Dion saw his bow and quiver on the ground nearby. He picked them up and walked back to the horse as he drew an arrow to his ear. A moment later the mare’s cries were silenced.
Only then did he turn to look once more at Xanthos. Smoke rose from several quarters of the city, but the attack had come swiftly; Dion’s place of birth had been seized with barely a struggle.
Just below, outside the walls, a trumpet blared. The soldiers in yellow began to march.
Shaking himself, he realized they would attempt to take the Gates of Annika. With the thudding rhythm of the marching soldiers forming a counterpoint to the pounding of his broken heart, Dion left behind the dead mare and climbed the hillside, finding the road and focusing on his footsteps.
He walked in a daze. If it weren’t for the soldiers on his heels he would have collapsed, but their relentless march spurred him on. Finally, he picked up his pace, beginning a shuffling run. Dion suddenly realized that he was sobbing as he ran, hot tears burning in his eyes and spilling down his cheeks, carving a path through the grime on his skin.
Hearing a whinny, he looked up and saw two soldiers on horseback carefully making their way down the hillside from above. He recognized the light armor and red cloak of a Xanthian mounted scout, but the two riders rode past him without a glance and drew up further below, watching the approach of the Ilean army. A moment later they were heading back toward the Gates of Annika.
Dion knew his brother and the army of Xanthos wouldn’t be far behind. He realized with a sense of desolate abandonment that Nikolas was now the only family he had left. He’d come from Lamara as quickly as he could.
But he was too late.
Nightfall was approaching when Dion once more reached the pass, weariness in every limb, but knowing that he needed to give his brother one vital piece of information.
He was relieved to see that Nikolas had his men in good order. Red-cloaked hoplites in disciplined formations blocked every approach to the pass. The terrain was unsuitable for horses and cavalry were generally absent, but hundreds of archers stood gathered behind the heavily-armored hoplites, side by side with columns of javelin and sling throwers and the common infantry.
As Dion approached they soundlessly parted, turning dark eyes and fierce scowls on him. These men knew that their city had fallen. They could only hope that their wives and children had survived the attack, that with their enemy moving so swiftly, there had been little time for razing, rape, murder, and pillage.
Dion was in foreign clothes, which explained their glares. But he also knew many of his brother’s comrades by name and was pleased to see their faces. Passing an officer he recognized, he nodded a greeting.
The soldier hawked and spat on the ground at his feet.
Too stunned to react, Dion decided to quickly leave the area; perhaps the soldier hadn’t seen his face. But he now saw more grimaces and snarls on others that he knew were close to his brother.
Then Dion found Nikolas.
Half a foot taller than Dion, burly and as strong as an ox, Nikolas filled every inch of his leather armor with brawn and muscle. The bushy black eyebrows under his curly black hair were arched over his dark eyes as he issued barking orders to an officer twice his age. His red cloak was trimmed with gold and he wore a steel helmet with a plume of crimson horsehair, the vertical cross guard plunging from the rim to cover his nose.
Dion felt his ragged nerves calm as soon as he saw his older brother. Nikolas had almost been a father to him. Among all the horror, he would know what to do.
Men clustered around their commander, waiting their turn to speak and to get their orders. First one face, and then another turned to Dion, eyes widening when they saw him. Suddenly they all went silent. With his back to Dion, it was Nikolas who was the last to turn around.
‘Dion,’ he whispered.
Nikolas’s eyes were as red as the embers of a fire, and burning with the same intensity. Although they were dry, he’d obviously been weeping. Dion’s heart reached out to him. Dion had lost his parents. Nikolas had not only been closer to their father than Dion ever was, he had lost his wife, and perhaps also little Lukas, his son.
As Dion approached, he felt tears gather at the corners of his eyes. In his Ilean clothing, with the composite bow his brother had given him in his hand, dirty and bloody, he waited nonetheless for his brother’s embrace.
But when Nikolas spoke, it was the last word Dion ever expected him to utter.
‘Sword,’ Nikolas said. He opened his palm and looked at one of the soldiers nearby expectantly.
The whisper of drawn steel filled the air. The soldier proffered the sword, and Nikolas gripped the hilt tightly in his palm.
He suddenly raised the weapon to strike.
Eyes wide, shocked into frozen silence, Dion didn’t move to stop him.
Nikolas gritted his teeth, grunting with effort as his arm twitched, high in the air. His muscles were bunched, tensed to breaking point.