“Welcome to the first of the challenges”, he boomed and indicated to the contestants that they could rise again while he simultaneously managed to throw a stern look at Cassandra and Hector indicating that he would deal with them later.
“As you already know, our contestants are each going to face a dangerous creature coming out of the dungeons and I think we have found a fitting one for each of you”, he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “You, my dear contestants, will either overcome your opponent with your own bare strength or perish in the attempt. But don’t faint yet, ladies and gentlemen. We will intervene if there is true danger for your favorite contestant’s life.”
He indicated the part of the arena that would be used for the contest. There were several small doors leading into the metal cage guarded by at least one or two guards and a big trapdoor leading into a tunnel through which the animals would be released and that was currently closed. Cassandra could also make out several smaller trapdoors on the floor that were mostly covered by sand. Black lines filled with tar were snaking through the sand and there were torches at the sides that were burning a little too close to the tar pits for Cassandra’s taste.
“The challenge counts if you kill the animal or severely wound it”, Heracles continued and raised his arms. “Give us your best and make it entertaining.”
The crowd roared and Heracles bowed to Alexander who raised his hand to ask for silence.
“Good luck to everyone”, he said, looking at each of the contestants individually. “Let the games begin!”
As one, the contestants raised their weapons and their battle cries were met by the loudest cheer from the crowd yet. Alexander nodded to Bear to begin while the other contestants retreated to a spot below the spectators to wait their turn.
They watched Bear make a show of displaying his muscles, dancing nervously in front of one of the small doors. When the guard didn’t open it fast enough, Bear pushed him aside and opened the door himself. He entered the cage with his hammer raised, then waited for the trapdoor to open. He laughed at the boar coming out of it but Cassandra had never seen a boar that big nor one with tusks so long that they almost reached the creature’s forehead. She wondered whether there was some kind of magic involved or whether the university had access to a special breed of animal but Bear didn’t seem intimidated by the creature’s size at all. He waited for the animal to charge at him, killed it with one blow to its giant head and then waited for the crowd to cheer. Instead, there were murmurs of displeasure from the spectators’ rows. Apparently the killing hadn’t lasted long enough and the crowd actually whistled when Bear left the cage. Bear swore at them and then went to steam in his own anger. He didn’t even wish Wolf good luck as he went in next.
Wolf did a better job at entertaining the crowd when he faced a majestic lion. He circled the beast, teasing and provoking it before he killed the beautiful creature with a powerful throw of his spear. Sol came up next and had to go against a gigantic snake while River faced a pack of white wolves. He killed them with fast, elegant strikes of his sword but when he was done, River looked at the mess around him with something bordering on disgust. He threw away his sword and walked out of the cage with his head hung low.
The crowd, who didn’t like to be reminded of the senselessness of what was happening before them, booed until River had reached the safety of the shadows below the spectators. Ben pressed his shoulder but River shook his head and slid to the floor, refusing to watch the rest of the show.
The seven Claimed contestants had to test their luck next. Four didn’t fare well and had to be rescued; in the end only three of the Claimed contestants earned their right to enter the next of the challenges.
When it was Ben’s turn, the crowd grew silent while Cassandra felt her heart beat faster. Again, he looked smaller at first than he actually was. He slowly drew back his hood and tucked it fast at the sides. He seemed to grow with every move and then he ripped off the sleeves of his shirt, revealing perfectly shaped muscles, the crowd started to murmur. Eventually those murmurs turned into cheers when he swung the pieces of black fabric over his head and they turned into two black sticks as if by magic. Cassandra guessed that it was some kind of trick but when he put the two sticks together and they fused into one with sharp edges on each side, she wasn’t so sure anymore. She saw Heracles frown but he didn’t interrupt. He knew very well that the son of Hades was about to give the best show to date and he didn’t want to ruin it.
Ben turned towards the trapdoor and a hundred or more black birds came screeching out of it. They looked unnaturally thin, almost skeletal and had eerily glowing red eyes. They threw themselves on the son of Hades, covering him in a cloud of feathers, beaks and wings. There was a cry of relief when Ben finally managed to fight his way out from under them.
Cassandra admired the speed and elegance with which he fought. It looked like he was performing an intricate dance that had nothing to do with the simple art of surviving they had been taught. He never went for the easy kill: he delayed attacking the birds, working so much faster the next moment that it was hard to follow his movements with the naked eye. Just when she thought that he was putting himself at an unnecessary risk, he made a mistake. The three last remaining birds came shrieking at him and Ben stumbled and fell. The birds were on him in an instant. He rolled away from under them and killed them unceremoniously. The crowd cheered and called his name but Ben threw away the stick and went away without acknowledging the sudden enthusiasm with which he was met. When he passed Cassandra, he had a similar look of disgust in his face as River and that he hadn’t enjoyed the fight after all. To her surprise he didn’t go back to his friends but stopped beside her to lean against the wall while they watched Hector enter the cage.
“Good show”, she said evenly and saw a cut on his face already healing itself.
He gritted his teeth and balled his fists.
“That’s what it is all about, isn’t it?” he said and Cassandra thought that this was more than a general observation. “Put on a good show for everyone.”
He unrolled his fists and lightly touched her arm, then quickly drew back again as if remembering where he was.
“Good luck to you and your huge friend today”, he said and with that he left her standing alone again.
Wolf threw her a curious look while Bear looked like he would like to go straight at her. Just then the trapdoor opened and Hector stood facing a bear that was anything but happy to be standing in a cage smelling of death and blood. The giant beast roared and when it saw Hector, it went straight at him. Hector threw away his sword and took it on with his bare hands. He gave a good show, cheered on by the shouts and worried cries of the crowd, and in the end he held the bear to the ground, cutting off its air supply until the creature passed out and lay there like it was dead. Hector, a knife at the ready, looked up at Alexander and Heracles, waiting for their decision whether this counted as having passed.
Cassandra saw Summer, Charlie and Jim biting their nails with anxious delight and then saw them scream with joy when Alexander gave Hector the thumbs up.
Her brother left the cage under the loud cries and enthusiastic cheers of the crowd. Everyone liked a happy ending, especially when it came in such a delightful package, Cassandra thought and hugged her brother when he came back to stand beside her, managing to look proud and humble at the same time.
“Good job”, she murmured and Hector smiled at her, then nudged her on.
She was the last one and entered the cage through the same door her brother had just left it. She stood waiting before the trapdoor, her sword resting lightly in her hand but it seemed to take a while to get the animal. Finally, the crowd was getting restless and Heracles asked what the hold-up was about. The guards shrugged, telling him that they had no idea, so one of them was sent into the tunnels to see what was going on.
Cassandra felt dizzy all of a sudden. At first she put it down to the smell of sweat and animal and feces and that of tar tha
t pervaded the arena but that wasn’t what was bothering her. There was a hint of acid in the air, something that made it difficult for her to think straight.
“Are you all right?” Heracles boomed, not unkindly, when he saw her sway a little.
Cassandra nodded but felt a growing unease towards the eerie silence behind the trapdoor. And something else was bothering her: before, there had been howling and scratching and an occasional rumbling from the animals fighting against each other, but this time it felt as if even the animals were afraid of what was coming. Cassandra, barely able to breathe anymore, looked around for something to cover her mouth with and finally took off her shirt.
“Are you planning on dazzling us with your beauty?” Heracles boomed and Cassandra, who was now wearing nothing but a black tank top that revealed her perfectly shaped stomach, put the shirt over her nose and mouth in the hope that this would keep the fumes out long enough.
“What are you doing?” Heracles asked but at this moment the trapdoor opened and Cassandra found just enough time to pick up her sword again and raise it towards the creature exiting the trapdoor, or rather exploding through the trapdoor, destroying it in the process.
There were screams of horror from the spectators’ rows and Cassandra, who had to jump to the side to evade the creature, saw the guards rattling at the doors, seemingly unable to open them. She heard Alexander scream at her to get out above the sudden ear-deafening noise but knew that this was impossible. Because the creature that had apparently been chosen for her was a hydra.
The hydra looked like a creature straight from a nightmare but Cassandra knew she was as real as the other animals that had come out of the trapdoor. A hydra was a mixture between a dragon and a serpent and if Cassandra had had time to look at it properly, she would have seen that apart from three heads, the creature had colorful scales and spikes that sparkled in the sunlight, too. However, Cassandra was fully occupied with the task of evading the creature’s heads, all of them equipped with mouths sporting big, ugly and very sharp teeth.
The hydra roared and spittle flew around. When a drop touched her arm, Cassandra cried out in pain. She felt the acid burning into her skin and quickly went over her options: she knew that cutting off a hydra’s head only meant that two new ones would grow there instead. She remembered how Heracles had once defeated the creature – or one like it – in his twelve labors. Cassandra saw another small trapdoor beside her open and a man-sized scorpion came crawling out of it. She didn’t even have time to think, she simply rolled to the side, away from the razor-sharp claws of the scorpion and its raised sting.
At the edge of her vision, Cassandra saw that Hector and Ben and several others were trying to gain access to the cage but it seemed like all doors were still locked. Heracles came running at them, shouting something that sounded like an order but Cassandra had no time to see what they were planning on doing because the hydra reared its heads towards the sky and let out a cry that shook the earth.
“Hector”, she cried, hoping that he would hear her despite the noise. “I need fire.”
And then she ran towards the hydra, the scorpion following her with unnatural speed. She ducked in the last possible moment and slid away from under one of the hydra’s mouths and heard the satisfying crack when another one of the hydra’s heads snatched the scorpion up and broke it in half. She saw Hector run towards the torches like she had hoped, taking several of the guards with him. They threw the torches into the tar pits, igniting them for the spectacle that should have been the glorious finish to this day’s challenge, and for a minute the burning likeness of a roaring lion could be seen on the floor. But the effect was lost on the terrified crowd and even though the fire burned hot and managed to hurt the hydra’s exposed underbelly, it only served to make the creature angrier.
Cassandra, who had hoped that she could burn the creature’s stumps with the fire, realized that the fire wouldn’t be hot enough and that there was no way she would be able to cut off one the heads and evade the other two at the same time. There was only one way out of this mess and that was currently blocked by the hydra’s body. Cassandra, hoping that the creature would at least be a little distracted by the pain caused by the fires, tried to rush to the side of the cage but was hit by the creature’s long tail and smashed into the metal bars. She hit her head and felt her wrist crack when she fell on the floor and knew that there was no way she would survive this. She started coughing from the black smoke and felt the hydra’s heads coming closer, spittle flying everywhere, pounding down on her like acid rain. Cassandra screamed and held up her arms and tried to scramble away but there was nowhere to go.
Then Hector was beside her, dragging her away while Heracles, Ben and the other demigods attacked the hydra with everything they had.
Ben was swinging his silver sword fast and efficiently and Sol, virtually ablaze with some kind of giant torch burning in his hands, burned off the stumps so that nothing could grow back there. Wolf, attempting to cut off the creature’s last head, stumbled and would have been caught by the hydra if River hadn’t thrown himself between them. But River only managed to cut off part of the head and stood below it when the hydra’s blood rained down on his arm. River screamed in pain and Wolf swirled around just in time to see Ben cut off the rest of the head while Sol burned down the last stump. The hydra instantly lost its power and died.
Wolf was instantly by his friend’s side. River, watching the skin melt from his arm, screamed unnaturally high until the pain became too much and he passed out. They all had to go through the splintered trapdoor at the back because the doors to the cage still wouldn’t open. River was carried by Bear who immediately ran on to the infirmary with Sol and Wolf following suit.
Once outside, Hector broke down coughing and Cassandra, too, and felt bile rise in her throat. Someone handed her a bottle of water and Cassandra greedily drank from it. Then she started scratching her skin where the hydra’s poison had touched her, causing her skin to blister in a hundred places. She looked up to see the pale faces of Heracles and Ben who didn’t seem to have fared much better.
“You, young lady, have a bit of explaining to do”, Heracles said and raised himself into a standing position with the help of Ben, who looked pale and shaken.
Before he could go on, Alexander and Arissa came towards them, looking agitated and worried in Alexander’s case and cool and almost like she was disappointed in Arissa’s case.
Cassandra tried to say something but she had to cough so hard she thought her lungs would rip. Ben bent down beside her. His eyes were a dark storm of emotions when he handed her a small bottle. She accepted it gratefully but he had to help her keep her hand steady so that she could drink. The liquid tasted golden somehow and reminded her of the one Charlie drank that helped restore him to his good looks. It was like fire running down her throat but this time it was a healing one and she felt instantly better. With a thankful look she handed the bottle back to Ben, feeling her hand burn where he had touched her.
“Why didn’t you say that you felt something was wrong?” Heracles asked. “You covered your nose. Did you know that something wasn’t right?”
He said it with an intensity that made Cassandra’s nerves tingle. Something about him seemed strangely familiar, like they had known each other for a long time, but Cassandra knew that that was impossible.
Alexander, who was holding on tight to his chair, looked furious.
“Why was there a hydra coming out of the dungeons?” he inquired. “How could you allow this to happen, Heracles? And why were the doors locked? How dare you put one of your contestants into such a position of danger?”
Cassandra saw anger flare up in Heracles’ face but he quickly got himself under control again.
“The doors should have never been locked”, he said. “They must have malfunctioned.”
Cassandra thought that this was not very probable but Heracles wasn’t finished.
“And if you really think that I would
put even one of my students in that kind of danger, you are wrong”, he said angrily.
He had looked as shocked as everyone else about the hydra and he had come to her rescue with no regard to his own safety.
“We will look into this”, he said and thereby effectively cut off anything Alexander might have had to add. “Ajax told me that the guards in the tunnels had been dosed with something and were unconscious so there was no way they could have warned us. Also, a hydra was never intended for Cassandra but a pack of wild dogs and hyenas. They were either eaten or replaced by the hydra, we aren’t sure yet. And now I suggest that we all go to Miss Nightingale to have ourselves checked out.”
Alexander asked whether there had been magic involved but Heracles only shrugged and repeated that they would look into it. Cassandra couldn’t help but think that he seemed remarkably calm about it. Not about the fact that the hydra had attacked them – he was furious about that – but about the implication that magic might have been involved.
Heracles, who saw Ajax and Hippolyta standing at a little distance looking worried, went over to talk to them.
“It’s a shame the hydra was so slow in the end”, Arissa said once Heracles was gone. “It would have rid us of at least one quite nasty specimen.”
Alexander’s grip on his wheelchair got so tight that the knuckles of his hands showed.
“Would you leave us alone, please”, Alexander said and Cassandra nudged Hector to help her up but Alexander shook his head.
“Not you”, Alexander snapped and Cassandra looked at him in surprise. “Ben, Arissa, I want to talk to her.”
This time no “please”.
Ben had a burning look in his eyes but it was Arissa who truly scared Cassandra. And that after she had just faced a hydra.
“Fine”, Arissa snapped. “Are you coming, darling?”
And then she took a deliberate step towards Ben and kissed him full on the mouth. When she was finished, Ben pressed his lips together and led her away.
The Unclaimed (University of the Gods Trilogy Book 1) Page 7
