by S. E. Green
“I, too, agree,” Alexior says.
Inside, I breathe with relief. His support will convince everyone. I step up to Sera and hand her the leather notebook to show her how serious I am. “Go ahead. Look. I’m not stopping you.”
She does, flipping through the pages, perusing them, and then tossing it back. “Ignatius is with The Hunts.”
As I thought.
Razo kneels down and grabs the book and hands it to Camille. “See where Gem is.”
Everyone quietly waits while Camille looks, and a few seconds later she lifts her horrified gaze to mine. “She’s in The Hole.”
The Hole…
“Fuck this, I’m going there!” Razo grabs a couple of swords and charges off.
“What’s The Hole?” comes a timid voice, and I glance through the group and down to where Gem’s daughter stands. I don’t even know her name. What the hell are we going to do with a little girl?
I turn. “Razo, wait!”
With his fists clenched around the handles of two swords, he slowly turns back. “What?”
I take in the stern set of his jaw. I look beyond him to the marketplace where Gem is. My gaze touches on all the villas dotting the landscape, then over to The Hunts where Ignatius is before I turn back to the group. “Let’s go get Gem and all those captive in the marketplace. Then we’re going to raid every villa and set the slaves free. Then with our increased numbers we’ll overtake The Hunts and find Ignatius.” I look right at Sera because I really do need her on my side. “Agreed?”
Her jaw flexes. I know she wants to go straight to The Hunts. But I also know she’s smart. She knows we are more powerful as one. “Yes,” she says. “Let’s go.”
~60~
The warrior I ball shot the morning of Felicia’s suicide agrees to watch the dock. He takes a couple of house slaves with him. The rest of us head across the island to the marketplace.
It’s alive with nighttime activity—crowded with elite out partying. Drinking. Dancing. Laughing. Music. Clearly word of our upheaval hasn’t reached here yet.
Hovering in the shadows I give my group a quick perusal, looking for Gem’s daughter and Hedian. They’re standing beside each other next to Sera.
I crouch down in front of Gem’s daughter. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“My real name is Early,” she tells me.
“Early? That’s a peculiar name.”
“Mommy said it’s because I came early.”
I smile at that when everything inside of me is panging at the “Mommy” part. Such an innocent little word. But Gem’s not going to be the mommy she remembers.
“Do you have a weapon?” I ask Hedian, and she shows me the dagger that she stabbed Domina with. “Take Early and hide,” I tell her. “Do not come out until one of us comes to get you. Okay?”
She nods.
Alexior comes up behind me. “I know where they can hide.”
“Good.” I watch as the three of them disappear around a corner and a minute or so later Alexior is back.
“I hid them in the fruit shed,” he tells me. “They’ll be safe.”
With a nod, I turn to our group. “Nice and quiet. Stealth. Deadly. Kill anyone you need to.”
In the darkness I see nods. I see weapons ready. I see set faces. That’s all I need.
I lead the way along the outer wall of the marketplace, careful to keep in the shadows until I come to a stop at the main entrance where two soldiers stand. Alexior and Razo step around me. They each take a soldier, silently snapping their necks and dragging their bodies out of the entrance.
There’s a passageway that runs the entire circumference of the marketplace. Save for the occasional passed out drunk, everyone is in the center of the marketplace partying—in the same place I stood atop a block and was auctioned off. My gaze quickly runs across them and I estimate roughly fifty people. They outnumber us, but we have the element of surprise.
In the center there are three tied up slaves—one man and two women—naked, being taunted by the partiers.
Ducking into the passage, I take a group to the right and Alexior does to the left until we’ve surrounded the place. In the center people continue drinking, dancing, oblivious as to what is about to go down. Silently, we move as one, stepping from the shadows, coming up from behind, and using our weapons to slice necks, to stab, to kill.
It happens slowly, us silently killing, people gradually realizing what’s going on, screams, scrambling for their own weapons, climbing over each other to run free, futilely fighting back, blood…
When it’s done, we don’t linger. We don’t pause. We don’t think. We go straight to our next objective—The Hole.
Like before the smell hits me first. Putrid. Then the sounds. Whimpers. Screams. Laughter. Everything in me tightens as I lead the way down the steps.
Two soldiers at the bottom see us coming, draw their weapons, and call out, “Halt!”
Me and Razo slice both of their necks.
The rest of us jump over their bodies and spread out. Like we did up top, we surround the gathered elite. None of us pause to consider, to think. We block out the sounds, the smells, and we kill them all and then we set every slave free.
I find Razo in the last corner, pulverizing a man’s face. “Where is she?” he angrily demands.
“I don’t know,” the man blubbers.
Razo crashes his fist into the man’s nose and blood flies.
“Please,” the man whimpers. “She was here. But someone took her. That’s all I know. I promise.”
Razo lifts his sword up and with a yell, brings it straight down into the man’s chest. “FUCK YOU!” he screams.
Agony clenches my gut. Gem’s not here.
Razo shoves past me and sprints up the stairs and out of this abominable place. All around me I’m aware of movement, of quiet sobs, of those who came with me helping all the slaves from their restraints. Gradually the smell trickles back into my senses, and my stomach rolls.
Camille tugs my arm. “Let’s go. We’ll find Gem. We will.”
Back up top I step from the The Hole’s archway and immediately take a breath. It’s not fresh but it’s a lot better than down there. Alexior is already standing across the marketplace and among the dead bodies. His face. His dirty, handsome face brings me such comfort. Such relief. He’s still alive.
The three slaves who were tied up in the center of the marketplace now stand clothed with tunics they stripped off dead bodies and gripping weapons they found. They’re ready for whatever comes next.
From behind me trickles all those we set free. I step into the center of the marketplace and immediately sense something is different in me. All these new faces. What I just revisited in The Hole. I can only imagine the horrors waiting for us throughout the rest of this night.
Heat blazes through me and loudly I say, “We are taking over this island tonight. And then we will sail to freedom.” I hold my spear up. “Gather all the weapons and let’s go!”
Over the next several hours we take down the villas, their outbuildings, and their dungeons. We raid the entire island, slaughtering anyone in our path and setting every slave free. A few people try to swim to safety but end up drowning in their escape. Our numbers grow to the hundreds, astounding me with just how many people were being held captive.
Gem is still missing, and Vasquez and Dominus are nowhere to be found. If they somehow escaped off Saligia, I will still find them. I don’t doubt that for a second.
As the sun is just coming up I find myself standing back in the center of the island at our ludus, looking west toward the wall and The Hunts. Next to me are Sera, Camille, Razo, and Alexior. All around us hover the freed slaves, the other warriors, Willem, Yana, Joseph…
Suddenly, the heaviness of the entire night comes down on me. The blood. The screams. The slaughter. All the slaves. It seems all I can feel and my shoulders slump with the weight.
Alexior is standing to my right, and quietly he
moves toward me until our bodies touch—shoulders, hips, and feet, letting me know he’s here. Closing my eyes, I breathe in his presence, his comfort. I soak in the heavy warmness that his nearness brings me. Both sweet and aching at the same time. I can do this. That’s what he’s silently telling me. This is almost done.
Everything left is on the other side of that wall, including Alexior’s wife.
“These people,” he softly says, “they are both masterminds and sadists. It takes the combination to run a place like Saligia.”
Well put.
I open my eyes. “Tell me what you know about The Hunts.”
“There’s only one way in—a gate. The wall is approximately nine meters tall. Slaves are released, and they’re immediately on the run. They hide wherever they can. They live off the land. They turn on each other. They do whatever they have to in order to survive. The villa inside is enormous and more like a resort. It’s where the elite stay while they’re hunting. There are horses, and they hunt with bow and arrow and spears. The terrain is thick with woods.”
The reality is Gem, without an arm, is probably dead. Ignatius could very well be alive still. He could probably endure that environment. Hell, he’s the longest survivor of The Hole.
“The hunts occur at night?” I confirm.
“Correct. But with what’s happened on this side of the wall tonight, they no doubt know we’re coming and are ready.”
I roll my neck, rotate my shoulders, and tighten my sore fists around my two spears. There is no element of surprise. He’s right they know we’re coming.
“But,” he continues, “I know them. I know how they think. They’ll have whatever elite are left barricaded in the villa with soldiers standing guard. There will also be soldiers at the gate because they think their wall is impenetrable. They don’t think anybody can get over it.”
I cut him a sly look. “Then we’re going over the wall.”
~61~
No one speaks as we cross the eerily quiet island to the wall. I am reminded of all those times I rode back and forth in the cart. The island never sat still. There was always movement. Elite here and there. Slaves trailing behind or out working the grounds.
We come to a stop at the stone wall. I glance up the thirty or so feet, then to the right and to the left where it stretches a good mile in both directions, eventually wrapping around to barricade the entire hunting grounds.
Behind me, slaves begin dragging wooden ladders that they pulled from the villas and propping them up against the wall. Only four ladders are tall enough to reach, and when they are in place, me, Alexior, Sera, and Razo begin the ascent. Halfway up, I’m aware Camille has begun her ascent on my ladder as has Willem and Yana on the others. As we near the top we ready our weapons, not sure what’s on the other side.
Together we slide up and over, weapons poised, but I see only woods and dunes and thick underbrush. No slaves. No soldiers. No movement at all. In fact, I can’t even see the villa through all the foliage.
From the top we drop and as Alexior taught us in training, we roll. Behind us Camille and the others do the same. One by one the other warriors come up and over, and then everyone else who is able follows, jumping and us assisting them with the landing.
Before the last few slaves can jump, I say, “Grab the ladders and prop them on this side.” We may need them to get back over.
When that is done we quietly begin creeping into the woods. I want to yell to all the slaves to come out of hiding. That they are safe. To join us. But I keep silent, my eyes flicking from tree to bush to shadow.
Movement to my left causes me to pause. When I stop walking, so does everyone else. I wait, but don’t see the movement again. Going on instinct, I softly say, “Whoever you are, you can come out. You’re free now.” I take a breath and hold it and wait. Beside me, I sense Sera doing the same.
Then gradually, it happens. First one person, then another, and then another. Slowly, they emerge from the shadows, from the underbrush, one even jumps down from a tree, and with each one, something twinges inside of me.
Rags cover their emaciated bodies. Dirt and blood mats and trails their hair and skin. Their eyes stare glassy and wide with fear, with relief, with caution. Men. Women. Boys. Girls.
“Oh my God,” Camille whispers.
I make myself stay calm, and stepping forward, I hand them whatever weapons I can spare as do the others. “Go, go tell everyone else they’re free. We’re taking down the villa and then we’re sailing away from this place.”
One of the women falls to her knees, shaking, crying, babbling, “The shed and the sacrifices and those hiding in the dunes…”
My insides wrench with her desperate voice and frantic words. “We’ll get them all,” I assure her.
They take the weapons we give them and disappear back into the shadows as we continue our trek through the hunting grounds. With each step I take, I think about these people. Hunted. Scared. Barely surviving. Every kill I made last night, I did for this. For them. For us.
A gasp to my right has me pausing, looking, listening. A woman who was a house slave in one of the villas catches my eye and points. There, through the dense foliage, I see it. A stone building.
We approach, and on the outskirts, we sink into a crouch and take in the solid weathered structure that has no windows. Perhaps it is simply a storage area.
I circle it and locate a metal padlocked door. With a rap of my knuckles, I whisper, “Hello? Is anyone in there?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Razo grabs an oversized stone and begins hammering the lock with it.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The lock breaks open, and Razo grabs the handle. He swings the door wide, and we catch a collective breath.
It’s pitch black inside and the stench of rot rushes out and surrounds us. So thick and encompassing, it is hard to breathe. Behind me someone gags.
I don’t wait, I rush right in. There are bodies everywhere. Prone. Hunched over. Hanging. Though I can’t see clearly, I can smell they are filthy with dirt and feces, urine and blood.
I reach down and grab the first thing my hand falls on. I go to drag the person from the building and the skin comes off in my fingers. I wince. Bile swells in my mouth, and I repress the urge to gag as I grip with two hands and finish pulling the body out into the night. It’s a man. He is dead, his decayed skin hanging from his body in long peels that have clearly been fileted with a knife.
“Jesus,” mutters Sera.
Everyone joins in, and one by one we pull the mangled bodies from the building. Some dead. Some barely alive. Others with their tongues removed and yet others like the first, with shredded skin.
“Some they would catch and throw in here,” one of the slaves says. “Once a week they burn the bodies and listen to them scream.”
Razo kneels down next to a soiled body and I realize with a jolt that it is Gem. I watch him gently pick her up and hold her to his chest. She’s unconscious, but she’s breathing. I look at her missing arm where someone tried to cauterize it. It is swollen and badly infected with red spreading up across her shoulder.
I drop down beside them both, gently clasping her bony fingers. She needs help now. She can’t wait.
Alexior moves in beside us. “Razo, take Talme and go back to our ludus. Let her do what she can with Gem until it’s time to leave.”
I nod. I completely agree. I look around our group that has grown even more with those slaves from The Hunts who have now joined us. I pick out ten healthy ones and instruct them to get the injured and go with Razo and Talme.
With one last look to my dear friend, Gem, I pick up my spear and continue on. Behind the stone building a trail appears, then gradually becomes less and less until it merges back with the landscape. Overhead the trees come together blocking out the rising sun. Other than the sound of us hacking our way through the brush, things remain eerily calm. I wonder what they’re doing in
the villa right now. I hope they’re scared. I hope they know we’re coming.
A clearing opens and in the center lays a mangled dead body, obviously killed in the hunts. Another trail opens to the right and we merge onto the narrow path. Foliage lines each side and a little ways up sits a wooden post with horses tied off.
I walk over and undo the horses, give them a pat on their rumps, and they trot off. We continue past and cut through more brush to another clearing where several slaves have been gutted and hung. Flies zing in and out, feasting on the organs and exposed meat.
I want to cover my mouth and nose, but I don’t. I make myself smell the rot. I let it burn through my senses. I let the sight of it gnaw at my insides. Yet another reminder of everything vile about this place.
Camille wrinkles her nose and blows out a steady breath, and I know she’s doing the same. She starts walking first this time, cutting down the next trail.
Another small clearing opens with one single cross in the center. On it hangs Ignatius. Pure joy dances through my blood as I stare up into his angry narrowed eyes.
“Get me the fuck off this thing!” he demands, and for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, we all laugh.
They caught him and they strung him up on this cross with rope. Other than his clearly pissed off mood, he is unharmed. They would’ve come back tonight for sure. Tomorrow Ignatius would’ve been dead.
Alexior and Sera rush over and cut him down. He lands with a heavy thud on the sand and immediately comes to his feet. He’s ready.
Sera punches him. “You asshole,” she says with obvious tears in her eyes. “I thought you were dead.”
It’s the second time I’ve seen Sera almost cry. Maybe she really is a big softie way down inside that irritable body of hers. Then again maybe not.
Alexior hands Ignatius a sword, and together we head toward the villa.
Way in the distance I hear a thump-thump-thump. I glance over to Alexior, and he shakes his head, clearly not recognizing the sound.
