Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (77 page)

“Accala, we're losing time. If we want to have a chance we need to get moving,” Marcus insisted.

“Aquilinus can take us anytime he wants,” I said. “We have to set up some ground rules here and now or we're finished. We need to get the audience to back us.”

“How are you planning to do that?” Marcus asked.

“How else? I'm going to pick a fight.”

XLI

“
Y
OU'RE
GOOD TO GO,”
Julia said, “but you'd better hurry. They'll be working to override me.”

I walked to the edge of the abyss, lit by the green and blue fires that sprang from the rocks to either side. In the distance, an avalanche of ice sheets came roaring down Lumen's mountain. The bad weather was intensifying.

“Aquilinus Sertorius Macula!” My voice boomed out, echoing between the surrounding hills. “Little Spot! Can you hear me?”

As they called Gaius Caesar Germanicus by his nickname Caligula, meaning
little boots,
so I made a play on Aquilinus' family name—Macula being a spot or blemish.

“You've got their attention,” Crassus said. “Almost a hundred billion have weighed in on your side. Half a trillion, though, for Aquilinus. The people who were watching before are now voting, billions more are finding the poll with every passing minute. You're on the right track but we need more drama,” he declared, like an engineer trying to spark a ship engine to life. “Big gestures, strong language. Call him out before the whole empire!”

“I will call you Little Spot, because that's what you are,” I cried out. “A temporary stain on the empire that the gods will soon wipe away.”

He had to debate me. Aquilinus couldn't fire on us while I had Lumen and he couldn't go anywhere while Julia had his projection fixed in place. If he didn't respond, he'd look weak and confused before the audience.

“Accala the traitor,” he shouted. “Apostate of Roman advancement. You have abandoned belief in the self-made god for children's stories. And you, Gaius Crassus, I see you there behind her. You will be punished most severely of all, for having come so close to the light and then turning away from it.”

“I'm no traitor, and the gods are real, Little Spot. The old temple to Minerva, built by the Viridian settlers, sits behind the ruins of Lupus Civitas, at the base of this world's tallest peak. That temple and this world are sacred to the gods, and they are displeased.”

“Do you take the people of Rome for fools? Spare me your talk of the gods. We are the New Gods. The power we hold here and now is all that matters.”

The projection of Aquilinus' face disappeared briefly and I looked to Julia.

“He's physically turning about up there in the stadium,” she said. “He's talking to his people. They'll be trying to shut us down, we don't have long.”

I had to play this carefully. Formally challenging a standing emperor, even a false emperor, would cost me votes. My line had to be just right—provoking yet still dutiful. At the same time I couldn't give away too many of Aquilinus' secrets, couldn't reveal his plans for the ambrosia or the significance of Lumen, because it might actually give him cause to destroy us. “Aquilinus! Why not give the surviving Caninines a fighting chance? Jupiter's sacred games are scheduled to run until the fifteenth of this month. Four more days remain. Allow my team here to enter the tournament. Even the odds and turn this farce into a real contest again.”

“Your team? You've gone mad,” he said, turning back to me. “Everyone saw your psychotic fit, and now we have the indisputable proof. You think you have a team? Three reject gladiators of different houses, an auxiliary, and two barbarians.”

“We don't fight for a house, we fight for the empire, for Rome itself. It's what the people want, and if we're no real threat, if the gods don't exist, then why worry? You said this was to be a philosophical argument realized through action. Well, what good is that without two parties to enter into the debate? Use us to prove your case. Accept my challenge. Banish this poor excuse for a slaughterhouse and bring back the real games. Either that, or strike us down here and now.”

Instead of giving me an answer, Aquilinus' body flickered and vanished. Two of the sphera plummeted from the sky in the darkness below.

“They've killed power to those two and are trying to take back the one we're using to broadcast,” Julia said.

“You've got trillions of followers on the vox populi,” Crassus said, “about thirty percent of the empire's viewing audience, but they're mostly on Caninine Alliance worlds. We need to get over half the audience to support you, that will rattle Aquilinus. Get more than fifty percent and he'll have to accept your challenge.”

“That means winning the support of the Arrians,” Marcus added. “They've always been weak, they always back the most likely winner. Get them on board, and we're home.”

“You have much impertinence.” Aquilinus' voice filled the sky now. Eyes, each one the size of a carrier ship, appeared from the clouds, beaming light. He was back but staying up out of harm's way, not game to take on a bodily form again. “I will consider your petition to my throne, but first you'll have to be removed from the field, reshaped into a proper team that will sufficiently amuse us.”

“Accala! The Rota Fortuna,” Julia said.

A Sertorian trireme was heading toward us from the orbital stadium. Legionaries were coming, armed with force projectors to trap us and stun grenades to halt us in our tracks. Vulcaneum auxiliaries with disruptors to seize up our chariot's engine. All the best advanced weapons. Beside the trireme flew the smaller shuttle that had dropped the Sertorians into the field earlier. Once it scooped them up, they'd be across this abyss and be on us in no time. Aquilinus had upped the stakes. We'd either have to go willingly, or they'd take us by force. But we couldn't leave the field.

“I can't hold it for much longer,” Julia said. “I'm already starting to lose control.”

“Get as tight a shot as you can of Accala,” Crassus said to Julia, and then to me, “This is your last chance to win them over. A direct address is what's needed. Make it good.”

“I'm no speechmaker,” I said. “That's more my father's forte. I lack the talent.”

“Just say what's in your heart, make your case for why they should follow you,” Marcus said. “You're a gladiator in the arena. Tell the audience what they need to hear.”

I'm here with you,
Lumen said.

I looked up to the green light of the sphera, pulling myself up to full height. From the heart. Here we go. Deep breath.

“Romans. Countrymen. The people and the Senate of Rome below and the gods above—that is what makes the empire. That's what I represent here in this arena, this is what I stake my life to fight for. We have served and honored our gods, and they have always served and honored us in return, bringing us to high station. Look at our empire! Vast! Without compare. It is the greatest civilization the galaxy has ever known.” I wanted my voice to be clear and powerful, but it was wavering, tinged with emotion that was hard to repress. “When we have seen strife and conflict it was because we had turned away from the gods. When we sought to deify our own greed instead of fighting for something bigger than ourselves. We become small on our own, we lose perspective, we lose the ability to keep the vastness of the empire bound together. The gods are the greater love and creativity, the greater communication and justice that bind us together, but our collective hubris is causing the empire to come apart at the seams. Whatever power Aquilinus offers is weak in comparison. And make no mistake: The gods are watching us right now.”

“The poll is the top ranking item on the vox populi now and you're close to forty percent approval,” Crassus said. “Keep going.”

The trireme and shuttle were close now. Only thirty seconds to go before they'd land on the ice and we'd be lost.

“My cognomen is Camilla—the one who makes the offering at the temple, the handmaiden of the gods,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Crassus grinning as I put to some good use the ridiculous title he gave me. “When the ships land and take us away, then the tournament is over. Now is the time to send a message. Vote for justice and the gods, and Aquilinus will hear you. He'll restore the games to their proper format, the way it has always been since the ancient days. Those contestants who were not here at the start of the games cannot now be introduced. All substitute players must be removed. Advanced weapons must not be used.”

“It's not enough,” Crassus said. The ships were right over us, access hatches opening. The shuttle had lowered its scoop base and was preparing to pick up the Blood Eagles. It was a matter of seconds now until we were either killed or taken. “You're at forty-five percent, but it's not enough to put us over the edge,” Crassus continued. “We need two percent of the Tullians or Ovidians sitting on the fence to back you. Something big.”

Something big. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. Everything rested on this. It was all about performance, about holding the spotlight long enough to tilt the odds in our favor.

“Aquilinus! I hear you're a gambler, so let's make a wager.” My uncle told me that high-stakes gambling was the Sertorian leader's weakness. How could he resist a bet when the odds were stacked in his favor? “If you win, then it is a clear sign the gods play no part in the affairs of men. But if you lose, if my team wins the tournament with your best standing against us, then you must yield the imperial throne and accept the judgment of Rome's gods.”

I stretched out my right hand. The fire that burned on the ichor-filled rocks was so hot. Every fiber of my being wanted to pull away, but I kept my palm outstretched, fingers inching toward the cloud of green and blue heat.

“Accala?” Julia called out. “What are you doing?”

“Remember I told you the story of Mucius Scaevola?”

Turning to look at Julia, my eyes conveyed an apology for her hand, for my betrayal. Lumen would not have the power to spare to make another. No thinking. I couldn't think. Only act. I plunged my hand into the flame.

“No!” Julia cried out.

There was no pain at first, just a strange heat. Then a wall of searing agony hit me. My skin burned raw as the flesh was charred, but I held firm and kept the pain from my face.

Crassus stepped up beside me. “This is what a true Roman is made of,” he proclaimed. “This is why I left my house. She is mortal, she suffers, but she has no fear. The gods stand with her.”

I was glad he spoke, because I could not. Sweat poured from my body. I could feel the cold again. Whatever protection I'd been given by the healing process I went through with Lumen, it was gone now, worn out by the harm I'd inflicted upon myself.

I raised my hand from the fire. It was still burning, flames eating away at fat and muscle.

“People of Rome! I sacrificed this hand in the hope that you will lend me yours! Give me your support!”

The light on the sphera cut out and the black sphere fell into the darkness below. We were out of time. The Sertorian trireme was touching down on the ice. I turned, dropped to my knees, and plunged my burning hand into the snow, extinguishing the flame. The pain was slightly diminished but the burn continued, penetrating deep into the tissue. For the first time I wondered if it was possible for a burn to penetrate so deeply that it would burn the bone itself, liquefy the marrow. The snow around my hand began melting from the heat. I dared not look at the hand itself.

“You've done it,” Crassus said. “Fifty-five percent. Your support base is too large now for the emperor to ignore. He'll have to come to terms. Just wait and see.”

The engines of the trireme fired and it was up in the air again, rocketing away with the shuttle. We had done it. Aquilinus couldn't afford to ignore us now.

Marcus and Crassus rushed forward to help me. “If I doubted you before, I do not now,” Marcus said.

“You won't think I'm so desirable now,” I mumbled, lifting my hand briefly out of the snow. I couldn't believe I had said that. I didn't even know which of the men I meant to address. I was delirious, in shock.

Aquilinus' giant eyes flashed in the clouds. Thunder boomed.

“You claim to speak for the gods,” Aquilinus said. “I say you are a fool, a scared child seeking to frighten others into rejecting a glorious future. Before you go any further, allow me to offer you the chance to yield now. If you do, every Viridian prisoner held by my house will be released, including your father. On the other hand, I will permit you to persist with this folly of yours, but then members of your house will die, ten thousand at a time, for each hour you stay in the field. This is the price of challenging the emperor's power. Tell the people of Rome, do you still wish to join these games?”

Aquilinus was trying to make it sound like he was the one calling the shots, but I'd achieved exactly what I'd set out to accomplish. The Caninines had escaped and I could choose to have the games restarted with no advanced weapons, and no faux god in the field hurling thunderbolts like a toddler with a temper tantrum. We had a small chance, a fighting chance to save the empire, and I couldn't give that up, even for my own father and the lives of the Viridian prisoners. There was no choice. I just hoped my countrymen understood that.

A media sphera returned to hear and transmit my answer to the audience. I drew my hand from out of the snow and reclaimed my feet.

“I do,” I replied loudly. “My team wishes to compete in the tournament of Jupiter. And in turn do you accept my wager? Will you return the contest to its proper form, and concede the throne if we win?”

“Very well. I accept. You can join with the Viridians in what's left of their Caninine Alliance, assuming they will take you back. I'll even pull out the new Talonite players I inserted into the mix. But I have additional conditions, as is the emperor's prerogative. I will continue to dictate my own format upon the games, though the editor shall ensure the contests are more evenly weighted.”