LESYA STRIDES INTO the Spartan war camp with the blood of their brother-in-arms still on her hands. She drives her spear into the ground and glances around at the sparring hoplites before approaching the central pavilion with the sealed edict in hand. The flaps are pulled open, a gathering of three men surround a small table looking over a fading and partially torn map of Boeotia and Attika. She almost pities the Spartan commander until he looks up– "Stentor?"
"You!" Stentor hisses, quarter drawing the short sword from his belt. The men under his command echo the motion, drawing swords and leveling spears. She takes a step back, hand reaching behind her back —fingers brushing over the cool leather hilt of her blade but instead, wrap around a piece of papyrus.
"I have a message from the Kings of Sparta," Lesya announces, holding out the scroll for all to see. The thunder of voices ebbs, all eyes on the sealed edict. Stentor —chest heaving— slams his sword back into its sheath, then spins away, stomping to the table at the center of the tent. Lesya follows him with the wary eyes of the Spartiates watching.
He takes the scroll and unfurls the message, face twisting and falling as he reads King Pausanias's orders. Stentor rolls the edict back up. "Why was this entrusted to you?" He asks, sneering as he turns from the table —throwing the edict into a brazier to burn. She carried her own death sentence.
Lesya watches the papyrus and ink burn, unable to discern any of the writing before flames take hold. "Brasidas asked me to deliver it," she answers with a shrug, still unsure of why the general would trust her with such a task given her transgressions against him and Sparta.
Stentor braces his weight against the map table, looking down at the fading rivers and hills and the markers for the Athenian and Spartan forces. What happened in Megaris still leaves a bitter taste in Stentor's mouth, but he cannot deny her slaughter of the leader had been instrumental in their campaign's success. He sees her as a means to an end, a tool to obtain victory in Boeotia and then discard. "I suppose now that you're here–" he straightens and crosses his arms "–you may be of use."
They glance at the map, and the stones huddled together representing the Korinthian fleet near the harbor city of Korsia. Stranded at sea for two moons, blocked on land by the Athenian army and at sea by their navy. "Our allies cannot make landfall," Stentor says, motioning for his harmost and strategos to join them. Both men regard Lesya with disdain —each has seen men die at the blades of a ghost with copper hair.
"You need me to clear a path," Lesya surmises, whether by slaughter or diversion the Korinthian fleet needs to make landfall if Sparta is to secure Boeotia. She leans over the table, committing the lines of the city streets and walls to memory.
"If you think you can manage what my men could not–" Stentor glares at her, his dark eyes harsh as daggers "–then yes."
Silence takes hold of the air, broken by the sound of knuckles cracking. Lesya looks up from the map —she will see the Spartan army receives the aid of their allies, if only for spite. Stentor rounds the table, exiting the tent. Sparing a final look at the map, she turns to follow.
"Have you heard of the Boeotian Champions?" he asks, standing on a promontory overlooking Thebes in the distance. The meddlesome warriors spur the morale of the Athenian forces with each desecrated Spartan corpse. Lesya nods, know how to test the strength and resolve of Boeotian myths and legends. "Good." His smile is grim. With the likes of her, they can end the war. "They say you are a weapon–" Lesya grimaces at his words and the reminder of what she'd been to the Cult "–be my weapon and secure this region for Sparta."
Her laurel gaze settles on the horizon —there is work to be done. Stentor grips onto her forearm before she can leave, drawing her close. "But do not forget," he hisses, "I know who you are and that your blood is tainted."
In turn, Lesya grips onto his vambrace and leans toward him with a smile capable of haunting dreams. "And do not forget that I could quash you and use your bones to pick my teeth," she bites back. Stentor's face —painted red with anger— drains of color. Pausanias has assigned him an impossible task. If the Cult's champion wasn't able to stop her, then how could he hope to do so? "You do not command me, Stentor," Lesya grits out, eyes burning with unspeakable rage. "It would do you well to remember that."
SHE CREEPS FORWARD through the fen and toward the harbor village. The night is muggy and the sky clear —the moon and stars shining like beacons, betraying everything in their silver veil. She stoops down, lifting wet earth to coat the metal pommel and edge of her daggers. Toads croak, and foxes and voles dart in and out of the tall ferns and shrubs. She halts at the edge of Korsia.
Athenian hoplites line the wooden walls of the dock. The rest of the garrison —two taxiarchies each five hundred strong— sit encamped in and around the village streets. Stentor's reticence had been wise. Assaulting this well-defended fort without the Korinthian fleet would bring the Spartans to their knees, and Boeotia would fall into Athens' hands. Such a defeat could end the war.
Bawdy roars echo from the hastily prepared taverns —where there are soldiers, there are drinks and hetaerae to warm their cots. Archers keep silent vigilance on the walls and rooftops, watching the seas and the streets. Against the stone buildings of the harbor, one structure stands out —a freshly hewn timber tower, upon which an archer strode with his chest bare and blue-and-white cape glinting. Far beyond the tower was the dark shapes of the Korinthian fleet, pocked with torches and braziers. The Korinthians could not hope to make landfall anywhere along the coastline without losing most of their men.
She looks over her shoulder, eyeing the edges of bronze shields and the silver points of Spartan shields —all waiting for a signal. Ten men, Lesya thinks with silent laughter, I could do this alone. Turning back to the town, she moves through the thick ferns and around the outskirts of the walls. A break in the palisade just large enough for her to squeeze through and a sleeping guard presents her with a way in.
Crouching next to the sleeping hoplite, Lesya unsheathes one of her daggers and draws it across the man's neck. Blood gurgles, his eyes open wide, but he cannot cry out —seconds pass, and then he takes the outstretched arm of Charon. Throwing the fading blue cape across the corpse, she moves forward, gaze fixed on the archer's tower. A pair of hoplites draw near to her hiding spot low in the flower beds at the front of a villa —their muted conversations rise and fall as they pass.
Darting from the flower bed, she comes to the tower —pitch and oil-filled amphorae sit around the base, filling the fair with a heavy stench. Lesya turns her attention from the amphorae to the top of the archer's tower, following a path of notches and binding ropes. The planks at the top of the platform groan as an archer strides back-and-forth.
Lesya leaps up, clamping her hand over the archer's mouth as her blade sinks into the soft flesh of his neck. She lets the archer's body down silently and turns to the landward side of the village. Taking the archer's bow and an arrow, she tears a strip of fabric from his chiton and ties it about the shaft, setting it alight. Lesya draws back the flaming arrow, aiming skyward and across the water —a streak of orange light across the clear sky.
Long moments slip past as she watches the black hills in the distance —then one after another, small fires start to pock to the landscape and the Athenian hoplites manning the walls take notice. A war drum sounds in the distance, followed by the low moan of a war horn. The still of the night is broken by shouting. Hundreds of men spill from the taverns and tents into the streets and fenland. "Spartans!" They cry. "Take up arms!" The two taxiarchies fall into shambled formations, spreading out from Korsia to face the oncoming phantom army.
Looking out over the water, Lesya remembers the stench from the jars of pitch and oil. A beacon. She glances between the burning brazier and amphorae below and acts rather than thinking. The flames topple downward, clay shatters, and fire takes hold of the tower with an explosion. Taking a running leap, Lesya plummets from the tower and into a pile of hay. Over the roar of the flames and shouting from the Athenians, the low echo of a hundred war drums fills the air as the Korinthian fleets bear down on the Boeotian shoreline.
KASSANDRA FOLLOWS THE trail of blood and strung up bodies along the narrow forest path where whispers said she would find Deianeira and Astra. The Eagle Bearer stops at the last two corpses swaying in the breeze —both belong to women. One hangs by the ankle —throat gaping open with fresh blood still dripping to the patch of grass below. The second has a hole carved into her chest, her heart pinned to the trunk of the tree with an arrow and an ivory mask weeping red. She feels her stomach churn —Lesya.
Ahead smoke rises, and through the trees, the misthios can see a small fire with a single shadow sitting beside it. "Doing my work for me?" Kassandra asks, sitting opposite of her. Long months have passed since they parted ways in Lakonia. Ikaros descends through the pines, perching on a boulder —mistrustful eyes trained on Lesya as she runs a worn whetstone down the edge of a spear-tip.
"I work for myself, misthios," she reminds Kassandra, feeling the leaf-shaped blade bite into the pad of her thumb. "It just happens our goals are aligned." Satisfied with her work, she drives the spear into the ground next to her and reaches into a small canvas pouch. Lesya tosses a fragment of the artifact at Kass' feet, proof of another successful hunt. "Deianeira is no more."
The Eagle Bearer glances back at the path of corpses. "And the others?"
Lesya shrugs. "They got in my way."
The callous response sends a cold shiver down Kassandra's spine. She imagines Lesya has left similar trails of destruction across Hellas. "You've been busy then?"
Her laugh is morose, her smile grim. There is a dark glint in her eyes that Kassandra has never seen before —something has changed her. "Carved a path for the Korinthian fleet to make landfall and have rid Hellas of three more Cultists," Lesya answers. A more impressive feat than winning an Olympic wreath.
At the edge of the clearing, something rustles in the underbrush. Lesya reaches for the small blade on the inside of her bracer. A hare jumps from into the open, and Lesya's stomach grumbles. She flicks the blade into the air, catching the hare by the neck —it squeals once, then falls still and silent. Rising, she goes to collect her kill.
Kassandra watches as Lesya skins the hare, the silver rays of Selene's light dappling her skin through the canopy above. Her cuts are precise and efficient —the work of one used to taking life and skin from the living, whether it be man or beast. She guts the dead animal first, dumping the offal into a shallow hole but keeping the heart and liver before slicing a neat line all along the underbelly and ripping the skin free in a single tug. It may not be much, but it will fill their bellies for the night.
Fat drips down onto the stones surrounding the fire, sizzling as Lesya turns the hare over the flames using one of her daggers. Kassandra watches still, honing the blade of her kopis. She wants to ask after her brother —to know if Lesya has seen Deimos since they parted ways, but she refrains. A part of her knows the darkness surrounding her is because of him. Neither of them can find much more to say, not even as they split the roast hare.
Lesya lays back under the stars with a soft sigh and cannot help but wonder if Deimos is looking up at the same night sky.