by Gene Stiles
“I pray Zeus, himself, is at the docks,” Denarius grumbled to himself. “I want to bring his corpse back to Atlantis myself.”
Zeus was nowhere near the harbor. The moment the blank line appeared on the Olympian scanners, he knew what was happening. Shouting commands, he jumped on his sled and flew to the barrier wall. Now, he stood on the palisades staring out at the end of all they had built. Thousands of troops spread across the crushed green grass of the meadow lined up in tight rows and columns. His golden eyes flashed with the lightning of pure, unadulterated hatred. Zeus could feel the stomp of the advancing hoard vibrating up through his sinewy legs and rippling torso. How, in the name of all that was holy, could he stop such an army?
“Lord Zeus,” Loki said grimly, coming up to stand beside him, “the battlements along the narrows have been destroyed. Too many ships remain for our forces to withstand.”
Every tendon and cord stood out beneath the blue leather battle dress of the ten-foot-tall gargantuan. His long, ebony hair was tied at the nape of his burly neck by a strip of black leather and his mahogany eyes burned with a raging fire. Loki knew firsthand what atrocities Cronus was capable of having lived with the creature for so long and he despised that monster almost as much as Zeus did. He held his over-sized CL rifle in clenched hands as he watched the Atlantean legions arrayed against them. There was no doubt he would fight to the end, but Loki knew in the pit of his stomach they had little chance.
“Order all of the city troops and those on the northern walls to retreat to the Great House,” Zeus commanded, not taking his eyes off the enemy not a mile away and closing fast. “We will hold this position as long as we can.”
“Done,” Loki replied after speaking into his comlink, but not moving an inch from where he stood. He laid the barrel of his rifle on top of the block wall, saying nothing more. He would not leave.
All along the limestone stockade, the men and women of Olympia prepared themselves for their own deaths. The children of Cronus were scattered among them and many felt that fact alone might save them. The Prophesy might yet be fulfilled. Now, seeing the amassed might blanketing the field before them, doubt crept into their hearts. Still, they would not falter. They sent furious pleas to the Creator above. Paramount in their vehement prayers was the fervent appeal to take fifty Atlanteans for every one of their own that fell.
“Halt the main columns here,” Iapetus ordered, coldly looking out at the huge wall surrounding the city. He calmly noted the plasma cannons in the guard towers and dismissed them as no threat against their coated armor. His biggest concern was with the rock-throwing weapons. He heard the reports from the fleet and knew their shields were useless against them. If they had them here, he, too, might fail. Iapetus growled deep in his throat. Denarius would pay for his pretentious vanity, but he would deal with him later.
“Send a company with two plasma cannons to the wards,” Iapetus commanded, seeing the rifles bristling along the stone barricade. “Split them into two, hundred-man units. Have them concentrate fire on the two nearest guard towers. Take them out!”
Iapetus did not care if they were lost. He had plenty more men. The energy weapons could not harm them and, when they saw that, it might breed hopelessness within the Olympians. He icily decided it would be worth any loss of life to see if Zeus responded with boulders.
Blazing red and blue beams rained down on the company as it closed in. The Atlantean forces dropped behind a wall of polished, coated, shining shields. The energies bounced harmless off, scorching the damp, green grasses and sending waves of shimmering heat into the air. The return fire raked the limestone, singing heads raised too high and cracking chunks of stone from the wall. Helplessly, the Olympian defenders watched the company brush off their attack and split in half, advancing on the guard towers.
The plasma cannons inside poured out thick, blistering ropes of white-hot fire against the raised shields. The sticky substance slid off, igniting the wet turf in a fog of angry, gray smoke. The first row of troops slammed their armor into the ground, preventing the blaze from passing. The rest raised theirs to create a roof over their units while the muzzles of their own cannons peeked out to take aim at towers. In minutes, guns went silent, the Olympians inside cooked in a broth of their own flesh and fat. The rock walls melted down into rivers of molten lava that boiled the bodies of the people stationed nearby. Having accomplished their tasks, the company retreated out of range of the barricade and awaited their Lord Commander’s next orders.
Iapetus did not smile. His stomach twisted. He knew it was vital to the stability of Atlantis to destroy Zeus and his siblings, but he would rather defeat them in personal combat than be forced to take so many others with them. The bull-like man was thankful the wind blew inland so he was not assailed by the stench of burning bodies. He remembered well the smell of rotting flesh when he was entombed in the pile of corpses aboard the Black Death in Cronus’ insane attempt to wipe out the fleeing Izon. The horrific sea battle cost many Atlantean lives and Iapetus was sickened by the thought of having to repeat those atrocities himself. Still, Cronus was the Lord Father and he would do his duty to the best of his ability.
“Advance,” Iapetus commanded emotionlessly as he mounted his sled to lead the assault. As one, the main columns marched forward.
“Wait,” Zeus order, raising his hand. The soldiers along the limestone palisade held their fire as the phalanx of Atlanteans moved against them. Zeus knew of the shielding on the warships and feared Cronus might have something akin to it to protect his troops. There was not enough time to build more rail guns and now they were all on the bottom of the sea. Zeus regretting not stationing a few along the wall. Now it was too late. He could only hope their other secret weapons could turn back this black tide. The long line of men and women on the hardened soil behind him stood silently, their hands hovering above the huge tubes stuck in the ground at each of their sides.
Haleah waited calmly in the center of the row, her daughters and their children arrayed on either side. She did not fear death. In her long life, she had faced it too many times to count. If it took her today, at least she would return to the arms of her beloved, Morpheus. She missed him so.
Her sky-blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight, not with sadness, but with regret, he could not see this. Haleah chanced a glance down the straight line on either side of her and saw the joyous result of the life she and Morpheus led. Over a hundred women, generations of their daughters, stood at her sides, proud, strong and courageous. They dedicated their lives to the protection of the Clan and the people of Olympia. As one, they were known as the Aam-Izon, deadly warriors more than the equal of any man. Creator, may they survive this day.
Zeus held his hand steady. Iapetus marched his troops in a single column four hundred men wide. It was obvious he intended to breach the wall between the two destroyed towers, concentrating his firepower on a single point. A good plan if it worked, but Zeus had other things in mind. As the first row closed to within a hundred yards, he spoke into his coms. “Lelantos. Now.”
A tall podium created for just this purpose stood behind the row of women. All that was on it was a single, large, red button. Lelantos put his huge, bronzed-skinned hand over it and, with a twinge of apprehension, slammed his palm downward. From here, he could not see over the wall. Lelantos soon learned he was very grateful for that.
The first row of Atlantean troops knelt on the trampled, damp grassland, their metal shields planted on the ground. They did not know they kneeled within feet of a buried cable. The line of men behind them held shields above their heads to protect the soldiers from energy weapons as plasma cannons were rolled forward. They were the lucky ones.
A foot beneath the surface, the braided copper cable twisted and crackled as a tremendous surge of electricity coursed through it. The dew-moistened soil around it exploded in a spider web of blue lightning. The metal shields picked up the charge and turned into blue-white demons of death. The Atlanteans holding th
em twisted in an uncontrollable dance of horror. Even as far away as the palisade, the sounds of shattering bones could be heard as the tormented bodies contorted in impossible agony. There were no screams, just a loathsome melody of crunching teeth, fractured jawbones and ripping muscle.
Then there was the stench carried on the inland breeze. The shield-holders burst into flame, the corpses surrounded in a repugnant aura of sparkling energy. Skin blistered and blackened, leaving little more than distorted, ebon skeletons that quickly turned to ash, their shields exploding into the air like missiles. Almost half of the defenders behind the wall doubled over and retched on the buzzing ground beneath their feet as the putrid smell wafted over them.
The second row of troops fared only a little better. The powerful wave of electricity coursed up through their bodies and blackened the hands holding their shields aloft. They were flung high into the bright-blue, late-morning sky like limp pieces of tattered cloth. Those lucky enough to be flung well away from the buried cable slammed into the hard-packed ground with killing force. The rest landed close enough for the steel to pick up the charge and died in appalling anguish, their pitiful wailings lasting mere moments.
There was enough separation between the electric barrier and the third row of the hoard to keep from killing them. However, the wet ground still carried enough current to knock them off their feet and leave them jerking with violent spasms on the grass, unable to rise, their shields ripped from their hands.
As horror-struck as he was by the mind-numbing, unexpected consequences of the Lelantos barrier, Zeus could not hesitate. He closed his raised hand into a fist and shouted, “Now!”
The row of men and women behind him reached for the steel-tipped aeros in the tubes at their sides and, as one, sent a rain of razor-sharp ruination arcing through the air. As quickly as the shafts left their bows, the archers reloaded and sent wave after wave of annihilation into the uncaring azure sky. Once the tubes were empty, they jumped up on the wooden ledge of the stockade, reached for the quivers strapped across their backs and waited.
Across the veldt, screams, wails and howls rippled through the ranks of the Atlantean legion. Without their shields to protect them, the deadly storm of steel ripped through flesh and bone, pinning crying bodies to the ground. The green grass turned red with blood and spilled guts. Hundreds died. Hundreds more lay wounded and weeping.
Iapetus bellowed in rage and frustration, his black eyes blazing red. He pulled an aero that managed to get through a chink in his armor from his pillar-like thigh and snapped it in two. This hail of steel was something he never knew existed and could not have anticipated, but it only fueled his rising fury. The monstrous man screamed out orders, sending blast after blast of plasma into the ground that had fried his men. The white-hot liquid tore through the earth and snapped the deadly cable into tatters. Where the braided copper was left exposed in the steaming pits, it sent crackles of current along the grass before sparking out and going still.
“Send in a shielded squad!” Iapetus ordered icily. He raised his farseers to his slitted eyes and watched as the men cautiously moved across the field. They hesitated as they neared the wire, tossing their rifles out before them. When the metal guns failed to jump with electricity, the squad stepped forward to retrieve them. They raised their shields, expecting a volley of bloodthirsty wasps. Nothing happened. The soldiers grabbed the rifles and carefully worked their way back to the main column, their fearful eyes searching the skies.
“Advance!” Iapetus shouted, dismounting his sled and stepping to the fore, his pulse rife raised and ready.
The battle plan set, his commanders knew well what to do next. Under a withering storm of fire coming from the Olympian wall, four plasma cannons on transport sleds glided forward protected by their coated shields. Troops formed a human enclosure around them, leaving their coil-wrapped, crystal muzzles clear to fire. The thick, milky beams converged on the center of the limestone wall, turning the rock to slag and opening a wide gap in the defenses. The Atlantean army rushed the palisade, running over charred skeletons crushed to powder beneath their pounding boot heels.
Iapetus almost stopped the charge as a black warbird fell from the sky and landed behind the shattered stockade, but it did not fire upon him and his men were too enthralled in the berserk of battle to stop. Running even faster, his warriors on his heels, the Lord Commander almost reached the wall.
Zeus had the forethought to shift his forces away from the center of the barricade, remembering the tactic Cronus used when he attacked Home. When the wall was breached, Zeus and his people would flank the soldiers pouring through and rip them apart. He would have to swamp them, making their guns useless and then take them on hand to hand with sword and knife. His golden eyes blazed like the rising sun and his reddish-blond mane flamed around his hard-jawed face. He knew they were vastly outnumbered still and had little chance. Zeus growled like an enraged Murcat as he pulled his blade loose of its scabbard. He would hold these vicious enemies back until the bulk of his people could get to the Main House. In the depths of his soul, Zeus knew he would not live long enough to see what came after that.
As the wall between his warriors glowed red and began to melt in the grass, a thundering sound rent the air behind Zeus. Startled and ready to be attacked from the rear, his mouth dropped open as a Nillian warbird dropped down with a ground-shaking thump, nose pointed at the city. The rear of the airship crashed open and a creature out of nightmare stepped onto the grass.
“Fear not,” a booming female voice called out as the beast stepped forward with raised hands. Her powerfully muscled body was sheathed in ornate, maroon and yellow armor from head to toe. Only her bronze-skinned arms remained bare. Around her biceps were bands of symbol-covered crimson-edged in black. Sheaths of the same color were wrapped from wrist to elbow, also inlaid with runes. Metallic wings sprouted from her back, flowing almost to the ground and rising just above her helmeted head. Each blood-red feather was edged in black. “I come to help.”
As incredibly beautiful and yet terrifying as she was, it was her face that drew the most attention. She wore the guise of a black-headed falcon with a golden throat and a wicked-looking, curved jonquil-yellow beak. The large round eyes were maroon encircled by a thin ring of gold. Its brilliant black and yellow feathers flowed across her broad, flat shoulders, halfway down her back and fell to the middle of her chest. Resting around her savage forehead, just above those piercing eyes, was a crown of gold centered by two upraised horns holding a glowing sun between them. Around the woman’s falcon neck, she wore a heavy, chain neckless that terminated mid-torso. A larger sun-like disk held between upraised silver horns hung from the neckless and was strapped around her ribcage. Like the one on her crown, it swirled and pulses like a living thing, black and yellow mists shifting within.
Neither Zeus nor his people were afraid of the mesmerizing apparition, as awe-inspiring as she was. Most of them had seen Ra and the Trinity in full battle gear before and, though this was different than they had seen, they knew it for the armor that it was.
Zeus had little time to wonder. He could hear the Atlantean army roaring as they neared the shattered defense line. He turned, bracing for the attack when the falcon woman shouted, “No!”
Without slowing or awaiting his permission, she raced for the gap. Her amplified voice rolled over the Olympians in a powerful wave. “Get your people into the city! I will hold this wall! I can do this only once! Go!”
Zeus stared at her incredulous as she stepped alone into the breach and spread her arms wide. Frozen to the spot, he saw her body bathed in a hellish onslaught of white, red and blue fire. CL weapons, pulse rifles and white beams of plasma smashed into the Falcon goddess. She locked one leg behind her and leaned in as the raw energy tried to push her backward. She held her ground as the globe on her chest absorbed the massive assault. Her wings shimmered with crimson lightning and the runes on her arms glowed a near-black red.
“Retre
at!” Zeus roared as the Falcon began to glow. His remaining forces jumped on their transports and sleds, rushing toward Olympia. They had to get within the city confines where they had the advantage. Deep in his heart swelled a bubble of hope. With Ra’s help, they might yet win the day. He was wrong.
Screeching like the vicious bird of prey she wore, the armored Raet arched her back. From the blazing sun on her chest, a firestorm of primordial forces erupted, the absorbed energy returned to her assailants two-fold. Her metallic wings touched the ground and cracked the earth with sparks of power that radiated outward toward the oncoming army. Raet raised her fisted hands and the runes sent twisted shafts of lightning high into the air. Thunder rumbled in the cloud-filled sky and echoed off the mountainsides.
The Atlantean legions split apart and ran, a wide swath of blackened death ripped through the center. Nothing and no one survived. A quarter of the column was simply gone leaving nothing but ashes behind.
Raet stumbled, falling to one knee. Ra carefully explained to her what the Cydonian armor could do, but she had never felt it herself. She was not there years ago for the battle between Ra and Apophus and did not witness the explosions of raw, barbaric power. Nor had she seen the ghastly aftermath. It sickened her to the very core of her being.
Ra also warned Raet of the physical toll it would exact for its gifts. When the mixed energies first slammed into her, she felt as if she would be crushed inside the metal shell, her insides turned into jellied, bloodied globs. Then the rune-like circuitry of the suit took over, bathing her naked arms in a cocoon of force. The pressure on her skeleton eased and centered in the sun globe that hung around her neck, but the pain remained. Every nerve was on fire, her blood seemed to boil in her veins and her muscles spasmed within the battle suit. Then, suddenly, it was gone. All Raet felt with a heavy, crushing weight upon her chest. She could hear nothing but the roar in her ears and a distant screech that appeared to be coming from her own raw throat.