THEY CALL HER the Eagle Bearer for the golden eagle she'd found as a chick when she was but a child herself. Ikaros soars high above the Adrestia before diving down toward the deck and perching on the helm's faded railing. He's a proud and noble bird.
Lesya lifts her hand, intent on scratching the eagle's head the same way she'd done for a hurt dove she'd found in Athens as a girl —she's met with a hasty bite on her middle finger and a sharp glare. Blood springs up immediately. "Don't take it personally," Kassandra notes, plucking a hunk of meat from a pouch on her hip. Ikaros takes the chunk and horks it down, squawking for more but Kass doesn't relent to the bird's cries. "He doesn't like many people." Lesya holds her bloody finger and glares at the bird.
In the day Kassandra has been aboard the Adrestia, Lesya learns she is the forsaken daughter of General Nikolaos and Myrrine of Sparta. Two people that have been among the Cult's targets for years. Something akin to horror overtakes Lesya when she realizes Kassandra is the girl from the mountain. Deimos —Alexios— is her brother and she hasn't the slightest notion that he'd survived the fall too. The truth is on the tip of Lesya's tongue but refuses to come out and is forgotten when deckhands begin shouting.
"Hoist the sail!" Barnabas shouts over everyone. As the great blazon of the eagle is tucked away, twenty-men settle on the padded-leather benches running either side of the ship below deck, each taking up a fir-pole oar, lifting it and threading it through a leather loop and thole pin. With a rhythmic splash, the oars meet the wave.
The Megarid is in sight. The journey is all but over —save for the forest of Athenian war galleys blockading the bay, their blue-and-white-striped sails flapping in the wind. Kassandra glances back at the captain and the woman standing at his side. There is no opening through the blockade, and landing to the north or south would mean a month's journey to pick their way overland to Pagai. Though just when the Eagle Bearer's hope starts to wan, the old sailor calls out to the crew and rowers. "Kybernetes," Barnabas roars, seeing what Lesya points to in the distance —a lone Athenian trireme. "Turn...turn...turn!"
Under the shadow of the galley's scorpion tail, the coal-skinned helmsman named Reza grabs onto the twin steering oars, his mighty shoulders shaking with effort, leaning left to edge the ship to the right. He roars with the strain and two crewmen rush to add their weight to the mix.
With a hiss of churning water, the galley tilts to the right, slicing through the waves. Kassandra grabs hold of the rail for balance, Enyo onto the rigging. A sheet of water leaps over her, soaking the deck too, and they watch the loosed javelins of the Athenian peltasts sail into the churn of the Adrestia's wake.
The galley rolls level once more and Kassandra finally sees it —the lone Athenian trireme ahead, side on the Adrestia's prow. Barnabas and Lesya had spotted it through all the other boats —a weak spot in the blockade. None of the Athenian vessels would risk venturing too close to shore after one ship. The bronze ram speeds toward the flank of the Athenian galley. Kassandra's eyes widened, the Athenians' faces drop, and Lesya is grinning —the wind whipping her flame-kissed hair.
"Brace!" Barnabas shouts. The world explodes in a roar of crumpling timbers —the Adrestia lurches, and the sky darkens for a moment with a burst of kindling. Through a chorus of screams the Adrestia cuts, the two halves of the broken Athenian galley swinging open like great wooden doors, the mast falling, the crew clinging to timber for dear life. The commotion falls away as rapidly as it had risen. Lesya looks back at the chaos of foaming waters and groaning wreckage and then the Megarid before them.
GUARDIANS DRAG HIM into the Cave of Gaia and dump him before the artifact and the iron-shod feet of one of the Cult's sages. Deimos is beaten and bruised; his last assignment had taken a turn for the worse. Since Enyo disappeared, Kosmos no longer trusted him even as he acquired more power —mostly through fear. Few dared to oppose him any longer. The Sage bends forward, looking down at the champion in disdain. "Where is she?" Kleon hisses.
"Who?" Deimos asks, his voice rough —eyes almost black in the dim firelight. He looks like a caged animal with blood trickling down his chin, ready to bite the hand that feeds.
The other masked figures gathered share the same disdain, though it is hidden by the weeping ivory masks. "Don't play coy, boy," the Sage snaps. "Enyo!" Deimos glances between the man hovering above him and the Cultists, ignoring the twinge in his heart at the mention of her name. "Elpenor saw her on Kephallonia."
Pressing his clenched fists into the cracked stone floor, Deimos rises. One of his arms hangs low until he rams the heel of his palm into the limp shoulder. There's a pop and then he is standing at full height —menacing even in his current state. "She's dead," he growls. "I told you." He'd thrown down a bloody blade at their feet that night after seeing Enyo to safety. They'd believed it was her blood too —he flexes his scarred left hand.
"And you lied," the Sage roars, rearing back to strike the champion. Deimos catches Kleon's wrist, sneering —all it would take is a sharp twist the break it. Those in attendance grow quiet at the champion's dissonance. A rush of air is his only warning before the flat of a mace collides against his already battered back. The impact forces him to his knees and the breath from his lungs. "He's beyond our control!" Kleon shouts, looking around at his masked acquaintances. Deimos glances up, spitting blood and trying to jerk free of the hold the two brutes have on his arms. "Rabid dogs should be put down," Kleon reviles, meeting the burning hatred in Deimos' eyes.
A wave of whispers and silent agreement sweeps through the group. "Get him out of my sight."
STENTOR —THE ADOPTED son of Nikolaos— demands the Eagle Bearer aid him in the war efforts before being allowed an audience with the Wolf. He doesn't trust the misthios and he trusts her companion even less. Kassandra is to look for his scouts over the Megarid and weaken the Athenian hold on Megara until the Spartan forces can strike against the leader. Menexinos the Butcher the people call him —Enyo and Deimos had helped him rise to power as an ally to the Cult. Menexinos will rise and fall by my hand, Lesya vows.
She slips from the Adrestia in the evening and finds Kassandra overlooking a sparsely manned fort, but still too many hoplites to just barge in. They both have their eyes on the same soldier near an opening in the perimeter of the fence. Lesya frees the bow from her back and an arrow from the quiver at her hip —nocking and losing in a fluid motion.
"Lucky shot," Kassandra remarks, peering over the stack of crates to see the arrow find its target having slipped through an opening no wider than three fingers. She has the Eagle Bearer's respect as a fighter, but that is it. Respect and trust can be fickle things when one's past is littered with corpses.
"I make my own luck." Lesya smiles —pulling another arrow from her quiver. She nods toward the captain's tent at the camp's center. "Go, I'll cover you." She loses a rain of arrows upon the Athenians, skirting around the camp.
In a single movement, Lesya bends around from the hips, drawing, nocking, and losing her bow. The arrow takes the guard in the eye just as he lurches in an attempt to run her through. The man flails and crashes headlong into the unlit brazier, where he lay, feet twitching. Another charges her, turning out of his path she pulls one of her blades free. The Athenian hears a clean chopping noise and sees both his hands and spear spin through the air. He stares at the hewn stumps —white bone, marrow, blood— and howls. Lesya thrusts her blade through the man's neck, silencing his cries. Her gaze turns to the next opponent.
The hoplite stares at her trembling as she takes a step forward. He drops his spear, turning to flee. Kicking up a broken spear, she throws the half-lance. It punches into the man's back and he slumps headlong at the camp's entrance.
Kassandra emerges from the captain's tent, wiping blood from her blade onto a scrap of blue fabric. She glances at the carnage and the woman standing amongst it. "How'd you learn to fight like that?" The Eagle Bearer asks. In all her time on Kephallonia, she'd never seen anything like it —even she does not fight with such bloodlust.
Lesya refuses to meet Kass' curious stare, instead, she takes in the corpses lying about her feet and the blood running down her blades. "I didn't have a choice," she utters, hoping the answer will suffice for now.
"YOU FUCKING SNAKE," Deimos hisses, his hand wrapping around Elpenor's throat. The merchant presses his jeweled fingers into the champion's wrist. All it would take is one twist from his great arm for his neck to snap.
Roaring, Deimos drops the Cultist and turns —shoulders heaving. "The letter was not meant for them," Elpenor explains, rubbing his tender neck. The merchant had always been kinder to them than most. It was his generosity that'd given them a villa in the woods above Delphi. He'd watched the champions grow and had seen something else besides simple friendship blossom between them as well. Elpenor had been who warned him of the hatching scheme against his counterpart.
Deimos glances toward the lit brazier —the dancing flames remind him of Enyo's copper waves. A lot of stuff reminded him of her as of late. "She's well?" He asks, voice surprisingly soft given the anger still harbored in his dark eyes.
"I believe so," Elpenor tells him, honestly. Enyo had looked strong on the docks of Sami and he might even dare say happy, too. "She'll be in Megaris by now," he remarks. She now sails with Deimos' sister after he'd goaded her into taking a contract on Nikolaos of Sparta. "War still calls her name." And it always would. Enyo may not have been born into violence, but she'd been baptized in blood at a young age.
Deimos rises, hand holding onto his bandaged ribs —Lykaon had been kind enough to dress his wounds. Elpenor catches the determination in his expression. "I would not do that yet, champion," he warns, voice cool and calm as always. If everything went according to plan, then Enyo would return to Phokis, and not even the gods could keep them apart.