She stalked amid the colonnade, her blade making quick work of man after man. A dozen were dead before the first cry of alarm went up, a body discovered. Artemis leapt onto a column, kicked off it, and used the momentum to fly into the courtyard, landing amid a startled group of six mortals.
“Titan—” one of them started to cry, an instant before her knife cut his throat.
They reached for weapons, tried to swing at her. But with the Pneumatikoi of Alacrity, their movements seemed comically languid, as if they flailed at her from underwater. She ducked under a blow, ramming her knife into the man’s armpit, then jerking it free only to drive it into the eye of another. Her kick shattered a man’s knee. She caught him as he began to fall and flung his body as a missile at a pair more of men who tried to close in.
Her remaining adversaries continued to attack, but to them, Artemis must have seemed a whirlwind of death. She twisted out of the way of their blows with ease, cutting down one after another. Even as the last in the courtyard had fallen, she had snatched up her bow once more. She leapt into the air, kicked off a falling man’s head, and spun, nocking and loosing while flying to another column.
She couldn’t say if her arrow actually hit its mark, but she continued to bounce between the columns, nocking another, and firing into the ranks of the terrified mortals.
As expected, they broke, screaming and fleeing into the raging blizzard rather than remain here amid flying death. Artemis allowed herself a grim smile of satisfaction at their panic.
And then she felt it. The crackling force of concentrated Pneuma drawing nigh, tingling her senses. She had Khione’s attention.
Maybe the other Titan could sense her too, though few had developed their Perspicacity to such degrees as Artemis. The moment she hit the ground, she dashed behind another cyclopean column, arrow nocked.
The Pneuma source drew closer.
Almost here.
Artemis stepped out and loosed her arrow. The figure she saw had hair even whiter than Kronos’s brood, with skin that seemed to have its color sucked right out. She bore a loose white peplos, completely heedless of the cold. Khione waved a hand, and a curtain of mist knocked the arrow out of midair. A flick of her fingers sent a cascade of ice shards—as big as javelins!—shooting for Artemis.
Pulse pounding, she ducked back behind the column the instant before those missiles impacted. Behind her, a chorus of cracking and crashing erupted, sounding as if the ice had even managed to crack the ancient stone.
What in the Underworld was that? Artemis had assumed some foul sorcery had allowed Khione to summon this blizzard, but no Titan she’d ever heard of could do what she’d just witnessed. Pneumatikoi allowed one to manipulate energy in their own body. Not generate ice javelins.
A breath, and she increased the flow of Pneuma to her Pneumatikoi, then stepped out, another arrow nocked. Again, she loosed.
Again, a surge of misty coldness seized the arrow mid-flight. Khione slammed a fist into the ground and ice crystals erupted along it in a cascade streaming for Artemis. It was all she could do to leap onto an adjacent column, kick off that, and flee deeper into the colonnade.
Wispy laughter chased her. Khione was enjoying this.
A sudden thought struck Artemis like a blow. What if she was not the hunter this day?
Rather than peek around again, she darted behind column after column, focusing on the pulsing heat of Khione’s Pneuma in her mind. All she had to do was outmaneuver the other Titan.
Of a sudden, boreal winds whipped through the ruins. Whatever force had held back the storm from this place had been withdrawn. Blinding snowfall obscured Artemis’s vision outside the covered porticos. If Khione was trying to conceal herself thus, it seemed to confirm she didn’t realize Artemis could sense the very throb of her life.
She allowed herself a grim smile and continued to edge toward that Pneuma, keeping columns between her and her prey. She also had to assume Khione herself could see through the snowstorm, which meant Artemis needed stealth to get around her. The vicious weather would prevent her from running up any more columns, either. Maybe that had been Khione’s main intention.
Arrow nocked, Artemis stalked round and round, ever closer. Blowing out a breath, she stepped between two pillars, drawing a bead upon the source of Pneuma. She loosed. Immediately, she took off at a dead sprint, racing for the other Titan.
A wild gale caught her arrow and instead of landing in Khione’s torso it gouged her arm. The Titan screamed. Briefly. Artemis collided with her, her fist slamming into Khione’s side with enough force to hurl the woman bodily through the air. Khione flew almost ten feet before crashing into a column, then tumbling onto the rime-coated marmoreal floor.
Artemis started to leap at her, then realized with her Lightness Pneumatikoi held, the winds would fling her about like a leaf. Instead, she raced forward, pulling her knife once more. Before she closed, Khione had gained her feet. Clearly, with such speed and ability to ignore pain, she had mastered some Pneumatikoi herself.
A xiphos of ice formed in her hand and Khione lunged at Artemis. She had not expected a swordfight—especially armed with a shorter knife—and all Artemis could do was deflect and fall back. Further blades of ice erupted from Khione’s flesh. Shards of it wormed their way free then launched themselves into the air at random angles.
Once more pressed, Artemis dodged around both the projectiles and Khione’s ice sword. The Titan wasn’t bad but had clearly not focused overmuch on
