Fallen Gods II

by Nick S. Thomas

  She smiled, and it seemed to give her some hope.

  “Vulcan, we must put all our efforts into finding him,” she insisted with a newly invigorated tone.

  * * *

  Aaron yawned as he tried to stay awake behind the wheel of their rented SUV, a gleaming silver Mercedes. They were driving on a remote road through the wilderness. It was the middle of the day, but the forests around them were so dense little light made it through. Ava began to stir and stretched out as she came to.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “A few hours.”

  “You should have woken me.”

  “It’s okay. You needed it.”

  She didn’t look happy but was glad of the rest. A light went on at the dash, and he pulled over. They were out of fuel. He went to the back of the vehicle and opened the trunk to reveal ten jerry cans full of diesel. He propped one open and began to fill the tank as Ava got out to stretch her legs. She looked around to try and gain her bearings, but there was little to see for the huge forest encapsulated them. They were still on a tarmac road, but it didn’t look like it got much use.

  “How sure are you about this?”

  “Not very.”

  “And yet here we are?”

  “If there is any chance this is real, and Aldred exists, we have to give it a shot.”

  “Even if he does, and he’s everything we think he is, how do we know he’ll help us?”

  “We don’t.”

  “Surely others have gone in search of him?”

  “Yes, they have.”

  “And?”

  “Nobody ever found him, or if they did, they never told anyone.”

  “It sounds like an urban legend to me.”

  “Yeah, but when the gods descend, and start fighting it out before your eyes, I guess you have to wonder what else might actually be real.”

  “It gives me the creeps.”

  “What does?”

  “All the terrifying monsters and things in the old stories. What if they are real, too? We’re going into the middle of nowhere, further out from humanity than I’ve ever been, and what if we find something out here? Something that doesn’t want us to be here?”

  “We’ll deal with it.”

  “Really? With what?”

  He finished with the can and placed it back in the trunk. He unzipped one of the bags to reveal two Olympian blades.

  “How the hell do you have those?”

  “You think I was gonna come out here without them?”

  “But how did you get them here?”

  “You’re kidding me. They’re just swords as far as anyone else is concerned. I couldn’t bring a firearm, but nobody was stopping a couple of sharp blades.”

  She shook her head in amazement as she touched the hilt and felt the power as if it surged through her body.

  “You know how risky it was bringing these?”

  “You know how risky it was not to?”

  “Fair point, but what are you expecting to find out here?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I brought them.”

  “I still can’t believe we’re doing this. We must be desperate.”

  He smiled as he nodded in agreement.

  “No doubt about that, but we’re still here, aren’t we?” He poured in another full jerry can of fuel.

  “How can this Aldred really be real? How could he have been out here all this time and nobody knew?”

  “If I had all the answers, I’d share them, believe me. But these past few months, I’ve come to realize none of us know even a half of what we thought we knew about this world. We live in our little bubbles. I thought because I worked out on the streets that I saw so much more of life. More than people that worked a cushy desk job and spent their afternoons in snazzy coffee shops. But the truth is I hadn’t seen much more of the world than anyone else in the city. It’s an eye opener, and it’s terrifying, too.”

  “It’s nothing new. People have always feared the unknown.”

  “Yeah, but now we have something we know to fear as well. Hades is coming back, and you know it. Deep down I think even Thanatos knows it, he’s just too tired to fight it. Come on, we’ve got to get on.”

  He slammed the trunk and got back in. They tore off into the distance and drove for many more hours. Finally, he slowed down as they took a bend and caught sight of a peculiar looking mountaintop. It was distinctive in that the peak almost looked like a human head silhouetted against the sky.

  “What is it?”

  “This is it. This was the sign we were looking for.”

  “What, that mountaintop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know about this?”

  “An old friend told me many years ago. Eli Ashcroft.”

  “The arms and armor expert? You knew him?”

  “Yeah, I did. Back when I was first getting into HEMA, not that we called it that back then. For the first few years he was still around. Greatest mind about swords we’ve had in generations. You know he was still training with swords till a few weeks before he died.”

  “I didn’t know you had met him.”

  “Yeah, well it was a long time ago, nearly twenty years now. I was just a young guy back then. I wanted to learn everything I could from anyone willing to show me. I met all sorts. Real experts and masters, and complete charlatans.”

  “And Ashcroft was the real deal?”

  “Damn right, he was. Sure he wasn’t as fit and strong as he once was, but his mind was still sharp, and he was one hell of a teacher. I had all the time in the world for him, until the few times he’d had a little too much of the brandy, and he’d come out with the craziest stories. We all thought he was just a crazy old guy telling stories that other crazy old guys had relayed to him.”

  “Maybe he was?”

  “Yeah, maybe, but there was something in the way he spoke about Aldred, as if he not only believed the stories, but that he’d actually met him.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “I don’t know what to believe, but I’m open to the idea more than I ever was.”

  “All right, say I believe all this, as mad as it sounds, why would someone so secretive hide out at such a remarkable landmark?” She gestured toward the mountaintop.

  “He doesn’t. That’s just the first waypoint on finding him. Frankly, I’m amazed it even exists. It feels like we’re following some ancient treasure map.”

  “Well, what are you following? Who told you these directions?”

  He threw her a book. It was leather-bound and very old. She opened it up to the page that had a silk divider running through it. There were scrawlings by hand, text, and all sorts of drawings.

  “Here, you’ve heard of Albrecht Durer?”

  “The messer guy?”

  “One and the same, yes.”

  “What about him?”

  “He wrote and painted, and really did all sorts. One of the things he did was to write poetry.”

  “Okay,” she sounded confused.

  “Eli believed within the poems of Durer were the directions to this mythical place where masters trained, where Aldred resides. He spoke about them as if he’d actually been there, or at least got some way to finding this place. Again, I thought it was all bullshit back then. Sounded like some Illuminati like fantasy, or a treasure map that’ll have you going in circles your whole life.”

  “And you believe in treasure maps now?”

  “Maybe, but I’ll believe it if they’ll lead us where we need to go.”

  She was scanning the page of poetry when her gaze was drawn to a line.

  “Wait a minute,” she whispered and proceeded to read the line aloud, “West of the mountain face is the heart of the holiest place.”

  She looked up at the peculiar shaped mountain before her.

  “Surely not?”

  “That’s what he’s writing about? Or what you think he was writing about?”

  “Eli thought s
o, maybe even knew so.”

  “It all sounds too good to be true. I mean sure it seems to fit, but it’s so vague, it could be interpreted any way you like.”

  He turned the page of the journal to a print of one of Durer’s painting that had been cut out and glued into the journal. He put his finger on the page to what was a man holding a two-handed sword, pointing it as if to threaten an enemy.

  “What about it? It’s just some guy with a longsword,” she said wearily as if they were not getting anywhere.

  “And what is behind him?” Aaron asked.

  She squinted as she looked closely until her eyes finally widened at the realization.

  “That’s it, the mountain.” She looked up at the view before them to find the image on the page was the same location and even the same perspective.

  “No way.”

  “What’s on his arm? The tattoo?”

  “She followed the figure until she spotted it.

  “A cross.”

  “A holy fencer pointing the way west at the place of the mountain with a face, sound familiar?”

  She couldn’t believe it. It still seemed a lot to take in, and yet her doubtful tone disappeared as she started to come around to the idea.

  “That poem is the one. Eli knew it. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know how the hell anyone could have even realized it was a series of directions. But he did. Come to think of it, I think Eli knew a whole lot more about things than we ever gave him credit for. We just thought he told old stories. Exaggerated and bloated with time.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have believed any of it if you’d told it to me a few weeks back either. You see the world a whole lot different after what we’ve been through.”

  Aaron pulled onto an old muddy track that headed west. They went on for another hour before the undergrowth became too thick. He brought them to a stop.

  “Great, a dead end.”

  “You thought we’d be able to drive right up to this place?” Aaron smiled.

  She hadn’t thought of that as they got out and gathered up their gear, preparing for a hike.

  “How far you think this is gonna be?”

  “No idea, but I can’t imagine we’re gonna find it easy,” he declared as he pulled on a pack.

  “We’ve got gear and supplies to last a few days.”

  “Do you have any idea how remote this is? If we get into any kind of trouble, there’ll be no one who can help us.”

  “Yep,” he replied with a smile.

  “How can you be okay with that? It’s terrifying. You’re always smiling, how can you still be like that after all that’s happened?”

  “I just think we’ve got to enjoy this life. We probably won’t get another. The good, the bad, it’s all an experience. So long as it doesn’t hurt too much, it’s all part of being alive, and something to celebrate.”

  She looked out at the wilderness and everything standing before them, knowing it could be a fruitless expedition and sighed.

  “There won’t be much to celebrate if we don’t find anything out here,” she groaned.

  “I don’t know, a decent hike out here in this fresh air. Just take it in. It’s beautiful. Away from the cities and the noise. It’ll be zero light pollution out here, just imagine the view of the stars we’ll have tonight.”

  She finally smiled even though she was still shaking her head.

  “Nothing gets you down, does it?”

  “Not if I can help it. What’s the point of wasting the time we have being miserable?”

  “If only life were that easy,” she muttered.

  “Come on. Let’s get going while we still have light.”

  “You know where we’re going?”

  “I know that poem like I wrote it myself. Trust me.”

  She handed him the journal, and he packed it along with their gear, handing her one of the blades on a simple shoulder bandolier.

  “You think we’ll be needing those?”

  “I have no idea what will be needed, but I want to have it when we do.”

  He locked the car and took one final look out at the ground around them. The undergrowth was fairly thin between the trees, so they’d have little trouble moving through, but there were no obvious tracks, and they could make out little in the distance through what seemed like an endless forest.

  “You sure you know where you’re going now?”

  “I think I do, and that’s the best I can give you,” he said with a smile as he set out.

  Chapter 9

  “Attack!” Mikey yelled.

  Half the class of nearly thirty students rushed forward toward their opponents. They landed a barrage of blows against the other half, who parried, cut, and thrust one after another with sabers. They were closing like madmen, as if they were training to deal with a most brutish opponent. Finally, the defenders had their backs against the wall, and still the attackers came. In sequence, as if it were a dance, they wrenched their blades around their opponents as they closed the distance, grabbed hold of the hilt of their weapons, and drove the guards of their sabers into the fencing masks of their aggressive attackers.

  “Beautiful!” Mikey called out enthusiastically, “Recover, and we’ll do that again, but let’s crank it up a notch. I want them to really feel the pressure. Attackers move like you mean it. Like you really want to ram those blades down their throats!”

  “We still doing this for fun, or is this training for the real deal?” Rick whispered. He was standing beside him as his assistant.

  “Why can’t it be both?”

  “If they knew this could ever be for real, do you think even half of them would stay?”

  “Soldiers stay in the army in peacetime, knowing they could go to war at any time.”

  “But this isn’t the army, is it? They pay to come here, not the other way around.”

  “We were an army when we went to fight Hades. If he ever comes back, we will be again.”

  “Most of these people have no idea about all of that, though.”

  “Neither did we until it landed on our doorstep.”

  He went back to the class who were awaiting his command.

  “Attack!”

  They went forward with even more enthusiasm than before, and the clash of steel on steel rang out across the fencing salle until the satisfying end of the drill, as the defenders drove their hilts into the faces of their opponents.

  “Not exactly from the manual, is it?”

  “When has that ever stopped you using something in a fight, Rick?”

  “All right, that’s it. Everyone circle in!” Mikey yelled to the group as he brought the lesson to a close.

  “What we did just there isn’t quite how it is in the manual. Everything you did in defense is, and the taking hold of your opponent’s hilt, but at the last stage, a common method is to present the tip of your own sword against the enemy. What is the problem with that?”

  There was no response, and so he went to the side of the room. He drew a sharp saber and tossed it to Rick. He looked surprised but focused on catching it by the grip as he held his training sword in his left.

  “Go through the drill. You’re the defender, end it by presenting the tip of your sword to my chest, rather than the hilt strike to the face,” he told Rick.

  Neither of them wore masks, nor would any of their gear provide proper protection from the razor-sharp blade now in Rick’s hand. He’d never trained in a partnered sequence before, but he didn’t hesitate. Having fought for real, it didn’t seem so daunting as it once would have.

  “Ready?”

  Rick nodded, and they began. Mikey initiated his motions with a good amount of intent, despite facing the sharp blade, and knowing how much damage it could do if anything went wrong. Rick parried them off nimbly until finally he came in to take hold of Mikey’s hilt. He presented the tip of the sharp saber in front of Mikey’s chest, the sharp blade just a finger’s distance from his body.

  “Textbook, jus
t as it’s described in a number of manuals. Now, if you were fighting to win, and not necessarily to kill your opponent, this would be fine. If you had some reasonable expectation they would bow out and accept defeat. But what if they won’t? What if this isn’t some noble and honorable duel? What if they really want to kill you, and they’re willing to take any chances? Kill or be killed?”

  “This isn’t street defense,” said one of them.

  “It was. We might do this for fun today, but if you forget and ignore its purpose, well you might as well go and do something else. Go and take up Olympic fencing, or boxing, and compete under set rules to win points. We aren’t here to win points. We’re here to learn how to fight as if it were for real.”

  “But it isn’t, is it?” The student was unwilling to let up.

  “Have you ever fought with a blade to the death?”

  The student shook his head, as if it were a ridiculous question, but clearly had no idea where this was going next.

  “I have.”

  Many in the class looked surprised.

  “So has Rick,” added Mikey.

  “Come on?”

  Many looked on in surprise. But from the look on both their faces they could see they were not bluffing.

  “Having to fight for real is nothing to brag about, but there’s a lot to learn from it. I pray none of you ever have to experience it, because don’t believe for a moment that Rick and I did it because we wanted to. We didn’t fight for some macho reason; we did it because we had to. If that time ever comes, you’d better be in the right place, up here,” he said, pointing toward his head, “Fighting isn’t all about technique or power. Those are important things, but at the core of it all is fight psychology. You must learn to be comfortably able to manage in any scenario, and learn to judge and anticipate all kinds of actions. Now, my weapon has been seized, and a sharp blade is directed at my chest. If I have nothing left to lose, what would I do?”

  “Punch him in the face,” yelled one as others laughed.

  “There’s a sharp blade in front of me. He just has to push it forward with no effort at all, and that’s going right into my body, and it’s game over. Think back to the dagger work we have done, the unarmed vs. dagger especially. The priority is to control the opponent’s weapon.”