Apollonius’s Golds and Gray officers have descended to gather around their commander as he listens to the report and dispatches response teams. He is the only one smiling. A dozen Grays shove Cassius down beside me in the sand. He tears off a piece of his prisoner kit to stanch the wound beneath my left collarbone. “Hold that. Darrow. Hold it.” He ties a bandage around my pierced calf. I hiss in pain as he does the same to a flap of skin on my left forearm.
“Spindle four? What’s happening?” he asks. “Aurae?”
“I don’t know,” I manage, though I have my suspicions. My wound stings. Not a single limb is without a slash. “He had a bitemark on his cheek.”
Cassius is too stressed to hear me. “Gorydamn, man. He whittled you like a stick.”
Bitemark. Bomb. Sevro?
“Only the rats know,” I murmur.
“What?” Cassius asks.
Hope stirs. Apollonius had Sevro. Sevro got loose. In the ducts? I hold on to that hope.
“I have theEurytion.Asmodeus au Carthii is on the beam,” a Gold veteran calls to Apollonius, and projects the hologram of Asmodeus from her datapad. The eerie, ageless leader of House Carthii peers at Apollonius with slitted eyes.
“Asmodeus, you have no doubt seen the atomic detonation,” Apollonius says. “I am told your ships over the pole are mobilizing. According to the terms of the détente, Atalantia guaranteed my imperium over these docks. If you attack, you defy the Dictator’s edict, you compromise the war effort. Do not misread my intentions. I have no desire to destroy the dockyards. The detonation was an act of sabotage—”
“If I were a man looking for an explanation, I might care. As it is, I am a man looking for an excuse.
“When I stand before the Two Hundred and the Dictator with your head, mongrel, they will not indict me. They will applaud.”
Asmodeus disappears.
Apollonius shrugs. “Alas, the frailty of words. Steel, be thou my tongue. Attend me.” He lifts his arms and his Oranges look at each other, nod, and run forward with his armor.
“Carthii warships are moving off the pole…” a Gold officer calls and casts up a hologram for his commander. The Gold veterans watch coolly as the Carthii navy abandons their position over the north pole and streaks toward the dockyards. “What are your orders,dominus?”
Apollonius frowns, as if his Oranges fitting him in his purple panoply was an obvious mission statement. “Bequeath them hell, of course.”
The officer frowns at Vorkian, confirming with the archCenturion that the order meant open fire. She nods. Apollonius waves off the hologram as a forest of light lashes out from the station’s batteries toward the onrushing fleet. A throaty rumble trembles through the station as the enemy returns fire and the artillery battle begins. Nearly armored, Apollonius shouts to the legions who watch him from the stands.
“Legionnaires! Citizens of the dockyards! My noble friends! The dread Carthii come to drag you back under their perfidious yoke. They come in numbers many times our own. But do not quake, for I am with you. Your Minotaur will not abandon you! By my will and your hands, we took the station together. We hold it together! Summon your courage! Sharpen your will! Join your brothers and sisters at your battle stations! Carry my name! Seize your glory! Go!”
They chant his name and surge out of the stands to defend their stations.
Vorkian’s voice is flat and factual. “Dominus,we cannot stop the Carthii. They will board. They will swamp us. We will be outnumbered. Perhaps five to one. The bluff is called, and we’ve the low pair. We can’t hold the outer crescents much less the two axes.”
“They know not our true numbers nor the quality that awaits them here, Vorkian. Let them come. Let them die. Lune cannot afford to abandon me, and I grow tired of playing castellan. Let us force his hands to throw the dice.”
“Dominus,I recommend we cut our losses. Our ally would expect us to protect his investment—”
“I am his investment and so are the ships we protect,” Apollonius says. “Where is your spirit, Vorkian? Moments such as this are the forge of legends. For every campaign, there is always an inciting incident. Let this be ours.”
She pulls her sidearm. “Then let me at least tie up your loose ends.”
“My baubles?” Apollonius asks. “Horrible, no. Darrow and I have not finished our duel. I will not let him die while I am left unsatisfied. We pump him with protein and throw him a second try. There in Thessalonica where the Thermic meets the coast, we will dance again and let his blood water my vines. I will taste him in my cup with the dirt. Yes. Yes, that. A Rath red, a new vintage indeed.” He comes out of his reverie. “As for Bellona, Lune will need him for Julia. Her finances are crucial. Bring them.”
Apollonius peers at his Golds. “My fellows, I promised you the glory of reconquering our homeland. Mars lies through this moment. Go now to your legions. Deny the Carthii every meter of deck, and any measure of mercy. Ravage them. Break them. Venus is the planet of love. What is Mars the planet of again?”
They smile in silence, and rush off to answer with their deeds.
—
The hallway thunders with a storm of metal boots. Apollonius’s personal legion, the same scorpion-eating, rampart-breaking madmen who stormed the Ash Lord’s island with Sevro and me and then took on the dockyards themselves, jog down the hall singing their song.
Several hundred battle-hardened Grays, a few dozen Obsidians, andsix Golds. We’re dragged on like pack mules, strapped with extra ammunition, fit with dilation collars and cuffs that can retract on command. The Obsidians make sure we keep pace and slap our asses with the hafts of their axes.
