Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (9 page)

Marcus tracked me as I backed away, turning right into me with his shield, herding me toward the next nearest cross. The gladius wound wasn't deep, but as the blood trickled down the plates of my armor and ran over the platform edge to the arena floor below, the crowd went wild. My blood was the first to touch the ancient sands.

Quickly surveying the field, I could see only one chance to take down Marcus. The distance was perfect, the alignment of posts ideal, but to work, the technique required a successful return orbit of seventy-five yards, more than I'd ever thrown before. My shoulder charge hit Marcus square in the chest, forcing him back as I launched a follow-up kick to his shield and then cast Orbis wide and far. My discus hummed with power as it skimmed the curved edge of the ancient arena, drawing calls of surprise and fright from the audience as Orbis passed only inches away from them. Seeing I was weaponless, Marcus advanced. Nine seconds, that's how long I had to hold my own against him before Orbis returned. Would my risk pay off? From his menu of assaults, Marcus chose a series of lightning thrusts with his gladius close to the edge of his shield. Three more strikes hit home before I could get my body out of the way of his blade and seize the edges of his energy shield with both hands.

Throwing myself backward, I pulled his shield and him behind it down on top of me. Another short thrust into my belly, another shallow wound, before I could reach past his shield and loop my arms around his, locking them down, grabbing him to me in a tight clinch. His breathing was fast and short. Five seconds to go. He stopped pulling, tapped his armilla, and the energy shield vanished. He fell right on top of me, leading with a sharp and sudden head butt. My right cheekbone screamed in pain as he broke it, but I pulled him closer, squeezing him tight, as he tried to pull away. He was strong, but I had to hold him down. Three seconds. Two. There. I released him, and he pulled up and away sharply just as Orbis returned and struck him square between his armored shoulder blades, throwing him forward once more. Rolling with the momentum, I flipped him over the top of me. The technique was less graceful than I'd planned, and he went flying overhead, landing three feet behind me. By the time I found my feet and gathered up Orbis, Marcus was up and ready, shield reactivated, eyeing me warily.

There were eighty thousand people crammed into the Colosseum, but somehow, out of the corner of my eye, I managed to spot Gaius Sertorius Crassus. He was the only person in his section standing up. Arms crossed, he stood staring right at me. It was only a split-second distraction but one that I couldn't afford. Looking back at Marcus, I saw he'd followed my gaze and spotted Crassus too. He regarded me with disdain, utter contempt. He'd risked a great deal to give me the chance to fight for a place in the Ludi Romani, and I'd just insulted him, letting my attention wander like a rank amateur.

Marcus hit me with a quick thrust to the shoulder. My armor took the brunt of it, but it still hurt like Hades. I tried to back away, but he stuck to my every move, advancing aggressively. The way he held his body, his whole style of movement was suddenly different. This wasn't the cool, collected fighter I'd faced in training. I'd triggered some deep rage and unlocked a different man—the front-line veteran soldier, the gladiator of the old school who showed no mercy. He struck like lightning, an arcing cut that edged between the plates of my left arm, slashing my shoulder open, and then followed up with a thrust at my heart. I barely got Orbis up in time to ward it away.

Fear hit me unexpectedly. Marcus was out to kill me. The Colosseum's audience fell deathly silent. They saw it too, my death only seconds away. Another thrust at my face, but I managed to ward again.

Marcus was not helping me get on a team, he was doing his best to stop me. From deep inside, the fire flared up, my anger rising to match his, burning the fear away. The committee, my father, and now Marcus—all these men were determined to be rid of me. What better an example to other women not to ruffle the feathers of tradition than Accala Viridius Camilla, a senator's degenerate daughter, dead and bleeding like a stuck pig on the arena floor? And at her own lanista's hand, no less. If I was going to die, then it wouldn't be like this, humiliated and chastised before the empire. A liquid heat infused my limbs, my eyes burned like hot coals. Screaming, I charged Marcus' shield, raining down cut after cut in sweeping arcs, forcing him back.

He warded every blow without effort and then pushed up with his shield. I knew what would come next—a low thrust up between my ribs and into my heart—the killing blow. As the thrust came, I hooked the tip of his sword with the inner ring of my discus and turned, trapping the sword against my armored glove, locking it in place as I drove my right shoulder into his shield, stopping his advance in its tracks.

Before he could recover his footing, I released the sword and jumped high, coming down over the top of his shield, using Orbis to hit the top of his helmet with every ounce of strength, momentum, and body weight I could bring to bear. The blow cleaved the helmet, splitting it in half before continuing down, cutting his face.

Marcus stepped back, managing to raise his shield. He was bracing up, expecting me to launch a frontal assault. Instead I fell to the ground, dropping sideways and throwing my right leg under his shield, sweeping his out from under him. As he crashed to the ground, I rolled up and pounced on him, mounting his chest as I pressed the edge of my discus against his throat, all my body weight pressing down. A line of blood formed where Orbis touched his neck and trickled slowly down. Any movement on his part, even a strike that would render me unconscious, would see my weight drop onto the blade and steal his life.

“Is this what you seek?” I yelled at him. “The fate you intended for me?”

“It's the crowd's call now,” he croaked. “Listen.”

They were chanting, but it was so loud I couldn't make out what they were saying. Did they demand Marcus' death? Gods, they did. “Death” they chanted again and again.

“No hesitation,” he ordered. “Don't disgrace our profession. Swear it,” he said, staring hard into my eyes.

My throat was dry, my heart pounding, my reply barely audible. “Yes.”

But there was only one man who could deliver the verdict. I looked to the emperor's box on high. He sat silently, listening to the will of the crowd, not just those in the Colosseum but the greater audience that looked on via the vox populi. The air above the arena was filled with the holographic projections of flying thumbs, some turned up, some turned down, each one representing the combined will of a billion viewers. And there were a lot of thumbs. We must have had five trillion watching us, more than I'd ever seen for a qualifying round. Enough to rival the audience of the Ludi Romani itself! Marcus and I were a palpable hit.

A loud chime signaled the end of the voting period, and the tallies appeared above the emperor's box. The audience had voted that Marcus should die at my hand. Then the emperor extended his fist, the telescoping glass that shielded his box magnifying it so the whole arena could see the verdict.

Up. The thumb was up! “Marcus Calpurnius Regulus fought bravely. He deserves life.” The emperor had ignored the crowd and spared Marcus as was his prerogative. A sigh of relief escaped my lips as I pulled Orbis away. The siren signaled the end of the match, and the referee used his shock stick to indicate that I should climb off Marcus and move away. “That's it. Lower your weapons and separate.”

The thin cut I left as a souvenir on Marcus' throat ran perfectly straight. Normally I would have wounded only his Adam's apple, but lying on his back had pushed the flesh of his throat up to make a nice, even platform. Complementing it was a neat gash running from forehead to chin. Dark blood seeped from it and ran down either side of his nose.

“Good,” he said matter-of-factly as he sat up. “A spirited bout. I expected nothing less.”

Good? Blood ran down my arm and legs, wounds in my abdomen and side ached with each panting breath, my heart was still racing, and my shoulder was burning in pain. I'd thought I was going to die. Or kill Marcus. Or both. And here he was chatting like we were walking through the marketplace on a Sunday afternoon.

“When I fought before I always knew I'd come out on top but with you it was … terrifying, exhilarating all at once.”

“That's because the arena is pure, a sacred space. The true empire is all dog eat dog, all the rest is a pretty lie designed to keep the status quo,” he said. “In the arena though, you never forget the truth, you're never lulled into thinking for a second that things might be any other way. But not everyone's up to facing the truth.

“Your rage burns within your breast, but I had to know if that heat could be focused and transformed into a point of light. I wanted to see if you could shine. Better to die an honorable death here before the emperor than disgrace yourself and your house in the Ludi Romani.”

“And?”

“Shine you did. Like a diamond. You've been tested for true.”

What if the emperor's thumb had turned the other way? Could I have gone through with the verdict?

Marcus held out a hand, pulling me up to my knees as the medics rushed in and started applying their steroid poultices and antibiotic shots to seal our wounds, reknit our bones, and accelerate the healing factor of our bodies.

“Sorry about your face,” I said, resisting the urge to reach out and touch his nose.

“I've had worse. You're a proper gladiator now. Remember that when you're fighting in the tournament.”

“Truly?” It seemed so unreal that I could hardly believe that I'd actually done it.

“Truly,” he said. “I don't think getting on the tournament's going to be a problem. Listen.”

The audience were up on their feet, roaring their approval. In an excited frenzy, they chanted as one:
Daughter of
Minerva! Handmaiden of justice!

“They're calling for the goddess,” I said. There was a sea of hands stretching out, trying to push through the protective barrier to touch me. There was a desperate, hungry quality to the sea of faces, like some mindless organism that wanted to eat me whole.

“They're calling to you,” he said. “They're comparing you to her. You're a hit. Just let those old gasbags on the committee try to stop you now.”

I needed to thank him, but the right words wouldn't come, just an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Before I knew it I was hugging him. He pulled away, slightly embarrassed (and I think, by accident, I managed to hit his nose after all because he winced in pain). I wasn't thinking of the emperor anymore or the crowd or the tournament. This was all about the art of the arena, about defeating the toughest opponent I'd ever faced.

“But you and the gym…” I said to Marcus.

“After that match, I don't think there's a man in the empire who would think me weak for losing to Minerva's warrior-maiden. You're ready, Accala. You're a force of nature.”

Don't disgrace our profession.
That's what Marcus had said.
Our profession.
For the first time I felt like a real gladiator. Not only a woman seeking justice, but someone who had earned her stripes and her place in the arena.

“I can't believe it,” I said. “I need to see.”

Anxiously, I checked the lists on my armilla to see if I'd been added to the Calpurnian team, but there was no change. The referee should have entered the result. I looked to the man and asked him for the result, but he was shaking his head. What was the problem?

“Accala.” Marcus pointed to the committee table, where a flock of squabbling men in official robes had clustered. It took me a moment to recognize the largest of them, gesticulating angrily, yelling threats and curses at the committee men. Senator Lucius Viridius Camillus—tribune of the seventh legion, hero of the battle of Cynosura Vallis, and not least of all, my father—had come to the Colosseum in person. He turned and strode toward me.

“Stop!” he cried out, addressing the referee. “Accala Viridius cannot be legally permitted entry to the Ludi Romani.”

“On what grounds?” the referee demanded. “The emperor has already ruled on the outcome of this bout.”

“On the grounds that I, her father, forbid it!”

VI

F
OUR DAYS AFTER THE
war began, a Viridian soldier delivered an official handwritten letter with the news that my mother and brother had died. It was the first time I'd ever seen words written on parchment. He kept repeating in a monotone voice that he was sorry for my loss, and I just kept reading and rereading the words on the textured paper and thinking how nice the handwriting was. One part of my mind was perfectly calm, processing the words, and another part, way at the back, was crumbling apart like the ancient mortar in the Colosseum walls.

That's how it felt as my father stepped into the light of center stage like a bulldozer demolishing a home, yelling at the committee members to keep my name from the board. I struggled to breathe, was unable to speak. He was in full flight—old but tall and muscular, making an impassioned oration about the rights of a father and the travesty of seeing his daughter participate in a public spectacle. His red bionic eye, the replacement for the real one he'd lost in battle, flashed angrily as he spoke. My right fist squeezed into a tight ball.

“If you strike your father before the emperor, it might cost you your life,” Marcus murmured.

“I don't want to strike him. I want to kill him,” I said.

“Gather your wits, Accala. Listen, the emperor is looking for something to take the crowd's mind off of his cousin's embarrassing performance, and we've just given it to him.

“Let's see how it plays out. Remember, one step at a time. You have to play the part of dutiful daughter now. Rush to your father and plead for him to see reason. Get the crowd on side and the emperor may follow. Hurry!”