Chapter 56 #2
The world seemed to drag, each second lengthened, as I watched an arrow, silver-fletched, loosed from Sidon’s ramparts and cut through the air with a whistle straight toward me. My breath locked and I stepped to the side.
“Don’t move!” Menelaus growled.
The command cracked across the ship and froze me mid-step, my muscles locking. My body screamed to dart away, to flinch, to cower. Instead, I forced my spine straight. My chin lifted, trembling with the weight of it, and I met the arrow’s flight head-on.
If Menelaus wanted me to die, then let everyone see me unbowed. Let Sidon look upon Sparta’s queen and know she did not fall crawling.
Somewhere I thought I heard Achilles cry out. Not in command or strategy. But in agony. “Helena!”
The name split the air just as another sound followed …
the twang of a bowstring carrying over the waves.
From the longboats below, an arrow shot upward.
It struck the silver-fletched shaft hurtling toward my heart, jolting it just enough that the point veered wide, spinning end over end before plunging into the red-stained sea.
My gaze flew to the longboats. Achilles stood at the prow, bow still raised, his chest heaving, his eyes locked on me. Relief flared hot in my chest. He had saved me.
But it died as quickly as it came.
A hiss split the air. Five more arrows rose from Sidon’s walls, flames licking their silver heads. Achilles loosed another arrow and shattered one mid-flight, but the other four screamed toward me.
One passed so close I felt the heat of it sear my cheek, the feathers brushing like a phantom kiss. Another whirled just over my shoulder, so near I could hear the crackle of its flame.
The last two came straight for my chest.
I didn’t have time to comprehend my impending death before a crack split the air and the shafts jolted sideways at the last instant, skidding off an unseen barrier just inches from my chest. They toppled to the deck in front of me.
I staggered back, and my hand flew to my chest, trembling, certain I’d find blood, a wound, some mark of the strike. But there was nothing.
Around me, the soldiers stared with wide eyes and slack mouths. Even Sidon’s ranks, who had cried out when the arrows loosed, had fallen into utter silence.
The stunned hush on deck had barely begun to fracture when I turned … just in time to catch Menelaus exchanging a glance with Theron.
Neither of them seemed surprised.
Menelaus’s smile was sly and satisfied, settling on his mouth in triumph. They both resembled jackals who had baited the trap and found the kill still twitching.
A cold gust slid down my spine, harsher than the sea breeze. They had planned this. Planned me.
The arrow. The spectacle. The carefully calculated miracle.
My gaze snapped to Achilles.
The relief on his face was unmistakable, pouring across the distance as though it might carry me safely somewhere. He shifted a step forward, shaking the boat, his mouth shaping my name.
Menelaus walked forward and came to stand by me, no doubt armed with the same protection from Theron that he’d given me.
“Let this be a warning to Sidon!” he shouted, gesturing toward me.
“The Queen of Sparta stands untouched by your cowards’ arrows.
Her blood is under the protection of Sparta’s god! ” His grin widened.
I didn’t have time to dwell on the lie in his words, that Sparta’s god had not saved me at all, before he lifted his hand. “What do you think my army will do when this is their queen?”
There was a lull, where soldiers on both sides paused, like everyone was holding their breath in unison, waiting for the next step.
“Forward!” Achilles’s voice suddenly cut through the tension.
What followed was less of a charge than a tidal wave. Oars drove into the water and soldiers spilled from the boats in formation, shields raised and blades in hand. I watched, half in horror, half in awe, as I saw the full might of Sparta for the first time.
The hoplites crashed into the shore, their feet sliding in the red sand.
Spearheads pierced the tinted wave as they drove toward the enemy cliffs.
The Sidon archers loosed, and the sky filled with hissing fire.
Arrows thudded into flesh, and I watched as soldiers crumpled with strangled cries and blood spattered the beach.
Others raised their shields in time, their wood and bronze breasts catching the shafts with a ringing crack, splinters skittering off into the air.
The cliffs erupted.
From narrow paths hewn into the rock, Sidon’s warriors poured downward in gleaming ranks, their silver armor flashing with each step.
Shields overlapped, and spears angled forward as they advanced like a metallic river spilling toward the sand.
The ground shook beneath their descent, a rolling thunder of footsteps.
Achilles surged through the chaos like a scythe, his shield slamming one defender to the ground as his sword swept through leather and flesh in the same relentless motion.
He didn’t fight like other men, not even other soldiers that I knew were considered some of Sparta’s best. There was no hesitation in his movements, no wasted breath, no clumsy clash of blows.
He cut, pivoted, and drove forward, relentless as a storm of arrows loosed at once.
I saw then why songs already clung to his name.
Why even distant villages whispered he was born of a goddess.
Watching him tear through Sidon’s ranks, I believed every word of it.
On the cliffs, defenders readied spears and javelins. I could see their muscles brace. They shouted, and their voices shook the stones. But our men did not break.
Spartan lines surged forward as one. At the cliff’s base, blades hammered against a gate of iron-bound timbers, the crash of steel and splintered wood echoing up the rock. Sparks flew with every strike, but the barrier held.
Above, others fought their way up the narrow paths, shields locked, shoulders driving forward. Sidon’s defenders rained spears and javelins down, but the Spartans pressed on with grim determination, dragging fallen bodies aside, climbing the steps.
Beside me, Menelaus stood with his chest puffed in triumph as Achilles surged ahead, leading the bloody charge.
Menelaus let out a booming laugh, the sound swelling above the din of battle. “Look at him!” he crowed. “Born for slaughter, that one. The old gods may have forged him, but Sparta reaps the glory.”
I ground my teeth at his words, bile rising at the way he spoke of Achilles as if he were nothing but a blade to be wielded, another trophy for Sparta’s crown when I knew there was so much more to him.
But my gaze strayed back to the cliffs, to the figure cutting through Sidon’s lines.
Pride flared bright in my chest despite myself.
Whatever Menelaus claimed, Achilles’s glory was his own.
A battering ram at the front finally shattered the gate at the base of the cliff. The wall burst open. Spartan soldiers surged through, flooding into the courtyard beyond. I saw Sidon’s silver-armored warriors retreating.
On higher platforms, some Sidonian defenders lit boiling oil.
It spat down the cliff. Flames roared and one blistering puddle hit a group of Spartans.
Three screaming men fell to the ground, their skin smoking as the oil hit.
Achilles plunged into the inferno anyway, dragging two wounded men to safety with grim speed.
“Forward! Break it! Drive them back!” Menelaus cried.
The Spartans roared in answer, shields colliding as they surged, the gate groaning under the strain and splinters tearing free as another wave of bodies drove through Sidon’s defenses.
A horn sounded, its note crawling down the cliffs and through the marrow of my bones. Heads snapped toward the walls.
Along the cliff’s edge, white-bearded priests emerged draped in silvered robes, their lips moving. The chant rose thin and eerie, carried on the wind, and the Spartan soldiers braced at the sound, their formation tightening as if the words themselves bound them.
Achilles felt it too and he paused, scanning the walls as his sword lowered.
The beach began to tremble, the ground shifting under the Spartans’ feet. Grains of sand lifted, whisked across the shore as a gaping crack split the cliff face, and an opening stretched wide.
From it slithered a shape that made my blood run cold.
The Hydra.
Its scaled necks writhed as it pulled itself into the daylight, five heads snapping and weaving with eyes that glowed like coals sunk in tar.
Its bodies were not massive towers of legend but leaner, shorter—smaller than I had imagined from the old tales.
Each head opened in a hiss, revealing teeth long enough to gut a man in one bite.
Soldiers faltered, their formations bending as shields drew back.
Menelaus laughed, the sound booming above the melee. He thrust out a hand, pointing straight at the monster. “Is this what they summon against us? A youngling! Nothing more than a whelp!” His rings flashed in the sun as he turned, grinning as he fixed his gaze on Theron expectantly.
Theron leaned against the mast as though the chaos below were a dull spectacle. One hand toyed with the edge of his sleeve, the other tracing idle shapes against the wood, faint sparks flickering where his fingertip passed. His expression was unreadable.
Menelaus’s grin widened. “Enough lounging. It is time you proved yourself. Show Sidon what power Sparta commands—destroy their creature.”
But before Theron stirred from the mast, movement flashed across the beach.
Achilles vaulted over the broken bodies strewn across the sand, his shield raised and his sword streaked with spray. The Hydra shrieked, five heads weaving like whips as it lunged to meet him.