Chapter Sixty-Five
It looked as if Artemisia planned to try and run us down. I had expected she might attempt something like that, so I enacted the next part of my plan.
I called down an air dragon. She immediately responded and flew directly to me, landing on my left and towering over us. Xander was on my right, his broadsword drawn.
Artemisia pulled her horse to a halt and the riders behind her also stopped. “So it’s not to be a fair fight?” she called out to me.
“No, it is.”
The air dragon roared on my command, which terrified the horses, and they began to buck off their riders and ran in the opposite direction. Artemisia’s horse remained somewhat steady while nervously shaking its head, and it gave her enough time to get down before it neighed and bolted.
Then I had the dragon flap its wings as hard as it could. It pushed Artemisia and her men back, but that wasn’t why I had done it.
The wing flapping cleared all the red soil away so that it wouldn’t interfere with my abilities.
Artemisia quickly realized what I had done. I had cut off her power source. She scowled at me. “I am going to kill you.”
“We’ll see.”
The air dragon roared again and flew up, heading for the Carian soldiers. It grabbed several in its claws and took off with them.
Xander yelled and ran into the fray of the soldiers who still remained—far too many for my liking. Thankfully, the guards on the wall noticed what was happening and started calling out to one another, “The king! Protect the king!”
Archers began to fire on the Carians, thinning out the group.
Artemisa stalked toward me, ignoring all of it. “I am the hammer of Arion. I will destroy every person who believes in his mother and bring him eternal glory.”
Then an Ilionian soldier ran toward her, with his sword over his head. He must have used one of the ladders to climb down. He was trying to protect me, but he was little more than a boy. Fourteen, fifteen years old.
“Stop!” I called to him.
But it did no good. Artemisia hit him square in the head and he went down.
Anger and fury pulsed through me so quickly, so sharply, that it made me feel sick. I was going to kill her. She was going to pay.
Then she slammed her hammer into the ground, and a shock wave headed straight toward me. I fell backward again, landing hard on my back, the wind knocked out of me.
“Dea Erinys,” I said, turning on my fury. I immediately got to my feet and dodged just in time as Artemisia swung her hammer at my head.
I also noticed that my aspect felt shaky. I wasn’t sure why—I had cleared out the dirt and taken a potion. I should have been strong.
But something was missing.
Or I was so angry, so filled with rage, that I was eating into my power. I was using it up too quickly.
I tried to tell myself to take control, to calm down, but I couldn’t do it. All I could focus on was the need to end Artemisia’s life.
I lunged at her but she met me quickly, using the handle of her weapon to block my blow. She shoved me back and I nearly stumbled.
What was happening? How was she still strong? I had gotten rid of the iron soil. Did some trace amounts remain that I couldn’t see? Was she gaining power from her weapon? Did she have some other aspect like I did that she had invoked?
She came at me again, and though I tried to push her hammer away, it still ended up grazing my upper arm. It didn’t cut me but I could feel the weight of it, realized how easy it would be for her to crush every bone in my body with her weapon.
My muscles had tensed and I could feel sweat pouring down my back. This was not how this was supposed to go. My aspect continued to slip away from me, causing me more and more pain.
Why wasn’t the potion working? Had I taken them so often that I’d become immune? Or was it a faulty batch?
Was Xander suffering the same way I was? I glanced over at him but he was strong, fighting off the crowd of soldiers trying to get to him.
“Always so weak,” Artemisia taunted me. “You care about your husband. And he’s yet another weakness that will lead to your downfall.”
“He’s a strength,” I said, trying to catch my breath. What was wrong with me?
“You cannot win,” she said. “You are pathetic. Your goddess is pathetic. She speaks of love and goodness while Arion promises power. Victory. Wealth. The things that matter.”
Her hammer hit my sword and she nearly knocked it from my hand. And then, despite me not turning the flame off, it went out on its own.
As if the hammer were stronger.
I again dodged at the last moment, nearly getting hit by that hammer. She slammed it into the ground next to my feet and I again fell back.
She raised her hammer over her head. “This feels familiar.”
Luna suddenly appeared at Artemisia’s side, flapping her wings. She breathed out a stream of silver fire, which Artemisia ducked. She turned to swing at my dragon.
“Look out!” I yelled to Luna.
She disappeared just in time, avoiding the hammer. She reappeared next to me, curling up on my chest just as she had when I’d faced Artemisia before.
Luna transported me a good distance away from where Artemisia stood. I heard my dragon’s voice in my mind.
Remember who you are.
I stood and held up my sword, able to see my own reflection in the highly polished blade.
Remember who you are.
Now it was Maia’s voice.
Remember who you are.
And then it was the goddess’s.
Demaratus’s voice added to the mix—I remembered how he had said earlier that if he were the goddess, he would have given me an aspect that was sustainable.
Not one that tired me out.
And maybe the reason my fury aspect wasn’t working was because it was the wrong one.
It wasn’t what the goddess had intended me to use when protecting her believers.
She’d had something far greater in mind.
I watched as Artemisia ran toward me.
Remember who you are.
I knew who I was.
And I let go of the anger. Of the need for vengeance. Calmness and clarity settled inside me.
“I serve Dea, the earth goddess. I am her champion and her savior, and you will not harm anyone in this city.”
Then I invoked the aspect that whispered into my mind.
“Dea Soteira.”
Savior.
And the savior aspect was unlike anything I had experienced so far. Power seemed to come directly from the ground through the soles of my feet until it filled my entire body. Green and swirling and mighty.
My sword immediately lit up again.
I wouldn’t weaken. There wouldn’t be any pain. I wasn’t going to pass out. I knew, in a way I couldn’t have explained to anyone else, that I could fight indefinitely with this ability.
It was the aspect I had been meant to wield.
Because this wasn’t about vengeance. It was about me filling the role the goddess had asked me to. My job wasn’t to get revenge. It was to save her people.
The power swirled into the sword and caused the flames to roar even higher, so strong that I had to momentarily look away. My hand was vibrating, trying to hold on to it.
“Luna, go help Xander,” I said.
I wouldn’t need her again.
She flew off and I began walking toward Artemisia. She swung her hammer up to deflect an arrow a soldier had shot at her.
She went to hit her hammer into the ground because it had worked so well for her before. But it was as if time were suspended—her movements seemed so slow to me. I remembered the words that Xander had said to me when we had sparred.
Rely on your senses, your instinct.
I did. I pointed my sword, and the flames shot straight at her. She had to jerk to one side to avoid being hit.
“Enough games!” she screamed at me. “You will die!”
“I’ve already died. I’m not worried about you.”
“Your goddess will not protect you!”
She already was. “Your god has abandoned you.”
Artemisia raised her hammer and brought it down quickly at me. I met her and blocked the movement with my sword. The two god-weapons were interlocked and responding to one another, power surging around them.
Then there was a release of kinetic energy that pushed both of us back.
She yelled and came at me again, aiming for my head, but I easily sidestepped out of the way.
Something Antiope had once said in training came to me.
The closer you are to the opponent, the smaller the weapon should be.
And it was easy to see why. The hammer was unwieldy, unbalanced. The heaviness of it cost Artemisia precious seconds to pull it back into an attack position, leaving her open.
My sword did the opposite. The weight was distributed perfectly, letting me swing it at her without having to compensate. She spent more time getting out of my way than she did trying to hit me.
Stupid girl, speed is the most important thing in a fight!
I knew better than to let that hammer make contact with my body. If it did, I was finished.
But it was so easy to avoid.
And so easy to take advantage of the openings Artemisia kept leaving me. I was able to stab at her, slashing into her skin. The smell of burned hair and burned flesh filled the air, but it didn’t slow her down. She didn’t seem to be feeling any pain.
Using a weapon that heavy would require a great deal of energy. She wasn’t being powered by her god, and she was going to tire out.
While I felt like I could fight for the next fifty years and never miss a step.
My fury aspect gave me strength and power, but the savior aspect was a hundred times better. Stronger, faster, enduring.
It was simple to parry her attacks, to use the momentum of her swing to push her weapon to one side, again throwing her off-balance.
“Perhaps it is you who should lay down her weapon and surrender,” I said.
“Be silent!” Artemisia seemed past reason.
She was breathing heavily, holding the hammer lower than she had before.
She didn’t seem to realize how badly this was going for her.
She was so bent on her revenge, so determined to kill me and everyone in Ilion, that she was willing to pay for it with her life.
She swung for my midsection and I pivoted out of the way, cutting a line up her right arm. She began to bleed heavily but didn’t notice.
“Your tunic’s on fire,” I told her. “Time to give up, Artemisia.”
Her eyes widened and she used her hand to put out the flames on her sleeve.
I heard Xander grunting, as if in pain. I quickly looked to the right to make certain that he was well.
Artemisia took advantage of my temporary distraction by coming at me, and I decided that this had gone on long enough. Xander might need my help. It was time to stop this.
I began to swing and lunge at Artemisia, driving her back farther and farther. She tried to use the handle of the hammer to block my thrusts, but she wasn’t fast enough with it. Couldn’t be. She was barely keeping up at all.
The advantage of speed became imminently clear to me.
The flexibility that I had in my footwork and bladework, the ability to slash at her while still maintaining a cover for myself, the fluidity and precision I had to batter away at her without missing a step.
Her exhaustion made her fall for my feints, and she didn’t seem to register when my blade made contact with her body.
And when she tried again to swing her hammer at me, this time I used my speed to knock the hammer out of her hands. When it fell, I grabbed it and threw it as far as I could behind me.
Artemisia put up her hands, as if surrendering. She was panting but still managed to smile at me. “Is this where you take your revenge? Do you cut off my head for all the bad, bad things I’ve done? Have you lain awake at night dreaming of this moment?”
I thought of who I wanted to be. Who the goddess thought I was.
“Dea Nikos.”
Her eyes widened when I turned off the flame.
“I’m going to lock you in a prison cell under that palace, and you are going to rot for the rest of your days,” I told her.
“You will live your life knowing how badly you failed and that I beat you. Knowing that Arion will never best Dea. You will think of me every minute of every day. But after today, I will never think about you again.”
Her smile faded.
Xander made a sound of pain and I couldn’t help but look to make sure that he was safe.
“You will remember me,” she swore.
And I turned around to see that she had pulled a dagger from her belt and was going to throw it at my husband’s back.