Leonora nodded and her eyes rolled slowly around in her head before she refocused. “Yes, I have earned it,” she admitted, “but I never wanted to live in the Great Hall. I wanted to live in that cottage with Thol. I can’t have Thol now, but you can still give me the cottage.”
Akantha nodded slowly and thought about what was being asked of her. “Would you like all four walls, or just two like you remember it?” she finally asked, finding humor easier to come by in this moment than she ever imagined it would be.
Leonora tried to laugh, but could only summon a weak cough. “Four walls, please… and a roof, if it isn’t too much trouble,” she said quietly and closed her eyes. “I always wanted some animals, too. Some small birds would have been… perfect.”
Akantha nodded, knowing she had precious few moments remaining with her friend. “I promise, Lea. I will build it exactly as it was on its first day, and I will fill its yard with all manner of animals: birds that wake you each morning with their singing, hounds to keep your children safe, and even sheep for shearing so we can weave our own simple gowns together as old women.”
Leonora shook her head slowly. “No sheep, Akantha. I never could stand… the smell…” With that, her head rolled forward and she was gone.
Akantha held her friend and wept silently for awhile, before looking to the sky and praying that her friend would be found worthy of upload, as one of the Chosen of Men.
Afterward, she ordered Persus and the three Ice Raiders to gather stones for a burial pile. Leonora would look out over this landscape for all eternity, with the open sky above her, filled with the birds she loved. She would not sleep alone in the dark, wet earth. And when they were finished with her burial, Akantha would make sure that her best friend’s sacrifice was not in vain.
It was her duty as Hold Mistress, and nothing would stop her from fulfilling it.
Not even demons from the sky riding burning stars.
Chapter Twelve: The Long Road
It took the five of them three hours to build a suitable burial pile of flat stones for Leonora, but when they had finished, they stood together in silence for a short time. Then, as was custom, they turned as one and left her behind.
They went about the business of inserting the poison pills into the paralyzed Rhino’s body, which was dirty work, but it was what they had come to do. When they had finished with that task, which took perhaps half an hour, they made their way back onto the road leading to the Glaros farm hold an hour away.
The Stone Rhino would wake in another handful of hours, and they did not desire to be anywhere near when it did so. Akantha was reasonably certain that it would not disturb Leonora’s grave, since Stone Rhino males forsake all forms of food during rutting season, even a fresh kill.
They walked for a time, with Persus walking beside Akantha and the Ice Raiders keeping a respectful distance behind them. Eventually Persus broke the silence.
“What were you arguing about, my Lady,” he asked suddenly.
Akantha’s reverie was broken and she looked at him blankly for a moment.
‘You and Leonora,” he pressed, “what were you arguing about? I’ve seen you two fight before, but this time seemed a bit… different, somehow.”
Akantha nodded absently. “It was different, Persus,” she agreed after failing to find an answer. “It’s complicated,” she said finally, feeling very cold and hollow inside.
Persus nodded and they walked in silence for some time, but he eventually broke that silence again.
“I heard talk of Protectors,” he offered, “which is obviously something that weighs heavily on your mind of late.”
Akantha nodded, momentarily amazed and ashamed that even though mere hours had passed, tears were no longer freely flowing down her cheeks. “She suggested I am vain, and that I should accept that a measure of personal sacrifice is required to lead our people,” she recalled, then she rubbed her temples as she became acutely aware of the headache which had been building above her eyes, “as if I didn’t already know that.”
She stopped walking for a moment and when Persus did likewise, she looked at him and asked bluntly, “Do you think she was right?’
Persus bit his lip in the manner Akantha had come to signal he was about to parse his words. “Persus, I asked your opinion,” she said impatiently, “I have no need for softened words. I want you to give me your honest reply: was she right?”
Persus rubbed his hands slowly before splaying them to the side. “I think you don’t know when to be a hoplite, my Lady,” he said bluntly.
Akantha felt the color rushing to her cheeks, but she tried hard to control her temper. “And what does that mean, Persus,” she asked, clenching her fist so tightly she was afraid to look down to see if her palm was bleeding. “Have I not proven myself a capable warrior these last few days?”
He sighed. “I mean, my Lady,” he began, “that there is a difference between a hoplite and warlord.”
Akantha was taken aback, but she felt her fist relaxing at her side. “Go on, Persus,” she prompted, as she continued to walk.
“A hoplite,” Persus started after a short silence, “needs to know what is expected of him, and he must struggle to fulfill those expectations. It’s never easy, but rarely is it complicated. The life of a hoplite is a simple one; your warlord tells you where to go, who to kill, and when to retreat. You just have to follow his orders, and try to keep yourself alive as you do so,” he explained.
Akantha nodded absently, unclear where he was going with this.
“A warlord, on the other hand,” Persus continued, “is the one who decides which fields are important, and which ones are not. He decides who goes in the first wave and who goes in the last. The life of a warlord is anything but simple, and the best warlords are the ones who can predict the future better than their enemies.”
Akantha considered this for a few minutes before shaking her head in frustration. “I don’t think I understand your meaning, Persus.”
Persus nodded hesitantly, “I think you do, my Lady,” he insisted. “There are times in each of our lives when we have to be the hoplite, and times when we have to be the warlord. No one can be just one or the other forever; life doesn’t work that way,” he explained. “I think your problem isn’t that you’re incapable of being the warlord; I think your problem is that you don’t know when to be the hoplite.”
She had never thought about it quite like that before. She let the depth of what he was suggesting sink in before responding. “So you think that I look too deeply, and try to control events too much, is that it?” she asked, genuinely curious. “I suppose I always thought that was my role, and if I could not fulfill it, then what is my purpose?”
Persus stopped walking, prompting Akantha to stop and face him. “My Lady, you are without question the most capable woman I have ever met, Hold Mistress or not,” he said seriously. “I will follow you to the gates of Hades and escort you safely back through them if I have an ounce of strength in my body.” He paused to take a breath, then he turned his eyes to the ground and continued, “I have rarely seen a person pursue what she thinks is right with more conviction or passion than what I have seen in you these last few days, and I have never in my life seen a Lady cast herself in the path of the fire to protect her subjects the way you have.”
Akantha didn’t know what to say to this. Persus had never been overly fond of speaking in her company, but his words had always carried a kind of weight she thought a father’s, or at least an uncle’s words might.
Persus clapped his hand on her shoulder. “Not every decision you make will be the right one, and sometimes even right decisions carry a price,” he said with a meaningful look back toward Leonora’s hill, “but it is unforgivable to become paralyzed by fear of the consequences. Your people will gladly pay the price you ask of them, but only if you lead them as a hoplite: from the front. That is the only form of leadership which all people respect.”
Akantha bit her lip. �
��So you also think I should name my Protector when we return to the Great Hall?” she asked in resignation.
“I think you shouldn’t worry so much about tomorrow, and start living for today,” he replied confidently. “Your people need you now, especially in light of the imbalance caused by your uncle and his men. Stability is a good thing to strive for, but too much of it makes people… complacent. That is not our way.”
She found that she agreed with him completely on his last point. “Kallistos or Kapaneus, which do you think is the better man for the job?” she asked suddenly.
“While he lacks a basic sense of honor, there is no questioning Kapaneus’ competence as a warrior,” Persus mused. “Kallistos, while a skilled negotiator and adequate swordsman is too… self-consumed, at least in my opinion, to execute your will effectively.”
Akantha turned abruptly and continued walking. “Right,” she said confidently, “Kallistos it is, then.”
Persus’ eyebrows shot up. “Kallistos?” he asked in apparent bewilderment.
Akantha nodded absently. “It’s what Leonora was trying to say: make sure my first Protector is someone I can remove if necessary,” she explained and paused before adding sheepishly, “I think my mother was even trying to tell me something similar in the Great Hall before I lost my temper.” She shook her head before continuing, “If Kallistos is ill-suited as my Protector, then the choice will have only cost me my pride, while Kapaneus might prove too difficult to remove from the position, much like my Uncle Nykator has been.”
Persus didn’t seem convinced, but he shrugged his shoulders and continued following her.
“Besides,” she continued, “Nikomedes is certain to challenge whoever I select immediately upon his return; it’s not as if he will abandon the hunt simply because of poor timing, and I very much doubt that Kapaneus will sit idly by while that pompous, strutting fool Kallistos claims what he considers to be rightfully his,” she spat. “But I am not so certain that Kallistos would maintain his own interest if I chose Kapaneus, and I can only make a final decision when the three of them are assembled on equal footing.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No matter the outcome,” she said with icy disdain, “my Uncle’s inner circle is depleted, and I can make the best decision possible with what I have available to me.”
Her bodyguard chuckled under his breath, prompting Akantha to turn toward him. “What is so funny?” she demanded.
“I do believe you will be the finest Hold Mistress in the world, Adonia Zosime,” were his final words on the long road back to the Glaros farm hold.
Chapter Thirteen: Duty, Revenge, and The Price of Victory
The old woman assured them that she could summon the Stone Rhino using a similar method to the one they employed atop the hill, and that she could do so well before the poison pills erupted within its body. Akantha didn’t like the prospect of trusting her, but there really was little choice. The plan was to strike at dawn at the latest, since that is when the poison was likely to take effect, assuming the demon lord (or whatever it really was) actually consumed the whole batch.
But poison or no poison, the attack would commence. Akantha had taken a few hours after returning to the Glaros farm hold to gather her thoughts and clear her mind. She knew that she had to grieve for Leonora, but there would a time for that, and it was not now. She needed to focus on their tactics for the coming battle, and they had precious little information on which to construct those tactics.
Aetos had managed to collect another dozen free men to battle the Sky Demons, which brought their total number to seventy five. It was more than she had originally hoped for, but she privately held great doubt that they could truly be victorious in the contest.
Akantha spent the final hours before nightfall conferring with Persus and Kratos One Eye, trying to devise the best possible plan of attack. They finally agreed that simplicity would be the best approach: a spearhead formation of the close-range fighters led by the Black Arrows, supported by roughly half of the militia fighters, with the rest of the militia taking up firing position with their bows. The choice of terrain would be largely left up to fate, which was why simplicity was critical. A complicated plan can collapse with a single shift of the underlying assumptions, but a simple one is more easily adaptable to the situation.
After getting a few hours of sleep, they collected their arms and armor and set out for the Stathis’ tuber farm, hoping to catch the trail of the Sky Demons from there.
They arrived at the Stathis farm hold just before midnight to find the entire area had been picked clean. This surprised no one, and neither did the ease with which they picked up the trail of the great, bloated Sky Demon God, heading west as Akantha had predicted.
The scouts, led by Aetos, moved ahead of the main group. After nearly an hour of travel, Aetos returned with confirmation of their location: another farm hold, this one having already been evacuated the day before, thanks to the runners. The livestock had been left behind, along with their massive grain harvest from that season. It had apparently been a bountiful year.
“The terrain is perfect for an attack, Hold Mistress,” Aetos reported eagerly. “Our bows can set up along the southern ridge and our warriors can come at them from the east. To the west is another small stream, and the north is their grain fields, with the chaff not yet plowed under.”
Kratos grunted. “That chaff would make for fine tinder, with the dry weather these last few days,” he remarked, to which Persus nodded his assent.
“Agreed,” Akantha said stiffly, “although I doubt we need to worry about the demons running away as long as the large one remains a slower-moving target. Also, the fire might eventually be turned against our own people, if we are forced to fall back and regroup.”
“So, no fire to the fields?” asked Persus.
“No fire to the fields,” she confirmed. “If we had a quantity of burning oil, it might be something to consider, but a grassfire would only serve to hinder our own mobility.”
Kratos thumped the head of his hammer against the ground in protest. “Are we to plan our retreat before we even come to grips with them?”
Akantha locked Kratos’ lone eye with hers. “I am not here to sacrifice my people to that thing,” she said hotly, “we are here to bring them down and prevent the spread of their vile influence, if possible. If we cannot do so, then nothing is served by the meaningless slaughter of my citizens.”
The one eyed giant of a man snorted, but said no more.
Persus broke the tense silence. “What signal shall we use to commence the attack?” he asked Akantha.
Akantha had thought about this part. “The signal will have to be silent,” she explained. “We cannot surrender whatever portion of surprise we might have, so the entire force will move as one toward them as quietly as possible. Once battle breaks out, the archers are to rain arrows down on the large one, and whatever demons stay to guard it.”
Kratos snorted again, prompting Akantha to whirl around to face him. “You are right about one thing, warrior maiden,” Kratos agreed, “we cannot surrender the element of surprise. My men can approach them in stealth, and after battle is joined, you may lead your militia in to support us.” He glared at her with his steely eye, “Your people are brave, but they are not true warriors. Mine are both. Even if we cannot strike a great opening blow against them, we can seize the initiative for ourselves and control the terrain.”
Akantha seethed at the implied slight to her people’s fighting ability and to her authority, but she had to admit to herself that she agreed with his appraisal. His tactical acumen is quite good… for a road bandit, she thought to herself scathingly. “Very well, Kratos, your men will close with them, and once the battle is joined the archers are to concentrate their fire on the large one and its guards.”
She turned to Aetos. “We will need light as well, since only the Ice Raiders are used to springing ambushes in darkness,” she said, and she liked to think that Kratos bristled at
this particular barb. “After they have come to grips with the enemy, I need you to set fire to the roofs of the buildings. Can you do it with fire arrows?” she asked in a hard tone.
Aetos stroked his chin. “I believe so, Hold Mistress,” he said confidently.
“Meanwhile,” Akantha continued, “Bernice has told me that you have a method to protect our skin from the demons’ burning blood,” she said to the old woman.
The crone tilted her head and nodded. “Pitch from the Eukys shrub should provide some protection from their acidic humors,” she croaked. “My own supply is enough to cover the hands and faces of our warriors, but it will only provide limited protection” she said simply.
How do we know the Stone Rhino will even appear before the poison pills rupture?” Persus asked.
The old woman sneered. “Leave summoning the Rhino to me,” she hissed, and signaled for Bernice to help her to her feet. “I will need one of your night bandits for a special mission, cyclops,” she commanded.
They took up positions as outlined in their strategy meeting. Thirty archers, composed of most of the women and the youngest of the men, lined the southern ridge but kept low and out of sight. The rest of the warriors moved around to the east and lay in wait for the appearance of the Stone Rhino.
The old woman had not explained much of her plan to summon the beast, but she insisted that there was no doubt it would succeed. Akantha was skeptical, but she decided the time to worry about it had passed. A battle would soon commence, and she needed to keep her wits about her if they were to find the path to victory.
After a few minutes of waiting at their position, Aetos hissed to get Akantha’s attention. He pointed toward one of the small barns surrounding the farm house, and it took a few moments even under the full moon’s light for Akantha to spot what he was gesturing toward. There was the barest hint of movement, but eventually she did see one of the Ice Raiders in the shadow of the building. It was too dark to see what he was doing, but after a few seconds he disappeared back into the dark of the night.
Admiral's Lady: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire Page 10
