Galen flashed a grin to Aricles. "What better, indeed?"
Malphas passed a look of warning to Galen. "Put it back in your loincloth, punkin'. Our goddess is a virgin and is to remain so. She wouldn't even know what to do with a kiss so don't try for one unless you want to meet the bad end of my sword and her father's fury."
Galen grimaced. "Pity, and noted."
Malphas led them to a room where four other men were lounging about. "Welcome to the Eperon. We have two warriors from each mortal race." He jerked his chin to the two men who were dicing. One was a mountainous beast who made a mockery of the brothers' six-foot-six stature. For that matter, one of his beefy arms was easily the same diameter as Bathymaas's waist. He wore his long golden-blond hair braided down his back. The other was well muscled, too, and probably stood two to three inches taller than the brothers. His white-blond hair was cropped short and he had a full beard. "Representing the Apollite race we have Haides." He was the larger of the two. "And Hector."
They exchanged pleasantries as Malphas indicated the man on his bed, who was reading a scroll. He had black hair and eyes and a full shaggy beard that was the same length as his hair. "Our humans are the philosophical Monokles, and," he gestured to the one who was sharpening his sword, "Phelix." He had bright red hair that fell just past his ears.
Malphas clapped Galen on his shoulder. "Warriors, meet our Atlanteans. Galen and Aricles."
Haides narrowed his eyes on them. "How do we tell them apart?"
Galen grinned. "I'm the one who's actually alive and likes to partake of fun activities. Aricles seldom smiles and will most likely be discussing philosophy with Monokles."
Aricles kept his features blank. "And I'll be the one spanking Galen's ass during training."
Hector laughed wholeheartedly. "I like them already." He indicated a vacant chair to his right. "Stow your gear and join us."
Aricles took Galen's things. "Go on. I'll take care of it."
As always, Galen didn't hesitate to accept his offer.
While he went to game, Aricles looked at Malphas. "Which beds are ours?"
"The two under the window. Your training will begin an hour after dawn. Have a good night and remember, no bloodshed in the goddess's temple. Save it for the battlefield." Malphas left them to get acquainted.
Aricles went to put their personal effects in the chest between their beds. Listening to his brother jest with his two new friends, he pulled out his small knife and the piece of wood he'd started carving four days ago. It was a vague feminine figure. He hadn't seen the carving's face clearly.
Until today.
He'd started it as an offering for one of the goddesses of his homeland, but now ... Bathymaas would be perfect for it. Seeing her regal grace in the wood, he began reworking the piece.
After a few minutes, Monokles came over to watch him. "You make that look easy. How long have you been a carver?"
"Since the summer I first stayed with my grandfather in Ena. It was something he would do every night, after chores were finished. I was four or five, and he'd hold me in his lap and patiently instruct me."
"I never knew my grandfathers. One was a Greek hero who died in battle when my father was a boy, and the other was a cavalry officer who perished at war while my mother carried me. What of yours? Was he a retired officer?"
Aricles shook his head. "He was a simple farmer, as his father was before him. By nature, Atlanteans are peaceful ... with the peculiar exception of my brother, who was corrupted in his youth by a friend who told him too many Greek tales."
Monokles went rigid. "Is that a swipe at me?"
"Not at all, good Monokles. You have every right to be very proud of your soldier family. As I am of mine who toiled their farms. My insult was directed to my twin, solely. He thinks the rest of his family members are backwoods rubes because we would rather till the soil than make war with our neighbors."
Those words seemed to puzzle him. "Yet you're here. Why?"
Aricles shrugged. "Our place is not to question the will of the gods. But rather to do our best to honor them, our ancestors, and ourselves."
Monokles scowled. "How old are you?"
"Twenty, and you?"
"A decade older, and yet you speak like a sage ancient."
Galen snorted. "That's because my brother was born an old man. He came from our mother's womb spouting wisdom, and with more patience than any mortal man should ever possess. He should have been a priest."
"Is that true?" Monokles asked. "Would you have preferred priesthood?"
"Probably, but at the time to take vows, I had other obligations." He'd been in love with Claudia and had planned on marrying her. To pay her father's bridal price, he'd been working three jobs in addition to his home chores.
But a farmer was the last thing she'd wanted to be tied to.
Now, it was too late to become a priest.
Perhaps it was bitter irony that he'd ended up in the service of a goddess, after all.
*
"What are you doing?"
Bathymaas looked up from her sfora at Malphas's question. The small orange ball allowed her to spy on their recruits. "I wanted to make sure that our two newest additions didn't meet with resistance from the others."
"Are they mixing well?"
"They seem to be." She studied Aricles as he continued to masterfully whittle while his brother diced with the others. "Do you think we made a mistake forcing Aricles to leave his farm?"
Caleb gaped at her question. "Is that doubt I hear?"
"I don't know," she answered honestly. "Mortal feelings are beyond me. But I know how complicated sensory beings are. I don't want him to be in pain because of our decision."
Caleb arched a brow at that. In all the centuries he'd served his goddess, he'd never heard her question a decision before. Stunning, really.
Nor had she ever cared about someone's feelings. He wasn't sure what to make of that. Or what it was about Aricles that would cause her to doubt her decisions now.
Weird.
"Sentient beings adjust ... in time."
She met his gaze. "You've never adjusted to being without Lilliana."
He winced at a bitter truth that stung him hard. "I'm a demon and very different from them. Besides, Lil changed me from what I was, and then was violently taken from me. It's not the same as leaving home to serve a goddess and defend my people."
Bathymaas pulled back from saying anything else. She knew how much it hurt Caleb to talk about his wife. And for the first time, she felt a strange ache in her chest for him over his loss. She wasn't sure why.
Yet there was no denying it was there.
If only she knew why she felt this now.
October 28, 12,252 BC
Bathymaas watched Aricles sitting alone on the bank of a small stream. Since they had moved the Eperon from her Theban temple to the Atlantean island that was centrally located in the Aegean, she'd kept a close eye on her men. They were targets now. Not just from the Chthonians, but from the gods as well. And the last thing she wanted was for them to be attacked before they stood ready to defend themselves. While they were all valiant warriors, it was harder to fight against demons and gods than mortals.
And while the other five were eager to take their places as elite warriors, Aricles stood alone with his reticence for battle. As with now--while the others were off to seek fleshly comforts--he sat on his grassy bank with no other company than his shadow.
Frowning at him, she had no idea what it was he did there, or why he appeared so content with it. Nor did she understand why he wasn't with his brethren....
Aricles cocked his head as he felt Bathymaas's presence behind him. Strange how he was so attuned to her. Even before the scent of sweet lilies reached his senses, he'd known she was here with him. "Am I needed, my goddess?"
"No." She paused by his side to touch the handmade pole he held in his hands. "What is it you do?"
He pulled at the line. "I'm fishing."
"Fish."
Her frown deepened. "Is this how it's done?"
"It is. Would you like to try?"
"I'm not sure. What does one do to fish?"
Aricles smiled at her innocent question. While the other members of his band lost patience with her inability to understand human activities and emotions, he found her quite beguiling and endearing. "Come and sit with me, my lady, and I'll show you." He removed his cloak and laid it down on the ground to protect her clothing and to give her some padding from the damp grass.
In the daintiest and most graceful manner he'd ever seen, she sank down by his side.
He carefully showed her the metal hook he'd made. "You bait the hook." He picked up a worm from the small clay pot where he'd gathered them a short time ago and showed her how.
"Does that hurt them?"
"I try not to think about that."
"Oh, sorry."
He wiped his hands. "Once it's anchored to the hook, you place it into the water and wait for a fish to take the bait. Then you pull the fish to shore and capture it."
She watched as he tossed the line in. "How long does it take?"
"It could be right away or hours from now, or even not at all."
That seemed to confuse her even more. "Does this not bore you?"
He shook his head as he heard his brother's insults in his mind over his favorite pastime. "Not really. I find it relaxing to sit with my thoughts and listen to the wind whispering to me through the trees."
"You do have a serenity about you that others lack."
That was a polite term for what Galen called his boorishness. "I'm a simple man, with simple needs."
She ran her hand over the carvings he'd made on the pole. They were for the god of water, Ydor, who was said to favor fishermen. "And what are those needs you speak of?"
Aricles scratched at his chin. "Good company. No conflict. And a full belly is always nice."
Bathymaas was amazed at his short list. "No love or shelter?"
"Shelter can be found anywhere. A cave or tent. As for love ... I'm quite happy without it."
How very strange to her. "I thought all men wanted to be loved."
"Personally, I'd rather not have the pain of it."
"Is that why you're not wenching with the others?"
Aricles laughed. "What they're about today has nothing to do with love, my lady. That is a physical act that doesn't involve their hearts."
That made even less sense to her. "Then why aren't you with them?"
"What can I say? My brother wenches enough for both of us." Aricles paused as he saw her trying to understand his flippant explanation. She was so intelligent about most things, but when it came to human emotions, she was as childlike and innocent as Malphas had warned them. "The honest truth, my lady ... when I was a boy and staying with my grandfather, my aunt came in late one night. She was hysterical and in tears to find herself pregnant from a man she thought loved her. She'd given her body to him and when she conceived his child, he'd confessed that he'd only been dallying with her and had no interest in making her his wife. My grandfather told me that women, unlike men, quite often confuse sex with love, and that many women attach great significance to the physical act. I loved and adored my aunt, and when she killed herself days later, after she'd gone to her lover and he'd again insulted and denied her, it tore a hole in my heart. I vowed that I would never hurt a woman like that, and that I would take no lover except for my wife."
"But you're not married."
"And that is why I'm fishing instead of wenching."
"Oh," she breathed then hesitated as she digested his explanation. "So you've never had a woman?"
Cringing internally from that question, Aricles blushed. "And I would deeply appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone that, my lady. Men can be quite insulting over such things."
"Why?"
"Honestly, I've never been quite sure. It seems to me they would be grateful that it's one less competitor in the market, and yet that's not how they see it at all. Rather they think it makes a man weak and effeminate to not tup every female he meets."
Bathymaas tried to make sense of that as something began to tug at the pole in her hands. "Is this a nibble?"
"It is, indeed." He moved to sit behind her and wrap his arms around her so that he could show her how to pull the fish in. The warmth of his body and rich, manly scent of his skin made her head reel in a way it never had before. For some reason, she wanted to bury her nose against his skin and revel in it....
How very peculiar.
His rock-hard muscles flexed around her as he lifted the pole to show her a wiggling fish. "There it is." He moved away so as not to get the water on her dress.
He carefully placed the fish in a small wicker basket then wrapped the line and hook around the pole.
"Is that it?"
Aricles nodded. "I only need one for a meal. Some people fish for sport and release the fish after they catch it, but I only do that when it's too small or young to be eaten."
He was ever kind and compassionate to all things. In spite of the fact that he was a lethal warrior, Aricles was a very gentle man.
"May I watch you prepare it? I've never seen anyone do that before, either."
"Of course, my goddess."
He moved farther up the bank to where a small firepit had been prepared. Pulling out a knife, he sat down to remove the fish's scales.
She studied the graceful way he set about his task. "You move with such expertise...."
"I've been doing this a while."
It showed.
And that made her curious about him. "Aricles? Would you mind if I joined you again to fish another day?"
"I would be honored."
Bathymaas sat back and continued to watch him prepare his meal. Most likely, she shouldn't spend time with just him, and yet it wasn't right in her mind that he was alone when she knew people, as a rule, didn't like solitude. It only seemed fair and right that he should have someone to talk to on his days off, too, while the others sought other forms of companionship. Not to mention, she liked being able to ask him questions and have them answered. Unlike the others she knew, he didn't lose patience with her. And it helped her to better understand sentient mortals.
Perhaps these excursions would benefit them both.
March 3, 12,251 BC
"They're incredible, aren't they?"
Bathymaas wasn't sure what Caleb meant. "How so?"
"Sorry, goddess. I forgot you can't understand nuances.... The way the brothers move. As if they are one mind. Back to back. Perfect synchronicity. I don't know if it's from being brothers or twins. But I've never seen anything like it. If we had an army of them, we'd need no others."
She agreed. They were incredible fighters. While the other four were the best of their breeds, they weren't able to defeat Galen and Aricles.
"Are they ready to fight?"
Caleb screwed his face up. "I don't know. Battle brings out either the worst or the best in everyone. Sometimes both. Hard to predict until they're in it, how they'll react."
"They will stand united."
"Spoken by a woman who has no feelings and who has never had to fight for her life against a harrowing number of vicious enemies."
Bathymaas touched the scar on the demon's neck from a battle wound that had almost taken his head. Even before her birth, he'd been a warrior. "Were you ever afraid?"
"For myself? No. I never cared if I lived or died. I just fought."
"Does it help if you care?"
"Again, goddess, depends on the person. Everyone is different."
She watched as Aricles swung at Haides's head and then countered an attack from Phelix. "He is our best, isn't he?"
Caleb nodded. "He's the one I'd want at my back."
That was the highest testament Caleb could give. "How ironic that our best is the one who least wants to fight."
Caleb snorted. "No, goddess. The real irony is, the demon who was born to end their kind is the one training them to hold back his own."
"You were never evil, Malphas. You were born of equal parts."
"And suckled on venom and hatred, solely. I completely disagree with you, my lady. The only good in me died a violent death. Vengeance is all that sustains me now."
But she didn't believe that. She suspected Caleb denied his decency to protect himself from more harm. Otherwise he wouldn't be here with her, helping to train her soldiers. He would have joined his mother and sought to end the world they were trying desperately to save....
Just as Aricles had denied himself any real pleasure or frivolity. To protect his brothers and father from the demons that often preyed on their small farm while his father was deep in his cups, Aricles had learned to fight like their attackers. To stay sober and vigilant at all times. She'd seen the scars on his flesh from the battles he'd had as a boy. A boy who should have been protected from harm, not left as the sole protector of his family. Battles his father knew nothing about. It was what had led Galen to learn to fight, too, and was a large part of why Galen hated their farm so much.
If I'm to fight and die, it's going to be for glory and money. Not to save pigs and cattle.
But Aricles fought only for his family.
His quiet nobility was what she respected, and his intellect fascinated her. For a man who lived on a farm, he knew a great deal about philosophy and politics. And even more about nature and science.
Had Aricles been born noble, he would have been a brilliant statesman.
"Shit!"
She arched a brow at Caleb's unexpected profanity. He started forward to where Monokles and Hector were about to kill each other, but before he could reach them, Aricles disarmed both men.
"Here now! Is that really what you intend?" Aricles asked Monokles. "You want Hector's head?"
"He didn't pull back." Monokles gestured to the wound on his arm. "I'm bleeding! And I want his ass for it!" He lunged, but Aricles caught him again and pushed him back.
With the patience of an ancient priest, Aricles patted Monokles's shoulder. "And when the pigs dance, the cows feast."
Monokles scowled. "What language are you speaking?"
"It's an Atlantean saying. Don't give in to your temper. Angry eyes are blind, especially in battle. The best way to lose your life is to be so focused on the sword that dealt you the wound on your arm that you miss the knife coming for your heart." He glanced over to Hector. "Never forget that one hand washes the other, and both wash the same face."
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