by Morgan Rice
He watched the slaver start to run, hobbling away from the road on one good leg. Somehow, there was far more satisfaction in that than there would have been in stabbing the man.
He hurried to his father first, and there were no words to say. He could only wrap his arms around him.
“I thought you were dead!” his father said. “When you didn’t come back, I was sure that you had to be.”
“I tried to get back to you all,” Sartes said, and joy welled up in him at the fact that his father was there safe and alive. Swiftly, he unlocked the chains, letting them fall away and then tossing the keys to the next prisoner.
They freed one another, whooping in joy at their freedom.
“You saved them,” his father said. “You saved all of us. I’m proud of you, son.”
The others gathered there around them. Some of them reached out to touch Sartes with a hand on his shoulder, a palm pressed into his. It seemed as though everyone there needed something other than words for how grateful they were. Sartes could understand that. If someone had freed him from the prison cart, he wouldn’t have had the words either.
“I wish we’d never been parted,” he told his father.
“It’s probably just as well you weren’t there,” his father said. “We were betrayed, Sartes.”
Sartes stared blankly at his father. “Who… what happened?”
“They grabbed us while we tried to open the gate. After that… Sartes, I’m so sorry, but Anka’s dead.”
Pain flashed through Sartes then. Anka had been the person who had seen the potential in him within the rebellion. She’d been the one to make things better for all of them. Now she was gone, and Sartes could barely believe it.
“What about Ceres?” Sartes asked. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if she was gone too.
“I don’t know,” his father admitted. “I wish I had better news for you.” He looked around. “We need to work out what we’re going to do now. The rebellion is gone. We need to decide where might be safe.”
Sartes had an answer for that. “I heard the guards talking. Lucious is planning to kill the combatlords at the Stade. We can still help them.” He found himself thinking of Anka, and of Ceres. This was the kind of thing they would do. The kind of thing they had done.
“Sartes, you’ve done amazing work saving us,” his father said, “but the Stade is different. There will be more guards there. We don’t even have a way to get close.”
Sartes looked at the slaver’s cart, wondering if it would roll. He hefted the chains.
“I think we do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Ceres approached the Stade with her anger and her need to save the combatlords both burning brightly. She reeled at the enormity of the task before her. Could she even reach the Stade? There were always ways through the streets of the city without being seen. The hard part would be getting inside. It was too much to hope that she wouldn’t be recognized, and as for getting in there with weapons….
Ceres shook her head.
No, there’s no way to do it.
She had to find a way, though, which was why she kept moving in the direction of the Stade.
Already, she could see the crowds gathering in the streets, waiting for the beginning of the games. She’d heard so much about the king supposedly pulling back from the brutality that had gone before, yet either that was a lie, Lucious hadn’t heard what was expected of him, or he’d simply ignored his father.
Ceres didn’t care which. Whatever it was, it told her that the Empire’s promises of peace couldn’t be trusted.
She blended with the crowd as best she could while she made her way closer. She could sense the unease there. People still weren’t certain if this was a trick or not. Probably they didn’t like the idea that the king just got to declare their rebellion over. Yet they seemed to be moving toward the Stade in an orderly enough fashion. They still seemed to want the violence of the Killings.
Maybe there was a kind of twisted cleverness to Lucious in these games. The people of the city had been built up to expect violence. That wouldn’t just go away without some kind of release. The Killings would do that while setting things back in their old order.
Ceres shuffled along with the crowd as long as she dared, but it was soon obvious that she wouldn’t just be walking into the Stade. There were too many guards around, lining the route to it and in some cases mingling with the crowd. Ceres saw a squad of the men approaching and thought she might have been discovered, yet they veered off at the last minute to grab two men who had started a scuffle a little way over. It seemed they would allow no violence but their own there.
As if to confirm that, there were tables set up outside the Stade, with a smattering of weapons spread out on them, and guards looking on nearby. Officials took weapons from the few who had brought them, only letting them through into the Stade once they were disarmed. Ceres had no doubt that they would recognize her, even if others hadn’t so far.
“There has to be another way in,” Ceres muttered, continuing on her way around the Stade. She knew the back ways in, the ways they let in the combatlords and the provisions for the days of the Killings. Instinct told her that one of those had to offer a better opportunity than trying to go in through the front.
So she tried it, only to find that someone else was already trying it. A slaver’s cart sat by the entrance, the occupants arguing with guards while a line of chained figures trailed behind, obviously as more fodder for the Stade.
The sight of that was enough to make Ceres abandon her caution. These slaves deserved her help as much as those in the Stade. She charged.
***
“I’m telling you,” Sartes heard his father say. “We’re here for the Killings.”
From his place on the cart, Sartes looked around, trying to find a better way in. It had seemed like such an obvious ploy when he’d thought of it. Pretend to be slavers delivering fresh meat to the Stade, and the guards would let them pass.
He hadn’t anticipated so many guards, though, or that they would spend so long asking questions. If they looked too closely, they might even find the weapons hidden in the cart.
He saw the guard looking over the rebels in their chains. “This lot don’t look much like combatlords to me.”
“They’re the warm-up,” Sartes said. “Let the combatlords kill a few of these, get the crowd riled up, that sort of thing.”
“They’ll be more than riled up enough,” the guard said. “Aren’t you a little young for a mercenary?”
Sartes’s breath caught, but he forced himself to keep going. He shrugged. “The army tried to conscript me, then the rebels tried to recruit me. You can see how that went.”
“You’re trying to tell me that you captured this lot?” the guard said. Sartes saw his frown deepen.
Maybe it was a lie too far. Sartes’s hand tightened on his sword hilt.
A figure rushed past him, sword already blurring. Guards fell left and right. Bryant had looked at Sartes as though he was some kind of sword master for besting three guards by surprise, but this was pure skill. The figure ducked and wove, cut and sliced, while guards fell around her like corn in the harvest. Sartes stared as the last of them collapsed and the newcomer, spun, her sword rising.
“Ceres, wait! It’s me, Sartes!”
He could barely believe it was really his sister there. He saw her stop, her sword poised, staring back at him in obvious shock as recognition hit her.
“Sartes? What are… Father? You’re both alive? What are you doing here? What is this?”
Ceres looked as though she couldn’t comprehend what was happening to her right then.
“We could ask you the same question,” Sartes said. He rushed forward to hug her. “But I’m glad you’re alive.”
“It’s good to see you too, little brother,” Ceres assured him, and Sartes felt her ruffle his hair. “I take it you haven’t really turned into a slaver while I’ve been locked away?”
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“Do you like our disguises?” Sartes asked, and there was a boyish part of him that wanted to show off the cleverness of it to his sister, in spite of the darkness of everything that had happened. “We thought we might be able to help the combatlords.”
“You were going to do that?” Ceres asked.
“You don’t think we can?” Sartes countered. “We worked it out. If they think we’re bringing in slaves, they’ll let us right through. And if they don’t, we can at least catch them by surprise.” He sighed. “I know, it’s a stupid idea, but we weren’t expecting the ones here to argue so much.”
He saw Ceres smile. “I think it’s perfect. Especially now we’re past the first line of them.”
Sartes saw her slip into place in the line, handing over her sword so that their father could hide it in the cart. They started their shuffling walk toward the Stade again. They shuffled faster than they had, though, because they needed to get there before the aftermath of this fight might be discovered.
There were other reasons too. As the made their way into the workings of the Stade, Sartes could hear the calls of the crowd, and the blare of horns announcing the killing to come. The greatest games the Stade had seen had begun, and Sartes didn’t know if they could get into the heart of the place in time to stop it.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
In spite of herself Ceres could feel her excitement building as the fake slave line made its way through the outer gates of the Stade. She could remember the last time she’d walked into this space. She could remember the sound of the crowd calling her name.
Even through the stone of the walls, she could hear a crowd now, its cries building in intensity as it demanded the violence to follow. Ceres could hear the emotion there, and she knew that either it could be sated the way Lucious wanted, or it could be turned toward something else.
They made it almost to the floor of the Stade before any guards challenged them. They rumbled through the outer gates without comment, then on through the inner workings of the arena. Only when they got to the iron gates leading to the sands did the guards there step in the way, drawing swords at the sight of them. Even they looked confused, as if this might still all be a mistake.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” one said.
Ceres shook her head. “This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
She threw off the chains that formed her disguise, rushed past the others, and slammed into the first guard. The impact of it was enough to knock him back into the wall beside it. He slid down it into unconsciousness.
Ceres was already moving. She stepped past the second guard’s thrust, catching his sword and wrenching it from his hands. She threw him into the group of rebels with her, and she wasn’t surprised to see a chain quickly wrapped around his throat, strangling him until he collapsed.
Ceres saw her brother start forward, but she shook her head. “Wait here, Sartes. I need you and the others to hold this exit, or we won’t have a way out.”
“But you can’t go in there alone,” Sartes insisted.
Ceres took the swords from the two guards, hefting one in either hand. “Trust me, little brother. I love you, and our father.”
She took a breath and stepped out into the tunnel that led to the sands of the Stade. The closer she got, the more she could hear the cheers and the catcalls of the crowd, the sound washing over her like the roar of the ocean. On the sands, she could see men she recognized, combatlords she’d trained beside and who had been there with the rebellion.
They stood with their favored weapons in a loose circle, each too far from the next to reach quickly. Even the partial armor they normally wore in the Stade was gone, leaving them vulnerable and exposed. This wasn’t a combat for them to survive.
Over it all, Ceres heard Lucious’s voice calling down from the royal box.
“People of Delos. My subjects. Peasants. Today you get to witness the deaths of slaves and traitors. They die for your entertainment, but as more than that. Remember as you see them cut down the power of the Empire. Remember the price of rising against your rightful rulers!”
From where she was, Ceres could see Lucious standing on the balcony as a single golden point surrounded by mercenary bodyguards. Anger filled her then, at everything he was, at everything he’d done to her, her family and to the people of the Empire.
“These so-called combatlords will be permitted to fight for your amusement,” Lucious said. “They will fight to the death, and the last to remain standing will be allowed to live, even given his freedom!”
Ceres saw the combat lords stand in place, looking at one another as though none wanted to be the first to move.
“If you will not fight, I will have you put down like the slaves you are,” Lucious snapped. “I will have soldiers come in and execute you on your knees. Isn’t it better to have a chance of living? Isn’t it better to die on your feet?”
Ceres had put up with enough. She stepped out onto the sands, feeling them swirl up around her as the wind caught them.
“What will you really do with the last man, Lucious?” she called out, and at the sound of her voice, the Stade seemed to go uncomfortably silent around her. “Will you murder him quietly, the way you tried to with me? Will you say you changed your mind, the way you’ll change your mind about holding back from hurting the common people? What will your excuse be?”
Ceres saw Lucious’s eyes on her, and she could see the hatred there.
“Ceres, there you are,” he called over the quiet of the Stade. “Don’t you know when you’re beaten? As for excuses… I’m a prince. I don’t need any.”
Ceres heard the whispers and the murmurs travelling around the Stade then. Questions, expressions of surprise, the need to know if it was really her. Ultimately, just one word came, again and again, subtle as the wind through a forest.
“Ceres. Ceres.”
Lucious looked round in obvious anger at the sound of her name. “Enough,” he yelled. “I’ll have anyone chanting for her killed! As for the rest of you… the man who kills Ceres gets to live without fighting the rest!”
Ceres waited for the combatlords to descend on her. At least one would take Lucious’s offer, and once one did, the rest would follow. Yet none moved. One, a barrel-chested man with a golden beard hanging almost to his waist, took one hand from the haft of an axe to make a rude gesture.
“You’ll give us our freedom, will you?” he demanded. “And what kind of freedom would that be? I’ll take my freedom, lad! I’ll take it from you and all those like you, or die trying!”
Ceres knew an opportunity when she heard one.
“All of you,” she called to the crowd. “Do you want to live only as long as Lucious gives you leave to? Do you want peace only until the next time the Empire chooses to take all that you have? They’ve given you peace, but the price is that nothing changes! You can change it, all of you!”
“The only thing that will change here,” Lucious said, “is your shift into the land of the dead! If these slaves won’t do it, my men will. Kill them all!”
Ceres heard the sound of horns, and gates opened around the Stade. It reminded her of the moments when they’d released great beasts for her to fight, except this time, armored men poured in. Soldier after soldier filed into the Stade, moving to encircle Ceres’s group, cutting off their escape. Still they came.
“So many,” one of the combatlords said.
Ceres heard another laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t want it said that it took less than a full legion of them to bring down Naras of Grey Mountain!”
Ceres stood there, watching the soldiers keep coming, and she knew she had to do something. More than that, there was only one obvious thing to do. She charged.
She blurred into the ranks of the soldiers, cutting left and right in the midst of the strange calm the forest folk had taught her. She spun and thrust with techniques she’d first learned as a combatlord, and, when one of the soldiers tried to grab her, Ceres felt her
powers lash out automatically, leaving nothing but stone behind.
“Ceres! Ceres!”
She heard the chanting of the crowd start as she fought. She ducked a sword stroke and cut out at ankle height, then leapt high to kick a soldier back into two others. She parried a slash, then grabbed a soldier and threw him with all the strength her blood gave her.
Around her, Ceres saw the combatlords fighting for their lives. They had no armor, and none of the discipline of the soldiers, but each one was already starting to cut down foes. Ceres saw the bearded one swinging his axe in arcs that left crimson trails of blood behind, while another whirled a spear, darting it past shields into the ranks of those behind them.
Each of them fought like ten men or more, but to Ceres even the combatlords looked slow. She cut through Lucious’s troops as easily as some noble lady taking a stroll through a garden, plucking blooms as she went. She leaned back from a sword cut, sliced through an enemy’s arm, and then unleashed a burst of killing force that flung soldiers back from her.
“Ceres! Ceres!”
For a moment, Ceres had space to think, and she could hear the crowd truly cheering her now. But cheering her wasn’t enough. Eventually, this many soldiers might bring even her down, but they couldn’t bring down the whole crowd.
“Stop sitting there and watching,” Cere yelled above the clash of metal on metal. “If you want to be free, you can’t leave it to someone else! You have to fight for yourselves!” She dodged a charge, cutting a soldier across the back. “Fight now! Take your destiny in your own hands!”
Ceres fought, and even with all the times she’d fought before, this one felt different. The powers within her seemed to pulse in harmony with her every movement. She cut and fought with speed and strength greater than anything she could have imagined before, yet it still felt as though she was simply fitting into the way things needed to be, exactly as she’d been taught. She knew without having to think exactly where to put her blades next, keeping moving, never stopping in one place for long.
