OF WAR Anthology Novels 1-3

by Lisa Beth Darling

  From the hammock, he reached out, put his arms around her neck and gave her a hug. “Love you, mom.” A peck on the cheek and then the embrace was broken. Raven rolled over to go to sleep with his mother hovering over him, awestruck at hearing his sweet confession for the first time.

  “Sweet dreams, my little man.”

  III

  The happy Olympian family wandered around the island, completely clothed except for Raven, who was now refusing to keep his clothes on. Seemed he preferred to go au natural and let it all hang out. With a small bow and quiver slung over his bronzing shoulder and no pants to speak of, he followed his parents around with more curiosity than yesterday. This morning his Father told him that since he’d done such a great job catching fish yesterday, Ares would give Raven his first hunting lesson today. His mother didn’t seem very much in favor of that idea, telling his Father that catching fish was one thing but hunting was another. Ares didn’t see the difference but deferred to her when she started worrying about Raven’s safety saying he was too young for such weapons. Deep inside, Ares thought that Alena simply didn’t want her son to get a taste for killing so soon. That was probably a good thing.

  Raven wandered the island, running here and there, when something caught his eye. He didn’t hesitate to grab whatever it was and bring it right up to his nose for a truly good look. Alena feared he would pick up a creature that was poisonous but, again, Ares disagreed. Very few creatures on his island were poisonous, and those few that were didn’t contain enough venom to harm Raven if they bit him ten times over.

  Bugs, insects and reptiles seemed to fascinate him as they did any boy his age. He jumped over rocks and sprinted down small hills through the tall wild grass whenever a lizard caught his eye. Since they populated this island quite heavily and the sun was rising high in the sky, they were all out baking on their favorite rocks. He picked them up, turned them over, touched their claws and opened their mouths to see their teeth. Alena hung back watching Ares tell his Son what each creature was called and if it was good for anything at all. “Look at that!” Raven cried and sprinted down a rocky hillside. Alena raised a hand to shade her eyes as she looked after him but was unable to see what had made him so excited. “Look! Look! Oh cool!”

  “What is it?” Alena whispered as she watched Raven pluck something from the rock; his hand was wrapped around it, but she still couldn’t see it.

  “A gecko,” Ares remarked, “bring it here, boy.”

  Raven happily complied and bounded back up the hillside with the creature squirming in the palm of his hand, which he opened to show his mother.

  Alena gasped and the hand shading her eyes went to her mouth. “What is it? Is it sick? Safe to touch?”

  “It’s perfectly healthy,” Ares told her and then took the small creature from Raven. “It has nearly no pigment in its flesh so it’s very hard to see, and when you get this close to it,” he got down on his knees to put the lizard in front of Raven, “you can see its insides. There’s its…”

  “Heart,” Raven shouted excitedly, “and it’s lungs, and kidney and, how come you can’t see its brain?”

  “Well, you can, a little bit, look here, just behind its eyes.”

  Raven pursed his lips, stood on his tiptoes and looked down at the spot just behind the creature’s two bulbous black eyes. Between them, if he looked hard enough, he could see the animal’s brain working away. “Oh! Cool!”

  While Father and Son bonded over the bugs and the reptiles, Alena began wondering what it would be like to have a little girl running around the Fortress. A whimpering sound brought her out of the daze she was falling into. She looked at Raven, who was still smiling excitedly as Ares pointed out things of interest on the poor little creature. They were fine. When she heard it again, she thought it was coming from the thick brush behind them; with her men otherwise engaged, she went off to investigate. Taking a few cautious steps on bare feet into the brush, suddenly the bright sunlight disappeared as she entered a cool secret glen.

  More whimpering came to her ears. It almost sounded like an injured dog, but there were no dogs on the island. “Hello?” she called out in case it was the Hind or Cerberus; she didn’t want to startle either of them. “Hello?” No one answered, only more pathetic little whimpers as she followed the sound to its source.

  Finished with the gecko, Ares put it on a nearby rock and then stood up to see Alena was no longer with them. “Where’d your mother go?”

  Raven shrugged his little shoulders and held his hands flat at his side in the universal gesture of ‘I don’t know’. He looked past his Father. “There!” he shouted, “she went in there.”

  Ares looked to where Raven pointed, stroked the beard on his chin, and looked down. “Very good, Raven. Excellent,” he encouraged as his own sharp eyes took in the sight of the freshly broken branches and padded grass. “Come on, let’s see what she’s found.”

  Alena walked further into the glen, feeling the blessed reprieve from the heat outside, the hem of her dress held up so it didn’t drag along the ground. She put one bare foot in front of the other as she scanned the area in front of her and saw the grass move. Like her son, she stood on her tiptoes to peer down and see if she couldn’t get a better look before approaching further. If it was a wounded animal, it could be dangerous. She saw a little gray ball of fluff with ears, a tail, and big black eyes. “Where did you come from?” Alena asked as she hurried to its side. The poor thing was emaciated, its little ribs stuck out like sore thumbs as it panted, nearly begging her for water. Just as she was about to drop to her knees and scoop it up…

  “Stop!” Ares commanded. “Don’t go near it.”

  The sharpness in his voice made her heart stop for a moment as she froze in place. “What is it?” Raven came dashing around his Father’s side with his bow drawn and ready. “Put that down, it’s just a puppy.”

  “It’s not a puppy. It’s a pup, a wolf,” Ares corrected as his eyes scanned the glen looking for any signs of the pup’s mother. There were none; its mother was long gone after having left the pup here a few days ago.

  Alena turned her eyes back to the struggling, panting, whimpering, furry little creature. Maybe it was a wolf and not a dog, but it was so small it was hard to tell. “It needs help.”

  “I want to see the puppy.” Raven lowered the bow and ran toward his mother, but Ares grabbed him by the shoulder and held him back.

  “Leave it alone, Alena; let it die in peace.”

  “Die?” Raven looked from the helpless pup struggling in the tall grass to his mammoth Father. “We can save it.”

  “But you shouldn’t,” Ares asserted firmly. “Its mother left it here because it is the runt, hummm? Understand? Look at it, go on, look,” he demanded and turned Raven’s head toward the gray pup. “It’s too small to be anything but a detriment to the rest of the pack. Only the strong survive, remember that Raven, only the strong. The rest get cut from the pack and left to die alone.”

  Like on the shore yesterday Alena knew Ares was right, but she didn’t understand his insistence on teaching his lessons in such an in-your-face manner. Surely, there was another lesson to be learned here, wasn’t there? “Your Father’s right, Raven, that is Nature’s Way and sometimes it seems very cruel. Like now.” She turned away from them, dropped to her knees and picked up the little pup that was so small he fit in the palm of her hand. “Then, because we are sentient, that means because we feel and think and reason, we can intervene at times like this. The desire to help is Human Nature.” She watched Ares’ upper lip curl in a sneer. “We can take him home and nurse him to health and keep him with us, keep him safe…”

  “Keep him away from his true nature, from being all that he should be and wants to be,” Ares contended. “You might as well save it just so you can put it in a goddamn circus!” the God of War railed. “It is a wild animal, my Wife; no matter how much you nurture it, you may tame it but you will never domesticate it. You cannot change that.
No matter how sweet and loyal it seems, it will always have the ability, the instinct to turn on its Master at any moment.”

  A young and curious voice broke the heavy silence that was falling between Ares and Alena. “It’s my bird-day almost,” Raven announced. “I want it. It’s mine.”

  “Bir-TH-day,” Ares corrected as he planted one hand on his hip looking down at his Son with a sigh, and then caught a glimpse of the coy smile on his Wife’s face as she pet the pup. “No.”

  Alena joined in with a soft leading tone, “We came for a dog….”

  “It’s a wolf!”

  “I want it.” Raven shrugged off his Father’s hold on his shoulder as he ran over to where his mother stood holding and petting the furry little pup. “Mine,” he said again as he reached out to touch the young wolf’s soft but thin fur and his eyes grew wide.

  “He needs water and something to eat; do you think you can catch him a fish? I’m sure he’d love that,” Alena encouraged as she held the pup closer to him and it seemed to smile, knowing it was safe and no longer alone.

  “Sure!” Raven beamed. “I’ll get him so many fish he’ll get sick!”

  Alena laughed. “Well, maybe not that many. Just one or two would be good.”

  “Oh my gods,” Ares groaned and then grew angry, “no, Alena, no, you cannot take it back to Olympus! Where will it run? What will it hunt? You cannot turn it into a lap dog!” In a flash he was on them and ripping the tiny pup out of Alena’s gentle grasp as he drew the dagger with the other. “That is a fate worse than death for one such as him.”

  “No!” Raven and Alena screeched in unison as Ares raised the dagger, ready to plunge it into the pup’s brain.

  “You can leave it here to die or you can let me finish it off, but you will not cage it and take it to Olympus,” the God of War raged. “It was born wild and free, and it will die the same way.” Knowing the lesson was harsh and vivid for Raven (and Alena) but that it was indeed a kindness to the suffering pup in his hand, Ares began to plunge the dagger downward.

  Raven let out a gasp and closed his eyes tightly so as not to witness the death of the cute little pup.

  “NO!” Alena screeched again and put her hands over the shivering pup to protect him from the blow. She hoped Ares would stop in mid-strike but her movement had been too fast and he didn’t have time to pull back before the dagger went through both of her hands but stopped short of piercing the pup’s worried mind. “What are you doing? What are you teaching him?” She gasped as he pulled the dagger free from her flesh and she turned her aching hands over to see the fresh gaping wounds.

  “The ways of Nature, of Life, which is more than you want him to know,” Ares sneered as he used his fingers to wipe her blood from his blade before putting it back in its sheath. Raising his fingers to his lips, he ran his tongue across them to taste the droplets of blood clinging there. He smiled, just as he turned his hand over to let the pup tumble through the air to the glen floor. Ares was tempted to raise his big boot to stomp the life out of the pathetic creature. If she were anyone else, Ares would have done just that—stomped the life out of the whimpering pup. “Your soft heart will get you killed one day, Alena.” He turned his back and walked away, leaving his bleeding Wife and worried Son behind.

  Hands bleeding and aching, Alena turned to look down at Raven, believing she’d heard similar words ringing in her head last night. The boy only stared back at her with disbelief on his face, watching his Father walk away. “It’ll be all right, don’t worry,” she told him and tried to smile through the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.

  IV

  Alena let Raven carry the pup out of the glen and to the freshwater pool that wasn’t very far away. Her hands left a trail of blood easily followed by anyone who might choose. She held them together as they throbbed and cried out in agony, but kept her lips pressed tightly together to keep from crying out and worrying Raven even further. Once at the little waterfall she slowly slipped her hands into the cold water. “Why don’t you let him have a drink? I’m sure he’s very thirsty.”

  At first Raven brought handfuls of water to the pup’s mouth, but more of it was leaking out through his fingers than was making it to the pup. Raven soon put the pup down, his paws in the water and then gently pushed his nose into it. The little wolf began drinking as though there were no tomorrow; he lapped and lapped and lapped until both of them looked at each other with wide eyes. The puffball having had his fill rolled over onto his side, still in the water, let out a long burp, tossed up a pawful of water, then rolled over to drink again. Raven and Alena let out a giggle. “Poor little thing; he’s lucky we came along.”

  “Dad’s mean,” Raven said through a deep frown as he reached down for the pup, who’d had its fill of drink.

  “No,” Alena said softly as she washed the blood from her open palms, “your Father is right, in his own way, but his methods leave a lot to be desired.”

  “We should kill it?”

  “No,” she asserted. “Ares is right, Nature intended for it to die and if we hadn’t come along it would have without anyone ever even knowing.” Alena watched Raven’s frown deepen as he ran his fingers through the wolf’s wet fur. “But because we did come along, we can change that, we can give him a chance to live. If we care for him and are good to him, if we understand his wild ways, he will not bite us, no matter what Ares says. He may snarl and bark and howl, but he will not bite.” She looked down at her hands, still taking in the cooling comfort of the water. “Not hard anyway,” she muttered. “We can’t change his nature, his instincts, but we can understand them and then we can live with them.” The bleeding having stopped, Alena pulled her hands from the cool water and tried to rip off a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress.

  Raven, seeing her distress and the problem, pulled an arrow from his quiver, grabbed the hem, and shoved the tip through and cut off a swatch of cloth for her. He stood there, naked, looking from the pup that was starting to come around to his mother bandaging her wounded hands. “Why didn’t you hit him?”

  Alena snickered. “Hit your Father? Me?” She held her arms wide and looked down at herself. “What good would that do? Other than to amuse him, that is.” She smiled and then finished wrapping the wounds in her palms. “No, I have to be cleverer than that where Ares is concerned. Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  True Lies

  I

  Four Years Later

  Much against Ares’ wishes, the wolf pup came to live on Olympus. Zeus was very displeased at having a filthy beast living on his mountain. He would have cast the damn thing off Olympus but it pissed off Ares to let the creature stay, and so it stayed with Zeus’ blessing. Due to the color of its fur, Raven dubbed it ‘Spirit Walker’—Spirit for short. Within a month the abandoned little pup regained his strength, his dull eyes were bright, his fur soft, and he bounded happily along at Raven’s side. For a while, Spirit Walker was a true bone of contention between them. Alena told Ares that Raven’s actions showed that he was starting to think beyond himself, but Ares sneered at her and scoffed at her idea. Ares only saw that his treasured furniture had become chew-toys; he even caught it gnawing on one of the legs of the Throne of Bones. At that time Ares kicked it hard in the flank; it let out a loud whimper and skulked away from him. The corners of the Fortress had become open bathrooms—no matter how many times he told them that the damn thing could not be paper-trained, they wouldn’t listen to him—although Ares thought it possible Alena was starting to get annoyed with that now that Spirit Walker was raising his leg to the plants she kept on the floor. They were dying quickly from being soaked in wolf urine, when the beast wasn’t knocking them over with its tail or just rooting them with his claws. Any soft place became a new bed covered with fluffy gray fur.

  One night as they sat at the dinner table, once more to Ares’ great but ignored displeasure, the pup was at the table. Raven actually tried to set a pla
ce for him but Alena nixed that idea, telling him that the pup wasn’t allowed AT the table; it was ill mannered to have him shedding his fur on everyone’s food. Instead of having his own chair, Spirit Walker wandered around the table, whimpering for the food he smelled, and Raven snuck him bits of meat. Ares again got angry, telling Raven cooked meat was not for wolves as they hunted and ate their kill raw and still warm.

  “Is it wriggling too?” Alena asked from the far end of the table as she held her fork in front of her mouth and looked at him with open disdain. Her hands still ached from where he’d stabbed her; it seemed to take an unusually long time for the wounds to heal. Even now that they were, most days she swore she still felt the blade between her fine bones and muscles, but there was nothing other than four welted ugly scars.

  “Most of the time, it’s still screaming,” Ares replied and looked down at the pup by his feet. “You poor bastard,” he mused to the wolf and shoveled a forkful of rare roast beef into his mouth.

  Raven and Spirit Walker grew to be fast friends and constant companions. Now that Raven had celebrated his fifth birthday and the pup was fast past half-grown, Ares’ warnings about the pup turning on his master seemed unfounded. Alena thought it very good that Raven not only had a playmate but something he could care for and look after. In this way she hoped he would learn a reverence for life and not just his own.

  Raven was very fastidious in his duties with regard to caring for Spirit Walker. He always made sure the wolf had food and water, that he was walked and exercised, brushed and bathed. In return, Spirit showed Raven tremendous loyalty and friendship. Still, a wolf was a wolf even if it was Boy’s Best Friend. Alena would like it if Raven were to get to know Trinity and have a playmate with two legs instead of four. While Brother and Sister did have a few play dates here and there, Raven didn’t take to Trinity. Perhaps it was the difference in size and intelligence. In five very short years, Raven had swiftly gone from a newborn baby to a boy with the above-average intelligence of a twelve-year-old, but the height and width of a boy on the verge of manhood. Trinity, only nine months behind her Brother, was very much a little girl, being about the size and intelligence of an above-average seven-year-old.