Chapter Forty-Six

 

The taste of the candy that Ray had pressed into my hand was sweet on my lips, until I suddenly didn’t have lips. It was sticky on my fingers until I abruptly didn’t have those, either. It was lost in the tastes and sensations of this new form, this wild, unfettered, dark sleekness that washed over me as easily as the tide.

It was the only thing that was easy, as I quickly discovered that I did not know how to fly. I had the body for it but not the know-how, leaving me floundering in the snow, all wings and taloned feet and newborn awkwardness for a moment. And I wasn’t the only one.

Birds were falling all around me, their black bodies leaving splatters of red wherever they hit down, or flinging droplets about as they tried to fly away with broken wings and missing limbs. Athena was taking out her ire over not finding the witch on them, creatures which she probably thought the redhead had conjured up to torture her. But she had not.

I had seen them when I came in, and received confirmation from the thousand minds I had touched in our brief communication. This was their world, their home, and the fact that she didn’t even know that seemed another defilement. It told me, if I’d had any doubt, how we would be treated should the gods win through.

So, they didn’t get through. But that meant that I had to get past her guard. And that . . . would not be easy.

I finally managed to get my body and wings sorted out, mostly by stopping trying. My new form knew what to do, and once I got out of its way, it figured things out quickly. That was good, since the witch appeared to have been driven from the field.

The storm, once fierce and frenetic, was barely discernable now. Just a soft, cold mist slapping my face as I began to run and then to fly, soaring up and over the battlefield while feeling as light as a feather, despite being far larger than any bird on Earth. But the cold air bore me up like a helping hand, exhilarating even now, ruffling my wings and streaming by my face, and leaving me feeling strangely at home.

I banked, slicing through the air with split second precision, which was needed as the goddess’s rage was still white hot and her flashing blade was deadly. I had a perfect view of the battlefield from up here but couldn’t use it, as I had to dodge a sword that was moving so fast that it was virtually invisible, save for the corpses it was raining down in pieces all around me.

But the birds were not retreating, and not because I had done anything to force their hand. They were furious and frenzied, attacking the goddess right in the face, dive bombing her from all sides, still going for the eyes. They didn’t succeed, but I saw blood on that skeletal face, on the bare shoulders above her golden cuirass, on the arms around her gauntlets.

They were actually giving her a fight, but they were paying a price for it. One tumbled out of the sky, sliced straight in two by that terrible blade, and part of it hit me, causing me to almost crash. Another sent a bleeding arc to splatter me across in the face on its way to the ground, temporarily blinding me, and I had no hands to wipe it away.

And once I shook my head enough to finally clear my vision, it was to see a flash of light headed straight for me.

I dodged, but the edge of that terrible blade clipped my left wing, throwing my body off balance and causing me to tumble uncontrollably for an instant. But I tumbled into something instead of hitting the ground, and had just enough awareness to grab hold. Which was how I found myself hanging off the tattered skirts of a goddess as the battlefield slung all around me.

To your left! To your left!

Crazily, I could still hear Ray’s voice in my head. I didn’t know how, but it was there and it steadied me, allowing me to sort myself out. And to crawl awkwardly to the left, where I found—

Yes! Thank you, Ray, I breathed, because there was a rent in the goddess’s skirts, showing the thigh guards she wore underneath. They protected the legs until the greaves began below the knee, and like the cuirass, were bronze covered in a thin layer of gold that was starting to flake off. It wasn’t something my beak was likely to penetrate, but there was a gap in the back where they were held in place by leather straps, and in between, bare flesh peeked out.

It was an awkward angle, as I was still swinging off the front of her skirt, wildly in some cases as she slung her body around in combat. It made me dizzy, but I had to attempt it. She could notice me at any moment, and as soon as she did—

I had a sudden, vivid flashback to the bird’s skull I’d seen on the troll witch’s necklace, dead eyes staring, and that was enough. That was more than enough, I thought, as the ravens made a sudden, screeching assault, perhaps fifty of them all at once, and I took my moment. The skirt slung around as Athena whirled to face them, and I pecked wildly for flesh, any flesh.

I do not know what I found, or where it lay, as the tattered mess of a skirt was in my face. The fabric was overlaid with leather strips to help deter sword slashes at the hips, but they were slinging about all over the place and did not succeed in deterring my beak. Somewhere, it found an opening, and I struck.

The next moment was confused, and composed primarily of sensation: blood on my beak, in my mouth, just a smear of it, but that was enough; fire swelling in me, burning, boiling, flooding outward from my center down all my of limbs, and they were not the ones I’d had a moment before; the slush of sand and blood beneath my feet, squelching up between my toes; the cracks of tiny bones from the corpses littered around as I stumbled back, as I found my footing, as I looked up—

But not very far. Because I was as tall as the goddess as I stood up, my shining new form born of my power and her blood still encased in the leather armor that I vaguely recalled Ray dressing me in, which must have been enchanted. For it had stayed with me through everything.

But the body underneath . . . was very different.

The body underneath looked a lot like a goddess.

And finally, I had Athena’s attention.

The remaining birds wheeled away, black spots on a pale blue sky, and the sounds of battle seemed to diminish. Or perhaps I simply couldn’t focus on it anymore, as holding a goddess’s eyes is not an easy thing. But hold them I did, remembering all the pain these creatures had wrought, all the arrogance they had shown, all the blood they had spilled.

I would not give her the satisfaction of showing fear, although I did feel it, no one could have done otherwise in her presence. But I felt something else, too. Because she wasn’t the only one who battle loved, whose blood sang with it, who had been born specifically for it.

I was terrified, but I was excited, too, so much so that I forgot one small matter, but Ray did not.

A sword! A sword! Get to a goddamned sword!

Ray’s distant, distorted voice echoed through my mind, and I dove, just under the slashing blow the startled goddess aimed for me. I hit the ground hard, on my left shoulder, and it felt injured, probably from one of the blows I’d taken in the skies. But right now, it felt good, too, like the lip I’d just bitten through. I smiled a bloody smile, and grabbed one of the fallen colossi’s abandoned weapons.

It was huge and bitterly cold, but the unbroken edge gleamed in the sunlight, and although my mind was busy telling me that I couldn’t lift that thing, that it was the length of a railway car, that it would break my arm to even try, lift it I did.

And found it surprisingly light in my grip, as if it had been made for it, so much so that I snatched up another after dodging several more blows. And stood up with both of them in my grasp, mirroring my mother’s former stance with her short swords. And causing great Athena to pause again.

“Who are you?” the harsh voice rasped. “What are you?”

It was the same strange language that I had instinctively known before, and which now tumbled off my tongue as if I had been born to it. “Destiny,” I whispered, and struck.

The battle that followed wasn’t one that can easily be described. I had fallen into crazed fury in combat many times; it was practically my default. But this was different.

This was art and poetry and music: the rich red blood splattering the pale blue of the sky; the sighs and grunts and pants of exertion, each telling their own individual story; the ringing together of swords in a staccato, brutal rhythm. This was pure adrenaline pounding through my veins, a strange, overwhelming, savage joy because this was what I was meant for. If I had ever doubted it, I did so no longer.

Fortuna had done her job well, and designed a creature who lived for war, breathed it, reveled in it. But so did Athena. And for every blow I landed, she struck two. Most of them I parried, but not all, and while I bled her, she bled me back, and she bled me more.

The odds were supposed to be even I thought, as a brutal blow struck one of my swords from my hand, sending it flying. I was built to match my opponents, to counter them one on one! It was why I had wanted her blood, to take her form, to be her equal—

And maybe I was physically. But five hundred years of practice paled beside five thousand, or five million, for all I knew. Her skill was simply unparalleled, and I was outmatched.

This wasn’t going to work.

I’d no sooner had the thought than she laughed, loud and echoing, perhaps having glimpsed it in my mind, for I did not know what her powers were. Or perhaps simply seeing it on my face, in my faltering steps, in my rapid breathing. Hers had not changed, had never quickened even the slightest, as far as I could tell. Indeed, she seemed to draw strength and vigor from combat, as if her love of it overrode any toll it took of her.

She must weaken eventually, but I doubted I would be here to see it.

I doubted I would be here to see anything for much longer.

And she agreed.

“Destiny,” she mocked, with a wicked twist to her lips. “Yes, one of us will taste it soon, I think, just as Fortuna did. And her spawn, your . . . mother?”

I didn’t answer, but I didn’t have to. That keen intellect had already seen the truth. And had no problem exploiting it.

“Yes, your mother. Sad, to give birth to a child just to watch her die. Do you hear me, wretch?” she called out, her voice echoing over the battlefield. “I am about to slay your child! Are you watching? I hope I left you enough life for this, for you to see the final blow after all the trouble you’ve caused me!”

A shield hit me in the face that she hadn’t had a second ago, and her foot tripped me up, both happening so quickly that I had no chance to dodge. My feet were swept out from under me and I hit the ground, rolling even as I saw her sword flashing down, despite knowing that I wouldn’t be fast enough. I could only hope that Athena was wrong, and that my mother would not see this, wherever she was.

And if she was close, I did not see her. But I saw something else, something . . . unexpected. For another sword parried the killing blow, and the clash was so loud that it cracked across the battlefield like a lightning strike, echoing off the mountains and ripping apart the skies, sending the ravens flying again, this time in startlement.

They tore through the air in a scattering of black, and I looked up to see something that my brain could not fully take in. It was my father, but not as I knew him. But as a literal giant of a man, taller than Athena, and looking at the goddess with such all-encompassing rage that I barely recognized him.

And then the ice sword he held scraped all the way down her blade, a rusty, ringing sound that felt like it deafened me before it reached the hilt and he shoved her away. “My child, too,” he hissed, through fully extended fangs.

Right before a fight started that made mine look slapdash by comparison.

Not because my father was better with a sword, although he had practically been born with one in his hand, learning to fight almost before he learned to walk. But because of sheer, animalistic, all-encompassing fury. It was the blood rage of a master, and a first-level one at that, fighting for family, honor, and perhaps, just perhaps, for love.

I stared at him in wonder, because I couldn’t quite believe it. But it must be true. I didn’t know if it was for my mother or for me, but no one fought like that for any other reason, not caring if they hurt, not caring if they bled.

He was struck a hundred times as he pressed her, with both of them moving so quickly that I could barely see the fight, and could only track it by the way the rest of the field’s combatants surged out of the way. He was injured so many times that even his prodigious healing abilities weren’t enough anymore, and he was soon covered with blood. But this time, so was she.

And he never faltered.

But I had, I realized, lying there in shock and awe, instead of getting up and helping him! I surged back to my feet, slightly dizzy from the blood loss, for she had bled me well. But my hand was steady as I picked up my weapon and leapt back into the fight.

Athena grabbed up a second sword, and used it to parry us both. But she was going to need a third arm, because the redheaded witch was back, seeing her chance and taking it, throwing bolt after bolt of blazing power at the beleaguered goddess. Or a fourth, because my mother appeared, herself bloody and battered, and dragging one leg behind her before one of her creatures picked her up.

And together, they led a charge of the frost giants across the field from her perch on one icy shoulder.

The remaining yeti creatures broke and ran, crashing into the gods behind them, who had not come to their leader’s defense. They weren’t leaving, but they were backing off, were giving us room, were staring at something behind us, I didn’t know what. And then I did, when I turned my head and saw that Athena had lived up to her reputation for being the cunning side of war, the thinker, the planner.

And she had planned this well. For, while she was keeping our attention elsewhere, a group of gods had flanked us and made it to the portal, which they were now streaming through. We were fighting a battle that didn’t matter except as a distraction, while the real war was about to begin on the other side!

But then three things happened at once, almost too fast for me to follow: Athena laughed, her eyes sparkling, knowing that she’d won; Mircea took the moment of her distraction to strike, plunging his sword deep into her neck while a smile still curved her lips; and the Pythia, who I had almost forgotten about, emerged from under the outcropping of rock, and made a gesture in the air while facing the portal.

A gesture which, I assumed, must have released the slow-time spell she had cast on the dragons on the other side. Because they suddenly burst forth, spewing fire and seeming half crazed, and fell on the first creatures they found on the other side: the gods. And the ensuing battle was almost as fierce as ours.

But I didn’t get to see how it progressed; I didn’t see much at all as I was too busy stabbing great Athena in the side, in the back of the knee where the greaves left her unprotected, in the stomach. And looking up to see my father gnawing on the neck wound he’d made, so that she couldn’t close it, draining her of power even as I helped to punch her full of holes. All while trying to stay out of the way of the redheaded witch, who was still circling, and firing blast after blast into the massive body, shaking it to the point that I missed several strikes as it twitched out of the way.

But I had help, because Marlowe, tiny Marlowe, suddenly appeared, and what he lacked in size, he made up for in fierceness. Crawling up the body unnoticed by anyone but me, with one of the yeti’s spears in hand, he reached the screaming face of the goddess. And plunged the weapon straight into one of her eyes, before being flung what looked like half a mile away as she thrashed in pain, as she arched up, as she gave Mircea the perfect opportunity.

Not my destiny, after all, I thought dizzily, as he jerked back, as he grabbed his sword, as he brought the massive weapon down. And screamed his defiance as the head of great Athena went bouncing across the dirt. And as the gods, menaced on all sides, did something that I had never expected.

They broke and ran.