The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(100)

We only had an hour until I’d told Cai I’d signal him, and so I tried to be brief. But it took a while to tell even half of the whole story. For one thing, Elka and Ajani kept interjecting breathlessly, and every time they did I had to keep switching back and forth from Latin to the Cantii tongue for those of the chiefs who’d never bothered to learn the language of the traders beyond what would get them the best price on an amphora of wine or a bolt of cloth for their wife. Eventually, I managed to convey a goodly portion—or the salient parts, at least—of what had transpired in my life over the last two years.

“So . . . you see . . . the enemy at your gates was really my enemy first,” I concluded. “I’m so sorry.”

“In only two short years you managed to acquire a dire, vengeful adversary,” my father said, a glint of grim amusement in his eyes. “That was industrious of you, daughter.”

“I like your father,” Elka whispered in my ear.

I elbowed her in the ribs.

“He’s not getting away with his atrocities,” I told Virico. “Not this time. We’ve suffered enough at his hands. He took our home, our friends, and our lives in the arena. Things we fought hard to build—things Sorcha fought for . . . You would have been so proud of her, Father.”

I could tell from his face that the news of what had happened to her had both healed a wound in him and torn a new one open at the same time. “I always have been,” he said, his voice rough. “Of both of you, Fallon. So proud. And now, it seems, you will have the opportunity to show me what, exactly, you learned from your sister at this . . . what did you call it? This Ludus Achillea.”



* * *



—

As his men and women prepared for the coming battle, my father took me aside.

“I wronged you, Fallon,” he said.

I shook my head, even though I had myself believed that same thing for a very long time. “For the right reasons,” I said.

“I should have let you join the war band.”

I nodded, grinning. “It would have saved me having to go out and find one on my own. But then again, the one I found . . . I wouldn’t trade for all the wide world.” I glanced over to where Ajani and Elka were showing off their weapons to some of the younger warriors. “What do you think? How did I fare?”

“I think I have the cleverest war leader for a daughter that Lugh and the Morrigan ever made,” Virico said. “And I think I’m a fool for not having seen it.”

“Wait until you meet the others—and see the horses and chariots Cleopatra gave me! Wait until you meet Cai and . . . uh. Cai is . . . another story. A good one. One for the bards to sing of . . . I promise . . .”

He looked at me, more than a little mystified. Then he shook his head and said, “Fallon . . . I . . . Can you ever forgive me?”

I reached out and took his hand. “Will you let me fight beside you, Father?”

“No.”

He wrapped his great large hand around mine.

“I would ask that you let me fight beside you and your friends.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I took a deep breath in. “You’d do such a thing?” I asked.

“With great pride.”

“Then there is nothing to forgive.”

His eyes glittered. “Will you do me the honor then, my warrior daughter, of helping me with my armor?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Then let’s go get the bastards. Together.”





XXVI


“KEEP MY CHARIOT ready,” I had told Cai in the moments before I’d climbed up onto the catapult. “Ajani will send up a signal when we’re ready, and the moment you see movement at the gate—”

“I’ll be there.”

“Cai, I—”

He’d put a finger to my lips, a fierce spark flashing in his eyes. “Tell me when it’s over,” he said. “After we win.”

Now I stood there before the gates of Durovernum, beside my warrior father, with blue woad painted on my cheeks and my raven sword in my hand and a shield from my father’s own wall strapped on my arm. I kept my eagle sword sheathed. I would need one hand free to grip the chariot when Cai came for me.

Virico looked at me and nodded. I, in turn, nodded at Ajani. She drew back the string on her bow and loosed a flaming arrow high into the sky, trailing a black-and-red ribbon of smoke. My father’s sentries sounded the carnyx horns, and the gates of the town swung outward, like a great beast opening its jaws in a mighty yawn.

Aquila had maybe a hundred and fifty warriors with him, all told. Not many, but enough. Just enough to overrun Durovernum and take whatever defeated Cantii warriors he wanted as slaves for his munera. Enough to destroy my home. At least, that’s what he thought. The front ranks were all dressed in the garb of the Sons of Dis—black armor, black cloaks, helmets with black crests—and the rest were a tattooed and largely armorless collection of Coritani berserker warriors. Fierce, yes, but undisciplined. In between them and us were a few bodies—theirs and ours—scattered in the field, left behind after Aquila’s despicable surprise attack. And I knew that somewhere, behind their ranks, there would also be prisoners.

I strode forward, just far enough out so that Aquila and his warriors would see me standing there, apart. I waited until I could feel all of their eyes on me, and then I drew the silver feather from the pouch at my belt. The one the priest had dropped in the temple of Sekhemet when Acheron had tried to kill me. I held it up high over my head so that it shone in the late afternoon sunlight. I saw a black-cloaked figure take a few long steps forward.