OF WAR Anthology Novels 1-3

by Lisa Beth Darling

  They played the game a few more times, each time dancing faster, falling harder, and laughing louder, before Artemis took the little girl by the hand and brought her home. Standing on the outskirts of the small village nestled in the trees, she watched Maggie skip off toward home.

  This occurrence went on for the next week or so. Maggie would wander out to the woods looking for her friend Diana, they would pick flowers, play games, hold pretend tea parties, and they made daisy chains and wreaths of flowers, and chased rabbits. Artemis never took a man to her bed so she never had a child of her own but it seemed to Zeus and the others that, for a little while anyway, Maggie sufficed as a surrogate daughter. From these memories Artemis seemed very attached to the little girl.

  Then the horrible day came and it played itself out on the screen above the Olympians in the Great Council Chamber. Maggie went looking for her friend but instead of finding Diana by the big Elm tree where she usually was there was no one. “Diana? Diana?” Maggie called out and began to look around. “Are you hiding? I can find you,” she called out in a happy singsong voice. “I’m good at finding things.” Maggie looked around and around, behind trees and rocks and couldn’t find Diana. She began to think that somehow she had angered her new friend and now Diana would not come to play with her any longer. That would be terrible; Diana was Maggie’s only friend as there were no other children here. “Diana? Oh, please don’t go away. If I did something bad I’m sorry!”

  Just as Maggie hung her head in defeat resigned to the loss of her new friend a terrible sound came to her ears. It sounded like someone being hit! Then she heard a scream! “Diana? Diana?” Maggie called out with urgency and began to look around again but this time she broadened her search. A dreadful feeling crept over her and all of the happiness that had been bubbling away inside of Maggie suddenly fled. It was replaced with deep-seated fear. The forest was quiet, far too quiet, no birds sang in the trees, no animals scurried past; it seemed that even the ever-running brook had stopped its babbling. “Diana?” Maggie whispered fearfully.

  Creeping around a large pine, she saw the most horrible sight! Diana was on the ground on her knees, her pretty white dress stained with grass, dirt and blood. It was hiked up past her back, the flesh of which was ripped open and oozing blood. Her face was bloody and stained with tears. Behind her was a fearsome creature, he had great horns upon his head that would make any stag green with envy. Instead of man’s legs, he had legs of a stag as well, great thick hairy stag legs, the hooves of which were planted heavily into the ground as he moved back and forth behind the crying Diana. One large hand was firm on her bare hip and the other pressed against her mid-back keeping her pinned below him.

  “Profess to love me and then refuse me will you?” he hissed angrily. “No woman refuses me! No woman taunts me!”

  Maggie did not know what to do; indeed, she wasn’t even sure what was happening other than to be able to say that it was a very bad thing. Picking up a nearby rock, she chucked it at the Stag-Man, striking him on the shoulder. “Get away from her!” Maggie shouted out bravely. “She’s…my friend!” The little girl hurled another rock at the bad Stag-Man, this time striking him in the head. He didn’t cry out and he didn’t fall down, instead he slowly turned his head in her direction and gave her a very cold smile but he didn’t stop hurting Diana.

  “Maggie! Run!” Diana shouted out from below him. “RUN!”

  That sounded like a good idea but Maggie couldn’t get her legs to comply. She was frozen in place watching the man brutalize her friend. The Stag-Man pushed Diana down until she was flat on the ground. With him up high on his animal haunches, pushing his hips forward and pulling them back again with enough force to make Diana’s body shake and her head bounce on the forest floor. “STOP!”

  Just as she screamed out her command the Stag-Man’s face froze, it turned bright red, and then…he roared. He roared so loud that the quiet birds hiding in the trees scattered to the skies and the small forest animals ran for cover. When he was done roaring, he stood up and Maggie saw what he had been thrusting in and out of Diana. Her gray eyes grew wide at the sight of his cock covered in blood and dripping white goo. Thinking her ordeal now over and the only remaining thought in Artemis’ head being to protect the little girl, she turned over on her back and struggled to stand. The Stag-Man reached down for one of the heavy rocks Maggie threw at him. He picked it up, looked at the little girl, he even winked at her, and then he began bashing Diana’s head with the rock. She held up her hands and tried to ward him off but it was of no use.

  Again and again and again, the Stag-Man hit her with the rock until her skull burst open and her brains leaked onto the green grass.

  “NO!” Maggie screamed. “DIANA!”

  As the Goddess lay dying, the Stag-Man yanked on a chain around his hairy neck—on it was a small bottle. He held his hand over Diana with the bottle open and as she gasped for her last breath something came out of her in a long silvery strand, like a puff of smoke but not smoke as it glimmered in the sunlight. The Stag-Man trapped it in the bottle.

  Then he charged at Maggie.

  Maggie didn’t want him to do to her what he’d done to Diana, she ran like the wind with him hot on her heels, his great hooves thundering on the ground. Instead of running home to her mother, Maggie ran deeper and deeper into the forest until she didn’t know where she was any longer. She ran this way and that way until her legs could run no more and she hid in a hole inside of a large oak tree holding her breath and clutching her knees which were drawn up to her chest hitching with tears and fear.

  It was morning before she came out of the tree; she looked around carefully but did not see the Stag-Man. Tired, scared out of her mind and hungry, Maggie wandered through the forest trying to find her way home. It took hours but she finally stumbled upon the village and told her mother what she had seen. Maven said it wasn’t any of their business and that Maggie was never to repeat what she seen or Cernunnos—the Stag-Man—would surely kill her just as he had done to her friend.

  Maggie couldn’t just leave her friend on the ground in the cold dampness of the night. She begged her mother to do something, anything, but Maven refused. She said it was too dangerous and better left alone. The woman wasn’t their concern. That night, safe and warm in her bed, all Maggie could think about was her friend Diana, lying out there cold and alone. Stealing the quilt from her bed, Maggie snuck out of the little tree house and back to the forest. “Oh, pretty Diana,” she cried and sank to her knees near the body. Maggie put her arms around Artemis’ corpse and wept for a long time. “I’m sorry, I tried to help, I’m too small. I’m sorry.” Maggie covered Diana with the soft quilt that Maggie’s grandmother had made so that Diana would not be cold anymore and then she laid down next to the bloody body and wept some more.

  In the Great Council Chamber, the screen went blank.

  “That savage son of a bitch did it!” Zeus roared. “Cernunnos killed my Daughter!”

  Poseidon spoke, “The Fey saw the whole thing, that’s why he wants her so badly.”

  “Well then, let’s give her to him,” Apollo said strongly.

  “No,” Ares returned, his heart was heavy and his stomach threatened to heave up its contents as the images played over and over in his mind. Artemis, oh dear Gods! Artemis.

  “This is your SISTER!” Zeus boomed. “You will not help us exact revenge against Cernunnos? I would think you, of all of us, would jump at this chance, Ares.”

  “Did I say that?” Ares smoldered. “However, Father, now you must believe I had nothing to do with Artemis’ death. Say it; declare me innocent of this crime.”

  “You weren’t even born innocent,” Zeus sneered. Father and Son had a tumultuous relationship at best but Zeus had always found it hard to believe that Ares, ill-tempered or not, would ever cause Artemis to suffer. Ares would never raise his sword to her in any manner other than vigorous sparing. Ares had a long rocky history with all of the Olympians save
Artemis, Hera and Hades with whom Ares did a lot of business. Here before them was proof positive of Ares’ innocence in the death of his sister.

  “Zeus?” Hera asked sternly. “He’s proved his innocence in this matter; you must return Ares his property and his place here on Olympus.”

  “It doesn’t prove him innocent in the death of my Wife,” Eros interjected defiantly.

  “It was an accident!” Ares sneered without looking at his Son. “Psyche jumped.”

  Eros stood up heatedly, planted his hands on the table and leaned forward to make his accusation. “To get away from you!” The winged God of Love slammed his fist down on the table. “Your temper, your badgering, you drove her to it even if you didn’t throw her off!”

  “She was out of her mind before I got there.” With that, he set out to reclaim today dancing in the palm of his hand he stood there trying to remain calm when all he wanted was to slap Eros across the face as hard as he could. “I tried to stop her. You can believe that or not, I honestly don’t give a damn anymore.”

  “Why would you, Father? You are ARES, you don’t give a flying shit about anything or anyone but YOURSELF! If you even think about letting him back on Olympus, Grandfather, you just remember he still owes me a woman!”

  “I didn’t kill Psyche!” Ares thundered.

  Eros ignored him. “I’ll take that one,” Eros pointed at Alena.

  “Over my dead body,” Ares threatened.

  “I can arrange that, Father,” Eros lobbed. “Just stand still for a second.”

  “Eros I swear…” Then Ares bit his tongue deciding instead to the let the coming images speak for him. “We had a deal, Father. Now show me what I want to know.”

  3

  Alena was still asleep in the chair when the screen above them lit up again. Everyone watched intently as the pages of the mental photo album flipped past. Zeus wasn’t in the mood to fiddle around with such incidental things but if he had any hope of getting Ares to help them then he had to do as Ares wanted.

  Without warning, a shrill cry rang out in the Great Council Chamber.

  The sharp sound caused Zeus to cease poking around in Alena’s head. On the floating screen, the Olympians saw her beaten and bloody. She was tied down while a man hovered over her. His face twisted in a snide expression as he leered down at his victim. To all in the room, simply looking at the image made them ache. What they had seen done to Artemis, beloved as she was, seemed small by comparison to what they were viewing now.

  “Is this it?” Zeus asked gruffly. “I see you’re still as depraved as ever.”

  “No, you’ve gone too far but wait,” Ares advised. He didn’t want to see what Jaakim had done to Alena, that was beyond Ares’ ability to stomach. However, Sha’Quanda gave him more than enough information to sign the man’s Death Warrant and to complete the task. What Ares didn’t know was why Jaakim let her go, why he didn’t just kill her when he was done with her. Now Ares would know the answer.

  Above their heads on the screen, Ares had his answer as Jaakim knelt next to Alena, her hands still tied useless behind her head and her legs still secured and open with that bright band of gold protecting her. “Have you had enough you little bitch? Are you going to stay out of my business now?”

  Mumbled word came out of her dry lips but they were incoherent at first. Jaakim leaned closer to her, knife in his hand; he pressed it to her throat. “What?”

  “Kill…me,” Alena croaked in desperation. “Please?” She did her best to raise her throat to meet the cold blade and she waited for him to drag it across but he did not.

  “You want me to kill you? Why?”

  “I can’t…can’t…do it…my-self. I’ve tried. Please…kill me.”

  While the offer was very tempting, it gave a Jaakim a cold shiver that went straight through his body and to his very soul. She tried to commit suicide and failed? How could that be? “Are you trying to trick me?” He looked down at the gold between her legs. “You think if I kill you, whoever owns you will exact his revenge?”

  Alena shook her head, her gray hair caked with cum and blood. She lifted her throat as far as she could and pressed it against the sharp blade. Jaakim had heard people beg for death before but not like this, the little Witch wasn’t just trying to end the pain he and his men inflicted upon her, she really meant it. “Kill me…do it. You know…you want to.”

  Jaakim considered it for another moment before making his decision. “No, you live, Sister Maggie the Witch. You live so the rest of them know not to cross me.” That was what he said but in his own heart, Jaakim did fear retribution from whatever creature put the irremovable belt on her. It was altogether possible that the owner of the belt would come and have his say once he found out what Jaakim and the others had done to her but it would be better to present him with a live but damaged body than with a corpse. In that respect, Ares and he had much in common. The blade moved from her throat to the ropes on her wrists as he cut the binds and freed her. “Get in here!” he shouted toward the flap of the tent and two men walked inside. “Take her back now; get her out of my sight.” Jaakim grabbed Alena by her long gray hair and hauled her off the torture table, but her legs were so weak she couldn’t stand and she crashed to the sand. “Get up!” he railed and planted his boot in her flank. Alena, holding her side, began to crawl toward the opening. “Whatever you do, don’t touch her again. She’s damaged, tainted.” He spat. “But if you ever do this again, Sister Maggie, I won’t hesitate to grant your fondest wish.”

  Zeus turned to Ares. “Who is that man?” Ares just stood there, his eyes fixed to the screen, his jaw set tight and, if Zeus didn’t miss his guess, his son’s dark eyes were growing a bit misty.

  “Jaakim,” Hades spoke up, “he and all of his men reside with me, compliments of Ares. He destroyed the entire camp yesterday leaving none but a handful of children and clergy alive.”

  Zeus opened his mouth but Ares spoke first. “Don’t lecture me, Father. He deserved, they all did. You can see that for yourself.”

  Hades nodded in agreement.

  “Go forward, a month, maybe two,” Ares advised his Father. “You’ll know it when you see it, Father.”

  With a great huffing sigh, Zeus began the task of looking through Alena’s mind once more. A month or so slowly flipped by and then a familiar sight met the eye of all gathered.

  On the screen, Eros swept Alena high into the air. She let out a startled cry as her feet unexpectedly left the ground and the water jugs shattered as she dropped them. “You knew I was looking for her, why didn’t you bring her to me?” Zeus spent just over one-hundred years trying to track down Cernunnos’ reluctant bride, ever since the day he first heard of her existence he’d spent nearly every waking hour in his Viewing Room where he could spy upon every single person and every single place on the planet from the safety of Olympus. Zeus scoured the Earth for her convinced that she knew something about Artemis. However, this was most unexpected. Zeus thought Cernunnos might be trying to protect one of his Druids or some favored Mortal, the God of Gods never expected to find Cernunnos himself was the killer. It was unconscionable. Unthinkable.

  Now there were conflicting images on the screen: the war torn refugee camp, a ship, an explosion, Alena nearly drowning in the water but at the same time, there were images of Eros and Apollo with her. “You’re right, Ares, as much as it pains me to admit that. Someone has blocked her memories. Apollo, this is your work. I know it.”

  Ares gazed at the two Olympians who had given him so much trouble over the course of their lives. “Any answers, brother? My dear loving Son? What did you do to her?”

  On the day that he took her away from Ceres Agar, flying her high into the sky, the last thing Eros wanted was to harm Alena. “Nothing,” Eros stammered as he quietly told the story of the first day he saw her gathering water from that mud pit. She was singing as she filled the jugs, it was her voice that first caught his attention, it made him perch in a tall tree and
gaze down at her. He was instantly smitten. From that day out, Eros visited in secret almost every day, he hovered high overhead, gazing down, watching, wondering how it would feel to make love to her. She was the first woman to catch his fancy since Psyche. The thought that she now shared his Father’s bed made him ill.

  The day came when Eros could wait no longer. He swooped down from the skies and took her away from the dank, dirty and disgusting refugee camp she called ‘home’. At first she was scared, flying so high above the ground, her arms locked around his neck as she clung to him. Large frightened eyes staring up. It wasn’t very long until she started to laugh and look down at the Earth below them. Filled with wonder, the Fey in his arms asked if he could do a loop-the-loop and Eros did, several of them and then a few barrel rolls. Her laughter filled the sky.

  He took her to a love-nest he’d built ages ago high in the Italian Alps where they wouldn’t be disturbed. There they had two weeks together before her identity revealed itself to him. Eros was a very patient man when it came to the ways of Love. He enjoyed the chase, the dance, as much as the act itself. Getting to know a woman was the most intimate thing a man could do. He placed no demands on her and she seemed very happy to be away from that camp. In those two weeks, she was everything Eros thought she’d be. Alena warmed up to Eros quite well and he thought that they could have some type of future together. Then she told him about Cernunnos and the belt.