He looked at Arachne. ‘Whose side do you want to be on?’ he asked menacingly.
Reading a terrible threat into Denny’s words, Arachne shuddered.
‘I wish to remain neutral,’ she said.
‘See that you do then,’ said Denny. ‘And stay out of our way.’
~ Chapter Sixteen ~
Mount Olympus reared up before them, a shining, glittering spire; its pinnacle hidden among the darkening clouds that glowered dull and heavy and full of menace. The gods were preparing for War.
Lightning flashes erupted from the clouds occasionally, sending the inhabitants of the village below running for cover.
‘Where is your savoir now, Arpagius?’ demanded the villagers in terrified fury. ‘They went to confront the gods and now look … We shall all be destroyed. All they have done is arouse the wrath of the gods to the destruction of us all. They are most probably dead by now. So much for your heroes Arpagius. You old fool – you have destroyed us all. No one can challenge the might of the gods and live.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t say that,’ said an amused voice from behind the angry mob currently sheltering in (ironically enough) the temple of Demeter. ‘I wouldn’t say that at all.’
‘Sorry we’re late and all that,’ continued Tamar swinging a gigantic sword with practised ease back and forth past her knees and giving the occasional flourish up around her head while the phalanx of villagers stared at her in wonder.
She was quite a sight to see (a sight for sore eyes under the circumstances for one thing) she looked like a vengeful goddess herself.
The belt of Orion glittered and flashed like the lightning of Zeus over the costume of the Amazons, taken from the traditional hunter’s garb of Artemis.
A large golden bow was draped over her shoulder and on her midnight hair rested a laurel crown that glinted and caught the light like a shower of stars. Her eyes glittered like sapphires, and there was the promise of cold death in her glance.
Those villagers who dared to catch her eye looked away immediately in fear and confusion.
‘Impressive entrance,’ admitted Aphrodite.
‘Incredible,’ muttered Proteus. He nudged Denny. ‘How does she do it?’ he asked.
Denny grinned. ‘She’s just being herself,’ he told him.
‘Well it won’t impress Zeus I can tell you that for nothing,’ said Hephaestus. I wish it would.’ There was a tinge of regret in his voice. He was wishing he had never started this now – it was far too late to change his mind. His defection, and that of the other gods, was by now certainly well known on Olympus. He was a marked man – god.
‘He is right about that,’ said Aphrodite reluctantly. ‘Impressing a bunch of ignorant villagers is a very different proposition to overawing the King of the gods.’
Denny grinned again. ‘Don’t bite your nails,’ he said. ‘It’s unladylike.’
Aphrodite whipped her fingers away from her mouth and glared at him.
‘You are not at all concerned?’ asked Hecate in some surprise.
Denny turned to her. ‘After all you have seen her do,’ he said. ‘How can you not have faith?’
‘Gods do not have faith,’ said Hecate, after a moment’s thought. ‘We are faith. That is people have faith in us.’
‘For all the good it does them.’ It was, surprisingly enough, not Denny who snorted this disparaging remark, but Prometheus.
‘Everyone needs to believe in something,’ muttered Denny and he looked at Tamar who was currently the centre of attention.
‘They believe in her – don’t you see?’
The gods looked at Tamar, realisation finally dawning.
‘You mean …?’ began Hecate who was generally the quickest at working out what Denny or Tamar was driving at.
‘An army.’ said Denny. ‘She’s good at building armies. It’s a natural gift.’
‘But they are mortals’ snorted Hephaestus in deep contempt.
‘Believers,’ corrected Denny. And the gods shuddered. They knew what that meant.
‘Too few though,’ said Prometheus grimly, ‘far too few.’
‘About four hundred, give or take,’ said Denny.
‘Too few,’ repeated Prometheus.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Denny. ‘Depends on what she has in mind.’ And he grinned again.
‘Do you know what she has in mind then?’ demanded Hephaestus.’
But Denny just grinned irritatingly.
Tamar came back over to them a satisfied smile on her face.
‘That went well,’ she said.
‘What did?’ asked Hephaestus
‘What do we do now?’ asked Hecate a little more circumspectly.
‘We wait,’ said Tamar. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’
‘What …’ began Hephaestus, but Aphrodite nudged him into silence.
‘Right,’ said Denny in the awkward silence that followed. ‘Who wants to eat?’
‘We’ll have to tell them sooner or later,’ said Denny as they sat by the fire in Arpagius’s cottage.
‘They aren’t going to like it,’ said Tamar sagely. ‘So for now I think the less said the better.’
‘It doesn’t matter whether or not they like it,’ said Denny. ‘There isn’t a damn thing they can do about it now anyway.’
Tamar bowed her head and muttered. ‘There is one thing.’ And Denny nodded.
‘I want to go home,’ wailed Tamar. ‘I miss our proper friends – I don’t trust this lot. I miss Iffie, and I miss our life.’
‘Me too,’ said Denny. ‘It won’t be long now – make or break eh?’
‘Make or break,’ repeated Tamar, and in the reflected firelight in her eyes there was the familiar light of battle.
* * *
It began around midnight. There was a flash and suddenly, without warning, a glittering god stood in the firelight of the large bonfire that had been built, on Tamar’s orders, in the centre of the village.
‘Friend or foe?’ hissed Tamar menacingly.
The god gave her a supercilious glance. ‘Friend of course,’ he drawled. ‘What else?’
Tamar nodded.
‘Which one is that one?’ hissed Denny in her ear.
‘Narcissus,’ said Tamar with a grimace. ‘I know I know,’ she forestalled him. ‘But at least it’s a start.’
Denny nodded uncertainly. If this was going to be the general calibre of the gods they could expect they might as well give up and go home now.
‘Has it started?’ said Hecate appearing beside Denny. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she exclaimed, ‘who on earth ordered Narcissus?’
Other gods were starting to appear. Minor deities. Leto, Eros, Amphitrite, Asclepius, Themis, Helios, Ilithyia, Pan, They were less powerful than the Olympian gods, but, on the other hand, there were a lot more of them.
A number of even more obscure deities included Aseco, Acheron, Acte (the goddess of two in the afternoon – no really) Aeolus, Angelia, Akratos (the god of incontinence – a fact that caused much hilarity when it was revealed)
Kairos, Karmanor, Chremetes, Khrysos – The god of gold. Chloris – The goddess of flowers. Daeria, Doris (and it has to be said Denny had a hard time keeping a straight face over this one) Dysnomia – The female personification of lawlessness. Ersa – The goddess of the dew (they really did have gods for just about everything). All twelve of the Horai including the rather weird, and Denny’s personal favourite of these – Gymnastika, The fourth of the twelve Horai (Hours) – the goddess of the morning hour of gymnastics.*
*[I’m not making this shit up honest – look it up.]
And far too many more to mention. Right to the end of the alphabet in fact, to Zelos - The personification of rivalry. Which Tamar took as a good sign.
‘Told you she was good at building armies,’ said Denny to Hecate.
‘Indeed,’ said Hecate gazing in disbelief at the hordes of minor divinities thronging the open field behind the village.
There was a sudd
en explosive noise from the fire-lit area, louder than any previous entrance and everyone turned.
There was a shocked silence while everyone stared in utter disbelief.
Then Tamar stalked forward purposefully. ‘F-Friend or – or …’ she began.
‘I’m on your side of course,’ boomed Poseidon heartily. ‘Didn’t believe me eh?’ he snorted pointing a massive horny finger in the general direction of Olympus. ‘Thought I was seeing things. Going mad! Ha!’
This seemed a good enough explanation to Tamar who had seen gods do things for far pettier reasons.
‘Ah Hephaestus,’ said Poseidon noticing him suddenly and hailing him with enthusiasm. ‘Good to have you on our side eh? That should tip the balance eh? What are our weapons then? What have you got for us? Something new and improved I’ll wager.’
Hephaestus looked blank.
‘Ah yes,’ said Tamar into the awkward silence. ‘I was going to get to that. You see I had this idea …’
* * *
‘Can you do it?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Is it possible?’
Hephaestus stroked his chin thoughtfully reminding Tamar irresistibly of a plumber looking at a leaky faucet and trying to determine how much he could get away with charging.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘The labour would be …’ He stopped at the look on her face. ‘Yes,’ he conceded ‘I can do it although I never in my life heard of such a thing … ahem well it would be extremely difficult to … about a month in the forge to get the …’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Tamar flatly.
Hephaestus opened his mouth to procrastinate further, but something in her face made him stop. She had won. From the moment he had admitted he could do it, her uncertainty had vanished.
He gave a put upon sigh. ‘Very well,’ he said, and vanished.
Tamar gave a triumphant smile. ‘We can’t lose,’ she said to no one in particular.
‘It’s cheating,’ pointed out Denny.
‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘That’s why it’s going to work.’
The temple of Demeter had been rather hurriedly converted into a temple to small gods on Tamar’s instructions. All the minor deities, in fact, that did not have temples of their own. And then Tamar had explained to the villagers the concept of control through belief.
The gods had been drawn there like moths to a flame. All gods, major or minor, were ambitious, and this was their chance to elevate themselves. To take over from the main pantheon and rule in their stead. They did not realise that they were under the control of the villagers – only by their belief and prayers did they have any hope of success. What the gods also did not know was that the villagers, primed by Tamar, were well aware of this fact.
All the villagers had to do throughout the battle was stay in the temple and pray as hard as they possibly could for victory. And of course believe.
Four hundred villagers all praying and believing at the same time would, Tamar estimated, be more than enough.
As long as Hephaestus came up with the weapons in time. Once the people had seen those, they would all believe.
It was going to be a long night.
~ Chapter Seventeen ~
‘What’s that?’ asked Denny, as the blonde called Cindy triumphantly placed a grubby looking bottle on the counter before him.
‘Isn’t that it?’ she faltered.
‘No.’ said Denny. ‘That’s an old bottle.’ He grinned at her. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I appreciate what you did anyway … I guess the Falcon is long gone
‘I-I’m so sorry,’ stuttered Cindy. ‘I was sure that must be it, the man was so reluctant to give it up.’
‘Was he really?’ said Denny looking at the old bottle in wonder. ‘That’s odd, isn’t it?’
‘Well I must be going,’ said Cindy with rather overdone carelessness.
‘Well wait a minute,’ said Denny. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s in it? I mean it must be something or else why would Barry have kept it all these years?’
‘It’s probably just a Djinn,’ said Cindy carelessly. ‘They’re of no use to … but you are a mortal of course, aren’t you? I was forgetting.’
Denny felt his brow crease in consternation. ‘What do you mean, I’m a mortal?’ he said.
Tamar had not felt the change of ownership until the witch had handed the bottle over to a mortal. Then she looked up nervously at the top of the bottle and tensed herself for her new master.
This was always a stressful time. Barry might have been a swine and a stupid swine too, but there was always the chance that the new one would be even worse.
She was never to know.
* * *
As dawn faded in above the peak of mount Olympus, turning the clouds from silver and black to rosy red and gold, there rose up from the mists below what at first appeared to a swarm of tiny insects, but as they rose higher and higher the shapes resolved into hundreds of warrior clad figures some on winged horses and some merely flying without apparent support of any kind and led by a fierce figure in a chariot – her long hair flying behind her from under her golden helmet. All were brandishing weapons of a strange and disquieting design.
A terrifying battle cry split the air, and the Gods on the mountain top trembled.
Never had the gods known such terror. None of them had imagined in their wildest dreams such a day would ever come, and they reacted with all the terrified fury of those who have nothing left to lose.
The sky darkened and lightning cracked the heavens open. Tamar laughed triumphantly and swerved her chariot out of the way smoothly.
Then, all at once, the whole of Tamar’s battalion opened fire.
The darkened sky lit up – flashes of fire filled the air and the sound of a thousand thunder claps assaulted the ears of the gods.
‘What are these things called again?’ shrieked Hecate over the sound of the firing.
‘AK-47’s’ said Hephaestus proudly. ‘Wonderful aren’t they?’
‘Amazing,’ agreed Hecate firing wildly and ecstatically.
‘Fire in the hold!’ yelled Tamar and fired a rocket launcher at the summit.
Everyone backed off rapidly as the top of Mount Olympus exploded in a vast mushroom of flame sending varying gods and extras tumbling through the air in crazy somersaults.
‘Yee –har!’ yelled Denny getting a little over excited for a moment.
This earned him a “look” from Tamar. They looked, in fact, at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing together.
Then Denny surged forward on his mount spraying gunfire as he went, the joy of battle was in him; he was back in his element.
A battalion came forward out of the clouds of dust and smoke, led by Ares. Tamar urged her chariot forward to meet him and smiled evilly as she shot him in the head, sending him tumbling to the earth where it could just be seen that he exploded as he hit the ground in a shower of red lights and vanished.
‘HA!’ she yelled. ‘Take that!’
‘This thing is heavy,’ moaned Proteus, clutching at his gun and hauling it up over his shoulder with a pained expression.
‘Suck it up,’ yelled Aphrodite in joyous delirium. ‘I’ve never had so much fun in my life. This is fantastic. I was born for this.’ And she charged away yelling and swearing like a trooper, spraying gunfire with glorious abandon.
‘You think you know someone,’ muttered Hephaestus shaking his head.
Athena came forward to take the place of Ares, but arrows, no matter how accurately they are shot, are no match for automatic gunfire.
‘Take that you stuck up cow!’ screamed Aphrodite firing with savage glee at Athena. ‘Who’s stupid now?’ she crowed delightedly as Athena fell forward and then spiralled like a run-down firework down to the earth below to join her brother.
It was, Denny realised, not the time to question, since the whole thing was running on pure faith. That the gods could be killed and their home reduced to rubble by mere bullets was patently ludic
rous really. But now was really not the time to allow access to those kinds of thoughts. And it all, he realised, depended on your point of view.
These weapons were pure magic of a powerful and mysterious kind to the people of this age – they had been told in no uncertain terms that they would work – and so far, the belief was holding.
It was a massacre. The gods of both camps were falling like flies.
So far though, there had been no sign of Zeus. This was nagging at Tamar like a bad itch. She badly wanted to get her hands on the King of the Gods. Preferably to wring his neck with her bare hands.
Ares, Athena, Hera, Demeter, Hestia, Dionysus, Persephone, Apollo. The death toll grew longer.
One by one they fell. Poseidon fell to an arrow of Hera, Prometheus to a seven sided attack from the Harpies that had risen from the underworld to avenge Hades. He fell in defence of Denny, who took revenge for his death by slaughtering the Harpies with a furious vengeance.
When only Aphrodite and Hephaestus were left from the original pantheon, Tamar called a ceasefire.
Silence fell over Olympus and as the smoke cleared the extent of the devastation was slowly revealed.
‘Zeus!’ called Tamar. ‘Come on you old coward. I’m calling you out.’
There was a silence while everyone held their breath.
And then, with slow dignity Zeus appeared through the smouldering air. He inclined his head haughtily at Tamar.
‘It would appear that I surrender,’ he said, and he held up his hands.
‘Duck!’ yelled Tamar as a lightning bolt streaked across the sky. At the same moment, however, perhaps even a split second earlier, Tamar opened fire.
And Zeus staggered back clutching his chest and fell over – dead.
Tamar closed her eyes and smiled in relief as a massive cheer went up around her. The age of the Greek Gods was over.
~ Chapter Eighteen ~
‘One, two, three – heave.’
The villagers were pulling down the newly converted temple to the small gods.
‘No more gods,’ Tamar told them, and they were only too happy to comply.
Pantheon (The Tamar Black Saga) Page 21