The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(57)
So did she.
She made it almost all the way out to the yoke that tethered the two galloping horses together when suddenly the far horse stumbled—a small misstep, barely a jostle—and Charon cried out in alarm. Sorcha’s arms circled madly in the air as she tried to right herself and she toppled, falling between the two horses, and slamming the side of her head—hard—on the edge of the wooden yoke . . .
Her panicked scream cut short the instant she realized I had her.
And I wasn’t about to let go.
I could feel the cords of muscle and tendons in Sorcha’s wrist beneath the vise-clamp of my fingers as I held on to her with every ounce of strength I possessed. Sorcha’s legs kicked and swung wildly through the air until she managed to gain a precarious foothold again. She steadied herself and looked over at me. Blood from a deep gash at her hairline painted half her face red, running into her dim eye, but she flashed a tight grin.
“There’s a bit of rust on the old sword . . .” she panted.
“But it still has an edge,” I finished for her, grinning back, my face full of horse mane and my own wild hair. “The Morrigan be praised.”
“I’m going to hand you the reins,” she said. “Be ready . . .”
I let go of her wrist, and she dropped into a crouch on the yoke pole. The lathered flanks of the galloping horses, so close on either side of her, heaved like the bellows in a blacksmith’s forge. Teeth gritted, jaw muscles clenched, Sorcha leaned down, fingers splayed and reaching for the trailing reins. Sweat ran from her skin like rain. Her first attempt fell short. So did the second. Then . . . with a cry torn from the center of her chest, she made one last, desperate grab—
Success!
Sorcha flung her arm out, whipping the outside rein up around my horse’s neck, and I caught it, grasping frantically at the leather with sweat-slick fingers. She threw me the inside rein next, and I hauled them up short—gradually, carefully—even as the horse, sensing a guiding hand on the reins again, instinctively, exhaustedly, began to slow. The second horse followed his lead.
The wagon slowed, finally, to a halt.
I looked back to see that the rest of the Dis riders had retreated. Their numbers were diminished by Ajani’s arrow fire, and the narrow valley was no place to stage an attack. With any luck, I thought, we could make it the rest of the way to Cosa before they had a chance to regroup.
The wagon horses stamped and snorted as Cai galloped up beside us, pulling his horse to a rearing stop, then catching me around the waist as I leaned from the back of the wagon horse and fell into his arms. On the other side of the wagon, Charon swung himself down from the driver’s bench and ran to help Sorcha extricate herself from the tangle of harnesses and horses.
“The queen . . .” I gasped into Cai’s chest. “Take me to her.”
He wheeled his mount, and we cantered back over to the middle cart, dismounting to assess any damage or injuries and hoping for the best. My contingent of Amazons remained mostly intact. Kallista sported a blossoming purple bruise along her jawline, and Selene had blood in her hair and at the corner of her mouth, but the other four seemed fine as they clambered to their feet, still surrounding their charge with a protective wall of Amazonian wrath.
At the center of their circle, Sennefer stirred and drew back the voluminous robes he’d thrown like a shield over the queen. Cleopatra sat on the floor of the cart with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped over her head. Freed from Sennefer’s protective encumbrance, she stood—slowly, but without the assistance of all the hands reaching out to help—her eyes glittering like shards of onyx.
The arrows had stopped raining down, and I silently blessed Hestia and Acheron, as Cai held out an arm to help the queen down from the cart. Cleopatra accepted his help, stepping daintily to the road. She was about to nod her thanks when a heavy groaning sound came from the far side of the wagon. Her wide eyes met mine, and I gestured to stay where she was and circled around to see what had made the noise.
I looked down to see that one of the Dis riders had, it seemed, gotten his cloak caught on the hinge of the wagon’s back board and been dragged for some way behind it. The man lay upon the ground, covered in scrapes and road dust, his arm bent at an unnatural angle beneath him, but otherwise he appeared relatively unharmed. He glared up at me, eyes clouded with pain, chest heaving. When his gaze suddenly shifted, I realized that Cleopatra had followed me and was standing at my side.
“Majesty—”
She lifted a hand to silence me.
Then she walked up to him, her gait purposeful but unhurried, her azure blue cloak flowing majestically in her wake. I watched as she drew a small, jeweled dagger from her belt and cut the fabric of the rider’s cloak, releasing him. He slumped to the ground and she crouched before him, lifting the man’s head up by his hair.
“You know who I am?” she asked.
The man nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Then tell your dark god when you meet him that it was I who sent you to his realm.” Then the queen of Aegypt calmly slit the man’s throat from ear to ear.
A thunderous silence descended upon us all as Cleopatra stood, sidestepped the blood spreading in a pool beneath the body, and handed her dagger to Sennefer so he could wipe the blade clean. As she made her way back to the wagon, he knelt and used the dead man’s cloak to do so. Then he spat on the corpse and, smoothing a crease from his flowing robes, turned to follow after his queen. Cai watched the two of them climb back into the wagon and then turned to me, a rueful expression on his face.