They had done it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Darius sat in the small stone courtyard with the other gladiators, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, nursing a terrible headache. He leaned back slowly, checking his body as he twisted and turned, and he felt a thousand shooting pains. Covered in scrapes and bruises and cuts, he felt as if he had been run over by a boulder after that fight in the arena. His hands felt swollen, stiff, and it hurt them just to open them. His limbs, too, felt stiff as he tried to stretch his elbows, to lean back, and he wondered how he’d be able to fight again. He needed time to recover, and he had a sinking feeling that he would not get it.
As Darius looked about, he felt a sense of sorrow and guilt than hurt him more than his wounds. He saw Raj and Desmond and Luzi sitting nearby, all nursing wounds, each staring into the void. Darius assumed that they, like he, were mourning Kaz.
Darius felt a pit in his stomach as he thought of him. He and Kaz had practically grown up together, had trained for countless days together, Kaz always the biggest and strongest of them all, always winning every competition. At first, Kaz had even been somewhat of a bully.
But over time, he and the others had bonded with Kaz, who had always been there for him, and who now had laid down his life for Darius. Death now hung over all of them, now a reality, as his group of friends had shrunk from four to three. He knew that death could come for any one of them—and that nothing could stop it.
Darius sensed that the others were thinking the same thing as they sat there, staring, nursing wounds. He saw several of the boys who had joined them in the arena were also missing, dead, and he knew their dwindling ranks did not bode well. It was a small miracle, he realized, that they had won the first match. They might not get so lucky the next time, he knew. He felt sure that the Empire would throw at them even more intense opponents, more intense weaponry. They wanted a spectacle, and it would only be a matter of time until he, and all of the others, died here in this place, as objects of entertainment for the Empire.
Darius sneered, hating the thought. He had always wanted to die in battle, on the open field, fighting for a cause he cherished. Not this way. Not as a captive for a savage’s spectacle.
Darius saw the despondent faces on all the other gladiators, boys he did not know, their faces scratched up, their bodies scarred from the bout, and he suspected they felt the same. They all stared into nothingness as if staring at their looming deaths. All of them sitting here, waiting to die.
Darius closed his eyes and shook his head. He no longer feared death. A part of him, he felt, had really died back there, with his men, when they were ambushed inside the walls of Volusia. His heart was still with his dead brother, whom he had led to slaughter. A part of him felt as if he had no more right to live.
Darius was startled by the sudden slam of an iron cell door, and he looked up to see the Morg strutting into the courtyard, accompanied by several large Empire guards. He glared down at all of them disapprovingly.
“None of you should imagine for a moment that you will survive this,” he boomed out, looking at each and every one of them. “You got lucky today, with only a few of you dead. But tomorrow will be another day, and most, if not all of you, should die.”
He surveyed their faces.
“Only one of you will survive this, if any of you. The last man standing after the third match, if any of you even make it that far, will be granted his freedom—of sorts. He will be shipped off to the Empire capital, where he will fight in the grandest arena known to the Empire. It is not quite freedom; it is more of a delayed death. Because for true freedom you would have to win there, too—and no one ever has. They make sure of it.”
Morg’s eyes stopped scanning as they fell on Darius. His scowl deepened as he took several steps forward and locked eyes with him.
“You fought well today,” he said. “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you had it in you. You’re useful to me as an object of entertainment. For that I’m going to reward you: I will bring you to a separate arena, where you will have a chance to fight alone, unchained, in matches for entertainment, and not for the death. You will live many years and be treated well.”
Darius, feeling a great injustice rising within, stood his ground and faced Morg.
“I will leave this place,” Darius replied, “only if my brothers can join me. Otherwise I will stay behind, and fight with them.”
Morg looked at Darius, disbelieving, and his scowl deepened.
“The offer is for you only—not for your friends. If you remain behind, you will die with them.”
Darius clenched his jaw.
“Then I shall die with them,” he replied, unwavering.
Morg’s eyes widened.
“You would die then, for your friends?”
Darius stared back.
“If I abandon my friends,” he replied, “then I have never truly lived.”
Morg shook his head, grimaced, then spat at Darius’s feet.
“I will enjoy watching you die tomorrow,” he said. “You, and all your friends.”
“Don’t enjoy it quite yet,” Raj chimed in. “He might just surprise you. And if he does—I am sure he will kill you first.”
Morg smiled, a cruel smile, turned, and stormed from the courtyard, his men falling in behind him, the iron door slamming behind them as they left.
“You should not have done that,” Luzi said, coming over to him.
“You should have taken your freedom,” Desmond said.
Darius shook his head and remained silent.
“No man left behind,” he replied. “Not now, not ever. That’s what friendship means.”
Darius could see the respect and gratitude in his brothers’ eyes, as each stepped forward and clasped his forearm.
“You bring great honor to Kaz’s memory,” Desmond said.
A look of worry etched across Luzi’s face.
“I still can’t believe Kaz is dead,” Luzi said. “I don’t understand it. He was the biggest and strongest of us all. If he has been killed, what hope is there for any of us?” His face morphed into panic. “I have to get out of here,” he added. “I have to get out of here!”
Luzi ran across the courtyard and began pounding on the iron door. Darius watched him, surprised, as he began to realize that Luzi was having a nervous breakdown.
“Shut him up!” one of the other boys yelled. “He keeps banging like that and they’ll come back and kill us all!”
“You should have let me kill him back in the arena,” uttered a dark voice.
Darius turned to see Drok standing beside him, glaring back through his narrow eyes.
“It would have been clean and smooth,” he added. “And I only would have had to kill him once.”
Darius was filled with a fresh wave of rage as he recalled Drok’s attempt to kill Luzi back in the arena.
Drok began to strut across the courtyard, toward Luzi, and Darius rushed across the courtyard, forgetting all his pain, and stood between them, blocking his way. He stared Drok down, and Drok looked back in surprise.
“To get to him you’ll have to go through me,” Darius said.
The boy grimaced back at Darius.
“I should have killed you back there, too,” Drok said. “I will be glad to do it now—you and your pathetic little friend.”
Drok charged Darius, and as he did, he furtively reached down, grabbed a handful of dirt off the floor, and threw it into Darius’s eyes.
Darius, not expecting it, was temporarily blinded, and the next thing he knew he felt strong arms around his waist, tackling him, driving him down to the ground. He fell backwards and hit the ground hard, every muscle in his body sore, as the boy wrestled pinned him down.
All the other boys immediately gathered around.
“FIGHT!” they shouted. “KILL HIM!”
After Drok’s performance in the arena, his attempt to kill the other boys, Darius knew they were cheering for him.
Darius struggled to get
the sand out of his eyes, to catch his breath, and he felt hard knuckles across his cheek as Drok punched him in the face, again and again.
As he swung again, Darius reached up and this time caught his wrist in midair; at the same time, he managed to roll, getting on top of Drok, and punched him in the face twice.
Drok kicked Darius between the legs, leaned down, and head-butted him, and Darius felt a world of pain as the boy rolled back on top. Darius swung around and elbowed him across the jaw, and the boy collapsed beside him.
Darius rolled out from under him and caught his breath.
Desmond, Raj, and Luzi appeared, each grabbing the boy from behind and yanking him to his feet, each grabbing one arm.
Darius gained his feet and stared him down.
“Finish him off,” Desmond said.
“Finish him off for good,” Luzi chimed in.
“KILL HIM!” the other boys chanted.
Darius looked long and hard at the boy, struggling to break free, and realized that he could kill him. Not here. Not while he was captive.
“No,” Darius replied. “Let him go.”
The second they let him go, Drok lunged for Darius, snarling, blood dripping from his mouth. He rushed to tackle him, but this time, Darius, prepared, waited for the last moment then stepped aside. As Drok rushed by, Darius reached back and elbowed him across the jaw.
Drok fell face-first into the dirt.
He lay there, moaning, and Darius saw him reach out and close his fingers around a handful of dirt, and Darius realized this time that he was about to throw another fistful of sand.
Darius stepped on the boy’s wrist, pinning it to the ground, right before he could spin around and throw the sand. Darius leaned back and kicked the boy with his other boot in the face, knocking him onto his back.
But Drok was hardy. He rolled and rolled, got to his feet, and stood there, facing Darius, bloody but indestructible. He turned and raced for the wall, grabbed a wooden training sword off the rack, and faced Darius.
“Darius!” came a voice.
Darius turned to see Raj throw him a wooden sword; he caught it in midair and raised it just in time to block Drok’s first blow.
Darius and Drok sparred back and forth with a great clacking of wood, slashing and parrying, pushing each other back and forth. Darius had to hand it to the boy: he was quick and relentless and driven by hatred.
Yet he was not as fast as Darius. Darius’s training with Raj and Desmond came back to him, and he put all his skills to good use, slashing and striking a hair faster than Drok, and was about to land a blow—when Drok caught Darius off guard and swept his foot out from under him.
Darius stumbled and fell on his back and Drok immediately raised his sword, lunged forward, grabbed its hilt, and brought the point straight down for Darius’s throat.
Darius rolled out of the way at the last second, the tip went into the dirt, and he swung around and knocked the sword from Drok’s hand, then regained his feet.
Drok, in a rage, took his wooden sword and broke it over his knee, making its tip jagged, then charged and screamed, aiming to plunge his sword right through Darius’s heart.
Darius waited and waited, calm and collected, then at the last second he stepped aside and elbowed Drok across the throat, knocking him flat on his back.
Drok lay there, unmoving, and as he slowly reached for his wooden sword, Darius kicked it out of the way.
Darius knelt down beside him, grabbed the jagged sword, and held the sharp end to Drok’s throat. His hands trembled as he pondered whether to kill him.
“KILL HIM!” the other boys yelled, gathering around.
Drok grimaced back, blood pouring from his mouth.
“Do it,” Drok urged. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
Darius finally threw the sword away.
“No,” Darius said, “I shall not do you that favor. It would be dishonorable to kill you while you are defenseless. And I shall not sully my honor, not even for the likes of you.”
Darius stood and grimaced down.
“The arena shall decide who shall live and who shall die,” he concluded. “And if there be a true God out there, tomorrow, you shall die.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Volusia stood on the balcony, atop the immense golden dome that rose from the center of the capital, and watched the horizon with growing interest. There, rising up in a cloud of dust, was an entourage of seven black chariots, born by the largest black horses she’d ever seen, bursting through the desert day. What surprised her most was not the size of the carriages, or the horses—or even their speed—but the fact that the legions of Empire soldiers camped outside her city parted ways for them immediately. A sea of bodies opened up, deferred to these oncoming carriages, and Volusia realized that clearly, this entourage of people, whoever they were, were given a great deal of respect.
The carriages continued charging, right for the capital gates, and Volusia wondered who could be so insolent as to think they could approach.
“Who heads for our gates?” she asked Koolian, one of her sorcerers, who stood beside her with a dozen other advisors, studying the horizon.
He cleared his throat, a grave look on his face.
“Goddess,” he replied. “Those before you are the Knights of the Seven. They represent the four horns and two spikes of the Empire, and are the direct representatives of the Great Council. They represent the collective force and negotiating power of all the Empire.”
“There is little that all Horns and Spikes agree on, Goddess,” Aksan, her assassin, said, stepping forward on her other side, “but if there is one thing they share in common, it is the Great Council. A word from the Great Council is a word from all the Empire. One dare not defy them. One cannot defy them.”
“You would be wise to host them graciously, Goddess,” her commander, Gibvin said.
Volusia watched as the gleaming black carriages tore through the desert, right for her gates, so proud, so regal—and so arrogant—clearly not expecting anyone or anything to get in their way.
“And what, do you suppose, they want with me?” she asked.
“They only come for one reason,” said Gibvin, “to dictate terms. They will make you an offer, and they will only make it once. Whatever it is, you would be wise to accept it, Goddess.”
She turned to him defiantly.
“This is not just the capital’s council,” he said. “This is the Great Council, of all the men. They represent not just one city, but tens of thousands. They do not just have armies—they have sorcerers, too, as powerful as yours—and an infinite number of men to lose. I implore you—do not provoke the beast.”
Volusia studied him, calm, expressionless, then turned back and watched the entourage approach the golden doors of her capital.
Her soldiers, down below, looked up at her, waiting for a response.
A thick silence hung in the air, as Volusia stared down, debating.
“Goddess, I beg you,” Gibvin said. “Do not keep them waiting. Open those doors at once.”
Volusia waited some more, the entire city so silent one could hear a pin drop, then finally, when she felt ready, she slowly nodded.
The gates were opened at once, and the chariots raced in, right for the golden dome, for her, as if they knew, without a doubt, that she would let them in.
*
Volusia sat around the Grand Council table, opposite the representative of the Knights of the Seven, and studied him with curiosity. He was not at all been what she had been expecting. She had expected a great warrior of the Empire race, a hardened man, large, strong, donning armor, bearing weaponry.
Yet she saw before her a simple man—a human being, no less—with intelligent eyes, wearing a brown robe, hands folded neatly inside them. He sat there calmly, looking back at her expressionless, perhaps a slight smile on his face, as if he had no fears in the world. And yet somehow, Volusia found his calm demeanor even more fearful than all the great warriors
of the Empire. She sensed he was a man with unlimited powers at his disposal, who meant every word he said.
“You are very brave to come here with no guards,” she said, breaking the silence.
He laughed.
“I am a delegate of the Knights of the Seven,” he replied. “I don’t need guards. No one would be foolish enough to attack me.”
Keeping his smile, he cleared his throat and nodded gently.
“Goddess,” he said, “I have not come for threats. I don’t believe them. Nor have I come to bargain. I come only to utter the truth as we see it. You have started a great war here. You’ve taken by force several divisions of the Empire army, and the Empire capital. You have killed the Grand Council of the capital city, and along with them, thousands of men. You rule the capital now,” he said, and sighed. “And yet even you must realize, you rule it by force. Not by the choice of the Empire.”
“By force,” she repeated. “The same way Romulus and Andronicus before him ruled it.”
He nodded, smiling.
“True,” he countered. “And neither of those men are standing here today.”
She nodded back, conceding his point.
“What you don’t know,” he continued, “what no one knows, is that even the greatest, the most powerful, Empire leader answers to someone. And that someone is us.”
She examined him coolly, this man, so soft-spoken, yet with something about him that sent a chill up her spine.
“Out with it,” she snapped, impatient. “Are you threatening, then, to take power from me?” she asked, her voice hardened steel.
He smiled.
“As I mentioned, I don’t threaten. Besides, in you, we, the Knights of the Seven, see something much more interesting.”
She looked back, curious.
“As fate would have it,” he said, “you represent a chance to finally unite the Empire. Romulus and Andronicus were savages, ill-tempered generals who seized the throne by brute force. You, of course, are no princess, either—and are, in fact, from what I’ve heard, quite savage, too.”
He examined her.