Caput XVI
***CL***
Fifty-two of his men were dead, slain by unseen archers that seemed to flit through the treetops. Unknown houses and farms had been burned in response. It had been the Primus Pilus of the Thirteenth that came to him. "Sir, the men are suffering, and their rage grows. If Praefectus Achaea Perseus were here, he would allow us to punish the people for these kills." Jason severely doubted that Percy would allow rampant slaughter in return for small ambushes. But if the senior centurion of the legion came to him, it meant the talk existed. And more than one Roman general had met their end at the hands of their own legion. Is this his every day? Jason thought about his cousin. Never once had he envied his more influential, but less public cousin. In his current predicament, he was even more loath to do so. Percy had command, which meant he had to always deal with these things. Poor fucking bastard. His instructions to the legion had been deliberate.
"The people's land will suffer, but despite the rebellion of some, these people have been under Rome for much longer than they have been against it. You will burn their buildings and their fields, but leave the people unmolested, for who else's sons will fill our ranks in the future." Due to that, a western breeze carried a cloud of smoke before them as they closed upon the mountain that purportedly housed the leaders of the rebellion. The mountain stood two miles before them. Uncounted houses and farms burned behind them. Jason regretted it slightly, but simultaneously his eyes fell upon yet another of his men felled by arrows. This one stood affixed to a tree, an arrow through each shoulder. A third had penetrated his groin while a fourth protruded from his open mouth. "No," he whispered aloud. "If this is the war they wish, this is the one they receive." Within minutes the order was out, every living person between their position and the seaward side of Mt Pelion was an enemy of Rome and was to be treated as such.
***CLI***
Her scouts reported a dozen men swinging from ropes as their families were led off in chains. She had rebuked them sharply, pointing out that such actions had not occurred before their campaign of vengeance. Her own Hunters dismissed her logic and retorted that "Romans will always be Romans." Zoë watched as the first ranks of legion moved past the first houses of the Mt Pelion settlement. To the Romans' rear, she watched archers, cavalry, and siege equipment settle into place. If the infantry did not dislodge their enemy, her charges, then the artillery would. Between her hunters and the Romans stood the sixty-two fighters who refused to leave Mt Pelion without a fight. They will die here, she thought. They cared much for the mountain upon which they had established lives, but it would be their undoing. She raised a hand, and her Hunters raised their bows. As it fell forward the arrows released, falling in a gentle arc toward the Romans already dispatching the few defenders.
***CLII***
"Sir! There!" Jason followed the line of the man's arm as it rose toward.
"Aim the artillery there." An assortment of ballistae and onagers adjusted their point of fire toward the high pathway visible upon the side of the mountain. It would be at the maximum range of their engines, but they aimed at it regardless. "Fire," came the cold order from the Son of Jupiter. The missiles that soon flew through the Thessalian air were not merely stone, wood, and iron. Streamers of smoke hung in their air behind them as flaming projectiles began their descent onto the one-time sanctuary.
***CLIII***
"Run!" Zoë screamed. The Hunters turned to leave their positions. But there was not time.
The first of the missiles fell short of their position. The clay pots full of pitch did not fall short. The screams of three Hunters as the thick and adhesive substance clung to their clothing and skin. She watched as they attempted to move toward the fountains dedicated to Aphrodite several yards away. Instead, their steps became shorter and weaker as the flames tightened their skin and constricted their breathing. Their sisters could only look on in horror due to the continued rain of projectiles as the three girls' screams ended as their legs could no longer carry their weight. In desperation, they attempted to crawl across the stone road. Pieces of their flesh clung to the rough surface as they clawed forward inch by inch.
There were tears in Zoë's eyes as she drew arrows to her cheek. The bow's aim fell not on the Romans now pouring through the streets, the feeble resistance swept aside, but on her Hunters. One after another, she sent the bolt into the heart of the wounded girls. They deserve better than this, she thought. But I can do nothing else. The conflagration grew, the fires spreading through the olive groves and gardens of the mountainside village. The engines had ceased their firing, but the three girls with Zoë's arrows protruding from their hearts were not the only casualties. Three others had been slain by ballista bolts or the shrapnel of stone projectiles. Nearly a dozen appeared wounded.
"Hunters, we're evacuating. Follow me to the sea."
***CLIV***
Percy's green eyes would not leave the fire. Some fucking commander I am. Six days had passed since the battle at Dodona. Six days since his soldiers had buried twenty-five hundred of their compatriots. Another three and a half thousand were wounded, over a thousand of those to an extent that they were worthless to his combat power. Five hundred of those wounded marched with him now, southward on the heels of the Greek army. The roughly thousand men that would take time to heal remained with Paulus Aemiliius Lepidus in the hope that they would recover and be able to rejoin his forces upon healing. As such, only seventeen and a half thousand soldiers now pursued the Greeks. But, he recognized, between the dead and the captured – the Greeks had lost over eleven thousand. Not all of them were killed, but those that lived found themselves enroute to the slave markets of Italia. Based off the interrogations of the prisoners, the Greeks began the day with twenty-five thousand men, she would now command fourteen thousand. He outnumbered her, but not so substantially that it guaranteed victory.
He knew he must follow Antonius' lesson from so long ago "When in doubt, attack." If he gave them room to breathe, they would reform stronger. The previous battle removed one of the hydra's head, the pursuit would be the iron to seer it closed. Footsteps caused him to look up. The young man caused him to momentarily forget the losses, for his capabilities far exceeded his ego.
"Tiberius, how are your men?"
"Tired, but hungry, Praefectus. The Greeks nearly killed their commander."
"Just like a fucking wolf, fucking predators," Percy growled in response.
"Sir, if I may ask, is it true what my stepfather says? Are you a Son of Neptune?"
"Close enough," he grunted.
***CLVI***
"You let the Roman whelp defeat you." The accusatory nature of the statement was not hidden.
"He defeated me, yes. His tactics were not expected, nor Roman in nature."
"You should be better than that."
"I salvaged my force despite our position."
"You did not perform to my standards."
"I am not a goddess." The sound of the backhanded blow echoed throughout the tent where mother and daughter now stood.
***CLVII***
The blade rested against his throat. He looked into the dark eyes of revenge's daughter. Without a tongue, her mouth resembled the darkness of those eyes, he thought. Hatred created a gleam within them. As Dione looked down, the green of his eyes darkened. She watched as with the sea, the shade of green shifted as they flowed from stillness to the raging of a maelstrom. As a sudden pressure appeared upon her throat, they flashed to a brilliance seen only in Leandros' Greek fire.
She felt her body pulled away from him before she could strike. Releasing the knife, she pawed at whatever it was constricting her ability to breathe. Her hands passed through whatever substance it was and his mouth curved into a cruel smile. She looked at her hands, droplets of water clung to them, as if she had passed her hand through a stream. The smell of the sea, water with a hint of salt, filled the space. As she struggled to bring in enough oxygen to survive, she now saw a tendril of water running from his hand to a point where it disappeared from her vision under her chin.
He used it to throw her to the side. He stood, towering over her as she struggled to breathe. She could feel the pressure building behind her eyes. "You are not the only child of a god in this place."
***CLVIII***
"You are not to involve yourself in mortals' wars," the goddess stated slowly. The lieutenant before her bowed deeply before dropping to one knee.
"I know, milady. I chose to…" she was cut off.
"Stop, Zoë. You chose nothing, despite your commitment to the Hunters, I do not expect you to lie for them." The Persian looking demi-titan looked at the Goddess of the Moon.
"Four of our number have a history with the Romans. They attacked them against my orders, in return the Romans set fire to everything before them on the route to Pelion. I felt responsible, so I stayed."
"And what did that bring upon my Hunters." The words chosen for emphasis were not lost on the Daughter of Atlas.
"More death, milady."
"For which you feel responsible for three." The statement struck Zoë's mending heart. She forced herself to stand upright and looked into the face of Artemis.
"Milady, I feel responsible for them all."
***CLIX***
Smoke still hung about the peak of Mt Pelion. Only the stone of Pelion remained. From olive grove to hovel, the settlement was gone. The white stone of temples and the mountain face appeared black. Flames licked the color of their vestige, yet they remained upright. The flammable contents of the temples, however did not survive.
"Sir! We should tear them down," a young tribune proposed.
"No," Jason said evenly.
"They are the gods of our enemy."
"They are gods. If you have forgotten the tales of their anger, I have not. Mortals who attempt to impose their will on God's do not live long and prosperous lives."
***CLX***
The city celebrated the announcement of betrothal. The daughter of Augustus was to be married. Her husband was her cousin, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Just fourteen, she was a political pawn in her father's game. Had she been born a man the situation would have been much different. Other families would have, in essence, bid to give their daughters to marry into the clan of Caesar. Instead, she was the one traded, as one would trade for cattle. Her father did not even deem the situation pressing enough to return from his current war in Hispania and instead instructed Marcus Agrippa to preside over the ceremony in the new year.
It had been clear enough to her that not even Agrippa deemed the union of much importance. He seemed distracted by the ongoings in Greece and, as she was aware, she mattered little. All they really cared about was what her womb would produce. Her cousin was clearly destined for high places within her father's Rome, she was destined to do little more than bear that man's children. Julia's eyes moved about the celebration, latching upon her husband to be, three years her elder, in deep conversation with Agrippa.
"How goes the fighting in Greece?" Marcellus asked.
"Bloody, but the commander is doing well."
"It is the Greek, correct? Perseus?"
"Aye, he's pushed back their army. Suffered over six thousand casualties in doing so but inflicted eleven thousand."
"That is a steep price in Roman lives."
"Perhaps, but a hostile Greece so close to Rome is not acceptable."
***CLXI***
Seven miles from the city center of Athens, the Port of Piraeus experienced activity at a rate not seen since the Peloponnesian War. All its piers and quays were filled with the great wooden hulls of ships. As thirty ships, carrying the several hundred survivors of Rome's brutal raid against Mt. Pelion, entered the harbor they witnessed hundreds preparing to sail. The thirty ships had been sent at the request of the Hunter of Artemis, Zoë. She had seen the Roman's approaching and messages had been sent to Malcolm, Son of Athena. His messages had gone out to all the traders and warships already dispersed throughout the Aegean and they all moved for Pelion. He stood on the pier as a tall being with wild hair and beard approached. He inclined his head.
"Chiron." The sight of a centaur in their midst did little to affect the dock workers. "Why do they not seem shocked by you?" Malcolm asked.
"Some magic of Hecate, dear boy."
"I'm over thirty, Chiron. And what do they see?"
"And I will live forever. But I do not know. I imagine their eyes and minds simply show something they can understand."
The first of the two hundred ships bound for the Gulf of Patras asked for a final blessing from Poseidon and pushed into the bay. Their tasking demanded a swift voyage around the Peloponnese and north along the Achaean coast. There they would onload the remains of Annabeth's army and move them further into the Gulf of Corinth and the Megaris. To return the soldiers by sea to Athens would take far too long, but the march from Megara would allow them plenty of time to make for the defensive fortifications he had supervised around Athens. True to his word, with the ships sailed the two thousand soldiers he had promised to provide in reinforcement. It would take them nearly two weeks to reach Patras. Malcolm doubted more than he admitted that the army would last that long. Volunteer soldiers did not do well in the face of defeat.
"What troubles you?" Malcolm turned back to the centaur.
"Eleven thousand men dead or captured at Dodona. Mt Pelion destroyed. How much more will we lose?"
"War is a terrible thing, dear boy. For every glorious triumph of one side, the other must suffer a horrible defeat. Your cause is just in the salvation of Hellenic life; their general believes his is just as the defense of Rome. Do their rank and file despise ours? I would assume no, but just as our march toward the battle under the command of men, so do they. This war is between our way of life and theirs, not between the man who stands in measured column and he that stands in a phalanx. They are merely the executors of another's will."
***CLXII***
Smoke hung like a dark cloud in the north as the column moved south. The cavalry led and flanked the legion as the archers intermixed with the cohorts. Many of his soldiers carried more on their backs now than they had before, weighed down with the gold and silver of the mountain village. Jason had ridden forward to confer with the leader of his advance guards when the arrows began to fly.
"Ambush!" A half dozen of his men were dead before they could react. This was his first personal interaction with the silver clad demons who had killed enough of his men already. He looked to a treetop in time to see a girl with dark hair release an arrow at him. He twisted and felt it bite deeply into his shoulder instead of his heart. As his head turned, his eyes found at least twenty of his horsemen laying on the ground, arrows protruding from their still corpses. Rage building inside him since the approach to Mt Pelion reached its critical mass and a target existed to call down that rage upon. "Enough," he muttered and raised the sword in his hand.
It had been a gift from his mortal father, who had ensured it honored his godly one. Lightning bolts were etched into the cross guard and IUPITER appeared along the blade. Jason raised his sword toward the trees where the bulk of the arrows flew from. Closing his eyes for half a second, he channeled all his focus toward the grove.
***CLXIII***
Zoë watched the Roman general, the so-called Son of Jupiter, direct his blade toward the trees where an even dozen of her hunters were stationed. She believed him to be directing an attack and did not react. As the clouds suddenly appeared in a clear sky, her analysis changed.
Without warning, a great bolt of lightning descended from the heavens and struck the grove. A smoking crater appeared in its midst and the arrows ceased to fly from its boughs. She could see movement in the smoldering remains of trees and Hunters. She now saw the Roman general, no longer so-called a Son of Jupiter, moving toward the area with his sword drawn. Bloodlust shown on his face and for once she understood as he walked over the corpses of his men on the way to make more of her Hunters.
***CLXIV***
The first of the girls, fucking girls, he thought, rushed toward him. In the absence of any other plausible course of action, he leaned to the left and the twin hunting knives flashed past him. He swung his own sword heavily from his left side, past his right, and deeply into the flesh of the fighter's back. He felt the blade cease its movement as it connected with the girl's spine. He ripped the blade across it as he pulled it from the body. Looking around, he saw four other bodies. They're all fucking girls, he thought. A cry of rage caused him to spin. Just in time his sword intercepted another pair of hunting knives. This pair's owner moved past him in a graceful manner before settling into a crouch facing him.
"You killed my Hunters." She looked like someone from the east to him. Somewhat similar to those damned Persians or Parthians would have been his initial guess. She was older than some of the other corpses lying about, but in his opinion, she would still qualify as a girl. He pointed the blade of his sword toward her.
"I know not what makes these girls hunters, but if they have expanded their hunt to Roman soldiers, they have gone a prey too far." The girl opposite him did not look away as he raised his sword hand and broke off the haft of the arrow. Gods, that hurts, he thought. He returned his attention to the Parthian-looking girl. She was observing the bodies that surrounded them. Her dark eyes turned back to his ice blue ones.
"I see you are truly your brother's brother and father's son. Death and brutality follow you."
"I am Rome's son, fathers and brothers have little bearing on my home."
"I see the violence of Herakles in you."
"If I remember correctly, Hera was responsible for that one." She charged him. Gods, she is fast. Jason barely swung his scuta in time to intercept the twin hunting blades. His countering swing of the sword did aim for anything, it served only buy space. He steadied himself, his left foot in front. His scuta covered his body from knee to neck and he rested the blade of his gladius atop it. The gifted blade hissed as he drew it along the upper lip of the shield. She lunged for him again.
He swung the shield as a blunt weapon. She dodged the blow, but both knives were required to intercept the swing of the gladius which followed. The air whistled as the blade sped through the air.
***CLXV***
The force of the three blades striking each other echoed throughout the clearing. The blow forced Zoë back as a shock of electricity passed along the man's arm and through the blade. Gods he is strong. She could feel her feet slide across the Greek soil, for the blow did not cause her to step back, it physically moved her to the rear. Zoë flexed her feet to dig the balls of her feet into the ground to stop the slide. She realized her eyes had fallen to the ground that she had just skid across. They rose to the tall Roman who had already reset himself. Speed against strength, she realized. But now the hoofbeats of several score horses filled her ears.
"Lieutenant, run!" Phoebe's voice carried over the battlespace. Zoë looked at the approaching horses and knew this was not her time to die.
***CLXVI***
The magistrate of Corinth looked at his advisors. "We have another missive from Athens, again they ask us to join their rebellion. They are more forceful this time."
"They want our ships, sir." Corinth, in true commitment to its roots, possessed a strong navy. Its position upon the southern rim of the Gulf of Corinth also meant its ships were already positioned near the Gulf of Patras. They could withdraw the Greek army much faster than the ships now circumnavigating the Peloponnese with two thousand reinforcements. The rebellion had been steadily increasing pressure upon the Greek cities holding against support of the rebellion.
"I have written two missives in response. I will put their usage to you of the council. The first," he held up his left hand, "informs Malcom of Athens that the Corinthian ships will not put to sea, but neither will our ports close themselves to their ships, ships that are underway already have permission to alter their course as they see fit. The second," now his right hand rose, "tells Perseus, Praefectus Achaea,my son, that a Greek fleet approaches along the periphery of the Peloponnese. What says the council?"
"Like you Paulos, my family had nothing until the Romans returned to our city. Greeks did not raise Corinth from the gutter, Rome did."
"To oppose our fellow Hellenes is blasphemy itself!" shouted the man that had been petitioning for their joining of the rebellion for months now. An old man with a white beard responded to his claim slowly.
"I will take blasphemy against the Hellenes over death by the Romans." In the end, the vote favored the Romans eight to three. Their business concluded, Paulos excused himself and completed the letter to his son.
***CLXVII***
"Jason moves the Thirteenth along the eastern coast, we're driving them south." Percy stood overtop a map held down by lead markers resembling his legions and the ambiguous rock slabs that represented the Greeks forces. A dozen of his subordinates stood around him. Jason reported that he faced light resistance at their base at Mt Pelion. Delaying attacks alone opposed him now.
Meanwhile, Percy's army marched itself ragged every day because they pushed the Greeks ever harder. His men would suffer exhaustion and blisters, in turn they would drive the Greeks to disfunction. His cavalry moved before dawn, driving at the Greek camp. By midday, they left the pursuit to forage and the infantry took over the pursuit.
"Praefectus, the fleet we were told about, is it reinforcements or evacuation?" Percy thought about the letter from his mortal father.
"Unsure, but we have three days until it arrives."
"We have no fleet to counter it," interjected Marcus Primus. Tiberius, still leading Legio XXI in Lepidus' absence, spoke in response. He looked first at Primus before shifting his gaze to their commander.
"I am sure our general will divine a way to counter the enemy's fleet." A smile slowly creased the Greek's face. It was not one of mirth.
"I may have an idea or two."
As was his custom, Primus, Tiberius, and Messalla sat with Percy in his tent for dinner. The tongueless Greek slave served their food, leaving it on the table before vanishing. Several other slaves ran about carrying messages or delivering food.
"Do you trust her?" asked Primus as the Daughter of Nemesis exited.
"No," Percy responded simply before laughing at the responses of the three others around his table, pushing their meals away. "But I believe she and I have come to an understanding. She serves well, or she dies." The three natural born romans laughed.
"I also see you enjoy their food quite a bit, Praefectus." Tiberius' comment brought the table to silence, as the boy rarely spoke at these gatherings. Such an observation also seemed overly personal to the two older Romans. Percy let the boy stew for a second before responding.
"I should fucking hope so, my mother raised me on this shit." Again the table dissolved into laughter.
***CLXVIII***
The temples of Poseidon, Artemis, and Asclepius cast shadows over the city. A cave considered sacred to Aphrodite distracted some of the soldiers despite their predicament. War and love, Annabeth thought, barely recognizing the parallel between the affairs of Ares and Aphrodite. Tonight, for perhaps the first time in her life, she found herself kneeling at the feet of Poseidon. A stone depiction of the deity rose high, though not as tall as mother on the Acropolis, she reminded herself. She prayed for the rapid sailing of her fleet. The two thousand men would be vital, but the ability to remove her forces from harm were needed. Already the Romans' cavalry had shifted her plan to load the ships to the east of the straight opposite Patras and forced them deeper into the Gulf of Corinth. It would make the embarked trip less for her men, but it would already be done if Corinth had answered summons. Instead, it remained silent against her requests for ships and men. She knew the city owed much to Caesar, but to choose Rome over the Hellenic people? There would be a reckoning for Corinth after her victory.
Her remaining army numbered thirteen thousand now. A thousand had been lost between the Romans' damnable cavalry raids and desertion. If she was honest with herself, which only occurred in specific scenarios, she had expected more desertions. Battlefield losses did not endear one to the soldiers. The reinforcements from the boats would give her fifteen thousand with which she could delay the Romans while Malcolm built a stronger and safer city. Her cavalry roamed the countryside, attempting to gather what forage they could and kill every Roman they found.
Their latest reports had troubled her, it seemed that villages were supporting the Romans. A few punitive cavalry raids should stop this, she thought. She issued the orders just minutes later. Two villages were confirmed to have open relationships with the Roman army that forced them west into the gulf and to Naupactus. They would be her examples of what it meant to oppose the Hellenes. They would be the prelude to what would befall Corinth.
***CLXIX***
The first of the ships turned to the east before passing near the city of Patras. Their journey had led them past the straits near Kythera, to the east of Methone and Pilos. A final threading of the needle to move between Zacynthos and Achaea, before passing south of Kephallonia. Now passing Patras, they aimed for Naupactus via the Strait of Rion. To pass through the narrow channel, they would pass the quaint village of Makynia under the watchers upon the slopes of Mount Taphiassus. They passed under the eyes of Perseus.
The sea-green eyes which had now passed through three sacked villages. Three villages where man, woman, and child suffered for the sole fact that his army offered payment for supplies instead of expecting them. Gods, he thought as over two hundred ships passed under this gaze, if the Greeks will do that to their own people to increase their chance of victory… He focused on the ships, upon the dark water that appeared blue under the stifling daylight heat. The dead and mutilated in the villages had solidified his resolve in what would follow. The mother and child struck through by a spear and left in the dirt by the side of the road cleared his conscience. The night sky was clear, it would not be so for long. Only Tiberius had accompanied him to the peak of the mountain, only Caesar's stepson would see what followed. He rotated his neck, the satisfying pops relieving the pressure he felt.
"Have you done this before?" Percy looked at the younger man, he considered him that, after all he did a man's job.
"Something similar," he responded before dropping his azure paludamentum to the ground. His Attic style helmet fell next. Tiberius looked upon his commander. In the darkness, the color of his armor hid much of him, causing his eyes to burn brightly in the moon light. Tiberius watched as he extended his arm toward the great fleet. The air began to feel heavy, and Tiberius felt it moving past them and toward the gulf. With an audible grunt, Tiberius watched Percy's arm flex and shake as the winds and tides began to answer his will. What man can wield the power of the gods?
***CLXX***
"How have we failed them!" shouted Clarisse over the howling of wind. The storm had come out of nowhere. It was only something the gods could do. Annabeth stood strong against the wind and rain. In the distance, beyond the reach of anyone, the mighty ships of Athens and the Aegean fought for their lives in the waters of Corinth. Fucking Corinth, she thought, if they had helped we would have sailed faster and beaten this storm.
"It would seem to me that the gods are not as unified as we believed."
Unbeknownst to her, a similar argument raged upon Mt Olympus. Artemis and Athena hurled accusations on behalf of the Greeks, claiming the God of Sea interfered in mortal affairs. Neptune sat calmly upon a throne, denying his involvement or the presence of any of Neptune's offspring amongst the Roman army. Ares looked on with glee, enjoying the violence of a family affair; while Jupiter and Juno watched the former's son lay waste to a great swath of the eastern coastline of Greece.