Cyrene
Jurian and Hanno had made it halfway up the ragged hillside path when they heard the girl scream. Hanno dropped like a bolt, shaking all over and white with fear, but for all that, his eyes burned with a rage that Jurian had never seen…but somehow understood.
“Can’t you feel it?” Hanno gasped. “Oh gods. Oh gods. Everything wants to die.”
Jurian shuddered. He felt it through every inch of his body, dragging him down to the earth, the dead earth, the swallowing earth… Fear pulsed like shadow at the corners of his vision and his mind reeled with vertigo. He bit down hard on his lip to shake the feeling, but the taste of his own blood only made the terror surge through him like a torrent.
“Come on,” Jurian gritted, one hand tight on Menas’ lance, the other reaching slowly, awkwardly, to grip Hanno’s arm. “Come on, get up. Let’s go. Your mistress needs you.”
But Hanno’s body pressed like a deadweight against the rocks, and he couldn’t or wouldn’t raise his head to meet Jurian’s frantic gaze.
Jurian tried one last time to pull the slave to his feet. His own legs buckled as a fresh wave of fear crashed over him. He couldn’t even tell if Hanno was breathing any more. Blood seeped from beneath the arm he had pinned beneath him, dark like shadows.
Just give up, give up, turn away…none of this is your concern…Why should you suffer for their sins?
Jurian realized he had sunk to his knees and he lurched violently to his feet. He laid a hand on Hanno’s shoulder.
“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured. “I’ll save her.”
Oh, you will, will you?
Jurian flinched. That voice in his thoughts…he’d never heard anything like it. It crushed him with terror, snapping the frail bit of freedom he’d just won, sending him staggering back to his knees. His hand inched up the length of the spear until it found the blade and he pushed the fear back, inch by inch, until he felt the terror recede from his limbs.
As soon as he could move again, he unslung his bow and quiver, his pack and Menas’ sarcina, leaving them on the path beside Hanno. Then he turned, and, drawing in a deep breath, forced his legs to run the rest of the way up the hill, shouting the name of the slave’s mistress.
“Sabra!”
His steps faltered as he reached the top of the rise. The road was edged for some distance by a morbid display—children’s skulls crowned with flowers, more than he could count, like a gruesome memorial or macabre talisman against the evil that had killed them. He stared at the skulls, his stomach churning with the memory of his dream, then he shook his head and kept going. The dead were not his concern. He only hoped Hanno’s mistress didn’t number among them yet.
He stepped out onto the ledge and stopped short. In the middle of the ledge a girl lay dead, her face fixed in a look of terror as a low fog of some foul-smelling vapor curled around her like water. She couldn’t have been there long, and Jurian felt a sudden sick certainty that he was staring at Hanno’s mistress. But then a flash of brightness caught his eye and he glanced up, caught between relief and despair. There, dim in the growing dusk, he saw a young woman chained to a pillar on the far side of the ledge, dressed all in white, like a bride…just like that horrific dream. The cold wind clawed at her veil, blowing it across her face.
He thought he heard her sob a word, “No…”
And then the veil drifted back into its place and Jurian’s heart jerked strangely in his chest. He would know those luminous golden eyes anywhere.
“Oh God,” he whispered. “Eva?”
She bit her lip, face strained with grief and fear. He ran over to her, reaching out to lay a hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away from him.
“Don’t touch me, Jurian. Please don’t.”
He froze, hand outstretched. “I thought I would find Sabra up here.”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know that name?”
“A slave, Hanno. We came to save his mistress Sabra.”
“Oh, Hanno,” she whispered, closing her eyes. Then she opened them and gave a little sigh. “I am Sabra.”
“Priestess? Of…Vesta?”
She bowed her head. “No,” she said, and jerked her chin toward the mouth of the cave. “I serve the old god who lives in that hill.”
Jurian felt the blood drain from his face. “The dragon? You serve…Eva! You serve that monster?”
Her shoulders crumpled, shaking with violent sobs.
“And now you’re sacrificing yourself to it?”
He braced a hand on the pillar and tried to see behind it, but though he could see the chains, he couldn’t see any way of unfastening them.
“I do what I must to save my people.”
He paused, mentally rebuking himself as he suddenly realized why she had always looked familiar to him. He had seen her before, in the Roman Forum, dressed in exotic regalia. The thought made him marvel. She had been borne into the city like a queen, with a beauty and grace that could have launched her to the peak of Roman society. But instead she had run away…taken on the aspect of a slave, and returned to her city to die. To die willingly, because she believed she could save her people by pouring out her blood for them.
Jurian came back around the pillar to face her. “Listen,” he said, as gently as he could. “That thing in there, whatever it is…it’s not what you should be serving. It can’t save your people, or destroy them. If they are destroyed, it’ll be their own doing.”
He would have kept talking but the ground beneath them quaked suddenly, and Jurian snatched the pillar again to stay upright.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Sabra whispered. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
“Well, that’s what the prophecy promised, wasn’t it?” he said with a forced smile.
Her mouth dropped open. “I thought…I thought you were going to Britannia to face a dragon. This…this is what you came to Cyrene for?”
He nodded. From the look on her face he could tell she would have gladly slapped him if her hands had been free.
“You came to kill a god?”
“Not a god,” he said. “I came to kill a dragon.”
Before he could give himself a chance to doubt himself, he turned and strode toward the mouth of the cavern.
“Jurian, no!” Sabra screamed. He stopped at the threshold and glanced back. “I’ve seen the god. He is more terrible, more terrifying than even you can imagine. He’ll kill you! Please. Don’t make me the cause of your death too. Listen…I think…” Her voice died and her face became as pale as bone. “He’s evil, Jurian! He delights in death and laughs to see us suffer. I don’t want to serve him…I only want to make him leave my people alone forever. But that can only happen if I die.”
Jurian hesitated. Memories of Menas’ story of his past flashed through his mind, and suddenly he understood exactly what he had to do.
“If I meant to face him with my own strength, I’d say you were right. But I won’t.” He held her gaze steadily, wishing he could give her peace, wishing she could give him some of her impossible strength. “Listen, Sabra. I don’t fault you for what you were taught all your life to believe. I even admire what you want to do. But don’t you understand? Someone else has already shed His blood so you don’t have to.” He held up the spear in a salute. “By His signum I will triumph.”
He swallowed his fear and stepped into the cavern.