Gods and Warriors (28 page)

T
he Crows were passing directly beneath them: Pirra counted five men and a boy, each with a bronze dagger at the hip.

They walked purposefully, with their heads down. Pirra breathed out. They weren’t tracking. They were gathering driftwood.

Beside her, Hylas had gone still. “That’s Telamon,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“What?”

“Telamon. He’s a Crow.”

She squinted after the men moving off down the beach. So that was the boy she was supposed to wed.

“A Crow,” Hylas repeated. “Telamon’s a Crow.”

She was puzzled. “Of course he is. He’s part of the House of Koronos. Come on, we’ve got to get out of here! D’you think we can make it over that headland?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said in a low voice.

“Tell you what?”

“That he’s a Crow.”

“Hylas—we have to get
out
of here!”

“Why didn’t you
tell
me?”

Something in his voice made her look at him. Beneath the ash and the grime, his lips had turned gray. His tawny eyes were almost black.

Once, in the Great Court of the House of the Goddess, she’d seen a bull-leaper tossed by a bull. He’d been carried off alive, but his face had been as drained and shocked as Hylas’ face was now.

“Why?” he demanded.

“I thought you knew, of course! Now come
on
!”

The coast was densely wooded, and they found their way over the headland without being seen. No sign of pursuit, but every moment Pirra dreaded to see warriors coming after them.

They plunged into a thicket of chestnut and sycamore that was noisy with sparrows. It gave good cover, and she breathed more easily. Still no pursuit.

Some time later, they stumbled on a spring. As she knelt in the moss, Pirra realized she couldn’t go another step. “I’m spent,” she panted. “I can’t remember when I last slept. How far till we reach camp?”

“I think it’s still quite a long way. Maybe half a day.”

“Would it be safe to stop here for a bit?”

“Nowhere’s safe,” muttered Hylas.

She hesitated. “About Telamon—I really did think you knew. After all, you told me he’s your best friend.”

“Was,” he said between his teeth. “He
was
my best friend.”

They found a place to sleep under some saplings, and Hylas masked it with branches so that they couldn’t be seen. Pirra went to look for food and returned soon after, saying that the trees grew right down to the shore, and she’d risked a dash to the shallows. She’d brought back a skirtful of sea urchins, which they ate raw, scooping up the rich sloppiness with their fingers. She kept casting him curious glances, which made him angry. He didn’t want her to see him like this.

At last she said, “I always thought it was weird that he was your friend. I mean, him being a Crow.”

He glared at her.

“When you told me he was your friend, I didn’t know if I could trust you. I didn’t know
what
to think. That’s why I didn’t say anything. Of course I did trust you later, in the caves; but then everything was happening so fast, there was never any time to talk about it.”

Hylas jammed the dagger in the earth and watched it quiver and go still. He felt sick, churning with rage and misery and disbelief. Had they
ever
been friends, or had it all been a lie? But
why
?

He thought back to the day after the attack, when Telamon had come looking for him in his father’s chariot. He’d said he didn’t know why the Crows were after Outsiders.
Soon as I heard, I went to warn you… I found Scram… I buried him…

Was any of that true? But what would Telamon gain by such lies?

Pirra took the last sea urchin back to the shore as an offering. “No sign of them,” she said when she came back, “but I think I spotted our wreck in the distance. You were right, it’s at least half a day off. Can we rest here till dark?”

He didn’t answer. With his finger he traced the crossed circle on the hilt.
A chariot wheel,
Akastos had said,
to crush their enemies.

It didn’t seem possible that this dagger before him—this plain bronze knife—held the power of the House of Koronos. But deep inside, he knew it was true.

He thought back to what Akastos had said: that the Crows had lost their dagger and wanted it back, and that maybe this was why they were after Outsiders. Did they for some reason think an Outsider had stolen it—and that the Outsider might be him?

“Why do you keep staring at your knife?” Pirra said quietly. Her face was drawn with fatigue, but her dark eyes watched him keenly.

He told her. About finding the dying man in the tomb, and being given the knife, and how it had helped him stay alive when he was adrift, and what Akastos had said.

When he’d finished, there was silence between them. The trees stood stunned in the noonday heat. Even the sparrows had fallen quiet. Only the rasp of the crickets throbbed on and on.

Pirra was the first to speak. “Are you sure this is the one?”

“It’s got the chariot wheel, just like Akastos said.”
He looked at her. “The man in the tomb, the Keftian. Do you know who he was?”

She shook her head. “No idea—or why he would’ve stolen it. And presumably they kept the dagger at Mycenae; so how did he get from there to Lykonia? And why?” She chewed her lip. “Until now, I’d never even heard of this dagger, and I don’t think anyone else on Keftiu has either. Which—I suppose—makes sense. The Crows wouldn’t want anyone to know if…” She gasped. “I just remembered. This must be why they asked the Oracle.”

“What Oracle?”

“When we got to Lykonia, we heard that Thestor and Kratos had gone to consult their Oracle. Maybe whatever answer they were given—maybe it had something to do with Outsiders stealing the knife.”

“But I told you, I didn’t steal it!”

“I know, but you’ve got it. It came to you; that’s what counts. And maybe—if the Oracle did say something about Outsiders, and by then Kratos knew you were the only one left in Lykonia—then maybe he assumed that you’d taken it.”

“But I’ve never been anywhere near Mycenae!”

“I know. But whoever stole it—that man in the tomb—he must have brought it from there to Lykonia; and then it fell into your hands, so it comes to the same thing.”

Pulling out the dagger, Hylas held it up. Not a speck of dirt clung to the blade. It was perfect. Beautiful.

He’d come to believe that it was his friend. It had kept him company when he was adrift, and in the storm it had wrapped its tether around the spar and kept him afloat. He’d thought it had been helping him, but now he saw that it had only been saving itself. So this was another friend he’d never really had.

He laid it on the ground and wiped his fingers on his thigh. “I’ll get rid of it,” he said. “I’ll chuck it in the Sea. Then they’ll never get it back.”

Pirra frowned. “I don’t think that’d work. I think it knows how to look after itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“That time in the caves, when the snake was after you, and it got stuck in its sheath? Maybe it
wanted
you to be bitten, so that it could escape. And when you were climbing those fallen trees and it fell out just before that man, Akastos—before he caught you. If he’d found it on you, then he’d have it now. I don’t think it wanted that either. No, Hylas. If you threw it in the Sea, it’d find some way to be discovered. To get back to the Crows.”

Despite the heat, Hylas shivered. He watched the shifting sunlight playing on the blade. He had the unnerving sense that it was listening.

“I just thought of something else,” said Pirra. “I bet Kratos hasn’t told his men that it’s missing.”

“Why not?”

“It’d be a sign of weakness. Never show weakness if you want to hold on to power. My mother taught me that.
Yes. Kratos has probably only told his closest kin. Maybe Thestor and Telamon, nobody else.”

Hylas stared at her. “
Telamon?
Telamon is kin to that man?”

She nodded. “Thestor and Kratos—they’re brothers. Their father is Koronos, High Chieftain of Mycenae. Telamon’s his grandson. He’s Kratos’ nephew. That’s what makes him a Crow. He’s been one since the day he was born. Hylas—are you all right?”

He was back in the mountains, clinging for his life beneath the overhang, while a monster of black and bronze leaned over the edge of the gorge. He saw a powerful hand smeared with ash. He felt a slitted gaze raking the slopes to find him…

Because of Kratos, Scram had been slaughtered. Because of Kratos, Issi was lost in the wild. Kratos, son of Koronos. Telamon’s uncle.

“Hylas?”

“Leave me alone!” he burst out. “Just—leave me
alone
!”

Blindly, he went crashing through the trees.

They’re not called Crows,
Telamon had told him.
They’re a great clan: the House of Koronos… My father—he has no quarrel with them… He’s a Chieftain, that means he can’t always choose who he has dealings with.

All that was true—and yet so many lies lay buried in what he’d left unsaid.

And still the questions churned around and around. If Telamon really was a member of the House of Koronos,
then why had he helped Hylas escape? Why steal his father’s chariot and bring those supplies? The dried sheep’s liver, the walnut juice.
Why?

Without knowing it, Hylas found his way to the edge of the trees. The Sea lay flat beneath a sullen yellow sky. The glare off the stones hurt his eyes.

Until now, whatever he’d been going through, he’d always hoped that a time would come when he could tell Telamon about it.
Wait till I tell Telamon,
he’d said to himself. But now there was no one to tell.

He remembered the words of the Goddess in the cave. He’d asked why the Crows were after him, and She’d said,
The truth bites.
At the time, he’d thought that She meant the sea-snake. Now he realized that She’d been warning of what he would find out.

And the truth did indeed bite deep. He felt as if someone had stuck a knife in his chest and twisted it.

He couldn’t go back to Pirra. He had to be alone.

No, not alone. He needed Spirit. Spirit would understand.

There was no sign of the Crows on the shore. He darted to the rocks in the shallows and hid. He beat the waves with his palms. When that didn’t work, he stuck his head underwater and shouted for Spirit in a frenzy of bubbles.

But no matter what he did, Spirit didn’t come.