The sun did not set. In retrospect, this shouldn't have been quite as shocking as it was, but Liam still found himself stumbling as the sun blinked on, then off, then plunged into near total blackness. He clutched at Meg's arm with his good arm, his broken arm bouncing against his chest as he tottered on his feet.
“Whoa, whoa, calm down!” Meg said, her hand on his shoulder.
Liam gasped quietly, the fear from the sudden darkness replaced by the intense pain of joggling his arm. He closed his eyes and shook his head until he could speak without screaming.
“What happened?”
“Night?” Meg said, sounding confused. Then, chagrined. “Ah, right. You're from Earth, where the sun sets, right?”
Liam nodded. He looked up at the sky then – and for the first time since he had arrived on Purgatory, looking up at that vastness didn't make him feel a faint tug of vertigo. It no longer looked like distant mountains and forests and oceans about to fall on his head. Instead, he could see a smattering of splotches of light – the light of thousands of campfires, burning up there. It was almost like a starry night sky. And then, over the course of a minute, the sun started to glow again. Now, it was a silvery white orb, providing a pale luminescence that made the entire world look as if it had been bathed in moonlight.
“I like it,” Liam said, smiling. “You know, you have a very pretty planet here, Meg.”
Meg chuckled. “I am fond of it.” She sighed. “We're nowhere near one of the exits. I think we should set up camp.” She scratched the bottom of her chin, looking thoughtful. “Or, alternatively, we can keep going.”
Liam closed his eyes and took a moment to just catalog his aches and his pains. He wasn't unused to long hikes, nor even to the dull throb of having a broken bone. But Purgatory took everything that he was used too and cranked it up to the next level. He shook his head.
“I'm ready to rest.”
The two of them worked together to set up the camp. Meg used her knowledge of local plantlife to gather up a few flowers that glowed brightly when they were snapped off their stems and set them around the camp, while Liam carefully propped his sword against his shoulder, braced, and then started to hold up rocks that might be flint. He wasn't feeling confident enough in any of his choices – and the last thing he wanted to do was damage the biggest and best tool he had in this savage, violent world – so when Meg walked over and asked him what he was doing, Liam felt honestly relieved when he explained that he wasn't entirely sure.
Meg solved the situation by spreading her arms. “Do we need a fire? It is a warm night and the glowplants are providing enough light.”
Liam blinked slowly. His brain crunched through the rational, and he felt like ten kinds of idiot when fatigue parted before the obvious answer: We're not in Europe. We can survive without a fire just fine. He laid slowly on his unwounded side, then rolled onto his back and enjoyed the softness of the grass as he closed his eyes.
“See?” he said. “Told you I needed a rest.”
Meg chuckled throatily. Her finger traced his hair and she sighed quietly. “You complain less than most men I've had to travel with. I do like that you at least try and set up the camp. Next, you're going to try and cook breakfast for me in the morning, aren't you?”
Liam snorted. “We don't have breakfast to cook. And if you want to go hunting, find someone armed with something better than a longsword.”
Meg laughed quietly. “Don't worry. I used to sling hunt when I was younger – I can get some tasties on the head. Or we can just pick and forage. Finding food won't be hard.” She paused for a moment. “But you would, wouldn't you?”
Liam groaned, opening one eye. “What?”
“Make me breakfast,” Meg said, smiling. “And not once complain about it being woman's work?”
Liam snorted and closed his eye again. “According to the histories I've read, the idea of woman's work and man's work is not nearly as universal as some societies assume.”
“True,” Meg said, and he could tell that she was smiling by the tone of her voice. “In the lands of the Pesdjeti, women are required by law to be paid the same as men.”
“Better than America.”
Meg leaned forward. She pressed her cheek against Liam's belly and despite the way that this jarred his arm, he felt comfort radiate from the contact point of her cheek and his belly. He sighed and reached up with his good hand to pet her hair slowly. He worked his fingers through her curls and felt her lips kiss against his belly. Her tongue darted out and he felt her trace the line of his abs. Liam squirmed ever so slightly – and managed to not jar his broken arm against anything. For that, he felt fortunate.
“Tell me about your world, Liam,” she said, quietly.
“You're the same kind of tired as I am, aren't you?” Liam asked, opening his eyes to look at the silvery night-time-sun that hung overhead. He swore that, beyond it, he could see an entire fleet on sail, their prows lit by flickering torches on their decks. It looked like a triangular swarm of fireflies pressed against the ocean that was plastered onto the roof of the sky. “Too tired to move. Too tired to sleep.”
“Mmhmm,” Meg said. “Bore me with kings and emperors and begets until I pass out.”
“All right then,” Liam said, stroking her hair. “I come from a place called the United States of America. We're a confederation of states that is held underneath a federal government, ruled by an elected representative republic.”
“Ah, like Athens?” Meg asked.
“Yeah.” Liam tweaked her hair gently. “But women can vote. And non-land-owners. And our last President was black. So that's kind of cool.”
“Ah, he was an urr-elf?”
“No, he was human. Just darker skinned.”
Meg snorted quietly. “In New Athens, they claim a democracy. Really, it's more of a pentacosiomedimnioism.” She chuckled. “My grammar tutor would whip my ass for that neologism. But basically, the landowners run everything – and the landowners have the best land, so they give the best sacrifices to Apollo, so Apollo makes sure that they have the best land. Vicious cycle.”
“Funny.” Liam shook his head. “Seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“Mmmhmm.” Meg kissed his belly. Then she kissed him again. And again. Her lips started to trace a smoldering, moist trail along his belly, moving closer and closer to the hem of his jeans. Liam shifted – but was unwilling to try and stop her. Stop this near literal angel from giving him a blowjob? He'd have to have been out of his mind. And that was even before considering she could bend bronze with her bare hands. Instead, Liam gently shifted his arm to try and keep his broken bone from getting jostled.
Meg's teeth found the button that fastened Liam's jeans shut. She popped it open with a jerk of her head and coohed, breathing in. “You're so clean,” she murmured – a shocking thing to hear after a day of stamping through the jungles. “And I forgot to mention...” She pushed his pants down now – using her hands and her teeth at the same time. “Mmm!” She released the band of his underwear. “I love the shaving. Only the followers of the Pesedjeti shave – and usually just their heads.” She chortled, then kissed the area right above his cock. His member thrust into the air, curving to touch her cheek. Pre welled from his tip and Liam groaned softly.
Meg pressed her nose to him and breathed in his smell. “Mmm!”
She opened her mouth and, with a single motion, took him into her throat. Her lips caressed his cock and then pressed to his hips as her hand reached around to fondle and squeeze his balls – her fingers were gentle, and yet still quite firm. She bobbed her head immediately, her head slipping up and down in the slowly fading light of the glowplants – it shone off her golden hair and made Liam's heart skip almost as much as the pleasure that tingled through him. He panted softly, his hand squeezing her hair, fingers tugging. She groaned and the vibrations buzzed through his cock.
“Fuck.” His hand clenched tighter and Meg slid her mouth back, panting. She shifted forward and Liam had no idea what she was doing until he saw her toga slipping aside. Her bare, milky white flesh gleamed under the fading light. She looked as if she had been oiled and Liam felt himself almost paralyzed with eroticism. Then she planted her elbows on the grass beside his hip and pressed her breasts together – the soft mounds closing around his cock and squeezing it in a tunnel of flesh. She leaned forward and kissed the head of his cock messily. Her spittle and her sweat and his own arousal mixed as she rocked forward, then back, tightening her hands around her breasts as she jerked him off with her tits.
“Like that?” she murmured.
“Oh God!” Liam gasped. “Oh Jesus.”
“That will never not be weird to hear,” Meg said, her voice amused, electric blue eyes dancing as she leaned forward to suck on the tip of his cock, slurping on him every time her breasts slipped down to reveal more of him. The wet noise of it rang in Liam's ear as he tensed and tried to not buck. If he bucked, his elbow hit the ground. If his elbow hit the ground, well…
Meg hummed. The vibration buzzed through him and Liam bucked his hips.
Pleasure.
His elbow smashed into the ground. Bone clicked.
Pain.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!” he screamed, even as cum spurted from the tip of his cock. It splashed against Meg's face and coated the upper cleft of her breasts. She, though, looked anything but pleased. She jerked back, her eyes wide as she looked down at Liam.
“By the gods,” she whispered. “A-Are you okay?” Her eyes were wide as saucers.
Liam panted.
He got his heart under control.
He closed his eyes and he counted till ten.
Finally, when he felt like he could speak, he opened his mouth and said: “Worth it.”
***
The next morning did not dawn – another thing that Liam would need to get used to. Rather than being woken by the slow shading of darkness to light, he was slapped in the face by the brightness of the sun, blazing into full noon with a single furious moment. He grunted and started to sit up but then a powerful wing smacked him in the face and he jerked back to the ground. His arm didn't get whacked against anything.
Thank God for small mercies.
Meg slipped into the river to wash off the night's sweat – and any cum she'd failed to lick off her own skin – and Liam took stock of the situation. His arm didn't feel particularly worse or better than it had yesterday. He was still not sure what they would do if they ran into more soldiers. His stomach growled, and he did the first thing that he had been taught while hiking. If you don't know when your next meal would be, fill up on water. He cupped his palm in the water and drank and drank.
Meg burst from under the blue water, her hair flipping back behind her head – darkened to a near brunette by the water – and lifting her hands to brush them through her mane. Her wings spread behind her as her full, perky breasts bounced above the water. The sunlight glittered as it bounced off the water droplets that clung to her skin. A single droplet dripped from her left nipple, accentuating its puffy hardness. It gleamed like a diamond as it dropped into the water.
Liam knelt there, his broken arm held to his chest, his other palm cupped before his mouth, every bit of water he had scooped up already fading into the grass beneath him.
Meg smirked and walked towards him, surging out of her water. She stood so the cleft of her feathered pussy was right before his nose then reached down. She caressed her head and murmured something in the Latin that they spoke on Purgatory. Liam didn't understand a word of it and for the moment, he didn't care. Instead, he grabbed her heart shaped ass with one hand, slapping it and dragging her close. He pressed his tongue to her sex and just licked her, from base to clit. Meg moaned sweetly, her wings fanning out as she hooked one leg over his shoulder, the ball of her foot caressing his back. She stood mostly on her own weight and took this as her due by everything Liam could tell.
His tongue delved into her sex and coiled up to caress her G-spot. Meg moaned loudly and spoke in her flowing Latin – and Liam felt like he knew what she was saying. If it wasn't: And I didn't even need to ask you to eat me out, then he would eat his own hat. After buying a new hat, as he owned no hats on Purgatory.
He wasn't entirely sure how men on Purgatory could resist doing this, if every woman tasted like Meg did.
But misogyny never seemed to need to make sense.
“-eus' cock, you're good at this!” Meg gasped, her voice becoming English part-way through her exclamation. “Oh gods, how do women on your world get anything done.”
Liam slapped her ass in lieu of taking his tongue out of her sex. Meg gasped, bucking her hips against his face. The foot pressed to his back tensed and he felt her toes spreading against his back ever so slightly as she went slack, her wings beating once to keep her from falling flat on her ass – or knocking him ass over tip. Her juices bust in his mouth and Liam drank his fill. When Meg stepped away, she was panting shakily.
“Needed to refresh the spell?” Liam asked, wiping his mouth one handed then licking his fingers clean with a wicked smile.
“What? No,” Meg said, her breath coming in slow, steady gasps. “I just figured that if you couldn't understand me, you wouldn't try and stop me from making you eat me out.”
Liam blinked. “I like eating girls out.”
“Yours are a wise people,” Meg said, her lips twisted in a wry smile. “You have much to teach us.”
Liam and Meg dressed – with only a few additional kisses and gropes and the occasional spank exchanged between them – and were on the way. Meg used a chunk of Liam's belt – his jeans were tight enough that he didn't miss it – and some string fished out of her own belt pouch to craft a rudimentary sling. She tested it a few times, slinging rocks against the river as they walked.
“Now,” she said, loosing her sling and sending a rock thudding into the water with the same sound as a bullet striking some ballistic jello. “We just need to find something worth using it on.”
Liam nodded and was about to respond when an ear piercing scream echoed from the canyon wall – not that far ahead. Liam broke into a run – then slowed to a careful jog, wincing as his arm bounced against his chest. Meg matched his pace as they found, at long last, one of the exits that they had been looking for.
And, because life was never easy in Purgatory, it happened to be occupied by two of Aries' soldiers.
The two men were both dressed in significantly less armor than they had worn yesterday. It seemed easy access to shade had led to them taking off their horse hair helmets and their legging and shoulder pads. Instead, all they wore were their bronze breastplates and leather kilts, leaving the rest of their bodies exposed. One of them was an elf and the other looked like a human, but for all Liam knew, he was some kind of near-human species that could bleed acid.
The two had taken shelter in a cleft that had been cut into the side of the perfectly straight canyon, sculpted and shaped into a switch-back set of stairs, narrow enough that two men could stand abreast and protect the whole place. The vegetation that grew along the walls of the canyon had concealed the narrow entrance until Liam and Meg were right on it – and they had concealed the small, green figure that the elf was holding up with both hands, his spear leaned against the wall. His hands cupped and squeezed the green figure's chest and Liam realized that wasn't a child.
Because no child had tits that big.
The girl – the gobliness as Liam now identified her – was about three feet tall. Her skin was a pale green color, darkening to a near jade-black along the edges of her long, pointed ears. Her hair was jet black and poofed out around her head like an afro, though she had shaved it down to something closer to a mohawk. She was clad in a linen wrap that essentially covered the underside of her breasts and the bare upper edge of her thighs, leaving her shoulders, her legs, her feet and her head entirely exposed. Her wrists both had golden bangles wrapped around them, and she had sandals – though one had gone flying as she kicked and squirmed.
“Let me go!” she shouted. “We have a treaty, you brutes! Sobek-”
“Shut up, bitch,” the elf holding her said, sneering as his hand grabbed her linen dress and tore. The gobliness' breasts bounced free and to Liam's shock, her nipples were both pierced with golden rings, connected by a slender chain.
Then, suddenly, the most interesting thing about her skin was that it was flecked with blood and bits of brain. The elf who was manhandling her tottered backwards – the upper half of his head clipped off like he was the shock-death that announces a sniper in a World War 2 movie. Meg casually stepped out of cover, another rock in her hand. She slipped the rock into the sling, twirling it at the same rate that she had twirled the first. Her immense strength caused the rope to strain and creak and she released just before her sling came apart. The stone smashed into the other soldier's chest-piece. The bronze dented and he was flung backwards, clattering onto the ground. He choked, and reached for the horn he had at his belt.
Liam ran forward, adrenaline pushing the pain from his arm backwards as he jerked his longsword from the hilt on his back. He plunged it into the soldier's throat – he might have felt guilt at doing that before seeing the man casually stand aside in preparation for committing rape.
Now, he felt exactly nothing but a brutal sense of deep, deep satisfaction.
He jerked Delenn out of the man's throat and looked back, his arm starting to throb enough to draw attention to itself.
The gobliness had gotten her clothing back to rights, her finger glowing with magic as she ran it along the tears. Her eyes were wide, but they rapidly hardened as she stood and spat down on the nearly headless body of her attacker.
“Wander for eternity,” she hissed down at him. “I hope your family never learns you died. I hope Ammut devours your heart! Slowly! I hope-” she shook her head, her entire body quivering. Then her glare shifted to Liam and Meg. Meg was rubbing her wrist with one hand, looking as if she hadn't expected using a sling at full strength to tax her wrist so painfully. Liam smiled at the gobliness.
“Hey,” he said.
She slowly smiled. “T-Thanks,” she said, her knees shaking slightly as she stepped away from the corpse. “I-, um, that is, ah. My name is, um.” She stopped short, then turned and vomited. She vomited and choked and coughed up a bit more, then held up her finger, panting. She looked down at the puddle of bile between her feet, then vomited again. She coughed a few more times and then stepped away, shakily. “Tethis.”
“Liam,” Liam said, holding out his good hand, wincing slightly. “Let's get you to the river, huh?”
Tethis, Meg and Liam came to the river. There, Liam sat and watched as the young girl splashed water in her mouth. No, he thought. Not young. Seriously, look at those tits.
If Tethis had been the same height and stature as Meg, she would have been easily twice as curvaceous as the valkyrie – and Meg was no flat chested beauty. The fact that their breasts were only of slightly different size didn't change the fact that Tethis was three feet shorter than Meg. Her belly, too, had just enough of a curve to be called 'cushy', and her thighs were just as plump. She looked like she belonged in one of those 'plus sized' magazine pinups.
Just, minus sized plus sized.
Liam felt like he was going cross-eyed trying to keep that straight.
Tethis wiped her lips on the back of her hand and smiled. Then her smile vanished. “You're injured!” she said, pointing at Liam's arm.
“Oh, I-” Liam started.
But then Tethis spread her hands. She closed her eyes, breathed in, then brought her palms together. A shimmering light flared into the air. Circular shapes and triangular tessellations that formed into a grid-work of white lines flashed into existence. She opened her eyes and for a moment, Liam saw what looked like gears spinning in their purple depths. Then the white lines flashed forward and wrapped around Liam's forearm. He felt a coldness wash through his arm. Pain followed it as bone crunched into bone. Then nothing. He blinked and wiggled his fingers. He reached around and undid his splint, tugging the makeshift thing off his arm. He stretched his arm out, then drew it back.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Was that, did you, I, what-”
“That is what I'm wondering!” Meg said, her wings spreading wide in shock. “What was that?”
Tethis chuckled softly. She looked like she was trying quite hard to seem mysterious as she smiled. “Well, I may tell you – if you tell me what is going on! I thought that New Athens and Faiyum had a treaty—”
“Treaty?” Meg looked at Liam, then at the girl. “How long have you been in the wilderness? The last treaty between the cities was broken, uh, three months ago, when the war started.”
Tethis lifted her hand to her mouth. “My family!” She exclaimed. “My brothers, they are part of the Faiyum militia. Has there been any- I mean, I, that is, I...I...” she trailed off, her eyes glimmering and filling with tears. Meg gently reached down and squeezed her shoulder with one hand.
“There were no major disastrous defeats suffered by Sobek's forces.” She smiled. “In fact, they were kicking Apollo and Aries' asses. That's why Apollo sent me on a peace mission. Unfortunately, Aries is Aries and he's decided to send one of his bastard children to make sure the message doesn't arrive.”
Tethis sniffed and reached up to wipe tears from her eyes. She frowned slightly. “We can head out of the canyon, then. The city is only a few days on foot!” She nodded and looked excited. “And I can bring back news of what I've found out here. You won't believe what I discovered, what this canyon conceals. It's—”
A low, mournful horn split the air. Other horns blew, answering it, coming from every part of the canyon.
Meg frowned and stood. She beat her wings once and flew to the exit from the canyon. A moment later, she returned, holding a pair of crystals that had been looped around with necklaces. They glinted in the sunlight and just looking at them made Liam's heart sink. He had a feeling he knew what Meg would say before she said it.
“Heart-talismans. They turn black when their owners die.” She shook her head and spat in disgust. “They'll be centering on this place.”
“Flight?” Tethis asked.
“Do you want to be left behind?” Meg asked. Tethis quailed under that idea, her eyes wide.
“You two can fly ahead,” Liam said, nodding and standing up and putting his hands on his hips. “Tethis is light, and—”
“No,” Meg snarled.
“But—”
“No,” Meg said, glaring at Liam. She poked his chest with her finger, snarling. “I won't leave you to those butchers. They'll torture you and they'll kill you and you're the only one who knows how to operate that library in the pocket you have!”
“I—” Liam blinked.
Meg was absolutely right. But he felt something else – something deeper. Something that made his heart skip a beat as the finger prodding against his chest flattened into a palm. Her fingers caressed him through his shirt as she leaned in.
“I won't leave you behind,” she whispered.
“Um, Meg, I think-” Liam started.
Meg shook her head and leaned in. She kissed him and Liam almost fell on his ass as her tongue swirled into his mouth. It was warm and it was gentle and it was hungry. The fact that Liam could hear distant horns and could imagine the soldiers mobilizing to hunt him didn't change the fact he needed this kiss as desperately as he needed water, breath, and God.
“Meg! Liam!” Small hands pushed them apart and Meg staggered backwards, looking down at Tethis.
“I have an alternative plan,” she said, looking between them. “Come on!”
She turned and she ran.
Meg smiled. “Told you. Not leaving you behind.” She prodded Liam's chest.
“What about after we secure the iPod?” he asked, turning to walk.
“Then I'm still going to cram you into a castle and protect you with a mercenary army. Guys who can eat muff like you? More precious than diamonds.” Meg smirked, her wings snapping shut behind her as she reached down and picked up Tethis. She put the shorter girl on her shoulders and said, “Direct me.”
***
Liviana knelt down beside the two dead men. She pushed the head of the one who had been stabbed backwards and looked at the bloody wound that was all that was left of his throat. She frowned and rubbed her chin.
“Whatever cut this was sharper than even a god-touched blade,” she said.
The clunk and clink of armor drew her gaze up. One of her hoplites appeared on the edge of the stairs, his hand resting on the wall as he panted.
“Ma'am, found their tracks – they're heading back into the canyon. The only other exit is at least a day's travel south. We've got them.”
Liviana frowned. “They have some kind of magical blade. Send a message to the forces we have down south to keep that area ready but I think we'll catch them first.”
She stood and walked down the stairs. “Come on, men! I lead the way on this hunt.”
Her men and women slammed spears into shields with a crash, their roar as eager and as bloodthirsty as any daughter of Aries could wish.
***
“So, this is the thing that will save us?” Meg asked, looking at the completely ordinary wall of the canyon.
“What?” Tethis looked back over her shoulder. “No, no, give me a second.”
Liam nodded but he could hear the faint sound of horns. The soldiers were communicating something and that made him nervous. He looked over his shoulder, trying to see if he could detect any of the people who might be coming soon to murder him with sharp, pointy sticks and beaten chunks of bronze. It was still almost too surreal to feel like a real danger to him, but the back of his neck still prickled.
Then he looked back to see what Tethis was doing and found that the curvaceous gobliness had bent forward to examine the ground. This meant that her linen robes rode up along her ass, revealing the smooth, green curve of her ass cheeks and the dark, almost black curve of her pussy lips. She was completely hairless – though Liam wasn't sure if that was a feature of her being a gobliness or part of her being from the Pesdjeti
Liam's eyes widened as he watched Tethis' ass sway from side to side as she hunted around.
“Enjoying the view?”
The voice purring in her ear was all playful kittenish but it still made Liam's heart stop. The last thing he wanted was to piss off a girl who had feelings for him and could (and Liam still had to remind himself of this) bend bronze with her bare hands. Liam gulped, then looked at Meg. He tried for a smile.
“Who wouldn't?”
“I'm not completely sapphic,” Meg murmured, “But I can see the appeal.”
“Found it!” Tethis exclaimed, jerking up as she beamed at the wall. Before Liam's eyes, the mirror smooth rockface shimmered and rippled as if it had become nothing more than water. A large swath of canyon wall – maybe ten, fifteen feet wide – vanished into a haze of light and a glow of blue sparks. What was left was a perfectly geometric door – rectangular in shape, leading straight into a narrow corridor, which itself was illuminated by half a dozen glowing blue crystals.
Tethis turned to face them, smiling. “It's an ancient temple. That's my field of study – I am a scribe of temples and worship. Normally, we study the relics of the Coptic people and the Pesdjeti gods. But, well...” She reached up to play with her hair, curling her finger through the bristles of her mohawk. “I've always been interested in the ancients, those who followed the Caretaker – the Father, if you're a valkyrie.” She nodded to Meg. “They had a practice of magic that didn't depend on gods in any way, shape or form. Rather, they were able to use crystals as foci to draw inherent magical energies via certain gestures, thoughts, and words!” She beamed. “That's how I was able to heal your arm.”
“Arcane magic doing healing?” Liam asked, shaking his head as he walked into the corridor. “Now I know your world is bullshit.”
“I've never heard of people casting without gods,” Meg said. “Is it similar to my inherent abilities?”
“Yes, actually!” Tethis said, frowning as she started to prod at the wall. “There is a device that closes off the wall. It should make it impossible for them to tell...” She touched a rune that was carved into the wall beneath one of the gems. With her touch and a strange gesture of her fingertip, the rune glowed and the entrance vanished behind the illusion once more. Turning to face them, Tethis smiled, her teeth glinting in the blue luminescence of the corridor. “But yes, valks who have been embalmed in the Coptic kingdoms, all of them contain lumps of crystal that are exactly the same kind of crystal used by foci!”
“Embalming!?” Meg sounded disgusted. “You desecrated valk bodies?”
“Valks descended from Bastet don't consider it desecration. The real desecration is just burning it like you Athenians do!” Tethis snapped, sounding furious as she put her hands on her hips, glaring up at Meg. “How do your cities not choke on the unquiet dead?”
“Guys, guys!” Liam said, quickly. “I think, I mean, yes. A Coptic ghost might be upset without a burial. Right? But Athenians aren't Coptic. Surely, then, they'd be upset if they weren't, uh, burned. Right?” He looked between them.
Meg frowned. “True.”
“That does make sense,” Tethis murmured.
Liam breathed a sigh of relief.
Tethis turned and started down the corridor. Meg followed after her, still grumbling very softly under her breath about embalming. Liam brushed his hands through his hair and then glanced back at the doorway. He frowned, then started after the two girls.
They should be safe.
***
Livana walked with her hoplites, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes were narrowed as she looked left and right, trying to miss nothing. Her every nerve felt as if it was on fire.
Some people claimed that elves had been crafted to be the fuck-toys of every race on Purgatory. They were naturally hairless meaning that they were exotic for the Aesir and a delight for the fashion conscious Coptic. Their inherently slender forms were always in high demand from the Athenians and other Hellenes, noted fans of young, nubile flesh. Lizardfolk enjoyed despoiling the innocent, and nothing was quite as doe-like and naive looking as a pouting elf. Valkyrie liked being stronger than others and elves were never known for their great strength. And the less said about humans and their fascination with elven ears, the better.
But in truth?
Elves were born killers.
It was easy to kill when you knew that your enemy would live less than an eyeblink of your lifespan. It was easy to kill when your mind could plan ahead three steps while they were still settled on the first. And it was easiest to kill when your eye could see even the tiniest chink in armor, even the smallest twitch of indecision on the face of your enemy.
“Where are they?” One of the hoplites grumbled quietly. “I lost the trail. Ataxis, do you see anything?”
“No,” another one of the hoplites grumbled.
Liv held up her hand, fist clenched. The others stopped, looking at her.
Liv turned slowly around, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the ground, then at the wall of the canyon. Something was bothering her. Something stuck out. Something seemed ever so slightly wrong. Then she rubbed her finger together, kneeling down and picking up a rock. She tossed it at the wall. It hit and rebounded.
“Ma'am?” one of the hoplites asked.
“Shut up,” she said, not looking away. She picked up another rock, tossing it from palm to palm.
She threw again.
Again, the rock bounced off the wall.
The hoplites glanced at one another – nervously.
Liv picked up a third rock. This time, she flung at the space between where the two rocks and the rock did not bounce back. Instead, it simply vanished – leaving a rippling space in the world, looking as if the rocks had turned to water.
Liv grinned, fiercely. “Did you know,” she said, turning to look at her hoplites, “Elves can always spot a hidden door.” She smirked. “Men, form up. I think we've found them.”
***
The expanse of the inner room of the temple took Liam's breath away. He had never been to the really big temples that populated Earth – the Hagia Sophia, or the Taj Mahal, or St. Paul's Cathedral – but he was fairly sure that each of them might fit in this immenseness. What really struck him, though, was the sheer austerity of the place. He expected the temple to the Caretaker might have a representation of his majesty, of his servants. Even the most aniconic mosques or Protestant churches still had more symbolism than this emptiness. The floor was decorated with nothing but a simple triangle pattern that tessellated outwards towards the edges of the wall - the blue lines shone brightly against obsidian black stone tiles, and the only light that pervaded the room was the pale luminescence that shone from the lines.
The center of the room held something that might have been an altar – it was certainly large and imposing enough. A slab of rectangular stone that was as white as the floor was black, polished to a mirror smoothness. It was set high on a platform of stone steps that emerged smoothly from the floor. Tethis rubbed her hands together.
“I was researching this chamber for two months,” she said. “My camp is right there.” She jerked her chin at the corner of the room. There, looking remarkably out of place, was a smallish bedroll and a chest that looked like it had been completely emptied. “And I was going to head back to Faiyum Falls to report on what I had discovered – if you manipulate the altar in the right way, any object placed on it vanishes.”
“So you found some ancient sacrificial structure?” Meg sounded skeptical. “How is this going to help us? We trick Aries' soldiers onto it and turn it on.” She paused. “That actually might work.”
“No, no, I was translating the runes in the corridor. I believe that the Coptic equivalent is far-walker.” Tethis turned to face them. “The legends of the War of the Caretaker said that those who followed the Caretaker could arrive unexpectedly – appearing in strongholds, behind enemy lines, within cities. That is how mjolnir was stolen, though, ah, the disastrous results of that foolishness are still visible.”
“Uh, what happened?” Liam asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
“The entire Caretaker city was turned into crystal,” Meg said, frowning. “They call the ruins the Forest of Lost Souls.”
“Eesh,” Liam said. “See, I'd have thought Thor would have just made it impossible to pick up or something.”
“Where's the fun in that?” Meg said, grinning at him. “So. This altar is a far-stepper. That's great. Right until we vanish to appear inside of a wall.” She frowned. “Or in the void. How do you target it?”
“I'm not sure,” Tethis said. “But I believe with some magic and some trial and error, I can figure it out. And since the cover is concealed and Aries' soldiers don't know this temple is here, we have the time!”
An ear piercing shriek rang out of the corridor that they had entered by and a blindingly white flash shone from around the corner, literally burning the shadow of a humanoid figure onto the corner wall. Liam grabbed his longsword, drawing it with a quick jerk. “What was that, Teth?”
“O-One of the traps that I guided us around,” Tethis said, her voice a soft whimper.
“Get to work!” Liam said, stepping up to crouch beside the doorway. “We'll guard the entrance. You get us to Faiyum without killing us. Don't worry.” He flashed her a grin. “We've got this.”
Tethis nodded, reaching up to adjust her linen wraps, then turned and ran towards the altar, her hair bouncing behind her. Once she was out of earshot, Meg leaned over and whispered to Liam.
“You do know I only have a limited amount of ammunition, right?”
“Yup,” Liam said. “But they don't, do they?”
Meg nodded and nestled one of her sling bullets – well, weighted rocks, really – into her sling. She started to twirl it casually in one arm as they waited. The footsteps of the hoplites rang louder and clearer and then the first two came around the corner. Their shields were raised, their helmets were on, and they held their spears. They advanced like bronze statues, ready to kill absolutely everything that got in their way.
For almost all of his life, Liam had wondered: how would Alexander the Great's dreaded Macedonians have stood up to gunfire? It had been this longstanding point of contention between him and Greg. His friend had sworn up, down, left, right and sideways that the Macedonians could have replaced Napoleon at Waterloo and only lost a half hour sooner than the Corsican. Personally, Liam had believed that it didn't matter how disciplined and well lead men were when they went up against muskets and cannons. They were still going up against muskets. And cannons.
Or, in this case, a super-humanly strong angelic woman who could hardly have missed. The first rock that Meg loosed slammed into the bridge of one of the hoplite's noses. The bronze flange that hung down from his horse-hair helmet barely slowed the stone down and a spray of blood misted the front of the shield and the wall behind him as the helmet went flying. He collapsed to the ground and the other hoplite paused.
Behind him, two more hoplites were emerging from around the corner. These two had darts in their hands and loosed them with quick, overhand tossing motions. Liam dragged Meg back a moment before the darts hit the ground she had been standing on – their nullstone tips cracked and sparked against the floor.
“Charge!”
That was the demigod who was leading the troops; her voice was quite recognizable, even over the sound of bronze armor rattling. Now it was time for Liam to shine. He stepped up and into the corridor, sword in his hands. The hoplite didn't even use her spear. She simply tried to bash Liam aside with her shield. Liam stepped to the side and hewed at her legs with his sword, stroking upwards. Steel cut through her legs and thighs with hideous ease and the corridor became drenched in blood. Liam felt wind rustle his ears and saw another hoplite flung backwards, a sling-stone denting his chest piece with the same force as a sledge hammer.
The next hoplite that rushed Liam had a short sword in his hands. Liam blocked, then smashed the crossguard of his sword into the man's throat. The man – a red-skinned humanoid with a long, spade-tipped tail – staggered backwards, clutching at his throat with one hand, choking.
“Fall back! They are mine!”
The demigod's voice was stern and stolid and she emerged from around the corner. She was still nearly naked, and still held in her hand the blade that glittered and flared with what Liam now recognized as magic.
She smirked as Meg made a quiet shrugging gesture and tossed her sling aside. She was out of ammo. Great.
“I am Livana,” the demigod said. “Daughter of Aries. Victor over the forces of the Aesir in the Odinson Ocean. Champion of New Athens. I have slain dozens of men in personal combat and I hold in my hand a sword blessed and crafted by Hephaestus himself!” She lifted her sword over her head, then swung it down, aiming it at Liam. “Hear this, human: no edged weapon can cut my skin, for I am sired by the Lord of War himself. Lay down your weapon and I will show mercy.”
Liam tensed, his jaw tightening as he stood up taller and straighter. Once again, he became aware of how much taller he was than everyone in this bizarre place – he easily found himself looking down his nose at the elf.
He paused, considering what he might say.
Then he grinned and rested his blade against his shoulder, spreading his hand in a casual gesture.
“Come and take them,” he said.
That had exactly the effect he wanted. Trust an Athenian, even an elven Athenian twenty centuries after the fact, to hate Sparta.
Liv charged. Her feet slapped the ground and she swung her blade in a curving arc. Liam didn't even try to parry. He simply stepped backwards and let Meg grab the woman from behind. But Liv was ready for that. She moved blindingly quick, dropping out of Meg's grip and slamming a nullstone tipped dart into the valk's thigh. Meg swore loudly and staggered backwards against the wall, clutching at the dart with both hands. Liam then focused entirely on evading Liv. But Liv fought like someone who knew they were invincible – cutting at her with the tip of his blade didn't cause her to hesitate. She threw herself against his defenses and slashed at him with her sword.
And shitty bronze was still considerably harder and sharper than a HEMA T-shirt and human skin. Soon, Liam bled from three narrow, thin cuts. Adrenaline buzzed through his body as he heard cheers from the hoplites – they were smashing their spears into their shields and hollering.
Delenn once more glanced off Liv's belly and she laughed – actually took the time to stop and laugh at him.
And Liam saw his opening.
He tossed his blade up, caught it by the flat and the front edge, holding it in a half-swording style.
There were few moments in the universe where one could use what one had learned from a textbook at exactly the right time to change everything. When these seconds came, everything stopped and Liam found himself reflecting on the curious history that had brought him here. A confluence of smiths and weaponry and training – all of it bringing to this one moment, where good, honest steel would outmatch a god.
Or, at the very least, a demigod.
And so Liam stepped forward and slammed his pommel into Livana's gut with a single, perfect murder stroke. The crossguard – weighted and given the extra torque by being at the end of the blade rather than the base – smashed home like a baseball bat. Liv's mouth opened wide in shock as she staggered backwards from the impact, spittle flying from her lips. She looked as if the whole world had gone upside down. Then Liam swung his sword around in his hands, ignoring the deep slashes he was opening in his own palms, ignoring the agony filling him, to bring the cross-guard and pommel back down onto the base of Liv's skull.
The crunch was audible and she hit the ground face first, her head turned to the side.
Liam grabbed his pommel and gasped, his mind locking onto a single, hazy thought: Next time. Next. Time. Get. Gauntlets. Jesus!
He held his sword in agonized fingers, blood dripping to the ground as he stepped backwards.
Then Meg was beside him. She still had the nulldart in her thigh, but she could still hold Liv up against her chest and press a bronze dagger to her throat. “Get back!” she shouted. “Get back, or do you want to explain to Aries that you got his daughter stuck like a pig?”
The hoplites looked at one another – but they didn't lower their spears.
Meg and Liam stepped backwards as Liam tightened his grip on his sword. Maybe, he thought, The pressure will slow the bleeding. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.
They came to the stairs leading up to the far-step alter. Behind them, Liam could hear a crack of displaced air and Tethis swearing in Coptic that his translation spell didn't pick up. “Almost ready,” she said.
The hoplites were starting to spread around them. Meg looked back, then forward, then at Tethis.
“Hurry, Tethis!” she said, her voice edged with pain.
“I don't want to rush this. We might end up dead if this thing is targeted wrong,” Tethis said, her voice distracted. Liam risked tearing his gaze from the hoplites that surrounded them to look down at the gobliness. The top of the altar didn't look a thing like an altar or even like a magical artifact. It instead looked a bit like the kind of obtuse minimalist interfaces that Apple might design if they had only stone to work with. Tethis' fingers traced patterns along barely visible buttons, causing magical lights to glow and flare. She had placed a small clump of dust onto the center of the altar, though Liam noticed the dust was surrounded by a faint patina of white lines, similar to the healing spell that Tethis had cast on his arm.
“Is that a tracker?” he asked.
“Yes!”
Meg's wing flapped out, almost bowling Tethis and Liam over. A spear – a spear that would have gone straight through Liam's head – went into the wing and Meg screamed in pain, red coating her white feathers.
“Fuck testing!” She flung herself backwards onto the alter. Liam hopped back onto it, his rump pressing to the white. He grabbed Tethis with one bloody hand, smearing his gore on her rump as he dragged her up.
“Push the fucking button!” Liam shouted.
Tethis slammed her palms down on the alter.
And everything turned white.
Liam felt as if his body was being torn apart. It felt like his skin was being peeled backwards away from his flesh. It felt as if his bones were being ripped out and shredded. It felt like eternity.
Liam appeared and he felt as if he was falling. The sky overhead was a beautiful blue – but it was the blue of oceans and water and waves, not of home.
Then he hit the ground.