The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(4)

Another roar went up from Cleopatra’s barge and gave me my answer. A group of partygoers stood at the rail, madly urging Leander on with each stroke of the axe, frantically trading wagers. Someone, I suspected, had paid Leander to even the odds in favor of the Amazona side.

I could hardly believe he thought a few coins were worth the hell I would unleash when I got my hands on him. But in that moment, there was nothing for me to do but hope the mast would withstand Leander’s woodsmanship long enough for me to rescue Tanis.

I edged out over the yardarm, placing my feet in the sailors’ footropes as carefully as haste would allow. Below me, I could see Tanis’s face had turned almost purple. So had her left foot, where the rope bit into her flesh. After what seemed an eternity, I reached the rope where the line was caught in the rigging and frantically sawed through the tough hairy fibers. Sweat ran in streams down my face and back, into my eyes, and between my fingers, making the knife hilt slick.

The mast was beginning to sway perilously.

I paused for a moment to draw my wooden blades from their scabbards and lob them at Leander’s head. The second one glanced off his ear, and he yelped and dropped the axe. It spun across the deck and he scrambled after it, yelling curses at me. Another chorus of shouts—half cheering, half jeers—sounded from the barge crowd as I turned back to working feverishly on the rope.

“Tanis!” I shouted. “Be ready!”

She twisted and writhed, staring up at me with fear in her eyes. The distance she would fall wouldn’t kill her. Unless she landed on her head or broke her neck . . . I shoved the thought from my mind. If I didn’t cut her loose—and soon—the falling mast would probably kill her anyway.

The last rope strand finally parted, and I watched her throw her arms up around her head, curling inward as she fell. I winced as she hit the planking with a hard thud, but she rolled and was up on her hands and knees a moment later. She’d be fine.

Now I was the one in trouble. Down below, I could see some of the fighting had spilled back over onto our ship. But in the din of battle, all of my friends were far too occupied to notice my predicament.

The entire rigging was becoming dangerously unstable with each hewing stroke. Leander was nothing if not industrious, but thankfully the axe he wielded was a dull old thing, and that alone gave me the opportunity to do something incredibly stupid. The sail beneath me shivered, and the yardarm tipped drunkenly. I didn’t have time to shimmy back to the ladder and climb down, and if I fell when the mast toppled, I would most likely hit the deck and break every bone in my body. My options were limited.

The yardarm wobbled and one end swung out over the open water . . .

As fast as I could, I unbuckled one side of my breastplate and threw it to the deck, narrowly missing Leander again and making him back off. Then I heaved myself up into a crouch on top of the yardarm. The wood beam was straight and about as wide as the yoke pole on a chariot, if a little longer . . .

The single act that had made me famous in the ring was a chariot maneuver called the Morrigan’s Flight—running the length of the yoke pole between two racing ponies, balancing, and running back . . .

I could do this.

The rigging shuddered and began to drift-fall toward the other ship.

I heard the panicked screams of the girls below as they watched it go.

And I ran.

Like an acrobat, arms wide, feet curving around the pole to grip with each fleeting step, I held my breath and ran the length of the spar and—as the mast finally toppled—I leaped out over the water in a swan dive, just like I used to do back home from the cliffs above the River Dwr. The world went from bright sunlight to chill darkness in a moment as I hit the water with a splash.

When I surfaced again, sputtering, it was to see the rail lined with Achillea fighters, all peering down at me in astonishment.

“What in Hel’s name was that lunatic trying to prove?” Elka shouted over the roaring of the spectators, gesticulating at the chaos caused by the fallen mast.

“Never mind!” I shouted back. “Grab their flag!”

I could see where the Amazona flag had been left unattended at the bow of the other ship when the gladiatrices scattered.

“The flag!”

Maybe I was a bit single-minded in my desire to win, but I was suddenly feeling awfully motivated to thwart the ambitions of whoever had given Leander his purse of coins. Elka looked at me like I was crazy, but she spun and was already running for the banner before the Amazona team knew what she was doing. She hurdled the space between the boats, hailed Meriel as she swept up the flag on its pole and threw it like it was her spear, back over to our side for Meriel to catch. Shouts of outrage and cries of victory burst forth from the Queen of Aegypt’s barge as I scaled the rope ladder thrown down to me and staggered over to where Tanis still lay sprawled on the deck.

“Come on,” I said, and held out a hand to help her stand.

She hobbled with me to the bow of our ship, and, in full view of the elite entourage across the waves, together we threw up our fists in triumph. A cacophony of cheers rolled like thunder across the water, and I felt a bit ridiculous, even as my chest was heaving with exertion and I felt myself grinning madly. We’d been play-acting. Not fighting. This was not what being a gladiatrix was about. Not what I had traded my freedom to achieve.

And yet, it was . . . something. Something just a little bit extraordinary.