“All is fair in love and war, as they say.”
“She had nothing to do with this, you arrogant prick.”
“She had everything to do with this.” He laughed. “Patroclus did what he came here to do. He told me before we even embarked ‘I will kill that woman, even if it is the last thing I do’! I thought his anger seemed a tad unwarranted, but she did turn away his advances some time ago, so . . . all’s fair, I suppose.”
I tried not to think about her lifeless body crumpled in a heap behind me. There would be time to grieve later.
“It’s just you and me now, Achilles.” I didn’t know what I was stalling for at first, but then it hit me. I still had a riddle to figure out. “Have you heard any good prophecies lately?”
“I cannot say that I have,” he said with a wrinkle in his brow, a half-smirk tugging at the corners of his face, confused and amused.
“I heard one last night about how I would have this fight with a ‘hidden king’. I didn’t think much of it, and I guess I still don’t, but here we are. I was trying to figure out which of you were my king. I don’t care much for prophecy, but I guess it’s you.”
“I will gladly be your king,” he mocked.
“Well, then I’ll be sure to get a nice and shiny crown to put on your corpse.”
I spoke with as much conviction as I could muster, but I doubted my words. I wanted to believe I could take down one of the great warriors—and apparently one of the biggest assholes— known to mankind, but the odds were looking slimmer every minute. And I still needed to figure out that riddle.
40
We dove back in for the next match. I fought like I had nothing to lose, which was almost the truth by that point. The fire surrounded us, a deadly perimeter to our hellscape arena. The Thirians had retreated to safety, after I vigorously waved them away, taking Helen and their Chief’s body with them.
The flat of one man’s sword met the razor edge of the other with each blow. My arms gave a little more under the weight of each successive strike. It was like defending against the nonstop pendulum swing of a wrecking ball.
I found myself backing away as we continued. In my periphery I saw a boulder several yards to my rear and thought to use it to my advantage. Clang! I defended, feeling the burn in my arms as well as the air. Clang! And again. That particular set of muscles was wearing out. I needed to switch things up soon if I was to hold my ground.
Clang! It came once more and then—chink!
“Moonsword!” Achillies shouted, jaw agape with the first sign of distress I had seen in him since we met. I thought it was a little weird that his sword had a name, but I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it. My ship had a name after all, so to each his own, I suppose.
To my shock, my plan had actually worked. I had moved back into the boulder and spun out of the way instead of blocking. His sword shattered on impact, sending shards of metal flying everywhere.
He turned to me, furious, and said, “Our play has only begun, boy!”
If he was bluffing, I was unable to tell. Things weren’t going to get any easier for him without a sword, but he seemed sure of himself.
With the intact half of his sword in hand, he continued swinging. In a way, it was more difficult defending against his shorter blade because I had less sword to make contact with. I only hoped he found it more difficult adjusting to the sudden change than I did.
I soon found my chance. At the end of one swipe, I did not extend far enough out to stop his weapon but was able to turn the mishap into a positive by stepping in once his sword was out of the way. There was only a foot between us. I jabbed my tip up into his ribcage.
He fell back, taking my sword with him, and dropping what remained of his to the dirt. I expected to see him on his knees at any moment, but he just stood there looking at me with my sword hanging from his wound. Something seemed off, and it did not take me long to figure out what. There was no blood. The full width of my blade was lodged into his torso, and there was no blood. I took a step back, breathless. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a sense of fear that rivaled my encounter with the Egyptian golem.
His hands moved to the hilt of my sword, gripping it like a vice. Slowly, he drew it out from his flesh, showing no signs of pain as the sharp edge slid along his body. It was out, and the wound was nowhere to be seen, as if it had never happened. It was all too clear why Artession did not fare well against this man.
In the next breath, the flat of my sword was on his knee and snapped in two like a twig. He carelessly tossed the pieces away like a child with a toy he’d grown bored of. I felt my heart racing, and my exhaustion was beginning to pull me to the ground. My adrenaline could only keep me standing for so long. I needed time to breathe.
“You’re not human,” was the first thing that came to mind. “You can’t be—not with strength like that.”
He stiffened, his eyes widened slightly as I called his bluff. It appeared I had struck a nerve. Slowly, his surprise curled into a smile. “I sometimes forget to hide my full power, but this is the first time anyone has spoken of my true nature with any accuracy.” He clapped twice, a mocking applause. “The others always just see me as some demigod, gifted with supernatural abilities. But they always assumed me to be a man.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve had some experience with non-humans lately, so I’m just getting used to it, I guess.”
“I have noticed.” He glanced in the direction that Helen was before the Thirians took her body away. “Surely, you know of the girl’s true nature, yes?”
I nodded. “And what would you know about that?”
He didn’t need to answer the question. I figured he was not human—that was a believable assumption because of everything I had seen in that strange land—but it wasn’t until then that it registered how similar he may be to Helen.
“How familiar would you say you were with Egyptian technology?”
He laughed. “I believe it is safe to say that I know more about it than most people around these parts—more than most people around the entire Mediterranean, for that matter. I think you know what I am. There is no need to play coy.”
So, he was an android. How interesting, I thought. It seemed the Egyptians were planting their seeds all over this conflict. I wondered what their true angle was, but that was not my immediate concern. My immediate concern was taking care of the guy in front of me, and there was one thing I was suddenly sure of that might help me accomplish that: he must have had a port on the back of his neck like Helen. I saw that there were places I clearly could not harm him, but I hoped I wasn’t jumping to conclusions thinking that port might be a weak spot. It was definitely used for some important function. I intended to find out soon.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
“Yes, I am losing my patience.”
We slammed into each other, scrambling around on the ground like Patroclus and I had not half an hour earlier. I mustered up every last bit of energy in my reserves, knowing that it would take everything I had to kill this human impersonator.
My palm went into his throat, and his knee crashed into my side. My ribs screamed in agony. It seemed every time my rib was just beginning to heal, something would knock it loose again, but I ignored the pain—to give in to it would spell my doom.
I reached up, groping the back of his neck, feeling nothing but skin—or rather, the Egyptian imitation of it. I clawed in desperation, feeling my opinions running out. My fingers went for his eyes, but his hand stopped them short. He had my arm locked in his, twisting it as if he meant to tear it off, which was likely his intention. The pain shot through me. I thought for sure my arm would break.
I’m not standing, I thought, but it still feels a hell of a lot like I’m about to die.
I yelped. Images of the girl from the night before flashed before my eyes, distracting me with things I should not have been thinking of in the moment. How she consumed me with her eager innocent eyes . . . The guilt I fel
t over leaving Helen behind for her . . . How her clothes dropped to the ground and I suddenly found myself unable to resist her allure . . . Beautiful women were my weakness. They had always been my true Achilles heel. Then, of course, everything made sense.
I wanted to laugh at my obliviousness. My weakness may have very well been what could save me then.
I rolled forward, ignoring the pressure applied to my shoulder joint, warning me that it would snap if I did not bend to my adversary’s will. I didn’t care. It snapped, and I still intended to do what I set out to do. There would be time to cry like a baby later.
Achilles was laughing, clearly not expecting me to go through with it, thinking no man would sacrifice his own arm to get out of a hold. But he had not met Troy Weston, and he didn’t know that I was on to his secret. That must have been why he didn’t think much of it when I wrapped my fingers around his ankle. I felt the metal of his exposed robotic orifice on the first and only leg I grabbed. Now it was his turn to witness some inhuman strength.
My organo-metal digits tightened around his heel, and he stopped laughing. His silence was the sweetest sound I had heard all day. I yanked, and he reached for my face to try to pull me back up to him, but it was too late. His entire foot broke free, exposing a slew of internal wires at both severed ends, just as I had seen Helen’s arm in my dream. I chucked it into the flames.
A second later, he was done, lying there as stiff as a mannequin. It was finally time to let my laughter loose. And my tears—both of joy and pain as my arm dangled limply at my side. I lay back and looked into the smoke-filled afternoon sky, knowing I would need to leave soon before I choked to death.
I breathed in the smoky air as the gravity of my accomplishment set in. There was no doubt I would go down as one of the greatest fighters in history, but more importantly, I had won the war. I had won the war for Ilium.
Epilogue
The fight was well behind me, and I still could not fully believe everything that happened. After I had defeated Achilles, I slugged my way out of the burning woods to meet the Thirians. They had been waiting for me right outside the perimeter. I took Helen’s body, using my only capable arm at the time to carry her the rest of the way to the wall, sending away the messengers that came to offer assistance from the city.
The sun set on us, her head in my lap. I ran my fingers through her hair and looked out over the brilliant horizon. She had suffered an extreme version of the wound I had given Achilles, and I felt something in my core that I had not known was possible.
I ached for Helen
She was more than a woman, and more than a cruel trick of science and magic, knitted with blood and spirit and soul. She was my lover, my fighter, and an ally in a life that would be filled with dangerous times. I let the ache seep into my most quiet places, because pain was something I had known since the day my hands were taken.
Loss, however, was something entirely terrible and new.
My mind reeled when she stepped from the woods, raw emotion on her beautiful face. She had not been fully human when the sword pierced her body, so she lived. It was as simple as that. A wash of sickened relief flooded me in a hard tide, replaced in the next wave with the realization of how much she meant to me. The woman coming to me was flawless again, and I closed my eyes in thanks.
The gash in her stomach had healed, and there wasn’t a drop of blood in sight. I breathed a sigh of relief at discovering that. Her heart was still beating; her breath came in shallow but steady gasps. She was going to be all right. Later that night, she awoke in my lap, and I told her everything that had happened.
In the weeks that followed, I helped the Trojans establish their navy, starting with the port of Dardanelles. The Thirian warriors were a part of that navy, and the kingdom put them to work at the coastal town, keeping its ships under their constant protective eyes and establishing a new population there. That was to be their new home, to live in as they pleased, not having to compromise their old ways.
The Moonshadow had survived all its time alone there, to my great relief. I was excited to outfit it with battle weaponry, hoping Helen could show me how to construct some of the cannons she had made back in Egypt.
The King and Queen made me a Prince of Troy for my contributions to saving their kingdom, and they even bestowed a sizeable plot of land to rule over as a special gift. I laughed, never thinking I had much “royalty” in me, whatever that meant. Helen leveled an eye at me, seeing my surprise and hesitation at receiving such a generous gift, and told me I would need to get used to it. I was a hero now, on my way to becoming a legend. I’ll admit, that did have a nice ring to it.
We were on a hill one evening on the outskirts of Dardanelles, overlooking the harbor. I was musing, as I had on many occasions of late, over what had been and what would be. Life had become so much grander than I had ever hoped, a reality I never would have realized back home.
Helen was scratching at a bug bite on her arm. I reached a hand out to caution her, but a spot of blood dripped out onto her fingernail. She looked up at me, her mouth the shape of an “O”. We grinned at each other.
“Looks like you made it to ‘full-human status’ after all.” I leaned in and kissed her.
“The timing could not have been more perfect,” she said. “I now feel as if I can be your queen . . . if you will allow.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I paused, thinking of Cressida and of Priam’s daughter. “You know, I may need to take many queens. The kingdom will need to replenish its stock of strong warriors, and I know many Trojan women who would be honored to bear those warriors for me.” I figured I might as well give that a shot. It was a fairly common practice there.
She returned my suggestion with that feral grin. “I have given this much thought since that night at the camp. I have decided that the idea suits me . . . as long as I come first above the others.” She leaned in for a second kiss.
I pointed to my side, saying, “First here”—I put my hand over my heart—“and first here.” And then I drew her to my side with my free arm. She was mine.
“My queen.” We kissed once more in the light of the rising moon, and I hoped that, if I was dreaming—and life surely felt like a dream—that I would never wake up.
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About the Author
Daniel Pierce lives in Wyoming with his wife Marissa and their two dogs. After fourteen years as an engineer, Daniel decided it was finally time to write and release his first novel.
As a lifelong fan of scifi and fantasy, he wants nothing more than to share his passion.
He invites readers to email him at [email protected]
Gears of Troy: A Scifi Fantasy Harem Page 23
