Chapter 34 The Sea’s Revenge #2
Summoning her life-threads into her hands, she emerged from the bushes.
In that moment, all the resentment she’d harboured burned away.
She was risking everything, but even after discovering the past Metis had concealed, she couldn’t let the woman die.
Gaia’s last true Titan. The only person left who truly understood what it felt like to be a protector of mankind, and how much it cost.
Poseidon looked towards her, Metis still caught in his rope of threads. His gaze swept over Danae and his lip curled.
‘Finally, in the flesh.’
Her breath steady, Danae hurled two cords of gleaming strands at him. But the God of the Sea was swifter.
The power of his trident still binding Metis, Poseidon blasted Danae’s threads away with a coil of wind and hoisted her off the ground.
She struggled in the air, her limbs bound like a bird trapped beneath a lion’s paw.
As the breath was squeezed from her lungs, panic consumed her, and the tapestry of life vanished from sight.
She no longer asked the wind to come to her aid, but internally screamed at it, hurling her life-threads against Poseidon’s barrier of air.
The pressure around her chest only tightened and from the ground, the false god laughed.
‘How my brother will reward me, when I return to Olympus with your head.’
The next thing Danae knew, she was slamming into the ground, suddenly free. Dazed, she staggered to her feet. Atalanta was hanging about Poseidon’s neck, trying to find an opening in his armour to drive her knife through to the soft flesh beneath.
Lying a stone’s throw from Danae, Metis groaned. The woman flung out her good arm, her life-threads snaking away into the earth.
Poseidon ripped Atalanta from his back, smashing her into the bank.
He raised his trident, but before he could strike, he stumbled, the ground cracking beneath his feet.
For an agonizing heartbeat, the God of the Sea flailed.
Then he fell, and with hungry earthen lips, the island swallowed him whole.
‘Go!’ shouted Metis.
Danae ran to her side, but Metis pushed her away.
‘I can’t hold him for long,’ she gasped. ‘You must go.’
Before Danae could protest, Atalanta grabbed her arm and pulled her towards Telamon and Heracles, who had heaved the little boat from the undergrowth and were dragging it towards the shore.
Danae grabbed onto the side of the vessel, her sweat-slicked fingers slipping across the oiled wood as she fought the urge to look back. They hauled the boat through the sun-crisped grass until their feet sank into sand. But before they reached the shallows, all four of them froze.
Emerging from the sea was Skolopendra, the creature Poseidon had arrived on.
Water sluiced from its mottled navy shell as it loomed over the bay, supported by at least fifty legs, its crayfish tail beating the water.
It looked like something from the dawn of time, a giant, primordial crustacean that had crawled from the deepest crevice of the sea.
Even after meeting the beings that dwelt in the Underworld, Danae quaked at the sight of its crab-like head; eyeballs the size of human skulls bulging on stalks, tentacle-thick hairs trailing from its nostrils, and its bone jaws clicking like two saws as it stormed towards them.
For a moment, they all stood dumbstruck. Then, with a guttural roar, Heracles grabbed Telamon’s sword, his limbs shaking with the effort, as he ran doggedly towards the beast.
‘Heracles, no!’ Danae sprinted after him, tackling him round the waist and bringing them both crashing to the sand.
‘Stay back!’ she barked as she leapt up in front of him, casting two ropes of life-threads into the sand.
As the sea-monster reared, she was transported back to fighting Kerberos on the midnight bank of the Styx.
She whipped her life-threads and threw two clouds of sand up towards its eyes, piercing its giant eyeballs with thousands of razor-sharp grains.
Dark blue liquid sprayed down as the beast screeched.
Then Telamon and Atalanta came sprinting from behind her and Heracles. Telamon stooped to retrieve his sword mid-run and, like ants climbing the roots of a tree, they scurried up the creature’s spiny legs.
Danae cast her threads wide this time, creating a shimmering web through the air, as she willed the wind to form a net and drag the sea-monster to the earth.
It was a colossal effort to keep it restrained, every part of her aching.
She knew she should try again to achieve Gaiasight, but there was no time.
Atop the beast, Atalanta and Telamon clung on, driving their blades beneath the rim of its shell.
Then a blast of rocks smacked into Danae’s back. She staggered, losing her control of the life-thread net.
By the lake, Poseidon had freed himself from his earth prison, and he and Metis faced each other across the water, hurling trees and chunks of the island at each other, scattering stones and earth through the air.
Freed and furious, Skolopendra tossed Atalanta and Telamon from its back. It rose up on its many legs, then thudded its body into the shallows, causing a quake that sent them all tumbling to the ground.
Danae furiously rubbed the sand from her eyes and squinted through her tears as the beast lowered its grotesque head towards the prone form of Atalanta lying on a bed of sun-crisped seaweed.
It might have been blinded, but it could still smell.
‘No!’ Danae screamed as its bone jaws closed around the warrior.
Without pausing to attempt Gaiasight, Danae summoned her life-threads and drilled a concentrated blast of air towards the belly of the beast, trying to break through its shell.
Skolopendra roared, then flung Danae aside with a flick of one of its tree-length legs.
Telamon was valiantly still trying to scale another of the monster’s limbs, using his sword to drag himself up between the ridges of shell.
Heracles had mercifully retreated to crouch behind the boat, watching his friends battle with wide, haunted eyes.
The sea-monster swung its head towards Danae as she gathered her threads for another attack, then it launched itself at her.
She braced for impact. But mid-strike, it stopped and began swaying.
Telamon, who had been tossed into the shallows, splashed away as Skolopendra jerked wildly, then let out a deep, bone-rattling shriek and crashed down onto the sand.
It lay for a moment, legs twitching, then grew still.
Six agonizing heartbeats later, the bone jaws shuddered apart. Atalanta emerged, sword drawn, the blade drenched in blue blood.
Telamon sagged back in the water. ‘Thank the gods –’ He caught himself. ‘You know what I mean.’
Danae sprinted towards the warrior, throwing her arms around her. She could feel Atalanta’s pulse beating through her silver breastplate.
They pulled apart, and somehow the words Danae wished to say became: ‘You stink.’
Atalanta wiped her face. ‘I know.’
There was another earth-rumbling crash, and Danae looked back towards the lake, where Metis and Poseidon were ripping the island apart.
‘The power’s in his trident,’ Danae murmured. She looked back at Atalanta. ‘I think I know how to beat him.’
The warrior’s lip curled, the heat of battle blazing in her eyes. ‘Let’s go slay a god.’
Danae, Telamon and Atalanta left Heracles by the boat and sprinted inland.
Metis and Poseidon’s battle had moved away from the lake, towards the cliffs on the far side of the island.
Metis staggered on the wave-sprayed rocks as the sea crashed below, her broken arm hanging at her side.
She’d had no time to heal herself. Poseidon whipped a tempest around the prongs of his trident and hurled it at her, until she became nothing but a dark blur in the centre of the maelstrom.
Danae’s eyes stretched wide in horror; Metis was going to die if she didn’t intervene.
But she was weakening. It was one thing achieving the calm of Gaiasight in solitude, but in battle her pounding heart and racing blood too often betrayed her.
She delved deep inside herself, trying to imagine the flow of her river.
Beside her, Atalanta slung the bow from across her back and nocked a blood-soaked arrow. The shot pierced Poseidon through the cheek, and he roared, turning on them with eyes of molten fury. The tempest around Metis dissipated, and she gasped, struggling to heave her bruised body off the rocks.
Danae ran, launching herself towards Poseidon, with Telamon and Atalanta beside her. The Olympian ripped the arrow from his face and flicked his trident. A hard wall of air slammed into Danae, and she hit the ground, gasping.
Lights bursting across her vision, she pushed herself to her feet, as a dank mist billowed across the island. It was Metis: battered and bloody, her good arm raised as she summoned the fog from the sea. It swallowed them all in a cocoon of damp grey air, robbing their sight.
Arms outstretched, Danae stumbled forward, then her foot caught on something.
She crouched down and felt a mound of stones.
Through the cries of battle and clash of metal and rock, she heard something else. A melody sung by the wind, cawed by the gulls and echoed in the earth.
She drew a long, deep breath, then let go. For a moment, she was terrified. Then everything seeped away. She was the river, her blood its racing current; she was the sea; she was every body of ocean pooled across the earth.
She was all of creation.
Through the mist glowed the tapestry of life.
She could see the shining form of Metis, and the swirl of her life-threads pouring into the air.
She could see Atalanta and Telamon, the shimmering shape of their lives in harmony with the blades of grass beneath their feet.
She could see Poseidon, his body glowing brighter than the rest, and another light that eclipsed all others: his trident.
It burned like a white-hot flame, and Danae now understood why it held so much power.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of ichors surged through the gold, ripped from their hosts over the centuries and trapped in this cold shaft of metal.
Her body was no longer her own as she walked forward. Poseidon swung his trident wildly through the air, cleaving scars of clarity through the fog, just as she had done on the Doliones shore.
He only saw Danae when she was barely an arm’s length away. His ravaged face stretched into a terrible grin. He brought his trident down as though he would split her in half. She reached up, her entire being singing with energy, and the shaft crashed into her outstretched palm.
It was as though she had been struck by lightning. Power reverberated through her, rattling her teeth.
Take them, urged the voice. Consume the life-threads.
She could hear no other sound, save the ringing in her ears.
Metis had told her that life-threads could not be created or destroyed. She did not know if the strands trapped in the trident held the memories of those they had animated, but they had once been people. And that was enough. She would not be like the gods.
Screaming in pain, she wrenched the weapon from Poseidon’s grip and smashed it into the rocky earth, channelling the power of the tapestry of life into the blow.
The trident shattered.
Danae gasped, her vision returning to normal as the trapped life-threads dispersed from the shards of gold, fleeing back into the air and the earth. Back into the tapestry where they belonged.
Poseidon roared and grabbed Danae, hurling them both into the ground.
He clamped his gauntleted fists around her neck, pinning her beneath his weight, blood dripping onto her face from his wounded cheek.
Power vibrated through her, radiating from his armour: it too was engorged with life-threads and somehow amplified his strength.
Then Metis appeared through the dissipating mist, her arm healed.
She ran at Poseidon, propelling him off Danae, but the God of the Sea was swiftly on his feet.
He grabbed Metis by the neck. She gasped as he lifted her like a rag doll and hurled her across the cliff.
She hit a crop of rocks with a sickening crack, rolled to the earth below and remained still.
Telamon and Atalanta came sprinting towards Poseidon, but he flicked them aside like leaves blown by the wind. He advanced on Danae. She struggled to push herself to her feet, but Poseidon sent a cord of glowing strands to pin her down once more.
He stood over Danae and again gripped her neck. Baring his teeth, he began to drain her.
She shuddered, her vision darkening, limbs twitching as the warmth was leached from her body.
Then her fingertips brushed an edge of cold, hard metal.
She stretched, her hand curling around a sliver of broken trident.
With a grunt that expelled the last of her strength, she thrust the shard into Poseidon’s neck.
The God of the Sea crashed to his knees, mouth stretching wide as blood filled his lungs. Danae stared as he choked, his face reddening, the air ripening with the earthy stench of human waste. It seemed to take an age for him to sink to the ground.
Take his threads! commanded the voice.
But Danae did not move. Something beyond the raging desire for life-threads was alive within her. A calming presence, strengthening with each breath. An innate knowledge of what was right. She must give Poseidon’s life force back to the Mother.
She did not dare look away until the light faded from his eyes and the last of his threads returned to the soil. Glancing up, she saw Telamon helping Atalanta to her feet. Pushing herself to standing, Danae turned and ran towards the crop of rocks.
When she reached Metis, the woman lay very still, blood trickling from the corners of her lips. Telamon and Atalanta crouched beside Danae while Heracles stood a little way off, like a ghost watching from another world.
‘Poseidon is dead,’ said Danae, squeezing Metis’ hand.
Metis’ eyes traced the sky to meet Danae’s. She tried to speak, but her words were so faint Danae had to lean in close. The other woman’s breath fluttered like a butterfly’s wing against her cheek.
‘Have faith.’
For a moment the wind lulled, and the air was filled with the caws of gulls, the whisper of the sea and the murmur of petals turning towards the sun, as Metis’ ichor returned to the Mother.