Page 31 of Odette's Vow

“What good is that to me? You could lie, only for me to find out tomorrow. I told you how I feel about liars and their tongues.” I tapped my blade against his lips to make a point and heard him whimper.

I smiled.Good.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

“The Thracians. They – they’re vulnerable to attack. They just arrived. With their king, Rheus. You could slaughter them now, the two of you, they’re that unprepared. I—I could show you where they are and then you could let me go.”

“Oh, could I just?”

“Please, I?—”

But he had already given it away. I had been watching his eyes, which had darted to the left one too many times. Another tactic I had learned. Men were desperate to have you believe them when you put them under just enough pressure. So desperate, in fact, that they practically begged you to believe them by pointing out the truth of their words. Even if it was with their eyes.

I nodded to Diomedes, who with one quick jarring motion, broke the man’s neck and he crumpled to the ground at our feet. Almost methodically, we stripped him of his armour. If we were going into the Thracian camp, it would help to have items of familiar armour to disguise us. Just long enough for us to fool them.

The Trojan scout wasn’t lying; we found the camp lying just beyond the next hill. It was a small camp, no more than thirteen men in total. Each of us had slain more Trojans alone. Making our way down the hill on our bellies was slow going, but by the time we hit the base of their camp, Diomedes and I were quick on our feet, whipping out our weapons. He crouched and circled the camp and I waited for five beats before I knew I could move.

The man closest to me had his back to me. A deep slit across his carotid and he was dead. The man opposite him cried out, but Diomedes got to him. The others realised what was going on and tried to rally, but drawing swords or running for weapons when you’d just been lying lazy-limbed by a fire was no match for two already bloodthirsty generals. We cut them down one by one, Diomedes and I both moving in a circular motion that mirrored one another. A death dance these untried and untested soldiers had never seen before. They barely had a chance to fight for their lives.

I didn’t feel sorry for them. This was war.

“It’s time to go, Odysseus.” There it was again, Odette’s voice in my head. “You wouldn’t want some angry god to wake the other soldiers in the nearby camps.”

She was right, of course. She always was. Gesturing to the empty chariot that still had two restless horses bridled, Diomedes nodded and we both made haste. It must have been their king’s – Rheus, the scout had called him – chariot. As Diomedes spurred the horses into action, I looked at the pile of men we were leaving behind and wondered which was their king.

Not that it mattered.

He was dead.

10

Odette

Odysseus had returned under the cover of darkness, his face grim, his armour stained with blood. I did not know whose; I did not want to ask. But though there was no triumph in his steps, only the weariness of a warrior who knew the cost of his actions, it became clear as he wiped himself with a damp rag that the blood was not his own, and I returned to sleep.

My sleep was fitful at best, my dreams haunted as they always were by Alcander and Lykas. Though, more recently, only Lykas had been appearing. I had gotten used to his presence, the lingering melancholy that shrouded me as I woke, how it shook itself off now without my conscious action.

I did not expect to wake to the air heavy and thick with the scent of iron.

The screams followed next.

Alarmed, I bolted upright, my darting eyes searching for Odysseus, only to realise he had already left for the day’s battle despite his night activities. I scrambled to dress and see what all the commotion was.

Exiting the tent, my eyes scanned the horizon, trying to make sense of what I was seeing when a single, dark drop splattered onto the ground at my feet. I looked up in confusion, my breathcatching. One by one, more drops followed, a macabre drizzle that turned into a steady rain.

Blood. It fell from the sky in dark, crimson streaks.

The other women around me were also looking around, their faces pale, their eyes wide with terror as they observed to the sky. The blood rain soaked into our clothes, painting the earth a gruesome palette of reds and browns. I felt a chill run down my spine. The gods were angry, their displeasure palpable in every drop that fell.

Only one would make such a bold move in war: Zeus. We all knew the rumours that Zeus had sided with the Trojans because his wife Hera had demanded it.

I collapsed to my knees, hands trembling, and began whispering a desperate prayer, my voice drowned out by the relentless patter of blood droplets striking the ground.

“Zeus, hear my plea, for surely most Greek gods will not. Hera, great goddess, undoubtedly shames me as a mother and a wife. I know I have destroyed everything sacred in my life, and she is right to judge me, no matter my good intentions. But I beg you, let this blood rain be a sign of a massacre of the Greeks. Let it be their undoing. If my vow cannot be fulfilled by my own hands, I ask that you ensure Odysseus does not return to his family or homeland on this day. That none of them return. In your wisdom, from my wrath, I ask for this one mercy. End this suffering. Let them fall.”

I raised my head to the sky, the blood rain smearing across my skin as I waited for any sign that the gods had heard my prayer.

The women and I waited together, abandoning the day’s duties. None of us could concentrate with blood raining from the sky, anyway. Instead, we watched the ominous dark burgundy clouds as they shifted over the battlefield and moved towards thesea, where the Greek ships waited. Zeus could not be clearer in his demands:go home.

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