by Nancy Holder
Her horse flicked its tail as she cantered into the clearing toward the three men. When they realized she wasn’t going to stop, their faces fell, and they hurriedly stepped aside.
Her path clear, she dug in her spurs, and the horse took off up the grade.
* * *
Steve’s heart leapt when he finally got a glimpse of a horse and rider racing ahead. Then they vanished around a bend. He twisted the throttle wide open, trying to close the distance. Skidding around a turn carpeted with damp leaves and pine needles, he put his foot down to keep the bike upright, then roared onto a straightaway. Then he spotted her.
It’s Diana!
As he continued to accelerate, Steve saw her gallop past the others without stopping. When she turned to race up the hill, he lost sight of her again. But not for long. Redlining the engine, bending over the handlebars to reduce wind resistance, he whipped by Charlie, Sammy, and the Chief at seventy miles an hour, pelting them with sticks and dirt. Then he slowed to make the turn up the hill after her.
The team raced up the incline after him.
17
From the summit, Diana gazed down on a cluster of buildings bordered by a long, flat area on which aeroplanes sat parked. It was a German airfield, like the one Steve had described during his interrogation on Themyscira, encircled by two high, barbed-wire fences— perhaps erected to keep their slave labor contained. She heard a dull whirring sound and looked more closely. Two of the flying machines had their engines idling. She could see the propellers spinning. The site was crawling with German soldiers. They marched back and forth, working on the planes, entering and leaving buildings, moving heavy carts loaded with wooden crates.
It occurred to her that Ares didn’t need a German aeroplane to make his escape; a God had the power to fly on his own, without mechanical or any other kind of assistance. But if Ares wanted to remain in his human disguise, he could easily put an insurmountable distance between himself and pursuit, simply by climbing into one of the machines and taking it where he wanted to go. That idea sent a fresh wave of urgency flooding through her. She could not lose him now. She could not let that happen.
Carefully she scanned the field, the planes, the nest of low buildings, and the tall structure that towered over them. She saw soldiers in twos and threes—no entourages—yet Ludendorff was not the kind of man to travel without one. Her vantage point was too distant and the angle of sight too steep; half the compound was hidden from view. To find him she had to get nearer. Much nearer.
Spurring her horse, she stormed down the hillside, keeping to the tree line as much as possible. Dark horse, dark rider, dark forest. With any luck the Germans wouldn’t see her until it was too late.
As she descended, she kept her eyes on the compound, trusting the horse to find its own footing. Something moved near the top of the tall structure, which was, on closer inspection, a wooden tower line with metal stairs. There was a platform on the upper story, a railed balcony, and guard standing outside.
She felt a sudden catch in her throat, then a rush of excitement. Ludendorff was inside the tower!
At the base of the slope, she turned the horse toward the barbed wire and charged. On the other side of the fence a small clutch of German soldiers saw her movements and reacted, raising weapons.
This was as close to the tower as she could get, and she had to act quickly before they sounded the alarm. Without a second’s hesitation, she leaped off her horse and twirled over the top of the fence, landing just behind a second fence. She rushed forward, swinging the Godkiller overhead. No jumping this time. Slashing the blade back and forth she hacked through the coils of wire like a stand of thorny dry weeds.
The cluster of Germans went on the offensive, rushing her. There was no time for the niceties. Diana ducked under an out-thrust rifle. Effortlessly, she turned and grabbed the man with the rifle by the hips and spun him around 360 degrees. Then she toppled each one in turn, racing to silence them before they raised the cry.
It was over in seconds.
Beyond them, across the open field on which the planes were parked, loomed the tower. It was constructed of wood crisscrossing metal beams, and the stairs went all the way up to the roof.
Diana saw a straight track to her goal, and she took it. At the base of the tower, she buckled her shield to her back. Unlimbering the Lasso of Hestia, she swung its loop around and around over her head, building momentum; then she let it fly straight up. The slack rope slithered up behind it, peeling from her open hand. The glowing loop dropped neatly over the soldier’s helmet, past his nose, and under his chin. He jerked back in surprise, which only tightened the loop. As he leaned forward to relieve the pressure, Diana pulled down hard. The soldier flipped over the railing and fell, flailing all the way to the ground. She used the momentum to propel herself up to the balcony. She landed, scanning her surroundings. The ladder was the only way up and down from the top—not counting the deadfall. Unless Ares shed his human form and showed the world what he really was, she had him trapped.
If Ares had decided to meet her halfway, it might have been difficult—but he didn’t. He was nowhere in sight as she darted across the balcony floor. Panes of glass encircled the interior, which was the control room of the flight tower. Seated at a desk, a young German soldier wearing a headset was oblivious of her presence. She entered the room with the Godkiller in her hand, tore the headset off of him, and tossed him off the balcony.
And there he was—Ludendorff. Alone. With his steel-gray and his imposing size, a precise German officer.
A God in disguise.
Ludendorff turned as she approached him. He looked her up and down, lingering on the sword she held; then his mouth twisted into a smirk.
“What a surprise,” he said. He cocked his head as he took in her appearance—an Amazon in battle gear. “Strange.” With icy efficiency, he plucked a small gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at her. “Unfortunately, I have another matter to attend to.”
With that, he fired. The pistol bucked in his hand and the first bullet left the barrel. It was faster than sound, but so was Diana. She blocked it with her bracelet, and in the same instant that the sharp report rocked the little room, the bullet reversed course, ricocheting back down the barrel just as Ludendorff fired a second shot. It was the first time she had directed a bullet with her bracelets, and she realized that she had just provided herself with another weapon.
The gun barrel exploded in his hand. He shrieked in pain, letting the weapon drop to the floor. His face twisted in a grimace as he clutched his fingers.
It was an excellent performance, but he wasn’t fooling her. He was a God and he would heal just as quickly as she had at the site of his most recent atrocity. Whatever advantage she had gained against him would evaporate in an instant.
“What are you?” he demanded.
“You will soon find out.” She spun the Godkiller in her grip, preparing for battle. She was an Amazon. She was a defender, protector. And she was here to save the world.
He turned away, reaching into his pocket, taking something out, then hunching over. She was prepared to fend off a new weapon, a different attack, but none appeared. There was an audible snap, like a dry stick breaking. She heard him inhale deeply; then he let out a groan and shuddered. There was a strange odor that she hadn’t noticed before; she couldn’t remember smelling anything quite like it. The closest thing that came to mind was the fumes from the traffic in London. When he turned back toward her, he had changed, and the transformation was startling. The veins on his face, neck, and hands were bulging hideously, like knotted ropes under his skin. His face was glowing.
Ares the God was also a monster: a monster she had come to kill.
She attacked, thrusting the Godkiller at him with all the force she could muster just as he reached over and ripped a bulky metal warming stove from the wall. With ease he flung it at her; it broke apart against her, the metal clattering against the walls and floor.
Taking advantage of her surprise, he sprang on her, grabbed her up, and threw her against a window. It shattered around her, glass flying everywhere, catching light as it cascaded and fell. Then he shoved a table into her midsection, pinning her—but only momentarily. She pushed it out of the way and came at him, smashing him in the face with her fist. His head barely moved.
Circling in the cramped space, they traded barehanded blows. Each of them shifted just enough, blocked just enough to spoil the effect of the punches. Then he caught her with a straight right hand to the chin that sent her skidding backwards.
Diana feinted right, and as he swung on her, she ducked under the blow and, pivoting from the balls of her feet, slammed the pommel of the Godkiller into the side of his head. He jerked hard. The Godkiller made the difference.
As he recovered his feet and turned, he glared at her, then darted his glance around the room. A rifle with bayonet was hanging on hooks on the wall. He snatched it free and swung it around, slashing it back and forth like a sword. She used the Godkiller to fend off the attack, knocked the bayonet blade aside, and snap kicked him in the stomach.
He turned the rifle butt-end and slammed it against her over and over. She had easily withstood the force of a rifle smashed across her back, but the pressure of his blows made her knees buckle. Ares was getting stronger rather than weaker. She fell to the floor, dropping the Godkiller. Before she could recover, he scooped it up.
“As magnificent as you are, you are still no match for me,” he crowed.
“We’ll see about that,” she countered.
The veins in his face looked as if they were about to burst. He was working himself up to make a final attack. He brought down the blade; still prone, she caught it between her palms and grabbed it away from him. The raw blade in her hand filled her with strength and courage. She had sworn to free mankind from Ares’s thrall. And with this precious gift, she would do it.
The look of surprise on his face energized her. She bent her legs and sprung up, smashing him in the stomach, putting every ounce of power into the punch. He flew backwards and crashed through one of the windows, landing on his back on the narrow walkway that ran around the tower.
As he struggled to his feet, Diana jumped through the empty window frame after him. She slashed down with the Godkiller, but her quarry rolled away. He came up with his back to the railing. She had him. She aimed the sword thrust to split his heart, and it would have if he hadn’t twisted away at the last second. The blade’s edge made a shrill screech as it scraped across the steel.
He jumped onto the rail and from there scrambled on the ladder to the tower’s roof.
She blasted through the ceiling, soaring high above the tower into the sky, the very heavens themselves. She looked down. Ludendorff/Ares had remained below on the roof, poised to take her on. She landed and faced him. Faced him down, the evil God who had brought such misery to the villagers in Veld. Through history, to millions. Before history: the God who had killed all the other Gods.
The God who could be killed only by an Amazon with the Godkiller in her grip. She pulled free the Lasso of Hestia.
“I am Diana of Themyscira. Daughter of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. And your wrath upon this world is over,” she said, offering honor in her declaration despite his craven lack of it.
She lassoed Ludendorff. Throwing him high into the air, she flew upward with the momentum. They both soared with the night wind, the lasso gleaming against the smoke. Twisting, spiral, she kept hold of him. She had made a vow in Themyscira. She had renewed that vow in Veld. And she was a woman of her word.
She landed back down first. Pulling the lasso sharply, she smacked him onto the roof. He came down hard on his back. A mortal man would be dead by now.
He looked up at her. She stood over him, holding the Godkiller above her head. Her chest heaved. Was there fear in his eyes? Did he know that he was going to die?
“In the name of all that is good in this world, I hereby complete the mission of the Amazons, ridding this world of you forever.”
He began to raise up. With a mighty downward thrust, she stabbed him in the chest. He fell back against the tower roof. His distorted veins faded. His eyes remained open, sightless. She had done it. She had dispatched Ares, traitor to gods, betrayer of humanity, enemy of all that was good. Diana stared down at him.
She had killed him.
Ares, God of War, was dead by her hand.
Let it be so, then.
In the next split-second, a frenzy of lightning strobed and exploded, enveloping the control tower.
Flashing, sizzling, shooting everywhere.
Blue-white energy; a whirlwind, a vortex.
The volcanic explosion billowed outward, a brilliant mushroom cloud of blinding light. Atomic, a comet firing. The sky shook. Along her arms, her bracelets sizzled. Diana stood in the center of it with the inert body of Ares at her feet. The discharge of his life force? The restoration of the balance of the universe—the power of rightness that he had stolen from mankind? She did not know. Energy raged around her, uncontrollable; and then, all at once, it dissipated.
The entire structure plunged into darkness. Stillness. Exhaustion, relief beyond the telling, Diana raised her face toward the sky. It was over. Now mankind would return to a world filled with kindness and bliss. It would be a paradise like she had known on Themyscira.
It would be what it had been meant to be.
The serenity.
The calm before.
Before the storm
On the tower roof, Diana opened her eyes as thunder rumbled in the distance. Above her, clouds in the ebony sky billowed and puffed upwards, blocking out the stars. It was a storm, simmering—perhaps about to bring a cleansing rain to refresh the wounded earth. Leaching out the poison, watering seeds and roots to grow living things again.
Suddenly a voice from below the tower started shouting in German: “Schnell! Geh’ geh’!” Quickly! Go, go!
Diana looked from the sky to the airfield below, and her breath caught in her throat.
Soldiers in strange masks poured out of the buildings, pushing carts filled with what looked like metal pineapples. She knew from the photographs in the London war room and Steve’s own descriptions that these were the infamous gas bombs of Dr. Maru. It had taken only one to destroy the town of Veld. Here there were hundreds.
Aeroplane propellers still whirred. The soldiers still moved the bombs filled with Dr. Maru’s poison along the tracks in the ground. They had been preparing to take the war somewhere else. To do to other villages what they had done to Veld, but now they would stop.
Now.
Except they didn’t. They continued as if nothing had happened. As if Ares had not died. She glanced back down at him. He was most surely dead.
She stood frozen. Horror gripped her hard as she tried to make sense of it. They should have stopped. Nothing had changed. The war continued. But Ares was dead.
The masked, hooded soldiers fanned out like anonymous insects, cogs in the machinery of death.
But I freed them from his tyranny.
Yet the soldiers continued on their way, rushing, hurrying to fulfill the order to kill their fellow man.
* * *
“Diana!” Steve called. He saw her silhouetted on the roof. She was still alive, despite the massive explosion that he had assumed had leveled the tower. He had no idea what had happened and at the moment he didn’t care; on legs made rubbery with relief, he climbed to the balcony of the control tower.
From this vantage point, he could see the airfield and the hangar. Smoke was streaming from one of the smokestacks. Maru’s lab? He looked at the German soldiers in their masks as they wheeled cart after cart of gas bombs out of the hanger. Dear God, they were preparing to transport the gas somewhere else— stockpiling it for another poison gas attack, Armistice or no. His espionage-trained mind ran through various schemes to stop it—all starring the Amazonian princess on the roof above him.
Then he spotted a body unmoving at Diana’s feet. He looked more closely; it was General Ludendorff. To all appearances dead, her sword plunged into his chest. So she had done it—killed the German she believed to be the root cause of all this war’s crimes against humanity. The bad guy. She had fulfilled her mission. How, then, to explain the utter disbelief on her face?
“I killed him,” she declared. “I killed him but nothing stopped.” She blinked, bewildered. “You kill the God of War, you stop the war.”
He nodded vigorously, glad to have her back. “Exactly what we have to do now.” He spoke urgently. They had so little time to do what they had come here to do. Stop this. Stop all of this.
She jumped down from the roof and landed next to him. She looked unsteady. Exhausted, he assumed. Even an Amazon must get tired.
“We need to stop the gas,” he said. “Come on.”
He turned to go. But it was clear that she wasn’t with him. Distracted, lost, she looked down at the activity in a daze, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“No. All this should have stopped.”
“Diana,” he pressed. They could sort that out later. After surviving everything they had endured to locate the manufacturing site, they couldn’t hesitate now. This was the mission they had agreed on—to do what they could to stop the war. They stood not just in the belly of the beast, but in its heart and soul. There would be other battles other days, but without this hellish weapon, Germany would submit to peace.