The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1)

by Lentz, P. K.

  The mist thins. With the lifting of its green veil from our eyes, the rock shelf and mountainside take shape, and I witness right away the damage done to our ranks. Among the piled carcasses of every color, no more than forty Atlanteans—if indeed that is what we all are—yet stand. At the start of the onslaught, we numbered more than twice that. Those who survive are bloodied, ragged, trembling, many clutching wounds.

  As my bearings return, I look up to the cave mouth from which we emerged after having awakened inside the mountain. The tunnel no longer stands open; the rock above has collapsed, covering it completely with boulders and rubble.

  I know of an instant that this is no accident. The Chrysioi have closed it off.

  One Atlantean survivor near to me stands staring off in the opposite direction, that from which the attack came, and his look is one of utter hopelessness. I follow his gaze and see why. The whole of the fiery plain below us now stands blanketed in green fog. What we have faced was but a first wave, a vanguard, and a small one at that. The cloud presently approaching has no visible end but stretches to the far-off peaks and beyond.

  Their numbers are endless, Pyrakmon told us. For the first time, I truly comprehend his meaning. Whatever hope had begun to well in my breast drains away. We have no chance.

  I turn my eyes from the swarm and set them on a figure which I am grateful to find still standing, nearby and impossible to miss. Before the swarm, the Cyclops said we must follow him when the time came. That time is now, or else never.

  "Pyrakmon!" I shout over the enemy's distant scream. "Lead us to safety!"

  I have no authority to command him, but that is what this is. If he refuses, I will turn my weapon on him, backed by as many Atlanteans as will follow me. If we are to die, better that it be at his huge hand, fighting for a slim chance at life, than pointlessly against impossible odds.

  Having fought the Myriad with no weapons but his rawhide-wrapped hands, Pyrakmon is coated from head to toe with the ichor of the creatures that he has evidently torn asunder. Briefly, the Cyclops stares at me. His single eye is unreadable, leaving my mind to race through contingencies while fingers knead sweat-soaked sword handle.

  At last he nods, alleviating a tiny fraction of my despair. Death has become just slightly less imminent.

  5. Escape

  "Follow the giant!" I cry to all who yet live. I throw myself in his direction, trusting Crow and Ayessa to follow before our tethers yank one or more of us to the ground.

  Follow they do, and so do all within the sound of my voice. If any Atlanteans still cling to life among the corpses, I can only wish that their pain is short-lived, for we have not the luxury of time to seek them out and carry them with us.

  In great, bounding strides, the Cyclops runs toward the mountainside and ascends a shallow part of the slope. Behind him trails a cluster of forty-odd battered souls in borrowed bodies, all trying their best not to cast looks at the doom behind. After too long an ascent and too many glances over my shoulder, we crest the slope. Pyrakmon leads us around one of the jagged mountain's many crags. My last glance back before we round it shows me the sight I have been dreading: the green mist spilling up over the rock shelf. I would cry out warning, but we all see it, we all hear it, and anyway our legs can carry us no faster than they do now.

  Pyrakmon's round eye scans the mountainside, telling me he does not know precisely where he is leading us. He never stops moving, though, outpacing us all with his greater stride. He slows, and for an instant I think all is lost, for the fog any second must envelop the ground on which we stand. Then Pyrakmon's big eye locks onto something, his thick body pivots, and he races with new urgency. I look ahead on his trajectory and see it too: a patch of metal embedded in the mountainside reflecting the sky's pink light. I point and cry out to my brethren, adjusting course to aim straight for it rather than following the uncertain-til-now giant. It will save only a few seconds at most, but every second is precious. I do not let myself become hopeful, since the overwhelming likelihood is that we Atlanteans will every one of us shortly return to the senseless abyss from which Medea dragged us.

  The Myriad are visible behind us now, a roiling, shadow-laden cloud that eats up the mountain stone by stone, gaining on us. Ahead, Pyrakmon reaches the patch of metal, which I now see consists of six thick chains linked in the center by a hexagonal panel. Right away, one thing strikes me about this door: the cyclops dwarfs it. There is no way he will fit.

  That is his concern, I tell myself. Not mine.

  I am among the first Atlanteans to reach Pyrakmon's side. Pushing past the few there before me, I see the Cyclops fumbling with a rod-shaped key in gore-slick fingers as thick around as three of mine. Without thought or hesitation, I throw down my shield and snatch the key for myself. After my first, hurried attempt to slide the notched rod into the hole at the panel's center fails, the key slides in.

  I could have been faster, I cannot help but think. I hope that my failure does not doom any one of us.

  There is a heavy, metallic clank, and the thick links affixing the six chains to the lock panel burst open. With a leaden thud the panel falls, key still embedded in it, and slides to a rest on the rock near my feet.

  "Go!" Pyrakmon roars in his landslide of a voice.

  I whirl and see the green cloud looming large. My brothers and sisters, all forty or so who remain, become a crush of bodies clambering to reach the small passage at my shoulder which is barely large enough for a man to crawl into on hands and knees. One Atlantean whom I don't know by face, much less name, if he has one, elbows me aside, discards his shield and climbs in.

  I make no effort to stop him. Given a few more minutes, I might try to effect an orderly exodus. But we have no time at all. The best I can do as their leader, if that is what I am, is to ensure that the tunnel stays packed with bodies and that none of us are trampled before the Myriad arrive.

  However, there is one way in which I must, and do, abuse my authority. While forty-plus Atlanteans push into the passage, none of them able to claim any more right to life than another, I use my sword to cleave the rope connecting me to Ayessa. I grab her roughly by one arm and with the flat of my blade carve a hole in the crush of bodies to shove Ayessa in at the head of the line.

  She resists.

  "Go!" I tell her. My voice competes with the Myriad's ever-nearer, ever-louder shrieking.

  She shakes off my grip.

  "Get in!"

  "No!"

  Her protest barely registers except to aggravate me. I will not let her die. My eyes find Crow, still linked to her at the waist.

  "Take her!" I bark, shoving her into his arms and herding both toward the passage mouth. Crow seems startled by the directness of my action, but he complies, taking hold of Ayessa's arms while I wrest the lance from her grip and strip her of her shield. She makes one last attempt to break free, but carried along by Crow and the crush, she reaches the opening and has no choice but to enter and continue moving, lest she cause delay that we can scant afford.

  Vaguely, I comprehend that if we survive, Ayessa might resent me for what I have done. But she already has no liking for me, it would seem, and resentment can be overcome. Death cannot.

  Well, perhaps not twice.

  Soon roughly half of our number have found their way inside the mountain. The other half is pressed chest-to-back in a solid mass of limbs and heads. A few who have yet to abandon their shields are using them against their comrades. I cannot blame them. They want to live.

  So do I. But I have reached a decision. I will stand at the doomed giant's side and be last to leave. Were I to do otherwise, I know that I might forevermore see myself through Pyrakmon's single eye as one unworthy of his sacrifice on our behalf. I stoop and grab a shield, not the same one I threw down, but that hardly matters. When I rise, my two eyes join the giant's one in fixing on the advancing Myriad cloud, which dwarfs that which came before.

  I ask the cyclops, half-joking, half-hopeful, "I don't supp
ose you have the power to shrink?"

  He glances at me, and for the first time, I can read his look: he does wish he possessed such a power.

  "Why did you stay behind, friend?" I ask of him.

  The Cyclops laughs darkly, and speaks over the slow-moving stream of Atlanteans. "Even though my kind have ever been a solitary lot, I have no wish to be the last of them."

  I want to match his valor and declare that I will stand here and die with him, but I know I cannot, must not. I have not been reborn only to perish again on this mountain. Whatever notion of honor it is that keeps me standing here, whether its source is Thamoth or Enyalios, spirit or flesh, must content itself with my being the last to leave instead of sacrificing myself alongside the giant.

  Of course, I may yet wind up sharing his fate regardless. The next minute, or less, will tell.

  "Have you any last words, Cyclops?" I ask Pyrakmon.

  He thinks a moment. Neither of us, while speaking, averts our face from the coming, terrible storm. "Trust not the Chrysioi," he tells me. "It was Hephaestus who gave me this key, that you might have a chance at life. But others of the Chrysioi think you abominations, foremost of them Ares' wife, mother of your own flesh, Enyo."

  While the giant speaks, six more Atlanteans scramble over the pile of discarded shields and into the tunnel, leaving perhaps a dozen more yet to pass.

  "What of Ares himself?" I ask.

  "It was his idea, and Medea's, to summon you. To him, I think, a fighter is a fighter."

  There is no time to say more. My nostrils burn. A green glow fills the entire expanse of my vision. The second wave is upon us.

  6. Savior

  From out of the fog, a monstrous form materializes. Black tendrils slither around the waist of the rearmost Atlantean of those yet to enter the tunnel, and before I can lunge and bring my sword down on the appendages, he is dragged off, screaming, clawing at the rock.

  His scream fades into the mist. There is no time to lament. I lift my shield barely in time to meet an onslaught of mottled blue flesh. I bring up my sword and stab into the creature again and again, twisting the blade with the sole goal of butchery. Black ichor spurts, and the thing falls heavily. Quickly it is replaced by another of its kind, and another and another. The space past my shield rim, seconds ago just swirling green mist, becomes a vile rainbow, alive with color. I yield a few steps, find a fresh target, and do not let my blade rest. A dark shape scrabbles under my shield, bumping my mist-shrouded knees; it is one of the last Atlanteans, moving to safety. Another moves close behind him. I will them to move faster. With the mountain at my back, drenched in sweat and blood, I do all I can to protect myself and the last of my brethren.

  It is not enough. Below me, an Atlantean screams. I spare a glance and barely see, through the fog, a thick, thorny tentacle wrapped around a man-shaped shadow. I want to help my brother, but he is opposite my ever-moving sword-arm. I ram my shield rim into the tentacle, to no effect. Just as I give him up for lost, giant shadowy hands emerge from the mist to grip the tentacle and pry it away. The freed Atlantean scrambles out of my sight, and a larger shadow—Pyrakmon—takes shape, grappling with the beast. A severed tentacle flies past my face, evidence that the Cyclops has made short work of the thing.

  All the while, I do not stop fighting. Another of my brethren brushes past me in the fog and vanishes. I think he is the last; the Cyclops and I are all who remain outside the mountain, with an uncountable number of Myriad.

  It is time. I wish I could better see Pyrakmon's eye to share one last look with him, but the mist makes that impossible. I can only keep slashing whilst moving carefully backward over a mound of shields slick with ichor in search of a small tunnel mouth invisible in the stinging mist. I think I am on the right path, but cannot be certain when, in a terrible instant, my foot slips and I crash down on my back among the discarded shields. Quickly I scramble to right myself but fail to find footing on the slick, shifting surfaces.

  Stumbling and lashing out at the unrelenting swarm with my blade, I begin to resign myself. I bid Ayessa farewell, disappointed that I will never learn what was, and what might have been again. I wish Crow and all of my brethren a bright future in whatever home they may find. I hope they will choose to remember me. At least they have a name by which to do so: Thamoth.

  I am ready for death, and have been so for long seconds, when there coalesces from the mist a great, round, white eye. I realize too late to halt the frenzied slashing of my sword that it is not the eye of any horrific creature of the Myriad, but Pyrakmon's. My blow has struck the Cyclops somewhere on his great body; thanks to the fog, I cannot tell just where. Regret flares in me, but also an irrational anger at Pyrakmon for getting in the way of my sword and spoiling my noble death.

  A second later, I realize that I have not slain the Cyclops, or even hurt him badly. He is made of tougher stuff than that. His great arms move toward me, and I am lifted in a clatter of shields. My world spins. For a moment I do not know which way is up. Then my back strikes rock, forcing the breath from my body. I brace the elbow of my shield arm against the mountainside and feel something cold and smooth which is not rock but metal. The link of a chain. I am at the tunnel.

  I fear to turn my back, even more to drop my shield, but I must do both, and so without waiting for more nightmares to emerge from the mist, I do. My free hand finds the chain, and I use it to heave myself into the passage which, like the air of Hades outside, is thick with stinging green fog. I want nothing more than to keep scrambling forward until this enemy lies far behind, but I cannot. What I must do instead is lay down my sword temporarily and work to restore the tunnel's seal. That I have not seen any Myriad small enough to fit inside this passage does not mean that none exist. I was told, after all, that their forms are endless, and for all I know their haphazardly assembled bodies are malleable enough to squeeze into any opening.

  Expecting at any moment a razor-lined tendril to sever my head, I set down my sword so its handle touches my leg, that I might find it again easily when needed, and quest with my hands at the tunnel's threshold, where I remember having last seen the hexagonal lock plate. I find nothing at first and must walk forward on my knees, stretching ever further down. I feel, and barely see, our discarded shields and run my fingers over every one in reach, assuring myself that it is not what I seek before shoving it aside.

  My hands encounter the slick, soft, cold flesh of a creature of the Myriad, and I throw myself back, seizing my sword and setting it for an attack. When none comes, I set it down again and resume my search. When once more I feel the cool, bloated flesh, I comprehend the reason I have not been attacked: a heap of Myriad corpses blocks the tunnel mouth.

  It is no accident. Once more, Pyrakmon has made himself my savior.

  I soon find the metal plate. Hauling it up in one shoulder-wrenching jerk, for it is quite heavy, I manage to raise it high enough to fasten the topmost chain to one of the six open links on the plate. The remaining five follow more easily. Lastly I remove the key, which thankfully has remained in the lock. With a strong, sharp sound the links snap shut.

  I find my sword. At last I am free to escape, to join my brethren and seek my destiny in the unknown. Down the tunnel I crawl, hand to knee, hand to knee. Green mist gives way to a darkness so complete that I cannot see my own hands under me on the cold, rough surface of the tunnel. The swarm's screeching fades into a silence that is just as complete, but for the sounds of my own breathing and movements. The passage leads ever downward, its slope eventually becoming so pronounced that often it becomes more expedient to rotate and descend backward. Soon I begin to hear the voices of my fellow Atlanteans speaking in hushed tones that echo up to me, and I rejoin my faceless, nameless brothers in feeling our way through the cramped, hot, dark confines of the passage. There seems to be less air left in the shaft with each passing minute, and all the time I remain well aware that the only barrier separating me from the swarm is that metal seal which I am glad I took
the time to replace.

  After some minutes, there comes the sounds of shouting and commotion from ahead. Trapped at the rear, I can do nothing but urge the Atlanteans ahead of me to move faster—but they are just as trapped as I.

  The noise lasts only a short while, and then all is silence again, but for the scraping and heavy breaths of our slow progress.

  At last, a dull orange light ahead makes visible the moving shapes of the bodies ahead of me. I press against them, eager for escape, which comes in the form our disordered emergence, through one dimly lit stone chamber into a second populated by a few dozen Atlanteans—and five others.

  They are Chrysioi surely. Four kneel, two male and two female, while a third male lies face down on the cavern floor, restrained there by three Atlanteans, one of whom kneels on his bloodied head. It is immediately clear that what I behold is the aftermath of some hostile encounter just ended, with these five Chrysioi winding up our prisoners.

  I am keenly interested in learning more from and about them, but another concern sets me to scanning the faces of the Atlanteans in the chamber. My eyes do not quickly find the object of their search, Ayessa. It also seems to me that there are fewer of us than I had thought made it safely into the mountain.

  Before I can conduct a more thorough search for Ayessa to set my mind at ease, Crow approaches with explanation.