by Gene Stiles
“It is not just that,” Poseidon replied, his voice as thick as a morning fog. He slumped on the other end of the sofa, his huge, long legs stretched out before him. He could feel his great heart beating slowly in his massive chest. It felt like a chunk of stone weighing heavily against his ribs. This was his third tankard of ale and yet it failed to dull the throbbing ache in his head. He looked at his hands as if they were blood-soaked and foreign to him.
“We had no idea the power of these weapons would feel so good,” he said quietly, shocked at his own admission. “It was intoxicating and elemental. I felt as if I were one with the sea, the wind, the trident, enshrouded in primal fury.”
His face was cloudy and forlorn, deep shadows covering his strongly planed features. Poseidon ran a hand through his hair, his fingers catching on snarls left over from the ocean winds. “I wanted…no, needed to lash out at my enemies and all they stood for.”
Poseidon looked up at his brothers and sisters, his face haunted and sickened. “Every hateful deed the Lord Father ever committed flashed before my eyes. Every ounce of pain he has caused us – his own children – and all we love fueled a rage I never thought myself capable of. Triton fed on these things and turned them into the Creator’s own vengeance.” He met Zeus’ golden gaze, knowing his brother was the only one here who fully understood. Zeus nodded almost imperceptibly.
“And it felt right,” he finished quietly, the guilt of so many deaths quivering his voice.
“And it was right,” Hades said, his tone steely and hard-edged. He stood near the large windows that overlooked Daedalia, his arms crossed over his broad, muscle-carved chest. A web of cracks distorted the view, but the broken spires and blackened buildings painted a picture of barbaric cruelty indicative of Atlantean rule. His black, bushy eyebrows were drawn tightly together above his wide, flat nose almost hiding the dark pits lurking beneath them.
Hades turned to face his siblings, his lips drawn tightly together within his short, sharply-pointed beard. “Do not forget who started this war,” he said harshly. “Do not forget how we tried to live in peace only to be hunted to the ends of the earth. Do not forget we were not the first nor the last to be hounded by Cronus from the Izon to the Nephilim. Do not forget Home, Olympia, Haven nor Nil. Do not forget Morpheus, Haleah, Ra and thousands of others who Cronus murdered and tortured in his quest for Atlantean rule and the perfection the Atlantean race. Do not forget!”
“I understand your angst,” Hades said, softening his bitter voice only a little. He swept his hand toward the jagged cityscape beyond the window and said, “This is what he leaves in his wake. Destruction. Death. When word of the sea battle reached him, Cronus withdrew his armies to Atlantis. But he ordered this city to be sacked and torched behind them. This is his way. If he cannot control it, Cronus destroys it. He always has. His history proves it and he will continue to do so unless we stop him.”
A hush fell over the room as Hades strode over to stand before his brothers and sisters. Hera simply stared at him, her dark green eyes wide and her mouth hanging half open. This was the most the generally somber man had said at one time and she was stunned. Hestia sat with her arms crossed, her eyes glittering like faceted green emeralds. Her thin, pink lips were pursed and grim. She agreed with everything Hades was saying, nodding as he punctuated his words with the stiffness of his stance.
Hades stared at Poseidon and Zeus, flickers of flame dancing in his cold ebony eyes. “The First Children gave you these weapons above the rest of us for a reason.”
“Zeus, you freed all of us from the prisons our ‘father’ held us in,” Hades said sternly. “You are compassionate and caring, but also strong and just. You knew Cronus was beyond evil. He hates you most of all, but still, you tried your best to leave him in peace. How many times have you tried to avoid confronting him and giving credence to the Prophesy? He would not let you. You lost much even before you brought us all to you and yet you are not ruled by hatred and vengeance. That is why you were given Excalibur.”
“Of us all, only you possess the strength to wield Triton,” Hades said to Poseidon. “You lived your life free in the world above. You traveled the seas and love the variety of life and people around you. You are not burdened by prejudice or bigotry. Maybe you did not fully understand it. But when the Nephilim came to be, you were hated as they were simply because of your size.”
“That is why you received Triton,” Hades told him. “You, like Zeus, learned of love, tolerance and joy from the people surrounding you. The rest of us,” he said, glancing at his sisters, “were raised in the pits of hellish mines. We saw the worst of humankind, the animals and degenerates, and we suffered at their hands. We have far less empathy for others and, if we are honest with ourselves, have a much more deep-seated hatred for Cronus and his kind. You are much more apt to show clemency than we are.”
“Our brother is right,” Hera said stiffly. She looked at her sisters, seeing the painful, bitter memories swimming in their eyes. “We endured and grew stronger through our suffering, however, we feel little sympathy for our enemies. We learned to take what we wanted through any means necessary and to punish those who stood against us. Having those things,” she said, pointing to the trident and sword leaning against the wall, “would present too much of a temptation for pure revenge for us to handle.”
Demeter gripped Zeus’ arm and squeezed his hand. “We know it is an awesome responsibility you carry, brothers,” she said kindly. A tiny, weak smile played across her lips and her eyes glistened brightly. “The mere fact you feel so haunted and troubled by it tells us that this power lies in the right hands. We trust you unconditionally. You will do what is right.”
“And that means stopping Cronus before he can cause more death and destruction in the world,” Hades said coldly. “Let us make this the final battle.”
Cronus agreed. This war must be put to an end by any means necessary. For centuries, he had fought for the People and he was weary beyond words.
In the privacy of his locked quarters, he spent the last four hours rocking on the cold, granite floor in a darkened corner, his arms around his drawn up knees. The pillow jammed between them muffled the screams and sobbing bubbling from his trembling lips in the stony silence. His curly, red, lionesque head of hair was soggy against his shadowed, square-jawed face from the fevered sweat that soaked his skin. Shivers rippled across his broad, slumped shoulders, cascaded through his massively muscled body and seeped into his troubled soul. His river of tears was a salty mixture of self-loathing, pain, fear and fury. His mind squirmed and twisted, overwhelmed by a myriad of memories that laid his soul bare, burning and raw. There was so much he simply could not understand and it ate at his pounding heart.
The Lord Father devoted every fiber of his being to the People and many of them now hated him for it. How could they not know how much he loved them? Why did they not honor him for the terrible sacrifices he made in their name? Every so-called atrocity Cronus committed was for their very survival and yet they steadily turned against him. How easily they forgot all the good he had done for them. Not one of them would be alive today if not for his will.
The cold, barren, windy, red-sand surface of ancient Atlan was littered with the broken remnants of the dead world they left behind. The cave of the One Tree was as airless and empty as an eternal tomb that would have enshrouded them all. It was he who was forced to kill his own beloved father to free them from that horrible fate. Cronus had brought them across the vast reaches of black, desolate space and gave them new life on this beautiful, bountiful world. Yet they seemed to forget.
Cronus raised Atlantis from a primal landscape and created an incredible city of glistening gold full of promise and joy. He protected the People from monstrous creatures and the heartbreaking history of the Izon. He only sought to eradicate them so the People would never realize their own children might one day become such bestial, mindless animals. Cronus wished to spare them that pain yet it was he the Peo
ple called savage and barbaric for his actions.
When the nature of this world threatened to sterilize the men of Atlantis, Cronus was the one who discovered their race needed the strength of the hated Izon to prevent their extinction. Knowing Atlantean women would never agree to such a mating, it was Cronus alone who had the fortitude to force them. No matter how horrendous it appeared or how much it ripped his heart, he did it for the sake of the People, to ensure the continuation of their species. He hid it from them so they would not have to endure the repulsive, abhorrent loathing he felt for himself at his decision.
But it worked. Most of the children of Pettit were indistinguishable from the People. The mixture of bloods created Atlanteans stronger and hardier than ever before. The birthrate climbed once again. If not for the aberrations like the gigantic Nephilim, none of the People would have been any the wiser. Even then, it would have gone unnoticed if not for Zeus loosening them on the world and spreading their story.
Zeus. Cronus felt a dark calmness come over him and his heart turned to a solid chunk of stone. His jade eyes blazed like a bonfire and an all-consuming rage burned his shivers away. Oh, how he wished he never had children! He cursed his father, Uranus, for prophesying he would die at the hands of his own son. Had he not, perhaps Cronus could have loved his offspring instead of feared them. If he had not succumbed to a parent’s compassion, he would have killed them at birth instead of sending them far away. Despite his lust for his beloved Rhea, Cronus should have never shared her bed. His weakness for her had cost him everything and brought him to this.
Zeus had turned Rhea’s love into seething hatred. Zeus had freed his siblings and unified them against Cronus. Zeus sent the plague of the Nephilim to tear Atlantis apart. It was Zeus who made the People forget all the Lord Father had done for them. Zeus was the root of this war and he must die.
Cronus raised himself from the floor, a new, iron resolve coursing through his veins. He would not allow all that he had built, all that he was, to be destroyed by one man. He would not permit Zeus to take Atlantis from him. Cronus would not live in fear any longer.
After refreshing himself, Cronus dressed in his long, flowing ebony robe and set the crown of Atlantis firmly on his forehead. His jaw was rigid and grim, his emerald eyes fiery, but cold. He belted his scabbarded sword around his thick waist and holstered a pulse pistol on his hip. He gazed into the mirror and appraised his powerful, determined image.
“Others may forget,” he said to the man looking back at him, “but you can never forget who you are. You are what you have always been - Cronus, Lord Father of Atlantis, savior of the People. No one will ever take that from you.”
The Irissian Forest sat like a massive, naturally impenetrable fortress just above the forked tongue of the headwaters of the Twin Rivers. The groundcover beneath the ancient trees was dense and overgrown with thickets of viciously thorned briars that could peel the flesh from a mammoth. Tree trunks were packed so close together and entwined with vines that few could pass between them. The forest divided the Aropian Veldt neatly in half for hundreds of miles, leaving only relatively narrow passages on either side.
The Olympian army split into two legions over eight thousand strong. Zeus knew some of the most savage fighting would occur in these grass-covered straits. Cronus would use the confines to mitigate the size of the Olympian forces arrayed against him. It was a foregone conclusion the woodlands on either side would be heavily armed with artillery emplacements which is why Zeus had sent continents ahead into the forests to come at them from behind. Still, he expected considerable losses.
Poseidon knelt in the loamy ruts ripped in the trampled grass by his quivering legs and the butt of the trident planted deep in the soil. Beads of sweat covered his furrowed forehead and dripped into his squinted jade eyes. Another iron cannonball slammed into the shimmering shield surrounding him and shoved him backward ten more feet. Thought most of the kinetic energy was absorbed by the field, the force of the impact sent vibrations shivering up his spine. He gripped Triton with both hands, feeling the almost painful hum of the silver circuits beneath his fingertips. Poseidon gritted his teeth and leaned forward, aiming the prongs at the line of cannons hidden in the shadowed tree line of the Irissian Forest.
Triton’s tip glowed a golden-gray and erupted with a silent, deadly cry. The shockwave tore through the tight-packed trees like hurricane winds. Trunks thicker than ten men snapped and shattered in a spray of sharp wooden shards. Heavy artillery pieces were tossed into the air like children’s toys. The terror-filled screams and wails of agony battered Poseidon’s ears far worse than the accompanying explosions. Above the noise, he thought he could still hear the sickening thunk of broken bodies striking branches and boughs, the bones crushed to bloody pulp.
The powder in some of the ordinance ignited into fountains of fire that set the edges of the forest aflame. The light breeze blowing northward from Lake Cassini pushed the pillars of smoke and burning embers through the dense foliage turning the trees after tree into blazing candlesticks. The heat of the fire was so intense, there was no way Poseidon or his men could get to the injured Atlantean gunners trapped in the woods. All they could do was hang their heads and weep at the shrieks of fear and agony as flesh blackened and blood boiled.
Poseidon sagged into the grass, spent and shaking, exhausted by the use of Triton, but still cognizant of the cacophony of commotion surrounding him. He had managed to intercept most of the ordinance thrown at them, but the rest smashed into his ranks as they passed through the narrow bottleneck where the Irissian and Borderland forests came closest to each other. They had taken many casualties and this was just the first skirmish on the road to Atlantis.
“Are you all right?” Hestia asked, kneeling at his side. Her long, braided auburn hair was covered with clumps of dirt and grass and a jagged, shallow cut just below her left eye coated her cheek with a bloody veil. The cannonball bounced along the ground just a few feet away from her, but the impact showered her with bits of chipped rock and soil and knocked her to the ground.
“I am unharmed, if that is what you mean,” Poseidon replied glumly, laying Triton over his crossed legs. His hands were cramped and sore and he flexed his fingers to relieve the numbness. “How many did we lose?”
“Twenty dead so far,” she replied stiffly, her green eyes hard and cold. “At least sixty injured. Hestia stared at the ground, her thin, ruby lips stretched in a grim line across her narrow, oval face. “It would have been much worse if our forward units had not taken out the gun emplacements in the Borderland forest. We could have been caught in a nasty crossfire.”
“I am surprised Cronus does not have troops awaiting us just beyond his cannons,” Poseidon said, starting to get up. His tree-trunk legs buckled and he dropped like a stone. He panted for a moment, leaning his weary head on the shaft of the trident held before him. As the First Children had warned and as he learned at sea, using the weapon took a serious toll on body and mind.
His eldest sister put a hand on his massive shoulder and said, “Stay a little longer and renew your strength. You will need it. We will encounter his main army soon. The scouts tell us the Atlanteans are gathered about forty miles ahead where the terrain opens up into a vast plain. We are clear until then. Others are tending the wounded and burying the dead. There is nothing you can do at the moment. Rest.”
Poseidon nodded and sighed. Hestia was right. It was better if all of them rested when they could. The next battle would be far worse. He wished his sisters had remained back in Daedalia, but they steadfastly refused. This was as much their fight as it was his and he could not fault them. The best he and his brothers could do was divide them up so the siblings could not be taken out all at once.
Demeter stayed behind with Hades and his legions west of Daedalia. Five thousand troops guarded their backs against an assault from the southwestern cities of Tholis and Albor. Caught between the Hades and the huge harbor at Tharsis and sympathetic to the Atlante
ans, they posed little threat. However, Cronus might land skyship troop carriers in the barrens surrounding them and may even attempt to send warships into their ports.
Kiranimis, First Mate of the Sea Dragon, patrolled the coastal waters in command of half the Olympian fleet. The few vessels Cronus had left were no match for them, but it was better to take no chances. If the Lord Father convinced Prubrazian cities to support him, they would not be caught unaware.
“Do you think this is truly wise?” Hera asked, joining the voices of his commanders in telling Zeus he was making a serious mistake. Her wavy, reddish yellow hair was pulled back from her high forehead and tied tightly at the nape of her slender neck making her sharp, angular features seem even more severe than usual. Her thin, pink lips were terse and hard as she spoke to her brother. “If we lose you on the onset, all we are fighting for could be lost.”
“Trust me, sister,” Zeus replied, loosening his sword in its scabbard. He stood next to his sled staring across the mile-long plain separating his warriors from the Atlantean army. Even though he was a hundred miles northwest of his brother’s position, he could still smell the faint scent of smoke tainting the warm afternoon air and knew fires were spreading through the forest near Poseidon. Smoke was curling through the branches over there and he had no intention of adding to it. “I must give them the chance.”
The corridor between the Irissian and Maraldis forests was longer and narrower than the route Poseidon took so Zeus and his legions left their base hours before in order to reach the main veldt at the same time as the other contingent. But halfway to their goal, he was stopped by the Atlantean forces. A massive barrier of sharpened stakes created a hurriedly constructed wall across the meadow with a tall, log gate roughly two hundred yards wide in the center. Attempting an assault through that constricted space would be suicide.
