The first cut is always the deepest.

  This is a truth I learned at ten years old when my father placed a blade in my hands and told me to kill the goat that had stopped giving milk. This is the truth every Thracian boy learns. This is the truth I carried when I killed my first man, a Roman scout who strayed too close to our village in the mountains.

  I remember how the blood looked black in the moonlight. It did not spray as I expected but pulsed steadily from his throat as the light drained from his eyes. His body became heavy once the soul had fled it. I was fifteen then.

  Now, at thirty, I have killed more men than I can count, and each death has carved something from me, leaving hollows I fill with purpose, with memory, with the promise of something beyond survival.

  But I am getting ahead of myself.

  Let me return to the beginning, to Thrace, where the mountains guard secrets older than Rome, where the winds speak in the language of the gods, and where I first learned the price of freedom.

  My people, the Maedi, claim descent from the warrior god himself. We are not the soft men of the valleys or the pale philosophers of Athens. We are mountain folk, hardened by cold winters and hot blood. Our borders shift with the seasons and the strength of our spears. The Romans call us barbarians, yet their own hands glisten crimson with conquest.

  I was born in the shadow of the Rhodope Mountains, in a village small enough to be beneath Roman notice, large enough to feed its people. My father, Maron, was a tribal elder, not by birth but by deed. His counsel was sought before any raid or alliance. My mother, Dacia, was a healer who knew the secrets of roots and herbs that could mend flesh or stop a heart. From one, I learned to fight. From the other, to think. Both told me I would need these skills when the day came that Rome's shadow lengthened over our lands.

  That day arrived earlier than any of us expected.

  I woke before dawn, as I did each morning, to the sound of my wife's breathing beside me. Sura's face in sleep was unlike her waking countenance. The tension and vigilance that marked her as a seer of our tribe melted away, leaving only the girl I had first glimpsed at the river seven summers past. I touched the curve of her shoulder gently, not wishing to wake her. The small wooden amulet she always wore, carved with symbols no Roman would understand, pressed against her collarbone. A connection to gods the empire would never conquer.

  The solstice festival would begin that night. The preparations would keep every hand in the village busy, and I had promised the elders I would lead the younger warriors on a hunt to provide meat for the celebration. But first, I had another duty.

  I slipped from our bed of furs and dressed silently in leather trousers and a woolen tunic, its fabric rough against my skin. I buckled my belt, the bronze clasp dulled with use, and slid my knife into its sheath, a blade that had tasted both animal and human blood. The iron sword leaning against the wall I left untouched. The hunt required stealth rather than open combat.

  Outside, the air bit with the sharpness of early spring in the mountains. The village was stirring. Smoke rose from cookfires, cattle lowed in the distance, and a child's cry was quickly hushed. I moved through the cluster of wooden houses, nodding to the few already awake. At the edge of the settlement stood a smaller structure, set apart from the others. The house of the dead.

  My father had passed to the otherworld three moons ago. By our custom, his spirit remained close until the solstice, when it would join our ancestors in the eternal hunt. I ducked beneath the low doorway, the smell of herbs and ash filling my nostrils. His weapons lay arranged on a stone slab: spear, sword, knife, and bow. The tools of a warrior. The tools of a Thracian.

  "I go to hunt, Father," I whispered into the silence. "Your bow will bring down the stag today."

  I lifted the bow, its yew wood smooth beneath my fingers, worn to the shape of my father's hand over decades. I tested the string, still taut, still singing with tension. The quiver of arrows I slung across my back.

  When I emerged from the death house, five young men waited for me, each carrying spears and knives. The youngest, Daxos, clutched his weapon so tightly his knuckles whitened. His first hunt as a man rather than a boy.

  "We hunt stag today," I told them, my breath fogging in the cold air. "The gods favor us. Can you not feel it?"

  They nodded, eyes bright with anticipation. These boys, for despite their pride, they were still boys, had grown up hearing tales of my hunts, my raids against rival tribes, my skill with bow and blade. They did not yet understand that such stories were smoke, obscuring the truth of death and pain beneath glory's bright veneer.

  "Spartacus," Daxos ventured, using my name rather than my position as hunt leader, "is it true that you killed a bear with only a knife when you were my age?"

  The others looked at me expectantly. The tale had grown with each telling. Soon the bear would be the size of a house and breathing fire.

  "I killed a bear cub," I corrected, "and its mother gave me these for my trouble." I pulled back my sleeve to show the three parallel scars that raked my forearm. "Remember, Daxos, there is no glory in foolish risks. We hunt to feed our people, not to gather stories."

  His face fell slightly, but he nodded. Perhaps one seed of wisdom planted.

  We moved away from the village, following a narrow trail into the forest that cloaked the lower slopes of the mountains. The trees here grew thick and ancient, their branches interlacing above us to create a cathedral of wood and leaf. Birdsong announced the dawn, and the forest began to wake around us.

  I motioned for silence, and the young men spread out as I had taught them, each one positioned to drive game toward where I waited with the bow. For an hour, we saw nothing worthy of the solstice feast. A few rabbits crossed our path. A fox watched us with suspicious eyes before melting into the underbrush.

  Then Daxos, eager to prove himself, flushed a young boar from a thicket. The animal charged, tusks gleaming, its small eyes fixed on the boy who had disturbed it. Before I could nock an arrow, another of the hunters, Zenas, the blacksmith's son, hurled his spear. It struck the boar's flank, wounding but not killing. The animal screamed, a sound too close to human agony, and wheeled toward its attacker.

  I drew and released in one fluid motion, the bow responding as if it were an extension of my arm. The arrow took the boar through the eye, and it collapsed mid-charge.

  "A clean kill," I said, approaching the fallen animal. "But Zenas, your throw was hasty. A wounded boar is more dangerous than a healthy one."

  The young man looked down, abashed. "I thought to save Daxos."

  "Courage honors you," I acknowledged, "but next time, trust your training rather than your fear."

  We field-dressed the boar swiftly, saving the heart and liver to be offered to the gods. As we worked, the sun rose higher, warming the forest around us. We would need more than this single boar for the feast, but it was a promising start.

  The day continued with modest success. We took two more boars and several hares. But the stag I had promised the elders eluded us. By midafternoon, I sensed the young men's flagging energy and called for a rest near a small stream that cut through the forest floor.

  As they drank and shared strips of dried meat from their pouches, I climbed a small rise to survey the land ahead. The forest thinned to the south, giving way to meadows where deer often grazed. If we moved quickly, we might reach it before the sun began its descent.

  That is when I saw the smoke.

  Not the thin wisps of a campfire, but thick black columns rising beyond the next ridge. Too much smoke. Too dark. The young men saw my posture change and scrambled to their feet.

  "What is it?" Zenas asked, hand already reaching for his spear.

  "Smoke," I said, "from the direction of Garsis village."

  Garsis was our closest neighbor, a settlement of perhaps forty families, allied with ours by marriages and mutual protection. It lay half a day's journey from our own village.

  "Raiders?" Daxos asked, his earlier eagerness replaced by apprehension.

  "Perhaps," I said, though in my gut I knew better. "Or it could be Romans."

  The name fell like a stone among us. Rome's shadow had been lengthening over Thrace for generations, but their presence had increased in recent years. Outposts established, "treaties" forced upon tribes too small to resist, tributes demanded. Some Thracian tribes had already bent the knee, accepting Roman coin and Roman masters in exchange for Roman protection. The Maedi were not among them.

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  "We should return to warn the village," Zenas suggested.

  I weighed our options. The hunt had taken us southeast, away from our home. If we returned now with our meager catch, the solstice feast would be lean. If Romans were indeed moving through our territory, our village should be warned, but not at the cost of panic during the most sacred night of the year.

  "You four return," I decided, pointing to the younger hunters. "Tell the elders what we have seen, but speak only to them, not to the entire village. Zenas, you come with me. We will see what burns at Garsis."

  They hesitated, looking at the animals we had killed.

  "Leave the game," I ordered. "Take only the boar. Move quickly but quietly. If you encounter strangers on the path, hide until they pass."

  As they gathered their weapons and the largest of our kills, Daxos approached me, his young face solemn.

  "Return safely, Spartacus," he said, with the formal bow of a warrior to his commander.

  I clasped his shoulder. "Guard our people, Daxos."

  When they had disappeared into the forest, Zenas and I began moving toward the smoke at a steady lope, the ground-eating pace that Thracian warriors could maintain from sunrise to sunset when needed. We stayed beneath the canopy when possible, using the cover of trees and the folds of land to conceal our approach.

  As we drew closer, the smell reached us. It was not just wood smoke, but the unmistakable stench of burning flesh. I signaled Zenas to slow, and we advanced more cautiously, using every skill of forest-craft I had learned since boyhood.

  We crested a wooded hill that overlooked Garsis from the north. The village burned. Not one or two houses, but all of them. Bodies lay scattered in the central square. Men, women, elders, children. Those who had tried to flee, those who had tried to fight, those who had simply been in the way, all equally still now.

  And moving among the carnage, methodical as ants, were Romans.

  Not a raiding party, but soldiers. Perhaps thirty of them, wearing the distinctive armor of legionaries. This was no bandit attack or tribal feud. This was Rome's work.

  Beside me, Zenas trembled with rage or fear or both. "Why?" he whispered. "Garsis paid their tribute. They gave no offense."

  I had no answer that made sense. Garsis had indeed been among the tribes that chose accommodation with Rome rather than resistance. Their chieftain had traveled to the Roman outpost twice yearly with gifts of furs and amber. They should have been safe under Rome's twisted version of protection.

  Unless the rules had changed.

  We watched from concealment as the Romans completed their work. They were not frenzied in their destruction but terrifyingly deliberate. After ensuring all structures were ablaze and all inhabitants dead, they formed neat ranks and marched southward, toward the Roman road that cut through our lands like an open wound.

  Only when they had disappeared from view did we dare approach the ruined village. Heat from the fires forced us to keep our distance, but we circled the perimeter, looking for survivors, finding none.

  "This was a message," I said finally, my voice sounding strange to my own ears.

  "To whom?" Zenas asked.

  "To all Thrace," I replied. "Rome is done with treaties. They want submission or they want us gone."

  Zenas looked at me, his young face hardened by what we had witnessed. "What will we do?"

  There was no simple answer. Our village could not stand against a Roman legion. No single tribe could. For generations, this had been the weakness of Thrace. We fought each other as often as any outside threat.

  "First, we return home," I said. "The elders must know what we have seen, not rumors, but truth witnessed. Then we prepare. And we decide."

  We took a different route back, moving faster now, caution balanced against urgency. The sun was setting by the time we reached the crest of the final hill that overlooked our village. Fires were burning there too, but these were the ceremonial flames of the solstice, arranged in a circle around the central meeting ground.

  I felt a momentary relief that quickly curdled as we drew closer. Something was wrong. The festival should have been accompanied by music, by singing, by the sounds of celebration. Instead, an unnatural quiet hung over the gathering.

  We approached from the shadows, and I signaled Zenas to wait while I moved closer. The village had assembled, but not for celebration. They stood in a ring around the central fire, facing inward. At the center stood a man in Roman dress, not the armor of a legionary, but the fine wool tunic and cloak of a civilian official. Beside him stood two Roman soldiers, their hands resting on their sword hilts.

  And facing them, her back straight and proud, stood Sura. My wife. The seer.

  "Your village has a choice," the Roman was saying, his voice carrying in the silence. "Provide the men we require for auxiliary service, or face consequences. Rome's patience with Thracian defiance is at an end."

  One of the elders stepped forward. It was Karpos, who had been my father's closest friend. "We have never denied Rome fair trade or passage through our lands. But our warriors are not yours to command."

  The Roman smiled thinly. "You misunderstand. This is not a negotiation. By sunrise, I require twenty men of fighting age. They will serve Rome for five years, after which they may return if they have proven themselves loyal and capable."

  "And if we refuse?" Karpos asked, though I could tell from his voice he already knew the answer.

  The Roman gestured vaguely southward. "Ask the people of Garsis. Except you cannot, because there are no longer people of Garsis."

  A murmur went through the crowd. So they already knew.

  Sura spoke then, her voice clear and cutting as a mountain stream. "Your empire builds on blood and bone, Roman. But even the mightiest oak falls when its roots are severed."

  The Roman studied her with cold interest. "A seer, I am told. Your kind are particularly troublesome with your talk of omens and ancient powers." He nodded to one of the soldiers. "Take her. The proconsul has an interest in Thracian religious practices."

  The soldier stepped forward, reaching for Sura's arm. Before his fingers could close around her wrist, I was moving.

  I crossed the distance from the shadows to the center of the gathering in five strides, my knife already drawn. The soldier sensed me a heartbeat too late. My blade found the gap beneath his helmet, angled upward into the soft flesh beneath his jaw. His blood was hot on my hand as he collapsed.

  The second soldier turned, sword half-drawn, but I was already on him. We fell together, the impact driving the air from his lungs. My knife took him in the throat before he could shout.

  Then I stood, bloody blade in hand, facing the Roman official whose smile had vanished.

  "Spartacus," Sura breathed, relief and fear mingling in her voice.

  The Roman's eyes widened slightly at the name. "The raider," he said. "I have heard of you."

  I said nothing, merely moved to stand beside my wife. The village had drawn back, creating a space around us. I sensed rather than saw Zenas moving through the crowd, warning, preparing.

  "You have made a grave mistake," the Roman said, his composure returning. "The penalty for killing Roman soldiers is death. Not just for you, but for your entire village."

  "They had no part in this," I said, speaking to him directly for the first time. "This blood is on my hands alone."

  "Noble," he sneered. "But irrelevant. Rome does not forgive, and Rome does not forget."

  I felt Sura's hand touch my arm, steadying me. When she spoke, her voice was intended for our people, not the Roman.

  "I have seen it in the flames," she said. "The eagle will falter when the wolf pack hunts together."

  The elder tribes of Thrace claimed the wolf as their totem. Her meaning was clear. Unity was our only hope.

  The Roman laughed. "Barbarian superstition will not save you."

  "Perhaps not," I replied. "But this might."

  I lunged forward, driving my knife toward his heart. He was quicker than I expected, twisting away so the blade merely scored his side. He cried out, stumbling backward. I pursued, but found my path blocked by villagers surging forward.

  Chaos erupted. The Roman fled toward the edge of the village where, I now realized, more soldiers must be waiting. Some of our people scattered toward their homes, others clustered together for protection. Through the confusion, I kept my eyes on Sura, refusing to lose sight of her.

  "We must leave," she said when I reached her side. "Now. He will return with more soldiers by morning."

  "The village," I began.

  "Will scatter into the mountains as they have done before when raiders came," she insisted. "But you they will hunt to the ends of the earth. And me with you."

  I knew she was right. By killing Roman soldiers, I had sealed my fate. By standing with me, Sura had sealed hers.

  "We go north," I decided. "Into the high country where they will not follow."

  But even as the words left my mouth, I knew it was a temporary solution at best. Rome's reach grew longer every year. How long before even the highest valleys fell under their shadow?

  We slipped away from the chaos of the village, pausing only to gather what supplies we could. My sword and bow, Sura's herbs and sacred implements, food for a few days. Four others joined us: Zenas, who refused to be left behind; an older warrior named Drenis who had been my father's shield-brother; and two young women, Zenas's sister Lydia and her friend Kora, who feared what would happen when the Romans returned.

  As we climbed into the darkness of the mountain forest, I looked back one last time at the village that had been my home for thirty years. The solstice fires still burned, but the celebration they were meant for would never happen.

  "This is not the end," Sura said softly beside me, reading my thoughts as she often did. "It is the beginning."

  "The beginning of what?" I asked.

  She touched the amulet at her throat, her eyes reflecting the distant fires. "Of the path the gods have set before you. Before us."

  I did not believe in destiny the way Sura did. I believed in strength, in skill, in the choices men make. But standing there, with the world I had known falling away behind me, I felt the first stirrings of something I could not name, something larger than vengeance, deeper than survival.

  We turned north, six shadows moving through the forest, while behind us, Rome's long shadow stretched across Thrace.

  I could not have known then where this path would lead. Could not have imagined the arena sands of Capua, the slopes of Vesuvius, the roar of an army that would one day call me leader. Could not have foreseen the rivers of blood, both Roman and rebel, that would flow before my tale was done.

  All I knew was that I had taken the first step away from one life and toward another. And like that first cut I had made as a boy, it went bone-deep.