair the way my mother used to when I was a girl.

“You can do this,” she said. “I'm sure you can take Lurco tomorrow.”

“I'm not so sure,” I said.

“It's good to be cautious. The Sertorians are like bandits on a dark road, just waiting to rob and kill you when you least expect it, but you will survive. Keep focused on your brother, the real goal, and don't let them twist you to see things through Sertorian eyes.”

XVII

J
ULIA WAS GONE WHEN
I awoke. Alba was there, though, like clockwork, waiting for me with her pot of poisoned tisane, hot and ready.

She stared at me with her single, unblinking red eye as I took my first sips. The small alien wasn't to blame. She didn't want to die by disobeying Crassus, but it was hard not to resent the owner of the hands that served you poison.

“Master says he wants you to go to the arena. You must do your very best. Please do your best,” she said.

Before I could stop myself, I took another gulp of the tea right from the pot, and Alba rushed forward to pull it away. “No, domina, not too much!”

Crassus, Mania, and Castor Corvinus met me outside the gymnasium. The muffled sound of wild screaming and chanting rose in a crescendo as they opened the door and led me inside. The gym had been transformed. The terraform blocks were arranged in a stacked circle, and the projector cast the appearance of ancient, weathered sandstone upon them. All was darkness except for the makeshift arena, its center illuminated by a single spotlight. My team helped me on with my armor and then guided me through a gap in the circle, into an ancient stadium configuration—there were stands filled to bursting with the Sertorian crew, a sandy floor and posts set around the perimeter, peppered with long spikes and ready to skewer any gladiator who fell or stumbled in combat. The crowd was chanting Lurco's name. I used to ride on the crowd's approval back in Rome, but no one there was cheering for me. Upon a low balcony sat Licinus as if he were the emperor himself; on either side of him stood Pollux Corvinus and Gaia Barbata.

Lurco stood at the opposite end of the arena, nine feet of muscle, hammer in hand. He wore the masked helmet that made him famous in Rome—the skeletal face of Dis Pater, the underworld king. His long-handled hammer had changed; there was a short spike on the butt and two long spikes protruding from either side of the head. Lurco's body was glistening. He'd received one of Publia's treatments as well, by the look of it.

I didn't feel any anxiety. The ambrosia had bestowed its gift of stillness, of calm. No fire, only dark, still waters moving beneath the surface.

“Go,” Crassus said. “Show no mercy.”

Licinus stood and raised his hands, silencing the crowd. He'd dressed in long ceremonial robes—playing the part of high priest.

“And now, in time-honored tradition,” he boomed, “it's time to see who will keep pace with the flock and who will fall short.”

“Only the strong!” the crowd chanted together, as a deep drumbeat began.

“Let the match begin, and may the true hawk be blooded!”

The drumbeat came to a sudden, sharp finish, signaling the start of the match. Lurco ran right at me, spiked hammer raised, issuing a raw, aggressive scream. He was incredibly fast, closing the gap before I could make a throw, and owning the range between us.

The first blow came in unnaturally fast for the weight of the weapon he was carrying. The right-to-left arc took me on the upper arm, sending me flying sideways, compressing my ribs and knocking the wind out of me. My arm ignited in a blossom of pain. My ability to heal might have improved with the ambrosia and I might not feel fear, but I could still feel pain.

Lurco came at me again with an overhead swing meant to crush me. No time to roll. I thrust up with Orbis and blocked the blow in midswing. The pain in my left arm was intense and my block collapsed under the force, but not before stealing his momentum, rendering his blow ineffectual. But now he had those spikes, he was pressing down, pushing on the haft and angling the hammerhead to catch me in the face. I rolled to the side, slicing at his knee with Orbis and forcing him to draw his leg out of the way. Rising and running back to give myself space, I made my first cast, and my opponent was forced to stop and deflect.

Three seconds until Orbis returned, four until Lurco reached me. I stood my ground and waited, analyzing his form. Marcus had taught me patience, and how to use each second to its full advantage. Lurco had changed. He was bulging at the seams, he looked like he'd been packed full of air. Not air, ambrosia. I had suspected that Licinus took more than the others, and now he'd done the same with Lurco. Licinus had dosed him up to the gunnels, determined that I should be the one to die.

Lurco's hammer swung in at me just as Orbis returned to my hand, allowing me to deflect the blow and step under and inside his swinging arc. If Lurco was set to deny me my long-range advantage, I was going to get in close and deny him the middle ground. But he brought the hammer's haft down fast on my head, and I fell to one knee in pain, my skull cracked. I was still alive, though, and his knee was right before me, exposed. He screamed as Orbis cut into the meat and bone below the joint. I rolled to the side and sprang up, delivering a backhand swing to the underside of his helmet that sent it flying. Lurco managed to keep his feet under him, but he had all his weight resting on his left leg. He was injured, slow. Before he could counter, I retreated. His face and neck were exposed. My plan was to put some distance between us and pick him off with Orbis, but Lurco had other ideas. He spun on his good leg and made a hammer throw. It took me by surprise and struck me square in the sternum with a loud crack, knocking me backward to the arena floor. For a second I couldn't breathe. Then a rasping cough sprayed the floor around me red. The pain told me there was a loose rib, but Lurco had given me another present—a punctured lung. As he retrieved his deadly weapon, I spluttered and gasped for air, like I was drowning in my own blood. But I would not give in. This was not going to be the end. Assuming a low crouch, I thrust at his exposed midriff as he rushed in, his arms raised for an overhead swing. Lurco blocked it easily and thrust into my sternum again. The pain hit me like a black wave, but I rolled with the force of the blow back over myself and to my feet, breathing fast and shallow. My move put Lurco off balance and he lost a second as he struggled to regain his footing. I was barely conscious, but I'd bought four feet of distance.