The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(16)
My vision blurred, and I heard myself snarl in rage as I launched myself across the cage. I was brought up short and sharp by the iron ring around my neck which, of course, was still attached to the chain that ran through the rings on all the other girls’ collars. Still, the force of my lunge was such that a girl on the other end of the cage cart was yanked hard over into the girl beside her, cheek mashing up against the other girl’s shoulder, who then fell against the girl on her other side.
They squealed in startled outrage, and the other girls began to scream and shout too as the Varini girl threw herself out of my range, dragging along the girls on her side of the cage. A chaotic tangle of limbs and chains writhed and thrashed as the endless days of fear and frustration boiled over into violence. The Varini was tall and lanky, and when she lashed out at me with one long leg, the leather sole of her sandal slapped painfully against my thigh. I grunted in pain and half rolled over. The girl next to me flailed at me with balled fists but didn’t really know how to fight.
I knew how to fight.
In the confined space, hemmed in by bars, it was easy enough to land blows—but it was just as easy to have them land on me. I took two glancing hits from the Varini girl’s long-reaching fists before I felt my own connect solidly with her ribs. She yelped and twisted to avoid a follow-up punch, dragging the chain-linked girls in her wake. The cage cart tilted perilously as it raced along the dirt track.
The driver, sitting in front of the cage on a wooden seat, swore loudly as our frenzied thrashing rocked the cart, and he banged on the bars of the cage with the stout oak club he carried. He shouted at us to settle down or he would stop the wagon and give us all a beating.
I barely noticed. I was too busy reeling from a punch to the face.
Pain exploded from my left cheek, and a red mist descended in front of my eyes. After all the days and nights of dull despair and helplessness, the fierce urge to fight something, anything—anyone—welled in my chest. I howled in fury and swung my clenched fists in a double blow that caught the Varini on the temple and sent her reeling.
“You’re both mad!” a girl with long black curls shouted above the chaos. “Stop! You’ll get us all killed!”
In the darkness, the skinny wheels of the wagon bearing our prison cage weaved crazily in the rutted tracks of the road. The driver, had he been thinking, could have immediately dealt with us at a standstill. But Charon had warned his men not to stop, and there was no wagon behind us to notice the commotion. Ours was the last vehicle in the caravan that night, except for a heavy, guarded ox-pulled provisions wagon that was even slower. Slow enough to have fallen far behind and out of sight.
Which meant that there was nothing to stop me from trying to shove the Varini girl’s ugly insinuations back down her throat. I only had to reach her first. I wedged my left hand beneath the metal ring that circled my neck so I wouldn’t choke, and then I hauled on the slave chain with all my strength. I managed to gather just enough slack to connect to the side of the Varini girl’s head with the full force of my right fist. Her head snapped back. She fell heavily against her side of the cage with enough force to send the whole cart careening sideways.
The slave driver shouted in alarm as the wagon rocked wildly on the uneven road. As the cage suddenly tipped over and began rolling down a steep embankment, girls screamed and grappled for anything to hold on to. My shoulder hit the roof of the cage with enough force to send blinding pain shooting through my whole body, and the girl chained on my right landed on top of me, driving the wind from my lungs. When the cage came to a halt at the bottom of a ditch, there was a moment of utter stillness, broken only by the spinning creak of the two wheels churning away uselessly above our heads. The other girls began to groan and whimper, pushing themselves to their hands and knees, tangled in their chains and each other’s limbs.
The cage had split apart like a rotten fruit, and I staggered to my feet and stepped free of the broken bars. The two cart horses, their shattered yokes hanging from their necks, scrambled to their feet and bolted back up the embankment. I sucked in my breath at the sight of the slave driver, who’d been pinned beneath one of the animals. His head was bent at an unnatural angle, and his mouth was frozen open in a silent cry of shock. A slick of dark blood painted the side of his face, and his eyes were empty and staring.
I stumbled back a step, and the chain that had held me tethered to the other girls by the ring around my neck slid free and fell to the ground in pieces, broken links chiming tuneless music as they hit the stony ground beneath my feet.
I’m free! I thought as elation surged through me.
No. Not exactly.
I cursed as I saw that the shackle that circled my left ankle was woefully intact. I was still bound by the short length of stout iron links to the Varini girl, who was clambering unsteadily to her feet. She seemed to realize—at the very same moment that I did—the irony of our situation. In the trees high above our heads, I heard the throaty chuckle of a raven and imagined it was the wry laughter of the Morrigan, amused at my predicament. My goddess was capricious in her affections. I’d always known that. But I was beginning to think that when she’d called me daughter, it was only to mock my efforts to live up to that honor.
I glanced around at the faces of the other girls, pale moons in the darkness, and said, “This is our chance.”
Not one of them moved. The Varini girl said nothing, but I saw the muscles of her jaw clench. When I locked eyes with her, she gave me a curt nod. So be it. Together we stepped carefully, away from the twisted mess of bars and planks. I hesitated briefly when the dark-haired girl—the one who had shouted for us to stop fighting—put a hand on my arm.