by Dan H Kind
Chapter 37
The Battle of Tranquil Forest
Sir Arthur's revolvers flashed like death-dealing sparklers and round after round drilled into the mass of centaurs surrounding the sipapuni, while Promo cast fireball after fireball into the swarm of harpies circling above their heads. But it was not nearly enough. They would soon be swallowed underneath the black waves of Hades's legions.
Then buzzing steel balls and glimmering spitballs began raining about the glade, ripping through monster-flesh like toddlers through birthday cake, and Huck and company burst into the glade.
At the same time a dragon the size of an apartment complex materialized from the woods, crushing centaurs underneath its bulbous body and swatting harpies from the air. The behemoth's many swarming heads spat blackish gobs of poison into the midst of the suddenly taken aback army of darkness. When the sizzling acid hit the monsters they vanished into purple-black steam with a hiss. Two flailing patchrobed figures clung to the beast by its necks.
But despite the reinforcements, harpies and centaurs kept spewing from the sipapuni. Then small blackish blobs made of gleaming fangs and swirling, shadowy wings—Morpheus's Oneiroi—began bubbling up from the spring by the thousands like evil water sprites.
Spitballs and steel zinged through the air, revolvers discharged, fireballs flew, the Hydra swatted and spat poison. But great masses of Oneiroi, centaurs, and harpies were escaping the companions that ringed the Fountain like a single noose intended to hang an army of demons.
“We can't do this much longer, Art!” screamed Captain Promo. He roasted a mass of Oneiroi attempting to get past Team Real's makeshift blockade. “There's just too damn many of 'em!”
Insane laughter echoed up from the churning Waters of the sipapuni—an obnoxious, gloating, overeager chuckle that Sir Arthur and Captain Promo had heard not long ago. Its issuer burst from the Fountain, standing atop a waterspout like some dark Poseidon.
Morpheus had obtained a change of clothes—all black leather, with dangling silver chains—and his burned skin had reverted to its standard deathly pale, as if he had gone back to Hades and taken a quick dip in the healing waters of the Blessed Isles. The area of space he occupied above the monster-spewing pool filled with spitballs, speeding bullets, and blasts of the fire of the gods.
But when the smoke cleared, Morpheus was there, unharmed, laughing his ass off. Oneiroi swarmed about his person like flies on shit, creating a living armor of darkness that no weapon could penetrate. He jeered and brandished a pair of wicked-looking syringe-firers. The fiends of Hades swarmed behind him, below him, all around him, amassing for a final assault upon these beings attempting to get in the way of the most fun they'd had in millenniums.
Morpheus let loose with a devastating round of syringes. The sound ripped through the night like machine-gun retort, and the air bristled with flying needles. Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus ducked behind the Hydra and the rest of the companions dove for cover, scattering in all directions.
Not one of the missiles hit Team Real, who could be most evasive when necessary. A few wayward needles stuck in centaurs, who began attacking their own kind in a kenned-up morphine-induced stupor, and a few lodged in the flesh of the Hydra, who didn't even notice and continued rending into tatters the harpies that circled its heads like stinking mosquitoes.
The sipapuni began to churn violently. Morpheus cried out as he began to slip and slide around atop the suddenly unstable waterspout. A sharp cracking sound exploded across the night—and the Fountain of Eden erupted like Old Faithful!
It looked like someone kicking a momma-spider with thousands of baby-bloodsuckers attached to her back, on a larger scale. The Oneiroi tried to get out of the way, and then went flying in all directions. Thousands of the fanged nightmares perished in an instant as a musclebound man in a white toga and winged Air Jordans, a team of skeletal horses, and a gold and black carriage ran them down.
Hermes, leading the charge, slammed into Morpheus shoulder-first and broke almost every bone in his body. The god of dream vanished in a billow of purplish smoke.
The carriage alighted upon the shore of the sipapuni, and Team Myth jumped out and joined the raging battle. Two giant three-headed demon-dogs began dispatching centaurs by the dozens with fangs and giant claws. A pock-faced monster in a black cassock wielding a deadly twirling staff knocked harpies from the sky and dispatched them with expert jabs to the eyes when they hit the ground. Hermes flew about the glade swinging a silver wand of two intertwined serpents topped in a helix—the fabled Caduceus—splitting Hadean skulls with a contented grin on his handsome face.
Farmer John remained standing in the carriage's cab, his face and arms raised to the heavens like a shaman about to perform a rain dance. His eyes were closed, his lips moving silently. A halo of golden light blazed into existence and began expanding outward from his person. The air filled with energy.
Weapons lowered, claws and fangs retracted, the Hydra stopped its thrashing.
Everybody stood frozen, staring at Farmer John, now barely visible through the sheen of white-gold light that flickered and pulsated around him like a cloak of living energy.
The ground rumbled and quaked, Farmer John exploded with light like a star gone nova, and there issued a deafening, earthshaking BOOM!
The shock-wave of ken sent beings flying to the four winds like the wrath of the gods.