He kept his blade behind his shield, the better to keep the bronze from glinting, and when no centaur came charging out of the haze of smoke, he thumped his hilt against the wood, signaling the others even as he continued on. He would not take them into the village to choke, where they would not see the centaurs coming, but if they followed the wall, perhaps they would catch their enemies by surprise, and more importantly, spear them in their flanks as they charged by.
Perhaps he should have told his men where to aim. Perhaps it had been his duty to share what he had learned. But he could not bring himself to betray Hippodamia so completely as that. The centaurs had wronged them, no question, but it was Cyllarus who had brought them down the mountain this night, Cyllarus who had refused all reason in the wake of Centaurus’s death. It was Cyllarus who needed killing, and then—but he knew better than to believe the centaurs would turn back. If anything, Cyllarus’s death would only deepen their rage. They were true sons of Ixion, after all. Steeped in his madness. Driven by it, now. He had been a fool to think they would respond otherwise, after Centaurus had died.
But he had wanted to believe, for Hippodamia’s sake, that all this slaughter might be avoided.
He did not need to look to know the men had followed, slipping as silently through the gate as he and Melanthos had, a moment earlier. He could feel their anticipation, their excitement, their anger and their fear, so loud and distinct he could have counted each of them by it. Melanthos was cool, relaxed and ready. Plouteus was determined and angry. Kotullon was impatient and so terrified Pirithous expected the centaurs would smell the sourness of his sweat even through the smoke. The rest of his raiders were scattered throughout the column, the better to lend confidence to the unblooded men and hold the line if the centaurs charged. Spots of calm in the storm of emotion that raged at his back.
He wished he had not sent Atukhos up the mountain. Melanthos was steady, but Atukhos never went into battle without a joke upon his lips, and Pirithous could have used his humor now.
The thunk of the gate being closed and barred sounded only dimly in his ears as he crept around the corner of the wall. He’d seen flashes of movement as he went, but nothing near enough to strike at. The centaurs must have moved down the bank, to the river’s edge. Pirithous prayed they did not burn his ships.
All the gold and prizes he had hoarded, thinking he need never raid again, that his riches would ensure his people would never be made poor again after Ixion had bled every scrap of wealth from their bones, until they had been forced to sell their own children to the palace for his favor, and now this. He would be fortunate indeed if he did not have to trade even his horses for the supplies they would need to rebuild.
Pirithous raised his sword, catching the moonlight on the blade to signal the men to halt as he peered cautiously along the next expanse of wall. This was not any different than a night raid, he supposed, though he had never thought to use those skills to defend his own lands.
The wall curved outward, offering him little in the way of sight lines, but the crops were burning, bright as a bonfire. Without the shadows, they would be exposed. He made his blade flash again, then thumped the hilt against the stone. Move quickly. The village men would not understand the nuance, but his raiders would. A glance over his shoulder gave him nods in return, his men poised to run low and fast.
He lifted his sword—no reason to keep it behind his shield in the blazing light of the fields—and darted around the corner. The smoke was not so thick here, no longer trapped by the walls, and drifting toward the river. He filled his lungs, grateful for the clearer air, and prayed to Zeus for protection as he charged around the bend of the long curving wall.
They caught the first centaur by surprise, and Pirithous stabbed him straight through the heart before he had time to call out. Melanthos overtook him while he withdrew his blade, launching his spear in a clean arc. The tip punched through the next centaur’s torso. A worthless throw, though he did not know it, by his whoop of pleasure. Behind him, the other men gave war cries, charging forward against their foes.
“Keep together!” Pirithous roared, for the centaurs had seen them now, and begun to turn, galloping full tilt and calling back to the others. The beast who had taken the spear through the shoulder had torn it free, rearing up and waving it at the sky. “Aim for the barrels, not the torsos. Watch those hooves!”
Melanthos cast him a sharp look for such a quick response, but Pirithous ignored the accusation in his eyes. He had needed Melanthos’s bad throw for an excuse, needed to see with his own eyes what Hippodamia had told him before he commanded his men. And the centaurs were upon them as soon as the words had left his lips. So fast. Too fast. Pirithous ducked and swung, feinted and jabbed. They had not recognized him yet, but he could see Cyllarus. Standing on higher ground, watching both the mountain gate and their advance. The coward did not even risk his own hide.
The other centaurs did not matter. Just a shield of flesh, a bulwark of hooves and tails and wordless roaring. His eyes burned, his father’s lightning in his veins, and he cut them down. Cut his way through. Cyllarus would not leave alive. Cyllarus would not bring this ruin down upon him, upon Hippodamia, and survive.
“My lord, wait!” Melanthos called. How he had stayed at his side, Pirithous was not certain. “They will swarm you!”
“They will try.” He jerked his chin to the other men, struggling against the tide. These centaurs were well armed, but they did not know how to use the swords they swung, not as well as his men. Even Kotullon managed to deflect their blades, though he was still grim, muscles trembling, and raining sweat. “Keep them together. And if some of the centaurs follow me, all to the good. Keep them safe, Melanthos. As safe as they can be kept.”
“Pirithous—”
“That is my command!”
Melanthos clasped his arm, squeezing tightly. “May Zeus protect you.”
Pirithous bared his teeth, not quite a smile, and left him behind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Hippodamia
Hippodamia did not understand what she saw at first. The centaurs charging, the clash of swords and the shouts of men. She did not understand the two men who broke through, hesitated together, and parted. Not until she realized it was Pirithous, and he was charging toward Cyllarus.
The centaur reared, sword high and flashing with reflected fire. There was so much fire. So many flames, and so much smoke, and yet, somehow, she could see them so clearly. As if the gods had parted the haze to watch from above. As if they meant for her to see it, too.
“Oh, Pirithous,” she breathed. “Oh, Pirithous, please. Please, Poseidon, protect him.”
Antiope grabbed her by the arm, jerking her down just as an arrow flew past her head. “Keep your head, Mia, or you will lose it.”
“He cannot think this will finish anything. He cannot think it will do any good!”
The Amazon craned her neck, peering over the stone, and then slumped back again. “Fool man. They are all fools, every one. No Amazon would have left the shelter of the walls. Not to fight against beasts. There is no honor in it. No purpose at all.”
Hippodamia closed her eyes, letting her head thump against the stone. Beasts without honor. She could not even argue against the words. The way they had attacked the women at the feast. The things Cyllarus had said since. Everything he had done. To forge an alliance with Peleus and betray the Lapiths so completely. Centaurus would have killed him for it. Everything the centaurs had done, and all because Peleus had whispered in Eurytion’s ear and poured him more wine.
She drew an arrow, fitted it to her bow, and glanced over the wall, searching for Pirithous, for Cyllarus, for Hylonome, who would not be far from his side. Never far. And after this, it would be only a matter of time. Days, perhaps months, but she would die. They would all die in payment for this destruction. They would be torn from their mountain, from the trees, with only their rotting corpses left behind.
Cyllarus swung, and
Pirithous raised his sword, catching the blade and spinning out from beneath it, looking to reach the centaur’s flank. Cyllarus was too fast, dancing back before he could strike. She lifted her bow, waiting for the right moment, for Cyllarus to forget about the danger of the archers upon the walls. Cyllarus had taken her peace. He had destroyed everything she had worked for. She would not let him take her husband, as well.
She would not let him destroy her.
“Mia…”
“He betrayed everything, Antiope. Everything I was raised to do, he ruined. And now my people will die because of him.”
“He was your friend, Mia,” she said. “Leave him to Pirithous, and he will give you justice. Or even let it be my arrow, my aim. It need not be done by your hand.”
“He is Ixion’s madness made flesh. Pirithous has faced enough of it, suffered enough of his father’s nightmares. I brought this madness down upon him again, and I will finish it.”
Pirithous and Cyllarus danced, blades flashing as they tested one another, and the other centaurs, those not facing his men, had begun to take notice. Hylonome had come down the mountain, a bow in her hands, and Hippodamia cursed at the sight of it. “Can you disarm her?”
Antiope let an arrow fly, and Hylonome reared with a shout. Cyllarus glanced back and Pirithous brought his blade down, catching him at the hairline and slicing across his nose, his face, his chest. Enraging, but not mortal, and Cyllarus struck at him with his hooves, catching him square in the chest. Pirithous stumbled back, tripped over a rock and nearly fell. Cyllarus was at his heels, stamping and kicking as if he were a snake to be cut to pieces in the dirt.
Hippodamia loosed her arrow and watched it sink into his loin. Too high and too far back to slow him by much.
“Down!” Antiope snapped, and Hippodamia dropped. Hylonome’s arrow clattered against the stone, and Antiope was up again, taking aim. Her arrow struck true, through the shoulder, and Hylonome twisted, the arrow in her hand slipping through her fingers.
But Pirithous had recovered, and Hippodamia fitted another arrow to her bow. Another centaur galloped past, swinging his club, and Pirithous ducked, driving his sword up between his ribs, stabbing straight into the heart. Cyllarus howled. Howled and charged.
“No,” she said, aimed, and loosed. The arrow struck his barrel, lodging deep, but not near enough to the heart. He only stumbled, but it gave Pirithous time to act. His sword flashed, down and then up, cleaving the centaur’s shoulder before entering through his horse’s breast. Cyllarus’s cry of rage caught in his throat, and as Pirithous leapt back, the centaur’s legs gave out, forcing him to his knees.
Pirithous looked up, and she knew he had found her on the wall. He pressed his fist to his forehead in salute. As if he had won. As if there were not a dozen centaurs charging toward him where he stood, his sword dripping with Cyllarus’s blood.
She raised her bow, and beside her Antiope took aim as well, calling to the other men upon the wall. “Protect your king! Shoot the beast, aim for the horse’s breast, not the man’s!”
It seemed to Mia that they released as one, their arrows flying in a cloud. Pirithous spun to face his enemies, crouched and ready, and Hippodamia counted them as they slowed, stumbled, and fell. Three, four, six, eight. A ninth tripped by his brother, falling face first into the earth.
It left three.
Three, armed with clubs and fury, determined to run him down. To run straight through him and trample him beneath their hooves until his blood watered the ground.
She loosed another arrow, a second, a third, but she was too late now. Too late, and the first centaur’s club clipped Pirithous’s shoulder, the second hard across his back. But it was the third centaur, bowling him over, knocking him flat to the ground that made her cry out, so loud and desperate and broken that her throat closed.
Arrows could not save him now. Not anymore. He rolled, then stilled, his limbs limp, the sword knocked from his hand. And Hippodamia all but flew, racing down the stairs toward the mountain gate, ignoring Antiope’s shouts. She had to get to him. She had to get to him before the centaurs tore him apart.
Theseus caught her, his arms as unyielding as bronze, but she could not hear his words over her own sobs, her own cries. “Let me go! Let me out! Open the gate and let me out!”
The men wouldn’t meet her eyes, wouldn’t look at her, and Theseus dragged her back.
“Pirithous! PIRITHOUS!”
“You must stay,” she heard him say, at last. “You must stay inside!”
“You have to let me out. I can stop them. I can get him back.”
“It’s too late, Mia,” Theseus said. “It’s too late. And I promised him I would keep you safe.”
But he didn’t understand. How could he when he was only a man? He did not understand that if Pirithous was gone, her husband, her mate, she must follow. She was still centaur enough to know that.
Theseus gave her over to Antiope, and Antiope half-dragged, half-carried her through the palace and into her rooms, calling for a maid to ready a bath. But Hippodamia did not want a bath. She did not want the warm water washing away her tears, soothing her grief. She did not want to forget, even for a moment, that Pirithous was lost. Did not want to expect him to push open the door to the baths at any moment and tease her. She wanted salt water, poured burning over the rawness of her pain. She wanted to rend her garments and claw her way out of her skin.
“Dia ruled alone, and perhaps if we are lucky, you will be given that right, too,” Antiope was saying, as she pulled the tunic over her head. “You more than proved yourself upon the walls, and even your grief serves to show your loyalty to the Lapiths, to Pirithous.”
Hippodamia stared at her blankly, unsure of her meaning, her words.
“You can still be queen, Hippodamia. You can still rule these people, and perhaps protect your own.”
“There is no protecting the centaurs now,” she said. The same thought she’d been spinning since she went to meet Cyllarus before the battle began. “There is no saving them, and even if there were, the Lapiths would not listen to me. And I am not so sure they should.”
“Then rule for yourself, for Pirithous’s sake,” Antiope said, twisting a shoulder in half a shrug. “But rule as queen. Do not let them take it from you.”
“You think I would stay?” Hippodamia asked, her words sounding hollow in her ears. “That I could go on as if nothing had changed? Live a full life when half of me is dead? Pirithous was all I had left.”
Antiope straightened, her eyes narrowing. “You cannot mean that, Mia. Whatever bond you shared, it is nothing now. A blink, a heartbeat of your life, nothing more. Hardly half of you, no matter how much you thought yourself in love.”
“Centaurs mate for life,” she said through her teeth. “For life.”
“Yes,” Antiope said, her forehead furrowed. “And if Pirithous is not dead already, he soon will be. You will be free of him. You will be queen in your own right.”
“I will be dead,” Hippodamia said coolly. Never free. Never free again. “Just as Hylonome will be, before long. After she has seen to Cyllarus’s body, and performed the proper rites, she will follow him. It is our way.”
Antiope’s hand closed hard around her arm, squeezing too tight, so tight she could feel the pulse of her own blood. “The centaur way, but not the way of the Lapiths. The way of beasts, not men. And you are Lapith now, Mia. You are a woman, not an animal.”
“I am Centaurus’s daughter.”
“You are Pirithous’s wife!” she snapped. “And what do you think he would say to this, if he heard you now? After he kept Theseus back to guard you? Made him swear to protect you, to support you, if he failed!”
“Let him curse my shade in the Underworld, if he desires, then. But I will do my duty to him. I will honor him as my husband. That is all that is left for me now. He was all I had left.”
“You would waste your life. Throw away everything he’s given you! You would be no better th
an the centaurs outside these very walls!”
“I am Centaur, Antiope!”
“No,” she said, her hand squeezing tighter. “Not in this. Not this way. I forbid it. If I must watch you night and day, guard your body, your life, to stop you, I will. You are meant to be queen. You are meant to rule—here, now, these people, in Pirithous’s absence. That is your duty. That is the honor you can do your husband. The rest is only a lie. A cheat!”
“If you install me as queen of the Lapiths, leave me here to rule, I will follow him, Antiope. Before you have even cleared the gates.”
“You stupid girl,” Antiope sneered. “You stupid fool of a girl. You do not understand at all. Cannot see outside your own needs, your own wants and desires. Men are not worth this! No man is worth your life! If Theseus asked it of me, I would spit upon his grave.”
“And why should Theseus ask it, when it would not be a sevenday after your death before he found another woman to warm his bed? He is just. He would ask nothing from you that he would not give himself.”
Antiope slapped her. Hippodamia stumbled back, falling onto her bed. The bed where Pirithous had shown her passion beyond anything she had ever imagined. Pleasures she had never dreamed of. But they had never made love in it. She had been too stubborn, too angry, too slow to forgive. And now they would never make love again. She would never have his child, never see him bounce their babe upon his knee…
“Theseus would not give up his life for me because I would not wish it. Because I would want him to live on, guided by his memories of me. Because the highest honor he could give me would be to remember all I had taught him. All the ways he had learned to be a better man, a better king for his people, for the women of Athens. And Pirithous? He would live the same way for you. To honor you!”
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