WARNING: This story contains nonconsensual sex with minors and gore. I am giving this an R rating because there is nothing graphic about it to merit an NC-17, but if talk of rape squeaks you or you don't want to read about violence, please delete this now.

Title: War (1/1)

Series/Sequel: The fifth in the Reincarnation Series.

Author: Vera

Rating: hard R

Summary: Through the centuries of human history, two souls are bound together. This fifth tale takes place in Athens, 410 B.C.E . The timeline may skip, but it will end in the present.

Disclaimer: The boys belong to Sandra, I just like to mess with them.

Archive: Yes

Feedback: Always appreciated.

Notes: Each title will tell you what separates the souls. I don't know if I believe in reincarnation or not, but it makes for fertile story telling ground. This was not written with the intent of offending any religion. I have done research on the historical facts mentioned within, the characters are fictional, but the location and culture are not.

The darkness of night had stolen over the city-state of Athens like a ghost. Morpheus was stirring from his day long slumber to begin his work afresh on the minds of those under his jurisdiction. Deep in the finer houses of the city, the streets buzzed with life as the evening's festivities began.

Through crowded and crouched palatial homes a courier with package in tow arrived at the back door of one fine estate. A discreet manservant awaited the delivery and handed the man his bag of dinars. He caught the delivery by the collar and dragged it deeper into the house, coming at last to the master's bedroom.

"Stay." Growled the rough voice. A knock and a door slid open, the soft lisping whisper of a man already far gone into his cups.

"Ohhh...pretty one. Come to me child and do not shake so."

A slight square of light fell into the darkened corridor from the open door. For a moment it illuminated the harsh profile of the manservant and the thing in his care: a boy about eleven years old. A long fat arm snaked out from behind the door and drew the boy closer.

"Anything else, master?"

"Leave us."

One last frightened look from the boy, a slamming of the door and the soft retreating steps of the servant. Minutes later, the hall was filled with screams of terror and pain coupled with deeper moans of satisfaction.

Deep in the hidden shadows of the hall, the only son of the moaning man stood as still as a mouse, listening. He had followed the servant out of curiosity and boredom, then out of interest in the young boy he had led into his father's den. The son knew intimately what the noises that emanated from the bedroom meant. Until a little less then a year ago, it has been his flesh that was so abused. So grateful had he been for reprieve of this nightly torture that he had put it out of his mind almost entirely. If he did think of it at all, it was to shudder and weep in the darkness of the night. Never had he considered that his father would replace him with another.

He stood in the corridor a long time, frozen in place by fear and anxiety. Eventually, a snore could be heard coming from the master's suite along with the soft sobs of the boy. His legs grew stiff from standing, his eyes ached from repressed tears. Finally, he made his way through the darkened tunnels, to his own bed. Sleep overcame him instantly. His dreams were tortured and fragmented, echoing with sobs so distant he could not tell if it was his own throat or that of the slave's uttering them.

*

For months he returned nightly to the corridor, drawn there by something outside of him. Stood stock-still listening to the ugly moans that quaked his body. The cries of the child had stopped now. He instead wept softly from the beginning until long after snores could be heard.

He knew that he had to do something, but he had no power over his life. His mother was little more then a distant figure to him and the nurses that had raised him had long since given way to mentors who never saw the master of the house. Even if they did, it wouldn't have shocked them to hear about his going ons. It was expected that a man should crave the fruits of Eros once and a while.

Just once he had tried to articulate the horror of his father's nightly visits to one of his mentors, one he thought he could trust. Xeroxes had laughed in his face, spittle flying widely from between rubbery lips.

"Carolas! Be an adult now and forget about the silly things of childhood. These were games your father played with you to ready you for the world. Now recite the verse..."

He had never spoken of it again. Over time, he had come to reconcile his reality with the words of his teacher. His father had been right to hurt him. It had made him stronger and smarter. One day, when he had a son, he would do the same to him.

And yet....

He stood transfixed by the soft cries of a single slave who suffered as he had suffered and somehow, he could not believe that this was right. So he returned, to bear witness for now. To try and find his place.

Months went by.

The slave who Carolas had seen only once became the subject of his every dream. He turned thirteen and several weeks later had his first wet dream. The terror of it kept him away from his father's door for the first time since the night of the slave's arrival.

One night became two. Two became three.

He stayed away for three weeks and began to forget.

*

"Come Carolas, I am taking you to the Senate today. It is time that you see the world around you."

He had not seen his father in four months. The man loomed as large as he always did and together they set out to the local Senate. The day was glorious and Carolas reveled in the glory of adulthood. No longer could his father touch him, no longer could those around him just ignore him as if he did not exist. In three more years he would marry and be a man in his own rights, free and independent. He was not allowed into the meeting, but wandered the plaza looking at the fine statuary.

It was only as he came to the sculpture of Hercules fighting Medusa with his young cousin Iolaus by his side that he remembered one who was not so lucky. The nameless slave would never know freedom. Once he grew too old to hold Corbin's attention, he would most likely be disposed of. The thought was unacceptable for reasons that Carolas could not explain.

He began to plan.

Late that night, he went to the family shrine. Athena stood tall and terrible there, her armor coated with blood of past sacrifices and her eyes as unreadable as the stars. As a child Carolas had been taken here to watch the ceremonies. The first time he had screamed with terror as the goat's throat was slit over the cold stone statue. His nurse had boxed him soundly for interrupting the ceremony. He hadn't screamed again.

Now, he bowed before the alter and laid forth the body of a chicken that he had stolen from the kitchens. It was freshly slaughtered by his own hands, its' feathers still warm to the touch. Death of animals had long since ceased to hold terror for him. Access to the gods required it.

"Athena." He murmured to stone sandaled feet. "Hear my plea as I bring forth this sacrifice onto you. You who are knowledgeable in the ways of strategy and war. You who over came Poseidon in a battle of wits. I beg you to hear my voice and grant my wish. Help my wits to be sharp and my feet quiet, assist me in my time of need."

Silently, he rose and walked away, leaving the dead bird to bleed sluggishly onto the pedestal. Let the priests wonder who had dared to make a sacrifice without them, he did not much care for them anyway. Athena knew his plans now and she would help or not as she wished.

Soft steps brought him to his father's door. The snores were predictably seeping through the hall and even the creaking of the door did not disturb the slumbering patrician from his bed. The boy was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head tucked into his knees, arms around his head.

Carolas crept farther in and with a soft hand turned the youth's face to his. Eyes widened if fright, but the boy did not speak.

"Listen well, young one." Hissed Carolas into the fearful dark eye. " I am the son of the one who sleeps. Do you understand Greek?"

A sharp nod. Good. He had feared that perhaps he was one of the imported slaves from outside of the city-state who may or may not speak the language.

"Do you wish to leave the arms of my father?"

A long slow moment as the boy calculated his next move. Another nod.

"Then listen well. I will give you tonight a blade and while he still sleeps, cut your face so that it is no longer comely to him. He will cast you aside for another and when he does, I will claim you as my own. You will serve me."

A sharp inhalation. The boy looked between the proffered blade and the slumbering man. Sharp eyes lingered over Carolas' face.

"Why should I not use this blade to take my life? Or his?" A cracked thin whisper, a voice abused by tears and disuse.

"The punishment for murder is not one which you would wish to suffer, young one. If you come into my service, you may yet live on."

"I will kill him, one day, if you let me live." The voice is solemn for all that it is high as a girl's. A promise to be kept. Carolas paused and remembered the violation of his own person. The hands that reached for him in nightmares.

"So be it. I give you my word that I will not stop you as Carolas son of Corbin."

"And I will be always your faithful servant and protector. My word as Galen the concubine."

They grasped wrists to seal the bargain. Solemnly, Carolas proffered the dagger.

The blade was taken from him and faster then Carolas had thought possible, blood poured from a cut that ran from left temple and across bruised lips. A thin pink tongue flickered out to lick away the blood.

"It was a fellow servant that cut you." Carolas managed to whisper when the shock at this sudden brutal action faded. "He wanted your place."

Galen simply nodded once more, before lying back on the bed and turning his face into the covers. The blood soaked dramatically into the soft sheets as Carolas slipped away into the night.

*

The plan should not have worked. It was far-fetched and poorly thought out by one who almost wanted himself to fail. Carolas was unsure of his own motivations and his own binding promise as an accomplice in his father's murder.

Yet, the plan worked. For weeks he had begged his mentors to speak to his father on his behalf. He needed a new manservant to attend him since he was now a man. His plea had not fallen on deaf ears, but he knew that he would receive the lowliest of slaves. One who could be spared to humor the heir of the house while he grew into adulthood. What better then the cast off concubine of the master?

Galen was presented to him, the very next morning with a poultice pressed to the hideous wound and dressed in a rough toga. They stared at each other for a long moment until Galen remembered his place and dropped his eyes to the floor.

It was the beginning of a strange and uneven friendship.

*

"Lord Helios is beginning his ride." Galen muttered to Carolas as the young man took another drink from the pitcher before him.

"Time then to return?" Carolas mocked, running a hand through dark brown hair.

The two young men were a strange picture. One a young lord, tall and proud, his shoulder length hair gleaming with oils, stood in the crowd with purpose and a wary sense of freedom. His slave stood behind him as suspicious of all who tried to come between him and his master. The slave was somewhat shorter and his hair cropped close to his head. A jagged scar marked him as clearly as his silver collar did, making him easily traceable. They were both harder for the years they had passed together, bringing them near adulthood.

There was no mischief in their lives, no funny childhood pranks to relate. Galen had taken the lives of men since becoming his master's protector and Carolas had watched impassively as the very assassins sent to kill him were laid bloody at his feet; a sacrifice to a boy deity whose only miracle had been to salvage a single concubine from the lecherous arms of his father.

Carolas had entered the Senate that year and his mere presence as the son of a vocal local politician was enough to instigate attacks on his person. Yet, he walked with no fears and left his window open at night. With Galen sleeping at the foot of his bed, he feared no one and nothing.

They went to festivals such as these because it was expected and Carolas drank to excess at them because that too was expected. His life was aimless for now, wandering. There was far off news of Sparta that hummed through the streets and thrilled him a little, but could not stop the constant ache of his pointless life.

A pointless life that Galen had come to value. The slave had goals. More of a reason to live then his master. He was going to kill Corbin. It was a single minded idea of revenge that occupied every moment that he did not spend saving the son of the very man he sought to murder. Carolas had saved him from the endless nights of torture at the hands of Corbin and for that, Galen would defend him to the ends of time. Even from himself.

"Yes, home." And laid a light hand on the pampered wrist. "Come and sleep."

"I feel always weary, Galen." The young lord babbled as they wove through the streets. Fellow celebrators were wondering back to their homes in near silent exodus as the sun rose. "Sleep cannot rest me."

"It will do you some good." Galen insisted and soon they reached the house.

Carolas' room had been cleaned while they were away, the bed freshly turned down. The drunken lord talked on as Galen undressed him and coaxed him under the covers.

"You should come lie with me, Galen." Words slurred as Galen covered his master. "I promise not to hurt you and it has been so long..."

Galen froze, fear lacing through him. A soft sigh tore him from anxiety for whatever Carolas would have said was lost to sleep. The thought of sleeping with his master had never before crossed his mind. After the brutalization of his body when his parents had sold him to Xavier, who in turn had sold him to Corbin, he could not imagine ever lying with anyone again. All his dreams of the erotic had led to terror and he would wake with a scream on his lips and trembling in his heart. As he curled onto the couch that stretched across the foot of Carolas' bed, he prayed to Fourtuna that his master's usually acute mind would let slip his drunken words.

Sleep did not come easily and by noon, Galen slipped from bed to ready a simple breakfast for himself and Carolas. Towards dusk, his master rose from the bed and found his slave staring into air. The fine profile was marred by the ugly scar which twisted perfect lips into a permanent sneer.

"Food?" He asked simply. Memories of the festival came rushing back and he soon remembered his proposition of the night before. He is far from embarrassed. Is long past the point where sex can make him feel shame or fear. His father may have scarred him, but the women to whom he turned as soon as he was of age were very welcoming. He had lost himself in them and all too often, let down his guard while he sat among the powdered simpering beauty. At sixteen, he had fallen in and out of Eros dozens of times.

But Galen was different. He was off limits, a creature that was somehow above the other slaves that attended him, but separate from the woman he used and the lords he conversed with. Galen and he....they shared phileo. Sometimes.

"There are times when we say things that we do not mean..." He began, faltering at the glint of emotion in dark brown eyes.

"It was not one of them. You say what you mean, Master Carolas. You always have. Keep your words tighter to your skin, less they wound us both." Galen advised, turning his face from his master.

"Both? I have not harmed myself through talk of such things..."

"Have you not? We need each other, Master. Should you harm me, you harm yourself and I mean not the petty kicks and blows which you sometimes rain upon me. I speak of the wounds deeper and uglier which we leave always unspoken. Let us keep it like that."

Carolas frowned, his head pounding as he sat without ceremony across from his slave. Silence fell as he worked through his nausea enough to eat. He knew that he should be disciplining Galen for even speaking to him in such a way, but could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he chose to ignore the statements made until a less fragile time when his head did not hum so with every slightest movement he made.

The pounding at the door echoed through his head in it's suddenness, firming his resolve. Galen rose gracefully and threw open the door to receive a panting messenger.

"The Lords have been called to protect Athens's. The foul Spartan government has invaded Attica and would seek to create rebellion there. War has been declared."

Carolas' turned his head and threw up onto the floor as Galen accepted the message and turned it's carrier away from the door. As he lost what little breakfast he had consumed, he lost all thoughts of Galen and longed simply for the chill arms of Charon to take him from the land of the living.

As the next week progressed, Carolas' death wish did not fade away. He cursed that gods that had chosen to make him one of the elite. The Lords of Athens were made Lords for their warrior abilities and were called upon to defend the lands as was proper in times of need. But they had not been called for many generations and although, Carolas was in fighting shape, he had never been in a battle.

The days of training passed quickly, he returned to his bed exhausted and in despair. Galen watched over his master from the moment he left the field until he had to return. The slave was for the first time since he could remember, free for hours at a time to do what he wished. Plans that for so long had been mere bedtime fantasy were being realized in logical planned out steps. He was going to kill Corbin.

He could have killed him many times before, of course. But he always he would have been caught and that meant letting Carolas going on undefended. Galen had to doubts that Carolas had earned a life time of service from him which was not to be shortened because of his own desires.

So he planned. Carefully and delicately. Until the day came that he could not argue a single point with himself any longer. The plan was together. He sat on a stool in his Master's apartment, idly twirling a knife on the table next to him. Single mindedly he allowed the plan to flow through his mind a last time and found no wrong. The knife flashed a winking silver.

"Is there any of that foreign oil left, Galen? My body aches in ways I did not believe possible and we leave for battle in two days." Carolas burst into the room, a flurry of words and motion, shedding his tough battle leathers and under-tunic.

"Yes, master."

Distractedly, he rose and found the small pitcher of oil cast in one shelf. Carolas laid down on his bed over an extra sheet, his body bare to the balmy air. With skill born of practice, Galen found the knots of in the muscular back and eased them into relaxation. He waited until Carolas was almost asleep before speaking.

"I'm going to murder him tonight." He was surprised by how calm his voice was. Muscles jumped under his hand and he was suddenly looking into fierce brown eyes.

"After all this time? You still wish..."

"I always wish it. Had I not pledged to serve you I would have done it long ago."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"You made a pledge as well, master. Will you honor it?"

Two pairs of brown eyes met and it seemed a test of wills was occurring, but it was not the case. Because Carolas had come to crave the blood of his father as much, if not more then Galen. It was the flaring up of this desire that disturbed him, not the cool way with which the boy who was closest to him spoke of cold blooded killing.

"Let your blade be like my blade that through my indifference you shall slay him."

For only the second time in their long relationship they sealed the agreement with a clasping of wrists. A promise between equals.

"You need only pledge that I was by your side, but I think that it will never come to that. I have planned carefully."

"What do you plan?"

Galen paused.

"It is better that you do not know."

"I think it is something that I deserve to know, Galen. Tell me."

The slave sat heavily next to his master and considered for a long time.

"In the evening, I will await the changing of the guards and slip into his room. His latest boy will still be in the dining hall waiting on him. His couch is large and the linens cover it well. There under will I wait for him to return and once he has completed his nightly rituals which I know as well as my own then I shall begin my work.

"Cloth will bind his mouth closed and rope will keep his arms and legs bound. The boy who lies with him will be blindfolded, so that he might live without giving evidence. Then I shall exact my revenge. First, I shall take from him the very thing he used to violate me. Then I shall break his fingers, one by one. Then his arms and then his legs. When he lies broken on the bed, then and only then shall I slaughter him with my visage the last thing he sees as he is welcomed into the pits of Tarturus."

The hideous evenness of his own voice rising and falling, enumerating these horrors, struck him oddly. He could not, at first, recognize the odd hiccupping sound that came from his own throat, it had been so long since he had uttered it. It was until a hesitant warm hand brushed away his tears that he realized he was sobbing.

"It is a fine plan." Carolas' voice seemed to come from far away, despite the warmth of his nude body pressed so near his own. "I think one that he deserves to the finest detail, but one I think, that is best left only a plan. Else why has it waited to this late date?"

"I told you." Galen muttered through his tears. " I made two pledges that night. One to kill him, the other to protect you. And it will be so. My life is yours. I could not act until I had a plan that would not take me from you."

"It is not the horror of your acts that stops you from them, then?"

Galen turned to look at this strange being that had seemingly evolved from his master. The slave's scarred face was tear stained, eyes puffed and red, but it did not soften the anger in his face.

"Do you call me coward then? After the corpses I have laid low?"

"But they were not so planned. They were assassins whom you fell when they would take my life." Carolas brought his hand again to Galen's face and placed a hand over the long jagged scar, making the face perfect and beautiful again. The slave flinched away from the kind touch, but Carolas would not be deterred and kept his hand right where it was. "We leave the city-state soon to attack the Peloponnesian coast. You will be expected to come with me. Leave my father to run the house, for he is too old to follow me into battle. When we return and I can take control of the family, then strike as you would have this night."

"I do not know that I will have the courage..." Galen admitted slowly, leaning into the caressing fingers.

"I will help you find it."

Silence descended around them and eventually, Carolas laid down to sleep, but not before dragging Galen down with him. The slave laid back with great hesitancy, all to aware of the smooth nudity of his master. After a great while, they slept together, the master curled protectively around the slave.

*

The tents of the Athenian army dotted the dark sloping hillsides of Greece like so many fireflies. Fires flickered irregularly through and whispered conversations were carried away by the light breeze. The air smelled of burning wood and blooming olive trees. In some far off tents the sounds of lovemaking could be heard.

It was difficult to believe, despite the somewhat tense and anticipatory air around the camp, that the men had already been involved in several successful raids and tomorrow would bring the greatest maneuver so far. An attack on a Spartan base.

Galen sat by the entrance flap of the tent he had set up, eating fresh baked pita. His scar itched with warning and he shifted slightly on his feet. Carolas was a dozen feet away, laughing over wine with his fellow soldiers. The days not spent fighting were taken up with moving the camp and walking for miles. The soldiers were in only slightly better shape then those that served them. All were genuinely fatigued, but giddy.

The other slaves that Galen had spoken to all reflected his anticipatory feelings. Some of them were captured Spartans and they spoke of a return to their lands when the battle was finished. Thoughtfully, Galen dredged his bread through olive oil.

"Why so glum, Galen? We are doing well and the morrow should bring us luck!"

"I am pensive." He paused, trying not to say master. Carolas had asked him not to since the night Galen has almost killed his father. 'We are brothers of a sort. Let us not have one the master of the other,' he had said. Galen was not sure about any phileo between himself and his master, but took it as an order and tried to follow it.

"And what has you thinking so hard?"

"I think that tomorrow will not end well for our side. The Spartan slaves seemed convinced that we will be defeated."

"Wishful thinking on their part, Galen." Carolas turned his head away before Galen could see his statement, but he was sure that the other boy had his doubts as well.

"Perhaps." He allowed.

"I am going to sleep." Carolas said finally. "Come join me when you're tired of sitting alone with your doubts."

The young lord brushed passed the kneeling boy and into his tent, stripping down to bronze skin before sliding under linen. It wasn't long before he could feel the presence of another only a few feet from his couch. Unbidden memories of his father sliding into his room came to his mind and he shivered.

"I would like to ask you a question. In case tomorrow should turn sour."

"Ask, if it will ease your mind, but first join me here." He joked with false bravado. Galen had come to share his slumber on and off the past few weeks though they rarely spoke of it.

To Carolas' shock, Galen shed his clothes and eased into the softly made travel bed. No hard pallets for the young fighting lords. It was the first time they had been so: skin to naked skin and shivers of anticipation and fear shot through Carolas in equal measures, heightening when Galen lifted his hand to thread careful fingers through his hair.

"Why did you rescue me from your father?"

Carolas stiffened and in the dark could make out the calm of his companion. It was a question long left to the side. He had always assumed that Galen, in his infinite cleverness had known it.

"My father..." The words trembled like a beginning, yet yielded no more. Warm arms drew him close and out of reflex he responded in kind. They lay heart to heart, the tremor of the other becoming the shake of them both.

"Speak the words, Carolas, and see if it does not help."

"My father used me as he used you. From the time I was a small child until only a few months before you arrived. I stood in the halls the night you came and saw your face. I returned every night after that and did nothing."

"You knew of what he did to me and did not stop it?" The caressing tone took the sting from the words and it was like a benediction.

"I did not know what to do. I felt...I was at first so jealous that another should win my father's attention that I wished harm upon you. Then I felt only fear and anger that I could not place. It was only after leaving the doorway for many weeks that I came to realize I had to take you from him." Tears stood out in the boy's eyes. He did not reach out a hand to stop them, but rather let them spill haphazard down his cheeks.

Galen held him as he cried, the slave's quick mind running through the paces. He had guessed many times, but to hear the story out in the air and to realize that the boy in his arms had suffered the same fate as he was something else completely. How had Carolas managed? It had never occurred to Galen to rescue the boys who had filled his place afterwards. He had thought of no one else at all.

"Agape." He said softly into the air previously filled only with soft sobs.

"What?"

"I knew that after your father I could never feel Eros every again, my body and my mind would not allow it. Phileo has eluded me as well though I have felt it sometimes between us. I never thought of it, but your rescue of me was pure agape. Love through action, spiritual love. The closeness that two people share because they have shown it through actions. Mine in the sacrificing of my innocence to kill for your safety and yours to dare to defy your father and return to a place that surely must have horrified you. Agape."

"Agape." Carolas repeated slowly. "You love me then?"

"I think that I must." Solemn face and solemn eyes. Carolas nodded.

"I must love you too then."

"Thank you."

It was an odd confessional and one that the fatigued bodies could no longer hold. Nothing left to say between them until they slept, woven tightly together until the early morning horns woke them.

Galen rose and dressed Carolas with care and caresses that had never before been present. He did not know if he could ever have erotic love with anyone ever again, but perhaps, Carolas would have the patience to try.

"I must go, Galen." Carolas said finally, detaching admiring hands from his garments and rising the other boy to eye level.

"I feel an ache." The slave said slowly, capturing one of Carolas hand and pressing it to his heart. "Here."

Carolas felt a sudden urge to take Galen and run. To never return to Athens, but wander the hills as barbarians. The irrational thought subsided momentarily and he let his other hand raise to the imperfect face, once more covering the scar with his hand. Gently, he laid careful lips to Galen's.

"We will meet again, that I swear." He whispered into those soft lips before detaching himself entirely leaving, turning only once to capture the image of Galen standing in surprise and sadness in his mind.

Galen spent the day adrift and when news returned of the triumph of the battle, he was the only one who did not cheer. Carolas was not among those who returned with their lives. A dozen men had died and the young lord's body had been captured by the enemy.

The slave evaded the hands of those who would seek to take him from Carolas' camp and wandered the half-mile to the smaller group of camp followers: the families of the fighting men and the persons who participated in that oldest of all professions. There he stayed for the remainder of the campaign, making himself useful and avoiding those who would use him. Upon the army's return to Athena's, he slipped into the city and to the house of the one he once had served. The news of Carolas' death had yet to reach that illustrious palace.

The guards recognize him and let him past, assuming him sent ahead from the returning force as a messenger. Without pause he traveled through the house, stopping only in the room in which he had spent the last several years of his life. Carolas' apartment was mostly bare, picked clean of things to bring on the campaign and conniving servants who already believed that the young noble would not return. The knife had remained somehow, it's secret place under the Galen's own couch. He took it there without a second look at the room.

Soft steps guided him to Corbin's room and he went in without thought, the scene before him as ugly as when it had been him in place of the boy who now screamed in terror.

"For the acts which your wrought upon the flesh of Carolas your own son and then onto my purchased body." The sound of his voice stopped Corbin mid-coitus. Galen circled the naked man, drawing close. " Know my face before I kill you."

He allowed Corbin the once last look at his scarred face before plunging the knife into his back, again and again. The blood flowed and spattered the couch, Galen and the boy who remained captured under Corbin's failing body. The screams of the trapped boy were what finally woke Galen from his murderous trance and with a burst of strength, he pried the hulking corpse off the bed, dropping it to the floor.

"Go." He whispered to the boy and turned to the window, ignoring the body that even now stained the tile. The bed was once again soaked with blood as it had the night he had split open his own face to escape this very bedroom. He knew that this one death would save only a few boys from the fate he and Carolas had shared. The practice was all too common and he could not wipe the faces of those he had been imprisoned with when his parents had sold him to bondage. It was not his destiny to save them. Only two people had bound him to this world and now they were both gone. One by his own hand, the other at an unknown Spartan sword.

"We will meet again." He whispered, touching his hand to his lips. Copper filled his mouth, his hand soaked in blood. A groan passed his lips as he drove the blade into his abdomen and fell next to the body of the man who had brought him to the depths of Tarturas, knowing only that there had to be something better then this.

Through the house, the cries of the foolish escaped boy roused those who slept. Guards came running in to find the crime over, it's perpetrator near death himself, his last words not even articulated fully, but mere mouthings unreadable. His body was thrown outside the city walls to be taken by animals while Corbin was burned on a pyre with a hundred mourner's raising their voices. Few bothered to wonder what had driven the slave to take his master's life. A cousin inherited the house and the matter faded until totally forgotten.

But the statue of Hercules and Iolaus still stands and somewhere in the bedroom, a partial chill remains with those last mutterings hanging in the air,

"We will meet again."