11

When they see us hurtling toward them, everyone rushes to their horses. Serag needs help mounting. She’s injured! They gallop away. Pen’s horse and Tall Brown follow them.

The band is no match for the east wind. We overtake them and Eurus’s wind hems them in. Their struggles against his gale might look funny, except for their terrified faces.

I realize, as I should have before, that they think I died on the battlefield. They believe Cassandra’s prophecies now, and she predicted my death. I can’t guess what they imagine they’re seeing. Cybele never sends ghosts to the living.

“Cassandra saved me,” I shout. I gesture for Eurus to quiet his wind. He does and I announce that I’m alive.

As one, they gallop off. I ask Eurus and Cassandra to wait. “They’re brave. They’ll come back.”

We return the short distance to the camp, where Eurus busies himself starting a fire and blowing it into a blaze.

The stars are coming out when Lannip rides to us.

“Rin?”

“Cassandra saved me,” I repeat. “Cassandra and Eurus”—I gesture at him—“knocked me out of the way of the arrow that was going to kill me. A Trojan goddess has allowed us in the band to believe Cassandra’s prophecies. Only us.”

Lannip’s chest rises and falls as she pants. “Can I—May I touch you?”

I nod.

She dismounts, edges toward me, extends an uncertain finger, and touches my arm. “Oh!” She pokes it. “Ah! We couldn’t find your body.”

In the low light, I make out that she’s crying. We hug.

“I don’t want to be queen.” She hugs Cassandra too, and nods at Eurus. “I’ll tell everyone they can come.”

They’re afraid at first, but soon we’re all laughing and embracing. Cassandra and Eurus, both looking surprised, are pulled into the knot of us. I doubt the band understands that Eurus caused the windstorm that delivered us here.

They tell me that Serag fell off her horse when the enchantment was lifted and she could believe Cassandra’s prophecies.

“Zelke saved me,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

Everyone else had been able to keep fighting—with difficulty. Their heads hurt just as mine had.

We spread our blankets near the fire—for light, not heat—and sit. The band makes room for Cassandra and Eurus. Lannip tells me of the battle after I left it. Among them, they killed twenty Greek warriors with their battle-axes. They don’t know how many died from their arrows.

I feel sad now for the warrior I killed.

“More tomorrow,” Zelke says.

“No.” I rise on my knees. “Cassandra predicts you’ll die tomorrow, and we’ll all be killed eventually.” I pause. “I saw Cybele, but she vanished before she spoke to me. Cassandra and Eurus pushed me out of the way of the arrow.”

“There are too many Greeks,” Cassandra says.

“They fight differently from us,” Lannip admits. A note of accusation creeps into her voice. “Cassandra, your warriors could fight at our side more, but they don’t. They don’t protect us or let us protect them.”

“The Greeks and the Trojans talk to each other before they fight.” Khasa laughs. “Today two of them decided they were friends. They hugged and traded armor.” She laughs harder. “The Trojan gave away his gold armor in exchange for bronze. Meanwhile I killed two Greeks.”

Zelke says, “No wonder this war has lasted so long.”

Lannip nods. “If we could survive, we’d get our plunder years from now.”

“Troy will lose,” I say.

No one moves or seems to breathe.

After a moment, Lannip says, “Will Achilles live to see it?”

When Cassandra says that Paris will kill him, Serag snorts. “No wonder we didn’t believe you before.”

Even Cassandra laughs. “I suspect a god will help him.”

Lannip says, “Gods interfere?”

Serag jumps up. “Did a god make Pen die?”

“A god or goddess helped Achilles kill Hector,” Cassandra says. “Otherwise, Pen might be alive.”

A shocked silence follows this.

After a minute, I ask if anyone is hungry. They all are. We have dried meat, but I ask Eurus if he can blow four rabbits our way.

The air stills. I say, “Eurus is the god of the east wind. He and Cassandra saved me.” I add, “I liked that interference.”

A small whirlwind spins to us, with four fat rabbits hopping in its midst. In an instant, hands catch them and snap their unlucky necks. The whirlwind subsides, and the band waits uncertainly.

At the same moment, Cassandra says, “The east wind is a lesser god,” and Eurus says, “I’m a lesser god.” They smile at each other. This time, Eurus blushes.

Their pleasure makes me smile too. I wonder how long they’ve known each other—and how well—to happen to say the same thing at the same time.

They remind me of the shyness of some of my cousins and some boys, when the bands get together at Cybele’s rock.

Eurus adds, “The great gods are behaving badly. I’d never act as they do.”

Cassandra cries, “Crows!”

They’re real!

Several in the band reach for arrows. Crow is tasty!

I yell, “Don’t shoot them!”

In the dark, they’re denser and a bluer black than the night. One lands on my head, one on Serag’s, who yelps, and one on Eurus’s. The crows squawk with a Trojan accent:

“On a mountain, a shepherd sleeps

while a lion eats his sheep.

King Priam cannot save his flock.

Amazons, leave while you can!”

The crows lift and fly away. Though I was prepared, fear is drumming in my ears. Band members cling to one another.