No sooner than Yiannis had looked towards his father did his father join him at his side. He spared a thought for it, of course, but war left very little mental overhead to worry about one’s allies. His father had come to stand by him, which was a boon not worth questioning in the heat of battle. Yet Yiannis did not need to question his father’s motives; the man answered the unasked question himself. ‘I will not lose another son today, Yiannis. Watch my back. I watch yours. Duck!’. It was lucky that his father had pulled Yiannis into action as a spear soared overhead, for his shock might have lost him precious seconds without that aid. He would have died here, just like Vang.

Another son. Another son. The words echoed as his father shouted, words less important than the act of prayer- calling on Ares to assist them against their enemies- enemies who had struck Vangelis down. How had it happened? No time to wonder. The war surged on, and Yiannis struck, forgetting his questions, his fears, his anger- even his anger would not help him. He needed to behave as though nothing had changed. There were still capable warriors commanding their forces, even if he and his father had momentarily lost their wits. Stephanos, Timaeus, and Valerius burned the Egyptian navy to the ground. Maleos arrayed his archers against the enemy combatants. Damocles led his own forces, some of them inherited as war continued to take Greek lives. Others carried on the greater strategic picture that Yiannis’ mind was rapidly losing grip on. All that mattered was his and his father’s survival; everyone else was in good hands.

Yiannis cut down his opponents, the refusal to think of anything outside the moment honing his skills and talents to a sharp point. He deftly dodged attacks, tiring his opponents until he could dispatch them to whatever afterlife awaited them, if Egyptians had one at all. Perhaps he would meet them after his own demise, and they would break bread and reminisce about the moment when Yiannis had killed them. Or perhaps they would rot in their corpses, on the hot desert sands. It hardly mattered now. As he killed them, Yiannis imagined his mother’s face, and her voice, when they told her what had befallen her son- what had befallen him? What could have taken Vangelis of Kotas down? Anything, Yiannis realized. Princes could no more resist the slings and arrows of fortune than anyone else. Yiannis prayed to Apollo for his brother’s health. Ho hale and hearty Vang was! Surely he could survive a glancing blow. He hoped it had glanced, rather than gored. He struck. Again, and again, until they had won. Yiannis fought, and he watched his father’s back. Fighting in tandem, now, they excelled. There was an advantage to how Kotas taught its princelings to fight, and onlookers could see it now in the way they worked together.

“For Vangelis,” he muttered, low enough that perhaps his father would not hear, but Yiannis would worry about grief later, if it came to that (and it would surely not, for Vang would at least have the courtesy to die with his family to bear witness!). For now, he spawned new griefs for distant Egyptian families, and prayed that they would suffer tenfold what mother, father, or his siblings would.