Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (60 page)

Crassus wrenched his javelin out of my neck, grabbed my hair, and pulled my head back.

“I am well pleased with you, Accala. You will help many of your people. I look forward to seeing what you are capable of in the arena,” he said, and then burst out laughing.

It was the same words, the exact same words spoken to me by Proconsul Aquilinus on our one meeting, the day I arrived on this world.

“Except what you are capable of is what any dog is capable of. You'll hunt out what I want and then I'll breed you. Crassus had the right idea there, at least.”

He was mad, talking about himself in the third person. No, it wasn't Crassus. However it had come about, someone had managed to take possession of him, seize control of his body and mind.

“Aquilinus,” I spluttered. “Proconsul.”

“That's right, little wolf. You didn't think I'd miss out on all the fun, did you? Sit up there in a box while all the excitement was going on down here?”

“It's our little secret,” Licinus said. “Proconsul Aquilinus can visit us. Like the eagle swooping down for its prey, he can catch us up, see through our eyes, touch with our hands. We're all talons of the same claw.”

What was he saying? That Aquilinus could move in and out of their bodies? It made sense of the occasional crazy outbursts I'd witnessed.

“My ascension to godhood is at hand,” Aquilinus said, “but I couldn't miss this moment. Missing the look on your face when you realized just how fucking dumb you've been all along would have been like missing out on one of the tournament highlights. It's right here at the top of my list—the delicious center of the dessert. And how sweet you've been so far. A tasty, well-deserved custard tart. I was there when Crassus rode you, when his hands touched you. Oh my, that was a sweet surrender, and your little friend as well, the lesbian grease monkey. I've got to tell you, she was passionate. I'm going to keep her too, after all this is finished. It's true what they say about redheads—they might be a genetic abnormality, but they are on fire in the sack.”

“Which was better?” Licinus barked out loudly, his voice tinged with amusement. He was up and moving now, almost finished putting his body back together.

“It was a close call,” Aquilinus mused. “I couldn't decide which I enjoyed more. When this is all over, I'll send both bitches to your bedchamber and you can let me know what you think,” he said to Licinus.

While they ranted on, I let the ambrosia go to work. I could feel strength returning to my knees, the wound in my throat repairing itself. I managed to get up, ignoring the pain, but before I could attack, Licinus' war chain sailed out and wrapped about my legs, binding them. As I toppled over like a rickety tower, he flicked his chain again and another loop passed over me, trapping my arms, and then I hit the ground hard, struggling against the spikes that lodged in my body.

“Look at you,” Licinus said. “Thought you were a real Sertorian, didn't you? Dealing out suffering, torturing your enemy? This is nothing,” he said, hitting his chest with his fist. “This is just a body, a shell. But don't worry. We're going to teach you a lesson. A sweet, sweet lesson in how to administer punishment to the soul.”

I could see Crassus' boots as he walked toward me. No, not Crassus—Aquilinus. I had to keep that straight. If I could just get Crassus back behind the wheel of his own body, there might be a chance.

“Make yourself comfortable. We're waiting for the rest of the team to find its way here. There's a thing about ambrosia. The more you take, the more quickly you crave the next dose. You've taken enough to feed an emperor, far more than you were ever due or advanced enough to absorb. Now we've got to run you down, burn through that ambrosia in your body and the easiest way is to hurt you, make your body heal itself. That'll help you get tuned in to the right frequency.”

He crouched down beside me, poking the tip of his razor-sharp javelin into my face—poke, poke, poke, drawing blood each time.

“You're a little brat, barely an adult. Did you think you could outsmart us? Outmaneuver me? But it's served my purposes to let you run, to let you indulge in your hubris.”

His gaze wandered as Licinus carried Mania's head over. Licinus passed it to Aquilinus, who placed it down at eye level with me.

“Poor Mania. Don't worry, I have arachnoraptors down here. Right now they're gathering up her parts, putting the rest of her back together. It was Licinus who devised the strategy of bringing you into this game, but Mania studied you and assessed the best way to break the wolf's back, to put you in a position where you'd truly serve without question. Make no mistake, she'll see to it that you pay tenfold for what you did to her.”

I had to keep them focused on me. Perhaps they'd leave Aulus here, and Julia or the Golden Wolves could find him. Think! Ignore the fear, ignore the pain. Licinus had started talking to Crassus, agitating him, putting him into an emotional state that allowed Aquilinus to enter. There must be a way to draw Crassus to the fore, to dispel the proconsul.

“Where is Crassus?” I asked. “I loved him. I had no thought of betraying him. He's the one I want. Not Aquilinus. Where has he gone?”

Aquilinus raised Crassus' javelin, and I felt its point pierce my voice box once again. But this time he didn't withdraw the weapon. He drove it into the icy ground, locking my head and with it my body in place.

“Gaius isn't here right now,” Aquilinus said. “But don't worry, he'll be coming back soon.”

Crassus hadn't lied to me, I was certain of it. Right on the other side of Aquilinus was Crassus, and he hated Licinus. I had to believe that.

Aquilinus smiled. “You're desperate now, aren't you? Sniffing about for some hope of salvation. Let me tell you, there is no move you can make from this position that I haven't anticipated. You are completely at my mercy. And as for Crassus, you should pray he doesn't return. I had Mania take away part of his memory, help him forget some parts of his life so that he could play his part and fool you convincingly, and when he comes back, my goodness, you never really knew the real Gaius Crassus. What he did to climb the ladder on Sertorius Primus these last two years. He makes Licinus here seem like a schoolboy by comparison.”

“I'm not ashamed to admit it,” Licinus said. “He is a bloody reaper, a calculating and ruthless savage. We are rivals, but I respected him and will again when he's restored to normal.”

“Gaius Crassus volunteered to lure you, to pull you in one direction while Licinus pulled you in another. They've stretched you thin. You understand nothing about what has been done to you. You're too young to understand the punishments of the body, how they alter the mind on the deeper level and rise to the surface only later. You're so focused on survival that you don't see that you've already fallen over the precipice and are hanging on by the slenderest of threads. The final stroke has yet to come. Then you'll go plummeting down into the abyss. The hollow defeat in your eyes, the tears of helplessness, that's what I want to see. That will be worth its weight in gold, oh yes.”

Forcing my tired and panicked mind to think, strategize, all I could think of was Tacitus' description of the mad emperor Caligula in his
Annals
:

He was a man who masked a savage temper under an artful guise of self-restraint.

The savage anger, the cursing, the vile, twisted expression, the face purple and swollen with rage—this was the true Aquilinus. He couldn't hide what was inside him when he was possessing one of the Blood Hawks. I had indeed been a fool.

“Look what I found.” It was Barbata. I had just enough of an angle that I could see her as she walked toward me. Julia was covered in one of her nets, her arms bound in front of her, Barbata's trident at her back. Over her shoulder Barbata bore the pack containing the ambrosia that I had tried to hide.

“Ah, this is truly sweet,” Licinus said. “Bring her over here so our rabid wolf can see her. They say that if a dog makes a mess, you should rub its nose in it so it learns its lesson.”

Gods. Now Julia. This couldn't be happening. I couldn't meet her gaze, couldn't bear to look at her. What had possessed me to hurt her? To dismiss her well-meant advice? None of this was just, it wasn't right. I was filled with the power of the Furies. How could they let this happen?

Barbata kicked the backs of Julia's legs, forcing her down to her knees.

“I'm going to cut this one up,” Barbata said, “before I start on the wolf.”

“That's fine,” Licinus said dismissively, as he reattached his last body part.

“Now, now, don't waste a resource too quickly,” Aquilinus intervened. “Castor and Pollux have been given the task of recovering our chariot, but we'll wait for Mania to be recombined before we conclude this move and begin the next. I want her to enjoy the show.”

Barbata fished the ambrosia from my pack, preparing to apply some to the scarred mess that was her face.

“No,” Aquilinus ordered. “Wait until we find the storehouse, then you can bathe in ambrosia if you wish, but now you'll not waste it.”

“It's hardly a waste,” Barbata complained. “Look at me.”

“I think you look spectacular,” Licinus commented. “I'd still bed you in a heartbeat.”

“But there's still the other casket on the chariot,” Barbata whined.

“Be patient. Remember, it's not ambrosia we want, it's ichor. Once we have the raw ingredient, we can make our own ambrosia.”

“It's her fault,” Barbata continued, walking over to me. The scarred beauty stuck her trident into my chest and then dragged the sharp forks over my face as she pulled away, scarring me.

“How does that feel?” she asked. “Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from. Going to make me into a freak, were you? After all I did for you?” She leaned in close. “You know why you can't beat us?” Barbata asked. “Because you don't know what you are. You're not a hawk, you're not even a wolf anymore. Your mother made you into a dog that can sniff out ichor. That's right. The pin she left with your brother leads right to the storehouse, the place where the barbarians are stockpiling all their ichor, but we couldn't make use of it.”

“It's tuned to your brother's genetic signature,” Aquilinus said. “And you share that signature. That's why we've tolerated you for so very long. All this time we've been training you, observing how you interact with ambrosia.”

“Ah, here are the arachnoraptors with the rest of Mania's body,” Licinus said.

The multiple black metallic legs of the arachnoraptors skittered across the icy floor. At least a half dozen of them. On the back of one was Mania's headless body, still twitching.

“Barbata, give Licinus that phial of ambrosia in your hand,” Aquilinus said, then asked Licinus, “Do the honors, would you?”

Licinus picked up Mania's head with uncommon gentleness, collected the phial, and then, with an almost reverential tenderness, placed it upon her neck and poured the contents of the phial down her throat. He made it into a performance for my benefit.

The first thing Mania did when her body was reunited was stare straight at me with an untempered ferocity. She climbed down off the arachnoraptor and put her hand out to Licinus.

“My bow staff,” she said, and he handed it to her. “I demand to be the one to drive this wolf bitch.”

“The honor is yours,” Aquilinus granted.

The point of Crassus' javelin was withdrawn and Licinus' chain was roughly uncoiled, then the steel loop at the end of Mania's staff was placed around my neck and pulled tight so that I struggled for breath. Mania pushed on the staff, forcing me to flip over so I was trapped on my back. She put a boot on my chest and smiled down at me.

“Now, that's where you belong, dog. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see you down there.”

I coughed up blood and gasped for air. The ambrosia was doing its work, but it was slowing down—there was more damage to my body than the liquid could repair. I needed more.

“Strip her,” Aquilinus ordered. “A dog doesn't need armor.”

They moved in while Mania held me down and Aquilinus watched—Barbata and Licinus pulling at my armor, ripping it away until I was left in my thin undergarments, exposed to the cold ice.

“Now we can get this show on the road,” Aquilinus said. “Get her on her knees and let's get moving.”

Mania used the stick to pull me to my knees and then pressed me forward. I had to keep crawling along to stop from going face-first into the ice. I'd paid over and over, sacrificed everything in exchange for nothing—a Pyrrhic victory. All I'd earned was the chance to dance on the galactic stage like a fool. All of it was for nothing. But at least we were heading in the right direction. Away from Aulus. I'd do anything they wanted as long as my brother lived. That would be consolation enough.

“Oh, wait a moment,” Aquilinus said, as if reading my thoughts. “I almost forgot…”

No. He turned back to Aulus. I tried to look back, but Mania kept my head pressed forward.

Aquilinus moved past me, over to where an assortment of mining equipment stood. He took his time, looking over each item—a pick, an ice cutter, a long steel driving pin. He gave each one due consideration, hefting it, swinging it, imagining how it might be used to end a life, and then he shook his head.

“No. None of these are right.”

He opened the casket, took a phial of ambrosia, and swallowed it thoughtfully. None of the other Sertorians said a word. He was the master who dictated how the spoils were shared. I tried to struggle, but Mania kept me fixed in place, pressing my head down when I tried to move so I couldn't get enough leverage under me to stand.

Aquilinus searched the floor until he found Orbis. He picked my discus up. Orbis' edge wouldn't retract for him, it was razor sharp to touch, but the Sertorian didn't seem to mind. The fresh ambrosia would heal the cuts my weapon gave him as they were made. He motioned for Mania to drive me about now, so I could see Aulus as the proconsul stepped over him.