“You want me to run,” she hissed back. “I will not.”
“Perhaps not. But maybe you will learn something by watching me—for today I will grab glory for the Wolf. I will be his champion. It will be me he seeks audience with once the day is done!”
She eyed him sideways, wondering if it would be best to say nothing more. But she could not help but wonder at what might have been. Had that night on the mountain never occurred, would Stentor even be here? Might it be her instead? Or perhaps Alexios? Her next words slipped out before she could catch them. “The Wolf . . . if I fall today I will never get to meet him. Tell me about him.”
Stentor flashed her an iron glower. “About his guards, his routines? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You think I have forgotten that you are a misthios?”
She sighed, turning her head to him. “No, I mean . . . what is he like, as a father?”
Stentor’s iron shell crumpled. She saw for the first time a boy within the man’s eyes. She understood him in that one look. He said nothing in reply. As quickly as his visage had changed, it returned to that cold, hateful mien. On the pipes blared, and Kassandra knew there would be no more talk. So she almost leapt when he did at last reply.
“He is strong. Caring too. A good father, I would say. Yet there are times where it seems that he does not believe so. Times when a distant look comes over him. A sadness descends like a cold mist.” He laughed once—his Spartan demeanor slipping again. “But we all have regrets, I suppose.”
“Aye, we do,” Kassandra replied, her heart hardening, glancing over at the Wolf. And some will be set right soon enough.
The dreadful moan of the pipes fell away. The Athenian jeers and bawdy cries settled too.
Many hundreds of officers on both sides cried for the advance. Like a great arm sweeping across a tabletop, the Spartans and their allies set off at a pace that surprised Kassandra. It was a lockstep walk, yes, but a rapid one, and in utter silence too. While the allies sang or shouted, the Spartans were mute, staring, hateful. The distance between the two lines shrank rapidly. Kassandra saw the Athenian taxiarchy coming for them—a band of hoplites in cloud-white tunics, the right shoulders sapphire blue. Their taxiarchos was bedecked with a plumed attic helm and an ancient bronze thorax and white-leather boots chased with gold, and he led a trilling war cry as they drew closer.
“Elelelelef! Elelelelef!”
Kassandra’s heartbeat sped like a runaway horse. Now the answer to Stentor’s question Afraid? was most definitely yes. She stamped with every footstep, determined not to give in to the prickling dread as the Athenian spear tips drew closer, closer, and then . . .
Crash!
The lethal points scraped on her shield, driving the breath from her, some speared or swished near her head, some going for her shins. All along the lines, a mighty din of iron and bronze rang out, like metallic fangs gnashing. Some men thrust their lances to displace an opponent’s shield, allowing the comrade by their side to spear the foe in the ribs. Hundreds fell in those first few moments like this, gurgling wet cries and the slap of freed guts hitting the ground ringing out over the deafening fray. A spear scored across Kassandra’s cheek, slashed free a loose lock of her hair. She felt her own hot blood sheet down her face, smelled and tasted it on her lips. The Athenian taxiarchos speared rapidly at her, seeing her as a weak link. Fixed in the wall of Spartan hoplites, all she could do was stay behind her shield and lance back at her opponent.
“Look—the Spartans bring a bitch to the fight!” the officer roared gleefully just as a horrific stink of loosened bowels wafted across the battle lines, accompanied by a hot mizzle of blood. The man’s spear snapped thanks to his efforts, and so too did many hundreds more on both sides. With the gnashing fangs broken, the opposing lines surged together until the shields clashed with a dull thunder. Kassandra found herself nose to nose with the Athenian officer, she and every other Spartan now locked in a shoving match against their numerically superior foe.
“I’m going to cut off your dugs, Spartan bitch,” the Athenian officer snarled, his spittle flecking her face. “Then drag your corpse behind my horse for a mile.”
Stentor was right by her side, his face black with blood.
“Draw your sword, Misthios,” he snarled, doing so himself and ramming his short blade into the throat of the Athenian against whom he pushed. Kassandra saw the taxiarchos move to strike her first, but her lightning-sharp reactions won out: she drew the small curved blade given to her that morning and rammed it, hard, into the bragging taxiarchos’s eye. The man’s boasts became a pained shriek and then he was gone. Another Athenian quickly took his place and the two sides remained locked, pushing and shoving for their lives until, with a series of wet, dying howls, the moment came. The Athenians slipped back a step, then two. The brave songs of war turned to screams of despair. Their numbers had failed to overcome the famous Spartan will. The lines disintegrated, great swathes of Athenians speeding away, throwing down their shields. Kassandra felt the great pressure fall away. Stentor laughed as the Boeotian horsemen raced in from one flank to ensure a rout, while peltasts streamed along the other flank, raining javelins on the few Athenian regiments that still held fast.
“The dance of war is almost over,” Stentor boomed triumphantly. “See how the Athenians fear us? Perikles flees to cower in his Parthenon, surrounded by playwrights and sophists. He knows Athens’s days in Megara are numbered. And Athens itself will be next!”
But as the bold projection rang out, Kassandra saw something just along the Spartan line: the Wolf, injured and separated from his kinsmen and surrounded by four hardy Athenians. No, he is mine! she roared inwardly. Without a moment of hesitation, she lurched forward, bringing her shield down on the back of one Athenian’s head, stabbing a second in the flank. He fell like a stone. The third Athenian leapt and tensed to thrust his spear at the Wolf. The spear never left the Athenian’s hand as Kassandra hammered her sword into his ribs, cracking through his exomis, skin, gristle and bone, plunging into one lung. He fell in paroxysms of agony, taking the blade with him. The Wolf finished the final attacker with a blow of the shield boss to the face—breaking the foe’s nose, then sending a swift and expert swipe of his spear across the man’s throat. The Athenian fell away, head jerking, tongue lolling.
Kassandra flopped to her knees, panting, her hands devoid of weapons and the Wolf right in front of her. He stared at her for a moment before his men surrounded him. In that solemn, eerie way, they once again lifted their spears and made the dust-bowl battlefield shake with a mighty, “Aroo!”
While the allies exploded in continued celebrations, the Spartans fell silent, that one cry their only extravagance. They merely planted their spear butts in the dust and took quiet drinks from their waterskins, a few speaking in muted tones.
To kill or die for our homeland, Nikolaos had once told her, that is our job. We do it without pomp or spectacle.
One group calmly stripped a few Athenian dead of their armor, digging spears into the dust in an X-shaped frame, then decorating it with the enemy breastplates, helms and shields. In the end, it had the look of a four-headed Athenian hoplite. A simple, silent stele of victory. Flies gathered over the carpet of ripped corpses in a growing drone, and carrion hawks began to descend.
A soldier emerged from the Wolf’s circle of men. “You are the misthios?”
She looked up, nodding.
“The Wolf was impressed by your efforts today. When we draw back to the Pagai camp, he requests that you come to him,” he said.
She saw Stentor watching from the corner of her eye, his face dark with fury.
* * *
• • •
That evening, the air was thick with that sulfurous stench that precedes a storm, and the skies began to crackle and groan, eager to explode. Kassandra said little as she returned from battle and climbed aboard the beached Adrestia. Shrugg
ing off Barnabas’s attempts to examine her cuts and bruises, she simply snatched up her half lance, tucked it away in her belt and turned to stare up at the coastal bluffs, the Spartan camp and the nearby promontory to which she had been summoned.
“I will return soon,” she growled. “Be ready to sail at haste . . . Our lives will depend on it.”
With that, she hopped down onto the bay and strode toward the rising cliff path, her black cloak flapping in the growing wind and her tail of hair whipping in her wake. Atop the bluffs, she came to the promontory . . . and froze.
There he was, standing with his back turned, staring moodily out into the dark and choppy ocean as if it were an old foe. She edged toward him, her heart beating hard. The sight of his wind-writhing, blood-red cloak threw a flash of memory at her. The walk uphill, she thought. To Taygetos . . .
She noticed strands of white in the black curls of hair that hung from his helm, and the short stretch of shin visible below the hem of his tribon cloak revealed knotted, age-worn legs. Strong but tired.
She made not a sound as she drew closer, but he sensed her presence, his head tilting down and to one side just a fraction.
Of course he heard, she hissed to herself. He is a Spartan, trained in stealth from birth.
She stopped.
He turned to her, slowly.
Thunder growled overhead.
He regarded her, through the T-shape visor on his helm, with the same laconic stare that Stentor had obviously learned from him. His body, naked under the cloak, was laced with scars, including a freshly bandaged gash earned against the Athenians in the dust-bowl battle. The years had not been kind. Nor will I, she raged within.
“So you are the shadow that has been following my army for months,” he began. “Come, tell me of yourself, of why you fight so well and all for no purse.”
His voice was as deep as she remembered, but it had loosened a little with age.
She stared into his eyes, sparkling in the first burst of lightning—a jagged thorn that lit the bay. Why don’t you remember me? she seethed within. After what you did?
“My trust is hard-earned, as you will have realized. But now that you have it, there will be many future purses for you to earn and—”
The wind howled, blowing Kassandra’s cloak back like a war banner, revealing her belt . . . and the half spear of Leonidas.
The Wolf fell silent. Another shudder of lightning, behind Kassandra, betrayed his eyes in full now: wide, staring, disbelieving. “You . . .” he croaked.
Kassandra’s hand went for her ancient spear, and as soon as she touched it, the past seized her in its claws.
* * *
• • •
I stared into that inky abyss, hoping against all hope that this was not real. The cold sleet bulleting down upon me said otherwise. Alexios was dead.
“Murderer!” The priest’s shrill cry cut through the wintry storm like a scythe. “She killed the ephor!”
“She has cursed Sparta, condemned us all to the doom predicted by the Oracle,” shrieked another.
Silence . . . then: “She must die in retribution. Nikolaos, throw her over too—make her pay for her dishonor.”
I felt icy fingers crawl up my back. Turning from the abyss, I saw Mother thrashing, still held from behind by one old man, and Father, mighty shoulders rounded, face torn with horror.
“She. Must. Die,” keened a skull-faced priest. “If she lives you will be cast into exile, Nikolaos. Shame will follow you like a spirit. Your wife will loathe you.”
“No!” Myrrine shrieked. “Don’t listen to them, Nikolaos.”
“Even Helots will spit on your name,” the priest continued. “Do as a true Spartan would.”
“For Sparta!” many others howled.
“No!” Mother rasped, her voice all but gone.
At that moment I wanted nothing more than to be with them all, by the fire in our home, for this all to have been a wretched dream. Father stepped toward me, the barrage of wicked demands raining down on his shoulders, Mother’s pleas fending them off. I opened my arms to take his embrace. He would protect me, shield me—I knew this just as I knew Apollo, God of the Sun, would rise from the east every morning. He halted before me, sighed deeply, and stared not at me, but through me and into eternity. At that moment I swear I saw the light in his eyes gutter and die.
Father seized my wrist, his hand an iron claw. I gasped as he lifted me. He took a step toward the abyss and I felt my feet scrape at the edge and then at nothing.
“No . . . no! Look at me, Nikolaos,” Mother cried. “It’s not too late. Look at me!”
“Father?” I whimpered.
“Forgive me,” he said.
And then he let go. My father, my hero, chose to let me go.
My hands clawed the air. I plummeted into blackness, seeing his face vanish, hearing Mother’s soul-tearing final cry. For a few breaths, there was a weightless fall, in time with the sleet, and a roaring wind around my ears, and then it was all over.
And from blackness I awakened. A high-pitched squeaking stirred me first, and then a gentle pecking at my face. I opened my eyes. First, I could see the flickering of the storm high above, the few icy blobs of sleet that made it all the way down here pattering on my face. On the floor of this sheltered abyss, all seemed eerily quiet. Were these the first moments of my eternity as a shade?
Then a tiny bird’s head craned over me. Coated in white down with gray-ringed eyes. A pathetic specimen. I ducked out of the way as it pecked at me again. A dry clunk of something shifting beneath me and a horrendous pain through my shoulders and one leg told me I was no shade. I was alive. Somehow, I was alive. I sat up. The bird waddled clumsily up onto my thigh. A spotted eagle hatchling, I realized. I lifted the mite, cradling it in my palms, weeping, longing to wake from this nightmare. My eyes began to adjust, and I saw the dry “rubble” upon which I lay for what it truly was: a pool of bones. Grinning skulls, smashed and cracked, rib cages hanging from gnarled outcrops, rags of clothing too. With a cold, rampant horror, I realized that almost all of them were the skeletons of infants. The unwanted progenies of Sparta. Too weak or imperfect, the elders had deemed.
“Alexios?” I whimpered, knowing he must be down here too. Even to cradle his body would have meant something. “Alexios?”
Nothing.
I set the eagle hatchling down and rolled onto my knees, keeping the weight from my damaged leg, crawling over the ossuary pit, feeling with my hands where the darkness would not allow me to see. Then I felt it: something soft and still warm. “Alexios?” I wept.
A streak of lightning high above revealed the staring, smashed corpse of the ephor—his face locked in a shriek and the back of his bald pate burst like an egg. I leapt back, horrified, grabbing a bone—as if I would need a cudgel to protect myself from that dead wretch. Yet I lifted up before me not a bone, but the Leonidas half spear.
I stared into the blade, hateful, bereft, lost. I staggered around the pit of bones, searching for Alexios’s body in a daze . . . until I heard the sound of bones shifting in a rocky corridor nearby, saw a tall shadow. Someone was coming. If they found me here, alive after all that had happened, they would strike me down. And so I took up the eagle chick and ran . . . from Sparta, from the past and all its horror.
* * *
• • •
The Wolf of Sparta braced, hands raised to halt his onrushing daughter. “How can it be?” he gasped.
Kassandra answered with a lightning attack, her lance streaking around for his throat. It was only his Spartan instincts that saved him, yanking a short sword from a bicep belt and blocking her strike with it. He swayed, his heels on the precipice, his eyes darting to the Spartan camp behind Kassandra as the thunder raged above.
“Zeus roars for me,” she growled, “and so none will hear if you cry for help.”
<
br /> The Wolf’s arms shot out for balance and Ikaros swooped in to steal his blade. He gasped, pitching out into a death drop onto the bay below.
Kassandra reached out to grab him by the throat, the lance tip poised at his side, holding him on twin horns of death. “Now, Wolf,” she spat, edging him out a little farther, “justice can be done.”
“Kill me, then,” he said with a throaty crackle. “But before you do, there is something you must know. I loved you and your brother as if you were truly my own . . . but you were never mine.”
The storm raged around her and a tempest rose within too. “What do you mean?” She jerked the spear tip a little, drawing blood on his flank.
“That is something you must ask your mother.”
Kassandra felt her soul freeze. “Mother is . . . alive?”
Nikolaos nodded as best he could. “She is lost to me and me to her, but she lives. She fled Sparta that very night. To where, I do not know. Find her, Kassandra, and be sure to tell her that I have never forgiven myself for what happened. But with every step you take you must beware,” he rasped, his eyes maddened, “beware the snakes in the grass.” He grabbed her spear hand, pushing the lance tip a little deeper into his own flesh. “Now . . . end this.”
At the last, lightning shivered across the sky and in his bronze Korinthian helmet she saw her own face reflected. Ice crept across her heart, her throat grip slackening to let him fall, her spear arm tensing to run him through. The key to twenty years of caged injustice lay in her grasp at last.
FIVE
The port town of Kirrha sweltered in the June heat, the glare of the sea blinding, the pale mountains rising behind it dazzling. The tracks veining those slopes were dotted with pilgrims trekking into the heights to visit Delphi and its famous inhabitant: the Oracle, the Pythia, the keeper of the wisdom of Apollo, the seeress of all Hellas.
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