Golden Age (The Shifting Tides, #1)(107)

Five hundred paces from the city walls, Dion heard a snap like the crack of a whip as the mare’s leg broke.

He catapulted forward, flying through the air as he tucked in his shoulder to break his fall. Rolling and tumbling, he felt the hard ground battering his body until he finally came to a halt.

The mare screamed.

Dion shakily climbed to his feet, ignoring the cries of distress coming from the horse behind him. He looked up at the palace, distant, yet so clear in his vision that he felt he could reach out and touch it.

His family was out on the Flower Terrace, gazing out at the city and the surrounding hills, where they could be easily seen by anyone below.

He saw his father, readily recognizable in his purple toga. The gold circlet of his kingship no longer crowned the white curls on his scalp, but his equally white beard was just the way Dion remembered it, although it was now flecked with ugly splotches of red.

Beside King Markos was his queen, Thea, Dion’s mother, small in size compared to the towering king. Her black hair looked neatly combed. Her white silk chiton was stained with crimson.

Next in the line was Helena, Nikolas’s wife. Her blonde hair framed a face stretched wide in an expression of utmost agony.

All of their mouths were open in endless screams. Sharp wooden stakes jutted from their jaws.

They had all been impaled.

The horse screamed again.

The animal’s cry of pain shook Dion out of his trance, making him realize this wasn’t a nightmare, it was actually happening.

He now took in what he’d been seeing as he made the frantic descent. Ilean soldiers with yellow cloaks and triangular shields were rapidly assembling in front of the conquered city. Officers bawled orders as rank after rank formed up. Spears held in right hands, shields on their left, they prepared to march. An officer wearing a steel helmet crowned with a vertical spike pointed at the distant pass and called out.

The wounded horse moaned in agony.

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.