Gordon Doherty - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Official Novelization

“Why not?” she hissed as if she were a reprimanding ephor.

He frowned angrily. “Because I have been hiding among these bags for six damned days”—he caught his voice just as it threatened to rise beyond a whisper—“waiting for the chance to catch that sack of shit alone. This is the closest I have come so far, then you turn up and ruin it.”

She noticed a faint air of mushrooms wafting from him. “You’ve been hiding in here for six days, you say?”

“I made this space inside the sack pile. There’s a hole in the floor I’ve been using as my latrine, and a purse of salted meat and a few flasks of water have kept me strong.”

“Strong indeed.” She sniffed the air again.

But he did not reply. Instead, he was staring at her Leonidas spear, having just noticed it. “I guessed from your accent that you were from my homeland, but now I know you are… and that you are no ordinary Spartan.” He lowered the blade from her back as he said this.

“I am not a Spartan, not anymore,” she whispered in reply.

He made a guttural noise of disgust. “How can you say that? Do you know how many hold your family in esteem?” he said, gesturing at the lance.

“Held,” she said. “My family is broken, like my spear, and scattered all across Hellas.”

Brasidas’s broody look took on new depths as he pinched his bottom lip in deep thought, then shook his head. “I never believed what they said about that night… on Mount Taygetos.”

“So you believe in me, the famous blood that runs in my veins?”

He hesitated, then straightened. “Aye.”

“Then let us work together. We wait for his guards to disperse, then we strike—kill this bastard.”

They settled in silence. Hours passed, and eventually the Monger dismissed all but three of his men. With the remaining trio, he dragged out a planning table and started to go over the approach they should take into the mountains tomorrow. “Across the bluffs, from edge to edge, agreed?” he asked the man nearest to confirm.

“Yes, Master,” said the guard.

“Agreed?” He looked to the next nearest.

“We’ll find Anthousa and those Hetaerae bitches. They will work for you or they’ll burn.”

“Agreed?” he asked the third.

“It will be done.”

Then the Monger looked up, toward the grain sacks. “Agreed?”

Silence.

Kassandra felt an awful twist in her stomach.

“I asked you a question, Brasidas. Do you approve of my plan?”

Kassandra felt ice slide across her flesh. She and Brasidas shared a look, just before the sacks forming a roof over their small hide were torn away, the Monger’s other nine men grinning down at them, bows nocked and trained.

“Well, well, well,” the Monger growled, seeing Kassandra in there with Brasidas, “it seems that my prize has doubled.”

The shackles were heavy—and strong enough to hold a bear. The Monger wrenched them tight, drawing Kassandra’s last free limb taut and pinning her tightly to the table in the same way the poor man had been bound a short while ago. The close heat of the crucible by the table’s side seared her skin.

Nearby, the Monger’s guards held the kneeling Brasidas in a maw of spears, his wrists roped together.

“You think I did not know you were in there, Brasidas?” The Monger chuckled, flicking a finger at the now-dismantled sack pile. “I could smell you. I could hear you. Why didn’t I have you killed earlier? Well, I like to let my victims build up a little hope before I put them to a terrible end. Makes it all the more distressing for them, you see. I will rope you by the ankles and dip your head in the molten pool tonight. By all the Gods, I cannot wait to hear you begging for my mercy,” he said, smacking his lips together and rumbling with laughter.

He turned to Kassandra, lifting a poker from the crucible, grinning down at her. “For you, it will be much, much slower. I knew all along you were coming here. I thought I might have to hunt and catch you, but no, you walked right into my lair. I will burn and peel you until you cry out—not for mercy, but with an oath to serve me, to serve my group.”

“Fuck you,” Kassandra said flatly.

The Monger’s face fell, and he lowered the glowing poker onto her thigh. The pain was indescribable. White-hot agony consumed her. She heard a shrill scream and barely realized it was her own. She heard the shackles clanking even tighter as her body convulsed, smelled the horrific stink of her own flesh cooking, and tasted blood as she bit deep into her tongue.

The warehouse shuddered once again as he pressed the rod into her, this time against her flank. She felt the blackness of unconsciousness rise up as if to save her, but shook her head to stay awake, knowing that if she passed out, she would waken in the den of the Cult, or never again. As she thrashed, she saw the Monger draw a freshly heated spike from the molten cauldron and bring it toward her face. The heat stung her cheeks and nose even from a hand’s-width away. When he brought the sharp, white tip to a finger’s-width from her eyeball, she felt the surface of her eye shrivel, a blinding pain shooting through her head. “Listen… listen. Here comes the pop!” the Monger purred in glee.

That was when she saw the vision. In the white blur of heat, she saw something moving, behind the Monger’s dozen. Two more figures, creeping. Erinna, Roxana. Scar-faced, tear-streaked. She saw them rise and strike like leopards, one running a guard through from behind, another braining one with a cudgel. They struck down two more of the twelve before the rest reacted, and it was enough to buy Brasidas a breath of hope. The Spartan leapt up from the mouth of spears, slitting his wrist ropes on the way, grabbing one lance and tearing the throat of the holder, then kicking another away.

The blinding white faded, and the heat too, as the Monger swung away from Kassandra to face the threat. Half-blind, she heard a thunder of fighting, heard the Monger roar, then felt the dull clunk of her chains being sheared. “Up!” Brasidas roared, dragging her from the table by her wrist, pushing her recovered half lance into her hand. She took it all in in a trice: Roxana and Erinna had not fled as she had told them to. Instead they fought with the fire of wronged souls. Six guards remained with the Monger. Kassandra leapt over to spear the flank of one guard who was locked in combat with the nearest girl, then spun to chop clean through the shin of another.

“Go,” she shouted at the girls, stabbing a finger toward the warehouse doors. “Get back to Anthousa.”

The girls blinked through tears, nodding and scrambling away at last, mouthing words of gratitude.

Brasidas slew two more guards, before pressing back-to-back with Kassandra, facing the last four thugs and the enraged Monger.

“My sword has sheared,” Brasidas gasped.

“One weapon against five of us,” the Monger growled. “This will hurt, trust me.” He flicked a finger to his four men. “Kill them.”

Just as the four lunged forward, Roxana—racing toward the main doors and freedom—yanked on a rope. From above two of the oncoming guards, a cargo of grain burst from an overhead silo. They vanished under the almighty purge. Kassandra blocked the strike of one of the remaining pair, then rammed her spear into his belly before turning to face the last, who tossed down his weapons and sprinted away.

Brasidas and Kassandra turned to face the Monger now. The brute stood like a bull ready to charge, a spear in each hand, murder in his eyes. Kassandra shot Brasidas a look, holding up a wrist with a trailing length of chain dangling from the shackle there. At once, Brasidas understood, grabbing the broken chain end. The Monger charged at them and together, they rushed for him. Before he could strike, they leapt, the drawn-taut chain catching on his neck, hauling him backward. He stumbled back two, three, four steps, before his heel stubbed on the base of the brimming crucible. He pitched over and into the molten soup with a strangled cry that turned into an animal moan that filled the night along with the stink of searing meat and burning hair. The ruined mess of flesh and molten metal rose twice, like a drowning man, before the noise faded to nothing.