‘You go. Unus follow!’ he urged as Max ran to the door and turned the handle. It scraped open with a low groan revealing a large, musty room lit only by a single torch. Right at the back, and silhouetted in the torchlight, was a winding stone staircase. So far so good.
‘See if it’s clear?’ I urged Max. ‘I’ll check the last cell for the others.’
‘I’m not losing you again, Tal.’
He grabbed the stubby key from my hand and crossed to the last door. The clatter of marching feet was getting louder and I glanced down the long corridor nervously. I wouldn’t be surprised if Octavia had dispatched her entire army after us.
The lock in this door was harder to persuade, as though it hadn’t been turned in a while. When it finally relented, the large door swung inwards revealing a similar-sized, musty-smelling cell. I held our torch high and stepped into the darkness. If Aelia and August were inside there really was no time to be lost. Then I froze momentarily.
Something was tickling my bare legs, something cold and slithery. Jumping back, I called out a warning to the others and threw the torch to the floor. The sight that met my eyes was as arresting as it was horrifying: wall to wall, writhing snakes everywhere, only these snakes weren’t the pythons or boas of home. These snakes had crawling hands, and red humanoid eyes that burned my thoughts as they turned to hiss in the darkness.
‘Move!!’ I half-screamed, half-choked as I stumbled from the room, pulling Unus and Max with me. Unus tried to close the door, but the snakes were already filling the doorway. We fled without a backward glance. Whatever we’d freed was a nightmare of Octavia’s making, and it was time she learned that sometimes, nature bit back.
‘Leave them! Run!’ I yelled, pulling the others towards the staircase. I caught a brief glimpse of the battalion of foot soldiers down the long corridor as we stumbled through. Simultaneously, they broke rank and gave chase.
‘Bring it on!’ I thought, as the hissing and slithering of serpentine beasts filled the stone corridor behind us. The soldiers’ commands quickly turned to shouts of terror as they ran directly into the pathway of the new horror emerging from Octavia’s dungeons, but we sprinted up the roughly cut steps without looking back. There had to be a good reason why Octavia kept any of her creations under permanent lock and key.
Max ran ahead of me and I concentrated on the sound of his rapid footsteps, making light work of the steep stone steps. It was Unus who tired first, his heavy thudding pace slowing with each twist of the staircase. I caught hold of Max’s tunic and made him pause. There was no way we were leaving him behind. Unus came around the corner, his face red and his one eye blinking back the rivulets of sweat pouring from his near-bald head.
‘Unus wait, catch breath,’ I told him, alarmed by his deep colour.
He smiled through his panting, but shook his head. ‘Big snakes move fast. Unus seen before. No stop.’
We turned in unison. If Unus considered we needed to run, there was little doubt in my head we’d unleashed monsters, right in the heart of Octavia’s own lair.
We continued at sprint pace until we finally rounded a corner, and came face to face with another thick, heavy door. Max pulled at the rusted handle and much to my relief, it groaned inwards. After a few seconds Unus appeared, and Max and I yanked him through the doorway before pitching our shoulders against the wood and heaving the door closed. This was a one-way trip.
I held up Unus’s torch as he recovered his breath, and surveyed our new surroundings. We’d emerged in some sort of armoury room and there were harnesses, shields, and helmets covering every inch of wall. There were also gladiatorial-style weapons – knives, machetes, axes – but I had little doubt our newly acquired Diasords were the best weapons we could equip ourselves with in this place. I swallowed hard. There was a bitter, acrid scent lingering in this room, and though I’d struggled to identify it at first, I knew exactly what it was now. Blood.
‘Let’s find the others,’ I whispered, before running to the arched exit and checking around the corner. There was another long corridor ahead, interspersed with arches fortified by strong iron bars. I knew instinctively there was life beyond each. I couldn’t be sure what kind of life, but I could sense it was there all the same. This had to be where Octavia incarcerated her victims, ready to terrify and torture in the Flavium.
My mood darkened, and I swallowed the impulse to throw open every door. Aelia and August’s faces loomed to the forefront of my mind and I drew a deep breath. Should I be fearing the very worst for them? A sickening chill crept into my stomach, the same chill that had invaded my bones when Mum told me Dad had died. I gritted my teeth. August and Aelia didn’t deserve my loyalty. I had to stay strong.
It was the noise that puzzled me at first. It reminded me of voices echoing in the Ring at home, hundreds of voices talking all at once. Max frowned and took the lead, creeping forward stealthily and taking care not to pass too close to the bars. Occasionally our progress was punctuated by distressed grunts. Whatever was in the cells knew we were there too.
After a few minutes of wondering if the red-eyed serpents had unwittingly proven a more effective adversary to Octavia’s battalion than ever expected, the tunnel opened out into a circular room. We trod forward carefully, looking for an exit. It appeared to be completely empty except for a large white grille that lay flat against the entire ceiling.
Suddenly, and without warning, the ceiling receded faster than I could watch, and light and noise spilled through the grille. Instinctively, we dived back towards the cover of the tunnel, but another iron grille dropped swiftly into place, leaving us no exit. My chest contracted sharply, my fragile confidence gone. Had we walked right into a trap?
We didn’t have long to consider the question before there was a loud cranking sound that slowly intensified. We gripped each other in terror. The whole room was beginning to move and shake.
‘Max!’ I screamed as the floor began to rise, taking us with it. The circular grille above our heads groaned as it slid back, allowing us to rise right through the ceiling. There was no going back now, we were being propelled upwards whether we liked it or not.
We emerged through the ceiling to the overwhelming sound of thunderous, overlapping applause and voices, and when my eyes finally adjusted, I could do little but stare in cold horror at the terrifying view. There were thousands upon thousands of finely dressed Pantheonites encircling us in a huge arena, and as our circular floor jolted to a halt, we were trapped centre-stage.
High stone walls separated us from the many rows of raised seating, and massive screens stretched around the top half of the arena, showing our flushed faces in minute detail. How long had they been watching us? Since we reached the Flavium? Since the tunnels? Since Cassius tried to force himself on me? I stared in denial at the nightmare scene unfolding around us.
We’d been played to perfection. We’d run blindly through Octavia’s primal lair, to reach the heart of her deviant games, and nothing could be more clear. This was the moment it had all been leading up to. Execution.
Chapter Seventeen
I looked around wildly for Max and Unus. They appeared rooted to the spot, their faces white as the roar of the crowd escalated. Images of us all flashed across the screens, right back from the moment we had entered Pantheon, only cleverly manipulated to tell a story of an extreme-wing Prolet rebellion: my ambush in the medical unit, our darts raining down on Octavia in the laboratory, Max netting the guards, Unus attacking Cassius, Aelia threatening Octavia, Unus using the underground strix against their revered hell-hound Cerberus.
The travesty went on, and slowly the full impact of Octavia’s information network became clear. It was her control system. Pantheon had to be crawling with cameras recording our every move. The whole time I thought we were getting closer to Grandpa, we were actually just pawns in Octavia’s game, building up a story to be twisted and misrepresented.
The roaring crowds started to blur. There were big parts of the
story missing too. There were no images of our time spent in the Prolet underworld. It seemed Octavia’s cameras didn’t extend that far. August was also distinctly absent, as though he had never been involved. Had he been killed or worse, sold his soul once and for all? It felt like tiny shards of ice were being forced through my chest. The city of Pantheon was being sold a dark story, a story that would no doubt try to justify whatever punishment Octavia was preparing to mete out to us now.
I felt it then, something breaking, deep inside me. It left a gutsy, raw wound in its place and the type of pain that created energy and purpose. I gazed around the arena with glacial clarity. Octavia wanted a fight – she would get a fight. And she was also going to learn what being an Outsider really meant; we hadn’t survived ground zero conditions for no reason.
Rapidly I assessed the space, it was circular and punctuated by tall grilled archways. It was the same structure I’d spied from the sky train, and the exact replica of an old world Roman building called the Colosseum. I frowned and suddenly I was nine years old again, flicking guiltily through the Book of Arafel while Grandpa talked with the Council members.
In a flash I knew exactly where I’d seen the rough etching of the same structure, buried among the text of Thomas’s research notes. My head buzzed with grim excitement. Not only did I have Thomas’s cipher, I’d stake my life I now knew the final resting place of ancient Rome’s last secret.
Unus let out a long, low moan that made the hairs on the back of my neck strain. But now his fear only fired my fury.
I searched for Octavia’s gloating face among the crowds. It wasn’t hard to find. She was sitting on a long, ornate balcony above the central arches, and flanked by two Senior Equites in full military regalia – Cassius and August.
My chest constricted as though one of the giant serpents was slowly winding itself around me in a suffocating crush. August was staring straight through me, his proud Roman face schooled into a grim smile. There was no flicker of recognition or warmth, no sign that he knew me at all, just the ugly sneer of an Equite looking forward to the best sport he’d watched in a long time. Somewhere deep inside, something twisted.
Octavia placed her hand on his arm familiarly, and leaned in to whisper. He listened intently, as she threw her head back in an affected laugh, and any flame of hope I’d retained in him expired in a ball of black ash.
How does a feral girl who has seen nothing and been nowhere hold the whole damned world in her eyes?
My anger stained my sight red as his empty rhetoric echoed in my ears. Well to hell with Augustus Aquila. Octavia was going to give my family back, or I was going to die trying.
A strange warlike cry escaped my parted lips as I pelted straight across the dirt floor towards Octavia’s balcony. Her waxen face cracked into a delighted, superficial grin as the screen magnified my action, and the crowd roared. They thought I was some feral animal hellbent on trouble, while they were the ones blindly baying for blood. It was perfect irony.
‘No, Tal!’
Max’s roar echoed remotely in my ears, and I felt him chasing behind, but I was always lighter and faster. That much hadn’t changed. I reached the arch beneath Octavia in no time and assessed the distance. It had to be twenty feet high but had a sculpted overhang a few feet below. With a determined leap I sprang forwards and caught the lowest rib with my fingertips. It was enough, and I swung up with ease, my feet grazing Max’s fingertips.
‘Tal, don’t be a bloody fool,’ he yelled in desperation. ‘This is exactly what she wants – a show! Damn this place to hell!’
The fear in Max’s voice was hard to ignore, but I was done with rationalizing. I needed to be face to face with her. I stood up and grasped the bottom of the railed balcony above me. The whole arena fell silent as I bent and sprang lightly, hooking my slender right leg over the narrow overhang. It was only a matter of seconds then before I’d scaled the rest like a spider monkey, and stood defiantly on top of the balcony, opposite Octavia.
As my eyes locked with hers, I was remotely aware of August’s glinting, cold gaze. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. I was consumed with fire. I wanted Octavia to see my face, to know that she could take my family and subject me to whatever unnatural terror her mind conjured up, but she couldn’t control me. I was feral and not afraid.
A strange hush hung in the air for a second, and then her waxen face broke with a short twisted smile, snaking upwards from her thin lips. She looked older close up, and in the flash I caught a glimpse of her warped view – I was young, fertile, and represented everything she wanted to deny in the outside world. A world that was free.
Six guards rushed up behind her, their Diasords raised. I should have felt something, some instinct of self-protection perhaps, but there was nothing. Instead, I threw my head back and laughed wildly. My brittle mirth rang around the huge space eerily, and stopped as abruptly as I did. I jumped down onto my feet in front of her. Finally I was only three feet from my adversary, the monster who’d stolen my family and threatened my home. She halted the guards’ advance and drew herself up, an arrogant sneer spreading across her white skin.
‘So here we have the little rabid cat herself? What a perfect view for you to watch your insurgent friends pay for their crimes!’ she threw out, her caustic voice carrying across the arena with the help of a tiny device attached to her collar.
‘And don’t worry, we always save the best entertainment for last,’ she added in a whisper, covering the device. She was nothing, if not a master of editing.
She brought her arm down in a dramatic gesture, and an immediate commotion resounded in the arena. I looked down to see the archway grilles grinding upwards, while a terrific snarling filled the expectant air. Rivulets of disgust snaked across my skin, as I surveyed the excitement in the arena.
I spun on my feet, intending to unleash my fury on Octavia, but instead caught sight of Unus. He was alone and dwarfed in the centre of the huge arena, and the axis of my world tipped. Whatever was coming out from behind those grilles, he was not facing it alone.
I reached forward and snatching the black device from Octavia’s collar, and leapt nimbly from the balcony down onto the dusty arena floor. Max was already pelting across the floor towards Unus who was turning clumsily on the spot, trying to weigh up which black archway represented the greatest threat. He was still unusually red and wheezing from his exertion on the stairs, and I scowled. Did his genetic weakness have something to do with his heart? Aelia had mentioned Octavia’s frustration with her Genetic Programme. Was this why he’d been abandoned to the Prolet underworld? There was no time left to ponder.
‘Unus is our friend,’ I shouted as I sprinted towards him, my words echoing loudly around the arena courtesy of Octavia’s black device. The crowd roared their approval. Good, I wasn’t going anywhere quietly. I stared up wonderingly at the rows and rows of excited faces, just how many souls had been tortured in this arena? Was this how the early Christians felt before the Romans released the famished lions that ripped their bodies apart? Images of the molossers, the manticore, strix, and Cerberus flashed through my mind – it would take more than a lion to take me down now.
Unus looked almost overcome as we assembled in a small ring, back to back, unused to any show of loyalty. I watched Octavia dismiss the guards setting out to retrieve her device, and allowed myself a small grimace of satisfaction. She was interested in me, despite herself.
Suddenly the air was filled with the proclamation of a single trumpet, its fanfare precise and imperious.
‘Tal, you still have the Diasord?’ Max whispered in a hoarse voice.
I nodded curtly, aware of the many screens showing our strained faces.
‘Good, use it to get yourself out of the arena. There are four exits – one at the top of each aisle. Aim for the middle one and head for the holding bay. Take a Sweeper, get out, warn Arafel!’
‘I’m not going anywhere without you two,’ I whispered through gritted teeth, ‘or Gran
dpa and Eli!’
The single trumpet filled the air again and the snarling intensified, intermingled with high-pitched cawing. I braced myself and watched as the black voids surrounding us began to move. There was a moment of silence, and then a disorientating blur of noise, movement, and dust.
In a breath, I was surrounded by flashes of calcified grey, vibrant gold, and cruel blood-red eyes. The raking of clawed, heavy feet threw up the arena dust, shrouding us in a brown mist and making it impossible to see whatever had been released. Was it one beast or many?
‘Stick together,’ Max roared above the swirling mist, ‘until Unus and I fall, then run, Tal. You were always faster than me anyway!’
‘That’s something coming from the best tree-runner in Arafel!’ I jibed. ‘How about I race you home instead?’
Denial was so much easier than reality.
I glanced over at Max’s athletic, bruised profile; and a swell of pride threatened to consume me. Every cell of his feral body, honed by years running through trees and working long honest days in the sun, was so out of place in this dusty arena. He didn’t believe he was getting out of here alive, and would do everything within his power to make sure I did. I couldn’t let him make that sacrifice, it was my fault he was here in the first place. Everything he’d risked, he’d risked for me, unlike August.
I threw a brief look at Octavia’s balcony, his seat was empty. A wave of nausea rose within me. He’d sold his soul despite everything he had professed to be, and now he couldn’t even stay to watch. My eyes blurred momentarily and this time it wasn’t a result of the dust. I sank my teeth into my dry lips until the skin split. I had to force him from my mind.
The thunderous pace finally slowed, allowing the dust to settle and giving us our first glimpse of our adversary. I stared in awe.
We were completely surrounded by majestic eagle-like beasts, each bearing an armoured Roman soldier, with arms outstretched in Diasord salute. I could see the gold ring Equite insignia emblazoned on each soldier’s breastplate, and knew in a heartbeat this was August’s cavalry.
Book of Fire Page 22