Kryptic ↟ Deimos

twenty-two: a brother's promise

DEIMOS ROARS WHEN he enters the villa in Phokis, knocking over a weapons rack in the courtyard —chest heaving in his rage. Everything was predicated on a lie. He shouts again, lashing out at the cold, iron brazier. It topples to the tiled floor, spreading ash and coal over the white stone slabs. The words of the Cultists play over in his mind. Tightening the laces of his cuirass, Deimos sets his mind on finding Lesya —he does not know what he will say, nor if he will be able to tell her she is right. He just knows he needs to see her. Sliding the Damoklean sword into the sheath on his hip, Deimos sets off to Kirrha with fury and cold determination.

Kirrha's Harbor is always bustling with merchant ships —pilgrims who come to seek the wisdom of the Pythia. Among them is a trireme with three masts, a gilded figurehead, dark Tyrian red sails. The vessel once belonged to Elpenor, though now it fully belongs to the Cult. The Areion remains a fine ship. "Deimos!" Labdakos exclaims, the captain had not expected to see the champion so soon after Kleon's messenger departed.

"Prepare the ship," Deimos announces, ascending the short staircase to the helm of the trireme. Labdakos barks orders at the crew and they bustle around the deck, securing lines and arranging the barrels of freshly fletched arrows. The horizon is dark, mimicking the rages storm within his heart and mind.

The captain stands behind his chair, hand resting on the carved back. He knows something is wrong —that Deimos is not falling in line with the given orders. "Where do we sail?" Labdakos asks.

"Keos," Deimos answers. He will sail to where Lesya is, or at least where she is rumored to be.

"But Kleon's orders–" Labdakos trails off —a fool to fear Kleon more than the unhinged demigod before him. Deimos seizes the captain by the neck, fingers tightening around his throat until his pitiful cries for air are nigh silent wheezes. "Fuck his orders," Deimos spits, throwing the captain back to the deck. "Take me to Keos or I'll see the sharks have their bellies filled." It is not so much a threat as it is a promise.

Labdakos dips his head low, hand rubbing the tender places of his neck. "Of course, champion." But the appeasement is insincere. Kleon has paid enough to sail the champion to Athens regardless of the champion's wishes to travel to the Pirate Islands. Deimos can tell the captain's loyalty no longer lies with him. He places his hand on the back of the Labdakos' head, forcing him to his knees, then twists to the left with the other —then a little farther. Deimos does not even strain and with a quick, final jerk there is a crack and the captain's head snaps around to face backward. Stepping back, the Labdakos' head loosely rolls back to the front, then lolls —his neck hanging at an angle with white bones poking through the skin, leaking scarlet blood.

The body flops forward onto the deck. Deimos looks at the frightened deckhands and the lieutenant of the vessel —he steps toward the second-in-command and motions at the captain's chair with his bloody hand. "You've just been promoted to captain," he announces with a grim smile.

"THANKS," LESYA SAYS when Kassandra hands her the other blade. It had been buried to the hilt in the back of an Athenian spy. Save for the corpses, the camp on Keos has been emptied. Xenia's lieutenant will offer a hefty reward for helping him remove the Athenian thorn from her side and it will put Kass closer to earning the drachmae to pay for information about Myrrine.

Kass eyes the pair of daggers again —she has noticed the strange glint of the metal several times, it is similar to her spear and the sword Deimos had carried. There had been a cast for a dagger the same shape and size in the Ancient Forge as the two Lesya carries. "What's so special about them?" She asks, though she knows they never need to be sharpened or honed, much like the Spear of Leonidas.

Lesya holds out the blade, balancing it on two fingers. She remembers the stories Chrysis told about the daggers and the Damokles sword. Mighty weapons from long ago. It was only after she and Deimos had been named champion that the Cult gave them the blades. "They belonged to the Amazon Penthesilea," Lesya explains —a daughter of Ares and queen of the Amazons but slain in battle by Achilles. "Or at least that is what the Cult claims." With ease, Lesya spins the dagger between her fingers and sighs. There is something special about the weapons, she can feel the difference with a normal spear or kopis in hand. "I believe it though, whenever I use these it's like I can see my opponent's next move before it comes."