The Defiant

  The mob in the stands knew none of that.

  But still there were gasps and cries of outrage when the crowd realized that it hadn’t been me under that helmet after all. A confused silence followed, and then a gathering murmur that raced through the stands like wildfire when they realized who it had been. Many of them—most of them, from the sounds of it—still remembered the Lady Achillea from her arena days. The crowd was ecstatic. Their cheers, deafening.

  But something inside Nyx broke in that moment.

  I watched as she retreated from Sorcha, shaking her head.

  “No!” she cried. “No! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be . . .”

  “You disappoint me, Nyx,” Sorcha called out, her voice carrying across the arena and silencing the cheering crowd, who held their breath in anticipation of what was to come. “But then, you always have.”

  “I won’t fight you!” Nyx’s face twisted in rage and anguish. “I won’t—”

  The spear that came out of nowhere sang as it flew. Sorcha heard it just in time to dive for Nyx and tackle her out of the way as the spear thrower—dressed all in black, like the rest of Aquila’s fighters—stalked forward.

  Thalestris.

  Sorcha rolled away from Nyx, who lay gasping and winded—but alive—beneath her, and leaped to her feet.

  “If you’re too weak to finish this fight, gladiolus,” Thalestris called out to Nyx in her raven’s-croak voice, “I assure you, I am not.”

  Cai nudged my shoulder. “You said she’d be back. You were right.”

  “I hate it when I’m right.”

  What I hated even more was that whereas Nyx didn’t know how to beat Sorcha in a fight, Thalestris—my sister’s primus pilus, the woman who’d helped her develop her unique style—most certainly did. My hate was mitigated by the fact that I’d been half expecting the disgraced Amazon to put in an appearance that night. And to that end, I had prepared a welcome for her.

  I would fight fire with fire.

  A lot of fire.

  “Ajani!” I shouted. But my voice, hoarse from the ravages of Varro’s choking, was lost in the din of the mob. Quint put a hand on my shoulder and, instead, blew a deafening blast on his whistle. I waved my hands over my head and cried, “Now!”

  Out in the field arena and waiting for my signal, Ajani drew her bow and arched her back, aiming at the stars overhead. Then she loosed and shot a flaming arrow arcing up into the sky. It hung there at the top of its arc, like a blazing star itself . . . before sailing down to slam into the ground right between my feet. The missile stuck there, still aflame, and my Amazon contingent ran forward—each of them now equipped with one of the fire chains Cai and Quint had carried with them in their legion packs.

  Kallista and her sisters gathered around Ajani’s arrow and set their cage balls alight. Then they poured through the ludus gate and out onto the field of battle, swinging their flaming weapons in great roaring circles above their heads. The appearance of fire-wielding Amazons sent the crowd in the stands into a rapture of bloodlust as the girls from the ludus that was named after Amazons now had to turn and face real Amazons.

  At the sight of us, the Achillea gladiatrices who’d accompanied me to Corsica sent up a Cantii war cry and surged back into the fray with renewed vigor. Bloodied, battered, but on their feet. Every single one of them, and a glimpse of Elka—right in the thick of it—hewing a circle with her spear did my heart as much good, I’m sure, as it did Quint’s. He and Cai wasted no time wading into the fight, and I left them to it, turning my attention to the rest.

  The makeshift arena had erupted into fresh chaos with our arrival.

  I saw Thalassa and Kore fighting back-to-back like they were partners in a dance. Hestia cut a swath through a clot of Dis guards with her sica blade, and Gratia faced down an Amazona gladiatrix who was actually bigger than she was. Ajani laid down arrow-fire cover for those who needed it, and Antonia brandished with devastating grace the crescent blade that had become almost a part of her. Everywhere the crowd looked there was something for them to slake their thirst for excitment. At the center of the ring of clashing combatants, there was a wide, empty space—an arena within the arena where Sorcha and Thalestris battled grimly.

  I rushed to join my sister so that, together, we could put an end to all the madness that Nyx and Thalestris had wrought.

  “You’re weak, Sorcha,” I heard Thalestris taunting in a voice like spitting venom. “Lame and old and half-blind . . .”

  “My only weakness was trusting you, Thalestris,” Sorcha answered. “My blindness was in thinking you were worthy.”

  The Amazon snarled. “You were never the warrior they said you were.”

  Sorcha circled to her left, guarding against attack on that side.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I was never Achillea. I was Sorcha of the Cantii. And it’s high time I reclaimed that name. And that mantle.”

  My heart swelled to hear those words, but it wasn’t going to be easy for her. Sorcha was holding her own, but she wasn’t gaining any ground. They were too evenly matched.

  It was my intention to disrupt that delicate balance.

  I circled around to Thalestris’s flank, but she wouldn’t be drawn away from her focus on Sorcha. Instead, she kicked up a discarded retiarius net that lay on the ground and kept me at bay with it while she still wielded her spear one-handed like it was an extension of her arm. I darted and feinted, probing for any gap in her defenses, but Thalestris had none. The crowd jeered and shouted, urging us to spill blood, but I was nothing more than a nuisance to her. A buzzing fly. Barely a distraction.

  So I made myself a target instead.

  The next time she whipped around with her net, I let her catch my blades—both of them—in the knotted ropes. A fatal mistake of a young fighter. A gladiolus . . . Thalestris was used to that, and she pounced on my vulnerability, teeth bared in a triumphant grimace as she yanked the net forward. I let her pull me off balance. Into the circle of her striking distance. The makeshift stands thundered and shook as the crowd roared madly and stomped their feet.

  I prayed to the Morrigan that my sister could see what I’d done . . .

  That she would be fast enough . . .

  She was my brilliant warrior sister. And she didn’t disappoint.

  I’d left myself wide open to the strike. But in the scintilla of a moment when Thalestris reared back with her spear, she left a space. It was on her defensive side—an opening most fighters wouldn’t have been able to exploit—but in her drive to end me, she forgot for that instant who her other opponent was.

  The Lady Achillea. Sorcha of the Cantii.

  She sprang forward, with her off-kilter style, and dropped to one knee. Sorcha brought her blade up and around . . . and thrust into the space beneath Thalestris’s arm as she tore my swords out of my grasp. Thalestris’s body bent like Ajani’s bow, arcing away from the blow.

  All at once, the crowd fell silent.

  Every other fighter in the field froze.

  “When you greet your sister in the afterlife,” Sorcha said through bared teeth, “you can tell her I beat you too. Me, and my sister.”

  Thalestris was dead before she hit the ground.

  When I’d killed the Fury in my very first fight, her gaze had softened and her lips smiled, and a lifetime’s worth of rage had emptied out of her. She’d found serenity with her last breath. Thalestris went to her death grappling her anger and hatred to her soul. Defiant to the last, she would not relinquish her vengeance, not even as she passed from the world. Her face remained frozen—like one of Varro’s death masks—in a rictus of malevolence. A countenance she would wear for all eternity in the Lands beyond Death. I could not even pray for her peace.

  But it was over, finally. For Sorcha. I thought it was for me too.

  She bent to retrieve my blades, and I
reached up and dragged the helmet from my head, and the crowd cheered wildly. A cheer that turned to a horrified gasp as a ball of flame slammed into the ground right beside me. I dove out of the way instinctively as a comet of heat and smoke roared past my head. My shoulder slammed into the ground and I rolled, springing back up to my feet to see Nyx standing before me, one of the Amazons’ smoldering fire chains dangling from her fist. I’d somehow managed to forget one of the most important lessons Sorcha had taught me as a child.

  Never let down your guard until you’re off the field of battle.

  And I was most definitely still on the field.

  My sister tossed me my swords, and I nodded at her to step back.

  This was going to have to be my fight and mine alone. The crowd would have it no other way. Nyx was clearly fine with that. She might not have been willing to fight Sorcha, but unsurprisingly, she seemed to have no such qualms about me. I felt my stomach twist with apprehension. The things Nyx was capable of doing with a whip had been my downfall every single time I’d fought with her. Seeing her now, with what amounted to a war god’s version of the same weapon—a whip, only made of metal and on fire—was almost enough to make me turn and run.

  And then I remembered something.

  Just like Sorcha, I didn’t have to fight Nyx the way I’d always fought her.

  There were no rules here. No referees. Nothing confining me to one weapon or another. Nothing but my own choices. The rest of the arena had gone silent; all of the other fights had dwindled to stillness. Nyx and I were the absolute focus of every pair of eyes there. High up on the ludus walls, beneath his fringed awning, Pontius Aquila’s face was white and stark. His hands gripped the rail in front of him as he leaned forward, his eyes pools of shadow that threatened to grow large enough to swallow me whole.

  I could almost sense his anticipation of my death.

  Not tonight, Tribune, I thought. Not ever for you.

  I saluted Nyx and the crowd with both my swords . . .

  Then I sheathed the blade I held in my left hand.

  Nyx sneered at me as I stooped to pick up a shield that lay on the ground. Nyx had never seen me use one in single combat before. Which also meant she had no idea what to expect from me.

  “Come on, then,” I said, sinking into a ready stance. “Let’s finish this.”

  The flaming cage of Nyx’s fire chain slammed into my shield, and a bloom of flame licked out around the edges. I felt the heat, but no hurt, as she swung the thing back and attacked again. And again. All I had to do was anticipate which angle she was coming at me from and move to block. If it hadn’t been for all those hours of practice on the ship, I don’t know that I could have done it. But I remembered Cai’s shouted instructions to the girls as Quint blew his whistle commands. I kept my feet moving. My shoulders tucked and angled. My head down . . .

  The fire cage put a drag on the end of the chain that Nyx wasn’t used to. Her whip had been a supple weapon, the tip of it like a darting serpent’s tongue. The fire chain handled more like a bludgeon. When I saw her winding up for one of her signature attacks, I made my move. The fire cage dragged for a moment as it hit the ground, longer than Nyx was used to. I dove for it and slammed my shield down, driving the cage into the earth. The flame extinguished, and the chain went taut between us. With a great cry, I hacked downward through the metal links with my sword. They parted in a shower of jagged shrapnel.

  And the blade of my oath sword shattered with them.

  I uttered a cry of denial that was echoed through the crowd.

  With my shield edge lodged in the earth, Nyx snarled in triumph and reared back with the truncated length of chain, aiming to smash it down on my defenseless skull. In her enthusiasm to spill my brains, it seemed she’d forgotten that I had a second sword. And she’d left herself wide open.

  Hidden behind the shield, my second blade slid free of its sheath . . .

  She lunged at me, and I buried it between her ribs.

  Just like she’d once buried her knife between mine.

  “Count yourself lucky, Nyx,” I said quietly as she slowly sank to the ground in front of me, a look of disbelief on her face. “I’ll see you get the burial you deserve. But I won’t let your dark master eat your heart.”

  The roar of the crowd was deafening.

  It filled my head and made the ground shudder up through my feet.

  It masked the whine of the arrow.

  The shaft hit me squarely on the left side of my chest, above my heart, and knocked me off my feet. I looked up through a haze of pain to see Tanis, the archer, draw another arrow from her quiver and nock it to her bow. If I had been wearing my usual armor, I would be dead. But the breastplate Cleopatra had given me was—unsurprisingly—heavily decorated with scrolling metalwork and made of the finest, thickest bull’s hide. It dented on impact, and I felt like I’d been hit by a catapult stone, but I was alive.

  Unpunctured, maybe, but unable to move.

  I looked up, helpless as Tanis sighted down the length of the arrow shaft. I closed my eyes. Prayed to the Morrigan she would take my soul in flight . . . Waited for impact. For death.

  But nothing came. I opened my eyes to see her still standing there, frozen in hesitation. The crowd held its breath, but Pontius Aquila’s patience was at an end. He stood and lunged for Tanis, wrenching the arrow and bow from her grip, shoving her aside. Then he turned and, competently enough to tell me he had some archery skills at least, nocked the arrow and sighted.

  This time I didn’t close my eyes.

  And so I saw when Aeddan leaped in front of Aquila, taking the second arrow that was meant for me square in his chest.

  “Aeddan!” I cried and staggered to my feet, clutching a hand to my wounded shoulder.

  He spun around in a grotesque dance, balanced on the edge of the rampart. Then slowly, gracefully, he toppled off the wall and hit the ground below. I ran, stumbling toward him, and dropped to my knees at his side.

  He was breathing still, shallowly, and with each breath a fresh wash of blood spilled from his mouth.

  “Fallon . . .” He lifted a hand to my face.

  “Rest,” I shushed him, taking his hand in mine and holding it as tightly as I could.

  “I’m . . . sorry . . .”

  “Rest now . . .”

  He nodded weakly and his mouth moved, forming a single word. A name. “Mael . . .”

  “Greet your beloved brother for me, Aeddan,” I said, choking on the sob that clutched at my throat. “Tell Mael . . . tell him I miss him . . .”

  My tears spilled onto his cheeks, mingling with his blood.

  He managed another nod, and his hand clenched convulsively on mine.

  “I’ll miss you too.” I leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “And I will see you both one day again, in the Lands of the Blessed Dead. And we shall all be friends there.”

  And then he was gone.

  The crowd had gone utterly silent, soaking in my grief.

  I stood, slowly, and turned my attention to Pontius Aquila. He had dropped the bow, sensing the mood of the crowd turning ugly against him. They were on our side now. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  Someone from the stands lobbed a torch at his platform as my sister stepped up beside me. “Give me back my ludus, Pontius Aquila!” she shouted up at him, her words ringing through the air. “It belongs to me, and it belongs to these girls. They are not rebels, they are not renegades. They are heroes. And you are not welcome in our home.”

  “Achillea! Achillea!” the crowd began to chant. And “Victrix! Victrix!”

  Even if the mob did not fully comprehend the subtleties of what they’d witnessed there that night, they knew they’d had a roaring good time. And with me and Sorcha and our fellow fighters ensconced back at the academy, they were likely assured of many more
like it.

  The shouting grew to a roaring.

  Aquila went even paler, and I saw him step back away from the edge of the rampart. Another torch flew tumbling toward the platform. And another. I was thankful the walls of the ludus were high and made of stone, else the crowd that had just cheered our winning back the place might well have burnt it to the ground.

  Aquila’s guards had already hurried down the ladders to the ground, and I saw them rush to close the gates, while the Tribune and his vile Dis cronies scrambled to follow. Tanis fled with them. Some of the crowd from the arena stands charged the gates, pounding on them and demanding justice, but I just watched him go. They would scurry down to the beach, I knew, and take to their galley. I smiled to myself, thinking just what kind of reception they might find, once they got to Cleopatra’s side of the lake.

  “I don’t think he will return,” Sorcha said quietly. “Here, or anywhere in the Republic where someone might recognize his face. We’ve won, little sister. You did it.”

  With only one good arm, I wrapped Sorcha in the tightest embrace I could muster. “We did it.” I said. “Together. All of us.”

  “AH-CHILLEA!” The shouting grew to a roaring. “AH-CHILLEA!”

  Sorcha turned and, out of view of the crowd, rolled her eyes. I grinned at her, and together, we held hands and turned to face the crowd. When my glorious sister punched her fist into the air, the world erupted around us.

  Wine and beer barrels appeared as if by magic, along with flutes and drums and lyres. There was singing and dancing and laughter, and I had a feeling that this was a party that would last until dawn. For the crowd at least.

  My shoulder throbbed painfully, and I saw Neferet pushing through the crowd to get to me, her physician’s satchel slung across her torso. I turned and surveyed the field arena, strewn with a few scattered bodies. I didn’t yet know if any of them were ours. Or the Amazons’. But our adversaries had thrown their weapons to the ground in defeat, and as my friends came slowly forward, shoulders hunched in exhaustion but heads held high in victory, I realized that we really had won. We’d won the right to fight another day. On our own terms.