Forge of the Gods 4

by Simon Archer

  “We’re not sure, ma'am,” Kari said, coming to my side to aid in the reporting. “Rachel and Mia were arguing.”

  “That’s highly unusual for those soldiers to resort to violence like that,” Quinn said as she pursed her lips.

  “I had the same thought, ma'am,” I agreed.

  “Maybe they got cabin fever, ma'am,” one of the soldiers next to Quinn, a blonde girl with a baby face, suggested.

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes at her unhelpful comment. If she knew Rachel and Mia as well as I did, she would know that those two would never do something so stupid. Fights among soldiers could potentially mean suspension or expulsion from the Military, depending on how bad the fight was. Neither would risk their status as soldiers to do that. It seemed completely out of character that they would start anything, or that fellow soldiers would join in on the fray.

  I blinked rapidly, as my thoughts came together. Without thinking, I rushed back to our table with all the books.

  “What are you doing, daughter of Apollo?” Quinn demanded but I didn’t answer her. I was too consumed in searching for the book Kari had seconds before the fight broke out.

  When I found it, I held it open and brought it back to the Officer and my friends stationed at the door. Then I swallowed audibly, unsure if I should state my theory or not.

  “Out with it soldier,” Quinn said, picking up on my hesitation. “I want to know everything. I won’t tolerate internal fighting, not at my camp.”

  “I think it wasn’t their fault, ma'am,” I started. “I think it was another one of the daemon spirits.”

  Kari’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline while Irema released a little gasp. The two extra soldiers looked at one another in confusion. Officer Quinn’s eyes narrowed in on me as though she was examining my expression for signs of a lie.

  “Makahi is the spirit of battles,” I went on to explain, in the hopes of convincing the commanding officer that I wasn’t crazy. “This is the kind of chaos the daemons love to cause. If I’m right, more unexpected battles might break out between the soldiers.”

  I couldn’t have planned the next couple of minutes better. There was a shout from outside of the tent and the unmistakable sound of a fist breaking a nose. It cracked as loud as thunder and rang out through the camp.

  Officer Quinn led the way as we all darted out of the mess hall tent. Right into the commotion outside.

  There were at least twenty soldiers trading blows out in the courtyard. Snow rained down from the sky, blowing with the force of a tornado. We had to take a minute to adjust to the new temperature and fierce wind that knocked snowflakes directly into our eyes.

  “Enough!” Quinn shouted over the fray but no one listened to the commanding officer. That alone should have been a sign but then a Vreg soldier had the audacity to take a swing at the daughter of Hera.

  She jerked her arm up to block the attack. The Officer used her free hand to latch onto the wrist of her attacker. She bent it back with an unnerving amount of ease and the soldier screamed in response.

  While Officer Quinn pinned the soldier in place, she turned to look at us over her shoulder. “Find the daemon. Now!”

  We didn’t need to be told twice. I pulled the laurel leaf out of my pocket and held it up to my eye. I scanned the area as quickly as I could, looking for a flash of purple in the sea of white.

  It stuck out like a sore thumb, hovering at the top of the flagpole. This being had the same slimy corporeal form as his sister, but took on the figure of a large gargoyle. He crouched on the ball at the top of the flagpole, looking on with a gleeful, canine-filled smile upon the chaos he created.

  I pulled the laurel lead away from my eye and held it out to Kari. “He’s at the top of the flagpole,” I said as loud as I dared over the wind.

  Kari held up the leaf and noticed the same thing I did, her face turning into a hard grimace at the sight of the daemon.

  “Let’s get him,” she growled as she darted forward into the fray.

  I followed right alongside her. We dashed through the fighting soldiers. Some of them tried to take swipes at us but we dodged them and refused to engage the enchanted soldiers. I felt like a baseball player as I ducked down and slid through the wide stance of a fellow soldier in order to avoid a kick to the face. I popped back up onto my feet and gathered my inner fire.

  My hands glowed hot as the fire pricked beneath my skin, eager to be released. When I made it to the flagpole, I crouched down and ran around it in a circle. My heated hands stayed on the ground as I ran, leaving a trail of melted snow behind me. I circled around one more time, this time lighting the cleared ground with fire. It burst forth like a bonfire and crackled loud enough to be heard against the wind.

  Some soldiers seemed to snap out of their battle-driven states of mind at the sight of the fire. They recoiled from it, as if afraid. I didn’t have the laurel leaf, but I could only assume that the soldiers’ reactions mirrored that of the daemon looking down on the scene.

  I shouted at Kari before I closed the ring of fire. “Get in here!” I beckoned her with my free hand.

  She did as she was told and leaped in with me. After I closed the circle, I turned to my friend. “Is he still up there?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said with a malicious smile. “And he’s freaking out something fierce.” Kari couldn’t hold back a cackle as she bent her neck back to look up at the immortal. “He is not a fan of your fire ring.”

  “Good,” I said with a definitive nod. The heat was starting to get to me and I wiped away the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. It helped somewhat, but the searing heat from my hands warned me that I was teetering on that dangerous line again. The line I couldn’t always come back from if I went supernova.

  Even though most of the soldiers were preoccupied with their fights, I still didn’t want any of them seeing my lack of control. I hated the idea that I might put any of them in danger.

  “Hey,” Kari said, beckoning me to look at her with a snap of her fingers. She stared right into the heart of my worry. “You’ve got this. I’m going to send my clay up the pole to him and you’re going to follow behind me with your fire.”

  “There’s so many people here,” I said, hating the way my voice shook.

  “And we’re going to save them,” Kari said with confident eyes. She held out the laurel leaf. “Take this.”

  “I can’t,” I said, holding up my hands in order to show off their red hot glow. “I’ll burn it.”

  Kari looked from my hands to the leaf and back again. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course but what are you--” I answered but her next action forced me speechless.

  Kari bit into the laurel leaf and swallowed half of it.

  “What the hell?!” I barked at her, my eyes popping out of my head.

  I tried to get out another expletive but Kari shoved the rest of the leaf in my mouth, forcing my mouth closed by putting her hand on my chin and pressing upward. I had no choice but to swallow the little leaf, getting rid of our one tool to see the daemons with.

  When she released me, my anger was still there. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

  “Look up,” Kari growled as she pointed her finger to the sky.

  Against my better judgement, I did as my friend advised. To my utter shock, I could see the purple ghostly daemon panicking up at the top of the flagpole. He teetered on the small ball, trying to figure out how to get away from the fire. But no matter which way he turned, the daemon couldn’t seem to gather the courage to jump off.

  “Come on!” Kari shouted, snapping me back to reality.

  She wrapped both of her hands, now covered in the clay from her father, and closed her eyes. I watched for a moment as the clay climbed up the metal pole, devouring the metal as it went. It was like an inverted mudslide as the clay slipped upward.

  I stood on the other side of the pole, wrapping my hands around it just above hers. The two of us mirrored each other as
the wind swirled around us, snow fell from the sky, and the fire circle burned.

  Heat travelled from my hands up the length of the pole. The flames licked the sides, hardening the clay as it went. It was tough work to concentrate against the numerous elements battling against us. But I pushed the fire up, up, higher until it licked the bottom of the daemon’s clawed feet.

  There was a screech in the air as the daemon realized what was happening to it. But by then, it was too late. We attached the daemon’s legs to the pole, trapping it. He jerked and pulled to avoid being consumed alive by the clay and fire.

  His screams almost blew my concentration but I gripped the pole tighter, focusing on the fire, only the fire. I let the wind clog my ears instead until it was the only thing I heard.

  Finally, I found the last of the clay and sent the flames all around the daemon’s head. There were no screams, only the wind. I opened my eyes to see our handiwork but I couldn’t even admire our success when I felt the burning consume my chest.

  My entire body glowed with the light of the sun. Kari’s eyes were still closed as if she could sense the oncoming explosion.

  “Hailey… ” she warned. “You’ve got to stop.”

  “I… I can’t… ” I stuttered, realizing that I was past the point of no return. I had been concentrating so hard on blocking out the screams and sending the flame up the flagpole, I didn’t regulate my temperature.

  “You have to!” Kari shouted, unable to hide the panic in her voice. “Cameron, think of Cameron. That worked last time.”

  “I--” I said as I tried to clear my mind but everything was on fire, burning in my brain.

  I couldn’t reign it in. There was going to be an explosion whether I liked it or not.

  “Run!” I hollered to Kari, pushing my vocal cords to the breaking point.

  “Hailey!” Kari called back to me just as I reached my breaking point.

  I dared to open my eyes and see my friend standing before me. I didn’t want to hurt her. I couldn’t hurt her. I refused to harm my fellow soldiers who stood on the other side of this ring of fire. If I blew up now, everyone would be dead, their blood on my hands.

  If only I could direct the blast away from them…

  I held onto that thought as tightly as a lifebuoy. Then I focused that tidal wave of energy up the pole, just as I did the fire moments before. Like the metal rod it was, it accepted my energy and zapped all of the power from the explosion up the rod.

  There was a boom as the trapped figure of the daemon exploded.

  My heat collided with the statue and the noise rippled through the trees, blasting them back. Kari and I fell backwards as brown globs fell from the sky, pieces from the broken daemon statue.

  The soft snow caught us right on the edge of the ring of fire. My ears stung with the high pitched ring right after an explosion but I looked up and saw that the statue wasn’t there anymore.

  And I wasn’t glowing. When my inner fire died down, the ring of fire lessened until it went out completely.

  I managed to transfer my power into something else so that I wasn’t the epicenter. I had never done that before, but I didn’t want to question it too much. It was best to accept the miracle and move on.

  Suddenly, there was a hand in my face, offering to help me up. I took it, not caring who it belonged to. Soon, I recognized Irema who offered me a big smile.

  She moved her mouth and while I couldn’t hear her just then, I knew exactly what she said.

  “Two down, eight to go.”

  26

  The air went still. The atmosphere was still cold but the wind was still. So was the water which made sense considering it was now ice. The clouds didn’t let up, but they didn’t swirl as they did before, signaling an impending storm. For the first time since venturing out, we were granted a moment of reprieve.

  We laid on our backs at the bottom of the rowboat, our feet resting up on one of the seats. Our heavy breathing moved our chests up and down in tandem as we regained some semblance of strength while letting the adrenaline ease.

  “Well,” Bethany breathed. “That was a little chaotic, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Try a lot,” I moaned. “That was Eris’s fault.”

  “All this,” Bethany asked as she stuck her finger up in the air, circling it around. “Was Eris’s doing?”

  “Yep,” I replied. “That’s what Scylla told me.”

  “That bitch,” Bethany cursed. But then her body jerked as if she had a seizure and she sat up so she could look at me. “I’m sorry but did you say Scylla?”

  “Yeah,” I said, but the word came out as more of a groan.

  “Like the pretty river nymph that Circe poisoned her bath so she turned into this horrible tentacle monster, Scylla?” Bethany double-checked.

  “Now how come you remember that, but you don’t know what island Circe lives on?” I wondered absently.

  “I like to familiarize myself with the monsters since they are a bigger threat, thank you very much,” Bethany replied with her familiar sassy tone. I couldn’t help but chuckle, not only at her humorous comment but also at the notion that the two of us could still banter as though everything was normal. As though we were laying out in the middle of the frozen ocean after surviving a sudden storm and a mythical monster attack.

  “Eris sent her to dispose of me, but I killed her,” I said with a grunt as I also maneuvered my body into a sitting position.

  Bethany’s mouth flopped open and closed like a fish. Then, in her dramatic fashion, she pretended to faint, complete with the back of her hand on her forehead. I gave her a loving shove and somehow managed to get to my feet. My legs shook like jelly, and I thought I might fall over again a second later. I compromised by sitting on one of the plank seats.

  Doing so gave me a better view of our surroundings, which were completely covered in ice. What had once been the amazing ocean now transformed into a glacial wasteland. It felt like we were zapped into the ice age.

  I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, trying to create some warmth. It didn’t help that I could feel the frost forming on my wet clothing, making them as stiff as boards.

  “Well, this sucks,” I commented unhelpfully.

  “No kidding,” Bethany replied, still refusing to get up from the bottom of the boat.

  “What now?” I asked just as I noticed two figures coming towards us in the distance. “Uh, Bethany, I think we have company.”

  “No,” she whined. “I don’t want to fight right now. I just went through a traumatic experience.”

  “I know, but I need you to get up and have my back,” I said, my voice tense as I looked around at the bottom of the boat, scouring for any of the supplied Jade and Daniella gave us. There was nothing but the rope Bethany used to reel me in. I cursed internally and instead, steeled myself for a fistfight, hoping we had some kind of chance.

  Luckily, there was no need for any kind of fight. I recognized the gaits of the figures walking towards us and relief spread through me, a different kind of warmth.

  Jade and Daniella walked gingerly across the ice, shuffling their feet like penguins. They were bundled in large coats and each carrying what I assumed to be supply packs.

  “Hey,” I said, smacking Bethany’s legs. “Get up. Reinforcements are here.”

  “Thank the gods!” Bethany exclaimed, holding up her arms triumphantly. She scrambled up and out of the boat, nearly falling face-first onto the ice.

  “Careful Bethany!” Jade called out as she waddled her way up to us. “We’re so glad to see that you’re both alive!” Then she proceeded to wrap the both of us into the biggest bear hug her tiny frame could manage.

  “We watched the whole thing from the boat,” Daniella informed us. “Not all of it because we were trying to stay afloat too.”

  “Yeah, we’re okay,” I said, shooting the healer a smile over the top of Jade’s head. “If you’ve got a second, could you look at my ankle? I think Scylla twisted it or somethin
g.”

  Daniella’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “I’m sorry, Scylla?”

  I sighed and recounted the tale to both of my friends. Bethany jumped in occasionally with her commentary about how terrifying it had been seeing me disappear into the water, all while trying not to capsize her own boat.

  While we swapped stories, Bethany and I equipped ourselves with the gear that Daniella and Jade brought. Apparently the Argo had more storage and stock supplies than I ever knew about, including warm coats, pants, and boots. We changed clothes and strapped on some new weapons, with a sword and a couple of knives for each of us.

  We looked ready to climb Mount Everest as the four of us trekked across the icy landscape. At our careful pace, it took a painfully long time to reach the barrier around Calypso’s island. We could see the tropical setting on the other side, untouched by Eris’s chaotic magic. From our vantage point, it looked like paradise.

  However, no one wanted to venture beyond the barrier just yet. All of us stood just on the periphery, hesitant to go through the pinkish, shimmering shield. We all looked at one another awkwardly, begging with our eyes for someone to take the plunge.

  “Any of the myths talk about this kind of barrier, Cam?” Daniella checked with me, pushing her glasses up her nose like she did when she was nervous.

  “Nope,” I answered, making sure the “P” sound popped to further emphasize my point.

  “Do we have to knock or something?” Bethany suggested.

  “I don’t know guys,” Jade said with an exaggerated shrug. Her pink mittens rose into the air, making it difficult to take her seriously. “Didn’t we say that Calypso was all about keeping people in rather than keeping people out? What if it doesn’t harm us at all?”

  “Do we have something we can throw at it?” I wondered as I swung my pack over my shoulder so I could dig through it. I found a small pack of food, including an apple.

  I was allergic to apples and all of my friends knew this. As a collective group, we’d had an aversion to the fruit ever since it was the source of the love potion that Eris infected campus with. The Elemental Officials thought Jade was the one who did it and while she was later proven innocent, none of us really ever got over our dislike of the fruit.