Warrior Rising (Goddess Summoning #6)(28)

Achilles turned slowly so that he was, once more, facing Agamemnon. “You are not my king. I have never sworn loyalty to you. I am the son of a king and I lead my own men. I am only here because of a youthful mistake.”

“Do you really believe you can run from your fate?” Agamemnon sneered.

“I have no intention of running, but I can tell you that I will fight again only when there is something worth dying for,” Achilles answered and then strode back to Kat.

“Stop him!” Agamemnon shrieked.

Achilles reacted instantly. He pushed Kat toward the tent flap, backing protectively in front of her while he unsheathed his sword and held it ready before him. Kat saw the warriors hesitate. That they didn’t want to fight Achilles was abundantly clear.

Suddenly there was a wild flapping of wings and a huge owl, white as untouched snow, burst into the tent. The men gasped as it landed in front of Achilles and stared at them, as if daring anyone to move.

Odysseus was the first person to break the silence. He took two strides forward and kneeled before the owl. “As you wish, my Goddess,” he said. Then he stood and confronted the room. “Athena’s will is clear. Achilles and the princess are not to be harmed. Should any of you wish to go against the will of my Goddess, you shall also have to go against me.”

That was the last Kat heard, because Achilles had backed their way out of the tent. Grasping her arm firmly, he steered her through the Greek camp, heading across the beach to Myrmidon territory.

She didn’t see the warrior, Talthybios, whisper into Agamemnon’s ear a story about a temple he had sacked earlier that day, and a princess who should have been very, very dead.

* * *

CHAPTER NINE

Kat didn’t take Achilles’ arm on the return trip—he took hers, practically keeping her feet from touching the sand as he propelled her through the Greek camp and then across the stretch of beach and dunes that separated them from his Myrmidons. Even had she not needed all of her breath to stay upright, Kat wouldn’t have bar-raged him with the zillions of questions she had. In just a few minutes, Achilles had turned from a scarred, almost shy man to an imposing warrior king, and Kat needed a little time to process the change in him.

For the first time she began to wonder about this berserker rage that overtook him. Kat thought he was still himself. He wasn’t foaming at the mouth or violently out of control as he would be with what the historians called a berserker rage. She glanced sideways at his stony face. His entire body seemed to be alert. No damn way could anything or anyone sneak up on him. His sword was unsheathed and it glittered dangerously in the moonlight reflected off the sea. But Achilles’ sword wasn’t the most deadly thing about him. It was Achilles himself that was a weapon—and the scars on his body now truly made sense. He’d used himself as a tool—as a machine. A killing machine.

Finally they reached the Myrmidon camp and Achilles slowed, and then released her arm.

“Automedon!” he shouted. “To me!”

A short, muscular man whose leather chest plate had the image of a chariot carved into it ran up to Achilles.

“Agamemnon has deluded himself into believing he can command me. He may try to press the point. Double the watch.”

“Yes, my lord!” Automedon saluted and jogged off.

Achilles continued walking through his camp and with each step he took Kat could see the tension release from him. By the time they reached his tent, the stony look that had overtaken his face had relaxed and he had sheathed his sword.

“Are you still hungry?” he asked, speaking to her for the first time since they’d left Agamemnon’s tent.

"I am.”

“The dinner meal is served there.” Achilles pointed to a campfire situated between his tent and the rest of the camp. “Come, the food is simpler here than in Agamemnon’s tent, but much less bitter.”

They walked over to the campfire where delicious scents wafted from a huge iron caldron that was simmering over it. About a dozen men were seated on large rocks and driftwood that had been pulled in a circle around the fire. They were being served by a couple women who were pretty enough, but wearing plain linen robes. Jacky was, unfortunately, nowhere to be seen.

The men greeted Achilles familiarly, speaking to him with obvious respect, though there was no bowing or scraping. Immediately a woman handed him a bowl filled with aromatic stew and a hunk of fresh bread. Kat noticed she avoided looking directly at Achilles. He motioned to Kat, and the same woman hurriedly filled another bowl and brought it and bread to her. As her eyes met Kat’s there was an obvious shock of recognition. Almost imperceptibly she bowed her head and murmured, “Princess.”

Kat was eating the excellent fish stew and thinking that it would probably be best if she avoided the other women as much as possible for the short while she’d be here. It only made sense that many of the war prizes were Trojan and they would know her, or at the very least recognize her as their princess. Or, more accurately, recognize the young body she now temporarily inhabited as their princess.

“How goes it with Agamemnon?” an older warrior asked Achilles.

“He’s much the same—arrogant and rude and under the mistaken impression that he can rule me.”

“You set him aright, didn’t you my lord?”

Achilles’ lip twitched in what Kat was beginning to recognize as his version of a smile. “I did, which is why the guard will be doubled tonight, and every night hereafter.”