They go out into the place where the demigod Aeneas had led the Greek slaughter, more than a year ago. Red flowers grow now where their comrades fell. All else is quiet.
Ophellios releases the string of his bow and a bird falls from the sky. It was only a small thing, but the arrow pierced neatly its heart; there will be enough meat for feasting later.
There is hunger in the camp.
He turns, looking to his lone companion. “How many have you caught, Lord Aetos?”
A Trojan scouting force happened to be out last night and happened to be caught in the rain and happened to bivouac under a rocky outcropping just close enough to hear the shouting.
Immediately, they are under attack.
He roars and leaps forwards, taking up a great stone and shattering a shield with it, then bursting a man's heart with his drawn sword through the splintered wreck.
"To arms, Ophellios!"
Damn the boy.
He springs forwards to cover the "retreat" as the coward goes to ground, to distract the Trojan forces from him.
A man swings his blade, a breath away from Aetos’ bare flesh–
And as if the ground has opened up beneath him, the Trojan crumples, and Thanatos takes him.
Another falls.
Another.
In Aetos’ periphery, he sights a swift blur in the air – and a fourth member of the patrol meets his fate. An arrow through the eye. Tripartite silver fletching – the telltale mark of a weapon of the King of Pylos.
It’s coming from the trees.
Bah. A woman's weapon.
He takes a man almost in half, crushes another skull under his pommel, and then-
He can see the moment when they break, when a man at the back crumples down like a grain-sack just as he slits another one's throat, and they run-
They'll be back.
"Ophellios!"
There is a rustling from up above, and he leaps down – onto the fleeing Trojan, the last standing, and with a flash of the knife he slits his throat.
He takes a moment to catch his breath before he turns.
"There you are! Kept yourself far away from the heat of battle, I see. "
There is red on his cloak, a dagger in his hand, and a man bleeding to death at his feet.
He gives Aetos a stare.
"It must be a pleasant experience, to have such a distance between oneself and a Trojan blade, to have a choice of helpless targets."
He steps onto and over the dying man, failing chest a bridge for the king’s bare feet.
“I took advantage of the terrain. What is your issue?”
"You were seen to flee. I thought you cared a great deal, some would say too much, for the seeming of things."
He only laughs a little. "You are still young, forget that though I sometimes might. I am not ungrateful - but that is not the way among warriors."
“You are the most unpleasant and hateful of men.”
He pulls his arrows from Trojan flesh, cleaning their sharp points on the moss.
“We did not have the chance to finish our discussion.”
He chuckles deeply. "A strange way to begin your supplication, King of Pylos. Were you not asking of me that I keep a secret, only moments ago? Is this how you expect to make petitions and pleas? Or do you believe I should keep this secret for my own sake?"
“You would be a man of terrible honour also if you did not keep this to yourself.”
The young king has quite the glare on him.
He does, but he's not as scary as Hector. "Would I? And why is that? It is a perfectly normal thing among comrades in bitter weather."
He glances down at himself. Oh.
"I am surprised that you remain so... Squeamish, after years of war."
But he will get dressed.
"We had best move swiftly, lest the Trojans grow suspicious, or receive word outright of what happened here. The ground is wet and treacherous now, but with good haste we should make the site by noon. Come."
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