It came with a hard slap of heat and sudden weltering of the air right in front of her. She screamed, so intense was the heat, stinging her skin, burning her eyes. The smell too—the stink of burning flesh and singed hair. As if the sun had fallen to the ground and burst across the plain, a wall of orange rose behind the Athenians fighting her. The rearmost one fell away, shrieking, his back ablaze. Behind him, hundreds more pitched over and rolled to and fro like human torches. Almost all others nearby dropped weapon and shield and ran from the flames. The giant before her, deserted by the two at his sides, now suffered the point of the Korinthian strategos’s lance, right through his throat.
Kassandra gasped for air in the midst of the choking tendrils of black smoke that scudded across the land. She saw the huge ironbound copper pipe, on the back of a wagon, and the three Korinthians working the leather bellows at one end. With every strained compression of the bellows, a great whoosh of air spewed from the far end of the pipe, lending fresh rage to the small cauldron of resin-fueled fire hanging from a cradle there, sending a new breath of flame across the Athenian ranks. It had been her suggestion to take the device from the port and bring it here. Villainous acts for a greater good, she reassured herself.
The Athenians were in full flight before the sun had fully risen. The Theban horsemen raced after them, spearing down the most reckless among them. Korinthian bowmen too gave chase, raining arrows on the retreat. The day was won.
Kassandra stabbed her half lance into the dirt mound. Ikaros swooped down to settle on her shoulder. The handful of remaining Korinthian royal guards escorted the strategos from the worst of the carnage. “I will not forget what you have done for my army, Misthios, or what you have done for my city in the past,” he called back to her. A time passed, the rising songs of victory filling the Boeotian plain, along with the hum of flies and shrieking of crows. The stink of death and burning men would never leave her, she realized. But the day was over. She tied her lance to her belt, staggered down the mound, her skin black with smoke, dirt and dried blood. She saw then the most pathetic sight: Lydos the Helot who had made this all possible. He was waiting for her, cowering, at the edge of battle. He held a bowl of water and a flask of oil—an offer to wash her. She stepped over to him. “You have done enough for today. Gods, you have done enough to earn freedom, I would claim.”
He trembled where he stood. “I… I would not dare dream of such a right,” he said, anxiously tucking his hair behind his ear.
She squeezed his shoulder. “I will see that your part in this land’s salvation is not overlooked, Lydos.”
Turning from him, she looked across the battlefield, and the many small victory stelae taking shape along the broken Athenian line. She heard a throaty cry of many Spartan voices together: “Aroo!” She saw the red-cloaked soldiers, spears raised in salute to their commander. She saw Stentor then, a mask of blood worn like a wreath of victory. He was coming toward her in a hurry.
“You led the lochos well. Victory is Sparta’s. Victory is yours,” she said as he approached.
But he kept up that strident pace, coming right for her. “And now King Archidamos’s victory is secured, I can finally deal with my true enemy…”
She saw his spear flash up like a rising cobra, licking through the air. She leapt clear of it. “Are you mad?”
“I have never been clearer in my thoughts,” he rumbled, swiping at the air as Ikaros tried to attack him. “You will die for what you stole from me in the Megarid.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she rasped, dodging his jabs as he circled her.
“No, it didn’t. Things would have been very different, had you not marched into the war. Ruined the war. Slew my father, you fucking murderer.”
“I did what I had to,” she growled, drawing her half lance.
“And so will I,” Stentor raged. His body tensed like a lion about to pounce… and then he slackened, stepping back once, twice and again, face falling, eyes fixed on a point just beyond Kassandra’s shoulder.
Kassandra turned, seeing a shape walk through the injured and the clouds of scudding smoke. Dressed in a simple brown robe, he looked like neither a Spartan nor an Athenian nor anything other than a simple man of Hellas.
“She has nothing to answer for, Stentor,” Nikolaos said gently.
Kassandra’s skin tingled with a shiver as he passed her, offering her a knowing nod. She realized now that she had been followed, all throughout her time in Boeotia. The Wolf had watched her every step.
“Father? I… I thought you were dead?” Stentor croaked.
“I was dead to the war, for a time,” he replied. “When Kassandra confronted me in the Megarid, I knew I could not lead men with such… shame upon my back. I knew also that you were ready—ready to take the mantle of leadership. I did not want to leave you without saying farewell, but I knew that if I came to you that night, I would not be able to leave at all.”
“She killed you, on the bluffs,” Stentor stammered.
“She could have. Some might say she should have. But she did not. She took my helm to claim her reward but left me there, weeping. Her words, as true as Apollo’s light, cut deeper than any blade. I died a thousand deaths as I walked the lands for a time. At last, I made peace with my past. And then I came back to your side: for nearly two summers I have been watching you and your forces. I have done what I could to divert enemy spies, and to leave clues for you as to the best routes to take.”
Kassandra slid her spear into her belt. She met Stentor’s eye, feeling not a crumb of righteousness.
“But the truth is you did not truly need my help. You will be a greater general than I ever was, Son,” Nikolaos said, stepping close to Stentor.
Stentor offered Nikolaos a brisk and manly salute.
A father returns from the dead to a frosty soldier’s salute from his son, thought Kassandra. The iron shell of a Spartan is thick and cold indeed.
But then Nikolaos responded by extending his arms.
Stentor’s face sagged. His spear slid from his hand and he fell into Nikolaos’s embrace.
The two remained locked like that for an age, the warriors looking on.
Kassandra felt her heart swell with a fond sadness. The flame flickers, deep within the iron shell, she realized. This was all I ever wanted for myself. Love. Between father and daughter. Mother and brother. Now, Stentor, the gift is yours. Enjoy every moment of it.
After a time, Stentor made a strangled, sobbing noise, and a rivulet of tears sped down his cheek. He momentarily opened one baleful eye to glower at all watching and swept the tear away, insisting that it was merely the smoke stinging his eyes.
Kassandra’s top lip twitched in a brief and wry smile. With that, she turned from the pair and walked from the battlefield, Ikaros gliding alongside her.
FOURTEEN
She rode back to Sparta as summer faded into autumn, Nikolaos’s parting words in her ears all the way: Be careful. I once warned you of snakes in the grass, but it is much, much worse than that. Something evil hangs over the Hollow Land. I did not see it when I was in the army and in the throes of the war, but from the outside, I saw it well enough—like a crawling black shadow.
She knew what he meant. Even to one without full knowledge of the Cult of Kosmos, there was a certain chill in the Spartan air—a sense of impending disaster. She pulled her cloak a little tighter and rode on. Nikolaos had listened as she explained that Myrrine still lived as he had hoped, and that she was now back in her homeland. He had fallen silent for a time upon hearing this, then quietly said: Perhaps a day will come when once again I can sit with her, break bread and drink wine. The sad look in his eyes suggested it would be a dream and no more.