“Minotaur!” the Legate calls once more.
“INVICTUS!” roar all the Grays, joined by twice as many dockers. I was right. Invictus. In the days of the Society a lesser house could hope for no greater honor on the field of battle than to be permitted to weld the battle cry of House Lune to that of their own general. Cassius’s expression darkens. He searches for Lysander amongst the knights beneath Apollonius, but if the Heir of Silenius is here, he hasn’t the fortitude to show his face.
I wonder what Cassius would do if he did.
Apollonius descends from the high place with his arms outstretched and his cape swirling behind from the high place, but not to join us on the sands. He lands amongst his Grays, where a stout, bearded centurion tilts back his tattooed head and booms with a powering, rousing voice that’d do a Violet baritone proud:
When he returned from deepest grave,
He had no home though he was brave!
But he had two horns, that iron knave,
Praise he who commands our legion!
In reply to the singing centurion, the legions also tilt back their heads and throw their arms about one another and wave their standards like gravcross hooligans until each and every one carries the song’s unending verses.
Forgotten soldier, march to war
Take your glory, Minotaur
Forgotten soldier, march to war
Take your homeland, Minotaur
Soon all of Gold will envy he
Who fought for you, and fought for me
With naught but horns, one minus three
Praise the Minotaur’s legions
Exiled Martian, march to war
Take your glory, Minotaur
Exiled Martian, march to war
Take your homeland, Minotaur
Hear the sound of thousands roar
Toward our planet, land of war
Through one billion slaves he’ll gore
Praise the Minotaur’s legion
As they sing, Apollonius cannot resist displaying his own affection for these men and women. He slaps backs, sways his arms to the tune, points to his favorites, and calls out coarse jests. The veterans worship him. As they bellow a verse about his sexual relations with Atalantia and his future Augustan and Juliian conquests, he takes up a standard and pumps his arms to welcome the brutish jeers and taunts and jibes that are the language of affection amongst this martial breed.
Cassius watches with a scowl. “They love him.”
I feel defeated. I thought if I could just reclaim Sevro, I would also reclaim the spirit of the old days. I thought I would return to Victra, to Virginia, carrying a spark to relight the blaze of our glory.
But now I’m not even sure Apollonius ever had Sevro.
Our only hope is Aurae and the atomic. No doubt Apollonius will be streaming this event throughout the station. Aurae will be in the Archimedes, parked in a hiding place on the dockyards’ hull. She will be watching, waiting for my signal.
When Apollonius finally joins us, he carries his legion standard—a giant golden bull’s head, the oak staff of which is pierced with pieces of the shattered stars of Republic legions. Legions he destroyed on Earth and Mars. Legions under my command.
Quieting his men, Apollonius beams me a smile and greets me with a verse from an ancient children’s book: The Lamplighter.
“Along the black abyss, the bold mortal—long-suffering, nigh-breaking—fixed his will against Fate’s course. Sheen-mailed, ne’er-quaking, bent was his neck, fury unslaking to row, row, row his oars against the world’s breaking. Once more. Once more he paddled from safe shores. If only to shout, if only to roar: ‘Come death! Come oblivion! Here yet this mortal strains.’ ”
Apollonius shivers in delight. Built thicker and taller even than Cassius, he is a man cast in a Miltonic mold. His angelic beauty is shaded with evil intent. His skin is the color of buckwheat honey, his lips are full, sensuous, and cruel. His nose is generous and stately. His eyes are sheathed behind sleepy lids and curtains of thick gold lashes. Long waves of dark golden hair spill past his shoulders. Hardly meriting a glance for Cassius, his eyes search me, relish me, devour every last centimeter of me, noting my diminished size, my grizzled beard, my pale skin, and shortened breath. As if he knew what to look for, his eyes linger last in confirmation on my injured left arm. He sighs like a great dragon lying down to sleep, content in his machinations and ready to dream of evil things.
“Truly, I did not think you would come. But I held on to my meager faith like a Boetian ouragos praying to hear the alala rolling west from golden Attica…Athens! Athens has come. But you are not a city. No. You are an empire.”
I’m not sure what that even means.
“With great anticipation I watched you sleep these last days. I wished to visit. To converse peer to peer. I hear you were asking for me. Now you know my pain. But best is the gratification long delayed. The caviar savored, slow-eaten to melt on the tongue.” He steps forward, yearning to embrace me but not wishing to give insult. He whispers, “I am bored, Darrow. I am terminally bored. I yearn for the clash. I yearn for martial sensation. So gratitude, Reaper. Gratitude, foe, for this! The ultimate honor between peers—a conversation in the language we both have mastered. Violence. Surely there can be no greater distillation of all our mutual respect, animus, and quality.” His eyelids flare back. “Gratitude for answering my summons. Gratitude for granting me this final communion.” His eyes flick to my bald head where the first sprouts of new hair are emerging. “Depilated and dilapidated though you may be.”
“Well, slag me but you’ve really gone off the deep end, goodman,” Cassius says.
“Shut up,” I snap at him. He has no idea how to talk to Apollonius anymore. I do and I want information. While Apollonius assessed me, I returned the favor. I’ve noticed something strange. He has no injuries save for two. An almost invisible scar on the left side of his neck. Whatever caused it missed his jugular by a hair. He also has a bitemark on his right cheek. It is almost healed but shows signs of past infection.
“Hello, Apollonius. When I left you on the Ash Lord’s island, I knew you’d cause trouble.” I peer around, looking for more clues, and knowing flattery will land where threats will not. “Truly, you are trouble incarnate.”
He purrs at the compliment. “As you were on Mercury.” I cock my head. “Yes. I was there, Darrow.”
“And you didn’t visit me?”
“I am not so low as to poach another’s prey. In rapture, behind a ghost’s guise, I witnessed your rage against the Grimmus horde. As your army fell man by man in crossing the Ladon, I wept. For their purity. For their faith. Surely, since the age of Merrywater, no nobler soldiers have ever lived or died for their commander. Always on the back foot. Biting, gnawing for every inch of ground. Smashing the rising beast Ajax against the walls of Heliopolis. Truly, they were sons and daughters of Mars.” He touches his breast. “Respect.”
I nod, receiving the respect as Cassius sinks deeper into his nearly existential confusion at our interaction. “Then you know their fate,” I say.
Apollonius sighs, grandiloquent. “Impalement. Another grotesquerie of the Fear Knight designed only to shock the mob. An unworthy end for such soldiers.” He strokes his hair. “As your…clandestine arrival was unworthy of you. I could have impaled Sevro after I acquired him. Instead, I offered you a fair contest. So why must you impugn my valor? Coming like a thief in the night despite my earnest proposal? Did you think me a cretin who would offer a duel only to kill you on sight?”