Quoted By:
The night is calm and clear, despite your hurried travel north. You come across no one; you sometimes catch sight of deer flitting through the sparse trees, or in the shallow valleys between the hills.
You breathe easier now - with Paris unharmed, trussed and bound, and Mount Ida behind you, successful infiltration of Priam’s Royal Palace seems… possible, if not likely.. Castor and Paris remain hidden under the hide tarp; Teukros continues to wear the garb of Dius and urges his steeds onwards, pushing them forwards. He’s no horseman, but the steeds understand his directions on the reins well enough.
You ride behind the cart in Pollux’s chariot; the son of Zeus to your side has also calmed somewhat - the waves of rage emitting from his person have lessened, although there is still a constant pressure centered around him; a miniature maelstrom, a lesser form of Thetis’ crushing will. You keep watch constantly behind you, but you see no pursuers or torches, no clattering hoofbeats of Trojans rushing to rescue their master. Pollux grunts in acknowledgment as you report this occasionally – he has not quite forgiven you for allowing Dius to escape the banks of the Scamandros, and forcing him to chase him on horseback.
After an hour, your caution and anxieties begin to slip away in the boredom of pathfinding by moonlight.
Exhausted from the day’s excitement, you begin to nod off, despite every effort to stay alert. You find yourself losing a minute or two, before you jump awake; the landscape around you warping strangely as you begin dreaming, only to snap back when a stone in the path jolts your chariot. In one strange dream, a man with winged helm rides by your teams, carrying a horn – he leaps ahead, before Teukros’ cart, and a cloying smell fills your mouth and lungs. You’re irritated – doesn’t the man know that you are dreaming and thus cannot smell anything? You open your mouth to shout a complaint, but he instead rides off into the darkness. Funny, you have the sense that -
You wake up.
Pollux is shaking your shoulder violently, and you startle awake, rising from a deep slumber – he pulls at your arm to help you to rise from the earth. Somehow, you’ve fallen beside the chariot in your drowsiness.
“More divinities working against us – this time, gentle Hypnos.” Pollux is irritated, but not stunned like you are – he has had more of such interactions with the divines, you suppose.
“Next, the horse-cart,” Pollux says calmly – it has drifted gently off the path, and Teukros is sprawled against the horse-cart seat, snoring loudly. You shake him aware, and find that he is just as disoriented as you had been. Behind you, Pollux removes the hide tarp, revealing a slumbering Castor – and the cast-off bonds that held Paris’ feet in place. Pollux ignites, and once Castor is awake to defend the horse teams, you scatter into the surrounding brush, looking for signs of the escaped Prince.
>cont
