Many of the unconscious people began to stir on the cavern floor, but with the rage building in me, all I cared about was getting to Four Arms. As I hacked at the creatures in front of me on my way to face the giant Phonoi, Medea looked around frantically and then moved away from the fight, maybe in an attempt to flee again. I didn’t care. I just wanted to kill Four Arms, who was now less than ten feet in front of me.
“Kesed, kill him!” Medea hissed, pointing at me from what was left of the dais as she tried to regain her composure.
The creature’s head whipped around in my direction. Four Arms pulled its sword from the neck of a Spartoi and withdrew one of its claws from deep within the soldier’s side then threw the warrior’s helmeted head to the floor. It ran toward me at frightening speed.
My bloodlust drove me toward the charging monster without fear or concern. The giant Phonoi was fast, almost as fast as I was. Moving at full speed, it tried to spear me with one of its clawed hands, its talons closed tightly into a wicked point, but I pivoted slightly, shifting my weight to the right, and the blow glanced off my cuirass and tore through the ballistic nylon of my already tattered vest. I parried a blow from the sickle in the demon’s left hand and thrust my sword into its side and out its back. The brute howled. I sneered and screamed in response. I wrenched my sword from its metallic skin, and we spun around to face each other head-on.
We eyed each other for a second. Four Arms clacked its metallic claws loudly, still holding the short sword in its right hand and the sickle in its left. Tremendous heat and the smell of burning meat billowed from behind us, along with the screams and shrieks of the reawakening crowd, and my rage continued to rise. Every muscle in my body was tensed to the point of snapping as I gripped my swords so hard my knuckles turned white.
All at once, the massive Phonoi raced forward with its claws poised to spear me again. I crossed my swords tight over my chest, ducked down to avoid the talons, and lunged up within the massive Phonoi’s reach, spreading my arms and drawing my swords outward with as much force as I could. I cut clean through its left claw, severing it above the elbow with a satisfying metallic ring. But the Phonoi deflected my blow to its right claw with its short sword, and my sword jabbed upward and lodged in its plated upper chest. I ducked, letting go of my sword, and the monster’s sickle caught the middle of my chest while I was extended. The curved blade wrapped around me in a blow that knocked the air from my lungs and probably would have cut me in half if not for my cuirass—instead, it just threw me sideways like a ragdoll.
I tucked into a tight roll and came out of it in a low crouch, catching my breath. Wounded and moving more slowly, the Phonoi hesitated for a few seconds, bobbing, before lunging at me. It swung with its sickle and sword in a wild scissor, but I stepped back and let its arms swing past me. Something—the tip of the short sword or maybe the sickle—slashed into the back of my right arm as I jerked backward, and the sudden shock of pain made me drop my sword. I staggered back and ran my left hand under my arm to check the damage. It wasn’t bad, but my hand came out covered in blood. My rage was so complete I had no idea where anyone else was, what they were doing, or even if they were alive.
Encouraged by my injury, the beast threw its head back and charged at me with its remaining arms splayed wide. On instinct, I ran straight at it, dove between its legs, and tried to snag my fallen sword along the way. Luckily, my speed caught the beast off guard enough that the bizarre maneuver actually worked. I got to my feet, sword in hand, and spun around to attack.
Before I could follow through, an intense heat radiating through the area behind me and to my right drew my attention. From her place on the dais, Medea’s right arm was engulfed in and projecting a brilliant yellow-white flame. She directed it into the melee, continuing behind me like a flamethrower, wielding it with precision and incinerating everything in its path. The heat she generated even cracked rock.
Unconcerned with those being burned, I snarled at Four Arms and charged. I pulled the tanto knife from my vest with my left hand and raised that arm up as a shield as I ran. I kept the sword low to my right, ignoring the pain from the gash under my arm.
The monster lunged at me and swung low with the sickle, trying to catch my leg. I jumped the blow, but its remaining clawed arm caught me across the shoulder and head, sending me sprawling. I landed hard on my injured arm and lost my sword again, but I hung onto my tanto knife.
Bloodlust drove me to get up and return the favor, but my injured and overworked body wasn’t reacting efficiently. Before I could get back on my feet, the Phonoi was standing over me. It reached down, grabbed the remains of my tactical vest, and lifted me to its face, breathing raggedly through the jagged nose slits while staring at me with its beady, dead black eyes. It hissed in my face, spraying me with gobbets of green slime, and then reared back its remaining claw to spear me.
I drew the tanto blade up across the thing’s face, but the blade, as well made as it was, could only scratch its armored hide. Still, the Phonoi jerked its head back, giving me just enough time to pull out the sword I’d impaled its chest with and jam it under its chin into its skull.
Remarkably, it didn’t fall. It didn’t even drop me. It just stood there, unblinking and unmoving. I bellowed a bestial cry in victory, pulled the sword free from the creature’s head, and hacked through the arm that held me. I dropped to the ground and pushed the monster onto its back.
The scream that erupted as the spirit tore itself loose was deafening. Rage unlike anything I had ever experienced before permeated every fiber of my being. I dropped my knife, wrenched out the arm still clinging to my vest, and used it to bludgeon the next thing I saw—a pair of Androktasiai tearing apart a dying Spartoi. I ripped into them with gusto, clubbing them with the severed arm and hacking them into pieces within seconds. Their death throes were eerily similar to an orgasm, their faces contorted into cruel mockeries of a smile. If I weren’t so happy to see them die, it might have freaked me out a little.
Standing near the collapsed part of the dais where Hecate had been, I searched for the next fight, exhausted and breathing heavily. Some ten yards away from me, Duma was tangling with a few Androktasiai of his own. I only saw three Spartoi still fighting, giving as good as they were getting from the murderous spirits. Several bodies were burning—human, Spartoi, and demon alike—while others had been reduced to charred piles or ash. On the other side of the chained Titan, out of its reach, Medea had retreated to cover but was gathering sparks of energy about her hands as she prepared some sort of spell. My rage was subsiding only because I was too tired to act on it. I fell to one knee, trying to recover enough to move on Medea.
“Duma!” I yelled and pointed back behind the dais with my sword.
He hacked through a female demon’s head with a downward blow and then tracked where I was pointing.
“My spear!” I yelled, pushing myself back to my feet.
He took off in a blur, running for where the Pelian Spear had stuck into the wall behind the dais, where it had passed through Hecate. Meanwhile, I found my other sword and skirted around the bound Titan to face Medea. I approached the violently thrashing Perses as cautiously as I could—which, given my current mental state, might have amounted to stomping along, screaming. I tried to focus on Medea.
I passed around the bound Titan’s enormous shoulders, willing myself to concentrate on Medea, through my rapidly returning rage, as more of the spirits of manslaughter and murder perished around me. I tried to keep my distance and stay out of Perses’s tethered reach, but Medea was waiting in ambush on the other side of him. As soon as I could see what she was up to, she nailed me with a ball of energy that knocked me over into Perses’s range, and the Titan’s arm lashed out and backhanded me, sending me fifteen feet through the air, out into the cavern, and away from the dais. Once again, my cuirass saved my life. I pushed myself up and got on my f
eet, feeling a renewed surge of urgency and rage. I looked at Medea and spun my swords at my sides.
I could see the same murderous look in Medea’s eyes that I felt. As a human, these dying spirits were affecting her, too. It made me smile a bit, but it probably came off more like a sneer. “You sure you want to end it this way?” I growled as I squared off with her. “We’ve been around a long time, you and me. It’s a shame one of us has to die here today.”
“It’s taken me hundreds of years to develop a ritual capable of gathering and binding chaos—not to mention locate the Cup of Jamshid and use it to find Prometheus’s bane—and once again, you’ve interfered.” She scowled. “You will not survive to do it again.”
She tried to direct a spell at me, but I was expecting it and easily avoided the blare of green light. The bolt of energy exploded against the cavern wall hundreds of yards behind us. I batted the next blast back toward her with my sword, sending it crashing into the face of the stone dais, then walked slowly and deliberately closer to her, watching her movements, getting my second wind. She limped heavily as she tracked my movements. The once-beautiful woman was truly haggard and worn, her face drawn and her hands twisted into claws. Her red-and-gold cloak and her stringy red hair made her light skin appear even more pale and wan. There was no way she could continue to throw magic around for much longer.
As we faced off, I could see Duma creeping up onto the dais behind her with my spear. Ranged weapons were not his forte, but all he needed to do was distract her long enough for me to act. I didn’t know where the sniper team was, but given that most of the mundanes in the cavern were still just gathering their wits, I doubted they would be of much use. The remaining Spartoi were still battling with death spirits, and I had no idea where Ab was. As far as I could tell, Duma was my only backup.
He drew back to throw the spear, but just as he let it go, she thrust out her left arm behind her as if to punch him. A bolt of erratic green energy lashed out from her hand and from a bracelet around her wrist and smacked him in the chest, throwing him into the cavern wall, twenty yards behind, with a sickening crunch. His body fell limp to the ground. The Pelian Spear flew weakly past Medea and skidded to a stop at the base of the chains holding Perses. The Titan of old ignored the spear and continued to thrash erratically, struggling against his restraints, the once-glowing writing that encircled him now dark.
“I will kill you and your comrades,” Medea said, turning back to me with a vicious scowl, “while you watch. That will be nothing compared to my efforts here and the indignities I have suffered at the hands of these execrable god-things and impuissant humans.”
“Imp what?” I asked, mocking her. “What kind of humans?”
She glanced from me to Perses and back, grinned a toothy smirk, and made a sudden move with her bony left hand that mimicked pulling something toward her. I dodged to my right, but the band of energy she’d loosed flew well behind me and would have missed me even if I hadn’t tried to avoid it. My first thought was that she had rotten aim—but I could feel that the blast she projected didn’t dissipate.
“Do you know how it feels to be betrayed by the very beings you once worshipped, only to find they are as petty and pathetic as mortals and still presume to use you like a plaything? That wretched beast we called Aphrodite destroyed my life twice out of petty jealousy. The nonhuman freaks feel this world is rightfully theirs. They can have it after I’ve destroyed it! All my life, weak, intolerant, covetous mortals have attacked me out of fear! These same wretched, gullible mortals choosing to believe in such contemptible gods, bent on destroying each other in homage to them, are unworthy to exist alongside those with true power. And you—you are their lapdog! You beings have ruined this world! If you are all so bent on living in chaos, then I am only too glad to give it to you!”
She was ranting. I had to do something fast. I shifted subtly, tightening my grip on my swords. At once, Medea twisted her left hand, and a female voice cried out in pain behind me. I froze.
Medea raised her right hand toward the ceiling and made a motion as if she were picking fruit from a tree, only more violently, and screamed, “Apolyo!”
The cavern began shaking, and small rocks fell around me like a hailstorm. Above me, stalactites began to shake and shear loose along with substantial chunks of the cavern’s ceiling. I jumped away, avoiding most of the falling rubble, but the stalactites exploded on the floor, sending razor-sharp shards of limestone and rock in all directions. I let go of my swords and curled into a ball, throwing my arms over my face and head for protection as the debris pelted me and tore into the unarmored parts of my limbs, exacerbating the pain from the wound under my right arm.
As soon as the deluge let up, I got back to my feet and faced Medea again, anger welling deep inside me. She had killed to get the Cup of Jamshid and used innocent people to achieve her goals, luring them with false promises. She had lied to and abused the people she’d frightened into following her, using them as little more than human pawns in her twisted scheme. She had likely just killed my best friend and had used Sarah to get to me. She’d even killed her own children to get even with her ex. She needed to die.
Medea was laughing, but it was definitely more of a deranged cackle than a sound of mirth. Fueled in part by the malice that the dying Androktasiai and Phonoi had infused me with, I’d had just about all I could stand, and I finally snapped. Ignoring my swords just a few feet away, I roared a battle cry and rushed her with every ounce of built-up hatred and violence I had. She raised her free hand and held it up at me, palm outward, like a policeman stopping traffic. Fifteen feet from her, I struck a sheet of energy as solid as a wall and nearly blacked out from the force of the impact. She flicked her wrist and sent me flying sideways ten feet through the air while I fought to remain conscious. I skidded through the stalactite rubble toward the dais in a semi-conscious heap.
Medea cackled maniacally, and her eyes were wide and wild. She twisted her left hand slightly, and I could hear something sliding through the rubble from behind me. The closer it got, the clearer I could hear weak moans. Through the pain and exhaustion, some compulsion inside me kept driving me to get up. I blinked hard a few times, starting to move. As my wits returned, I rolled over to get a glimpse of whoever was moaning behind me, but by the time I’d gotten onto my back, Medea had dragged the figure close enough for me to see: Sarah was hovering a few inches off the floor, limp as roadkill.
CHAPTER 38
“No!” I screamed.
Medea laughed even more wildly, and I pushed myself up to one knee. I had to save Sarah. I spotted my swords lying fifteen feet to my left as I did. I knew Medea was strong, but she couldn’t keep throwing around this kind of magic for much longer. I grabbed for my Sig with no idea if it would even kill her.
The nine millimeter got tangled in the tatters of my vest as I struggled to draw it, and I saw Medea flick her hand in my direction. I flew off the ground once again. This time, she jerked me through the air to my left. I managed to free the weapon from its tangle and braced myself for the impact on my left shoulder. As I landed, I tucked my head and rolled into a kneeling firing stance within a yard of my swords. I aimed and pulled the trigger as fast as I could, watching as each round struck some sort of barrier around the witch in a shower of sparks and dull tinks. I tossed the gun aside and scrambled for my swords.
Medea cackled again, and just as I recovered the weapons, I jerked backward, landing hard on my back a few yards from Sarah’s suspended and unconscious form. The witch was playing with me, though it didn’t escape me that her attacks now mostly consisted of tossing me around. I started toward Sarah, but before I could take one step, Medea shrieked wildly and sent Sarah’s limp body flying sideways and away from me a few more yards. Sarah moaned at the sudden sharp movement but remained passive.
I feigned a charge at Medea and instead threw one of my swords at her. I
didn’t expect to hit her, but I was hoping it would be enough to distract her so that I could grab Sarah and get her to safety. Apparently, it worked. The witch flinched, throwing her arms up as if to block the attack, and I began running.
The magical energy around Sarah’s body dissipated as Medea recoiled, and Sarah collapsed to the ground with a grunt. I grabbed her by the front of her vest and carried her easily as I ducked around the dais for cover. Just as I made it, Medea screeched “Apolyo” again. Only this time, no stalactites fell, just smaller rocks and rubble. I hunched over Sarah, using my armored back to protect her. Several baseball-sized chunks of stone bounced off of me, but this attack was nothing compared to the earlier one. Medea was definitely weakening.
I shoved Sarah against the backside of the dais to protect her and raised my head just enough to peer across the stone stage toward Medea. The moment I did, a small green ball of energy came flying at me. I ducked, but the glowing projectile caromed off the edge of the dais, and the force of the impact knocked me over backward and sprayed me with debris.
I had only one option left: a direct attack. So far, I hadn’t been able to make so much as a step toward her without being tossed around, having projectiles thrown at me or the ceiling brought down on my head. The only upside was that the force of the attacks was steadily decreasing. I was exhausted and in pain. I figured I had one good attack left in me, and I’d have to make it count. I crawled back around to the front of the dais to give myself as clear a sight line as possible to Medea and poked my head around to see where she was.
As she limped closer—to less than forty feet away—a bellow that sounded like the combination of a lion and a freight train came from out in the cavern to my left, and something flew toward Medea, though it was slightly off target. One of Ab’s long-handled battle-axes crashed into the dais, well in front of the witch, with a clang and a shower of sparks.
Havoc Rising Page 33