“Do you need a rest?” he asked.
I felt as though I could sleep for a week, but this was hardly the place. I shoved my now nearly empty bottle back in my pack. “Let’s just keep moving. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”
He led the way out onto the plain. Well, I say plain because it was more-or-less flat, but it wasn’t some smooth, unbroken surface. Slabs of rock were tilted at all angles, as if some giant had smashed the whole area with his hammer in a fit of rage. Fissures ran everywhere, many of them emitting steam or a stench of sulphur. Jake picked a path through, avoiding the biggest steam vents, but the path wasn’t straight, and it required a lot of scrambling up and down over boulders and leaping from one slab to another. I saw black water at the bottom of one fissure I jumped across; another blasted super-heated steam way above our heads just after I’d crossed it. If I’d been a little slower that would have cooked me.
“Be careful,” Jake said, watching steam fountain into the lowering sky.
“You’re the guide,” I pointed out. “I’m just following where you’re leading.”
He nodded and shut his eyes.
“What are you doing?” I asked after long moments of watching his steady, deep breaths.
“Feeling for the fire.” When he opened his eyes, there was guilt in them. “That was too close.”
After that, we moved slower, but there were no more near misses. Every so often Jake stopped to “feel for the fire” again. It occurred to me during one of these pauses that if we had to run, things were going to get very awkward. I kept a watch behind us, with my inner and outer sight, in case any of the spider monsters decided to chase us after all, but the only thing moving anywhere in sight was us.
I plodded after Jake, trying to ignore the odd tingling in my left leg. My foot felt almost as if it belonged to someone else, heavy and awkward. Now would be the perfect time to link to a cat or two, to up my agility. I tripped more than once. Part of that was because of the rough, unpredictable surface—Jake stumbled a couple of times, too—but not all of it.
Even more reason to keep soldiering on. This leg wasn’t going to fix itself. I needed a god with fireshaping powers, according to Hephaistos, to burn the last of the centaur’s poison from my body. The sooner we got that collar off Apollo’s neck, the sooner he could fix me.
I reached out, searching for Cerberus, as I’d done several times already. He’d managed to cover a lot of ground—he was a long way away, perhaps already back at the palace—but he steadfastly refused to respond, however much I tried to force him. He was single-mindedly focused on something else. Had he found Hades? What had happened to the Lord of the Underworld that had put his hellhound into such a panic? Had he been captured by the shadow shapers, or gone off on some other mission of his own? I placed one tired foot after another, watching the uneven ground for anything that might trip me up.
Cerberus’s departure had been particularly bad timing. If he’d stayed only a few hours more, we would have been back at Hades’ palace—or at least through the swamp and able to find our way alone. If someone had been trying to find a way to doom our little quest, they could hardly have done better. Why had Hades picked precisely that moment to get himself into trouble? The joke would really be on us if it turned out Hades was behind the whole attack on the gods, and all the time that he’d been hiding out in Berkley’s Bay, he’d really been masterminding the whole shadow shaper assault on the gods’ power. I hadn’t forgotten that odd guilty look on his face the night I’d been talking to him and Jake about my memory issues.
I sighed and stopped on top of a pile of ash and rock to get my breath back. I wasn’t normally so paranoid. Maybe the fumes were getting to me, or maybe I was just exhausted. Hades was one of the good guys. It was too late now to go doubting everything and second-guessing my judgement. That was the trouble with memory—once you started doubting your recall of events, everything became suspect. But some things remained true. Syl was my best friend, and I was doing all this for her. Jake was—what? A friend, too, I guess. Hopefully more than a friend. If we ever got to go on that date of his I might find out. At any rate, I was glad he was here now.
He stopped and looked back at me. “Everything all right?”
“Just peachy.” There was no point mentioning the growing numbness of my leg. He had enough on his plate already. “How’s the fire-feeling going?”
“Getting warm.” He drained the last of his water, then wiped his sweaty forehead onto his sleeve. “Shame we can’t drink that.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Styx, which was still a good distance away but getting closer as the land between the rivers narrowed toward a point.
The mountain loomed ever higher as we approached, but only its head reared above the great steam cloud that enveloped its base where the two rivers met. Its top was laced with lava, as if the mountain wore a fiery crown. High above, dark birds circled in the smoke from the volcano’s crater.
Wait …
“Do those look like birds to you?”
Jake’s head whipped around at my tone. His eyes narrowed as he followed the direction of my gaze. Most of the time, the distant figures were shrouded in smoke, but now and then one became more clearly visible for a moment. They had wings, but the outline wasn’t right for birds. “Zeus’s balls! Harpies.”
I squinted at the distant figures in the smoke. He was right. They were harpies—the famed monsters of Greek legend. They had women’s heads, but their bodies were birdlike. I scrambled to remember what I could of harpies. Legend said they had a fearsome smell and a temper to match, plus a taste for meat and a dislike of humans. Maybe that was a taste for human meat. Not good news for us. I guess that was no surprise. Not much had gone right since we started this adventure. My leg twinged at the thought. It was probably too much to hope that the harpies would fly off and leave us in peace.
As if summoned by my thoughts, three of the harpies wheeled away from the group circling above the volcano and headed in our direction. How I wished I still had my bow and arrow. There would be three harpy pincushions coming right up.
“Incoming.” At least I still had my knife. Two, in fact, counting the one in my backpack. Shame there were three harpies. It didn’t take a mathematician to realise that sum didn’t work out in my favour.
Jake noted my warlike preparations, but his attention was on the sky and the approaching menace. “Stay there. I’m going to try something.”
Obediently, I stayed put, watching as he backtracked to a particularly treacherous stretch that we had just navigated. It was full of small fissures that belched sulphurous smoke from their glowing red depths, lending an appropriately hellish aspect to the scene, and a stench to rival even the harpies’. He chose a spot in the middle of the field and closed his eyes. Was he “feeling the fire” again?
Without opening his eyes, he said: “Don’t come any closer.”
“You worry about yourself. I’ve got my knives. Don’t meditate too long or the fun will be over and you’ll be harpy snacks.”
He snorted and clenched his fists. He looked like he was concentrating hard on something, or maybe just straining to cough up a hairball. I watched the approaching harpies, the first knife balanced loosely between my fingertips, ready to throw as soon as they came within range.
The leading harpy screeched as she came closer. Her sisters were close behind, long hair streaming back in the wind of their passage, their faces screwed into identical expressions of rage. Their wings were the only beautiful thing about them, feathered in black, tipped with silver.
Almost. Just a little closer. I drew my arm back in a smooth arc, ready to release the knife—and then the ground behind me erupted. Jake was done with standing still. He raised his arms, bringing the fire with them. Smoke and superheated steam burst into the air, engulfing the leading harpy. Her sisters tried to pull up, but only the third harpy, trailing a little behind, managed to evade her doom. The second fell to earth to join the fi
rst in a scorched heap without so much as a shriek.
I released my knife. It was a long shot, and my aim was a little off, but I caught the remaining harpy right where the huge tendon of the wing joined the body. She screamed as she circled above us, raining down curses on our heads.
“Nice shot,” I said approvingly to Jake.
“How about this one?” Jake wound back his arm as if preparing to pitch a baseball and released a stream of fire into the air. The harpy fell back with a squawk of fright and fled toward the volcano.
“Pretty good,” I said, “for someone who was supposed to be out of juice.”
Jake checked his hands as if seeing them for the first time, a look of surprise on his face. “I feel great.”
He looked pretty great, too. Gone were the sagging shoulders, the exhausted bags under the eyes. He looked like a man who’d just had the best sleep of his life and woken fully rested.
“What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just reached into the fire because I knew I had nothing left in the tank.” With speculation in his eyes, he stretched out a hand in a commanding gesture. Fire leapt from the nearest fissure and crawled up his arm, winding around it like a caress. He dipped his hand this way and that, watching the fire move. When he looked up his eyes were shining. “It’s everywhere. I can feel it.”
“You mean the lava?” He seemed skittish, like a child hyped up on too much sugar. I kept one eye on the distant harpies as we spoke. They were massing over the peak of the volcano. We could be in for some serious trouble. “The lava is giving you energy?”
He shrugged. “The lava, the fire, the river. It’s everywhere. I’ve never felt anything like it. So much energy. So much power.”
“That’s good timing.” Harpies were boiling out of the crater of the volcano like a mini eruption. Where had they all come from? And how the hell could we handle that many? I nodded at the approaching storm. “Do you reckon you have enough for all those?”
Jake’s enthusiasm dimmed at the sight. “Balls.” His hands clenched into fists as the sky darkened with a swarm of harpies.
Half-heartedly, I reached out with my mind but, as I suspected, the harpies’ minds were closed to me. Only their bodies were birds; the thinking half was all woman. And now I was down to one knife. Shit on a stick.
Jake called fire to his hands. Even I could see the difference from his usual firepower—the fire burned a deep red that reminded me of Cerberus’s eyes. And there was plenty of it, wreathing him in flame from head to toe. He could have been a god himself, or a hero from ancient legend. He coaxed steam and foul-smelling smoke from the fissures in the ground, billowing all around us. I coughed. It felt like being trapped in the world’s hottest sauna.
“What are you trying to do? Kill me with the stench?”
“I was thinking more of camouflage,” he said. “I don’t think I can fight off that many harpies even with the boost from the River of Fire, and if we can hide instead, so much the better. I’m not as bloodthirsty as you. I just want to get to the damned gate.”
“Works for me.” Bloodthirsty? Who was he calling bloodthirsty? I wasn’t the one torching people left, right, and centre. Not that I was complaining, mind you. It was kind of handy having a human blowtorch along.
“Stay close,” he said. “And keep quiet. They have excellent hearing.”
I rolled my eyes. Keeping quiet would be a lot easier if both my legs were working properly. Still, that wasn’t his fault, so I did my best to keep up and not kick too many rocks as he strode through the steam and smoke. “You know, all that fire is going to stand out like a beacon. Maybe you should tone it down.”
“Shhh,” he said, making a broad gesture with his right hand. A geyser of steam blasted into the hidden sky, and a screech sounded from above, closely followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground. “I hope Hades will forgive me.”
“For what?” With the amount of steam he was pulling from underground, we were walking nearly blind, and it was unnerving, knowing that the harpies were lurking somewhere above us. I felt that familiar itch between the shoulder blades, as if at any minute the hidden watchers would strike.
“For killing his harpies.”
“There are a lot of monsters down here—do you really think he cares about every last one?”
“But the harpies are his particular messengers, carrying messages between the living and the dead.”
“Nice. I think I’d prefer an email, personally.” The harpies gave me the horrors. Besides, they were trying to kill me, which made it hard to feel bad about wiping them out. “If they’re his messengers, what are they doing hanging round the Gate of Dusk?”
“I assume that part of their job is guarding Tartarus, and the proximity of the gate is coincidental.”
“Shame they have to take the job so seriously,” I grumbled. “We don’t even want to go near Tartarus.” Not that they’d believe that, as their initial attack showed. So much for halt! Who goes there?
I tripped yet again and nearly went sprawling on my face but Jake caught my elbow just in time.
“What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
“Just tired.”
This was not the time to go into detail, not with harpies circling above us. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. I could hear the flapping of mighty wings gradually coming closer, although the smoke and steam Jake had produced kept us hidden.
A crash sounded off to our right and Jake flinched. “What was that?”
We were both on edge. Another one sounded, closer this time. Close enough to see what caused it. Through the steam and smoke I saw a boulder the size of a basketball hit the stony ground with such force that shards broke off, flying away like shrapnel. The harpies were bombing us.
Jake realised it, too, and shot another blast of steam into the sky. Above us, a harpy cackled.
“There you are, pet,” she called, and I dragged Jake to the side only just in time to avoid another boulder.
“You’re giving away our position,” I hissed.
He nodded, face grim, and wiped blood from a cut on his cheek. We were lucky it wasn’t worse. The last boulder had stayed mostly intact, with only a little shrapnel flying off on impact.
“Move,” he said. “That way.”
I headed in the direction he indicated, hoping that he knew where he was going. With all the steam and smoke obscuring our surroundings, I wasn’t sure anymore where the volcano was. He stayed at my side, helping me over the rough ground, his hand sure at my elbow. Both of us kept a wary eye on the sky, though there was nothing to see. The smoke blanketed everything, so I strained my ears, listening for the sound of flapping wings over the hissing of steam.
Another boulder crashed to earth not far away, but this time, Jake didn’t retaliate. He’d learned his lesson and wasn’t about to give the harpies any clue where to aim their ammunition. The next one fell further away, though it slammed down between us and our goal. Were they just bombing at random now? And how many harpies were up there?
Jake was working the whole time, sending geysers of steam spraying into the air all around us and replenishing our smokescreen. Though he stayed close, at times I could hardly see him, moving through the steam like a ghost in the mist, appearing and disappearing from view. It was like walking through the world’s hottest fountain. My whole body was streaming with sweat.
“How much further?” I asked, as quietly as I could. I’d heard no sound of flapping for some time, though the occasional rock still crashed to earth in the distance. Had the harpies given up, or were they massing somewhere to ambush us?
“Don’t know,” Jake muttered, barely glancing at me. He was fully occupied with keeping up our smokescreen, though it didn’t seem to be taxing him the way fireshaping had when we’d struggled our way across the centaurs’ grasslands. The energy of the River of Fire was obviously still working its magic on him. At least something was finally going our way, although I couldn
’t help wondering when the other shoe would drop. Call me suspicious, but I was getting used to things going from bad to worse.
We scrambled up a slight rise in the uneven ground, and Jake stopped so abruptly that I nearly ran into his broad back. No wonder it had seemed to be getting hotter—the River of Fire lay right in front of us. The air was so hot I didn’t know how we could be standing here and not evaporate or shrivel up. Maybe Jake was doing something with his power to protect us. I couldn’t imagine being able to stand this close to molten lava in the real world and still live. It was beautiful in a horrifying kind of way, so bright it almost hurt my eyes to look at the orange glow of it.
“Did we get turned around somewhere?” I asked, trying to see through Jake’s smokescreen.
“I don’t think so,” Jake said, his face full of uneasiness. He glanced around then gave an exasperated sigh. “I can’t see a damn thing through all this smoke.”
He waved an impatient arm, and the smoke cleared as if by magic. Well, I guess it was magic. I’d never get used to hanging around with shapers.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I gazed uneasily at the sky above us.
Sure enough, a harpy’s shriek of triumph split the air. In a moment, a band of them were wheeling our way, great black wings sweeping through the air with a sound like thunder.
“Ah, Jake … harpies at three o’clock.” What was he doing? Couldn’t he see them coming?
“Shit,” he said. “Look at that.”
I dragged my eyes from the oncoming harpies and looked. Shit was right. For a moment, I forgot the harpies as my heart sank into my leaden feet. We hadn’t got turned around after all. The great triangle of land that we’d been following towards the mountain had come to its point, and that point didn’t reach all the way to the mountain’s foot after all. Instead, we had arrived at an unholy confluence of the rivers—the black waters of the Styx on the left and the living lava river on the right. How was this possible? It certainly wouldn’t have been in the real world, but somehow the Styx didn’t evaporate in the heat, or the lava spread into it. The dark water boiled and hissed where the two rivers met and then it just seemed to stop. Perhaps it dived underground; I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that our way forward was blocked.
Rivers of Hell (Shadows of the Immortals Book 3) Page 10