Chapter Sixty-Three
Xander had ordered the men to stay off the wall—they were only to keep watch from the towers, which were enclosed except for narrow slits.
I was with my adelphia, my husband, and his military leaders in the tower near the north gate early in the morning. The Carian army spread out in front of Troas. We could see the supply train and the earth dragons off in the distance, traveling toward us.
It was meant to be a show of force. Meant to intimidate, to let us know that our destruction was about an hour away.
Io said quietly, “We are the olive tree. We can burn, be cut down, frozen, utterly ravaged, but we will rise again.”
I knew that was why the olive tree was the symbol of Ilion, but I hoped we were not about to face all that.
The Carians were busy cutting down trees in the southern forest and using them to bridge the trench that Suri had created.
And every time they put down the wood to cross, Suri would expand the trench far enough to make the bridge collapse.
She had done this several times and we were all getting tired. Antiope was with us, helping us. She had tried out several different aspects, and to no one’s surprise, her aspect was fury as well. She passed out after invoking it and had been angry about it when she’d woken up.
“I have spent enough time sleeping!”
Now she had Io’s potions on her belt and was ready for a fight.
Suri turned off her aspect and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
There were Carian riders on horses who had large packs tied to their mounts’ sides. The riders stabbed the packs with a knife and the red dirt went flying out. They were covering the entire area outside the wall with the soil, and most managed to evade the archers when they got close.
“Hitting a moving target is difficult for some people,” Antiope remarked in a tone that made me think she wouldn’t have missed if she’d had a bow and arrow.
Xander turned to Zalira. “I need rain to muddy the ground. But it has to be off by the time the towers and siege engines arrive. I don’t want that wood soaked—it’ll make it impossible to catch them on fire.” He had told me earlier that the towers would also be covered in rawhide to make them fireproof. If the wood was wet as well ...
Demaratus elbowed me, which, again, was so unlike him that I didn’t quite know what to do.
“You were right. I do like her,” he told me in a low voice.
“Yes, I noticed that yesterday, when you were kissing her,” I teased, enjoying his slight embarrassment. We watched the Carian army together and I knew that Demaratus was itching for a fight. “Do you still think that cutting off the head of the snake would be effective here? If I capture or kill Artemisia, would that be enough to stop the assault?”
“It might. It would depend on how superstitious the Carians are.”
“What do you mean?”
“See there?” He pointed toward the back of the army and we saw a group leaving, heading south.
Deserters? Or were they moving into a different position to attack?
“The rain from your friend is scaring some of them. They’re leaving. If you took out their leader, they might see it as some kind of omen. A Daemonian wouldn’t, but these are not Daemonians.”
“Artemisia and I did take an oath on our gods that if I killed her, the army would leave.” I didn’t know if that would work, and it seemedridiculous to pin all my hopes on it. Especially because I wasn’t actually sure that I would be able to strike Artemisia down.
She certainly deserved it. And it would help save and protect others.
But I was so viscerally angry with her that I wasn’t certain it would be a good idea. It still felt like a thin line that I could easily cross. I didn’t want to go down a dark path again.
Stephanos was powering Zalira and she didn’t even look tired. The rain was constant, steady, and it did turn the dirt to mud.
It would be so difficult for them to drag their wheeled war instruments through the muck.
“What is your ...” Demaratus waved his right hand toward Zalira. “Thing you can do?”
“The same aspect as Antiope. Fury. Which means I can fight really well.”
