by James Hunter
Something hit me like a sledgehammer between the shoulder blades—an electrical blast, courtesy of a stegosaurus—hurling me forward. I stumbled and somehow managed to keep from face-planting. But as I regained my balance, I found myself face-to-face with the last triceratops, while the final two lightning-breathers closed in on the left and right. The bastards had hemmed me in … Too bad for them.
The Fury spell imbued my melee attacks with extra spice and I didn’t waste a second. I offered a defiant war cry and charged forward, War Blade raised. The triceratops wasn’t ready for that; its eyes widened in surprise and it tried to shuffle back on instinct, but its bulk made that nearly impossible. I closed the distance in an eyeblink and attacked—a whirlwind of flashing steel and burning anger. I cut, slashed, hacked, and stabbed my way through the triceratops, then turned my red-hot fury on the lightning-breather to my right.
I descended like death incarnate, and in moments only a smoking corpse remained. The War Blade smoked and sizzled the blood off its edge as I surveyed my bloody handiwork.
The clomp of heavy footfalls caught my ear. I stole a quick glance over one shoulder.
The last stegosaurs, now at my back, was charging up for an attack, but Phoebe emerged from the dense foliage just in time to save my ass. Her spider-legged mech crawled up onto the muddy spit of land; the buzz saw on her left arm roared to life and she went to work like a Texas Chainsaw enthusiast. She opened the skin of a stegosaurus, and entrails poured out. The creature turned on her, gray guts trailing out like crepe paper, and opened its mouth, ready to fry her instead.
A final fuck you before the beast died.
But Phoebe had a fuck you of her own. She raised her right arm and filled its face with crossbow bolts. Blinded, it mewled and thrashed, its spike-studded tail slamming into a nearby tree before whipping around and sideswiping Phoebe. A foot-long spit of bone slashed her arm, but that was it. Then, without ceremony, the creature simply keeled over onto its side, dying as its blood drained onto the ground.
As quickly as the mayhem had started, it was all over. Suddenly, Phoebe and I were alone on the ridge surrounded by the corpses of Nyx’s guardians. We had taken some light damage—a few nicks and scratches—but all in all, it had been an easy encounter. Both of our experience points chinged higher, and I swear I could hear the sound of a cash register.
“Not bad, War God, not bad.”
“Not bad? I’d say that was pretty good.” I fist-bumped her, my hand no longer chrome-plated. “I mean, we killed half a dozen of the guardians without breaking a sweat. I have plenty of Essence Points left. Damn, we could’ve taken another fifteen easily.”
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “And that right there is hubris. Watch out, Jacob, you get too big for your britches, there lies madness.”
I nodded, sobering for a minute. She was right. The godstone, however, wanted her to shut the fuck up. It wanted to convince me I was fine, and I didn’t need to listen to anyone. But that, I knew, was straight-up, one hundred percent Ares. And that arrogance had been the root of his destruction. “You’re right,” I said, pushing away the flare of angry resentment. “Good thing I’ve got you around to help me keep my head on straight. Now, let’s get to the rendezvous point. I’m thinking if I want more battle, I’ll find it at the Temple of Cronus in spades.”
I climbed up onto the steampunk mech, and Phoebe jacked up the legs. We left the carnage on top of the ridge and plunged back into the murky water. We had no other problems and made it out of the Great Swamps an hour later and with my Essence topped off once more.
Copses of trees dotted a vast grassy plain. Phoebe adjusted the legs of her mech, tweaked some joints, and added some struts, and soon we were running across the grassland, leaping over ditches, scurrying up hillocks, and dashing down the other side. Her steam engine chugged like a freight train behind schedule. The wind blew across my face.
We drew nearer to the single low mountain dominating the northern section of the cave. Perched at the top was the shifting Temple of Cronus—the blur I’d seen from Asteria’s back when we’d flown recon that first day. I was curious to get a closer look.
Through a thick coniferous forest, we managed to find cracked marble steps leading up the hill, crisscrossing back and forth in a series of switchbacks. I sniffed at the air and smelled the pine pollen, but a more sinister odor lingered in the air as well. It wasn’t the reek and rot of Earl’s forces—thank goodness for small miracles—but the slippery oily smell of the velociraptor centaurs. Which told me Euryale’s forces had managed to beat us here. We had no time to waste.
She had the Sower’s Glass, and the know-how to use it. So far, she hadn’t seemed particularly spiteful or evil, but if she got that scythe before me, who knew what she would be capable of.
“Let’s kick it into high gear,” I muttered, gaze fixed on the trees around us, searching for any sign of an ambush.
Phoebe nodded her reply and cranked on levers. The mech huffed and groaned, gaining even greater speed as we raced up the path, swung around a switchback, and kept going. I gripped my seat, white-knuckled. I was in tip-top shape and ready for the Gorgon, but I still felt uneasy.
The pines ended abruptly, and tall grasses took over. At the edge of the trees, Phoebe slowed, then stopped. “You should go on foot,” she said. “You’ll be quieter. The trees were muffling the sound of my engine, but once she’s out in the open, it will be all chugga, chugga, chugga.”
I nodded. Made sense.
Then a blast of sulfur hit me, followed by a purple light. Sophia appeared in front of us. She smiled wide, her eyes sparkling in relief. “Thank all the gods you are okay, War God. We were beginning to worry, and I must caution you—Myrina is very angry. She claims you stopped to sleep. Is that correct?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Only a little.” I stole a sidelong glance at Phoebe, recalling our time together. “And it was completely, one hundred percent necessary. Very urgent. Life or death type thing.” Phoebe grinned like a madwoman, her cheeks flushing scarlet. “But I’m here now, so no need to worry. And I’ll deal with Myrina. Can you get me to the other Amazons?”
She nodded, gaze flicking between me and Phoebe.
“Get to the top as quick as you can,” I said to Phoebe.
“Sure will, my dude.”
Before I left, I kissed the Rune-Caster and squeezed her hand.
Then Sophia grabbed me, and we were gone in a burst of purple light and stink.
Teleporting was always a disconcerting experience—I went from being surrounded by pines to the top of the hill, awash in thick grass. All of my Amazons were hiding there, except for Antiope and Sabra. Losing both of them was brutal and would make the coming battle that much more difficult. But there was nothing that could be done about that.
Asteria dashed over, currently in the form of a big blue saber-tooth tiger. She tackled me like a lovesick kitten and licked my face with a sandpaper tongue. I kissed her furry cheek and scratched behind her ear, eliciting a deep-belly purr. “Okay, Asteria, I’m good. I love you too.”
Loxo came over, a smirk on her face. “Hey, Boss, good to see that you still like pussy.”
“As in cat. I get it,” I said, rolling my eyes. That lady was incorrigible.
Asteria let me up and I bounced to my feet. I hugged Loxo tight, glad to see she was okay. Ariadne stormed over and crushed us both to her chest. “It gladdens my heart to see you, War God,” the big woman rumbled. Thunderfoot snorted in agreement, pawing at the earth.
Buttercup the bear gave me a happy growl, and Euryleia smiled warmly at me.
I glanced about for Myrina.
She was crouched at the edge of the grasses next to a crumbling statue of a very pregnant woman surrounded by a gaggle of marble children. I had the feeling it was Gaea, Cronus’s mother, wife to the Sky Titan Uranus. The statue was huge, though old and weathered. More statues littered the temple’s sprawling grounds.
Cronus’s pad was as grand as
all the other temples we’d seen, like a best-of tour of Athens. Gleaming marble columns, sandstone walls, graceful arches, a ceramic terracotta roof, and a buttload of friezes and sculptures carved into the walls. But I watched as the columns crumbled, the roof fell in, and, in a blink, grass covered the entire complex. The temple was gone and only an empty space remained.
What the hell?
A second later, however, ghostly figures appeared with hunks of marble and carved columns. I watched in silent fascination as the specters built the temple from scratch. Beams were lifted by engineers, artists chiseled away, and painters painted, but the work was all done in fast-forward, blurry with speed.
The workers faded away, and the temple was left standing still and alone. Grasses grew taller around it, vines slithered up the columns, and rain fell—water blown off the dripping roof by errant winds. Countless millennia passed in under a minute and the stone began to crumble away until the entire structure fell and every trace was gone, reclaimed by the plant life once more. Huh, so that explain why the place looked so distorted and strange from a distance.
As I watched, the cycle started over with the apparitions coming back to begin the process of rebuilding once more. It was an endlessly repeating loop of time, and I wouldn’t want to step into that time storm. I had the feeling you might die of thirst, starve to death, and be trapped in the millions if not billions of years as the temple was built and then eroded away into nothing.
As the cycle continued unabated, my eyes locked onto the biggest statue by far, which was that of a bearded man standing fifty feet above the ground. In his left hand he held the Sower’s Glass aloft, the hourglass rising up into the sky. In his right hand, he held a scythe in such a way that it formed an entryway to the temple, currently looping through time like Doctor Strange staring down Dormammu.
Euryale and her army of velocentaurs milled about on a paved courtyard, just outside the strange scythe-formed archway. Hundreds of scaly, dagger-footed creatures held a whole lot of different weapons from crossbows to bows to spears to axes to xiphos. A few even had scythes like Cronus’s towering above them.
“Finally, you have arrived,” Myrina muttered, clearly annoyed with me. “The Gorgon has been waiting for something.” She paused and squinted, as though another second of hard looking might reveal something new. “For what, I am not certain,” she finally conceded.
Euryale—her back to us, her head uncovered—held the hourglass in her snake-hands. Her gossamer gown swept lazily around her, stirred by a slight breeze.
“So what’s the play? Do we go down there and kick her ass now?” I wondered aloud. “Or wait until she does whatever she’s going to do with the Sower’s Glass?”
Myrina didn’t answer because like me, she had no idea. While the Gorgon might know how to access the temple using the hourglass, we were clueless.
Then I grinned. Because, yeah, I had a plan.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Go Time
After conferring with the troops and laying out my idea, I climbed to the top of the Gaea statue. My shield hung from my back, but I kept my right hand firmly on the War Blade. With my left hand, I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled loudly. My father had taught me to do that trick, and it worked like a charm.
Every single eye turned on me, including Euryale’s. Her veil was gone and she was ugly personified. Bat wings, boar’s tusks, a woman’s body but with a tail instead of legs. Her eyes flashed, and I felt her power hit me like a golden glove boxer smacking down the competition. But I held my ground. I didn’t show her I was burning Essence Points to meet her gaze. Instead, I acted like it was just a casual chat. “Good job beating Earl,” I said with a nod of genuine approval. “Though I am curious about why you haven’t gone in there to hang out with Cronus. Scared the god of time won’t appreciate your charms?”
The Gorgon laughed as the serpents composing her hairdo of awful slithered, writhed, and hissed. “Why, War God, I thought you were back with your machine, trudging up the path,” she said, ignoring my jab. “Frankly, I’m surprised you are here alone. Where are your pretties, darling? With a gorgeous entourage like that, I wouldn’t go anywhere without them.”
“They’re around,” I said, offering her a casual shrug. I dropped my eyes, to give myself a break. I hoped that since she was a hundred yards away, she wouldn’t know the difference. “But I ran ahead because I was dying to see the temple. Pretty cool that it won’t stay stuck in time. Never seen anything quite like that before.”
“Yes, darling,” the Gorgon agreed. “And that is because such a thing exists nowhere else. The home of Cronus, Titan-God, is unique in all the world. But with the Sower’s Glass, it’s possible to get the temple to stop, at least for a moment. When the glass crosses the threshold, the temple solidifies. However, that can be a precarious situation, for if I walk in at the wrong time, I might not find Cronus in his chambers. What a shame to gain access to the temple when its master is not at home. Then I would be stuck with the glass and no scythe. Or, if I am careless, I might find myself trapped in the loop as well. As you can see, it’s a tricky business.”
“Why don’t you let me have a try?” I asked.
“I like you, darling, but I think not. Not after all the trouble I went through to acquire the precious Sower’s Glass. Still, you’re”—she paused, tapping at her chin with a viper finger—“spunky. Tenacious. And smart. All admirable qualities. Now, why don’t you use them? Be a smart boy and scuttle off back to the surface and I won’t have to kill you.”
“That’s awful gracious of you, but here’s the thing. I’m not really asking. That fancy trinket belongs to me, and I intend to have it.” I turned on the messaging system. It would alert Antiope to our presence, but Earl was bound to show up at some point. No better time than now. Sophia! Get ready to hit me, baby.
Although none of my Amazons could look at the Gorgon, I could, and I could also exploit that dirty little trick just like I’d done while fighting against Stheno, Euryale’s equally snaky sister. Concentrating, I pushed my mind deeper into my troops. I knew from experience that if I pushed too hard I would end up usurping control of their bodies—something Ares had done often—turning them into living puppets, bent totally to my will. That? That I didn’t want. But right on the edge, the link seemed to allow them to experience my senses instead.
My briefly touched upon Antiope, and I wondered if it was possible to take control of her, since holy shit would that be helpful right about now. But no, her mind seemed to be guarded, insulated, by some sort of dark force. Damn. Well, it had been worth a shot anyway. I put the Dark Amazon from my thoughts and focused on the mission in front of me.
Now, I sent to the Teleporter as the deep bond temporarily clicked. With the link in place, she would be able to see through my eyes.
Sophia vanished in a puff of inky purple, reappearing a moment later with the rest of my Amazons, who were hiding behind the Gaea statue. Another version of her promptly appeared next to me, seized my arm, and vanished again. She’d used her Temporal Form ability to split in two, giving us twice the teleporting prowess—not quite as good as having a second Teleporter hanging around, but pretty damned cool all the same. When we emerged in a puff of smoke, it was right next to the snake-haired Gorgon, and there were four of us in place: me, Myrina, Sophia Prime and Sophia Two.
All three of my ’Zons had their eyes pressed tightly shut, yet they oriented on the Gorgon without a problem. Euryale yelped in surprise, swiped a snake hand at Sophia #1, then Sophia #2 while Myrina pressed in with a javelin. The Battle Warden wasn’t trying to maim, she was just trying to distract, and she was doing a helluva job. The twin Teleporters vanished again, both reappearing to lash out with light blows against scale-covered thighs and arms.
The velocentaurs were chirping in angry dismay and more than a few drew arrows tight, but none fired. In the chaos of purple smoke, thrashing limbs, and flashing bodies they risked hitting their mistress just as much as taki
ng out one of my warriors. And while they were bound with indecision, I swung around and charged her back. Her troops cried out in warning—and more than a few took pop-shots at me—but it didn’t matter. She was so focused on keeping her skin whole, she didn’t realize I’d entered the fray until I shot forward with my War Blade and lopped one snake-fingered hand from her wrist.
The Sower’s Glass came with it, cartwheeling through the air.
The Gorgon howled in anger and hurt, blood leaking from the stump at the end of her arm. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, since I actually kinda liked Euryale. I mean, we were never gonna be friends, but she wasn’t all bad. But war is war.
I grabbed the glass in midair and quickly pried the hand free—viper fingers snapping weakly at me the whole time. A menu item flashed in my display, but I had zero time to check it out. Everything depended on what I did in the next few seconds.
My Teleporters vanished, taking Myrina with them, leaving me all by my lonesome, which was just fine. I whirled around, facing the entrance to the shifting temple under the Cronus statue’s stone scythe.
Unsheathing the War Blade, I thrust the sword straight up and boomed, “Shockwave!” Clouds laced with lightning instantly filled the sky above me. The Gorgon reached to bite me with every snake finger she had left, but the monster was thrown back as I channeled a billion volts of electricity right into her nasty-ass face. Wrong time to attack this hombre. Euryale hit the ground, writhing in pain, and I was about to add to her discomfort. Sower’s Glass in one hand, War Blade in the other, I whirled and slammed my sword down onto the ground.
Euryale and her army found themselves at ground zero in an earthquake of pure energy. Lightning erupted from the earth in geysers, electrocuting my enemies and sending them shivering and shaking in agony. I didn’t get the entire cluster of velocentaurs, but I got an assload of ’em. The creatures were tough S.O.B.s, so the attack didn’t kill any outright, but it sure as shit incapacitated ’em. All were out of action for a minute as lightning blasted through their ranks in arcs of blue-white fury.