The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(96)

So much for those chiefs who thought my father weak, I thought.

“We fought long enough to get most of our folk back inside the walls. But they outnumber us. Filthy Romans.”

He spat on the ground, and Cai winced.

“Filthy Coritani.”

He spat again. His spittle was webbed with blood.

“Get Neferet,” I said to Cai. “She wanted to meet a druid? Here’s her chance to make an excellent first impression.”

“You didn’t, by chance, bring a war band with you, did you?” Olun asked.

I grinned at him, watching his face as, one by one, my friends caught up with us on the path. Once Neferet got a good look at Olun’s wounds, she determined that they weren’t enough to kill him—but he also wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“I’ll have to treat him where he lies,” she said. “Moving him risks a collapse of his lung into his chest cavity.”

Teeth clenched in pain, Olun raised an eyebrow at her as she swiftly and efficiently went about treating him . . . and then began to offer her suggestions for medicinal herbs—some of them within arm’s reach—that could be of help with stanching the flow of blood. Neferet was clearly delighted to have him as her patient. In between bouts of their professional chatter, I gleaned what insights I could from him.

When Quint circled back from scouting ahead, he jogged to a halt beside me and stood blinking down at the wounded druid. “Huh,” he grunted. “Missed that one . . .”

Cai shook his head at his friend. “Any more on the trail?” he asked.

Quint glanced at me. “Uh. Just . . . bodies,” he said. “Not many, but . . .”

I felt my jaw tighten. Pontius Aquila would pay dearly for every soul of my tribe he’d taken. I looked down at Neferet.

“Go,” she said. “Leave Antonia to keep watch for us, and I’ll take care of your druid.”

I nodded. “Come when you can. We’ll likely have need of you before the sun sets.”

I didn’t like the thought of leaving anyone behind. But I did relish the thought of any of Aquila’s people stumbling on Antonia and her crescent blade unawares. She saluted me with the weapon and took up a position where she could see both ends of the path, coming and going.

The rest of us moved on. Cai checked any bodies we passed for signs of life so that I wouldn’t have to. It wasn’t long before the trees directly ahead of us thinned and I caught my first glimpse of the Forgotten Vale. I ignored the fist squeezing my heart at the thought of revisiting the long green meadow where Mael and I had raced our chariot day after day and I’d first accomplished the Morrigan’s Flight. There would be time for reminiscences later. I hoped. Instead, I told Cai to keep going and gather the girls to wait in the vale. I’d meet him there after I’d scouted the place where I planned to go over the wall.

So I could tell my father that I was home. That I’d brought help. That I would lend him my war band—my Legio Achillea—and together we would triumph over our enemies.





XXV


“HOPELESS !” I SNARLED. “By the gods . . . useless! There’s nothing—no way in this world for me to get over the damned walls! Not unless I grow wings and—”

“Fallon—stop. Stop pacing and talk to me!” Cai reached out a hand and pulled me to a halt. “What’s the matter? What did you see?”

“It’s all different. Everything. Cai, it’s hopeless!”

“Different how? What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t get in. I can’t go home. There’s no way.”

There had never been a time in my life when I hadn’t been able to scramble over the earthworks at a little hidden place near where the forest encroached on the western edge of Durovernum. You had to know it was there, and you had to know how to navigate the stones and branches, but I’d done it since I was a girl, and that was where I’d gone first to scout out my way into the town. But when I got there, everything was different. From my hiding place in a thicket two hundred paces from the wall, I could see that the overhanging trees had been cleared and the ramparts built up. Topped with jagged stone and sharpened stakes, surrounded by a bank and ditch. Durovernum was less a fort now than a fortress. The walls around Durovernum had never been so high. They’d never had to be. But now they were, and because of it, we were in danger of being defeated by the very people we were trying to help.

No sending a message through.

No getting close.

With Aquila and his Coritani camped in full view of the gates of the town, I didn’t stand a chance at getting inside that way, either. My father would not even know it was me before his sentries shot me dead on the ground if I approached. And that was only if Aquila’s people didn’t get to me first. And if my war band and I attacked Aquila’s gang of thugs without the help of my father’s warriors, we’d be torn to pieces by their superior numbers before the Cantii even realized we were on their side and opened the gates.

“What has happened to my home?” I wondered aloud.

“War,” Quint said with a helpless shrug. “What you’re telling us means that over the last two years, your people have probably been attacked. More than once. And your father decided to do something about it. Your town hasn’t fallen, which means it isn’t weak. But someone seems to think it might be weak enough. If they just keep at it.”