The Valian riders hadn’t noticed them.

Keeping their horses hidden under the cover of trees and leaves, Cassandra’s group observed their enemies from afar. Valian riders occupied a vast meadow bordered by the woods, unaware of their foes sneaking up on them. It was difficult to see them clearly under the cover of the night, especially since they hadn’t set a campfire; word of Lycean ambushes must have spread for the Valians to be so careful.

Not that it helped Zama’s scouts to avoid detection. The enemy had set vigils to establish a defensive perimeter, but Cassandra’s amazon crewmates, well-versed in silent ambushes, had neutralized them without making a sound.

“A war party of twenty,” Cassandra said after counting their enemies. Most of them were light cavalry optimized for speed, alongside a few horse archers. A dangerous force, but Cassandra had brought twice their numbers and she had also brought Ultor as additional muscle. “Good job finding them, Chloris.”

“I love hunting,” her first mate said with a smile as she raised her bow. “Humans are more careless than animals. They tried to cover their tracks, but I could chase a rabbit across an entire island.”

“I wonder what they’re doing here though,” one of Cassandra’s soldiers said. “There are no villages to ransack in the area and they don’t look like foragers.”

“They must be scouts gathering information for a future attack,” Cassandra replied. One of the riders was examining a map as she spoke, clearly taking a lay of the land. “They can’t be allowed to report back to Zama.”

“It will be difficult to encircle them,” one of her soldiers pointed out. The woods only bordered one side of the meadows, and all the Valian riders were mounted. They would flee at the first warning sign as swiftly as the wind. “Our arrows carry far, but…”

“We strike without sound and we run after them,” Chloris suggested.

Ultor, who had so far remained silent, suddenly dismounted from his horse and threw his mighty sword among the bushes. To Cassandra’s surprise, he put some space between himself and his mount before doing some footwork. “Sir Ultor?” Cassandra asked. “What are you doin—”

A sudden burst of wind almost threw her off her horse as Ultor charged.

The [Demigod] ran forward so fast that his footsteps sent pebbles and dirt flying behind him, the giant uprooting two trees who had the bad luck of standing in his way. He wasn’t discreet like Chloris though; the Valians immediately spotted him and raised the alarm.

“After him!” Cassandra shouted when she recovered from the shock, her soldiers charging out of the bushes with their bows raised. However, by the time the Valians had raised their own weapons, Ultor had already caught up with them.

Cassandra quickly understood why the gladiator had dismounted: his feet ran faster than a horse’s hooves.

Ultor’s body blasted through the nearest rider, cleaving both the cavalier and his horse in half. He then grabbed another Valian scout by the leg and forcefully dragged him off his mount, before slamming the poor soldier against the ground. The victim’s skull shattered, his brain matter spilling all over the grass.

The scene reminded Cassandra of the hunt for the Nemean Lion in Histria, when the beast had become so fast as to catch up with horses before tearing them apart. But if anything, that mighty behemoth would have looked feeble and slow compared to Ultor. His fists hit through steel and flesh both, and he moved as swiftly on the ground as Rook did in the air.

The Valian riders attempted to run away, the archers among them bombarding Ultor with arrows. Their projectiles bounced off his skin and their mounts didn’t run fast enough to outpace him. The gladiator killed in one blow, and didn’t even stop after felling a foe before moving on to the next. Cassandra and her troops supported him with arrows and ghostfire, but they might just as well have stayed behind.

Within minutes, the Valian war party had been utterly slaughtered. Only one Valian rider remained alive, Ultor holding him by the throat while his horse fled the meadow in panic.

“I think this is the leader,” Ultor said as he glanced at Cassandra, his captive trying to stab the gladiator’s arm with a dagger. The blade broke against his skin as if it were made of steel. “He is the only [Elite] among them.”

Cassandra approached him on top of her horse, before glancing at the trail of devastation the [Demigod] had left behind him. Blood covered the grass, and his footsteps had left craters in their wake. An outsider might have mistaken the scene for an elephant’s rampage rather than a single man’s assault. “I didn’t know you could move that fast.”

"I said I could run faster than horses." Ultor shrugged, his captive’s feet dangling above the ground. “You heard, but now you understand. Acts speak louder than words.”

“In the arena perhaps, but in war, we fight as a unit. Do not do that again without warning me first.” Cassandra finally glanced at the captive soldier. “Who are you? What was your purpose?”

The Valian spat blood at her, but only managed to hit the grass at the hooves of Cassandra’s horse. His lips moved, but only silence came out of his mouth. A powerful magic extinguished his words in his throat.

“As I feared,” Cassandra said with a sigh. One of Zama’s Legendary Skills somehow prevented his soldiers from spilling any kind of information. They became [Mute] when attempting to speak, losing the ability to write and read as their mind turned on itself. Even mind-magic had failed to extract anything of value from their brains. “Chloris, bind and gag him. The rest of you, clear the corpses for weapons and valuables. If you find notes and maps, immediately give them to me.”

Ultor surrendered the captive to his allies, but did not join the effort to clear the area. Instead, he remained at Cassandra’s side while looking up at the night sky.

“The moon is dark tonight,” Ultor said. “The wolves are silent.”

With the moon obscured, the stars shone brightly in the sky. “Have you ever encountered the Beast Cult?” Cassandra asked as she examined a confiscated Valian map, using her fork’s fire to produce a measure of light. The indications were crude, but the meadow was clearly marked on the document.

“I was approached, like many wolfbloods,” the gladiator replied with surprising frankness. “But I was never interested in politics or assassinations. I have always favored the honesty of the battlefield.”

“Do you think that the cult could have infiltrated our army?” The thought obsessed Cassandra since she had received the latest news from Julia. To think Caenis was in Lycaon’s pocket all along, the priestess of Persephone thought. She had never imagined that the discreet dancer would betray them, but apparently she had been feeding the cult information before Julia even moved to Histria. “I’m starting to wonder.”

As he had promised, Dispater had established a long-term guerilla strategy to weaken Zama through disrupting supply lines and ambushing enemy troops… but a disturbingly high number of the army’s war parties vanished in the field without coming back. Their bones were often found in the morrow inside wolf dens.

Ultor considered his answer carefully. “I suppose they did,” he admitted. “They have sympathizers, even beyond wolfblood citizens.”

Cassandra frowned in surprise. “How so?”

“To be a werewolf in Lyce is to face death and exile, but their kin are not spared. They are at best looked at with suspicion or banished at worst; authorities bar them from honest work and the highest posts. This breeds resentment.” Ultor shrugged. “And not all werewolves are caught. I have heard that those who sell themselves to Lycaon can control their transformation and hide their nature, so long as they fulfill their master’s purpose.”

So these spies could be anyone, Cassandra thought, but to know where parties are dispatched… This implies some officers or their staff are compromised.

She missed Julia’s presence. Histria’s Queen was a tremendously effective [Spymaster], adept at finding moles in her midst… and even then she had missed the one planted in her own bed. Dispater’s intelligence corps was competent, but not exceptional.

“Dig holes in this meadow,” Cassandra ordered after folding the map and tossing it to an officer. “The area is marked, so they were probably looking for something.”

“I see a big bird!” Chloris shouted while pointing her finger up at the skies. “Here!”

Cassandra immediately looked up. Zama had few to no griffin riders as far as she knew, but she wouldn’t put it beyond him to send flying troops to support those on the ground. Her eyes scanned the dark skies, searching for any sign of—

There.

A shadowy shape as large as Rook flew above the meadow, far beyond the range of arrows. It obscured the stars as it passed, but was otherwise nearly invisible. And after making a half-circle above the area, the shape immediately turned away back to the east.

“It’s trying to get away!” Chloris warned. A year ago, Nessus would have sniped this flying object without any help. The memory of her fallen friend left a sour taste in Cassandra’s mouth, but she focused all the same.

“Someone fetch me a spear,” Ultor all but ordered. “I will shoot it down.”

“It won’t be necessary.” Cassandra raised her fork, fire building up at the tips. “Chloris, I will need your keen eyesight.”

The amazon was an [Elite] huntress, with Skills adapted for night attacks and hunts.

“Lower, a little right…” Chloris said as she helped Cassandra adjust her aim with her superior senses. “Now!”

Cassandra’s [Fork of Nemesis] unleashed a mighty fireball at the skies, its ghostly flames an emerald green. The blast soared like a bird, moving faster and farther than any arrow, before hitting the flying object in a mighty blast. Flames swallowed the flying form as it lost altitude without a sound.

“After it!” Cassandra ordered as she rode, Ultor immediately outpacing her on foot. This doesn’t look like a griffin rider, she thought. The thing didn’t make a sound as it fell, and its shape didn’t match that of any bird she had seen yet. Was the Valian war party waiting for its arrival? Was the map’s mark not meant to indicate the location of a hidden stash of treasure, but a rendezvous point?

Whatever the case, the thing crashed a few hundred meters away from the meadow and at the edge of the woods. Its form had raised a bed of dirt on impact and set patches of grass ablaze.

When Cassandra and her soldiers encircled the flying creature, Ultor was already unearthing it with his bare hands.

“What is this…” Chloris whispered as she examined it. “It’s no beast I’ve seen…”

“It’s not a beast at all,” Cassandra said as she examined the device. As large as a griffin, it looked superficially like a bird in that it had two long black wings… and little else. It had no head nor mouth, only a single crystal for an eye. Its body was made of polished metal painted black that Cassandra’s flames had partly melted off in some parts. Sealed bags of clothes protected with soft cushions covered its belly. “It looks like an automaton.”

“Could these bags be bombs?” one of her soldiers asked, slightly afraid.

“Then it would have exploded when I targeted it,” Cassandra pointed out, noticing that the impact had torn open some of the deliveries. One of the bags spilled grain, another held pieces of cheese bound with ropes. “Extinguish the flames and tear the containers open. We’re dragging this thing back to Apollonia.”

Chloris and her soldiers immediately went to examine the bags’ contents, while Ultor elected to carry the device on his back like a mule. A cursory glance at the metal bird’s packages confirmed Cassandra’s initial suspicions.

“Food and freshwater.” Cassandra’s jaw clenched. “Supplies.”

Dispater joined his hands, his face thoughtful. “They receive supply shipments from the skies?”

Cassandra nodded as she faced her father-in-law and the assembled officers of the army. As usual, Dispater held his war council inside his Apollonian villa, servants distributing wine and food to the people present. Not all of them had chairs, and Cassandra barely knew the names of half of them. So many strangers, she thought as she observed the crowd of centurions and mercenary commanders, and any of them could be a wolf among sheep.

Her husband’s presence reassured her, as did Ultor’s, but otherwise she knew little about the other dozen or so commanders of Dispater’s army. Most came from Lyce or had been recruited from Apollonia and its sister cities, and none had served under her.

“The metal bird is the only one that we managed to catch, but our scouts noticed odd movements among Zama’s cavalry,” Cassandra explained. “I believed they were sent to retrieve the deliveries as the automatons dropped them.”

“I’ve never heard of automatons capable of flight,” a mercenary commander said with skepticism, arms crossed. “Could Talos truly invent something like this?”

“Daedalus could craft wings that allowed his son and himself to fly as high as the sun,” Tiberius pointed out. “And he only was a [Hero]. Talos is a [Demigod] who can create wonders.”

“Some of our ships were lost at sea as well,” another officer added, a brown-skinned man with graying hair almost as old as Dispater himself. Severus, Cassandra thought as she remembered the name. He managed logistics and sea supplies. “Survivors claimed that fireballs fell from the skies without warning, though they couldn’t identify the source of the attacks.”

“From what we gathered from the husk that my wife brought back, these birds were designed for night attacks,” Tiberius pointed out. “Their black metal feathers hide them in the new moon, and they make no sound as they fly.”

Dispater gritted his teeth in frustration. Cassandra could almost read the thoughts on his face.

Their side no longer had exclusive mastery of the skies.

“Vulpes, report,” Dispater said as he glanced at the army’s spymaster, a gaunt, shrewish figure with pale gray eyes. “What is the news on the other side?”

“I have received troubling messages from our spies among the enemy cities,” the man said, his voice as soft as a pillow. “Pergamonian ships delivered automaton reinforcements to Zama’s army.”

“How many automatons?” Tiberius asked.

“Ten thousand at the lowest estimation,” the spymaster replied, causing whispers to spread among the assembly. “I have heard talks about walking siege engines, but nothing confirmed yet. However…”

Dispater frowned. “However?”

“I heard that Zama intended to march directly on Apollonia,” the spymaster said. “I dismissed these rumors as improbable considering his poor supply situation, but…”

“Now that we know he can receive supplies inland even after we took everything else, it’s more probable,” Tiberius said. The spymaster simply offered a sharp nod.

Ultor, who had remained silent so far, finally decided to speak. “Machines do not eat or drink,” he reminded the assembly. “They can march for days and nights without resting, and though they are slaves, they do not feel fear. They fight to their utter destruction unless ordered to retreat. Hunger will not defeat what does not live.”

“We know that,” Severus replied with a sneer. “But what are they going to do, besiege Apollonia? We have twice their numbers.”

“Demigods are worth armies and cities can fall,” Vulpes replied, as he refused a servant’s cup of wine. Cassandra noticed that he wisely refused to touch the food or drink, as did the sensible souls in the assembly. Mithridates’ reputation for poisoning his foes had by now become legendary. Even Dispater didn’t dare to touch anything until a food taster had tried it first. “Kairos and Sertorius proved it with Orthia.”

Cassandra didn’t miss the scowl on Dispater’s face when Sertorius was mentioned.

“A siege would be difficult,” another officer added, “Even if we have numbers on our side, if they can bombard us with fire from above and use automatons to improve their supply situation—”

“Legate Dispater, if I may,” one of the youngest officers spoke up, a lad barely older than Kairos himself. “I’m afraid that delaying a battle further will make our allied troops mistrust you even further.”

Oh no… Cassandra thought when Dispater squinted. “What do you mean, even further?” he asked.

Realizing he might have made a mistake, the young officer looked at Tiberius for support. This only incensed Dispater further. “Speak, young Cato,” he ordered icily.

“T-the Apollonian and Thessalan recruits say you are afraid of Zama and let him pillage the countryside,” the officer confessed, gulping. “They…”

“Does it matter what they think, Imperator?” Tiberius interrupted. “They need us for protection.”

“It matters to me,” Dispater replied coldly. “Wait for your turn before speaking, Tiberius.”

Tiberius closed his mouth, reeling from the backhand. Dispater focused back on the youngling Cato. “They what?”

The officer looked down. “They call you the Delayer.”

Dispater’s gaze grew colder, but he kept his calm. “They can call me whatever they want, so long as they obey. You will remind unruly troops that I’m not afraid of chastising them with corporal punishment if they continue spreading slander.”

But the damage was already done. Cassandra could see the cracks in the old man’s mental fortress, especially after the mention of Sertorius. The news of Orthia’s fall, which should have brought joy to their army, had only embittered Dispater. His rival had won a mighty victory, while his troops’ only success had been to keep Zama pinned down in the north.

“I say we let them come to us,” Cassandra declared, trying to steer things away from the disaster she saw on the horizon. “Apollonia’s walls are strong and even with automatons, Zama’s living troops have stretched supply lines. At worst, we can give battle to them and retreat into the city.”

“I concur,” Tiberius added swiftly. “The reserve troops from Histria will cross the ocean anytime soon. With them, we can trap Zama in a pincer attack.”

“But the reserve troops are far away,” Severus pointed out. “While Zama is here. Besides, if they continue attacking our shipments from above, we’ll be the ones with supply problems. And the terrain outside Apollonia is a plain which favors the Valian cavalry.”

“I would suggest caution,” Vulpes declared. “We do not know the capabilities of Zama’s automaton reinforcements yet. I need more time—”

“You had nothing but time already!” a younger officer complained. “What are we going to do, outwait the enemy? What we know is that we have twice their numbers, for now. How long will it take until more machines narrow that gap? I say we strike now.”

“You want to give battle to Zama?” Cassandra frowned. “He is not called the Undefeated General for losing pitched battles.”

“So we are never going to give him one and wait for him to die of old age?” Severus asked with a sneer before glancing at Ultor. “Besides, we have a [Demigod] of our own. Did he underperform, Lady Cassandra?”

“I am but one man,” Ultor pointed out with surprising wisdom. “I have not known defeat, but I cannot guarantee an army’s victory.”

“King Kairos single-handedly crushed the Orthian army and Mithridates almost did the same to our allied fleet,” Cato argued, his eyes ablaze with thoughts of glory. “If we can clear a path to Zama and kill him, his army will collapse!”

“If,” Vulpes replied. “Zama is a [Demigod] and he has managed to keep most of his capabilities hidden. All we know is that he can see the future to a degree, but he could have a powerful Legendary Skill in reserve.”

“Then we will counter with Ultor,” Severus argued as he glanced at the gladiator. “Certainly you can crush this army and turn the tables around on our behalf?”

Ultor shrugged. “I shall say it again. I can defeat anyone in battle, but I have never fought in an army.”

Taking this as encouragement instead of a wise warning, Severus glanced at Dispater, who had remained silent as his council debated. “Imperator, what do we do?”

Dispater waited a moment before answering, letting silence take over the room. His officers said no word, and even the servants hurried off the room. The elderly [Hero] rose from his chair, his words as final as an execution sentence.

“Out, all of you,” he said. “Tiberius, Cassandra, Ultor, you stay.”

The officers and servants left without asking questions, leaving Dispater’s inner circle alone.

“Father, you can’t consider marching inland,” Tiberius pleaded.

“I fear this is a trap,” Cassandra pointed out. “We don’t know how long these metal birds have been in operation. For all we know, he has been feigning weakness to lure us into a pitched battle where he will keep the initiative.”

Dispater didn’t appear convinced. “That seems a bit far-fetched.”

“With a [Demigod] of Strategy, we can’t exclude any possibility,” Cassandra argued. “Especially since we have little idea of what his Skills are capable of. His troops won’t speak and precious morsels of information reach us.”

Dispater sighed as he turned his back on Cassandra, hands crossed behind his back as he looked at the night sky through the room’s window. “I know this is a trap all too well, Cassandra,” he said. “Zama has trapped us between Scylla and Charybdis. If we keep the current strategy, then our allies and troops will lose their confidence in us; and if we do go out, it means giving him the battle he craves.”

“Do opinions matter all that much?” Tiberius asked, trying to get his father to reconsider. “Unpopularity is a price worth paying for guaranteed success.”

“Not if it will make it all the easier for Sertorius to sideline us. Who do you think Lyce will follow? The Delayer or the Conqueror of Orthia? He will set your sister aside, force us to the sidelines, and rule unopposed with popular support. Our family shall fade into obscurity and irrelevance.”

“Lord Dispater, at least let us wait for the reinforcements,” Cassandra supported her husband. “They will be here anytime soon.”

Dispater snorted. “By the time the reserve troops arrive, if they do, Zama will be at our throat with an air force capable of bombarding cities the same way Kairos bombed Boeotia to dust. Besides, our number of allies are finite, while Talos’ Cradle can produce automaton troops day and night. I will not wait for death here.”

“So we will court it in the field?” Cassandra asked, Ultor crossing his arms at her words.

“I have spent a fortune equipping this army, supplying it, perfecting it. It is time to cash in.” Dispater tensed up. “And I… I need to become a [Demigod]. For my sons’ sake.”

“Father, they are dead,” Tiberius pointed out softly.

“The dead do not suffer,” Cassandra argued. “You have seen it at our wedding.”

Dispater turned his head and glared at her. “How can you say that after your previous lover came to you,” he rasped, “lamenting about his regrets? He faded away into the sun saying that he would rather have stood in my son’s place at your side.”

Cassandra winced as if she had been slapped, while Tiberius scowled. Panos’ ghost had come to her wedding to offer the couple his sincerest wishes, but he made no secret of his post-mortem regrets.

“The dead do not suffer, but they know no joy either,” Dispater said. “They languish in the dark until they forget their old existence and fade away. And my sons barely had the time to live at all. They had no children, no achievement, nothing. Their death was an injustice!”

“The world is unjust, father,” Tiberius argued. “You can’t bribe death.”

“Once I slay Zama and become a [Demigod], I will.”

And as Dispater said these words, Cassandra couldn’t help but feel a terrible sense of déjà-vu. The same greed and foolhardy hope that had pushed Kairos to chase after the phoenix so many months ago had infected someone else. Her king had learned the wisdom of overgrasping after watching her and so many others perish after he pushed his luck one time too many, but Dispater hadn’t yet suffered the same wake-up call.

Just as Kairos led his fleet to a bloody battle against an Orthian fleet, the old [Hero] was about to do the same.

“Lord Dispater—” she began, but her father-in-law interrupted her.

“I have spoken. We shall march inland against Zama and crush him. I have studied the maps and noticed a location where we can negate Zama’s cavalry advantage and prevent him from reaching Apollonia.” Dispater turned to Ultor. “You will cleave a path of destruction to the general, so that I may claim his life and power.”

“As you wish, Lord Dispater,” Ultor replied softly.

“Warn the men and prepare to leave at dawn,” Dispater ordered his son and daughter-in-law with a tone that broke no disobedience. “We must move in haste before Zama outpaces us.”

Cassandra clenched her fists. She couldn’t disagree more with the decision but she had seen where mutinies led in Achlys. She exchanged a glance with Tiberius, her husband’s thoughts written all over his face.

The wolves didn’t howl that night, but they had smelled the blood in the air.