City of gods II: Horsemen by Jonathan Maas

Author:Jonathan Maas [Maas, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cynical Optimist Press
Published: 2017-05-17T22:00:00+00:00

The Agoge Outpost

Gunnar was creeping through the alleys of the Academy’s artificial city, looking for Hippolyta’s belt. Heracles had apparently hidden it here, or so Gunnar had heard. Gunnar had also heard the long tale of this belt, and how it had exchanged hands so many times through theft. Heracles had first stolen it from Hippolyta herself in the time of legend, and then Alkippe had stolen it back during the first year at the Academy. The bearded god had supposedly reclaimed it while Alkippe convalesced from her match in the arena, and had hidden it in the artificial city afterwards for good measure.

And now Gunnar wanted to steal it back once more, and to place it upon Alkippe’s infirmary bed. Saoirse had told him that this would be a good gesture to solidify their camaraderie, if a somewhat underhanded one. By stealing it back from Heracles, you’re not only expressing goodwill, but you’re becoming her accomplice, Saoirse had said. Alkippe will see this as a cognitive dissonance: she won’t be able to see you both as her accessory and an enemy. If you deliver the belt, she’ll have no recourse but to choose the former, and you will be her ally.

Gunnar understood the importance of the alliance between him and Alkippe. It meant that the Spartans might one day join the Amazons, or at least symbolize that such a thing is possible. But he wasn’t thinking in such grandiose terms as these right now. Gunnar wanted Alkippe on his side because of Saoirse.

Saoirse had three protectors in her upcoming mission to the Voodoo Quarter: Kross, Bes and Alkippe. She would need all three, but Kross had his limits, and Bes was a full-on god, and thus unpredictable. If Saoirse’s life were threatened, Bes might be elsewhere, running across the ceiling in the hopes of securing the fate of a nation. Bes’s heart surely held compassion, more than a god’s heart should, but Saoirse’s life was not going to be Bes’s only concern.

Alkippe was to be her bodyguard, and Gunnar knew the Amazon well enough to see that if Saoirse encountered danger, Alkippe would be her first and last line of defense. Saoirse was not without her powers, but Gunnar knew that eloquence only went so far in the harsh corners of this world. Some delinquent might creep up behind Saoirse and run her through with a blade before she even got a chance to convince him otherwise.

But delinquents tend to stay away when an Amazon like Alkippe is around, and if they don’t, she’ll make them wish they had.

Even though he would be half a world away, perhaps without any hope of contacting Alkippe, he couldn’t have any sort of antagonism between him and Saoirse’s protector. He needed to be on the same side as the Amazon, so he looked for her thrice-stolen belt, in the hopes of stealing it a fourth time.

/***/

Gunnar was no detective, but he’d heard that Heracles had hung the belt in one of the windows for all to see.

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