Chapter 45 Caelus
Caelus
They were a thing of wonder, a sight to behold, a force to be reckoned with as they tore through the skies, obliterating foe after foe, causing the heavens to bleed. To rain down on us in sheets of black.
It was an effort to tear my eyes off her — less so when Lykos scolded me — but the sight of the woman with the red ribbon over her eyes on the back of her glittering violet dragon, defying the laws of gravity and vanquishing our enemies, was one I would take to my grave.
Swoosh!
The sound of a javelin piercing the air above my head snapped my gaze back down to the ground, inciting the realisation that, perhaps, my grave was closer than I realised.
I swiped Ceraunos through the air, simultaneously beheading a lunging serpent while using the blade to direct a dart of lightning through the headlessly writhing body in the direction the spear originated.
I cared not if it met the flesh of the thrower, just that it struck any one of the thousands of bodies before us. I was dismayed to realise that men were scattered through the ranks of monsters — though men could be just as monstrous as any creature.
Kronos has successfully warped the minds of mortals, though thankfully, they were few and far between.
It had been jarring when to realise Ceraunos was stained not just black with Tartarian blood, but also crimson.
The colours bled together, my stomach churning with the knowledge that at some point, I had slain people too.
Do not dwell on such things now, Godling.
Berate yourself later, Lykos snarled — mentally and physically — as his teeth ripped through the neck of some foul bear-arachnid hybrid.
You’ll have plenty of time to do that after.
Eight hairy legs twitched from the bear’s torso as the creature’s lifeblood poured out of the lethal wound to its jugular.
I shuddered. Why did he have to use spiders?
My wolf snapped at something hideous with scales as black as coal. Why do these questions matter now?
I frowned, blocking a stray arrow with the wooden shield strapped to my left arm. I guess they don’t.
“Sorry!” Haras bellowed from the front line of archers loosing their final shots, and preparing to join the fray with their blades.
Apparently, it was getting to the point of hitting allies by mistake.
“Don’t worry about it!” I yelled back, watching a grin spread across the cyclops’ face as he drew his longsword and leaped over a barricade to tackle two foes to the ground with a mighty roar.
Unless there’s no after in which to ask them.
As if reinforcing that thought, a taloned paw I hadn’t seen coming circumvented the shield still held aloft. The tiger-like creature swiped at my leg, leaving four deep gouges running the length of my thigh.
I cried out and electrocuted the stupid beast, leaving the air reeking of singed fur and overcooked pork.
I groaned. Where were you on that one?!
Preventing this one from tearing your head from your shoulders, he said, indicating the body of a winged reptile twitching at his feet. Though it is often filled with air, I, unfortunately, am rather attached to that thick skull.
Rude. I snorted, reminding myself once again of the guardian angel in the skies above us.
My gaze flicked briefly up and I watched in awe as Velira rounded a mountainous gigante, breathing a wash of flames at the forest along its spine, igniting a wildfire across the creature’s rocky flesh.
Meanwhile, Nyssa released a string of darkness at the other, coiling around its behemoth ankles, tripping the stupid prick over.
Mind those feet, Nyssa jeered, her voice muted across the distance between us.
The gigante fell in slow motion.
I even had enough time to warn our warriors to part like the tides and get the hell out of its way. Landing with a colossal crash, the force of which echoed throughout the plains, it sent those unlucky few closest sprawling as winds gusted outwards.
A thunderous laugh flew out of my mouth. Clever, wicked thing.
Her hushed emotions shifted into something entirely inappropriate for the present situation, and I vowed to taste them later — praise her in person for all her hard work.
Athena, however, did not waste a second of the advantage. She scaled the gigante’s craggy hide even as it haltingly attempted to regain its feet, all the way up to its enormous, barely discernible head.
My attention was divided between the battle before me and the one above me. I swiped, smashed, hacked at, and slew innumerable foes, suffering minor injuries along the way, as Athena gripped a spear in her right hand standing atop the gigante’s forehead.
Lykos leaped, bounded, and tore through creatures the likes of which usually only existed in nightmares, as her spear gleamed and grew in her fingers to twice its usual length.
The battlefield seemed to pause and hold its breath as the goddess gripped the deadly lance with both her hands and drove it through the gigante’s left eye. It unleashed one last, shuddering howl — as loud and jagged as a landslide — and then fell silent.
Our warriors took it as the blessing it was, roaring our triumph to the skies and to the goddess who’d instigated it, bolstered by Athena’s massive feat.
Gigante downed! I whooped to my beloved and felt her grim satisfaction spread beneath my sternum.
One to go, she murmured.
Vel completed an aerial loop, returning to the burning giant. She swooped in front of its face, capturing the creature’s attention while an enomotia approached from the side — approximately thirty men strong.
I lost sight of them after that because the battlefield became a torrent of violence, bloodshed, and cacophony. Minutes passed in a blur. Flashes of colour interspersed with flickers of black, glints of steel, a smattering of feather, fur, and fangs.
Time was weaponised.
Moments passed, measured only by the beating drum of my heart — and even that was maddeningly off-tempo. Sometimes it pounded at the pace of a centaur, sometimes it felt like a year passed between beats.
I knew this was Kronos’ doing, and yet, he remained hidden. Like a puppeteer pulling the strings from behind a curtain. Or a magician playing tricks behind a smoke screen.
Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of a familiar face — then other times, I doubted what I had seen. I had no way of knowing if these were the gruesome realities of war, or if other things were in play — Hyperion’s trickery, or my worst fears made real by Phobos…
For instance, when Lykos leaped high into the air, over the foot of the fallen gigante, I caught sight of Nike’s black-and-crimson stained wings as she pirouetted through the air laying siege from above.
As he landed, I glimpsed the slack-jawed, blank-stared face of Artemis half-buried in the mud, her silver beads dulled by the grime of battle.
And when I pivoted in the saddle to launch a freshly procured spear at another arachnid-beast, I witnessed Dionysus shaping vines into an enormous, magical lasso which was promptly flicked high above our heads to wrap around that of the remaining gigante.
Mouth agape, I watched as he ascended the living, breathing mountain and lost sight after he crested its bouldery head.
I leapt from the saddle to swing at a dark shape moving faster than the others, on a straight trajectory to cut beneath Lykos’ legs, but stopped Ceraunos short as my vision focused.
A nimble-footed black dog sporting a white-tipped ear cut past, snapping its teeth around the fingers of a turncoat mortal with flying fists.
After ruining the man’s chances of ever stroking his own cock again, it darted away, quickly lost in the sea of writhing black.
I followed up by putting him out of his misery, content to condemn no man to a fate such as that.
More images rushed by in a swirling tempest of true or untrue?
A dreadlocked sun god darted past, sword swinging. That could be true.
A cloven-hoofed satyr fly-kicked the head of a mortal, leaving two distinct indents in the side of his unconscious face. Also potentially true.
Aphrodite planted atop the downed mountain, loosing arrow after arrow into the eyes of her enemies. Surely untrue for when has Aph ever demonstrated a capacity with any weapon ever? But then again, Artemis bequeathed her infamous silver bow to the goddess of love earlier…
Most questionable of all, however, was when I saw Demeter severed in two from shoulder to opposite hip, ichor painting the ground beneath her in the shape of a macabre sun. What weapon could cleave an Olympian like that? Nothing I’d ever seen, that was for certain.
Concentrate, Lykos growled as a bloodied sword slunk past my defenses and tore a chunk from my side. It took little more than a swift boot to the face and a shield slammed into it for me to sate my vengeance on the stupid mortal fool.
But I was exhausted. My muscles burned, my lungs heaved, and each second weighed heavier than a downy blanket. I could feel it echoed in Nyssa across the bond. Whatever she’d been doing has left her as depleted as me.
We couldn’t last like this indefinitely.
I groaned, swinging Ceraunos in a fatigued arc, successfully separating the head of an amphisbaena from its body while Lykos dealt with its counterpart.
To my right, a manic laugh echoed and Erato dashed under the belly of a giant scorpion.
She was quickly tailed by the golden-haired Dromarian princess, both holding their own against the creatures — and seemingly relishing it.
Now that’s a terrifying duo.
And just when I thought I was truly weary, Fate dealt me yet another card.
The battlefield brightened to a painful level in a matter of moments, like the sun magnified through a glass lens.
A walking pillar of light moved towards us at a leisurely pace, paying no heed to the bloody cost of battle surrounding him.
He strode across the field like he hadn’t hurt the only person I’d ever truly believed in.