The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(23)
Probably the brat son of some minor official given a plush ceremonial appointment in the legions as an officer, I thought. What a charming escort.
“I must lack a discerning eye,” he said eventually. “I see nothing at all remarkable here.”
Charon didn’t rise to the slight. He just leaned against a stack of barrels, arms crossed. “Travel takes its toll,” he said. “They’ll clean up all right, this lot. Trust me.”
The young Decurion’s gaze landed on me, and I could see that in his estimation, I was less than a filthy runt in a kennel. I swallowed the biting words that only would have earned me a slap as he swept past, heading toward the captain’s tent near the stern of the ship, where there would no doubt be wine and refreshments laid out for him.
As Hafgan appeared to herd us all down into the darkness of the ship’s hold, the smoldering disdain I had carried most of my life for the legionnaire’s kind—for the soldiers that had killed my sister and dishonored my father—flared to a bright-burning flame of hatred. And my soul fanned that fire wholly in the direction of the young decurion named Caius Antonius Varro.
X
IN THE HOLD OF THE SHIP, the darkness was absolute, the air close and damp, overwhelming with the reek of seawater. We’d been sailing for hours, and it must have been close to midnight. Most of the slave captives dozed, lulled by the groan of wood and creak of rope and the rhythmic slap of the waves on the hull. I sat huddled with my knees drawn up, staring wide-eyed into the gloom, when suddenly the galley heaved over, shuddering terribly, as something slammed into her broadside.
At first I thought it must have been wild waves born of the storm. I could hear the crack and rumble of close, heavy thunder. But then the hull planks next to my head groaned and splintered inward. We’d been hit by something far more solid than seawater.
A flash of lightning—sliced into squares by the iron grate covering the hold hatch above—illuminated a chaos of gushing sea and screaming slaves plunged into nightmarish terror.
I clambered to my feet, screaming for Elka.
“Here, Fallon! By the hatch!” she shouted and I saw her wave her arms over her head in the aftergleam of the lightning before everything faded back to black. “Ten paces to your left!”
“Where’s the ladder?” I called, reaching blindly out in front of me and staggering through knee-deep foaming water. I felt Elka’s strong fingers grasping at my wrists, and I clutched at her, stepping over the flailing bodies that tumbled through the water toward the hole in the ship’s hull.
“What’s happening?” Elka gasped, placing my hands on the steep ladder that led up out of the ship’s hold. I grabbed the rungs and held on fiercely as other hands in the darkness grappled onto me. Someone clutched at my ankle and was threatening to drag me under the water. I heard a man’s frantic scream as his fingers lost their grip. The scream turned to a gargled choke, but I couldn’t help him. If I let go, I would be lost. I squeezed my eyes shut and hung on.
More water—rain or waves, I couldn’t tell—poured down into the hold from the hatch grate above our heads, and Elka and I clung to each other and the ladder, hunched against the deluge. From up on deck, we could hear frantic shouts and barked commands, the thunder of running feet. And then the clashing of iron—blade upon blade.
We hadn’t run aground. We hadn’t been swamped by a rogue wave or drawn the wrath of some god of the deep. The galley had been rammed, and we were being boarded by pirates. Not so imaginary after all. The wound in the galley’s flank from the pirate ship’s ram was a mortal one. The vessel groaned like a great beast in its death throes as water rushed in through the shattered timbers. From above, an angry orange glow and the acrid tang of oily smoke filtered down into the hold. Fire. The ship’s coal braziers must have been knocked over. If they had set any of the oil stores alight, the wooden deck would burn, no matter the rain.
“We have to get out of here,” Elka shouted, gesturing up toward the deck. I turned and scurried up the ladder to the top. But, of course, the hatch grate was securely latched from the other side. I thrust upward with all the strength of my legs, jamming my shoulders against the iron bars. The grate didn’t give so much as a hairsbreadth. I squeezed my fingers together and thrust my hand through one of the square gaps in the grate, but I couldn’t get the leverage I needed to budge the latch. I slumped back down onto the top rung of the ladder, panting, blood from scrapes on my knuckles and wrist bones running down my arm. Above us, the deck planking thrummed with the impact of feet and bodies.
“It’s no use!” I called down to Elka. “Is there any other way to—”
Suddenly there was a crashing thud, and the body of a man fell across the grate. His mouth and eyes were frozen open in a horrible death grimace. Wine-dark blood flowed from a gaping wound to his chest, but I saw that he was still clutching a dagger. I stuck my hand through the grate again and held my breath as I carefully worked the weapon free from the dead man’s fingers. If it fell, if I dropped it, I’d never find it again in the darkness and the rising water. Slowly, I coaxed the hilt into the cup of my palm until I could get a firm grip. Then I worked at the grate latch with the blade. Sweat, rainwater, and the dead man’s blood poured down my face and arm and made my fingers slick and clumsy, but agonizing bit by creaking bit, the latch moved . . . and slid free.