“They worship you. Why would you do this?” I asked.
A third voice joined in. “They worship us by sacrificing animals at their pathetic altars. We are gods. What use have I for burned bits of pig? That you favor them will make it all the more fun when we gut them.”
Ares stepped from the shadows behind me. I shifted to put my back to one of the bridge columns. His long black hair and black armor would have made him hard to track in the dying light if I couldn’t see the red thread of his power. He half-heartedly threw a ball of red energy at me. I sliced it in two with my sword, and it vanished as if it had never been. The blue flame within the sword grew bigger for a moment as it absorbed the energy. A crooked smile tugged at his lips. “Ahh, the rumors are true. You wield the god-killer, Achlys. It absorbs energy. That is how it can kill us.”
Another voice slurred from my right. “Oh ho, good form, Ares. Testing the blade like that.”
Dionysus appeared leaning against a column on the opposite side of the bridge, a jug of wine dangling from his finger. His long blonde hair was a tangled mess, and his purple tunic was stained as if he hadn’t bathed in days. He raised the jug in the air, nodding toward me in a toast, and tipped it back to take a long pull.
Hera appeared beside Dionysus and knocked the jug from his hands. It shattered upon the bridge, spilling red wine that reminded me too much of Lyannìa’s blood spilled mere feet from where I stood. Hera gave him a warning look then turned those stern dark brown eyes upon me. “Finally, your time has come, Son of Chaos. We will cut you down with the god-killer and rule this world in your stead.”
I gripped my sword tighter. “I will give you one last chance. Tell me where my family is and I will kill you all swiftly.”
13
Hera laughed mockingly. “Very well.”
“Do not—” Zeus began.
She turned a glare his way. Her eyes changed to glow a bluish-purple that matched her dress as a vision came to her. Her pale skin flushed with rage and she hissed in disgust. “Husband, I see what you plan for that whore. I may indulge your dalliances but not with her. I forbid you to let the twins heal her for your bed-sport. She will die this night along with the other Chaonians.”
Fury pulsed through my veins and I wanted nothing more than to use my sword to lay every inch of their skin open. To bleed them dry of their energy, cut by cruel cut. Outwardly I kept my expression blank as I waited patiently through their lover’s quarrel. Hera would give the information that I needed to save Lyannìa, and I would kill this lot quickly.
“Eros, find the twin healers. Do not kill them,” I ordered.
His voice floated through my head. “Ah ah, little girl. You should know better than to raise a sword against me.” I saw an image of him facing off with a sweating, dirt-covered Aphrodite. Her normally copper-blonde ringlets stuck in messy wet strands to her cheeks and neck. Her rose-colored dress bore sword cuts strategically placed to display the most amount of skin. Her gold-green eyes glowed with fury as Eros finally sliced the brooch from her shoulder and her tunic fell to reveal her breasts. “Hmmm, very nice. I had wondered. My lady, it has been pleasurable, but alas, duty calls.”
He teleported away, leaving Aphrodite to scream in frustration. To me, he asked, “Do you know where the twins are?”
I found the two golden cords that tied them to me. “They are to the East. Possibly on Gaia’s lands.”
“I am on my way. Are we going to make them heal all of our people? I say that is fitting since they helped cause the injuries.” Eros was teasing me. My silence caused him to pause. “There is something more. You are trying to block me . . .”
Eros and Gaia were more closely connected to me. Often this was more of a pain in my ass than a blessing. I tried to keep my emotions from spilling over into our connection, but from the strangled sound he made I had not been entirely successful. I provided the basic details.
“Lyannìa has been injured. The Olympians have taken her captive, and I cannot reach her.”
His concern washed over me, adding to my emotional turmoil and threatening to overwhelm me before he pulled back. “I will find the twins and bring them to you on a trencher. Brother, we will not rest until we have found your wife. What of Nikomedes?”
My heart clenched as an image of my son filled my mind. “I do not know. Gaia vowed to find him, but I have heard nothing.”
“There was word of a dragon spitting lava at a group of Olympians trying to enter the palace. Nikomedes is brave and smart. He and his dragon are a dangerous team. I am sure they are alive and giving these traitors reason to question their choice.”
Word of sighting Fiamouria helped to ease the constriction in my chest slightly. That dragon would not leave my son’s side. “You are—”
Hera turned back to me with a smug expression, and I quickly cut my connection with Eros. “Your whore is a guest in my dungeons. Do not try to reach her. You will never be able to breach the barrier around Ganymede.”
I relayed the information. “Eros, the Olympians are holding Lyannìa at Zeus and Hera’s palace on Mount Olympus.”
“I have found the twins. Gaia’s handmaidens have cut through the invaders on her lands. I will take two with me to Mount Olympus and send the others to sweep the island. Tartarus might be of use as well.” Eros continued hesitantly. “I can send Tartarus on ahead—”
I knew what he would offer. It took every ounce of strength left in me to stay here when all I wanted was to be the one to save my family. The others could hold their own in this fight, but these arrogant upstarts were mine to end.
“I will face the remaining Olympians. Go save my wife.”
Once again, I severed our connection, and just in time. I ducked as a battle-axe cut through the air where my head had just been. Ares pulled several swords from the ether and sent those spinning my way with a thought. A rope of water wrapped around my torso, locking my arms to my sides. Instantly, I teleported to the other side of the bridge to knock an unprepared Dionysus into the water below. One of Ares’s swords buried itself into the column on the other side of the bridge where I had been standing. The others changed their course to aim at my new location. I looked at Ares briefly to see Hera whispering in his ear, her eyes glowing as her visions let her see what would happen next.
I jumped into the air, one of the spinning blades nicking my leg as it sped by. I grabbed the archway of the bridge and swung myself on top then ran lightly along the narrow wall that connected the arches, intending to take out Hera and Ares. Before I could send a blast of power at them a bolt of lightning hit my back and knocked me from the wall. A cyclone of water snatched me from the air, battering my body as I tumbled round and round. Small knives were sucked up into the cyclone—no doubt courtesy of Ares—and sliced into my skin.
I commanded a stream of the water, and it pulled me from the wall of the cyclone. Standing in its calm center, I raised my sword over my head. The blue light flared to life once more as I sliced through the wall of the cyclone. I rode my column of water through the tear in the cyclone wall just before its energy was absorbed completely. Water and knives poured down into the pool below.
Blood dripped from cuts all over my body. Water weighted my clothes and plastered my long hair against my bare chest where my tunic had been burned away by the lightning strikes. I ignored it all and sent a ball of black energy whizzing toward Hera and Ares. They teleported away, and the dark energy slammed into a column of the bridge, dissolving it in seconds. The archway it had supported collapsed to the bridge below.
I sent a wave of water into the air, scooping up the spluttering Dionysus and launching him into the hedge maze. I froze the peak of the wave then pushed a blast of wind against the ice to splinter it into thousands of shards that went hurtling toward Zeus and Poseidon. Zeus teleported away, but Poseidon glared defiantly at the shards. I could see his body vibrating with the strain of working his power against mine as he tried to unfreeze the water. Some of the shards fell
away into drops as they neared him, but others found their mark. He bellowed in rage as ice shards peppered his skin and tried to burrow through to the other side. He teleported away just as a large piece about the size of my fist pierced all the way through his shoulder.
Searing pain enveloped my left shoulder. I teleported to the base of the steps outside of the maze, barely managing to keep to my feet. My left arm hung uselessly at my side. Agonizing pain tried to steal my concentration, but I locked it away. Hephaestus appeared in front of me, brandishing the massive hammer that he had just used to crush my shoulder. A black leather kilt circled his hips. Black leather gloves like those of a blacksmith covered his arms all the way to the shoulder and were held in place by crossed straps that hugged his massive chest and back.
His coal-black eyes watched me intently. His face was set in stone, giving away nothing, as usual. Hades appeared by his side, stroking one of the three heads of the massive dog-monster Cerberus. The creature had been a creation of Tartarus’s that he gifted to his firstborn son. Hades had terrorized his father’s pit masters with the pet until Tartarus banished them both to the furthest depths of the underworld. No one had seen either of them for at least a few decades.
“Hades, I thought you must be dead by now,” I muttered through gritted teeth.
“You sound as if you wished that it were true.” He smiled darkly as he switched to petting another head of his pet. “Pity for you. My father shared the same sentiment. He was even less appreciative of the little trembles I have been visiting upon your neighbors.”
The earthquakes at Mycenae and Knossos. That had been Hades all along. Tartarus would have been furious with his son for escaping his exile and for creating the earthquakes. That would explain the singed look to the mess of brown curls falling around Hades’s face. It also explained the steam rising from his naked body like he had been dipped in the lava pits. The reunion between father and son appeared to have been less than heartwarming.
Before I could respond, Hades let out a low whistle, and Cerberus charged. The massive beast leaped upon me. Jaws full of razor-sharp teeth bit at me, trying to tear into my flesh. I grasped the throat of the middle head and threw the creature with all of my might. It sailed through the air before crashing to the ground several yards away and tearing through hedges of the maze as it slid across the ground on its side.
Hades struck out at me with a blast of lava at the same time Hephaestus threw his hammer. I dived to the side and rolled back to my feet. I stabbed my sword down into the ground. It sank through stone and dirt as easily as it could cut a loaf of bread. I sliced forward with the sword, and a fissure opened up along the ground. The crack grew wider as it raced toward the men who had now been joined by the others who had attacked me. Hera called out a warning, but Hades fell into the fissure with a curse. The others levitated into the air or jumped the crack.
Cerberus snarled from behind me, and I jumped into the air to avoid the vicious claws as it swiped at me. Teeth bit into my calf before I could get high enough into the air. I plunged my sword down to kill the beast, but my blow was knocked off course by a band of lightning that wrapped around my wrist. Zeus pulled with his lightning cord, trying to make me give up my sword. Hades teleported back, giving another whistle that had Cerberus releasing me.
A stream of water circled my other arm and pulled. Agony filled me from my damaged shoulder and the lightning that was scorching my skin. I gritted my teeth, gathering my waning energy to teleport. Hades wrapped a lava rope around the ankle of my leg damaged from Cerberus’s teeth. Ares circled the other ankle with a barbed chain.
My power was draining from me along with the blood that rained down upon the stone below as I was held suspended in the air. Pain pumped through me with every hard beat of my heart. The Olympians pulled at my limbs, threatening to tear them from my body. My hand trembled where I still held tightly to my sword. I only had enough power to teleport once more.
I tried to pull from the connection to my father but received only a trickle where before there would have been a tidal wave. My heart lurched and sweat beaded my body. Something was wrong. This human body could perish, but my true essence was a pure mass of energy. It had been great enough to weather mortal injury and days of battle in the past. Why would it not support me now? Without the source to renew me, the energy that sustained me could be depleted. Was this to be my punishment for losing my ability to balance my family against the fate of the world? Would my father sentence me to a true death, an actual death, where not even my essence would be allowed to continue?
I refused to believe that. I had been a loyal son since I had winked into existence. My father would come.
I focused my power on the sword and used the last of my ability to teleport it away where it would not be found. The sword was too deadly to fall into the Olympians’ hands.
A chorus of outraged denials sounded from the Olympians at the loss of the one weapon that could end any Chaonian’s existence—possibly even my own. I was not inclined to test the theory.
Hephaestus retaliated by shattering my left knee with his hammer. The others doubled their efforts, lashing out at my damaged body. Their powers should have drained with my own, yet I could feel them buzzing with strength. Why was only my power failing? Where was the vast ocean of power that had always fed me before? My head fell back as a low moan issued from my tight throat.
Night had finally fallen, and my eyes sought the stars above. My vision blurred for a moment from blood loss before I forced myself to focus. I called out to my father to save my family and me. A pinwheel galaxy filled the night sky to the east, a blue center surrounded by red bands. Another filled the sky to the west, this one with a pale yellow center and white bands.
Those galaxies—the eyes of my father—looked down on me. The Olympians continued their torture upon my human body, but all of my focus was on the heavens. A shooting star streaked toward the Earth like a falling tear. Then another and another. Then the galaxies winked out as if they had never been.
My father had left me to die at the hands of the Olympians.
14
I don’t know how long I hung there while the torture continued. I had settled deep within myself where a desert wasteland surrounded me. Alone, I knelt on the red sands; each grain echoed with the cries of my people all around me. My hands desperately scooped at the grains, but the more I tried to hold on to them the quicker they slipped through my fingers, until I threw back my head and roared into the night. My throat grew raw as I expelled every emotion out with my anguished cry and slumped onto the ground.
Still, the erratic emotions boiled deep inside. It seemed that once the door was opened, it could never be shut. My thoughts sluggishly churned over these last years since Lyannìa had become a part of my life.
My life up to the month I had courted Lyannìa had been filled with reckless ploys for entertainment backed by the knowledge that I was the son of a god. My father supplied the vast ocean from which I could renew myself, and I feared nothing. Lyannìa had shown me love. She had opened my eyes to a new world—one seen through a different filter. She had brought the first vestiges of peace into my life. Though I had occasionally longed for the brutal simplicity of the battlefield, I had known happiness in her arms.
For the first time in my long existence, I envied the humans. Their short lifespan made them frantic creatures that thrived on emotions and pushed their limits. They were a bright fire that burned too hot and was soon extinguished. They never stopped seeking—wealth, power, knowledge. The craving for more drove them. It was only in death that they found peace. Without the energy from my father to sustain my existence, perhaps I would die with this body and join my love in the true peace of death.
A sound drifted into my desert refuge. Snippets of conversation invaded my reel of memories until the images faded away. I tried to shut out the sound, but there was something about that voice that called to me.
“ . . . help . . . burn them .
. . save our people . . .”
The faint voice knocked insistently against the numbness of my barren shell. Tiny shafts of fire plunged into my wasteland and sparked a flame inside me. So much I had lost this night. Dare I attempt to hope? I gripped that delicate lifeline with both hands as warmth settled into my chest and spread to my limbs.
The voice of the flame spoke again. “ . . . drop it there . . . the lava . . .”
“Nikomedes?” I tested, not yet daring to believe.
“Father! Where are you? Where is Mother?” he asked. “Fiamouria and I have the Olympian scum on the run.”
In the end, it wasn’t the Olympians that broke me but a voice I thought to never hear again. The outside world rushed back in, and I bellowed with the pain of my return. My brave son was fighting to save our people while I hid away within myself like a weakling. Shame warred with relief. With grim determination I worked to swallow back the wave of emotions before they overwhelmed me. There was only one emotion that would fuel me for what I knew I had to do, but I couldn’t release it yet. That moment might be all I would ever have to say the words I had never said.
“You are a mighty warrior, my son. I would be proud to fight by your side. I-I love you, Nikomedes.”
“I love you as well, Father,” he said hesitantly.
“Let us show the traitorous Olympians why we Chaonians are their superiors,” I said as I gathered every ounce of power that I could.
The Olympians were going to pay for what they had done to Lyannìa. For what they had done to my people. They had wanted back the ruthless warrior, and they were going to get him. I pushed to seek out the minds of my people that still lived. I absorbed their pain and sorrow. I embraced the images that flowed through their heads of the loved ones they had lost, their pale bodies lying broken and bloodied all across the island.
Dawning Chaos Page 7