Kryptic ↟ Deimos

nine: actions and consequences

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 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 waves.

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 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 and 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 and then 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 grins —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, and 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'd risen. Lesya looks back at the chaos of foaming waters and groaning wreckage and then at 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 took a turn for the worse. Since Enyo disappeared, Kosmos no longer trusted him even as he acquired more power —through fear mostly. Few dared to oppose him any longer. The Sage bends forward, looking down at the champion in disdain. "Where is she?" Kleon of Athens hisses.