The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(101)
Steps that faltered when he realized who it was . . . and what I held.
“Pontius Aquila!” I cried out in my loudest voice. “Your assassin failed and is no more. Acheron is dead! Just like the Sons of Dis will be before this day’s sun sets.”
I hurled the silver feather into the air, and it spun, glittering, end over end to land somewhere in the grass between us. It would be lost in the coming battle, I knew. Trampled in the mud and twisted. It would be broken like his hideous order would be broken.
“He met his end in the temple of Sekhemet,” I continued. “Just as you will meet yours here, on the field of battle, in the temple of the Morrigan. There will be no jackal men to drag your corpse away today. We will leave it to the sky for the ravens and the earth for the wolves and the worms. And you will do no more collecting.”
I saw the black-cloaked figure turn from me and huddle with his warriors. They were more than a match for my father’s war band, and they knew it. What they didn’t know was that, just beyond the margins of the fields, a small but highly motivated band of exceptionally trained gladiatrices, Amazons, and ex-legionnaires waited patiently to enter the fray. And more than a match became substantially less of a surety when suddenly faced with fighting on two fronts. Particularly when one of those fronts was equipped with chariots given to them by a queen who also happened to be the daughter of gods.
The carnyx brayed again, and a sound echoed back from beneath the cover of the trees at the edge of the field. It started as a far-off murmur, swelled to a rumble, and then became a roar as the Legio Achillea came thundering out from between the oaks to attack the left flank of Pontius Aquila’s mercenaries. Simultaneously, my father gave his warriors the command to attack, and they streamed out of the gates, curving around to attack our enemy’s right flank. Kore and Thalassa went with them, woad-painted and howling war cries, as if the Cantii were their own fierce folk.
I waited at the gate with my father, along with Elka and Ajani, for the brief seconds it took for our four chariots to arrive. When Cai—in full Roman decurion regalia and war paint on his cheeks—pulled to a halt in front of me, he greeted my father with a legion salute and a brisk, “My lord king!” as I leaped into the swift cart. Elka jumped up behind Quint, whose cart was supplied with a full complement of spears. Ajani stepped up behind Kronos, and Gratia made room for my father with a fierce grin.
“Never driven a king before, sir,” she said over her shoulder as Virico Lugotorix stepped up into her chariot. “I’ll try to avoid too many bumps!”
My father laughed and slapped her on the shoulder. Then we all wheeled away and joined the fight. The storm had turned the ground soft, and where Aquila’s people were, their feet churned it to mud. But the high, narrow wheels of the Aegyptian chariots and the lightning-swift hooves of the horses skimmed over the grass as we harried their flanks and made them turn outward to face us. My father’s own charioteers followed our lead, driving Cantii archers around the perimeter of the field while the rest of his war band engaged hand-to-hand.
Aquila, unsurprisingly, huddled right in the middle of a thick clot of his Dis warriors, as protected as he could be, dressed in a ceremonial polished black-scale mail tunic that looked as though it had never seen a moment’s battle. Cai maneuvered our chariot with clever, steady hands, but we couldn’t get close. Every black-cloaked warrior I cut away with my blade seemed to just make a hole for another to step into his place. Until, finally, I saw a gap. Narrow—too narrow for a chariot—and suddenly I was down on the ground and running.
Cai shouted for me to stop, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Pontius Aquila would die that day, and he would die by my hand.
But just before I reached him, there was suddenly another warrior standing in my way. He wore no black armor, but fought barefoot and shirtless . . . and I recognized the tattoos on his arm even before I looked up at his face.
“Yoreth.” I spat his name as our eyes locked.
A vicious grin split his features.
I remembered how he’d howled, promising vengeance one day, as I’d left him behind at the Ludus Flaminius to rot. He clearly remembered it too.
A heartbeat, then two, passed . . . and he ran at me. He no longer fought with the trident he’d used in the arena—just a long, wicked-bladed spear. His first thrust tagged my thigh, just below the straps of my battle kilt—a long, shallow cut—and I stumbled in the muddy grass and fell to one knee with a grunt of pain. I blocked his next blow with my shield, but as I staggered up to regain my feet, he lunged forward with a long dagger drawn from his belt. Yoreth thrust it toward my sword-hand side, and we locked up blades, hilt to hilt.
His snarl was a feral thing, and there was battle madness in his eyes.
I head-butted him with the brim of my helmet, and it barely fazed him. With blood running down both cheeks from the gash on his forehead, he pressed me backward, back down into the mud. I ground my teeth together, straining to push him back, but my grip on my sword was slipping . . .
And then, suddenly, the iron point of an arrowhead burst through the skin at the front of his neck. I recoiled as he gagged once, a horrid, harrowing sound, and blood poured from his mouth. His eyes rolled backward in his head, and he fell face-first to the ground before me.
Ajani! I thought, springing back up to my feet. But then I saw the fletching on the arrow shaft lodged in the back of Yoreth’s neck. The feathers were black. I glanced around and saw Tanis, surrounded by Dis warriors, firing arrows—not at us, not at my war band, but at her own. In the chaos of the melee, no one really seemed to notice. At least, they hadn’t up until that moment. The two of us locked eyes for an instant, and she gave me a small smile.