The Valiant (The Valiant #1)(47)

The next girl was a Phoenician—I gathered that was a place somewhere on the other side of the Mare Nostrum—named Damya who frequently proclaimed herself “descended from a proud warrior race.” I was inclined to believe her. When her turn came, Sorcha reached back into her chariot and brought forth a heavy rectangular shield and a bronze arm guard, fashioned of jointed metal plates like the scales of a fearsome dragon. And the fearsome Damya burst into tears of joy at the sight.

I knew that in the weeks since we’d arrived at the ludus, Lady Achillea—no, Sorcha—had been watching us. I’d seen her up on her terrace, observing, analyzing how we fought and what we fought with. I’d never realized just how closely she’d watched us. But that night she presented us with our first earned weapons, matched perfectly to each girl’s talents. It was cleverly done, I thought, as I watched each new recruit’s eyes brighten and their spines straighten with pride. I wondered just what weapon she had chosen to bestow upon me.

The next three girls, I suspected, had only just made the cut to take the gladiatrix oath. They all showed promise and fierce enthusiasm but had yet to move beyond the basic combat drilling stage to distinguish themselves with a particular weapon. Accordingly, each was presented with the same oath gift of a gladius and small round shield—the standard weapons every gladiatrix learned to master before moving on to other disciplines—but that didn’t mean that Sorcha hadn’t put just as much thought into personalizing them. Each sword was made to fit the hand of the girl, and each shield was decorated with a different animal that was clearly chosen to match their personalities. Wolf, Lion, and Serpent were all delighted.

Elka was next. She had, of course, distinguished herself over the long days of practice when it came to throwing a spear. And when it came to not throwing it, those long arms of hers, together with the reach of an even longer weapon, made Elka virtually invincible as she wore her opponents down from afar. Accordingly, her oath gift was a small round shield and a slender spear with a polished, pointed iron blade that gleamed in the moonlight. I could tell without even hefting it that the weapon was perfectly balanced. Elka marveled at the craftsmanship when Sorcha laid it across her calloused palms.

And then it was my turn.

I stood there, shoulders back, head high, eyes focused somewhere over Sorcha’s left shoulder as, wordlessly, she stalked back from retrieving my oath gift from the chariot. And what she gave me . . . was already mine.

My sword.

The only thing other than me that had survived the long journey from Durovernum. The thing that had convinced Charon that I had value and had prompted my sister to buy my life for a ridiculous amount of money.

It seemed that she had commissioned a new leather sheath for it, dyed black and embossed with the intricate, tortuously beautiful artwork of our people. Sorcha belted the sword around my waist and, as its comforting weight settled against my left hip, my hand dropped reflexively to rest on the hilt. It felt as though a severed limb had suddenly been sewn back onto my body.

But then I noticed that on my right hip there hung a second—empty—sheath. I frowned in confusion, then glanced up into my sister’s face. With a start, I saw that there was the thin line of a scar, beneath the blue-painted designs on her forehead, running from the shock of silver in her hair down to her over-dark eye. She stared down at me, her expression fierce and hard, as her right hand crossed her body to her own left hip, and she drew the sword she wore.

It was a twin to my blade.

The sword she had carried into battle the last time I’d seen her.

With a swift, brief-as-lightning flourish, she resheathed the blade in the empty scabbard on my hip. A murmur rippled through the watchers beneath the portico. The dimachaerus technique—fighting with two swords—was a rare choice among gladiatrices, and so the second sword was a rare gift. Of course, no one there watching would come close to understanding the true significance of Sorcha’s gift to me.

I wasn’t even sure if I understood it.

But when I looked up into my sister’s face, for a moment I saw something dark and shining moving in her gaze. Then the moment was gone, and Sorcha spun away from me to thrust her arms skyward, fingers splayed, rings and bracelets glittering, and her voice rang into the night air in the ancient war cry of the Cantii. For a fleeting instant, I wondered just what Caesar thought of that. But when he neglected to instruct Caius to step forward and run my sister through with his sword, I decided that he must not care.

She must make him a lot of money, I thought bitterly.

Thalestris stepped forward to join my sister, her deep voice ringing out with the words that we, as initiates, were compelled to echo back.

“Uri . . . vinciri . . . verberari . . . ferroque necari.”

I will endure to be burned . . . to be bound . . . to be beaten . . . and to be killed by the sword. It was the sacred gladiatorial oath, sworn by men and women alike when they joined the ranks—willingly or no—of the gladiatoria.

“I don’t really care to endure any of that,” Elka muttered, “given a choice.”

But there was no choice. That was the whole point.

“Simple words. Simple promises,” Sorcha said as Thalestris’s voice echoed to silence. “This oath is the oath we all swear. Not to a god, or a master, or even to the Ludus Achillea . . . but to our sisters who stand here with us. Our sisters. This is the oath that binds us all, one to one, all to all, so that we are no longer free. We belong to each other. We are bound to each other. In swearing to each other, we free ourselves from the outside world, from the world of men, from those who would seek to bind us to Fate and that which would make us slaves. We sacrifice our liberty so that, ultimately, we can be truly free.”