Chapter 6

Nearly two weeks passed since the start of Aniketos’ campaign, rebellion. Screams were heard throughout the southern Greek peninsula. Rumors and panic of the Atlanteans rising up spread everywhere. Any arrival of strangers threw villages and towns into a frenzy. No longer was peace an option for his freedom.

Blood and war stirred everywhere.

Gunai remained behind as always watching and monitoring everything as it played. The raids became routine for her and she no longer protested Aniketos. She kept her worry, the same that Phyllida expressed many times.

There had been no attacks by the Greeks. No retribution came down upon them for freeing the slaves or killing Greeks. People died and nothing changed. It felt like a dream with everything just playing out too perfectly. Something had to give and she watched to see when it happened. There wasn’t a wish or hope for it, but an acceptance of that eventuality.

Fear did accompany that, but more towards how much more death she would have to witness. Death lingered over her it felt like. Aniketos complained about a curse, but she started to believe that might be the one pinned to her.

She stared as the town disappeared. This wasn’t the first town they struck, but it put her on edge. Villages remained isolated and presented less risk. Aniketos didn’t care about the target, nothing stopped him. It was just a systematic progression through the entire country. ‘Is this going to be the one?’

“He needs to stop…”

“But he can’t…it drives him. I’m pretty sure he’d die if he stopped now.”

“Why are you still just letting him do whatever?”

“What could I do?”

“Make him listen, you’re important to him. To us.”

Gunai shook her head and leaned against her knees. In the distance panicked figures ran around. A few collapsed unmoving followed by screams. “I’m just a nameless woman with no past. Someone of no importance…”

“That’s not true! Those of us that refuse to fight can do so because of you. We aren’t dragged into his madness. We’re waiting for you to decide. What do you want, Gunai?”

Her mind returned to when Aniketos asked her a similar question. She could only give him a strange answer at the time. Yet now the question kept being asked to her. A question that she wasn’t used to being given. Her life didn't grant her a question. It froze her up each time.

‘What do I want? I thought I wanted to escape, but I'm still following Aniketos everywhere. Why am I doing that when I don’t want to be here?’ She looked over at the girl still filled with confusion. ‘I thought I wanted to leave like she does. Why can’t I go with her? Where would we go?’

It always ended with the same unknown question. Gunai leaned back against the wall. ‘It was easier when I just had to follow orders…what do I do like this? Why can Aniketos act so confidently while I can’t? What am I missing?’

A different sound than she had heard before bellowed deeply through the land. It snapped her out of her thoughts. “What’s going on?” It was quickly pointed out to her directly her sight to the horizon. A mass of forms beyond her vision.

It took her a moment to recognize a banner being carried. She didn’t know what it meant or even found it familiar. However, while she focused more came into view. The mass took on more distinct shapes. And the noise became a voice one shouted in unison.

They were people, soldiers as her mind put it together. Dressed down in similar armor that she saw Aniketos wearing. It looked like those that the Greek wore. They bore spears and shields out marching towards the town or rather where the town should have been.

She jumped up to her feet, understanding finally what happened. The Greek army marched to battle. The voices of a warcry declared to prepare for battle. ‘Do they not know who they’re fighting? They’re just marching to a death!’

Opposite the Greeks, in an irregular pattern, were the Atlanteans. They presented themselves like an army giving the Greeks a target. The poor formation and apparent lack of tactics let the Greeks march in with arrogance. It would be an easy victory against a pillaging band of outsiders.

Their commander had no clue what he sent his men against. It worked in Aniketos favor. His powers didn’t need tactics. Against him, they were pointless and the normal laws ceased to exist. A nightmare world surrounded him just hidden behind the veil that he selectively revealed if needed.

This time he seemed uninterested such methods. The first line of troops nearly crashed upon Aniketos rebel army, but suddenly exploded into a spray of blood. The first three rows of his followers painted in the guts of their enemies. Even with the horrific deaths, the next row of Greeks charged, unable to stop the momentum.

In their confusion, they lined up for the slaughter just the same as those before. Within a minute, Aniketos reduced the entire army to a sea of blood that stretched slowly over the entire charred Field without end. The sun eerily reflected in the crimson sea looking trapped by the calamity.

Upon the horizon, the commander already began to flee, but a fountain of blood arched through the sky signaling the end of the battle. Gunai couldn’t even be sure to call such a slaughter a battle. It felt like she witnessed a murder or execution as Aniketo might have seen it. It felt like this was his intent for revenge. The inhuman acts that they delivered to their people who returned tenfold.

Such would be his curse upon the Greeks.

“They’re all dead…” The shock of the devastation still bounced through Gunai's body. She couldn't move during the all too brief slaughter. And now over, she didn’t know what to think. Her mind fell surprisingly blank with the results.

What sort of path did he seek?

The Atlanteans began to gather up their rescued brethren and march back with a mission complete once more. An unseen energy looked to fill them after this battle. Cheering and hollering rose up over the restored town. It was the sound of victory, but also something more.

Gunai came back to her senses with the nudging of Phyllida. She saw the men jumping with excitement as they walked through the street. Out in front, Aniketos strode self-assured in his course. ‘I miss him…the man you used to be…’ The moment she thought, she shook it out of her mind and focused back.

By the time that the army made it back to her, the cheers had become like a chant. Even she couldn‘t help but feel a little of their enthusiasm. Aniketos succeeded where many had failed. He defeated the Greeks in a battle. And it wasn’t just an off guard outpost or garrison that didn’t know a fight was coming.

She didn’t know if such a thing happened anywhere else. This could have been the first time since the end of the war that the Atlantean could sing of a hope to be free from the unjust Greeks. A new history unlike anything their generation had ever known seemed to open up. The invitation to a brave unknown dawn.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

They would all follow him for he would be the one that would deliver victory. Many gathered around him wanting to see or touch Aniketos. Most as far as she knew had seen him before. There shouldn’t have been any difference than before. But they found within him something new that she couldn't see. It made them crowd around and sing his name through the town.

In time the celebration came to an end and they continued their march on to the next village. The size became such that he ceased to make carts and a walk became the method of travel. Only food and other supplies rode in the cart, the plunder from the town.

Once more at night, Gunai sat around her own campfire within a hut with Korina and Phyllida. She found her thoughts carried back through the day. The blood lake from the battle remained in her mind. A difficult image to escape and one worse than that of the escape from the execution grounds. Hundreds, maybe thousands died inside of a minute.

The terrifying power of the Blessed made it clear why the Greeks feared them so much. Aniketos was an army unto himself. His followers were nothing more than decoration to pretend. None of them had truly fought anyway, nor Aniketos himself. Everyone, a former slave, knew only labor and malnourishment. A real battle would have turned out very differently.

Gunai glanced over at the supposed warriors that fought with him. ‘There’s no longer any peace that is possible… We have no way to reach any sort of understanding or acceptance. It’s just going to be fear and death… Nothing more…’

She stared longer at Aniketos seeing his changes. Though clean of blood, she saw crimson soaked over him. It only got worse with each day. The lines on this face drew deeper sharpened his thin yet soft features into hardened edges. Food added some life back into his skin and eyes, but they still contained only fire and nothing else.

Nothing remained, she knew as much, but hoped each time. ‘He won’t come back… The death painted over anything of the old Aniketos… He’s gone… I need to accept it.’ Gunai leaned back with the acceptance starting to settle in.

She turned back to the small gathering that followed her. It did nothing to change their situation, but presented her with some sense of hope maybe. A brighter vision could still be possible, like Aniketos once desired. ‘Will I have to be one to carry that hope for you?’

While her thoughts occupied her, the flicker in the flame distracted her. Someone new joined their group, a young man. Yet another new face that she didn’t recognize. He had a cautious, but curious look about him as he politely greeted everyone. “Hello.”

“You’re Gunai, that I’ve heard so much about!” He stood up and slid over closer to her to properly greet her.

‘Heard about me?’ She looked around at the others to get a read of their faces. None of them seemed to be claiming such rumors. “I didn’t know I was so famous.”

“Oh very much! You’re talked about nearly as much as the Commander is.”

“Commander?” She raised her eyebrow at the drop of this for the first time. Their small gathering ballooned out such that she couldn’t follow everything. But she honestly had ceased the effort. “What are they saying?”

“There’s a divide on what to do.”

“What to do? I thought Aniketos already made that clear?”

“Oh yes, he has, but not everyone agrees. The larger we get the more people are worried we’re pushing too hard. Maybe it’s time to take who we’ve saved and go while we still can. Greece did win the war against Atlantis after all and it wasn’t just because of the volcano. None of us know how they did win, but we can still lose. The uncertainty is growing with each day.”

“And you’re one of them?” She narrowed her eyes the longer that she listened to his words. “Are you supposed to be their representative?”

“Oh nothing like that. I’ve got no delusions as such. But I wanted to put my feet in the place that I feel is right.”

“Right? What do you mean?”

“What the Greeks did to us and still do is wrong. I can’t argue that, but is killing in revenge really the answer as well? It’s just going to make them fight back harder. I’d rather we found a way to live in peace, as naive as that sounds.” He gave her a weak smile understanding the meaning of his position. The man sat down properly feeling more comfortable. “Failing that, I think we seek a path that takes us to safety.”

“A practical, though difficult stance to take.”

“I know, one that many are afraid to have publicly. But I think you may find that more wish to join your fire in time.”

Gunai looked back over at one of the many gatherings that followed Aniketos. An invisible rift grew that she had been blind to seeing. She rubbed her face as the thoughts of that reality sunk into her mind. Each day seemed to only give her more problems that she had no experience dealing with.

And the look from the young man, she didn’t like it. There was more that his eyes wanted. It rested in her heart without words, just an instinct that could be ignored. One that she could turn away from. Yet all of the people couldn’t be outrun. She would have to face it in time.

“And who are you?”

“Panteleimon.”

“Yikes, that's a mouthful and a half and then some, buddy! Let’s see about cutting that down to like Pants, no? Mon? Not that either huh? Teley? I feel like that’s a reference I don’t get. P-man.”

“Korina!”

“But I’m never going to remember his name!”

“Some have started to call me Pan, if you prefer.”

“Not bad, I think I can work with that!” She slapped him on the back roughly in approval.

Pan coughed and turned a little to face more of the group. Welcoming smiles and nods exchange around the fire. Their ranks for as much as it might be, grew once more. The signs of change started to appear.

Gunai stared down at the ground with the new revelations. This ceased to be the course she wanted. She didn’t even know where anyone was going or if someone stirred them. A blind path felt worse than an unknown one, but her indecisiveness remained unchanged. ‘Factions now? I don’t want fighting or debates between us. I don't want to undermine Aniketos. But if people want a different direction…should I do something?’

The question had been asked too many times before by her and others. She ran away from it, but now when she did it felt heavy. A weight pressed on her back as she considered it. It felt urgent. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m going to need to pick a side…and soon…’

She looked vaguely in the distance of where Aniketos might have been. Their Commander remained in some different hut now. She only saw him out on the battlefield. ‘Aniketos, I don’t want to be against you…but what can I do now? If we were to leave I need a plan.’

Seeking out a new land would be both of their goals. It made her curious where Aniketos planned to go. The Greeks' influence stretched around the known world. It felt impossible to escape their reach or those afraid of them. ‘We need to go somewhere with no one. Where we could be alone, like before. An island to ourselves, but…’

The dawning reality for Gunai changed the atmosphere wherever she looked. People no longer had innocent expressions. Their eyes wanted something, they always had, but their wants spoke louder than ever before. And she could finally hear their shouts.

She could no longer be deaf to their needs.

The pressure felt uncomfortable and foreign. Taking orders had a welcoming sort of appeal to it. ‘I need to learn to act on my own. Everyone around me is acting, but I’m just following. How are they able to be so certain in their decisions? Won’t they make mistakes and fail?’ Gunai scratched her head in confusion. The unknown carried a frightening presence.

Gunai took her hands into her lap and looked back at everyone that surrounded her. She pondered what they would do. It seemed like they waited for the move, for someone, for her to act. ‘Am I just supposed to lead these people? I don’t want that responsibility! Why can’t it be anyone else? Why me?’

Uncertainty and confusion swirled around her until she nearly felt lightheaded with the thoughts. She forced herself to stand. ‘Aniketos just acted. Maybe that’s what I should do! If they’re just waiting, they’re following right? We’ll just leave now…’

She began to open her mouth to address everyone when a shout from the distance interrupted her. It barely reached the hut that they rested in, but it created a commotion that quickly started to spread. The building tide of voices dragged her out of the hut.

All around her flames lit the night sky. Echoes, thrums of feet and soldiers came from all directions. Her heart sank into fear and panic as her mind began to understand. The smell of blood carried through the air and it became clear.

The Greeks found them.