OF WAR Anthology Novels 1-3

by Lisa Beth Darling

  Out in No Man’s Land, out past the place even the hardiest sailors chose not sail, he saw a mass of ships on the horizon. The only cargo they carried were weapons of war. From the way they sailed in rather tight formation Raven didn’t think a quarter of the Turkish Fleet was out here in the middle of nowhere on Training Exercises. “What are you up to?” Raven asked no one as he stopped rowing and let the fifteen ships sail swiftly past.

  VII

  “That’s what I want to know,” Poseidon snarled at Ares, “What are they doing?”

  Ares’ eyes meet his Uncle’s stare and then wandered to the others in the room before returning to settle on Poseidon’s aqua gaze, “Why would I know?”

  The Olympians, all in their respective seats around the Council Table tore their eyes away from the sight of Raven out on the ocean alone and the ships steaming past him to look at Ares and listen to Poseidon. “There’s been an over abundance of warships sailing on my oceans lately.”

  “So what? The Mortals are always going to war and finding new ways to kill themselves by the thousands.”

  Hades, who had hoped that Raven would come clean at least to his Father after the Trial spoke up hesitantly. “I’ve had a large increase in business lately. There are so many souls waiting to cross Styx Charon can’t keep up. I actually had to give him an assistant.”

  With his seat in the center of the table Zeus stood up and leaned on his staff pointing it and his body toward his Son. “Ares?”

  “What?” Ares protested heatedly. “I haven’t started a war in a hundred years or more.”

  “Oh please,” Aphrodite huffed.

  “It’s true,” Ares continued, “they’re not worth it anymore, too easily led astray, no challenge, no sport.”

  Next to Zeus, Hera grunted and rolled her colorful eyes. “That’s true” she sighed. “Still, we all know you Ares, if you have anything to do with this it’s best if you tell us now. I know you’ve been lonely and bored since Alena’s accident, if you, well, if you… got a little restless, that’s understandable.”

  Although Hades was certain Ares was telling the truth he found it an opportune moment to press on. “I heard tales of riots in the streets, and disease. Something called ‘the internet’ that seems to be connected to things I don’t understand. What is Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? How does a computer get a virus and make a stock market crash?”

  Feeling as though he’d been ambushed, Ares’ mouth hung open as he stared at Hades. “I don’t even know what most of that means.” On their honeymoon, Alena introduced him to a computer, the internet, email and the YouTube thing Hades spoke of but he had no comprehension of how they worked or what they did. “If they’re killing each other it’s not my fault,” Ares asserted, “I know nothing about it.”

  “A strange declaration for the God of War,” Apollo spoke in a sly tone, “don’t you think?” His golden eyes scanned the long arced table left and then right to see the others did agree. “If you know nothing of the Mortals slaughtering each other, who does, Brother?”

  For that, Ares had no answer. He found it hard to believe that he’d been so wrapped up in taking of Alena and looking over her that something as important as that would pass by unnoticed. If the Mortals were down there locked in a real war he would, he should, know about it. He should feel it in crawling around under his skin and working its way into his bones making his moody and restless as Hera said. He felt none of that. “I don’t know what they’re doing and I don’t give a damn.”

  “Start,” Zeus advised coolly, “because when this Trial is over, you’re going down to the Mortal World and find out what trouble they’ve gotten themselves into now.”

  Ares snarled, “And then?”

  “You’ll report back to me like a good little grunt.”

  “Grunt? I’m no grunt.”

  “Do you dispute that here I am the General?”

  The God of War let out a low growl as his upper lip curled revealing sharp white teeth. “No Father, of course not.”

  Zeus grinned and righted himself. “Good, now let’s finish this. He’s almost there.”

  All eyes turned back to Raven on the ocean wanting to see what happened next. Not Morpheus, as he stared at the scene playing out in the Mortal World below, he didn’t even see it. With this new and unexpected opportunity, his mind was too busy formulating a plan to get into Ares’ Fortress and kill the sleeping woman.

  Tonight.

  VIII

  With the Turkish Armada chugging away on its journey, Raven began rowing again, further and further into the vastness of the ocean. Feeling tired and exasperated, he looked up and shouted, “Am I even going the right way? A map might’a been nice, ya know!” Raven growled and grunted in frustration when no sign came to him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Fuck you, too.”

  Every muscle in his long lean body strained and nearly spent to capacity, he fished around in the bottom of the boat to come up a wineskin still half-full of fresh water. It was piss warm but it felt good going down his parched throat just the same. He wanted to spray it over his head and wash away the sweat but that would be unwise, instead he opted for a quick dip in the cool ocean. Raven stood up in the boat and then peeled off his Levi’s plastered to his legs, bent over, his ass high in the air he wiggled and wriggled to be free of them then nearly broke out in laughter as his feet slipped free of the cuffs. “Hey! Aphrodite!” Raven called out with a wide grin as he looked upward to the big blue cloudless sky. “Check this out!” He grabbed a hold of his cock to give it a few good tugs before diving off the boat into the refreshing salt water.

  Just as his head sliced through the water, Raven swore he heard Ares laughing. He swam around and dove under for a few moments letting the water envelope him, ease his aching muscles with its buoyancy, and reinvigorate his soul. The stench of sweat washed away along with the grit of sand in cracks he didn’t know he had. “This is one fucking long journey,” he mumbled as he dipped under the water again letting it flow through his long hair, letting it float along with the current and away from his back where it had been glued for the last day and a half. Running his hands through it, giving his scalp a hearty scrub before reaching down to give his cock and balls the same needed treatment the sky above him darkened. The sun faded from his sight.

  Raven broke the water to see ominous clouds rolling in and hauled his wet naked body over the side of the boat. “Just what I needed; rain.” Then again, if there was enough of it and it collected in the bottom of the boat, he could suck up some of it into the wineskins and replenish his fresh water supply. If nothing else, it would wash the sea salt off him so his supple skin didn’t dry out like parchment. If it were more than a passing shower or rainstorm, he was fucked. There was no shelter out here, no place to put in, and his little boat would be tossed around like a Frisbee. Raven took a quick glance around to see there were no hatches to baton but he would have to pull in the oars and take down the sail if the wind started to whip.

  And it did.

  The wind angrily rose up and whipped around like a yo-yo spun by an irate child. The sudden chill made goose bumps prickle his dark flesh as he struggled back into his jeans with the clouds thickening overhead. Thunder rumbled and lightning streaked across the sky as he hauled in the heavy oars and pulled down the striped sail, fastening it securely to the wooden mast.

  A clap of thunder so loud it rocked through him came in conjunction with a bolt of lightning so bright it temporarily blinded him. Raven fell backward to the deck even as he raised his hand against the glare. The looming clouds opened up cascading sheets of cold water down to the sea. It hit Raven in buckets, pelting him as it made the water around him churn. “Ok, that’s the way you wanna play? Ok!” he shouted up to the sky certain Zeus was behind the sudden hurricane.

  Looking up to the menacing sky, watching the lighting, and feeling the thunder roll through him, Raven watched in amazement as the clouds converged then began to whirl. A small funnel appeared and
soon grew to a long skinny tendril reaching to the surface of the sea. As the water churned, turned, and nearly gyrated, a great water spout sprang up to greet the searching whirr of the tornado. When the two met, white caps covered the water with its burgeoning waves. It crashed against the sides of the boat but did not go onward, instead it circled back around to hit the boat again and again.

  “Holy shit,” Raven muttered watching the maelstrom form. It took another moment for the fearsome realization that he was nearly in the middle of it to sink into his brain. The bubbling whirring funnel in the water below him was as deep as the one reaching from the sky was long. Peering over the side of the boat, he saw something moving down there. It was swimming around and around in a great circle, faster and faster it went building up speed and causing the hole in the ocean.

  The Ketos.

  “Fuck,” he hissed, reaching out to grab hold of the slick mast and peer down further. At the bottom of the angry water swam the Ketos, possessing what looked to him to be the long pinkish body of a sandworm but with the blue head of a snail. Below him its freakishly long fringy body undulated in long ripples, stirring up the ocean above. Raven thought it looked like some science experiment gone horribly awry and then exposed to high doses of radiation. “Aren’t you one ugly motherfucker?” As if it heard him, it stopped swimming for a second. It looked up at him with its repulsive snail-like blue head to expose two gruesomely sharp fangs that took up most of its hideous mouth and seemed to hiss at him. “Whoa,” he remarked in admiration before swinging away from the side of the boat to lash his body to the mast.

  No weapons, only his wits for this Trial, as he tied the heavy leather belt around the mast and his waist as tightly as he could then wrapped his arms around the wet wood, Raven hoped he was making the right decision. With his boat caught in the spiraling maelstrom being drawn ever closer to the center, Raven hoped that if he could ride it out, allowing the powerful waters to suck the boat toward the eye without expending any precious oxygen then he could abandon ship before the funnel collapsed the boat. Once off the boat he would head straight to the monster at the center of it all.

  The savage wind gave birth to great spiraling swells of water as it forced the ocean to turn counter-clockwise, every breath he took aspirated the spray into his lungs, making them sting. Raven kept wiping sheets of water from his face but it was of no use, finally he closed his eyes to shield them from the invading salt, wrapping his arms behind him around the mast and just tried to keep his footing as the boat began listing to the starboard side. Deeper into the maelstrom the boat sailed, caught in the centrifugal force of the narrowing spiral. It didn’t take long before the list became a 45-degree tilt and Raven had to double his efforts to stay firm to the mast, his bare feet slipping on the slick deck as he fought the gale force winds to catch a glimpse of the roaring whirring spiral. A few more turns and he’d undo the belt, dive over the side, and face his fate.

  When the small boat reached a 90 degree tilt, it began breaking apart from the g-forces pushing against it. Bits of deck and planking flew high into the vicious wind. Even though he wasn’t as close to the monster as he’d like, Raven knew he had no choice but to take his chances before the boat disintegrated below his feet. Keeping his eyes open, pumping his young sturdy lungs with oxygen, he untied the leather belt around his waist but held to the strap around the mast as his feet threatened to give out from under him. A few more deep breaths and then a big gulp of air filling his lungs, Raven let go of the strap, turned quickly with the pull of the maelstrom and dove far over the side of the crumbling boat into the funnel.

  Gravity took him to his destination with great haste. Holding the belt in his teeth and his arm out in front of him with the palms crossed to break the water when it finally came, Raven thought he might go completely deaf before he got there. The water around him roared like a hungry rabid lion and the wind above him, pushing him faster downward, shrieked like a ghost in the night.

  Below it all swam the gigantic sandworm Poseidon called the Ketos, and Raven was speeding toward it with all the force of a runaway freight train. Raven steeled the muscles in body from his finger tips to his toes as the water approached, forced his eyes to stay open and focused, and managed one last breath of air just as his hands broke the whirring surface of the deepest part of the funnel. Headed for its thick soft body, the Ketos looked up at the last second to Raven heading toward it but it couldn’t get its mass out of the way in time. With the salt assaulting his eyes, making them sting and water, Raven landed halfway down its back, gripped the fringe swaying with the water at the sides to hold on only to find them razor sharp.

  As they sliced through the palms of his hands, leaking blood into the water, Raven instinctively went to scream. He exhaled nearly half the air in his lungs and took in a great gulp of water that made him choke. The creature below him bucked and thrashed about better than any wild bull. Fighting to hold on and to retain the remains of the air in his lungs, Raven took in another gulp of water. The oxygen in the liquid rushed straight to his lungs and the remains expelled itself through his open mouth. Struggling to comprehend and retain his grip, Raven realized he could breathe the water. He fought against his other instincts, those that told him he would drown, and let the Olympian in him take over. Relaxing his lungs and ceasing to fight, he found the water as easy to breathe as air. Here in Poseidon’s Kingdom he breathed like a fish. The major aspect of his survival temporarily assured, Raven doubled his efforts to complete his Trial.

  The Ketos didn’t see it the same way as it brought its ugly blue head with its long antennae whipping around, bringing its black soulless eyes to stare at him while its hideous mouth opened sideways to snap its sharp pincers at him, ready to take out chunks of its own flesh if necessary to rid it of the intruder. Raven ducked and dodged as the pincers sliced through the water just above his head so close they entwined his long hair floating behind him, wrapped around, and threw him off when the Ketos brought its head around again, yanking out clumps of hair by the root. It flung Raven through the water as if he were nothing but a toy.

  His head aching, the salt water seeping into the new wounds at his scalp, Raven brought his bloody wounded hands out in front of him and then quickly to the sides to slow his backward path. The water flooded into the open cuts cleansing them and making him want to scream as the salt rushed into the ragged skin. The Ketos circled around, its long lanky body twisting around until its head met its tail then peered out at Raven as though considering him and its next move before it charged straight at him. Its tail whipped past its body propelling it through the water at great speed with those antennae fixed on its prey. Holding his hands out in front of him, long trails of blood drifting upward to the surface, Raven did the only thing he could and put up a wall of ice between him and the attacking monster. The Ketos crashed into it, bounced off of it, shook its head and then charged again. It wouldn’t be long before it broke through and all Raven had was a belt.

  He could freeze the Ketos in a block of ice and float it to the surface but what good would it do? Without a way to cut off its head the thing would never die. Desperately searching the bottom of the ocean around him while keeping one eye on the shattering wall of ice, he saw a large reef not far from him. Colorful creatures large and small swam around, feasting, and going about their daily fishy lives without giving them a second glance. Where there were small colorful fish there were predators, large ones with sharp teeth. Predators that would find the scent of blood in the water attractive, drawing them like a moth to the flame as they came looking for a snack.

  Before him, the wall of ice didn’t just crack it spider-webbed. One more hit and the Ketos would break through. With only one direction to go, Raven swam toward the reef as fast as he could, leaving great tendrils of blood spreading out behind him. Taking shelter behind the thick sharp coral, he peered over the top, watching the Ketos barrel through the ice and zoom its way to the reef. Above him, the sun shone down as the st
orm broke; ominous shadows loomed there swimming overhead. Just as he suspected, his bleeding hands attracted several predators, among them sharks and swordfish. Taking in the topography of the reef, he saw many small caves and grottos among the colorful coral. Most of the niches and crannies were guarded by moray eels and poisonous sea urchins, the attacks of which he would survive but preferred not to deal with in his precarious and urgent situation.

  Off to his left, not far from the reef lay the wreck of an old ship, the side sliced open from crashing upon the reef long ago. It offered a haven if he could get to it. Looking over the rocks, he saw the Ketos looking for him but it was looking in the wrong direction, the shadows of the hungry predators swimming above having drawn its attention for the moment. Kicking as hard as he could and throwing his arms before him only to swing them back again, Raven swam for the open hull of the sunken wooden ship.

  The movement in the water caught the sight of the Ketos who abandoned its concern for the sharks above and headed for Raven just as he swam into the gaping hole of the boat. Raven, long and sleek, swam through the gap without problem but the Ketos wasn’t so lucky. It got stuck in the hull, its barbed fringes caught in the punky wood as it struggled to free itself with its pincers snapping at Raven pressed against the far side of the hull. As its antennae swooped down to take him in, Raven raised his hand and flicked his fingers forward in the universal gesture of ‘bring it’. It seemed to enrage the monster as though it actually knew what the gesture signified. It thrashed harder and pushed further until the barbs latched to the wood gave way and the sharp splinters sliced through the sides of its soft body, cutting it open and letting its blood fill the waters. The Ketos ugly mouth opened as though it were screaming in pain but no sound came from it even when the antennae threw back on its blue head and Raven swam deeper into the wreck looking for another way out.