Chapter 10 #2
The sound was deafening, a pure note of violence that shattered the glass covers on the wall instruments and made my teeth ache.
I didn't break. I didn't squish.
The floor beneath me buckled, dropping me six inches as the iron plates warped under the sheer force, curling up around my boots.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, white-hot and tearing, a human sensation trying to process a superhuman impact.
But the arm itself held. The hammer rebounded, vibrating violently in the Cyclops's grip, shaken by the unyielding resistance.
Brontes looked at his hammer. Then he looked at me. His single eye widened in genuine confusion.
"Hard," he grunted, tilting his massive head.
"I'm feeling a little stiff," I rasped through clenched teeth. My arm was numb to the touch, vibrating with the residual force of the blow, but the skin was unmarked. The silver flesh had actually dented the Cyclops's hammer.
"Now!" I screamed, my voice raw.
Flynn dropped from the ceiling.
He didn't use his daggers. He had unspooled a length of heavy chain from the hoist above and looped it around Brontes's thick neck, using his falling momentum to jerk the giant’s head back with a savage snap.
"Down you go, big guy!" Flynn shouted, wrenching the chain tight as he landed on the giant's back.
Brontes choked, clawing at his throat, his balance ruined. He staggered back, flailing blindly.
"Thane! The legs!" Kaelen ordered, recovering from his hit, his voice straining with pain.
Thane surged forward. He didn't use his hammer. He dove, tackling the giant behind the knees with the force of a battering ram. With a roar of exertion that shook the room and popped the rivets in his armor, Thane heaved.
Brontes toppled.
The giant hit the floor with a catastrophic thud, and instantly Elias was there.
"Seal him!" Elias clapped his hands together.
Bars of hard, geometric light sprang up from the floor, pinning the Cyclops's limbs to the ground. They didn't cut or burn; they simply immobilized him, locking him in a cage of pure mathematics. Brontes thrashed, roaring against the restraints, saliva flying, but he couldn't break Elias’s magic.
The bellows stuttered for a moment, but eventually kept pumping. Whoosh. Hiss. The heartbeat in the giant’s chest was frantic, a rapid drum solo of fear that drove the fires of the forge even hotter.
"Bravo," Hermes clapped slowly, standing up from his chair. "Messy, unrefined, but effective. You managed to utilize the girl’s... condition. Resourceful. The system malfunctioned for a moment there, so I better check it out.”
Kaelen ignored Hermes. My dragon was at my side in a heartbeat. His hands hovered over my arm, afraid to touch.
"Did it break?" he demanded, his eyes scanning the grey skin.
"No," I whispered, cradling the limb. "It feels dead. But it didn't break."
"It won't break," an unfamiliar voice rasped, sounding like grinding gears and sorrow. "It is star-metal alloy now. It is stronger than the hammer."
We turned.
Hephaestus was looking at us.
The Smith God was a ruin. His skin was stained with oil and soot, his beard a tangled mess of copper wire and hair.
His legs were twisted, encased in braces of dull lead that looked more like torture devices than supports.
The golden chains binding him to the wall hummed with power, searing his skin where they touched.
But his eyes? His eyes were kind. Deep, brown pools of ancient sadness.
"What…" Elias breathed, stepping toward the chains. He fell to his knees. "What have they done to you?"
"They made me safe," Hephaestus coughed, a dry, racking sound. He looked at the messenger god. "Zeus fears the maker, for the maker can unmake. Is that not right, Hermes?"
Hermes stopped smiling. He walked over to the console and pulled a lever.
“Have to reset the system after a malfunction,” he murmured, though I couldn’t tell if he was talking to us or just saying it to himself.
The golden chains binding Hephaestus dimmed.
They didn't fall off, but the searing light faded, leaving just physical metal.
"I didn't write the order, Uncle," Hermes said quietly as he moved away from the lever. "I just keep the key. You have ten minutes before the perimeter sensors realize I’ve tampered with the containment field."
He looked at us, his expression suddenly serious.
"I'm leaving," Hermes announced. "Technically, there was a system error and I was overwhelmed by superior numbers and forced to retreat. That's the report I'm filing."
"Why?" Aria asked, leaning heavily on Kaelen. "Why help us?"
Hermes paused, adjusting his sandal. He looked at the shaking ceiling, where dust was falling from the waking Titan's movements.
"Because I like betting on long shots," Hermes said. "And because if the Devourer eats the world, there's nobody left to trick. Which is boring. Don't linger too long here; Mother is going to be furious that you've released the Smith, provided you can break the chains, of course."
He dissolved. One second he was there, the next he was a shimmer of heat haze and gone.