by Nhys Glover
Asterius was a giant with skin so impenetrable that Athena herself desired it for her own. She killed and flayed him so she could use his skin on her shield.
Sometimes I didn’t think much of the gods. This story is one reason why. If the gods wanted something you had, watch out!
Was Asterius thick-skinned? Did verbal and physical attacks just bounce off him? He’d like to think so. But I’d seen him bleed more than once. And though he tried to act as if words never hurt him, I’d seen him cry from them many times when we were younger.
That’s the trouble with having a not-quite-brother who dogs your heels every step of the way. He gets to see more than you want him to. And Asterius never wanted me to see how sensitive he really was. Not because it was a weakness—as Orion would label it—but because it denied the truth of his name. My brother feared anyone realising he was not the invincible giant he was named after.
So I kept his secret, and it bound us closer than even brothers of blood would have been.
Finally there was me, Typhon. As I said, my birth-mother died when I was born. She was a tiny, oriental-doll of a woman, so my adoptive mother told me. The master had seen her as a child on one of his travels and had to have her. He’d bought her from a father who saw no value in daughters. She became the Mistress’ handmaiden and pet, and had never been meant for the breeding program.
But one of the warriors bought for that program had seen her and wouldn’t stay away. He caught her alone one day and raped her. He was crucified for it, his cut-off cock thrust so far down his throat he almost choked on it before his other injuries killed him.
I’d known this story from an early age. The gossips still talked about the just punishment doled out that day to one who had so blatantly disobeyed the Master. Our world only remained safe and ordered if everyone obeyed the Master. So they accepted severe punishments to maintain that order.
I also saw death as that bastard’s just punishment. Not for disobedience—as I cared little for obedience—but for hurting my mother and taking her from me before I even got the chance to know her.
My father was such a huge brute that I couldn’t help being born a big baby, they said. Too big for a tiny thing like my doll of a mother. The midwife cut me out of her belly when it was clear I was not going to fit between her narrow hips. I was the one who killed my mother, but it was only because of that bastard and the blood he gave me. Or that was what I told myself. Some days I didn’t believe it. Some days I knew I was the only one responsible. Why else was I named after the world’s most fearsome monster?
Typhon was the biggest and worst giant ever to exist. A huge storm god with a hundred dragon heads for fingers and snakes for legs. He was created by the Titans as their last hope for defeating the rebelling Zeus. Yet even that terrible monster couldn’t win against Zeus, and he was sent to the dark nether realm of Tartarus as punishment.
Was I really like my namesake? I had no snakes or dragons to call my own, that was for certain. But I did have a temper that seemed to come out of nowhere, as a wild summer storm often did. My temper blew up fast and disappeared fast, and the boys who felt the brunt of it usually claimed they didn’t see it coming. To me, the cause was pretty obvious. Disrespect me or those I love and expect me to react. Badly.
Overreact, Orion would say.
Therefore, you might see my brother as the easy-going, thick-skinned one, while I was his polar opposite. One of our tutors called me ‘volatile’. It was a fancy word for unpredictable and dangerous. It fitted me well. Which is what you’d expect from someone who killed his own mother, after all.
“There’ll be more meat once summer arrives. The young will be grown by then,” Orion pointed out needlessly, finally taking a bite from his shoulder.
Talos visibly subsided in disappointment. I almost laughed at him.
Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I stilled and slid my gaze around me, breath stuck in my chest.
My pack noticed my reaction and stilled too. Only our eyes moved, taking in the shadows and darkness beyond the small fire.
There!
I jumped to my feet and made a grab for the small figure hiding behind a nearby tree. Smaller than me, the child didn’t have a chance. But no one had told the invader that, and he fought me with everything he had. I would have been impressed if I wasn’t so worried.
Our nights by our fire were a closely kept secret. No one was allowed to venture out of the barracks unescorted. That we had been doing it all last autumn and now this spring was a testament to our skill and our foolishness. That last was Orion’s opinion. He saw any action that made us vulnerable as foolishness. Yet he’d agreed to come with us when Asterius had suggested the prank. To keep us out of trouble. Then later he joined us to help snare small game, because none of us had his skills.
Now someone had found us out. And if our trainers, our doctores, discovered our adventures we would be punished. Severely.
I realised my mistake as soon as I dragged the snoop into the light. He was not a boy but a girl. Her hair was dark brown and worn in a long braid down her back. She had a small, impish face with a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. In the firelight, I couldn’t tell the colour of her eyes, the black centres were too big, but I assumed they’d be brown. Later I discovered they were grey-blue like storm-clouds.
Right now her brows were pulled down to meet those eyes as she scowled darkly at me and fought to escape. If I’d known their colour then I would have said they suited her well. She was stormy, that was certain. And maybe that was our connection. Though back then I saw no connection. Girls were, after all, useless and annoying pests.
“Let go of me, you ape! How dare you!” she spat at me, giving one final yank in the hope of breaking my iron grip on her birdlike wrist.
“I dare, girl! What are you doing here?” I demanded, giving her a shake to punctuate my words.
“Leave off, Typhon, you’re hurting her,” Talos said, frowning.
“I’ll really hurt her if she doesn’t talk!” I threatened, though I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t like my father. I didn’t hurt females. But she didn’t need to know that.
Her mouth dropped open, and for a moment she stopped struggling. I almost let go of her arm then, but something warned me not to. I was known to have good instincts. And they served me well now because, in the next instant, she started struggling all the harder. Damn, she was a fighter! I didn’t know girls could fight.
“Stop it, girl!” Orion demanded impatiently. “Typhon won’t hurt you. He just needs an answer. Did you find us on your own? Who else knows we’re here?”
“He wants one answer and you want two. I will give you none!” she spat out like an angry kitten. My fingers loosened around her wrist despite my best intentions.
Oddly, the looser my hold, the less she fought me. Finally, when I realised what was happening, I let her go completely. She stood there, rubbing her sore wrist, and glowering at me as if I had committed an unpardonable crime by even touching her.
“What’s your name? How about we start there,” Asterius said consolingly. He brushed back a black curl from his forehead and smiled. That smile could melt the coldest hearts. I’d seen him use it on our mother many times to get his way.
She turned her scowl on my brother and eyed him speculatively. It seemed his charm wasn’t working on her.
Finally, though, she decided to answer, at least that one question. “Accalia.”
“She-wolf? You are called she-wolf?” I exploded in a mixture of disbelief and astonishment.
She shrugged. “Is that what my name means? I did not know.”
It was a lie, I could sense as much. She had known what her name meant. Why lie about it? And why speak so fine?
“It’s a good name. Well suited to us. We’re the Wolf Pack. I’m Asterius,” my brother introduced himself with a slight bow. He was not yet thirteen summers old and he already liked girls. I couldn’t understand that fascinat
ion. To me they were everything weak and pathetic. They couldn’t even fight.
Except, this one specimen fought me well enough. Had I been smaller or she larger, she might have won our tussle. That thought filled me with annoyance. No girl got the better of me!
Our leader took control. “I am Orion. And I would appreciate answers to my two questions, Accalia. They are important. Our lives depend on them.”
She turned her gaze Orion’s way and considered him closely, her thin arms crossed over her narrow chest. Her tunic was fine linen, far finer than we were used to. Was she a slave of the villa? I had heard they were treated well, with fine clothing and more food than they could eat. It made them lazy and weak. Or so I’d been told. But this one didn’t seem weak.
“Then ask me again, Orion, hunter of the skies. Now we have been properly introduced I might answer you.” Her little nose lifted and she sniffed in dignified disdain.
Orion grinned at her antics. She could not be more than ten summers old, yet she was acting like a matriarch.
“Did you find us on your own? Does anyone else know we’re here?”
Her gaze slid away from Orion, and I could tell she was preparing to lie.
“Don’t lie!” I warned her, moving in to take advantage of my superior height to daunt her. I should have known it wouldn’t work.
She gave me a sudden push. It took me so much by surprise that I fell back a step.
“I do not lie, you ape! Stop threatening me.”
Asterius laughed, rolling about on the ground like a demented idiot. “You should see your face, brother!”
I kicked him in the side in disgust and humiliation. “Stop being a fool.”
“To answer your questions,” Accalia said with dignity. “I saw your fire from the villa and came to investigate. If you think to stay hidden you might consider not lighting a fire. It gives you away. Any idiot would know that.”
“It is a risk we take so we can cook what we snare,” Orion told her, admitting she was right by his tone. “Does anyone else know?”
She shrugged. “As far as I am aware your secret is safe. And I will not be sharing it with anyone. I would have to admit to being here, would I not?”
That argument relieved us all. No house slave should be out here, I knew that much. So she was breaking the rules as much as we were.
“True enough, she-wolf. I am Talos. Do you want to warm yourself by our fire now you are here? Better than hiding in the dark.”
Accalia moved forward with a regal nod of her head and took a rock next to Orion. She stared with disgust at the innards and skin from the carcass that we’d yet to throw in the fire.
“Do you not get enough food in the ludus barracks?” she asked, giving the pile of discarded mess a nudge with her sandaled foot.
“Not enough that we’d turn down a feast made from our prey,” Orion answered, studying her closely.
“How do you catch... what was that? A rabbit?”
“Yes, a rabbit. We use snares. How did you know we’re from the ludus?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Where else would boys like you be from? Any boys your age would have to be in training. My pater sa...” she stammered to a halt, looking suddenly caught out. What had she been about to say that would have given her away?
“Your father said what about us?” Talos nudged, clearly picking up on what I had.
For a moment she seemed lost for words, and then she started again. I wasn’t sure she was telling the truth. “Pater said that all boys your age had to be in training or sold away. Girls stay longer.”
This interested me. I knew very little about the rest of the slaves on our master’s property. The breeders were kept separate from the rest and treated almost as well as the house slaves. Their children fared better too. But we were kept to ourselves, not fitting in with the field slaves but not good enough for the house slaves. Our position would change when we entered the gladiator’s ludus—or training centre—proper at eighteen. Then we’d have a chance to win glory, wealth and fame. We might even win our freedom. Even if we didn’t gain our freedom that way, our winnings would be ours and we could save and eventually buy our freedom if we chose to.
Freedom was an odd idea I didn’t properly understand. I knew that I wasn’t free, but as I had never known anyone who was, I had no one to compare myself with. My life had been fated from birth, just as my pack-mates’ lives had been. I may have been a mistake—the result of a crime— but I was raised to be a warrior, a gladiator, like the bloody bastard who was my father. So that was what I would become.
We all knew how impossible it was to avoid your fate. Though I had never seen the Greek plays, I knew the story of Oedipus. He was a prince whose father tried to kill him as a babe, hoping to thwart his own fate of dying at his son’s hand. Yet that was exactly what happened in the end when Oedipus unknowingly killed him and then married his own mother. When Oedipus discovered the terrible truth, he poked out his own eyes in grief and horror.
So I knew about fate and how impossible it was to avoid. But even within a fated path there was an element of freedom. How good a gladiator I was would depend on me. I could decide to be the best or I could decide to just slide by. And as I had not been born as part of the breeding plan proper, I wasn’t about to just slide by. I had to prove I had a right to my place as part of the Master’s training program and as part of the Wolf Pack. My size wasn’t enough. I had to be the best.
Our pack had come together because we saw from the very start that we shared a common goal: to be the best. And we would do whatever it took to get there.
And why wouldn’t I want to be a great gladiator? My fate was one to be envied and I embraced it enthusiastically. One day I would stand in the centre of the arena, surrounded by thousands of citizens of Rome. And every one of them would be cheering for me. Though I was a slave and a lowly gladiator, those citizens of Rome—the rulers of the world—would be cheering for me and courting my favour. That was my fate. My glorious fate!
I was drawn back from my pleasant daydreams by a question directed my way.
“Typhon, Accalia asked if you are as dangerous as your namesake. I said you were. What do you say?” Talos demanded with a smirk.
I puffed out my chest and scowled at our uninvited guest. “I am very dangerous to little girls who sneak around at night and go places they shouldn’t.”
Instead of quaking at my words, Accalia laughed at me so hard she almost fell off the stone she was sitting on. My pack grinned at me, mocking me as much as the girl was doing.
I snapped.
“Do you want me to show you how dangerous I am?” I snarled at her, so enraged I saw red.
My brothers realised where I had gone and stopped smiling.
“She meant nothing by her laughter,” Talos assured me, moving a little closer to the girl. Ever the protector! Well, if he wanted to stand in the way, so be it. No one laughed at me! Especially not a slip of a girl who thought herself better than me because she came from the villa on the hill.
My rage must have finally gotten through to the little miss because she stopped laughing and stared at me in fascination.
“You are like that giant, are you not? I can almost see dragons in your eyes!”
As fast as my rage had risen it subsided. I was mollified. She could see dragons in my eyes and that impressed her. Good enough!
Nodding, I sat down beside the fire, which had almost burned down to ash.
“You are a slave at the villa?” Talos asked the girl, taking the focus off me.
Accalia blinked a few times before turning from me and saying, “Ahhhm... yes, I am from the villa up there.”
She pointed up the hill to where the villa rustica sat in all its glory. It was a large, marble-columned mansion that glittered in the sunlight and had so many rooms a person could get lost in them. No god could live in something grander. Or so our mother had told us when we asked about that grand building.
Asterius
had once thought it was Zeus’ home and that the hill on in which it stood was Olympus. Back then that hill had seemed very mountainous and high to us both. But by the time we entered the barracks we knew different. Yet it still had a kind of mysterious grandeur that left us poor mortals under its spell.
“Do all the house slaves have such fine clothes?” Asterius asked, fingering the fabric of her gown.
“Oh... no. I mean, some. Like me. I... I am special. I... I am the Little Mistress’ handmaiden. I have been her playmate all my life.” She lowered her head as if embarrassed to share such information with us.
“The Little Mistress? I’ve heard of her. Lady Ennia. Is she very spoiled? Having no mother to discipline her and a father who dotes on her must mean she’s spoiled rotten,” Orion determined using his old man voice.
“Spoiled?” Accalia exploded. “How dare... I mean. My mistress is not spoiled. She is the sweetest girl anyone could want. She is my best friend!”
Orion scowled at her. “Best friend? A slave can’t be friends with her master. Or mistress. There are lines that can’t be crossed!”
For some strange reason I wanted to protect Accalia from him. It was just like me—one moment I was ready to tear her head off myself; in the next I wanted to protect her.
“How would you know?” I snapped out. “Have you even seen his daughter? You have barely ever seen the Master. How do you know they don’t have slaves as friends? And who are you to say they can’t.”
“I don’t have to know them to know the lines are there. Have you learned nothing in our lessons? Everyone has their place. Friendship is a weakness, and a friendship that crosses the lines... foolhardy and shameful.”
“Says the boy who escapes where he belongs to sit by a fire and eat what he has hunted from his master’s land! That sounds both foolhardy and shameful to me!” Accalia declared with fire in her eyes.
She was right and we all knew it.
Talos again refocused our attention to a safer subject. “What is the Master like? Is he kind to his house slaves? I have heard he is a great man.”
