37. Nyssa #2
The ship was now caught, drifting between the two jagged cliff faces, rising higher than I could see from the deck. Barely a shoulder’s width separated us from the rocks on either side.
Arch, still manning the helm, had one hell of a challenge before him.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Not even a whisper.
The god of craftsmanship clenched the wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white, inching it from side to side.
The ship scraped against the left rock face with a low, grumbling rasp.
The sound of splintering boards echoed through the cavern, the vibration rattling up through the soles of my feet.
Arch winced. “Sorry.”
He was answered by a chilling shriek that ended in a hiss.
My blood ran cold.
Scylla.
“Weapons!” I shouted, signing the warning to Apollo as I unsheathed Nightbreaker from her scabbard on my back.
Shadows flickered to life along the blade, inky black serpents twining around the gleaming steel.
The other champions followed suit — Arch and Caelus drawing their own swords, Aros brandishing his double-headed axe, and Apollo nocking his golden bow.
I counted six heartbeats before she struck.
An enormous, scaly head lunged down from the cliff top.
Its neck was unfathomably long and disgustingly serpent-like.
It struck the balustrade where Aros had stood a moment earlier, but he rolled clear just in time.
Apollo loosed his arrow, but the serpent was impossibly fast, dodging the strike with another eerie shriek.
I guess the legends never mentioned the part where she had a snake’s head.
Another strike came, this time with a second head in tow.
Two heads?
Aros was ready though. His axe came down hard, severing one neck in a single stroke. Black blood sprayed across his face as the head rolled away. From somewhere above, Scylla screamed in agony.
A wave of dread washed over me.
Aros had only managed to enrage her.
“Nyssa!” Caelus roared, lunging toward me — too late.
A cry tore from my throat as razor-sharp fangs closed around my midsection. Nightbreaker stayed clutched uselessly in my immovable hand, deep within the serpents' maw. I was almost defenceless as Scylla yanked me off the deck.
My shadows flared, blinding the beastly head just as a gilded arrow pierced its right eye.
The serpent dropped me, screeching, and I hit the deck with a resounding crack. The rotting floor gave way, splintering around my foot, wedging my boot in tight. I yanked repeatedly, but it was no use.
I was stuck.
A second, much heavier thud dropped down beside me, rocking the boat so violently that water sloshed over its edges and the prow careened into the right cliff face, splintering off. I froze, preservational instincts kicking in.
Slowly, I lifted my head to witness absolute chaos.
A monstrous, shrieking form towered over me.
Her skin was a sickly, barnacle-encrusted grey.
Patches of damp, decaying scales dotted her extremities and vital organs.
Her stench of decay, briny and bitter, was thick enough to choke on.
A tangled mass of writhing ash-coloured serpents sprouted from her spine.
One hung limply — headless. Thick, black blood oozed out of the severed appendage, pooling onto the splintered deck.
Scylla was facing away, saving me — her trapped prey — for last. My stupid fucking ankle remained jammed, no matter how hard I wrenched on it.
Scylla’s main body, with its warped humanoid features, hissed at the other champions as they stabbed, hacked, and flung arrows that bounced uselessly off her grotesque scales.
Aros swung his gleaming silver axe with its single, pitiful flame, severing a second serpent head. He roared in triumph, relishing the fight. But before he could land another hit, a third sinuous neck barrelled into his legs, tossing him through the air.
He landed with a grunt at Apollo’s sandaled feet.
The sun god slashing at the monster with a golden sword.
Scylla swiped her taloned fingers as the serpents split their deadly focus between the four males.
Her swipe tore open Apollo’s leg, dropping him to a knee.
She swung again, and he managed to roll underneath her, popping up between the sons of Zeus and Hephaestus.
A manic laugh escaped me at the sight.
Four sea serpents, one pissed off sea goddess, four testosterone-fueled Olympians, and one incapacitated goddess of death walk into a tavern…
Archimedes and Caelus fought back-to-back, swords glinting in the storm light. The serpents struck fast, tearing and ripping away chunks of skin and muscle, but not without cost. Their blades stole just as much flesh from her beasts in return.
Then Scylla homed in on Aros again, back on his feet and swinging with renewed fury.
His axe whistled through the air, lopping off one of her disgusting, gnarled hands.
She screamed in both rage and agony, lashing out with a tentacle and ensnaring Aros around the waist. In one brutal motion, she hurled the fire-wielder into the cliffside.
Aros crumpled, sinking beneath the waves.
Again.
No!
Scylla laughed — a grotesque, croaking sound that turned my blood to ice.
I hacked harder at the deck with Nightbreaker, desperate to free myself. One sneaking serpent noticed my quiet efforts and slithered toward me menacingly. I was almost free when it lunged, attempting to make a meal out of my face.
I threw Nightbreaker up just in time, the creature snapping at my sword’s shadowy length instead.
The impact jolted my arm, tooth clashing against steel, but I wrenched her free and parried the next attack.
Again and again it struck, tireless, while my arm burned with the effort of keeping my guard raised.
Taking inspiration from Zeus, I hurled a shadow-forged bolt right at the beast’s head, impaling it through the underside of its chin. The head bounced off the deck beside me, its lifeless eyes piercing my soul.
Dead — if such a thing could truly be killed while its host still lived.
Metal clattered against wood to my left, and I swivelled just in time to see Flameless skidding across the rotting deck, followed by a drenched and livid god of war.
“This ends now,” Aros growled, ripping a dagger from his belt.
While Caelus struck Scylla with lightning from her front, Aros vaulted through the air and impaled her from behind.
The cursed goddess froze. Her three remaining serpent heads halted.
Slowly, she looked down — to the sharp end of Aros’ dagger punching through her heart.
She gently touched the skin beside it, a small, wistful smile gracing her pallid lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m free.”
Scylla toppled backwards with a crash, sending jagged pieces of torn decking flying into the sea.
The boat creaked, timber snapped, and water covered the deck. The ship was sinking, and we were going down with it. Aros, Caelus, Apollo, and Archimedes dove over the side, narrowly avoiding the channel’s rocky walls.
But I was still held captive by the boat.
“My ankle!” I screamed, just as I was pulled beneath the surface, stuck in the ship’s painful embrace.
As I sank, clawing uselessly at the decking, something sleek and scaled darted past me. The current stirred, tilting me sideways — the perfect angle to witness the absolute carnage.
Three giant brown eels with glowing blue eyes snapped their serrated jaws at Scylla’s body. One chomped up a severed serpent head in a single bite before turning back to the goddess-turned-monster’s corpse.
I knew it was only a matter of time before I was next.
I looked up, futility seizing me. I expected to see my last glimpse of the waning sunlight, drifting fainter the lower I sank.
Instead, two hulking figures dove towards me.
Aros hooked his muscular arms beneath mine, slowing my rapid descent, while Caelus gripped my throbbing ankle in one scarred hand.
With the other, he punched clean through the last of the decking, freeing me.
It was obscenely erotic.
Focus, Nyssa. Now is not the time to soak your already saturated panties at the thought of being rescued.
I breached the ocean’s surface, pulling in deep lungfuls of air. Caelus and Aros surfaced nearby, all three of us treading water.
“Thank you,” I coughed, emotion threatening to get the better of me. “We have to get to shore. Did you see those eels? They’re huge!”
“What eels?” Aros asked.
“Giant, creepy fuckers. They ate Scylla,” I grimaced.
“Let’s get going then. Apollo and Archimedes already have a head start,” Caelus said, nodding to where the pair were fifty feet ahead and gaining.
Swimming, like dancing, was a sort of refuge of mine.
In the water, my mind emptied, and I could think of nothing but the next stroke.
It was a pattern I fell into automatically.
I lost myself to the rhythm of my arms and my breaths working in effortless harmony.
I kept my head above water for a beat longer, taking stock of my surroundings.
I realised I had not only caught up to Arch and Apollo, but had overtaken them, leaving Caelus and Aros for dead.
A grin broke out across my face as I ploughed forward. Finally, something I was better at than the rest of the champions.
I really should have known Poseidon wouldn’t stand for that in his domain — or in his trial.
I reached the shore in record time, panting as I crawled up onto the beach. The four males still had a ways to go, so I eased into a sitting position, catching my breath and watching them close the gap.
A sharp tug on my braid yanked me backwards. I screeched as I was dragged up the beach and over the sand dune, clawing at my scalp and holding it flat to my skull to ease the pain.
Once we were out of view of the ocean, my assailant let go. I twisted swiftly, launching to my feet. Lividity pulsed fiery hot through my veins and shadows sprang to life in my palms as Poseidon stood before me, glowering. All five-and-a-half furious feet of him.
“You dare to best my trial? You? ” he spat. “After what you did to my son?! You’re no better than your father, vile murderess!”
He backhanded me with the strength of a tsunami. My vision exploded into stars.
“You — who stole — my — son!” Each word was punctuated by his fist.
Blood sprayed in an arc from my nose — broken.
Pain ignited in my cheekbones — also broken.
My ears rang, drowning out any further insults the sea god deigned to throw my way — a sure sign my eardrums were perforated.
Poseidon stomped a sandaled foot down on my ribcage, snapping bones and stealing the breath from my lungs. He smirked — a villainous curving of his lips distorting his otherwise pretty face.
I lay gasping in a pool of my own blood, broken and barely conscious.
Squeezing my fist closed, I willed my shadows to obey.
Poseidon was wrenched off his feet by my faithful inky serpents who retreated to coil protectively around my midsection.
But I was spent. Between sirens, serpents, Scylla, and the swim, I had nothing left.
Luckily, I didn’t need to move.
Caelus crested the dune unexpectedly fast for someone who’d just struggled to swim a mile to shore. To his credit, it took only one heartbeat to assess the scene.
He conjured bolts of lightning in each hand as his eyes flashed a furious white. He speared the sea god with the bolts, one in each bicep, pinning him to the ground in a cry of burning agony.
He launched a third bolt, landing precisely between the sea god’s legs, piercing his micro-dick straight into the sand. Honestly, it was a hell of a shot, somehow managing to find that tiny thing.
Poseidon screamed. Actually screamed.
Now it was my turn to smirk.
Caelus, in a show of unchecked violence unlike anything I’d ever seen him commit, threw himself at Poseidon. Punch after punch landed with ease, sending the god’s teeth flying. By the time he was done, Poseidon’s face was just as bloody and broken as mine.
Without a word, the storm-wielder rushed to me and dropped to his knees. His face — usually so inscrutable — was now an open book. His bottom lip trembled, his brows were furrowed, and his beautiful, silver eyes were filled with something dangerously close to regret.
“Nightshade,” he whispered, gingerly scooping an arm behind my neck to help me sit up.
The world tilted on its axis, churning like I’d been tossed in a Charybdis’ whirlpool again.
I clenched my eyes shut and forced myself to choke down the rising vomit.
A few tiny breaths later, I cracked open a single eyelid, relieved to find the world had stopped spinning.
The pain, however, would be hanging around for a while.
Aros, Apollo, and Arch bolted down the dune, panting and soaked. Their faces wore various states of shock as they glanced around.
“What the fuck happened?” Aros swore angrily, glaring at the unconscious god of the sea.
“What happened is I won,” I croaked, forcing a grin and baring bloodstained teeth. “Pay up, bitches.”
Aros barked a sharp laugh, echoed by Caelus and Archimedes. Apollo smiled so brightly it was a wonder the planets didn’t decide to orbit around him instead.
Caelus helped me to my feet, refusing to let go when I swayed. He grunted, and frowned when Aros threw a casual arm around my shoulder.
“Come on, darling. You look like you could use a drink.”