One of the guards knelt to unlock the crude, hammered down cell door. He didn't notice me grinning right beneath the bars until one of his knees touched the ground. He leapt backwards in fright.
"Hades breath!" he cried. "What the hell are you doing?"
His mate cackled and kicked dirt at me, sending a spray of dust and grit at my face, forcing me to look away.
"You gutless bull," the other said, his accent lilting strongly of someone common born from Argos. "You quiver looking at your own feet."
I kept my face downturned, watching their shadows touch my leg.
"Shut it," scoffed the jumpy one, rattling a key into the lock.
"At least we don't need the rope," said the cocky one, throwing aside the rope they'd meant to offer me so I could climb out. If I'd refused, the alternative was to be buried alive.
Jumpy flipped up the bars covering my cell like the lid on a snake box, leaning far over to give it a good, quick shove. I struck with one small fang.
I sank the dagger into his neck. Hot blood pattered my cheek when I wrenched it free; he followed the knife's rough tug and tumbled into my cell, bashing me on his way past with gruff, grasping fingers and choking swings.
"Fuck!" cocky yelled, his voice muffled beneath the roaring in my ears.
I kicked out of the cell, rolled across the hard-packed ground, and launched at the other soldier. His eyes gleamed with that rush of madness and fear all people flush with when forced to fight or run. His eyes grew large, he braced for collision, his arm tensed to beat me down.
I will not die.
We fought like rutting boars—bashing at close-quarters, panting and grunting to avoid the keen edge of my dagger. He did not quite match my strength or speed; he focused so hard on staying alive he could barely utter a cry for help. Even so, he did not go down.
I swung for his armpit, feeling terror creep higher into my chest as the reality of what was happening grew bolder and blacker each second. He had to die, I'd condemned him, as he would have condemned me. All of them. They had to die, or I died.
He caught my wrist, twisted it hard, and my fingers went limp around the dagger. He snatched it and slashed—cutting deep into my cheek. My scream signalled the end for Polynices' army.
I was a soldier worthy of recognition. I would not promise victory for any king. The only victory I wanted was my own. I would not die because Polynices decided I must. I felt it all as hot as the blood coursing over my jaw, as I had when I bested Alcaeus—when I fought for my own self-worth.
I grabbed the man in front of me with hands like talons and wrenched his head around his neck. I took his sword and turned against the warm morning breezes to look at the soldiers running to investigate my scream.
#
My black ringlets had mostly fallen from their pins, half plastered to my sweaty, blood-crusted face. A third of Polynices' men lay wounded or dead behind me, their bodies marking a sporadic path leading to the royal tent. The sun glared on my back already, not yet close to its midday zenith, shining white hot over the chaos I'd created.
I found Polynices marching to and fro, yelling himself hoarse in an attempt to organise his men against me. The far side of the camp was still preparing to follow out whatever strategy Polynices and his generals had devised in the night.
Many had tried to rush me as I made my way through the tents, but as I picked up armour and another sword along the way, they grew less confident—rushed me in twos and threes, then hung back, hesitated enough that I did not grow tired. So by the time Polynices laid eyes on me, his men did not swarm me at once—they saw what he never could. I was worth every promise made on my behalf. Defeat was not written in my name, it was in his nature.
"You ingrate!" Polynices cried, clenching his jaw so hard it bristled his brown beard.
I struggled to keep a bout of rage from making my voice quiver. "Thank you for the death sentence!" I cried. "But if you're going to kill me, you need to make sacrifices. You're scorning Ares' gift. If you want the Gods to bless your crusade, you've got to give a little blood back."
King Amphiaraus had said something similar after we'd been defeated at the fifth gate. Provisions had been sparse, all live cattle butchered for food, our supply routes empty and unpromising, and the sun had burned so harshly even before our arrival that the water wells finally dried up under our unquenchable thirst. The largest army Greece had ever seen could not penetrate one city, and we were dying of basic human needs.
Amphiaraus had also said, from the very start, that we were doomed to fail, especially if Polynices refused to send me into battle again just because we'd lost the first gate. By the long and short of it, Polynices' convinced his best friend and adoptive brother in-law, Tydeus, to sacrifice his eldest daughter.
They'd told her she was going to dance with the greatest generals and princes here to seek their glory. When she finally arrived after two weeks of travel, they dressed her in white silk, adorned her hair with gold, and her own father placed her hand in some prince's firm grip. They drank the honey-wine and milk she'd dutifully brought from home; she shared figs and olive bread with a choice few suitors, like it was some big party guaranteed to end in a wedding.
No sooner had the prince walked her to the centre of attention and spun her around—her face glowing with a smile, thinking it a dance—than a red smile ran spurting across her neck.
They laid her on the earth in her ruined white dress and shouted at the sky for help. Sick and disturbed, I'd hoped the Gods would not listen. True, if we wanted help killing so many, we needed to give back something we valued. Yet still, that these kings would go so far as to trick one of their daughters...
As soon as Tydeus stopped beseeching the Gods, the heavens split open with a full day and night of rain. The good fortune would only last, however, if I was employed in battle again. Both Tydeus and Amphiaraus agreed upon whatever signs they read in the clouds, or the wet cracked ground, or the watery pools of blood around the dead girl's head: Ares demanded I fight.
"You kill me," I said now, enjoying Polynices' wide-eyed silence, "and you spurn all you've been given. You want the city?"
He stared at me.
I clenched my swords and screamed, "Do you?"
"Y-yes!"
A war horn blared from the far side of camp, and the last of Polynices' soldiers marched past our defences to confront the seventh gate of Thebes.
"Then you come with me," I said.
#
They returned my helmet of gleaming black steel and rust-red feathers. I demanded my own sword as well, a thing of royal craftsmanship and the first name-day gift that had ever filled me with awe.
I ordered Polynices into his chariot with no idea of what to do next. I simply felt the battlefield tugging at my chest, and a longing to glimpse Victory shining amongst the dirt and blood of war. If I could just see her again, I might know what to do with my dwindling new-found courage.
I took the reins and whipped the horses. The chariot rumbled underneath me but I could not feel it. We crested the hill separating us from the main battlefield and passed our defences. The world opened out, it seemed, onto a plateau of men stamping across over-stamped earth—a tired stretch of land struggling to sprout grass like hair on an old man's head. Thebes crowned the far side, looking sturdy and noble atop the land despite many praying it would choke and pass on its glory. We'd been here for so many years I felt like I'd been born here in its dust.
My mother must have meant that I could choke it by myself, I only had to get inside. I could win this war.
"What are you doing?" demanded Polynices as I swerved the chariot behind our soldiers and toward their right flank. He gripped the hilt of his sword when I did not answer. I glanced down at the pitiful threat.
"Mother was right," I said. "I can get past Eteocles inner defences if I'm alone. I can assassinate..." I saw Victory under the shadows of the city walls. She saw me, too.
I whipped the reins against the horse's backsides, urging them on, and Polynices grabbed the chariot to keep from tumbling out. A fear I didn't understand fuelled me. It wasn't the usual fear of seeing Victory, but something more ragged, more personal than Gods, Kings, fathers, or mortality.
"Then why have you brought me?" Polynices shouted.
I didn't know.
A flash of gold out the corner of my eye. I glanced to see Victory astride her own chariot, white plumage snapping in the wind, her gaze cold and focused entirely on me.
Polynices saw her too. "Get me out of here! She's after me! I knew you were stupid—this isn't a plan, this will get me killed!"
I had my answer. I wanted to kill him. All my fear tangled up inside, transformed, bloomed into hysteria. I laughed so hard I could hardly keep my balance. I sobered when Polynices started drawing his sword.
I drew quicker and parried his clumsy strike. It finally tipped his balance and sent him spinning off the back of the cart, thudding and rolling in the chariot's dust. I smiled, let go of the reins, and jumped off as well, catching myself from falling in a few bold steps.
Kill him and be free, I thought.
I ran at Polynices' trembling form as he struggled to his pudgy knees. I yelled to let him know I was there and swung my sword above my shoulder, aiming for his neck. My blade clanged against another and jarred my elbow, sending me reeling back.
"Kill him and be cursed," said Victory, blocking me from the king who was not my real father. Killing Ares was a curse. True patricide was a curse. This was doing the world a favour.
I ran at her. I'd kill her if it meant getting to Polynices. I had to be worth something.
She struck back with a flick of her wrist. "You festering animal. This is why Athena came to me instead of you."
I charged again, and this time she had to concentrate to push me off.
"Listen, dumb animal! These Kings are cursed—not worthy of your sword."
Polynices had found his feet, grunting in agony with every shunting step away from us. I would win this whole war. I'd kill both Kings, I'd defeat Victory, I'd walk into Olympus as a force to be reckoned with.
I fought so hard I thought I might cry. I'd never felt such raw energy behind my every movement. I could match her, and yet, with each swipe and stab, I saw I'd never best her.
"Look," Victory panted, pointing with her sword at the city walls. "Eteocles comes for his brother. Let their curse end with them."
I glanced at the royal Theban chariot fighting its way closer, set to catch up with the fat King ambling back to camp.
"And what about my curse with you?" I growled, throat dry.
Victory stared at me a moment, then plunged her sword into the ground, before her beautiful golden sandals. "We shall be so much more than what our fathers made us to be. Look at them." She pointed at Eteocles, now gained on Polynices and cutting off his retreat. "Their father cursed them, too, and they fell right into it. I am smarter than that. What can be said for you, feral beast?"
A part of me tried to rear at the jibe—a comfortable part of me that burned whenever challenged—but my energy felt sapped of purpose. I could prove nothing because I was nothing. Without something to prove, I lacked who I was. I felt raw.
I stared at Victory's glorious face, her fantastic armour, her blessed sandals. The Gods had already picked their winner without either of us drawing blood.
In the distance, Eteocles and Polynices came to blows.
"Then win without effort," I croaked, and dropped to my knees. I removed my black helmet so she could see my eyes clearly. "If I don't resist, neither Zeus nor Ares prove anything." I even offered her my sword. "If I can't be free and I cannot win, then I surrender willingly. End it for us both."
"You dumb coward. I won't kill you whether you fight me or you ask for it."
I cried from the bottom of my stomach now, unsure if I felt relieved or even more useless than ever. Swift as the breeze she was born on, Victory came over and knelt before me. She gripped her hand over mine and squeezed my fingers around the hilt of my sword.
"Bia, you are a force to be reckoned with. Do something with it."
"Like kill our fathers?" I whispered.
"You and I, we can take our own place in Olympus. We shall prove that we are not their trophy, we are their vanity come to wreck them."
My every breath made me shudder, staring into such wide, beautiful eyes so close to mine. "Together?" I asked.
She gripped my hand tighter as Eteocles and Polynices slew each other.