The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(62)

Cai glanced at me, wild-eyed. I think he thought I’d gone battle mad.

But then he cried out, “Form your wings on Fallon! Move!”

Again, the girls slid between each other seamlessly, shifting their blazing shields over their heads and fanning out, dropping them down to face forward as we formed a sharp-angled wedge. With me as its lead point.

“Advance! Triple-time!” Cai shouted.

We charged forward at a dead run—a single, solid wedge of fire—roiling, roaring flame that nothing could withstand. Not even a pack of mythical Amazon warriors. We chased them back, cresting the ridge like the gods’ own Furies, fiery vengeance, bearing blazing disks of celestial fire. Howls of battle turned to cries of alarm as we charged, rushing forward up a ridge of earth to leap at our foes.

The Amazons dropped their fire chains and scrambled to draw swords and battle-axes as we pressed our attacks. The combined heat from the flames was too much to bear, and our line broke as we split off into individual combat, attacking with blade and flame, and a descent into the chaos of desperate battle.

I saw Hestia battered down to one knee by a long-limbed warrior who wielded a club and danced from side to side to avoid the sputtering fire on Hestia’s shield. The gladiatrix looked beaten, but when the Amazon went a handsbreadth too close, she suddenly found herself hamstrung by the wickedly curved sica blade Hestia put to such good use as a thraex fighter in the arena.

She fell writhing in pain, and Hestia was back up and standing in an instant, shaking the smoldering, now-ruined shield from her arm and stepping over her fallen opponent to engage another fighter. Elka’s shield was gone too, but that just gave her more freedom of movement to swing the short spear she’d carried ashore like a scythe, clearing a circle around her and knocking the blade from the hand of an Amazon.

I saw bodies on the ground but couldn’t identify any as Achillea girls.

And then I had no more time to look.

Vorya shouted a warning, and I spun on my heel as a woman with long gray hair in braids swung an oak staff at my head. I still bore my shield—flames guttering, wooden slats charred and crumbling at the edges—and I caught the blow at an angle. The staff scraped across the surface of my shield, flame and tar sluicing off and clinging to the Amazon’s weapon, effectively turning my fiery advantage back on me.

The Amazon matriarch was all lean muscle and sun-dark skin, with eyes like polished black river stones, hard and cold. She fought with precision, determination, and an utter lack of visible emotion. And she was winning . . . up until I saw a fraction of an opening and ducked beneath a wide swing, lunging up from my crouch to head-butt her in the face. I felt her nose break. Blood gushed and she reeled backward, pain-blind, and I sprinted toward where Arviragus was still sawing at the bonds that held my sister captive.

“These . . . women . . .” he grunted at me, hacking desperately at a multitude of intricate knots that held Sorcha bound “. . . have too much time . . . and too much damned rope . . . at their disposal!”

“Sorcha!” I skittered to a stop in front of her and grasped her by the shoulders. “Sorcha—look at me . . .”

“You shouldn’t have come for me,” she said in a parched rasp. “Any of you.”

“Staying back at the ludus wasn’t exactly an option for us, Sorcha,” I said. “And you didn’t think I’d let you leave me behind again, did you?”

I expected a dry retort. A raised eyebrow at the least.

But there was nothing. I looked my sister in the face, and it was almost as if a flame had been snuffed out inside of her. She squeezed her eyes shut to avoid my gaze and turned her head away from me. The side of her face, beneath the curtain of her hair, was livid with bruises.

My breath hissed between my teeth when I saw the injuries. “What have they done to you? Are you all right? I saw blood in your room at the ludus—”

“Hers,” Sorcha ground out through clenched teeth. “Not mine. In a fair fight, Thalestris never would have gotten the drop on me.”

“She had Nyx’s help, I’m guessing?”

She nodded, anger and crushing disappointment stark in her face. “I’m a fool, little sister. I misjudged everything so terribly and now all is lost. All of it . . .” Bitter tears escaped through her lashes to spill down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry . . .”

“Sorcha?”

“Everything is gone . . . everything . . .”

Her head lolled to one side, and I felt a swell of fear for her. This . . . this was not my warrior sister. She wouldn’t just give up like that. What had Thalestris done to her? What had she said?

That was easy to guess. She’d told her about the ludus. And Pontius Aquila. And shattered Sorcha’s dream.

A shrill cry of agony split the chaotic discord of battle noise, and I looked up to see another one of the Amazons crumple to the ground. Fallen girls—theirs mostly, it seemed—lay sprawled all over the clearing. Dead or wounded, I had no way of knowing, but it seemed as if years of living in isolation had dulled the edge of the legendary Amazonian prowess. The tide of battle was definitely turning in our favor. The Amazons were holding their own—for the moment—but in spite of facing superior numbers, the Achillea girls were pressing their attacks. If the Amazons dug in and fought to the bitter end . . . they would lose. And it would be a slaughter.