Sword of Apollo (40 page)

 

SEVEN

When Kolax first realized that the two prisoners standing below in the courtyard at General Pantares's house were Nikias and Diokles, he was unable to comprehend what he was looking at. It didn't make sense that they would be here in Syrakuse together. The last time he'd seen Nikias was atop Mount Kithaeron on the night they set the great fire. And Diokles departed Plataea soon after the sneak attack thirty moons ago. How had the two come together so far from Greece and in such odd circumstances?

At first he thought that what he was seeing was some kind of illusion, like a stomach speaker's conjuring trick. He watched the scene taking place before his eyes as though he were stuck in a strange dream or a hemp-induced vision. When Pantares suddenly beheaded Andros, Kolax saw it happen very slowly—as if time had turned as slow as honey. He didn't even move or cry out. He just stood blinking with dumb fascination. And when Barka the eunuch stepped forward, condemning Nikias and Diokles to the Prison Pits, Kolax felt his guts go slack.

Pantares's men didn't remove Nikias and Diokles from the house right away but took them to a room and locked them inside. Kolax, baffled about what to do next, ran back to Andros's house, which stood close by, and retrieved a small purse of gems, gold coins, and pearls that his late master had hidden under a floorboard—treasure used to bribe Syrakusan officials and magistrates. Kolax didn't know what he would do with the precious things. Bribe one of Pantares's Tyrsenian guards, perhaps? That seemed unlikely. They'd cut off his head and take the treasure.

He tied the heavy pouch around his neck and stuffed it down his tunic, then sprinted back to Pantares's house, hiding in the alley across the lane. If he'd learned one thing from Andros, it was patience. Andros used to tell him a story about a tortoise and a hare having a race. In this stupid tale the slow tortoise won, simply because the idiot hare kept stopping to eat and rest. “Slow and sensible always wins the race,” Andros liked to say. So Kolax hunkered down and tried to calm his mind. But he didn't have to wait long. The guards soon exited the house leading Nikias and Diokles, yanking on chains tied to metal collars around their necks as if they were beasts.

Kolax shadowed Nikias, Diokles, and the Tyrsenians through the streets of Ortygia as they made their way toward the New City in the direction of the quarry. As a crowd of jeering men and boys fell in behind the group, Kolax blended into the throng. The Skythian seethed with indignation at the way Nikias was abused by the townsmen, but he kept his temper under control … until a teenager threw a bucket of filth into his friend's face, and then a red rage caught fire in his veins. He quickly slipped from the crowd and found the lad with the bucket, who was laughing with his gaggle of friends. Kolax seized the bucket from the surprised boy, punched him in the gut, and jammed the bucket over his head before dashing back into the crowd.

When the throng got to the land bridge to the mainland, Kolax immediately noticed a foreign-looking man with squinting eyes loitering off to the side, watching Nikias pass with a queer expression. Being a foreigner in the Greek lands, Kolax was always aware of others who, like himself, stuck out from a crowd. And Kolax's eyes, trained by Andros to instantly pick out little details, noticed that this foreigner bore two swords on his belt. One of these was a curved scabbard—the kind of blade used by Phoenician pirates. But the other weapon was a short Greek leaf-bladed sword with a simple bronze pommel with the words “Of Plataea” scored onto the pommel's circle with deep, bold lines. Kolax had seen this ancient sword many times over the last two and a half years, and he knew who had crafted the pommel and handle: Chusor the smith.

But Kolax had made a blunder—the foreigner had seen his eyes lingering on the sword pommel, and now their gazes met for the briefest moment before the man bolted. Kolax was forced to make a decision: follow Nikias and Diokles to the quarry or follow the stranger. He chose the latter. There was nothing that he could do for Nikias and Diokles now. And he had to find out how this man had come to bear Nikias's sword. Kolax followed the foreigner as fast as he could, chasing him through the narrow streets of the New City, across the agora, and all the way to a marble road marker pointing toward the coast.

But the foreigner was fast. Kolax didn't think a man who was so small and old could be so swift. But Kolax had never been a very swift runner. He was a horseman, not a gods-forsaken distance runner! He got a sharp stitch in his side—a pain that felt like a knife in his lung—but he kept running. The foreigner was a quarter of a mile ahead of him now and Kolax's brain screamed for answers. Who was this man? Why did he have Nikias's sword? And why had he been waiting by the land bridge?

Kolax pumped his arms harder as the roadway headed up a hill. He lost sight of the foreigner and cursed himself for being so slow. He jogged along for another mile, doggedly refusing to give up. He was already out in the countryside, surrounded by olive trees. He felt as though he were running in a nightmare. “I'm on Sicily,” he said to himself with vexation. “Andros is dead. Nikias is in the quarry. I'm alone chasing a foreigner down a road to the great sky god Papaeus knows where. This is madness!”

He stopped and bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air. His throat burned and he felt as though he might be sick. He touched the bag of precious things under his tunic. He might be able to use the money to bribe the guards at the quarry to let Nikias out. And if that didn't work he could buy a great length of rope and lower himself down. But first he would kill the eunuch who had convinced Pantares to put Nikias in that horrible place. He could sneak into the palace and slit Barka's throat in the dead of the night.

He flinched. He'd heard footsteps behind him—the gentlest sound of leather sandals scraping on pebbles. He turned around slowly and saw the foreigner he'd been chasing was now standing directly behind him, Nikias's sword raised to cut him down, and his eyes cold and steady. Kolax froze. He could tell by the way this man held himself that he was a master swordsman.

“You know this sword?” the foreigner asked.

Kolax nodded, trying to catch his breath, not daring to make a move.

“Who made the pommel and handle?”

“Chusor the smith,” Kolax replied. “In Plataea. My name is Kolax of the Bindi tribe.”

The foreigner's demeanor did not change. His murderer's eyes continued to bore into Kolax. “Chusor has told me of this Skythian lad who was good with a bow. A boy with
red
hair and a tattoo on his back.”

“That's me,” said Kolax. “I dyed my hair. Or rather, the man who captured me dyed it.” He paused and asked with annoyance, “And Chusor told you that I was ‘good' with a bow? Not ‘great'?”

“Prove you are Kolax,” said the foreigner. “Show me the tattoo. Turn around very slowly.”

Kolax did as he was told, though he hated turning his back on the stranger. He lifted his tunic to reveal the tattoo of the griffin that had been inked across his skin. “You see,” he said. “The griffin is eating an Arimaspian—a one-eyed giant from the north. My father—” He stopped mid-sentence as the foreigner ran past him, sheathing his sword as he went. “Hey! Where are you going?”

“Follow me, Kolax,” said the foreigner, glancing back over his shoulder. “It's thirteen miles to the ship.”

As they ran the stranger introduced himself as Ji, but he said little more on their run. When Kolax tried to tell him about the events at Pantares's house, Ji stopped him, saying, “Save your breath. No use repeating this story twice. You'll have to tell it to the others when we get to the ship.”

After another three miles or so Kolax had to stop and throw up from overexerting himself. But after being sick he got his second wind and the two flew down the road, racing the setting sun. They saw very few people along the way: a farmer pulling an oxcart and some women carrying water back from a well with amphoras balanced on their heads. Kolax became lulled by the seemingly endless sound of his feet slapping on the road and the noise of his own strained breathing in his ears.

They were heading down a slope toward the water, six miles in the distance, when Ji grabbed Kolax by the tunic and pulled him off to the side of the roadway as six riders crested the hill behind them, galloping past. But the riders did not go far. Evidently they'd seen Kolax and Ji, for they came to a stop up ahead, wheeled around, and headed back toward them. They were Syrakusan cavalry wearing light plate armor and bronze helms. They carried short javelins that glinted menacingly.

“Nowhere to run,” said Kolax, looking around at the barren hillside on which they stood. “Give me your bow.”

Ji quickly handed the weapon to Kolax, who gripped it and grimaced. “It's a left-handed bow!” he exclaimed with displeasure.

“I'm left-handed,” replied Ji.

Kolax snatched a fistful of arrows from Ji's quiver as the riders trotted up and surrounded them. The horsemen glared down at Kolax and Ji, their sweating horses pawing the ground and snorting. They were fine-looking horses, considered Kolax, though very fidgety.

“What's your business on this road?” asked the lead rider, frowning at them from the shadows of his helm.

“That is our business,” said Ji.

“Where do you come from?”

“Again, that is our concern.”

The lead rider sniffed and, turning slowly to the man next to him, said, “Kill them.”

One of the riders thrust his spear at Ji, but the little man dodged the blow like a snake, grabbing the spear pole and yanking the rider off his mount.

Kolax dropped down and somersaulted under the lead rider's horse, cutting the animal across the forelock with an arrowhead. The horse spooked and reared—and Kolax, now lying on his back on the road, sent an arrow flying through the underside of the chin of the lead rider.

A havoc of screaming horses and shouting men. Riders leaping to the ground. Ji whirling and darting through the armored riders with a murderous grace, both of his swords cutting through the air, hacking through limbs, disemboweling men.

Kolax shot two more riders at close range—one through the mouth, the other in the groin. Ji finished one off with Nikias's sword, cutting through his neck so cleanly that the head didn't pop off until the body hit the ground.

Only one rider was left alive and he leapt back on his mount and charged up the hill, back toward Syrakuse. Ji threw a knife at him and missed. Kolax knelt down and steadied himself, closing his right eye and sighting with his left. The bowstring thumped and the arrow struck the rider in his lower back, piercing his leather armor. The man slumped and fell to the rocky ground. The horse kept running.

The two stood for a few seconds staring in silence at the sudden and terrible carnage that they had wrought on the road—a path now cluttered with the dead and running red with blood. The horses had scattered and were galloping in different directions across the hillside.

“These warriors came from Syrakuse,” said Kolax. “They must have been heading for the shore—looking for the ship that brought Nikias and Diokles.”

Ji nodded but did not speak, and Kolax handed him back his bow.

“Good weapon,” Kolax said. “You should see what I can do with a right-handed bow.”

Ji smiled slightly and slung the weapon over his shoulder. “Help me get the bodies off the road.”

They lifted the corpses one by one and dragged them behind some rocks. Kolax hurriedly went through all of their belongings—a thing, he realized, that Andros the spy would have done. He took the lead rider's leather satchel and slung it over his shoulder, and also the dead man's sword.

“Not far now,” said Ji.

They left the road and headed overland, straight toward the water, then found a narrow goat path that led down to the shore. Kolax could hear the waves pounding on the rocks to the right. After a few minutes they emerged onto a hidden beach, and there, in the light of the setting sun, Kolax saw a ship and hundreds of people huddled around campfires. Ji led him through the camp to a fire closest to the vessel. Kolax saw Chusor standing next to a young woman and a skinny short-haired girl with the prettiest dark eyes that he had ever seen.

“What happened?” said Chusor when he caught sight of Ji. “Where are they? Who's this?”

“It's me,” said Kolax, smiling shyly. “I was captured by a Korinthian. He dyed my hair.”

Chusor was confounded. He stared back and forth from Ji to Kolax, his mouth agape.

“It's your friend Kolax,” said Ji. “Good fighter. Just like you said.”

Chusor reached out and grabbed Kolax by the arm, pulling him toward the fire and looking him up and down in the flickering light with an expression of out-and-out bafflement. Then he lifted Kolax's tunic and stared at the griffin tattoo on his back, muttering in astonishment.

“I've a story to tell,” said Kolax, casting a quick glance at the girl with the short hair. She was staring back at him warily, her slender arms crossed on her chest.

Chusor said, “Indeed. Start with why Nikias and Diokles aren't with you.”

 

EIGHT

“I had to let you fight. The prisoners would not have respected you if I had stepped in to save an old friend, and there would have been strife. I made the rules that we live by, and even though I am the Quarry Lord, I am beholden to my men as well. But you passed the first test of the Prison Pits. And watching you fight like that made me proud to be a Plataean again.”

Nikias was sitting next to Demetrios on a stone bed carved into the wall of a small cave. They had come to this chamber—Demetrios's private abode—to talk out of earshot of the other prisoners. They leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder, enjoying the easy accord that only the best of friends share—even ones who have been separated for many years. They had known each other since they had been toddlers and had been closer than kin, for although they had always shared a brotherly rivalry, they had never been jealous of one another. Each had only wanted the other to thrive and had pushed him to be the best, whether it was at the gymnasium or riding or practicing in the phalanx drills. Nikias knew that Demetrios felt guilty that he had stood by and watched him fight two men to the death. He could hear it in his voice. But he also knew that his old friend had spoken the truth: there was nothing that he could have done.