Chapter Sixty
A silhouette stumbled toward us, grappling with the ground. Her wheezing breaths resonated in the silence, punctuated only by sobbing gasps. Without pause for thought, I picked up the knife that had been resting on my knee and sprinted toward her.
I found little more than a girl around Aina’s age, on her knees. “Who are you?” I began, only for Sotiria to speak over me.
“Rilaena, what is it? Why are you here? Are there others?”
At the sound of a familiar name, Boryana and several more of their women crowded around, though I held them back.
Rilaena was breathless, gasping as she tried to fill her lungs. I wondered how long she had been running, for none of the other women had arrived in such a state. Had she been chased? I squinted behind her but could see nothing in the darkness.
“The men of Oreia, they are coming,” she said. “They are coming to kill you all.”
Chaos descended, the night filled with shrill cries and guttural sobs.
“We must leave. We must leave now!” someone shouted into the night.
Echoes of agreement rattled into the sky as an icy chill lifted the hairs upon my skin. The freedom that we had created was threatened, but I was not ready to fall. Not yet. Not without a fight.
“Rilaena, Sotiria, I need you to stop and think. I need to know everything. How many men will be coming? What weapons will they have? How long until they get here?”
Rilaena spoke haltingly, but she spoke all the same.
“They were talking in the tavern. I should not have been out so late, but my sister, she…my sister…”
Her speech dissolved into sobs that I did not know how to soothe, nor did I have the patience to try. It was Iphinone who stepped forward and placed a hand on Rilaena’s shoulder.
“You have done a great thing coming here to warn us. You have saved so many lives, Rilaena. Thank you.”
Aina stepped up next to her mother.
“You are safe here, Rilaena. We can protect you if we know who is coming. You came here to warn us, so do that. Answer Otrera’s questions.”
There was a control in Aina’s voice that mesmerized me, and I wished I could emulate it, for I watched as Rilaena steadied.
“They were talking about leaving in the morning, as soon as the sun rose. And they meant it. So I left Oreia right away. That was two nights ago. I have not stopped since. I have not… I could not.”
I saw the scratches on her hands and blood on her feet. She had crawled her way to us, refusing to give up. All it would have taken was for her to rest her eyes once and we might never have received her warning. It was a gift from the gods I intended to use.
“We can assume the men will have stopped to rest,” I said, forming a plan. “They cannot travel as you have done. Do they know you have come? That you have warned us?”
Rilaena shook her head. “No, they would never expect me to leave my sister. My sister…”
Once again, tears overcame her. While Iphinone and Aina continued to offer comfort, Sotiria explained.
“Her sister was the reason she could not leave with us. The girl was born lacking the strength in her legs to walk. She would have never made the journey. That is why Rilaena did not come.”
“But the things they did to her, to all of us after you left…” Rilaena’s voice rose above us before she once again descended into tears.
I watched as the wave of guilt flooded through Sotiria, and in that moment, I thought of Eleni. Of the same guilt I had felt for not protecting her. But we had not fallen to our own men, and we would not fall to these.
“We have the advantage now.” I faced my women as I spoke, beckoning them in close to me. “We have bows and arrows.”
“And they are men with double our strength,” Trapezitai said. “Dozens of them. Do not forget, we did not just fight. We used hemlock to send them to the underworld. We slit their throats as they slept. Some of us have never fought nor hunted. Otrera, not all of us have your advantage.”
“You are right,” I conceded. “But we have time to think. Time to plan. It will be at least half a day until they reach us, likely longer.”
“Perhaps we hide in the forest, pretend we have left,” Chrysothea said, though her suggestion was met with scoffs.
“And watch as they burn our homes and leave us with nothing, knowing we will starve?” Glykeria replied. “That will give them greater pleasure than killing us outright.”
She was right. These men would see sport in a game of chase, as though we were animals to be hunted. I gazed at the woods, hoping that an answer might appear from the trees yet not truly believing that it would.
“What of weapons?” I asked again. “These men, do they hunt? Will they have bows and arrows? Swords? Axes?”
“Some but not many. Half a dozen perhaps.”
“And their aim?”
“I would say only a handful are skilled hunters. The rest fish, throwing their nets out into the waters. Though they have great skill at gutting what they catch.”
I saw some shudder at this remark, although I ignored it.
“If they do not shoot, then we have our advantage,” I said instead. “They will need to be close to kill us. Daggers, knives. Their hands will be their most likely weapons.”
“You cannot believe that a dozen women with arrows will be enough to stop them?” Damaris said. “We need more of an advantage than that.”
I spoke the prayer in my mind, for I did not wish the others to know how desperately scared I was. But I trusted her.
Please, great goddess. Please, help us.
Those were all the words I offered, for she saw all.
With my piece said, I looked around me, searching for an answer.
And before I had even dared to hope, I found it, standing in the darkness at the top of the hill.
All I could see were his black eyes, but that was enough.
He was there, waiting for me. All I needed to do was ask.
“You are right. We need a way to beat them. A way to make us stronger and faster than even the strongest and fastest among them. And we have it.”
I faced Aina, unable to suppress my smile. She had seen it too. She had seen where my gaze had fallen and knew exactly what it meant. So I let her speak.
“Well,” she said, looking around at the group. “What are you waiting for? We must ready the horses. Ready the horses!”