The Forest Gods' Reign

by Alexandria Hook

  “Ha!” the Cyclops laughed heartily, studying us carefully. “You think I will let you go? I only obey Lord Poseidon, not silly little Athena.”

  I frowned and shouted back at him, “In your next life, I would recommend that you obey all of the gods. Now we will send you to Hades.”

  With that, the Cyclops made a fist with his hand, shook it in anger, then lunged at me, but Alec and I rolled out of the way in opposite directions. The Cyclops bellowed in rage while Alec and I continued to run circles around him, just wishing we had bows and arrows to kill the monstrous man quicker and easier. We made a few shallow cuts on his meaty legs and fat feet with our swords, but that really wasn’t doing much to slow the Cyclops down. It only made the giant hop around on one foot like a madman, and we had to jump out of the way to avoid being stepped on.

  “Arrgh!” the Cyclops yelled in frustration. “That’s it!” Suddenly, the giant man picked his foot up and brought it down as hard as he could. The earth shook so much that Alec and I struggled to remain standing, although our focus changed when the Cyclops’s hand reached down from the sky, aiming to grab me by the midsection. Alec ran toward me, but he was far away on the other side of the Cyclops and had no chance of making it in time to save me. Therefore, I could only brace myself as I felt the giant hand close around me and lift me high off the ground.

  I gasped and let out a breath that I didn’t realize I had been holding as my ascent reached a sudden stop. Admittedly, I hadn’t seen what caused the stop, but I knew it had something to do with Alec. So I simply braced myself for impact with the ground—an impact I knew only a god would be able to survive without injury—as I felt myself slip between the Cyclops’s fingers. A second later, I landed feet first in the grass before falling to my knees, rattled and off-balance. But I was safe.

  That didn’t seem to matter to Alec, however. Anyone could tell he was now downright furious as he pointed his shining sword accusingly at the Cyclops. “That’s my patroness, you idiot!” he shouted menacingly in Greek, and I grinned proudly as my little hero chucked his sword as hard as he could, aiming straight for the Cyclops’s huge eyeball. I decided to let Alec finish the fight on his own.

  The Cyclops shrieked as the sword stuck in the brown iris of his eye, and he tried valiantly to pull it out, but his eye just started to bleed even more, turning the white part red and causing him to cry tears of blood. Taking advantage of the Cyclops’s pain, which momentarily stopped the brute in his tracks, I tossed my own sword to Alec, and he ran rapidly around the Cyclops, making cuts and slashes wherever he could in the thick skin.

  With a giant thud and a small shake of the earth, the Cyclops slowly fell to one knee, then onto his ugly face. Without wasting another second, Alec took a flying leap and repeatedly stabbed the Cyclops square in the back, pure hatred in his gleaming blue eyes and gold-green monster blood splattering all over his torso, until the Cyclops finally stopped moving. After a couple of seconds, the giant Cyclops crumbled to dust, and Alec dropped a few feet to the ground, landing on his feet.

  Breathlessly, Alec staggered toward me with his arms outstretched, seemingly ready to give me a hug or something, but I only pulled away. “Look at you. You’re covered in monster blood,” I said to Alec, and for a second he appeared confused. I shook my head again, and Alec just frowned as he looked down at his jeans and shirt, which were formerly blue and red but were now almost entirely covered in the greenish-gold substance. Alec sighed, and then he too shook his head, a tiny hint of a smile playing across his lips.

  “I wonder what the Knowing will think of us now,” Alec stated grimly, gesturing to all the monster blood on his clothes as the swords he was holding abruptly changed back into rock form. He handed me my own rock, and I slipped it into my pocket.

  “At least you’ll be able to take a shower soon,” I whispered to him brightly, and together we walked back over to our backpacks. We were both chuckling to ourselves and trying to catch our breaths, hoping we wouldn’t be bothered by any more monsters. I doubted we would get much more sleep after that.

  Chapter 15:

  WELCOME HOME

  Morning came quickly, with little sleep after Alec killed the Cyclops. Neither Alec nor I was very happy by the time the sun rose, until I pulled out some tiny boxes of cereal from my backpack that I had bought in the Kentucky airport.

  Alec scarfed the entire box down in less than a minute, and although I took more time than him, we were still able to pack up the few things that we had and leave in less than ten minutes. We started walking north once again, on our way to the Knowing base camp. I would have called Zeus to give him an update and to find out about what was going on back in the Woods, but I hadn’t even bothered to bring my cell phone, since I knew there probably wasn’t going to be cell service where we were heading.

  It was about eight o’clock in the morning when Alec and I hiked our way over the top of a large hill and stopped, looking down over a large dip in the rolling earth. Below us sat what I automatically assumed to be the camp, a collection of about thirty large, medieval-looking tents in deep purples, reds, and blues. In the center was a large, square wooden stage raised about three or four feet off the ground, and on the eastern edge of the Knowing establishment were a vegetable garden and two large corrals, each holding about fifteen to twenty well-fed horses. The hill behind it appeared to be dotted with at least fifty dark gray stones, which could only mark a cemetery.

  On the opposite side of camp sat one of only two actual buildings there, and Alec told me that it held the showers and toilets and a small tattoo parlor, along with a working phone, which was strictly for emergencies. I immediately decided that calling Zeus would qualify as an emergency. After all, who knew what in the world Hades was doing right at that second?

  Then, after staring at the view for a minute, Alec and I made our way down the hill. I noticed that a few large, muscular men who were wearing Grecian-style armor and who were situated at different points around the edge of the camp were looking up and pointing at us with what I hoped was enthusiasm. When I saw one of them quickly run into the largest tent in the camp, Alec explained, his voice unusually tight, “Those Warriors are just guarding the camp. Always on the lookout for monsters …”

  As we got closer, however, I could clearly see the confusion and even anger written across the strong Warriors’ faces. I frowned and muttered in confusion, “They sure don’t look very happy to see us.” And although I was certain that Alec knew why the Warriors appeared so angry, he didn’t answer me, only keeping his gaze locked on the tents ahead of us. The air around us felt thick and tense (for more than one reason) as Alec and I passed over a dirt line drawn in the grass that circled the camp, and I looked down at it curiously. I had been inside the camp for mere milliseconds, yet I already felt enclosed and restricted.

  “That’s the boundary line for the camp, set up by the gods three or four generations ago. The Knowing base camp has been here ever since,” Alec whispered to me from out of the corner of his mouth, answering the question he knew I had been silently pondering. “And un-Knowing humans, ones who don’t have the Sight, can’t see anything behind this line except grass, so they won’t come near us. They have no reason to come over here.”

  More Warriors were appearing in front of us now. They ranged in size, but they were all men, none younger than eighteen or so, with bad sunburns and large, bulging muscles that had tiny veins popping out, possibly due to slight dehydration or a very recent workout. Furthermore, their muscles seemed almost artificial, or the kind that one tries too hard to attain—the kind that didn’t come from real work, the kind that were slightly more gruesome than handsome, as opposed to the gods’. Even if the Warriors hadn’t been wearing full-body armor and clutching the handles of their sheathed knives and swords, I wouldn’t have trusted them.

  “Whatever you do, don’t panic. It will be over soon enough, once I straighten things out,” Alec told me in a hushed voice. I would have reprimanded him fo
r ordering me around, but the deadly serious expression on his face told me it was best to stay silent.

  All of a sudden, one muscular man ran up to us and yanked Alec’s arms, and then two other Warriors dragged Alec away from me. “No—” I tried to shout out, but I was cut off when another Warrior came up from behind me, stole my backpack, and blindfolded and gagged me. Meanwhile, a different one bound my hands behind my back, just like they were in handcuffs. With a cold shiver, I realized that they had me completely trapped for possibly the first time in my entire life, and I couldn’t speak out because of the gag in my mouth. I struggled against their grip in vain as they dragged me into a tent and threw me down on a hard wooden chair, then took my blindfold off.

  “Stay there,” one of the large Warriors in rusted armor growled at me as he sat on a different chair, next to another Warrior blocking the tent door. I was really starting to dislike the Knowing, and I hardly knew anything about them.

  I grew restless as I was forced to sit in the chair and wait. I supposed I could have been trying to escape, but part of me wanted to be obedient and was sure that the confusion would be sorted out quickly, as Alec had assured me. Curious, I tried to listen to what was going on outside, but I couldn’t hear anything besides the cheers and shouts of the gathering crowd, which were getting louder and louder. Moreover, the two Warriors in the tent kept looking behind them, as if they too wanted to know what was happening. Whatever it was must have been good.

  About another ten minutes had passed before the cheers abruptly faded away, and I guessed the crowd was trying to listen closely to hear something, so I strained my ears as well. As if on cue, a booming voice, which I assumed belonged to the Knowing leader, shouted from outside, “You flee the camp, you bring back an outsider, you get punished. Simple as that. Have you learned your lesson yet?”

  The crowd was dead quiet now, but I still could not hear a reply from whomever the leader was talking to, probably Alec. “I think that’s a no,” the man’s voice continued loudly, almost laughing.

  And then I heard the crack of a whip.

  I guessed the crowd had erupted in cheers again, but I did not hear them. Suddenly, I was angrier than I had ever been in my entire life. The blood pounded in my ears as it finally dawned on me: that sick, twisted Knowing leader was whipping—no, torturing—Alec for absolutely no justified reason at all. Punishing Alec, my hero, was a direct offense against me. And I had been trapped in the tiny tent with no idea whatsoever.

  I leaped to my feet, muscles rippling as I tore through the thin, yellowing rope that had bound me to the chair, and I quickly untied the gag from my mouth. Nothing could stop me in that moment of rage. Glaring ahead, I pushed and clawed my way between the two dumbfounded Warriors and sprinted toward the noise, which seemed to be coming from the stage area.

  Looking up, I saw a shirtless Alec, whose entire body, including his dark hair, was dripping with sweat, and his back was covered in what looked like pints of red blood. With a gag in his mouth, he was kneeling on the stage and slumped forward, being held up only by ropes binding each of his arms to separate wooden posts. The Knowing leader, a tall, muscular man with light brown hair that was slicked back with some sort of gel, stood above Alec, gripping a long leather whip in one hand, about to strike the little hero yet again.

  Hyperventilating, I forced my way through the thick mass of Knowing members, who were too preoccupied with watching Alec to notice me. At one point, I passed a slightly plump woman with long dark hair and a similar facial structure to that of the boy on stage, and I knew she must have been Alec’s mother. But she was ignoring her son’s groans of pain, cheering along with the rest of the crowd and begging for Alec to be whipped again and again instead. The absolute worst part about the entire ordeal was that no one but me was even attempting to stop this injustice. In my entire life of fighting monsters, I had never seen anything so horrifying.

  I shook my head in disbelief before I jumped onto the wooden stage and tackled the Knowing leader in one swift motion, pinning him down as I yanked the whip from his tight grasp. It took everything I had to restrain myself from killing the cruel man right then and there, for the overconfident way he carried himself implied that he had committed an unjustified crime of this caliber at least once before and, therefore, he deserved to die a slow, painful, dishonorable death at the hand of a god whom he clearly underestimated and did not respect. At that moment, I was not the least bit afraid to kill my first human; this one was just another monster that the world would have been better off without in the first place. However, there were around two hundred people—women and children included—watching my every move with a mixture of utter shock and maybe a little bit of fear. And to be honest, I didn’t want to gain any loyal followers who would worship me only because they feared me.

  Quickly, I stood up next to Alec, whose eyelids were fluttering as he struggled to remain conscious through the searing pain. Breathing hard, I wiped my sweaty brow and watched the Knowing leader with caution as he slowly got up off the stage in pure surprise. The crowd had also fallen silent once again, but this time it was because their oh-so-strong, unstoppable, beloved leader had just been brought down by a fifteen-year-old girl. I silently hoped to myself that the humiliation alone would be enough to humble him. Although killing or punishing him would have been fair and justified, it would have added yet another unnecessary spilling of blood to the heinous war that Hades was about to start.

  But the Knowing leader simply sniffed and grunted as he wiped a drop of blood from his nose and glared at me with his evil-looking green eyes. I was not afraid. “Who do you think you are?” he yelled in English, right into my face. He was obviously not thrilled with my actions thus far.

  Frowning, I wiped a few tiny drops of his disgusting spit from my face and replied loudly in Greek, so that the whole crowd could hear, “I am a goddess.”

  Gasps immediately echoed throughout the frantic audience, who appeared surprised that an outsider spoke Greek. A few men even laughed along with the Knowing leader, as if they thought I was a joke. Did I really look like I was joking?

  “Prove it, little girl,” the Knowing leader sneered at me, daring me to show him up once again. I only shrugged and pulled my black pocketknife out of my leather boot, where I had hidden it earlier in the morning. More gasps emanated from the crowd, and even the cruel Knowing leader raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, you should probably search your prisoners a little better,” I spat at him angrily.

  The leader didn’t reply, but just watched me carefully as I flicked open my pocketknife and stole a quick glance at Alec, who had his head bent over awkwardly and looked like he was unconscious. Knowing that I had to get him medical attention as soon as possible, I sighed to myself and took a deep breath. Then I made a cut about an inch long on the inside of my forearm, wincing only slightly as I dragged the tip of the sharp knife through my tan, glowing skin and watched the first drop of blood bubble to the surface.

  Slowly, my shimmering golden blood dribbled down my arm, and the leader and the people in the front of the crowd who could see it yelped in unison, not quite believing their eyes. Without another word, I closed the pocketknife and shoved it back in my boot. Simultaneously, every single member of the audience knelt down on their knees, bowing to me out of respect. The Knowing leader knelt last, and he begged with a shaky voice, “I’m truly sorry for everything, my lady. Please, forgive me. Who are you?”

  “Athena,” I answered him bitterly, and a couple people in the crowd made strange noises of delight. I was one of their most loved gods, after all. But unfortunately for the Knowing, they were definitely not my favorite people.

  “And apology not accepted. Besides, Alec is the one to whom you should really be apologizing,” I continued, turning to face the rest of the Knowing and speaking to all of them in an angry snarl. “After all, it was you who refused to believe a loyal member of your clan! It was you who denied him his training and rights and fo
rbade him to leave this wretched camp! And it was you who tortured him upon his return without letting him explain! Yet you still have the audacity to expect me, and him, to forgive you?! You must be out of your damn minds!”

  Fuming, I turned on my heel and untied Alec’s hands from the wooden posts. He collapsed onto my shoulder. I heaved him up as his blue eyes fluttered open once again, and I sighed in relief. Then I slowly helped Alec limp off the stage, taking the leather whip with me (I planned on destroying it later on) as the entire Knowing camp, in silence and in shame, watched us walk away.

  “Get me a nurse,” I ordered, my voice hoarse after yelling. On cue, a short woman in her forties wearing a simple blue dress with an apron was quickly shoved out from the middle of the crowd, and she nervously rushed over to help me with Alec.

  She led me to the infirmary, a large purple tent that had a white flag with a red cross outside. Inside, there were five empty dark green cots and a large table with all of the medical supplies. The nurse and I placed Alec facedown on one of the cots to inspect his wounds more closely, but it was worse than either of us had thought. His entire back was covered with deep, crisscrossing gashes, and his blood and sweat were everywhere. The Knowing leader must have struck him at least thirty times.

  I shook my head in disbelief and tried not to look too concerned as the nurse set to work cleaning the cuts. Alec yelled out in pain, and in a panic, he tried to push himself up off the cot, but he was too weak and collapsed back down in a heap, breathing extremely hard. Biting down on his lip so hard that it too started to bleed, Alec tried to get up for a second time and failed again, which sent him into another wave of panic, but I grabbed his hand firmly and knelt down next to him.