The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(24)

I shoved my body against the grate, and it swung up on oiled hinges. The dead man rolled off to one side, and I scrambled upward out of the hold, groping wildly for the dagger as it skittered across the deck and disappeared over the side into the waves. Elka surged up the ladder after me, followed close behind by the rest of Charon’s captives. We poured up out of the hatch opening like ants from an anthill, hoping for a chance at survival. But as nightmarish as it was belowdecks, it was arguably worse above. Under a fearsome sky, the deck of the galley was a maelstrom of bloodthirsty pirates, ruthless legionnaires, and angry slave traders.

The pirate vessel was painted black, with black sails and a high curving bow with a stout ironclad battering ram fixed beneath wicked-looking painted eyes. The ram was buried in the side of our ship like the goring tusk of a wild boar. On the other side of the galley, a smaller vessel with sleek lines—the Decurion’s ship, I guessed—was moored to ours with ropes. The legion soldiers were firing arrows into the throng of pirates hurtling over the galley’s opposite rail and leaping from their own vessel onto the deck of the galley to fight hand to hand. In the light of the fire, I looked up to see Decurion Varro balanced like a cat upon the galley rail, the flames reflecting off the blade of the sword in his hand. Lit by the fire against the flashing thunderclouds, he looked magnificent. Like a god. No, like a conqueror.

Something snapped in my mind.

The noise all around me receded in a wave until all I heard was a distant, throbbing pulse like a muffled heartbeat. A legionnaire gutted one of the pirates not three strides in front of me, and the man twisted in a horrid dance as his guts spilled. He dropped his weapons—a pair of short, curved swords—and one of them landed at my feet.

I picked it up.

Through the red mist that drifted down before my eyes, I no longer saw a ship, or pirates. I could see only soldiers. Legionnaires in their uniforms, hacking and slashing and killing. Where the young, arrogant Decurion stood, I saw only a nameless, faceless commander of Caesar’s legions.

I saw only the man who’d murdered my sister.

In that moment, Caius Varro was Rome. And I . . . I was Vengeance.

I ran at him, howling. If I was going to die on a cursed ship in the middle of a cursed ocean, I was going to die a proper Cantii warrior and take a soldier of Rome down with me to our watery graves.

“Are you insane?” the Decurion shouted, desperately defending himself. “I’m not your enemy! I’m trying to save your worthless hides!”

I answered with an incoherent snarl as I slashed at his head. Our blades locked up, and we stood there nose to nose, straining against each other, my strength fueled by battle madness. He shoved me away, and I stumbled backward. I collided with one of the pirates, who responded by yanking his dagger out of the guts of a slave and thrusting the blade at my exposed neck.

Before I could react, the Decurion lunged forward and tackled the pirate, knocking him off the side of the ship . . . and saving me from a dagger through the throat. Without another word, he wheeled around and grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me so hard my teeth rattled. The red fury cleared from my sight, and Decurion Varro thrust his face close to mine, his chest heaving beneath his armored breastplate.

“If you’re going to kill a man tonight,” he rasped, “I suggest picking one who’s trying to kill you!” He spun me around and pointed with his sword in the direction of the marauders rushing toward us.

I felt my eyes go wide as I switched up my grip on the sword in my hand and shifted my feet into a defensive stance. The motion of the ship reminded me of my chariot back home, and I bent my knees and rode the next surge, letting the momentum propel me forward as a pirate covered in elaborate tattoos lunged at me. There was no art to his attack—no elegance, certainly—and he wouldn’t have needed any if I had been just a slave. As it was, my blade slashed across his ribs, and I’d already moved on to fight the next man before he even realized he was wounded.

The rest of the fight was a blur until suddenly the Decurion had me by the arm and dragged me toward where the other captives were being hoisted over onto the escort ship. I saw Elka among them, as well as the dark-haired slave girl whose name I still didn’t know. I threw one leg over the rail as the captain shouted orders to cast off the grappling lines.

We’re safe, I thought.

Then I looked back over my shoulder and saw that Charon the slave master was still aboard the doomed galley. I watched as he struggled against the increasingly steep pitch of the deck, scrambling for a rope with one hand while hauling along a small wooden trunk with the other.

Mad, greed-eaten fool! I thought. He’ll die before he gives up a box full of meaningless possessions. But my next thought was: And what will happen to me if he does?

Charon was my captor. The man who’d hammered an iron collar around my neck and the source of all my recent misery. But he was also the only thing that had come between Hafgan’s brutality and me on that first ship. He’d rescued Elka and me from the Alesians. And as terrified as I was of my fate once I got to Rome with Charon, it was far more terrifying to think of getting there without him. I hesitated another moment. Then I swore angrily and, questioning my own sanity, threw my leg back over the rail. Barely holding on by my fingertips, I stretched out my other hand toward the struggling slave master.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Elka shrieked.

I didn’t have a good answer, so I ignored her and concentrated on not falling into the sea. When Charon saw me reaching for him, his face split into a strange, wild grin, the whiteness of his teeth startling in the gloom.