“Don’t thank me,” he said. “You’re doing this for your sister, Fallon, but I do this for myself. And for the brother I never came back to save.”
He turned away and started up the path, and I glanced over to see Elka watching him go, her expression pensive. Her blue gaze stayed on Quint’s back until he had disappeared beneath the trees. I waved the others forward and we followed. The path wound beside a little tumbling river, over white rocks furred with moss, beneath the branches of ancient trees. It was worn smooth from many years of use, but it was steep going in places and we were all breathing hard after a quarter hour’s climb. Arviragus strode up the twisting incline in Quint’s wake directly ahead of me, the unsheathed sword in his hand swishing side to side, like the tail of a hunting cat. His head was in constant motion, eyes scanning the rugged terrain on both sides, and he was the one to sense the initial attack before any of the rest of us.
I could almost see the hackles rising on the back of his neck as he turned to me, his eyes almost black in the failing evening light as he said, “I have a bad feeling—”
And that was all he had time for.
The arrow slammed into the dirt between my feet. I yelped and dove for cover behind a stout, twisty pine, shouting for the others to do the same. I saw Ajani tackle Nephele out of the way, and Kore and Hestia ducked down behind a boulder. The rest of the girls were strung out along the path, with Gratia bringing up the rear, and I hoped frantically that our archer assailant was alone. If not, the girls would be easy pickings and there was nothing I could do about it. Cai landed in a tumbling crouch beside me as two more arrows sang through the air like hornets, and Arviragus scrambled around the other side of the tree as another missile grazed his ear.
“Damn my eyes!” he cursed, his broad shoulders jamming up against the rough bark of the tree. “I used to be a lot better at this sort of thing.” He reached up to touch his ear, and his fingertips came away bloody.
“I can’t imagine how all those years in a prison cell managed to dull your edge,” Cai said, frantically signaling Quint, who was ahead of us, taking cover with Elka.
“I think it was the wine,” Arviragus muttered dryly.
I edged around the bole of the tree, peering in the direction of where the arrow fire had come from, expecting another volley. Nothing. We waited, moving back onto the path only after a good long while had passed. The forest had resumed its eerie stillness, and eventually, Elka and Quint came loping back down the trail and the other girls climbed up to meet us.
“I think it’s clear,” Quint said, quietly. “Whoever took those potshots at us probably ran out of arrows.”
“If that’s the case,” I said, “they’ve probably run back to wherever they came from to warn of our presence. We’ve lost any element of surprise we might have had.”
“We don’t need surprise,” Antonia said. “We are the House Achillea, and we’ll win whether our foes expect us or not.”
There was a murmur of assent from the others, and I felt my heart swell at the bravery—and loyalty—of my companions as we set off back up the winding trail. In fairly short order we discovered that we hadn’t actually lost the element of surprise. But neither had our archer, who, it turned out, hadn’t run off at all.
Although it appeared she had run out of arrows.
The large basket of fish came sailing out of nowhere, hitting Quint square in the chest and knocking him to the ground. It was followed close behind by a second basket that plummeted out of the sky as if flung by a catapult and headed directly for me, but my swords were already in motion. My right blade deflected the basket, and my left took the head clean off a nice-sized sea bream that tumbled clumsily through the air.
I had a moment to relish the excellence of my reflexes, before I realized that my momentum had carried me to the very edge of the path—which crumbled away beneath my feet as I dropped my swords and flailed wildly, grabbing at handfuls of nothing as I tried to keep my balance. I heard Cai shout in alarm as I toppled over the precipice, my own cry strangled in my throat, and then there was a sharp, painful yank on my arm that almost pulled my shoulder from its socket.
I dangled in midair, looking up into Elka’s grimly determined face.
“I’ve got this one!” she snapped over her shoulder. “You lot go after the fish-lobber so she doesn’t raise a bloody alarm!”
I heard the sound of running feet fading up the path.
“Men,” Elka muttered through clenched teeth as she strained to haul me back up. “They hinder more than they help, ja? Thalassa, Nephele—get over here and grab my legs! Hold tight . . .”
Her two-handed grip on my wrist was excruciating, but I couldn’t help but gasp a laugh as I dug my feet into the cliff face and reached up with my free hand. “Aye, men,” I grunted, struggling to climb. “Of course . . . I remember . . . a time when you yourself . . . would have hacked off . . . my foot . . . rather than help . . .”
“That . . . was before . . . we knew each other . . .”
One last heave and I was up and rolling onto my back on the dirt track. The other girls fell back on their haunches as Elka and I lay there, gulping for breath for a moment. She rolled her head and grinned at me.
“But,” she continued, “the strength of my character saved you.”
“I’ll give the credit this time to the strength of your arms,” I said and climbed shakily to standing. “Come on.”
I held out a hand to her and then, together, we turned to help the other girls to their feet. Elka stood, pushing the sweat-damp hair back from her face with her forearm, and then we all took off running, scrabbling up a near-vertical incline to squeeze through a narrow break in a rock wall. I heard Cai shouting what sounded like orders to Quint, and by the time I was through to the other side, I saw the two of them had the fishergirl down on the ground, held there by Quint’s hand on her throat. His other arm was lifted, weapon poised and about to descend.
“Quintus!” I shouted. “Hold!”
I strode forward, ignoring the fact that I was still gasping for breath. At a glance from me, Cai pulled Quint away from our assailant. Close up, I was startled to see she was barely more than a child. A dangerous child, perhaps, but she couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. Maybe younger. Younger than the girls who’d just helped Elka haul me back up that cliff. Except the look in this girl’s eyes was anything but childish. She lay there, stone still and glaring poisonously up at me, and I drew my double blades, leaning down to cross them in front of her throat.
“Thalestris,” I said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. I saw no reason not to be direct, under the circumstances.
The girl’s eyes narrowed.
“You know her?”
She didn’t answer.