Chapter Text
The air tasted of metal and the blood soaked ground gave away under feet with ease. Every scream of glory went hand in hand with a last breath, each of them lost in the deafening song of clashing blades. As if gods were too embarrassed to witness their own creations and wished to put a swift end to the battle, they ordered the sky to cry and soon, the dead were buried in mud and the living scrambled for their lives while trapped in the slippery soil, hopelessly swinging axes and swords. In the end, three dozens of soldiers stood amongst the carnage, recognizing their tribe’s markings on each other. They searched for their enemies and found all of them lying at their feet. All their heads turned to one figure that stood atop a hill. Her clothes were drenched in blood and rain and her face was fully covered in dirt, only white teeth shined through as she laughed, lifting her double bladed axe above her head. Chipped blades soon joined hers in the air. The soldiers screamed to the sky and banged their shields, and let the field know that their bodies were not those that would be buried there tonight.
They retreated to the village behind the field victorious. The villagers’ houses, fields, and supplies were now their own; their women and men were now their own to do with as they pleased. Soldiers dragged the locals outside their homes and confiscated all they had owned. Once she washed her face and dressed in ceremonial clothes, Andromache sat in the elder’s chair in their main hut, passing judgement on their new prisoners while her followers brought her wine and danced.
“To Andromache!” cried a man, lifting up a silver goblet. His shoulder was still bleeding and a man on his side was impatiently sewing the wound together while his patient paid him no mind. “To our goddess of war!”
“To our goddess of war!” cried the rest of the room.
She laughed, sweetly almost, and downed her goblet in one go, spilling wine all over the golden trinkets hanging around her neck. “To war!” she cried.
“To war!” the room echoed back to her.
She looked at the people surrounding her; warriors with shadowed faces and cut lips, and each of them looked upon her with absolute adoration. They were high off their minds on victory and blood and living . But no matter how much wine she poured down her throat, Andromache felt no thrill, or joy. The adrenaline and the sweet satisfaction of not dying when death is so close were nothing but a distant memory. She wished she was a bowl of water so clean that she could be a perfect reflection of her followers when they looked at her. So she smiled and she ordered their cups filled. Then she imagined all the people were gone, and there were only wooden walls, covered in dancing lights coming from the fire in the middle of the dirt floor, and she was sitting on her throne all alone. Only then, she didn’t feel alien. The image of the empty hut felt like a soft memory - a sight she could remember in the future and recognize. But she was thrown back into the celebration when a woman by her side gave her a kiss and whispered sweet nothings to her. Her men dragged a prisoner before her feet, pushing him to the dirt.
“Andromache! We found this one protecting the silo. What shall we do with him?”
She set aside her goblet and sized the man up and down. His naked body showed signs of hard work. He was barely thirty years of age, with a shaved face and braided hair and a haunted look in his eyes. Andromache smirked.
“I will take him for tonight.”
“What? This weakling?” said her soldier and kicked the man, “Please, Andromache! This animal will hardly satisfy your needs. Allow me-!”
“No, allow me!” cut in another one of her men. “Andromache, my heart still thumps with the rush of victory and my body is tight from the battle. I will do anything to be of service to you tonight.”
“You will do no such thing,” she spoke sternly and both men closed their mouths. “Bring him to the room in the back.”
They bowed their heads and dragged the prisoner away without further questioning. Andromache sighed into her goblet, accepting the warm touch of a woman warrior by her side. Another laid by her feet, caressing her legs and lying her head on her knee.
“That man won’t ever realize how lucky he was tonight,” she purred, looking up at Andromache with devotion.
She leaned down to her and brought her in for a kiss. “He won’t realize much at all after tonight.” And a giggle was muffled by their lips crushing together.
When Andromache entered the room, the man was tied to the bed in a starfish fashion, speaking in a tongue she understood but couldn’t be bothered to listen to. He was probably begging for her to release him, or attempting dirty talk - a lot of prisoners did. She wore an utterly bored expression.
“Do you hate me?” she asked him in his tongue. He stared at her. “Do you want to kill me?” He stayed silent, and she climbed on top of him. His eyes were crystal blue and terrified. With her weight on him, Andromache could feel the anxious beat of his heart and how his breath could barely escape his throat. “Because you should. I killed your brothers. Whoever didn’t die in that field is now imprisoned. We will kill the weak ones - the stronger will be sold into slavery. The women are probably being raped right now.”
The man spit in her face with spite. She smiled down at him, wiping it off her face.
“Do you hate me now?”
“You fucking whore! You are the devil! Wretched witch!”
Andromache’s smile grew, she shivered all over and took his face in her hands. “That’s it. I am the devil. I am the monster. I am the goddess of all that is evil,” she whispered, “And you will make love to me. Isn’t that just all kinds of twisted?”
“Let go of me! I will kill you! I will rip your heart out!”
She laughed with an innocent tone and sat back up straight.
“You know what humours me? My warriors would kill each other to be where you are right now. They are dying for a fuck with me. They worship me. But that’s not who I am. You are the only one who sees who I truly am, don’t you?”
Andromache pulled out a dagger from her robes and his eyes widened. She leaned close to her prisoner, arched her back like a cat about to leap while staring straight into his soul. Her hand brought the blade to his neck. His chin shaked and his eyes watered like a baby about to cry.
“A wrecked witch,” she said slowly, “The devil. A whore. I am not even their leader. I am their god . Their puny lives mean nothing to me. I will gladly lead them to death because I am greater than death itself. I am above that law of nature. I am above death and nature itself. I am a monster .”
Her hand swiftly flicked upwards and the man yelped. Ready to meet with death itself, he instead opened his eyes to see the crazed woman on top of him, and feel his right hand free of its restraint. Andromache grabbed him by the wrist and put the dagger into his palm, closing his fingers around it with force.
“Do it then. Kill me,” she taunted him, bringing the blade under her chin. “Do it! Kill me! I am a monster!”
The man started crying, trying to wrestle away her hands wrapped around his. “Let go! Let go! Please!”
“Don’t start begging now! You’re here! You can kill me! Do it! Come on!” She looked at him with fury and her hands almost crushed his around the dagger handle. All she wanted was for his hand to thrust upwards and for the blade to enter through her lower jaw. But he was unyielding. And she got bored. With a sigh, she let go and threw the dagger into the corner of the room. She didn’t spare a look at the man panting on the bed as she left. On her way out, she ordered her men to take the prisoner away.
“What will we do with him, Andromache?”
“Sell him like the rest of them.”
For the rest of the night, Andromache sat on her throne and watched her warriors be merry and drunk. At least the feeling of loneliness she now felt seeping into her bones was something familiar. It didn’t feel too alien to get lost in their voices of praise and bodies, and fall asleep surrounded by their warmth, shielded away from all that she knew was true.
A month later, when their tribe was on their way to conquer another settlement in the north, while passing the river, an arrow split the air and found its way inside a warrior’s neck. Another arrow found its target, and another. The screams of pain meshed with the war cries of their attackers startled some horses to slide in the current. The river carried them away together with their riders while others scrambled for the shore. Andromache was knocked off her horse with a stone from a slingshot. As soon as she cleaned her lungs of the river water and stood up, she was knocked down again by one of her warriors. She called his name, trying to lift him off her and realized he was dead, struck by an axe in his back. Enraged, Andromache searched the riverbed for her axe and rose from the water like an evil spirit, her sights set on taking revenge against her enemies. She fought tirelessly, the sound of her axe blades meeting flesh scorching itself into her mind like an iron brand. Each resurrection was an immediate call to action and she kept answering it with vigor until her eyes opened to nothingness.
The night had fallen and the river crossing was empty. No matter how many times she rubbed her eyes, all she saw was dead bodies and broken carriages. Like in a trance, she walked around the battlefield and turned each of her followers to face the sky. Her hands were drenched in blood and cold, she could barely grip their clothes to move them. When she was done, she lied down next to them and stared at the stars. Surrounded by her tribe, the closest thing she could feel to a family or friends, she wished them all alive, whispering to whatever deity was hiding behind the dark clouds above that she would trade her curse for their lives. No answer came, and she broke down in tears.
"Andromache?" said a familiar voice.
Her weak limbs folded under her and she stood up and saw three of her warriors: the woman who laid by her feet in the village and the two men who fought to be in her bed the same night. Their battered faces lit up with hope once they recognized her.
"Gods blessed us tonight. You are alive! We've got nothing to fear!"
"Andromache, what shall we do? Where have they gone?"
"We will regroup and bring havoc and suffering upon those who hurt us tonight! Andromache, we will fight for you!"
Like an animal backed into a corner, Andromache shrieked. She shoved off her followers like they carried the plague.
“Get off of me! Get off me!”
The woman dodged her hands and held onto her again. “What are you talking about? This is us, Andromache! We are here, by your side! We’re your warriors!”
“You’re not! You’re nothing but vermin! Weak and desperate mortal shells that fall apart with strong wind! You suckle at my neck like leeches because you can’t survive on your own! Look around!” She outstretched her arms, splattering blood on her followers’ pale faces. Her warriors stood in shock while she laughed at the sight of their brothers and sisters lying dead. “This is what you get! Death! That’s all I bring! I drove this tribe to extinction and you ask me to do it again?!” Tears burst out of her eyes and her throat swelled up. Desperately, she tried to swallow her tears mixing with blood in her mouth. “How can you put this trust in me? I’m just human like you! I’m not your fucking god! I’d so much rather be among the cold ones on the ground! I wish my head was the target of the first arrow so I could be rid of the lot of you! I’m not your god! I’m not your leader! Your love is worthless to me!”
The field turned silent once the surrounding trees ate up the rest of her desperate voice. The only disturbance were the footsteps in the grass as her warriors turned their backs on Andromache and started walking away. She wished it didn’t sting as much as it did. She wished she could turn back the time and make them love her again with the snap of her fingers. Instead, she broke down in tears and fell to her knees. A string snapped and an arrow swished through the air and went through her shoulder. She gargled blood and her body hit the cold ground like a rock. Where she fell, she could see her warrior lowering her bow, and the other two watching her bleeding body with contempt. They left. Andromache smiled as she felt life trickling out of her body. She didn’t attempt to remove the arrow and stopped moving, letting the cold take over her completely. For days, she refused to move - not when wild animals came to eat the dead bodies, not when a storm raged above her head. She laid there and enjoyed the pain, and hoped that if she begged the mud hard enough, it would envelop her completely and she’d finally die.