Liam’s smile turned predatory.
“Isn’t it hot that close to the sun?” Neb asked.
“Very,” Sunchaser said. Then, his cheeks darkening. “I, ah, may have stolen a few amulets of Ra, to uh, not, um, die.”
Neb growled softly.
“Sorry!” Sunchaser said, quickly, snapping his wings forward to cover himself.
Liam nodded. “The problem with any strategic movement in Purgatory, at this range, is concealment. Brax will know, the instant we move out. He’ll know we’re mustering. He’ll know the direction of our attack. He’ll know everything until we get within the curve of the horizon.” He leaned back in his seat. “But what if there was a way to get the entire army to within a few dozen miles of New Athens in less than a day.”
The table looked at him.
“You don’t mean...” Meg said, slowly.
“Yes, I do. A straight shot. But not with just one valkyrie, but a whole army,” Liam said, slamming his fist into the table with a grin.
“But how?” Neb asked.
Then she gasped. Her paws went to her muzzle and she looked at Tefan.
Tefan looked confused.
Until Liam started to explain.
And slowly, the entire table started to grin.
***
Liv got to the thirteenth Athenian bureaucrat before she broke one of their noses. Honestly, she was rather proud of herself. Every moment from arriving in the harbor to meeting the guard, to demanding that they give Vulkis the viking burial at sea that he’d want, to arguing with the city guard, to arguing with the city guard’s superior, to working her way through the senators and councilors who infested the defenses of New Athens had been a measured attempt to drive her insane.
Now?
Now Liv just stepped over the groaning woman’s prone body, threw open the doors to the inner chamber of the Dodekatheon temple in the heart of New Athens, and put her hands on her hips.
“Father!”
There were three gods within the temple. Apollo looked his luminous self as he lounged back on the seats that ringed the central dias. He was watching his father Zeus, who was watching Ares, who was looking at Liv as if she was an unexpectedly pregnant mortal and he was Zeus. It was an oddly specific expression, and one that was common across the entire Dodekatheon. She had even seen it on Artemis’ face once when a pregnant and very beautiful Coptic woman arrived in town.
She had never gotten the full story on that.
But then something impossible happened.
Ares’ face shifted from shock to cool delight. He nodded and turned back to his father.
“Ah, good!” he said. “My daughter has returned. Liv, tell us of the approaching army. As you know, father, I have been using her skills to learn more of the enemy. It is thanks to her that we knew to destroy those foul teleporter shrines before the enemy could take advantage of them. And, further, thanks to her that we have an alliance with Babylon and can rely upon Liam Vanderbilt of Earth and his stalwart army.” He slapped Liv’s back as she walked up to him.
Liv gaped at her father.
He looked down at her. If you don’t back me up, his voice rumbled in her mind, resonant and strange, as if it came from within her ears and throat. No one else seemed to hear it. Then I will beat you to death in this very temple.
Liv blinked.
She looked at her father.
She looked at her grandfather.
Zeus nodded to her.
She coughed. “Y-Yes,” she said, her voice hitching. “The, uh, the enemy are coming.”
Zeus frowned. “We knew that,” he rumbled.
Liv shook her head. Survive the moment, worry later. She coughed. “Uh, Brax the Golden is the enemy’s general. He’s extremely talented. He’s attacked using magic and teleport shrines-”
“We’ve destroyed all of the local ones, using the notes Ares gave us,” Apollo said. If he saw anything was odd, he hid it well. Liv gulped and nodded.
“Well, uh, he’s also used aqueducts and sewer systems. It doesn’t matter how large nor how small the entrance is, if he can find it, he will.” She bit her lip. “His infantry are well drilled and able to do a forced march for weeks on end without being tired. So, he can split detachments away from his army to harass neighboring city-states with ease. Do we have Poseidon’s aid?”
Zeus frowned. “My dear brother sees fit to protect Neriad and his wife. He claims that he will send his fleet. Once the enemy has become ensnared by our defenses.”
“Hades?” Liv asked.
Apollo rubbed the back of his neck. “No message. But, ah, according to Persephone, Hades...” He trailed off. “Fell over laughing?”
Liv scowled at Zeus.
“So much for familial loyalty,” he muttered.
“Yes, Hades has no reason to resent you at all,” Liv said.
“I know, I’m his brother,” Zeus said, seeming to miss the sarcasm.
Liv wanted to beat her head against a pillar.
“Well,” Ares said. “The enemy will be here before the next kindling. I shall discuss the matter of our defenses with my daughter.” His hand went to her back and he pushed her towards the exit of the temple with him. Liv only skidded a few feet before her legs started to move. As she walked, she puzzled over what had happened.
How is no one else noticing? she thought. The Ares of her youth and most of her adulthood had been brutal and direct and, well…
He had been literally afraid of the sight of his own blood.
He had failed to seduce Aphrodite. Aphrodite.
He was ugly and crude and kind of dumb.
Nothing at all like the confident, smiling god who walked her through the corridors of the center of New Athens. She walked with him in silence until they came to a set of side chambers. From the neatness and the spartan accouterments, she assumed they had to belong to Ares. There was a battered collection of armor hanging on a post beside the wall, while several spears rested in arming racks, waiting to be used. The only thing that looked even slightly decadent was the pile of fruits on a small bowl.
“So,” Ares said, pushing the door closed. “We need to have a talk, daughter.”
Liv stepped away from him, then turned. “You've turned traitor on Sysminor,” she said, slowly. “Let me see if I have this straight. First, you work with him to try and steal Liam’s iPod back in Olimurias a year ago. Then, you send me to work with Brax while Liam needed me the most. Now?” She spread her hands. “Now you’re, what, a double - triple? - agent? You're not going to sabotage a thing in the New Athens defenses, are you?”
Ares chuckled. “Sabotage?” he asked. “I’ve strengthened them. Apollo and Zeus don’t even know about the magical wards.” He stepped forward, looking down at her. “You’ve done everything I needed you to do, my daughter.” He caressed her cheek.
Liv lay on the ground. Her head rang. She blinked colored spots from her eyes and tried to figure out what had happened. Her mouth bled sluggishly and she felt something rattling against her lip. She shook her head and sat up – and then almost choked. She coughed and spat a wad of blood and a single tooth onto the ground. Her tongue probed and felt the jagged remainder in her gums. She looked up.
Ares almost glowed with fury.
“You are a whore,” he said.
Liv panted, then growled. She sprang to her feet. “Bastard-”
Her sword was in Ares' hands before she even reacted. He brought it down to his knee and snapped the bronze blade in half. He tossed it aside.
“That’s what you won’t be having. Get an abortion before talking to me again, and I may think of you as my daughter again.” Ares turned away from her, slapping his hands together to brush the bronze dust from them. Liv blinked, looking down at her fingers, then up at Ares.
“How do you...” She trailed off.
Ares looked over his shoulder. His eyes looked a mix between pitying and furious.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear
the answer to.” He waved his hand and the doors swung open behind her.
Liv had retreated from many battles. It was a simple truth of being a warrior. But she had never been beaten before. She had always hurried off, knowing that she could come back, turn the tables. Sometimes, it had even been within the same day.
Now, she fled. She ran and ran and ran as fast as her feet could take her.
***
Liv came to Apollo’s chambers in the dead of night. She had moved as quietly as she could, her mind focused so intensely on stealth that she barely felt the ache of her regrown tooth. The priest who had performed the healing hadn’t asked any questions. She was glad.
Apollo slept without guards – the casual confidence of a god whose sanctum was a safe distance away. He didn’t wake as Liv padded forward to the bed, his face remaining relaxed. Peaceful. He still glowed faintly, even while under the blankets. The room’s pale gold radiance made Liv feel only more nervous, not less. Apollo glowed because he was the god of the sun, of healing, of life and music.
His glow was…
Normal.
And it just threw everything Ares had done into sharper relief.
Apollo’s eyes snapped open as Liv reached for his shoulder. He tensed – then sat up. “Liviana?” he asked, his voice soft. “What in Purgatory are you doing here?”
“Apollo, I need you to focus,” Liv said, kneeling beside the bed. “Something is wrong with Ares.”
Apollo’s brow knitted. Then, slowly, he said the words back to her. “Something is wrong with Ares.” He blinked. “Something is wrong with Ares.”
“Good, you see it. When did it start?” Liv hissed.
Apollo shook his head, his golden tresses bouncing slightly. “I don’t know. But even now, it is hard to focus on. It is as if every memory I have screams at me, tells me that Ares is Ares. But...” He bit his lip, and then laid back in the bed. “It was within the last year, I believe.” He shook his head. “We need to learn what is causing this, lest we clasp a viper to our bosom.” He frowned, then focused his eyes on Liv. “There’s only one choice. We need to seek answers at the Oracle. Only she can divine this.”
“Oracle?” Liv asked. “What fucking Oracle?”
Apollo chuckled. “The Oracle of New Athens. We haven’t called on her for centuries, since she stopped speaking to us. But while she spoke, the Oracle was never wrong. So the legends say.” He shrugged. “As you are Ares daughter, you may be able to divine more than I. And, well, if you go, you will not have your loyalty torn between father and city.”
Liv’s loud snort spoke volumes.
“We have little choice,” Apollo pointed out. “If Ares means ill-”
“What if New Athens falls?” Liv asked, standing and putting her hands to her belt. “What then? Where do I go with any information I find?”
Apollo sighed.
“You take it to Babylon.”
Liv snorted. “Fucking great. Oracles. Traitors. What’s this war going to bring next?”
***
“The heat shield cracked,” Neb said, tossing the chunk of blackened, cracked pottery on Liam’s desk. Her tail twitched from side to side and her snout quivered with annoyance. As the most well read woman in Babylon, she had become the de facto head of the project that would end the war with a Purgatorian victory.
Hopefully.
“Well,” he said. “At least the gliders only crash half the time now.” He pursed his lips. “Maybe if we add water to the mix?”
“Then we get mud, Godkiller,” Neb said, putting her hands on her hips.
“Not during the construction – we add water when we put it together,” he said. “Valks can carry it.”
“Then we have a gigantic cloud of...” Neb blinked. “Oh. I’ve just figured out how we solve the camouflage problem!”
She turned and hurried off.
“I believe it was me who solved the camouflage problem right then, you... you walking cumdoll!” Liam shouted after her.
“Safe word!”
“That’s not our safe word...”
***
The Hellenes didn’t leave the beaches undefended. Several regiments of Athenian archers and hoplites were waiting on a raised patch of ground behind the boats. They opened fire with arrows sheathed in golden light, which flew unerringly towards the longships approaching their shores. The huscrals within lifted their shields up, but it seemed every arrow found a gap and a opening. Arrows thudded into armor and leather and cloth and flesh. Blood started to coat the decks before the second volley was even in the air.
The huscrals hit the beaches, howling with fury and charged towards a line of hoplites. The Aesir’s normal discipline had been broken – a strangely high number of the arrows had hit officers and veterans. The remainder were furious and their line was made all the more ragged by the fact they had to leap from boats.
The hoplites were, by and large, little better. Athenians hewed to the traditions of pre-Macedonian Greek warriors. Warriors who were, in truth, little better than militia. They tilled their fields, they debated their politics, they enjoyed their plays. And once or twice a month, they practiced getting into a line and pretending to murder one another.
It didn’t matter some were fat or old, that some were women, that some were goblins or elves or lilin. All that mattered was that they stood in a line, held their shields and advanced with their spears at the ready.
The hoplites and huscrals crashed together with a sound not unlike death. Splintering wood, shuddering mail, shivering spear. Screaming men and women, several of them dropping and trampled into the sand. The huscrals tried to close – but not a one got past the spear tips.
It was astounding.
Heroic, even.
A repeat, in some ways, of the battle of Marathon, where the Greeks of Earth drove the Persians into the sea.
A shame, then, that a single fight was not a battle.
The first moment the hoplites knew something was wrong was when they started to die. Spears slammed into unprotected backs and sides. The remaining huscrals were falling back, and the hoplites were already loudly discussing who would be grabbing some armor from the slain to make a trophy. Then screams. Cries. Pain.
They turned, trying to bring their shields around, but the detachment of lizardfolk who had swum ashore while the huscrals had distracted the Hellenes had claimed the hill. They had short spears and a lot of javelins. The hoplites tried to reform but then more lizardmen came rushing from the sea. They had waited, clinging to the bottom of the longships. Now, they screeched and leaped, landing in the center of the hopilte formations, hewing about themselves with heavy bronze blades. Wading from the surf were sorcerers who added the final stroke of terror to the utter rout.
Lightning surged from their palms, incinerating men and women alike, leaving entire ranks blinded and deafened by the strobe-brightness of their attacks.
The Athenian hoplites broke and fled, panic rearing its head through their formation. They fled or died or were captured.
By the end of the morning, the entire fleet had landed on the beach – ten miles east of New Athens.
By the end of the day, they were encamped around New Athens and their fleet was ringing the harbor. The huscrals – uncowed by their losses - began to loot the countryside. As the sun settled into darkness, smoke started to rise from the burned and burning farms.
And along the high, stony walls, the remaining hoplites stood, grim-faced and ready for the next attack.
None noticed the dark figure who moved from brick to brick, her bare feet pressed to the wall, her fingers quivering with the weight of her body.
Liv hit the sandy dirt around the base of the wall, her hand going to make sure her blue-black face wrap was still in place. She had raided a few clothing shops to find the right mixture of clothing that would make her vanish in the darkness of Purgatory. She had gotten a few knives, rations, and a new sword.
Would be nice to have Liam's sword, she t
hought, then grinned to herself. One of them at least.
She stole towards the lizardmen camp.
They had set up in the same pattern she remembered but there were some differences. The old camps had been set up to move at a moment’s notice. This one already had fortifications starting to sprout around it, the sound of ax blades slamming into wood and the calls of officers ordering men to place supplies here, there, and everywhere filled the air. In the chaos and confusion, Liv was able to spot a pattern and slide in through it.
When she was in the camp, she slipped her clothes off, reattached a collar around her throat, and strutted right up to Brax’s tent.
Anix blinked as he saw her, while Vazt simply held out his hand.
Anix sighed. The big lizardman slapped down a few copper coins into Vazt’s palm.
“Gambling?” Liv asked, unable to stop herself from grinning.
“I’d have thought you’d want to have seen the last of this place,” Anix muttered. “There you go, ruining my future retirement.”
“You let an Aesir barbarian smash a hunk of chamber pot over your skull for the General,” Vazt said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure you’ll get to retirement, Anix.”
Liv walked past the two of them.
Inside the tent, she saw Brax kneeling beside a scroll with Fizit. The shapely lizardwoman was wearing very little and her tail had lifted up in excitement, exposing the slit of her sex to Liv. Liv cocked her head, then coughed loudly. The two lizards turned and Fizit snapped to her full height.
“Wow, your tits are huge now,” Liv said, casually.
Fizit growled. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to be warning the Hellenes! We smashed straight through them.”
“That was just one detachment. They volunteered to slow you down,” Liv said, quietly. “Ares thought if you could be slowed down, then the whole army could muster and destroy you. Didn’t quite work out that way.’ She shook her head. “Brax, something’s wrong.”
Brax listened as she outlined what had happened. Once she was done, he shook his head.
The Blood Groove (Purgatory Wars Book 4) Page 18