Page 7 of Thawed Gladiator: Varro

I stumble, my legs giving out beneath me, and I fall to my knees in the dirt. A soldier is on me in an instant, his boot pressing into my ribs with enough force to hurt, but not keep me from traveling. I cry out, pain exploding through my body, but he only laughs and hauls me to my feet.

“Keep moving, slave,” he snarls, his breath hot and stinking against my face. “You’ll walk until you can’t walk anymore, and then you’ll crawl.”

I stagger forward, my vision blurring with tears of pain and rage. The memories of my family flicker through my mind, a bittersweet torment I can’t escape.

Though I didn’t see it, I conjure a picture of my mother, eyes wide with terror as the soldiers dragged her away. I imagine my father’s screams, his blood splattering the earth as they cut himdown. And my sisters… I can’t bear to think of what became of them, of the horrors they must have endured.

The march stretches on, day after day. The landscape changes, from the rolling hills of Hispania to the rocky, unforgiving terrain of the Pyrenees Mountains. But the cruelty of the soldiers never wavers, their hearts as hard and unyielding as the stones beneath our feet.

Suddenly, a commotion breaks out ahead. A soldier has singled me out, his eyes glinting with malice as he raises his whip. Though I don’t know what I did to deserve his malice, I brace myself for the blow, my body tensing in anticipation of the searing pain.

But the blow never comes. Instead, a voice rings out, sharp and authoritative. “Halt!”

I look up to see an officer on horseback, his crimson cloak billowing in the wind. He is a man of importance, that much is clear from his clothing, bearing, and the deference the soldiers show him.

The officer dismounts, his eyes narrowing as he takes in the scene before him. “What is the meaning of this?” he demands, his voice cold and cutting.

The soldier stammers out an excuse, but the officer silences him with a wave of his hand. “Enough,” he snaps. “I’ll deal with you later.”

“Yes, Centurion Servius.”

He turns to me, his gaze appraising. “What’s your name, boy?” he asks, his tone softening slightly.

“Varro,” I reply, my voice hoarse from thirst and disuse.

The officer nods, his eyes roaming over my face and body. “You’re a pretty one,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Straight nose, long black hair, a body that will fill out nicely with proper nourishment and exercise. Marcus Fabius Gracchus, one of themost influential Senators in Rome, will pay highly for a slave like you.”

Disgust crawls along my veins like skittering spiders. My father was training me to one day be thepaterfamilias, head of the house, but even at my current age of twelve, I’ve heard stories. I know what men like this wants from boys like me, and the thought fills me with dread.

But the officer doesn’t act on his desires. Instead, he turns to the soldiers, his voice ringing with authority. “This boy is not to be harmed,” he commands. “He is valuable property, and I will personally ensure his safe delivery to Rome.”

The soldiers nod, their eyes downcast. They know better than to argue with a man of his rank.

The officer mounts his horse again, then reaches down, offers me his hand, and hauls me up in front of him. I feel the heat of his body against my back, the firmness of his thighs pressing against mine. It’s a disturbing sensation, but I’m too exhausted and grateful to care.

And so we ride on, the officer’s arm wrapped around my waist. Perhaps to keep me from jumping off, perhaps to have an excuse to have his hand on my flesh. The journey is still grueling, the mountains steep and treacherous. But with his protection, I’m spared the worst of the other soldiers’ cruelty.

At times, I feel the officer’s gaze on me, heavy with lust and desire. But he doesn’t act on it, doesn’t take what he so clearly wants. Perhaps he fears damaging his valuable property, or maybe he has some shred of decency left in him.

Whatever the reason, I’m grateful for his restraint. It’s a small mercy in a world that has shown me so little.

As we travel dusty trails, my thoughts turn to my family, to the love and warmth that once filled my life. The memories are bittersweet, a reminder of all I have lost.

But I cling to them nonetheless, to the hope that someday, somehow, I will find a way to honor their memory. To make theirloss mean something more than just another casualty of Rome’s endless hunger for power.

And so I endure, through the pain and the despair, through the unrelenting threat of the soldiers’ cruelty and the unforgiving terrain of the mountains. I endure because I must. I have no other choice.

Chapter Seven

Laura

The wind whips across my face as I pick my way through the scrub bushes down to the shore. It took long days for the storm to blow itself out and this is the first time it was safe to walk to the shore from the compound.

The zodiac is missing from the beach. Obviously washed out to sea in the high waves. I stand still for a moment as I acknowledge that was my last hope of getting off this island.

I turn my attention toThe Endurance. Or what’s left of it. The boat looms ahead, a twisted, mangled wreck that juts out from the rocky coastline like a broken tooth.

I approach cautiously. Though I’ve only been alone on this island for a few days, I find that I’m talking to myself without a second thought.

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