Chapter 19 Flight and Fury #2
Telamon frowned, every muscle tense as he too scoured their surroundings.
Then he turned to Danae and nodded. ‘Good plan.’ He eyed her collar.
‘Let’s get that off you.’ He began to pry at the metal.
A spark of hope flickered in Danae’s chest. But, after several moments Telamon drew back.
‘There’s no join, no lock. I can’t remove it here.
’ He held out his knife once more. ‘You should keep this. Without your powers you might need it.’
Danae accepted the blade, her heart heavy.
Then she turned to the Missing. ‘We know a way out, but it is imperative you stick together and stay in a line behind Telamon, here.’ She thought of the creatures she’d seen roaming Erebus; the gorgons, the centaurs, the manticore.
‘We don’t know what other dangers might be out there, and we can’t defend you if you don’t stick together, got it? ’
The Missing looked to one another, then nodded.
Danae called Hylas to her, and she and Telamon set about heaving Heracles across his snowy back. The hero was so light. Guilt hollowed her insides as she stared at his gaunt, unconscious face.
When they brought the horse to Atalanta, the warrior grimaced and pushed herself to standing.
‘I’m fine …’ she winced. ‘Don’t need to ride.’
‘For the love of the gods just get on the damned horse,’ said Telamon, offering her his hand. She glowered at him but took it, breath shuddering as she climbed up behind Heracles.
At Danae’s direction, the Missing formed a line behind Telamon, and he led the way towards the River Acheron, Danae, Hylas, Atalanta and Heracles bringing up the rear.
As they walked, Danae glanced back at the stone serpent.
A couple of shimmering shades that had survived Typhon’s blaze, only visible by their leather armour, fled over the rock tongue away from Tartarus.
She wondered what they would do now their master was dead.
Now they were free. If they could even remember what that word meant.
The bedraggled group trudged along the rocky bank of the Acheron, the wreckage of Tartarus smoking in their wake.
Danae’s hand rested against Hylas’ flank, the warmth of him anchoring her like a life-thread tether in the void of nothingness.
Heracles hung over the horse’s back, his head bobbing with Hylas’ gait.
He had not regained consciousness since their escape.
Every so often Danae would check he was still breathing.
Behind him, Atalanta had grown clammy and pale, her lips clenched tight as she clung to the horse’s mane.
For the most part they walked in silence, the Missing trailing behind Telamon like sheep.
The mist had curled back in around them, a breeding ground for the imagination to conjure danger from every angle.
It was heartless, but Danae was glad most of them seemed too frightened to speak.
Her mind was filled with Charon, replaying the moment the light faded from his crimson eyes.
Danae looked up at Atalanta. ‘How long will he last?’
The warrior was gazing at the ridges in Heracles’ spine. ‘He ran out of that potion six months ago.’ She winced as Hylas flexed his wings, and she was forced to adjust her legs. ‘He kept getting weaker … we thought he was sick.’
Danae’s heart felt heavy as iron.
‘Why did he come down here alone?’
‘Eurystheus. When we returned to Mycenae, we found the king living on a patch of farmland outside the city. While we were aboard the Argo, he was deposed.’
‘I heard.’
‘Heracles still had one more labour to perform, so the bastard sent him down here to kidnap Kerberos. Wanted to use the beast as a weapon to reclaim his kingdom.’ Atalanta sucked in a sharp breath as she shifted to check Heracles’ pulse. Satisfied, she drew back.
‘Why didn’t you go with him?’
Atalanta’s scowl deepened.
‘We told him he wasn’t up to it, so he left without us.’
Shame swelled inside Danae until she could contain it no longer. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she blurted, ‘for everything that’s happened. Please believe me, I never wanted to abandon you, I feel –’
‘I don’t care what you feel.’
Neither woman spoke for a long while after that.
The fog grew dense, blanketing the hard ground up to Danae’s knees by the time the warrior rasped, ‘Where are the dead?’
Even though she’d known this question would come, it still threatened to crush Danae. She owed Atalanta the truth, but not yet. Not here.
‘Elsewhere. The kingdom of Erebus is vast.’
She was relieved when Atalanta did not press her further.
Silence fell once more, punctuated by the rush of the river, the staccato clip of Hylas’ hooves against the stony bank and the dogged footsteps of the Missing.
The rock walls were narrowing, now close enough that Danae could see the roots twisting through their cracks, some finger-thin, some as thick as fully grown cypress trees.
All were dull, their light extinguished when Persephone died.
‘How far until we reach Lerna?’ Danae called ahead to Telamon.
‘Not long now, judging by how narrow the cave walls are,’ he shouted back. ‘Hopefully we’ll emerge in daylight.’
Light. Real sunlight. She could barely remember what it felt like to have warm rays kiss her skin.
She suddenly remembered Hylas’ pack, her belongings, the omphalos shard, presumably hidden away in Hades’ palace.
They had come too far to retrieve them now.
The prophetic stone Phineus and Manto had guarded, her link to the future, the compass that had guided her for the past year was lost forever.
Ahead, Telamon stopped walking and held up a fist. Behind him the Missing staggered to a halt.
‘I’ll find out what’s going on,’ Danae said to Atalanta and jogged along the line to Telamon.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
The flame-haired man was squinting into the gloom ahead. ‘Thought I saw movement.’
Danae followed his gaze but could see nothing.
Then there was a scream behind them.
She swung around as the Missing scattered like a shoal of fish.
‘Something took Leon!’
‘It grabbed him –’
‘– I couldn’t see.’
Danae ran back to Hylas, knife drawn, cursing the dim light from the crystals above. Atalanta drew her bow, grimacing with the effort of clinging to the horse with her injured legs. The rocks encasing the vast passage were jagged, full of large nooks and crannies for creatures to hide.
A smudge of black smoke hazed through the air, momentarily shadowing the light from the glowing crystals.
Then something fell into the midst of the Missing. Atalanta clung to Heracles so he would not fall as the horse brayed and backed away from the broken body lying bleeding on the rocks.
Danae and Telamon approached. It was Leon, the man who had been snatched. His limbs were broken, his heart torn out through the bones of his chest.
Dread seeped through her as she thought of Manto’s death; their torso ripped open, their heart stolen.
But this brutality could not have been executed by a harpy.
They did not have the speed or stealth to pluck a man from the ground without being seen.
But if it wasn’t a hound of Zeus, then what other creature would rip out a person’s heart?
‘Everyone, keep together,’ shouted Telamon. ‘Those of us with weapons – Atalanta, bring Hylas round and flank the head of the group, Danae stay to my right – we’ll form a triangle.’
As they moved into position, Danae’s blade trembled in her fist. The knife seemed like a twig in the face of what might be attacking them.
A rattling wail ripped through the air.
‘Oh gods,’ murmured Telamon. ‘I think …’ he swallowed, ‘I think it’s a fury.’
Danae was about to press him to explain, when a memory surfaced.
A story told around a crackling hearth in the depths of winter.
Her mother had spoken of three creatures that lived in the Underworld.
Ethereal beings born of night and vengeance, brought forth from the oozing pits of Tartarus.
A trio of spectres cloaked in darkness whose sole purpose was to avenge the wrongs done to their master, Hades.
They were said to torment the dead and tear reparations from the flesh of the living.
There was no one alive who had seen them and lived to tell the tale.
She had hoped, like so many things she once believed, that this tale was a fantasy dreamed up by the gods to terrorize mortals. But if this nightmare was real, Danae had just set free the dragon that killed their master.
An act worthy of deadly revenge.