Caput XXXI
***CCCLX***
Not one of them would have expected to find themselves in this position. Hunters, Spartan-trained Children of Ares, and a Greek-born Roman commander working side by side. The advance guard of Arachne's army would reach their position in less than two hours. Facing the four hundred Scythia Dracaenae would be eighty hoplites, thirty-five Hunters of Artemis, and the Son of Poseidon. At Taygetos, nearly one hundred miles to their rear, the others of the settlement labored to produce weapons and strengthen fortificaitons. Palisades and wooden walls deepened defenses. Traps and trenches hoped to disrupt attacks. Meanwhile, one hundred and sixteen fighters prepared an ambush a mile south of Mt. Kithairon. More than a hundred refugees, a mix of demigods, legacies, and the clear-sighted that ran from their enemy instead of dying in ignorance, were directed toward Taygetos. The small force remained.
The road wound through the wooded gap. Flanking the shaded path, deep gorges prohibited rapid movement. Several large trees stood ready to fall at both the lead and trail of the dracaenae column. On the western side of the road, Hunters stood at all levels, some firmly on the ground, more perched in the trees. Twenty hoplites stood with them. The eastern flank held the remaining sixty Children of Ares. Percy stood at the end of the road, he was the bait to both halt and draw in the column. "Riders!" came the word from the forward scouts. The enemy would not be mounted unless the Scythian cannibals rode them. Five horses and four riders came into view. The empty steed was a pitch-black stallion, Percy smiled despite himself. It was not lost on him that the three Hunters forced themselves toward him first.
"Your wife worries."
"I thought you left the same day I did."
"We were delayed." That much was apparent as nearly four months had passed since Percy's departure from Rome. "There was a vote that was called, consular elections."
"Why would that delay you?"
"You were on the ballot. You were elected."
"Shit," Percy muttered.
"For the next year, the seven hundred and thirty-eighth. Your wife is concerned Rome's next consul will die before his term."
"When she's not flirting with other men," muttered Kassandra. There was a strangely possessive tone to her words. Dione noticed Percy's shift in attention.
"Now is the not the time," she hissed, "this will soon be a battle." Percy appreciated her quick assessment of the situation.
"Go find your sisters," Percy said, "you can relieve their fears that I have been forcing myself on you." The two younger girls, now appearing nearly fifteen, immediately left. Kassandra now appeared older than Zoë Nightshade, she seemed to hesitate for a moment. As she walked her horse away, Percy looked to Dione, who merely shook her head.
"Not the time, Master."
"You only say master when you don't like what you have to say. We will talk later." She smirked.
"What kind of talk? Are your pillows already taken by another Greek girl?"
"Get ready for the fight." Just over an hour later, the fight was upon them. Percy stood in the center of the road, seemingly a single man opposing a column of four hundred. The commander of the Scythians ordered ten fighters forward. Percy spun the trident in his right hand. From the shadows on the side of the road, Dione smiled mercilessly as the destroyer came into his own.
***CCCLXI***
The first two monsters reached Perseus. The three prongs of the trident thrust into one's chest as the weapon moved right to left. Violently he jerked it to the right and the sauroter penetrated the skull of the second. Forty yards separated these ten, now eight, from their comrades. The trident struck the ground and the vibrations emanating from the weapon caused six pre-hewn trees to slowly cascade. The half dozen pines, the smallest three feet across at the trunk, blocked the road forward of and behind the Scythian dracaenae.
Percy slashed with the trident, opening an assailant's throat and chest before the monster turned to golden dust. Spinning, he gripped the center prong of the weapon, thrusting its butt upward behind him and plunging it into the face of another foe. He spun back to his right, avoiding a sword slash while his sauroter smashed the skull of an enemy. His left hand gripped the sword hand of the beast that attempted to kill him. He heard the crunching of bone and the snapping of tendons as he torqued the hand into position. Once at the proper position was found, the sword, still clutched in the monster's hand, pierced the chest cavity. Golden dust covered him as he studied the four remaining dracaenae.
Chaos reigned amongst the larger body of monsters, as thirty-eight Hunters of Artemis launched volley after volley of arrows into their ranks. Just as the monsters attempted to protect themselves with a shield wall, the Children of Ares – armed with weapons made of a material named celestial bronze – struck their rear.
The remaining four dracaenae turned to their isolated target. Percy caught a downward strike in his hand and thrust the trident into the underside of the creature's chin. As golden dust covered him, he kicked the base of the weapon, throwing it upward and into the path of a charging beast. Shock showed on the monster's face as it impaled itself. Before Percy could strike the final pair, Dione's short sword dispatched them. He looked to her and the duo rushed into the larger fray. Twenty more Children of Ares and the Hunters joined their charge. He felt something strike his left shoulder but ignored it. Seconds later the trident again hummed with the song of destruction.
In less than twenty minutes, four hundred monsters were no more. The ambushers lost ten dead and twenty wounded. They began the movement south. Percy had forgotten that something had struck his shoulder, the arrow's shaft having broken off, until, with a grunt, the big Daughter of Ares ripped it free. Percy cursed as he spun on her, but she was examining the projectile.
"Fucking virginial cunts," Clarisse muttered. "A Hunter fired this."
***CCCLXII***
"Who?" growled Kassandra. It amused both Dione and Percy how much anger the wound inspired int eh girl. The years away from Artemis resulted in her twenty-something appearance. With that came the curves of womanhood, as had become apparent in several incidents in Rome. While the younger Hunters returned readily to the other Hunters, Kassandra remained by her master's side.
"If I knew, I would have said."
"I will…"
"You will do nothing," Percy said quietly.
"Someone tried to kill you!" she cried.
"A hunt for them will sow more discord than already exists and we cannot afford that. We face too large a force to be divided." Kassandra still displayed physical anger and Percy could tell she would find the archer despite his orders.
"You are damnably hard to hate, you know?" The trio turned to see Clarisse, Daughter of Ares closing with them. "You sit there, an arrow just removed from you, fired by one of the Hunters, and you are concerned with unity of effort." Dione handed the large woman a cup of wine. She took a hefty draught. Now she pointed at Percy, "For every cunt who claims to hate you, they have half the reason I do."
"Yes, you seem to accept me most."
"My father is Ares, he recognizes the necessary evils of war. You conducted a war; you performed the evils of war. You threw my husband onto my own spear at the Oeneos." She let the news sink in. "Therefore, yes, I hate you. I believe you are a bastard, but bastards are damnably good at winning wars."
"I am surprised you did not force the arrow deeper. Once, many years ago, I met your father, the Roman version anyway." He lifted an arm and pointed to a scar. Ares' daughter looked at the deepness of the scar.
"When?"
"Philippi. A Son of Mars and centurion attempted to cave my chest in with a shield. I lay there while the shield cut through both bones and almost all the muscle. I killed the bastard and when I stood Mars waited. Told me I would have an interesting future."
"After this war, we can readdress my anger at you. But for now, I can hate you without trying to kill you. My husband died because of you before we had children. I can make a better world Malcolm's and Annabeth's."
"She has children?" Percy asked, surprised.
"A son, I do not think anyone knows his father except for her. He just turned four, I believe."
"Full of surprises then. Malcolm's younger daughter still wishes to kill me."
"She is dammed good with a blade too. On surprises, Malcolm shocked us all with the reveal that you are married and have, what, seven children?"
"No, just six, at least for another month."
"How old?" it amused Percy how much the warrioress of Sparta yearned for news of children, even of her enemy. His laugh, however, related more the disparity in his children's ages.
"The eldest, Publius, is twenty next year. The youngest, just three. But the oldest four, will never truly be mine." Sadness rang in his voice. "I had them with another man's wife and even should he die, I am now bound to mine."
"You Romans are a strange breed."
"And I am not even fully Roman."
***CCCLXIII***
The tyranny of distance kept a cold fact from Publius Ventidius Bassus Perseanus, Consul for the Year Seven hundred and Thirty-Seven ab urbe condita. It kept from him that his seventh child, another daughter, did not live through her first cycle of the moon. Born nearly six weeks before the midwives' expectations, neither medicine nor prayer kept the girl, named Antonia, in the realm of the living.
Due to this, her father, not her husband, laid the babe to rest in a mausoleum. She resented her husband for it and when a dashing young cavalry commander approached her, she obtained a choice: the ever present and sympathetic Gracchus or the young man with iron arms.
***CCCLXIV***
The crossing at Byzantium took too long. He hoped to move them in just three days, instead it took over two weeks. Still yet he waited on the baggage train. This was not the same as his first sojourn into Greece. Pillage could not feed his men this time. The commander of his cavalry estimated another four days before the war supplies were adequate. Knowing the numbers on the other end of his force's trek, he hoped four days was not too long.
***CCCLXV***
They now occupied the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Corinth. An additional fifty fighters joined them from Taygetos. Of the original one hundred and sixteen, just eighty-three remained. Nearly all of them were wounded. After losing just ten in the first ambush, twenty-three fell to a counterattack by Hyperborean giants. This would be their last major delaying action. Attrition favored their enemy. Percy waited for the forward scouts, all Hunters, to report the monsters' approach. He sat on a large rock, the trident over his knees. Dione and Kassandra stood near him, Clarisse and Zoë Nightshade sat opposite him. Zoë still hated him, but an observed conversation between Clarisse and the lieutenant seemed to have cooled the fiery open hatred.
Naomi, one of the slaves from Athens that seemed to be re-assimilating to her people quickly, rode up. The horse was slathered in foam and panting. "It's not monsters! It's the cannibals!"
Percy transformed the trident into a dagger and hung it on his belt. He reached for the Sword of Vercingetorix and stood. "How many?"
"At least eight hundred. A mix of spears, archers, and cavalry." The advance of the mortal favored the enemy. For all the abilities of the defenders, the weapons made of celestial bronze lacked effectiveness against non-monstrous foes. He watched as Clarisse ordered her soldiers to remove the celestial bronze caps from the blades of their spears. The sauroter remained what it was, but that end of the weapon had always relied upon brute force and not its material anyway. Their swords however would remain sheathed. While each had wielded a kopis of iron against his men, they had carried their bonze xiphos on this march. The Children of Ares had arrived ready for any fight, unfortunately some of their reinforcements had not. Clarisse approached him.
"Have you ever fought Scythians?"
"No. But I imagine they die just as easily as Parthians, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Germans, Spaniards, and Egyptians." She looked at his sword.
"That's not Roman in design."
"No, it belonged to Vercingetorix. Marcus Antonius gave it to me before he killed himself on an ordinary cavalry sword. Even in defeat and death he could not bring himself to die on a Gallic blade."
"And now you, vanquisher of Antonius, Pompeius, Brutus, every enemy Rome has, carry it in battle."
"It has sent many to the boatman."
"You need a shield." His shield remained in Rome. The dark armor and helmet he kept with him, but the shield had never been a priority for him. She motioned to a subordinate. He brought over a heavy bronze shield with the red lambda of Lacedaemon on it. "The original owner of this shield died at the Oeneos. You slew his oldest son at the Propylaea and his younger one died at our first ambush." Percy studied the scarred shield. "It will honor the family for it to see combat again." He slid his arm into its arm holds.
"For honor then."
***CCCLXVI***
Blood ran along the length of Percy's arms. All around him watched as he lifted his arm toward the charging cavalry. As a unit, all one hundred horses ceased their advance. With a collective rear, the mounts spilled their riders to the ground. As the horsemen attempted to collect themselves, the Hunters of Artemis with their knives fell upon them. The commander of the Scythian cannibals continued to feed his forces piecemeal into the fight. The defenders continued to grind them to dust.
As it had throughout its existence, the Sword of Vercingetorix claimed the lives of invaders. Even those that opposed him before could only watch in awe as his sword clove men in two or seemed to lift them from their feet and hurl them to the ground. Clarisse watched as the Son of Poseidon slashed a spear from his path and, holding the shield parallel to the ground punched its rim through the face of an enemy. Before the man fell, a second warrior attempted to kill the Roman. His blow ended on the Spartan shield Percy carried and his life ended with a third of a Gallic blade thrust through his throat.
Instead of extracting the blade, Percy ripped it to the side the movement carried the blade into the upper arm of a man attempting to stab a Daughter of Ares in the back. He severed the arm above the elbow and as the horror-stricken man fell to his knees, the Daughter of Ares kicked him to his back. Percy stomped his throat. The woman, named Gorgo after the Spartan queen of old, looked to him and nodded her appreciation. Percy watched as two arrows, fired from an unknown source, terminated their arc in her chest. She fell, eyes still wide and locked onto his. Time to mourn did not exist upon the Isthmus of Corinth.
A horseman had regained control of his mount. His lance aimed at Percy as he charged. Percy felt the impact of the weapon on his shield, before feeling the sword in his hand sever the horse's right hamstring with a downward angled blow. The horse, in its writhing collapse, threw its rider into the air. As the man fell, Percy shield accelerated his journey to the ground as the rim of his shield crushed his larynx and drove him into the earth. He looked at the horse and in his mind could feel its pain. He slashed violently and the equine's blood sprayed into the air and coated him. Before all the drops of blood struck the ground, another Scythian died on the edge of his blade.
Despite having been outnumbered, the ridiculous manner of their enemy's deployment allowed the Greeks and their Roman butcher an advantage. Commanders such as a Daughter of Ares and the Procurator Augustii did not allow such mistakes to go unpunished. By their estimation, over half of the eight hundred Scythian Anthropophage lay dead. Their own force had not escaped unbloodied, but thus far the damage inflicted justified the losses. Another cannibal fell to Percy's blade, beside him Clarisse of Sparta plunged forward, her spear shattered and kopis in her hand.
***CCCLXVII***
From perches in the trees surrounding the battle, Hunters watched as the pair led a human spear which pierced the Scythian formations one after another. When Clarisse's shield bashed a man to the ground and his back presented itself to him, Myrinne of Corinth watched as the man wrenched the cannibal's head back by the hair and sawed against the man's throat with his sword. He was born to end lives, she told herself.
Her left arm rose. Clutched in it was a weapon made of wood and bone. The animal sinew string pulled the ends of the bow backward as she brought the fletching to her cheek. Resting on her left hand lay the projectile Diomedes had long ago said only fit for a "weak and worthless man." For half a second, she cast her masterful eye upon the Son of Poseidon, before remembering that the lives he ended now were in protection of Greeks. Myrinne loosed the arrow at a Scythian attempting to rally fighters to he and his mount. She watched however, as another of her company could not place such discretion in her hatred of the Roman commander and witnessed Naomi, one of the girls taken to be a slave, launch an arrow at the broad back of the Procurator. Myrinne watched the arrow's trajectory, following its arc until it imbedded itself in the left thigh of the Roman.
Myrinne started in surprise as she watched him hammer the arrow until it protruded from the front of his leg. He snapped the fletching from the arrow and ripped the remaining shaft from the wound. She shook her head as the entire sequence of events took less than fifteen seconds. Already more of the Scythians died under his blade. She swore she could feel the anger and rage radiating from him physically. Below her, she watched as Dione, Daughter of Nemesis, close on Naomi.
***CCCLXIII***
"You should get that looked at," Clarisse growled, even as her kopis hewn into the cranium of a Scythian. Percy felt the blood flowing from his leg and ignored it. A man in full armor filled Percy's vision. The first two thrusts of his weapon sparked off the metal protection. The third thrust was aimed lower and sliced the inner thigh deeply. Crimson shot across the ground as the artery was severed. The man attempted to strike at him, but the lack of blood already affected him. The movement was slow, and Percy side-stepped while his shield moved up. The man's own momentum brought his forearm across the rim of the shield, Percy watched as the man's own blow snapped the bones of his arm with the shield acting as a fulcrum. The Scythian stumbled forward and thrust the sword into the side of his neck. His eyes did not follow the movement, they already hunted for another target.
The wedge of Greeks continued its path through the illogically deployed Scythians. It had already occurred to Percy that the men opposing them relied on their reputation as consumers of human flesh to ensure victory more than they did their actual fighting abilities. Five more fell before his and Clarisse's swords before a great cry went out. Severely accented Greek called out, begging for mercy. An hour later, all surviving Scythian Antropophage stood in a small hollow. Hunters overlooked them, arrows on strings. Before them stood the Children of Ares and their Roman compatriot. The Scythians numbered one hundred and three uninjured and another one hundred and fifty wounded. Their leader approached Percy; the act was not lost on those of Ares' clan nor the Hunters.
"We wish to parley for our lives," the tall man said in bastardized Greek.
"What terms?"
"We live to see tomorrow, after that it is out of our control."
***CCCLXIV***
Percy turned to his left, seemingly content to walk away from the surrendered Scythian Anthropophage. In the back of his mind a small voice sought his ear. If they live today, tomorrow they will attack you again. It sounded remarkably similar to his interaction with Mars all the years before in Philippi. The Hunters looked down on the mortals and their captives. The Children of Ares stood behind Percy, their weapons still dripping blood and drawn. Percy's breathing slowed and he could hear the blood pounding in his ears.
With a cry he drew his sword and torqued his body to the right. Vercingetorix's Sword flashed in the dimming light. With a great gout of blood, the closest Scythian's head detached from his shoulders. The headless man remained upright for a moment. Percy's foot rose and planted itself in the deceased torso, sending the body into the mass of other survivors. His sword fell upon another man even as Clarisse and the first of her siblings joined in the slaughter. It took just ten minutes for one hundred and twenty weaponless men to die. Percy was withdrawing his blade from prostrate form when Zoë Nightshade approached him.
"You are a monster."
"It is amazing how often the defeated hurl that accusation at the ones who have won wars."
***CCCLXV***
They stood atop the gatehouse as the monstrous host slowly filled the lower slopes of the mountain. The majority of the force remained directly below the large gate. Percy estimated a third of the army though immediately began to move to both flanks to encircle the position. They would also be examining the walls for weaknesses. They would see where most of the improvements were made. Initiated by the minds of Athena and Annabeth, a section of the wall opposite the gate would appear from a distance as easily approached. Once closed with an attacker would instead find a wall atop a twelve-foot rock cliff. Canvas sheets painted to appear as sloping earth were stretched tight from the base of the wall to the loam below.
Square upon the road, just outside of arrow shot, stood a woman's torso atop a collection of eight spindly legs. She spoke, the voice carrying the distance with a buzzing airiness. "Your time hasss come, little goddessss. No powersss to protect you. Only more victimsss for my army to feassst upon." Athena opened her mouth to respond only to find Perseus' hand on her arm.
"Don't. Only cunts call across battlefields at each other. If you have something to say. Prove it on the battlefield."
"For Sea Spawn you can damnably wise."
"I have merely fought many wars." He responded with a sad smile. Dione approached him.
"I know who fired the arrows."
***CCCLXVI***
"She is a fucking cocktease," groaned Sempronius Gracchus, even as a prostitute's head bobbed up and down in his lap. "Every time I think I am close; she vanishes and leaves me with a fucking tent in my toga."
"If you're that close, just bloody well take it!" snapped his co-conspirator. Gracchus merely laughed. The whores pleasuring both himself and Octavian Varus were said to be incapable of speaking Latin. There was so much noise in the brothel, that really was not an issue anyway.
"Are you bloody, fucking daft? Charming the daughter of Augustus and the wife of Perseus into bed is one thing, forcing her is another. Does your hatred fucking blind you?"
"You merely accuse her of adultery, the law is quite clear."
"I'm not afraid of the fucking law, you imbecile! Do you think that Greek fucker is going to care if it is argued she committed adultery vice I raped her? I quite prefer keeping all of my body parts connected, thank you."
"The law states…"
"Stop thinking about revenge for one fucking moment and think about reality. That fucker raped his own home-nation for rebelling against his adoptive one, do you think for one fucking minute that he would not personally rip you or I apart for something done against his wife?"
"You would be the perpetrator, not I."
"Do you think for one fucking minute that I would not do whatever I could I stay the fuck alive?"
A/N: I know this is two short chapters in a row. However, I am of the opinion that chapters should be judged off of content, not length. Without that loophole, how else would I be able to leave the small cliffhangers?