Page 38 of Deathless
I parried, ducked under his follow-up, and drove my blade toward his throat. He caught it on his cross-guard and twisted, trying to lock my blade. I yanked free and opened distance between us.
"You made the smart call, right? That's what Zeus taught you. Save the mission, leave the liability." His voice went cold. "Except the liability was my sister. And she carried your daughter when you left her to die."
His blade came at my head. I ducked, and the steel whistled past my ear close enough to move the air. I came up swinging at his ribs. He brought his sword down to block, and the impact jarred my teeth. I stepped right. He followed. I reversed, caught him off balance, and opened a line across his thigh.
He came at me harder, blade work clean and textbook. High-low-high, forcing me to block in patterns. I broke the pattern, dropped under his guard, and drove the katana toward his gut. He twisted away, and my blade caught only air.
"You know what really kills me?" He feinted left, came right, and I barely got the block up in time. "Zeus kept her alive. Machines and tubes and prayers." He swung high, forcing me back. "Kept her breathing just long enough for that baby to grow." Another swing. "Just long enough to cut Eight out of her dying body."
I gritted my teeth. My next parry came late. His blade got through my guard and sliced across my forearm, shallow but hot. I gave up two steps I shouldn't have given. He pressed into the gap, and I had to throw myself sideways to avoid the follow-up, boots skidding on bloody cobblestones. For a full second I was off-balance, open, and he could have ended it.
He let the moment pass.
"He raised your daughter." He circled right, sword lazy, taking his time now that he'd drawn blood. "Turned her into a weapon." The grin sharpened. "All while you had no fucking idea she existed."
He attacked with a flurry that drove me back across the square. I stepped on something soft, a body, and stumbled. He took advantage and drove his blade toward my chest. I twisted, took the hit on my ribs instead of my heart, and the pain exploded white behind my eyes.
The blade had caught my jacket, but not the skin. The edge had come close enough to freeze my ribs through the fabric.
I grabbed his wrist with my free hand and drove my forehead into his nose.
Cartilage crunched. Blood exploded across his face. He staggered back, and I pressed, katana coming up in a slash that would have taken his head if he hadn't gotten his blade up in time. Steel screamed against steel.
"Suka," I said.
He laughed through the blood pouring down his face. "There's the Russian! You know what the best part is? After everything you did, killing my sister, abandoning your daughter, Zeus still loves you more than me. His biological son. Twenty-eight years I've spent trying to earn what he gave you for free."
We circled each other, both breathing hard, both bleeding.
"Walk away," I said. "This is your last chance."
He wiped blood off his face with the back of his hand. "You don't give last chances, brother. That's what makes you perfect. Zeus trained all that weakness out of you. Made you into something pure."
The katana dragged heavy in my grip. Fire ran through my ribs with every breath.
"I'm giving you one anyway."
"Because of Diego?" He grinned again, sharper this time. "You think loving him makes you human again? You think it fixes what you are?"
I adjusted my stance and waited for him to move.
"Last chance, Hephaestus. Come home. We'll forget this ever happened."
I spat blood at his feet. "Go fuck yourself."
He grinned wider. "That's what I thought."
He raised his sword for the killing blow.
A rifle cracked from somewhere behind me.
Achilles's shoulder exploded in a spray of red. The sword wavered but stayed up. He staggered, grabbed his shoulder, and looked past me at whoever had just shot him. "That was a mistake," he said.
He moved past me faster than a man with a destroyed shoulder should be able to move. Danior fired again, but Achilles closed inside his range and brought his sword up.
The blade went through Danior's chest and out his back in one clean thrust.
Danior's eyes went wide. The rifle clattered onto the stones. Achilles yanked the blade free, and Danior dropped, hit the ground hard, blood spreading fast across his shirt.
