“I can watch for traps as well as you can,” he said stubbornly.
There was no time to argue. Who knew where Achilles was headed, or how far ahead he was already. But she didn’t want to watch for traps. She wanted to run right through them. Only with Odysseus there, she couldn’t take the chance.
“Stay with me,” she barked, and took off again, slower this time. Achilles had built his traps well. It must’ve taken him countless days to dig the pits and sharpen the poles to line them, to figure out the ideal branches to lay his pulleys across. And he was clever. She jumped over a poorly hidden tripwire and nearly fell into a covered pit of skewers.
“Watch it,” she called to Odysseus. “He let that one show on purpose.” She nodded toward the concealed pit and held out her hand to pull him across. She evaded three more traps before a thin, half-buried tripwire caught on her foot. When the hundred-pound log fell toward them like a swooping hawk there was nothing she could do but take it, catch it, and keep it away from Odysseus. Her shoulder crunched and popped out of its joint. If it wasn’t broken, she’d put it back in later.
By the time she made it to the clearing, she was panting, bloodied, and pissed. But Achilles hadn’t lost them. The look on his face as she walked toward him was somewhere between surprised and disappointed.
“You’re not afraid,” she called.
“Not then and not now,” he called back. So he remembered the old days, and who he was. Achilles. Manslayer. That should have made it easier. But Odysseus’ voice rang through her ears. He’s my friend, Athena. He’s just a kid, caught up in your mess.
“How did you die?” she asked curiously. “How did you get your old memories?”
“An accident,” he said. “A fall. A long time ago. I was seven.”
Seven. He would’ve been a skinny towheaded kid with big green eyes. Dirt on his nose. Maybe a lizard in his pocket. A boy she would’ve liked. Damn it.
But the traps. He knew why she’d come. He was no deer in the headlights.
Odysseus grabbed her arm.
“I found him last year in Brisbane. I don’t know how. I just knew where he was. He took one look at me and laughed. Hugged me like we’d never been apart. When I told him about the war, he wanted to hide. So just … let him stay hidden.”
Her maimed shoulder and foot throbbed dully, like beacons on a far-off shore, and she’d be hurt worse before it was done. Let him stay hidden. But if she did, they would pay for it. Cassandra would pay for it. Hermes. Weapons like Achilles never stayed quiet. And the regret of that wasn’t something she could live with.
She pushed Odysseus away gently. Achilles wouldn’t die easy. Not the best of the Greeks. He held something in his hand. A hammer.
He ran at her and swung. The end of the hammer breezed inches shy of her cheek as she turned her head. He brought it back fast, and it caught her in the shoulder. The already dislocated bone cracked.
A mortal, cracking my bones. Am I getting weaker, or was he always so strong?
She wasn’t sure. She’d never fought him. But she’d watched him cut down men like wheat in a field. The hammer pulled back, and she could have grabbed it. Should have grabbed it and made him face her hand to hand. But he was still a mortal. Letting him keep his weapon felt fair.