On the other side of the room, Cai and Quint were plotting our escape. Aeddan stood by, arms crossed over his chest, listening.
“Our best bet, if we’re to make a break for it as a group, is to put the horses in the yard to strategic use,” Cai was saying as I approached, Elka following in my wake.
Quint nodded. “We saddle only the cavalry mounts,” he suggested. “They’re trained to act as shields and rams in a crowd. And hitch two of the light passenger carts to the fastest horses. That’s about all we’ll be able to keep control of in a running fight through the front gates. Any more than that, and we risk getting hemmed in by our own people. If that happens, they’ll cut us to pieces.”
“What about the rest of the horses?” Aeddan asked. “You can’t leave Aquila and his thugs any means of pursuit.”
Cai hesitated. Elka didn’t.
“We’ll have to lame the chariot ponies.” She said it matter-of-factly, but I saw her throat muscles working as if trying to keep those words out of her mouth.
I wasn’t about to entertain that thought for even an instant. “I know what you’re thinking, Elka, but no. No cold-blooded Varini tactics!” I put a hand up, forestalling her objections. “I remember what you told me about your tribe and leaving nothing behind for the enemy to use once you move on, and I remember thinking that, yes, that made a certain amount of sense. But we’re not moving on. And those horses are as much a part of this place as we are.”
Elka raised a pale eyebrow at me. “You mean the place we’re abandoning?”
“We are not abandoning the ludus,” I said emphatically, only just realizing, myself, what I’d actually said. “This is . . . Cai? What is this?”
“A tactical retreat?”
“Yes!” I nodded. “A tactical retreat.”
Elka’s expression conveyed her skepticism, but she put up her hands and didn’t argue. I looked back at Cai and Quint, hoping they had another solution. Cai thought for a moment, then nodded.
“We’ll cut all the saddle girths and bridle tack, then. That should slow them down at the very least.” Cai looked over at Aeddan. “Unless you think any of those brutes can actually ride bareback?”
Aeddan shook his head. “From what I’ve seen of Aquila’s men, I’d be shocked to learn any of them could ride even with a saddle.”
“That should take care of that, then,” Cai said.
“What about the chariot ponies?” I asked. “What about Nyx? She’s the best driver we ever had.”
“Smash the spokes on all the chariot wheels,” Quint suggested. “Those can be rebuilt, but not without time and effort. All we need is a decent head start.”
Cai nodded. “Agreed.”
Elka accepted the solution, her mind already turned to other issues. “We can’t go back to the barracks for our own weapons,” she said. “Crossing the compound is too risky.”
She was right. I silently thanked the Morrigan that I’d had the foresight to retrieve my own swords. “If we can get to the equipment shed, we can at least pick up some gear there,” I said, “but there’s no guarantee we’ll make it even that far before we’re detected. In the meantime, you and the rest of the girls had best arm yourselves with anything you think might be useful.”
Elka cast a searching glance around Heron’s workroom, and I saw her eyes light up. She crossed over to a cabinet and plucked a wicked-toothed bone saw off a hook. She hefted it and nodded in satisfaction. I heard Quint sigh. When I looked over at him, he was gazing at Elka with utter devotion.
The other girls swiftly followed her example, snatching up anything off a shelf or from a hook that could be used to stab, slice, or bludgeon. Damya broke apart a wooden stool with her bare hands and distributed the legs as clubs. Ajani gathered up Heron’s surgical knives and shoved them through a strip of bandage cloth she’d looped across her torso so she could access the blades with ease. Gratia hefted a tall bronze lamp stand, and Meriel gripped a pair of pointed metal surgical implements in both hands. I couldn’t have even guessed what their intended purpose was, but was fairly certain Meriel would put them to good use. Even Tanis had found a weapon for herself—a corpse hook.
I let that pass without comment. Apparently, the prospect of having her heart torn from her chest and devoured had unearthed a previously unmined vein of courage in the young archer. At least she seemed resolved to join us.
Together with their makeshift weapons, the Achillea gladiatrices ranged around me in a loose circle, bruised and battered. But also quiet, competent, and very, very angry. Pontius Aquila, I thought, was operating under some fairly profound misapprehensions. He thought I was a fighting spirit?
I was one of many.
One of a defiant sisterhood.
“Antonia?” I said, glancing over at where she had drifted away from the rest of us. She looked on the verge of tears suddenly. “What is it?”
“My weapon . . .” She gestured to the stump of her arm, clad in the plain leather sheath she wore outside of the practice arena. “It’s in the trunk in my room, and, as you say, we can’t risk going back to the barracks. But I’m useless without it. The rest of you can make do, but I can’t. I can’t fight without my own blade, and I’ll only be an impediment. You might as well leave me behind with her.” She jerked her head at Lydia, where she lay unconscious on the bed.
My heart ached for Antonia—for her bitter frustration in that moment—but Neferet shook her head and sighed dramatically.
“What?” Antonia glared at her.
“Well . . .” Neferet exchanged a glance with Heron. “I was going to save this as a surprise for a special occasion.”
Antonia frowned in confusion.
“But since you’re making such a fuss . . .”
Neferet went over to Heron’s workbench and knelt down before a basket stacked with neatly folded lengths of linen. In spite of the gravity of our situation, I noticed the hint of a smile playing at the corners of Heron’s mouth.
I looked over at Elka but she just shrugged.
Neferet lifted the piled cloth and reached underneath to retrieve something that looked like a cross between an armored greave and one of Heron’s more diabolical medical instruments, crisscrossed with a web of leather straps and buckles. The leather was supple and polished to a deep sheen, and all of the metal fittings gleamed.
“I was just putting the final touches on it,” Neferet said, holding it out to Antonia. “Here. Try it on.”
Since the day Antonia had decided she wasn’t going to let her injury keep her out of the arena, she’d been experimenting with different apparatuses—various kinds of rigging so that her truncated arm could function as a weapon. She’d gone through a series of modifications, each one honing the device to give her more control and mobility. And clearly Neferet had been paying careful attention to what had worked and what hadn’t.
Antonia slid her arm into the leather greave. It ended in a half-moon-shaped blade that looked like it could cut through the toughest boot leather with ease. Neferet adjusted the straps and stepped back, her face splitting into a wide smile as Antonia took a few tentative swipes through the air in front of her.
“Just be careful,” Heron said. “It’s sharp.” An understatement.
Antonia lifted an eyebrow at him, grinning dangerously. Then she whirled in a full circle, the curved blade dancing through the air in an intricate series of attack patterns that culminated in an overhead arc. The blade whistled as she swept her weapon arm high overhead and down, burying one wickedly honed point of the blade a thumb-length deep into the wooden surface of his workbench.
Panting a bit, she pushed the hair out of her eyes and yanked the blade free. She turned to Neferet, eyes shining, and said, “It’s perfect.”
Antonia held out her hand, and Neferet reached to take it. “Then it’s good enough for you.”
This, I th
ought. This is what we were about to start fighting for. Our lives, our happiness. Each other. Sorcha had dreamed of this for us—and now it was up to us to find a way to keep that dream alive.
“What time of night is it?” I asked Heron.
The physician checked the device he called a clepsydra—a Greek contraption that measured time with water—and said, “Sunrise is in four hours.”
I nodded. “Then I want us to be ready to go in two.”
Cai and Quint enlisted a handful of the girls and led them, with all possible stealth, to the outbuilding where the chariots and wagons were kept. There, they went to work malleting through the spokes of every wheel they could find. At the same time, Elka and I, along with Meriel and Damya, headed to the tack shed, where we sawed through all of the saddle girths, reins, and bridles hanging from hooks on the walls. Then once we were done, it was out to the yard, where we still had the cover of darkness to help hide our little insurrection.
The horses picketed out in the yard were restless, not used to spending nights outside of their stalls, but they calmed under Ajani’s gentle hands and soothing whispers, enough so that we could hitch the two fastest pairs to the carriages while Cai and Quint saddled their cavalry mounts. My fingers fumbled with the harness buckles, palms sweat-slick, and at every moment I expected we would be caught out. I kept glancing nervously over my shoulder to where Aeddan stood beneath the stone arch leading to the main house, watching for any movement.
There was none. And that made me even more nervous.
I reminded myself that Aquila was no military man. His guards, no soldiers. And his gladiatrices were more used to being guarded than guarding. They were fighters, not strategists. And with me safely—supposedly—locked away in Tartarus and with the only two “real” soldiers chained up in the infirmary, they clearly weren’t expecting escape attempts. An oppressive silence lay heavy on the ludus in those dark hours before the dawn.
It wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“The goddess keep you all,” I said when we were done and all the girls had gathered around, awaiting orders. “When this happens, it’s going to happen fast. It will be chaos, and that’s what we’ll need if any of us is to escape. Whoever gets out, gets out. Whoever gets left behind . . . Don’t give in. Don’t give up.”
Cai glanced skyward suddenly and said, “Rain.”
“Good,” said Quint. “The more impediments, the better for us.”
I desperately hoped so. The wide sand road that led to the main gate—and freedom—had gone from raked smooth to pockmarked as the raindrops began to fall. Clouds scudded over the face of the moon, and a gust of wind blew the wetness in under the eaves where I stood, cooling my fever-heated skin . . . and then making me shiver.
The driving purpose that had sustained me in the hours since Aeddan had freed me from Tartarus was beginning to wane. I could feel it. If we didn’t make our move soon, I didn’t know that I would be able to move at all. Slowly, with strips of Heron’s linen bandages wrapped around the horse bridles to muffle the noise, we moved out, pausing beneath the wide stone arch that opened into the main courtyard . . . our gateway to freedom.
I held my breath as the guard in the watchtower suddenly stuck his head out into the open. We all froze, staring up. Feeling the first drops of rain, the guard cursed—a small, faraway sound in the night—and stepped out onto the causeway to relieve himself over the side of the wall before the shower became a downpour. As he stepped up on a block of stone and hitched up his tunic, I signaled to Ajani. She didn’t have her bow, but when she’d raided Heron’s store of surgical knives, she’d picked the ones best balanced to throw.
Cruel to take a man’s life in a moment like that, but the opportunity presented itself, and I wasn’t about to let it escape our use. Neither was Ajani. The blade sliced through the rain, spinning end over end, and the man toppled soundlessly over the ludus wall. We all stood like statues for a long moment, waiting for the alarm to be raised.
Nothing.
Just rain and darkness.
“Let’s go,” Cai said, nodding to Quintus and waving me forward. I sprinted across the yard to where the massive sliding lock-bar was secured with a great heavy lock. There was only one key on the ring I carried that was large enough to fit, but my fingers fumbled with it, numb and unresponsive, slick with rain and sweat. My heart hammered in my ears. My knife wound was on fire and—I was almost certain—bleeding again. And the mark Aquila had carved on my arm seemed to hiss and tingle, sending sparks shooting up and down my limb.
“Come on, Fallon,” I muttered to myself. “Come on . . .”
And then, overhead, I heard the hammering of feet on the guard walk.
“Felix?” shouted a voice. “Where are you?”
There was silence, then a burst of cursing. When I looked up, it was to meet the gaze of a second Amazona guard who’d come to check on his fellow. He’d seen the body lying on the ground below, and now he was peering down directly at me.
We had no time left.
I tore my gaze away from his astonished face and went back to work on the gate lock. The key rattled in the hole, and it took all my strength to make it turn. But then the latch sprung open and the lock fell to the ground with a dull clank. Ajani threw another knife, but the second guard had already ducked back behind the parapet and was yelling for help at the top of his lungs. I shouted for Cai and Quint to come help with the slide bar, but Gratia got there first and shouldered me aside, straining as she hauled on the thing, and managed it single-handed.
Then, Cai and Quint were there to haul open the doors.
“Go!” Cai barked. “Both of you—back to the wagons! We’ve got this . . .”
I turned and ran, but I could already see light in the main house. Torches flared, guttering and smoking in the lashing rain as Aquila’s men came running. And not just his men. The Amazona girls too. I saw Nyx sprinting across the yard, her black hair flying loose behind her. Not this time, I thought. I wasn’t about to let her get close enough to finish what she’d started with me.
I signaled to the Achillea girls, and they started yelling and clashing makeshift weapon against weapon. The unpicketed ponies panicked and began to rear and scream—lashing out with hooves and teeth as the girls drove them to form a barrier between the others and us. Already on edge from the fire that had destroyed their barn and the time spent kept outside in unfamiliar conditions, the animals were easy to spook, and we used that to our best advantage. Once Cai and Quint were mounted on their cavalry horses and herding them toward the Amazona gladiatrices—none of whom looked excited at the prospect of attempting to breach a wall of panicked horseflesh—we had our opening.
Gratia was at the reins of one of the two wagons, somehow managing to keep her horses under control. Arm muscles bulging, she hauled the reins up short and shouted for the girls herding the other horses to hurry up and run for the cart. I ran for the other one, sprinting for the bench seat up front, where I could help Elka drive if needed. It was the very same cart I’d first ridden to the ludus in—a slave on the way to what, at the time, had seemed a fate worse than death—and now it was my chance at salvation.
I put my foot up on the rail and grabbed the sides of the wagon, hopping on one leg as I tried to gain my balance. But the movement of the cart wrenched my arm. Pain bloomed and I felt a wave of nausea sweep over me. I tried again and was startled when I looked back into the cart bed. One of the faces I saw there, staring up at me, was Leander’s. It was the first I’d seen of him since the ludus had been attacked. He must have heard the commotion and scrambled away from the kitchens, jumping into the cart bed in the confusion. Clearly Leander wanted about as much to do with an Aquila-run ludus as we did.
His face was white with fear, but he reached out a hand to me as I clung to the side of the cart, my feet scrabbling for a foothold.
“Domina!” he said.
“Let me help you—”
I tried to grab hold, but his fingers slipped through my grasp.
And then, suddenly, Nyx was there. Reaching up for me. Mouth open and eyes blazing hatred, she grabbed my arm and threw herself backward, dragging me down into the mud with her. Elka didn’t see—she must have thought I was safely aboard—and slapped the reins, shouting for the horses to move. I lost my grip entirely. The cart surged forward, thundering through the main gate as I fell.
I landed on top of Nyx, and that was the only thing that saved me. My knee jammed up under her rib cage, and I heard the breath leave her lungs in a great whoof of air. I kneed her again for good measure and staggered up to my feet, leaving her there, lying on the ground and gasping for breath.
There was still a clot of Achillea girls dodging the black-clad guards in front of the gate as they struggled to swing the heavy doors closed again. Tanis, with her corpse hook, was one of them. She screamed my name and took a step toward me, faltering on her leg that still bore the marks of the rope burns she’d suffered in the naumachia. I started toward her, but Nyx—chest heaving and fury in her eyes—suddenly stood in the way.
Her whip cracked through the air, sending one of the draft horses bucking and rearing between us.
“Fallon!” Tanis cried frantically out over the mayhem. “Help me!”
The gates were closing. I’d never make it, I thought—with or without Tanis—but in that moment, a stray, white-eyed chariot pony skittered out from behind a wall buttress right in front of me. One of the smaller mares, used mostly in practice, but swift-footed and agile . . .
“Fallon! Don’t leave me!”
. . . and my last chance at escape.
Run! the Morrigan whispered in my ear. Live! Return to fight another day!
Or die. There was nothing else for me to do. I leaped for the horse.
“Fallon!”
Tears of helpless frustration burning my cheeks, I bent low over the little mare’s back and slapped her shoulder. With a burst of speed like a champion racer, she surged through the rapidly closing gap between the ironbound oak doors. I looked back over my shoulder at the ludus as we pounded down the road and saw that there were still girls caught on the wrong side of the doors. Too many of them.