The fire furiously burn and the crackling spread across the terrace houses through the thatch roofs. All people in the city were screaming and running in panic.

Pryne and Arete left Petosiris. They ran through a neighbour terrace that had not been caught fire and exited through their front door. To their horror, the fire spread and burn the opposite row of terraces while the lignites in the warehouse kept bursting and spreading sparks of fire. They ran to their horses and released them, before the wall stumble onto them.

“Go back to Petosiris and guide the people to their safety!” Arete instructed.

“There they are! The blondes! The Teleioses!” The civilians shouted, pointing at the two ladies on their horses.

To Arete’s surprise, the civilians ran towards them, grabbing their legs, trying to pull them down.

“People! Listen! We are trying to help! But please, evacuate this place! Please!” Arete kept yelling.

“Revive our nation!” Those people shouted and kept reaching to the ladies. Not only men, young and old, there were women and children. They cried differently “Help us! Teleios!”

Arete was not sure of what had happened to them, and their cries horrified her as they reminded her of the minotaurs. “Please! Evacuate! Evacuate! Leave this place!”

Arete sensed a danger as the cracking and smaller explosions kept spreading the fire across the terrace.

“Gah! Just leave!” Arete had to make Aethon prance and kicking them to prevent them from pulling her down. While Peggy was panicked, kicking those people away while Pryne hugging tight to it. They galloped as fas as they can, as that was their only way to bring those people out of that area. As they ran, trying to capture the ladies, the terrace wall fallen.

Arete heard the crashing walls, but she was too afraid to look back. Memories and voices of the Syracusean soldiers crying when the minotaurs were burning alive by the forest fire had traumatised her. She unable to take another tragedy, but she bit her lips, pulling Aethon to make a turn, dashing back to the terrace area.

Matea and Agave! They are still in that area!

“Arete!” Pryne was surprised by her turn without a notice. But she saw the civilians who had escaped that crashing wall were following them behind and continued to ran towards them. Pryne had to keep running the opposite direction as a bait so that those people won’t follow Arete back to that ocean of fire.

* * *

“Stop it! Mate, they are just people!” Agave shouted, attempted to stop Matea from harming the civilians.

“Bunches of selfish pricks!” Matea shouted in anger, while she stabbed a man with a weapon who was on her way. She had been chasing after those who had swords on their hands down to the main plaza. People were all in fear and horror as the fire had spread all over the city including the temple. The dried old wooden frames of the building and the non-functioning aqueduct had worsen the situation.

Agave wielded her thyrsus towards her, trying to knock her down. Matea pulls out the spear from the man and blocked her thyrsus with the spear. When she was not aware, three men came to ambush them. They pulled her ponytail and was about to decapitate her with their kopis sword.

Infuriated, Matea turned to dodge their attack. Drowned by anger, she stabbed the men with her spear. Those men were simply civilians, untrained and unable to defend themselves with their short kopis against a sharp long spear of a hoplite.

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“Agave!” Arete’s voice pulled Matea out of her rage, only to realised that she had stabbed to Agave’s chest.

Arete took a kopis sword with its scabbard from a nearby corpse. She speed towards Matea, aiming at her, she pulls out the sword and slashed.

Matea dodges her attack while the sword cuts some of her hair. She then returned the attack with the spear.

Arete placed her sword back to the scabbard and locked the sword in it. Holding the scabbard with both of her hands, with the hilt chappe facing towards Matea’s spear. She used the kopis hilt to hit on the spear and hook the spear to the chappe. Sliding her sword chappe towards Matea and reached to closer distance avoiding the spear attack. As she knew the front part of the spear was normally oiled to prevent opponents from capturing it. Arete then unlocked the scabbard, pulls out the sword and slashed it towards her.

Matea was forced to bend down to dodge the sword. As she was dodging, Arete droped the scabbard, threw away the sword, and snatched the spear from Matea. She immediately reversed the spear head and stabbed it to Matea’s chest.

Matea fell to the ground as Arete kept holding the spear pushing her weight towards her.

“You’re the same! Same selfish pricks!” Matea used both of her hands to grab the spear and turned the handle. With a clicking sound, the spear popped and it divided into two parts.

Arete was not aware, as she lost balance when the spear no longer held her weight, she fell. The chains that connected the spear staffs got pulled and triggered the blade to pop out from the other end of the separated spear parts. Arete fell towards the popped-out blade on her chest and the blade stab through her.