Michael's spear was two feet away from him. This meant that he was two feet, two inches of hemp rope, and four enemy soldiers away from freeing he and Ara from the predicament he'd gotten them into.

Their hands were tied. Their four captors formed a tight box around them. The two marching behind would prod their backs with a blade if they didn't walk fast enough. Although no one else was in the torch lit passage, the roar of a crowd thundered through the stone walls.

This was the first time Ara and Michael had been allowed to look around in days. As soon as they were captured, they'd been black bagged with something that must have originally been carrying rotten potatoes.

Annoyance made Michael grind his teeth. The whole time, his spear had been strapped to the back of the chattiest of his guards.

"You'll get a choice of one weapon before we toss you down," the tall, Hispanic boy prattled. "I assumed you would want to use your own weapons, so I kept them for you. I would rather die with my own weapon in hand than a stranger's."

That spear hadn't done Michael any good yet. After he'd endured his trials at the Wolf House, it waited uselessly by his bunk while he did his marching training. Ara would prefer her own weapon though.

Michael risked a glance over to the centurion.

Her chin was raised, like she was trying to inhale less musky air. Despite their lack of food and the proper sleep, she looked calm and controlled. Dirt from the bag dusted her boy-cut, blond hair to a light brown. Her conniving, hazel eyes flicked between the two guards ahead of them, strategizing.

The day before—or so Michael thought, it was hard to tell with a bag over his head—they took her away for a few hours. Chris, the babbling guard, said it was to "talk" to some guys named Jak-Jak and Luke about Rome's defenses. From what he heard, it sounded like Jak-Jak was trying to serenade Ara with a guitar. When she got back though, and Michael touched her leg with his foot, he could feel her shaking. He was glad the tenacity hadn't left her face after that encounter.

"Pft, you're not good enough with a weapon to call it your own," the female guard beside Chris giggled.

"Shut up Mary!" Chris whined.

Those two had been playfully bickering the entire time, while the guards behind them stayed completely mute. He'd have forgotten they were there if it weren't for the occasional spear jab.

As the two guards bantered, Michael's mind reeled for an escape. Ara normally saved everyone—she was known for coming up with ingenious ideas, but Michael refused to wait. She'd managed to get them free from their bindings once, but a hellhound cornered them until Chris, Mary, and the other two came running. Now it was his turn.

"Here's the entrance," Chris stated.

There was a six by six hole in the wall on the right. Although he'd grown accustomed to the darkness, he could barely make out the structure below.

The opposite side of the hole lacked a floor, instead providing a six foot drop into a room filled with discarded armor. A single candle flickered dimly on the floor, beside… a video camera?

The reek of something spoiled wafted to greet them.

Michael wasn't ready for them to stop walking.

"This entrance will disappear once you're down there," Chris said with the solemn repetitiveness of an officer whose only job was to deliver death notifications. "Um… is there anything you want me to tell your loved ones?" He rubbed the back of his head, eyes sinking to the floor. "I can't guarantee they'll immediately get word of your death or your message, but I can try to get it over as fast as possible."

Ara's stoic silence was her only response.

Although Michael spoke to their captors as little as possible, he found himself asking, "What is this place?"

Chris frowned. When their gaze met, Michael saw how regret and reluctance dug dark trenches around Chris' eyes.

A growl hummed out of the darkness, soothing and sweet as the clank of wind chimes.

The thunder of the crowd echoed in response.

This is the end.

The realization made Michael dizzy. His mouth salivated. "Tell Gwendolyn I l… tell her she'll make it to college and she'll do great there," he whispered.

Chris nodded. "I hope never to meet her in person, but I'll do my best to see the message delivered. Your name is Michael?"

Michael nodded.

"I'm Chris Rodriguez. It was nice to meet you Michael. I hope he doesn't take his time with you."

The pile of armor cushioned their fall more than Michael expected.

"—Alfred Blackwell—" a voice echoed from above, far past the hole Chris pushed them out of.

Ara hit the ground first and gagged.

He didn't understand why until the stench engulfed him. His shoulder slammed into one of the breast plates.

"—Xiao Long Xie—"

As Camp Jupiter was right by a major road, he was no stranger to the aroma of road kill, but this was different. The putrid fetor of rotting meat hit harder than a splash of Venus's perfume. Even breathing through his mouth didn't help.

Then he realized what smelled: they hadn't landed on a pile of armor.

"—and Karina Esposito are the names of your decaying comrades around you," the voice said, silky and deep. It reminded him of that rock artist from Nine Inch Nails. "Once you're done vomiting, may we add your names to the list for the pleasure of the next participants?"

Michael threw up as soon as he rolled off the bodies.

Karina had been on probatio with him before she went missing, two months ago. He could remember her tripping him outside the bathhouse, right before he was about to say hi to Gwen. She'd disappeared on a trip to visit her parents in the Carolinas. They sent scouts looking for her.

Michael stared at the pile. There must have been at least six bodies. Karina had been here.

Two thunks of metal followed their fall, but Michael couldn't bother to see what they were.

When Ara cut away at his bindings with her sword, he continued to stare.

She struck him. "Michael," she hissed.

Michael shook his head. Though he trembled, he shot to his feet at attention.

Ara shoved his spear into his hand.

Something fluttered near her head.

Michael reflexively stabbed at it. The object whizzed to the side, then fluttered back into place.

It was the video camera. Little mechanical wings buzzed on either side of it like the rapid beat of a hummingbird. "Name please," a speaker on it repeated, the same voice that listed off the bodies.

Like the words were being projected, they echoed above.

From what Michael could tell, the din of the crowd had gone silent.

They were being broadcasted. Their death would be broadcasted to that crowd. The nausea started to wear down his stomach again.

Ara scowled defiantly at the camera. "I am Megara Laskaris—Centurion of the Second Cohort, daughter of Kratos and I will avenge my brethren," she snarled.

Another rumble reverberated off the walls, like they were laughing.

The camera buzzed lower, closer to Michael's face. "Is the other Roman too scared to crow?" it asked.

Michael cleared his throat. He shook violently. For Ara's sake, he wanted to shout with bravado, but he heard his teeth chatter through his response. "I am M-Michelangelo Russo, son of M-Minerva, on probatio for the Second Cohort."

"Pleased to meet you again Meg and Mike. You may recognize this as the voice of Jak-Jak." Michael thought he saw the determination on Ara's face falter. "I will be your host this evening. A section of the Labyrinth has been cornered off in your honor—but wait! That means, if you can lose this camera or the Leonis Caput, you can run free! Oh my, a chance of escape!"

The Leonis Caput.

Michael was glad he could steady himself with his spear.

That was supposed to only be a myth, to keep Romans away from the Labyrinth, as if the other monsters and the madness weren't enough. If the Leonis Caput were real…

"We'll even give you a ten second head start before we release him. Starting… ten… nine…"

"Michael, to my side. Protect our right flank," Ara directed.

She stepped deeper into the room.

"Eight… seven…"

Quickly, Michael assumed position beside her. The room had two different exits, one on either side. Both had dim candlelight flickering against the stone floors and walls. Michael still had to squint to see. From what was visible, neither room had a pile of bodies like this one.

"Six…" the camera followed them through the left opening.

"Michael, if I buy you time, can you weave a net out of my cloak?" Ara asked. He couldn't believe how composed she was. Maybe she thought they could get away.

"Five…"

Michael wanted to break that camera and the microphone inside. "Yes," he said. If there was one thing he was proud to be mocked for, it was his skill with materials. Trying to steady his hands, he grabbed for her cloak.

Ara unclasped it, letting him catch the fabric.

"Four…"

They needed a strategic spot to lure this beast. According to the stories, it was invulnerable but—as they'd been reminded over and over again by the Second Cohort's Lar—everything had an Achilles heel.

He kept his spear pinned between his right elbow and ribcage. Michael's hands went on auto pilot as he scanned their right side. When he glanced behind them, he saw the doorway they'd exited had disappeared. Their current hallway lacked a ceiling and curved blindly half a football field in front of them. The wall on one side stopped about eight feet up. Torches lined the edge, sparse enough to keep patches of total blackness along the curves. On the other side, the wall expanded upward into the darkness, little windows randomly dotting the stones.

It was almost impossible to keep tabs on potential threat zones.

"Three…"

"Shut up Jak-Jak!" Michael suddenly snapped. He surprised himself with his exclamation, feeling none of the bravery he espoused, "Your voice is annoying!"

Ara flashed Michael a smile of approval.

Hope, he reminded himself, we still have hope.

"Ready or not, here he comes!" the camera buzzed happily.

The grind of metal creaked through the Labyrinth. Michael flinched. He could envision, somewhere, a gate being dragged open.

Another purr reverberated through the dank air. This time, the rhythmic growl felt closer.

"We need to get to higher ground," Michael whispered.

Ara nodded, not needing an explanation. She gestured to the eight foot wall. "We can't see up there," she stated.

He knew the risk, but it felt right.

They checked around their corridor.

When they saw no one coming, and heard nothing but the buzz of the camera, Ara knelt down to help boost Michael onto the ledge with the torches.

He felt naked leaving the spear and partially completed net with her, but there was no way he could clasp the edge with them. He had hoped his hand would be able to encompass the full width of the wall. No such luck.

Once he finished pulling himself up, he found the wall wasn't a wall at all, but another floor, tiered from the corridor below. There was maybe a ten foot length of floor space from the drop off he'd just climbed to the next wall. This next wall reached up another eight feet before—Michael assumed from his architectural knowledge—folding into another floor, into another tier. There was a window in the wall in front of him. Maybe they were scaling the edge of some kind of stepped ziggurat, with windows in every tier. From what he heard about the Labyrinth, he doubted it. This place wasn't supposed to have logic. That's why children of Minerva were rumored to lose their sanity first here.

When Ara poked him with his spear, he jumped. Quickly, he lifted up his weapon and set it beside him. The net came up next, hooked onto the spear. Finally, Ara made a run jump, and he caught her arm to help her up the rest of the way.

No noise yet from the Leonis Caput, other than that first growl. The crowd had gone silent. The quiet was worse than the prior din. Even the camera settled on the window ledge in the wall behind them, so its buzz disappeared.

Ara broke one of the torches off the edge of the tier. After checking the window and declaring that the interior fell twenty feet into an inner chamber, Ara took watch beside him. "There are bars along that walls," she observed, pointing to the one furthest away, across the corridor they'd climbed out of.

Michael hadn't noticed them before, but there were thin bars extended diagonally from window to window on the wall that stretched straight from the floor to the… assumed ceiling. They didn't look stable enough to scale.

"Finish up the net," Ara commanded.

Michael had barely stopped working, but the silence was getting to him. He wished something would make noise. All he could hear currently was the sound of his own heartbeat thudding inside his head.

At least the smell wasn't so horrible up here.

"You have a thing for my sister?" Ara asked.

Michael glanced at her. Ara's lips were pressed together. Her knuckles were white against her sword grip. Her centurion medal gleamed dully in the torchlight. Despite looking so relaxed, the hush must have unnerved her as well.

"Hm?" he asked, pretending he hadn't heard.

"Gwen," she clarified, eyes narrowing as she scanned their surroundings.

Michael let his eyes unfocus on the wall across from them, the one with the bars and multiple windows. "She is a compassionate and kind leader—" he started to say.

"You're going to make me throw up again," Ara chided.

Throw up. The memory of their fellow comrades unceremoniously rotting in the other room made both of them wince.

"I could set something up for the two of you," Ara offered after a moment. "When we get out of here."

When we get out of here…

"I would like that," Michael admitted. "Maybe a walk through the unicorn fiel—"

"I was thinking an extra training session. You've been on marching duty and need some combat practice. Gwen needs a punching bag."

Michael didn't hear her joke.

A dark mass crawled from a window opposite them, scaling along the bars with the nimbleness of an acrobat and the speed of a snake. The creature itself was silent, but the metal rattled as it slunk down to the next window. A faint golden glow emanated off its fur.

Neither of them had time to react before it disappeared into the next window down. Michael thought—for a half a second—of throwing his spear. The monster had been defenseless. But that was the problem. It was like it wanted them to attack it.

Now it was gone.

The unnerving quiet returned.

Michael gritted his teeth. He hadn't realized that he'd risen to his feet. The net was complete in his hands.

Ara stood still by his side, eyes surveying the area.

Another growl vibrated around them. The inhuman sound made him tremble. They shouldn't have been making plans to fight the Leonis Caput. They should have taken off running and tried to lose the camera before the countdown ended.

Fear magic. Michael tried to calm his thoughts—his brain was his best tool and he couldn't let it choke up over anxiety. Was the growling some kind of fear magic?

In their monster fighting classes, they'd memorized the traits of every mythological beast, so they would know how to use their weaknesses against them. This one was new, but it must have similar traits to other monsters.

The camera buzzed to life, making Michael jump. It darted from the window behind them, flew over their heads and refocused on them at a direct 180 of its previous position, almost exactly where they'd seen the Leonis Caput crawl.

Come on. You're a child of Minerva, Michael internally berated. There must be something you can think of to give us an advantage.

If he were filming a movie, he would make sure the monster was always just on the peripheral of the shot. And the Labyrinth isn't designed in a logical manner so—

Michael followed the camera's focus, to the tiered wall behind them, to the single window, where a pair of reflective eyes gleamed back.

"Ara—" was all he could shout as the Leonis Caput lunged out of the window.