Chapter Twelve: First Things First

The inn common room was silent as Callisto slipped inside. Outside, the village was a veritable hive of activity and bustle as dozens of people, Methades' former men included, moved this way and that, making preparations for Caelon's imminent assault but at the same time making precious little progress. Inside the inn was quiet though. No one was present, the majority of people in the village otherwise occupied and the fireplace sat cold and untended, a black smear of charcoal and ash staining the cobbled stone at its base. Very little light filtered in from outside, save the open door through which she had entered and a dimness had settled over the corners of the inn furthest from the entrance. All else was silent and empty. Nothing stirred or made a sound save her own footsteps on the hard stone floor. It was precisely the way she wanted it. She needed time to think, away from the palpable air of tension outside and the expectant looks the villagers and the mercenaries had been giving her.

What did they think she was going to do? Magically ride out and stop Caelon single handed? She had done everything she could think of to help them, as Zeus and Hades would no doubt be expecting her to do, and so far the only tangible result had been the death of Silas and the very near death of Dahlia. Hardly the shining example of a champion they were hoping for.

With a long tired exhale, she crossed the room and slipped onto the same bench she had sat at the previous morning with Atrix and Dahlia. Unsheathing her weapons, she dropped her sword, and the stiletto dagger onto the surface of the table with a dull thud. In the dim half light of the common room the blades looked tired and lifeless, their normally wicked edges dulled by the omnipresent gloom.

She laced her fingers together and hunched forward over the table, regarding them levelly. Weapons like these had defined her life for so long that they almost felt like extensions of her, as much a part of her as her fingers or her sense of smell. They had dominated her and she in turn had devoted so much effort to their mastery that she could barely remember the other simple activities of her life before, like working a field with her father, or helping her sister on market days.

She sniffed, a dull ache throbbing in the back of her throat. It must have been dust. She coughed loudly but the ache did not subside.

Were the weapons truly an extension of her or, more worryingly now she found herself thinking about it, was she merely an extension of them? She had always considered her own goals paramount. Exacting revenge for the deaths of her family had been the single overriding pursuit which she followed, but looking back, she realised that much of her time recently had been spent in service of others, her own aims twisted to suit those of any who would use her. Had she simply become only a weapon? A thing to be pointed at the enemy and unleashed when the time came? Was that what she was to Zeus now? Once, thoughts like this would not have phased her in the slightest. Nor, if she was being brutally honest with herself, would they even have really occurred to her so long as she had been getting her own way into the bargain. She had been nothing if not single minded.

She gave another sigh as she continued to stare evenly at the weapons lying on the table. Where had that single mindedness gone now? At first the deal had seemed so simple. Play the hero for Zeus, and hope that he and Hades would hold up their end and grant her a place in the paradise that was Elysium. It could not have been any simpler or clearer were it printed on a scroll of parchment and signed in triplicate, yet somewhere, somehow, things had become much more complicated. Now she had people looking to her as if she were some kind of saviour, and she had no idea what to do about it. Instead all she could think of was the image of Dahlia kneeling in the grass, being cradled by Atrix as she wept and wept. Now she was starting to think of the others as well, a hundred different faces, all terrified and weeping, while the sound of her own cruel laugh echoed hauntingly on the wind.

She was dragged up out of the bleakness of her thoughts by the sound of someone clearing their throat. She looked up from the table to see Atrix descending from the inn's second floor. She wondered for a moment why he was coming downstairs, before remembering that he and Dahlia had become guests at the inn after Silas' home had burned down. Dahlia was presumably upstairs somewhere, grieving most likely.

"What are you doing here?" Atrix asked, descending the rest of the flight of stairs and crossing to the table at which she was seated.

"Just drinking in the homely atmosphere," Callisto replied sarcastically, trying to take her mind off the image of her own maniacally grinning face that had come to her unbidden.

She glanced toward the stairs.

"How's she doing?" she asked softly.

Atrix followed her gaze and gave a shrug.

"As well as can be expected considering her father just died," he said giving her a sidelong look.

"I told him to go on without me," Callisto said defensively, trying hard not to think of Silas' limp fall from his saddle, the arrow jutting from his chest. "I told him to ride. He didn't listen."

"Sounds about right," Atrix said. "Silas was a good man and he cared for people, perhaps more than he should have."

He gave her a pointed look, and Callisto suddenly felt annoyed at him.

"You really are a master of tact aren't you," she said, her eyes narrowing.

Atrix only gave another shrug. For long moments the two of them said nothing, silence once again falling over the common room.

"Why did you drag him along with you?" Atrix asked finally. "Silas was no warrior. You had to know the dangers. Why not ask me to go with you instead?"

Callisto rolled her eyes at him.

"Oh please!" she groaned. "How could I trust you? I didn't know if any or all of you were in on it with Methades, and if I remember rightly you were fairly defensive of him yesterday."

She lowered her eyes back to the weapons lying on the table.

"Silas knew who I was the moment he laid eyes on me," she said sadly. "He knew my secret, what I was, and he still didn't tell anyone. He was the only person I knew would listen, the only person I was certain I could convince."

She gave a pained grunt.

"Look where that got him," she said.

"Silas made his own choices, Callisto," Atrix replied. "You didn't kill him."

She felt her temper flare at that.

"You think I'm an idiot?" she spat. "I know full well who killed him and I intend to make sure they suffer for it."

"You're all talk."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded angrily.

Atrix leaned back slightly, folding his arms as he did so.

"Exactly what it sounds like," he replied, his tone challenging. "Sitting here and brooding won't accomplish anything. It certainly won't punish those responsible for Silas' death."

He gestured toward the door to the inn and the villagers and mercenaries beyond.

"There are people out there Callisto, good people, trying to decide what they should be doing. They've got a marauding bandit gang bearing down on them, and no one's stepping up to lead."

Callisto looked up at him. There had been a suggestion in his tone she had not liked the sound of. He was looking at her meaningfully, eyebrows raised with the same look of expectation as the rest of the village.

"Oh no! No, no, no, no," she protested. "You can't be serious! Look, I'll help however I can, I'll even fight if you trust me to, but you can't ask me to command these people!"

"You've done it before," Atrix said matter-of-factly.

Callisto arched her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah!" She sneered. "An army that murdered and pillaged its way across half of Greece, and I didn't care one bit how many of those men lived or died under me. They were just tools for me to get what I wanted done. I had to slit my second in command's throat just to make a point for Hades' sake! Hardly the stuff inspiring leaders are made from."

"We don't need inspiration," Atrix replied. "Just someone who can think around a problem."

She fixed him with a level stare.

"What about you?" She said. "This was going to be your home after all, and I imagine your men out there would be happier following your orders than mine."

Atrix only shook his head.

"I'm just a soldier, Callisto," he said. "I fight for who ever is paying me that day. Methades was always the one with the plan, always the one thinking ten steps ahead of the rest of us. While we were counting our money he was already deciding the next job."

His expression darkened, the muscles in his jaw tightening. It was the closest he seemed to get to showing any kind of anger.

"And now he's gone," he finished with a sigh, his shoulders sagging as the anger went out of him. "None of that matters though. You saw through his lies and his scheme when no one else did. When he was ten steps ahead, you were elven, and I know you can do the same thing with Caelon. You're the best hope any of us have of surviving what's coming."

Callisto could feel her heart sinking as he spoke. He was not about to let this drop. She twisted on the bench, glancing back over her shoulder at the people outside. One or two families had dragged wagons onto the green and were beginning to load them up with provisions and valuables. Others seemed to be making a pile of whatever musty pieces of martial equipment they could scrounge up from around the village, which amounted to little more than some battered old breast plates, dented helmets and a few rusty looking swords. Atrix's fellow mercenaries were set up toward the center of the green, grimly polishing and sharpening their weapons, double and triple checking their gear, and generally trying to look stoic in the face of the overwhelming odds heading their way.

Could she really make herself responsible for all these people? Was this what Zeus had wanted her to do? Was this what he'd meant when he said he had wanted a champion? She could feel her heart beginning to beat faster. She had spent her entire adult life never caring about anyone but herself. She had never been responsible for anyone else, never considered anyone else, but now here was Atrix, asking her to attach herself to them in a way she had not done in so very very long. What if she failed? She did not want to see Penthos burn like Cirra, did not want to see Atrix, Dahlia and the others die, and all because of her.

She turned back to him, a look of pain etched across her face.

"I can't," she said, her voice pleading and genuinely apologetic. "It's too much and too soon Atrix. I can't take responsibility for everyone here."

"You already have," came a third voice.

The two of them twisted in their seats. Dahlia had emerged from her room, and now stood at the top of the stairs, her hand clasped tightly around the stair rail and managing to look surprisingly haughty considering her swollen belly and eyes made puffy and red from crying.

"You've been taking that responsibility since you came here," she said sternly, "since you saved myself and Atrix, since you decided to challenge Methades and his lies, since my father..."

She trailed off and she sniffed.

"...The point is, Callisto," she continued, her voice sounding strange as she spoke Callisto's name, almost as if she couldn't quite believe what she was saying, "that you haven't exactly been a bystander in all of this. You could have ridden out of town yesterday. Instead you chose to stay and involve yourself."

She came down the stairs slowly, one hand holding her belly as she moved to sit beside Atrix.

"Dahlia," Callisto began, trying to think of some way to convince her. "I can't lead these people. If you want to win, if you want to be free of Caelon, it will mean people dying and I don't want to be responsible for that. Not any more."

Dahlia snorted derisively at her.

"Don't give me that nonsense." she scoffed, fixing Callisto with a red rimmed look, her eyes blazing with grief and anger. "You're just afraid. The big bad warlord Callisto, cowering at an inn while good people get ready to die."

Callisto's eyes narrowed. She could feel her temper flaring as she glared back at the other woman. Without a word, she surged to her feet, the anger burning hotly inside her as she snatched her weapons from the table and turned to stalk outside.

"What's the matter? Afraid that protecting lives for once might actually be harder than ending them?"

Dahlia's words echoed in her head, their cruel spiteful tone fraying her nerves. Her grip on the dagger tightened as she walked, the leather wrapping around the hilt creaking slightly beneath her fingers. What did Dahlia know about anything? Her pain was nothing! Her loss was nothing! She could not understand and she never would!

"Tell me, was this your plan all along?" the other woman shouted, her voice rising angrily. "Just kick the hornet's nest and run? The stories my father told me were all true! He was right about you! You're no hero! "

The last comment pushed her past the tipping point, the anger boiling inside her brimming over into full fledged rage. With a scream of purest hatred, she pivoted, throwing her dagger so hard that it embedded itself upright in the table mere inches from Dahlia. Atrix was on his feet in an instant, his hand flying to the sword at his hip, but Callisto already had her own blade up and waiting for him. To her credit, Dahlia barely even flinched.

"Your father knew nothing about me!" Callisto yelled at her. "You know nothing about me!"

"I know that we're depending on you!" Dahlia shouted back at her, "Depending on you to see this through to the bitter end. We need you!"

Callisto could feel the anger inside her turning to water and draining away in a great flood of confusion.

"Why me!?" She cried. "No one needs me! Why do you?"

"I already told you." Dahlia said, her voice turning softer now, almost gentle. "It's what heroes do."

Callisto felt the last vestiges of her anger draining away. In their place, all she could feel was a deep, hollow and bone numbing weariness.

"And I told you, I'm not a hero," she said.

She felt her shoulders slump as she crossed back to the table and tugged the dagger free with an audible crunch of wood. Carefully, she tucked it back into her bracer and sheathed her sword across her back.

She eyed the two of them wearily. Atrix was slowly beginning to relax, the tension easing out of his shoulders as he began to seat himself again. He did not sheath his sword though. Dahlia merely continued to sit at the table, her eyes still blazing defiantly as she waited for Callisto's decision. Callisto let out a long, deep groan as she made her choice.

"Well then," she said finally. "I suppose now that we've cleared all that up, we should get started don't you think?"

Dahlia breathed a heavy sigh of relief at that, and suddenly her whole demeanor changed, all trace of the furious young woman she had been vanishing in an instant. Now she just looked tired. Tired and so very small and sad.

"Oh thank Olympus," she said, the relief evident in her voice.

"You could thank me," Callisto replied. "The gods haven't done anything."

"Neither have you yet," Dahlia shot back.

Callisto only shrugged and shot Atrix a knowing look.

"Quite the game face your wife has," she said.

"You should see her getting me to do the dishes," he replied with an amused half smirk.

Callisto responded with a dry chuckle of her own while Dahlia rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"If you're both finished, we have plans to make," she said.

Atrix gave a slight nod and leaned forward over the table, his manner suddenly all business.

"So, any ideas?" he asked.

Callisto's mind was already racing as she weighted options and strategies, a dozen different courses of action taking shape in her mind. One particular plan she was sure would work, but it would probably also cost them the lives of half the villagers. She discarded it quickly, trying hard to think of ways to preserve as many lives as she could but the risks always seemed high. She had never had to think like this before. In the past casualties and collateral damage had not really been a massive concern. Finally she turned to Atrix.

"One or two," she said. "I'll need your men to make it work though."

Atrix gave another nod.

"We'll have your back," he said, a note of relief in his voice as he spoke.

"Okay then," Callisto said, clambering to her feet and walking out of the inn, Atrix and Dahlia doing the same and following close behind her.

As they stepped out into the mid morning sun, she frowned up at the sky. Time was already passing too quickly. They had no more of it to waste.

"First things first," she said. "The trail is the only way in or out of the basin, am I right?"

Atrix nodded.

"Yes. We ran patrols of it every day for just that reason."

"Then its safe to say we know where Caelon's attack will be coming from," Callisto replied.

Dahlia looked confused.

"But he could just come from the forest right?" she said. "That's where he's been hiding, after all."

Atrix shook his head.

"No," he said simply. "He'll have to use the trail."

Dahlia only frowned.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because of the stockade," Callisto answered. "Caelon has more than enough men to sack the village, but he has to get through the stockade first, and to do that he'll have to attack in force."

"You can't move sixty odd men, with nearly a third of them on horseback, through a forest and keep your unit together," Atrix interjected. "If Caelon wants to come at us all at once that means he'll have to come along the trail."

Callisto nodded.

"Which means we know exactly where he's coming from, and that gives us an advantage," she said. "Enough of one at least that we should make use of it."

She cast a glance at the crowd of people surrounding her, her gaze focusing on the families who were loading wagons in preparation to flee.

"It also means they can't leave," she said pointing to them. "Caelon's men will hack them into little pieces before they go a mile. Besides, I have an idea for how we can use those wagons."

She stopped walking and turned to face Atrix and Dahlia, a plan now fully formed in her mind. They drew up behind her, their faces attentive and ready.

"Here's what I need," she began. "Dahlia, tell the villagers to get anything and everything they can out of those wagons and their houses; cupboards, tables, chairs, anything at all. I want all the possible routes through the village blocked, except for the one leading from the stockade entrance direct to the village green."

"You want them in the village!" Atrix exclaimed in surprise. Callisto shot him a hard look.

"Don't question me Atrix," she said. "You want me to lead, you do things my way, how I say and when I say. Clear?"

Atrix looked at her steadily then gave a slight nod.

"Crystal," he said simply.

"Good," she said, and took a deep breath. They weren't going to like the next bit.

She pointed to the hanging bodies of the three bandits that still dangled from the gallows at the centre of the green.

"Next, I want a couple of men to cut those bodies down, and string them up from the village gates."

Dahlia's mouth fell agape to protest but Callisto spoke again quickly, riding rough shod over the other woman's argument.

"We don't have time to be squeamish about this Dahlia," she said. "Fear is what they've been using against you. It's the most effective weapon they have. If we're going to win, we need to turn that weapon back on them. The bodies are part of that. It'll send them a message. 'Attack this village you get the same'."

Dahlia closed her mouth, her protest dying on her lips. Instead she nodded grimly, but the look of distaste was still behind her eyes.

Callisto was already moving on, striding purposefully toward one of the large fire braziers that were scattered at intervals around the village green to keep it lit after dark.

"Do any of those use oil?" she asked.

"Most of them, yes," Atrix nodded.

"So the village has an oil supply?"

"We trade for it when the merchants come for our latest catches," Dahlia said.

"How much of it do you have?" Callisto said, her mind racing. A lot hinged on Dahlia's next answer.

"Winter's not far off, so we've been stockpiling. Enough for a full season. Why?"

Callisto grinned wickedly. The final pieces of her scheme beginning to fall into place.

"Because we'll need all of it," she said and turned to Atrix. "Get your men to start gathering up as much of the oil stores as they can carry. Who are your best scouts?"

"Myself and Tarthus," Atrix answered.

Callisto nodded thoughfully.

"You both have to mount up and get ready to ride out," She said. "We need to know how far Caelon is from the village. I've got a little surprise planned for him, and I want to know where we should be setting it up."

Dahlia's brows knotted together in confusion.

"But why would you need oil to..." she trailed off as she began to realise what Callisto was planning.

"Wait a minute!" she said, the revelation hitting her hard. "This is the same plan you suggested yesterday! You're going to burn the forest aren't you."

Callisto's grin split even wider.

"Maybe just a little bit," she said.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A small chapter this, and mainly because it was originally going to be longer and have a lot more take place, but it was beginning to become messy and would involve too much jumping around perspectives, so I have chosen to split into two chapters again. As a result this will be the final update, before I upload the remainder of the story. Hope everyone enjoys it and have fun reading.